by Holly Hook
Then they might die.
Down the hall, the cafeteria doors burst open.
I spotted a locker that stood half-open, as if the owner had forgotten to close it in the rush to escape from the building. I sidestepped to it, amazed at how quiet I remained while Xavier groaned on the floor. It almost felt as if he were giving me a cover for finding a weapon. The locker held nothing but a bunch of books and a backpack that looked as if it had taken a dive into the world's biggest mud puddle. I grabbed the pack which was full of homework papers and nothing else, and settled on one of the massive Lit books.
Even though I lifted it with ease, I knew how heavy it was in Normal life. I had lugged enough of them to know.
"Give me his wrists," the female agent said.
"No!" Xavier shouted. The memory of his captivity was returning.
I rounded the corner as the male agent wrestled with Xavier's wrists and the female one readied the chains. I raised the Lit book over my head and tossed it at the guy's head as hard as I could. The book flew, spinning twice, until it hit the guy's forehead so hard that his sunglasses fell down his nose and onto the floor. Stunned, the man stumbled back into a locker with a loud bang. Scentless blood leaked from a line on his forehead, and his reddish eyes crossed as he tried to focus on me.
His skull had an indent where I'd hit him. Even as he slid down the locker and towards the floor, his bones made tiny crunching noises as his skull mended itself back together.
The woman jumped and faced me, but instinct took over. I rushed over and disarmed the guy of his taser before she could lift her hand at me. These fake agents hadn't expected me to come back into the school. Or had they? They had come for Alyssa and Xavier. It was another advantage I had.
"Oh," the guy groaned, but I lifted the taser and pointed it at the woman's chest. I fired, and the spring extended and the business end of the weapon struck her in the vest. A burning smell filled the hallway as ten thousand volts attempted to jolt the fake agent into submission.
But her vest protected her.
"Who are you?" she asked, narrowing her gaze at me. Though her glasses hid her eyes, I could see the hatred and the shock behind them.
I dropped the taser and searched for another weapon, but there was none. Xavier lifted one arm off the floor and tried to push himself up. "Janine?" he asked.
Even a god couldn't resist these weapons.
"Go help Alyssa," I said, charging the woman.
I hoped that the effects of his blood remained, and I was right. I crashed into her and the two of us backpedaled past where Xavier lay in the hall, into more lockers. She raised her hands to defend herself while I clawed at her face the best I could. I knew my fighting style was lame, but I had nothing else to go on. Behind me, Xavier attempted to get back to his feet and fell back to the floor. It took a while for anyone to recover from taser shots.
I ripped away the woman's sunglasses. Her gaze was even redder and angrier than the man's, and the depth of those eyes betrayed her advanced age. I was fighting another old vampire, and the thought made me doubt myself for a split second. She shoved me away from the wall and peeled herself from it. I stumbled over Xavier, and the two of us went down to the floor all over again.
"Get out of here," Xavier said. A charge filled the air as he tried to gather his magic. He still didn't know what he was. At least, I thought he didn't. "They're after me and Alyssa." He got into a squatting position, but he still trembled. His wood smoke scent made it seem as though we stood in a room with a bonfire.
His magic might kill us all.
Me, the fake agents, and Alyssa.
"Xavier!" I shouted.
The man blinked as his cut closed, and the woman pushed herself from the lockers. Down the hall, Alyssa screamed under another taser shot. The sound must be audible even outside.
It put Xavier over the edge.
I scrambled for an open classroom door as the air took on a scary magenta glow. Mr. Connors's door remained open, and I dove inside just as the world exploded in heat and fire.
Chapter Twelve
Crashing sounds and collapsing tiles filled my ears as I kicked the door shut behind me. The entire classroom trembled. I hit the floor, aware that the world was glowing. Outside, people screamed.
But at last, chaos died.
I opened my eyes.
Dust.
Insulation.
Destruction.
Xavier had done a number on the school.
Or at least, this part of it.
I raised my head.
Mr. Connors's classroom would not be open for business again soon, and the only reason I had survived whatever attack Xavier had done was because I had placed a concrete wall between me and him. The ceiling closest to the hallway had collapsed, leaving only the doorway open to the hall, and the door itself had blasted off its hinges and come to rest on the side of the teacher's desk. The overhead projector lay smashed underneath it from the force. Most of the ceiling tiles in the room had fallen down, but at least they were light and unable to do much damage even to Normals. I had a bunch of dust on me.
I had dove between two desks, which had also helped. Bits of yellow insulation clung to my hoodie sleeves.
The screams from the people outside had silenced. People had heard the new explosion. The rain had calmed a little. A single classroom window peered out at the parking lot, and the fake agents had pressed the crowd to move back even closer to the periphery of the parking lot. Several black vans drove to form a barrier between the students and the building. As if the rain had sensed people trying to look inside the school, it drove down harder again. What was with the weather today? I had never seen it like this.
I had to get up.
In the hallway, Xavier groaned in shock. He hadn't expected his magic to do this.
"Oh, no," he said. "Janine? Alyssa?"
