Knoxe loaded the stakes into the ejection mechanisms of the leather bands situated on top of his forearm. “First rule of the Guardians. Weaken your opponent. They’re larger, faster, and stronger, which puts us at a disadvantage.”
Finally, we were getting somewhere. Maybe me sticking it to Knoxe had made him back off. His tone still held an edge of mild hostility, but it was clear he wanted to teach me and get out of there.
No objections here, buddy.
I just had to find the strength to keep showing him that I wasn’t going to back down. Even though I’d wanted to break down into a heap earlier, and cry my fucking eyes out.
“That means,” Knoxe added, “we need weapons to slow them down, disable them, or knock them out.”
He aimed his wristband at a training mannequin shaped like a troll then pressed a button on the straps winding around his thumb. A stake discharged, striking the troll in the thigh. The material of the mannequin hissed and steam curled off it.
“Is that real troll skin?” I approached the mannequin, running my fingers over the rough, bumpy and thick surface.
“Yep.” Tor crossed the room to lean an elbow on the top of the mannequin.
“But we’re not supposed to kill them,” I said.
Any gantii found crossing had to be returned back to their world. Guild rules.
“This skin was traded at a gantii market,” Tor explained with a grin. “Troll poachers.”
“Stop kidding me,” I said.
“I’m not.” Tor plucked the stake from the mannequin and swaggered back with it.
Knoxe came up to me carrying a wristband. “Try this on.” He threw it at me, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of his fingers brushing mine or our hands touching. “You’ll need practice shooting.”
I slipped my hand into the armband. Too loose. I needed to adjust the straps. Holding the back of my arm against my waist, I secured one throng but couldn’t get the buckle to catch.
With an impatient sigh, Knoxe grabbed my arm, fastened the buckle much quicker than I could have. A spark formed in my core, crackling and circling like a firework shot all the way to my chest. It left me breathless, with an intense pull toward him, an ache to be closer to him.
I jerked my arm back. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what?” Knoxe wore a blank expression.
“The spark?” As soon as I spoke he gave me a funny look, like I was off my bloody rocker.
I remembered all the romance novels I’d listened to, where lovers were forced together and had an insane reaction when they touched.
No. No way. I was not into him. No spark. None whatsoever. He was cute, smelled really good, was pretty sexy when fierce, but that was it. Period.
“Never mind.” I hooked the rest of the buckles without his help, even though he tried to grab me again.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
5
Astra
I couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t stop thinking about Knoxe brushing my skin. The affect he’d had on my chest. Every part of me screamed to have his thumb connect with my wrist once more. For the spark, the flash of heat.
Whoa! Cool it sister.
God, I wished Raze would dose me with more smoke to cleanse me of all this crazy Knoxe juju.
The logical side of me didn’t want him anywhere near me. Didn’t want to feel that powerful pull. Did not want to contemplate him in any role other than as my leader. A jerk, at that. The confusion of my divided feelings left me rocking.
Knoxe seized my wrist again, roughly fastening another buckle. Probably because I stood there like a dear in headlights, bamboozled by my sudden and strange feelings.
“I’m okay.” I pulled away, strapping it myself and slipping three stakes in the spring loaders. “So I just aim and press this button?”
“Pretty much,” he replied.
I raised my arm, shaking a little. Nervous from him standing so close with his fierce eagle gaze on me. Expectant. Dismissive. Wanting me to fail so he could send me back like some cheap fucking refund.
Trying to ignore him, but failing, I closed one eye, pretending to check my aim. Who was I kidding? This guy had put me off with his unnerving words and glare.
I pressed the button with my thumb. The spring snapped, and my arm jolted upwards a fraction, and the stake shot out, hitting the wall behind the troll. I smiled, feeling a little badass. So what if I’d missed the target? It was my first try. With practice, I’d get good at it.
“Not bad, Supergirl,” Tor said, and as he paraded forward and collected the spike from the mannequin.
“Thanks,” I said as he approached.
