by L Cross
I woke up with a startle. It was one of those things where you didn't want to move. Like it was a primal feeling, like you could feel like there was something in the room, and you didn't want to move and draw attention to yourself.
I looked through my lashes, and couldn't see anything, but I still had that feeling like there was something here. A presence.
I wanted to curl up and hide even farther in my blankets, but the thought that something might threaten my new friends made me brave.
I opened up eyes, trying to keep my breath even.
My eyes adjusted to the shadows in the room. I couldn't see anything in the beams of moonlight. I realized that I must have been imagining it between dreams.
And maybe a ton of junk food and cheesy movies.
I wanted to move into my room and stretch out, maybe brush my teeth. I shifted so I wouldn't wake anyone else. Kat just snuggled deeper into her side of the couch. Dara and Hanami had their own chairs.
I used the bathroom, brushed my teeth and attempted to clean the makeup and grime from my face. It was during the trip from the bathroom to my bedroom that I my subconscious caught onto the fact that something was wrong.
There were a pair of shoes that I hadn't recognized.
And then something else was attached to those shoes. I took a long look all the way up to the body that was attached to those pair of shoes. Because of course there was someone there to fill those shoes. Shoes that were worn and ugly boots that were too big for any of us to wear.
What the hell?
As soon as I locked onto its face, or what I thought would be its face, its eyes glowed red.
That was when I saw the outline of the horns and the black bat wings that shifted in the air behind it.
Fuck that.
I grabbed the dragon pen that was in my pocket and twisted the end. As soon as I did, it turned into the sword that I had taken out of the stone on the island of Avalon.
Blue light arced over the blade, the end of which I pointed toward the creature. An expression went over the creature, one that looked almost human.
It was surprised.
"I don't care what you are, but you will get the fuck out of here," I said. I brought the sword down in a downward arc over the creature's head.
Heat sizzled as the blade cut into the creature. It faded completely before the blade crashed down and landed into the floor.
The others roused from their sleep. I didn't quite hear their words of alarm, but I was happy to note that they didn't panic. I flipped the light switch.
"What is Artura?" Kat said.
"There was something here. That glowy-eyed thing."
"Glowy-eyed thing?" Dara asked confused.
"The demon thing from the laser tag," Kat explained. "Listen not to sound like a bitch, are you sure? You weren't dreaming?"
"I'm sure."
"But that's nearly impossible. There's no way an intruder can teleport into a warded Academy building. Not even the strongest magicks can do it."
I know what I saw, I don't just hack into random objects of my imagination." I crouched down onto the floor. My sword nicked into the wood all right, but I came up with something else that was found on the floor.
Tiny hairs. Whatever was here, I managed to hit it before it teleported away. Not much, but it was enough to shear off a few strands of hair that I rolled between my fingers.
I turned toward Hanami. "We could have that proof that will exonerate you sooner than we thought."
Hanami was fully awake now, the fire back in her eyes. "What proof?"
I held up the hairs in my hand. "I got a piece of the bastard before it could teleport away completely."
8
Pour Some Sugar On Me
"Thank god it’s Saturday," I said. I poured coffee in our little kitchenette. Even though I prefer to drink it black I dumped about a gallon of milk and a cup of sugar into it.
Light and sweet.
I figured the caffeine wouldn’t be enough to fire up my brain cells, so a mountain of sugar would have to supplement. A little extra pick-me-up. I took a huge mouthful and winced as I choked it down. How anyone could drink coffee like this on a regular basis, I’d never now.
"Dude you want a little coffee to go with that sugar?" Kat smirked.
"Ugh, it's horrible," I said forcing another swallow. "But I need it. I couldn't go back to sleep, and I need to be halfway intelligent sounding when I meet up with the Merlin."
Kat fumbled her bowl. "You're meeting with the Merlin?" she said, eyeballing Hanami's room. The door was closed, but for all we knew she could hear us. She pitched her voice low. "I thought Hanami wanted us to keep last night on the downlow. You know, in case there could be another reason to blame her for this shit."
When I showed Hanami the hairs, all she could think of was that it doomed her even more in conjuring up the demon thing if in fact they belonged to the demon. After all, now there was actual physical evidence of the creature in our suite, and my testimony wouldn't prove anything because I couldn’t attest to how the demon got in, only that it was there.
If anyone believed me at all. Supposedly, that was how difficult it was to teleport out of the Academy’s warded safehouses.
Whatever.
I'd held onto the hairs, placing them in a resealable plastic storage bag. I was still betting on the fact that the Merlin was interested in ensuring her protegée was innocent. She wouldn't have merely suspended Hanami if she believed anything else.
Besides, the Merlin didn't take my statement last night, and I had a few questions that needed answers from the top dog herself.
"Relax,” I told Kat, nursing my sickeningly sweet coffee. “I had other reasons to talk to her. Real reasons."
Kat eyeballed me skeptically.
"Trust me, I won't say anything about the demon-goat thing. Well, at least nothing specific."
"Tu tu!" Kat said with a warning in her tone, hands on her hips.
