"We are going to sneak in a lab to find out more about a strange woman who has red eyes."
Zander looked as if he was paying attention to my first few words, but then ended up getting distracted halfway through my statement as his eyes wandered down to my right hand. Gasping, the boy caught my wrist and stared at my slightly bloody index finger, thanks to the paper cut I got earlier. "You're bleeding!" He studies my finger closer, brushing his own fingers around the cut. "What kind of monster were you fighting?"
"Papers."
"How dare they." Zander murmured, before leaning his head down towards my hand. Before I could ask what he's doing, I felt a soft peck on my index finger, right before a warm sensation on my cut. My eyes widened as the small spot on my finger glowed purple for half a second. Then, the cut was suddenly closed and healed. He just healed my paper cut with his magic.
I brushed my index finger with my thumb, observing it carefully. The line of the dried blood is still there, but it's healed now. "I love and hate magic at the same time." I love it because it's, well, magic. I also hate it because I don't understand it. How was he just able to do that? What else can this witch even do? How much power does he have? "Can your magic let you change your appearance and let you copy someone else's?"
Zander leaned against the wall of the hallway of the fifth floor. "I'm no shapeshifter, silly. Well, technically, I am, but I can only turn into a cat. Well, I can make slight appearance alterations such as color change but nothing more." As an example, he switched his violet colored irises to light brown. "However, I can turn into someone else but I need to make a potion with a DNA sample from that person I want to copy. Then, I will be copycat." He grinned. "Why? Do you want me to turn into you? I mean, I'll be a better looking you than you, but it will be fun. We can be twins!"
"No." I shook my head and rubbed my temples. "Never mind. Keep your eyes like that for now. People don't usually have violet eyes. If anyone talks to you, just smile and nod. Don't say anything."
"But that'd be impolite and rude of me. What if they need someone to talk to? They'd get sad."
Sweet Holy Thor Odinson, help me with this boy.
"You - " Just as I started to speak, footsteps arrived on the floor, coming from the stairs. "Shit!"
Panicking, I grabbed Zander's hand and led him to the closest unlocked room on our way. I pushed him inside and quietly shut the door. I have no idea where we are, but I'm going to take a good guess and say that we are in a janitor's closet. The smell gives it away. I can't risk turning on any light because we may get caught, so Zander and I remained in the dark. It's also very hot and cramped, that I am face to face with him, our chests are almost touching.
The two of us listened to the footsteps walk through the hallway. Just our luck, they decided to stop in the middle of it. Another footsteps joined after a sound of a door opening, then words were being exchanged. Two people are talking about a project, which isn't really interesting and worth listening to. I put my attention on Zander, who I could feel is staring at me even in the dark. I shifted to be in a more comfortable position, but Zander held me steady.
"Is this the part where we kiss?" He whispered.
"What?" I almost screamed. "No!"
"But that's what happens in movies."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, in the movies, witches can turn invisible and fly and have wands, but that's not accurate either, isn't it?"
He huffs a breath, which went right to my face. "I can turn invisible and fly. Just not like how they do it. And I have a wand. I'm just very attached to it, is all."
I elbowed his chest, or whatever part of him my elbow was closest to, winning a grunt out of him. "Shut the fuck up you little shit."
We didn't have to wait long until the two people left the hallway. We freed ourselves from the tiny room. "I thought I was just supposed to smile and nod when we see people?" Zander questioned as we made our way to the mysterious lab. "What was the point of pushing us into a closet?"
"I wasn't ready." I replied, looking around cautiously.
"Or maybe you just wanted to kiss me but you got scared and didn't do it."
"There it is." I pointed to the lab next to the bathroom. "Okay. In there, there are scientists and a frozen red eyed woman. We need to draw out the scientists so we go inside and find out more about the red eyed woman."
"Why don't we just knock and ask them if we can come in?"
Oh my god. "We can't. Their work is classified. It's secret and no one is supposed to know what they're doing."
"Well," He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. "If that's the case, why are we trying to break in?"
"Because!" I groaned. "There's someone with red eyes who was following me starting from when Orion took you in, and I want to know if she is that stalker or is anyone dangerous. Also, you mentioned that if someone is cursed, their eyes turn red. What if she's cursed and we can help her. Like, what if solution 15 breaks the curse just like it broke yours?"
Zander thought about my words for a moment. "Okay fine. But what do I get in return?"
"What?"
"If I help you be nosy, what would I get in return?" He batted his eyelashes at me.
"I don't know! We'll talk about it later." I said impatiently, glancing at the hallways to see if anyone is around.
"Grumpy human." Zander clicked his tongue. "What do I do then?"
I shared him my plan. I just created it on the way here and saying the words out loud makes me less confident about what we're about to do. Zander said to me, "Don't worry. I got this." And it didn't help very much.
