“Sure, whatever you say, little bird,” Puck says, stretching his arms up over his head and kicking his feet out into the aisle as Professor Hardbloom finally arrives. “But if you do start taking bids for dates, do let me know.”
I blush and try, unsuccessfully, to kick his chair out from under him. He still shifts forward in his seat, knocking his books off the desk and earning himself a stern talking-to. I laugh a bit under my breath, and a weight lifts off my shoulders.
It’s impossible to feel down with Puck around. He might be bad news, but at least he’ll keep things interesting over the next couple of weeks. And I’ll admit, I was kind of missing him and his crazy shenanigans. Mostly the shenanigans, of course.
After all, even if he does live a world away, I still do have a boyfriend.
As much as I’m anxious to get to All Hallows’ Eve, I still have to make sure I don’t flunk out before then.
We have our first tests scheduled for the week leading up to it, and while I’m fairly certain I’ll pass most subjects, summoning isn’t one of them. Somehow I’ve managed to get all the way up to the weekend before without ever once getting my demon to come out of its jar.
The real miracle is that in all this time, I never get caught. Every time Professor Young asks me to do some kind of demonstration, I’ve managed to come up with an excuse that gets me out of it. Usually I just shout something about tampons or periods and he just quickly shuffles away.
I doubt that excuse will hold up on a test, but if it comes down to it . . . I’m not too proud to try.
We’re not the only ones on campus over the weekend preparing. While I’ve spent most of the last couple Saturdays alone, aside from the occasional visit by Puck or Nicholas, the library and study halls are practically packed with witches for the first time since school started. Even Veronica can be seen frantically flipping pages in one of her textbooks with a deep line between her eyebrows, much to my delight.
Since neither of the boys have any trouble with their demons, I’m the only one laying on the floor of an empty basement classroom, trying to coax something out of my jar. I’ve used everything from money, to food, to alcohol, but nothing so far has even hinted that the jar is anything but empty.
Nicholas sits at a nearby table, carefully stirring a color-changing potion with medical precision. It’s supposed to turn an object blue when dipped inside, but the last pen he tested it on just melted. The time before that, it disappeared. It doesn’t help that Puck keeps offering him terrible advice, all while sitting upside down with his feet up on the table, reading an account of the Great Witch Slaughter of 1918 aloud.
“. . . nearly three-thousand witches were killed in the battle, mostly due to a backfiring spell cast by Warlock Heston, head of the Highborne Coalition.”
“Hold on, stop there,” I say, happy for a chance to abandon my nonexistent demon. I sit up and scoot closer to Puck to read the passage for myself. “I thought it was a Dark Witch who cast the spell.”
“Nope,” Puck says, pointing out the next paragraph. “Here it says Heston tried an experimental spell that was supposed to make all the Dark Witch’s curses backfire. But he just ended up doing it to his own army.”
I take the book out of his hands and read it for myself. This is nothing like what we were taught in school.
“That has to be wrong,” I say, flipping through a couple more pages before handing the book back. “Anyway, wouldn’t that sort of spell be a curse? Highborne Witches are forbidden to cast curses.”
“War’s got that effect on people,” Puck says. “Makes them do things they otherwise wouldn’t.”
I glance up at Nicholas, who’s frowning into the steam of his cauldron. “Is that what you believe?” I ask. “That most of the deaths in that war were because of the Highborne Witches?”
Nicholas glances my way. “I mean . . . I guess it’s gonna depend on who wrote the book, right?”
I never thought of that. I look down at my hands in my lap. I’ve always been told one version of the history that led up to witches splitting into our two distinct sects. I guess I never thought there might be another side to the story. It seems so stupid now.
“Well it doesn’t matter,” Puck says, flipping the book back to where he left off. “It’s all political nonsense anyway. All you have to do is memorize it for the test. You don’t have to believe it.”
“Sure,” I say, scooting back across the floor to my jar. “If you say so.”
As much as I try to coax a demon out of my jar, the next week creeps ever closer without a smidge of progress. The rest of our tests go alright. I manage to do a passable levitation spell in our basics class, and even get good marks in history of the dark arts.
Professor Hardbloom makes sure to pull me aside, however, and tells me he had to take off some points for the obvious bias displayed in my essay on how Witch Law discriminates unfairly against Dark Witches.
“You’re a Dark Witch now too,” he reminds me. “Don’t let your past prejudices keep you from seeing the truth.”
I nod along and promise I’ll do better, but I’m barely paying attention. None of that matters if I can’t pass my summoning class—which at the current rate I’m going, is basically a guarantee.
I wonder what’ll happen if I fail. Will they just kick me out right away? I mean . . . what kind of Dark Witch can’t even summon a demon?
By lunch before the test on Thursday afternoon, even Puck can’t deny the jar is, undeniably, empty.
For what feels like the twelfth time, he suggests I try stealing another demon from the basements. Without any other options left, I figure it’s the best option I have. He offers to come along but as soon as he gets up from his seat in the dining hall, I spot at least three teachers eying him suspiciously.
“No,” I say, waving for both him and Nicholas to sit back down. “I’ll just go take a look myself. I mean, at this point if I get caught, it’s not worse than failing on my own, right?”
