by Kat Cotton
“Call ambulances too,” I said to Britney.
She nodded and the two of them ran off. Ren dragged me closer but I coughed and spluttered.
I could make out a shape ahead of us, tall and powerful with glaring red eyes. Definitely not as cool as a dragon but luckily, not as huge.
“This is no time to withhold your power,” Ren spluttered. “We need this demon dead and we needed to do it fast.”
He wasn’t wrong. This village had a quaint, old-world charm and that charm meant a lot of timber storefronts. The whole place would burn to the ground in minutes if the fire took hold.
Behind us, I heard Britney and Mark’s voices, strong and commanding amongst the chaos.
The demon advanced toward us. Every instinct in me said to run but Ren stood fast and I couldn’t leave him.
He grabbed my hand and I screwed up my eyes, hoping that we could attack. Power welled up within me. But how to use that power, that was the question. We had no plan and with the smoke burning all the way down to my lungs, I could barely speak. I rubbed at my nose, trying to clear my airways but that didn’t help.
Ren nudged me and pointed to something. I could barely see through the tears in my eyes. I blinked a few times then saw what he meant.
A fire hydrant on the street.
Heck yeah. But was the demon close enough for the water to hit him? He walked at a thundering yet slow pace and my lungs screamed that every second counted. I wanted to pop that hydrant right now and then run until my body filled with fresh, clean air.
Ren squeezed my hand, telling me to wait.
Each demon-step pounded the pavement, shaking the buildings around us. It’d take ten more steps for him to be close enough to the hydrant. Ten blisteringly slow steps.
I squeezed Ren’s hand tighter then coughed so hard, I almost vomited up an internal organ. I couldn’t do this. Maybe it’d be better for me to run and leave Ren to it. He’d fight better on his own.
Ren pulled me closer, our fingers still entwined but close enough that his lips brushed against mine. A kiss. Here? What was he thinking? Sure, our powers had become activated the first time we’d kissed but that wouldn’t happen again. It wasn’t like we could get more activated than we already were. I could barely see his face through the thick smoke but I wanted to read his eyes, to know what this was about.
If he kissed me now, he’d get a mouthful of smoke and ashes. I tried to pull away but his hand held firmly onto my shoulder.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
That whisper tickled around my ear like a promise. I wanted to tell him that I did trust him, it was myself I didn’t trust, but the words stuck in my throat, too heavy to speak.
I waited for him to kiss me. Muscles tensed, heart fluttering.
But he didn’t kiss me.
His breath blew into my mouth.
I wanted to pull away, weirded out by what he was doing but the world froze around me. No more thudding footsteps, no more distance screams. Just the two of us suspended in this moment.
Then his breath entered me. It fizzed through my body like some kind of popping candy. I inhaled. I inhaled deeply and it no longer hurt.
The black smoke billowed around me but it didn’t sting my eyes like it had before. He’d kissed away the smoke damage? How did he even know to do that?
One day, soon, we’d have to talk about kissing in a non-life-threatening situation.
Several of the stores started to burn. Ash rained down on us. The heat seemed to press against my skin. Ren’s kiss had done nothing to stop the smoke obscuring my vision but it had given me the strength to continue.
The demon stepped closer and my heart raced. Those red eyes burned like coals and twisted goat horns protruded from its head, and it seemed hell-bent on causing maximum destruction.
“Now?” I whispered.
Ren shook his head. Another step and Ren kept shaking. Then another and another.
Ren nodded.
Nothing happened. Then, more nothing and the ground pounded with another demon step.
I gulped.
This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t let go enough. My insides quivered but more from fear than power. I screwed up my eyes. My grip on Ren tightened and my muscles tensed. The demon stomped closer but I couldn’t do this.
We’d die here. Burning from demon breath. And I’d be totally useless.
Maybe I should run, leave Ren to fight alone so he could use all his power on the demon without worrying about me.
Then, bam.
Power rushed from Ren. A surge that almost fried me.
The hydrant exploded. Water gushed into the air.
That water fell heavy, like the darkest storm. Saturating my clothes, my hair, my skin.
The demon sizzled. Steam rose from his reddened flesh.
He’d fallen. We’d won.
Then the demon bellowed, a noise that hit me like a physical force.
I stumbled back, sliding on the wet ground until I fell into a heap. Ren fell on top of me, the two of us entangled in a mess of water and ash.
The demon gave a final sizzle then perished.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
Angela? She’d seen that?
Ren got up first. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
I jumped to my feet and stood behind him. Better to let Ren do the talking. He was so much better at that stuff. He had a natural authority that I lacked.
“The two of you. You did something. To that... what was that?”
Ren walked to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Angela flinched away. Something she wouldn’t have done before.
“It was nothing, Angela.” Ren might be poor now but he still had his million-dollar smile. “There was a fire but luckily, the fire hydrant exploded and put it out.”
Angela screwed up her eyes. “No. It wasn’t like that. And there’s been things before, too. Weird things with you in the middle of it. Cherry, be careful of Ren.”
I shook myself. Angela was telling me to be careful of Ren? A complete turnaround from what she’d been like before he lost his fortune.
