by Lan Chan
Seeing their mistake, a number of the seraphim gave up their claim to the Angel dimension in order to cross the firmament to restore order to the Earth. In doing so, they were able to imbue some of their spirit, their blood, into progeny. Those offspring became the first Nephilim. The bloodlines for which the Academy was named. The Nephilim fought what became known as the Dimension Wars. They beat back Lucifer’s forces and imprisoned him in the Hell dimension.
Michael, Raphael, Ariel and Uriel would never be able to return to the Angel realm. But their sacrifice meant the Earth dimension had a chance to survive the onslaught of creatures that would otherwise have preyed upon them. These days they lived in Seraphina, the magicked Nephilim city, located in the middle of the Australian desert.
The supernatural creatures banded together and appointed a council made up of a representative of each of the seraphim bloodlines and each of the supernatural species. It always smarted that there wasn’t a human representative on the council. When I asked Mama about it, she said it was because our population was so small. Plus, we had our own government. That was all well and good except when great-grandfather was caught, they didn’t try him in any human court. The shifters that came upon him took matters into their own hands.
I had to admit, I wasn’t all that interested in learning about Orin Harcourt, the Fae representative of the Council. His daughter was a student at Bloodline Academy. I had done a happy dance when she left for the senior campus. That was one thing I wasn’t looking forward to when I moved across the campuses next year.
My thoughts were all over the place for the rest of the day. I became pensive when the siren sounded for the last class of the day. While the other students raced excitedly to catch up with friends in the dining hall, I trudged to the kitchen garden with my tail between my legs. As I got closer, I saw that the fence had already been mended. Thinking that was a good sign, I pushed open the gate. My breath snagged in my throat. Any improvement to the structure of the garden was cosmetic at best.
Inside, the damage looked a lot worse in the light of day. Last night I’d thought Max had just stomped on the paving, but now I saw his feet had broken them completely. All over the garden there were footprints gouged into the bricks. Where he’d stepped on the beds, the dirt had compacted into massive holes. As a low-magic user, I’d never been one to condone the way the high-magic users waved their hands to clean up their messes. But just looking at all the snapped branches and squashed produce had me reconsidering.
“Bit of a sight, isn’t it?” Peter said. He came up behind me wearing his usual denim coveralls. His grey hair was tousled. There was a dirt stain on his cheek. The only one of the teachers who was human, Peter was a kindred spirit. Today the grim line of his lips made me deflated.“I’m so sorry.”
He patted my shoulder. “Not your fault. I’m kind of proud that you were being chased by a rogue shifter and remembered that wolfsbane is their kryptonite.” He scratched at his head. “By rights, both and Charles and Max Thompson should be here too. But I have a feeling that would be more trouble than it’s worth. Those boys don’t know the meaning of the word levity.” He shook his head. I could see how two lion shifters would have no patience for anything Herbology-related. Even if it was annoying that I got detention and they were getting off scot-free.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Peter said. “We had to move our lessons to the Fae forest for the rest of the week.” He scratched at his stubble. The flutter of incandescent wings broke through his reverie. A figure in an elegant green dress that touched her ankles approached us. Thalia’s wood-brown hair brushed her shoulders. She retracted her green wings and smiled at me. Of all the professors, Peter and Thalia were the only ones who insisted on not being addressed by their titles. I wasn’t sure why Thalia had opted to teach low-magic Herbology as opposed to the Green Magic of her Fae brethren. All I knew was that my guilt doubled every second she was kind to me.
“I’ve just spoken to Jacqueline,” she said. “We’ve got permission to incorporate the reconstruction of the garden into our lessons for the week. The kids aren’t going to love it but it’s desperate times.”
Peter grinned. He had a jolly grandfatherly smile. He just patted my back when I tried to apologise again. “Why don’t you see if you can scour the beds for any seedlings that might have escaped being trampled?”
