Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6)

by Lan Chan

  “You’re weak, Sophie,” he said. “If you think you can save someone, you’ll do it. Is that friend of yours worth it? She left us all here to die.”

  The fury that burned in my chest was too hot to contain. “My friend is worth more than a hundred of you,” I spat before pushing the door open. “And right now, I would murder you if it meant getting her back.”

  Ignoring him, I walked back towards the classrooms.

  13

  I was not in a good mood when we gathered in the class for Arcane Magic. “What happened?” Diana asked me. “You look worse now than when you ran out of class.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Right. Well, can you try and appear more fine so people don’t accidentally get the idea that you’re actually going to kill someone?”

  It was a poor choice of words, but she meant every single one of them. “If you had to kill someone to get Lex back,” I asked her, “would you do it?”

  She contemplated the question. “Who would I have to kill?”

  “I don’t know,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. “A random person.”

  She scratched her chin. “I mean, I dunno. If it was someone annoying maybe, but I kinda have to draw the line at murdering innocent people.”

  That’s what I’d thought. It was all so easy with hypotheticals. What I hated to my very core was that Noah was right. I did want to kill someone. I wanted to have the kind of conviction that meant I could do what needed to be done when the time came.

  In my head, all I could hear was Andrei’s voice that first time we’d gone bounty hunting. We’d caught up to the vampire, and Andrei had even knocked the guy out. I then stood over his unconscious body for fifteen minutes.

  “Seriously, cupcake,” Andrei said. “Do you need me to read his conviction sheet again? Rape. Two counts of murder. One of them a child. All of it perpetuated on humans.”

  “I...”

  At the half an hour mark, the other vampire stirred. Andrei groaned and beat him unconscious before collecting some of his blood and then turning him over to the Nephilim guards. We didn’t even bother to collect the bounty. Andrei didn’t need it and I didn’t want to touch it.

  The extracted blood wasn’t more potent than any other blood in a ritual. The whole point of a blood sacrifice was the sacrifice bit. When it came down to it, I didn’t have the nerve.

  I’m so sorry that you’ll have to bear the brunt of this now. Those had been Lex’s words. I was only as good as a sacrifice I was willing to make. Which meant I was no good at all. If I was going to have a chance at transmuting her blood, I would have to take down somebody powerful. More than one somebody. How in the world I was meant to do that completely escaped me.

  Our conversation was cut short by Agatha’s arrival. Like Eugenia, she seemed to have a penchant for dramatic costume. Today she wore a headdress that looked like the severed tusks of an antelope but painted silver. It was a good foil for the magenta cloak she wore over a fitted dress of the same colour.

  If possible, this room was twice the size of the room where we’d had Potions and it was filled to the brim. What worried me when I looked around the room was that it wasn’t just filled with fourth-year students. I recognised some of the kids from the junior Academy.

  Before I had a chance to ask, Agatha drew herself up at the front of the room. She was like the villain in every children’s movie that I had ever watched.

  “You.” She pointed to a para-human girl in the front row I didn’t know. Someone from one of the other Academies. “Why are you here?”

  “I guess no introductions then,” Diana said out of the corner of her mouth.

  The girl’s scaled grey skin turned mossy. “Ummm....”

  “Well?” Agatha prodded.

  “My dam said that it’s better to be prepared than to die ignorant.”

  Agatha’s face contorted. “Your dam is an idiot.”

  Turning a shade of scarlet, the girl took exception. “He is not!”

  “He is if he thinks preparation is going to get him anywhere.” She straightened up and addressed the rest of the room. “We can be as prepared as we’ll ever be, and it won’t be enough.”

  Close to the back of the room, a familiar voice piped up. “What do you want us to do?” Isla Hess asked. “You want us to mount an attack on the Hell dimension? That’s fine with me as long as the fens come to our assistance.”

  There was a general buzz of assent. Agatha’s smile could have cut glass. “What’s your name?”

  “Isla.”

  “Do you think our aid might make a difference?”

  “At least it would mean greater numbers!”

  “And what do you think of the source of that aid?”

  “The source?”

  Agatha sniffed. “Where is it do you think the core of the power in the fens comes from?”

  “Sinister magic,” a boy from another Academy said. Nightblood Academy, judging by the pale skin and the light amulet he was wearing.

  “Very good,” Agatha said, voice dripping sarcasm. “And where does the sinister magic come from?”

  “You summon demons,” Orla suggested.

  White lines appeared around her mouth as Agatha said, “Not quite.” Orla shrank in her seat. So too did many of the students in her vicinity.

  “You really don’t know anything at all, do you?” She made a disgusted sound and then spat on the floor. Why? It wasn’t even to ward off evil. She was the worst thing in the room. “Your headmistress is a joke.” And she seemed more intent on insulting us than actually teaching. Sinister magic was the use of a life-force entity such as blood or the soul to summon a demon to be used with the specific purpose of harming another person or for personal gain.

  Fanning her hands out, Agatha drew an arcane circle on the floor around her feet. Several of the students in the back of the room stood up to try and catch a glimpse of it. Goose bumps pricked my skin. The air grew cool, then cold, then frosty until I swore I could see snowflakes clinging to the windowsill.

