Charm School (The Demon's Apprentice Book 4)

by Ben Reeder

  “They’ll hear you,” Lance said, his voice tight from pain.

  “That’s the idea,” I said as the other boats turned to follow our course. We were almost to the shore when I caught movement on the island’s bank. Seconds later, the boat was scraping across the sand of the bank. I got out and went to the back to get a shoulder under Lance’s arm, and we hobbled onto the bank together. Moments later, someone else was at my side.

  “Hurry,” the guy said as he put Lance’s other arm over his shoulder. “They iced over the lake. They’re running across.”

  “We’re almost there,” I said as we rounded the corner. The Grotto was right in front of us, and I shoved Lance and the other guy forward. “Go. There will be someone waiting.” I turned at the edge of the circle to face the oncoming assault.

  Most of them came on foot, but Stewart and Ginger were flying. It wasn’t the superhero style, either, like they were laying flat. This was the full on, upright super-villain stance with the arms out, one leg bent a little. Ginger even had the toe point going on with her straight leg. Hoshi came up behind me, and I could feel the circles activating behind me.

  “Here they come,” he said. “Trademarked villain pose and everything.” The others came to a stop a few yards away, and I took a step backward as Stewart and Ginger dropped toward the grass. They touched down in front of their other comrades and took a step forward.

  “I gotta hand it to you both, great form on the entrance, especially you Ginger. And you really stuck the super-villain landing,” I said.

  “You think they’re gonna monologue?” Hoshi asked.

  “I was kind of hoping they would.” Seven wands came up, all glowing red. I raised my right hand, then closed it, and a shimmering field of energy closed in front of me as multiple blasts slammed into it.

  “Okay, they aren’t fooling around,” Hoshi said. I turned and looked at the circles inside the main circle, which was now acting as a protective barrier for us. “Now what?”

  “I walk ancient ways,” I said as I held my hand out to him. He touched the edge of the circle, then placed his palm against mine. With a thought, I released control of the circle to him. “And you make sure the circle holds.”

  “Not sure I get that first part.”

  I found the point I needed, and placed my foot on it. The blasts continued outside, distracting me. “When the founding fathers started this school,” I said, trying to focus on what I was doing. “This circle was already here. Only it wasn’t just a circle back then.” Talking about it helped me keep me focused on my intent, and each footstep glowed as I moved further into the Pattern woven into the circle.

  “What…was it?” Hoshi asked.

  “The Greeks would have called it a labyrinth. The First Nations each had their own names for it, but they all came down to one thing, the dance toward the Source, what white people called the Great Spirit. Back in the day, like, when Atlantis was still above sea level, aspiring wizards would walk something like this to awaken their power. Shamans among the Native Americans sometimes walked them as part of their path to initiation. But, if a mage or shaman who was already Awakened walked the path…” I stopped talking for a few seconds as I met resistance to my movement. I pushed against it and focused on the moment, on the magick that flowed through me. My foot touched the ground. “If a mage could walk the path again,” I said, “then it was like they were Awakened all over again.” Another attack hammered the circle, and Hoshi turned his attention to it, letting me focus on what I was doing. Energy moved through me, going up my legs and spreading through my chest with every step. As it did, I felt pinpricks like embers in my bones. The body was an imperfect conduit for pure magick. Prolonged casting would eventually exhaust most mages. But for me…for me it started to hurt. Every broken bone I’d ever suffered made me an increasingly less suitable channel for magick. And I’d suffered a lot of broken bones.

  The memory of my first night as Dulka’s slave replayed in my head, and I grunted in pain as I took another step. He’d started with the bones in my right leg, then moved to my left arm. Back in the present, I winced as I felt those two bones break again with the next step. I felt Dulka flip me over in my past, then his taloned finger scraping at my forehead, scraping at my brain. Another step, and I relived the way it felt to have him force my Third Eye open, unable to block out anything mystical, even to the point of experiencing the recent past, present and near future all at once. It had taken me days to figure out how to close myself off from all of that. Like those days, I walked blind, putting one foot in front of the other, every bone in my body burning inside.

