by Ivy Hearne
I had to snicker a little at that. But it also drained away all the anger I’d been building up about the adults taking over.
“What can I do to help?”
Reo chewed on his bottom lip for second. “I think the best thing you can do is gather a small group of people you trust and make a plan for using that pendant of yours against the wizard your Lusus Naturae friend showed you in that vision.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that what everyone else thinks I should be doing?”
Real barked out a short laugh. “Oh, no, it’s not. But I don’t think what other people want matters anymore. The Sisters said we needed you and your vision showed you the one wizard who is the primary connection between the Lusus Naturae and the darkness. No matter what anyone else says, I think that should be your focus.”
“I agree.” I took a deep breath. “What are the others saying?”
His mouth twisted up in a flash of anger. “It ranges from throw you to the wolves to ignore you completely, with a healthy dose of send you out on your own to fight alone mixed in there, too.”
“So no consensus?”
He snorted. “No consensus. So it’s time to make our own plans.”
I nodded, and on impulse, stood up on my tiptoes to kiss him on his cheek. At the last possible moment, he turned his face slightly and captured my lips with his.
It was a short kiss, but he caught me off guard, and I found myself softening into him, almost melting against him for a heartbeat before I pulled away, blushing.
“Just in case,” Reo said. “I’d hate to leave that undone if anything happens.”
I cast about for a reply but couldn’t think of anything before he threw me a wink and a wave and turned around to stroll down the hallway, whistling some kind of almost tuneless song as he went.
Chapter 7
I took Reo’s advice and began working with a small group of students. Me, Souji, Erin, Erin’s best friend Colette, even Zarya and Hazel, who hadn’t really spoken to me since Angelina died in the Valentine’s Day attack.
We stayed inside the wards that surrounded the campus but found an unused corner of a soccer field where we could be away from prying ears and eyes, for the most part. There, we practiced our individual skills.
At least, we tried to.
“I’m crappy with directional magic,” Hazel argued with Colette.
“And the best thing I can do is that their throats out,” Zarya noted, pointing at the vampire fangs she suddenly snapped down into her mouth.
“That’s all well and good,” Souji said, “but we need to be prepared in as many different ways as we can. My best bet would be fangs and claws, too. But every supernatural student has at least some magic in him- or herself. Remember what Kacie can do—she can channel all our magic through herself, then amp it up with that pendant of hers. In order to give her access to our powers, we need to open up our connection to those abilities as well as we can.”
Erin spun around and stared at him in open-mouthed surprise. “Since when did you get so eloquent?”
Souji laughed. “Since I put my human skin back on a regular basis.” He tossed a wink my direction, and it was so similar to the one his brother had thrown me after kissing me that my stomach clenched.
I was going to have to figure out what to do about those two.
Eventually.
But not until after we were done with whatever the Lusus Naturae and the darkness threw at us.
“Fine. What else can we do besides that?” Hazel asked.
“Although we don’t know where they’re going to attack from, I think it would be a good idea for us to have a meeting place.” I glanced around, trying to decide where the best spot would be.
“And a secondary place in case the first one is already overrun,” Zarya added dryly.
“I don’t care what the Council says,” I began. “I need to try to take out the wizard.”
“Would it help to have us nearby?” Erin asked. A slight quaver of fear trembled through her voice.
“I don’t think so. But it might be helpful to have you all close to each other.”
Erin glanced around at the circle of students. “Our dorm room,” she finally said. “The window looks out over the quad. We can send Kacie our energy from there.”
“If they attack at night, then yes, we should all meet in your room,” Souji said to Erin.
“But if they hit while we’re somewhere else,” I said, “head to Ms. Hush’s classroom. I will let her know. She also has windows that can be opened to the quad, but her classroom is tucked back in the corner of the building—no one will think anything of a bunch of students trying to hide in there.”
Colette stared at the group. “You realize that if it doesn’t work and we all die, everyone’s going to think we were cowards, right?”
Erin shrugged. “Fine by me.”
“Not like I’ll be around to care, anyway,” Hazel added.
But I could hear the bravado under their words.
“Do the best you can,” I said as I stared around the group, meaning everyone’s gaze. “If you can’t reach the group, then send me power any way you are able to. And if you can’t do that, fight with whatever tools you have. All that matters is that we do everything we can to win against the Lusus Naturae.”
As rousing pre-battle speeches went, it sucked.
But it was the best I knew to say. The only thing I knew to say.
I had saved the campus from one Lusus Naturae attack, but I didn’t know if I could prevail against both the Lusus Naturae and the darkness, and I felt it bearing down on me more and more every second of every day.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to come out of this alive.
And if I did, I wasn’t certain I would ever be the same again.
Chapter 8
Finally, toward the end of the week, Dr. Novak called a student assembly.
