Supernatural Academy: Freshman Witch

by Ingrid Seymour

  Henderson’s mouth curled up. “Disha was my first prospect to steal the cuffs, but her will is strong. Instead, she proved to be a nice distraction from my lofty goals.”

  Disha would be crushed if she knew, but then, none of us might make it out alive to tell her.

  “Enough talk!” he yelled, extending his hands. “This ends now.”

  I felt the magic gathering as Henderson turned toward me. Whirling his hands and grunting with the effort, he formed a spell and heaved it forward. A bright ball of energy zoomed in my direction.

  I held up my hands, invoking my power, but it was still blocked.

  A shape dove across my line of vision, catching the spell in the chest and falling into the water. Horror stealing over me, I watched Rowan’s lifeless form sink to the bottom of the fountain.

  “No!” I screamed.

  I dove in for him just as Answorth charged towards Henderson.

  “Rowan!” I exclaimed, slipping my hands under his arms and tugging him back to the surface.

  As Answorth and Henderson wrestled, throwing water everywhere, I leaned over Rowan in a panic. His breathing was shallow and his pulse weak. If we didn’t get help now, he’d die. I had to stop Henderson and get him to take down the water wall so that Rowan could be healed.

  Fear and anger throbbing through my body, I laid Rowan safely on the raised platform in the fountain’s center and turned toward the fight. Answorth was weakening. Henderson had him pinned and was attempting to push him under the water.

  I wondered, fleetingly, why Henderson didn’t just zap him with a spell, but then I remembered what he’d said about his magic growing thin. It must’ve taken all his power to keep the wall of water up and block everyone’s magic. That spell he’d thrown at me was what was left in his arsenal.

  So it was down to a physical fight. I could deal with that.

  I remembered the time Trey and I took on two thugs in a back alley as they tried to steal our shoes. I remembered all those days fighting just to stay alive.

  Answorth’s head plunged under the water, and Henderson growled with deep satisfaction. His face, which I had once thought of as handsome, twisted in ugly triumph.

  I hated him.

  Without thinking, I ran over and punched him in the head as hard as I could.

  Stunned, Henderson lurched back and splashed into the water.

  I shook my hand, wincing at the pain and feeling triumphant. I had knocked him out with one punch.

  Then he gripped the fountain’s outer wall and began to drag himself up. No, it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Answorth jumped up, sputtering.

  I pointed toward the fountain’s center. “Help Rowan!”

  Then I went after Henderson again.

  He reared up, blowing water out of his mouth and glaring at me.

  I held up my fists in a boxer's stance. Sure, Henderson had eighty pounds on me, but I could hold him off while Answorth tended to Rowan.

  “Come on!” I shouted.

  He hit me like a freight train. One blow crashed into my head and then another jabbed at my stomach, cutting off my air. He shoved me hard, and I tumbled into the water.

  My air gone and my head spinning, I thrashed in the foamy waves, trying to get up, but Henderson pushed me down. Strong hands held my shoulders as I fought. My lungs screamed for air. I clawed at his arms, but he was unwavering. His face hovered over me, a faint outline in the churning liquid as he watched me die.

  Limbs growing weaker, I fought for life, but it was ebbing. The world grayed. I went limp. The need to breathe was all consuming.

  A bright light appeared. The light at the end of the tunnel. I was dying. I hoped Trey would be there to meet me.

  But the light grew brighter. It wasn’t a tunnel. It was coming from my wrists.

  My bracelets. My power was back.

  I used my last bit of consciousness to use a spell to propel Henderson away.

  Go!

  His hands flew from my body as his shape disappeared.

  I was free. I lurched up, spitting water and gasping in sweet, sweet air.

  Staring around in wonder, I took everything in.

  Henderson was gone. It seemed that I had propelled him far, far away. His wall of water splashed to the ground, soaking the crowd of people who had gathered around the fountain. My eyes skipped past the faces of my classmates and teachers, all soaking wet and staring like they had no idea what they’d just witnessed.