  Another footfall and I found myself facing the center of the circle, my footsteps glowing white in the meandering path behind me. Only seconds had passed, but I still felt like it had been days. Now I stood in the Source. All magick flowed from it, and it was vast. Even a glimpse of the whole thing pushed the edges of my sanity, but I had to look. In an instant, I felt myself turned inside out, then put back together. Before me lay paths back to the world I knew. One was the same route I’d taken. I would return the same person who stepped in, broken in a lot of places and no better for the trip, all memory of this moment gone. Another showed me the life that could have been, one where my mom won custody of me, and I was never enslaved to Dulka, where I was a normal kid until I met Mr. Chomsky. Other variants played themselves out in front of me, different versions of my life that could be. All of them tempted me.

  I took a step forward. The moment my foot moved, I felt an awful, beautiful presence focus on me.

  Choose a path.

  “I did,” I said. “Mine. This is who I am, and as fucked up as I might be, as much as I might want to have a different past, a different life, I can’t be those people. I wish I could.”

  The memory of what might have been will haunt you. You will wish for those moments for the rest of your life. You will always yearn for what you could have had.

  “I know,” I said as I took another step forward, forging a new path out. “But I need to remember this. I need to remember that I chose who I am, that I turned all the crap that happened to me into something better. I forged myself into this. This is who I am, and it’s who I need to be.”

  It is a good choice. It is not the wisest one, but this is not a moment for wisdom. Go, child of misfortune, return to your world, reborn as you were…and more.

  My foot touched the edge of the circle, and I was back in the world. Behind me, each of the minor circles inside the main circle was active, each column of magick a solid cylinder of energy, concealing what was inside. Scholarship students stood beside each circle, their hands pressed against it, but each of them also with a hand extended toward the main circle, all of their faces etched in deep concentration.

  “It’s about damn time,” Hoshi said. “We can’t hold this up much longer. Are you ready?”

  “Are you?” A chorus of replies sounded around me. “Then let’s put boot to ass.”

  Hoshi turned back to face the outside of the circle and put his hands up in front of his face, then brought them down quickly. Outside, the seven warlocks paused for a split second, taken aback by what they saw waiting for them.

  Hoshi didn’t give them a chance to recover. “Now!” he yelled. Behind me, a dozen circles came down in rapid succession, each revealing what was inside: elementals. Some held one, others held more. Fire blazed, water rippled, air shimmered and massive earth elementals just loomed. Once more, Hoshi led the way, summoning bright green fire around his hands, his kitsunebi, something no one here had encountered in a fight. His first bolt took one of the opposing warlocks in the shoulder and knocked him to the ground. Then it was on, elementals moving forward, air and fire spirits rushing to be the first into the fray, the fluid water elementals sweeping to the sides while the rocky forms of the earth elementals started a slow, implacable charge. Surprise turned to fear and rage on the faces of the warlocks, and they let loose with attacks as fast as they could. Then the re
st of the crew got in on the attack, unleashing everything they knew how to, some from wands, others from focuses. And still the warlocks held. But in the midst of it all, I saw Stewart and Ginger rise into the air, their heads turned to look over their shoulders. They spared their comrades a look, then met each other’s eyes for a moment.

  They ran.

  “Stick to the plan!” I yelled at Hoshi as I ducked and crab walked below the onslaught of magickal attacks. Then I was clear of the circle. Behind me, Hoshi called out to fall back as I broke into a sprint, then stopped for a moment and dug one of the foil packets of tanwuud out of my pocket. Ren was right, it tasted like meat and fruit, but had the consistency of peanut butter. I had barely swallowed the first bite when I felt the surge of energy. My feet seemed to be light as feathers, and I took off, reveling in the feel of the wind on my face. Overhead, I could see my targets floating along, slowly getting closer as I gained on them. Like I had thought, they were headed toward Denham Hall. I hit the top of the slope I was on and saw multicolored flashes of energy lancing back and forth in front of me. Two Sentinels stood with their backs to Denham Hall, squaring off against a single warlock. As I got closer, I could see a third Sentinel laying on the ground. I spared a quick look at the flying duo. They had their arms raised, wands pointed toward the Sentinels. I decided to get in on the act.