“It was a fire.” Ren smiled again. “Nothing but a fire.”
“No. It was a—”
“Fire. Or are you going to tell your friends some crazy story?”
Angela stared at her expensive shoes.
I wandered off, looking to see how much damage the demon had caused.
Some of the stores had extensive damage. The pale blue paintwork of a couture handbag store had blistered and blackened. The perfumery next door had the windows blown out and cloying scents mixed in the air with the smell of smoke and ash.
Across the street, the veranda roof of a store slumped at a dangerous angle.
The road had turned to a dark slush, difficult to walk on.
A bit further down the street, two students huddled on the terrace of a cafe. I moved closer to check if they were injured. I knew them. Polly and Ari had been my dorm mates before I’d moved upstairs.
Ari groaned and clutched her arm. Polly squatted beside her, quivering in fear.
“Are you okay?” I had to help them.
“Yes. No.” Ari’s voice hitched. “I don’t know.”
The distance sound of a siren meant help was on the way but I had no idea how long it’d take to get here. While the streets ran with water from the hydrant, I needed clean water to wash those burns.
I spun around, trying to find something or someone to help. They were outside a cafe. A cafe had to have water, right.
The door was locked but I banged on the window, seeing someone moving inside.
“Help! Help!” I smashed my fist harder on the glass. “I need water.” Then I turned to Ari, trying to keep the panic out my expression. “It’s okay.”
Finally, someone opened the door. Before I could explain, they handed me a bottle of water and slammed the door shut again. I guess seeing a demon breathing fire outside your cafe made you cautious.
There’d be a lot of cover-up needed here.
I unscrewed the cap and walked over to the two girls.
“Where’s it hurt?” I asked
Polly snatched the bottle from me, her eyes wide and unblinking, staring at me in fear. “We’re fine. Leave us alone.”
“Are you sure? There’s an ambulance coming—”
“Leave us alone,” Polly screamed.
“Okay, okay.” I backed off the terrace.
“Let’s get out of here.” Ren grabbed my hand.
I shook my head but as the ambulances arrived, I realized he was right. They’d be able to do more than we could and we shouldn’t stick around to be questioned.
Chapter 15
“YOU DID WHAT?” THE way Principal Murphy bellowed made me jump back.
“It wasn’t Britney’s fault. I told her to call the ambulance.”
“We have five students in the hospital. Not the school infirmary but the actual hospital.”
The bunch of us crowded into the principal’s office, making it standing room only. Britney and Lucas stood to one side, Lucas sliding his arm around Britney’s waist to comfort her. Mark, Tarragon and Seth stood on the other side of the desk, backs straight and eyes to the front. Ren and I lingered near the door. Nova lounged on a visitor’s chair, the only one of us to take a seat.
Principal Murphy pulled a stack of papers out of his drawer and slammed them on his desk.
“You all signed these. Contract. Legally binding contracts.” That throbbing vein in the principal’s neck did not look healthy. “And there are standard clauses in every one of these.” He cleared his throat. “The school is to be guarded against paranormal activity, the village is to be guarded. All standard students are to be protected from paranormal creatures and shielded from their existence. You all broke multiple clauses today. All of you. I could throw the lot of you out of the school.”
Nova tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Excuse me, sir. I wasn’t involved in the incident yesterday and—”
“Silence! If you weren’t there, you should’ve been. You’re here to protect the other students.”
That seemed a little unfair. There’d been no way for Nova to know of the demon attack. No way for any of us. There’d never been an attack in the village in the history of the school.
Principal Murphy kept ranting, occasionally thudding the contracts against the desk again. All of us hung our heads but I was tempted to ask what the alternative was. Even if some of the students had been injured yesterday, it could’ve been a lot worse. Before I could open my mouth, Mr. Norton rushed into the room.
“I’ve secured back-up operatives.” He huffed as though he’d been running.
Operatives?
The principal dismissed us while Mr. Norton stayed behind. I began walking to the elevator but Mark called me back.
“This is happening because Mr. Norton wants to protect you. We don’t need outsiders in the school. We need to protect ourselves.”
He walked off before I could say any more, like how I’d been the one doing all the fighting lately and a ton of other stuff but I let him go ahead. I needed to talk to Mr. Norton.
Britney gave me a quick grin as she came out. “Thanks for trying to stick up for me.”
“No problem. How’s Ari?”
Britney still shared the dorm room with Polly and Ari. I’d thought about going down to check on them last night but the way they’d looked at me with fear in their eyes had stopped me.
“Ari?”
“She was one of the students injured. Maybe she’s still at the hospital.” It wasn’t like Britney not to notice someone missing from her room. I was surprised she hadn’t visited Ari’s bedside with flowers and fruits and other gifts you give hospital patients.
“Ari’s fine. If she was injured, it can’t have been too bad. She was up half the night watching makeover videos on YouTube and trying out new looks.”
Huh? No way. She’d had some serious burns when I’d left.
“You didn’t do...” I wiggled my fingers, indicating magic.
“Nope.” Britney shook her head. “She looked fine.”
Maybe Ari’s burns had looked a lot worse than they actually were and those operatives had helped heal her then wiped her memory. I was glad she didn’t suffer too much.
