Shifter In The Swamp (Academy of Necessary Magic Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  “Jesus, will you stop talking about school already? We discovered something awesomely epic, and you’re trying to give me a lecture on architecture nobody gives a shit about.”

  Amanda frowned and watched the other girl wade through the two inches of water toward the central pillar. “You should leave that where it is.”

  “Wow, if I’d thought you’d be this much of a drag, I would’ve let you blow up with the rest of the island. Oh-ho, whoa.” Summer sucked in a long, shuddering breath. “Do you feel that?”

  “No.”

  “Hey, come here. You gotta check this out.”

  “Summer, this place has obviously been down here for a really long time. You think whoever built this place put a weird crystal on a pedestal because they wanted whoever found it to walk on by and snatch it up?”

  The new girl turned over her shoulder and studied Amanda. “You’re right. Better check for wards first.”

  “That’s not what I meant…”

  Summer raised both hands toward the purple crystal while muttering a spell under her breath. A faint light illuminated in her outstretched palms, but nothing else happened. She grinned. “Nothing. Looks like that rips your theory to shreds.”

  “What?”

  “Nobody’s coming back for this thing. It’s been down here forever, and I’m pretty sure we’re the first ones to find it after it was so nicely put on display.”

  “Summer…”

  “No, for real. No wards. No protection charms. Whoever put it here wasn’t trying to keep it here or warn anyone else away, either.”

  Amanda waded slowly through the water toward the pedestal. “Except for the fact that they built a temple underground.”

  “Please. Ever heard of Atlantis?”

  “Oh, so you know that one.”

  “Everyone knows that one. Atlanteans exist.”

  “Not the way humans talk about them in stories,” Amanda muttered. When she got within four feet of the pedestal, she stopped, her breath hitching in her throat. Powerful, thrumming energy rippled across her skin—like the tingling before she shifted but a hundred times stronger. And warm.

  “There you go. You feel it now, don’t you?”

  She couldn’t stop staring at the glowing purple stone sitting there, waiting for anyone to grab it up. “What is that thing?”

  “No idea. Whatever it is, it’s got some kinda crazy-awesome power. I know you feel it.” Summer tossed her bangs out of her eyes. “Go ahead. Take it.”

  “What? No. You’re the one who blew a hole in the ground. You take it.”

  “Pssh. Chicken.” Summer snatched up the stone and hissed, her eyes growing wide.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  The new girl turned slowly toward Amanda with a blank stare, and her lips trembled as her mouth opened.

  “Summer?”

  “Ha!” Summer grinned and tossed the crystal in the air before catching it with an echoing smack in her fist. “Gotcha. Man, you looked like you were about to piss yourself, shifter kid.”

  Amanda puffed out a sigh and rolled her eyes. “You’re the worst.”

  “Nah, I’d say we’re tied at this point. You want it?”

  “Uh-uh.” Despite her answer, Amanda couldn’t stop staring at the dark purple glow emanating from the other girl’s closed hand.

  “Suit yourself. I know a few guys who can probably tell me what this thing is.” Summer slid her backpack off one shoulder and tucked the stone inside.

  “In the Everglades? I thought you were from Virginia.”

  “I mean, that’s the last place I was before they shipped me off on the Starbucks train to this sweaty armpit.”

  “The what train?”

  Summer let out a low whistle. “For someone who knows how to slip through wards and into a different skin, you sure are clueless; you know that?”

  She’s making as much sense now as when she tried to explain that stupid loophole game. Or whatever it’s called.

  “Well. Guess we should head back up to the surface, right? Hopefully, I didn’t miss any boobytraps, but just in case. You know.” Summer shrugged. “Don’t want the whole thing falling on our heads, right?”

  Amanda turned quickly and scanned the cavern’s walls as she waded back toward the mouth of the tunnel. They looked sturdy enough. That didn’t mean much, and she didn’t trust Summer not to screw anything else up while they were still here. So she booked it back down the tunnel toward the crater’s mouth.