  “Ictus stricta!” I said, sending a narrow TK bolt at the warlock on the ground. On its heels came a blue beam that caught him as he staggered from the impact of my bolt. He went down, and the Sentinels barely got a shield up in time to stop the red beams of Infernal energy coming down at them from above. I sent another bolt skyward, and a barrage of sparkling shards arced up from the line of trees to my right. Stewart and Ginger dodged to either side, then flew to the top of the hall.

  A lithe figure emerged from the trees on the right, dark skin glistening, long hair in tight braids bouncing on her shoulders. Clad in a loose, flowing shirt and jeans, Kiya looked like a warrior goddess as she raced forward, a thick, twisted staff in hand. A yellow nimbus surrounded the head of the stave, and it left a glowing trail behind her as she ran.

  “Make a hole!” she yelled at me as she turned the staff my way. “Make a BIG hole!”

  Suddenly, I was flung into the air. When I reached the top of the arc, I could see that I was going to come down on the roof of Denham Hall. “Ictus! Ictus! Ictus!” I yelled as I blasted at the roof in a tight pattern. The hole I left ended up being at least ten feet wide. Then something caught me and lowered me to the floor for a soft landing. I still stumbled when my feet hit the floor. Kiya landed behind me as I got my balance back.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “There are at least two of them in there,” she said. “Even as amped up as you are, you’re no match for them.”

  “Don’t die,” I said. “I don’t want to have to tell your folks.”

  “You look after yourself. I’ve got help of my own.” She raised the staff. “On three. One, two..”

  “Three!” I said. We unleashed a blast on the wall, not even bothering with the door.

  “Well done,” a familiar voice said from the cloud of dust. I walked through the hole we’d made.

  “Professor Talbot,” I said.

  “You don’t sound surprised. What gave it away?”

  “Two things. Your jacket, the day the first attack happened. You didn’t have it on when you came to get me, but when you had it on later, it showed splatter from the circle. And you still had your tie on. No one else had taken the time to put theirs on that early in the morning except the hedmaster. Then at the second attack, you were the first there, and you asked if I saw them.”

  “I asked if he had seen them.”

  “The Sentinels had already hidden me. There was no way you could have known anyone else was there unless you had seen me when I first showed up. But you still looked for me.”

  “And I thought I covered my tracks so well. I even stood up for you.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “As long as you were free, everyone would be looking at you, instead of actually investigating.”

  “Professor, why are you wasting time?” Stewart said. “Let’s just kill him!”

  “He’s stalling,” Talbot and I said at the same time.

  “You’re waiting for the Sentinels to arrive,” Talbot said.

  “And you’re waiting for the rest of your coven to get here.”

  “The Sentinels are no match for us.”

  “Think again. You’re already down by at least six. My group retreated and drew five into the circle and the Sentinels too. They’re trapped and cut off from your power.”

  “Idiot, that only makes us stronger. The fewer of us drawing on the soul stones, the more power there is to go around. Enough of this. Kill them.” Stewart and Ginger raised their wands, and I barely got my shield up in time. Their attacks hammered into my shield, and I understood what he meant about them getting stronger. Even in my augmented state, I could tell I wouldn’t last long against them. Suddenly the barrage lessened, and I saw the yellow glow of Kiya’s staff beside me. They had forgotten about her, and now Ginger was paying the price, having to hold off an attack through sheer will, her red beam striving against Kiya’s yellow less than a foot away from the tip of her wand. But with every second, she gained another inch.

  “Impressive,” Talbot said. “You shouldn’t be that powerful.”

  “I walked the Ways,” I said through gritted teeth. “Something you’d know about if you bothered with the history of your own school.”

  “Then let’s see how you handle me,” Talbot said. With a gesture, he threw a short beam of Infernal energy at me, and my shield collapsed. The blast itself hit me in the shoulder knocked me back through the hole in the wall we’d made coming in. My vision went white for a moment, and when I could see again, there was still a haze of red as the pain in my shoulder caught up to me. The flesh was red and raw there, blistered at the edges. I shook my head and got to my feet. The distance to the next room felt like a million miles, but I forced myself forward.

