Winter Break

by Ivy Hearne

  After I’d finished attempting to contact my partner, I glanced up at the path the imp had taken and trudged back toward Santa’s house. People were back to acting normally, for the most part. Kids chased each other in circles around the open area, adults stood in small groups chatting, and I even heard a parent yell at a child for misbehaving. Before today, I wouldn’t have considered that a good thing.

  But one small child stood away from the others, her arms wrapped around herself.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” I asked the little girl as tears glinted in her giant blue eyes. When she didn’t answer, I leaned a little closer. “Are your parents around?”

  She frowned, and one of the tears slipped down her cheek. “That’s my daddy.” She pointed to a man sitting on a bench with a toddler on his lap.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, keeping my voice low and trying to sound soothing.

  She turned toward me and began sobbing in earnest. “I think the monster ate my little brother.”

  Chapter 3

  “Ate your brother?” I repeated her words as if I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Is that your brother?” I pointed to the toddler.

  “The monster didn’t eat his outsides. Just his insides. The Christopher part.”

  “I am so sorry to hear that, sweetheart.” I knelt in the snow in front of her and used the sleeve of my sweater to gently wipe away her tears. “I don’t know what happened to your brother. But I promise I will do everything I can to make sure he gets to be Christopher again.”

  The little girl threw her arms around me, almost knocking me over, and I patted her back for a moment. “Why don’t you run to your daddy and try to do some things to remind Christopher who he is? Okay?”

  I had no idea if it would work, but I had to tell her something. My heart clenched in my chest as I watched her dash to her family. I swallowed against the lump in my own throat and brushed away a few of my own tears. I would do everything in my power to keep my promise to that little girl. As I walked away, I considered what she had said.

  The monster ate Christopher.

  I hated to admit it to myself, but her words made a kind of horrific sense. Whatever the magic had been that was pulsing between the imp and the boy that I had seen, it had been malignant. And although I hadn’t been at the Hunters’ Academy long, I’d learned enough to know that the Lusus Naturae were generally prone to feeding on humans.

  Human-feeders. With a plan for world domination.

  The mere thought of them made me shudder.

  Also, they genuinely believed their plans were somehow good for the whole world. Good for supernaturals.

  In reality, the members of the group were worse than the worst proponents of ethnic cleansing. They believed that supernaturals had been on the planet longer than humans and therefore deserved the chance to take the world back from the people who had overrun it.

  The hell of it was, they weren’t always wrong.

  I was scheduled to take a course in paranormal ethics the next semester and over the break, I had been reading ahead. In my textbook, there were a number of arguments for taking power away from humans that made sense to me.

  For example, some elves argued that humans had destroyed the forests. The selkies and the mermaid shifters who had joined the Lusus Naturae complained that humans had been destroying the ocean for generations.

  Both those things were true.

  But that didn’t mean that supernaturals needed to wipe humans out. The same supernaturals who argued for restoring the balance to nature seemed to miss out on the fact that humans were part of nature too, even when it didn’t seem like it.

  Besides, my parents were humans. Lots of the hunters at the Academy were born to humans. I was human. I didn’t want any of us to get wiped out.

  And I don’t want the Lusus Naturae thinking they can feed on humans this close to the Academy.

  The walk back up the mountain to the school took longer than the jog down had. By the time I crunched through the snow back up the driveway, it was late afternoon and the sun had dipped below the tree line. All the way back, I’d been thinking about what I would tell Ms. Gayle. Because it had finally dawned on me—way too late—that instead of trying to chase down the imp myself, I could have called for help from someone besides Souji.

  Literally called for help. With my phone.

  Just because Souji couldn’t use a phone didn’t mean I couldn’t use my phone to call someone else on campus. I had the main office number saved in my favorites.

  Realizing that slowed down my return to campus—I didn’t want to have to admit how stupid I’d been.

  But I couldn’t drag my feet forever, and the temperature had dropped even more as the sun and disappeared behind the horizon. My cheeks were cold, and I was wishing I had brought a scarf to cover my nose by the time I walked into the Admin Building. I almost heaved a sigh of relief when Headmistress Gayle wasn’t in her office. But that just meant I was either going to have to speak to her in front of everyone as we ate dinner or call her at home in her apartment that night.

  Both possibilities made my stomach hurt.

  I made my way over to my own dorm across the silent, echoing campus. I’ve been given the opportunity to spend nights in the visitors’ suites with several other underclassmen. But when I’d asked if it was possible to stay in my own room, Ms. Gayle had said yes.

  Now I was wishing I’d taken her up on her office to stay somewhere other than the almost-empty dorm. Souji was on another floor entirely, and my footsteps echoed in the hallway.

  Maybe I could skip dinner and put off telling the headmistress what had happened.

  No. Time to cowboy up, Kacie, I told myself. Change clothes and go to dinner.

  I fought the urge to fling myself face-down on my bed and cover my head with a pillow.

  It won’t be that bad.

  Right?

  I can tell Headmistress Gayle what happened. She’ll know what to do.

  “I DON’T BELIEVE IT.”