The first step is to mess up the security cameras. I don't know how magic works in real life, but Zander didn't need to say spells to do them. I watched as purple light travel from his fingers to the cameras on the ceiling, kind of like and her pretty red energy lights thing, except it's purple. Little sparks burst from the cameras, so he may have broken them. Next, draw out the scientists from their lab. I specifically told Zander how I wanted them to leave, so that there aren't too much panicking and destruction, and it will be a bit more plausible in a scientific lab's environment.
Zander and I hid on the girl's bathroom. Once again, purple lights traveled from his hand to the inside of the lab, going straight through the door like a ghost. We waited for a couple of minutes. It felt like two hours until the Russian speaking scientists came running out of the lab. As expected, they ran out of the hallway.
"Perfect." My heart skipped with excitement and anxiety. "Let's go!"
Entering the lab, Zander and I saw white, cold smoke all over the room. It's nothing but liquid nitrogen, which is contained in all the laboratories in Virgo as precaution for when certain technical devices overheat, or a quick way to put out a fire. Zander sent a ball of purple light to the liquid nitrogen emitter on the ceiling, which causes the fog in the room to clear out after a few minutes.
"Piece of cake."
I made a mental note to ask Zander how his magic works later on: what are the rules, since they apparently exist. For now, I focused on the red eyed woman that is resting in the end of the room, her frozen body laying on a metal desk. We don't have much time. The two scientists will return soon, most likely with some technicians to check what triggered the liquid nitrogen emitter.
Just like the last time that I saw her, she is dressed in a sports bra and black pants. Her eyes are still wide open, flashing her red eyes, and her skin are now paler than before. I put two fingers on her neck to check her pulse: it's there, but very faint and slow. She is still alive somehow. Just frozen like a statue.
"So, this is the woman you're so interested in?" Zander circled around her. "She seems a bit dull."
"Is she cursed?"
Zander took one glance at her eyes and replied, "Obviously."
Obviously.
"She must have been hit with the preservation spell. Whoever cursed her wasn't aiming to kill her. Just, make her frozen." He explained while I checked the papers on the desk behind me. It contains a bit of information about the cursed woman.
Her name is Polly Jones and she is thirty-five years old. According to her medical records, she doesn't have any serious conditions and does not have any drug in her system. The lab recorded her brain activity using Electroencephalography and it is very much active and going crazy. Another test shows that the brain area responsible for fear, which would be the limbic system, specifically the hippocampus and amygdala, have high activity. The tests were taken a day ago. Right now at this very moment, she could still be very scared and anxious. Whoever cursed her must have really shaken her up.
Underneath the desk, there is a box with several things, with the woman's ID being the first thing I see. Assuming that everything in the box is her belongings, the only other thing I found in there was a shirt. It's a dark green, short sleeved, buttoned up shirt with a logo on its top left side. The logo is an image of a book with a moon at its center. Right under the logo says Europa's Library. It's an old book store down town, somewhere at the end of Jupiter. She must have worked there.
She must have been wearing this shirt before she turned into this statue-like state. It's too bad she's not able to move and speak so we can find out how she turned into that, and who cursed her. I don't have solution 15 at the moment. Nox had created more of it for further analysis, and there should be some in our lab. I want to see if solution 15 will break her curse just like it did to Zander.
"Okay, so you confirmed that she was cursed. That means there's another witch in Jupiter." I faced Zander, who I found playing with a magnifying glass. He blinked at me with his enlarged right eye. "I'm going to assume it wasn't you because you were a cat and you said you can't do a lot of magic because you were cursed."
He put down the object, giving me a shrug. "Mayhaps."
"Will you take this seriously?" I scolded him. "What if the other witch is the same one who cursed you? What if she's here for you and - "
I cut off my own words when I heard footsteps coming closer to the lab. "Shit. They're coming back!" They sounded too close to the lab, so going out through the door will be a stupid idea. Our only option is to hide. "Come here!" I pulled Zander down with me as I try to squish the two of us under the desk, removing the boxes underneath it and moving them in front of us. "Shit. Shit. Shit."
"I have an idea." He whispered before turning around.
I shifted uncomfortably while the witch puts his butt right on my face. I heard four clinks, then the wall behind us turned into a hole. Or not. "A vent." It's a tight space, but luckily I'm small enough to fit and crawl through it. Seeing as my only options are to crawl through the vent or reveal myself to the scientists and get fired, I went with the first and obvious choice.
Zander's entire shrunk down to his cat form, leaving all his clothes behind. I quickly grabbed it and went farther into the vent. The black cat followed me before using his magic to seal back the vent. We did all just in time because not a second later, I heard the door open and the scientists returned with a technician. I heard them talking in English.
"It just went off while we were working. We were not doing anything to set it off."
"Yeah, there's been lots of technical difficulties happening around Virgo lately. Not too long ago, the cameras broke. Again. Vega is considering of changing them to a more advanced one." I decided not to linger and crawled as quietly as I could through the vent. I hear Zander following behind me.
