by Cara Wylde
“Everyone is free to bring a statue of their god or goddess in the Great Carnelian Temple,” Professor Maat explained. “Religious freedom is greatly encouraged here, to the point where people can even invent their own creatures they want to pray to, carve statues, and place them among the gods and goddesses we all recognize.”
“I don’t recognize that one,” said Caspian, pointing at a mythical beast with a human torso, wheels instead of legs, twigs on its back instead of wings, and an oversized head out of which a set of triple horns protruded.
“Err… I don’t think you’re supposed to,” said Mrs. Maat. “Must be something local.”
We moved on.
Monks and nuns were gathered in an adjacent room, where they sat on pillows and chanted a mantra in a language I hadn’t heard before. The High Priest was at the front, sitting in lotus position on a large pillow raised on a dais, and he was the one giving the tone.
“Servants of the temple,” Professor Maat whispered. “By choice, of course. They are allowed to marry and have children. In the Carnelian City, no one sees how something as natural as having a family could get in the way of serving at the Great Temple. Let’s sit and listen for a minute.”
We found pillows and sat down at the back of the room, silent and reverent. Even though I didn’t understand a word of what they were chanting, soon the vibration alone seeped into my bones, making me vibrate from the inside. I closed my eyes and let the strange notes envelop me. A minute turned into ten, and then twenty. No one wanted to get up and leave the temple. I stole a glance at Mrs. Maat, and she seemed entranced, looking ahead, at an indefinite point above the High Priest’s colorful ceremonial hat. Even GC and Pazuzu seemed to have fallen in a calm, meditative state. I was seated between Sariel and Francis, and at some point, I felt Sariel’s hand seek mine.
“Only the choirs of Heaven sound as beautiful as this mantra,” he whispered.
I don’t know what happened then, what made me say what I said next. The foreign words spoken in that simple, monotone cadence had melted my heart and cleared my mind of clutter.
“I’m sorry about Mabon.” I squeezed his hand back. Sariel nodded. I leaned toward Francis. “It was inappropriate. And I shouldn’t have run.”
“You needed space,” he whispered back. “It’s okay, we understand.”
I studied his profile. His straight nose, slightly upturned at the tip, his high cheekbones, and soft lips. It might have been the monks and nuns raising their voices as they reached the end of their mass, or it might just have been him. Francis Saint-Germain.
“I love you, you know…”
He turned to me then, and his green eyes were filled with peace and kindness.
“And I love you.”
“Hey,” Sariel pulled at my little finger to get my attention. “What about me?”
“Shut up,” I chuckled.
Mrs. Maat shot as un annoyed glance, raised her finger to her lips, and shushed us. I mouthed “sorry” and closed my eyes again. Now, both Sariel and Francis were holding my hands. GC and Paz had noticed the exchange, but it was fine. They knew when it was my other two boyfriends’ turn to be showered in my affection.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On our way back from the Carnelian City, I promised them I’d do better. Three days had passed, and I wasn’t doing better. On the contrary. Lorna and I had skipped the first period to teleport to Bulgaria. The time difference complicated things. We could have gone on the weekend, but my boyfriends were all over me, and it was practically impossible to sneak out of the Academy without them knowing. If they were stuck in class, all they could do was wonder where I was. I had every intention to be back before lunch and tell them I’d been feeling under the weather, although it was a hard lie to sell now that I was a revenant. I rarely got sick anymore, and even the classic excuse was out of the question – menstrual cramps.
“So, why can’t you lie that you’re on your period?” Lorna asked me as we were sitting on a bench in front of the orphanage, trying to come up with the best plan of action.
“I don’t get my period anymore.” There, I’d said it. It was the first time I was talking to someone about it, and I’d dreaded the moment, but now that it had come, I felt calm about it.
“What do you mean? Oh my God, you’re pregnant!”
I rolled my eyes. “No, stupid. Since I died and came back to life, I don’t get my period anymore.”
