Soulhunter Academy

by L. J. Swallow

  She whispers something to the man who accompanied us here, who shakes his head in response.

  "Oh? Interesting." She taps the screen for a second time. "Sit, Ava. Eat."

  I drop my backside onto the hard bench and pick up a spoon. Half the room stare at me for a reaction. If I were in school, I would've back-chatted, but I'm in no position to argue here. I've no clue what the punishment might be.

  "You need to tone yourself down," whispers Sarah as she sips her soup.

  "You mean shut up and behave?" I ask with a snort.

  "Yes. That's if you know how." Sarah gives me another of her nervous smiles as she waits for my reaction.

  I finish my spoonful of soup and whisper, "I know how to behave, but I can't promise I will."

  She doesn't laugh, and her eyes are troubled. "Be careful, Ava."

  "I will be. I need to learn how to hunt and get the hell away from all this angel bullshit."

  Her eyes widen further. "But you're half-angel, and you want to be Free."

  "That's what I mean. Free of this control. This place is worse than the Fated world."

  She shakes her head and returns to her soup. "You never liked people telling you what to do. I hope it's not too late for you to start."

  I look around at the pale faces as most eat in silence. Yes, I need to behave, but I also need to be Ava.

  She's the girl who'll survive this place.

  Chapter Four

  I yawn and rub my eyes, leaning back in my chair. What the hell is this? School lessons? Sitting in rows with the other new soulhunters, I tap my pen on the desk and gaze around. The room is large, windowless, and painted a stark white. The polished wooden floor is scuffed and squeaked when I walked across in my new boots.

  The look on a couple of the guys’ faces when the girls came in wearing the figure hugging, black soulhunter uniform didn’t escape my attention. Morons. Why do we need to dress in uniform already? Sure, close fitting, dark clothing makes sense in a fighting environment, but we’re not fighting yet. Or are we? Shit, I hope not. We don’t have our angel powers back yet—surely we’re “reactivated” before they shove us into the field. However that happens.

  If Farmer Boy Muscles looks at me like a piece of ass once more, I’ll kick him in the balls with the heavy boots I wear. I bet he won’t find that part of the uniform so alluring.

  A man enters the room and crosses towards a desk at the front. I stop tapping and shift upright. The man from yesterday. As I thought, this is also the room I saw yesterday. I take a closer look at him. He’s definitely older than the other students, but not by many years, and wears the same beaten-up jeans and a black T-shirt, stretched tight and following the curves of his muscled chest. The other guys in the room wear less distressed versions of his uniform but don’t carry it off as well.

  Our trainer? But he isn’t wearing the academy staff uniform. I push down the teenage hormones flaring at the sight of a successful and not too shabby looking guy who must be a soulhunter. Seated close enough to the front of the room to inspect him, I’m distracted by the scars on his forearms, including a white semi-circle which looks suspiciously like teeth marks. He surveys the group one by one, as if committing each of us to memory. I’m sure his green eyes rest on me a little longer. I stare back. Confident soulhunter now, remember?

  “Right. Demons 101,” he begins.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” I interrupt.

  The guy raises an eyebrow at me and folds his arms over his chest. “You don’t need to know each other, Ava.”

  “Well, you know my name. Who are you?”

  The man pulls himself forward and strolls over. He places both hands on the desk and stares down at me, face so close I can smell mint on his breath. I repeat my new mantra: confident soulhunter, show no weakness. Remaining still, I study the man in return. His spiked dark brown hair and moss-green eyes weren’t what I expected. I’d presumed trainers would be the angels, but I guess that role would be too lowly for them. I suck in a breath; there’s something uncomfortably attractive about this man. Maybe because the male embodiment of everything I dreamed I’d become is standing in front of me.

  “I’m Daniel. I’m your instructor. And you just earned yourself a reputation you don’t want.”

  The guy next to me snickers, and Daniel shoots him a look. “Do you want one too, Tom?”

  For someone who told us we don’t need to know names, Daniel is making a great job of telling everyone.