  “I—um—excuse me?” I stammered. My face burned red as I stood beside the headmistress’s chair in the commons room. I hadn’t wanted to report to her in front of the other students who were already at dinner when I arrived back on campus, but I also hadn’t wanted to wait to give her what might be important information.

  Headmistress Gayle frowned at me, her mouth pinching up into a tight wad of disapproval. “I said I don’t believe it.”

  “Which part?”

  “Oh, sit down.” She waved me to my seat. I watched her warily as I dropped down into my usual chair. I glanced around the table. There were fewer than fifteen of us seated that night—around thirty on the whole campus, as far as I knew. And more than half of the students here tonight were giving me skeptical glares.

  “I simply meant that I’m having a hard time comprehending why any of the Lusus Naturae would hunt this close to the Academy.” Headmistress Gayle gestured expansively. “We have all the woods surrounding us and the entire town warded. Heavily warded, with the kind of magic that only our most talented students ever learn.”

  Colette, my roommate’s friend with the former toilet paper on her shoe problem—and probably the most talented magic-using student on campus—gave me a withering glare. “Maybe you imagined it.”

  “I didn’t imagine it. There was an imp—or something like it—hanging out in the middle of town, brain-sucking the children who were lined up to see Santa.”

  “Why is it so hard to believe that I might have seen something that needs to be looked into?” I asked.

  Headmistress Gayle’s lips tightened again. “I’ll look into it.”

  Somehow, I didn’t entirely believe her. But I had reported it, so maybe I could at least quit worrying about it. My cheeks burned red at the dismissal, though.

  I turned to my food, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I left early. But it was already dark as I trudged across campus back to my almost-empty dorm.

  No w
onder they’d let me stay in my own room—the whole campus was warded so well Ms. Gayle didn’t even hesitate before telling me I hadn’t seen what I knew I had seen.

  I really wanted the headmistress to deal with this problem so I didn’t have to. But I was pretty certain she was going to ignore me and the issue I brought to her.

  She was too confident in whatever magical protections were up around the school.

  I wasn’t.

  Then again, I wasn’t all that confident in my own ability to take care of the problem, either.

  What will have to happen for other people to start believing me?

  The question sent a shiver up my spine.

  Winter break was turning out to be more difficult—and more frightening—than I had anticipated.

  Chapter 4

  The skittering sound woke me up first.

  It had taken me forever that night to get to sleep, and at first, I was pretty sure I was dreaming.

  Then I opened my eyes.

  Erin had lived in this room alone for most of the previous semester, right up until the school’s scout had found me and brought me in. During that time, she’d decorated entirely to her liking.

  One of the things Erin loved most about our room was its east-facing window. She enjoyed the way the sunlight streamed in through our window in the morning. I hadn’t worked up the nerve yet to tell her I didn’t really like the sheer curtains she’d hung to accommodate that.

  But as soon as I saw the shadowy figure clinging to the tiny ledge outside, I promised myself I would replace them. Assuming I lived through the night.

  I barely managed to keep from screaming aloud. Instead, I kept my eyes mostly shut, looking through the crack between my eyelids to see what the imp peering into my window was about to do.

  For a long time, it didn’t do anything. My terror didn’t abate, however. It grew and grew, until it seemed to fill up the room around me, pressing down on my chest, cold fingers of fear sliding along my neck, my cheeks, my temples. My own horror pressed against my head like fingernails digging in.

  I lay paralyzed as hot needles of pain slid into my skull. My eyes rolled up in my head until I couldn’t see anymore. Something pulsed against me, tugging at me from the inside.

  Something I was supposed to be afraid of.

  A dark fog drifted between me and reality—

  And that’s when I realized that somehow, even through the window, the imp was doing to me what it had done to the children in Santa’s house. I shoved against the blackness that threatened to envelop me. It pushed back, holding me down. With a wrenching cry, I sat up in bed, shaking off the paralysis and pushing against the imp’s power with everything I had.

  A scream escaped me, and I opened my eyes to see the creature outside my window pressed up against it, that malignant red light pulsing from his fingertips. With everything I had, I sent power out of my hands and into the imp, as if I had shoved against it directly.

  With a screech, it tumbled backward off the windowsill. I leaped out of bed and ran to the window to look out, just in time to see it scampering away across the snow and under the cover of the tree line.

  Seconds later, I heard a panther’s yowl as something enormous hit my door from the outside.

  Hurrying over, I shouted through the door before flinging it open. “I hope it’s just you out there, Souji!”

  When I opened the door, he was alone, all the fur on the scruff of his neck and along the ridge of his back standing up straight, his lips curled back from his fangs. He pushed past me and peered around the room, stalking from corner to corner as if to make sure nothing was hiding.

  “It’s gone,” I said. “It was at the window, doing something to me.”

  As the words left my mouth, footsteps pounded down the darkened hallway. I glanced outside to see several students, followed by Ms. Gayle.

  How did she know?

  “Oh, no,” I breathed out. “You didn’t hear me scream, did you?” I asked Souji.

  He shook his head.

  “Dammit. I sent out another psychic blast, didn’t I?”