“Oh. You should ask someone…”
“I don’t know any other revenant women. Anyway, I was dead and buried for three days. Enough for all my eggs to die, for sure.”
“But, Mila, that means…”
“I can’t have children. It’s fine. I’m not sure I wanted children, anyway.” That was a lie.
“But then… how was Francis born?”
“Francis’s mother is human. Revenant men can leave human women pregnant.”
“That’s so unfair!”
“Just like vampire men can leave human women pregnant, but vampire women can’t have children. That’s why Professor Ivanov is still human. She wants a baby first, and then she’ll let her husband turn her.”
Lorna nodded. We fell silent. People passed by, some walking their dogs, others carrying bags full of groceries. Couples walked hand in hand, talking in Bulgarian.
“Should we go in?” I asked.
“And say what? That we’re together and we want to adopt?” She laughed.
“Stop being ridiculous, and snap your fingers, make some boxes of toys appear. We’re going to make a donation.”
“Smart!”
She looked up and down the street, and when she was sure no one was watching, she did exactly what I’d asked. Two huge boxes filled with toy cars, dolls, coloring books, and colored pencils sat at our feet. I dragged in a breath and lifted mine. It was quite heavy, and it was fortunate the weight of things didn’t impress me anymore. We walked through the gates of the orphanage and asked to see the person in charge. I spoke Bulgarian, Lorna didn’t. We were friends, visiting my family, and because Lorna had grown up in an orphanage, everywhere we traveled and found one, we made sure to buy toys for the kids. Of course, Lorna was anything but an orphan, but she loved playing the role – a walk in the park for someone who’d pretended all her life she was a heartless, murderous bitch, when now I could see with my own eyes that she was just a normal person who, just like anyone, wanted to belong.
The children gathered in the common room and made a line to receive their gifts. When a girl teared up because her friend got the blond doll and she was left with a fat baby in diapers, Lorna pretended she was rummaging through the box, snapped her fingers again, and produced another blond doll out of it. Smiles and giggles. The older children came last, and among them, there was Yolanda Aleksiev, my dear second cousin.
“Could I have the coloring book with dragons, please?” she asked in English, having heard me and Lorna talk in English before.
I opened my mouth to say “yes”, but nothing came out. I was frozen in place, looking at her as if she were a ghost. She wasn’t a ghost, but dammit, she looked just like me when I was her age. Petite, thin and lanky, with long blond hair that shined like the sun, and big blue eyes filled with sadness. Even our noses looked the same. Lorna elbowed me, and when I didn’t react, she gave Yolanda the coloring book and a set of crayons.
“Thank you.”
“What’s your name?” Lorna asked.
It was a good thing I’d taken the mage with me. I couldn’t have done this on my own.
“Yoli.”
“Yoli, I think you and Mila might be related.”
That snapped me out of my trance. What the fuck, Lorna? Yoli’s eyes grew big and curious. She was looking at me now, more attentively than before, and I could tell she could see the resemblance.
Lorna elbowed me again. “Same hair, same eyes… Well, Mila dyes hers blue, as you can see.” She turned to me. “And you told
me you’ve got family around here. Bulgarians have huge, extended families.” She turned back to Yoli. “What’s your last name?”
“Aleksiev.”
“Mila’s is Angelov.”
Yolanda shook her head. She didn’t know anyone in her extended family named Angelov. Lorna to the rescue!
“Your mother, Anelia, had a cousin, Katerina. Do you remember her?”
“I was too little,” she said in a tiny voice. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, Anelia had you, and Katia had Mila. So, you’re second cousins.”
The girl thought hard for a second, then furrowed her blond brows.
“How do you know my mother’s name?”
Lorna blinked, lost for a moment. I could have slapped her. Instead, I took over.
“I put together a tentative family tree, recently. I was born in Bulgaria, but then a nice family adopted me, and we moved to the US when I was little.”