For the next hour, I methodically went over every bed for signs of survivors. I winced at every broken stem. While I worked, Peter and Thalia moved back and forth with wheelbarrows of new compost. As each bed was cleared, they dumped the compost onto it and filled in Max’s footprint potholes.
Thinking about him made my stomach hurt. Shifters possessed superhuman healing. Some of the stronger ones could heal a broken bone in a few days. That he was still recovering said a lot about the burns he’d sustained. I would know from the gossip mill if he was out of the infirmary.
I fisted my dirt-caked hands. Mama was right. I never should have cast that spell. Reason had me accepting that I would have died if I hadn’t come up with something. But logic didn’t really help the queasiness in my gut. When detention was done for the day, I made a decision to go and see him.
Most alpha shifters were fuelled by aggression. There was every likelihood that he would try to take my head off if he saw me. But I wasn’t going to meekly pretend nothing had happened last night. I had my pride too.
“Any chance I can raid the supplies?” I asked Peter on my way out. It was pushing my luck a little, but you didn’t visit a sick shifter empty-handed.
“Go right ahead.” He pointed to the cold cellar attached to the back of the dining hall kitchen. “Try and salvage some of the produce damaged last night if you can.”
Twenty minutes later, loaded up with a basket of ingredients, I pushed open the door to the Potions lab. I did a double-take when I saw Professor McKenna hunched over a cauldron on her desk. A floating blue flame heated the base of the cauldron. The scent of sulphur hung in the air. I coughed. She turned her head and nodded at me.
“Bit late, Sophie.” Her gaze dropped to the basket in my hands. Her cheek puckered like she was biting the inside of it to keep from smiling. Most of the professors were aware that I cooked and ate my own food. After the tenth snide remark about what I was eating and whether it contained any supernatural body parts, I lost my appetite for sharing meals with my classmates. Early on, Peter had given me permission to use the cold storage in the back of the kitchen garden. I was that pathetic. “Have you seen the flyers asking for a kitchen hand?”
I nodded. “My interview is tomorrow night. Do you mind if I use my cauldron to cook something?” It was a familiar request. She blinked slowly.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Don’t mind the stench coming from up here. I’m just trying to work out why the water in the billabong is turning red.”
“I thought we’d decided it was because of an unhealthy PH level?”
She pursed her lips. “That might be the case if we weren’t living inside a supernatural school. But I suspect one of the seniors thinks it would be funny to see what a drunk bunyip might be like. Hmm. That smells good.”
She sniffed and came over to where I was rehydrating shitake mushrooms while my hot and sour soup bubbled. It wasn’t traditional Zambian fare but while at home I’d become obsessed with the cable food channel. The wolves watched it like nobody’s business. Then they prodded me to cook all of the things until I couldn’t stand it anymore and relented. Not all kitchen witches actually enjoyed cooking. Mama was proof of that. She couldn’t boil an egg. The one time she did, it burst into full-feathered flight because she’d done something screwy with her magic. Grammy was an amazing cook. She passed the love on to me.
“You’re really good at that,” the professor said.
My lips twisted into a wry smile. “Would you like to inspect it for supernatural essence?”
“Only if you promise it’s not high-magic sorceress.” She draped her arm over m
y shoulders and pulled me to her side. Unlike human teachers, supernaturals tended to be on the touchy-feely side. “Don’t worry. They’ll eventually get over it.”
Like with Mama, I wanted to ask her when eventually would be. Instead, I passed her a spoon. She closed her eyes as she tasted the soup. “My goodness,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”
I beamed. The shifters who were congregated outside Max’s room at the infirmary didn’t care if the soup was wonderful. I wasn’t blind, though. I saw the way their noses twitched. If I had been anyone else, they would have been all over me. But I wasn’t someone else.
“Are you deaf or something?” a long-legged brunette snarled. She snapped her teeth at me. They were pointed at the edges. Shifters tended to feed off the energy of their dominant member. If she was like this, I couldn’t imagine how Max must be feeling.
