by Lan Chan
Hmmm. Clearly I wasn’t as stealthy as I’d thought.
Still, I only allowed myself to slip under the covers once my ritual was complete. Messy or not, the salt would stay. There were supernatural criminals on the loose. I’d felt what it was like to have something foreign in your mind. It wasn’t going to happen again.
32
We got word a week later that all bar one of the demons has been recaptured. There were reports that sightings of the six-legged demon had been made on the other side of the country. Thanks to the downgraded terror alert, the Academy committee had decided that the junior class excursion to the Supernatural Museum in Seraphina could go ahead if there were extra guards assigned to us.
That’s how I found myself standing beside the Academy’s bus while Professor Magnus did a roll call. Cassie cast her head from side to side.
“Whatcya looking for?”
She sighed. “I thought maybe he’d be back by now,” she said. No guesses who he was. “Kai always comes with me on excursions. But I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
I patted her shoulder. Over the last few months, her confidence had moved along in strides. Now she barely batted an eyelid when Maddison tried to rattle her. But she was still a twelve-year-old. They all were.
Aside from the professor, we were getting a number of Nephilim guards including Bradley and Adam. Some of the parents would be coming as well. Charles and Max’s father was a massive unit. I felt invincible just standing next to him.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If all else fails, just hide behind Charles’s dad.”
That brought a smile to her face.
“My mum was going to come but she couldn’t get out of work.”
I could understand that. The prison admin were working overtime to figure out how the breach had happened in the first place. It was the first of its kind in a long time.
“Alright, everybody,” Professor Magnus called out. “We’re all accounted for. Make sure you stick with your field trip buddy. I want everyone to make it back in one piece.”
We got in line to board the bus. As I neared the front, Professor Magnus pulled me aside. “I know you’re technically a student,” she said. Technically? “But we need to be on the lookout today. Since you’re a senior, I want to just remind you that if anything goes wrong, the priority is the children.”
I nodded at her. Got it. If the shit hit the fan, I was on my own.
Hopping onto the bus, I slid into the seat next to Cassie. We weren’t cool enough to be in the back, but we weren’t eager enough for the front. So we landed somewhere in the middle. Luther and Charles sat behind us.
A furry hand shot over the back of our seat. Charles rattled some candy inside its bright yellow box. “No thanks,” I said. I’d been fooled one time too many.
“What’s wrong with it?” Cassie asked.
Charles clutched at his heart like he was offended. “Nothing. I swear.”
A promise from a shifter was usually golden. But Charles Thompson was missing that gene. His mum was a high-magic sorceress and had passed the trait on to his baby sister. She was still too young to understand that Charles wasn’t supposed to be asking her to infuse her powers into candy that messed with people.
“I think I’ll pass,” Cassie said.
Luther smiled. “Smart move.”
“You guys suck,” Charles said. He turned around to try and swindle the kids behind him. They were a pair from another grade. Somebody should probably warn them. Then again, a little suffering never hurt anyone.
Seraphina was a two-hour drive from the Academy. The route was through the middle of the Australian desert. My teeth chattered even though outside, the sun beat down mercilessly. One of the parents had caged a snowstorm inside a glass ball that sat on the bus’s dashboard. It provided the supernatural equivalent to air conditioning.
Professor Magnus explained that we would have taken a portal if not for the fact that there was still a demon on the loose. Demons had a compulsive attraction to portals. It was in their nature to trespass on other worlds. I didn’t know why we couldn’t teleport but we were currently short on guards thanks to the demon hunt. Magically, teleporting such a large group equated to the same energy build up as a portal anyway. Both forms of transport would attract demon attention. One Nephilim could look after themselves if they were attacked. Their passenger might not be so lucky.
At my old school, I wasn’t that big on field trips. The food was always crap sandwiches that were squashed at the bottom of a backpack. I never had any money to spend at the gift shops either. This time I was excited. Seraphina was the pinnacle of Nephilim society. They had built it as their home when they were first brought into being. The brief visit with Kai had only deepened my curiosity.
