by Lan Chan
My gut tightened as massive paws thudded against dirt. The lion wasn’t playing by the rules of the garden: No treading on the beds. It was running in a straight line right towards me. Keep off the Bed signs be damned.
I wasn’t even halfway to the other side. Claws scraped against brick so close behind me I could swear the beast was right on my heels. My calves were burning something fierce. I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind and lengthened my stride. This just wasn’t going to do. Another couple of seconds and I was going to be lion chow.
My parents were going to kill me for coming to Bloodline only to be eaten by a lion. I mean, how pathetic was that? Everybody was so worried about me turning into my great-grandfather, and it was a shifter that would disrupt it all. The wolves would shake their heads at my funeral.
Didn’t we teach you better than that? Are you just going to roll over and die at the first sign of trouble? It’s just one lion, I could just imagine them saying. No way. No way was I going to give up right now.
The beast snarled. Heat fluttered against the skin on my neck. Oh hell. It was literally breathing down my neck. I braced myself for one last burst of speed. Throwing caution to the wind, I leaped over the bed of winter lettuce. I grimaced as I landed on top of some crispy baby romaine. Turning to the left, I ran my palm across the long border of wild flowers that were magicked to bloom in the depths of the Australia winter. The sweet citrusy scent of the daphne bushes acted like a memory marker. Almost there.
Padded feet stomped just seconds behind. The distinct wet-hair smell of a sweaty beast hit my nose. Rogue shifters tended to burn hot. Just a little farther. My hand swept over the nodding blue flowers of the wolfsbane. I snatched as much of it as I possibly could. At the same time a paw made contact with my hip. The sideswipe had me ricocheting into the lush planting of the long border. An inch closer and he would have gouged out my ribs.
I curled into a ball and braced my arms over my head. My back smashed into the brick wall. The jarring ache splintered across my spine. A cry escaped my lips. The beast stomped its paws on either side me. Fortunately, I had fallen into a huge patch of wolfsbane.
The irritants in the plant were like poison to a shifter. During the full moon, the Academy used a potion made from the plant to keep the shifters calm. But it wasn’t a miracle plant by any means. It was an herb that the earth produced that just so happened to have a calming effect on the shifter species. A rogue shifter would eventually throw caution to the wind. The lion’s top lip curled into a growl as it battered its head against the ground. Nostrils flared with breath so hot it came out as steam in the chill of the night. Slowly, I pushed myself up into a standing position. It was still taller than me. When it peered at me, the lion’s deep red eyes clouded over.
The heavy muscles on its front legs bunched. It was bracing to charge. I drew my hands together and sandwiched the wolfsbane between my palms. Growing up in the compound, I’d had to come up with ways to dissuade the wolves from messing with me. They understood only dominance, and I was a weak little human. I didn’t have claws or teeth. What I had was fire. Not as much as the Fae or the high-magic mages, but it was enough to change the composition of the plant between my hands.
The beast opened its mouth to roar. My heart leaped at the opening. I curled the wolfsbane inside the circle I’d drawn around my hands. Bit by bit, the cells in the plant began to bubble as though they were inside a distillery. The steam and smoke caused the circle to turn opaque. When the beast lunged, I shot the fireball of wolfsbane right into its face. The lion roared as the burning concoction seared the inside of its mouth and the side of its face. My aim was useless. The wolfsbane splattered down its mane and chest.
“Holy shit!” a throaty voice said above me. I knew better than to turn my attention away from a rogue shifter. Even if said shifter was currently howling and twisting in pain. A body dropped down beside me. Before my very eyes, the lion’s red ones dimmed. They fluttered as it swatted at the irritant on its skin. Its head battered from side to side.
It hit me then that I’d attacked a fellow student. More than that, I was hurting him. For some reason, tears stung my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, moving forward. When I reached out, the lion snarled. The boy grabbed on to my top and yanked me back. Definitely too strong to be anything but a shifter. The lion in front of me convulsed. The air around him wavered as though the heat coming off his skin was changing the quality of the atmosphere. I blinked as hair and claws gave way to tanned skin. He was no less muscled as a human than in his shifted form.
My heart skipped a beat and it wasn’t because he was stark naked. Oh dear Gaia, no. He was Max Thompson. Oldest son of the lion shifter alpha. I was totally dead meat.
5
The boy beside me whistled. “He’s going to shit a brick when he wakes up.” Then he winced. “That looked like it hurt like hell.”
I finally allowed myself to glance at him. Sandy hair left a little too long for tidiness. Light eyes that could have been either blue or grey. I glanced at Max and then back again at this boy who was his miniature. The penny dropped.
“Is there any chance you’d consider not telling your brother it was me?” I gave Charles Thompson a weak smile. He returned a toothy one.
“Yeah right! He’ll remember you for sure. He went rogue, not stupid.”
Somebody cleared their throat. I looked over past Max’s slumped form and all remnants of heat left my body. The deputy headmaster stood ramrod straight with his hands behind his back. A couple of the vamps huddled around him. I recognised some of the group that I’d hidden from earlier. So they hadn’t gone very far. “Oh, I suspect we’ll all remember this,” the deputy head said.