Somewhere, the taser went off again. Alyssa groaned. Xavier's magic hadn't gotten to the cafeteria. I could hear the structure of the school settling nearby, but I could also detect that a few classrooms away, things were fine. The walls gave off no popping sounds and things weren't at risk of collapse.
I coughed on the dust in the air. It was thick, but I could also make out every single grain and its unique shape. "What did you do?"
"I don't know," Xavier said. "I've never had this amount of magic before. But the agents—they're dead."
I got up, using the two desks to steady myself. Even with my enhanced senses, I trembled from shock. Alyssa groaned again as if begging us to help—or begging Xavier not to use his magic again. Our secret grew bigger, ready to pop. A part of me hoped that Xavier figured it out on his own.
I ducked out of the classroom to find Xavier standing in the hallway, shaking. Lockers lay facedown all around him, and the smell of schoolbooks filled the hallway. My mind focused on that, because the smell of burned flesh also hung in the air, and it was the strongest of the two. Every tile had fallen out of the ceiling here, and on top of the two bodies that lay among the fallen lockers and homework. Even some concrete blocks had fallen out of the walls. The fake agents would not get up again.
And the state of the bodies...I would not describe that. Xavier had used his killing War Magic fire on these two, a magenta blaze capable of burning just about every type of being out there. I held down vomit, aware that if I threw up, I'd have to feed again, and I didn't want to repeat what I'd done to Principal Penguin soon.
And I was right that Xavier's power had ravaged a few classrooms. Silence had fallen near the end of the hallway which was all intact, and that meant that Alyssa had gone from struggling to listening.
Or they had already taken her away.
Xavier held his trembling hands in front of him. "The fire wasn't supposed to do this," he said. His violet eyes were wide with horror. "It's not supposed to be this destructive. I could have killed you."
I resisted the urge to slap him, to bring him back to reality. Like Xavier, I also didn't k
now my strength. I had just fought two old vampires and taken one of them down with an oversize school book.
"I'm fine," I said, sure I would never stop shaking. "We need to get to Alyssa and then you need to get us out of here."
Xavier eyed the chains on the floor, the heavy Infernal Iron ones that would prevent even him from using his magic. He had come close to becoming helpless. As far as I knew, only dragon fire could break Infernal Iron.
We left the chains behind since they were half-buried underneath some lockers. I figured that the real authorities would like to see that some of Bathory's people had impersonated them. I didn't like the ATC and had always been on the side of Abnormals, but I felt like they deserved to know what was going on. Xavier and I stepped over the last of the fallen lockers and bolted to the cafeteria entrance, which was untouched by whatever godlike magic Xavier had used by mistake. I could only imagine what he had seen.
Once we got there, we found the doors shut. Xavier and I rammed into them at the same time.
They burst open, and we found Alyssa on the ground, on her stomach, wrists bound by another set of Infernal Iron manacles. She pulled against them with no luck, and without her sword, she had no hope of breaking herself free of them. One of Alyssa's contacts had fallen out, revealing one reddish eye she trained on me. Her pupil widened in fear.
"Janine," she said. "Xavier. Run."
I didn't understand. She needed our help.
"Freeze."
A half dozen fake ATC agents standing in the cafeteria peeled themselves from the near walls.
And all six of them had tasers.
Two of them fired at me at the same time.
Another two, Xavier.
I knew tasers hurt, but I hadn't imagined that they would turn my entire universe into agony. The floor rose as I lost all control over my muscles and trembled on the floor, helpless even with god blood on my side. Time lost all meaning. I closed my eyes. Another agent placed a bag over my head and tied it tight.
Only then did the current end.
I caught my breath and opened my eyes.
A thick garment hugged my head, and I could see through it only a little to where the agents milled around in silence. Alyssa took a tense breath, and I heard volumes in it. Fear gripped her, and it wasn't just for herself but also for me and Xavier. We had walked into a trap.
Bathory had a plan for us, and we wouldn't like it.
"This one," a male agent said, nudging me with his boot. "This one fought off Edith and Lawrence. A newborn, and she fought them off. That's what Edith said."
Another agent spoke. "The Mother will want to know how she managed that."
I had a target on my back, just as Alyssa had warned.
They knew I wasn't ordinary.
And my chances of surviving this shrunk by the minute.
* * * * *
The rain continued to drive down as hard as ever as if someone in the sky above had their hand on a downpour button. Another god, maybe. I now knew they existed, at least in a physical form like Xavier. He was the only one I'd met, and not even aware of his full powers. I didn't want to imagine what an aware deity could do.
The fake ATC agents bound our wrists in chains, and I knew without pulling they'd chosen Infernal Iron for me, too. Bathory must have plenty lying around if she had been Thoreau's friend for thousands of years. The manacles were thick, and could hold anything from the most powerful demons to even gods.
The agents made me stand after that, and I struggled to see through the bag over my head. I felt like a hostage in a thriller movie. The fabric was thick and didn't allow me to make out anything beyond humanoid shapes beyond it. If my new enhanced senses weren't doing well, I could only imagine what Alyssa and Xavier were going through.
But I could still hear everything. That painted a picture in my mind almost as good as the regular old vision.
