We needed to catch this gantii today. I needed a lead on Styx. If the Mothman had let the Varlax—the rogue faction of vamps—through to Earth, then he might know where they were hiding.
Ever since I’d lost Jaz, the fucker’s trail had gone stone cold, and my anger had grown out of control. I’d taken to snapping at my team at the smallest things. I broke Raze’s collarbone in training one day. Fuck. I rubbed my face. I needed to catch Styx, put him on trial, hear the Council deliver his punishment, and send him back to his world to receive it.
“So, you were one of the infamous students who reigned in the Shaitan,” Tor raised his voice over the music. “You’re a bit of a legend around here, Supergirl.”
Legend or not, she still had a lot to prove here. It didn’t give her an automatic pass in my books.
“Really?” Nomical said. “What do they say?”
“Oh, you know, that three students and an instructor caught a djinn in a genie lamp,” he said casually, staring ahead. “One was a gorgeous brunette rocking a librarian vibe.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “That couldn’t have been me. I’m rocking The Silver Strand vibe.”
He glanced at her. “You like that comic?”
“Hell yeah!” she said. “It’s my favorite. One of the most underrated comics.”
“I agree,” he said. “The Silver Strand has a subtle touch. Everybody thinks a super heroine has to be bold and brash. I disagree. The shy and unsure characters make the more realistic characters. Like Captain Victorius’ offsider.”
“Cranking up the awe factor,” she said. “Out of all the comic book nerds I’ve met, no one likes The Silver Strand as much as I do.”
God, did I have to listen to this drivel?
I cranked the music louder. Some rock number played, and I tapped the steering wheel with one hand and rubbed my forehead with the other.
*
Half an hour later, we pulled up to St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, smack fucking back in the heart of town, with apartment buildings on one side and commercial premises on the other. Basically, a shitload more witnesses if things got out of hand.
What the hell was the Mothman doing here anyway?
A shot of adrenaline hit my blood, pumping through my chest as I jumped out of my car. I cracked my fingers and crossed to the trunk. They sometimes got stiff when I clutched the wheel too tight.
“Pascal,” I called to him. “Do your thing.”
Pascal stepped out of the car. From inside his jacket, he produced his tuning fork and a black velvet pouch containing his collection of tone bars. Without looking, he knew which bar he wanted. He drew forth one of the metal rods, pointed it in the air, and struck the fork against the bar. A resonant and vibrating note chimed. He projected the tone into the school. Different tones behaved in certain ways. This one was to find the Mothman.
I checked my watch. An hour had passed. Long enough for the Mothman to terrorize the poor kids and leave.
“It’s not here,” Pascal advised.
Dammit. “Where the hell is it then?”
“Three kilometers out of town,” he replied. “The cemetery.”
“Get back in the car,” I ordered, and he followed.
The tires screeched as I backed out of the carpark and tore into the traffic, swerving around slow pokes. I couldn’t afford to lose the Mothman.
When we arrived ten minutes later, we all piled out of the car.
I pressed the button and opened the trunk, revealing an armory of weapons. Spare stakes, Vitamin D bullets, blades, and gin and tonic bombs. All gantii were allergic to the gin and tonic mix. In the vamp and Mothman world, lit by a dim moon, they relied on darkness for nourishment. Ultraviolet light and Vitamin D were particularly toxic to them.
“Get your weapons,” I ordered. Not that I needed to tell Raze, Tor and Pascal, because they knew the routine. But I did it for Nomical’s sake since she was new.
Once the guys had loaded their belt sheaths with weapons, Nomical stepped up tentatively, running a dark painted finger over a stake secured in her belt.
“Take backups,” I told her.
“I’ve never seen a Mothman before,” she admitted, collecting her belt, and fastening it to her hips.
Fire streaked across my chest. Fuck. The Shadows had given me a green student when the Guardians needed a warrior. She was going to get one of us, maybe all of us, killed.
I grabbed another three stakes and shoved them at her. “They’re hairy and ugly.” I slammed the trunk closed in her face making her jolt. “That’s all you need to know.”
