Fallen Academy: Year Four

by Stone, Leia

  “Lincoln, you know what the prophecy says. I’m the one who—”

  “Fuck the prophecy. I’m going to kill that bastard the next time I see him, and then we won’t need to worry about anything anymore.”

  Eleven

  It had been two weeks since the attack, and the school was still on high alert. All Fallen Army personnel not enrolled in classes were on duty for twelve hours a day. Today was the first day back at school, and last night had been the Awakening ceremony. Next year would be the very last Awakening ever. The fact that almost every single angel blessed, or demon gifted child had already grown up and awoken blew my mind. All that would be left to protect humanity from the demons was… humanity.

  Grace had moved into Raphael’s office, and was starting the Demon Hunter Academy today as well. She had rounded up a whopping fourteen students who’d volunteered to learn how to fight demons. A slow and humble start.

  Raphael had also agreed that all eleven of my students fought bravely, and would be passed into their second year without having to repeat the gauntlet. I was so damn proud. They’d all earned their place in year two.

  Now, I had to start year four like I wasn’t a ticking time bomb, waiting to be kidnapped by the Devil, and taken to the gates of Hell.

  “Nervous?” Lincoln asked as he poured me a cup of coffee.

  I shrugged. “Feel a bit better now that you’ve agreed not to sit in my classes with me.”

  He grinned. “Only because I’ve got Shea, Chloe, and Luke on your ass at all times.”

  I nodded. “And you’re tracking my phone.”

  Lincoln clinked my mug with his own. “And that.” He winked.

  I grinned. My psycho stalker hubby was sexy. “You know, you’re kinda hot when you’re stalking me.”

  Leaning forward, he claimed my mouth in a deep kiss, pulling my bottom lip into his.

  Yum.

  When he moved back and met my gaze, my stomach did flip-flops. “Remember, I’m stationed at the front gate, so if your phone alerts me that you’ve left campus, or if you call in distress, I can be there in seconds.”

  He was trying to hide it, but it was clear he was still genuinely worried, and I didn’t want to lie to him and say I would be fine. I wasn’t fine. Lucifer would be here any day now; it was a reality for which we all needed to prepare.

  “Okay,” I replied simply.

  A hard knock rapped at the trailer door. “Let’s go! First day. Tiffany is wearing a shirt so low she’s bound to suffer a nip slip,” Shea called through the door.

  Lincoln and I both grinned.

  “Love you,” I told him.

  “I love you too, Bri,” he answered, more seriously than I had.

  I left him in the trailer and met Shea outside. She was rocking her engagement ring today, freshly polished. “Hoping to shove that in Tiffany’s face some more?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “You know it. Now that Lincoln is locked down, she’s on the hunt for another man, and you know only a Celestial will do.”

  Chloe was waiting for us up ahead, looking at some flowers that were in bloom.

  “Is she still…?” I asked Shea.

  Shea nodded. “She’s different. I mean, she’s Chloe, but she’s like a fifty-year-old Buddhist monk now.”

  I winced. The near-death experience had changed the Nightblood. She was no longer interested in bashing Tiffany or talking about cute clothes. She’d gone deep and introspective, which just made me love her more. Whatever she’d seen or experienced had obviously influenced her completely.

  “Hey, girl.” I came up and gave her a hug.

  She embraced me fully, holding on for longer than would be normal in a casual friend hug. This was a Chloe 2.0 hug.

  “You look lovely, Brielle. I’m so honored to be finishing the year with you girls.” Her voice was soft, not timid but not aggressive either.

  Shea and I shared a quick look, but then Chloe linked arms with us, and we headed into school together.

  We walked in silence for a while, until we reached the courtyard where Grace was standing before a newly set sign that read ‘Demon Hunter Academy.’ The sign hung over the small gym, where I normally trained with Emberly. They would have all their classes in that one room until Fallen Academy students had fully graduated, at which point, Grace hoped to fill the entire school with humans who wanted to hunt demons.

  “I think it’s wonderful that Grace is empowering the humans to look after themselves,” Chloe shared.

