By moonlight's shadow

Chapter 55

Once they had finished the conversation Snow and Raphael both headed towards the room where the witch’s body had been stored. Despite of being a castle the Academy had been fitted with all the modern amenities that might be necessary to anyone these days along with the air-conditioning. There was a room which was a morgue, it was used mostly for storing things or organs and that again was a place which was not open to all. Only Doctor Lillian and Headmaster knew about it but Snow was soon to be brought in on the same level.

Raphael keyed in something on the lock pad outside the steel door while Snow waited for the door to open. The steel reinforced door opened with a hiss and some fog being emitted as Raphael nodded at her to enter the room. Snow found that it was almost like the refrigerator they had for blood except this was smaller in size and the shelves were probably filled with things and stuff which she had never in her life and did not even want to see but then again she knew that if she had to learn magic then she needed to learn about the spells and their actions and how to counter them as well.

Doctor Lillian was there purifying the blood of the witch in a separate canister. She did not need to turn in order to know that both the Headmaster and Rapahel were there.

She said,” I thought I told to give Ms. White rest for the night rather than bringing her to the morgue.”

“There are things she can do and she knows which is something we cannot even begin to comprehend Lillian. You know every single thing then why do you ask such a question?” asked Raphael with mild displeasure as he took away the cover from the corpse of Rebecca. Or something which Snow knew to be Rebecca. But the body which was underneath looked nothing like the woman that Snow knew. This was like an old shrunken disfigured body of a woman with a slit along her throat.

“Who on earth is this?” asked Snow, quite loudly inside the room where her sound seemed to be muffled because of the intense pressure and drop in temperature.

“This is Rebecca, Ms. White. I do understand why you would think otherwise,” said Lillian as she nodded her head in understanding.

“I don’t understand…the last time I saw her I think she was about thirty years old but this is the body of a woman who must be at least nearing hundred, if not more,” said Snow as she looked at the body more closely. There were no bite marks on the body which meant that Raphael had not been lying about not biting the sorceress. It was lying utterly still and more than a little bit frozen.

“Sorceresses the ones who do the Light magic are something of a paradox Ms. White. They take things from nature which is not essential and then keep everything fresh and perfect trying to maintain the balance and harmony which is being lost due to the increased interference of human beings. Now since they take the bad things and absorb their negative energy in their body and replace it with the white light which burns inside them they gradually turn ugly. And I don’t mean bad looking, it is real ugly. You would probably shriek if you saw a real witch in her original state. They are fearsome and even worse they can do spells which would enhance their beauty, the original age which they should have and also they are known to do dealings in things which would give them a youthful and beautiful appearance for a certain period of time. That is the reason that once dead and the life force in her body, that is the blood was drained away it has returned back to the state which it should be in naturally,” said Lillian as Snow kept on moving around the body trying to get to see something but there was nothing to see. There was nothing different about the corpse except that it seemed like a mummy taken up from the sets of THE MUMMY.

“She really looks nothing like when she was alive,” said Snow as she walked up to the place where the purification of her blood, rather distillation was going on.

“It does not really matter what she looks like. I have relayed the plan to Lillian and she thinks that it might work if we put every single thing carefully and then work together. Which means that you have to be sick as well,” said Raphael as Snow nodded at his words. It could not be really expected that except her all the students fell asleep.

“But what about the younger ones?” asked Snow, and Lillian looked at Raphael with the same question in her eyes.

“What about them?” asked Raphael not quite understanding what she was trying to insinuate.

“Headmaster King, they are just kids. They should not be infected at all. We are strong but they are still weak and they need to be stronger to develop a resilience,” said Snow and Lillian nodded at her supporting her opinion.

“Then what do you both suggest what should be the age of not infecting and the age of infecting?” asked Raphael, trying to make the situation lighter but both the females were not all in the mood to be made fun of or to make fun of.