Instead of handing me the stake, he grabbed my arm and locked the weapon into the shooting mechanism, setting my skin alight. When he stepped back, he left me drowning in the afterglow of a dying fire, craving more.
Dammit. Not another one. My heart was becoming a cheap tart, pounding faster for the first few cute guys surrounding her.
No girl! You’re stronger than that. No matter how cute they might be or how sexy they are in their Guardian uniforms.
Wanting to clear him and Knoxe from my system, I quickly shot off another two rounds. The first struck the wall with a thud, a little closer to the troll mannequin. My second blast hit right between the legs. Not bad. I was getting better. Each blast stripped me of the last of the Guardian’s heat.
“Remind me not to mess with you,” Tor joked, striding forward like a superhero on a mission.
I stopped him, shooting my final stake, just missing him. It slammed the troll skin right between the legs.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, his pitch a little higher.
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
Just letting him know no one was going to push me around. Nor would I let Tor charm me with his superhero guise any more than I’d let Knoxe unnerve me. That was a warning shot. And as for Pascal and Raze, silently watching from the rear of the room, they were on notice, too.
Knoxe let me practice a few more rounds until I had the operation of the arm brace to a standard to defend myself or weaken a gantii. Then he moved on to demonstrate the second weapon.
“This is a rune blaster,” he said, holding up what looked like a laser pointer pen.
“Wait until you see what this bad boy does,” Tor interrupted.
Oh, I was sure it did something cool like all Guild technology. Maybe not as neat as some of Cole’s inventions back at the Shadows.
“See these,” Knoxe said, shoving the laser pen under my nose so fast I blinked.
Different symbols were carved into the shaft of the weapon. Ancient druid runes for the different gantii; werewolves, trolls, goblins, vampires, mermaids, unicorns, djinn. He twisted the pen to reveal even more sigils and creatures circling the entire staff.
“You set the pen by pressing on the creature you’re hunting.” He pressed the troll rune and aimed. “Then push the button on the end.”
The red laser hit the troll skin, burning the character into it like a tattoo gun.
“And boom!” Tor shouted, pressing his hands to his sides read tight as if he were a walking corpse. “Down goes the troll!”
Guild law strictly forbid the killing of gantii. Our magic powers had the potential to kill, but we were taught to dial them back, to cause an effect that lasted for a couple of hours. That was why we’d trained for so long. Mine for example, dematerialized a creature for several hours. Long enough for Blaze, my instructor, to sweep them back through a space portal with his djinn magic.
“Do you mind?” Knoxe snapped. “This isn’t Tor’s Instructional 101.”
“Fuck you, man,” Tor muttered, folding his arms, and retreating to the back of the room to lean against the wall.
Man. I thought Knoxe had cooled off a little. Obviously, I was wrong. This kind of behavior was hardly conducive to creating a cohesive, tight team. Every time he got snippy, Raze puffed more smoke around the room, and it got hazier
by the second. Poor Pascal’s fidgeting and rocking got worse. Tor’s resentment grew darker, and any minute now, I expected him to punch Knoxe in the face. I wasn’t the type to hold my tongue and sit by and let Knoxe continue his man period.
Right now though, I just wanted to get on with the job. Catching the vamps might take his edge off.
“So,” I said, cutting the silence, as taut as a tight muscle after lifting weights. “The gantii are rendered unconscious from the laser rune?”
“Paralyzed,” Knoxe advised. “For us to bring them back to the Guild for processing, imprisonment, and arraignment. Then we remove the rune from their skin with an equalizing laser.”
“Who hears the gantii’s case?” I asked.
This whole Guild police force was all new to me. A few weeks ago, I’d never heard of the Guild of Guardians. That was how secretive they were. Until Cole’s mom had shown up, claiming to be a member of the organization. Before that Cole had believed his mother to be dead. She told him that she had to put him up for adoption to protect him from the vengeful Centaur hunting her.
“The Council of Elders,” Pascal piped in. “Consisting of Guild members from both factions and members of the gantii Councils.”