  “You can’t do this!” Orla whimpered.

  But no guards came to make her stop. And none of us could do anything but sit or lean and watch as she summoned a demon onto Academy grounds. The thing that appeared, molecule by molecule in the constricting circle of her magic, was a low demon at best. It was thick around the waist and squat in stature. Its two eyes were squished into thin slits like the face of a pug. When it was fully materialised, it stood inside the circle with her but didn’t attack her on sight like every other demon I had ever encountered would have.

  At first, I thought it might not have seen her. But then she reached out a pointed boot and nudged it in the back. Still, it didn’t do anything. In fact, it turned around until it stood and looked out at us. As soon as it saw us, the demon went into a frenzy. It launched and spat at the circle, scratching at the sides as though trying to get to us.

  Beside me, Diana’s face was a mask of disbelief. “Why isn’t it attacking her?” she said.

  “Because it’s scared,” Orla responded.

  “It’s a demon.”

  There was no answer to that. Even the low demons were programmed by their very nature to be destructive. The only way it wouldn’t attack a person was if it sensed an even greater darkness in them.

  “You see my point?” Agatha said. When nobody answered, she walked up to the demon as though it was a poodle and slit its throat with one of her nails. It didn’t do a single thing to stop her. As the life-force faded from the demon’s eyes and it began to slump over, Agatha lifted it up by its arm and placed her palm on its chest. There was a collective hiss of fear as her purple magic wound the demon in thorny vines. The vines began to convulse as though they were hollow and suctioning the demon’s essence. Though it was dead, the demon jerked and hissed. Diana’s face contorted.

  Orla’s wings drooped and she sort of wilted in her seat. When the transfer was complete, the demon was nothing but a grey sliver of skin and
bones. She dropped it onto the ground and stomped on it. The demon’s remains turned into a pile of ash. Somebody in the back was dry-heaving.

  Agatha dusted her hands together. “Now, is that the kind of thing you were thinking of when you mentioned the fens coming to your aid, Isla? Or, like your classmates, are you horrified by what you’ve just witnessed and would rather not be associated with it even if it might mean saving your lives?”

  Isla was silent for the first time I’d ever known her. I wished Lex was around to see this. Then again, if Lex were around, she and Agatha would probably be involved in a screaming match right about now. Of the two of them, I couldn’t be sure who was more wicked. All I knew was that Lex’s hedge magic would not have allowed her to be okay with whatever just happened.

  “So,” Agatha said, “we’ve all seen the destruction the malachim have wrought on our world. Once upon a time the malachim were the lowest of the order of angels. So low they resided in the Earth dimension and their unmaking is less than a blip on the magical scales.”

  Orla made a face. “I’m not sure about anyone else but whether they are low or not, I would love to have a guardian angel.” There was a general murmur of agreement. “You know, in times of great danger, malachim have been known to sacrifice themselves to save the person they’re watching? Or they can imbue that person with their powers?”

  Agatha snickered. “Isn’t that a lovely fairy tale? Wishing for things that can no longer happen is a sure-fire way to an early demise.” She stared Orla down when the sprite seemed like she wanted to say something else.

  “We know the Abyss in which they were trapped has now been opened,” Agatha continued. “This means that the keeper of the gate is in play. One of Lucifer’s first disciples. At least tell me somebody knows his name.”

  Most of the room didn’t dare to speak. Finally, Diana huffed. “Apollyon.”

  Agatha nodded. “Who is he?”

  “He was once an angel too. Not a seraphim but one of a lower order. Lucifer turned him into a demon after they fell.”

  “And what is his task?”

  “To collect souls.”

  From the left side of the room, one of the Pantheon Fae disagreed. “The collection of souls is Azrael’s job.”

  I’d bet he regretted saying anything when Agatha’s lips pulled into a straight line. Diana continued before Agatha could do something ruthless. “Azrael leads spirits into the Sea of Souls for rest. The Abyss is not that.”

  “Indeed,” Agatha continued. “The Abyss is where those souls who are no longer worthy of salvation are reaped. They are used by Apollyon as a power source. It is said that their essence allows the opening of the seals into the heavenly realm.”

  “Isn’t that all conjecture?” Isla asked, having found her voice once more. “We don’t know any of this for real. All we know is that there’s another force out there. The malachim, who were once angels too.”

  “How old are you, Isla?” Agatha asked.

  “Twenty.”

  “Twenty. And you know all the machinations of this dimension in which we live?”

  “Err, no. Isn’t that why I’m at the Academy?”

  A few of the students laughed nervously. “It beats me why you’re at this Academy. Or any of the others. They’ve done nothing but fill your heads with ideas about humans needing to be protected. When the time comes, they will be nothing but a nuisance.”

  She kept talking about some mystical time in the future like there would be something still here once Lucifer was done. In a really twisted way, it was kind of comforting. When she gave us the reason why, I ate my words.

  “If we want to survive the impending war, we must embrace the Hell dimension.”

  Isla started snickering. “Is something funny?” Agatha asked.

  “Oh, you weren’t joking,” Isla said. “I just assumed because what you’re saying is nuts.”