The six agents didn't speak much, but one man seemed in charge. "She won't be able to keep the rain up much longer," he said. "We need to move. Radio a van up to the closest entrance."
The rain? Someone was keeping up the rain?
Bathory?
It was no wonder a bunch of old vampires had come out to the school at lunchtime. I had never seen downpours like this in my life. Sure, Cumberland had lots of rain, but never anything severe like this.
"Bathory can't control the weather," Alyssa said. Her voice sounded muffled. She must wear her own hood.
No one responded. The only being I knew of that could make it rain was the dragon emperor, we hadn't seen him since the night the mayor tried to merge the worlds. The guy wasn't loyal to Thoreau, anyway. He wouldn't have wanted to help Bathory. Would he? It wasn't as if we ever had a conversation.
And why was I thinking of him? These fake agents were about to take us to her, and I knew she'd be interested in the changes I had experienced. It must be Xavier and his blood she wanted. More power. It was the only thing that made sense.
And revenge.
I tried to pull at the manacles, but even my new enhanced strength did zero good against the Infernal Iron. Two agents took my arms and led me out of the cafeteria. Other footsteps scraped, and I knew the same was happening to Xavier and Alyssa. Xavier said nothing, but the agents leading him shuffled along faster than the others, as if they knew how dangerous he could be.
At least, with no Infernal Iron binding him. That stuff would prevent him from doing even a magical sneeze.
I eyed the floor, pretending I couldn't see through the hood at all. A van pulled up to the double doors by the office. They were taking us in the opposite direction of the carnage and the two dead attackers underneath it. However, I was sure that these guys could see what Xavier had done. They must from the cafeteria doors.
"That smell is horrible," a woman said.
"We'll recover them as soon as these three are off," a man said. "Don't look."
"People will talk," the woman said.
"We'll recover the bodies. We knew we might have causalities today."
These fake agents had known Alyssa would call in Xavier. Maybe they planned on it. They had known he was her only escape from the school, and now he was as useless as the rest of us. We had fallen into a trap and made things worse by calling him in.
No. I had, by coming back to school and making Alyssa come with me. She should have never returned. Principal Penguin didn't know about me—just her. I would have flown under the radar. Alyssa had no chance of that.
Alyssa spoke. "Is the principal working for you?"
No one answered her question.
"Well, is he?" she asked. "And why do you have my friend coming along with us?"
Again, no one answered.
I had become interesting, and now I would pay for it. Why did I have to be the hero? If I had stayed outside of the school and waited like the good useless friend, I'd still be free, and maybe even able to get Alyssa and Xavier out of this bind. Now I had joined them on a one-way trip.
The roar of the rain intensified as one of the fake agents opened the double doors. A van backed up to the door, making a beeping noise. These weren't ATC vans at all. I had seen plenty of the real ones, and they didn't beep like industrial trucks when they backed up.
They didn't smell like them, either. The agents got down a ramp and led the three of us up, and the ramp trembled. This had once been a moving van, transporting furniture and other things that belonged in apartments. I could smell a faint lingering wood smell that had nothing to do with Xavier, and I could also smell musty slipcovers, a drained fish tank, and spray paint. There was nothing in the back of this van—not even a bench. I had been in the back of a real ATC van before, and I remembered benches. These fake agents couldn't even be professional.
Two of them sat up front. I dared to look up while the other four remained inside with the three of us. Unlike a normal ATC van, this one had no window that peered up front. It had once moved furniture. Not people.
The fake agents didn'
t have to tell us not to try anything. The rain continued to pour down, no doubt blocking everyone's view of what was going on. Maisha would search for me now, and she'd be getting worried. But even over the rain, I could hear some things going on outside.
"We have neutralized the threat," another fake agent explained to the huddled masses. "However, there is a mess inside the school, and we recommend cancelling classes for the rest of the day."
Some people cheered, but others begged to be let inside so they could get out of the rain. Somewhere, Maisha called my name. Out of all the voices, hers stuck out. There was panic in her voice.
We might never see each other again. She'd have to plan for the dance by herself.
Until now, I had been looking forward to the dance, a Normal activity. Where I was going, there would be no dances. I wondered how long it would take for my mother to figure out what had happened. She'd notice tonight between five and eight, when she got home. If she worked long hours today, and she might to make up for the work she had lost over the past few weeks, then she might not realize until later.
The fake agents rolled up the ramp with a screeching sound and closed the doors. I knew no one out there heard, and no one had seen us getting loaded into the back of the van. The rain would have blocked it out.
The van switched gears. I listened as the clunky transmission switched over. It sounded ready to puke. That was something to hope for, right?
"As you already know," a male agent said. "You cannot Transpose while in the binds of Infernal Iron."
"Why do you have my friend?" Alyssa asked. "It's me and Xavier that you want."
The man turned his attention to her. "Obviously," he said, "you feel guilt about Turning her. That's why you came to school and risked exposure. The Mother may have paid your principal well to keep an eye out for you. She knew once the without the mayor, you would try to return to Normal life."
"It wasn't a smooth transition," Xavier said. It was obvious he hadn't wanted Alyssa to come back to school.
"Janine has nothing to do with this," Alyssa said. "I'm the special one. Not her."
