I wrapped it around my head and body like an emo teenager and waded further out into the hall.
The feather did a little happy feather dance. I sighed.
"If I die a horrible, bloody death, I'm going to come back to life, find you, and burn you to death. Understand?"
The feather stopped dancing.
I studied it for a moment. "Well, you woke me up. Go on." I made a shooing noise with my hand.
It zoomed across the hall and waited for me to catch up. I followed as closely behind it as I could, careful to keep to the shadows of the walls while also cursing myself for wearing flip flops, basically the loudest shoe on the planet. I finally slipped my shoes off, wincing at how cold the stone was, and continued to follow.
Five minutes later, I didn't have a clue where I was or how I was supposed to get back to my room. I looked around only to see we were in an enclosed room. The silence was overwhelming.
"Illuminate," I whispered and held my hand open. A warm ball of light appeared in my hand, casting a cheery glow across the walls.
"A storage room, Feather?" I looked around. Unopened boxes and crates littered the floor. Rolled up rugs rested against the back wall and several shelves seemed littered with nothing other than bric-à-brac.
I turned around and was about to head out when the sound of stone scraping across stone reached my ears. I spun around only to see one of the shelves flipping inward and exposing a new room. With a stifled squeak, I rushed behind one of the other shelves. I didn't know if the door opened on its own volition or if someone was coming up.
A man exited. He held a candelabra and a bag of something. But what was stranger was that I knew him.
Mr. Raven. He turned at the entrance and held his hand out for something. A slim hand with delicate fingers appeared first before a dark-haired beauty exited the rooms.
I frowned. I'd never seen her before. That, in itself, wasn't strange, but she was dressed like something out of a different century. Mr. Raven stared at her with rapt fascination as he helped her off of the stairs. I slowed my breath into something as calm as I can make it. Breathing like an angry grizzly would only serve to get me caught. The feather now lay still and silent on the floor. As if as soon as I saw this, the spark that had animated it died.
I plastered myself as far back as I could and watched the two. They stood beside each other, two mismatched pieces of a puzzle I couldn't quite figure out. With a whisper of magic, the shelf fitted itself back into the wall. If I hadn't just seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it was there.
What kind of secrets was the Merlin Academy holding? And would I live long enough to discover them all?
I was beginning to think maybe not.
Mr. Raven's head went up in alarm.
I froze completely, even though I hadn't been moving in the first place. I knew shifters had a keen sense of smell, but Mr. Raven was a bird. I thought. They don't smell as well as the other shifters did, I didn't think.
If I was wrong, my life might be forfeit, but I didn't move a muscle.
Mr. Raven looked around the room for a moment, but sensing nothing was amiss, he double checked the shelf door and led the woman outside of it. When the door clicked shut, I stayed there for a few more minutes just to be a hundred percent sure he wasn't coming back.
"Good feather," I praised as I walked past it, but it didn't wiggle in response. Whom ever animated it had decided its work was done, I guess.
I examined the shelf, looking for any hidden mechanisms. It was seamless. I couldn't find a single latch or hook or anything around it which made me think the latch was a book. And the shelf was full of them. It would take me all night to figure out which one it was.
Looking around, I made a command decision. If I was here for misuse of magic, I was going to make sure I really deserved it. I thought back to my studies and remembered a small spell to make something reveal itself. But I didn't need the ingredients to do it. Especially not this close to the full moon.
"Revelare," I whispered as I rubbed my fingers together. A wisp of golden magic slipped from my fingers and illuminated the entire shelf. "Come on," I urged the magic. It was a simple spell, really, but anything with a hidden spell on it should be highlighted. There was a very good chance of it backfiring, though, especially since we were in an academy full of magicians and most things in this place were full of magic. I watched as the magic sailed around and whipped through all the books.
It stopped on a small, blue book in the middle of the shelf.
A satisfied smile sprang to my lips. "Awesome," I murmured.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."
I spun around in alarm only to see Holly standing there.
Along with three of her shifter friends.
"Excuse me?" I said. "Why not?"
Her head tilted to the side. "You aren't ready to see what's down there." A grin formed on her mouth, showcasing teeth a little too large and pointed for her face.
I was trapped in a room with three shifters close to a full moon. Could I possibly get any dumber? I took a slow breath in. I'd never used my magic offensively, but if it came to it, I'd have to figure it out.
"How do you know what I'm ready for?" I asked, straightening up to my full height. Which wasn't much. I was kind of short. I looked behind her. I didn't know two of the girls, but the third was from the cheerleading squad.
"Et tu, Charlotte?" I asked wearily. I didn't know her well, but the brunette girl whose hair was in perpetual braids shrugged.
"Sorry," she mumbled, but she didn't sound sorry at all.
"What's down there?" I asked, not waiting for Holly to answer my question.
"None of your business."
The light shimmered behind all the girls. All four of the dead girls stood behind them.
I pointed. "Oh yeah? I think they'd beg to differ."
When all of them spun around, I pulled the book. The shelf opened at a speed that felt similar to molasses, but fast enough for me to slip down before they could catch me.
