Monster Academy

by Catherine Banks

  “Are you insane?” Malaria asked. “Lucifer would be so mad.”

  “No one wants to celebrate that crappy place,” the satyr female said.

  Ainsley wrote it down. “There are no wrong options when we’re brainstorming. We will write down every suggestion and then we will vote anonymously. Thank you for coming, Rathik. Please take a seat.”

  Rathik smiled at her and then shifted his tail into legs and sat at our table, facing Tsukiko.

  Tsukiko smiled at us and dipped her head.

  “Alright, any others?” Ainsley asked.

  When she finished writing everything down, she passed out pieces of paper for us to write our top three favorites on, in order, and she would tally them up.

  I wrote my choices down and folded the paper in half before placing in the center of our table. The others wrote theirs down and piled them on top of mine.

  Ainsley flitted about the room, using her wings to propel her faster, gathered all of the pages, and then went back up to the board and started writing hash marks for votes.

  When she finished, we all sat in stunned silence. Our normal theme and the human theme were tied.

  “Our next meeting is in one week,” Ainsley said. “Your homework is to write up ideas for decorations and games for both of these themes. We’ll compare and choose our favorite one from the ideas received next week.”

  Everyone started filing out, but I made my way up to Ainsley.

  “Hey, is everything alright?” I asked softly.

  She tilted her head to the side in a very birdlike gesture. “What do you mean?”

  I pointed down at her talons.

  She curled them a bit and said, “I’ve seen firsthand what humans can do to an unprepared creature. I know the likelihood of them getting onto our campus is very small, but I’d rather be prepared.”

  “I know we aren’t super close friends, Ainsley, but if you ever want to talk, I’m here,” I whispered.

  She beamed. “Thanks, Loralie. I appreciate it.”

  “So, how did things go with Antoine?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows.

  She chuckled. “We talked for a bit, but didn’t really do more than that. I did convince him to meet me tonight to talk more.”

  “Get it, girl!” I cheered her.

  She laughed and shook her head. “Get out of here, Loralie. Your friends are waiting.”

  I waved at her and jogged out of the room. Tsukiko and Rathik were talking a few feet away from Frances and the chupacabra.

  “Everything okay?” Frances asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I just wanted to check in with Ainsley.”

  Frances nodded at Tsukiko and Rathik. “He asked her to hang out tonight. She’s trying to come up with an excuse that involves us.”

  I smirked. “I got this.” I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “We’ll see you later, Tsukiko. Frances and I have plans.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she looked at Rathik before looking back at us.

  I grabbed Frances’s arm and pulled her down the hallway, waving to Tsukiko as we left.

  Frances waited until we were out of the building before doubling over in laughter, clutching at her stomach. “You’re so awful!”

  I shrugged. “She’ll thank me later.”

  “Hey, Frances,” Dante said as he walked by with a really handsome thunderbird at his side.

  “H-hi,” she stammered.

  The thunderbird met my eyes and winked.

  I was too shocked to do anything aside from stare as they went by.

  “Well, at least I’m not the only one who looked like an idiot just now,” Frances whispered.

  I grumbled at her. “I was just caught off guard. Who is that?”

  “Foreign exchange student,” Ainsley said behind me.

  I spun around and my scythe was in my hand again, aimed at Ainsley’s throat.

  Her mouth parted in shock.

  I quickly spun it away from her. “Ainsley! Do not sneak up on people like that!”

  “I did not sneak up on you. You were just too enamored with the new guy to hear me,” she said, her eyes still on the scythe.

  I tossed it away into the in-between again and sighed. “Sorry.”

  “So, I wanted to ask for a favor,” she said.

  “Oh?” I asked and arched a brow.

  “Turns out Antoine invited me to hang out with him and a few of his friends.” She kicked the grass with one of her talons. “Would you guys come with me? I don’t know for sure who is going to be there and I don’t want to go alone.”

  “No problem,” Frances said immediately. She would do almost anything for a friend, which was why I often had to stop her.

  I shrugged. “We didn’t have plans, so I’m fine with that.”

  Ainsley jumped up, her wings flapped a few times to keep her in the air, and she cheered. “You two are the bestest. Meet me in the game room at five a.m.?”

  We nodded, and she hurried off.

  “Guess we need to go eat and change now,” Frances said.

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  She looked after Ainsley. “You’re right about her. She’s different now and different even since the party. She seems...scared, but it’s more than that.”

  “Maybe it’s just the human attacks,” I suggested and shrugged. “No idea, but let’s try to help her out tonight so she can be distracted. Okay?”

  Frances nodded and smiled wide. “Operation love is under way!”

  I groaned. “Don’t call it that!”

  She laughed. “Don’t act like you hate love! Your dad married a fertility goddess, remember?”

  “Come on, time to go,” I said to change the subject.

  I did not want to talk about my step-mother. Not now. Not ever.

  Eleven

  TSUKIKO

  I stared after my despicable friends who had just abandoned me with Rathik.

