Betrayal: An Urban Fantasy Academy Series

by Bob Dattolo

  “Me?”

  “You. You rocked my world. As a human and as a dragon. You’re small. Petite. You look weak. You’re a stricken. Everything about you physically makes me want to dominate you. Tear you down. On top of your size, you’re also the boogieman to us. You’re the thing our parents threatened us with so many times. All of us. Except it’s worse than that. We’re all raised believing that stricken are animals. Lower than animals. Playthings. Toys. They can be legally used and discarded like condoms. And yet you? You were a stricken, but now you’re not. Now you’re even worse in some ways. You went from one of us to what you were, and now you’re back. And more powerful than most of us. Possibly all of us. That paints this picture that we’re not really all that. We’re not what our parents have told us that we are our entire lives. Powerful. Strong. We deserve what we have, what we can collect, and we take what we’re due. Seeing you? It calls into question everything we’re told that we’re due. Because if you’re what you are, what about the other stricken out there? Can they become like you? Maybe not with white and all of that, but…can they have the mortmagi removed and gain their magic back?”

  “What if that’s possible?”

  No answer at first. “I just don’t know. You did it. I have to think that it’s possible. It seems unlikely that you’d be the only person that can do it. But if they do, then that really paints our lives as being…shit. Well, not our lives, but some of the things we were taught. Told. How we’re raised. You’ve seen it. A ton of us were told to finish all three years and place well or risk our families killing us. Some weren’t, but many of us were. We’re raised to be willing to kill our own children. And…I don’t know, I’m starting to second guess that. I’m not used to being confused in my life. I’ve known what I wanted and have always gone for it. Now it’s all mixed up in my head.”

  “I’m sorry for causing that.”

  “Thank you. You didn’t do it on purpose. It’s a side effect of you being you. You don’t do anything by halves.”

  He joined my spurt of laughter. I so wasn’t expecting that.

  He shifted a little, and I leaned back against his closer arm. “You know…I heard rumors that you were going to kill me. You were being nicer to get closer so you could kill me.”

  He snorted and sent out a lick of plasma, “That’s too funny. I heard that one too. Plus like a dozen more. You were doing the same thing to me.”

  “Huh, I heard that one too. Did you hear the one where I was going to collect your scales like baseball cards?”

  Long laugh from him, “Holy crap, yeah, I heard that one. I have no idea where that one came from. I’ve never even met anyone that collects baseball cards.”

  “I didn’t even know it was still a thing.”

  “Right?” He sighed again, “So many rumors. They’re getting desperate.”

  “That’s what I’ve been picking up.”

  “They’re being stupid. They should cut back. They’re spreading too many of them and most are getting ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, they are. Did you pick up that the person doing it isn’t a dragon? More than likely?”

  He froze, then turned to me a little, “What? What’d I miss?”

  “When I was hurt? There were rumors talking about why I smelled funky.”

  “Holy hell, I missed that. That’s a good point. No dragon would have worded it like that.”

  “Exactly. So, mage and from last year. That’s like 20 people.”

  “True. That helps, though.”

  We fell silent again. Finally, I had to ask, “Why’d you come out? You landed and came over, so you were looking for me.”

  “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I’m not sure how I knew you’d be out here, but I did. So when I couldn’t sleep, I came out to check. I figured…you spent last night alone; you shouldn’t have to spend the morning alone.”

  “Thank you for that. You don’t have to do that, though. I know you have friends you can hang out with.”

  “Not many. No allies this year. Ryan is staying apart.”

  “I caught that.”

  “I can’t blame him. What you said when the trial started? You’re right, he was pretty much prey if he got injured or one of us could have done it where the others couldn’t have stopped it.”

  Fuck. “You know I hate that, right?”

  “I do. I can see it now, too. We’re all raised to look out for ourselves first, second, and third. All of us. That’s why Wes and I tore into each other. I didn’t mean to hurt him when we were going after you. Just like he didn’t initially mean to go after me. Once it was done, though, we pretty much had to go for it.”

  “And Ryan would have been gobbled up too.”

  “He would have. I wouldn’t have even been able to stop myself. It was hard enough once I saw that Shane was dead.”

  “Did you know at that point that I let Ryan drain him?”

  “Not a clue. Nor would I have believed it at the time.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “He told me after it was all done. I was…shocked. Then I find out that you did that with others too.”

  “I did. I didn’t want those fights. None of them. I’ll gladly take their power if I have to, but I’d rather we didn’t fight at all.”

  “Ever the unifier.”

  “I’d love that. I really would.”

  We fell silent again and watched the snow.

  All in all, it was the best New Years that I can recall.

  Chapter 32

  Valentine’s Day was amazing. Jordan from the year three class brought me to our favorite restaurant and we danced under the stars until nearly dawn.

  Only one thing in that was true.

  Care to guess?

  Valentine’s Day was.

  That’s it. And I mean that. In that it happened.