  “I think it’s great too,” I agreed. Grace had already offered me a full-time position next year, once I graduated, and I had accepted it immediately. I would teach combat strategies and demon weaknesses, and I was so freaking excited. Assuming I lived until next year, of course. It was hard to think that far ahead with so much doom and gloom going on here on campus.

  “I think it’s a good idea, but I hope they don’t get hurt.” Shea shrugged.

  I felt a little bad that we treated humans like such fragile creatures. Look at Grace, after all. Half the time I forgot she was human.

  “Well, well… if it isn’t the little demon lover trio.” Tiffany’s voice dripped with sarcasm as my gaze flicked over to where she stood.

  Who wears that to a school where we have battle class? Shea was right, her boobs were nearly about to fall out of her low-cut silk shirt. She was definitely going to flash someone over the course of the day.

  Shea ignored Tiffany and turned to me. “You and Lincoln should have quieter sex. I walked past the trailer last night, and could hear you two across the entire parking lot,” she informed loudly.

  I busted out laughing as Tiffany’s face fell. Lincoln and I didn’t have sex last night, but my bestie was savage, that was for sure.

  Without warning, Chloe unlinked from our arms and walked toward Tiffany with her arms outstretched like she was going to hug her.

  “It’s so clear to me now that you just want to be loved. You need attention and want to feel special.” Chloe drew closer, and Tiffany just looked at her with a horrified, yet slightly vulnerable expression.

  “Don’t touch me, you undead freak!” Tiffany roared. Her voice carried so far that every head in the quad whipped in our direction, including Grace’s.

  Tiffany turned tail, running as Shea and I grabbed Chloe and pulled her back. “Okay, Dali Lama, save that for someone who isn’t a total psycho,” Shea told Chloe.

  Undead freak? Yikes.

  The rumor mill had started, had someone else seen us that night? Luckily Raphael hadn’t asked about what happened that night, and Michael didn’t say anything either. My mom was in the clear.

  Chloe frowned. “She just wants to be loved.”

  “Someone else can love her,” I told the Nightblood, leading her to the south end of school, where our advanced angel history class was.

  The near-death experience had certainly changed our wild Chloe, but I was just glad and grateful she was alive.

  As we passed Grace, I saw her signing in a new student, a scrawny-looking girl with no muscle. Was that how we looked when we first started? Probably.

  We were just stepping into the class, comparing our schedules, when the demon alarm went off around us. Everything within me clenched as we bolted inside, barring the door. If school was in session, demon alarm protocol was to barricade inside the nearest classroom.

  Seriously? On the first day of school?

  Lincoln was at the front gates on duty, and I prayed he was okay. These demon attacks were getting too frequent.

  “All right, fourth years, this is not a drill. Let’s stay calm, but prepare for a possible attack. Please bring out your weapons if you have any.” Mrs. Delacourt, a centaur, galloped to the front of the classroom and stood before the entrance.

  Shea clapped her hands together and a green magical fire erupted from her palms, just waiting to throw it at a demon, no doubt.

  There was a frantic bang on the door.

  “Let me in! There’s a
Castor demon out here!” Tiffany’s high-pitched voice shrieked.

  Shea groaned. “For Heaven’s sake. Let it eat her.”

  Mrs. Delacourt shushed Shea, and looked to me with uncertainty in her eyes.

  On a small level, I really did want to let it eat her, but on some other more mature level, my conscience couldn’t allow that. Maybe it was that thing Michael had done, or maybe it was Chloe’s new influence. I wasn’t entirely sure what caused it, but pulling my sword free, I sidestepped Mrs. Delacourt.

  “Brielle!” Shea hissed. “It’s against protocol. It could be a trap.”

  It’s who I am, dammit. Even though she was a bitch to me, the frantic pounding on the door made my heart pinch. It wasn’t a trap, and Shea knew it. Tiffany was great with strategy, but she wasn’t the best at battle. If she was unarmed…

  Unlocking the door, I ripped it open, coming face-to-face with a new type of demon. Shock tore through me at the somewhat humanoid-looking man, who grinned before me. His face was gaunt, and where there should have been a nose were just two slits. His teeth were more like tusks, protruding out of his misshapen lips.

