Backing out of the hall, I turned toward her dorms when I saw Mr Alvarez sneaking out of his classroom with a box full of books. Curious, I followed him. He was heading to his car, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste. I caught up to him to look through his box of books. He dropped them at his feet in surprise.
“So they have you following me,” he said. “I should have known I would be a suspect.”
“Where are you going and with students’ books?”
“I am taking them on holiday with me to grade them.”
“Bullshit. What are you doing?”
He sighed, knowing he was busted. “I feel like it’s a student doing these horrible things. I want to see if there’s anything in their writing to tell me.”
“You’re going to do a revelation spell on their books?” I asked.
He nodded. “Lani was a friend to me. At first, yeah, I didn’t like her. She was a suck up as a student, but as a teacher, she proved herself. We were friends and I knew she didn’t trust a couple of people at this school. She confided in me that she was scared before she was killed, but she never told me who it was. I think it was a student.”
The tears in his eyes told me he was telling the truth. He was gutted by her death.
“Did you love her?”
He looked at me, surprise in his features. “How—”
“You acted like it didn’t affect you, you never showed your friendship and now the tears. You were in love with her.”
“She had a feeling someone was watching her in the days leading up to her death. When Palmer was caught, she thought it may have been him and she felt safe again.”
“Palmer is the tip of the iceberg I fear.”
“Agreed.”
“Let me help you. You can’t do the spell alone.”
He nodded. “I thank you.”
I grabbed the box and helped him to heap it into his car. “Where are we going?”
“I live just outside of the academy’s protective shield. No one knows where it is aside from Joan. We won’t be interrupted there.”
He drove us out of the academy’s large wrought iron gates and down the dirt road that led up to them. He could still be the one, but if he was, then at least he’d be away from Elke.
We turned onto another dirt road a few kilometres down from the academy that led us into a deep forest area and finally at the end of the dirt road, a house came into view.
“Wow.”
“Family home,” he said.
We got out and I carried the box of books up to his front door. It was serene here, no sounds other than the birds could be heard. This was exactly what I would want if I was ever to stay up here.
When he opened the door, I stepped inside to a warm house, decorated in purple and blues, perfect furniture that looked barely used.
“Come into the den,” he said, leading me down a hall and into a room with glass double doors that led me into a room with a large circular table in the middle of the room. Racks of spices and herbs were over to the side and a large grimoire sat over by the window. “Set them down on the table.”
I started pulling out the books and laying them on the table. “How do you know its these students?”
“Feelings I get.”
I didn’t want to continue down that path in case I didn’t like the answer. Elke’s book wasn’t on the table, nor was mine or a few other students. I did see Stig’s book, and Tiger Lily’s, both of whom I knew would never do this but I wasn’t going to tell Alvarez how to do what he needed to do. I stood back and watched as he prepared himself, and his green markings lit up along the side of his face to show his powers were ready. I stood back, not wanting to feel the effects of the spell and watched as he began to chant in Latin, moving his hands over the books. His eyes were turning darker as his powers started to flourish. The books began to flutter below his hands as if there was a current of wind forcing them to move.
He started to move toward one set of books to the side. Soon, he was only working on two of them, and I tried to see the names on the front but I couldn’t seem to get past the smoke emanating from his palms and covering the books. A purple smoke lifted the books up. The names on the books were visible now and I felt a chill run down my spine. Even after all of this, I still didn’t think students could be behind it, but there it was. The two girls I thought were bitches but would never think them capable of killing.
The smoke fell away and the two books fell on top of the others. Alvarez looked to me and I looked down at the books with their names on top.
Anise Cromwell and Selene Sharpe.
Tiger Lily’s best friends.
“I have to get to the school,” I said. Alvarez nodded, and followed me out of the house. “I’m flying back.”
He nodded, understanding the urgency. Selene was from one of the most prolific wolf families in our world, known for their viciousness, and Anise was from one of the most powerful witch families known for their evil counterparts.
I ran down to the woods and unleashed my wings, flying back to the school as fast as I could. When I landed on the tower’s landing, the school was quiet. More so than normal. I ran down into the academy, looking in classrooms and dorm rooms for students but I couldn’t find any. What the hell? Joan ran down the hall in a panic.
“Where is everyone?”
“I don’t know,” she exclaimed, almost coming undone. I’d never seen her in such a panic. “Where is Alvarez?”
“It’s not him. We found out who it was.”
“Who?”
“Anise and Selene.”
Joan’s horror was evident. “I haven’t seen them since yesterday morning.”
“They didn’t come to the blowout party?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I assumed their families didn’t want to attend and they wanted to save face.”
“Have you seen Elke? I haven’t seen her since last night.”
Joan shook her head. “You don’t think they would—”
“They killed Lani, didn’t they?”
I may have been a little short with her but it was needed right now. She needed to act, not question.
“Let’s split up. We need to find them.”
