Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books)

by L. A. Banks

  She spotted Wil again, and thankfully he hadn’t given up on her. He was making his way toward her once more. His gaze was locked on her, and his expression was unreadable. Oh, God, please don’t let him have seen her and Val! Then again, would he be making his way over to her if he had? Okay, don’t panic. She tried to put on her brightest smile and began walking toward Wil.

  Suddenly a pair of hands seized her from behind.

  “What the—”

  She whirled around to see Jessica smiling at her. Allie and Hyacinth were behind her.

  “Rescue mission!” Jessica said, locking one arm through Sarah’s.

  Sarah stared around the room. What on earth…?

  Stefan’s attention was on Al, who was glaring at him. Val looked like he was body-blocking Al as he stood in front of him, a hand placed on Al’s chest while he said something in Al’s ear. Using the male standoff to their advantage, Andrea and Bebitta—or Bebe, as she told them to call her—had no problem seizing Tami.

  “To the ladies room!” Jessica declared, and dragged them away.

  “Jess, wait—” Sarah started to say, but she couldn’t stop her friend. She looked over her shoulder and cast a pleading look in Wil’s direction just as she was dragged out through the doors of the cafeteria. Caught up in that female whirlwind, all Sarah could do was to leave Wil standing on the dance floor, watching her disappear. Her eyes had met his only for a few seconds, and she felt her stomach sink when he shook his head, then turned and walked away.

  They all fell through the doors in a loud collision of female voices, and laughed hard as Jessica yanked off their scrunchies and headbands. Andrea whipped out mousse and began mussing up their hair, while Bebe flung a worn pocketbook so big it looked like a duffle bag on the sink and then began rummaging around in it.

  “Since two of you are on our squad now, and just because we feel sorry for the other two of you, you’ve gotta get down with the latest styles,” Bebe said.

  Allie and Hyacinth gave Tami a look, and Sarah laughed. Tami had been so wrong about the older Blends. They did care.

  “You guys really know how to do our make-up like we saw out there?” Tami asked, unsure as Jessica whipped her around to face her and accepted a jar from Bebe.

  “Girl, please. We make it, distribute it and rule. Understand?” Jessica said with pride, and then high-fived Bebe and Andrea.

  “Is it hard to make?” Hyacinth stood alongside Sarah and peered over Jessica’s shoulder as Jessica started transforming their friend’s eyes to a sultry demon-contagion look.

  “It’s easy,” Jessica said without breaking the momentum of her chemistry lesson as Sarah gawked. “The basis of lip gloss is beeswax, and the color… our group makes the best stuff, because Blends have superior intellectual skills. We sell it to the other girls,” she added. “That is, when they grovel at our feet. We’ve got the compounds down for replicating Egyptian kohl and know how to coax a little honeycomb out of the Fae who tend the apiary. We’ve got the perfumes on lock. Ms. Guilliaume is soooo cool—she showed us how to infuse body butters and whatever. Our recipes are unbeatable.”

  Bebe reached into the bag, came out with a small tube and squeezed a glob of hand cream onto Allie’s palms. “Mango butter, boo… the fellas can’t resist it. Plus has a little scent aphrodisiac in it—but if I tell ya, I’ve gotta kill ya,” she said, laughing.

  “This smells divine,” Allie murmured, sharing some with Hyacinth.

  “Look at your face, Tami,” Sarah gasped, thoroughly impressed.

  “She’s gorgeous!” Hyacinth squealed. “Do me, do me!”

  “Step right up,” Jessica said, laughing, and began to work on Hyacinth.

  Andrea produced a razor and pulled off Tami’s shirt. “Good girl—black bra.” She glanced around. “If any of you have on white, I’m not cutting your shirt.”

  “Tell em to go braless, then,” Bebe said with a shrug. “Live dangerously.”

  When Allie and Hyacinth shared a gasp, the older girls doubled over laughing.

  “You-all are so precious,” Bebe said, wiping her eyes. Then she turned back to Tami. “There. How’s that?”

  Tami stared in the mirror and looked at the deep gashes that showed off her tight midriff and then turned to examine the rents down the back of her shirt. “This is awesome.”