  They stared at me and the glowing aura that burst from my bracelets and lit up the night like a lighthouse. The water around me glowed, pulsing and trembling in time with my cuffs.

  My magic was back in full force. The ring of wet teachers around the fountain probably had something to do with that, but the fight wasn’t over.

  Rowan.

  Maybe my healing spell would work now.

  Turning in the direction where I’d left him, I found Answorth folded over Rowan’s lifeless body. At first, I thought Answorth was doctoring his wounds, but then I realized, to my horror, that Answorth’s mouth was latched around Rowan’s neck.

  “No!” I screamed lurching forward, but suddenly I had no power over my legs. When I glanced down, I couldn’t see them below the water’s surface. It was as if my legs were... disintegrating.

  Within seconds, the effect traveled up the rest of my body, each inch of me disappearing into golden shimmery dust. I stared at my hand as it blew away, and then I felt nothing at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  SPRING SEMESTER

  MID MARCH

  Panicked, I patted my legs, my arms, my face. They were all there. I hadn’t really disintegrated. Oh, thank god!

  But my eyes weren’t working.

  They were in their sockets, all right, but I couldn’t see.

  Hugging myself, I took a step back and ran into something hard. I startled, leapt away, just to confirm a moment later—fingers touching the thing gingerly—that the surface behind me was a damp wall.

  A dank smell filled my nostrils, reminding me of the abandoned building Trey and I had shared.

  Where the hell am I?

  I feared I’d died and gone to hell, but the devil wouldn’t let me keep the cuffs in his domain, would he? I could feel their still-warm grip on my wrists, but I was afraid to use them to make a light, afraid to see where I was.

  My breath came out in broken wisps. A chill crawled up my arms, raising goose bumps. I could see nothing past a couple of yards, but I had the distinct feeling the space I was in was small.

  Slowly, as my eyes adjusted, my surroundings began to take shape. I could see little more than shadows, but it was better than nothing. Something big and rectangular sat in front of me. Above, about ten feet up, a round window, no bigger than a dinner plate, provided the glimpse of a black-blue sky and a tree branch, cutting through.

  Just as I started to get the courage to use my bracelets to light my surroundings, I became aware of a slight throbbing all around me. I felt it through the soles of my wet tennis shoes first, then in the air. I laid a hand on the wall and felt it there, too. I realized the slight pulse had been there all along. I’d just been too scared to notice it.

  The soft pulsing picked up to a steady beat, making me feel like I was inside a giant heart. I stared out of the small window. The tree branch seemed to move farther away, then nearer as the walls beat their still-increasing rhythm.

  Shit!

  At this rate the room was going to blow with me in it. I had to do something, figure out how to get out.

  I gathered a bit of magic and released it in a trickle, afraid to use more than that. The cuffs began to glow like a flashlight with low batteries. I raised my hands and slowly turned in a circle. In small strokes, the room took shape inside my mind.

  A large stone structure stood right in the middle of the room, its sides carved intricately with interlaced fleurs-de-lis and winged cherubs. The walls on two sides were checkered with marble slabs—some wit
h names and dates carved in them, others empty. To the back, two stone statues—robed figures with heads bowed and hands pressed together in prayer—occupied each corner. To the front, a metal door. And, like garlands, thick spider webs lined every corner.

  My blood ran cold. I was in a mausoleum. But not just any mausoleum, one that was throbbing and seemed about to blow up.

  But where? How?!

  My thoughts ran in different directions, looking for an explanation. The answer quickly came to me, though it didn’t make my situation any easier to digest.

  I had teleported.

  Rowan had said the fountain connected the academy to a network of portals all over the world. I could be anywhere.

  Hoping to gain some information that might hint at my whereabouts, I lifted a hand to one of the stacked graves to my left and read the nameplate.

  Mellette LeRoux

  Je T'aime Toujours

  4 Février 1826 - 19 Mars 1871

  Oh, my god. I was in France.

