Dark Spark: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2)

by Ahava Trivedi

  “Did you get something?” he asked. I took in a deep breath.

  “I didn’t,” I replied.

  Chapter 4

  “How did it go?” asked Natalie looking hopeful as we made our way to Duquette’s first class of this semester. “I bet you were worried about nothing?”

  “I needed to warn him that he has to watch his back. I did it.” I didn’t mean to come across as curt as I must have. But the moment Ulric knew that I wasn’t successful in being a conduit to wherever his sister was, he’d snubbed me so overtly that I’d just stormed out of the dorm. Of course, he hadn’t followed me or made any attempt to show that I meant anything to him or that we once had something, such a short time ago.

  “Oh,” said Natalie.

  “If it’s okay, I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Sure. Will you partner up with Moldark Whitlock?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I really haven’t given it much thought. And, he seems to be, like the most arrogant person in our whole class. No, actually in the whole school,” I lightened up as Natalie smiled.

  “I think he’s self-assured. And I won’t lie, if he had asked me to pair up with him, I would have said yes in a second. Maybe that’s why guys like him never do. I never learned how to turn down the one’s that need a girl to play it cool before they’re into her.”

  “He’s not into me, Nat. He just knows that I can beat him, hands down.”

  “Seems like a choice only a confident guy would make,” winked Natalie.

  “Or one who wanted to stand out by keeping me on side in case Professor Ice Queen splits the class in two and makes us go head to head.”

  “She does that?” asked Natalie, wide-eyed.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. She does love to humiliate students and make them feel small.” I saw Valenthia come and stand at the back of the line we’d formed, waiting for Professor Duquette. While other teachers didn’t mind if we went into their classrooms if they weren’t there to wait for their arrival, Duquette had made it clear that we were to form an orderly line and wait until she gave permission before we entered hers. Natalie too, spotted Valenthia.

  “Have you spoken to her…since?” she asked.

  “No. But I think I should,” I said, moving down the line, past the other students. Moldark saw me and began to say something but I cut him off, nodding at him and moving on before I lost my nerve to approach Valenthia. I’d avoided her a few times and it hadn’t done anything to make me feel better. “Hey,” I said when she saw me, a few steps away.

  “Oh, hi. How are you?” said Valenthia with a poker face.

  “Hi,” said Natalie, who’d decided to join me.

  “Hey, Nat.” Valenthia stood stiffly, with her hands shoved in the small pockets of her blazer.

  “I can’t keep avoiding you,” I said.

  “I wanted to give you guys your space,” said Valenthia, “just so you know, after everything that happened. I wasn’t doing it to avoid you.” Just then, Duquette walked through the hallway and towards our waiting class. She ushered us in with the impatience of someone who’d been left waiting and not been waited on.

  “Can we talk after class?” I said.

  “I’d like that,” replied Valenthia, “thanks.”

  “I’m sure you all know how ridiculously out of hand things got by the end of the last semester, heck some of you were involved,” said Duquette, in her dangerously smooth voice that never matched the words that came out of her mouth. She arbitrarily glanced at me. “We had some students go rogue on us. They’ve been dealt with and as for the rest of you, I hope for your own sakes that you’ll behave.” She took our attendance and once she was done, asked our three new classmates to introduce themselves properly.

  One was a Sanguine vamp named Clifton who’d come from Florida and I already knew the new girl named Clara. She was from North Dakota and as I’d predicted, she was a Sanguine too. The third, Luc, was a Novus vamp from France who’d been turned twenty years ago. Apparently, he’d been waiting for a place to study in an American academy for vampires, for at least nineteen of those years. His introduction revealed something about Novus vampire-life that hadn’t occurred to me. He’d been turned at thirty-five, yet didn’t look like he was out of his teens.

  “May I ask Luc a question?” I asked, raising my hand.

  “Quickly,” urged professor Duquette.

  “If you were turned as an adult, I don’t understand how you look so young,” I began, “Madame le Boursier is a Novus and she…” I didn’t want to say that she looked old but before I had to, Luc smiled and explained.

  “When we get turned to the further side of life, if we have any – how can I say – youth left in our body, it gets taken and magnified to take us back in time so that it is restored. I’ve seen what madame le Boursier looks like and maybe because her turning happened a lot later than mine, there was only a limited amount of restoration that could happen,” he said.

  “In other words, our head of security was too old for the vampire blood that gave her immortality, to do much else. Everything has its’ limits. Now are we done – can we move on with the actual lesson?” said Duquette, cutting any further questions or musings short. There were a few snickers from the class, naturally including Moldark. “Now that we’re all comfy, it shouldn’t come to you as any surprise that this isn’t where we’ll be staying. Please make your way down to level five to our regular practice room, now,” said Duquette to some groans from those who thought it was going to be an easy first lesson.

  We trudged down, further below ground level than we already were and the cool, vapid atmosphere of the tunnels hit me again. Despite that Moldark had once shown Natalie and I through the tunnels and into the city and Ulric and I had used the tunnels when we’d briefly spent time together, it wasn’t something I liked to do by myself. After Ulric had left during the holidays, I had made peace with going through the gates and providing a blood sample to be let back in.