  “Hey, wait up!” A shudder ran through the walls at Summer’s shout, dislodging a clod of dirt from the ceiling. It splashed into the pool, and she grimaced. “Right. Quiet. Shifter girl. Hey. The light’s back here.”

  “Shifter girl with shifter vision.” Amanda’s voice echoed from the mouth of the tunnel. “Thought you would’ve put two and two together by now.”

  Summer chuckled and stepped up onto the tunnel platform. “You got a hell of an attitude on you. I like it.”

  “Whatever. I wanna get out of here and get back to bed.”

  The second Summer Flannerty’s fingers closed around the purple crystal in the underground temple, a low moan swept across the swamp above the girls. Trees bent in the gust of wind moving toward the island from the north, south, east, and west. The swampy waters of the Everglades moved inward with deep, thick ripples, startling sleeping reptiles from their nests when it sprayed up into their faces. A gator hissed and slithered on its thick, scaly legs into the shelter of a stand of cattail reeds.

  The moan grew louder, stretching toward the nexus of its force. Its power. When the windy gust hit the invisible warded boundary of the Academy of Necessary Magic, a blaze of purple light erupted in the air. It crackled and hissed, fighting back against the presence swarming toward the island and the temple built beneath it.

  Sparks flew. The wind kicked up again, howling with a voice not quite like the wind and not quite living—a voice belonging to something entirely different.

  The presence burst through the confines of the Academy’s wards with a deafening crack and sent a crackling flash of purple light zipping around the campus perimeter. If the school had any electricity running through the northernmost tip of the property, it would have shorted beneath the energy surge. Instead, the thick spray of purple sparks hit the soggy ground, the mud, the swamp water, and fizzled out with hiss after loud hiss.

  The wind died. The howling faded. The presence searched anew for what was never someone else’s to take.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So here’s the thing,” Summer casually said as she waited for Amanda to get high enough toward the surface so she could start climbing herself. “If you say anything to anyone about any of this, your ass’ll be as toasty as mine. Yeah, I know, I’m the one who blasted this awesome hole in the ground. You’re the one who went running around on four legs in the middle of the night. Pretty sure we’re breaking the same rules. So think about that before you go all goody-two-shoes on me again.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes and reached for the next handhold.

  After this, there’s gonna be a new rule about not blowing up the swamp to steal from ancient ruins underground.

  “Hey, shifter girl. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I heard you. I already told you once I’m not gonna say anything. Quit worrying about it.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried.” Summer grunted as she pulled herself higher. “I’m making sure we’re on the same page. You know, so you don’t keep thinking you’re better than me.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  Mostly.

  Amanda pulled herself up over the edge of the crater and crawled away before standing.

  “Good. Because I’ll tell you right now, you’re not. Just because you’re, like, an eight-year-old freshman who wants to be at this dumbass school for whatever reason doesn’t make you magic’s gift to Earth or anything.”

  “Oh, jeeze. Just stop. And I’m not eight.”

  “Oka
y. Well, how old are you, anyway? Nine?”

  Amanda brushed the dirt and mud off her borrowed sweats and straightened. “I’m—”

  She was about to say she wasn’t going to talk about her age because it didn’t matter. Instead, what she found on the island when she looked up through the semi-darkness beneath the waxing moon and the Everglades starlight made her freeze.

  “You’re what, shifter girl?”

  “Shit.”

  Summer snorted as she hauled herself up over the edge of the crater. “Oh, come on. I wasn’t trying to beat your ego down that hard. Christ, you’re sensitive—oh.”

  The new girl stopped too because now they were both staring at Principal Glasket with her hands on her hips, Mr. Petrov with his arms folded, and Mrs. Zimmer tossing what looked like a clear glass ball over and over in her hand. All three of them scowled at the girls, and Glasket raised an eyebrow as she looked Summer up and down. “I should’ve known it was you the second I smelled smoke.”

  “Whoops.” Summer shrugged. “Got me.”

