Forest of Lost Souls

by K. R. Thompson

  Neither of us moved, unsure what we were supposed to do or say.

  “Well, that is the first journal of Imperium,” he said in a hurt voice, as if our lack of enthusiasm about the book was a reflection on him in some way.

  “Right,” I said, reaching over to flip open the cover. The Journal of Magda Herensy was scrawled on the first page in spidery handwriting.

  Surely Imperium’s beginnings would trace farther back than its current headmistress.

  “Are you sure this is the right book?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, bottom lip coming out in a pout. He crossed his arms. “I know everything about the books down here. I’ve been with them a very long time.”

  So long you’ve forgotten they are books and have been treating them as clothes hangers, I thought, spying the deep cut in the spine of the book where something heavy had been hanging on it. “I was just wondering,” I said, trying to explain. “I didn’t think the headmistress was old enough to be the one who founded Imperium.”

  Something dark moved in his eyes. His fangs elongated until they rested on his bottom lip. “She’s much older than you’ll ever know.”

  Lacy apparently didn’t see the change in our host’s demeanor. “I would have thought she was only forty or so,” she said with a shrug, tracing the handwriting on the page.

  Her words seemed to flip a switch in our host’s head. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Mythological beings age differently than other shifters. Don’t they teach you anything up there?”

  “Apparently not enough,” I said with a quick nod of my head.

  The corner of his mouth quirked up in a small smile, his fangs disappearing.

  “Crap, I’m going to be late for class,” Lacy exclaimed as she looked down at her watch.

  We’d been down here much longer than I’d thought. As we stood, I asked, “Is it all right if we take this with us?” I gestured to the book Lacy still held.

  Quinn looked appalled at the suggestion. “No. That’s the best hanger I have. You can’t take it.”

  “Please?” I asked, giving him what I hoped was my most winsome smile.

  It must have worked, somewhat, because the expression on his face changed from horror to thoughtfulness. “Well…okay.”

  I grinned. “Thank you.”

  Lacy had already started moving toward the stairs. I started to follow her when he said, “Wait!”

  I turned, fully expecting him to demand the book back. Instead, he handed me an unopened box of cereal and an ink pen. “You have to sign it out. You always have to sign books out, you know. What kind of library do you think this is, anyway?”

  “All right,” I said, signing only my first name beneath a large animated picture of Batman on the back.

  “Very good,” he said when I handed it back. “It has to be back by…December 15th.”

  Realizing he was reading the expiration date on the cereal, I smiled. “Not a problem. I promise we’ll return it by then.”

  He nodded, but then glanced at Lacy, who was already halfway up the stairs. “Do me a favor. When you bring it back, leave her up there next time. She smells too bad. Mermaids always have a fishy sort of stench. I don’t like fish.”

  “Deal,” I agreed, turning to follow my “smelly” friend out of this strange place. He was still staring at the box of cereal.

  “Too many pieces…Claire…Claire…” I heard him mutter as we left. “I knew something of a Claire once. Too many pieces…too many steps…and only her name.”

  “I told them you’d be less than easy to reason with,” Victor muttered. He warily watched the smoke rise from my nostrils. “Mistake on my part to give them any warning. Maybe they would have sent someone else to deal with you. I won’t volunteer so much information next time.”

  I snorted, but managed to keep my flames at bay—more from the fact that I wanted to be human just so I could tell him exactly what I thought about him…and whoever had sent him here. But I couldn’t, and I refused to let him have the satisfaction of knowing I was so close to letting go.

  “Let’s make this as short and painless as possible, shall we?” he said, pointedly ignoring me as he stared out across the ledge, eyes fixed on some faraway spot. “I’ve been sent with an offer from the ones we’ve been told are the evil guys…the Dark Watch.”

  At that name, I was ready to send an arc of fire toward him. That group of fanatics had killed people I knew.