  As we walked, I found myself craving blood, something that left me agitated each time it happened. Of late, I’d always been satisfying the urge, only to feel something akin to guilt afterwards. At least what I consumed was all bottled and chilled. The thought of ever consuming the stuff warm and fresh from the source still made me want to hurl. I had to be thankful for such small mercies.

  We went into the large cave-like structure where our combat lessons were held and I leaned against the cool, stone wall, already wishing the night would just be over. I fleetingly thought of Ulric and how I missed the way we used to take our little walks where he’d escorted me through New Orleans, on the way to seeing Safi. It instantly left me annoyed at myself. I guessed that my telepathic link with him, when he’d allowed it, had given me the illusion that we’d been closer than we actually ever had.

  “Alright, today we’re going to pick someone to partner up with as there’s going to be a lot of physical training and combat this semester,” said Duquette, looking around checking that everyone who’d been in her classroom had made it and not disappeared halfway through. “Choose wisely because unless one of you kills the other, you’re going to be stuck with whoever you choose. And to hurry things along, I’m only going to give you a minute’s grace to decide who you want. After that, anyone left unpartnered will be paired up with someone of my choosing. And, there’s an even number of you so, there are no excuses for the unpopular ones amongst you. Go!”

  Some of my classmates streamed across to each other, not wanting to leave any doubt that they’d already chosen their pairing, while a few who weren’t prepared, looked around manically, trying to pick someone. Before I could say or do much, Moldark was at my side. I looked for Natalie who was already standing with Clara. She smiled at me and nudged her head towards Moldark. Thanks, Nat. I looked around and everyone but Darius and Clifton were already taken.

  “Fine,” I said to Moldark not even wanting to entertain the possibility that I’d end up with Darius. Not
hing like bringing my grade down when I was already under close watch for being who I was.

  “Oh, I don’t know, are you sure?” said Moldark with a smirk, looking at Darius. His molten chocolate eyes came quickly back to watching me with an intensity, that bore so much within it.

  “Sure, as sure,” I replied.

  “Now that you’re all in your little pairs, I’m going to tell you what’s next. I saved it because had I told you before, you’d probably have picked different partners altogether,” said Duquette sweetly, enjoying the expressions across the dim room. “Light magic is getting stronger. Our own little Miss Quartz has proved that she has powers we hadn’t even fathomed.” I felt all eyes on me and hated being a hybrid version of whatever I was supposed to be.

  “I’m different,” I said as Duquette’s eyes burned for a second.

  “Aren’t you just!” she purred, “The point I’m making is to never underestimate your opponent.” I couldn’t tell whether she was talking about me or not but because of what she’d said, the class continued to stare in my direction. “Get into your defensive positions and begin with the stun maneuver you learned last semester. You three, follow your partners’ leads,” she said to the new students. “What almost all other supernatural beings have as an advantage over us, is that our powers don’t work until the sun goes down. This means, we’re like mortals for half of each day when it comes to our gifts. Today’s class and the ones after it, will be a mix of strategy and self-defence during the day as well as at night.”

  “Why the ominous opening note on why we’ll regret the partner we’ve picked then?” asked Moldark.

  “Because you’ll need to trust your partner’s abilities to be well-developed. If you’re fighting against someone who’s a weak opponent, you may have an easier time in class but I promise that you’ll be setting yourself up for failure in real life.” Duquette looked pleased, while the rest of us scrutinized our partner a little closer.

  “Aren’t you glad you paired with me now?” said Moldark, taking a defensive stance as we moved further apart.

  “I won’t know until I see what you’ve got,” I said, “if I remember correctly, last semester I slammed you into the ground pretty hard.”

  “We’ll see,” replied Moldark. We circled one another like gladiators in a ring. I used those steps to gage how he held his body and whether I could use my instincts to spot an obvious weakness in his defense.

  I saw Darius, stream towards Clifton, who simply crouched down and did something that resembled bucking him. He went flying and crashed into the stone wall. A few of my classmates, including Valenthia, who’d paired up with Luc, applauded and others laughed.

  Moldark and I quickly went back to our own positions. When we were far enough apart that it would allow me to control how I streamed towards him, something I’d lacked last time we’d done this, I charged at him, with the intention to pin him down. It turned out he’d been practicing. As I started to tackle him, he sensed the miniscule movement of my body that would take me to the next position and reacted to it with such speed that before I could counter-balance myself, he had me on the floor.

  “Beautiful, Mr. Whitlock, although, I don’t know if she’s had any blood recently so she might just be weak,” said Duquette. I was beginning to buy into the theory that giving anything better than a back-handed compliment must have been painful for her. If Duquette was predictable in anything, it her need to always pull the other person down.

  “Have you?” asked Moldark.

  “Not as recently as I’d like,” I admitted. My blooming tingled and I pushed Moldark aside and got up.

  “Let’s try again,” he said. We tried numerous times, swapping our roles and by the end of the lesson, we were at a tie. “See? We’re a good choice for each other, we’re balanced. It’s probably not a good sign if one person always wins, they’re not being challenged enough.”