Nicholas doesn’t look so sure, but I don’t really have a choice.
I take my things and head out the back of the dining hall, making sure to give Warlock Grave a chilly middle-finger salute on my way past.
I’ve only been down in the basement alone a few times since I arrived. It’s an unpleasant place, filled with that damp mildew smell and weird sounds that seem to come from nowhere at all. The pathways aren’t all marked out on the maps, and sometimes I swear new ones crop up in corners where they weren’t before.
For that reason, I head straight to the summoning classroom without taking any detours. I let myself in, allowing myself only one glance over at the hole in the middle of the floor before I start searching the shelves for another demon that might have been overlooked.
There are plenty of jars shoved between books, but none of them seem to contain anything other than suspiciously human-looking body parts. I’m about to open one of those just to be sure, when I hear the door to the classroom open behind me.
I hurriedly stand up and hide the jar behind my back as I turn to face the newcomer.
It’s Merlin.
I relax, but only a bit.
“Stalking me again?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual.
“I don’t have any time to waste,” he says curtly. He crosses the room, snatches the jar from behind my back, and returns it to the shelf before I can protest. He glances over his shoulder at the door, and then says, to my great puzzlement, “You know I don’t trust you, right?”
I flounder for words. “Yeah, I mean, you’ve made that abundantly clear.”
“Good.”
He pulls a tiny book from his pocket and shoves it into my hands. “I just don’t think it’s fair to fail you on purpose,” he says. He reaches for my bag and shoves my hand out of the way when I try to stop him. He pulls out the jar Professor Young gave me and holds it up. “This doesn’t contain what you think it does.”
“You mean it’s empty?” I shake my head. “I knew Young ha
d it out for me. I just . . .”
“There’s no time for that,” Merlin says, shoving the jar back into my arms with the book he just gave me. “Just follow the instructions in Chapter Six.”
I grasp the book and he finally takes a step back. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Why are you suddenly being helpful?”
“I’m not the monster you think I am,” Merlin says, carefully. “Use the book, don’t use the book. I don’t care. I just couldn’t stand by and watch, knowing you’d been set up.”
He stops once on his way out the door. “And Wren?”
“Yes?” I say, glancing up from the leather cover.
“Don’t let anyone see that,” he says, pointing at the book in my hands, “unless you liked spending all your evenings in detention.”
There’s so little time before class starts, I can’t go back up and tell the others about the change in plans. I head to the nearest bathroom and lock myself in a stall for some privacy. So long as Veronica and one of her paramours don’t decide on another lovemaking session in this particular bathroom, it should buy me a few minutes alone at least.
As soon as I turn to the table of contents, however, I have to pause.
There it is. The name of my demon. I couldn’t read it before, but the shape of the letters seems about right. Too close to be a coincidence, as much as I might like it to be.
This little book promises to tell me how to summon this demon, but I haven’t had any time to look it up. I don’t even know what kind it’s going to be.
But I have seen the kinds of books they have in the library. Killing curses. Torture curses. Curses to make all the skin fall off a person in painful, bleeding chunks. And those are some of the milder ones.
For a book to be restricted here, by Dark Witches, that’s saying a lot.
But the bell tolls from the tower above, and I have no choice. I peel back the cover, flip to the chapter Merlin suggested, and start to read.
I barely slip into my seat by the end of the second bell toll. It’s so close that even Puck shoots me an exasperated look from where he sits. Professor Young claps his hands just as I’m seated, and all the doors around the room slam shut.
“Today you will perform your first public summoning,” he announces, severely, his hands still raised above his head. He moves them slowly down in an arc on either side. “You should demonstrate a familiarity with your demon indicative of the weeks you’ve spent interacting.”
I chew on the inside of my lower lip. That’s something I didn’t count on. My fingers grasp at the pages of the book hidden in my lap, and I’m suddenly doubting the decision I’m about to make.
Professor Young calls for volunteers first. As usual, Merlin’s hand is stuck straight up in the air before the question’s fully out of his mouth. The professor pretends not to see him right away, however, and instead calls on Nicholas, who was just bending over to scratch his ankle.
He leaps to his feet, a bit flustered, but still summons his little otter-like demon without any problem. After several more students reluctantly display their demons to varying degrees of obedience, Professor Young finally calls on Merlin.
Merlin stands with purpose and summons his demon commandingly. The demon, shaped like a snake, slithers out of his sleeve to coil on the ground in front of him. It flares its neck on command and performs several other perfectly executed tricks.
As he goes to sit, Merlin’s eyes flicker over to me momentarily, and I know it’s now or never. I stand, almost knocking over the desk in front of me. Professor Young eyes me warily.
“Are you sure, Wren?” he asks, an unreadable tone in his voice. “Maybe you should let the others . . .”
“I want to go now,” I say. My voice comes out a little more loud than I mean it to. I have to do this before I lose the nerve.
Professor Young steps back, motioning for me to step up to the middle of the class. He watches me closely, surely waiting for the moment I admit I’ve been unable to summon my demon.
