Naughty Necromancer (Reaper Collective Book 2)

by Riley Archer

  He returned to his seat and I stopped breathing. The room spun, but these narrowminded losers wouldn’t see me crack.

  It took everything in me to hold steady.

  The word recess mixed with the salacious whispers in the audience. People filed out. But Otto didn’t move. And neither did I.

  2

  The Gavel Drop

  I’d lowered into my seat by the time the court staff and rubberneckers trickled back in. As Judge Merriweather unfolded a piece of paper handed to him by who I guessed was the foreman, Otto peered over his shoulder, right at me, and smiled. He’d been framed and underrepresented, yet he smiled.

  This whole circus was a mess of twisted truths and complete fabrications, but they got one thing right: Otto was delusional. Things being what they were, it was probably for the best. I could use a dose of delusion myself.

  The verdict set down, Judge Merriweather pulled himself into a straight line. “A verdict has been reached in the case of Reaper Collective versus Otto Tanaka. In the charge of conspiracy against Reaper Collective and its partners, the defendant has been found … guilty. In the charge of the kidnapping and indoctrination of Reaper Collective employee Ellis Kennicot, the defendant has been found … guilty. The defendant is also suspected of foul play against Reaper Collective employee Cameron Atlas.” The judge paused while one of the other court officials whispered in his ear.

  The echo of each guilty lashed at me like a whip; they sliced right through and left my nerve-endings stinging.

  The judge nodded and continued, “Once the investigation into Command Coordinator Atlas’s disappearance concludes, sentencing will follow within three duty days. Mr. Tanaka, you are hereby dismissed.”

  Dismissed. As if he could just get up and walk out of his own accord.

  Sure, Atlas had framed him and had done a good job of it. But most of this had to do with me. Otto was going to get deactivated because of me. I could’ve crumbled.

  Otto lifted his head. “May I stay for the remainder of the sentencing?”

  The judge nodded. “You may. We will now move on to the rehabilitation potential of Collector Ellis Kennicot. This court concludes that, after a thorough review of her duty record, Collector Kennicot is suited for reintegration into Reaper Collective. However, in light of her connection to these crimes, she must do so in a controlled, supervised environment, and in a new job position. It is my ruling that Collector Kennicot train under Driftwood Academy’s direction, not to be released from Academy grounds until the order is signed off by the headmaster himself, effective immediately.”

  And then the gavel dropped. It was like a mic drop, but worse.

  Two Enforcers gripped Otto’s shoulders and led him through a back door before I had a chance to say anything—even goodbye.

  “And Miss Kennicot,” Judge Merriweather added before I was dragged out of the courtroom. “I mean it. Do not leave Academy grounds. Any escape attempts, successful or not, may be viewed by some as an act of revolution. Otto Tanaka has been charged with something akin to treason, and the two of you have been inarguably linked. If you escape, he will not be looked upon favorably.”

  The judge got up and left, and I bore the dirtiest look I could into his draped back.

  I could translate what he meant easily enough: Mess up, and Otto will be punished for it.

  I didn’t know where Damian was, or if he was even alive, but I sympathized with his anarchist vendetta for the first time ever.

  3

  The Special Project

  I sat alone in the back of a posh, all-black van. It had the feel of a school bus, even with the blacked-out windows. Did that make me a cool kid or a bitter loner?

  Who am I kidding? I didn’t care.

  I was stacks of bitter, but I’d decided that instead of brooding, my time was better spent plotting my next devious deed.

  I didn’t personally find exonerating an innocent man devious, but I had a feeling Reaper Collective would; it meant breaking every rule of my probation. Of course, they had used the word rehabilitation instead of probation, but we all knew what it really meant.

  I had two conditions standing between me and deactivation, and they were pretty limiting.

  I couldn’t contact anyone outside Driftwood Academy.

  And I couldn’t leave the Academy.

  It was a unique prison sentence.

  The bus pulled to a stop. The dozen or so new reaper students fled to admire the grounds. The dark tint of the windows cleared like fog on glass until I could see through them.

