by Lan Chan
“Then why is she here?” Mama asked.
A tiny little frown line appeared between Jacqueline’s brows. Her eyes darted to the left where the deputy headmaster’s office was located. That vamp had had it in for me since the day I joined Bloodline Academy. I understood why. I just didn’t like it.
“Dmitri says he caught Sophie in the act.” Jacqueline sat back in her chair. I hoped it wasn’t because of the way Mama was gnashing her teeth.
My nostrils flared. “Just like the time he caught me stealing my own Potions project? Or the time I was poisoning the senior citizens with garlic flakes? Or –”
Jacqueline reached over and placed a hand over mine. My indignation fizzled. “I understand how you must feel,” she said. Doubtful. She didn’t have any serial killers in her bloodline. “It won’t be like this forever, Sophie.”
Biting my lip, I asked the question that had been plaguing me for a while now. “I don’t understand why you insisted I come to Bloodline. I could have gone to school in the compound with my friends.” This last part I directed at my parents. Both of whom were suddenly very interested in something on the back wall.
Jacqueline peered at me, her eyes penetrating. It was like she was staring into my soul. “You certainly could have,” she said. “But that would be taking the easy way out.”
“What’s wrong with easy?” It was definitely better than dodging the hateful glares of my classmates. I thought of the incident in the billabong last month when I had psyched myself up to speak to some of the older low-magic students. They pretended they didn’t hear me even though I was standing right next to Wanda. A second later, they picked up their things and left me standing there mortified.
“You’re one of the very rare low-magic witches in existence,” Jacqueline said, like it was supposed to be a compliment. “Bloodline Academy is where you should be. I know what your great-grandfather did still lingers –”
“That’s the understatement of the century,” I muttered. “It doesn’t help that he’s part of the curriculum, by the way.”
Her lips pressed together. “It is a cautionary tale.”
“It sucks! Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit there while everyone learns that your ancestor chopped up supernaturals, boiled their bodies in a cauldron and then imbued their essences into spells?”
My great-grandfather, Enock Mwape, was a kitchen wizard. A unique one. Grammy had gotten some of his gift but the odd power skipped a couple of generations and landed right at my feet. Too bad the use of said magic would freak the supernaturals out.
“I’m sorry,” Jacqueline said. “I know it feels unfair, but low magic needs to be cultivated.” Oh the irony.
I bit my bottom lip and stared at the carpet. “Why?”
“You own this dimension. Whether anyone likes it or not.”
“Our magic is weaker than yours!”
Technically, Amazons didn’t have any magic. Not high magic, anyway. They possessed enhanced strength, durability and longevity. Even after all this time, I couldn’t quite tell how old Jacqueline was. Her brows pulled together. “There is no yours and ours,” she said. “We are all in this together.”
My shoulders slumped in the chair. This wasn’t the first time we’d had this verbal tug of war. It was always the same. She was like a one-woman low-witch PR campaign. And my parents were her campaign managers. None of them wanted to hear that I was an unwilling candidate. In order to stop myself from crying, I redirected my energy.
“Is Kate going to be okay?”
Jacqueline’s blue eyes softened at the edges. “Doctor Thorne is looking into her symptoms. That’s what I needed to speak to you about. Professor McKenna says the protection circle around your chest was a standard spell. But can you think of any reason why Kate might have had that reaction to it?”
I bit my lip and thought back. “Not really. The frame is reinforced with silver but that’s also standard issue. It was only supposed to give her a warning shock and alert me that she was trying to open it.” I pictured Kate with her smug smile, twirling around in front of her friends. The kick of envy had my chest constricting but I didn’t want her to get hurt.
“What about her nkisi pendant?” I asked.
Dad managed not to make a face. Mama didn’t. “Don’t tell me?” she said. “Safari?”
Jacqueline nodded. Mama mouthed something in Zambian that I would not be allowed to repeat so I refocused on the headmistress.
“Professor Mortimer has looked over the broken shards of Kate’s necklace. It’s just ordinary painted clay. He’ll hold on to it just in case.”