  Talbot, Stewart and Ginger were all drawing from the crystals, red lines of power running from the circle to their outstretched hands. Kiya had lost most of the distance between her and Ginger, and Stewart was adding his strength to the assault, too. Kiya’s defense had their beams splashing all around her, leaving scorched lines in the floor, or gaping holes where it had burned through.

  “Ictus latior!” I yelled. The wide blast wasn’t as effective against their shields, but it drew Stewart’s attention to me. ““Scutum sphaeram,” I uttered, just in time to catch both Stewart’s and Talbot’s attacks. Beside me, Kiya cried out and dropped her assault, bringing up a blue shield a microsecond before Ginger’s beam splashed against it.

  “You’re just like the others,” Talbot said as he poured more power into his attack. “Just a self-centered, entitled little brat who thinks the world owes you something. You think you earned that power? You think you deserve it? That it’s your right? The others, they thought their last name made them worthy. They thought that they deserved power because they were born to it. And they demanded I give it to them, all the while kissing their lily white little asses.” I dropped to one knee as I drew on every ounce of power in me, growling with the effort. Beside me, Kiya took a step back, then another, her own shield beginning to falter as it deflected Infernal fire against the floor and ceiling. “Let me show you real power. This is the strength Mammon gives to the loyal.”

  “If you’re gonna do something, do it now!” Kiya screamed. “We can’t do this much longer.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Talbot said as he drew his off hand back.

  “She wasn’t talking to you, asshole,” I spat. He stopped and looked to me, then he started looking around the room. After a few seconds, he shook his head and put his hand back out to draw from the crystals. The arc or energy leapt to his palm, then faltered and died. One by one
, the crystals went dark, except for Desiree’s, which glowed brighter and brighter. The attacks against our shields weakened and then sputtered to a stop.

  “No!” Talbot howled. A string of harsh, ancient syllables poured from his lips, and the lines between the crystals started to glow. Desiree’s began to weaken as he spoke.

  “They’re recasting the binding!” Kiya said as Stewart and Ginger joined in.

  “Not gonna happen,” I growled. “Pop quiz, Professor. Why should you always cast a circle on the ground?” Talbot didn’t waver in his casting, but his eyes went to me, and something flickered there that I had been wanting to see: doubt. I looked to Kiya, hoping she understood what I meant to do. Whether she did or not, she nodded, evidently ready to follow my lead. I took a couple of steps forward, then dropped to my backside and slid under the table supporting the crystals. Kiya was an inch behind me, and when I pointed up at the bottom of the table, she gave me a wicked grin, and her staff flared bright yellow.

  “Aw, hell yeah,” she said.

  “”ICTUS!” I roared. Her staff and my wand erupted in unison, and the center of the table exploded upward. We stood up to find the crystals floating in a circle around us, and all three of our opponents on the ground near the edge of the room. Now three lines of power were flowing from them to Desiree’s crystal, and it was glowing bright enough that I had to shield my eyes. Then there was a loud crack! Desiree’s crystal shattered, and we were faced with her soul, free of its prison and floating beside us.

  Ginger let out an inarticulate scream and raised her wand as Stewart pointed his at me. Kiya and I both let loose. The blast sent them through the wall and flying into the quad. We turned to face Talbot. He raised his hand and uttered something harsh, but even as he did that, Desiree thrust her hand toward him. His spell flared to life around his hand, then faded as Desiree’s soul glowed brighter.

  “How?” Talbot asked, his voice rising in pitch. “How did you do that?”

  “This is an Infernal spell,” Desiree said, her disembodied voice crackling with anger. “Fueled by hate. And I’m part cambion. Every time you tapped it, I fed off of you, and I leached more and more power away from you. Until tonight, when I took it all. But he isn’t important, Chance,” she said, her crimson form turning to me. “We don’t have much time to get their souls back to their bodies.”