  “How so?”

  Isla pointed at the small mound of dust where the remains of the demon was collected. “Who or what did you invoke to get the power to do that?”

  Agatha raised a brow. “Who do you think?”

  There was no doubt after that demonstration that she had called upon something in the Abyss. Was she just going to answer one question with another? Isla made a dismissive sound.

  “Why are you in a class called Arcane Magic if you think it’s crazy?” Agatha asked Isla.

  “Arcane magic isn’t about abusing power from an unreliable source,” Isla spat. Professor Mortimer would have been proud of her. “And I’m here so I know what not to do. When my time comes, I want to be with Azrael. Not some psychopathic ex-angel who was on Lucifer’s side in the war.”

  Agatha pressed her hands together in the shape of a triangle. The sign of the Trinity. Out of sheer habit, I found myself drawing a protective circle around Isla.

  “Do we ever really know whose side was right in a war when the victors are the ones ruling us?” Agatha posed. She flashed a winning smile that fooled absolutely nobody. I doubted she was really even trying.

  “We know that Lucifer is trying to kill us,” Kieran said. “Or enslave us. At least the seraphim have given us free will.”

  “How do you know Lucifer would not do the same? The seraphim have given us rules to live by. But a war is about to reach our doorstep and they won’t lift a finger to help us.”

  “So you’re just trying to rewrite history?” Keith asked.

  “I am attempting to open your tiny little minds that have been warped by your Council and your headmistress.”

  “If she says one more thing about Jacqueline, she’s going to get an axe to the head,” Diana muttered.

  “So, one of the people you’d be happy to kill?” I asked her.

  She turned to me and grinned. “Tell you what, if it comes down to it and you need to steal some essence to use as a power booster, you have my blessing to kill her.”

  I suppressed a laugh. “Something funny, Sophie?” Agatha asked.

  Uh oh. “No.”

  She wouldn’t let it go. “Take Sophie, for instance.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Let’s not take Sophie anything.”

  Some of the students laughed. The ones who didn’t know me gave me sidelong glances. Agatha was not dissuaded. “Her great-grandfather was one of the most powerful blood-magic users in the world. Whether you agree or disagree with what he did, there is no disputing that he was a great wizard.”

  I very badly wanted to turn around and see what Noah’s reaction to her assessment was. She kept going. “He had the spine to use the power he was given to his advantage.”

  “He murdered people!” the Pantheon Fae said.

  “He did what he had to do. If he were still alive, there’s every chance we wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. For instance, if Alessia Hastings’s great-grandmother hadn’t shown such poor judgement, she would have let Alessia die as an infant. That would have saved us all.”

  “You...” I started to say. But I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.

  She held up a finger at the room because we were all choking on our indignation that didn’t seem to want to come out in a satisfactory way. “Before you give in to your indoctrination, strip all the emotion from it and tell me whether her death would have saved us all.”

  I couldn’t listen to any more. When I stood, Diana and Isla got up with me. “Sophie,” Agatha said with a note of exasperation in her voice. “You’ll never get anywhere if you continue to–”

  “She didn’t choose to be born from Lucifer’s blood,” I snapped at her. “And she did everything she could to stop him. Where were you, if you think you could do better?”

  “I’m here now, cleaning up her mess,” she said. The kicker was that she really seemed to believe that. “And if I’m ever given the opportunity to rid the world of Lucifer’s scion, I would make the choice in an instant.”

  A red haze swiped across my vision. “If you ever go near her, I�
��ll burn you at the stake myself.”

  “You think so, Sophie dear? Because I believe the problem is that you wouldn’t be able to even if you truly wanted it.”

  Her laughter followed me out of the room and joined with that voice inside my head that said when the time came, I would surely fail.

  14

  Of course we then didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Isla bade us goodbye, claiming she needed to return to Morgana. “Are you coming back?”

  Why had I asked that now? Isla was the ultimate frenemy. Even though we had a truce, she didn’t bother to soften any of her sharp edges for us. I had a feeling that was why Lex secretly liked her. “If I leave for good,” Isla said, “I’m not going to get to see when you finally lose your temper.”

  There was a smirk on her face when she jumped through the portal. Diana rubbed the back of her neck. “Speaking of needing to go...”

  That got my attention. “You’re definitely coming back, right?”

  Now that the surge of anger had abated, I was less than enthusiastic about turning up to more classes without her. Now she was rubbing at her arm. Dwarves didn’t do sheepishness well.

  “The thing is,” she said, “my guard schedule is pretty full. I only managed to get this morning off because I knew it would be your first day.” She saw what must have been my face falling because she backtracked. “But one of the others will take my place. You won’t be alone.”

  The word alone hit me like a bulldozer. By now she was kind of bouncing from one foot to the other, any signs of that hardened soldier all but gone. Right then it occurred to me that deep down, Diana and the boys thought I was soft too. The notion sat as well as a toad in oil. For a single, painful moment, I missed Lex with the crushing weight of death.

  For all her loud-mouthed brashness, she never looked at me and saw weakness. “You know I was at this school for years before any of you turned up, right? I can handle it by myself.”