  “Strip and gimme your jeans,” Bebe ordered. “I will have you so frickin’ hot in the next ten seconds, you won’t recognize yourself.”

  “That girl is wicked with a razor,” Jessica said, turning Hyacinth to stare at herself in the mirror.

  “Oh. My. God,” Hyacinth breathed.

  The others gathered around behind her. The demure Hyacinth had been turned into a vixen with dark smudges around her pretty eyes, and dark lines along her cheekbones to give her cherub’s face a gaunt look. Dark sooty glitter covered her lids, and with red lipstick, the girl looked dangerous.

  “Man!” Sarah exclaimed, completely impressed.

  “I make it do what it do, babe,” Jessica said, yanking Allie into place. “Weinstein, your assets are the big gray eyes and curly hair. I say werewolf transition, don’t you, Bebe?”

  “Definitely—give her wolf eyes,” Bebe said, nodding while Jessica began applying Allie’s make-up.

  “The girls who buy from you…do they give you a trading number, Jess—like a fake bar code, so you can buy or sell in town?” Allie whispered, looking five ways before returning her gaze to Jessica. “But where could you spend it? Like, we can’t even get to town.”

  “No,” Andrea said quietly. “Everything here is on the favor system.”

  “You gonna tell them our biggest seller—the one item that keeps every smart female in here on her game?” Bebe dropped her voice in a way that made the others lean in to hear Jessica’s answer.

  “We’re gonna make an exception for you, young Clav and young Tactical, and spill the secret in your presence,” Jessica said, smiling at Hyacinth and then glancing at Allie. She paused, then said, “Birth control.”

  “Seriously?” Tami said, eyebrows raised. “You guys scored that up here?”

  “You’re joking, right?” Sarah said. “I can’t imagine Nana stocking the school with birth control.”

  “She doesn’t,” Bebe said calmly. “This is why the Clavs might dislike us, but they don’t mess with us. Not even Melissa and Patty—and Melissa and her crew just got cut off for messing with you guys. Trust me. We heard all about it.”

  Andrea nodded and leaned in with conspiratorial glee. “I can’t wait till one of them has to come to us for a favor—boy, will they be surprised!”

  “We hold more weight around here, literally and figuratively,” Jessica said with a hearty chuckle, “than they do and they can’t stand it. The T-Rex’s worship us, Specs revere us, Ollies genuflect as we pass in the halls, and my dear Audios are at our beck and call for spy service night and day. They hate that we outrank them by creating strategic collaborations. We run the student government and most clubs, except athletics. We get everyone’s vote. No matter what you may have heard, being a Blend means you have stepped into a sorority of entrepreneurs of the highest order. We’ve got a sure-fire barrier mix that’s soaked into a little sea sponge plug that goes up you know where when you need it, and, voila! You’re safe.” Jessica met Andrea and Bebe’s fists with her own.

  “But, but…” Sarah stuttered. “What if it didn’t work one time?”

  The older girls laughed at her good naturedly, and slung an arm over her shoulders.

  “You don’t have to do it or use it, personal choice—abstinence is the only hundred-percent method… but you need to know options exist, kiddo. I know your parents told you the basic biology, but it wasn’t like they were giving you access to a pharmacy, am I right?” Jessica said, and then gave Sarah a hug.

  Bebe looked around the group with a wide grin. “You can come to us, or you could try to wait till one of the Uppers comes back from town with some condoms, which they
always steal from the drug store, but that’s a long shot.”

  Tami gave Jessica a sidelong glance, while Bebe added sooty smudges and fake bloodstains to her newly-ripped jeans. “So, uh… if I needed something, I could, like—”

  “Come to Mama,” Jessica said laughing. She raised an eyebrow. “Stefan’s got you wide open, huh?”

  “Well—”

  “She’s not sleeping with him!” Sarah said, cutting Tami off.

  “Gee, thanks, Mom,” Tami muttered, and shook her head.

  “Okay, my bad,” Sarah replied in a sullen tone, trying to quickly pull herself together. But the very thought had sent a bolt of dread through her.