“If you live in America, what are you doing here?” From the tone of her voice, I could sense that she thought America was the land of the free. Was that why she’d learned to speak English? If only she knew how trapped I felt there…
“I wanted to find out what happened to my mother.”
“Did she die?” The frankness that was so specific to children…
I hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
“Mine died.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded, took her gift, and went to sit at a table in a corner of the room. She opened the book, looked at the pictures, then went back to page one and started coloring.
“That went well,” Lorna said.
I needed some air. I left the mage with the children and stepped out for a minute. It smelled like winter. In Bulgaria, snow came late in the year, right before Christmas, if they were lucky. Now that I’d talked to Yoli, now that I knew who she was, where she was, and that she was real, there was one thing left to do. It didn’t even matter that I had yet to figure out if she was a dream jumper or not. I couldn’t leave her here. She was family. Distant family, but still.
In the next few weeks, Lorna and I visited Yoli at the orphanage a couple more times. Once, we forgot we were wearing our uniforms, and Yoli asked about the strange color combination – red and black. I couldn’t tell her about the Academy, about what we were actually studying, and that the world was full of supernaturals. That time would come, but not yet, not when she was so far from me, and I couldn’t watch and protect her.
One the one hand, I couldn’t wait any longer. Morningstar was out there, doing God knew what, and my mom was waiting for me. On the other hand, how was I going to break it to my adoptive parents? Would they take Yoli in? Maybe if they got something in exchange… The truth.
* * *
“Detention!”
“What?” I tried to catch up with Lorna, who was storming down the corridor toward the last class of the day.
“Detention, Mila! I got detention!”
“I don’t understand. No one gets detention at Grim Reaper Academy. It’s not even a thing.”
She turned on her heels, and I almost bumped into her.
“Apparently, my parents check in with Headmaster Colin every few weeks. They ask about my grades and worth score. They found out I’ve been skipping with you, so of course I get detention and you don’t, because you’re Mila fucking Morningstar, and you’re on a quest to save the world. Rules don’t apply to you.”
I was stunned.
“So, thank you! I’m the first student in the history of the Academy to get detention!”
She stomped away, her long black hair whipping behind her angrily. She had Geography, I had Introduction to Dream Traveling. Professor Ivanov was listing the telling signs of an impending OBE, but I couldn’t pay attention. Stealing glances around me, I noticed everyone was whispering about Lorna Chiaramonte and laughing at her expense.
“How stupid can you be to get detention at Grim Reaper Academy?”
“No one ever skips classes. Except for Mila and Lorna.”
“Do you think they’re hot for each other?”
Snickers and filthy remarks.
“Oh, I wanna see that,” Merrit said, probably already imagining us kissing.
“No,” said Raziel. “Lorna is fucking Mila because it’s the closest she’ll ever get to Sariel.”
Since Sariel had lost his wings, all the other angels and archangels at the Academy saw him as a pariah.
“Maybe if she fucks her good, Mila will let her have a go at Sariel.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Paz stood up, his eyes throwing red flames at Raziel and Merrit. Merrit, who was a mage and very confident in his powers, grinned at him defiantly. “I will come over there, cut out your tongue, and…”
“And what? Feed it to the dogs? That’s how the threat goes.” Merrit laughed. “I see no dogs around.”
Paz threw his chair out of the way and took a couple of steps toward the mage. Professor Ivanov stepped between them, her tiny, shaking frame not even registering as an obstacle in Paz’s mind. He could only see two things: red, and Merrit’s moronic face. I stood up, too, and so did GC. Francis sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, watching the whole scene with very little interest. Corri flappity-flapped on his shoulder, away from the danger.
“Paz, he’s not worth it.” I touched his arm, but he shrugged me off.
I thought GC would help, but what he did was to gently approach Mrs. Ivanov and convince her to get out of Paz’s way.
