I sighed and rubbed my eyes. It had been a long, hard day and I was exhausted. "It's a bit of a ways from here; clear across campus. It would take at least half an hour to get there from here."
Corwin growled. He jumped on his board and then without any effort levitated me up onto his hoverboard. "Stand still and hang onto me."
I really truly should be angry at being manhandled in such a brusque way, but for some reason, I couldn't rile myself up enough to get mad at him.
Standing on the hoverboard was just too damn cool!
And being this close to a guy this large…well that was interesting too.
My stomach quivered at the feeling of being three feet off the ground, hovering on a board that was barely large enough for two people. With some hesitation, I reached out to hold onto Corwin's waist and found myself staring at the middle of his back.
"You smell like lavender." He mumbled.
My face grew hot with embarrassment. I had forgotten about the mosquito repellent I'd spread all over my body. His comment however, made me suddenly aware of the scent of his sweat-drenched male body.
"You smell like sweat." I responded with a laugh.
The scent of Corwin filled my nose, but for whatever reason, it did not bother me. If anything, I thought he smelled really interesting, but I would rather gouge my eyes out before I admitted to anyone that I liked the smell of a sweaty man, especially one who was so obvious in his dislike of me.
Corwin grunted. "Get used to it."
Connor grinned and vaulted himself onto his board, all signs of his exhaustion completely evaporated. With a whoosh, the hover boards lifted, and we levitated above those God-awful mosquitoes.
My heart shot up and got stuck in my throat; I choked in a scream and threw my arms around Corwin, squeezing him as tight as I could.
Corwin patted my arms. "Hang on tight. If you fall off, you'll break your skinny little neck." I nodded into his back and gritted my teeth.
What an obnoxious man! But it was just a short flight. I was going to be ok.
Hovering for a few moments to determine their relative positions, the twins, with me in tow, took off with a stomach-churning swoop.
The ground rushed away below us and the dark shapes of the trees got smaller as we ascended away at an angle. My stomach did a loop-de-loop, but I could not bring myself to close my eyes.
It was just too amazing!
We were literally flying through the air on hoverboards that the twins were controlling simply by throwing their energies this way and that. They moved the eddies and currents of air to their advantage, and when available, they took advantage of the zephyrs blowing in the direction they needed to go.
When the winds were favorable, instead of expending energies moving air to create lift, they were actually surfing the winds and collecting the excess energies into themselves.
I gasped in shocked understanding. No wonder they were barely able to contain their energies. They were always absorbing so much more of the atmospheric forces than they could effectively store that they had to blow off the excesses, hence the vortices of energy always swirling around them.
As Corwin moved his body, I learned his motions through the visual dynamic movements of the currents. I noticed how he moved his legs. I saw how he turned his body, weaving and rolling through the warm muggy air.
I started to follow his lead and eventually, we began to move as one. It made for a much smoother ride because he no longer had to keep his left arm back to keep me steady.
Once I could tell which direction he was going to shift towards, I was able to move with him, lending my weight and mass, and in doing so, we became even more efficient and powerful, our speed doubling, then tripling normal air surfing speeds.
I could barely believe I was flying with a full-fledge mage on a surf-board made of dark metallic alloy and magik.
"Is it toward this direction?" Corwin asked.
"Just a little further."
We approached the entrance of the darkened alleyway. The few street lamps flickering nearby cast dark shadows onto the pale stucco walls, thrusting the cobblestone alley into a dark abyss which I was hesitant to intrude.
"I can feel it!" Connor said, barely loud enough for us to hear.
"Yeah, me too." Corwin responded. They both slowed the boards to walking speed and moved as quietly as they could. The alley was narrow, so we flew in tandem, with Connor in the lead, and Corwin and me behind him.
I peered upwards at the buildings' roof lines as we got closer to the spot where the bats had gone bonkers. The alleyway was steeped in shadows and there was no moon out this night but I kept a vigilant lookout, hoping against hope that the darkness did not completely hide the thing I was on the lookout for.
There it was!
"Up there," I jabbed my finger at the strange object directly overhead.
"Oh man!" Corwin gasped as he reached back to steady me from the board's abrupt stop and then slowed it down to a halt. Ahead of us, Connor had seen the same thing.
He paused and looked back at us.
"Corey, stay here with Nana. I'm going to take a closer look at this thing."
"Be careful," his brother said.
"No worries. I'm just going to take a peek." Connor lifted his gaze. With a quick raise of his arms, he commanded a gust of wind to propel his hoverboard straight up. Within seconds, he was at eye level with whatever it was.
The alley was poorly lit, so I could not see clearly what was happening above us, but Connor seemed to be unharmed as he took his time probing the curiosity with both physical and mental means.
It seemed like forever, but eventually Connor came back down.
"You are not gonna believe this," he said, once he was at eye level.
"Try me," Corwin responded.