At the sharpness of my words, her lips downturned and pain stabbed me in the chest like she’d struck me with a stake.
God, I didn’t want to be a prick to her. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want her to get close. Didn’t want her to think I’d go easy on her because she was a girl. We were all warriors on this team. This job required a certain skill and a strong will, and if she wasn’t cut out for it, I didn’t want her death on my hands, too. I wouldn’t be able to take it.
Ten other cars were parked in the lot. Witnesses. I needed them cleared out to protect them from any danger posed by the Mothman.
Twirling a stake in each hand, I examined my team. Raze looked ready to tear someone’s throat out. Tor cracked his knuckles, eager for a fight. Pascal was in his element, stroking his tuning fork and striking tool. And Nomical; one hand gripping the top of a stake, rolling her shoulders, looking ready to shit her pants. God, I hoped the Shadows hadn’t sent us a dud. We couldn’t afford any more screw ups. Our reputation suffered for letting the Varlax escape. The headmaster had put his trust in me. I couldn’t let him down.
“Pascal, you’re up,” I commanded, twisting my stakes again, letting the motion help me focus and prepare. “Tell me this thing is still here.”
He repeated his little party trick, chiming his tuning fork and tone bar. “It’s here.”
“You know what to do then.” I spun the stakes, waiting, while he did his thing.
Pascal got to work again, striking a different tone. The sound he generated and propelled into the cemetery, acted as a repellant to clear people out, ringing in people’s chests, bringing on various physical symptoms. Usually an urgent need to run away. His magical frequencies didn’t affect the Guardians because we had a layer of special material sewn into the chest of our uniforms, which absorbed the tone and nullified it.
I checked my watch, counting the seconds as they ticked by. C’mon!
By the two-minute mark, three people rushed out of the administration building at the front of the school, holding their chests, their faces contorted by fear.
“What does the musical note do, Pascal?” Nomical asked.
“It puts humans in a flight or fright state that prompts them to clear out,” he said.
“Does the Mothman sense it?” she asked, but I didn’t look at her.
Pascal struck his fork three more times. “No.”
“How do you know which fork to strike?” she asked. “Out of the four, no five you carry.”
“It’s his superpower, Supergirl,” Tor spoke for Pascal, stealing his glory when frankly, his passion for music was the only thing that got him talking.
“Nature is amazing,” she said, smiling at Pascal, leaning against the gates beside Tor.
I was getting a little sick of all the questions. After she’d embarrassed me back in the weapons room, I’d wanted to tear her head off. I didn’t like anyone making me look bad in front on my team when the morale was already low.
I looked at my wristwatch again. Five minutes. More patrons departed. My muscles twitched, desperate to raid the place and take out this fucker and get answers.
Pascal did a final check with his sonic powers, finding no more humans in the buildings, leaving the coast clear for us to enter and raise some hell.
“Right. Tell me where this fucker is, Pascal?” I ordered, clutching my stakes, ready for anything.
He grabbed another tool, lifting it to chest height and striking it, sending out another tone. He rocked his head back and forth as if listening to music and said, “West. Three hundred feet. In the maintenance shed.”
“Move out,” I commanded, taking the lead with Raze by my side, Pascal, Tor and Nomical behind me.
I jumped over the locked gates and marched across the carpark outside the administration building. Nomical struggled, and good old Tor lifted her over.
“Thanks.” She flashed him a cute smile and a streak of jealousy stole through me.
I didn’t have time for that crap when I had a monster to take down, a vamp to catch for killing my best mate.
Behind me, Nomical said, “Does your gift act like dolphin sonar?”
“Yes,” he admitted from my left flank. “I can sense musical tones. They build images of things that my brain interprets.”
We passed the staff rooms and turned a corner, bypassing a set of double story classrooms.
“What can’t you do?” she asked.
“Fuck whilst listening to Drake,” Tor joked.