“I’m sorry,” I kept saying. “I just thought he might like –”
“Nobody cares what you think, murderer spawn,” a no-necked boy interjected. If I didn’t know he was a shifter, I would assume he was on steroids. “You’re lucky we’re not allowed to put you down on sight.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” a gravelly voice said. “None of you should be here. Mr. Thompson requires rest.” I turned to watch a pearly skinned basilisk approach us. He walked on his hind legs. The white lab coat he wore was ill-fitting over his sinewy frame. It bulged in the lower back where his tail swept out behind him. The shifters bared their teeth at him. Doctor Thorne’s second eyelids blinked.
“I’m going to count to ten,” he said. I turned on my heels. “Not you, Sophie.”
A growl rumbled in No Neck’s chest. “You can grumble all you like, Johnny. This is my infirmary. I am alpha here. So unless you’d like your father to get wind of your disrespect, I’d get going.”
Johnny’s top lip pulled back. But I could tell by the way his ears flattened that the thought of being considered disrespectful was more important than the idea of protecting his friend. I held on to the container of soup and flattened by back against the wall as the pair departed. Not without a backwards glance full of menace. The doctor snorted. A puff of smoke billowed from his scaled nose.
“You can’t see him,” Doctor Thorne said. “He’s still in recovery. That was a potent spell. I had to treat it with Himalayan yeti tears before it stopped smouldering. His body is still trying to heal itself. If it doesn’t improve, I might have to recall Malachi from his mission.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the tears from spilling over. The enormity of what I’d done slugged me in the chest. Malachi Pendragon was the last of Raphael’s bloodline. The only Nephilim healer left in existence. He was also a Bloodline student and Max’s best friend. Before the end of semester, Kai was asked to deal with the aftermath of a demon coming through a portal in the Bermuda triangle. To take him off that assignment meant that Max wasn’t showing signs of improvement.
I looked down at my pathetic attempt to help with Max’s healing. Next to Nephilim healing powers, my soup seemed wholly inadequate. All I had at my disposal were my good intentions and whatever that translated to with my kitchen-witch powers.
Doctor Thorne’s cool hands covered my own. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to have something that doesn’t come from the infirmary kitchen. I’ll make sure he gets it.”
I allowed the doctor to pry the soup from my hands. “I’m really sorry,” I said again. That was all I could come up with. The sound of my apologetic voice must have triggered something in Max because a roar like the one he’d emitted last night broke through the quiet of the infirmary. One of the patients down the hall started whimpering.
“Goodness,” Doctor Thorne said. “He’s unnaturally aggressive even for a shifter. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was possessed. Run along, Sophie. I’m sure he’ll be fine in a few days.”
When Max bellowed again, it was so full of uncontained fury that I scampered away. Back in my room, I didn’t feel like eating either. But the last thing I needed right now was to go to bed starving. So I forced down spoonfuls of soup as I sat staring out the window at the mist that was rising over the lawn. For the first time, I wondered if my peers were right. Maybe genetics really were the blueprint of someone’s nature. Maybe despite everything I was doing to distance myself from my great-grandfather, I would end up like him anyway. It was with that thought that I curled up in bed. It was no wonder I had a nightmare.
7
It was a known fact that I had a suggestible mind. That’s why I never watched horror movies. Even though I knew all of the secrets behind monsters that go bump in the night, it didn’t stop my brain from conjuring them up while I slept. In my dreams, I saw the shadow of a bipedal creature stalking the halls of the Academy. When I got close enough to make out its features, my eyelids refused to open so I could see what it was.
The demon was a blur of midnight fog. I kept trying to turn my head but each time it slipped from my periphery. When I finally woke, it felt as though I’d gone a hundred rounds with a sandblaster. Groaning, I rubbed my eyelids. I lay in a mid-sleep state, trying to force my body to move. The quality of the sunlight coming through the window told me it was getting towards time to leave. I just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm. When the alarm on the mirror started to beep, I had no choice. I’d set it to allow me one ten-minute snooze and then it would unleash holy hell. The noise it would make could wake the dead. I wasn’t quite there yet.