I can't believe I'm doing this. My life really has turned into a science fiction and fantasy story within a matter of days. It all started with the red eyes following me and Loki appearing in my life. Then, Roman, then the werewolf, and now, another witch! If I'm going to be the main character of this damn story, I should have had a freaking cool super power to deal with all this shit. Instead, everyone is magical except for me! Amazing! I don't even know where to go in this vent. I'm just turning in whichever way my brain picks, not knowing where we'll end up. For all I know, I could end up in one of the hazardous rooms and fall straight into a pool of flesh melting acid.
***
I didn't fall into a pool of acid.
I did crash into a pile of swords though.
Zander was right, there really are swords in the basement of Virgo. The swords are not made of plastic. These are real, metal swords. While Zander shifts back into his human form and puts on his clothes, I picked up a silver sword and swung it around, feeling like I'm a bad ass warrior.
"You're not holding it right."
The witch boy is back and is currently leaning on an old shelf, watching me with a grin. "If you were in battle and you hold your sword like that, a simple bump on the shoulder will make you drop the weapon and you'll be dead." He then strutted towards me and moved my hand lower to its grip. "This is where you hold it." He then took my other hand. "And for better grip when you swing, hold here."
"How do you even know that?"
Zander picked up a different sword, which is much longer and darker than the one I have. He held it just like how he taught me to, and swung it through the air, making a whooshing sound. "They offered sword fighting at my school."
"School?" I raised a brow. "Like, a school for witches?"
"No." He chuckled, eyes admiring the sword in his hand. "Not just for witches. A school for young sacred beings."
School for supernatural creatures. All of them in once place. It sounds nice but also so surreal.
"Is it like Hogwarts?"
"No." Zander snickered. "It's much less prettier and much more chaotic."
"Oh." I'm not disappointed. I'm just sad.
"For my third year, it was either sword fighting or dancing." Zander elaborated on his previous statement.
I get wood shop for elective and he gets sword fighting. "So, you don't know how to dance?"
"Dancing? Boring. Sword fighting? Very cool." I pursed my lips to stop a smile. The witch caught my action and thew invisible daggers at me with his eyes, which are now back to violet. "Don't laugh at me."
"I wasn't."
"You were thinking about it."
Dropping the sword, I sat down on an old spinning chair. "Can you fly?" I thought back to his statement earlier. He said he can fly, just not the way witches do in movies. Now, I'm curious. Maybe he can levitate by magic. Or maybe witches ride flying creatures, though there are no giant birds for them to ride. Maybe they shrink and then ride the birds.
"Yes I can fly." Zander replied with a smirk that instantly made me regret asking him anything. "Using a special thing known as an airplane or hot air balloon or a really big kite. Hundreds of balloons should work too. Want to try? Let's call it a date and find out. For the sake of satisfying our curiosity."
I could only roll my eyes. "No wonder you got cursed to be stuck as a cat. Whoever cursed you must have gotten tired of hearing your pick up lines."
He laughed. "There's no need to be jealous, my darling Astoria." He lays his head on my shoulder while kneeling on the floor. "You're the only one who has ever seen me naked. Well, apart from about twenty people when I was about fifteen and a potion had gone terribly wrong."
Before I could ask him about it, someone came in the basement. Zander and I were behind a cabinet instantly. To my amusement, Zander had the sword back in his hand, ready to attack whoever comes close to us. I had to cover my mouth with my hand to muffle out any laughter that may slip out of my mouth.
I peered to see who the visitor is, and saw that it's only a high school student intern named Puck, one of the people working on the robotics section, putting down some metal scraps and wires. He was gone after a few seconds, not even bothering to check the rest of the basement. Sighing in relief, I put a hand on Zander's shoulder. "You have to go." He frowned at me. "I'm very grateful for your help today. I needed to know if that woman holds any threat to me or anyone, and now I know she isn't. At all. So, thank you. You have to go back to Orion's place though. He's getting suspicious. He thinks I'm stealing you from him because I'm in love with you."
Zander looked proud. "I always knew that long human is a genius."
Long human.
"Will you just go?"
"Go? After everything we've been through?" He gasped, pretending to be heartbroken. "I won't sign the divorce papers. I refuse."
I shook my head, putting my hands on my temples. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Well - "
I put my hand on his arm and led him to the basement window wide enough for a cat to go through. "I'll see you when I get home."
Zander pouted. "But where's my goodbye kiss?"
"Go away already."
"Nuh-uh." Stubborn cat boy.
"There's left over food in my fridge. There's bacon." His eyes lit up before immediately shifting to Loki, leaving his clothes behind. "Make sure you're at Orion's apartment when we get home!" I added as he jumps out of the window and running against a pigeon eating food from the ground. "Nice."
My head hurts.
My heart is tingling.
My face is burning.
Shit, maybe I'm cursed.