  A look of pure satisfaction lit Jessica’s eyes as she finished Allie’s face and began working on Sarah’s. “But keep in mind that we’re the secret society of school pharmacists, you got that?”

  “What Jessica is trying to say,” Andrea added with a dramatic sigh, “is that we’ll get in big trouble if Headmistress Stone finds out we’re making more than cosmetics.”

  “Yep… just like Ernie and his best Blends buds make the best jewelry from hacked auto parts that get brought back from the outside. The guy is talented. Don’t let those beady little eyes and the weak chin fool you,” Bebe said with a wide smile.

  “You guys don’t make. . .stronger stuff. . .do you?” Sarah asked cautiously.

  “We don’t do black market drugs, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jessica said, cutting her off and looking at each new girl hard. “No mind-altering anything. Somebody else has that angle covered, and it’s a foul business. Stay away from that mess. Now be still.”

  Jessica began to work on her make-up again.

  Relief swept through Sarah. At least Jessica and her crew weren’t hanging out with Stefan and Brent, or doing and selling anything really crazy.

  “Ok, you’re done,” Jessica said, and then spun Sarah around with triumphant flair. “Looking undead on arrival. You like?”

  “Wow…” It was all Sarah could say as she stared at her sooty eyes and wild hair.

  Bebe laughed. “Now toss me your jeans and your shirt. We’ll have you tricked out in a minute.”

  This time ,when they entered the caf, they had a different walk. Confidence was their new outfit, and attitude came with it. They passed Miss Tittle fussing at Headmistress Stone about the lyrics of some song or other, but Sarah worked hard not to catch her grandmother’s eyes. The music thrummed through her body as a new wave of swagger thrummed through her spirit.

  “These lyrics!” Miss Tittle argued in the shrill voice. “I know the outlawed bands supposedly have message music, but, Headmistress, really!”

  “I don’t listen to the lyrics, I just listen to the beat,” Headmistress Stone said in a weary voice as Sarah and her crew passed by. “That’s what keeps me from getting a migraine. We had our day, Miss Tittle, so let them have theirs.”

  Sarah and the others hurried to the beverage bar and grabbed cups of cold punch—it was a way of making a new entrance pass all the cute guys, a move that Bebe had highly recommended—and then they slowly promenaded to an open table that Jessica had scoped out. Melissa and her friends looked like they were about to die. Life was good.

  Laughing to herself at their coup when male heads turned, Sarah took a sip from her cup and smiled. Val gave her a surprised look from across the room, and her brother, squinted, leaned forward and seemed torn, as though he was about to get up and come over, when Miguel put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We look hot to death,” Tami whispered to Sarah, and then squeezed her elbow.

  “Yeah…” Sarah said, glancing around. She felt her heart sink when she didn’t see Wil anywhere. Had he gotten angry and left?

  The girls continued their conversation without missing a beat, giving each other the low-down on the newest music, who was dating who, but a male presence changed everything, so heads lifted and the girls parted as Stefan came up to their table.

  Tami turned slowly with a big smile, but Sarah reached out in reflex to block the shadow that hung off him. It reached out as if it had claws, continuing to swath his entire body even as inky tendrils headed right for Tami’s throat. Sarah frantically swiped at them, trying to arrest the progress of the darkness.

  Stefan looked down and scowled. “What’s your problem, newbie?”

  “I—I thought I saw something,” Sarah stammered, glancing up at him and then around the table.

  “Like what?” he said in a low rumble. “Me coming over here to break your girl out of this hen fest?”

  Sarah looked around for support, but apparently no one else saw anything. Stefan turned his attention to Tami. “You wanna get out of here?”

  “Uhmmm…. Well, like, sure,” she said, and then stood. “Where do you wanna go?”

  “Around,” Stefan said coolly. “Maybe some places they didn’t show you on the school tour.”

  “Cool… I’m game.” Tami moved away from the table. “I’ll be back later, guys.”

  “Tami, wait—” Sarah broke off, then watched, mute, as her girlfriend left.

  Tami threw Melissa a triumphant look before she disappeared through the door with Stefan. Melissa and Al were matching storm clouds on the horizon.

