The wand shook, warmed, and then brilliant light blasted out of it, illuminating the forest in a blinding flash.
Jared yelled and the sound of him skidding to a stop was music to my ears. I bolted forward, diving deep into the trees. The light behind me faded, but not before I saw people I recognized. People I hadn’t thought would be there to save me this time.
Two dark figures shot through the shadows ahead of me, one catching me around the arms.
“Rory.” He’d come for me.
He gave me a light shake. “Where is she? Where is Frost?”
“Back there,” I said.
“I’ll end this. Use your crew. You’ve got this.” He dropped me, and he and the other dark figure ran back the way I’d come. The Sandman. So much for coming to rescue me.
I stumbled back a few more steps, so tired it was as if I’d run the whole set of trials without a single visit to a healer’s tent.
Jared gave a low laugh and I spun, trying to see him. But he wasn’t the only one whose vision had been damaged by the flash of light.
That is when I saw them. My crew, their dark shadows creeping forward from between the trees. “Guys, I could use some help!”
Jared laughed, but the sound slid away as my friends emerged from the trees, stepping up beside me, all still wearing their high-end grad clothes. All except for Pete, who was already in his honey badger suit.
I faced Jared. “I’m not alone. And we are not weak.”
He snarled and shot forward, and Orin met him with his claws extended, shocking the older vampire.
“You cannot fight me!” Jared yelled.
“I’m not yours to command anymore!” Orin yelled back and I knew that it was because he was with us. He’d switched allegiances. The two vampires collided, hissing and snarling like wild animals. Pete shot into the fray, grabbing at Jared’s ankles, tearing the flesh and then finally clamping on like some living version of a parking boot. Jared swung and stepped, trying to shake him off, but Pete was on good and tight.
“Coming, Pete!” Wally yelled. She lifted her hands and the ground softened around us, turning into quicksand. But it wasn’t the ground she was controlling. “The dead are everywhere. Statistically speaking, there is not one place on the planet’s surface that doesn’t contain dead material of some sort or another.”
The ground beneath Jared’s feet began to give way and Pete jumped back. Orin landed several blows, one right after the other.
Ethan pointed his wand. “Orin!”
Orin stepped back and turned his face as Ethan shot Jared in the face with a blast of light that was stronger than the one I’d produced, and far more direct. Jared went down howling. The smell of burning flesh wafted over to me. I tucked the wand back into my pocket and pulled my knife. As much as the wand was good, the knife was real.
The knife was my home.
Jared shook, his knees embedded in the softened ground. “Fools, you are all fools!”
“Stay where you are,” I said. “Ethan, is someone else coming?”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “That guy Rory told me to get your crew and head to the dungeon without telling anyone else. I assumed he’d handle the rest.”
He’d gotten the Sandman. He’d more than handled it.
Ethan had known where to come.
The memory banks that had been locked for the last two days finally opened, and I saw it all over again. The first time Ethan and I had found the hidden dungeon.
The Sandman sneaking up on us.
The other assassin attempting to kill us—only to be stopped by the Sandman.
Gregory reaching for me.
The Sandman had saved my life, only to boot me in the head and somehow take my memory. To effectively make me butt out of his operation while the kids stayed locked in the cells. To use them all as bait. To use me as bait.
And Ethan had helped him do it.
I stared hard at Ethan, feeling the distinct urge to strangle him. “You and I are going to have a chat about lying to each other after this is done. And it will involve me kicking you in the balls to make sure you get my point.”
Ethan’s face was flat, emotionless. “No one goes against the Sandman.”
“Except me.”
We spun as Director Frost stepped from the shadows, wand in hand. With a flick of it, she threw the five of us up and back, pummelling us against the various trees.
I slid down the tree I’d been tossed into, tumbling through the branches, the rough bark tearing at my dress. I wished I were wearing jeans and a shirt instead, but I might as well have wished the ground wasn’t going to hurt when I landed.