  Shea was right. It was a trap.

  “Let me in!” Tiffany’s voice came from his mouth, and before I could react to the shock of his ability to mimic people, he burst forward, knocking me backward and flat on my ass.

  “Stay down!” Delacourt screamed as she leapt over me.

  Looking up, I saw the underside of her half-horse belly, and flattened myself to the ground. She landed hard on the new demon, and trampled him until he rolled backward, and away from the room where we hid.

  Immediately, I stood, and pulled my sword.

  “Brielle! I’m coming for you, dear.” The Dark Prince’s voice slipped from the demon’s lips, where he was rocking on his knees in front of Mrs. Delacourt, and chills broke out across my arms.

  Our angel history teacher must have known whose voice that was, because she froze in shock as well.

  “I’m coming for you,” he said again.

  Stepping out into the hallway, I whipped my head in the direction of a blur of blue light.

  Lincoln.

  My husband burst out of nowhere and leapt into the air behind the demon. Bringing his sword down on the demon’s neck, he cut off his head clean. The second the demon died, the alarm stopped roaring.

  Lincoln was breathing hard, chest heaving up and down, and when he met my gaze, I knew he was totally freaked out. “Was that whose voice I think it was?” he asked me.

  I could lie, but what was the use? “Yes.”

  A few of the students gasped behind me at my confirmation.

  “He mimicked Tiffany too.” Mrs. Delacourt stared at the headless demon, eyes wide and mouth gaping.

  “Another new one,” Lincoln grumbled through gritted teeth. “I guess we’ll call them Mimics. Soon, we’ll be running out of names.”

  A stone sank in my stomach. I was sitting up here topside, living my life, while psycho Lucy was down there, making new demons to taunt us. To taunt me. I wanted to go down there and kill him, like the prophecy foretold, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready yet. And I definitely couldn’t do it without Sera.

  “Mrs. Delacourt, can you excuse Brielle for the period?” Lincoln asked her as he reached out to pull me near him.

  She nodded. “Of course, dear.”

  “I’ll send a team to clean this up and write a report,” he told her.

  Everyone had come out into the hallway now and was staring at the headless demon that lay on the floor. This used to be a safe place. Now demon attacks were becoming a regular occurrence. It made me sick.

  Lincoln held my hand, leading me out to the open area, where all four archangels were waiting, swords drawn.

  “I’ve neutralized the threat. A new demon that mimics the voices of humans. He also took on the Devil’s voice, and taunted Brielle.”

  Michael’s brow furrowed as the veins in his neck bulged. Raphael simply sighed, looking resigned.

  “Where are you with her training? Emberly says she’s doing quite well with resisting mental commands,” Michael asked him.

  Lincoln side-glanced me. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you both about. I’d like it if all four of you could do a few sessions with her. She needs to really feel the power of a full angel, and I can’t do that. Only you can…”

  He let the suggestion hang out in the air, and already my body hurt just thinking about training with all four of the archangels. It was wild seeing them all together on campus. Normally, Uriel and Gabriel were at the sister schools, but with everyone banded together, their place was here… for now.

  “Of course,” Michael stated.

  “Consider it done,” Raphael added.

  “I’m free tonight,” Gabriel said casually.

  “Me too,” Uriel confirmed.

  Oh God.

  Lincoln sighed in relief, while my anxiety ratchetted ever higher.

  Training with four archangels?

  Lord have mercy.

  Twelve

  I was dressed for battle. Chain mail armor, a shield and like ten different weapons on my body. Tonight, was my training with the four archangels, and my goal was not to die.

  “What the hell were you thinking? I feel sick. What if they kill me?” I paced the gymnasium, as Lincoln, Noah and Shea snickered on the sidelines.

  “They’re not going to kill you,” Lincoln told me confidently.

  “You might just limp for a few days,” my best friend added while sharpening her blade on a pumice stone.