  The Upper Spheres at the table said nothing, just grinned.

  “Tell me she’ll be all right,” Sarah said, mostly talking to herself.

  “He won’t make her do anything she doesn’t wanna do, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jessica said, laughing.

  “No, I’m serious,” Sarah said. “That guy has darkness around him…. What if he. . .I don’t know… forces her to do something with him?”

  “If you haven’t noticed, the last thing Stefan has to do is force anyone into doing anything,” Andrea said with a patronizing smile. “Three quarters of the women in this caf would pay to be in Tami’s shoes.”

  “Yeah,” Jess said with a smirk. “The darkness you saw was probably horniness.”

  The older girls at the table laughed, but Allie and Hyacinth were silent, their eyes holding enough worry to make Sarah stand.

  “Screw it, I don’t trust him,” she said as she got up from the table. She knew everyone was looking at her. She didn’t care if she made a scene or did something stupid. Tami was in trouble; she could feel it in her bones.

  Even if she just said what was on her mind in front of Stefan to let him know that, if her girlfriend came back with one hair out of place, one scratch on her that she didn’t want, she’d be sure to make his life a living hell… that was her mission. To let that arrogant Upper Spheresman know that somebody was watching, somebody cared.

  Sarah hurried out after Tami and then paused in the hallway, trying to gauge which direction Tami and Stefan had gone in.

  “Finished dancing?” a voice said.

  She whirled around to see Wil leaning against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles. He pushed off the wall and walked over to her.

  Sarah put a hand over her heart. “I didn’t see you there. You scared me.”

  “Yeah… it was obvious that I was invisible to you while you were dancing with your homeboy.”

  She so did not have time for this right now. “Val is like my brother. Gimme a break,” she said, waving Wil off.

  He caught her by her arm to keep her from leaving.

  Still upset, she spun on him and yanked her arm away. “I have to find Tami. She went off with Stefan and—”

  “Okay, okay, calm down.” Wil put a hand on her face, and his expression changed from one of challenge to concern. “We’ll find her together. Nobody is supposed to be wandering off alone anymore,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “What do you think he’s going to do to her?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe nothing, but I have to find her.” Sarah could feel herself getting worked up again. They were wasting precious time.

  “All right,” Wil said, taking Sarah’s hand. “Come on. I’ll help you look.”

  Chapter 19


  Wil took her through back hallways, hidden corridors and stairwells she’d never explored before. Beyond lost, all she could do was stay on his heels. But then she recognized the classroom level of the school and her pulse began to normalize. Okay, familiar ground, and nowhere too scary.

  “Listen,” Wil said to her in a quiet tone, stopping for a moment to catch his breath while holding her arm.

  Sarah strained to hear, and after a few seconds she heard Tami’s voice, heard her girlfriend giggling. Relief swept though Sarah and made her slump against the wall next to Wil.

  “Thanks,” she said in a near whisper, now feeling completely foolish for her panic. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, wishing she could just slide into the mural on the wall and disappear.

  “It’s cool…. I know she’s your friend, and it’s okay to be worried about a friend.”

  Sarah looked up at Wil, keeping her voice low like his. “I know it was stupid, but I just don’t trust him.”

  Wil nodded and didn’t tease her. “You’re right to trust your instincts… something’s not right with him, that’s for sure.”

  “Glad it isn’t just me,” Sarah said, straightening. She looked up and down the corridor. “But how’d you know he’d come here and not the library… or the Great Hall, or somewhere else?”

  Wil offered her a sheepish grin. “If I tell you, I swear, Sarah, you cannot tell anybody, especially none of the school officials.”

  She stepped closer to Wil and glanced around the vacant hallway, and then looked up into his honest eyes. “I promise,” she murmured, but it was more than words, it was a sacred oath.

  He clasped her hand in one of his broad palms and then put a finger to his lips, leading her to a classroom door. Sarah peered in through the window at the top of the door but saw nothing except a large, dark swirling gray mass in the back of the room that obscured the second blackboard, chairs and part of the wall.

  “Whoa…”

  “Yeah,” Wil whispered. “They went in there.”