  Victor interrupted my inward ranting. “It would seem they are not quite as ruthless as our own dear headmistress. I hadn’t been here long when they sent someone in for me. I didn’t have long left…probably less time than you have now.”

  If you only knew, I thought, squelching my fire again. I looked out at the spot where his attention was focused, seeing the shadow flit amongst the trees.

  “It nearly had me…that thing. Dark magic, demon…whatever it is. I was on the verge of giving in to it, when they gave me a way out.” He turned his gaze back to me, a hard glint in his eyes. “I still don’t know how you managed to get my scale—or why you decided to set me up—but I changed sides the instant they asked. I may not have been the enemy you thought I was then, but I am now.”

  I stared at his face. The venom was alive in his words, and I expected to see proof of the serpent inside—to see something dark slither beneath the surface of his eyes—but there was nothing. Only Victor.

  I knew then what getting out of the forest had cost him.

  His next words proved me right.

  “If you decide you want out, be prepared to pay the price. When you change sides, there isn’t any turning back. You’re giving them everything to use, however they see fit, and they don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. If you take their help now, you’ll belong to them. Your human side, the dragon…all of it. You won’t win this one. The Watch—or that thing out there—will have you. Die here, or live…differently…there. The only thing you really have at this point is the choice of picking which bad guy gets to keep you as a prize.”

  He turned to walk away, but then paused. “If you decide you want out, meet me at the east side of the boundary.”

  Questions piled up in my mind—so many things he hadn’t told me that I wanted to know. Why was the Dark Watch willing to team up with shapeshifters—the very beings they wanted, above all else, to destroy? What could we possibly have that they wanted? Why would they bother sending Victor to save me?

  Why had they bothered to save Victor at all? That question right there told me they were desperate.

  But for what? And why?

  I watched him go. He’d told me I had a choice, but it wasn’t much of one. Here, I was destined to die—sooner rather than later, if the shadow had its way. At least out there, I’d be alive and dealing with humans. Out there, I’d be able to get back to Claire.

  I’d made my decision long before Victor managed to slide his way to the bottom of the ridge. Spreading my wings, I took one last look over my shoulder toward Imperium before following him toward an unknown fate.

  I sent Claire a silent promise I would find my way back to her soon.

  “She must not have been too worried about us coming back,” I whispered to Lacy when we walked out of the empty library with Aeolith nowhere to be seen.

  “Fae aren’t exactly the caring type. She might have feigned more concern had we been only human,” Lacy replied with a grin. “I’ve got to run or I’m going to miss class.” She handed me the journal. “I wish I could cut so I could look at this with you, but McTavish is a stickler for attendance. If you don’t show up, you’d better have a good reason that you don’t mind sharing with him.”

  Out of all the professors in Imperium, I thought Hamish McTavish would be the most sympathetic to our cause, but I wasn’t willing to take a chance.

  “See you later.” I nodded, watching as she made her way down the hallway.

  Since coming to Imperium, I’d gotten accustomed to sensing who was around me by the feel of t
heir magic, so when I heard my brother’s voice over my shoulder, I literally jumped straight up into the air.

  “You scared me to death!” I hugged the book close to my chest in hopes of slowing my hammering heart.

  Blake winced. “Sorry. I just wanted to see if you’d had luck finding anything useful.”

  “I was getting ready to ask you the same thing,” I admitted, and then patted the book. “I’m hoping I’ll find something in this.”

  He looked at the few students who were walking toward us. “Let’s head to my room, and we’ll compare notes. I’m not sure going to the shifter dorms would be a great idea for me,” he whispered.

  “Good point.”

  I’d never been to the “human” dorms, even though they were in the main house. I followed Blake down a few hallways, up some stairs, and finally came to a room at the end of the hall.

  “Home sweet home,” he said with a laugh when he opened the door for me. “Come on in.”

  “My dorm looks exactly the same. Lacy and I both have the exact furniture you do. I would have thought the human dorms would be an upgrade,” I said. I walked in, took a seat at the desk near the window, and placed the journal on the worn, scarred surface.

