Ghoul Problems

by Sarina Dorie

  If this girl met up with a group of Fae, they would see her for what she was and exploit her weaknesses. They would cut off any fuel for her fire magic to work. Not that a Witchkin like Vega couldn’t do the same thing.

  Vega lifted her hand and snuffed out the energy-sucking black hole that would burn whatever it came in contact with. She twisted the student’s magic as though she were ringing out a wet rag, extinguishing the fire burning through the girl. Next, Vega wrenched the wand free of the girl’s grasp and tucked it into her own belt. The students around Vega shifted away slowly. Real time pressed in on them. It took tremendous energy to maintain the slowing of time in the bubble of an entire classroom.

  Vega released her hold on everyone outside the immediate bubble that necessity dictated, focusing instead on her attacker. Time resumed its normal pace in the classroom. Vega centered herself, focusing on the starlight affinity dwelling inside her. She propelled it out, transforming cosmic energies into the chill of winter. Some might have claimed that using the coffee on the teacher’s desk and the liquid from the glass water bottles under student chairs was cheating, but Vega didn’t have time to draw much water through the cracks in the walls from outside. Nor was she willing to risk dehydrating herself or her students.

  Parched students were never good learners, and Vega had some of these students next period.

  As it was, Vega was wasting precious time when she could have been teaching her class—the most important class in the entire school. No one would get away with impeding students in the second-period Advanced Charms and Major Spells class.

  Vega gathered the liquid and hurled it at the teenager, freezing it into a wall. The fluids were murky, full of coffee and probably sweat. Vega confined the student in ice up to her shoulders. Satisfied, she released the time spell. The student blinked and shook herself.

  “What the hell—”

  Vega lifted her chin. “Aren’t you the top of the bell curve? Did you truly think you could hex a teacher and get away with it?”

  The teen struggled against her ice spell. As expected, it held.

  “Let me out. This is elfing cold.” Tears filled the girl’s eyes.

  Hazel gasped behind her. “Ten points from Elementia for swearing.”

  Vega cackled at the sasquatch’s completely inept classroom management techniques.

  Vega leaned in closer, her voice low. “If I ever hear about you trying something like that on someone at my school, I’ll drag you out in the woods and freeze you like this where the Fae can find you. Do you understand me?”

  The student attempted to lean back. All she could move was her head. “You can’t do that to me! That would be murder.”

  “Do you think anyone gives a shit if the Fae murder you? Or anyone else? You’re at Lady of the Lake School for Girls. Live and learn. And learn and live.” It was a good motto to help one survive.

  Tears rolled from the girl’s eyes, freezing on her cheeks.

  Vega didn’t doubt she was in pain. Ice would be the opposite of her affinity. It would weaken her, and she would have to work to fight it. What didn’t kill her would make her stronger.

  Like it had for Vega.

  Students in the class whispered.

  Vega eyed the thirty teenagers gazing at her in horror. “Anyone else want to take a shot at me?”

  Students cowered and sank down in their chairs. Hazel shook her head.

  Vega pointed an accusing finger at Hazel, knowing what a bleeding-heart goody-goody she was. “Don’t try to melt her. I’ll be back for her after school. She’s going to serve a detention in my room later.”

  Vega strode toward the door, and Hazel shrank back.

  She nodded to her colleague. “Keep your class quiet, and for Fae’s sake, use some air freshener. It smells like sweaty teenagers in here.”

  * * *

  Vega didn’t make it very far outside Hazel’s room before she was again thwarted from teaching the most important class in the world. A student sobbed from the stairwell. From the way she was going on, Vega would have thought someone was dying.

  “No! Please! No!” the girl said.

  Vega glanced at the open door of her classroom and sighed in resignation. How many times was the world going to conspire to interrupt her class today? Vega headed toward the stairwell to see who had died now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Banshees and the Corpses Who Love Them

  Ms. Malisha Bane—a potions teacher and the bane of Vega’s existence—leaned in toward a red-haired teenager, uttering something quietly.

  Knowing Malisha, she was probably also saying something menacing.

  Malisha was young and pretty—as sweet-looking as a stereotypical angel. Only those who had gotten in her path knew her personality was more like a devil.

  “Please! I don’t want a detention. It’s my first day!” the girl cried.

  “Silence! Crying isn’t allowed,” Malisha said in her stuffy New England accent. “We have rules at this school, five of which you are violating right now.”

  Vega thought her own transatlantic accent was far less stuck up than her nemesis’s.

  “Please—” the student began, reaching toward Malisha imploringly.

  Vega edged back from the stairwell, deciding now would be a good time to return to her class—before her nemesis spotted her and tattled to the principal that she wasn’t teaching.

  Malisha shouted at the student, and her words carried up the stairwell as Vega headed away. “You will go to your second-period class immediately. And I don’t want to hear any more excuses about being ‘lost’ on your first day. Any entry-level freshman should be able to find her class through divination, and it’s midway through the year.”

  Vega shook her head. Apparently Malisha thought all students came to school knowing everything from the start. Vega knew Malisha hadn’t known how to divine anything her freshman year. They’d both been students at Lady of the Lake, and Malisha had never excelled at divination.

