Possessed: A reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 3)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “That sounds like it was written by a conspiracy theorist,” Quinn said. He hiked his pants up to his nipples and cried in a high-pitched voice, “‘The rats are the army of a cosmic god. Wake up, sheeple!’”

  I glanced up at the ceiling. The rats circled above my head, and my mind circled with them.

  It’s ridiculous. They’re just rats.

  But they led me to the book. They knew what I wanted, and they knew where it was located.

  I thought of all the times I’d heard the rats, about how their feet seemed to respond to my moods and save me from bad decisions. How they could have attacked me when I was in the various secret tunnels and passages around the school, but they stayed away. How the scritching of their feet in the walls had become almost a comfort to me.

  How they were doing that same frantic circling now that they’d used to lead me to the book. They knew where something was I wanted to find.

  The rats know. They know where we can find Greg!

  I stood up, slamming the book shut. “I need to get into the walls.”

  “What? Why? Yesterday you only just made it out of Ayaz’s dorm without being reported. We can’t do anything else that will risk—”

  “Because the rats know where Ms. West is keeping Greg, which means we’d have the location of her current lab. They’ve been trying to tell us this whole time. I’m going to follow them.”

  Trey rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “You get that’s insane, right?”

  “Oh sure, there’s a cosmic deity trapped in a prison of darkness under the gymnasium and that’s just business-as-usual, but super-intelligent rats are a stretch.”

  “You just read that rats are ruled by a powerful magician,” Trey shot back. “Have you asked yourself who’s controlling these rats?”

  “Someone who is trying to help me, which is more than you’re doing right now.” I waved a finger at Trey. “Before you pull your macho bullshit and say I can’t go, I’m going. Don’t try and stop me, but you can come with me if you want to.”

  “I’ll go.” Quinn stood up, shoving the book toward Trey and grabbing his cloak. “I’m helpful like that. You stay here, keep reading through this. See what you can find.”

  Trey looked set to argue, but honestly, Quinn had a point. Trey was book smart, but Quinn could weasel his way out of any disaster, and that was exactly the kind of person I needed if we were going hunting for Greg, for answers.

  Quinn and I donned our black cloaks again and stepped out the door. The rats scritched along the ceiling, leading us toward the staircase that went up into the dorms. We followed, crouching low. Quinn poked his head up to see if the coast is clear.

  “The teachers are checking the rooms again,” he said. “They’re all dressed in their robes. I bet they’re going to the gym.”

  The rats scrambled up the wall, following the teachers as they made their way through the dorm. They wanted us to follow them.

  Quinn and I pulled our hoods low over our eyes and crept up the stairs, hiding behind the corner of the hall near Courtney’s and Loretta’s rooms. As soon as the teachers went past, we ducked out and joined the back of their line as they exited the dormitories and made their way across the bridge into the classroom wing.

  I kept my head down as I fell into step behind them. If anyone noticed us, we’d be in trouble, but no one turned around. Down, down, down, we traveled – past the locked classrooms and deserted lockers, down the darkened staircase to the gymnasium. The rotten stench grabbed my stomach and squeezed. Now I knew what caused the smell – the bodies of sacrifices prior to the fire – it was even more horrible. I choked back a sob as I fought for breath. Even Quinn, whose revenant body had a diminished sense of smell, also struggled not to vomit.

  None of the other teachers seemed fazed by the smell. They must’ve been used to it by now. I gulped as we entered the low, black hallway. We needed to keep our cover, which meant I had to pretend things were perfectly normal even as my lungs begged for air.

  At the front of the crowd, Ms. West handed off her torch to Dr. Atwood and rolled back the door. Teachers staggered back as a fresh wave of the foul smell rolled into the hall. That was too much even for them. Dr. Halsey broke down in a coughing fit, and Mr. Dexter made a strangled sound.

  “Silence!” Ms. West snapped, ushering them inside. I squeezed Quinn’s hand as we filed in after them. As soon as we’d all entered, Ms. West slammed the doors shut, sliding the inside bolts shut so no student could enter.

