The student nodded.
“I thought I was the only student in this dormitory.”
The young woman shook her head. “I live in the private apartment below the library. But perhaps I’ll move up a floor or two and give you some company. Would you mind?”
Angela had inspected that apartment when she’d arrived, and it was so bare and drafty, she hadn’t considered anyone might be staying in it. A few blankets and pieces of junk scattered here and there weren’t enough to convince her. It was hard to believe someone would actually even choose it unless they were punishing themselves. “Oh—no. That’s fine.”
“All right then. I’ll start moving my things upstairs tomorrow evening. What’s your name?”
“Angela.”
“Angela,” the student repeated. She was gazing upward with the same delicate face, but her eyes widened a little, and her smile appeared more genuine the second time around. “Well, good night, Angela. And if you were in fact planning to jump, I hope you’ll rethink things and stay alive for a while yet. Death, and the mess it makes, tends to inconvenience people.”
She left, her footsteps tapping lightly across the sagging porch. Then the door creaked open, shutting closed again with a click.
I don’t know how she did it, but I actually feel stupid.
Angela knelt on the shingles, her knees scraping across tar. Carefully, she stood up again and peered into Luz, picking out a bridge here or a tower there, half wishing that she could just spy an angel soaring through the fog, his great wings whipping away clouds or rolling the air beneath them like the thunder of the sea. The rain was picking up again, slanting sideways so that it needled into her eyes. Angela pulled herself up near the window frame and lifted a foot to slip back inside the den.
Something peppered the porch roof. She spun around, startled.
A few shingles had been scraped off the upper gables, and now they sat in a sad pile, their edges curled with water. Was someone standing on the roof above, looking down at her, like she had been looking down at the street?
She tried to focus on one of the turrets, but the rain made it difficult to see. There was a statue near the highest apartment window, perched mysteriously on the very edge of its lower eaves, right above the dropped shingles. It resembled a gargoyle, or some other kind of stylized devil, its face both pretty and terrible, peering back at her, its wings sickle shaped and arched tightly against a thin back.
The eyes seemed to reflect the poor light of the alley below.
Or maybe they were glowing—a hypnotic phosphorescent yellow.
Angela stared back into them a moment longer than was probably necessary, but finally crawled back inside the den, slammed the window shut, and locked the latch in place. Her hair was dripping onto the musty hardwood floor, and her socks felt like wet rags weighing down her feet. Ironically thirsty, she padded down the rickety stairs into the parlor and swung around a devotional statue, entering the kitchen. The light was still on from when she’d had a snack—
There’s something new you can try. Starving yourself.
No. That was too prolonged. Quick and relatively painless would be much nicer.
Angela got a glass, filling it with water from the sink. Then she pulled out one of the chairs and picked up an Academy newspaper lying on the table. Drops from her hair plopped onto the front page, smearing some of the ink. The paper was from a week ago, its headline printed in a large, attention-grabbing font. There was a picture of a dead body, half covered by a blood-soaked sheet.
MURDERS CONTINUE: VATICAN DENIES OCCULT CONNECTIONS
Eastern District, Luz—After a week of relative silence citywide, the murders continue in Luz, their seemingly occult connections vehemently denied by Vatican officials at the Academy and abroad. Theories abound on both sides, officials suggesting that a human serial killer might be loose in the city, but with a small percentage of others pointing to the animalistic savagery and brazen continuance of the murders as proof of a possible zoological, or even supernatural, origin. Vatican authorities residing in Westwood Academy have another, even more controversial theory, some blaming the high population of blood head students at the school, and their sometimes strictly censured dabbling in the arcane arts . . .
Angela sipped the remaining water in her glass, engrossed and instantly sick. Could Vatican authorities actually be right? Would Stephanie and her friends actually harvest body parts for their midnight rituals?
Nina did call her a witch. But that girl’s definitely got a screw loose herself.
. . . yet the signs of teeth marks, missing organs, and the predatory efficiency of the woman’s torn throat cannot be denied. Residents in the Academy’s Eastern District on the east sea cliff of Luz are being strictly warned to stay indoors in the late hours of the night and during hours of heavy rain and black cloud cover, as these conditions seem most suited to the killer’s habits . . .