by Lan Chan
“I honestly don’t know how she keeps any of this straight,” he muttered. Come to think of it, the ingredients trolley did seem to be in a slight state of disarray. There were things all mixed together inside a glass jar like he’d just hastily scooped them inside after the last class. “Some of these things look exactly the same as the other!”
“I think those ghost flowers are separated by scent.”
His nostrils flared as he huffed. “I will be more than a little relieved when Professor McKenna wakes up. Now, what can I help you with? Bearing in mind that Professor McKenna’s notes say that you’d already bypassed the fourth-year syllabus before you finished up last year.”
I scrubbed at the back of my neck. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to you about words of light.” His eyes lit up. “Oh, well why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“The thing is, I was wondering about possession.”
“Possession?”
“Yes. Demon possession. Do you know anything at all about a person being able to exorcise a demon from themselves when they are possessed. Maybe with a word of light?”
He scratched at his greying beard and stared off into the distance for a long breath. “Nothing in particular comes to mind. Demon possession is very encompassing. The demon doesn’t usually like to allow a person to retain enough control that they could muster up enough will to speak a word of light. As a matter of fact, the only time I can think of a demon not totally destroying a person’s will is the Hastings women. But then they have a natural immunity to it.”
That was about all I had been able to determine as well from the reading I’d done. “What if the person was a sinister-magic user? A necromancer?”
He went from scratching his beard to stroking it. “In that case, the necromancer wouldn’t allow the possession. It wouldn’t be a true possession because the necromancer would retain control. What you’re suggesting is a dual-personality-type situation, and in that instance, the necromancer doesn’t usually live long enough that it would matter. What’s this about, anyway?”
The lie slipped out easily. “I was just thinking about what could be wrong with Professor McKenna.”
He sighed. “We’ve tried everything, Sophie. Rest assured that if there’s a way to release her, we will find it.”
I picked at the hem of my blouse. “I mean, have you tried some of the more unconventional methods?”
“Unconventional how?”
“I was reading in the Necromancer Bible–”
He held up his hands. “Whoa. If you’re talking about sacrifice and resurrection then no, we haven’t stooped to those drastic measures.”
I swallowed. “What if the only way we can help her is to invoke a powerful demon?”
He pierced me with a stern look. “I think you might have to consider that she may never wake. And that some things should never be done no matter how much we desire the outcome.”
I placed my hands on the desk and sighed, letting my shoulders droop. With all my might, I wished that I didn’t have to go down this road as well.
“I wish things could go back to the way they used to be,” I found myself saying.
“I do too. But wishing for things seldom gets us anything but a ruined present.”
I knew he was right. It was just a hard pill to swallow.
Conversations with all the professors gave me much the same results. Professor Magnus couldn’t think of anything in the history of the supernaturals that said demons could be separated from the host’s psyche. “Their whole purpose is to take control,” she said. “They would hold on until there is nothing left of their host to salvage. You’ve seen exorcisms before, Sophie. Sometimes even an angel blade won’t get them to leave. The only time we’ve seen something close to what you’re saying is when they tried to get at Alessia. The problem was that they destroyed their hosts to do so.”
Andrei reported the same after he’d been in contact with Betty. “She says that she barely remembers anything from when it was happening,” he relayed. “It was like she was in a fog. It seems that her mind became locked in a chamber that was protected from the demon. Raphael thought it was something unique to the Hastings genetic line, though. A by-product of the bone magic in their blood.”
Dammit. That was clearly not something I could replicate. Especially since the reason the demon had jumped ship was because it decided Lex was a better vessel. I didn’t have an endless line of souls better than my own to offer a demon.
“Basil says that you better not be messing around with something demonic,” Andrei warned me. “He’s already tearing his hair out about what happened to you in the arena and this whole mating situation.”
“For somebody who is supposed to be on the run, he sure has his nose in a lot of gossip!”
“Some habits are hard to break.”
That was true. In an effort to stop the nightmares from coming, I had returned to drawing salt circles at night. After I screamed the place down following one of my nightmares about Kai, Laila and Hank thoroughly appreciated me taking precautions.
Something strange was happening in the Reserve too. I arrived home one night to find delegates of para-human guards gathered around the portal. Gwen was taking them through their paces. “What’s going on?” I asked her when she walked past.
“None of your business,” she said. “You’re a civilian. You don’t get inside information.”
Ouch! If only she weren’t a hundred percent right.
Now that I didn’t have a shifter guard at the Academy anymore, I snuck off into the Fae forest to try a summoning. I’d approached the Grove first thinking Kai might be more inclined to appear there but almost got my eyes scratched out by the nymphs. It was futile anyway. One night I even fell asleep in the forest still sitting inside the summoning circle. But Kai never showed up.
For two weeks I did nothing but go to school, work in the infirmary, avoid the hell out of Max, and read books in the library. Closing the Book of Beasts one night after another re-read, I closed my eyes and let my forehead rest on the cover.
Jem, the library assistant, cleared his throat beside me. “That’s a priceless artefact and you’re getting sweat all over it.”