Unfortunately, I didn't know how to close the damned thing, so mere seconds later, I had several angry, toothy shifters following me down.
I skidded to a stop not a moment too soon.
"Gods," I whispered at the carnage in front of me. Stains darkened the smooth concrete of the floor and blood dripped from the center of the pentagram etched permanently into the ground. "What the hell?" I tiptoed around the circle, careful not to disturb anything.
I didn't know nearly as much about magic as a lot of people did, but even I knew not to disturb a black magic circle.
Holly reached out to grab my arm, but I darted away.
"What is this?" I asked, my eyes soaking everything in. My brain screamed its disbelief. I stopped at the edge of the top of the circle. "What is it?" I repeated “and what does Mr. Raven have to do with it?"
Holly smirked at me. "We need to get out of here and we can't. Mr. Raven understands us." She studied her nails. "See, the thing is, he's dying. Some odd magical sickness he can't figure out."
Charlotte spoke up, still standing behind Holly like some good little soldier. "The full moon is coming soon and the only way he can be saved is to be turned."
These idiots. A shifter can't be turned into another shifter. It worked against all laws, natural and magical.
"So he said he would help you?"
Holly nodded.
"In return for turning him?"
Another nod.
"Mr. Raven isn't that stupid," I said.
Holly blinked in surprise before her expression turned absolutely thunderous. "Are you calling us stupid?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." I swept a hand out. "What do you even think this is?" I cried.
Charlotte's lower lip wobbled. "Mr. Raven said it was rat's blood."
I pinched the skin of my brow.
Is an idiot still an idiot if they don’t know they’re an idiot? “Did you know there are four girls m
issing from the academy grounds?” I asked, my voice numb.
I watched as they all looked at each other. I noticed the second their awareness wrapped around what was really happening. “What did you do for him?” I asked.
No one said a word.
“What did you do for him?” My voice was a cross between a hiss and a screech. Four girls were dead, and these girls were standing here wondering about their own hides.
Charlotte spoke first. Her usually tanned skin was a bleached white in the dim light of the room. “He wanted to know which girls were virgins,” she whispered.
Shock roared through my system. The ghosts of the four dead girls hovered behind Charlotte. She had no idea the danger she was in. Especially if they could touch and manipulate the physical world.
Which they could. I was proof of it. I could see the anger on their faces. The rage at it all and the waste their lives had turned into.
“Did he say why?” I asked quietly. My hands shook with anger.
Holly cleared his throat. “He said something about the wards. They’d have to come down before anyone got out of here.”
This did not explain the woman Mr. Raven was leading up through the stairs. “And are the wards down?” I asked, already knowing the answer. If they had been, we would have heard alarms or something. An incident that big did not go unnoticed, even in the middle of the night.
"No," Holly whispered. She was going to understand the depths she'd gotten herself into, soon.
There were a lot of spells that required virgin's blood to be performed.
The worst of them was necromancy.
I let out a shaky breath. "I fear Mr. Raven has awoken something none of us are prepared for."
The door above us slammed shut.
I cried out and rushed up the stairs. It was completely smooth on our side. How the hell had it opened from the inside? I looked around, my fingernails scrabbling against the smooth stone of the wall, looking for any kind of switch or lever. Anything that could get us out of here.
I turned to the ghosts. "Any idea?" I yelled.
All the cheerleaders gave me a blank stare. "How should we know?" said one of the ones I didn't recognize.
"I'm not talking to you," I huffed. I took a couple of steps down and stared up at the wall. It had to be magic.
"Revelare," I whispered, rubbing my fingers together. The magic slipped out and whipped around the walls and everything, but there was nothing.
Either someone up there had messed with my spell or the way out of here was not magical.
"Crap," I muttered under my breath.
"Get us out of here!" Holly screeched.
I walked back down the stairs and pinned her with a glare. "I literally could not care less if you make it out of here." I gave each of them a look. "Any of you."
The other three girls had the grace to at least look ashamed. Holly glared right back at me.
"Sociopath," whispered one of the ghosts.
"Yup," I said. "You don't care even a little, do you, Holly?"
Her eyes narrowed a touch before she put on her fake friend act. "Of course I do!" she pleaded. "It's just ... I'm so shocked!"
Charlotte snorted. "Give it a rest, Holly. I knew this was a bad idea. What kind of freak wants to know about a girl's virginity any way?"
"Especially a teacher," I added. I sat at the bottom of the steps and tapped my foot on the ground. We were trapped in here with a black magic spell that for all intents and purposes still looked live. I didn't practice black magic, so I wasn't completely sure, but we needed to stay away from it if we knew what was good for us.
"Stay away from the circle," I said after a moment. "I can't tell if it's still activated and I don't want to find out." The girls nodded.
Holly glared at me. "Who said you were in charge?"
"Shut. Up. Holly," said Charlotte. The girl shoved her aside and came to sit down beside me. "You'll have a lot to answer for when we get out of here."
Instead of backing down, Holly grinned. "Oh yeah? And what about you? You're just as culpable as I am. Say one word, Charlotte, and I'll ruin your life."