  He returns to his desk. “So, Ava, what do you know about demons?”

  The patronising tone in his voice reminds me of a teacher from school. School and teachers did not equal a calm and happy Ava. Didn’t I escape this when school ended?

  “That I should be killing them?”

  “You think you can simply step outside and kill a demon with no training?”

  “No. That’s not what I meant. Obviously.”

  Daniel regards me, running his tongue along his teeth, and I squirm. Sarah sits beside me and shakes her head in warning. This is one girl who’d never step out of line. She’s right—I need to rein in my personality. I have to attempt a balance between confident and cocky. This isn’t school; however much Daniel behaves like my teacher. School had punishments for disrespect, who knows what the punishment would be here? Watching just long enough to keep me on edge, Daniel continues.

  “There are four kinds of demons. You can kill three types, and as many of them as you like. One kind you are only to approach if instructed.” He flicks a switch and pushes a button on a laptop in front of him. A human face appears, projected onto a screen on the wall. “These are the ones you kill.”

  I blink. I can’t see any difference between the demon in the picture and the other people sitting around the room with me. Opening my mouth to say something, I think better of it. Someone asks the question for me.

  “How can we tell they’re demons? They look exactly like humans and us,” asks a voice from behind.

  “Once we activate the angel powers in your blood, you’ll know. You won’t need to be close—their presence will be obvious.”

  This is interesting: the prospect of my angel powers and the ability to kick some demon backside. Before anyone else can speak, Daniel hits another key. A yellow-eyed version of the same person appears with pupils a black slit like an animal’s.

  “When you’re close, this is how the most powerful demons will look. Newer demons have amber eyes. We’re not sure why their eyes are changing from yellow, but they’re attempting to blend with humans more. Perhaps it’s a side effect.” He narrows his eyes. “Demons can’t disguise their form as easily once angered, and when they’re angry, they hit. Hard.”

  Tom snorts. “Then we’ll hit back.”

  Daniel arches a brow. “Unfortunately, not all the angel powers reactivated in your angel blood will work when on assignment in the human world. Even though you can track demons, and physically you’re stronger, there’s no ability to blast magic force from your hands to wipe them out.”

  I shift uncomfortably, heart rate picking up. What the fuck? My imagined role as a powerful human-angel, zapping demons and stealing the human souls back isn’t reality. I swear under my breath and look to Tom. His face is impassive.

  Before anyone can speak, Daniel clicks onto the next picture. A group of people sit together in a place I don’t recognise. Dressed in a variety of clothes, different shapes and sizes, they’re definitely human.

  But it’s not the people who catch my eye. I’m transfixed by the world around them. Sunshine. Trees. Strange looking buildings. This doesn’t look like the high angel’s heavenly world—there aren’t any buildings with tall silver spires, and I can only see one sun.

  “Which of these is a demon?” asks Daniel. Silence answers him. “Exactly. This is how well-blended they are, and how integrated you will need to be in the human world.”

  “What the hell for?” I say. He flicks me a stern look. Crap, I need to control
my mouth. “Why do we need to integrate? We only go to the human world for a few hours before we return.”

  “Not always a few hours. Some demons need tracking, and you’ll live a human life for a few days until you find them.”

  “Seriously?” My skin crawls. Mingle with humans as well as the soul-stealing demon scum… ugh.

  Daniel laughs. “You may find you like being there for a few days.”

  “I doubt it,” I mutter.

  “So, can anyone hazard a guess which person in this image is a demon?” Daniel sits on the desk and waits.

  “The guy? The tall one?” suggests another girl.

  “Nope.”

  “The girl? The pretty one…?” asks Sarah meekly.

  I attempt to read his face for the answer, but Daniel is inscrutable. He holds himself with an importance that silences many in the room. His arms crossed over his chest accentuate the muscled strength, and his outstretched long legs are perfectly gripped by his scruffy jeans. The power he has over everybody in here draws some of us in the wrong way, because I’m not the only distracted girl here.

