Bane of Hades (Guardian Academy Book 1)

by Rae Hendricks

I hate planes.

  Sweat, smelly people with germs and illnesses, packed in a flying sardine can, so high up it feels like I can't breathe. That doesn't sit well with me. Though, I know I will probably have to grin and bear it for this academy thing.

  But I am sure as hell not doing two planes in a damn row. I'll grab a mask in Florida or something and some gloves in hopes I don't catch anything on the way to the academy. But on a train, well, I have enough money for my own private car.

  Union Station is full of people moving in and out, going different places when I get there.

  It’s the station where the Amtrak combines with two of the rail systems locally, so it's always a busy place. But there are plenty of places to wait away from people, while I await the train that had a car available for me.

  Luckily, it won't be too long. Ten tonight is when it leaves.

  I pull out my phone, popping in my little headphone so I can jam to music or listen to funny videos while I wait. Drowning out anything else. Including all the things that could happen and be said when I demand my mother to tell me the truth.

  All of it.

  ***

  I don't like riding in a taxi, but it’s the fastest way to get to my mother's facility. It feels so dirty and smelly, and I wish immediately upon entry I had bought a mask and gloves back in Dallas.

  There’s security manning the place, a booth set up outside where I have to give my name and the name of the patient. By some miracle, my name is on the visitors list, so my mother didn't abandon me entirely. Though, once I tell her what I've learned, she may wish she had.

  Once they let me through two sets of gates and into the compound, I get why my mother would like it.

  While the place has some look of a hospital - small private rooms with one window overlooking a courtyard, that's about where the comparison ends.

  I walk past a gigantic fountain with crystal blue water before I am ushered into a lobby. It reminds me of a luxury hotel instead of some kind of medical facility. "How may we help you?" a woman with a smile plastered to her face, asks me from behind a circulation desk bigger than my living room.

  I gave my mother's name and am told where I can likely find her - on the beach, just as I thought.

  And if I thought the facility was impressive before, this private beach looks like it belongs on a remote island somewhere far away and untouched.

  Even I could get on here.

  Guiltily, I make my way to the woman with the big hat, her brown hair tucked into a bun, her body barely covered in a one-piece, thong bathing suit. I'm surprised they allow such a thing in a place like this.

  Maybe they don't want to stress her out.

  She keeps pretending to read a book, as she lies on her belly as if she hasn't seen my shadow pass over her head. As if I'm not here.

  Then, finally, "Oh my god, Ember!" she squeals as if we're best friends and she isn't almost three decades my senior. "This is such a good surprise! Why'd you come all the way here?" Then, she remembers where I just was. Her brows furrow as she recalls how a mother should react. "Shouldn't you be at home, resting? You were just in the hospital."

  "They said I was fine. Look, as much as I’d love to lay here on the beach with you and have girl talk, I came for one thing. Then, I will leave you alone the rest of the time you're here."

  She looks at me for a moment, her green eyes trying to decipher what I'm thinking and why I'm so serious. Why I've come all the way here by myself. But she can't. "What's wrong, Em?"

  I choose not to fight over her nickname this time, hoping that any sucking up I do will get to the truth quickly.

  "I got a letter delivered to me in the hospital by some stranger." I pull it out so she can't pretend it isn't real and drop it in front of her. She reaches as if to touch it but then backs away like it’s hot to the touch.

  "He told me what I am. You and I both know, all these years, there have been things about me that don't make sense." I squat down to her level, gritting my teeth, and keeping my voice low.

  I don't exactly want to let it slip to a bunch of mentally unstable people that I see dead people - or end up committed here involuntarily, even though the beach is nice.

  My mother makes a face and looks away. She, of all people, hates talking about this. She never likes to admit her daughter is a freak. It’s probably why she's keeping Roger from me, now that I think of it. She seems to really like this one and doesn't want him to leave when he meets me.

  "I get this is uncomfortable, but I need to know who my father is."

  She purses her lips. "You know very well, the story."

  "I don't buy that you slept with a god and didn't know I came from that, unless all three men you slept with around that time were gods?" I question her, raising my eyebrow.

  The whole thing sounds ridiculous, and yet I know it's the truth.

  She huffs a sigh. "Just thinking of it makes me so tired." She rolls over in the sand, dramatically, drawing far too much attention.

  I stand back up, rolling my eyes, but that's when I see him. The boy from school who had the wings. He’s standing over by the jetty. And now he’s grinning at me.

  Chapter Five

  “We can burn brighter than the sun."

  ~ FUN

  He walks toward us, and now I am only half in this conversation, which is more like a one-sided fight.

  My mother continues to be dramatic or avoiding by saying her memory was messed with, or she can hardly remember, or he wasn’t anyone important. She was tricked. All these excuses are to go around and around in circles, instead of giving it to me straight.

  Finally, his fingers tucked into the tight pockets of his black jeans, the sexy emo boy, who might or might not have a pair of wings stashed under his black long sleeve tee, is in front of us. He’s looking more annoyed than he did a moment ago.

  "You're supposed to be at Guardian Academy," he tells me, rather loudly.

  I hush him and look around to see that, oddly, people aren't reacting to him, other than my mother who is now doing a poor performance of someone who is fainting.

