She frowned and gripped onto the statue to pull herself up. Her leg protested with a pulsating hum of pain, but she clamped her lips together and ignored the smarting.
She hobbled around the statue, but before she could reach the foyer, a black blur moved in front of her. April blanched and looked up at the figure.
Desmond stared down at her, an amused edge to his grey eyes, and arched his brow.
CHAPTER 3
April sighed. “How long did you know I was here?”
He shrugged, his eyes like Antarctica on a stormy day. “I saw your hair sticking out from the Knight’s arm when Ash left.” He offered her his hand. “You should get back to the sickbay. The healer hasn’t cleared you yet.”
“Yes he has,” snipped April. She heard the childish strop in her voice.
His lips twitched at the corners. “Our resident healer is a woman,” said Desmond. “And there’s not a chance she would have cleared you when you can barely stand.” He reached out to slip his arm around her waist.
Before he could touch her, April’s hand shot up and cracked across his cheek. He stiffened, his surprise exposed by his raised brows and parted lips.
April sniffed, a haughty sound, and leaned against the statue. “Don’t touch me.”
A pink mark crept up his cheek. He rolled his jaw and glowered down at her. “I saved your life, or don’t you remember that?”
“I remember. Thank you,” she said. “Yet, I’m not dying right now, and I don’t appear to be in any danger. So don’t touch me, ass-hat.”
“Fine.” He stepped away and raised his hands. “Despite what you might have overheard, I truly don’t give a damn what you do. There’s the door.” He gestured to the smaller staircase behind him. “When the healer comes looking for you,” he added, “I’ll tell her I didn’t see you.”
Her suspicious eyes burned into his. “Why?”
“Because I don’t fancy spending the rest of my weekend cleaning bedpans and washing sheets.” He rammed his balled-up hands into the pockets of drawstring sweatpants. “She gets quite the temper when she finds out how ungrateful her patients are. Especially after she spent hours dressing their wounds, feeding them energising potions, and growing back their skin.”
“Send me the bill.” April limped forward, her narrowed eyes warning him off approaching her again. “I don’t want to spend another minute in your warped Hogwarts.”
Desmond’s upper lip curled. “You know, even for a dullborn you’re disgustingly rude.” He looked her up and down. “And an entitled brat, too.”
April hummed a high-pitched sound, and shoved past him. Without looking back, she replied, “You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me.” She climbed down the short set of stairs that led to a heavy pair of wooden doors. Once she pushed them open, the humidity washed over her in a loving embrace.
But, before she could slam the doors behind her in a dramatic exit, Desmond’s shout chased her; “Hogwarts isn’t real!”
CHAPTER 4
“You didn’t have to do this,” said Piper.
Her tired eyes followed Ash as he stole pillows from the other beds.
“Of course not,” he said, stuffing the pillows behind her back. “But I’m feeling like a gentleman today. Lucky you.”
He took a tray from the bedside table and placed it beside her.
“I’ve been on these things before,” he said. “Metal bedheads aren’t good for the back, in my experience.”
Piper pulled the tray onto her lap. Steam wafted up from a green bowl of creamy soup, beside a mug of scalding tea and a jam scone. She lifted a silver spoon and dunked it in the soup.
“Do you feel better?” Ash shut his eyes before he corrected himself, “Physically, I mean.”
Piper sipped the soup from the spoon. It was tangy, like rotten peaches, with a bitter aftertaste. She dropped the spoon back into the bowl.
“Physically,” she said, “I’m fine.” Other than the fact that my heart has been ripped out of my chest and shoved into the pit of my stomach. “I’m not as tired anymore,” she added and nibbled on the scone.
“And,” he probed, “how are you … feeling?”
Piper stared down at the scone. Her fingernails dug into the jam and cream. “Like I can barely breathe,” she admitted.
It was more than that, of course. A chunk of despair clogged her throat, choking her, and her insides churned in a constant spin cycle. How much time did it take for someone to grieve the death of their mother, she wondered?