“Oi!” Charles said. “How long have you been there? You could have helped!” He took the words right out of my mouth. A mouth I kept firmly shut. I knew what was good for me.
“I’m sorry we weren’t able to assist.” The deputy head stepped blithely over Max’s body. His dark gaze landed on me. “You just couldn’t resist, could you? First Miss Barnaby and now this. Attacking another student is grounds for expulsion.”
My eyes bugged out of their sockets. I hadn’t wanted to come here but the shame of being kicked out had my mouth snapping open. Charles beat me to it.
“Get stuffed.” He grabbed hold of my arm. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
The deputy head’s brow rose. “Those who witnessed Miss Mwansa use an unsanctioned spell on Max Thompson raise their hands.”
All of the vamps did as he asked. Charles growled beside me. His grip on me became unbearably tight. Touched as I was by his support, he was going to break my bones. I thought I heard the sound of them snapping when a voice croaked.
“Anyone touches her and I’ll tear their head off.” That was all Max could muster before he succumbed to a bout of coughing. A moment later, he was unconscious again. Charles dragged me aside as a Nephilim guard appeared. His white wings glowed like a beacon as he hovered in the air above us.
“What’s going on here?” Curtis asked. A descendant of the seraphim Uriel, he had dark hair and lovely copper eyes. They roamed over our little group and narrowed when he spotted Max. The deputy head opened his mouth, but Charles jumped right into it.
“I don’t know. I went to see my brother to borrow a book and he was all bent out of shape. Next thing you know he went rogue and started chasing me. Sophie helped stop him.”
“It’s two in the morning,” Curtis said. “Why did you want to borrow a book so late at night?”
Charles shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. Kept hearing things that weren’t there. Figured I’d get in as much reading time as I could before school starts.”
The Nephilim shook his head. He coasted to the ground and inspected Max. “He’ll have to go to the infirmary. What’s this stuff that’s still burning him?”
I cleared my throat. “Liquidised wolfsbane.”
Copper eyes narrowed. “The rest of you ge
t back to your dorms.”
“Not you,” the deputy head said. He tried to reach for me but Curtis interjected.
“We can’t expel her for defending herself.”
If he didn’t have a superhuman jaw, I imagined the deputy head might have dislocated it by now. I wasted no time in backtracking in case he decided to come after me anyway. The last thing I saw of the scene was of Curtis touching Max’s brow as he teleported them both away.
I gulped and tore out of there in record speed. My mind didn’t work again until I was back in my room. Then it began to catalogue all of the things that I was in trouble for. Needless to say, sleep was nonexistent. For the rest of the night, I stayed up in bed and read over some of my Potions textbook. As the light of dawn finally turned the darkness into muted grey, a red light began to flash on top of the mirror.
I’d been waiting for this. Sucking in a breath, I went to where the mirror hung on the wall. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my nerves. Not feeling even slightly ready, I placed my hand on the reflective surface nonetheless. I spoke my name in slow syllables. It came out much more calm than I felt inside.
A tingle ran up my hand as a soft pink glow inched along my skin. The reflection wavered. Jacqueline’s face appeared. I could tell it was a pre-recorded bulletin because I moved to stand to the side and her eyes didn’t follow me.
“Sophie,” the recording Jacqueline said. “I am going to assume you have a good explanation for why you were out of bed last night. As it is the first day of semester, I don’t have the time to speak with you directly. Peter and Thalia would love to hear why their classroom looks like it has been hit by a hurricane. You’ll explain it to them and then help them fix it every day after school for the rest of the week. I will speak to you when I get the chance.”
Her face disappeared and the mirror turned back into a mirror. I blew out a breath. That was one call over. Now I just had to wait for the real-time one from my parents. That arrived as I was getting ready for school. For about ten minutes there, I thought I might have gotten away with it. But just as I was putting on my shoes, the mirror beeped again. Mama went right off. “I can’t believe this!” she said.
“Will you let me explain?” I bounced from one foot to the other. Now I was going to be late for first period on top of everything else.
“I mean for Gaia’s sake, Sophie. Couldn’t you have kept a low profile?”
I throw my arms in the air. “Which is it that you want, Mama? For me to lay low or to prove I’m not a lunatic. They’re mutually exclusive.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady.”
I bit my tongue so that I wouldn’t say anything I’d regret. “Sorry.”
She huffed. “At least it was Max and not one of the weaker shifters. You could have seriously hurt him. If your grandmother was alive, I’d kill her for showing you that spell. You know you’re not supposed to use your power to change the composition of ingredients like that.”
“I know.” I also knew why it was so dangerous. Last night’s spell proved that. When I used my magic to perform that kind of alchemy, it had unintended consequences. I was just so relieved that I hadn’t hurt Max more than I already did. “Should I have just stood there and let him chew off my face?”
Her lips twisted into a grimace. I knew I had her when she pretended to have something urgent to do. After shaking her finger at me once more, she disconnected the call. I decided right then that I hated mirrors.
Of course everyone had heard about it by the time I slipped into my seat for Demonology. Max wasn’t just gorgeous and popular by birthright. He was also one of the most dangerous shifters at the school. The fact that he didn’t show up on the first day had tongues wagging. They wagged all the way from the senior campus to the junior campus.