  I was going to make them pay. So much payback was in store for my dear friends and they were woefully unprepared.

  “We should grab some food and then we can talk and hangout,” Rathik said.

  I nodded and followed him to the cafeteria. There were a few other students eating already and some in line, too.

  We got into line, and I decided my hands were really interesting.

  “So, do you think they’ll actually let us change the theme for prom?” He asked.

  I shrugged and sighed. “I doubt it.”

  Most creatures were super set in their ways and hated allowing new ideas or events to take place. It was really frustrating.

  “I hope they’ll let us do something different, even if we keep the same theme,” Rathik said.

  “Me, too.”

  We both piled our trays high with food and then found an empty table to sit at.

  In silence, that was mostly comfortable, we ate our food and then put our empty trays in the proper slots.

  “So, what do you have planned for tonight?” I asked.

  “A few friends wanted to get together, so I thought we could go meet up with them and hang out,” he said.

  Hangout with his friends? Where were Loralie and Frances? Did they have plans? Could I get them to meet us?

  I walked beside Rathik to the game room where some games, like air hockey and football, were available for us to play. There were also several couches and a soda machine.

  “I haven’t actually been in here yet,” I admitted.

  There were several males in the room, and only a few females, but luckily, two of the females were Loralie and Frances.

  “You two!” I growled.

  They chuckled.

  I stomped over to them with my hands on my hips. “You are both in so much trouble.”

  “Hey, Rathik,” Loralie said, smiling behind me.

  “Hey, girls,” he replied.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked.

  “We were invited to come,” Frances said. Her eyes darted to Ainsley who was chatting with
Antoine and another werewolf I didn’t know.

  “Oh, cool,” I said, my fight leaving me.

  “There’s an empty foosball table,” Rathik said. “You want to play?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, turning to smile at him.

  “You two want to play?” Rathik asked Loralie and Frances.

  “Only if we can play against you two,” Loralie said as she stood.

  “I think we can take them,” Rathik said with a smile as he looked at me.

  My smile brightened. “We totally can.”

  Frances stood. “Bring it.”

  We walked to the table, teasingly talking crap to each other the whole way and then I stood beside Rathik on our side of the table and my pulse skyrocketed. We were so close that our arms kept touching accidentally as we spun the foosball handles.

  “You two are going down,” Frances said and spun one of her handles.

  I rolled my eyes. “We all know I’m the best when it comes to hand eye coordination.”

  “Enough talk. Let’s play,” Loralie barked and dropped the mini soccer ball into the slot that rolled it onto the foosball table and started the game.

  I spun my handle, sending the figures on it in a fast spin that hit the ball and sent it across the table and towards the goal.

  Loralie spun her handle, barely managing to hit the ball back in the opposite way to deflect my near goal.

  Before I realized it, an hour had passed and Rathik and I had fallen into a partnership that required very few words and mostly movement and reaction. I hit the ball into the goal for the tenth time and threw my hands into the air.

  “Woo! We win!” I yelled.

  Rathik turned and held his hands up so I could smack mine against his. “Nice!” he cheered.

  Frances groaned. “We were so close!”

  “Not close enough,” I teased.

  “Are you thirsty?” Rathik asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll get us some drinks and meet you back at the couches,” he said and headed towards the vending machines.

  I walked between the grumbling Loralie and Frances. “Thank you.”

  They bumped their shoulders into mine and we sat down together, but with me on the outside so Rathik could sit beside me.

  “That was fun,” Frances said. “I haven’t played that game in a while.”

  Loralie nodded. “We need to get one for the mansions so we can play when we aren’t at school.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  Rathik sat down and handed me a bottle of water.

  I took it and chugged it.

  Just as I started to relax on the couch beside him, a deep howl that made even creatures run in terror sounded outside.

  I leapt up, but Rathik grabbed my arm, stopping me.

  “It’s the chupacabra,” I told him. “I have to go see what’s wrong.”

  “Don’t just run out into danger,” he scolded me.

  Loralie turned into mist and disappeared from the room.

  With Rathik a step in front of us, Frances and I moved to the exit and peeked out.

  The chupacabra who had been guarding me stood over a body with a growing pool of blood.

  I inhaled and gasped.

  Human.

  “How did a human get this far onto the grounds?” Frances asked, her hand wrapped around my upper arm and squeezing almost painfully tight.

  “Alpha coming,” the chupacabra told me. “Stay inside.”

  Loralie reformed behind us. “There were three other humans, but the guards caught all of them before they could make it onto the campus. This one was the only one who got this far.”

  “How?” I asked. “How did it get so far?”

  “Stealth technology,” the chupacabra said. “Get inside, now.”

  Rathik pushed us back and closed the door.

  “No one is leaving until we’re given the clear,” he said to the rest of the room.

  “What happened?” Ainsley asked, she and the other students coming up towards us.

  “Humans got on campus,” Loralie said. “They’ve all been killed, but we have to wait until we’re given permission to go to our rooms.”