There’s a table set beside the pit in the floor, where Nicholas and the others placed their jars before summoning the demons within. I walk over to it, trying to hide the way my knees are shaking in their stockings.
When I get to the table, however, I don’t set the jar on top of it. I glance once at Professor Young, and then throw the jar into the pit instead.
“Liberari a carcere . . .” I begin, glancing once more at our shocked professor, before speaking the name of the demon aloud, “Ozgullath.”
Judging from the way Professor Young’s face changes from shock to horror, I guess Merlin was right.
But at first, for a long second, nothing happens. I can still hear the jar tumbling ever downward, sending tiny pings echoing back up to us each time it brushes against the side of the pit.
A silence hangs in the air, with several students exchanging glances. Veronica fake yawns in her seat and starts turning to the boy sitting next to her, but then she freezes along with the rest of the class.
A new sound has started echoing up to meet us.
It’s deep and rumbling like an earthquake. Something scrapes against the side of the pit, sending a shower of rubble tumbling down from the top. Tiny fractures start cracking outward from the edges of the pit, splitting the concrete floor like a spider web creeping ever closer to the outside ring of desks.
Merlin’s the first one on his feet. “Everyone back!” he shouts. “Everyone get—”
He’s cut off with a deafening roar as a colossal crimson arm reaches up out of the depths of the pit and scrabbles at the ground for footing. It has massive claws, each one nearly the length of my forearm. As I’m just starting to step back myself, another huge arm reaches out of the darkness, thick with throbbing veins and claws. It drags with it the head and torso of the biggest creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.
It’s like a giant, snarling humanoid monkey with rolling, intelligent eyes and fangs even longer than its claws. It carries a stench with it like sulfur and rotting flesh that only worsens when it opens its maw and lets out a foundation-shaking bellow.
“Run!” Professor Young yells, his face wide with fear as he waves his arms to try to get the students’ attention. “Someone alert the—”
The great demon swats Professor Young out of the way like an insignificant bug. He flies across the room and smacks against the wall before collapsing in a heap on the floor. Veronica, once again surprisingly quick on her feet in her sky-high stilettos, is the first one to reach the doors. But when she wraps her talons around the handle and pulls—it doesn’t budge.
Merlin shoves her aside and tries himself, but to the same effect. “They’re locked!” he shouts over his shoulder, then takes out his wand and starts shouting spells at it.
Meanwhile, the demon has stopped emerging from the pit. Its huge upper body pushes at the ground, sending more cracks spiraling outward, but its lower half seems stuck. It bellows again, sending another stream of vile spit and breath into the already suffocating room.
It isn’t until I feel a hand on my lower back that I realize I’ve become cemented to the floor, my feet unmoving as I stare at the monster I unwittingly summoned.
“Come on,” Puck’s voice whispers in my ear, his arm wrapping around my side to try to pull me towards the door Merlin is still desperately trying to open.
My feet still don’t budge, however. My eyes are locked onto the creature, watching as its muscles bulge with the strain of trying to free itself from the confines of the pit. I may not have been able to summon this demon, but I have spent the better part of the last four weeks with it. That has to mean something, right?
I steal one more glance over at Professor Young’s still unmoving body, then I shake Puck’s grip and step forward.
The demon stops struggling and instead turns its attention to me.
“Stop,” I say, balling my hands up at my side to keep them from shaking. I tilt my chin up higher and try to look less terrified than I feel. �
�I command you to stop.”
I take another step forward and point towards the hole its body currently fills. “Go back where you came from, demon,” I say, loud enough that the other desperate voices in the room die down. I can feel them turning to look at me, can see Merlin, Puck, and Nicholas all stepping toward me with their hands already gripping the ends of their outstretched wands, just in case.
The demon looks at me impassively, its giant eyes staring unblinkingly into mine. For one second I think it’s going to listen, and I’m emboldened.
I take a third step forward, reaching my hand to point towards the pit in the ground, and then the demon lunges. With one sweeping motion it reaches out an arm and snatches me up. I try to jump out of the way at the last minute, but all that means is that it catches me by the legs rather than the torso. It turns me upside down to dangle in front of its steaming, frothing mouth.
All the blood rushes to my head. The world spins around me, but I still manage to slip the wand from my own sleeve. I don’t know what compels me to do it, maybe fear or stupidity, but I shout the first spell that comes to mind. It’s a curse, of course, but it’s not one I’ve tried before.
Telling this creature to “straighten” like a paperclip or its skin to repel water isn’t going to work. Even in my dazed and whirling mind, I somehow know that. That’s why the spell that slips from my lips is one I read in the library, a curse meant to kill, not to maim or frighten.
“Te devoro.”
I feel heat blossom beneath my fingertips. The magic swells in my wand, growing near the base until, as the creature raises me up higher and opens that huge, fang-toothed mouth wide, it explodes out the end of my wand in a stream of black smoke.
The smoke seeks out every orifice of the creature—the mouth, eyes, nose—and dives inside. The demon roars in agony as the substance fills its throbbing veins with inky blackness and pools in the bottom of its eyes.
Dark Witch: A Paranormal Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1) Page 17