Pascal started to hum. Fuck. Not this again. We didn’t need this right now. The mention of the singer and his God-awful music set him off. I spun on my heel, and Tor almost collided with me. Behind him, Pascal rocked back and forward.
Nomical touched the top of his arm and whispered, “It’s alright, Pascal.”
“Look what you did, dickhead,” I growled at Tor. “Get your act together. We’re about to hunt a Mothman, for fuck’s sake.”
Tor’s eyes blazed greener. But after the shit he’d pulled, the mistake he’d made, trying to show off, cost us Jaz’s life, I wasn’t going to put up with it any longer. I was not losing another man…or woman…
The others stared at me like I’d lost my shit, but I didn’t care.
“Knoxe,” Raze growled.
But I avoided his gaze.
A part of me wanted to grab Pascal and soothe him. But I just couldn’t. I didn’t have any heart left to give when I felt dead inside.
Nomical watched this, probably trying to determine the team dynamics. Well, there wasn’t any. Everyone had looked to me for guidance. But a part of me had died with my mate, leaving me paralyzed inside, unable to move on. Now we were a broken unit barely holding on, and I didn’t know what to do to keep us together.
“Aww, I’m sorry man.” Tor threw an arm over Pascal’s shoulder and hugged him. “Beethoven’s symphony number nine.”
At this, Pascal calmed, humming the music and slowing his rocking.
“You all right now, buddy?” Tor squeezed and shook Pascal at the same time, and he nodded.
“Good,” I said, scanning the gym building ahead and the maintenance shed squeezed between it and what looked like the border’s residence facility. “Let’s split up. Raze, you’re with me, and we’ll sneak past the gym and attack if from the East. Tor you’re with Nomical. Keep heading due West. Pascal you’re my backup from the South. Got it?”
“Nomical?” Astra asked. “Is that like a guy last name thing? Does that mean I’m one of the guys?”
I glared at her. This wasn’t a mother’s club. “Do not let this thing get away. We need to find out where it’s hiding the portal it opened so we can close it.”
Mothman’s spit could open portals and conceal them from our magical tracking devices. That meant somewhere, vamps, mothmen and Nerms were coming and going to and from Earth.
“Keep in contact on the coms,” I said, jerking my head at Raze, and we left the others, tackling the tombstone from the opposite direction.
It was an understatement to say a lot rode on capturing this gantii. More Varlax vamps poured through to Earth, draining people of energy, and it was getting harder for the Guild to cover it up and prevent an outbreak of panic. I just hoped we could get through this without another screw up.
8
Astra
Tor led the way through the tombstones. Sticking close, I tucked one of my stakes under my arm then flexed and unflexed my fingers.
While we moved, I reflected on this place. A cemetery; where the dead souls haunted the living. Was that why a supernatural creature liked to hide here? It wasn’t of this world, just like the dead.
To our left, a forest encircled the western flank of the cemetery. If the Mothman snuck in there to escape we were screwed. We’d never find him.
Knoxe’s words rang in my head like a damn hammer smashing the inside of my skull. You don’t belong here. You’ll never be part of this team. Well, they were my words, not his, but his sentiment.
The Guardians, were still a unit, familiar with each other, accustomed to working together, playing together, functioning and battling together. A collection of pieces that fit. Even if they were jumbled at the moment, once they’d been great. Something told me they still had potential.
And in that group, I was the newcomer, a wild card who’d have to learn her place in the unit and how she fit in the way that it functioned. My stomach crunched. I was an intruder. Unwelcome. Unwanted. Uninvited. I bet Knoxe was gunning for me to fail so he could return me to the Shadows.
None of the others had really welcomed me either. I mean a smoking bowl ceremony to chase away negative energy wasn’t exactly a hello, but maybe it was Raze’s weird reception. And I could excuse Pascal because he didn’t seem the type to even know how to greet someone. And I wasn’t sure about Tor. His strange bragging about the suits. The superhero-complex. They didn’t equate to a welcome either, but it was probably as close as I’d get with this odd bunch.