  Frost sheathed the immaculate landscape, and three neighboring fortresses made up the campus. A scarf of fog hid just how high they rose into the sky, but I was pretty sure castle was an accurate description for each.

  The quiet driver made eye contact in the rearview mirror. “You’re the one I was told to make sure stayed on the vehicle, but it seems like getting you off will be the problem.”

  “I won’t be a problem,” I sighed. Not for her, anyway.

  I unfolded my legs and slung my duffel bag over my shoulder. Mr. Georgie being tucked under my arm was a glimmer of comfort. I poked my head out of the van and inhaled.

  The air was crisp enough to cut lungs. Frosty blades of grass crunched under my boots and I tilted my head back to get a full view of the property. Yep, I was serving my sentence in a trio of castles.

  Lucky me.

  There was a bundled-up girl pointing arrivals in the right direction; it seemed Driftwood Academy had a tiny but exuberant welcoming committee. Her voice was muffled behind a heap of fabric. “The General Advancement Grounds is on the far left, Executive Training Grounds in the middle, and Special Projects is to the far right.”

  Everyone skedaddled, except me. I felt like I was on a gameshow and was being told to pick a door. I hadn’t been given a rehabilitation syllabus, but I figured I’d probably fall into the Special Projects category.

  Scarf girl pointed a gloved finger at me. “Let me guess. Ellis Kennicot?”

  I sighed. “There’s a center for people like me in the back, isn’t there?”

  “Calling it a center would be a bit generous. It’s more like a shack.” The corners of her mouth poked up behind the layers of fabric. “In all seriousness, Headmaster Harmon is expecting you.”

  She walked away, realized I wasn’t following, then turned back around and waved her hand. “C’mon. He’s nice. And he has warm cider, so…”

  I righted my hold on Mr. Georgie and picked up my feet. Scarf girl seemed nice enough, but if she was lying about the cider, she had a fast-track to my shit list.

  “I’m Eliza, by the way,” she said as she forged the path to the Executive Training Grounds. She unraveled her scarf as we stepped through an archway fitted for a giant. Scratch that. This whole place was fitted for a high-maintenance giant. It was opulent with tasteful medieval touches.

  Sconces flickered candlelight onto stone walls, giving the vast foyer a warm glow. Students formed quiet study groups on either side, all of them flush with the prim and proper respect that made up a library.

  It was toasty in here, but I didn’t want to give off the impression I was comfortable by taking my jacket off.

  I was in a mild state of psychological warfare with my enslaving—er, employing—organization, and these were the kinds of things I thought about now. We went up a wide set of stairs and took a sharp left on the second floor.

  Headmaster Harmon’s office was surprisingly modest. And the headmaster himself was a ball of quirk. If the stout man with his shiny nose buried in a book was, in fact, the headmaster.

  “Professor Harmon, I’ve brought Ellis Kennicot.”

  “Eliza!” He slapped the book closed so close to his face that I was surprised it hadn’t clipped his prominent sniffer. He waggled a long finger into the air. Disproportionally long for such a tiny human. Or is he human? “I knew you’d make an excellent guide.”

  Eliza beamed. “Glorified traffic guard, but I’ll take t
he compliments where I can get them. Would you like me to step out?”

  Now that several layers of scarves had been undone, Eliza’s frizzy ringlets brushed past her shoulders. Her skin had hundreds of freckles the same shade as her light brown eyes.

  “For a moment, if you would, dear.” The old man still hadn’t acknowledged me.

  “See you soon.” She smiled at me before meandering out and into the massive hall.

  “Ah, Ellis Kennicot. Most trainees arrive with a pre-planned agenda, but I have been given full reign over your rehabilitation.”

  “You should ask for a raise,” I said as the headmaster wandered behind his desk, which was overflowing with opened books, loose papers, and just about every piece of staple office décor in the world.

  Newton’s Cradle? Check.

  A tiny box of sand with an equally tiny rake? Check.

  A succulent that has seen better days? Double check.