  The room throbbed again, but I ignored it and kept reading, shining the light on the other graves. The dates went up, moving from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. They were all in French at first, but they gradually changed to English, making me wonder if I was truly in France or somewhere else.

  Larry “Butch” LeRoux

  Beloved Son

  March 23 1979 - August 7 2002

  Where the hell was this?

  The walls throbbed once more. This time, the door groaned, arching inward, then outward.

  Double Shit!

  I ran to the back of the mausoleum, hid behind one of the robed statues, and doused my light.

  The room gave another huge inhale and exhale. Metal moaned, twisting, grating, until it broke with a deafening crash, the sound of collapsing stone following close behind.

  The room trembled. The statue in front of me teetered for a moment, then settled back down. My heart pounded against my chest so hard I thought it might pop through my ribs and skitter across the stone floor. I pressed deeper into the shadows, panic clawing its way up my throat.

  Silence followed. Then steps. Someone, or several someones, had entered the mausoleum. I listened intently, holding my breath.

  “Well, where the fuck is he?” a contralto female voice asked. So they spoke English here, though with a different accent than what I was used to.

  More silence and, a moment later, a frustrated sigh.

  “He better hurry up,” the same voice said.

  “What if… he failed?” a nasally, vibrating voice that I would never forget asked.

  Anger descended over me like a falling curtain in a tragic play. That voice. It had to be.

  “If he failed, I will kill him,” the woman said.

  Teeth clenched and fighting to contain my magic as it threatened to burst to the surface, I peeked around the statue to confirm with my eyes what my ears had told me.

  Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the stone coffin, waiting impatiently for someone to appear the same way that I had, stood two people: a tall woman with flowing hair and long legs clad in leather, and a man with three missing fingers, his face indistinct, not only because of the poor light, but because he was vibrating.

  I was right. It was Trey’s murderer. Smudge Face.

  I wouldn’t miss this chance.

  Cuffs blazing, I stepped out of my hiding place.

  Smudge Face and the woman took a step back, hands lifting to their brows to protect their eyes from the intense light.

  “We were starting to think you’d screwed things up again,” the woman said with contemptuous mockery.

  I pushed a hand in her direction and sent her flying out of the broken door. She probably deserved worse than that given the company she kept, but my beef was with Smudge Face.

  “What the hell, Thad?” Smudge Face asked.

  “I’m not Thad. My name is Charlie,” I said. “Did you even know that? Did you even care?”

  I lowered my hands a fraction, dimming the brilliant light so Smudge Face could see me before I took my revenge.

  “You?” he said, his face twisting with fearful surprise.

  “Yes, me. You killed my friend, and now you will pay for it.” I aimed my hands at his chest and released the energy I’d been holding back.

  It smashed into him like a white laser, lifting him a few inches off the ground. Feet dangling, his body hung like a marionette’s, limbs jerking, head lashing back and forth.

  I was killing a man, zapping the life out of him, and I felt no regret.

  Before I could finish Smudge Face, a blast of wind hit me. I slid back, my feet uselessly dragging across the floor as I went. I hit the wall with a bone-cracking impact. Air whooshed out of my lungs. I collapsed to the stone floor right after Smudge Face did.

  The woman stepped back into the mausoleum, her long, dark hair in disarray, one of her hands pointed at me as it swirled with a glowing ball of what looked like wind and water.

  She walked closer, heels clicking against stone, and loomed over me. Her magic shone between us. Her dark eyes scrutinized my face as I scrutinized hers. She was Asian. Chinese, perhaps. Her long, black hair hung over her shoulders and reached past her breasts. She wore heavy makeup, red lipstick and smoky eye shadow. She was as beautiful as any supermodel I’d ever seen on TV or magazines.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “And where is Thadeus?

  “Thadeus is dead,” I said. “I killed him.”

  I had no idea what I’d done to Henderson, but watching the way the woman’s face crumpled at the news made me wish he was truly dead. If she was with Smudge Face and Henderson, I was sure she deserved all the pain I could dish out.