I wondered if they were more willing to make a space for me in the team than Knoxe. If they’d give me a chance to prove myself. Did they too view me as a second-rate replacement for Jaz?
My heart stung. I was completely alone here and I missed my life at the Shadows even more. My friend. My family. My old room.
From his position on my shoulder, Obsidian squawked and pecked at my ear.
“I know,” I told him, patting him. “I’m ready for anything.”
Both capturing the Mothman and fitting in played heavily on my mind.
Back in Bathurst, I’d encountered fire, earth and water elementals, an air djinn, and golems shorter than my calf…little shits. Each one scary in its own right and sometimes sneaky.
My textbooks said mothmen had projectile spit that opened up portals and also burned anything they came into contact with. On that basis, I was peeing my pants. But encountering one, battling it, outsmarting it, catching it, that was a whole other ball game, and I couldn’t wait to add it my gantii ass-kicking resume.
I tried to roll up my sleeves, but then remembered I wore the tight silk and gave up. God, this thing was hot. Why Tor thought it smart to wear head to toe leather suits in a tropical savanna climate, I couldn’t guess. I tugged at the collar trying to let air inside to cool me down.
“How you doing, Supergirl?” Tor asked from beside me, his gaze alert, scanning our surroundings.
“You’re the only one in the team who cares,” I said, brushing aside a low branch in my way.
“I wouldn’t take it to heart,” Tor confessed. “Knoxe is going through a hard time. We all are.”
“Doesn’t mean you need to be a-holes,” I said, as we negotiated a row of more modern looking tombstones. “We’re all on the same team here, literally.”
“Raze doesn’t really like anybody,” Tor explained. “At least, he doesn’t let on. He keeps to himself. Pascal is a loner and doesn’t really fit in. Everyone’s pissed at me and blaming me for Jaz’s death. We’re just a Motley crew. Right now, we’re functioning as well as an engine about to give up.”
My assessment was correct. They’d assigned me to a team on the brink of collapse. Maybe if it did, I might be sent back where I belonged. I hoped so. I didn’t fit in. I just want to go back home.
“Let me ask again, Supergirl,” Tor said, this time with more insistence. “How you doing? You’re not going to flip out on me,
are you?”
In all honesty, I was shitting my pants a little. But I wasn’t letting him in on that fact. No way. Not giving them any reason to kick me off the team.
“Screw you.” I nudged his elbow. “I’m not green. I’ve fought Aquarians, Ignatia, Terrains, and Shaitan, you know.”
“Water, fire, and earth elementals,” he said, eyebrows raised. “Not bad. Tell me about the Shaitan djinn.”
“Maybe later,” I said, spotting the angel tomb up ahead. “When we’re celebrating over a beer.”
“Beer,” he said. “You said the magic code word. I like you already.”
Up ahead, I spotted Knoxe and Raze approaching from the opposite direction. Pascal loomed in the distance to our left, holding his tuning forks up like they were going to protect him from a monster.
“You’ll be right,” Tor said, squeezing his stake tighter. “Just show us some more of your superpowers and you’ll be right.”
Part of me wanted to tease him, hold back, and make him wait to see it. Especially since he kept mentioning it. I wondered whether he was doing it to suss me out and see if my powers were better than his. Given his penchant for superheroes, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“All in good time.” I smiled.
The air around me thickened with dread. A strange noise buzzed nearby. I glanced around. Something didn’t feel right. Projectile spit hit the ground near my foot, and I jumped. The grass turned into a fiery mess, reduced to ash in seconds.
“Shit!” I shouted, looking up, right into the baleful red eyes of the angry creature glaring at me, floating in midair.
My heart raced, and my feet seemed stuck to the ground. I engaged in a staring match with the tall, gaunt, and human-shaped being. Dark fur of an insect covered its body. Dusty, bony wings grew out from the unnaturally long arms. Long, thin antennae poked out from its head, and the only features on its thickly haired face were two huge, luminous red eyes, glowing with the lights of a traffic symbol.
Paranormal Academy Page 49