  My hunting partner nodded, and I let out a whispered string of curses.

  By the time Ms. Gayle had arrived at my door, however, I composed myself enough to simply say, “The imp that I told you about at dinner was at my window trying to drain me the same way he did the kids.”

  It was the first time I had used the word drain, but I realized even as I said it that it was exactly what I meant. It had been like the imp was trying to drain my self, my very essence out of me. I flashed on an image of the little girl telling me that the monster had taken the Christopher out of her little brother.

  Ms. Gayle eyed me skeptically as other students began drifting in and crowding into the doorway behind her.

  “Were you asleep?” she asked.

  “Not by the time it tried to drain me,” I said. My tone was apparently a little too tart for the headmistress’s liking—she gave me a narrow glance as she stepped into my room. One or two of the other students snickered.

  Holding out one hand, she called up some kind of magic, a glowing ball of light. It floated in the air in front of her, and with one finger she sent it spinning. Then she blew gently on it, and a bright blue light shined out of it. It floated around the room, checking the corners much as Souji had.

  “Did you sense anything?” Ms. Gayle asked the leopard. He shook his head.

  “It didn’t come inside,” I explained. “It sat outside the window on the windowsill.”

  “Are you sure you’re not dreaming?” Ms. Gayle asked.

  “I wasn’t dreaming. He attacked me through the glass.”

  The students crowding in my door began drifting off in groups of two and three.

  “Colette,” as Gayle called.

  Colette pushed her way forward through the remaining students. “I’m here,” she said.

  Even in the middle of the night, she seemed completely put together. Like the rest of us, she had on night clothes. But over her Hunters’ Academy-colored pajamas, she had on a matching robe. She was tall and willowy with a dark, sleek bob. And she had perfect control over her magic.

  In other words, pretty much exact opposite of me.

  “Colette, please check Kacie’s room and ensure that the wards around it and the rest of the building are still in place,” Ms. Gayle said. “Kacie, I would appreciate it if you would join her as she completed these rounds.” It wasn’t really a request so much as a command.

  “Tomorrow, you and I will check the wards around the entire Academy.” For a brief second, I thought that last line was directed at me, and I almost panicked. I didn’t want to spend that much time with the headmistress, who had pretty much despised me since the day I set foot on campus, though I had no idea why.

  Then I realized it was, of course, directed at Colette, Ms. Gayle’s favorite student.

  “Of course, headmistress,” Colette said, at the same moment that I blurted out, “Sure. Of course.”

  As Colette and I glanced each other in mutual dislike, Ms. Gayle turned to leave my room. When she reached the door, she flicked her fingers up in the air, and the magic ball she had conjured swept back to her hand. Then, with a wave, it was gone. The few remaining students other than Colette and Souji trailed along behind her when she left.

  When they were gone, the dorm seemed big and dark and empty again.

  I SCRAMBLED TO PULL on a pair of jeans, some boots, and a coat to circle the building. Souji politely turned his back as I began dragging my pants on, even though up to that point, my boy-short pajamas didn’t seem to bother him at all. For a second, I thought of the gorgeous guy I had seen—seen all of, in fact—when he shifted during the fight with Shane when my tutor had shown his true Lusus Naturae colors and attacked me.

  By the time I was dressed, Colette had finished doing whatever magical abracadabra stuff she had to do in my room.

  I couldn’t really tell the difference except for little s
parkly bits of light swirled around and settled along the edge of the window, around the door, and in all the corners. For all I knew, Colette was putting on a light show.

  No, that wasn’t true. I didn’t trust Colette, and if I had asked her to strengthen the wards in my room, I would have suspected she was trying to fool me. But I had no doubt that she would do exactly what Ms. Gayle told her to.

  Although Ms. Gayle hadn’t asked him to, Souji padded long beside us, as well. It took almost an hour to complete the circuit around building. By the end of our route, I was shivering. Colette and Souji seemed perfectly comfortable

  “That should do it,” Colette said, as golden light sparkles settled into the cornerstone of the building.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I genuinely meant it, but Colette seemed to take it as sarcasm. She sneered at me. “Try not to have any more nightmares, okay?” she said. “The rest of us need to get some sleep.”

  With that, she turned and stopped back toward the upperclassmen’s dorm, where she lived—along with most of the other students who hadn’t gone away for the break.

  Souji and I made our way back to the entrance of our own dorm.

  “Hey, Souji? Could I sleep in your room tonight?” I glanced at the sky, already beginning to lighten in the east. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

  I knew Souji had at least one extra bed in his room. Apparently, nobody wanted to room with the giant cat. Normally, sleeping in a boy’s room would be completely against the rules. But there was no one here to report us, and as long as he was in his cat form, I couldn’t see that it mattered.

  I thought I’d moved past the fear of the attack, but a huge shudder of relief went through my body when Souji nodded his assent.

  At least if the imp came back, I wouldn’t be alone this time.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning as I stood in the doorway of my room, I stared over at my roommate Erin’s bed, wishing she’d opted to spend the holidays at school instead of going back home to her loving family.