Sitting up straight again, I gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“You wanna tell me what you’re looking up?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a student so engrossed in study. Even for you this is a bit out of hand.”
He pumped his non-existent para-human brows at me, reminding me of a time before Lex when all my nights had been spent in the library because I’d had no friends to share them with. “Just trying to figure out if it’s possible to co-exist with a demon and then politely ask it to leave.”
He screwed up his face. “Ah. Is it the malachim that you’re worried about or demons in general?”
I thought on it. “Demons in general, though I suppose it might not really matter.”
Either way, the look he gave me said it was all distasteful. “If they’re not there to kill you,” he said, “and you get out alive, either they have other plans that are much worse than anything you can imagine, or someone has struck a deal with them.”
My ears pricked up. “Beg your pardon?”
He slid the Book of Beasts open a quarter of the way in and then turned a few pages until he found what he was looking for. Now that was skill. He was obviously so familiar with it that he didn’t need the index. When he pointed a scaly hand at something I had already read, I glanced at him confused.
“This is the section on supernatural contracts,” I noted.
“So?” Jem asked. “Do you think contracts are limited to our species?”
“How do you enter into a contract with a demon? They’re not bound by the same forces that we are.”
When the supernaturals made contracts with each other, their wills were subject to the contract. Demons weren’t bound by anything logical. They existed to kill us. End of story.
“You’re think
ing of the lower demons. There are plenty of mages and sorceress in the fens who I bet have a contract or two with a demon. You just need to know what the right price is. But you’re right. The demons aren’t bound by the rules of actual free will. Which means at any time, they can renege. And they do.”
“How often does that happen?”
He pinned me with a serious look. “Every single time.”
Right. Those were my options then. Live the rest of my life as a weakling or make a deal with a demon with the absolute certainty that they would come after me sooner or later. And then, while I was lying in bed trying not to think of Max, another thought hit me. What was this voice in my head that always wanted me to give in to evil? And what kind of deal had my great-grandfather struck with Apollyon to become that powerful?
35
Whenever anyone said the word contract, the first thing I thought of was the nymphs. Unfortunately, they were still steadfastly against anybody unauthorised setting foot in the Grove.
“They’re concerned about people stealing the Arcana fruit,” Jacqueline informed me. I didn’t buy it. They’d handed over Arcana fruit on a regular basis as a way to help heal the supernaturals. Unpleasant as they could be, I suspected that deep down they were throwing a hissy fit because Lex was gone.
I knew better than to suggest that to them, though. The purple nymph gave me a death glare when I revealed what I was thinking of doing. Her squeal was so high-pitched I had no idea what she was saying besides the fact that she was unhappy.
“I’m sorry!” I waved my arms about and then covered my ears as her voice went sub-vocal. The yowies who had been hiding in the bushes behind me scampered away. Poor Phoenix flattened his ears and made a valiant attempt to stay by my side. That was until the red and yellow nymphs arrived.
The purple nymph shrieked something at them and then they went to town. I screamed with them when I felt something bursting behind my left eye. Blood started to drip down my nose. Phoenix latched teeth around the leg of my jeans and tried to pull me away. He was getting kind of massive as well. If he really put his strength into it, he probably could have dragged me out of there. I shooed him until he let go.
Then I curled into a ball on the ground and waited for the tantrum to subside. At this point, Lex would be screaming back at them, but I just didn’t have the energy. The only bright side was that I wasn’t technically inside the Grove, so they weren’t going to attack me just yet.
After what felt like forever, the shrieking finally ended. Their glamour had slipped amidst all the yelling. When I uncurled, I found myself looking into the furious eyes of three gruesome-looking creatures. Their apparel of sticks and leaves was in disarray. The pointed chins and hooked noses made it appear as though their faces had melted. The purple nymph was gasping audibly.
She opened her mouth that was now full of sharp teeth. “Go away,” she shrilled. “Bad. Bad.”
“But–”
She took a swipe at me. I only just dodged in time, but the edge of her claws flicked over my cheek. “Bad,” she hissed again. “Demon blood.”
After giving me another soundless shriek, they disappeared. A translucent sweep of magic rose from the ground. It tugged at my legs like the tides of the ocean before closing around the Grove.
Well, that was one more door closed in my face.
Doctor Thorne was not happy to see me in the infirmary. “I thought I told you to stay out until you’re fully recovered.”
“Okay, number one, I am fully recovered. And two, since you’re being so stubborn about number one, I’m just here to see Professor McKenna.”
He went so far as to watch me entering the room to make sure I didn’t take any detours and try to speak to any of the patients.
Speaking was just about the one thing I couldn’t do when I sat down beside Professor McKenna. “Hello, Professor,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure why I lowered my voice when I was here. If anything, the louder I spoke, the more likely it would be that she would hear me and respond. Despite everything that I had learned recently about demon possession and her condition, I took her hand in both of mine and spoke the words of light anyway.
Absolutely nothing happened.
I was beginning to see why Lex had always resorted to Angelical. Absentmindedly, I found myself tracing the Angelical words we had learned in Weaponry and Combat while I sat vigil. At least with Angelical there was a guaranteed result, even if it was destructive.
