Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 54

Ethically, it was a rather bad thing that we were so happy about Kamau getting beaten half to death. To us it meant progress however. It meant that whoever came for him the first time, didn't have the dagger yet. 

Unless Kamau told them specifically where it was this time around. 

It took about one hour for the entire school to find out about what happened to Kamau. During that hour, Eldon and I ran over to the infirmary while Alaric stayed behind to help Kael. The nurses wouldn't even let us in, which we figured meant that he was inside. 

"I'll check." Eldon said, shrugging off his jacket and handing it to me. He put both of his palms onto the wall and closed his eyes. Eldon's gift was intangibility, or more easily put: walking through walls. I had never seen him do it before, it was a gift that took a lot of time to enhance. 

He slowly disappeared into the wall. After a few seconds, he was totally gone and I was beginning to freak out. The limitation of the gift was that you needed to hold your breath while doing it. What if the wall was too thick and Eldon was too slow? 

Seconds turned into minutes, and I still hadn't heard anything. I just stared at the closed door to the infirmary, hoping that Eldon would magically pop out of the wall next to it. It took a few more minutes of me being near hyperventilation for the door to swing open, and an annoyed nurse to drag Eldon out. 

She yelled something about 'insensitive idiots' to us, but we were quick to leave. Once we were out of earshot Eldon stopped.

"He's not in there." He said. "I checked every bed, you wouldn't believe what Riley Bardot is dealing with right now, but he wasn't in any." 

For a few moments that felt like the worst scenario, until the lightbulb went on in my head. I smiled brightly at Eldon.

"He's with Darcia." 

* * *

Alaric did join us on our quest to Darcia, the town medic who had helped me after the fire. We had to sneak out of the castle, which involved going to the second floor, opening a window and climbing down the vines. I was very happy that we had decided to wear all black for our secret mission, I didn't have any black skirts so I was wearing pants. The last thing I needed was Alaric looking up as I was climbing down.

Eldon had made it look easy, probably because he had done it a few times before, and landed softly on the ground. Alaric was next to go out of the window. He was about halfway done when the vine he had grabbed onto ripped off, and he went falling down. I yelped and immediately hung my head out of the window, expecting to see a dead Alaric and a crying Eldon. Instead, I saw Alaric sitting on his ass looking disgruntled with Eldon silently laughing.

Alaric was far more athletic than I was, which made me even less keen to try and climb out. "I'll just use the front door." I whisper yelled down at them. Alaric had gotten back on his feet, rubbing his tailbone with a scowl on his face. 

"Absolutely not!" Eldon whispered yelled back. "You are the most suspicious out of the three of us. Get down here Eira." 

In my head, I was calling him every curse word under the sun. I swung both my legs out of the window and landed on a little ridge. I made sure to leave the window open on a crack, so we could sneak back inside after we were done. I took a deep breath and began my climb down. 

I was absolutely terrified. Even if the fall wasn't high enough to kill me, I couldn't be the girl with the high powers who broke her leg while trying to sneak out. I managed to establish a rhythm of grabbing a vine, lowering myself down and grabbing again. Before I knew it, I felt two hands around my waist, softly guiding me to the ground. 

This time Alaric at least hadn't noticed. He had been too quiet about it so far, I would have preferred him to say something to me about it. Instead, we got the occasional glance in our direction as we headed over to Darcia's house. 

Like most Vallens, she kept the backdoor unlocked. We entered the house quietly, but there really wasn't a need to. I had forgotten how much the old woman snored. We passed her bedroom and headed towards the room she used as an infirmary. There, on that god awful creaky bed, laid Kamau.

He spotted us immediately but didn't say anything. Vallens healed quickly, so if the attack was a few hours ago that meant that the term 'beaten half to death' wasn't accurate. He currently looked beaten half to death, so maybe they should have said 'beaten 90% to death'. He had a big gaping wound on his head, a line of purple bruises around his neck and by the looks of his hand, they had cut off two fingers. It looked gruesome, but I still kneeled down beside him.

"This is useless!" Eldon whisper yelled, pulling his hands through his hair. "He won't give us a good answer with his head split open!" 

"Professor," I said, his eyes switched from Eldon to me. "Do you know where you are?" 

"If the three of you are here that must mean I am in hell." He managed to say. I smiled lightly. If his sarcasm was intact he should be able to tell us what happened. 

"Well, you can't say you didn't deserve it." I answered back. He rolled onto his back with difficulty, staring up at the ceiling. The bed creaked and whined loudly, just as I had remembered it. "What did you tell them?" 

"I told him where it was, that night." Kamau sounded dreamy, I spotted an empty vial and a bottle of whiskey on the bedside table. "But he didn't have the sheath, so it would be useless."

Eldon and Alaric both remembered something at the same time. They looked at each other with wide eyes, before kneeling next to me and quickly explaining. 

"There is a Celtic children's story called 'The bat and the Birdcage', it featured the dagger and the sheath. The bat tries to use the dagger to kill the master but it can't, because it won't work without the sheath. It's some sort of symbolism for Edda and her sister. They died moments after each other." I've never heard Eldon speak so quickly. I turned back to Kamau, who had been listening with as much interest as I had. He certainly did get the painkillers I didn't receive. 

"Where is the sheath?" I asked him. 

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF EDDA!" Darcia started yelling and didn't stop. She was wearing her pink with white striped pyjamas, waving around a fly swatter as though it was an axe. Eldon and Alaric immediately jumped to their feet and started apologising, something about Kamau being our favourite teacher, while I leaned closer to Kamau again. God that wound looked awful.

"Where is the sheath?" I urged him. "Let me bring it to safety." 

Darcia grabbed my shoulder, her pointy nails digging into the skin she once helped to heal. She wanted to tug me away, but I needed to hear the answer. 

"I hid it in the room of the person I despise most." He finally answered, bringing his finger to his lips, as though he really needed to tell me to keep this a secret. Darcia finally dragged me outside.