  The gym looked exactly as I remembered it, aka terrifying. Empty bleachers sagging with damp and age lined three walls. Everything was coated in a layer of dust and soot. A single shaft of moonlight illuminated a square of the court. Shadows lurked in every corner, their presence dripping with balefulness.

  These weren’t ordinary shadows. I had to remind myself they were on my side.

  Forty-two teachers filed into the lower bleachers, huddling in small groups. Quinn and I took seats in the third row, far enough away from the others so we could whisper without them hearing us. I sat on my hands so no one noticed them trembling. My heart knocked against my ribcage.

  This was by far the most insane thing we’ve done.

  But it wasn’t the most insane thing I planned to do.

  Ms. West stepped onto the court, standing under the moonlight. She shrugged off her hood, allowing the pale shaft to cast her face in eerie shadow. The stark light made her cheekbones appear shrunken – as if her skin ate away at her face. “Thank you for coming to this meeting. I’ve called you here because our situation has become dire,” she said.

  “Why aren’t we meeting in the faculty lounge?” Dr. Halsey called out.

  “Because we’re concerned with what went on in this very room twenty years ago, and because I don’t trust that the maintenance staff isn’t accepting bribes to report on us. The Eldritch Club have ears everywhere. I know I can trust you all.”

  “You sound disturbed, Hermia,” Professor Atwood called out.

  “Do I? If you knew the things I knew, you’d think me not disturbed enough.” Ms. West paced along the center of the court, her hands wringing behind her back. Where she walked, symbols and lines appeared beneath her feet, lit up with blue flame. No one else acknowledged them – perhaps I was the only one who could see them. “All this time, the Eldritch Club has kept the power of the god to themselves. They made us promises – that we would have comfortable lives, that we had liberty to indulge our darkest proclivities free from the eyes of authorities, that we might possess any material good our hearts desired. All these things to make up for the great sacrifice we made. Many of us left families, friends, promising careers to forfeit our lives to babysit their bratty re-animated children. And what do we have to show for it?”

  “Nothing!” Mr. Dexter called from the front row. I heard a few grumbles of agreement.

  “Exactly.” Ms. West’s lips curled back into a wicked smile. “For what good are material possessions if we cannot show them off? What good is comfort without challenge and stimulation for the brain? After twenty years trapped inside this school, even indulging my desires has become stale. And then Hazel Waite arrives and things are exciting once more. She is connected to the god in a way I do not understand. Her pain causes him pain and weakens the Eldritch Club’s power.

  “This year’s trouble has shown us that the god’s power is waning, and with it, the Club’s authority and influence. They have become so glutted with their power that they no longer acknowledge where it came from. Few of them ever visit the god. They know nothing of the rites or the history that gave them their blessings. They refuse to listen to us, who spend our days in worship to the god. Their incompetence allowed Hazel Waite to escape. They are no longer worthy of our sacrifice. If we are to have what we deserve, then we must act now.”

  “What are you proposing?” Dr. Halsey asked.

  Ms. West raised the torch in her hand and walked backward toward the center of the court. The light punctua
ted the darkness, illuminating the faded paint and the fainter, flame-tinged lines of the sigils. Around her feet, the five-pointed star glowed bright – in the same sickly color as the veins of strange stone in the caves below.

  “I have told Vincent numerous times that our current system is no longer sustainable, but he will not see it. They have grown careless – no, they have always been careless. I discovered recently the student who escaped ten years ago was Ayaz Demir’s sister. How could she have been allowed to enter the school? Another mistake like that and Derleth is done for. What will become of us?”

  All around us, teachers murmured to each other as they took in this information. My heart hammered against my chest. That means either Ayaz told her or she got her hands on Zehra and got those answers from her. Either way, that means there’s no hope Zehra is still alive.

  Beside me, Quinn squeezed my knee. He’d figured that out, as well.

  Zehra, I’m so sorry. I wish more than anything I could have saved you.