The ground came up fast and was as hard as I’d thought it was going to be. But that didn’t stop me from picking myself up and charging the director. Her eyes widened and she smiled as she pointed her wand at me, the tip glowing deep red. I dove to the right, rolled, and came up as she sent another shot my way. One after another, she kept on firing away.
I was doing what I could to pull her eyes to me, to give the others a chance. But they weren’t getting up.
“Waiting for your friends? You’re drawing from them, taking their energy and abilities.” She laughed. “So much natural talent, so raw.”
Part of me knew she was trying to distract me, but I still tried to shut down whatever it was that I was drawing off my crew. Only she was right, I had no idea what I was doing and there was no way I could stop It.
Jared was on his knees still, holding his hands over his face, moaning. “My eyes, my eyes are gone.”
An idea formed, and before I could question it, I acted. I bolted for Jared, spinning him around to use him as a shield as I put my knife to his throat. “You want him back?”
The shadows behind her moved. She’d notice them if I didn’t do something. The fact that she’d bested both the Sandman and Rory spoke volumes.
She was better than them, which meant they would need my help to take her down.
Her eyes hardened and then she laughed, tinkling and light. “You don’t have it in you.”
Only I did. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill to protect those I loved.
I tightened my hold on Jared. “I’ll kill any wolf that comes for my family. No matter what clothing they wear.” I slid my blade across his throat, cutting through to the spine. Just like they’d done with Adam. The blood flowed down over my hands, impossibly cold for fresh blood, as if it had been dead for a long time.
He gurgled and slumped in my arms as the director screamed. “NO!”
With her focus broken, she didn’t see them coming for her.
The Sandman burst out from the shadows on her right side and took her down, wrenched her arms behind her and wrapped them in a gold ribbon of all things, faster than a cowboy hogtying a calf. Then he pulled a golden clamp from under his jacket and snapped it around her neck.
“That will keep you, Frost. You’re done.”
Rory limped out of the shadows, holding his side. Injured, but alive.
I thought for sure she’d keep on screaming, but her silence was almost worse. Cold, deadly silence that spoke volumes. Her eyes locked on mine, and I knew a promise of death when I saw one.
She would not forget what I’d done. That I’d killed her love, Jared, that I’d helped them take her down.
Moments later, the forest was alive with lights as more teachers and students ventured into the trees. I wiped my blade on the back of Jared’s shirt and tucked it away.
For the first time since I’d arrived, I knew for certain I wouldn’t need it.
At least for a minute or two.
After the arrival of the other teachers, testers, and students, everything went to hell. Frost was hauled off to some magical jail that Wally whispered to me was the place where all the baddies went.
We were sent back to our dorms. Wally let me shower first. I couldn’t get the water hot enough to wash off the feeling of Jared’s blood. I couldn’t get warm even though it w
asn’t by any means cold outside this late in the summer.
I pulled on cotton pj’s and climbed into bed. Wally kept talking, but I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to think about what I’d done. Despite everything we’d faced in the trials, Jared was the first person I’d ever killed. He was a vampire, sure, but I was the reason he’d died.
And Frost’s words clung to me. I wasn’t just a freak of nature for being a Shade, but a Chameleon who could drink down the power of others. Fear jangled my nerves and kept me awake far longer than I wanted.
“Wally?” I spoke to her after the lights were out.
“Yeah?” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one wide awake.
“Why did my blade kill him? I thought…that it would hurt him, but I honestly didn’t think it would kill him.”
Her bed squeaked as she shifted her weight. “Magical blades can do a lot of things, Wild. And that blade might seem like an ordinary hunting knife to you, but whoever made it had magical skill. And they gave you an extraordinary weapon. But I thought you knew that already?”
Magical skill? But my dad had said he was a null, and that he and mom had made the knife together. Or had he just said that so my mom would bring him with her when she ran away from…well, from the Shadowkiller.
The director had said I shared blood with him...how?