I heard a hiss as I took my seat in the left corner of the room. “Just can’t help yourself, can you?” the redhead in front of me said. She was some kind of fox shifter. Her name escaped me as I tried to concentrate on the picture of the three-headed demon in my textbook. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she leaned over and whisper-shouted to her desk-mate. The seat beside me was empty.
I swallowed past the stone in my throat. I was more than relieved when Professor Gordon arrived. He was an ancient dwarf with more lines on his face than a painting. His hair hung in a thick, black braid all the way down to his calves. If we stood side by side, he would be slightly shorter than me. His had a deep voice that made me think of melted dark chocolate. It helped to close my eyes and listen to him when the demons we learned about proved extra terrifying.
“I’m going to be positive on our first day and assume you all did your assigned reading over the semester break,” the professor said. “So I’m just going to dive into it.”
A lot of eyes lowered to the ground. Like me, most of the students had probably gone home over the break. There were students from all over the globe. Unlike me, they probably didn’t have stickler parents who made them study before they were allowed to leave the house in the morning. I was more than prepared for anything the professor had to throw at us. Or at least I’d thought so. To my dismay, he walked up to the desk of one of the Fae in the front row and closed her book.
The Fae, Isla, glanced up in confusion. “Professor?”
The professor walked back to his desk and hopped up on it. He was pretty spry for an old guy. “I know we’ve covered the Book of Beasts extensively this year. As we have for many years now.”
I shuddered. The Book of Beasts was a catalogue of every single notable demon and supernatural creature in existence. That was the book where my great-grandfather’s crimes were listed in detail. It also housed information about demons that gave me nightmares. The professor ploughed on, unaware of my unease.
“As much as we try to stay informed, the numbers of demons in the Hell dimension are legion. It would be impossible to know them all. So today, we begin our lessons on how to understand the best way to vanquish a demon even if you’re not entirely sure what type of demon it is. We will begin with the soul suckers.”
The fox in front of me raised her hand. “Didn’t we cover this in the lesson on succubi?”
The professor swallowed. Deep grooves appeared on either side of his mouth as though he’d been sucking on a lemon. Someone else in class groaned. “I would hope you will know what to do should succubi come for you, Stephanie. But I’ll press again that we’re speaking in general now. Not specifics. One day you might be in a situation where a soul sucker comes at you. The same techniques you’ll use for succubi might not work. That’s when you’ll have to remember to draw upon these lessons.”
For some reason, the unease I had been feeling turned into a knot in my stomach. My mind flashed back to the cloud of darkness I’d woken up to last night. Almost as soon as the thought entered my head, it disappeared again. Just like a cloud, it was impossible to hold on to. What it did was purge all thoughts of Max from my mind. I sat up straight and listened as the professor began to discuss all the ways in which a soul sucking demon could be defeated.
6
By the end of the lesson, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to be anywhere near when a soul sucker was present. The term demon was a catchall term for the beings who served the Hell dimension. True demons were ethereal. Their power lay in twisting the minds of those they inhabited. They whispered suggestions to their victims and had them questioning their own sanity. These types of demons got to humans from behind the barrier of the Hell dimension. When they did, the things they could make a possessed person do were beyond heinous.
The monsters that had physical bodies had come from dimensions that had traded their freedom for the power the Hell dimension promised them. They were the ones that tended to feature heavily in the imaginations of humans. Sometimes, they gave up their bodies to their true demon masters. Some of them were natural predators of the supernaturals. Most of them had been chomping at the bit for the dimensional barriers t
o fall.
By the time I made my way to the second class for the day, my brain was so full of contingency plans. The best way to kill a demon was with an angel blade. The only ones who could wield an angel blade were the Nephilim. So that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. The next best thing was to find the object in which the demon had superimposed its soul in order to gain physical form in the Earth dimension. I could do that.
I kept repeating that mantra to myself as Professor Magnus, my Magical History professor, talked to us about the formation of the Supernatural Council.
A Nephilim herself, Professor Magnus was the epitome of her race. Diminutive and delicate, she gave off the impression of serenity. Her bloodline came from Ariel, the seraphim that protected the animals and the earth. It figured that they would stick her with the junior school; some of these kids here acted like they were raised in a zoo.
Having grown up amongst the supernatural community, I wasn’t the least bit surprised about the fantastical tale that ended with beings from another dimension existing in this one. It was said that the angels, or the seraphim as we know them, were charged by the Supreme Being to watch over the barriers between the dimensions. When Lucifer began to covet power over his brothers and sisters, the seraphim waged a war that tore apart the barriers and some of the dimensions. Creatures from dimensions that were never meant to coincide now encroached upon the Earth dimension.
Seeing their mistake, a number of the seraphim gave up their claim to the Angel dimension in order to cross the firmament to restore order to the Earth. In doing so, they were able to imbue some of their spirit, their blood, into progeny. Those offspring became the first Nephilim. The bloodlines for which the Academy was named. The Nephilim fought what became known as the Dimension Wars. They beat back Lucifer’s forces and imprisoned him in the Hell dimension.