by Riley Archer
I glanced at my schedule and nodded at … Professor Downing … and grabbed a plain gray mat.
After tucking myself in the back as best I could, I copied their poses. Hmm. Yeah. This was kind of nice. The hums were low enough to not be annoying; it was like a soundtrack in a cheap spa. Not bad for a first class. It beat death by PowerPoint.
“Okay,” Professor Downing said in a masseuse-like tone. “Warm-up time is over. We have a new addition to our class. Would anyone like to do a quick run-through of what we’ve learned so far?”
A hand shot straight into the air. The attached body soon followed. “Supernatural souls do not manifest in the same spiritual layer as human souls. Although reapers can transcend layers, we are originally human, so we have a crutch for that particular dimensional space. This makes spotting and guiding lucid supernatural souls a challenge. An Advanced Collector must be vigorously trained in order to reach their objective.” She paused for a breath. I assumed, anyway, because she was talking so fast her lungs had to be empty. They filled back up in record time. “Clairvoyance is the first step in achieving this. In this intro class, we are learning to sense and home in on the primary layers Advanced Collectors need to master: the various ones for witches, shifters, and vampires.”
“Thank you, Sierra,” the professor said.
“Question.” I raised my hand as the girl had. She whipped her stark silver hair around to face me. In contrast to her hair color, her bronze cheeks were plump with youth. “Do vampires have souls?”
The silver-haired reaper almost scoffed. “Have you not read Soul Implications for the Lost?”
The what? I shrugged. “That’s next on my to-be-read.”
Her pretty face contorted like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But it’s a prerequisite—”
“Thank you, Sierra, you may sit down,” Professor Downing said. “Ellis was a last-minute enrollment, so she never received that information. As for—”
“Wait,” one of the other students cut in. “That name sounds familiar. Are you the murdered reaper whose Grim went nuts and forced her to join a cult?”
The question wasn’t super far off from the truth, but it rubbed my nerves wrong anyway.
I dropped my jaw and scanned the room. “Wait, this isn’t my cult? Then what the heck am I doing here?”
The guy looked confused, and then annoyed when the sarcasm settled in.
My mood took a deeper dive. Reaper Collective wasn’t a rumor mill; it ran on a strict need-to-know basis, which was why I had been constantly surprised since my death.
Which meant if information about my case had gotten out, it was intentional.
Nice move, Chad. Now, the Academy staff wouldn’t be the only ones keeping an eye on me; thanks to the cult-y rumors, the whole damn campus would be watching my every move.
“Anyway,” Professor Downing said pointedly. “To answer your question, Ellis, vampires do, in fact, have souls. But they are warped beyond belief and must be released from their bodies through an emancipation ritual; they can be toxic, so they must be handled with the utmost care. Your Customs class will cover the protocol for such instances.”
I held my breath for a moment as she resumed instruction.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
The rest of the class consisted of Professor Downing spritzing old-fashioned perfume bottles, the kind with little puffer bulbs, into the room and asking what kind of energy she’d released.
Half the room seemed to guess at different times, making me think some people were better at sensing different layers. Other than faint colors in the air, I mostly just saw a lady treating the space like a Macy’s fragrance section. Except each spritz was followed by a shout.
“Werewolf!”
“Vampire!”
“Earth witch!”
“Feline shifter!”
“Lightning mage!”
Then those same things repeated in different orders.
And then, “Fae!” Those few guessers got a gold star.
Professor Downing paused. “What do you do when you sense a fae?”
“Leave it alone and report it if it feels unstable,” Sierra said.
“And why? Someone else?”
A person who had been quiet until now spoke up. He sat across the room from me, just as far back. He had one of those perpetually sad but bored faces, ice-blue eyes, and thin, long brown hair tied to the nape of his elongated neck. “Because there are thousands of species of fae, and each one has unique guidelines for their existence and energy. A reaper interfering with a fae’s natural process could have catastrophic implications, legal and bodily.”
Professor Downing smiled. “Thanks, Ethan. One more and that’ll be it for today.”
This time when the energy was released, a plume of glowing scarlet spread across the room like a powder bomb. It seemed to call to me, like I could inhale it if I wanted.
Still, I didn’t say a thing.
“Necromancer,” Ethan sighed.
6
The Polyester Professor
I was thankful it was the last class as I stepped into Apparitic Defenses.
The professor’s back was to me, but I scanned him head-to-toe anyhow. I’d never seen such a perfectly studious sweater vest, but something about him was familiar. I homed in on the slicked-back flap of his dark hair.
He turned, and my blood went cold.
Damian freaking Forrester was a professor at Driftwood Academy? And he owned a sweater vest? I didn’t know which was more unbelievable.
The Damian I knew was a comic book fanboy who proudly waved a supernatural anarchy flag, had a grungy studio in New York, and preferred trench coats to polyester. Oh, and he’d pulled a disappearing act the night of my arrest.
My skepticism flatlined into relief. He survived.
Wait, no. Screw relief. Beautiful men were treacherous beings. Even the ones who occasionally forgot to shower and wore Batman boxers.
