They divvied up the stakeout time. At first Tanaka argued for twelve hour shifts, but Camilla talked him down to five and a half hour shifts each with Jacob giving them a half hour in between. That way the person resting could get a decent sleep in if necessary.
Tanaka had configured his variant to alert them when it sensed a spell, so they wouldn't have to hold out the medallion for the whole time and could put the spell in the medallion when the time came. Jacob, however, since he could only use the base divination the textbook contained had to hold the medallion for his half hour.
They figured they had about a half hour window to catch the killer between when they made the pocket dimension and when it would be too late to save the next victim.
Jacob's first vigil was that night at 10:00pm. Blake was studying back in their dorm so Jacob booked another study room for himself. Tanaka handed off the medallion to him at 10:00pm sharp, stuck around, cast the pocket dimension to make sure Jacob got the divination up and running correctly since Jacob couldn't do it himself, then went to go get some sleep.
Jacob placed the medallion around his hand and focused on the spell. At first he'd thought he'd be able to read while casting it but it turned out to be too much effort. He put on some video game soundtracks in the background, and stared intently at the medallion.
He almost wanted it to happen on his watch. It felt right. He needed to catch the killer, he should be the one to sense the spell, right? But at the same time, he hoped it didn't happen during this one. They were probably going to have to fight the killer when they found them, and he didn't feel ready.
A couple times the medallion twitched like a dreaming dog, making Jacob tense, his heartbeat rising to a crescendo. But each time it stayed still afterwards.
Twenty minutes in he had broken out in a sweat. He wiped his face with his shirt and wished he'd remembered to bring a water bottle. Next time. His eyes had glazed over, and the soundtracks fell on deaf ears. The whirling indigo spell was all he could sense.
At 10:25 he gathered up his belongings and went to the first floor lounge, where Camilla had said she'd be. The lounge was dark. Camilla was there by herself, curled up in an armchair beneath a bright lamp trained on a book in her lap.
"Yo," Jacob said. He wiped his forehead and put his bag down next to the chair across from her.
"Hey," she frowned. "It's really taking it's toll on you, isn't it?"
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Jacob blew a breath out. "I'm fine. Don't know how much longer I could go, but I'm fine."
Camilla checked her watch. "Alright, gimme a second, and I'll take over."
She first cast the pocket dimension spell. The medallion shot towards her, tugging eagerly at Jacob's wrist. Well, at least it was working.
Then Camilla cast the special divination. It was the same shade of indigo as the regular one—at least as far as he could tell—but it felt different in a way he couldn't pinpoint. Christ, but he wished he was a better Decomp mage.
He gave her the medallion, which she tucked away in her blouse.
"Go get some sleep Jacob. 3:30am is gonna come early."
"Alright. Good luck."
She smiled and he smiled back. He grabbed his bag and trudged off to his dorm room. He entered, said hi to Blake, and fell on his bed and set an alarm for 3:30am. As he drifted off, he realized that for once he didn't care that there was a light on in the room.
----------------------------------------
3:30am did, in fact, come early. Mad fucking early. He went down and got the medallion from Camilla and cast the spell. This time he just sat there in the lounge in a fugue state, staring at the medallion. It wasn't like there was anyone around to ask him what he was doing.
The worst part about it? He was back on vigil at 9:30am. At 4:00, sweating and feeling like a pile of old, dirty socks, handed the medallion off to Tanaka and went back to his dorm room to sleep. He slept for a few hours, then showered, then honed his Consumption magics in a training rom in case they had to fight the killer. And then it was back on vigil. Christ, why had he agreed to this craziness?
The next few days passed very weirdly. He ate erratically and slept in three-four hour segments. He got a surprising amount of studying and training done in his downtime, but it was as if for most of the days he slipped into a mirror dimension, identical to Tisdale but where people were passing reflections of themselves. The night-time vigils were eerily silent, and even in the day he was keeping such odd hours that he barely interacted with anyone.
He did attend the MW Club pizza party marking the club's last session of the summer term. Malachi and the other upper years were only writing their midterms, and would stay at Tisdale after the summer and continue the club, but they wanted to give Jacob and Xavier a going away party anyway.
Jacob exchanged numbers with a few of them, was made to promise that he'd join again next year, and came in third in the Jeopardy game they had. Jacob and Xavier traded phone numbers in case anything interesting came up throughout the year, planning an impromptu joint trip to the magical realm at some point—though neither of them was even close to casting a portal spell.
He did manage to attend the Macbeth play along with Blake and Camilla for the first half. It was nice to see Grace traipsing around stage in her witchy costume, but he hardly remembered any of it apart from the extremely archaic language. At one point he was pretty sure he drifted off. But Grace was excited that they'd come and watched afterwards and he was glad that he had gone instead of catching a nap.
He didn't see Archie once, but he studied with Blake as much as he could, explaining away his sudden 30-minute disappearances as last minute meetings with Tanaka for help with Decomp.
The only consolation was that he was getting some practice casting Decomposition. He did improve quite a bit. By Wednesday he could cast divination for thirty minutes and only really break a sweat in the last couple. He did wonder how much longer they were going to have to keep doing this. Come exams, they'd be in deep water.