by LJ Swallow
The oversized animals circle the perimeter of the seats and stage, penning everybody in apart from one small exit between two bears. They’ve blocked off the route to the marquee, which shifters tear apart attempting to find those who ran for cover when the way was open.
“Omigod,” I say, finally finding my voice. “They can’t go inside the academy.”
Professor O’Reilly doesn’t move, gaping at the scene in front of him. He knew nothing. I blink as Garrett drags Theodora from the stage, closely followed by Professor Turlington. Where the hell is she going? Sofia remains, her body trembling as she lifts her arms and mumbles an incantation beneath her breath. She conjures and throws an ice lance at Vincent, who sneers as he deftly catches and tosses it back at her. Sofia screams as the ice pierces her shoulder, fingers sliding against the ice as she tries to pull the lance out of her flesh.
Behind me, a fight breaks out between Petrescu and Gilgamesh and I look in horror at how many have transformed into animals. They chase screaming witches from their seats and funnel them through the gap between the bears. An eagle swoops down and attacks Kailey’s head, and she runs faster, gripping a friend’s hand.
The hysteria continues as panicked students from Petrescu and Walcott shove each other out of the way, some knocked to the ground as they run from the scene, ducking and diving away from the attack. Most Petrescu escape, as their natural speed outmatches witches, but some are caught by wolves landing on their backs. My horror grows as students are dragged away into the dark.
I’m paralysed by indecision as I remain seated, gripping the metal chair frame. Do I attack Vincent? But how? He has no mind to control.
Sofia runs towards the fleeing students and stands with her back to them, lifting her hands to create a wall of ice. Wolves yelp as they bounce back and the bears slam against the barrier, but she can’t stop the shifted eagles with wingspans twice that of any I’ve ever seen. They fly high above the stage, and three circle Sofia’s head before bearing down on her.
Her scream falls into silence.
People are dying. I struggle to my feet and grab Jamie’s hand. Ash? It’s impossible to locate anybody amongst the upturned chairs and havoc. I hold my other hand over my mouth as I move through the midst of the carnage. Bodies lie on the ground at my feet and I trip over them, shoved from side to side by others making a break for freedom. Jamie attempts to block anybody from touching me, but even he struggles.
“Where’s Ash?” I pant out, finding the strength to shove my way through.
“We need to stop everybody from running into the building,” he calls.
“But where can we tell them to go?” I point at where some students flee across the grounds towards the woods instead of the academy, pursued by wolves calling to each other.
The students are sport.
Bile rises in my throat as I’m half-pushed in the direction of the academy. “Why didn’t I see this?” I ask, eyes pricking with tears. “I only saw the massacre inside.”
Jamie grabs my hand to pull me onwards. “You don’t see everything in the future, Maeve.”
“But death. I could’ve stopped this,” I choke.
“Maybe what you do tonight saves more lives,” he calls back.
Students scurry into the main academy entrance like ants running away from feet ready to squash them. “Don’t go in there!” I call.
“And go where?” shouts Yvette. “Stay outside and be ripped to pieces?”
Either side of me, Petrescu kids effortlessly clamber up the sides of the building, some blending into the dark beneath eaves or climbing up to the roof. An eagle drops from above me and lands to the left of the stairs, huge wings spread two metres either side and its neck broken.
Why didn’t I see this?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” says a girl beside her in a stupefied voice. “I can’t believe this. I can’t bel—"
Yvette grabs her hand, but they both stumble as a wolf pounces from the dark and knocks the two girls to the ground. A girl’s scream curdles my blood as the monstrous creature bears down on them.
Somebody leaps from the eaves above and lands on the shifter’s back. The animal’s head snaps back with a sickening crack and Andrei drags the wolf from the girls. I fight vomiting as I stare down at the animal, neck broken and blood on his muzzle. Glazed yellow eyes stare back at me and I turn my head from the dead shifter.