In the past few weeks, I had discovered that there was nothing worse than silence. Nothing worse than knowing someone was right there, but I couldn’t reach out to them. Especially when it was of my own doing. Shaking Max from my thoughts for the millionth time, I glanced down at the professor’s hand. From what I knew, she was at least a few decades past a century, but you wouldn’t be able to tell based on the quality of her skin. I mean, side by side, it was impossible to tell which of us was younger.
I blinked. Actually, the more I stared, the more it appeared that she was actually glowing just the faintest bit.
Placing her hand back on the sheets, I bent over and did a comparison. My skin tone was too dark for an objective test. Beside the buttercream colour of the sheets, the glow was less noticeable, but it was definitely still there.
“What the hell?” I said to myself. Sadly, the longer I looked, the more the glow seemed to fade, until I couldn’t be sure if I had imagined it for the sake of some kind of epiphany. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, but somebody knocked on the door.
Sandra poked her head in. “Doc says it’s time for you to go,” she said. “You’re wearing yourself out and you don’t have the strength for that.”
“I do so!” But she stood there stubbornly until I got off my butt and left.
Truthfully, I just wanted to be away from the Reserve as much as possible. Even though I had promised to stay, following through had been harder than I expected. It really was the silence that would eventually kill me.
That was until I stepped through the portal and almost ran right into Max’s chest. Jumping back like I’d been scalded, I knocked into someone who had come through the portal behind me. My nose caught hints of pungent spices and decadent chocolate.
For a second, I locked gazes with him. My heart hammered in my chest as my brain took a snapshot of him and gaped. Worry curled a cold fist around my throat. Though his eyes were diamond-hard, the rest of him seemed...I couldn’t put my finger on it...the closest thing I could compare it to was that turning point when a flower went past its peak beauty and began to fade. There were dark purple bruises under his eyes. I swallowed, thinking of the last time I’d seen a change this drastic. It had been when I’d seen the other alphas in the Cabin.
“Pardon me,” the woman behind me said. There was a note of amusement in her voice. It was familiar.
“Sorry,” I said. Thinking that she was the less controversial of the two to confront, I turned around, and my heart seized. It was the woman who had come to the Thompsons’ to gift him with that enchanted apple. She had the kind of hourglass figure that made the plain white T-shirt and khaki cargo pants she wore appear over-revealing. Let out of their tight braids, her hair was a curly mane around a sculptural face highlighted by silvery cat’s-eye makeup and mocha-toned lips. There were metallic-purple swirls painted over her temple and down the side of her neck where they disappeared behind a sweep of her hair. For a second, I imagined Max brushing the hair on her nape aside to discover where those swirls might come to a stop.
There was no need to glance inside at the mating link to know that it was churning again. I felt acid bubbling in my gut and fought to contain my reaction.
She cocked her head to the side. “Do we know each other?” The twist of her lips said she knew exactly where she’d seen me.
Maintaining eye contact even though she was much taller, I returned her smile and even tried to inject some warmth into it. “I think I’ve seen you around. Excuse me, I’m running late.”
&nbs
p; Making sure I kept my attention on the ground, I walked away as steadily as I could. Gwen’s words rang in my ear.
“You won’t make a sound if he decides he wants to get into bed with every female in supernatural society.” He didn’t need to get into bed with all of them. Just one was enough to make my head spin out of control. But the jealousy, though oppressive, was secondary to the other thing pressing down on my chest.
Knowing that Max was occupied, I found myself making my way to the Thompsons’. Halfway there, I caught myself. Where did I get off worrying about him now? I had no right to even think of him.
Turning on my heel, I spun around and went straight back to Laila’s house. I then proceeded to pace around their spare room until well into the night. Somebody knocked on the door. “Sophie, honey,” Laila said. “You’re in a house with a shifter. We don’t have dampening spells here.”
Right. “Sorry.”
Sleep was impossible. Not wanting to disturb Hank with my loud stomping, I snuck out the front door and walked absentmindedly towards the Cabin. Knowing that there was no way I’d be allowed close, I lingered in the distance and stood squinting at it, thinking I could somehow penetrate its walls with my vision.
Be careful what you wished for. I did a doubletake as a figure emerged from the glass doors of the Cabin. From the posture and the breadth of his shoulders, I figured it was a male. He walked with too steady a gait to be one of the alphas.
The perimeter of the Cabin was ringed in a flat grass lawn that spanned a diameter of almost five hundred metres. It was deliberately set up that way to ensure nothing could sneak up on the Cabin without it being spotted by the guards on the ground, in the trees, or in the air. I didn’t even bother to try and hide. But as the figure drew closer, a smile tugged at my lips.
“Sophie!” Professor Mortimer waved. I took it as permission to step onto the lawn. When I hadn’t been turned into mincemeat by the invisible guards a second later, I speed-walked towards him.
Dispensing with any kind of student-teacher decorum, I ran at him and hugged him. Having basically grown up under the shadow of his intellect, its absence made me feel listless. Seeing him after so long caused something inside me to fracture.