“So Kate’s not awake yet?” Mama asked. Jacqueline shook her head.
“Her parents have agreed to allow her to stay inside the infirmary rather than move her back to the Reserve. The Nephilim doctors will look in on her if we can’t find a solution soon.” She tapped her fingers against her chin. “I’ve made it clear that I will not tolerate anybody treating you poorly over this incident. Having said that, Kate’s parents have demanded that she be moved to another room.”
I sighed and dropped my head into my hands. So that’s what this was about. Another roommate bites the dust. Kate had been the third in nine months. At this rate, I might as well be a serial killer.
3
My parents pretended to stick around to help me sort out my room. The place looked like it had been stripped bare by furniture-eating ghouls. You’d never know Kate was ever in here. I blinked at the starkness of her side of the room. She lasted two months. That was a month longer than my last roommate.
Dad went and sat on her bed that was now bare of Kate’s rolling-mountain bedspread. “I’m sure Jacqueline will find you someone else,” Dad said.
“I don’t want anyone else,” I said. Then I realised how that sounded. “I have a perfectly good bed in Zambia.”
“We’ve talked about this, Soph.” Mama flopped down on my bed. She picked up my light pink wig and started to braid the strands.
I stomped over to the storage chest. A wave of my hand, an unbinding command in my head, and the lock clicked open. “You guys have talked about this. I haven’t had any say in it at all!”
“What if we see if we can get Jerome to attend Bloodline?” Dad offered.
“Yeah right. Fat chance of that happening.”
Of all the shifters, Jerome was closest to me in age. He was still three years older. Shifters had a difficult time conceiving in the Earth dimension. Something about the energy not being strong enough to sustain their life forces. They tended to have children in spates, depending on the moon. I was unlucky enough to have been born during a shifter dry spell. As a result, I was the only sixteen-year-old in the compound. Jerome wouldn’t be caught dead being seen with me in public.
“You know why you have to be here,” Mama said. She came to stand beside me as I opened the chest to make sure all my ingredients were safe.
“I know why you guys want me here. Doesn’t mean it makes sense or I have to like it.”
Mama took the glass bauble of dragon’s breath from my hands and laid it back in place. “I know it’s hard. But for better or worse, you’ve inherited his gift. This is the opportunity of a generation to show them we’re not cannibalistic savages.”
Oh, right, did I forget to mention great-grandfather also ingested the bodies he cooked up to absorb their essences? “Why should we have to show them anything? It’s not like they’re teddy bears!”
Dad stood and walked over. He threw his arm around my shoulders. “I know it sucks, kiddo. But this isn’t just our dimension anymore. If we want to survive, we have to play nice with them.”
“That’s what you think. Everyone’s so busy assuming I’ll turn out to be a low-magic mass murderer. It would serve them right if I did it for real.” The spite lasted about two seconds. Just the thought of using my magic to hurt somebody made my stomach churn. There was something inexplicable in my magic that revolted at the idea of harming others. That was wh
y what my great-grandfather did had been so unexpected. Kitchen magic was supposed to heal. Grammy was convinced he’d been demon possessed.
“Oh, Sophie,” Mama said. “I know it’s hard. But I have this feeling that things will work out for you eventually.”
“How long is eventually? I hope it’s before I get grey hair.”
But what she said made me feel a little better. Mama might not have inherited much of the kitchen magic, but she did have gut feelings. She didn’t get visions, but she would know things. I only hoped she wasn’t just saying positive things to get me to stay here. They finally left when I promised not to hop on the next portal out of here.
It was unheard of for students not to want to attend Bloodline. Aside from the prestige, this place boasted the best teachers and training facilities in the world. Basically, it was a supernatural jerk-magnet.
I glanced at the storage chest and then the door. It occurred to me that not having a roommate did have some perks. I drew a circle in my mind that covered the doorway and corridor. It would alert me if anyone came close.