Some of the Nephilim who were closest in bloodline to the seraphim still lived there. They guarded the firmament to ensure the demons never tried to make their ascent back to the Seraph dimension.
The hum of the motor and the cool air made me drowsy. Cassie had the window seat so I let my head rest back. My eyes closed. The doze I’d fallen into was interrupted by a loud pop to my left. The bus jerked to the right, the back fishtailing. White smoke started to billow from the back of the bus.
“Aww jeez,” Charles said.
I rubbed my eyes. “What happened?”
Some of the students tried to open their windows to get a better look. “Nobody open the windows,” the bus driver said. “You’ll let all the cold air out.”
Professor Magnus kind of negated that when she opened the door and hopped out with Charles’s dad.
“Flat tire,” the professor announced. Everybody groaned. “Stay on the bus everyone. We’ll have this fixed and be off in no time.”
We stayed on the bus, but everybody tried to get a look at what was happening. I swooned just a little when Charles’s dad lifted the entire side of the bus with his bare hands. Who needed a jack when you had an alpha lion shifter onboard?
The bus driver hopped off and closed the door on us. While everyone else was glued to the side watching the tire being changed with a wave of magic, Adam walked down the aisle and sat on the seat in front of me.
“Hey.”
Cassie had been looking outside. Now she turned around. I could swear her lips twisted into a grimace before she turned back.
“Hi.” I wasn’t really sure where to look. Gosh, he was pretty. He was also a tattle tale. The two things cancelled each other out.
“These field trips are never boring, are they?”
Cassie made a noise. I bit my lip to stop from smirking. There must be some kind of bloodline rivalry. She wasn’t a Nephilim herself, but it was clear where her loyalty lay.
“I wouldn’t know. This is my first one with the Academy.”
He flashed that movie star smile. I heard someone sigh to the left of me where a couple of the female parents were sitting.
“Well, I’m glad this is turning out to be eventful for you.” He leaned over the seat. His arms flexed so that the muscles stood prominent. Nice. He dropped his chin to rest on his arms. Somebody was trying their best to seem non-threatening.
“So, the winter solstice ball. Do you have a date?” It was the last thing I would have expected. I laced my fingers in front of me.
“Umm....”
He smiled again. “If not, would you like to go with me?”
Did he say that really loudly? Because suddenly a bunch of kids decided the tire wasn’t all that interesting. Everywhere I turned, eyes were focused on us. Bradley rolled his. I was still the low-magic user who he couldn’t intimidate with his power. Were he and Adam good friends? Was this one of those dares boys liked to force each other to do?
It didn’t realise I had taken a long time to answer until Adam’s smile faltered. I could feel Diana and Sophie sitting metaphorically on either side of my shoulders. Except both of them were giving me the same advice. I was being asked to the ball by a Nephilim. There was only o
ne possible answer.
“No I haven’t been asked. And yes I’ll go with you.”
The grin Adam gave me made my stomach churn. It wasn’t entirely pleasant. All of a sudden I wanted to take back the acceptance. But it was too late.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
When he left, I turned to find Cassie glaring at me. “What did you go and do that for?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you say yes?”
I scrubbed my cheek with the back of my hand. “Because he asked? Was that wrong?”
“Only if you want to hang out with brainless morons.”
Wow. Where was this coming from? “He’s actually pretty smart. He’s in the advanced Arcane Circle class.”
“So is Kai.”
My mouth clamped shut. There was no possible answer to what she was insinuating. My gut twisted. I was being told off by a twelve-year-old. Whatever answer I might have come up with disappeared as a warning tingle shot down my spine. It wasn’t anything I’d ever experienced before while at the Academy. It was a sensation I’d learned on the streets.
Outside, the sunlit desert began to cloud over. It happened like the time lapse image of an eclipse. Storm clouds gathered to give tense relief to the scorching heat.