Sleep came eventually in fits and starts, and I tossed and turned. I realized only a couple hours in that I had a solution for my lack of sleep. We were just in the wrong room. “Wally, get up,” I grumbled, grabbing my pillow and leading the way.
She mumbled something under her breath but wasn’t far behind me.
The door on the second floor wasn’t even locked. What a bunch of ding dongs.
At least the four of them woke up when I opened the door. “What are you doing here, Wild?” Orin asked.
“Can’t sleep.” I went straight to the bed Pete was on. “Shift.”
“You could say please,” Pete muttered, but he shifted to his honey badger form. I crawled into the bed, and Wally tucked in behind me. Pete lay on our legs. Orin grumbled and moved to the side of the bed, laid down on the floor and flung an arm up. Wally took his hand. Gregory muttered something about crazy girls, but he slid his mattress onto the floor and scooted it close enough that he could reach us. I took his hand.
“And where do I fit in?” Ethan asked.
“Wherever you like,” I mumbled, already feeling sleep pull itself over me. Ethan grunted and then arranged some pillows at the foot of the bed. He leaned back and reached an arm up and over one of my legs. His hand rested on Pete’s back.
I didn’t see him do it, but I felt it. Now that we were together, I could feel all of them, weirdly enough, kind of in the back of my head. They had been my crew, the misfits no one thought would make it through the culling trials, but we were more than that now. No matter what I was, if Frost was even right about me being a Chameleon.
We were family.
Chapter 21
The next day announcements came on loud and clear, snapping us all out of a deep sleep.
“Director Frost has been removed from the grounds due to unprofessional conduct. Director Rufus will oversee the final advancement ceremony. Please be advised that the ceremony will take place in one hour for those who missed it last night.”
I would have rolled out of bed, but the others had me pinned down. I smiled to myself. “Up and at ’em, boys.” I wiggled my legs, disturbing both Pete and Ethan as I let go of Gregory’s hand and saw Wally let go of Orin. You’d think we would have been uncomfortable sleeping like that all night, but no one had complained.
Not even Ethan.
Wally and I headed back to our room and quickly dressed. So the Sandman was taking the director’s spot? Did that mean he would stay on with the academy?
Rory’s words came back to me.
The Sandman. He’s not what he seems. I can feel it. His position in the school is a cover.
Whatever the Sandman’s game was, it wasn’t over. Whatever plans he had, he was in a prime position to execute them now. Cold washed over me. Did he know I was a Chameleon? Was that why he was on my case? I kept my thoughts to myself, unable to spill the beans, even to my crew. Maybe later.
Maybe never.
Dressed in clean jeans, a dark green T-shirt and my ball cap, I headed out. Or tried to. Wally stopped me. “You don’t have to wear that hat anymore, you know. Everyone knows you’re a girl.”
I touched the brim of the hat. “Yeah, I know.” The thing was, they might know I was a girl, but they’d given me wide berth as a boy. And maybe I wanted that respect. I didn’t want to have to go through earning it all over again because suddenly people realized I had boobs instead of balls.
We hurried down to the front hall and into the ballroom I’d rushed out of the night before. In the center of the room a cauldron rose out of a trap door, flames curling up around the black bulbous pot. Steam swirled up from the surface, flickers of light dancing through it.
Wally nodded. “You weren’t the only student who didn’t get to toss their tokens into the cauldron.”
“Crap, I lost my tokens!” I put my hands to my pockets as if I’d find them there.
She smiled and held up a little bag. “My mom sent me with an extra set, in case I lost mine.”
A sigh of relief slid out of me. Ethan was ahead of us, along with Gregory, Colt, Mason, Ethel, and Lisa. Pete and Orin hurried to our side. Okay, Pete hurried, Orin glided.
“I’m kinda glad I missed it,” Pete said. “It’s better this way, just us.”