I turned for a better look of him, now that he hesitantly and shyly glanced at me for longer than a split second. Piercing green eyes with rings of a deeper blue met mine. I gasped. Crystalline like pure emeralds.
“There’s such a thing as gantii councils?” I mumbled, still lost in his eyes, which he withdrew, and my heart folded up in response.
“They oversee justice in their own realms.” He fiddled with his tuning fork again.
Figured there’d be something equivalent. “I didn’t know that they weighed in on Guild business.”
“It’s been like that for centuries,” he said with a fleeting glance. “Ever since the Guild Pact with all the gantii realms declaring peace and friendship.”
Back at the Shadows we’d learned basic Guild history and how it had been formed, its purpose and about all the gantii races that threatened Earth. Most left us alone. But like Earth, those dimensions had bad eggs with evil intentions. Some gantii, like trolls, were just too stupid, and accidentally wandered into this world then smashed everything up because they didn’t know better.
“Listen,” Knoxe butted in. “You can continue your mother’s meeting later. Right now, we’ve got business to attend to.”
Tor’s lips pressed together.
Raze’s face tightened into a more deadly glare. He shook his head, adding a few more leaves from his pocket into his bowl. Clearly, his cleansing ceremony was not working in this room or on this team.
Pascal tucked his head further and shuffled away.
God, Knoxe was an A-hole. An a-hole leading an obviously dysfunctional team where Tor kept butting in, Raze believed his leader needed some serious cleansing of negativity, and poor Pascal’s anxiety was only heightened when Knoxe spoke to him poorly.
Maybe there was no hope for the team. Too many frayed threads. Jaz’s death kicked off their ending and perhaps my coming here was the final tower crumbling down.
“Get some dinner and go to bed,” Knoxe barked. “Tomorrow, we’ve got a vampires to catch.”
Nobody moved. Tor huffed and stared at the ceiling. Raze encourage smoke over his body. Pascal stood silent.
“You know, maybe if you speak to them with a little more respect,” I said. “They might respond better.”
Knoxe’s eyes darkened, and his cheeks flushed red, but I wasn’t giving him the opportunity to cut me down again.
I snatched my luggage and belongings, stalking out of there before he could get a word in. I marched down the halls, headed to god knew where. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue where I was going. The headmaster hadn’t even shown me my room. When I arrived, I was sent straight to his office without the liberty to settle in first.
Soon I heard footsteps behind me. Several pairs. I glanced over my shoulder to find Tor, Raze and Pascal following me. Knoxe stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.
Hmph! Maybe a new leader was in order, buddy! One with a little more compassion and esteem for colleagues. But I didn’t want that job.
Tor hurried to catch up with me.
“Where the hell am I going?” I asked. “I don’t want to look like a douchebag.”
“That’s the last thing you look like,” he replied with a glowing smile. “You’re a freaking hero right now.”
Inside, I smiled though I still wanted to slap Knoxe senseless.
“Left,” Pascal said from behind. “Then the third room on the right is yours.”
“Thank you,” I said stiffly, pumping my march faster, determined to get to my room and scream into a pillow. My shitty first day didn’t enthuse me. I dreaded tomorrow.
I wanted to put distance between Knoxe and me. Things were too toxic. Anger and resentment lead to clouded judgment and mistakes. To people’s lives being cut short. I touched my neck again remembering his words about Jaz’s neck being broken and killing him.
God. I hoped I didn’t end up with a similar fate.
6
Pascal
I rubbed my thumb over my tuning fork. With my other hand, I gripped my headphones tighter, ready to activate my music. It helped to soothe the rush of overwhelming information driving me crazy.
Something had thrown me off today. The arrival of a new woman. I liked things a certain way. Anything new upset my balance, and I struggled to cope with my jumbled brain and my inability to piece together all the signals firing at me at once.
Students wandered past me, selecting tables with their classmates or team members. Laughter danced. Conversations buzzed. A few stared at me. A rush of white noise assaulted my senses.
“You alright, buddy?” Tor asked from a few tables away.
I glanced up, not meeting his eyes. “Fine.”