  It wasn’t horrible, though, so that’s good. There were some that went on dates, just no one too close to me. Not that anyone’s all that close right now. We’re still holding out and trying to play it quiet, which is working pretty well. The rumors have slowed a bit more than they had been, which is good. They were getting more and more desperate, but they’ve slowed and are getting more pointed.

  Case in point? Valentine’s Day? Rumors had me asking people out to kill them and not asking them out so that I could kill them when they stayed behind. The best part is that the first one came up initially, then I had Cesar share the word that I planned on asking someone out. That’s when the rumors changed.

  We still can’t narrow down who is doing it, so that sucks even more.

  I’ve tried again and again since New Year’s to update the spells in my room to change how it reacts to people. No attacks occurred that I’m aware of, at least nothing caused the glow to start up, so they could just be getting smarter? Maybe. Still, though, I couldn’t come up with anything that would really do something to them that would make them stand out.

  My flight took me over the town as I circled in the morning air. It’s pretty frigid right now and the land below me is startlingly white, yet it’s not actively snowing right now. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. It really is.

  Except even the scenery doesn’t stop me from falling back on my thoughts. Specifically? Mortmagi. I’ve been banging my head against that wall so freaking often over the past almost two months, yet everything pretty much failed. At least so far. I had high, high hopes that metal spells could handle them. After all, they’re made of metal, right?

  Yeah, nope. Eating away the metal failed hard.

  And knocked me unconscious.

  No joke.

  I thought I was making headway with it and then BOOM, out like a light. I didn’t even realize I was down until I woke up. Thank God I was doing it in the room and Eva was gone. I’m not sure what she or Tiffany would have done if they caught me completely out of it.

  We haven’t been fighting, at least overtly, so that’s a plus. They’ve been using the little gift more often
and I’ve bought more essential oils, and that seems to have been removing the burs from their reactions to me.

  It probably helps that pulling back from everyone has stopped a ton of the back and forth fighting things. Threats. All of that. Still with the pushing and random comments, it just seems more like it’s from habit than actual animosity.

  Wait…mortmagi. Like I said, magic can’t mess with them as I had hoped. I can’t remove the spells without pain rampaging through me. I’ve tried to slow-build the magic, yet that didn’t help. Any of the times I attempted it.

  So that has me heading down for a landing as Alicia watches me glide down. She has two coffees in her hands, and that makes me smile even more as I hit the ground, furl my wings, and then shift back. “I hope one of those is for me?”

  She held one out, “It is. How’re you doing this morning?”

  Oh my God, it’s delicious! “Thank you so, so much. As for this morning? I’m doing pretty darn well. You?”

  She held the door open for me to step through, “I’m doing well. Still early, right? So it could go either way. Now, you said you have some things you wanted to test?”

  “Yeah? If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t. C’mon, let’s head to the back room again.” She led me through the space to her back room, where I sat on the couch and sipped more of the coffee. She mirrored me. “Now, what do you have?”

  She didn’t do more than watch as I pulled four items from my bag. Not that I expected cartwheels. On the surface, they’re just glass things, so it’s not like I’m pulling out Oscar trophies to show her.

  She nodded when I was done, “Okay, so all glass, right?”

  “Yeah. Like I said in my text? I’ve been trying so many things and failing again and again. I tried making up my own spells. I’ve tried spells from the grimoires. From everywhere. Nothing seemed to work, but these four have some promise.”

  She leaned forward on the couch and sipped her coffee, “So what are they?”

  The first is a small glass rod, maybe five inches long. “This one is basically like anesthesia.”

  Her mouth fell open slowly, “Uhh…what? Like…anesthesia?!?”

  “Yeah. I tried a bunch of different ideas and have been looking at everything I could find, and almost everything seemed to have side effects that weren’t great. They’d block pain but then let it all hit at the end. They’d stop you from feeling pain and then not let you start. All sorts of things. In this case? I lucked into one of the books mentioning anesthesia being slightly possible with magic.”

  She nodded, “It is, but it’s hard as hell to do. You got it to work?”

  “I tried on myself and it seemed to work. But it’s not like I had a ton of stuff to try before I decided to call it quits.”

  “If that works…I’m not even sure what to say if that works. What else did you bring?”

  Another five-inch rod, this time green instead of clear, was held up, “This is basically healing help? I couldn’t test this one a ton either. The goal here is that it blocks infection and offers some benefit to healing, while not actually doing any healing on its own.”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that one either.”

  “I’m not sure it works the way I hope it does, but it feels like it might.” She didn’t react before I pulled a clear ring of glass, “This is the turbocharger that I mentioned.”

  Slow blink, “Turbocharger. Like for magic?”

  “Pretty much, yeah?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Turbocharger? Where the fuck did you find a spell for that?”

  “I didn’t? I made it.”

  Her eyes darted to mine, “What? You made a spell to turbocharge your magic? How the fuck did you do that?”

  “Umm, trial and error mostly? I found like two dozen spells that tried to do all sorts of things with magic, but none of them seemed to really work. I kept trying and came up with this.”

