by Lan Chan
Basil frowned. “Both sides are putting you in an unfair situation.” He huffed. “Perhaps it’s best if you focus on your original mission.”
I was glad he brought that up. “I’ve asked the mermaids for help finding Gaia. If they come through, I’m going to need a mage…”
“We shouldn’t be speaking so freely about this over the MirrorNet.”
“Agreed.” Especially since I was being monitored while I was here. “But what choice do we have?”
“Good point.” I could tell by the way his gaze turned introspective that he was considering my request. I also knew the consequences for him if something went wrong. He’d only just been given his freedom. To go against the Council would mean being stripped of that. Right now he had a lot to lose.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” I suggested.
“Nonsense. I said I was your guardian. That doesn’t end just because you’re eighteen.”
I smiled and pressed my forehead to the glass. “Thanks.”
“Now let’s talk about why that boy was in your room.”
“Err, I have a lot of homework to catch up on.” My hand moved to swipe the mirror.
“Lex! Don’t you dare hang up on me. Lex!”
The glass turned opaque. I drew a silencing circle around it and stuffed it under a blanket. If I managed to save the world, maybe then we could have that conversation. Maybe.
34
I woke up earlier than usual with theft on my mind. A snore from the bed opposite mine made me grin. When I glanced down at the circle I had drawn on the floor, my smile faded. The outline of the circle was barely visible because it was black and not blue. My hedge magic didn’t appear to be returning.
I pressed my finger to my lips when I stepped outside and Phoenix met me by the door. He’d spent the night in the billabong area. How he always knew when I’d be around was beyond me. The audible flap of wings overhead didn’t discourage me. It wasn’t the Nephilim guards I was trying to avoid. When we hit the Grove, I steeled myself for the pain. I only whimpered a little when I dragged myself over the fence.
On the other side I crouched low and allowed the last remnants of pain to subside. I didn’t even know why I was trying to be stealthy. I suppose it was better than being bombarded by acorns. There was nobody around. Dawn was only just beginning to light up the sky. I stalked up to the Arcana tree without ceremony, picked one of the fruit, and bit into it. The luscious nectar coated my tongue. But it wasn’t the taste I was after. It was the fruit’s ability to rejuvenate. With bated breath, I glanced inside at the well. No change.
The nymphs appeared just as I was launching the fruit in my hand at the floor. The purple nymph went ballistic. Her scream was so high-pitched it almost busted my eardrum. So much for stealth.
Makeshift weapons appeared in their hands. Twigs and rocks of every shape and size. They rained acorns down on me. The circle I drew was only supposed to be for protection. But the darker magic didn’t have the kind of subtlety of my hedge magic. After the first few projectiles hit the outer edge, the circle pulsed. It rocked the Grove in a cascade of sparking black that blew the nymphs out of sight.
“Uh oh,” I said.
“Blue!”
A fluttering of multi-coloured lights shooting straight this way told me the nymphs were regrouping. But I was preoccupied by the sight of Kai emerging from the path. Behind him were Cassie, Charles, Maddison, and Luther. Cassie saw me and bolted.
She slammed into me a second before Charles’s solid weight hit us. The nymphs were incensed, but Kai waved his hand and they reluctantly ceased and desisted. I wouldn’t have stood a chance otherwise. My lungs were being squeezed shut. I could feel the pulse in my neck.
“Alright,” Kai said. “Everybody off.”
When I let go, I reached up to run my hand through Charles’s hair. It was so long compared to his usual neat cut. He looked like a surfer. “What gives?” I asked.
“Supernatural puberty,” Luther said. “His mum can’t keep up with his haircuts.” He ducked as Charles tried to take a swipe at him.
“Shut up!”
Cassie tugged at my arm and placed something in my hand. I looked down and there was a neatly wrapped present. “Happy belated birthday,” she said. “Sorry we didn’t get to see you.”
