Charm School (The Demon's Apprentice Book 4)

by Ben Reeder

  “Chance, you can’t take these kinds of matters into your own hands. If he gives you any more trouble, you come find me and I’ll deal with it. Now, go get lunch.” With that said, he turned and headed back toward the door. Ginger waited until after he went past her, then looked back at us, her gaze intent and searching for a moment before she followed Stewart.

  “Dude, what was that?” Hoshi said as he got in front of me. “He practically tried to mind-rape you, and you’re ready to let him walk? What the hell?”

  “Remember who I am,” I said. “I might not like my reputation, but I can’t say I didn’t earn it. But I got my shot at redemption. So when it comes to giving someone like Lodge a little room to turn himself around, I can’t turn him down.” I walked past him, but he followed.

  “So, what are you gonna do when he tries to gaze you again? Turn the other cheek again?”

  “You only get one pass,” I said. “Next time he wants to do a Horus Gaze…I’ll let him.”

  “Yeah, that’ll show him,” Hoshi said as we reached the door. When I smiled, he frowned. “You weren’t kidding when you said it went bad for the other guy, were you?”

  “No.”

  “Ummm, how bad was it?”

  “Bad.”

  “Like on a scale of bruised ego to dead, how bad?” he asked as he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “Curled up on the floor in a little ball bad.” I kept my face blank, and Hoshi reached inside his jacket. His hand came out holding a pair of sunglasses, and he slid them on slowly.

  “You have issues, man,” he said before he turned and headed for our Hall.

  Chapter 4

  ~ We are never so strong…or vulnerable…as when in the company of boon companions. ~ Benjamin Franklin, “Wizard Of the New World”

  Lunch at a normal high school had taken some getting used to. Even normal people give off a pretty fair amount of mystic energy. Cram enough of them in one place, and it’s like being inside a nuclear reactor. At first, my control over my mystic senses was so sketchy that being in a crowd was almost overwhelming. But, Dr. C had taught me how to shield myself from it so that every nerve didn’t feel like it was on fire.

  Walking into the cafeteria reminded me just how much I had to learn. More than a hundred young mages sitting in a room without a single focus generated so much energy that it felt like I had just stepped into a smelting furnace. Reflexively, I sent a tendril down to tap into ambient Earth energies, and found a ley line nearby. The slow, ancient pulse of energy flooded my tap line, and I created a simple shielding bubble, whispering “Tutus loco,” as I curled my ring and middle finger of my left hand to my palm and set my thumb parallel to my index finger. The push of unfocused energy abated, and my nerves stopped telling me it was four hundred degrees in the room.

  As my skin stopped tingling, I could look around. When we’d been in here yesterday, it had been only minimally staffed, and parts of the place had been closed up. And I’d slept late this morning, so I’d skipped breakfast. Now, though, everything was open. There was a deli section, a grill and a salad bar along one wall, and the back wall was dedicated to beverages. Coffee, exotic teas, smoothies and even different flavors of water were all on offer behind a counter manned by staff in crisp white uniforms with perfect little green hats. Even their soda selection was unique, since this was the only place where I’d seen both major brands in the same place, alongside a variety of bottles I’d never seen before, some obviously in other languages.

  I got a burger with bacon, mushrooms and cheese, while Hoshi got some kind of lettuce and meat filled wrap. When we sat down, I looked at the pile of fries on my plate, then over at the stack of multi-colored crispy things next to his wrap. He had some kind of pale blue water in his glass. My only concession to good nutrition was the glass of ice water next to my soda.

  “Man, you’re going to have your first heart attack before you’re old enough to buy liquor,” he said as I gulped down most of the water. Defiant, I grabbed the burger and took a bite.

  “At least I’ll die happy,” I said around a mouthful of meaty, cheese drenched bliss. “What the hell are those?” I pointed to the multicolored sticks.

  “Vegi-fries,” he said. “Although they’re actually oven baked, so there’s no oil in them.”