  He interrupts my musing. “All of these individuals are demons. Never be complacent.”

  A murmur travels the room, but I can’t help it—I laugh. I should’ve expected that answer. When is Daniel going to share the important stuff such as how to kill the bastards? Or where do I put the souls I take? And most importantly—how many do I need to collect before I gain my freedom?

  Shooting me another look, Daniel taps the keyboard again.

  Another human-looking creature, this time with paler skin and red-rimmed eyes, appears on screen. These eyes hold a darkness that shudders through my body.

  “This is a vampire. Do not approach them. They are not created by the demons—they are an ancient race who has existed in the human world for many years. No one is sure where they came from, not even the demons know. They are a mix of human and something unknown, capable of creating other vampires through killing and resurrecting humans. Lucifer’s demons need to be created and animated by human souls; vampires don’t and can multiply at whatever rate they decide.”

  “Holy crap,” I mutter.

  Daniel continues. “Luckily, they keep themselves cocooned in their own world and don’t mix or bother about our war. Recently, they’ve multiplied at a faster rate after decades in the shadows. We’re unsure why. They do contain souls in the same way humans do, and arguably these souls are as trapped as the ones stolen by demons.”

  He pauses as if to say something else, and a shadow crosses his face. “But we don’t worry about those souls. If you do come across a vampire, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.” A nervous laughter fills the room. And Daniel’s face darkens. “No, I mean it. Run the fuck away. Your angel blood will prevent them turning you into a vampire, which is good—obviously. But the agony of your death will be slow and torturous. And they will prolong the agony for their amusement.”

  Shit. I rub my eyes, exhausted after the lack of sleep since I arrived yesterday, and slump down in my chair. How many more varieties of demon are there?

  “And finally…”

  Daniel hits a key on his laptop. I straighten. This picture is of a classically beautiful guy; the kind I’ve seen in photographs. This guy could be an angel but has darker blond hair, so looks more human. Blue eyes like cracked sapphire gaze from the screen, noticeable even though I sit at a distance. I’m drawn in and unable to look away. Surely this guy can’t be a demon?

  “Nephilim. Have you read about them in your history books?”

  I wish I’d studied harder at school.

  “Yeah. Ex-angels. Half demon now,” replies Tom.

  “Correct. They still hold all their angel powers. High angel powers. If you come up against one of these guys, you kiss goodbye to any chance of survival.”

  Gently, I thump my head on the table and groan.

  “Not one for hiding how you feel, are you, Ava?”

  I straighten. “I didn’t expect this to be complicated. I thought there was just one sort of demon we had to kill.”

  The people around me giggle, and Daniel smiles, but something in his expression smacks of pity. “You Fated never know. Do you think as many of you would signup, if you knew how dangerous this job really is?”

  “How many soulhunters die?” A voice from the rear of the room interrupts. I twist in my chair to see a guy leaning forward, his broad arms crossed on the table in front of him.

  Daniel hesitates. “I’m unsure how many die. The question you should ask me is how many soulhunters survive. Because I can give you an exact figure.”

  Chapter Five

  I sit gingerly on a seat in the hallway outside the medical room, alone. With each passing moment the indecision whether I want to be here or not grows. Not that indecision is possible—I’ve signed my life away, literally. My back stings from the tracker a woman in a white coat pushed under my skin and tattooed on a number.

  She injected me with something to trigger my latent powers. If only the Fated knew one injection is all empowerment took—they could find someone who could bring the substance to our world. Inject us all. Free us. One things sure now—I’ll never return to the Fated. Not with this knowledge.

  My head spins from the after-effects. There’s no pain, but the injection already consumes my blood because I tingle like someone is shooting volts through my veins. Tom half staggers towards me. Placing a hand out to steady himself on the wall, he slumps onto a seat.

  “You look like crap,” I inform him.

  “Yeah, so do you.”