I popped open the storage chest and pushed the lid up. With the greatest care in the world, I removed the first layer of magical ingredients. Those ingredients had taken me years to collect. One breakage would cost me a tonne of money. Setting them down on the floor, I found the latch for the false bottom of the chest and levered it open. The buzz of concealing magic chased up my arm as I pressed my hands to the compartment. The magic sensed my energy and dissolved.
Biting my bottom lip, I pulled my great-grandfather’s diary out of the chest. The familiar shiver raced down my spine as I touched the old leather. Great-grandfather might be gone but his essence remained in the things he left behind.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d pored over these pages when I’d first discovered the diary. Grammy had left it to me in her will. It had been concealed inside the base of a music box. Mama would have a heart attack if she knew I had this. So would the rest of the supernatural community. It wasn’t like it had instructions on how to perform dark magic rituals. It was just a diary. Albeit one that belonged to a serial killer. Mostly, it was just theories about how his magic, and now my magic, worked. As far as I knew, there was nobody else like us. There was no other way for me to learn about how my magic worked. Otherwise, I would have burned the diary and been done with it.
I read until well after midnight. By the time I locked the diary away and slipped into bed, my thoughts were a jumble. Sleep didn’t come easily. When it finally did, it didn’t stay long. My eyes were dragged open because I was having trouble breathing. It felt like something was pressing down on my chest. Darkness greeted me. But it wasn’t the kind of soft darkness I was used to. The Academy was usually lit at night be Fae lanterns. The lights mimicked the natural rhythm of the moon and the fireflies. There was a lantern station not far from my window. It meant I was never in true darkness.
This thing that I had woken up to was pitch black. What struck me was that it didn’t envelop the room. The edges of the darkness hovered over me like a cloud. The same feeling of cold dread I’d felt coming back to the dorm seized my limbs. I tried to open my mouth but it was sealed shut. Panic shot through my chest. I couldn’t get the image of Kate locked in a frozen scream out of my head. Flailing, I knocked over the small bowl of salt I kept on my nightstand. Grains of salt scattered over my covers. There was a hiss as though something was breathing out. A moment later, my chest decompressed.
The darkness dissipated. I pushed myself up on my elbows and flicked on the Fae light by the bed. A quick glance around confirmed everything was as it should be. So why was I sweating through my sheets? Speaking of, they were now covered in salt. I groaned. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. As my brain got used to the light and to consciousness, the heavy feeling in my body subsided. After ten minutes of sweeping salt from the floor, I wasn’t even sure why I had freaked out. This wasn’t the first nightmare I’d ever had. It wouldn’t be the last.
Disturbed sleep was a curse of the low witch around supernatural beings. Humans had far better prey senses than they ever imaged. It was just a shame they chose to ignore them. Living amongst the supernatural, low-magic users often exhibited signs of mental distress. Yet another reason why I shouldn’t be here. I doubted my parents would see it that way.
Now that I’d gotten out of bed, the chances of falling back asleep were nil. The thought of tossing and turning till morning didn’t entice. On the other hand, loitering around the Academy late at night wasn’t exactly sanctioned either. Besides, I didn’t want to run into the vampires. Some of their classes were on a parallel schedule to the rest of us.
Everyone was already suspicious of me. I didn’t need to be roaming around the Academy at night. At the same time, I didn’t want to stay here either.
Figuring I could avoid most people if I headed towards the walled kitchen garden, I opened my Potions textbook and scribbled down a list of ingredients. It always struck me as funny that supernatural potions contained a general spread of mundane and mystical ingredients. I scratched my head. It was the middle of July in Australia. There were no raspberries in sight. I’d have to use the frozen stuff. That might be a slight setback.
Sighing, I closed the book and stuffed the list into my pocket. I slipped on my sneakers and tiptoed out of the room. As much as they liked to integrate the species in Bloodline, everyone tended to gravitate towards their own kind. I wasn’t sure what Kate had done wrong to get lumped with me as a roommate, but it must have been bad. Until I hit the staircase that led to the first-floor common room, the hallways were pretty much deserted. Jacqueline had been right on the money about one thing: low-magic users were few and far between. I was one of only a dozen kids in the entire junior class.