“Yeah,” Maddison said. “We tried to get past the barrier, but the guards wouldn’t let us pass without a chaperone.” She stood a little farther away. Aloof but also a little uncertain. Like she wasn’t sure if I wanted her to be here. I smiled and opened my arms. She pretended to reluctantly hug me back.
“I hope you haven’t been making anybody’s life miserable,” I said.
“Only the usual suspects.”
“Open it!” Charles said. He then proceeded to snatch the present from me and started tearing into it. Luther cuffed him across the head.
“Give it back to her. What’s wrong with you?”
Charles let out a rumbling growl. His eyes transformed into beaten gold. Kai latched on to his shoulder and shook him. “Don’t even think about it,” Kai said. “One more growl from you and you’re going back inside the enclosure.”
“Oohh, do it,” Cassie said. Charles snarled at her. But it was a playful snarl. He pretended to snap his teeth in her direction. But his eyes had turned back into their normal colour. He handed me back the present.
It was only then that I noticed they had brought a picnic basket. Kai spotted me looking at it. “Trust you to focus on the food,” he said. They laid out breakfast while Cassie helped me finish off my chores. I pushed the anguish about my hedge magic to the side.
Before we ate, I finished off opening the present. It came inside a rectangular box. Sitting on a cushion inside the box was a jade amulet on what appeared to be a velvet choker necklace. There were three wavy lines etched into the amulet. I brushed my fingers over it.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, a little choked up. “Thank you.”
Cassie grinned at me. “It’s a water amulet,” she said. “It allows you to breathe under water. Because…you know…”
“You suck at swimming,” Charles finished off for her. Luther massaged the side of his head in chagrin, but I burst out laughing. It was the best morning I’d had all year.
It was the start of a strange day, though. In the last few months, ever since the other kids learned I was going to Terran, most of them had avoided me. In the halls they lowered their heads and whispered about me. In class, they pretended I didn’t exist. It wasn’t all that different to when I first started and they weren’t sure what was up with my magic. Now they gave me smug grins as they walked past. Some of them even asked me how school was at Terran.
By lunch time, I was fed up with the niceties. “What gives with all this creepy behaviour?” I asked Sophie and Diana. We settled into a seat with the boys. Someone ahead of me in line had offered me their spot. I was this close to believing a mass exorcism was required. Before any of them could answer, Kai walked into the hall. I kid you not, the whole place erupted in applause. He ignored them and scanned the room until his attention landed on Wanda. Kai inclined his head and she hopped up off her seat and raced after him.
Two vampire girls on the table beside us glanced away when I looked in their direction. They burst into laughter a moment later. There was no trace of fear in their easy camaraderie. It didn’t take long for the shoe to drop. Kai had figured out the Soul Sisterhood’s secret. Whether or not the Sisterhood tried to announce to the world that supernaturals existed, they would still remain top of the pecking order. When one of the vampire girls picked up her carton of blood juice and sipped on it, I thought a capillary in my eye might have burst. My vision was clouded in red.
“Where are you going?” Sophie asked.
I hadn’t realised I was standing up. “I need to check up on Phoenix. Alone.”
The dingo was fine, of course. He’d taken to the billabong and swamp areas easily. Though I kept bringing him food, h
e never seemed particularly hungry.
“I hope you’re not hunting supernatural animals,” I said. I was sure if he did he would be in a buttload of trouble. I didn’t feel up to the rest of the day’s classes. Instead, I stayed in the billabong and practiced my phasing. It was still an imprecise art, but I was getting there.
I skipped out on dinner in the dining hall and went straight to my room. The one time I wanted to be alone, Sophie was inside. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. It was only seven but she was already in her pyjamas.
“Why?” I asked. “So you guys can all make placating noises at me while at the same time working to get rid of Terran?”
“That’s not what’s happening,” she said.
“Isn’t it? So you’re not relieved that the Sisterhood threat is neutralised?”
“Aren’t you?”