A theory rang in my head like a bell: Damian was RC black-ops and his mission was to convince me he hated the place he was unflinchingly loyal to. Thus, he hadn’t escaped the night of my arrest; he’d been evacuated!
“You—” I started, and he gave me a subtle, sharp shake of the head.
“You must be my new student. Welcome to Apparitic Defenses, Miss Kennicot. I’m Professor David Forrester.” He picked up a satchel from the side of his desk. “The headmaster asked me to pass along your supplies.”
David? Oh, God. He had a secret identity. He really thought he was the reaper world’s Batman, didn’t he? This was too sad to watch. I tentatively took the heavy bag he held out to me and made my way to an empty seat. When I peeked inside it, I saw nothing but books. My interest only went downhill from there.
Damian—David—droned on about layer shifting when encountering an uncooperative soul. Apparently, layers meant more than cake to everyone on campus.
The phony professor cleared his throat. “Miss Kennicot, can you please follow along in your textbook? Page twenty-six.”
I smiled at him and found the book embossed with the class title. When I reached page twenty-six, a note fell into my lap. I pretended to sweep it away like it was lint and tucked it into my sleeve.
My interest perked.
When the class was over, I paused near Damian.
“Have a nice day.” His dismissal was abrupt.
I gave him a look that I hoped clearly communicated the kind of message I wanted to send, something like, Nice to see you too, jackhole.
Then, I followed behind my classmates like a slow duckling, and when I was sure no one was looking, I opened the note. It read:
Don’t plot my murder yet. I’ll explain later. Meet back here at midnight.
I crumpled it up and shoved it in my pocket.
Sure, I’d meet him, but I wasn’t making any promises on that first part.
My mind and ass might’ve been numb from lectures, but my mind was as alive as ever. Plotting murders di
d that to a person. Also, evading kitten spies. I’d somehow managed both.
It was approximately five minutes till midnight when the classroom door creaked open and my potential victim shuffled into the room.
I slowly turned in the swivel chair. I was going for creepy, and I was pretty sure I succeeded.
Damian flinched ever so softly. Or maybe he just blinked. I was going to believe it was a flinch because that was eons more satisfying.
He shed his professor persona like the snake he was and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t take you for the punctual type.”
I was incredibly punctual, but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. I tapped the inside of my palm with a pen and leaned forward. “I guess we don’t know each other as well as we thought, David.”
Seedy ideas blossomed in my brain. I’d blackmailed him before. Why not stick with what was tried and true?
He set down his briefcase in such a businesslike manner it gave me a chill. He spanned the space between us in an instant. Damn those long legs. And then, out of nowhere, he snatched my power pen and threw it across the room. He loomed over me. “Don’t pretend you called this meeting, student.”
I propped my feet on the desk to let him know he hadn’t intimidated me.
“Polyester isn’t very scary, professor. You’ll have to do better than that.”
After a brief staring contest, he backed off. I’d expected him to yank out his ancient scythe, but it didn’t come. Instead, he rubbed his forehead.
“David is my brother. He’s going to be gone for a couple of months. I pulled some strings to get him assigned to a temporary duty, and then intercepted the paperwork so the Academy wasn’t notified.”
I lowered my feet. “You have strings, huh?”
I wondered who was pulling them.
Moonlight trickled in through the window and highlighted his annoyed, mossy eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“What about when the favorite sibling returns and nobody acts like he’s been gone for a while?”
A shadow crossed his face. I wasn’t sure if it was amusement or something darker. “By then, I’ll be gone.”
I squinted. My gut told me he was hiding something, but I didn’t think I wanted to enact my murder plot just yet. Dead men might have answers, but they can’t help much. And anyway, it just so happened that I didn’t have a weapon—my plan included the pen he’d flung about seven feet away from me.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, he had taken a hammer to the side to save my ass.
I sighed. “How’s that internal bleeding?” I waited a few seconds with no reply. I gave a second, more dramatic sigh. “Fine! Speak.”
“I’m not a dog, Ellie.”
Ellie was the name devised by Atlas. I didn’t want to hear it at all.
I planted my feet on the ground. “That’s a low blow, Mr. Rogers. Okay, wanna tell me what you’re up to? And how you’re alive, maybe?”
He sat on a nearby desk. “I wasn’t so badly injured that I couldn’t smell the corporate stench of RC coming up the stairs. I hid until they evacuated the estate.”
“But they searched every crack and crevice. Where were you hiding?” When he refused to answer me once again, I came to my own conclusion. “I guess you are kind of an asshole.”
A smirk flirted with his lips and lost. “I’ve gotten very good at hiding from them.”
Hiding, huh? Why would a rogue protected by a treaty need to hide? Add in this twin business and his whole backstory stank like fermented garbage. “I don’t think so. They would have picked up your fingerprints or something.”
“Which are miraculously no longer available in the International Reaper Database.”
I chewed that over. If Damian wasn’t full of it, he had friends high enough to delete classified information as well as help him pull off a twisted version of The Parent Trap. Suspicion lit my senses once again, but a happy train of thought came with it.
If the International Reaper Database is hackable, what implications could that have on Tanaka’s case?