  “Vegi-whats? Hoshi, that’s not food. That’s not even what food eats.” I washed down the burger with a deep swig of water, then tried the seasoned fries. My eyes rolled back at the combo of spice and crisp outer layer, and I took a moment to savor the whole thing before I finished the water off and took another bite of my burger.

  “At least you’ll die well hydrated,” he laughed.

  “More than likely,” I said with a grim smile. Odds were, I wouldn’t die in my sleep or of old age. Part of my training regimen with T-Bone and Cross, the aptly named Hands of Death was that I drink at least one full glass of water with each meal to stay hydrated while they drilled me in the hybrid martial art that Dr. Corwin had dubbed “mage-fu.” I wasn’t anywhere near as lethal as they were, but since I’d escaped from Dulka, I’d had my ass kicked more times than I cared to count, and I’d nearly died twice. Any advantage I could get was a welcome one.

  More people came to sit at our table, usually at Hoshi’s invitation. Unlike most of the other students, all of these kids seemed determined not to blend in with the crowd. No two hairstyles were alike. For that matter, there weren’t that many hair colors that were the same, and most had at least one facial piercing. The seat next to me was taken up by a larger girl with long black hair that she’d done in Betty Page bangs. Long black gloves covered her from fingertips to above her elbow. She undid a set of buttons at her wrist, then pulled the gloves far enough forward to take her hand out. With her hands uncovered, I could see the black nails on her hands, similar to Synreah’s black talons. When she had the gloves tucked into the wrist, she turned to me and gave me a smile.

  “Hi,” she breathed. “I’m Desiree.”

  “Chance,” I said, offering my hand.

  She held up her left hand and shook her head. “I eat my emotions so I don’t chomp on yours,” she said with a smile. I curled my fingers in and gave her a thumbs up.

  “I don’t think I’d taste very good,” I said.

  “You must be the demon guy. I’m a quarter cambion. Or an eighth succubus, however you want to put it.”

  “Good to meet you,” I said.

  Her smile widened and she tilted her head to one side. “Most people don’t mean it when they say that,” she said. “Especially when they know I’ve got demon blood in me. But you do.”

  “You’re an empath?” I asked. It made sense; Synreah was an empath, and if they both fed on emotions, it figured they’d be able to sense them.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s part of the reason I’m here, so I can learn to control it and shield myself…and everyone else.” Her gaze went down, and I could see something in her seem to withdraw. I wondered if I looked like that when I walked up to the edge of something painful in my own head.

  “Dangerous,” I said after a few seconds. “But useful.”

  “What?” she said, the withdrawal now a spark of anger.

  “That’s why I’m here. Someone thinks I have ‘potential,’ I just need guidance. Which basically means, dangerous, but useful. Welcome to the club.” Desiree’s smile came back.

  “Thanks, I think,” she said. “By the way, you’d probably be delicious. Your emotions, I mean!” Her face turned a dark shade of red, probably part of her demonic ancestry.

  “I thought the part about feeding on negative emotions was bullshit,” I said.

  “It is. It’s the primal stuff that really does it. Anger, fear, lust, joy. The really strong ones, the feelings people have the hardest time controlling, those are like crack. Going to a rock concert used to give me a buzz for days. You,” she looked at me with narrowed eyes before she went on. “You’re like a buffet, a lot of strong emotions.”


  “What about love?” Hoshi asked. I took a sharp breath, remembering how sensitive Synreah had always been about that particular emotion.

  “We can’t feed on love,” Desiree said with a smile. “My grandmother always said it was the one thing demons can’t feel, so that part of us can’t feed on it.”

  “Makes sense,” Hoshi said.

  Moments later, a tall girl with long black hair done in cornrow braids sat down across from Desiree. Large, dark eyes fell on me for a moment, then she smiled when Desiree greeted her, and her face lit up.

  “Kiya, this is Hoshi, and that’s Chance,” Desiree introduced us.

  “The two baddest boys in school,” Kiya said as she put her hand out to me. When our hands touched, I got the same kind of warm feeling I got when I touched Wanda any more, except I got the sensation of plunging my hand into a warm river current.