  “Go on. Before I write a detention.” Malisha hissed. “Ms. Bloodmire is expecting you.”

  The girl’s words became unintelligible as she cried harder.

  Vega halted. This was Vega’s new student, Siobhan MacDonough. Vega would be dusting off the pieces Malisha left in her wake. Lucky her.

  It would be better to deal with a sobbing teenager out here than in the classroom. She turned back to the stairwell. The girl reached toward something that Malisha held in her hands. Something green squirmed in Malisha’s clenched fist. The ribbit gave the creature away.

  “Please. I need my familiar!” Siobhan cried. “He’s all I have left.”

  Malisha’s pretty face pinched up with disdain. “Pets aren’t allowed.” Malisha threw the frog down on the landing. She stomped on the student’s familiar with a stiletto heel that was as lethal as a blade. It crunched into bone.

  Loathing roiled through Vega. This was Vega’s student to discipline, not Malisha’s. The only person allowed to step on contraband familiars was Vega.

  “No! Prince Charming!” The teenager fell to her knees, sobbing.

  Malisha had to shake the frog off her heel to free herself of the creature. “Go to class. Don’t think I won’t write you up. I’ll—”

  Siobhan’s wail cut out whatever Malisha had been about to threaten. Vega waited for Malisha to leave. She knew the other teacher wasn’t going to write the girl up. That required filling out forms, which meant work. Malisha always thought she was above such things.

  Malisha descended the stairs, covering her ears against the rising scream of the student she’d left on the landing between floors. Vega wondered whether Malisha Bane took joy in disrupting the learning of all other classes. This wasn’t even Malisha’s prep period, so she wasn’t supposed to be away from her students. But Malisha’s classroom was on the second floor, which would be far enough away from Vega’s class on the third floor that Malisha’s students wouldn
’t be disrupted like Vega’s.

  The staccato of Vega’s heels was lost under the agony of Siobhan’s wail as she made her way toward the girl on the landing. The teenager had crumpled onto the floor in a heap, books spilling from her bag. One of the frog’s legs twitched.

  The girl’s red hair was losing its vibrant color, as was her freckled skin and dumpling cheeks. Her face was growing thinner and her eyes darker. One could never be too sure from what kind of magical creature students were descended. Her magic smelled of cold Irish nights and wind wafting away from peat bogs. Her affinity might have been Celestor, drawing in energies from the night and bodies in the sky. Or she might have been Elementia, aligned with the powers of the earth, in this case, from swamps.

  From the shrill scream, Vega suspected her heritage was a banshee.

  Vega aimed a manicured finger at the student. A sparkle of starlight magic, smelling like night air and whispering lullabies, surrounded the girl. The student immediately silenced.

  The teenage girl tried to speak, but no voice came out of her mouth. It was just as well. From the waterworks, it was obvious she would still be screaming. Now that it was quiet, Vega made out a ribbit from the floor.

  “Your familiar is still alive,” Vega said.

  In order to be considered an exemplary teacher who enforced school regulations, Vega knew she should have hauled the teenager off to class, dragged her into a seat and forced her to learn, and told her to get over her familiar’s death. The potions teachers would probably be grateful if Vega brought them some eye of frog and such later.

  Considering Malisha was one of those potions teachers, Vega would rather have done anything in her power to spite her, even if it included breaking a school rule and giving a student her familiar back.

  “I am Ms. Bloodmire, your second-period teacher.” Vega drew her wand out of the sleeve of her blouse where she stored it. “I am going to unsilence you. I expect you to remain calm and answer my questions so that I can determine if there is any hope for your familiar. Can you do that?”

  The girl closed her mouth and nodded.

  “You are a banshee, correct?” Technically, it was rude to ask what another Witchkin’s heritage was, but Vega had little patience for niceties and beating around the bush. After Siobhan nodded, Vega went on. “You have screamed the banshee warning of death. Have you released a curse? Is your familiar fated to die?”

  “No.” The girl shook her head and wiped her eyes. They were as black as ink. Her sunken cheeks and the shadows around her eyes ceased to darken. “The scream predicts death—a kind of divination. It doesn’t cause it.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  “My grandma often says that divination isn’t foolproof, and considering what fools most of us are, there is always hope that a new future might be made.” That might have been a slightly more optimistic embellishment of what her baba said, but it was better than telling the girl most people were too stupid to predict the future correctly.

  Vega crouched before the frog, examining what was probably a lost cause. Then again, she rarely turned down a challenge—especially if it was one that might enrage her nemesis.

  Healing spells were always the trickiest, especially on creatures close to death. Vega wasn’t an herbalist or bone mender like an Amni Plandai, someone with a plant or animal affinity. Nor was Vega’s specialty of the elements, like an Elementia who would be especially skilled at potions or using minerals for healing.

  Vega was a Celestor, the most difficult affinity to master, and if she made it to a Merlin-class level, that meant she would be good at everything. Right now she was practically perfect—except for healing. And glamours. Also, she couldn’t summon the dead. But then, no one was really good at necromancy, and it was forbidden anyway.

