Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Omnibus

by Mayer, Shannon

  “Terrible spell work,” I heard, a pain-filled, wet, gargled whisper. A smile covered Ethan’s face, and he coughed up a wet laugh.

  “Oh no.” I crawled to him, my head pounding, my body aching, the wands clutched in my hands shooting sparks with each movement. “How do I end this, Ethan? How do I end the challenge?” I dropped the wands and clutched his bloody hand in my own. “Ethan!”

  His blue eyes found me lazily, the light within them dimming. “You know…” Wet coughs racked his body. “You’re pretty…hot when you…clean yourself up. I…like ’em tall.” He laughed again, as though that was a merry joke. “Good work, Johnson.” His eyes swung the other way, as though he didn’t have control over them anymore. “You win.”

  A breath released from his mouth, and his body went slack in the pool of blood under us. His eyes were sightless.

  “No.” I grabbed his chin with my fingers and turned his face my way. “Hold on, Ethan. Please. Please, don’t die on me! The dinosaur is down!” I looked around us, wide-eyed. The T-Rex kicked the foot that was still intact, weakly waving the one tiny arm it had left, and then stilled. “The T-Rex is down! Why is this not ending?”

  Tears clouded my vision as a boot crunched against the dirt behind me. I pushed up and swung around, grabbing my knife and protecting Ethan’s body with my own.

  The Sandman stopped ten feet from me, his expression unreadable. “That was meant to be you.” He jerked his head, and I knew he meant Ethan. “You were meant to die in here. You’re a Shade, or so they thought. You shouldn’t be able to use a wand.” His eyes flicked to the two wands next to me, lying deserted. “But you chose a different path than they expected. An impossible path. You should’ve been captured twice over. Or killed. And yet, here you are, with the man who was supposed to win it all…lying dead at your side. I was right, and they were wrong.”

  Anger seethed through me, burning away the grief and fear, the guilt from letting Ethan and my crew down and reaching the end alone. I grabbed Ethan’s wand and stood on wobbly legs. “What do you want from me?” I hollered.

  His dark, dangerous eyes beheld me. “Everything.”

  Chapter 15

  That last word reverberated in the air between the Sandman and I. Everything. He wanted everything from me? What the hell did that mean?

  “What, you want to marry me?” I blurted out, my brain muddled from the concussion, from the unrelenting terror and the horror of Ethan’s lifeless body at my feet. “Aren’t you supposed to get on one knee for that?”

  There was a split second where I thought the Sandman would laugh in my face. I mean, it was ridiculous, but so was everything else.

  “Perhaps not everything,” he said.

  The Sandman took a step back, his eyes locking on something or someone coming up from behind on my left. I tensed, but no warning tingles raced through my body. Friend, not foe.

  “We are not done here.” The Sandman turned and strode away, and I thought about shooting him in the back with the wand.

  Well, screw it. I’d never second-guessed myself before—why start now? I whipped the wand in a circle, then pointed it at the Sandman’s back. The sparks that shot out were a mix of black and red, and for a moment—just a split second—I could see my rage in the magic, my anger and strength propelling it forward to slam into the Sandman’s back, spinning him around. He fell back and through something, like an invisible fence that was keeping us in. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.

  “Wild!” Pete was all but on top of me when he yelled my name, and I startled. “Holy cats, what…is Ethan…dead?”

  I dropped to my knees, tucked the wand down the back of my pants and put my fingers to Ethan’s neck. The blood that had pooled out from his puncture wounds seeped through the knees of my jeans. Warm, his blood was still warm. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was part of my crew, because I’d already lost so much, or because of that tiny spark that had jumped so unexpectedly between us.

  A single pulse of his heart thumped under my fingers. That was enough for me. “Help me get him up, Pete!” I got my arms under Ethan’s and Pete grabbed his feet. “We need to get him over there.” I pointed at the place I’d seen the Sandman fall through.

  Wally came running, bursting out of seemingly nowhere. Her face was scratched and her clothes sizzled, but she was intact. “Oh my God!”

  That was all she said as she caught up to us, and her silence scared me more than if she’d spewed off all the numbers, all the reasons why Ethan wouldn’t make it. She took one of his hands and just held it.

  We reached the place where the Sandman had fallen out of the test…and nothing happened. We kept on running across the open plain with Ethan bouncing between us.

  “We do not have time for this!” I snapped.

  “Where are we going?” Pete struggled to speak as we ran. “Why isn’t this over?”

  I didn’t have an answer. What I had was a dying boy and…a couple of wands in my back pocket. One of which would work for me, even if I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

  “Wally, come grab Ethan.”

  “I can help.” Orin slid in from the right, out of shadows that hadn’t been there a moment before, his face beyond pale and green in spots.

  “Why can you all get in, but we can’t get out?” I raged as Orin took Ethan’s arms from me. I grabbed the wand from my back pocket. Ethan’s wand. I pointed it in front of us at nothing. But there had to be something there. Something holding us in.