Ash planted himself on the edge of the mattress, one foot on the ground. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “It doesn’t get easier. You learn to live with the pain, but it’ll always be within you.”
Piper nodded and turned the scone over in her sticky fingers. “I don’t have a home anymore. I can’t go back there—”
“Don’t.” His voice was sharp, but not unkind. “You have a home in the Academy. There will always be a place here for you.”
Shouldn’t she have been overcome with relief and gratitude? Or at least have felt a smidgen of either? She didn’t. Her heart stayed encased in its icy frosting. “If I stay here,” she said, “won’t I have to make the choice between my two lives? I’m not ready for that, not yet.”
“The provost has given you an extension.” Ash took a sip from her cup of tea before he handed it to her.
Piper frowned and snatched it a little too roughly.
“You and Kieran,” he added. “Given what you’ve both been through, the provost understands that the decision will be the last matter you’ll want to focus your attention to.”
“Kieran,” she said, cupping the mug in her hands. “Is there any news on him? Has he recovered?”
“He healed up just fine. Well enough that he left this morning.”
“Left? To go where?”
“Home.” Ash shrugged. “I expect he’ll return once he’s found his closure.”
There is no closure, she thought. Not for this.
“April left, too.”
Piper’s eyes darted to his. Her hands tightened around the mug, and she drifted her gaze to the empty bed beside hers. She’d assumed April had gone to the bathroom when she’d woken up, or had been speaking with the healer somewhere.
“She snuck out when you were asleep,” he said.
“Did she say anything?”
“Not that I know of. The lare told me an hour ago. He saw her leave, said she was still in her hospital clothes.”
A twist tugged at her gut. Piper looked down at the tea and rubbed her thumbs over the rim. “I guess she needed to go home.” The tautness of her strained voice gave away the simmering anger within her.
April had just left, gone, without a word. She could’ve at least left a note. Piper’s mother had been killed, after all. And Piper had saved April’s life in a way.
“That’s what I get,” she whispered, “for having friends like her.”
Ash raised his brow. “I’d rather not get involved in that. People deal with trauma in their own ways.”
“Trauma,” she scoffed. “My mother died—No, she was murdered. But April doesn’t care about that. Why would she? She only has the emotional capacity to care about herself.”
Boots thudded down the corridor. Piper and Ash both glanced at the archway to see Elsa—the gun maker—waltz into the sickbay.
Elsa stopped at the end of Piper’s bed. “The Elder Healer is here,” she said. “The exorcism is about to take place.”
CHAPTER 5
“You don’t want to see this.” Ash swung his legs off the bed and left.
Piper scowled at the doorway he vanished through. Her hand slid the tray off her lap before she pushed the blanket off her legs.
Elsa stood at the bottom of the bed and eyed Piper. “The Elder won’t talk to you,” she said. “There isn’t much point in trying.”
Piper kicked her feet out of the blanket. “Why not? I was there, I saw it.”
&
nbsp; “It doesn’t matter. You’re not in charge.” Elsa lifted her slender fingers and gently swept her shiny blonde hair to the side.
Piper saw the frizz of her split ends, and suspected that she bleached her hair to attain that pearl-blonde.
“The Elder will only speak to whoever was in charge on the scene. In this case, either Ash or Desmond.”
Her attention was drawn to the window as the light pitter-patter of rain rapped against it.
“Not to mention,” she added, watching the rain drizzle for the first time in weeks, “you are too close to the situation. The vessel that the Aswang possessed is your friend.”
“So?” Piper slid off the bed and curled her dirty toes. “That gives me more of a right to be there than anyone else.”
“You would think so,” said Elsa. Her gaze swerved back to Piper. It was intense, she thought, the way Elsa’s eyes glowed as sharply as Ash’s, as if they could see through your skin and bone and touch your soul. “If the human can’t be saved, you will only get in the way.”
“I won’t,” she promised. Piper crouched over and tied her sandals. “I need to be there. For Nigel, for myself.” Elsa cocked her head to the side, a curious glint sparking in her reflective eyes. “I need a distraction,” said Piper. “If I keep busy, maybe it won’t hurt as much.”