Everything in the Earth dimension was about balance. Also, humans had moved so far away from their natural affinity with nature that the idea of magic was ludicrous to them. The emergence of magical abilities often caused a human to have a mental breakdown. Some of them could never quite grasp the reality of it. In a way, I was very lucky to have grown up in the compound. Even if it hadn’t been voluntary to begin with.
Thinking of home made me blow out a breath. I ducked behind a sycamore as footsteps approached to the right. Normally I would never be able to hear the vamps coming. When they decided to go into full stealth mode, my human ears were worthless. But it was the day before school started for them too and they were chatting excitedly to each other. That was one thing about Bloodline Academy that I liked. We were under twenty-four-hour protection. The threat of demon attacks never even crossed my mind. Not like at home where the wolves worked on a rotating shift guarding their sector of the human world. There was a war raging between the Hell dimension and all others. Inside the confines of Bloodline, we were allowed to be kids.
I waited until the vamps had disappeared around the corner of the building before slipping out and racing past the back entrance of the dining hall. Of all the subjects, Herbology was the least popular. Mostly it was taken by low-magic users and the Fae who were earth elementals. The size of the kitchen garden was not in proportion to the number of students who attended each class. Almost eighty percent of our Herbology classes involved tending to the garden. We produced all of the fruit and vegetables that the dining hall used to feed the whole school. It was the perfect place to go scavenging for potion ingredients.
I was almost at the gate when a shriek pierced the still night air. Flattening myself against the picket fencing, I turned my head towards the sound. A moment later a stocky boy of about ten or eleven came running past. He shot to the left of where I was standing, his speed indicating he was some kind of shifter. Not wanting to be caught up in whatever trick he was playing, I turned the handle of the gate. A roar erupted in the night.
All of the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Deep in the pit of my gut, the last vestiges of my prey instinct came roaring back to life. I might be a kitchen witc
h, but I was also a child of Africa. The deep rumble of a lion’s roar caused every nerve in my body to grow taut. I knew how lions sounded. There was a rough-throated edge to this roar that wasn’t normal. My feet became planted to the ground. My hand was still on the gate, but I was too petrified of something I couldn’t see. And then the shadow burst forth into the night, and I understood why the boy had been running.
A beast about twice the size of a normal lion stalked across the lawn in front of the dining hall. Its muscles bunched and rolled as it ate up the distance, moving in a way that was unnaturally graceful for something so big. But it was the lion’s eyes that had me transfixed. Like their feline counterparts, lion shifters’ eyes turned varying shades of coppery gold when they were in their beast forms. This lion looked out at the world through glowing red peepers. It had gone rogue. When a shifter was distressed to the point of insanity, it was called going rogue. In that state, they didn’t know friend from foe. All they knew was instinct. A lion shifter had only one instinct: kill.
Its huge nostrils flared. My heart was a drumbeat in my chest. It turned its head in my direction. For a split second, I could see its eyes darting to where the boy had run off. And then it veered and came straight towards me.
4
My body reacted through pure instinct. The hand that had been gripping the gate now shoved it wide open. I bolted inside, not bothering to lock it behind me. To a shifter that size, the fence would be nothing but kindling. Most of the Academy was asleep. The vampires had disappeared. My only shot at making it out of this alive was to get to the other side of the kitchen garden where the emergency flares were kept. Those flares would alert the Nephilim. Too bad for me there was almost nothing between me and an eight-hundred-pound lion.
The crack of wood behind me lit a metaphorical fire in my pants. My feet pelted against the paved bricks in between the raised beds. The kitchen garden was a huge expanse almost the length of a football field. Ironically, it had to be so big because the shifters ate like there was no tomorrow. If I kept going like a straight shot, the lion would be on top of me in seconds. When I got to the end of the row of broccoli, I veered right and zigzagged in between the cauliflower and the snow pea wigwams.