  I forced my grief-stricken mind to focus on Ms. West’s words. “—Vincent refuses to listen to reason. He wants to take more power from the god, not less. He will not entertain the idea of giving us our due while his own power deteriorates. But he has forgotten one important fact – every one of us in this room has immortality. We do not need the god’s power to keep us young and strong. As the Eldritch Club wane, we have the power here.”

  Several teachers cheered.

  “What are you proposing we do with that power, Hermia?” Dr. Halsey called out.

  “I want to leave the school. Let the Eldritch Club find new babysitters for their brats, or let the whole place burn to the ground, I don’t care. But I’m done wasting all this—” she indicated her lithe body. “And this—” she tapped her brain “—trapped inside these four walls. When we return to the world, our families will have moved on. Our friends will have forgotten us. Our careers will be non-existent. We can view it as our curse, or as an opportunity. The Eldritch Club owes us – I say that it’s time to take what we are due.”

  “Vincent will never agree to let us go,” Atwood argued. “And we need the Eldritch Club to break the sigils to allow us to leave. They have abandoned their old ways, but they are still the descendants of a long line of powerful magicians – and only their magic could undo the boundaries. Why would they do that when it would free their children, as well?”

  “They will find a way to make it work,” Ms. West said. “I don’t intend to give them an option to refuse. The school production looms closer. All the club members will descend upon us. There will be the usual chaos and disorganization and parties till all hours of the night. It will be the perfect time for us to kidnap Gloria Haynes.”

  I glanced at Quinn. Kidnap Courtney’s mother? Why?

  From the rumbling in the bleachers, at least some of the teachers agreed with us. “What will that achieve?” asked Mr. Dexter.

  “Leverage,” Ms. West replied. “If they want her back in one piece, they will break the sigils for us.”

  “How do we know they’ll agree to that?” asked Dr. Halsey, who seemed willing to entertain the idea. “They might just leave Gloria to our mercy.”

  “If you paid attention to the politics at play here, you’d understand that they’d have no choice but to agree. Many of the Eldritch Club families – including the Bloombergs – are running low on funds. It’s hard to keep the kind of secrets they keep and continue in the manner they’ve become accustomed to without burning through your fortune. The god can give power, but it doesn’t understand how money plays into that world. They need Gloria’s fortune to fund their campaigns and activities. They need her to pay their bribes and grease the wheels of their machine. She’s their meal ticket, and they know it.”

  “But they have the power of the god behind them!” cried Dexter. “We’d be going up against a cosmic deity!”

  “They may wield the god’s power, but we’re the ones who feed him. If he’s loyal to anyone, it’s us. Their power is already weakened because of Hazel’s disappearance and the deception we pulled with Greg Lambert.” My ears perked up at Greg’s name. He really, truly is alive. “They know nothing of the old spells or rituals, and they cannot get into the cavern to see the god without coming through us. If we cut off their access to the god, they won’t have any advantage over us. Remember, they can’t kill us, but we can kill them.”

  Quinn’s fingers tightened around my thigh. I turned to him, noticing the brightness in his eyes from the shadow of his hood. We both leaned forward in unison, clinging to Ms. West’s every word.

  All around me, the teachers chatted, their voices tight with excitement. Ms. West clapped to get their attention. “I’ll have a show of hands. If we’re all in agreement, we must make arrangements before—”

  Her words cut off. She swirled her head up, her piercing eyes searching the bleachers. My heart pummeled against my chest. My whole body froze.

  She’s seen us. She—

  But she was looking behind us, up toward the roof of the gym, to the area shrouded in deepest shadows. “What’s that?” she demanded.

  In the silence, I caught the sound she’d heard – a faint scratching. A tingle of anticipation ran down my arms. Ms. West leaned forward, attempting to divine the source of the scritches and scratches that grew louder and more urgent.

  Something wicked this way comes.

  “What is that?” cried Dr. Atwood, throwing off his hood as he leaped to his feet. The wooden bleachers groaned and trembled as some force landed on them, shaking the rotting planks at it rolled down toward us.