“Professor, you can’t just step between a demon and a mage. I hope you don’t feel like calling a Grim Reaper for your soul.”
She looked at him with fearful eyes. “This is my class. I have to…”
“Step aside,” GC said, kindly. “Please.”
He was a false god, and she was only human. The only human in the room. And in that moment, I felt for her. I’d been the only human among supernaturals for so long, and I knew how she felt. Helpless. The moment she moved out of Paz’s way, the demon lunged at Merrit, grabbing him by the throat. Merrit spat in his face, then placed his hand on his chest and murmured something. A flash of light exploded under his hand, throwing Paz a few feet in the air. He landed onto a desk, smashing it to pieces.
“Stop!” Professor Ivanov yelled. “Don’t make me take your worth points!”
No one cared about worth points, though. GC growled low in his chest, and when I realized what he was about to do, I almost fainted. Granted that revenants didn’t faint.
“GC, no!”
Too late. His uniform tore under his shifting muscles. He grew three times in size as his body morphed into the body of a strong golden bull. Students ran out of the classroom, while others took out their phones. The bull let out a cry of rage, hit the floor with his hoof, and pushed a couple of desks with his horns.
“Come on, beast!” Merrit laughed. He snapped his fingers, and a red scarf appeared out of nowhere.
Briefly, I wondered whether he’d gone insane. He’d never been the brightest egg in the basket, but I thought he was sensible enough not to get into a fight with a demon and a shapeshifter.
GC couldn’t resist the red scarf that was being offensively waved in his face. He lunged, and Merrit moved out of the way. GC hit the wall, tearing half of it down.
“Oh my God!” Even I was afraid to be caught in the middle, and I wasn’t human anymore!
Merrit repeated the trick, and GC lunged again, this time breaking the professor’s desk in two. Mrs. Ivanov wasn’t in the classroom anymore. She’d run off to get help. The commotion had alerted half of the school, and students from classes down the hall had gathered in the doorway to see what the fuss was about.
“GC, stop! Merrit, knock it off!”
“So, are you fucking Lorna or not?” he yelled.
“You piece of shit…” Paz took Merrit by surprise. The mage’s face met the demon’s fist. “You don’t talk
to her like that.” He hit him again.
Merrit teleported away from Pazuzu. Neat trick. What wasn’t as neat was his choice to teleport right behind Francis. He leaned over his shoulder to whisper in his ear.
“I honestly thought you were gay or asexual, Saint-Germain. Is it true the normie has a magic pussy?”
“You… you… Just say the word, Mistress!” Corri yelled in her tiny voice, flying in circles and showing Merrit her little fists.
I didn’t have time to react, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known what to do. In a fraction of a second, Francis’s fingers were digging into Merrit’s throat, wrapping right around his jugular. The mage’s eyes bulged, his hands flying to grab Francis’s wrist and pull himself free. It was no use. Merrit coughed and spluttered, saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth. Francis didn’t let go. On the contrary, his fingers dug deeper, until Merrit’s blood started pooling underneath his nails. It was the revenant’s turn to whisper in the mage’s ear. And the whole classroom had gone so silent that everyone could hear it.
“Paz said you shouldn’t talk to her like that, and I happen to agree with him. How about you apologize, Castegny?”
Merrit was scratching at Francis’s arm, but it was as if Francis didn’t feel any pain.
“I’ll let you go now. If you don’t apologize, then I’ll come to your room tonight and finish what I started.”
Merrit had tears in his eyes. He nodded as best as he could, and when Francis released him, he fell on his back, his body shaking under a coughing fit that seemed to go on forever. He wrapped his hands around his neck, trying to stop the bleeding.
Francis was studying his red fingernails. “Well, Castegny?”
“I’m sorry,” Merrit croaked. He found my gaze and held it, which said a lot about how much Francis had scared him. “I’m sorry I was a jerk.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s not your fault your mother made you a jerk, Merrit. But you will do better next time, won’t you?”