  “Humph. And here I thought my room was the top of the line. Do you think the headmistress will get cranky if I ask for my money back?” he asked with a laugh that lit up his eyes.

  For that moment, every worry in the world melted away. I was reminded of all the times he’d been there for me. He’d been my brother then, and even though things had changed, he was still my brother now.

  “Yeah, you might have a problem with that,” I admitted with a smile. “Especially if she knew one of her ‘paying customers’ had joined up with the enemy. Speaking of which, did you learn anything?”

  When I’d told Blake my secret—that I was a Yokai—things had changed. He’d figured out he was playing for the wrong team, and he’d offered to try to find out what the Dark Watch knew to help me get Logan out of the Forest of Lost Souls.

  But now, there was no longer just the issue of figuring out what the group knew about the forest, there was also the problem of…me.

  They knew about my kind. Somehow, they’d known there was a Yokai in Imperium. More specifically, they knew there was one in Earth House, and were targeting it with the intent of wiping me out, though why was still a mystery.

  “No luck whatsoever.” Blake shook his head. “They are even more secretive than before.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t think they trust me now. Ever since I told them my sister was in Earth House, they’ve clammed up. They’re suspicious of me.”

  “That’s not good.” What if they realized I was the one they were after? They could easily use my brother to get to me. It wouldn’t be hard at all. I’d walk straight up to them if it kept him safe.

  He must have read my mind, because he changed the subject. “Everything is okay for now. Worrying about it isn’t going to help anything. They don’t know who you are, and I’m not about to tell them, so let’s deal with stuff we can actually do something about, okay?” He smiled. When I nodded, he continued. “I asked around about the Forest of Lost Souls, and no one would say anything about it. Big surprise there. But something is going on. They had a map on the wall with Imperium’s borders marked, then a section that was a different color that met up to it. Either they know something about the forest, or they are planning their next attack to come through the woods behind the school.”

  “They’d be crazy to come in that way,” I said in disbelief. In the forest behind the dorms, there would be any number of shifters guarding the perimeter. If anything, it was more closely watched than the front of the school. Attacking through there would be a suicide mission.

  Blake shrugged. “That’s what I thought, too, but maybe they are getting desperate. I don’t know.”

  Realizing he’d managed to make me worry again, he gestured to the book. “Imperium could use its dragon back, I believe. They wouldn’t dare attack if he was sitting on the top of the dorm’s roof, blasting his fire at them. Let’s find a way to get him out of there and back where he belongs.”

  He pulled a chair over and sat next to me as I opened the journal. The pages were old and crackled as I flipped the first page to read the sprawling handwriting aloud.

  “May 30, 1937. It is the first day of the school’s opening, and I must admit I am beyond pleased with the outcome of this endeavor. Although our attendance is small in both faculty and students, I envision this university becoming the difference in the lives of shapeshifters and humans alike. To truly empathize with one another, there must be understanding that will dispel the fear. I feel certain this school will be a place for all to learn to not only tolerate the differences in each other, be they human or shifter, but to accept each life as a gift to be appreciated.”

  I stopped, gawking at the page. “It’s hard to believe the headmistress actually wrote this. She sounds so…”

  “Optimistic,” Blake said. “Definitely a change from what she’s like now. It also sounds like the goal of the school in the beginning was for humans and shapeshifters to get along—not for the shifters to learn to hide what they were. Something must have happened along the way that made her change her mind, and with it, the reason for the school.”

  I flipped to the next page, to an old photograph. It showed the headmistress and five others, standing on the front steps of Imperium. All were smiling for the camera, but I found myself staring at the headmistress. The expression on her face was pure joy. It made her seem like a different person.

  “What happened to make you so different now?” I murmured, echoing Blake’s words as I stared at the photograph.