“This is not a joke Headmaster King. We can try and infect rather create something akin to food poisoning by measuring the dosage and then infecting the blood bags before they are put in the refrigerator cabinet for their supper and their snack purposes but that does not at all mean that the kids have to be hampered in any way. The babes up to ten years should not be affected at all. And we have no idea how this is going to affect them because we were all born after the treaty has already come into existence and their blood has become poison for us so that the witches’ lives could be spared. But not the children, we can find some one who is already in the infirmary to test it on them before it can be given to every one,” said Snow raising her brows and Lillian snorted at her last sentence.

“Ms. White, I do understand that you have a certain degree of animosity towards the Patrick brother and sister duo and you have ample reason to but they are already suffering from multiple injuries, do you think that it is really necessary to make them suffer even more?” asked Raphael, fixing his glare at Snow. But she was not even fazed by it in the least.

“I am ready to be the guinea pig for the experiment but I really doubt that it is going to be of any positive outcome,” said Snow with a slight shrug as she sniffed something carefully from the corpse kept on the ice slab in front of her.

“She is correct in both the senses Headmaster king. Since Ms. White already has magic in her blood I doubt it is at all going to affect her and the two students who are in the infirmary have been rapidly healing from the medicated blood that I have been giving them to drink. Moreover they are already under monitoring and observation, so don’t you think that it will be easier to understand the regulation of the dosage when it comes to all the students? Moreover since they are in the infirmary and they don’t have their gadgets with them they are not going to be able to inform anyone else about their condition as well. So it is a sensible choice in my opinion,” said Doctor Lillian and Raphael sighed grumpily.

“I don’t like this whole plan at all,’ said Raphael as he watched Snow inching closer to the corpse of the dead witch.

“But then it would not have been necessary at all if you had taken us into confidence before slitting the throat of this damn blasted woman,” said Snow, and her voice was laced with venom when she looked at Rebecca. Then she continued saying,” The magic is not in her blood.”

“What?” asked Lillian as she went near Snow and looked at her and then again at the corpse.

“”The magic that lies in the veins is a wrong concept. It does not run in veins. I can still feel the presence of her magic strongly in her body, it is nauseating, true but it is there in her bones and her soul is here sticking to the castle so that she can do something later on or their might be some incidents of haunting. We need to get rid of her magic and her soul,” said Snow, as she stood straight and closed her eyes. Then she raised her hands and then felt something and shivered violently.

Raphael started moving towards her but Lillian put up her hand and stopped him from touching her.

“Don’t break the spell, she is trying to do something. Touching is only going to impeded that,” said Lillian, it was more like a warning. Raphael nodded at her in understanding. After all he had seen the glimpse of her power several times in the last few days. And they had the tendency of changing into something else at the very inopportune moment. He was not going to risk that now, in the presence of Lillian. Lillian was the one doctor who had been there when magic was infused in the veins of Snow’s wolf mother and had kept her vitals in check. She was only one of the people who was extremely happy with this experiment and had remained with the Pack in their Guest lodgings till Snow was born.

Lillian had said that she was doing this for the sake of science and she wanted this child to be born and to have every single thing that they had wished for her but then she had heard the prophecy and returned back to the Academy thinking that it would not be possible ever.

“She is going to haunt every single student until her soul is released. I can feel her presence close by and I can feel the magic coagulating in her bones. This is something which you need to collect fast or it will be lost forever, It was the price of the beauty that she had bought and sensing her weakness someone is draining her magic. They are not being able to because of the force field but they are trying hard and once they are able to do that then the entire safety of the Blood Veil Academy is at stake!!” said Snow as she opened her eyes which were black, and her hair was a black halo, as if midnight had taken residence in the curls of her hair.

“What are we going to do then?” asked Lillian in a calm voice but she was closely inching towards panic.

“Do you know who is doing this Ms. White?” asked Raphael his gaze had turned blood red in anger but he was absolutely helpless.

“The same one who had come to my dreams last night,” said Snow and Lillian gasped out in shock.