  “Miss Flannerty, I thought I’d made myself clear when I told you we operate much differently here at the Academy. You apparently chose not to take that to heart.” Glasket scanned the crater beside the new girl. Then her gaze fell pointedly on what remained of the weird black bricks Summer had used to fuel the explosion. “I’m starting to think you aren’t capable of understanding the dangers in detonating active explosives on school property.”

  Although she didn’t exactly yell, the principal’s last words came out as a sharp bark. Beneath the light orb one of the teachers had summoned, Amanda clearly saw the flush in Glasket’s cheeks and the vein standing out on her usually smooth forehead.

  Summer folded her arms. “Is that gonna be a problem here too? ’Cause it’s not like you have anywhere else to send me. This place is the bottom of the barrel.”

  “We didn’t expect you to become a model student overnight,” Mrs. Zimmer added, still tossing her glass ball. “Still, it’s definitely a problem when you add breaking and entering and theft of school property to your already long list of violations. Do you have any idea what kind of damage you could’ve done with those reagents?”

  “Uh…yeah.” Summer snorted. “Why do you think I took them?”

  Zimmer slowly licked her lips before pressing them tightly together and glancing at the rubble of black bricks before returning her stern gaze to the new girl. “Then we have an even bigger problem.”

  “Miss Coulier,” Glasket barked. “This behavior isn’t out of character for Miss Flannerty, but I can’t wrap my head around why you’re here. Care to explain that one?”

  Amanda blinked at the principal. I knew this was gonna happen. Should’ve just gone back to the dorm. “I—”

  “She was trying to stop me,” Summer said.

  “Trying to stop you.” Glasket tilted her head and glowered at the new girl. “How so?”

  Amanda couldn’t help but stare at the other girl with wide eyes. I did not see that coming.

  Summer shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? I mean, here I was, minding my business—”

  “You stole highly volatile alchemical explosives,” Zimmer interjected.

  “Yeah, we covered that. Like I said, minding my business. Then this little twerp shows up trying to be some kinda big hero, telling me not to blow up this fun little island just ’cause she didn’t want me to get in trouble or some shit. I don’t know.”

  “Language, Miss Flannerty.”

  “Whatever. Hey, it’s not like she actually could’ve stopped me. Look at her.” Everyone turned toward Amanda, who stood frozen now with her eyes wide and a hot flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks again. “Okay, to be fair, those clothes make her look a lot bigger. But she’s scrawny as hell. Tried to nag me into submission the whole time. But she didn’t have shit to do with this hole.”

  Principal Glasket blinked quickly and stuck her hands back on her hips. “Is this true?”

  “I mean…”

  “Of course it’s true. Come on, Glasket. Would I lie to you?” Summer’s grin faded when the principal fixed her with a disdainful glare. “Yeah, I blow shit up. I don’t lie about it.”

  “Fine. Miss Coulier had nothing to do with the explosion.”

  Mrs. Zimmer turned toward the principal and whispered, “Gladys, I don’t think—”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Zimmer.” Glasket didn’t take her eyes off the girls. “I see no reason why Miss Flannerty would lie through her teeth to help another student. Even when there’s nothing she can say to help herself.”

  Summer rolled her eyes.

  “However benign Miss Coulier’s intentions were, she’s still out of the dorms after Lights Out. Which, as I’m sure you’re both aware, is a direct violation of school rules. So you’re both getting detention.”

  “Seriously?” Summer gestured at Amanda. “You’re gonna make this runt sit in an empty room with me so we can claw our eyes out in boredom together?”

  “She broke the rules as much as you did, Miss Flannerty.” Glasket’s tight-lipped smile showed the first hint of pleasure on the woman’s face since she and the other teachers had shown up here. “I told you the Academy is different, and I meant it.”

  “Great,” Summer muttered.