  “What?” Hoshi said with raised hands. “I’m as pure as they come. Whatever it is they’re saying I did, I have an alibi.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Kiya said. “Des, hook a girl up. Conjuring was a total bitch.” Desiree pulled a handful of miniature chocolate bars from her purse and plucked three out to give Kiya.

  “Swiss chocolate with honey,” she said seriously. “That should take the edge off your nerves for a while.” Kiya took one, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. After a few seconds, she closed her eyes and smiled, letting out a sigh as her shoulders drooped a little.

  “That’s so what I needed,” she said after a few seconds. “You are the bomb, girl.”

  “What did you mean about the two baddest boys in school?” I asked.

  “You didn’t know?” Kiya asked, her eyes wide. “Hell, nobody wanted to room with either of you. They were afraid Foxy here was gonna bite their precious boys in their sleep, or turn ‘em all pansy ass. And they figured you were gonna be cursing their little snookums or start turning ‘em to the dark side or some bullshit.”

  “What is it with the gay thing?” Hoshi asked. “It’s not like I go around flirting with guys or anything!”

  “It’s because you’re so pretty,” I said, only half joking.

  “I am pretty damn easy on the eyes,” Hoshi admitted. He excused himself and headed for the soda fountain.

  “Damn, he’s gorgeous,” Desiree said as she licked her lips.

  “No shit, girl,” Kiya said. “That’s saying something, coming from you. And look at that ass! Damn! So, Chance, quick, before he comes back, what’s he into? Music, TV, whatever.”

  “Um, he’s into manga and anime, but I haven’t looked at his MP4 player or anything,” I said. “No wonder no one wanted to room with him.”

  “Aw, don’t be like that,” Kiya said with a smile. “We all know you already got a girlfriend. And nobody wants to piss off a werewolf.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” I asked. “I live ten states away. And I don’t know any of this shit about you.”

  “Well, the werewolves out here certainly know about your girlfriend,” Desiree said. “And they don’t like her. Which makes me like her even more.”

  “Wait, you’re from Boston?”

  “Yeah, my mother has a place down on Talismonger Way in Squattertown. The Clans held a meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss what to do if she comes out.”

  “What did they decide?”

  “They don’t talk about that part in public,” Desiree said. “If you’re not Clan, you pretty much don’t exist to them.”

  “Great,” I said. “One more thing to worry about.”

  “I don’t think they’ll do anything drastic,” she said. “Probably rough her up a little to make a point and get her to grovel on her belly a little in front of the Clan Heads, and that’ll be it.”

  “You don’t know my girlfriend,” I said, determined to call her as soon as I could. Hoshi made it back, and the rest of lunch was mostly spent discussing anime and manga, which was an education all its own for me. When the warning bell finally chimed, Hoshi and I headed for Hawthorne Hall.

  “Okay, so everyone knows everything about everyone else,” I said as we walked along. “Except me.”

  “Who do you want to know about?” Hoshi asked.

  “I don’t know. Anyone?”

  “Well, you know Desiree’s part succubus, right? And Kiya’s got some spirit that no one’s ever heard of attached to her. They think she’s a summoner, but they can’t get a bead on the spirit’s name. All they do know is that it helps her do some random ass magick.”

  “How do they not know what spirit’s attached to her?” I asked. “Can’t they scry it or something?”

  “They’ve tried, but they can’t find its name, so it’s immune to everything they’ve done. Me, I think they just don’t want to admit there’s a spirit they don’t know.” By then, we’d crossed the quad and were almost to class.

  Mr. Leopold started us off right away on Chaucer’s unabridged Canterbury Tales, which included the Alchemist’s Tale, the Wizard’s Tale and the Apprentice’s Tale. My brain ached after an hour and a half of breaking down each line from Old English to modern English.

  By the time the bell for the end of class tolled, I was more than ready for Conjuring II, even if it meant a little extra walking. The Grotto was outside of the main campus area, out past Denham Hall and down a short path through the woods that came out near a small lake. The building was a round, stone structure that was enclosed halfway around, with six thick stone columns that supported the roof on the open side. A round tower jutted another story from the dome of the roof on the far side from me, with a black iron railing around the edge.