  "No need to panic. No one else can see me."

  "So, you’re another ghost?"

  "Another? Well, thanks for playing into my curiosity to know what glorious powers someone whose mother is in a mental institution and whose father is Hades has or might have, to get her into the academy."

  "Hades!" Really, that's the only part I pay attention to. I get the feeling whoever this ghost or supernatural being is, he’s got a lot of snark, and I'm not in the mood to hash that out right now. "Mom, you fucked Hades?" I ask her, flabbergasted. The only word for the feeling because nothing else does it justice.

  So, not only am I a run of the mill, I see dead people freak, I am the daughter of a powerful ruler of the underworld. I guess seeing the dead makes sense after all.

  "See, if I’d known this was the hold-up, I would have intervened sooner." This emo asshole is still the only one responding to me.

  "I just can't do this right now, Ember. I came here to rest, and you're stressing me out. At this rate, I'll never be well enough to leave." She has somehow forced all the color to drain from her face, and wrinkles appear that I swear weren't there before.

  It’s like she’s been preparing for this exact exchange for years.

  It would make sense since she knew this would come. I would find out some way, eventually.

  Knowing she has shut down on me, I turn instead to the interloper. "Look, I had to come and see if I could get the truth. I have everything with me ready to go for the flight."

  "No time for that now," he tells me, not letting me say another word. "Classes start tomorrow. They've sent me because you’ve been particularly stubborn. Plus, I was one of the only ones willing to come for the daughter of Hades and force her to the academy."

  "You'd think I had a choice," I tell him, crossing my arms, though fighting is pointless. I have no issue going to the academy. It’s going to give me answers an
d teach me things I never could have imagined about myself, and the world I should have always been in. I just don't like his attitude, no matter how hot he is.

  "Not really, but you can’t tell me you have much reason to stay." He gestures to my mother, and I concede, shaking my head.

  "Then, stop talking to someone invisible before they commit you, and let's go." He unfurls the wings, proving to me I wasn't crazy before.

  They are a whitish-grey, expanding out and wrapping around him like a great condor. "What are you?"

  "I'd rather tell someone who’s about to be flying on my back my name - which is Eden."

  "Ember, obviously," I say sarcastically, accepting his prompt to climb on his back.

  "Just hang onto my neck, and you'll be fine," he says but doesn't take off when I find a relaxed but firm position on him.

  "Very strange that you aren't freaking out right now."

  "Heard that before," I tell him. He scoffs but says nothing else as he leaps into the sky and spreads his wings with an almighty flap to get us soaring.

  Flying on someone's back is pretty much what you'd expect - a roller coaster with no safety measures. However, I don't feel unsafe.

  I’m not Bella learning vampires exist or Clary seeing demon hunters for the first time.

  I’m Ember, freak, daughter of Hades, going home.

  I dare to reach my hand out a few times as we soar through the clouds and feel their wispy moisture and the ripples of air that pass us by. I keep my eyes open, mostly to enjoy it. Even though I'm headed to a place where hot guys named Eden have wings and boys like Jak have blue hair and deliver acceptance letters to supernatural schools, I don't know when I'll get to do something quite like this again.

  I don't even think about my illnesses while it happens, which is strange. As soon as we land in front of steps to a building, which looks just about how you'd imagine something out of ancient Greece to appear, I remember my meds.

  My medicines are in my backpack along with my most important possessions and some money.

  As soon as I get an eyeful of the school, I immediately go for my inhaler, knowing after what I went through, I will regret it if I don't.

  But Eden looks down at me right as I go to take a puff and knocks it away, hurling it several feet into a grassy knoll.

  "What the hell!"

  Instead of responding, he takes my backpack without asking and starts dumping and throwing out all the other meds.

  I might pass out right here.

  Chapter Six

  "Take my heart, my clothes

  Take everything I own

  Spend my money, spend my time

  Lay me down to rest, lay me down to die

  No one makes it out alive."

  ~ Blackbear

  "What the hell was that for, I can’t live without those!" I yell at him, rushing to go find all of them and gather them. He places his arm across my chest and points, showing me little trolls coming along to pick it up.

  "You don't need them here. In fact, things like this are dangerous to this place."

  I take a deep breath, and then another, trying to assess the state of my lungs and sinuses. Among other things, they are my worst day-to-day culprits.

  No sniffles, no blockage. I can smell everything no problem, including the many plants around us, which I don't know the names of.

  "How is this possible?" I say in an almost whisper.

  He leans casually against the steps, having made it to the top in a blink of an eye. I follow him with no problem, stronger than I’ve ever remembered feeling.

  "Simple. You're where you belong. Well, at least where your body belongs, more than six months in the human world, most of us get very ill. Medical mysteries and all, but especially certain races, like gods, which originate in other realms."

  "Like Olympus?" I ask.

  He scoffs but nods. I don't know why he’s so condescending to me, but I narrow my eyes at him. He only turns on his heel and leads me inside.