  “You won’t be spending detention in an empty room although you’ll probably still want to claw your eyes out at the end of it.” Principal Glasket stepped aside and pointed down the island's slope toward the main part of the campus, where the outlines of the low stone buildings were barely visible against the backdrop of the star-studded sky. “You’re going straight to your rooms and will report to Mr. Petrov first thing in the morning. Five o’clock.”

  Mr. Petrov chuckled darkly.

  Summer’s eyes bulged from her head. “You’re insane.”

  “You’re out of line. Move it.”

  “Yeah, good luck trying to whip me up out of bed that early.”

  “Miss Flannerty, I told you when you got here that there are other ways of getting into your room without a key. Don’t assume we can’t force you out of sleep without ever having to step through your door. Go.”

  Glasket and Summer each held their own in an anger-fueled staring contest until Amanda finally tugged on the new girl’s backpack and muttered, “Let’s go. This is pointless.”

  “You got that right.” Rolling her eyes, Summer let her new pseudo-friend lead her down the other side of the sloping island berm toward the swamp, which was still relatively shallow from here back to the shore of the campus’ central grounds. “She thinks she’s so fucking great. Running a school for the trash everyone else wants to throw away. This whole place and everyone in it can kiss my ass. Except for you, shifter girl. You’re kind of okay. I guess.”

  Amanda ignored the warm swamp water leeching up the legs of her borrowed sweatpants although she couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy the feel of the silty, occasionally slimy swamp bed beneath her bare feet. Right now, she wasn’t thinking about any of it.

  She turned her head toward Summer and studied the girl’s profile in the low light.

  “What?” Summer tossed her black bangs out of her eyes again. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Well, stop. You’re making my skin crawl.” Despite her attempt at forcing a creeped-out grimace and shudder, the girl couldn’t hide her thick swallow.

  She knows exactly what I’m about to ask. So just ask.

  “So…” Amanda stared straight ahead again, thinking that would make the new girl more likely to answer. “Who threw you away?”

  Summer cleared her throat. “Fuck off, shifter girl.”

  “Okay, then.”

  The new girl shot Amanda a sideways glance, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a tiny smile. “You’re cool. Not that cool. I don’t need another shrink.”

  “Got it.”

  Well, at least I know what buttons not to p
ush until I really want something.

  The teachers’ low, muttered conversation filtered behind the girls as they were loosely escorted back onto the grounds and toward the girls’ dorm. Amanda could still feel the thrumming energy of that weird purple crystal inside Summer’s backpack. Neither of them said a word about it.

  Because if we did, we’d be in a lot more trouble. Detention for sneaking out is enough.

  Almost as if the other girl had read her mind, Summer glanced over her shoulder at the teachers glaring at them, then leaned toward Amanda and muttered, “You have any idea what this whole detention thing’s supposed to be if we’re not locked up in a room?”

  Amanda wrinkled her nose. “Nobody told you about that?”

  “Come on. Why would I ask you if I knew?”

  “Yeah. At the Academy of Necessary Magic, AKA Bounty Hunter School…detention means hard labor.”

  Summer puffed out a sigh and looked straight ahead again. “Of course it does.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was still dark at 5:15 a.m. when Amanda and Summer stood outside the training arena behind Mr. Petrov’s low, square building on the southeast side of campus. Amanda turned to watch a furious-looking Mrs. Zimmer storming back toward the central field and wherever she was going this early in the morning. The Alchemy teacher had shown up on the third floor of the girls’ dorm to personally escort them out here with a command to wait for Mr. Petrov.

  “This sucks.” Summer’s mouth gaped in a wide, groaning yawn she didn’t bother to cover up.

  Of course, when she saw it, Amanda couldn’t help but do the same. Then she smacked the other girl’s arm with the back of a hand. “Cut it out.”

  “I can’t help it. Jesus, it’s like you’re living in another world over there. We both got the same amount of sleep. What was it? Like, five hours?”

  “Try four. Or three and a half.”

  With a groan, Summer slowly rubbed her hands down her cheeks and rapidly blinked away the tears from her yawn. “And it’s Saturday. These people are nuts.”