  The sound grew louder – thunder clapped in the enclosed gym. The walls bounced it back so it came from everywhere at once, surrounding us, closing in.

  Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch. ScritchscritchscritchscritchscritchSCRITCH.

  Dr. Halsey shrieked. “It sounds like… rats!”

  The scritching circled beneath me. I lifted my feet just in time – a stampede of large, furry bodies skittered across the bleachers, tiny tails flickering through the air like whips as they descended upon Ms. West and the faculty.

  Teachers leaped off their seats and barreled for the exit. Rats poured from the bleachers, spilling on the court in a waterfall of grey fur and sharp things – a thousand tiny teeth gnawing and gnashing in anticipation of a meal.

  Where the rats led, other things followed. Tiny dark shadows chased them across the court, snarling and snapping from the gloom. My chest tightened as they leaped onto the bleachers and hurtled toward us. Quinn grabbed my hand and dragged me to my feet, so we stood together above the tide while the servants of the god rained down upon us.

  Dr. Halsey flung her cape away as a rat clung tenaciously to the hem. Professor Atwood spun his arms like windmills as rodents leaped onto his bell sleeves, using them as funnels to burrow inside. Ms. West’s haughty expression crumpled into confusion and then fear as she caught sight of the rodent army descending upon her.

  “Run!” Ms. West yelled, propelling herself toward the doors.

  She didn’t have to tell anyone twice. Teachers shoved each other in their haste to escape. Dr. Atwood threw open the heavy door and tumbled into the hall. The rats followed him, crawling over his body and up the legs of his slacks. He screamed, the sound wild and inhuman. The other teachers backed away as he thrashed wildly, trying to extract rodents from inside his robes.

  More and more rats poured under my feet. At any moment they could swarm up the bleachers and crawl over me and Quinn, but for now, they seemed preoccupied with the teachers. Quinn grabbed my hand and dragged me up. We stood together on the bench seat, watching the avalanche of rodents descend and the shadows creeping after them, cold and menacing.

  “We should make a run for the door on the other side.” Quinn leaped onto the next bench, holding out his hand to help me across. We hopped down to the floor. My shoulders shuddered as the door slammed. Ms. West had shut us in.

  Rats swarmed along the edge o
f the court, flinging their bodies against the locked door, clawing at the old wood, scraping away soot and paint in their hunger to devour the teachers. I could just make out the faint outline of the doors on the other side – the ones Quinn carried me through when he saved me from the shadows. The rats were so focused on the teachers we had a mostly clear path if we went right now.

  We have to run for it.

  “Three, two, one…” Quinn counted down. We leaped as far as we could over the rats, our feet slapping against the court. My heel caught the tail of a rat. It twisted and struggled, screeching at the top of its lungs. I lifted my foot. It scurried away before I could kick.

  Quinn dragged me across the court toward the other side. My heart burned as I poured on speed to keep up with him. ScritchscritchscritchscritchscritchSCRITCHSCRITCH. Rodents snapped and scratched at my heels, the avalanche rolling behind us as they sensed fresh meat.

  The doors led to a short hallway and a staircase up to a steel door that entered the library. If we could get there, the steel would keep the rats at bay. For now.

  If we can get there in one piece…

  Rats streamed toward us, bringing with them that sickly sweet smell of decay and the dark presence of the shadows that lurked behind them. Quinn pressed himself against me, burying his head in my shoulder as he urged us onward. My lungs burned, and the burn Courtney gave me on my leg tugged and twinged, but I didn’t stop running.

  Claws scraped across the court as the rats overtook us. Hundreds of grey bodies streamed beside us, rolling around to surround us and block our exit.

  Quinn’s breath shuddered as he skidded to a stop, throwing his arms around me. Even through the warmth of his touch, I could sense the approaching ice of the shadows. Cold pressed against my throat, silencing my screams as rats circled my ankles and their wild cacophony filled my head.