A split second warning had me standing. I put my back to Cassie. The window should have been the obvious weak link, but my body was moving of its own accord.
Something nauseating clutched at my gut and twisted. A pop vibrated through the bus and then the sound of tearing that set my teeth on edge.
“I don’t feel so good,” Luther said.
“Everybody get down!” Bradley screamed. Adam stood up. We locked gazes. His angel blade appeared in his hands to light the gloom in a pale yellow glow. Before my very eyes, his image distorted. A long, black fingernail scratched at the air in front of Adam until a fissure had opened up mid-air.
In the second it took Adam to whip out of his front seat, my mind was already working. Professor Magnus’s warning to me that the children were to be protected at all costs came ricocheting back.
Too bad the children were scattered along the length of the bus. Cassie was my first priority, but one by one, in almost simultaneous speed, I drew circles around them. The experience in Nanna’s cell had taught me that protection wasn’t enough. So along with the intent to protect, I rooted each and every one of them to this dimension.
A bright blaze of light boomed. I fell to my knees as the explosion rocked the protective circle I’d drawn around myself. Disorientation had me clutching at my stomach. My body reacted by trying to dry retch. Nothing came up. I blinked several times. My breath came in ragged gasps. A shooting pain laced through my skull. It pressed against the soft tissue of my brain, trying to make me give up my hold on the circles.
I gripped the handle of the seat in front of me and bit back the whimper. Thumping my fist against the soft leather of the seat, I let out a roar like I’d seen the shifters do when they were sparring. At the time it had made my legs quiver. Now I needed it to purge me of the gut-wrenching fear that speared through my heart.
I could feel the demon trying to invade my mind. It wanted to know why it couldn’t get a hold on the souls of the children it intended to feed on. I forced my eyes to open.
When the dust settled, I glanced around to find every single adult lying unconscious. Cassie screamed beside me. I followed the direction of her gaze to find a hand clutching at the fabric of the barrier that was being ripped aside. I knew that hand. I’d seen it on the six-legged demon in the display mirror in the assembly.
Adam and Bradley were the only two left standing. Bradley charged the demon coming through the abyss. His blade landed heavily on the demon’s clawed hand, slicing it clean off. His smile brightened in triumph only to dim when the stump where the severed hand had been splintered into two new limbs.
Rage played across his perfect features. He dove once more, cutting furiously as though he could outpace the regrowth of the demon. Adam crouched down and pressed his ear to the face of one of the Fae parents. I heard a little girl sob.
Standing, his normally clear grey eyes dark, Adam reached up with his sword. The yellow light gathered force around him until he began to glow. His whole body turned into a beacon. The light punched a hole through the ceiling of the bus, and ascended into the sky.
It brought to mind the way the other students had tried to light the flares in the trials to alert the guards that we were being attacked. Just like that time, Adam’s light soared up into the sky and was then abruptly cut off by the gathering storm. The dark clouds dampened the light and forced it back. It snuffed out as Adam bent over the seat, his chest heaving.
Bradley continued his attack. He was no longer cutting off limbs but trying to get past them so he could focus on the mouth that held row upon row of serrated teeth.
This demon was like a cross between a shark and an octopus. If a shark and an octopus were mixed together in a Petri dish of nightmares.
However fast Bradley was, the demon met him with equal speed. The problem was that inside the confines of the bus, Bradley had very little room to move. His parry and feints were hampered by the seats and the kids huddling in corners.
As he struggled to keep up, his strikes became desperate. More than once his flaming sword skimmed the edges of my protective shield. The kids behind them shrieked as I winced. The sensation was like sandpaper crawling along my brain.
With each passing second, more and more of the demon clawed through the fissure. It struck out with one of those gruesome, pulsating legs that was made of a substance both gelatinous and somehow solid. The leg caught Adam in the side sending him reeling back. His wings materialized to provide him with balance.