  Inside, the marble floor was inset with rings of different metals and different sizes, as well as rings that were carved into the stone itself and left open. While none of the rings crossed each other, they weren’t concentric. By habit, I skirted the edge of the outermost circle, even as I saw other students stroll through them. As I went, I visualized where each circle would appear, imagining each in different colors, starting from red inside and moving through to violet and then white for the outside circle. In doing that, I realized that while none of the circles shared the same center-point, all of them included the center of the room and thus the outer circle.

  The actual classroom was set inside the hill, next to the smaller cave that looked like it was the original feature. I stepped into the room to find the teacher marking his roll book in front of the class. He was the youngest teacher I’d seen so far, and if he hadn’t been wearing an instructor’s longer coat, I would have pegged him as a senior. A chalkboard was mounted on the wall behind him, with a series of complex circles drawn on it in different colors of chalk. At the top of the board, he’d written “Professor Kenneson, Conjuring II”

  “Ah, Mister Fortunato, do take your time to find a seat. Perhaps you’d like to circle the room widdershins before you do?” he said.

  “Deosil is fine,” I said as I looked for a seat. Unlike the rest of the classes I’d been in, there were no individual desks. Instead, long tables were set up in rows. The only seat I could find was in the back of the class. I headed up the shallow steps to the table and sat down. Junkyard took a spot just behind me and plopped down.

  “So, are there any more obsolete superstitions you need to observe before you’re ready to begin?” the teacher asked.

  “Excuse me, sir?” I asked. He gave a long sigh, then turned to the rest of the class.

  “Who else found it necessary to go around the edge of the circles on their way to class?” he asked, making a walking motion with his fingers as he moved his hand in a broad circle. A few snickers answered him, then he turned his attention back to me with a smug smile on his face.

  “I was taught to treat a circle with respect,” I said. “Especially a permanent one.”

  “Which of your recent masters taught you that bit of antiquated nonsense? The demon or the fossil?” All eyes in the class turned to me, and I narrowed my eyes at the insult to Dr. C.

&
nbsp; “Both of them,” I said. “For different reasons.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re here, then. We’ll disabuse you of those outdated ideas, and bring you into the twenty-first century. Now, let’s get started with a little real education, shall we?” He turned and pointed to one of the circles on the board, with a main circle in yellow and a smaller circle in red that just barely touched the larger one. “So, who can tell me what is wrong with this circle?”

  “What kind of circle is it, Professor Kenneson?” one of the blond guys near the front of the class asked.

  “Excellent question, Mister Davenport. Excellent question! That’s the kind of inquisitive approach that will serve you well! This is a summoning circle.”

  “What is it summoning?” I asked.

  “If you can’t tell, Mister Fortunato, then let me explain. By the colors it should be obvious that it is for the summoning of an elemental, yellow for air, red for fire. Please try to at least act like you know enough to even waste my time in this class.” More laughter rose at that, and I leaned against the back of the chair. My face felt hot as I realized that Mr. Kenneson probably had it in for me. Even if I laid low, he’d probably find some way to make that a bad thing. He had us open our books to the second chapter, and we read about elemental summoning.

  “So, Mr. Fortunato, now that I’ve practically spoonfed you the answer, what is wrong with this circle?” Kenneson asked.

  “The summoner’s circle,” I said, drawing a raised eyebrow from Kenneson. “Air is moist and warm, with the first being the dominant trait. So the summoner’s circle should be water, instead of fire if you’re trying to summon and control an air elemental.”

  “Well, you can regurgitate facts,” he said. “Well done. Perhaps you’d care to recite it verbatim? No. Well, then, let’s see what more refined minds can do. Mister Winthrop, why is this relevant?” Winthrop basically recited the book. There was no way this class was going to end well for me this semester. As I left the classroom, I saw Lodge standing a little too casually in the hallway between me and the door to the common area. I tensed, expecting him to step out and try to stop me, but he just watched me pass, his eyes on me like he thought he’d bore a hole in my head if he just looked hard enough.