  If Erik lost his sweet tooth, forsook the dark arts, and took an office job, his space would probably look something like this.

  “You’re funny. I didn’t expect that.” Headmaster Harmon propped his chin on his knuckles, pushing the loose skin forward. “What are we to do with you?”

  I needed an unmonitored phone call or two and an actual crystal ball, but this didn’t seem like the time to ask. I picked up a translucent orb propped on a bookshelf and scanned the crowded space.

  Ah, no Eliza on my shit list today.

  A tray of glasses and a full carafe was propped against the back wall. I set the empty orb back down and smiled. “Share cider with me?”

  If I was lucky, it’d be spiked. Too bad lady luck was rarely on my side.

  The headmaster hopped out of his chair. “That’s a good place to start.”

  He walked over and poured me some. The glass he handed me looked like it was made for scotch or whiskey, but it was warm, and when I sipped, apple cinnamon flavor buzzed over my taste buds like a spiced holiday.

  “Mm.” I meant it. “Thank you.”

  “So, about your education.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “What areas are you interested in? Recruiting? Interagency law? Criminal clean up? The advanced collection of supernatural souls?”

  I almost made a comment about being a born criminal meant for janitorial work, but his last suggestion made me sputter. Cinnamon singed the insides of my nostrils. “Excuse me. I think I misheard you?”

  “I don’t think you did.” A wicked gleam flashed across his face. He picked up the same orb as me from earlier, tossed it into the air, caught, and sniffed it. Odd fella. He continued, “We’ll start there, then. I don’t know you well yet, Ellis, but I can’t imagine you enjoying an office position. Please tell Eliza to set you up with Miss Duvall.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Eliza popped her head back in.

  “Yes. Please escort Ellis to the Special Projects campus.” He turned to the freckled guide. “She’ll be enrolling in Advanced Collections. She’ll need a schedule and a tour.” He sniffed the orb one last time before setting it down and burying his nose in another book.

  “Happy to oblige,” Eliza said in a low breath, knowing the headmaster’s attention on us had fully evaporated. “Ready, Ellis?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Well, I was right about one thing. I knew I was special.

  Eliza was as bundled as a baby as we spanned the outside of the campus.

  “Are you from somewhere warm?” I asked.

  “Texas,” she laughed. “How’d you know?”

  I glanced at her many, many layers. “Just a hunch.”

  “I never thought I’d willingly buckle down in Alaska,”—she nuzzled her nose deeper down, making her words almost inaudible—“but it’s not so bad here. I’m still part traffic guard and part personal assistant to the adjunct staff, but I have a knack for paranormal psychology.”

  So, she isn’t a student … but that was far less interesting than the other fact she just laid bare. My crunching footsteps came to a halt. “Did you say we’re in Alaska?”

  Her eyes darted between me and our destination. A worried crease formed in her forehead as if she might turn into an icicle on the spot. “Yeah. Lots of open land, good for privacy. Why?”

  “Nothing. Just wondering.” I caught back up and she relaxed. Man, she was really sensitive to the cold. This familiar cold. I should’ve recognized the sharp air—I’d taken my last real breath in it.

  Maybe I could hop a train and visit good ole Gary, my last but not least fake foster parent.

  “You must have spunky energy,” Eliza said as I strode to her side.

  “Uh, yeah.” It wasn’t the weirdest thing anyone had said to me. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”

  She grinned. Or, at least, her eyes suggested she was grinning. “That little orb? You couldn’t help but grab it, right?”

  I squinted at her. “You don’t seem like the peek-through-the-crack-in-the-doorway type. But I’ve been wrong before.”

  A few beautiful, treacherous faces came to mind. Understatement of the century.

  She held her gloved hands up in surrender. “Hey, I wouldn’t say I’m the type, but if Brad Pitt’s undressing in a room and doesn’t have the foresight to close his door all the way, all bets are off.”

  I raised a brow. “Is he sexy still?