As soon as he found purchase, Adam charged again. But it wasn’t enough. With one final groan, the demon ripped apart a hole in reality. The corresponding gap began to weaken the structure of the bus. If we stayed in here much longer, we’d be crushed by either the portal or the metal.
“Everyone out!” I screamed. The demon had so far ignored me. The sound of my voice had its head area turning in my direction. Resisting the urge to run, I pointed to the hole in the side of the bus that the initial explosion had created.
Cassie tugged at my hand. “Get out,” I said without looking away from the demon. She began to cry. A tiny but mighty growl emitted from behind me.
“Charles. Get the rest of the kids out of the bus. Stay behind me at all times.”
“The demon –”
“It’s fine.” I tried to put as much confidence into my voice as possible. My left leg was shaking so bad I felt like I needed to sit or I’d collapse. “It won’t be able to hurt you as long as you’re protected by the circles. Go!”
For a second, nobody moved. The demon’s head still stared at me as its limbs fought off both of the Nephilim. And then I heard the little lion shifter grabbing his friends and pushing them out of the bus.
“Move!” he roared. One day he would make a frightening alpha. I just had to make sure he reached that day somehow. The demon cocked its gruesome head to the side. In my mind, I felt its ridicule. I so wasn’t getting through this day, it seemed to say.
It swatted both of the Nephilim away. Its body shuddered. Globs of bile and goo slopped off it but somehow it was growing bigger. The motherflipping thing was shedding its mucous skin. The lip of the fissure could no longer maintain the bulk of the beast.
It stepped aside and continued to grow. The bus groaned around the demon. When its shoulder hit metal, the bus’s skeleton began to buckle. Metal that had been reinforced and seemed unbreakable split as easily as aluminium foil. The top of the bus tore and bloomed like a metal flower in the sun.
Dark clouds rolled around us. The air conditioning was well and truly gone but the atmosphere wasn’t warm. In fact, it was downright freezing. Like it had been when I’d accidentally fallen into the cavern.
I had a distinct feeling the other side of the portal led straight through to the Hell dimension. Now that I was essentially just standing on the base of the bus, I could hear the kids crying in a heap behind me.
The demon saw them too. It tried to reach out and smash into them with an elongated tentacle, but the slimy limb slid off them like butter. The contact made my stomach roil. When it touched the outside of the circle, the demon left impressions. If I’d had anything left in my stomach, I would have thrown up then and there. Since it had escaped, the demon had been busy reaping souls. Not just any souls either. It had managed to creep back to the prison and had feasted first on its own kind. And then it had moved to the mages who had sought to keep it imprisoned.
It only fled when it was called by its master. That’s when my heart froze. This thing was just a tool. It was being wielded.
Now that the demon was ten feet tall, Bradley tried to get between its arms and legs. His aim was to get at where he thought its centre of power might be. Taking a running leap, Bradley’s glorious wings spread out behind him as he lifted himself into the air and spiralled through the writhing tentacles. For a second I held my breath as hope flared in my chest.
Adam screamed a second before I saw it. While Bradley was concentrating on the demon, another figure stepped through the portal. A flash of red and silver was all I saw before Bradley crashed to the ground. He choked as he hit red dirt, his body rolling with the inertia. The impact might not have been fatal, but the bone-deep groan Bradley emitted made my heart kick in my chest. A line of blood trickled down his back and bled into his right wing. The kids behind me wailed.
I bit my tongue to keep from doing the same. My eyes welled with tears. Bradley’s shaking hand came up to touch the section of his shoulder that was now bleeding profusely. His wing hung half-severed from his back.
And then my mind filled with uproarious laughter. The being that had stepped through the portal came towards me. The cloak of darkness that obscured its face slipped off as it approached. I saw the horns first. And then the uneven scar around its neck where the yoke must have been rubbing against its neck for eons. Its cloven feet thudded against the bus floor. The frame that was left rattled as he moved. The demon from the cavern had escaped.