When Britney left, I paced the entrance hall, waiting for Mr. Norton to get out of the meeting. This entrance hall could be more interesting, to be honest. There were a couple of really uncomfortable looking chairs and a display case with trophies and things the school had won. That wasn’t much of a time killer.
Eventually, Mr. Norton came out and we went to his office.
“I want to leave the scholarship group.” I folded my arms, daring him to argue. “I quit.”
He studied my face, his smile full of concern, then he leaned back and ran his hand through his hair. He always did that when he was stressed.
“What’s brought this on?”
I inhaled, trying to find my words.
“I don’t think I’m a good fit at the moment.” I stood up and looked around the books on his shelf. He sure had a lot of books.
“Because you’re worried that you’re going dark.”
I nodded. “But not just that. I’m scared. I can’t use my powers because I’m too scared. That puts the others in danger. Yesterday, in the village, I was just a liability to Ren, a liability that almost got him killed.”
I ran my fingers along the books, trying not to look at Mr. Norton. My whole reason for being at this school was because I was part of that group. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Worthington’s money covered my fees if I left. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be at this school, since my friends all hated me now.
“But it didn’t get him killed and Ren shouldn’t rely on you when he has powers of his own.”
I flopped back into my seat and fixed him in my gaze.
“I can’t argue with that. Ren was well capable of taking down that demon on his own but he shouldn’t have to babysit me while he’s doing it.”
Mr. Norton tapped his fingers on the desk. Sunlight filtered in through the blind behind him. I figured he was doing that silent thing so I’d rush in and fill the gap but, instead, I watched the dust motes dancing in the streak of light.
“Are you pulling back on training the others because you’re scared I can’t control my powers?” The words rushed out of me. Okay, I wasn’t so good as ignoring the silence as I thought. Dust motes aren’t even that interesting.
“That came from Mark, no doubt.” Mr. Norton ran his hands through his hair again, then tried a reassuring smile. “It’s not that I’m scared of your powers, Cherry. But you and Ren are both beyond anything I can teach when it comes to fighting. It’s the other skills we need to work on, your mental strength.”
That made sense. Mr. Norton wouldn’t have kept putting Ren and me in the forefront of any fighting if he was scared.
I nodded. “Basically, Mark’s just a big doody head having a sulky fit.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that...”
I grinned. Mr. Norton agreed with me. Mark was wrong, I was right. One hundred points to me.
“All that aside, I really do think I need to leave.”
Mr. Norton leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. You could almost hear his brain ticking over but I had no idea what it was ticking over with.
“Why don’t you take a break?”
“A break? A break from the scholarship group? I can do that?”
Mr. Norton smiled, his eyes gleaming.
“There are no rules against that. I mean, no other scholarship student has ever asked before so it hasn’t been an issue but if you need to take some time to get your head together, then I have no problem with that.”
I exhaled. A break sounded like the perfect solution. I’d expected Mr. Norton to argue, to tell me I was fine, that I didn’t have darkness and evil inside of me but we’d gone through that so many
times.
“Thanks, Mr. Norton. The semester’s nearly over so I guess the best thing to do is spend my time studying.”
I grinned and stood up.
“Don’t forget though, the prophecy. Whether you leave the group or do your own thing, the prophecy still exists. You and Ren, together.”
Yeah, that. “But didn’t we fulfill that prophecy by killing Mr. Worthington? I mean, by neutralizing him? I thought the prophecy was dead and dusted.”
“I’m not so sure about that. One of my friends has been doing some research on it. He has access to an extensive collection of old texts and he’s a language expert so if anyone can find out more, he can.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s going to take more than a dusty old prophecy to get Ren to talk to me at the moment.”
Mr. Norton laughed. “Things can change quickly.”
I walked to the door.
“Oh, Cherry, how did things go with Mr. Quiller?”
How did he even know I’d met with him? I gave him a thumbs down. “He wanted to cut a deal, a dark deal. He wanted me to lure Angela to her death.”
Mr. Norton pursed his lips. “Maybe you’ll need a better bargaining chip.”
He opened his drawer and handed me Farran’s ring. No wonder I hadn’t been able to find it in my room.
I DIDN’T WANT TO GO back to my room so I went outside for a walk. Britney had mentioned she now had a garden area at the back of the school where she could grow herbs and other things she needed. I wandered in that direction but she wasn’t there.
With my hands in my pockets to keep warm, I wandered aimlessly.
“Cherry,” Ren called to me across the grounds.
I smiled at him then wondered if we were actually on smiling terms. Maybe he wanted to harass me about something again.
He came over and walked in step with me without talking.
I wasn’t sure what to say to Ren, the gap between us seemed to keep growing.
“I’m taking a break from the scholarship group.” I figured I should tell him that instead of just not turning up to meetings. “I need to sort things out.”
I waited, expecting him to question me about my reluctance to attack. I could’ve taken down that demon yesterday. Instead, I left him to do it alone. In my head, I knew that killing a demon to save students wasn’t wrong. I had an obligation to do that. Even without my scholarship and all it entailed, I’d save them. But, instead, I seemed to have recoiled into myself.