  “Always,” she laughed. “Anyway, I did tell you I have a knack for paranormal psychology. The design and placement of that orb just make people want to grab it; it’s the strangest thing. Headmaster Harmon only sets it out when he wants to read energy. In your case, he wanted to see where you’d be best suited to study. Advanced Collections is a spunky place to be.”

  “Ah.” I wiped my hand on my jeans as if the energy-sucking magic trick might be lingering on my fingertips. The last thing I needed was to be sniffed out as a necromancer. Note to self: don’t touch random, cool looking orbs.

  Before I passed the massive threshold into the Special Projects “campus”, a sneeze tickled its way out and shook my body. When I lowered my elbow, I glanced around to check for some studying students I may have disturbed. There were none. In fact, it didn’t look like the same academy at all.

  Unlike the Executive palace, this fortress had more than a mere medieval touch here and there. An order of chivalry could’ve marched in, swords in hand, and fit right in. I held in a second sneeze; if someone told me this place hadn’t been dusted in several decades, I’d believe them.

  I puffed out a breath and it came out as a frosty cloud. So, no heat. A lightbulb popped inside an antique lamp in an alcove off to the side, so I supposed there was electricity in some capacity.

  Eliza watched me soak in the life of luxury.

  “Yeah …” Eliza dragged out. “The students here can be a bit … destructive, so the establishment hasn’t had a significant remodel for several centuries.”

  I pretended the word centuries didn’t freak me out—because I was an undead being with powers over other undead beings, so what’s a few hundred years?—and followed her up the stairs.

  She continued, “Though they look similar from the outside, each schoolhouse is a completely unique campus. This one … well, just don’t wander. You’ll get your lodging assignment and your schedule. Common areas will be denoted on the map they will give you.”

  Oh, Eliza. Her telling me not to wander was a seed for bad behavior. And if curiosity was water and vengeance was sunlight, a forest of misconduct lay in my future.

  When we made it to the hundredth floor—just kidding, that’s just what it felt like—Eliza finally stopped in front of an office door. A woman’s voice blared behind it.

  I glanced at my chaperon. “You’re going to abandon me, aren’t you?”

  She rolled her eyes, but in a lighthearted way. “As much as I love being a tour guide …” her knuckles rapped against the fogged glass square. “Dean Duvall?”

  Dean Duvall. Headmaster Harmon. Command Coordinator … nope, never
mind. But I wanted a cool, alliterative title too. Could I be Exonerated Ellis? Or, if things went sour, Killer Kennicot?

  Eliza knocked again.

  The yelling behind the door paused. “Just a minute!” Then, not projected at us, the woman on the other side continued, “If you even breathe toward the Specter Simulator again, we won’t need it anymore, because I will turn you into a werewolf, rip your soul out of your body, and the students will take turns portaling you into whatever purgatory hell I devise. I’ll make it painful, Max. Don’t test me.”

  A low mumble followed. Though I couldn’t make out the words, it had the ring of a beaten-down apology.

  I got Eliza’s attention and mouthed, “Is she a werewolf?”

  Eliza’s eyes went wide, and that exact moment Dean Duvall swung the door open. She didn’t look as intimidating as she sounded. Her baggy office-casual attire didn’t quite hide her curves, and she had long sandy and silver locks. And bright eyes.

  Oops, and there it was—a sneer that could flay flesh.

  “Banshee. It helps to have a death predictor on the premises. You hear that Max,” she said as a stocky young man squeezed by. “One more false step and I’ll be making predictions about you.”

  He kept his head down, and once he was several strides away, he picked up into a sprint.

  I gave his terrified back one last glance before returning my attention to the one and only banshee I’d ever met. “So, what’s a Specter Simulator?”

  4

  The Furry Poltergeist

  I quickly learned Dean Duvall wasn’t the answering-questions type. She also sucked as a tour guide, because all she did was tell me where I needed to be the next day and shoved me into a closet of a dorm room.

  Which meant I still didn’t know what a Specter Simulator was, but it sounded like something that spat out toy ghosts. I couldn’t blame poor Max for wanting to play with it. I was tempted, and I hadn’t even seen the thing.