Just as I was about to run in my direction, Alvarez joined us. Joan seemed uncomfortable, but instead she barked orders which he nodded at and ran off in his direction. I flew around the woods, flying above the treeline to look for signs of her.
If she was hurt because I was too dumb to protect her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
Elke
“Elke!” I heard my name being yelled at me. I opened my eyes, feeling pain shoot through my skull when light hit my eyes. I screamed in pain. “Shut up!”
“Tiger?”
“Yes,” she was whispering. “Open your goddamn eyes.”
I did it again and breathed through the pain. The back of my head was throbbing and I felt my stomach roll over as if the contents were getting ready to come back up.
“What the hell?”
Tiger was chained up, her arms in metal chains that were hammered into a cave wall. She looked dirty and bloody. I tried to pull myself up but I fell again.
“Elke, you need to channel some kind of energy to get conscious.”
That wasn’t helpful, but I didn’t dare speak. I tried to get up again and I fell again with a thud. I could taste dirt.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” Tiger said. “I think—I think my friends are trying to kill us.”
“What?”
“Anise and Selene…they’re plotting or something.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they are the ones that chained me up and dropped you unconscious in here after.”
“Why though?”
“I don’t know. They’re from different families, have no connection to Palmer or Ms Cashell. I don’t understand and they won’t talk to me.”
I finally got the energy
to pull myself up against the wall and rest my head. Pulling my head back from the wall, I felt pain there again.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they hit you over the back of the head.”
I put my hand up to the back of my head and felt wetness. When I brought my hand in front of my face, I saw blood.
“What if they are the ones that killed Ms Cashell?” I asked.
“Then they’ll kill us too,” Tiger said. “I don’t understand, why would they do this?”
“We need to catch them off guard. Maybe you need to pretend to want in on whatever they are planning.”
Tiger looked over at me with a curious look in her eyes. “I can try.”
I pretended to be out when we heard the door handle jiggle again. Anise came over to me and shook my head a bit.
“Did she wake up?”
“For a while, then she passed out again,” Tiger said, nonchalantly.
“Maybe you hit her too much, Selene.”
“Rubbish, she’s a goddamn elemental.”
“What’s so special about her?” Tiger asked. I knew she was using it as a way to get the girls to open up to her but I could hear the bitterness in her tone.
“Shut up. We know you are secretly friends with her.”
The air in the room got thick with tension. I wanted to open my eyes but I didn’t dare. I then heard a loud slap of skin hitting skin. Tiger screamed out in pain as Selene and Anise laughed. The sound of the door being closed and locked told me I could open my eyes again.
I looked at Tiger. Her cheek was bright red, tears ran down her grimy cheeks, carving a clear path through the blood and dirt.
“Tiger, why have they locked you up.”
“I feared it would be because of me figuring out they were doing stupid things but now I actually fear it may be something else.”
“Like what?”
“If they can manage to get me to turn, I could maul you to death.”
I looked over at her in shock. I remembered the last time I saw her in her wolf form, and there had been no recognition at who I was in her eyes. There would be no talking her down and no Luther to rescue me.
“Why can’t you turn now and bust us out of here?”
“When I’m in wolf form, I can’t think like me. Some can, but only after years of practice.”
“Don’t worry about me, Tiger. Just do it.”
She looked over at me. “They must have laced the chains with wolfsbane. I can’t shift.”
I sighed, leaning against the wall again, letting the pain take over. Luther wouldn’t find me. I’d forgone going to dinner so he probably thought I was mad at him and needed space. Luther, the only one I’d ever loved truly, and the one who would one day leave me to ascend the throne in Hell with some other woman as his wife. I tried to not let it get me down, but I couldn’t help but feel the burning in my chest, making me want to throw up.
“Whatever you’re doing,” Tiger said. “Keep it up. Your powers are swirling. You can save us if you can control them.”
I looked down at my hands, and saw the familiar smoke emanating from the palms. My eyes were in sepia as I looked around and located Tiger on the wall.
“What do I do?”
“We are on earth,” Tiger said. “Take it in your hand, feel the granules, be of the earth. You’ll be able to use it to your advantage if they come in here again.”
I did as she told me. I took a fistful of dirt in my hand and let it fall through my fingers like sand.
“Tiger…do you know where we could be?”
“I guess it’s somewhere close by, I was always conscious and it only took twenty minutes before I was thrust into daylight again.”
“I wish Luther was here,” I found myself saying, a tear rolling my down my cheek.
“I wish Stig was here,” Tiger said. “Then again, he’d be more focused on you anyway.”
“Do you love him or is it just because you need to marry him?” I asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know, he’s all I’ve ever known.”
I’d only known Stig at this school before Luther, but Luther turned out to be the best thing I’d ever known. Even if it wasn’t forever, I’d always consider Luther my truest friend, the best thing to ever happen to me and we hadn’t even slept together yet. Was it possible to love this quickly?