  “I need a word, a trigger word, something!” I yelled and the others startled.

  “Bascilium-oroco,” Wally whispered. “It can break another person’s spell.”

  I didn’t hesitate, trusting her. Trusting my crew. Hell, I didn’t even stumble over the word for once. “Bascilium-oroco!” The word tasted like copper pennies on my tongue as I pointed Ethan’s wand at the landscape.

  The tip glowed like a lighter, heating brighter and brighter until it was like a mini sun in both light and heat. I couldn’t look at it, but felt it drawing strength from me to make this spell, whatever it was, work.

  “Say it again!” Wally yelled. “Three times, you have to say it three times with a pause in between!”

  “Bascilium-oroco!” I shouted the word and the light grew impossibly brighter until I was on my knees and the others were yelling. The wand began to heat in my hand, burning into my flesh. It smelled of charred meat, and still I hung on.

  My friends were depending on me.

  Billy and Sam were depending on me.

  Ethan’s life depended on me.

  If there was a chance this would work, that it would break the spell of this place, then I had to hang on.

  “Bascilium-oroco!” I put everything I had into that final scream, every ounce of energy and then some. The world around us shattered into a thousand colors, the light from the wand bursting through everything around us, splintering images and throwing them back in broken reflections. When I opened my eyes, the plains and the T-Rex were gone, and we were sitting on a chunk of land that looked very normal.

  Other groups of kids huddled at various points around us.

  I hadn’t just shattered our test, but everyone’s test. Someone was going to be pissed.

  But that was the least of my worries. “We need a medic! A healer!” I yelled, stumbling to my feet. I would have dropped the wand, but it was seared to my palm. Orin was running, carrying Ethan in his arms easily despite whatever poison he’d ingested in the first challenge.

  The teachers and testers were like an ant nest that had been kicked repeatedly. I wanted to believe it was because Ethan was a Helix and Helixes were important. But the number of eyes that went to my hand, still glued to the wand, told me otherwise.

  I didn’t care. I ran after Orin, Wally, and Pete right with me. We hit the medic station at full speed, and the woman who’d
cared for us each time was there. Inside the tent was hushed, for all the world like we were alone.

  Mara had her hands on Ethan in a flash, her eyes closed and eyes moving rapidly under her eyelids. “Bad, this is bad.”

  Someone poked their head in. Jared. The vampire’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a glare.

  “Jared, get his father!” Mara said.

  I went to my knees beside the cot and found Ethan’s hand with the one not seared to his wand. Wally went to her knees beside me. Pete and Orin were behind us, and we waited like that—a united crew—as Mara worked her magic on Ethan. The punctures in his side closed, the wounds on his face closed, and the pallor of his skin improved. But his chest didn’t lift and lower.

  Mara stumbled back, breathing hard after maybe thirty seconds, sweat rolling from her face. “There is nothing more I can do. He was too deep into death for me to pull him back.” Her eyes opened wide with unshed tears, but she tipped her head at Ethan and then looked hard at me. What was she trying to tell me? “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  Too deep into death. What did she mean by that? Now that we were out of the trial, my head was pounding once more, all the adrenaline that had kept the worst of it at bay had burned off.

  I was shaking my head before she even finished. “No, that can’t be. He can’t die.”

  But she was already walking away, pausing only to look back at me. The tent was empty except for the five of us. Five. I refused for it to be four.

  I looked at Wally. “Tell me you can do something, Wally. She said too deep into death, that means he’s in your realm now. There has to be—”

  Orin sucked in a breath. “Once death has taken—”

  I waved my wand hand at him. “Too far into death is not dead. Am I right?”

  Wally’s eyes were as wide as Mara’s had been. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do what you’re asking.”

  “Try,” I whispered. “Please try.” I kept my hand on Ethan’s. Still warm, he was still warm. I had to believe that we could save him yet.

  Wally put her hands on Ethan’s chest and bowed her head. The magic I’d seen around her in the graveyard spilled out of her body, pink and soft and gentle, and for a moment, I thought I saw a darkness around Ethan. Like his body was engulfed in shadows even though I knew for a fact that it wasn’t.

  Noise erupted outside the tent—angry shouts, the wail of a woman, the bellow of a voice that likely belonged to the elder Helix. I understood that cry of grief and could easily guess who’d made it. Ethan’s mother.

  “Hurry, Wally, hurry,” I said.

  Pete slipped up beside Wally and put a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

  Orin put his hand on my shoulder, too, and the circle was complete, our crew linked together in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Wally blew out a breath and the magic she carried pushed the darkness clinging to Ethan back, lighting it up.

  “It is not his time,” she said, and her voice radiated power that rippled outward, flapping the edges of the tent. Everyone outside went silent for a moment, then a hand pushed on the flap but didn’t make it in. They were trying to get in, but something held them back. I didn’t know if it was Wally’s power, or the presence of death.