  “What about the one that always loses?” I asked.

  “The loser’s pretty much done for, whichever way you want to look at it,” Moldark shrugged.

  “Nice,” I mumbled. I didn’t feel that way unless the loser was the one pursuing the attack in the first place and that was never the case. In my experience the one attacking was always a good fighter and attacker to begin with. Professor Duquette dismissed our class and I found Natalie to walk with. “How did it go?” I asked her.

  “Clara’s good! She hadn’t done it before but she picked it up really quickly. By the end, she was beating me, nearly every time,” replied Natalie. Clara heard her name and joined us. Her strawberry blonde corkscrew curls were styled so they only fell over her one shoulder. In spite of being new to the academy, she carried herself with an air of – I wouldn’t call it arrogance as such but there was a certain confidence there that only seemed to reside in full-blooded Sanguines. Valenthia innately had it too.

  “You’re Katrina Snow Quartz, right?” said Clara, sticking out her hand, “I’m Clara.”

  “Hi,” I said shaking her hand.

  “You’re famous. You know, you’ve got that whole shouldn’t even exist but does kind of thing, going for you.”

  “I guess,” I said. What I wanted to say was, thanks for pointing it out, I’ll add myself to the same endangered supernatural species list as the unicorn.

  “Did you see Valenthia leave?” I asked Natalie.

  “I’m dying to know, have you ever come across anything about your actual parents?” Clara pushed, apparently oblivious to any trace of social etiquette.

  “No, I’m an orphan,” I replied.

  “Or so you think, your birth parents could so be out there somewhere. Especially your vampire dad!”

  “Thanks,” I replied, clueless as to what else to say to something like that.

  “Maybe, a better way to go about making friends would be to avoid sensitive topics the first time you meet someone and actually get to know them first?” said Valenthia, from behind us.

  “I was just making conversation,” pouted Clara, “and I’d think everyone likes to know where they come from.”

  “Yeah, not necessarily just so they can share it with you,” said Valenthia. Clara picked up her pace to almost a stream and fled past us.

  “Thanks,” I said as Natalie and I both slowed down and made space in the middle so she could join us.

  “About what happened that night,” began Valenthia, “I don’t know what to say, apart from that I’ve rehashed what I did and I don’t know what came over me. I still haven’t been able to make sense of any of it.” The three of us turned a corner, separating off from the rest of our class so that we could talk without curious ears listening in. We found an empty classroom where we settled down at a row of desks, furthest from the door.

  “Could it be as simple as, you were into Riskel and just went along with what he said?” said Natalie.

  “I know what it must have looked like but please believe me when I say it wasn’t like that,” said Valenthia, “he didn’t force me, or even encourage me.”

  “Then are you saying you were compelled?” I asked, racking my brain to think of what I knew about vampire compulsion. My knowledge was limited to say the least apart from that I’d been taught at the coven, that vampires couldn’t compel other supes, including their own.

  “I honestly don’t know. If I was to guess, I’d say it was more like being subjected to some sort of dark magic. That’s the only thing vampires can do to another vampire,” said Valenthia, thoughtfully, “but it’s very strong magic and not every vampire can do it. They don’t even teach certain parts of it until the final year here and judging by the calibre of Lilith and Riskel and their little side-kick friend, they were more impulsive than skilled in dark magic.”

  “What does a charm entail? Is it a spell of some kind?” I asked, thinking about it.

  “I believe so,” said Natalie, “my new family – since I was turned – sometimes talked to me about them. It’s always good to be aware of that stuff, ev
en though my parents and all vampire families are strictly forbidden from teaching charms until they’re taught by an academy.”

  “I wonder if they’d have books about it in our library,” I thought out loud.

  “Probably but they’ll be in a guarded section, I assume. Otherwise any student, including a werewolf could access them.” Valenthia looked at me, “I’m truly sorry for drinking from your High Priestess,” she said. Not an apology one gets to hear everyday.

  “It doesn’t seem like it was your fault. If you were under a dark magic spell, there was no way you could have prevented it,” I replied.

  “There is one other thing,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Do you remember in Devin’s class today, how I just knew all that stuff about St. Erzsebet’s and Principal Nadasdy’s connection to the Bathory bloodline?” said Valenthia.

  “Yeah?” I nodded.

  “Since I drank witch-blood, I get these random snippets of insight about stuff. It comes from nowhere and I can’t predict it before it happens or control it. I guess it’s like I’m having a premonition. Like with Nadasdy.

  “When I blurted that thing in class, I actually saw him, somewhere far away from here. In another country. Standing amongst the remains of an old, ruined castle. It looked like the past but felt like the future. I know that sounds crazy,” Valenthia said, pre-occupied.

  “Some vampires do have that gift,” offered Natalie, “especially Sanguines.”

  “I know but it feels like it’s something that’s only been happening since I consumed that blood.”

  “Blood has really enhanced the power of both of my bloodlines,” I said, “maybe as a full-blooded vampire, that’s what witch-blood did to you?”

  “That’s definitely why it’s so in demand,” said Natalie. “Have you had anymore premonitions?”