As we filed into the auditorium, I realized that there were more than just students here. Adults stood lined up against the walls along the edges of the room. When all the students had taken seats, the adults began filling in the empty spaces.
Even then, there were easily hundred adults left standing. Maybe more.
“Welcome,” Dr. Novak said. “I need to let everyone know where we stand with the Lusus Naturae. This week, we have reached out to their leadership on multiple occasions. They have failed to return any of our messages, either magical or mundane. We believe this suggests that they are preparing to attack any moment.”
He paused. “We have a very slight advantage in that we know what’s coming for us. I have asked Ms. Hush to speak for a moment about the nature of this darkness.”
He turned and gestured toward her.
As she stepped up to the podium, there was the usual flurry of whispers and questions from those who still could not remember her. As a wraith, it was her natural state to be forgotten as soon as anyone looked away from her.
Except, apparently, people who had been specially trained to see the wraith. And also gorgons. We could see her just fine. Or at least, I overcame my tendency to forget her more quickly than my classmates had.
When she began speaking, though, all the whispers died down. “We have very little idea what this darkness is.” Her words shocked almost everyone into silence. “Although it is clearly sentient and magical, and apparently malevolent, it has not left enough of an imprint behind it to enable us to study it. We had hoped that because I’m a wraith, my own nature would allow me to get closer to the truth of what we face. I’m afraid I can’t.” She looked at Dr. Novak, who nodded solemnly.
He retook the podium. “Whatever it is, the darkness is going to be there bolstering the Lusus Naturae if they come for a fight. So will need to be prepared to—”
A giant explosion rocked the room. The wall to delete that behind Dr. Novak fumbled away, leaving nothing but sparking ruins and a glimpse of the bright blue sky outside.
“Here we go,” I muttere
d under my breath.
For a moment, I feared pandemonium would erupt as several people screamed and scattered.
But very quickly, the Hunters’ Academy rallied.
The adults who had been leaning against the walls began ushering the students—not toward the marked exits, but toward the backstage area. There, we moved through a pocket door hidden away in the wall and down a long staircase to a tunnel below.
In fact, order was restored so quickly that I began wondering if the whole thing had been a set-up to draw in the Lusus Naturae and convince them to attack.
It didn’t matter, I decided. Despite having been told by the Sisters that I would be important in the coming battle, Dr. Novak had decided to leave me out of any planning he’d done.
Fine. I had my own contingency plan.
The tunnel we followed came out in the basement of the classroom building. I couldn’t have asked for a better spot.
Again, I wondered if that had been planned.
As soon as we had been herded upstairs, I slipped away to Ms. Hush’s room. She was already waiting there, as were Souji and Colette.
The others filtered in over the next few moments.
Outside, magical power crackled and sparked. Occasional explosions sounded as the battle began in earnest.
I peeked through the blinds covering one of the windows. The quad was still fairly clear, but I didn’t expect that to last.
“If all of you can work on pooling your energy here,” I said, “I can go out in search of the Lusus Naturae wizard.”
“I’m coming with you,” Souji announced. “You might need protection.”
His tone brooked no argument, so I simply nodded.
“Ready?” I glanced around the room.
“We have this,” Ms. Hush said. “You go take care of your part.”
At the door, I took one last look back. My friends sat in a circle on the floor holding hands and sending me power.
I didn’t even have to reach out for it.
It was just there, waiting for me to tap into it.
And if I took it all? What would that make me?
I shook off the thought.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter 9
As we marched toward the entrance to the building, Souji stripped off his clothes, leaving them scattered behind him, and shifted into his black jaguar form, almost seeming to melt into it between one step and the next.
We were almost to the exit when we passed an open classroom full of other people.
“Hey. You can’t go out there,” the instructor in the room said. Or at least a woman who was one of the adults—I’m not sure if she was a teacher or not.
I reached into the well of power waiting for me and sent it flying out with a flick my fingers, pushing the woman back into the classroom and slamming the door behind her.
In his cat form, Souji gave a little chuff of approval.
I pulled more power and pushed the exit doors open—we strode out into the quad, a powerful pair. Ready for anything.
And then we stopped and looked around.
No one was there.
I hate it when a dramatic entrance is ruined.
Still, the wizard had to be here somewhere.
With one hand, I reached down to rub my hand across the furred ruff of Souji’s neck. The feeling kept me grounded as I closed my eyes to quest outward in search of the wizard Jolie had shown me.
There. To the left.
Of course. He was in front of the administration building. It was where we kept all our magical documentation and any items that were confiscated from the Lusus Naturae. If there were any building he needed to take over, that was the one.
In my imagination, I had always pictured meeting him at the top of some grand hill.
Which, given the fact that we were in Colorado, wasn’t entirely unlikely. By perhaps unsurprisingly, he had gone for the part of campus with the most magic.