  Even as his strides are long and fast, showing me around the massive school, which looks like the Parthenon and Lincoln Memorial had a humongous baby, I move slowly instead, savoring the view and the way I feel. If I'm supposed to be here, then I can be myself. A stubborn, alt, curiosity nerd. Ready to soak it all up. To know everything about the truth and the world I’ve been missing out on all these years.

  But I'm more grateful than angry. There will be a time to let my mother know how I feel about being lied to, but I’m just happy to be here.

  Halls and halls of marble and carpet with complicated patterns, murals of events in the history of the gods. Though, Hades seems to be seriously lacking.

  Then, we end up in a large rectangular room, and looking up, there are several floors that look the same, white balconies stemming out from rows of rooms.

  "Dorms?" I ask

  "I would say you'll probably find these to be better than dorms, but basically, yes," Eden tells me, in a sour tone. All bets are off. I'm asking what his issue is.

  "What the fuck is your problem, Eden? I've never done anything to you, and you've been rude since moment one."

  "One, I don't like dawdling. It isn't as if I don't have things to do. I'm a student too. I need to be ready. But also, people won't like you here, daughter of the underworld."

  His voice is deep and snarky as he passes me something from his pocket. "Your schedule."

  "I have a name. And why wouldn't people like me? They don't even know me."

  "We don't need to know you. We know who your father is."

  The voice comes from up above, and just as I catch the face of a girl with long, blonde hair and another next to her, short, with a pixie cut, pouring pink liquid that dumps down on me.

  I recognize the smell immediately.

  I try to see through the sheen of dripping Pepto Bismol so I can yell at whoever the hell thought this was okay, as well as Eden for a lack of warning. Suddenly, someone snatches the likely ruined schedule out of my hands and rips it up.

  I manage to get the dripping to stop from my face and see the smiling girl, the one with a black pixie cut who'd been a few floors up earlier. "Dead would be a better look for Hades' daughter, but this is a good start," she sneers.

  The cackling blonde makes her way down to me, and off to the side, Eden is just watching as if he’s bored. He hasn't said or done anything.

  If this had happened at my high school, even as sucky as Dallas is at these things, my principle would be on it already, dragging these kids out, expelling them for at least a week, if not more.

  "What the hell is your problem?" I ask through gritted teeth, ignoring the dripping substance that's likely defiling the beautiful carpet, and grabbing her.

  She gets lose like she’s trying to intimidate me, an evil grin never leaving her face. Her breath comes out cold despite the fact that it's toasty warm in here. "It’s very simple. I'm Holly, child of a sweet, innocent god, and you are the daughter of the worst criminal we’ve ever known. Either you leave, or we'll make you leave."

  Holly steps back, her eyes an ice blue, all this giving me clues about what she might be able to do. The blonde then giggles and throws the empty bottles of Pepto at me. "Catch!" she says in a cruel but bubbly voice. "Go on, why don't you turn around and leave before it's too late. If you stay, you'll wish you were in the underworld rather than here at our school." She emphasizes the word as if she owns the place, a territorial battle, and I roll my eyes.

  "So, what, demi-gods have gangs or something?" I ask, flashing a toothy grin. "Wonder how the gods would handle their kids being thugs."

  Holly puts her hand up, and I'm sure I'm in for it. But I can take it. No one is taking this away from me.

  But a loud growl interrupts all of us.

  Behind the girls, who now turn and run screaming, is a hulking figure. A Lycan, from the looks of it.

  A hulking, charcoal-grey wolf whose features and movement look a little more man than animal. And drool is dri
pping onto the carpet.

  I feel sorry for whoever cleans the place; magic or not.

  Now, to figure out if I need to run.

  Chapter Seven

  "As soon as you meet me you’ll wish you never did."

  ~ Halsey

  “What the hell is that thing? Did an animal get in here? There should be better security than that in a place filled with people who have magical abilities,” I shriek at Eden.

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist over something that mundane. That is Jak in his uncontrolled form. You’ll be seeing a whole lot of that. He’s a werewolf. Didn’t he tell you?” Eden smirks as he explains.

  I pick up a book off a nearby shelf, in what I’m assuming is like a study area for students, and throw it at him. My temper is quick to rise and volatile. I’m angry at being left out of the loop and having to endure the same crap I was exposed to in regular school. It’s supposed to be different here.

  The book toss isn’t enough to ease my anger, so I grab everything within reach to heave at Eden. All the while, I’m shouting at him.

  “Hell no! He left out that little piece of information. It would’ve helped to know before he scared the ever-loving shit out of me. Having a ball of hair, with huge teeth and claws suddenly appear in front of my eyes isn’t exactly a normal occurrence for me. Finding out the creature is someone I know is freaking crazy! What else don’t I know? Is Dracula coming to drink my blood next, or are the vampires here more along the lines of fucking Twilight?” I scream as a glass paperweight shatters on the floor.

  “There’s that anger straight from your father. And the freak out we were expecting,” he mocks through gritted teeth.

  But I don’t stop my tirade.

  “By the way, why the hell didn’t you step in to help me? I thought that’s what guys like you did. You just stood by and let me be bullied. I can get that kind of treatment back home! Nobody there ever helps me, either. Why should I be here if it’s all going to be the same shit?” A dumb threat yet again to leave a place with answers.