"That thing up there is made of living silk! It expands this way and that, and it breathes with a mouth that's huge," Connor's hands moving rapidly back and forth, up and down, trying to describe the entity.
"How do you know it's living?" Corwin asked.
"I can feel its life force. But it's not really an intelligent being. I think it's being manipulated by something else."
"By what, and from where?" Corwin asked, becoming more and more visibly agitated.
Connor shrugged.
"It's just a receiver," I interjected, trying to remember what Simon had told me earlier in the day. "It receives signals and then amplifies the signal as a wave-disruptor. That's why my bats were so discombobulated that they lost control of the box they were hauling for me."
"Signals?" Connor prompted.
"Yes. Simon, the boy who was with the group that stole the book, said the signal is coming from somewhere in or on the mountain behind the Academy."
"This Simon kid, take us to him." Corwin demanded.
"Right now?" I shook my head. "I don't know if we can get a hold of him this instant but I can take you to him tomorrow."
"This is important," Corwin insisted. "We can't wait until tomorrow!"
A flash of lightning, followed by a loud boom of thunder, punctuated his comment. I jumped, startled by the sound and we all looked up into the sky.
Suddenly, there were no stars visible. Thick black clouds had gathered in a matter of minutes, covering the sky in a dense dark gloom.
"Corey, she's right. It's late and it looks like it's going to rain. There's not much we can do tonight," Connor said. "Let's meet tomorrow morning and we can all get to the bottom of this."
Corwin was about to protest when the first of the fat drops came down, splattering me on the cheek.
In an instant, Corwin had magiked a transparent half-dome hovering over us. As soon as he did so, a torrent came pouring down in a fierce deluge, along with more thunder and lightning.
I looked over at Connor who had also thrown something over himself.
"Take her home." He said to Corwin.
"Yeah. I'll see you back at the dorm. Don't fly too high or you'll get hit by lightning!" Corwin yelled above the thunder.
"Where does that kid live?" He turned back to me.
"He's staying in a room above the alchemy lab where he's working with Professor Quimby, the Alchemist teacher. We can meet him there tomorrow."
"Call him and make it happen." Corwin's tone brooking no arguments. He brought the hoverboard up four feet off the ground and we made our slow, plodding way through the dark, rain-soaked world of the Academy.
At this low altitude, Corwin could not ride the higher winds. He used his own powers to levitate the board and created whatever gusts he needed by blasting the surf down onto the ground and then riding the waves that bounced back up.
This was, in some ways, even more difficult to do than surfing the blast, and I was thoroughly impressed.
Ahead, the street lamps glowed in rows of sympathetic sentinels, their light glinting darkly off the slick cobblestone pavement and the shiny dripping magnolia leaves.
Although it was still muggy and the transparent half dome was keeping my head and shoulders dry, I shivered as the cross winds blew driving rain across my midsection, soaking my midriff and legs.
We were almost at the junction where the jacaranda tree stood guard when I felt that strange cold blast hit me once again.
One moment, the world was warm and wet and the next moment, icy winds howled up Garamond Road and slammed into us.
The frigid blast gusted through the rain causing a ripple effect of hail and sleet. The hale hit against the transparent half-dome above us making loud ping-pong sounds that frazzled my nerves.
As drops of rain hit the hoverboard, the water instantly turned into thin sheets of ice, altering the airflow over the board and reduced the lift force, causing the board to become unbalanced. I gasped and clung onto Corwin with desperate fingers as we were nearly pitched into the ground.
"Damn these strange disturbances!" Corwin growled as he struggled with the board, trying to compensate for the ice on the surface. The arctic wind hit my rain soaked bare legs, freezing the water into icicles and chilling me to the bone.
And then just like that, it was over.
Corwin slowed the board down and landed on a tuft of grass near the roadway.
"Are you okay?" He asked, reaching back to touch the top of my head.
"Yeah. This cold air blew at me earlier this morning, right at the same area."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't ask."
Corwin's intense blue eyes glittered. "How was I supposed to know to ask you?"
"How was I supposed to know to tell you?" I snapped back.
Corwin muttered something under his breath.
"Sorry? I didn't quite catch that."
"I said, next time if you see something strange, let me know."
"Okay," I said even though I knew it was not what he had said.
Once we were at the front of the apartment building, Corwin lowered his board to the ground so I could get off.
"We'll be outside the alchemy lab at 6 AM sharp," he reminded me in a brusque tone. "Make sure you're there on time, and make sure Simon knows that we'll be there."
"Okay."
I stood there, not sure if I should thank him for taking me home or apologize for whatever I had done to cause his ire.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Do you need a good night kiss?"
Obnoxious boor! I sniffed, raising my chin in disdain.
He reached out and placed his hand on my head. "Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
I had barely stepped off before his powerful body ascended into the sky, sending my hair whipping in all directions.