Well. The most magic except for Ms. Hush’s room, Souji broadcast into my mind.
“True. But we won’t tell anyone else that,” I murmured.
Bodies lay scattered on the ground between where we stood and the area in front of the admin building that the wizard had taken. The casualties had all been burned by his magic. I glanced down at one of the bodies as we passed.
Its eyes had been burned out, its skin scorched. It barely looked human anymore. I couldn’t tell that the been a man or woman.
This wizard guy definitely had to go.
There was no one battling him right now, though I saw several other groups fighting across different parts of campus.
The wizard pushed back his hood so that the afternoon sunlight glistened brightly on his blue tattooed skin.
He crossed his arms, his biceps bulging with muscle and magic.
He grinned at me, his smile cocky and sure.
When I got close enough, he called out, “I’ve heard a lot about you, little girl.”
Even though I knew that “little girl” was in there to needle me, I had to clench my teeth against my anger when he said it. I didn’t bother to answer him. Somehow, I knew that bantering with him would be useless. This was going to come down to a battle of wills and power. Nothing I could say would change that.
When I got close enough that I thought I could possibly get to him with my pendant and its magical tendrils, but far enough away that he probably couldn’t hit me with his lightning bolts of magic, I stopped.
“Really?” he called out. “You think that you can beat me from there?”
I ignored him. Instead of responding, I closed my eyes and began focusing on pulling my friends’ magic through me, centering it in my pendant, which I held in one hand, the chain still around my neck in case I dropped it during the fight.
All around me, on other parts of the school grounds, I could hear battles raging.
But this was the big one. The main one. If I could, with the help of my friends, take down this one wizard, everyone else would surrender.
I was absolutely sure of it.
As the thought crossed my mind, the wizard threw his head back and laughed aloud.
“You really think you have any chance against me?” He raised his arms above his head, so that the sleeves of his robe fell back, exposing more skin than I had seen in my vision. The lights began sparking from his skin, the ink swirling in blue and yellow circles, mesmerizing and beautiful in their own way.
“I have studied magic twice as long as you’ve been alive.” His voice grated on my nerves
“More than that, it looks like,” I called back, forgetting for a moment my certainty that talk would do no good. “Some of those tats are looking a little saggy.” I waved at them dismissively. “You might want to see about getting touched up.”
Souji circled around me, his tail brushing lightly against me against my legs as if to let me know he was there.
“Enough talk.” The wizard began casting his spell.
I narrowed my eyes and watched him for a moment, trying to pick out the elements of what he was doing.
I couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. I still had to beat him. As he completed the spell and threw it toward me, I sent the energy from my pendant out to meet it.
Our two kinds of magic collided in midair, mine green and twisted, full of light and energy. His was lightning bright but threaded through with hints of the darkness that given him the strength he had.
We did that several times, throwing bolts at each other as we circled, each looking for a chink in the other’s magical armor.
We couldn’t do this forever.
In the split-second the thought crossed my mind, the wizard whipped out a flash magical anguish that snapped through my guard and hit me in the side.
The pain drove me to my knees, and I only barely managed to deflect the follow-up he sent.
Souji growled and started to head toward him.
“Don’t do it. He is trying to bait us into more direc
t attacks. Not now.”
But I was beginning to fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
I’d been injured. It was going to slow me down, and the more I slowed down, the less I’d be able to do. Even as I continue to send out emerald-green ropes of magic, I suddenly realized I was going to lose.
But not yet.
I staggered back up to my feet.
When the second bolt hit me in my left shoulder and dropped me to the ground again, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to react quickly enough to get my shield in front of me.
I was about to die, and I knew it.
Souji hunkered down on his haunches, prepared to leap up in front of the blast, to take it for me. I watched it arc through the air as if it were in slow motion.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blur of silver fur flashed in front of me and met Souji in midair, knocking him out of the path of the wizard’s attack and bowling him over on the ground.
Simultaneously, a bright blue flash of light went up in front of me. Some kind of shield. The wizard’s attack splashed against it and it shuddered, but the shield held.
Cool, slim fingers pressed me around the upper arm. “Time to stand up.”
I dragged my eyes upward.
“Jolie,” I gasped in surprise.
Chapter 10
Jolie grinned down at me. And next to her stood her friend, Logan.
I guess that made the wolf out there Ranger.
She tugged me to my feet. “Come on. We have to take this son of a bitch out. And now.”
“Who is he?” I asked as Souji and Ranger came padding back to us, eyeing each other warily.
Jolie grinned at me. “He’s our headmaster. He already hates me. So if we don’t defeat him, I’m pretty sure I’m either going to get detention for the rest of my life, or he’s going to have be put to death. Probably the latter.”
I couldn’t help but bark out a laugh.
Several other lightning bolts of magic hit the shields Jolie had erected, and I could see it brightness dim with every strike.