Desperate for it to stop, I turned up the volume of my iPod. An orchestra of violins, clarinets, trumpets, trumpets, trombones and more. Another flick of the dial increased the volume of Beethoven’s Symphony number nine, the song that helped sooth my frayed and confused nerves, stimulated by all the noise, movement, and upheaval in my routine.
I flicked a crumb off my table, my gaze scanning the length of the empty four-seater table where I always ate alone. No one ever wanted to sit with the weird guy. I preferred it that way. It beat having to make small talk with strangers or engage in conversations I had no clue about.
Every day, I made sure I arrived at the dining hall before anyone else so they didn’t take my table. I didn’t like anyone touching my things. Once people realized I didn’t understand them and no chance in hell they would comprehend me, they stopped talking to me, left me alone with only my gargoyle and music for company. All I wanted was to be understood. I just didn’t know how to tell them.
I glanced over my shoulder at Raze and Knoxe eating together, sometimes murmuring to each other. They barely tolerated me and only because of my gift.
Since the start, Knoxe hadn’t been very accommodating about Venellan’s decision to appoint me to their team. He got frustrated with me when I didn’t understand him and needed more detail on a mission. The whys and how’s.
Jaz had an autistic brother back home in Melbourne and had taught Knoxe how to deal with me. Over the months since my appointment, our relationship had improved because Knoxe took time to explain things thoroughly, easing my questions. Deep down, I knew we’d never be friends. He didn’t invest the time or patience like Jaz to understand me. Now that Jaz was gone—the only one who supported me when times got rough, the only one to talk to me, or ask me how I was doing—I’d lost all hope of being accepted or understood by my team. So, I just did the best I could.
Raze barely said anything to me and left me alone. But he never said much to anyone, sticking to himself, a loner like me, and that was why we understood each other. I respected his space, and he mine. After Jaz’s death, he’d assumed
Jaz’s role of watching out for me, of putting a calming hand on Knoxe’s chest when he got irritated with me, of barking at Tor to stop teasing me and riling me up.
Long ago, they had given up on trying to communicate with me. We just didn’t speak the same language. I conversed through music while they spoke with their fists, their bare strength, and growling words. Jaz was the only one who was able to help me understand, to translate words and sentences to musical instruments, notes, sounds and concepts that I understood. I’d lost that barrier, that connection to my team, and I desperately wanted it back.
Over at his table, Knoxe stabbed at his meal, throwing a glare Tor’s way. I couldn’t read Knoxe or Raze’s facial expressions. If I wanted to, I could use my powers to decipher what they were saying. Judging by the attention they directed at Tor, I’d guess they were discussing the incident today at the cemetery.
Tor could be a real dick sometimes, an inexcusable prank player. When I’d joined, he tricked me into wearing metal shoulder pads to catch a goblin. The gantii jumped all over me, biting and scratching to eat at the metal. I’d panicked and hit the thing until I’d killed it. I didn’t know what I was doing. That earned me a month of detention. Remembering it made me queasy, and I pushed aside my dinner.
I took a sip of my coke to steady myself.
That aside, Tor had some redeemable qualities. Sometimes he made some pretty funny music jokes that only we understood. He didn’t take life too seriously. In contrast to Knoxe’s uptightness and rigid operation of the team, Tor was a relief. On a mission, he always watched out for me. I wasn’t the most coordinated or skilled fighter like Knoxe and Raze. But I held my own with my magic. Few gantii got past me. Only the vampires really challenged me.
Tor and Jaz were the only ones I let touch me. Jaz, because he reminded me of my big brother, but Tor had taken a lot longer to get accustomed to. Our mutual love for comics brought Tor and I together. We often chatted about the latest Silver Strand comic. But I was more of a Captain Victorius kind of guy. I’d read every volume back to nineteen seventy-three when he was created. The Captain had bright blue hair, and Tor was the one who recommended I die my hair that color in honor of my hero. At first, I only let Jaz do it. But after he’d died, Tor had taken over. We’d had that routine for three months now.
Paranormal Academy Page 47