  She licked her lips, “What…what does it do?”

  “Umm, it’s hard to explain? It feels like it works, but I’m hesitant about side effects.”

  Another darting glance to my eyes, “Side effects? Like what?”

  “That’s just it, I’m not really sure. It’s a strange feeling when you use it. Like someone is pulling magic from you. The results seem to be stronger than I can say the amount of magic should have accounted for, but it still feels weird. Like it’s a strain while not being one. I don’t envision me using this a ton, assuming it even does what I hope it does.”

  “Umm, Maddie? If that does anything to help make magic stronger, do you know how much that thing would be worth?”

  “Two payments of $19.99, plus you get a second as long as you pay shipping and handling?”

  No laugh, but it still made me smile. Internally. “More money than I can even explain to you. Hundreds of millions if it works.”

  “Oookay? You know I’m not about to sell something like this, right? I didn’t even write the spell down just in case someone gets into my grimoire.”

  Long, slow breath, “I just…this is…” Silence for more than a minute. “Okay, skip that one. What’s with the red ring?”

  I picked up the red ring, “This one is basically a focus thing. I kept going back through the three times I’ve pushed them out and tried to pick up what was really being done. I think…I think part of the issue and the need for so much power is that I was kinda…vague, maybe?”

  “Vague? What does that mean?”

  “Vague, in that I wasn’t being very focused with where I was pushing power.”

  “I’m…I’m not getting it.”

  “Okay, it’s like this.” I sat back and stared at the ring in my palm, “When I was working on Jenny, I felt like I got more movement quicker when I focused everything on the center of the mortmagi, on the blade basically, and then on the screws.”

  “Ookay?”

  “So this? When this is active, the goal is to focus the power in three main areas. The first is on the center point. The blade. The second is on the screws. The screws hold the thing in, so pushing on them seems to help get through the spells cramming it into their faces. The last one is the spikes. In this case, it’ll wrap the spikes with power and push on them. The goal is to make them…slippery, maybe? So that they don’t grip? Remove the grip from the spikes and then push on the spikes, screws, and the center point. Don’t waste power on the rest of it.”

  She sat back and slammed back most of her coffee. Given how hot mine was, I’m shocked she can do that without reacting. She didn’t speak again for more than a few minutes, “Maddie? If that works…if any of them work? I’m not even sure what to say here! You could remake the magical world if those work, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah? At least a little. I just don’t know what to do if and when the authorities find out about this. I won’t let people stop me, but that could mean that anyone stricken could just be killed.”

  She shrugged, “They know that. We’ve talked any number of times about it. Honestly, if they could get the mortmagi out and stay blind and powerless, they’d be fine with that. The constant agony is driving them to want to find the nearest knife or gun or deep enough puddle of water to end it.”

  “Yeah, it sucks beyond belief.”

  More silence. “Are you willing to try it on someone?”

  “I am? Do you think anyone would volunteer?”

  This time I got her to smile, “They’d all volunteer.” She stood, “You want to try it now?”

  “I’m willing? I’m not sure if that’d be okay?”

  “I’m not expecting anyone to come to the store, so let’s fly there now and see? I…Did you know that Jenny’s still there?”

  “Umm, no? She hasn’t said. I wasn’t sure if she’d try to leave or not?”

  “She’s basically…helping everyone? She’s trying to do everything that she can.”

  “She change her name yet?”

  “Not yet. She has the pa
perwork, she’s just not sure if that’ll cause issues. She’d rather have as many people healed as possible before trying it. Just in case doing it causes issues. As it is, if people can be healed, they can simply move away and try to get back to a life.”

  “What about birth certificates and things like that?” That’s something I hadn’t thought of before.

  “They all have them. We got them everything they’d need. We’d have to reissue if they change their names, but we can do that if it comes down to it.”

  “Ugh, I hadn’t really thought about that.” She helped me up. “So let’s try this?”

  We headed out and she shifted on the roof of her place before taking off. I took off from the ground and waited for her, then joined her as we flapped for the house. I didn’t bother firing up my GPS since I figured she knew how to get there from here.

  I, myself, do not. Not even close.

  The house looks the same when we land. Sooo many paths from people walking around, dragon footsteps everywhere, and then cleared snow. I’m not sure how you shovel while blind, yet they’re seemingly doing it.

  Good for them. I know I used to do manual work like electrical work or plumbing, but still. There’s something more death defying to me about being outdoors in Montana in the winter and blind. It’s one wrong turn away from dying from exposure.

  No one was outside when we landed and shifted, so no one greeted us at the door.

  Alicia stepped inside and called out, “Hey, everyone, Alicia and Maddie are here.”

  Voices called out from around the space, with a few heading our way. Not to meet me, at least mostly. Jenny, though? She came running through and engulfed me in a hug, “You’re back!”

  “Hey, yeah.” It felt amazing to hug her, so I did it longer than you’d think would be okay.

  She stepped back when I released her, “How’ve you been?”

  “Good. Still in school. Obviously.”