"I really wish my mom kept my nickname to herself," I mumbled under my breath. "Look, however this affects Hanami, I really do want to know what happened, and it would be interesting to know another’s point of view. Plus, I didn’t get to talk to the Merlin yesterday, just the surface stuff before she went flitting off to do Merlin-y things. She said she'd give me longer today."
At least, she implied that she would.
"Okay," Kat said, drawing out the word to make it way longer than it was.
I rolled my eyes, and poured the rest of the coffee into a tumbler, diluting the light and sweet concoction with plain black coffee. "Anyway, I'm off. I'll meet you for lunch?"
"You got it!"
I bounded down the stairs and noticed a little bit of a crowd near the game room in the common areas. I stopped behind the line leading out of the dorm. A couple of girls wandered in from that crowd to wait in line behind me. They were giggling.
"Hey, what's going on over there?" I asked them.
The brunette with a ponytail answered. "Oh, it seems like the ranks were updated already! So exciting! I'm in the top fifty!" She high-fived her friend who was next to her.
Those damn ranks. I wondered what the average, non-top-ten student thought of the ranking system. “So what do the ranks mean? Who does the ranking?”
The non-ponytail girl answered. “No one knows, that’s the beauty.”
“But it could be anyone?” I asked incredulously. “Why would that matter? Why doesn’t that sound creepy to anyone else but me?”
“Because the ones updating it are obviously higher ups like the mages. The people on top always get special perks or better positions. Stuff like that.”
“Would it stand to reason that the most skilled person would have earned that anyway?”
The girl brightened up and nodded. “Exactly! Hence the ranks.”
I decided that there was no reason for me to argue with them about such an arbitrary-seeming system. If such a thing were randomized, then why feel so honored to receive a rank in the first plac
e?
Curiosity overwhelmed me, so I stepped out of line and headed toward the crowd.
Someone who stood there took a look at me then the ranking board, then back at me again. "Hey, you're Artura Drake, right?" she asked.
I looked at the girl and tried to place her. Her blonde hair was vaguely familiar. “Yeah? I’m sorry, have we met?” I asked. “I’m really bad with names if so,” I said by way of apology.
"The spells class yesterday. You got the ghoul in record time?"
"Oh yeah," I said, pushing my brain to try and figure her out even more.
"Well, congrats! I'll have to pick your brain about spells sometime!" The girl left, leaving me even more confused.
If only I had realized that there were way more whispers around me than usual, and that other people moving out of my way. As soon as I had a clear shot to see the board, the sheer number of names overwhelmed me. There were fifty names so far that snaked onto the board.
I started from the bottom of the list and worked my way up telling myself that I really didn’t want or expect to see my name on this list.
After a ton of scouring to see if I didn't miss my name among the bottom and the middle of the list, someone came over and nudged me on the arm. It was Kat.
"Dude, I’d thought you’d be at campus by now. Have you been trying to find your name this entire time?” she asked.
I peeked at my watch and realized that I’d left my room fifteen minutes ago. “Nah, I just like staring at random green walls," I joked, sipping my still-too-sweet coffee. Blech, coffee needs to be crisp and earthy. Not this cavity-inducing liquid.
"Seriously? You're still trying to see where you are? Dude, make it easier for yourself. Start from the top."
Before I could mouth off at her, my eyes locked on the first name on the rank.
Artura Drake.
9
Take the Power Back
"What the hell," I said.
"I think that's the general sentiment," Kat said, pulling on my shirt. "Let's go before you catch some shit from others."
I followed her lead and lined up to leave the dorm again.
The line led to a sign-out book that was nearly as big as the table it sat upon. I’d been told that this was the way to keep the wards strong, rather than creating random tears in the spell-casting. Regardless of the reason, I signed my name with a flourish, the dragon pen always in my pocket now.
"How in the world am I the top name on the list?" I asked.
"Well, maybe your performance so far has been impeccable,” she teased.
"How," I asked. "I haven't even tried to suck up, like at all."
"Remember, it's a host of so many things. It’s not just about who you know or what you know but what you do and why,” Kat said. "Look, you don't have to believe me, that's fine, but at least hear me in the fact that the observers or watchers or whoever you choose to call them, aren't superior, they make mistakes. But they do a pretty good job of choosing the right people who rank high. So I guess what I’m saying is, be a gracious person and accept it."
"I just feel like I didn't earn that."
"Hey now. If you don't feel like you earned your rank, I could always make you do push ups or my laundry." Kat laughed. "You take things too seriously. What are you going to do? Take credit for everything that fails around here, would that balance things out for you?”
“Okay, I see what you’re trying to get at,” I started, but she interrupted.
“See there, you go again. ‘Trying,’” she said, using her fingers as air quotes. "Let me ask you this: Would you take credit for something that you didn't win fairly?"
I shook my head immediately. "Of course not. And anyone who does would piss me off."
"Exactly. So why are you going to take credit for some made up thing that you supposedly didn’t do? You’re looking around asking how you can be ranked so high because of all the things you’re not. You keep overlooking the thing that you are.”