“Not quite.” I tipped my chin at the kids who’d been missing. They lined up first and I watched, excited to see how this played out. That is until the Sandman strode across the ballroom floor. His eyes were hidden behind his aviators, but I saw the bruise on the side of his face. He’d not escaped the fight unscathed.
“Line up, throw your tokens in, and when you’re called to your house, get your ass in gear. The buses are waiting.”
“Such pretty words,” I said, just loud enough for my crew to hear. Pete snickered and even Orin’s mouth tipped up.
Lisa was the first, and when she threw her tokens in they bubbled and hissed and one was thrown back out of the cauldron, spinning in the air, catching the light. She reached up and snagged it. “House of Claw.” She clutched it to her chest and hurried away.
Mason went next. Then Heath. Then the other kids who’d been taken and not noticed. Two of them threw their tokens in and got nothing back.
“Nulls.” Sideburns said. “Wait outside my office.”
Those two, a boy and a girl, left with their eyes low and their shoulders hunched. Just watching them, I wasn’t surprised they were nulls. This place had eaten them up and spit them out.
Colt was next. He threw his tokens in and the cauldron shook and hissed harder than before, the steam turning from a clear mist to a red burst of magic and sparkles.
I grabbed Wally’s arm. “He won’t be a null, will he?”
She shook her head I think, but I only caught it from my peripheral as I stared hard at Colt.
Sideburns gave a slow smile. That could not be good.
The cauldron spit out not one, but two tokens. Colt caught them both. “House of Wonder and House of Shade.”
Sideburns tipped his head at him. “Your choice where you train. But you can only train one.”
Colt stared at them and slowly left the ballroom, but not before he shot a look at me. I couldn’t decipher what was in his eyes. He couldn’t be confused about what to choose, he was obviously a mage.
Ethan was up next and got—surprise!—House of Wonder.
Gregory, House of Unmentionables.
Orin, House of Night.
Pete, House of Claw.
Wally, House of Night.
My friends waited to the side of the cauldron for me. I stepped up to the black pot and stared into it.
“Wait.” Sideburns put his hand out, stoppin
g me. “Everyone else, leave.”
“What? Why? Are you going to try and kill me again?” I took a few steps back, my hands going for my weapons.
Even underneath those aviator glasses, I could feel him glaring at me. “Not yet, I’m not.”
“That’s a threat!” Pete yelled.
It was, but something passed between Sideburns and me that I couldn’t quite explain. He was trying to protect me.
Because what if I had more than one token come out? What if Director Frost had been right about me and I was a chameleon? What kind of danger would that put me and my friends in. I swallowed hard and gave him a small nod. “It’s fine, I’ll be out in a minute.”
The others were reluctant but did as I asked. Ethan was the one who stopped at the doorway. “Just shout, we’ll be right here.”
“Don’t start being a nice guy now,” I said. “I just got used to you being a douche.”
He grinned and closed the door, and I turned back to the cauldron. “You think I’m going to be like her. Like Frost.”
“I do. And the fewer people who know that the better.” Sideburns made a motion to the cauldron. I lifted my hand over it, tokens in my palm.
“Why even make me do it then?”
“Because we could all be wrong about you. You could just be a talented human, a null like your father. Which would be worse?” he asked.
“Null,” I answered without hesitation and dropped my tokens into the cauldron.
They hit the tumbling, boiling water with tiny little plops. The water hissed and bubbled, turning a distinct shade of gray that slid into silver, then to red, not unlike Colt’s.
I held my breath as the cauldron shook, rattling on its bed so hard I thought it would tip over.
I didn’t dare take a step back. The steam rose, smelling of apples and lilac bushes, and then five tokens shot back out and into the air. I caught them as they fell, snagging them like a juggler.
Or like a Shade.
“House of Shade,” Sideburns said. “That is where you will train.”
“Under you?”
“God no.” He grunted. “I am no trainer. But I will be watching you. If you look even for an instant that you are going down the path of the other Chameleons, you’ll be dead faster than you can blink.”
Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3 Page 16