I sat down hard on my bed. “What about the supernatural threat?”
“What threat?”
For the first time, I looked at her through purely human eyes. Sophie of all people must have known what it was like to be a vulnerable human amongst supernatural creatures. Then again, they had feared her from the start. They didn’t see her as prey.
“Forget about it.”
“Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not. But I’m having a hard time getting on the Terran destruction wagon.”
“They murdered a Nephilim,” she said. “I don’t want that to happen to my parents!”
“It wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t it? If Giselle were still alive, we’d be traitors in their eyes. Not having a way to defend ourselves sucks!”
“Imagine how all those humans feel.”
“They don’t need to know about us. The Council protects them.”
“The Council have their own agenda.”
She bunched her pillow in her hands and contemplated what I was saying. “Maybe they do. But I’ve seen the recounting of what happened the last time somebody tried to go public. It was a bloodbath. On both sides.”
“So I guess the only solution is the systematic wiping out of the Sisterhood. No wonder they hate you.”
It was the way her big, brown eyes became all whites that winded me. With just those words, I had distanced myself from all of them. I had said they and you. Not we and us. At the same time, it felt right. I couldn’t take a side because they both kept trying to manipulate me.
Sophie sniffed. “They don’t care about us,” she said. I suspected she meant the low-magic users. “They only want you. They’ve been insular for too long. And now with Gaia missing, they’re feeling trapped. Sooner or later they’re going to try something.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?” I asked. “Helping the Council to find a way to counteract the Sisterhood?”
She hung her head. “No,” she said. “I’ve been helping my parents stave off a full-on Council assault on the Sisterhood. The guard rotation outside their Academy was a compromise. Some of us don’t have the luxury of floating the rules.”
“I don’t!”
She shook her head. “Come on, Lex. You get away with tons of stuff the rest of us never could. We have a system that needs to be followed. Sometimes doing what’s immediately right doesn’t trump what could have far-reaching implications.”
For some reason, what she said sank into my soul. If Basil were here, he would call it a Hastings Knowing. I couldn’t shake the feeling and it made me weary.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“For what?” she asked, suddenly alert.
“For everything.”
“Lex.”
I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head. But I couldn’t get her words out of my head.
35
In the dream I was silent. My feet glided across the marble floor of a house that could have doubled as a museum. It was dark but I had no trouble picking my way across the foyer with its ornate tapestries and sculptures. I floated up the staircase and headed to the right. A sheet of moonlight illuminated the upstairs level. In the corner of the ceiling, motion sensors blinked red. They cut out in a spark of electricity followed by a puff of smoke.
The technological safeguards were as insubstantial as the magical wards that had been deactivated by one of their own. My human accomplices. Right now they were disposing of the bodies belonging to two Sisterhood bodyguards. Smug girls who were so blinded by their species hatred that they were unprepared for an internal betrayal. I stepped past two doors and then opened the one at the end of the hallway.
The room was simple but for the thickly woven Egyptian rug and the ornate grandfather clock opposite the bed. The hands on the clock read eleven in the evening. My footsteps were soundless. The couple asleep in their bed didn’t stir. Not when I stepped beside the male to confirm his identity. Not when I drew a single sharpened claw across his neck from ear to ear. Not when the cotton sheets soaked in crimson.
Dimly I registered the hunger. The lust to drop my head and taste the lifeblood gushing from him. But I wasn’t an agent of my own mind. The woman’s hand twitched where it had lain on her husband’s pillow. Something triggered her alertness. She turned her head in my direction. The part of me that was Alessia Hastings became frozen. The body I was in progressed to her side of the bed.
Samantha’s eyes fluttered open. Her hand, now covered in her husband’s blood, curled into a fist. Her nostrils flared as though she scented blood. We screamed at the same time. She bolted upright in the bed and cast around frantically.