The silent ghosts lifted Holly's hair up from her shoulders. I pressed my lips together to hide a smile. Holly swatted at her hair and swung around, but she couldn't see anything. "Bugs," she said. "Ewww."
Her head tugged to the left as Roxie pulled on it. Holly's head whipped wildly around as she tried to figure out what was going on.
I couldn't help the smile that spilled onto my lips. "Would you like to know their names?” I asked.
"What names?" Holly barked as her eyes flicked back and forth wildly.
"The girls you all but sentenced to death."
"I don't care about them," she snapped. Her face had gone bleach white.
"We know," I said quietly.
Holly stilled. "We? What does that mean?"
"Lots of ghosts roam Merlin's halls," I said casually. "Is it any wonder those girls haven't visited you before?"
Holly took several steps across the room and stopped right on the edge of the circle.
"Holly," I warned. "Don't go any closer."
She swung a frantic gaze to me. "Where are they?" she cried.
The ghosts advanced on her. "Hey," I said. "Don't. She'll be punished when we get out of here."
They ignored me. Fear skittered down my spine. "Please," I said again.
"Justice, Honey," they intoned as one.
I stood. "Don't do this. Please." Charlotte and Holly both stared at me like I was insane.
"The Academy will not punish them. We must."
Their voices rose in anger, all as one.
"If you activate that circle," I said, "we could all die."
They stilled and turned to me. "We're already dead."
Holly took one step back. I hauled Charlotte up off the steps and ran to the other side of the room. "Get down," I screamed. The other girls hit the deck, and I curled into a ball waiting for the inevitable explosion.
When absolutely nothing happened, I chanced a look.
Holly was suspended in mid-air, her mouth wide. Her eyes were unseeing and blood poured from all the orifices in her body, soaking the white shirt of her uniform in crimson.
The circle activated, along with the pentagram in the middle, with a red flare. Blood pooled at her feet and down into the etched lines of the star.
"Oh," Charlotte whispered. "Oh shit."
"Yeah," I muttered. I got to my feet and rushed past them, looking frantically for a way out.
There was only smooth wall. Not a knick or kink or dent in the wall that could have hidden anything. I wasn't sure how much time I had, but there was only so much blood in the human body. It couldn't take that long to bleed out.
I had two choices. Die here or reveal my secret to several untrustworthy girls.
I chose the selfish route. I didn't want to die.
Pooling power into my hands, I focused on the hidden door.
"What are you doing?" Charlotte asked.
"Shut up," I gritted out. Twenty seconds, thirty, forty seconds passed as I gathered all the power that I could. I didn't know how strong the spell was, but I didn't want to do this twice. Holly's blood had stalled to a quiet patter on the stones and I knew I was running out of time.
"Aperio," I whispered. Open.
Nothing.
I pooled more power.
"Aperio."
Nada.
I was doing something wrong. I was in a freaking school for crying out loud, and I couldn't manage to even get a door open.
Rage at all of it flowed through my veins. I was stuck with these stupid girls. I had four freak ghosts who'd managed to disappear so I couldn't chew them out, and not a single person in my family had bothered to check up on me since I'd gotten here.
"Screw this place," I whispered, feeling the magic begin to burn. "Screw these people."
The blood flow stopped.
A loud click sounded within the buil
ding.
That could not be good.
"APERIO!" I said again.
The room exploded in light.
8
I came to with a mouth full of dust and the disapproving blonde woman I'd seen at the beginning of my adventures standing over me. She shook her head, but as her nostrils flared, she reached a hand down to help me up. I took it and wondered at exactly how much trouble I was in.
"Where are the other girls?" I croaked.
The woman snorted. "Over there out of harm's way," she said. "No thanks to you."
I put on my most innocent expression, though it was no doubt terrifying because I could feel blood trickling down my temple. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Holly did all of this."
One of the woman's eyebrows rose. She didn't believe me. Not even a little. "One small girl did all of this?"
Confusion wrinkled my brow until I got a real good look at the surrounding carnage. Aperio had not opened the door. It opened the entire room. A lot. If I had to estimate the damage done, I'd say I would probably be written out of the family will once the bill came due.
"Oh," I said.
"Quite," said the woman as she helped me over to where the other girls were. I sat down beside Charlotte who looked at me like she'd never seen me before in her life. If she said something now, if any of them did, I would be booted out or worse in a heartbeat.
To my surprise, Charlotte gave me a short nod and turned back to the woman.
She hadn't missed the look. "Mr. Mago will be here shortly. If you have a story you're interested in sticking to, I would take these short couple of minutes and make sure you are all on the same page." The woman gave us all a long look and stood up to walk to the other side of what used to be the room.
I blinked at her back before I quickly turned to the other girls. "Here's what we do. Blame it all on Holly."
Charlotte snorted. "And what about why we were down here?"
"Holly said she wanted to show us something."
I saw Charlotte's eyes track over to where her body lay prone. "I can't even believe that bitch was a virgin."
Paranormal Academy Page 77