Elsa’s lips stretched into a stiff smile. “It doesn’t work that way. But if you insist, I will take you there.”
Piper nodded and tugged on her cardigan. The tray of food lay forgotten on the bed as Elsa guided her out of the sickbay.
“I must warn you,” said Elsa as they passed a broken compass—it spun around in circles and whistled. “Aswang exorcisms are not pleasant to witness.”
“I don’t think of roses and daisies when I hear the word ‘exorcism’,” she said.
Elsa side-eyed her, sweeping her gaze down to Piper’s grimed legs and feet. “What do you know of the Aswang?”
They veered onto a forked corridor. Piper hummed before she said, “Not much, to be honest. I know they can possess people and infect others. And they have a taste for human flesh.”
“They have a hunger,” said Elsa, “for all flesh. Human, daywalker, cattle—you name it, they eat it. Humans are the main victims, of course, given that they are far easier to access once the Aswang pass through the realms.” They reached the landing and descended the stairs to the main foyer. Elsa led her straight ahead to a metal door. “Aswang are entities that float between the levels of our world. They can see us, watch us, but they can’t pass until invited.”
“The cursed gems,” said Piper. Elsa pushed the door open and glided down a sterile corridor with sheet metal walls. “They’re the invitations, aren’t they?”
“Yes. It’s a natural process. The one who touches the stone is infected by the Aswang and becomes its cacoon. Another vessel is needed for the Aswang to fully materialise on this plane.”
“The one who touches the infected body.” My mother and Nigel. Piper shook her head, as if trying to banish the punch of nausea that struck her chest.
“The body is forever infected. It carries the curse, always. But the vessels can be cured, in a sense. Exorcisms are used—usually for our own species—to expel the spirit of the Aswang from the person.” Elsa glanced at Piper, and observed the sheen of sweat that glistened on her forehead. “You’re nervous,” she said. “You should be. Your Nigel has tasted human flesh, now. That can strengthen the connection between him and the Aswang.”
“So the exorcism might not work?” Piper jogged to keep up with Elsa’s long, graceful strides. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
The corridor ended at frosted glass wall. Elsa splayed her hand on the glass. “What I am telling you,” she said, “is that you might not be mourning only your mother by the end of the day.”
Piper gaped at her. The way Elsa said it, delivered a horrific truth, was with such a clipped and unaffected tone that Piper found herself wondering whether she had a heart beneath her flawless skin.
The frosted glass cleared and seemed to vanish altogether. It did, Piper realised, as Elsa stepped through it with ease.
Piper scurried after her, her fingernails digging into her clammy palms. “So how do we increase his chances? How do we get that parasite out of his body without killing him?”
“We summon an Elder,” said Elsa. “And hope for the best outcome.”
The second corridor ended, but not with a glass wall. It flowed into the dungeons.
Piper turned her head from side to side, her brows knitted together.
There weren’t any iron cages, ceiling leaks or mossy stone walls. The space stretched to widths and lengths that never seemed to end; glass cubicles, fitted with steel dentist chairs and toilet bowls, ran in rows from the entrance to the farthest wall of the dungeons; bright lights flooded down on the room and washed away the smallest speck of a shadow.
Elsa directed her between a row of clear compartments. Some of the glass cubicles—or were they plastic, she wondered—were occupied. They passed one with an olive-skinned man with his hands pressed against the glass and his yellow eyes fixed on the pair of them.
Piper met his gaze and shivered. His lips stretched into what she’d assumed to be a smile, but needles stuck out of his gums in place of teeth, and behind the metal shards was a black hole instead of a mouth.
“What is that?” she whispered, as if the beast could hear her.
Elsa didn’t glance at the creature in the cubicle. “An Abarimon.”
The answer didn’t tell her anything. Piper added the name to list of strange words she didn’t know. “And that?” she asked, pointing the cubicle ahead.
Through the glass, a woman sat motionless on the chair. Her eyes were like lumps of charcoal and her skin was a soft beige. But nothing appeared to be the matter with her, unlike the needle-toothed monster back down the aisle.