  “Humans?” Ainsley asked, her face changing into mostly avian.

  Antoine set his hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Ainsley. I won’t let a human get near you.”

  Rathik swallowed hard and took several steps away from the door, his eyes wide.

  Had I not known the signs, I wouldn’t have understood what was going on, but Frances had had the same problem when we were toddlers.

  I reached out towards him, but suddenly his lower body turned into his serpent’s tail and his eyes turned completely snakelike. I stumbled back from him. “Rathik?”

  Loralie looked from me to Rathik and her eyes widened. “Hey, Rathik. It’s alright. We’re safe. The chupacabra got the human. There aren’t anymore.”

  “Why didn’t the chupacabra smell it?” He asked, his S’s elongated now that his tongue was forked.

  He was almost completely snake now, and I continued backing away from him, heading for the bathroom.

  “We know as much as you do,” Loralie said. Her eyes darted to me and then back to him. “You need to calm down, okay? You’re scaring people.”

  He looked towards the spot I had been and then searched the room until he found me. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak to me, I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door closed, locking it quickly.

  Slumped against the closed door, I slid to the ground, wrapped my arms around my legs, and tried to calm the hiccuping breaths now coming.

  Snake. Snake. Snake.

  Rathik was a snake.

  Snake.

  Snake.

  Snake.

  Twelve

  LORALIE

  Rathik was freaking out. Tsukiko had locked herself in the bathroom and was probably hyperventilating. The other students were scared, but so far seemed stable, aside from Ainsley, but Antoine seemed to have her under control.

  Frances met my eyes and then she walked over to the bathroom and knelt by the door, whispering through it.

  “Rathik, can you change back to your other appearance?” I asked softly.

  He slithered back and forth, pacing in front of the door. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”

  “She knows that,” I whispered. “We know that, too. It will help her if you could change back, though.”

  “Defensive,” he whispered. “This is my defensive form.”

  “We’re safe,” I reminded him. “The guard protected us like he was supposed to.”

  “Should have smelled it. Why didn’t I smell it? Was it because I wasn’t in this form? Am I hindering myself by being in that form?” He asked the questions too fast for me to answer, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t asking me anyway.

  The door opened, and I had my scythe in hand while several of the students had magic primed or claws extended.

  Tanjiro, Tsukiko’s father and the alpha of all shifters, stepped inside with a deep scowl on his face. He wore a suit and looked, for all intents and purposes, human. “Where is she?” he asked me. He looked at Rathik and then at Frances squatted by the bathroom and figured it out for himself before I could answer.

  “She’s fine,” I whispered and then quickly added, “Father.”

  He was handsome for a forty-year-old man, and he had always treated me incredibly well. He set his hand on my shoulder and said, “You can put your weapon away, Lorie. I am here now.”

  I nodded once and let my weapon disappear, trying not to let him see how relieved his presence made me.

  “Fetch her, please. She will be angry if I do it,” he whispered.

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered and hurried to the bathroom.

  “She’s embarrassed more than scared now,” Frances whispered.

  “Kiko, your father is here,” I whispered through the door.

  There was shuffling, the water ran for a minute, and then Tsukiko walked o
ut, looking fearless and ready to take on an army. She walked to her father and bowed to him. “Father.”

  He was standing between her and Rathik, blocking her view of the naga who was still in snake form. “The chupacabra will take you to the house.”

  “The house?” Tsukiko asked, her eyes wide.

  He nodded. “Just until we figure out how they got onto campus.”

  “My friends—”

  “The three of you will go,” he said and smiled warmly. “I know better than to try to separate my triplets.”

  Frances and I bowed to him. “Thank you, Father.”

  He patted us each on the head and shooed us outside.

  The body and blood were gone and a new chupacabra waited for us. This one had black fur and was more muscular than the previous one.

  “This way, Princesses,” the chupacabra said in a surprisingly clear voice.

  Reluctantly, we followed him to a waiting limousine and climbed inside.

  Tsukiko glanced back towards the room, her sadness palpable.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered and squeezed her hand.

  She sniffed. “I made such a fool of myself.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Frances reassured her and squeezed her other hand.

  “I might as well never talk to him again,” she muttered and threw her head back with closed eyes. “It’s probably for the best. It would never work.”

  I didn’t argue with her because I wasn’t sure she was wrong.

  We rode in silence until we reached the mansion and then we headed to Tsukiko’s room.

  Since we spent so much time together, all of our rooms had three beds in them so we could stay the night together.

  We also had several pairs of clothes stashed in each of the rooms which got updated as we grew and needed different sizes.

  Sitting down on our beds, we all stared vacantly at the ground.

  Humans. Humans had gotten onto the academy grounds and almost made it to the game room where we were.

  How?

  Was it just their stealth technology?

  But the chupacabra should have been able to smell them. They should have been able to smell them miles away from the school grounds.

  But they had gotten past the barriers and onto campus without being detected.