  “Great!” I threw my arms up in frustration.

  Noah watched silently with a slight smirk in place. “How do you expect to kill the Devil himself, if you can’t spar with some archangels?” he asked.

  Ugh. He had a point.

  Dammit.

  The gymnasium door opened then, and I swallowed hard. All four archangels walked in, chatting casually while dressed to kill. Their silver armor was inlaid with gold, and polished to a reflective shine resembling a mirror. One glance at Michael’s giant sword, and I felt weak in the knees. Not to mention the four gigantic sets of white wings. Yet, the way their hair swayed when they walked made me question if this was about to be a battle or a runway show, but I knew this was going to hurt.

  “Good evening, Brielle,” Uriel greeted me formally. I hadn’t gotten to know him as well as the others, but he seemed the most reserved and shy of the bunch.

  “Hey,” I gulped.

  Raphael broke into a wide smile. “She thinks we’re going to pulverize her.”

  I crossed my arms defiantly. “Hey, no mind reading! That’s not fair.”

  A streak of blond hair sailed past me, and suddenly Michael was by my side. “This practice is not intended to break you, or for us to try our hardest to kill you. It’s to push you in ways we know Lucifer will, so you can be most prepared to fight him.”

  I’d forgotten why we were here, what my name was. Michael was standing so close, I could feel the heat of his arm through my shirt. I gulped, stepping back a little. Why were they so nice to look at?

  I shook my head, very aware that my husband was watching me.

  Sera would have gotten a kick out of this.

  “We trained with Lucifer in his infancy, after all,” Gabriel added, squaring off with Michael.

  “So, he can be killed, right?” I had asked them before, but I needed confirmation again.

  Michael nodded. “Believe it or not, he has a soul. One that can be freed upon the destruction of his body.”

  Gabriel stepped forward, pressing in on me with his light. I could feel it on my skin as a tangible thing. “In which case, his soul will be released to be judged by the Creator.”

  Yikes. That sounded scary, but totally deserved.

  Raphael cleared his throat. “But I feel I should mention that there is always meant to be balance in the world, and wiping out Lucifer doesn’t mean all evil will leave Earth. Some new evil will rise, a
nd we will always have the demons he has created to contend with.”

  That made shitty sense, but the new evil wouldn’t be as bad as Lucy was, right?

  I just nodded, letting everything they said swirl around my head. “He creates demons that kill and enslave humans. He’s ruthless, incapable of love, and completely void of compassion. The world is better off without him,” I declared.

  Michael was grinning like a proud father, but Raphael looked more reserved. “The prophecy says you will indeed kill him, but that choice rests solely on you, my dear.”

  Free will.

  Hah, if he thought I could be talked out of it, he was trippin. Lucy tortured me in Hell, stole Sera, and captured Raksha. He tried to kill everyone I loved. There was no way I would let that thing live.

  Raphael nodded as if he had heard my thoughts. “Then let us train. Don’t go easy on us, Brielle. Use your combined magic, and we’ll push you to your breaking point, in an effort to prepare you for the days ahead.”

  Breaking point. I gulped.

  Michael nodded. “We’ll protect you as best we can, but Lucifer must not be allowed into the gates of Heaven.”

  Obviously.

  How awful would it be if that happened and it was all my fault?

  Dread turned in my stomach. What if I couldn’t resist him? What if he forced me to open the gates and slaughtered all the angels there? Don’t fear. Don’t fear.

  Oh God. I’m going to be sick.

  Raphael stepped forward, placing a firm hand on my shoulder. A healing energy rolled through me, chasing away my anxiety.

  “Whatever will be will be, and that’s okay,” he declared.

  Oh, Raph. Such a good guy, always making it seem okay if I made mistakes.

  Without warning, I leapt forward and pulled him into a hug. Our armor clinked together in the process, making it a bit awkward. I wanted him to know how much it meant to me that he was always guiding me, allowing me to be me, and not making me feel bad for my mistakes.

  His arms came around me immediately, squeezing me back. “We’re very proud of you, Brielle. No matter what,” he confessed over my head.