I’d heard somewhere that a cold shower worked to reset your internal clock. It sure as heck had me squealing when the icy beads cascaded down my back. I wasn’t sure if I was any more alert but moving got my muscle memory working. I lost precious minutes wrangling my hair into a knot at the top of my head. Fishing around in my makeup bag, I found the last of the magic spray that would keep it in place without the use of pins or chemicals. I really needed to make some money. The magic saved my eardrums. I left the room just as the alarm light on the mirror went to amber alert.
Today was Potions day so I didn’t have to hurry. It also meant I was loaded up with my suitcase that contained all of my most prized ingredients. The dragon’s breath was carefully stowed in the foam mould that lined the sides of the suitcase. Still, I hugged the case to my chest as I weaved my way through the throng of students rushing to their first classes. My stomach growled. Thanks to the sleep-in, I hadn’t had time for breakfast. I promised myself I’d make it up at lunchtime.
My classmates jostled with each other for prime position. Unlike every other class, they all made an effort to arrive early. The ones who were late got the desks closest to me. I obliged them by arriving just before the bell so they had time to argue with each other. Nobody wanted to work next to the low-magic witch with a serial killer for an ancestor. It was like they’d forgotten they were the ones with fangs and claws.
Potions had been great-grandfather’s forte. It was a wonder I hadn’t been banned from the class. What would Professor McKenna think if she knew I had his diary? I probably wouldn’t have time to find out. I’d be whisked off to the supernatural prison so fast my head would spin.
My spot was always somewhere at the back. We worked on long wooden benches. I bet they were all glad that in this class, we had individual tables. I set my cauldron up as I waited for Professor McKenna to arrive. I was halfway through tempering the flames beneath my cauldron when she breezed into the room. There was a bit of a spring in her step. Her tanned skin seemed to almost glow with vibrancy.
In comparison, one of the Fae a few desks in front of mine seemed to be having trouble staying awake. He sat with his chin propped up on his fist. Every once in a while his elbow would give out and he’d jerk like he was startled. A quick glance at the dingo shifter to my right showed a similar state of sluggishness. I supposed I should take comfort that I wasn’t the only one who’d had a bad night. I was a little groggy but for the most part, I could still manage to keep my eyes open.
Professor McKenna ma
de no comment about the sleepy heads. She wheeled a trolley with a glass top next to her desk. I almost salivated. “I want you to continue working on your end-of-year assignments,” she said. She swept her arm over the trolley. “I’ve gotten permission for you to use some of the supplies from the senior campus.” Chairs scraped as students made to lunge for the rare ingredients. The professor held up her hands. “This isn’t a free-for-all. If you want something, come and see me.”
There was a quiet collective groan. My fingers itched to start. I had everything I needed for the elixir. Most of it was substitutes I’d bought with my own pocket money. It was sad that I prioritised my potion over my hair, but if I could pull this off, I would ace the final exam. Somehow, I found myself standing in front of the professor’s desk.
Up close, I would swear her hair was pulsating health. “Sophie,” she said, her smile wide. “I don’t know what you put in that soup, but I feel like I’m supercharged.”
Alarm shot through my chest. My eyes darted to where the closest student was having trouble coaxing the salamander under her cauldron to breathe its fire. I always kept flavoured coals in my case as a treat. My salamander spat fire just seeing me.
“I really didn’t put anything in it,” I said, eyes downcast. “I used a different cauldron –”
She tapped my wrist lightly where I’d balled my fists. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Then she too glanced around. “Although I suppose it was a pretty poor choice of words. Sorry about that. What can I do for you?”
I glanced surreptitiously through the glass on the trolley. I was a potions enthusiast. One of those geeks who went a bit crazy over the idea of getting a brew just right. Forget jewellery. Give me a stone from the gut of a rainbow whale any day of the week. In fact, I pointed to just that inside the trolley.