The vampire whose body I inhabited swung his arm at her. With the miniscule force of will I had control of, I pushed against his thoughts. His swing faltered. It gave her enough time to reach for the gun beside her bed. She fired it without hesitation. The vampire struck again. Her neck snapped in an unnatural angle. The burn in my chest as I fell backwards was secondary to the fist that clamped around my throat. The body I was in collapsed onto the bedroom floor. My head turned towards the floor-length mirror. The face smiling back at me tore my heart in two. Lucifer’s iridescent blue eyes creased at the edges. His stunning features didn’t match the militaristic garb the vampire wore. He blinked at me. His voice cut through the distant fog that kept me complacent.
“Let them fight this useless war,” he said. “We will build an empire on their ashes.”
Footsteps thudded into the room. Something shook me.
The violent shaking dislodged the dream. My eyes, my real eyes, opened to find Sophie peering down at me. “Lex!”
I backed up and into the wall. “What happened?”
“You were screaming in your sleep.”
“I need to see Jacqueline.” Without waiting to explain to her, I raced out of the room in my bare feet. Sophie was nothing if not quick. She’d proven that the first day we’d met. An arm latched on to me the second I pushed the dorm doors open.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tony asked.
I tried to shove the man mountain away but it was like trying to push a boulder uphill. “Let go of me! I need to speak to Jacqueline!”
“You can’t just go running off in the middle of the night,” he said. My struggling was not getting me anywhere.
“Please just let her go,” Sophie asked.
“You know why I can’t,” he said.
This was pointless. My temper was fraying. The sharp stab of panic in my chest had only ratcheted up the more alert I became. We were wasting time. I had just witnessed a supernatural murdering Ben Cochran and Samantha. Only it wasn’t any normal supernatural. It was one who was possessed by Lucifer. My mind was too turbulent to even comprehend how that was possible. Right now, I just needed to get to Jacqueline.
Without thinking, I reached inside me for the hedge magic. It sputtered. Cursing, I lost my temper for real. Kicking out at Tony, I jarred the big toe of my foot. Damn these stupid supernaturals. A high-pitched bark split the night. Phoenix came barrelling from the direction of the billabong with a horde of yo
wies in his wake.
“Let. Me. Go.”
Tony only gripped harder. His skin began to harden into granite. Phoenix headbutted him. I screamed, thinking the dingo would split his head open. Instead, he regrouped and charged again. Two Nephilim guards materialised above us. Neither were ones I knew. The Academy had taken on so many new guards recently that I had a hard time keeping them straight. It brought home a very real threat. There were so many of them. If this situation escalated, the Terrans would be exterminated. I’d had enough.
“Malachi!” I screamed. Using the dark power, I amplified the thought until it reverberated through the grounds. It might not be hedge magic, but it had proven powerful enough to kill a demon.
Seconds later, Kai teleported beside me. He must have been asleep because his hair was matted on one side and he was only wearing sweatpants. He took one look at the situation and his jaw clamped. “Let go of her.”
Just like that, I was free. He placed his hands on either side of my shoulders. “I need to see Jacqueline.”
Without hesitating, he teleported us right to her cottage just outside the official school grounds. She was already dressing when we barged through the door. “What’s all the commotion?” she yelled at us. “I’ve just gotten a bulletin that you’re bringing down the school.”
Kai let me go. I halted in front of her. “I had a vision.” There was no other way to describe it. By now I knew better than to bother trying to warn them of Lucifer’s part in the whole mess. “Samantha and the Environment Minister have been murdered. Something…it seems like a supernatural did it. But…” But nothing. No more would come out.
Her face stilled for a second before she began to bark orders. Kai disappeared in the blink of an eye. “Stay here,” Jacqueline told me.
“I can’t!”
She grabbed me as I tried to run out the door. “Lex,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do. We need to try and contain this as best we can. The humans will react poorly as soon as they find out. I don’t want you in the firing line. Go back to the dorms. Stay inside your room until we can sort this mess out.”