I stared her down. “Surely you need to know by now that you have to fill in the blanks for me.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, making the pedestrians of a very busy street flow around us. “What’s in your pocket? Right now, tell me what’s in your pocket?”
“What? You mean my pen?”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean your fucking sword! Damn you’re dense sometimes. You’re the girl that found the dragon sword.” She punctuated each word with a clap of her hands.
“A sword of power, and one of the artifacts of power that the Morrigan needs to secure a foothold through the Mists. An enchanted sword hidden for generations by the Lady of the Lake herself until the one worthy can pull it from its stone prison. You’re the motherfucker that the Lady of the Lake chose to carry it. You were the one that did that. Not the Merlin, mages, wardens, but you. Do you hear me right now?”
I was afraid to say anything other than yes. But at least in this I did start to realize that there was something different about me, and even if I didn’t know what it was, or why I was chosen, I had to believe that there was something different.
“All right, all right, I’m a dragon heir and that’s special,” I teased, though deep down my stomach fluttered with apprehension. I raised my hands in surrender. "I promise to be more positive if you no longer preach your hellfire sermons at me.”
"Okay," she answered with a nod as if satisfied that her little speech sunk its way through my thick skull.
I matched her stride. “Are you walking me to my meeting?"
She snorted. “Nah, you're keeping me company as I walk toward downtown."
After a moment of companionable silence, I couldn’t take it anymore, and had to air out something I felt guilty admitting. “Okay, fine. I'm actually really happy to be the top of the rank, okay? I just can't help feeling guilty, like Hanami ought to be on there, and for some reason that didn't get done."
"You getting a top spot isn’t taking anything away from anyone else. Also, Hanami can take care of herself."
"I still can't shake the feeling that something bad is gonna happen just around the corner."
10
Interrogation
"I hear you're the first on the rank," the Merlin said. "Impressive."
The Merlin’s office was always startlingly off-putting in its over-sized manliness. It seemed more in keeping with Hemingway’s descendants rather than this elegantly chic woman who represented the most powerful Mage of this generation.
"You know that I wouldn't be in the top spot if Hanami were in play." I said that statement with a little more salt than I’d intended. The sugar in my coffee wasn’t doing its job sweetening my temper.
The Merlin's face turned into a perfectly smooth mask. Considering she had no visible pores or imperfections in the first place, it was impressive. "Well, good morning to you, too, then."
"I'm sorry that I'm not sorry, Merlin, but you know that it's true. If Hanami wasn't wrongfully accused of dabbling in black magic, which we need to talk about, then she would be up there, and not me."
"You don't know that. There really is no rhyme or reason to those ranks," the Merlin said.
"Regardless, she'd be up there," I insisted. "What the hell does it mean to be ranked and why isn't there more talk about the ranking system? After all, it seems like it's so important to the culture here, and yet I only found out about it among the student body. Doesn't that sound weird?"
"It's honestly nothing to worry about. There are rumors that there are more perks to those that rank higher, but there's no real truth to that. The truth is, the rank exists because the students themselves find it…entertaining.”
Entertaining? “Last I checked, no one likes feeling like a failure,” I ventured.
“Entertaining in that it occupies their time and energy without adding harm or being too much of a distraction. Like any ranking system, it can be positive or negative depending on the user. For some, it encourages them to try harder. For others, it validates a tr
uth about themselves they already know.”
I didn’t know why, but the way she said that made it seem like she was talking about me. I fidgeted in my seat. "Okay, well, then we can discuss the next item on my agenda."
"Oh, I didn't realize there was an agenda, I would have prepared," the Merlin deadpanned, smoothing the front of her designer suit.
“I was thinking about last night and the weird creature thing that appeared and looked like it wanted to be a demon. Made me wonder if there was a magical version of CSI. You know, where the forensic cop types comb through a scene and find like hair and fingerprints and whatever else…is there a magical equivalent to that? There has to be, right? Like something you can analyze?”
The Merlin’s gaze was bright and unwavering, her eyes glittering like polished obsidian. “There are magical devices like that, yes. But you’re assuming that the creature…left something behind last night?”
I wasn’t going to nitpick on the fact that she hedged her answer, especially since I planned on sidestepping a few things myself. It would all come down to who was a better dancer. “As a matter of fact, possibly this?"
I took out the bag of hairs from the thing that appeared in my dorm room last night. Short brown things looked more like fibers than hair, but it was better than nothing.
The Merlin leaned forward, genuinely intrigued. “What is this?"
"Let's just say I tried killing something that had the horns, body, wings of a Baphomet Demon but wasn't. I need to know if you can somehow confirm that with these.”
She opened up the bag and held a few of the hairs between her fingers. She twirled it gently between her fore finger and thumb, first one way then the other before placing what she held back in the bag.
"You're always a surprise, Ms. Drake. Before I accept this, you have to know that I admire that you are trying to protect Hanami, but trust me, it’s not necessary. This is part of the process, and once we figure it out, her suspension will be lifted, stricken from her record, and all will be well again. Therefore, there really is no need to speak about another student to me.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “Now, let's talk about you."