In an instant, I crouch down by Yvette, who cowers with her bloodied hands over her head. As I pull off my blazer to wrap around her, a second vampire lands beside us and squats down. Her blonde hair falls forward over Yvette and her friend.
Katherine.
“Don’t go inside!” I tell them all. “Please.”
Katherine grabs Yvette under the arms. “Jade! Get down here. Help these witches.”
Students continue to jostle as they stream around us and I clutch at some sleeves telling them to stop. Nobody listens.
Andrei roughly pulls me to him. “Maeve.” I blink around at him and fearful eyes meet mine. “She’s here. Gabriella is here.”
Chapter Sixty-One
ASH
I’m no future-sighted witch, but I should’ve predicted this.
But how? I never realised Vincent’s roots had spread this far.
Why didn’t anybody listen to me? I understand Theodora’s distraction channelled her away from the less violent conflict between Gilgamesh and the others, but Professor O’Reilly promised he’d speak to the council. I trusted him. I’ve always trusted him. Is he complicit? The guy shouts at his students to stop what they’re doing, but he’s drowned out by the screams and animal noises. No. He’d never advocate murder outside of war. The Dominion cut short his military career; he’d never work with them.
Who did this?
So many fucking questions.
I lose sight of the others, distracted by the shocking sight of Gilgamesh students shifting into animals around me. Others don’t shift but run with the witches and vamps towards the building. Not all these kids associate with Clive and the others. Sure, some are old enough to shift now, but why would they do this? What the hell happened?
Maeve’s voice calls out close by, telling people to stay out of the academy. She’s obscured by a fight beside me, but I can see Jamie’s tall figure right beside her.
Andrei and Tobias weren’t at the assembly. Where are they? Are they safe?
My head throbs as a subtle change begins inside my body. I recognise the rush of a power that digs into my mind and weaves around my human soul as the horror pulls me towards an instinct to act. Clive and Remi’s bodies have taken on mid-like traits from shifting too soon; they’re lucky they managed to shift back at all.
Was their first time the night on the moors with Vince?
I stand with both hands on my head, unable to react to the carnage happening around me. Who do I reach out to first? I don’t know which students are injured or which are alive.
I’m overwhelmed by the stench of fear, and the anger I’m trying to subside mounts.
A hemia vamp—Arek—launches himself at the wolf I know is Remi and I turn away. He may not be in human form, but I don’t want to see him torn apart by a vampire. Shit. No. Do something. But when I look back, Remi and Seamus are hidden in a scrum of animals.
I’m powerless unless I open up to myself, but I’m torn. I need to be Ash to help Maeve, because I don’t know enough about my dragon form to control what I’ll become. Only my dragon could match Vince’s, but my instinct tells me Vince won’t shift. He’s here to lead an army.
An army created by the Dominion.
Shifter or not, this stops. Now. Blinded by sickness and fury, I dodge my way through the battle then leap onto the dais, slamming straight into Vince as I land. This man looks and smells exactly like my brother, but he can’t be.
“Tell them to stop!” I yell as I shove him in the chest.
Caught off guard, he staggers momentarily before swinging a fist at my
head. I duck and snatch hold, bearing down on him as his wrist bone crushes in my hand.
Vince arches a brow. “When did you get so strong, little brother?” he says with a laugh. “Did you accept the truth at last?”
“I’m almost of age. I can match you,” I growl back. “And I’m not your brother.”
“You won’t match me if I shift,” he sneers.
“You won’t shift.”
He drags his hand from mine and his eyes glint as we stand off. “Confident, aren’t you?” Vince balls his fist and smashes into my ribs, and I fight crying out before I sprawl to the floor with pain burning my chest. “Whoops. Did I break something?”
“Fuck you,” I say through gritted teeth.
Vince moistens his lips and leans over me. “I’ll break more than that. Where’s the witch whore?”
Ignoring the agony, I spring to my feet and draw back my fist. “Are you angry?” He wriggles his fingers and nods at my hand. Bewildered, I look down. Scales spread across the skin, multiplying as I stare, and energy surges along my arm, pushing my fingers into a different shape. Clawed. “Show me who you are, Ash.”