“A Nightwalker.” Elsa’s tone was flat. “Nightwalkers used to be daywalkers.”
“What happened to her?”
“She made her choice,” said Elsa, and veered down another aisle. The rows of cubicles were endless, and in each row was a creature watching them walk by.
One had fire for hair; another was a pale boy with white eyes, black nails and fangs; then, there was an old purple lady that shot sparks out of her hands and made a rainbow; but the one that Piper had stared at the most was a tanned middle-aged man whom she could’ve sworn had been a black tiger with grey stripes when she’d first glanced at him.
Every compartment shared something in common, Piper noticed. They each had golden words scribbled above their doors.
“Those inscriptions,” she said. “They look like the words on the guns you use.”
Elsa inclined her head. It was a stiff gesture. “They are charms, in a way. They give power to objects. For these doors, the words decree that only a daywalker can open them. Should another being try, they will be blasted to their deaths.”
Piper shot her a wide-eyed glance. “And the weapons? When I first saw you, you were engraving the guns with golden ink.”
“Liquid gold,” she corrected. “I am a forger. That is the skill I channelled my magic into, the one I chose.” She spared a glance at Piper’s confused expression. “Pure daywalkers,” she said, “are born with enormous magic. But we must only choose one power to channel it into. That is what we do here, at the Academy. We learn to focus our energy on one skill, and master it.”
“Can I choose?”
“No,” said Elsa. “Halfbreeds aren’t born with the full power of pure daywalkers. The human blood within you tries to suppress the gifts. Your magic chooses its power and emerges when you come of age.” Elsa turned a corner and Piper followed. “As I hear,” said Elsa, “your power is quite great, for a halfbreed.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “If it was so great, I would’ve figured out I could do it before Ash told me.”
“I wouldn’t let that worry you. Most Halfb
reeds don’t realise what they are or what they can do until we daywalkers come to them. It’s dullborn nature to search for the mysteries in the world, but once they encounter it, they explain it away to hold onto what they understand.”
Even though Elsa talked to her and explained more than Ash had done already, Piper sensed an un-welcomeness in her cool tone. Elsa maintained an iciness about her, a crisp demeanour that stirred dislike within Piper.
“You were lucky,” said Elsa. “The gathering your father organised drew attention to the Halfbreeds. Some of you, like yourself and Kieran, were given the chance to be saved by our people. But if that meeting hadn’t happened, and he plucked you out one-by-one, we might’ve found you when it was too late.”
“How did you track us?” asked Piper. “That night.”
“The scent of the banyon,” she said, “can be smelled by our kind, miles away. And when Halfbreeds come of age, we sense their powers. The same way that we knew an Aswang had been in Sutton.”
Piper opened her mouth to speak, but Elsa waved her hand in front of her face and shushed her.
“We must be quiet,” she said. “We don’t want to distract them.”
Piper didn’t need Elsa to specify who she was speaking about. They turned left and stopped at a clear box.
CHAPTER 6
Ash and Desmond stood outside of the cubicle and watched as Nigel was strapped to a metal chair with copper wire.
A tall, bony woman with grey hair that roped down her back, and wrapped in a black dress that reminded Piper of an early twentieth century mourning gown, organised small bottles of potions on a metal table. The resident healer used a damp cloth to clean away the tarry smears from Nigel’s eyes.
Elsa whirled around and disappeared, back the way they had come from. Piper approached the cubicle, and Desmond looked over his shoulder at her. He sighed and leaned toward Ash. “Your halfbreed is here.”
Ash stepped back and turned to face her. “I told you to stay in the sickbay.”
“No, you didn’t.” Piper stopped beside him and stared at Nigel through the glass. “You said I wouldn’t want to see this. And don’t presume to tell me what I can and can’t do.” She lifted her gaze to his, and saw that he’d quirked his lips at the sides. “I have as much of a right to be here as you do, Ash. Deal with it.”
London Academy 2 Page 2
