embarrassed. “And McFay’s too young to have developed a dependency, right, McFay?”
“Oh, yeah, right,” I said, guiltily recalling my brief flirtation with Aelvesgold two months ago, especially a brief interlude in Faerie when Liam had used the elixir to enhance our lovemaking. I had other, less pleasant memories of the substance. Although it increased magical power and sexual prowess, it also brought nightmares and strange delusions. I’d almost drowned in my bathtub once after using the stuff. I hadn’t touched it since, but I’d caught myself thinking about it once or twice. Now, though, at the thought of the nephilim preying on my students, my blood was racing and my skin prickling without any need for Aelvesgold.
“But many witches have grown dependent on it,” Soheila said. “We’ve lost two of the circle in Fairwick.”
“Two?” I asked. I knew about Ann Chase, a longtime member of the Fairwick witches’ circle and respected member of the community. She had been bribed by Duncan Laird to vouch for him as my tutor. She claimed that she’d thought he was my incubus, but we learned later that she’d known all along that he was a nephilim. Ann had a daughter with Down syndrome, whose all-too-short life span had been prolonged with Aelvesgold. The nephilim had promised to give her enough Aelvesgold to live forever. “Who else has defected?”
“Lester Hanks,” Soheila replied. “I saw him performing at Fair Grounds last night. He had enough Aelvesgold in him to light up a city, and he sang and played like Kenny Rogers. The Aelvesgold is giving him a chance to realize his wildest dreams. How long before everyone in the circle defects?”
“We should call a circle to discuss Aelvesgold use,” I said. “If everyone understood the side effects—”
“Yeah, that worked so well keeping kids off drugs,” Frank cut me off. “What we need is to find the other door, the one Bill told you about in his note. It’s not in any one place. Bill told me something that morning …” He paused at a warning glance from Soheila. “He told me that there’s a door to Faerie that you, and only you, could open anywhere—but also that opening it would put you in great danger. See …” He turned back to Soheila. “That’s what I meant about him being a good guy. Even if he was an incubus, he was capable of selfless love.”
I swallowed the sob I felt rising in my throat. “Did he say anything else about this door?”
“Only what it was called,” Frank said. “He said it was known as the hallow door.”
“That’s a myth,” Soheila said.
I stifled a laugh. “You’re a myth, Soheila. Everything I’ve encountered since I came to Fairwick is a myth or fairy tale. I’ve heard something about a hallow door”—I didn’t want to say that I’d heard about it in a dream, because then I’d have to admit I’d started having dreams about my demon lover again—“um … in an old Scottish ballad.” That was half true. The dream figure who’d told me about it had come out of a Scottish ballad.
“Then why don’t you research it?” Soheila said, in an unusually clipped tone that produced a noticeable chill in the air. “I’m going to find out more about what the nephilim are planning. What about you, Frank? Why don’t you help Callie with her research.”
“McFay knows her way around a Scottish ballad. I’ve still got contacts in IMP who may be able to help.”
“Good. In the meantime, I’ll do some research on the angel stone, and we should all keep a vigilant eye on our female students—”
“The frat party!” I cried. “I tried to get Duncan to cancel it, but he refused. It’s the perfect setup for preying on girls.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Frank growled. “Let’s get over there.”
“Excellent idea,” Soheila said briskly, sweeping the papers on the desk into a neat stack with a spell that reordered them as we’d found them. When the pages had slid themselves into their envelope, she returned the package to the filing cabinet and closed the drawer with a gusty shove. “You two go to the party. We’d better leave now. We can’t expect Ralph to keep that security guard busy forever.”
Soheila led the way out of the office to the back stairs. Frank followed, trying to catch up to her, but when he saw that she was determined not to talk to him, he fell back next to me.
“What did I say?” he asked, an unaccustomed look of confusion on his face.
“That part about an incubus being capable of selfless love. Soheila doesn’t believe it. She thinks her kind will always take advantage of a human. It’s why—”
Frank cut me off by holding up his hand. We’d reached the lobby. A great lumpy-looking figure was sprawled across the floor in front of the janitor’s closet—our entrance to the tunnels. I stepped closer and saw that it was the security guard. For a moment I thought that Ralph had somehow killed him, but then I heard him snoring. Ralph was sitting beside his head, cleaning fluorescent Cheetos crumbs out of his whiskers.
“Wow, you exhausted him!” I said, crouching down and holding out my hand for Ralph. “You must be tired, too.”
Ralph yawned, climbed into my hand, curled up, and promptly fell asleep. I tucked him into my backpack.
“Did he have to pass out right in front of our entrance to the tunnels?” Frank asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Soheila responded. “It’s late enough that we should be able to find our ways back across the campus. I’m going to the library to look up matters related to the angel stone. You and Callie go to the Alpha party, and then you should make sure Callie gets home safely. If Callie
“Sheesh, McFay, I will never understand women. Come on, let’s get to the Alpha House before Soheila unleashes a hurricane on us.”
We followed Soheila out the back door—onto a campus wreathed in mist. It might have been a natural weather front, but I was betting that Soheila’s conflicting emotions for Frank had collided to form the fog bank. At least it provided cover for us as we walked toward the southeast gate and I summoned up the nerve to ask Frank if Bill had said anything else that morning the door closed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I thought maybe it would be better if you forgot him if he’s really gone.”
“But he told you about a door that only I could open.”
“He said you had the power to open something called the hallow door but that doing it might kill you. He wanted me to promise to keep you from trying to open it.”
“And did you promise?” I peered through the fog at Frank. With his beret pulled low over his eyes, it was hard to make out his expression.
“I told him you were too stubborn to listen to anyone. He laughed and said he’d noticed that, but he thought that if anyone could talk some sense into you it would be me. After all, I’d talked you into letting me look down your shirt to check for vampire bites.”
I blushed at the memory. “Liam was furious when he came upon us that day. Was Bill?”
“Bill looked like he still wouldn’t mind clocking me one about that, but he was more concerned that I watch out for you. So I told him I would.”
“I’m not the one who needs watching out for right now,” I said, pointing at the Alpha Delta Chi house, which glowed like a malevolent Christmas tree. Pounding music, raucous shouts, and high-pitched giggles drifted toward us on the fog. “I can’t believe that any of our female students were stupid enough to go to this thing.”
“Let’s have a closer look,” Frank said.
In the fog, we sneaked around the garage and into the backyard. There was a two-story gazebo; its top floor would afford us a good view of the party. In Diana’s time, the gazebo had been covered with climbing roses and night-blooming jasmine that scented the inn. Now the roses hung dead on their vines, and the gazebo smelled like beer and that noxious clove incense that permeated everything the Alphas touched.
“I’m getting an uncomfortable flashback to my days as an altar boy,” Frank whispered as we climbed up into the second story of the gazebo. “Stop me if I start confessing.”
I started to laugh at the notion of Frank as an altar boy, but my amusement was cut short by the crack of a gunshot, followed by a high-pitched female shriek. Frank pulled back a handful of dead vines and we looked into the yard. Adam Sinclair, in a flowing toga and nothing else—I could tell from the way the house light shone through the flimsy fabric—was standing in the middle of the backyard, aiming a pistol at the fence. A throng of young women dressed in skimpy costumes stood around him. Toga-clad boys and more girls in skimpy costumes