“Touch Maeve and I’ll rip your fucking head off,” I warn. His sneer… Bone crunches as my knuckles collide with his nose, but Vince doesn’t blink.
“Don’t stress, Ashley. I was told not to kill her.”
“Told by who?”
His tongue darts out and he licks blood from beneath his nose. “A friend.”
“You mean whoever controls you.”
We face off, each waiting for the other to make the next move, and the shifter energy spreads through my veins, reaching every cell, pushing me to take on a different form and end this creature.
“You’re the one controlled. The establishment keep their foot on your neck and push you down as they try to keep up the witch and vampire supremacy over us,” he shouts.
“You’re a necromancer’s creation, Vince. You’re the one under someone’s control!”
“Everybody is under somebody’s control, Ash,” he says harshly.
“By a witch! You hate witches!”
Vince frowns for a moment and holds his temples. “No. Maurice on the shifter council. He wants this.”
Vince believes he’s still alive.
“This is the Blackwoods and Dominion,” I shout back. “Think. Remember.”
He shakes his head as if trying to dislodge something, then in a heartbeat he catches me in a headlock. Turning me to hold my back against his chest, he whispers, “He who hesitates is lost, Ashley.” I instinctively pull at his grip, but my hands look like somebody else’s. Something else’s. “If I told the witch I intended to kill you, would she come to me?”
“She’s gone,” I choke out.
“Abandoning you for the others,” he goads. “Always at the bottom of her priority list, aren’t you? They exclude you.”
I grit my teeth and claw at his fingers. “Not true. She has something more important to do.”
Hot breath pants in my ear. “So do I, and you’re getting in my way.” The cacophony of terror around me fades as Vince’s massive forearm tightens against my windpipe. “I can’t have another dragon to compete with.” I choke for breath as he squeezes me towards unconsciousness.
But is he sending me to unconsciousness or death?
As I pull against his fingers, my strength ebbs away and I’ll die with regret that I chose not to shift. Dark spots float across my vision and self-preservation kicks into gear.
I buck against Vince, shouting out in a voice closer to a deep roar, as the dragon reaches the primal part of my brain. I’ve no choice if I want to survive. I roar and smack my head back against Vince’s, barely feeling the touch. The arm around my neck loosens and Vince’s yell half-deafens me as he stumbles back, hand to his broken nose.
I drop to the floor on my backside, struggling to breathe through my squashed windpipe. Gold scales cover my hands, spreading beneath my sleeves and along my arm. I’m distant as I stare down at how I don’t quite have hands anymore, my fingers misshapen and nails now talons as keen as knives.
Enough.
The word screams through my mind as I stand to face Vincent. The dark night is brighter, everything clearer as all my senses sharpen. A rumbling above explodes into a storm, and sudden, heavy rain lashes against my face, shocking me back to reality. The deluge spins into a waterspout that rushes through the battle; some are pushed backwards by the wind and water, and others cower, unable to see or move through the driving rain.
The water pours into my eyes until I’m momentarily blinded. My head jerks forward as two hands close around my neck, Vince pressing harder than the grip earlier. I blink away the water and stare at a creature with vacant eyes on mine, obeying commands, determined to kill me.
Enough.
He hasn’t shifted.
I’m enough.
I tear his hands away, my talons slashing through his skin to the bone. This time Vince doesn’t yell, but stumbles back, unflinching. His arms drop by his side and blood from his lacerated arms drips into the water puddling beneath our feet.
He smiles. Mocking me again, the way he has over and over since he walked into my life.
The dragon winds around my mind and takes over my body; I launch myself forward and knock the evil bastard to the ground. He shouts out in triumph about what he’s achieved tonight, and blood coats his face, misshapen from my attack and he spits in my face.
“Kill me,” he rasps out. “Kill your brother, Ash.”
“You’re not my brother!” I’ve said the words before, and this time I shout them, my voice cracking through the storm like thunder.
