Page 87 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“Like the ones in our studios?” Merlin asked. “Most of the studios have floor to ceiling windows, with a badass view of the city.”
“Could be. They looked similar.”
“No one is alone in the studios,” I said. “If Santiago is about to start killing, he’s not going to come at all of us at once, and Bellatrix isn’t going to try anything in front of Marsden. She’s not going to do anything in class because she’s outnumbered. Beyla and Bevan teamed up and kicked her ass. They aren’t the only witches in the company. We have plenty of shifters, too. So far, they’ve relied on us to stop her from attacking Madame Lucinda, but if she’s trying to kill someone, they probably won’t just sit on their asses this time.”
“Someone is going to die, Arden,” Nyx said. “You know how this works, and I’m never wrong.”
I pulled her into a bear hug. Nyx enjoyed using her scream to hurt people when they were bothering her, but she hated death omens, and when ghosts started bothering her. She’d sometimes see horrible things, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop it. She used to try though, no matter how much her parents told her she couldn’t.
The fact that she couldn’t was a big reason Nyx liked to pretend she didn’t give a shit about anything. I knew she cared deeply, and she liked everyone in this room. She liked most of her fellow corps members, too, even if she hated being stuck there with them.
I always comforted Nyx whenever it happened. It never bothered me as much as it bothered her though, because it was never anyone I knew. Nyx never shrieked because someone in the company was going to die. Sometimes it was someone in our building she knew, and I didn’t. Other times it was someone she knew from her past or had met on the street.
This was different. We were all certain the death was going to happen in the company this time. It was only a matter of time with Santiago still on the loose out there. We thought we had more time to go through the photos to find him. We were wrong.
Someone was going to die, and I was going to make damn sure it wasn’t one of us.
Chapter28
Beyla
Marsden put me with Nyx for a reason. This exact reason. I couldn’t figure out what it meant. He clearly wanted his dancers to survive. He clearly wantedmeto live through this if he made my roommate someone who could warn me when the killing started.
I knew all about banshees from the bureau. They were frequently partnered up with witches when it came to spirits. Because of that ability, banshees were in high demand as bodyguards to prominent people. Everyone knew it couldn’t be changed if they saw someone dying, but they always tried. They might prevent what the banshee initially saw in the vision, but an accident would always take them.
Someone was going to die. It might not involve the broken window, but itwouldhappen. So, before I went to bed, I set an offering on my altar to Lilith and prayed it wouldn’t be one of us. I had hoped to prevent anyone from dying, but my time had run out.
I didn’t sleep well, even with Arden and Bevan in my bed holding me. We stayed up late, going through photos and trying to console Nyx. Iknewabout banshees from the academy, but Nyx was the first I had ever been friends with. There was this chick called Mina who was a banshee in my class at the academy, but she hated me and didn’t think I deserved to be there because she thought ballet was stupid.
I hadn’t realized what a banshee went through when they got a death omen until I witnessed it with Nyx. It had to be awful, and I hadn’t really thought about it before. Nyx knew someone was going to die, and that couldn’t be changed. She wasn’t even given enough information for us to know who.
I was stressing about it, but I couldn’t even imagine how Nyx was feeling. Nicolai and I agreed not to go to the studio early. We needed to be going everywhere in a big group. Plus, if we hoped to stop any more death, I desperately needed to find Santiago Suarez.
We ate a basic breakfast and got to class with everyone else. I was immediately scanning around and scrutinizing everyone in the room very fucking closely. Who was it going to be? Just because they weren’t my friends, hadn’t bothered talking to me, and some of them thought I’d slept my way into understudying Bellatrix didn’t mean I wished this on them.
I didn’t really trust Bellatrix either. Yeah, we knew Santiago was a murderer, but she’d tried to attack Madame Lucinda twice. We all loved Madame Lucinda because she was hard on us and didn’t kiss our asses. She gave compliments when they were due, but if you messed up, she was brutal. Most sane dancers didn’t take that personally. It was how you got better.
Bellatrix took it personally, of course, because she thought she was perfect. I hadn’t been taking class with her long, but already knew that she couldn’t take a correction without mouthing off and disrupting the rest of the class. Bellatrix may have given that fake apology and promised not to act out in class, but I had a feeling it was just a matter of time before she returned to business as usual.
Madame Lucinda could very well be the one in danger.
We all knew that, and none of us gave a shit about these stupid barre politics. I knew Bellatrix had something planned for me, but I knew that wouldn’t be murder in a room full of witnesses. I wasn’t as vulnerable as Madame Lucinda, and even with that pendant on her neck, I could still fight her.
Bellatrix and Ivory ignored us when they came into the room. Ivory gave us the stink eye and looked to Bellatrix to correct us when we surrounded them at the barre. Bellatrix just gave Ivory an icy look, and she ignored us, too. I didn’t like that look. It meant she had something planned for me later.
Still, Madame Lucinda would be safe in class. Arden stood directly next to Bellatrix at the barre and gave her a smirk as his eyes flashed gold. Arden was the one person in the room she was legitimately scared of, and he intended to stick to her in class. He practically dared her to fuck around and give him a reason.
Nicolai wasn’t playing either. Not even my bureau training had told me everything about skinwalkers. Nicolai’s family seemed to be a one-off. They mostly kept to themselves, and made it a point to never reveal too much about what they could do. Though, I would imagine his family’s criminal empire was easier to keep going than most when they could commit their crimes with someone else’s face.
Nicolai was across the barre from Bellatrix. I watched his face mutate until it changed into Arden’s. His eyes flashed gold, and his fingers turned to talons as he gripped the barre. Bellatrix recoiled.
“Boo!” Nicolai yelled.
Bellatrix and Ivory both shrieked in terror. If they didn’t want to fuck with one gryphon, theydefinitelydidn’t want to take on two. Bellatrix grabbed Ivory’s hand and pulled, like she wanted to go stand somewhere else, but Madame Lucinda tapped her cane against the floor.
She had two choices—stay here and take class, or try to move and get booted from class,again.She wouldn’t go quietly. She never did. If she went after Madame Lucinda a third time, she’d get hurt, and nothing Marsden said would get her back in class.
Her hand tightened on the barre.