I could hear footsteps outside the door. Tiger and I both sat up straight, waiting to see what fresh hell would come inside the door.
Anise moved inside quickly and looked at me first. “Oh, you’re awake.”
I didn’t say anything. She came over to me, although she kept her distance. Sitting down, on the ground, she kept her eyes on me. A familiar green design on her face. I’d seen that on Palmer before he used his powers.
“We need you to help us,” she said to me.
“And you think by hitting me on the head, and keeping me hostage, I would be willing to help you.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You’re insane.”
Anise shrugged and looked over at Tiger with an evil grin on her face. “I’ve heard you’re super sweet and won’t let anything happen to anyone.”
I looked to Tiger, panicked. We may not be super close friends, but she didn’t deserve whatever these psychotic bitches were going to do to her because of me. Because of the power I had inside but could never seen to summon when I needed it most.
Tiger tried to straighten against her chains but as Anise came closer to her, I could see she was giving in to whatever was about to come her way.
No.
This wasn’t going to happen. I tried to focus on the ground, on the walls which were made of rock but they seemed to be natural. Were we in an actual cave? I focused, closing my eyes as I heard Tiger shriek and scream. A sharp pain shot through my arms and I opened my eyes to see Anise against the wall, being enveloped into it by the rock. She screamed as the rock swallowed her.
Tiger looked to me, and I felt myself fall back against the wall in shock. Did I just kill her? How the hell did I do that?
“Can you break the rock around my chains?” she asked me, pulling at them with a clink.
“I don’t even know how I did this.”
“Just focus,” she said, frustrated. “You did that because you wanted to protect me. Now think about protecting both of us.”
“Is she—is she dead?”
“Who cares!” Tiger yelled. “She was trying to kill us. Now focus on us.”
I tried. Thinking of never seeing Luther again and the burn in my hand got intense. I looked down at it and could see fire in my palms.
“How did you channel fire?” she asked. “Never mind, aim it at my hand.”
“It’ll burn you.”
“Just do it,” she screamed. The door opened as fire shot from my palms and toward the wall. Tiger screeched but her hand fell free. The bracelet was still around her wrist but she was free from the wall. She yanked her other hand out of the wall and ran at Selene as she started to morph into a wolf. Tiger ran at her and tackled her to the ground. Her chains fell off her wrist, weakened by the shifting and soon two large wolves wrestled each other in front of me. The sounds of their growls were loud, and I could feel the pounding of their bodies against the floor.
I focused myself on the brown fur which I knew was Selene, and felt power shoot through my palms. I didn’t know if I’d hit her until I heard her yelps. Tiger looked over at me with his piercing green eyes and instantly I thought she was going to eat me until I heard Tiger’s voice.
In my head.
Jump on my back.
She was surprised when I pulled myself up and jumped on her back but she didn’t try to kill me. Had she just spoken to my thoughts? She took off out the door and down a corridor until we saw daylight. She ran through streets, passing bystanders who gaped and screamed at the large wolf running through their streets. We were headed towards a quieter area of the village, but I had no idea where we were. The sound of birds ahead of us made me tu
rn around to see large black wings coming toward me. Tiger reared up and I fell off her back. Luther stood before us, looking at Tiger before he looked over at me.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“Were you riding Tiger?”
Again, I nodded. “She told me to.”
“What?”
I looked over at Tiger and thought about a message to her. In seconds, she morphed back into her human form.
Her naked human form.
Luther whipped his shirt off and handed it to her. She quickly pulled it on and turned to me.
“Oh yeah, I lose the clothes I’m wearing when I turn.”
“That sucks ass,” I said. She nodded.
“Did you seriously hear my thoughts to you?” she asked me. “That’s never happened before.”
“I thought you couldn’t control yourself?”
“I guess…I just really didn’t want to kill you.” She shrugged but I knew she’d been just as worried as I had been.
“How did you find us?” she asked Luther.
“I’ve been flying around for hours,” he said. “Come on, we need to get back to the academy so we can figure things out.”
“It was Selene and Anise,” Tiger said, rattled.
Luther nodded. “We figured it out. Now come on.”
I stepped up to one side and Tiger stepped up to the other side. We both hung onto him as he lifted up off the ground and flew us above the clouds and toward the school. I was safe in his arms.
How could I possibly say goodbye to him?
Chapter Fourteen
Elke
Dallas stood on the front porch of a huge mansion, waving me up to him excitedly. The last forty-eight hours had been intense. Luther had been able to track Selene who had been on the run since we were rescued from our hell, but at the last moment, she’d somehow slithered away. Anise was gone too. Luther had told me she’d escaped her prison in the wall. I still had no idea how I’d done that either.
Now it was holiday time and I was here to meet my brothers and get to know my dad. It felt so weird to think that but over time I’m sure it would get easier.
All Hallows' Eve (Ravensbane Academy Book 1) Page 12