I can’t see the massacre behind me anymore, but image after image from before flits in front of eyes. Students are dying. There’s no hesitation in my mind as the dragon bursts through and takes over. I claw into Vince’s flesh, and in my crazed state, I barely register the instinctive attack or hear the sound of flesh and bone ripped apart.
The only thing that stays with me is the mocking smile that remains on his face until he takes his last, gurgling breath.
I breathe heavily, bloodied hands placed in the puddles surrounding us as I pointlessly try to suck calm into my fired-up body. Turning my head, I stare into the maelstrom whipping around. Amelia’s tiny figure stands where Clive and Vince sat earlier, arms stretched upwards and the rain falling around her as if she’s in a bubble. The whirlwind of water reaches her and soars upwards to rejoin the heavy, black cloud. Lightning sparks, momentarily illuminating the grey, and some wolves flee with tails between their legs at the thunder crash.
A different ache takes hold, my head pounding with the unleashed fury, heart battering against my ribs. Maeve. Nothing matters now apart from finding Maeve, and I’ll separate heads from the bodies of anyone who tries to stop me.
Chapter Sixty-Two
MAEVE
The mayhem and confusion around fades as the world retreats to a place where I can only hear my breathing and heartbeat.
“Where’s Gabriella?” comes Jamie’s voice from beside me. “With Vincent?”
My heart skips a beat. “Where is she, Andrei?”
“Petrescu. Anastasia is with her. I’d stayed behind because I couldn’t face the bullshit thrown at me by the students and academy. I was in my room and I heard the yelling—I couldn’t see what was happening from Petrescu, so I left the building, I saw them walking across the grounds to Petrescu.” Andrei gestures around him. “Where the hell are all the guards? What’s happening?”
“Vincent.”
His face pales. “What?”
“A fucking distraction,” says Jamie. “Every guard on campus is in the middle of the situation; everyone’s focused on stopping him and the other shifters. We knew the Dominion were connected to Vince and this is why. Vince didn’t create an army—they did. One to take down the academy while Gabriella and Anastasia waltzed in.”
My stomach twists into a tight knot. “V
ince told everybody to get into the academy building. The grounds are surrounded by shifters. We need to get into the tunnels and stop them.” I pant out. “Where’s Tobias?”
“By the entrance.”
I saw the fire. The screaming. “Somebody stay with the students,” I gasp out.
The sky behind lights up and my tense body lurches with fear as a thunder crashes, momentarily drowning out the screaming. A localised storm deluges the place the students run from.
“I think Amelia might be here,” says Jamie, and his face is lit up by a second lightning flash. “Matt too—hopefully others.”
“I saw a massacre in the hall,” I say hoarsely, torn between running inside or to the tunnels. “In the vision.”
Andrei seizes my shoulders and turns me to face him. “Maeve. We stop Gabriella and Anastasia finding their way behind the wall.”
He’s right—this is how we do something. Stop the fire.
“Where’s Ash?”
“We lost him,” says Jamie.
“Lost?” I croak out. “Dead, lost?”
“No. Ash knows you’ll go to the tunnels and he’ll come to us when he can,” says Jamie.
“If he can,” says Andrei, and Jamie looks as if he’s about to punch him for his blunt pessimism. “Hang on.” Andrei holds up a hand, palm out, and steps in front of me. Over his shoulder, I see a man’s figure walking towards us, and Tobias emerges from the dark.
“What the fuck is happening?” he asks.
“Vince’s shifters are killing students,” says Jamie.
Tobias’s mouth drops open and he stares at the rainstorm. “What? How many?”
“We don’t know,” I say. “Those who escaped are hiding in the building.”
“I thought you were by the tunnel?” Andrei asks. “Watching.”
Tobias’s lips press together. “I couldn’t stay there. I thought Maeve was in danger.”
“Shit! We need to get back to the tunnels, now,” says Jamie. “Andrei says Gabriella and Anastasia entered Petrescu. I bet there’s another entrance to the tunnels.”