  “Then you won’t live to tell another soul,” she said, casting her ball of magic right at my face.

  I had no time to think of how to defend myself, and I probably would have died, twisting in agony, if not for Aradia’s Cuffs. They came to life as soon as the threat materialized and, just as I’d done at the fountain moments ago, I dissolved into nothingness.

  I stumbled forward, sloshing water up my arms as I tried to orient myself. I’d just been in the mausoleum being attacked by Smudge Face and that woman. Now I was hip deep in ice cold water. The sounds of screaming flooded my ears and bright lights dazzled my eyes. Shading them, I tried to get my bearings.

  The fountain’s statues reared up in front of me, the stone turtle’s face staring down as if in disapproval that I’d messed up, leaving Rowan just when he’d needed me most. But I had no control. My bracelets had teleported me away, just as they’d brought me here in time to save me from that witch’s spell. Had they done that on purpose? Taken me there to show me Trey’s murderer?

  I was back, but much had changed. Glowing balls hovered like stadium lights in the night sky, creating strange shadows. Outside the fountain, on the lawn, people were everywhere—running, casting spells, and holding off crowds of students who wore pajamas and gawked at the spectacle.

  Stunned and probably in shock, my first clear thought was Rowan. I’d last seen him being attacked by Answorth, which made no sense since he’d been the one to help us with Henderson.

  Panic replacing confusion, I lurched through the water.

  “Rowan. Rowan!”

  Halfway around the fountain, I spotted a commotion that had drawn quite a crowd. People were wrestling with each other and shouting. Was that Macgregor and Dean McIntosh? Henderson must still be alive. Jumping out, I ran over, readying my cuffs.

  Nurse Taishi held Macgregor Underwood’s arms as he fought like a madman. His normally aloof demeanor had transformed into absolute fury as he tried to free himself from Taishi’s grasp.

  “I’ll kill you, you vile monster! How could you?” He foamed, lashing back and forth as he tried to get his hands on Professor Answorth.

  Answorth stood behind Dean McIntosh who was casting a protective spell between them and shouting back at Macgregor. “Now, let’s all ju
st calm down. We need clear heads to think this all through. Macgregor, stop.”

  Answorth looked as though he might pass out at any second. “I’m so sorry. He asked me to. He was dying,” he muttered, wringing his hands and glancing down. My eyes followed his gaze and spotted a body on the ground.

  Rowan!

  I ran around Dean McIntosh’s protective shield and slid to my knees beside Rowan’s still form. Placing my hand on his chest, a jolt of fear rushed through me. He was ice cold.

  Tears in my eyes, I pulled him onto my lap, trying to access my magic through my terror. But as I scanned his body for wounds, I realized his pale skin was blemish free. The cursed blue veins were completely gone.

  Then I spotted the bite marks on his throat, still dribbling blood.

  Answorth leaned down over us, looking pitiful and sunken. “He asked me to, Charlie. It was the only way to reverse the spell, and he knew it. If I hadn’t, he would have died. Henderson hit him right in the chest with a suffocation spell.”

  “What did you do?” I asked, trembling with fear and rage.

  Answorth clutched his hands together as he stared down at Rowan with pity in his bloodshot eyes.

  “It’s a curse of a different kind. To be shunned. Hated. Always having to hide. That’s why I pretended to be fae, you know. They never would have accepted me. He’ll have to leave the Academy, but at least he’s not dead. You have to give me that. I saved his life. He would have died.”

  “What did you do?!” I screamed.

  “I turned him, Charlie,” Answorth said. “I turned him into a vampire.”

  TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO, SOPHOMORE WITCH, COMING MAY 21st.

  PREORDER IT NOW.

  Sneak Peek of Sophomore Witch

  Chapter 1

  FALL SEMESTER, EARLY SEPTEMBER

  I held Rowan’s cold, lifeless body in my arms as the tears streamed down my face.

  There had to be some magic that could reverse what had just happened. I couldn’t believe he would now and forever be…