  “Headmistress Magda Herensy and the founders of Imperium University,” Blake said, reading the words below it. “Buford Smith, Ines Marchant, Lorne Mead, Mara Shade, and Nikolai Preit.”

  The last one struck a chord with me. “I know that name,” I exclaimed. “Nikolai Preit. He was in a book Logan showed me. He was a Yokai.” Eagerly, I looked at each face in turn until I came to the last one. He stood at the end of the row of people, a hopeful smile not unlike that of the headmistress’ on his lips.

  Seeing proof in black and white of someone who had held the same magic I had now was freeing. It gave me hope. I found myself wanting to memorize every detail of his face. He had strong, high cheekbones, a long, straight nose, and almond-shaped eyes. Even though the photo wasn’t in color, I could tell his hair was dark, like mine. He was dressed in a suit appropriate for the time period, standing easily with his hands in his pockets, smiling at the photographer. There wasn’t any hint whatsoever that he held any worry of what the people around him thought about him. A quick glance at the others proved that point true. None of them seemed worried at all about being so close to one who held the power to tap into their magic.

  Blake was still reading. “You’re right. It says here the dorms in the back of the university were not only named for each type of shifter, but also for the founders. Buford Smith was the head of the local wolf pack, making him a woodland shifter. Ines Marchant was a hippocampus—whatever that is. I assume it’s a water shifter. Yep, there it is. Water shifter. Lorne Mead was a chickcharney, an air shifter. Mara Shade was a phoenix, which made her not only an air shifter, but also a flame…”

  “And Nikolai Preit was a Yokai,” I added, finishing his sentence.

  “But there are only four dorms. Assuming there wouldn’t be one dedicated to the headmistress, there should be five. One house for each founder,” Blake pointed out. “The book is wrong. There isn’t a house for the Yokai.”

  “Maybe something happened that made them tear the last dorm down,” I said, remembering the way my classmates had acted that first day in history class. Something had occurred sometime after this photograph that had given the Yokai a reputation of being the big bad wolf in the world of shapeshifters.

  “Could be,” Blake mused. He took the book and flipped
through more of the pages, scanning them for more information. “I’m not seeing anything at all in here about the Forest of Lost Souls. Every word I read sounds hopeful and full of promise that this place will bridge the rift between humans and shifters. The more I read, the more I find it hard to believe the headmistress is even the same person who logged these entries.” He paused. “How old is she, anyway? I wouldn’t have pegged her to be a day over forty, and here she is, one of the founders of this place? That makes her what…over a hundred years old?”

  “Griffins must age differently than everyone else,” was the only response I could come up with.

  “They must.” Sighing, he handed me the journal, and then glanced at the clock. We’d been in here for an hour, and we weren’t any closer to finding the truth. “I hate to leave you here to keep looking on your own, but I need to run to Dad’s before it gets any later and finish grabbing my stuff.” He picked up a t-shirt, holding it where I could see. “Thanks to Benny leaving his red boxer shorts in the dryer, I now have three of these white shirts turned pink. So pretty, right? Unless I want to start wearing them, I’m going to have to head back there. I hope he hasn’t gotten aggravated and thrown the rest of my stuff out.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked. Sure, my foster dad was mean, and he stayed drunk most of the time, but I had problems imagining him throwing out his own son’s possessions.

  “I let it slip I was coming to Imperium. He’d thought I was accepted to some other school, away from here. He went off the deep end, raving about the times he was forced to make deliveries to a cottage beside the school. No one else wanted the route that had Imperium on it, and he’d shown up late to work too many times. My guess is he showed up drunk. Anyway, according to him, there’s a kook who lives in the cottage near the campus that will bite you if you get too close to him, so he learned to throw the packages at the door and run,” Blake said with a rueful smile that told me he thought his dad was nuts. “He said one day, a package got wet. The guy called in and complained. He told them he was one of the teachers here, so now Dad is convinced this place is full of ‘those kinds of people.’ Anyway, I’m trying to get out of confronting the madness at home.”