  Which had never stopped Vega, but she wasn’t going to risk her career, even if it was to spite Malisha.

  Vega concentrated on the starlight she’d stored inside herself and changed that essence into medicinal herbs and calcium. She funneled that into the frog. It ribbited once.

  Vega couldn’t actually see into the frog to know whether any organs had been ruptured or only its bones broken. She needed to give the healing magic enough energy that the little body would know what to do with the healing, even if she didn’t.

  “Have you any Cassia occidentalis or Cicuta maculata on you?” Vega asked. Using the essence of those plants would strengthen her spell.

  “Um. . . .” The girl scrounged through her bag.

  They weren’t common herbs to have on hand, but they did assist in healing.

  “I have some satchels of lavender and some calendula tea.” Siobhan held out a cloth satchel.

  “It will have to do.” Both herbs had enough energy stored in them to aid in healing when combined with magic.

  Vega sucked the energy out of them and transferred it to Prince Charming.

  A few seconds later, he was ribbiting and wiggling his hind legs. Siobhan scooped him up and hugged him. Vega could tell his legs still didn’t move correctly, but at least he wasn’t dying. More of the white of Siobhan’s hair had receded, replaced by the strawberry-blonde that had been there earlier. With her upturned nose, freckles, and chubby cheeks, she hardly resembled the banshee she’d begun to turn into moments before.

  Vega stood. “As Ms. Bane informed you, students aren’t permitted familiars at our school. However, the student handbook does say you can seek special permission from the principal or her secretary. They might grant it.” It was unlikely, but Vega didn’t need to be the one to break that news to her.

  Siobhan stroked her familiar’s head. “But what will I do with Prince Charming until then? How can I keep him safe?”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Can teachers keep familiars? Will you keep him safe for me?” She held the frog out to Vega. “Just until I can get permission or find somewhere he can live?”

  “There’s a swamp past the graveyard.”

  The girl hugged her familiar tighter. “The graveyard?” Her eyes went wide with fright.

  Vega almost laughed at the idea of a banshee being afraid of the dead. Then again, she was only part banshee. The rest of her was a complete scaredy-cat.

  “Let me share something with you, a little lesson no one explained to me on my first day at Lady of the Lake School for Girls.” Vega leaned closer. “Witch academies are brutal. You will need to study hard, not just to pass tests and get good grades, but so you can learn spells to protect yourself from your peers. You think the cruelty of teachers and their harsh lessons are bad, but it will be nothing compared to what your peers do to you. Once they know your weaknesses, they will exploit them.”

  Like they had with Vega.

  She pushed that thought away. “If they know Prince Charming is dear to you, they will hurt him.”

  Siobhan nodded, her expression solemn. Her eyes shifted from black to green.

  Vega could see her words sinking into her student. “Should you show your banshee powers in front of your peers, those who know how to exploit it will use it against you. You might be a Celestor with an affinity aligned to night and prophecy, but that will not protect you when others find out what you are. Should they deem your heritage unsuitable for their social cliques, they will shun you.” Typically society looked down on anyone whose affinity aligned with death magic.

  Vega had experienced plenty of that in her life as well.

  All it would take was for one person to find out what she was for her to lose her position at the school, her access to the library and to test to be a Merlin-class Celestor, and for her family to be shunned. Creatures like Hazel might have ranked low in the Witchkin caste of half-breeds due to their lack of magical strength and inability to look like everyone else, but they weren’t outcasts like the demon class of Fae Vega was descended from.

  Siobhan swallowed. “My da used to tell me that, back when he was alive.”r />
  Vega tried not to groan. The last thing she needed was a sob story.

  “Prince Charming is all I have left.” The girl’s lower lip quivered.

  Vega put up a hand to stop her. “No more tears. I cannot silence your wails every time you cry. You are going to need to learn to control your magic, hide your secrets, and fit in like the rest of civilized Witchkin society for your own good. If you can survive the next four years, there is a good chance you might withstand the real world.”

  Siobhan nodded. “I’m so lucky to have you looking out for me! Thank you! You’re the best, nicest, most wonderful teacher ever!”

  Of all the indignities, she hugged Vega.

  Prince Charming ribbited from between them. Vega unhooked the teenager’s arms from around herself.

  If there was one thing Vega hated more than enemy teachers and their diabolical plans for ruining Vega’s day teaching, it was appearing nice. That was the kind of insult a witch said before she decided to hex that nice person in the back. It was the sort of quality that got weak witches killed.

  Vega most certainly would not be nice or allow anyone to see her that way.

  She put on her wicked-witch face, which was nearly the same as her normal expression, but her eyes were narrowed. She pressed her lips into a line that she thought was quite menacing when she practiced this in front of a mirror. “Have a care not to be so generous with your gratitude. You have just thanked me. Now you owe me a debt.” That would teach the kid about the wicked world of Fae rules.

  Siobhan nodded. “I’ll do anything.”

  Vega sighed in disgust. She would swear the girl had no appreciation for consequences.