Right as I opened my mouth, Damian scowled and cut me off. “If you can put a pin in your interrogation, maybe we can talk about who the mole in the Academy is.”
I let silence stretch between us before I responded. “Is it you?”
“Don’t you find it a little weird that you were sent to the Academy? Reaper Collective is clearly corruptible, and they’ve placed you somewhere all high-level reapers have access to, but where you’re vulnerable.” Damian went on to explain how fishy it was that all of Atlas’s “investors” had pointed the finger at Tanaka. “That doesn’t seem like a busted group ready to give up,” he added, and for once, I agreed.
I clucked my tongue. “And how do you know all the gritty details of the trial?”
“Connections. Are you capable of listening, Ellis?”
“Yes,” I said in the tone of a petulant teenager.
Seriously though, if Damian was right, someone wanted me here and had enough pull to make it happen. Whatever this mysterious person’s plans were, they probably included sweeping me from this frozen fortress and making me do Glitch-controlling again.
I groaned and flung my head back. “Everyone wants to kidnap me, and now I’ve been shoved in a Podunk castle like a sitting duck. I feel like a hostage dark princess.” I spun in the chair. My head whirled when I stopped, but I made a solid effort to point at Damian. “I am not throwing my hair out a window.”
His face remained flat. “Good. You’ll save some poor fool from climbing it and meeting you. Anyway, keep a low profile for now and stay out of trouble. Mole or not, the classes here are useful. If your attention span can manage, you might learn something.”
I could learn some new places to put my fist, I thought but bit my tongue. “And what are you going to be doing?”
He rolled up his sleeves, looking no less nerdy when he was done. “Recon. I pull off a pretty good David.”
I scanned the sweater vest. I thought of all his new, flippant little gestures. Apart from the snarky moments I’d pulled out of him and his face, he was nothing like the batboy rogue I knew from the big city.
“Fine,” I said softly while I stood and crossed the room. “Can you do me a favor?”
His brows pulled together. “I thought I was already.”
Sounded like a yes to me. “Can you reach Ash and Jose and have them derail Atlas’s disappearance investigation? It’s kinda …” the only way to postpone Tanaka’s sentencing.
For some reason, I couldn’t say Otto’s name out loud. In addition to being elusive and beautiful, he’d become … unspeakable. Like I wasn’t worthy of saying his name when he was rotting away in a supernatural jail cell because of me.
Damian crossed his arms. His voice had a gentle mock to it as he said, “You like him, huh?”
“No! I—I owe him. And I don’t like debt.” My cheeks burned as if I’d stuck my face into Dante’s Inferno. Which was where I wanted to send Damian at that precise moment.
He smirked, but there was something else behind the curve of his lips. Something I couldn’t quite read. “Already on it. Do me a favor and shoo. I have papers to grade.”
“I expect top marks.” I paused in the doorway, another weight of debt settling into my shoulders. My gaze pointed at my feet, I halfway turned back into the room. Then I looked at him, sitting studiously behind the desk. “Thanks for, you know, coming in as backup. Now and before.”
Damian held my eye for a moment before he began a bizarre slow clap.
I scratched my head. I mean, I’d been through enough to deserve some goddamn applause, but I didn’t appreciate it right now.
After his final clap, he said, “That was really hard to say, wasn’t it?”
“You know what, scratch that whole thing. Just remember what I said about you being an asshole.” I flicked him off and made my way back to my room.
When my door came into view, so did Mari, but as I approached, she vanis
hed.
Good riddance.
7
The Cuffing
I could pretend my intense concentration in class was because Damian and the other professors were excellent teachers, but in all honesty, I was keeping an eye out for anyone who seemed even a wee bit mole-like. Damian was still the most suspicious person around, but my sudden awareness in class paid off in other ways.
By the end of the week, I could distinguish most of the spiritual energy Professor Downing spritzed around like Febreze.
Fae energy was the toughest to sense, and since it was taboo to handle, I wondered if having it at all was even legal. Which raised other questions.
I shot my hand into the air.
“Yes, Ellis?” Professor Downing asked while everyone hummed. She encouraged interruptions during meditation time since real life was full of them.
“Where do you get the energy from? Generous souls willing to donate chunks of ectoplasm?” I imagined Bones gifting me its detached hand. Maybe it went something like that.
Professor Downing’s mouth pressed into a small, straight line before she answered. “All energy was donated from the respective governing agency. The agencies realize that if they seek Reaper Collective’s help with safe and smooth transitions, training is required.”
So, not on a volunteer basis. There were probably some pissed off mutilated souls wandering around in the Abyss. Morbid as that was, I couldn’t help but grin a little. Maybe they’ll take it out on Atlas.
In Apparitic Defenses, Damian yapped on and on about spiritual limitations and different enchanted weapons that could be used against them. Today, he unveiled engraved, luminous teal shackles that looked like they were birthed in an underwater kingdom.
But knowing his penchant for kittens and fangs, it wasn’t a stretch to believe the magical cuffs came from his personal collection.
I batted my lashes. “Do you have a lot of experience with those, professor?”
Someone snickered behind me and muttered something about borrowing them.