  I lean forward and stare down at my boots, pristine and black against the marble tiled floor. The academy continues to awe me. In pictures, I’ve seen the angel world with opulent rooms of gold and white, brightly lit and shining. The light bouncing off the gleaming white floor hits me with a brightness that’s still alien, even after two days here. I rub my eyes and look to Tom who sits with his large fists clenched on top of his knees.

  “I hope we’re not going back to class with Daniel again today,” I say.

  Two days of boring lectures about demons, humans, how to behave in the human world, how to track demons, and I’m over it. We’re training to be hunters, for fuck’s sake. Teach us how to kill.

  “I doubt it. What else can he tell us?”

  “How to kill demons now we know what they look like?”

  Tom’s brown eyes fill with amusement. “I don’t think that’s something they can tell us. They’ll show us.”

  “Do you reckon we’ll fight some demons soon?”

  “There aren’t any demons in here. I bet we practice on each other.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” I say, resting back and crossing my arms over my chest.

  “You think you can take me down? I must weigh twenty pounds more than you at least.”

  Tom laughs in my face, and this pisses me off. Since I slammed a door into him the other day, our relationship hasn’t exactly blossomed into a good one. He’s won over the other recruits, centering himself as the top dog, but I won’t follow their stupid school hierarchy. His arrogance doesn’t sit comfortably with my own.

  “Winning a fight isn’t all about size.”

  Tom sweeps a gaze over my figure, eyes lingering too long on my breasts swelling beneath the tight black top. “Yeah, but you’re a girl. I bet I can take you.”

  Anger flashes across my mind; not only is he suggesting I’m weak, he’s also looking at me as a potential fuck. I stand, and my chair scrapes across the marble floor as I do. Tom’s eyes crinkle with amusement, fuelling my anger further. “Don’t bloody look at me like that!”

  Tom stands too, pulling to full height and looking down on me. “Calm down, Ava. I’m sure they’ll help the little girls overcome their weaknesses.”

  “Fuck you!”

  I slam my hands into Tom’s chest, and he stumbles against the chair behind. Before Tom gets a chance to react, I jab an elbow into his t
hroat. He gasps before quickly regaining his composure, then grabs me by the arm, pulls my hand away and crushes my wrist in his powerful grip.

  I yelp as he twists my arm behind my back, then regain composure too. I kick backwards into his balls. Hard.

  “You bitch!” Tom leans forward, holding his hand against his crotch.

  Staggering backwards, I draw in a ragged breath. “I might be a girl, but I’m a soulhunter. I’m equal to you, so don’t you ever look at me or treat me as any different to you.”

  Tom opens his mouth to respond but stops as he looks at something behind me. I spin around. Standing in the hallway, arms folded across his chest, Daniel regards us expressionlessly. In response, I smooth my hair, adrenaline surging again. Crap.

  “Inside here. Now. Both of you.”

  Daniel gestures at the doorway behind him and steps aside to allow us through. As I pass, he catches my arm. In alarm, I look up into his face. Daniel’s eyes harden, but he’s fighting a smile.

  He moves his face close to my ear. “You are not equal to him.” My fury rises again, but it’s replaced by shock at his next words. “You are far superior, Ava. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Daniel releases my arm, but I don’t move, my breath catching in my throat. As our eyes lock again, the anger towards him is replaced with a disturbing mix of fear and something unwanted. Attraction. Attraction reflected in his eyes. I’m no expert, but when a guy who’s your trainer looks at you, he shouldn’t liquify your insides.

  As Daniel chastises Tom and me about correct soulhunter behaviour, I only half-hear because his whispered words echo in my head.

  No one has ever told me I’m worth anything before.

  Chapter Six

  I stagger backwards, touching my stinging lip. Before I have a chance to check my fingers for blood, Daniel slams into me, and I lose my footing. Landing on my back, I manage to prevent my head hitting the floor, but the breath is knocked from my lungs.

  Daniel towers over me, smiles down, and I take back every positive thought and feeling I had about him. “So, Ava. Hand-to-hand combat. Not as easy as you think?”