  A voice that was anything but human chimed back, answering Wally. “He is in my grasp. You cannot take him from me.”

  Pete and Orin gave identical gasps. But Wally just shook her head, her hands clenching against Ethan’s chest, digging into his shirt. “But he is not fully with you, and so I command you to release your hold on him. You obey me. I rule you, Bani.” Wally’s Conkrite voice was in full effect and the power it radiated was anything but funny.

  The darkness around Ethan surged, wisps wrapping around him, but Wally pushed it back again, her shoulders tightening, the pale pink light glowing hotter, brighter. “I will not be ignored. No longer!” There was a snap of power to her words, like a whip being cracked, and the shadows slid back from Ethan, slowly, and then faster until there was nothing left but Wally’s glowing pink power.

  “Death is held at bay, for a minute or two at best,” Wally whispered, slumping, Pete catching her.

  I leaned forward. “Ethan?”

  His chest still didn’t rise.

  Orin slapped Ethan’s chest. “CPR, we need to restart his heart.”

  He started compressions, and I just stared at him in shock for a moment. Who the hell would think a vampire would know CPR? It hit me in a flash. A vampire who didn’t want to kill his human victims would need to have at least basic CPR and medical knowledge.

  “You need to breathe for him.” Orin said. “Now, two breaths.”

  I leaned over Ethan, pinching his nose, and breathed into his mouth, forcing his chest to rise and fall. Two puffs. Orin did another round of compressions. “Again, two more.”

  I held my mouth to Ethan’s and closed my eyes, putting more than my own air into him—trying to give him my energy too, if that were even possible.

  Orin pressed long pale fingers to Ethan’s neck. “There’s a pulse. Very weak. Breathe for him again. We keep breathing for him until he takes one on his own.”

  I didn’t question Orin, just put my lips over Ethan’s and breathed into him.

  One. Open your eyes, don’t give up!

  Two. Come back, Wonder Bread. We aren’t done, you and I.

  I pulled back a little, enough that I could look straight into Ethan’s face, watching for any sign that he was alive. Any sign at all.

  His left eyelid flickered and then the right, and those blue eyes opened and stared right into mine. Had he heard me calling him back?

  “Wild.” His voice was hoarse, a mere croak of my name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Personal space, it’s a real thing.”

  Chapter 16

  I stared into Ethan’s eyes a beat longer as his words sunk in, the air in the tent lightening up as I realized we’d done it, we’d saved him. “Personal space might be a thing when you aren’t dying,” I said as I pulled back. “You get no say when your heart isn’t beating, Wonder Bread.”

  His eyes widened, and he took a slow breath. “Was I dead?”

  I nodded, not able to say we’d brought him back. Because even in my head the truth sounded like a lie. If we could bring Ethan back, why hadn’t someone tried to bring Tommy back? Why hadn’t I found Rory and brought him back?

  The entrance to the tent flapped again, and this time it opened. An older man with an air of power and prestige strode into the room. Ethan’s father. A woman of similar age hurried in behind him, worry etching her eyes. His mother.

  “No, not my boy,” she said, makeup making tracks down her face. It was probably the only time she’d ever present herself like that. She was beautiful, like Ethan, and put together.

  Grief, thicker than over-floured gravy filled the room, sucking the air out of it.

  Wally put a hand on my shoulder and the four of us stepped back, giving Ethan’s parents space.

  “Time to leave,” Pete said. I nodded my agreement and we slipped out of the tent as Ethan’s mother fell on him, sobbing and kissing his face.

  Outside the tent, I took a deep breath. Crazy, this whole place was crazy, but it was sinking in that we’d done it. We’d finished all the trials.

  And we were still alive. All of us.

  A flash of Gregory’s face, his hands grabbing at mine through bars that held him back, cut through the haze of the concussion. Had I seen him? I lifted a hand to my head, but it was still stuck to the wand as if glued.

  “You’ve got to get that looked at.” Orin grabbed my hand. No, not glued, scorched.

  “I can’t even feel it,” I said, turning my hand to get a good look it, the crackled skin, the black char in places. Part of me knew it was shock, the other part was morbidly fascinated that this burned up hand was mine. Orin and Wally shook their heads in unison.

  “That’s because your hand is nearly dead,” Wally said. “We
’ve got to get you to a healer right away.”

  I followed her toward another medic tent, empty except for a healer I didn’t know. A guy with messy brown hair, glasses, and a pair of light green scrubs. He took one look at my hand and sat me down on the edge of a bed, his hands cradling mine. “How did you do this?”

  “The trial?” I offered.

  He shook his head and pushed his glasses up with a finger. “No, what spell?”

  “Bascilium—”

  He cut me off, slapping his hand over my mouth, his eyes wide. “You used that spell?”

  I shot a look to Wally and she nodded for me. “It was the only chance we had.”

  The healer blew out a shaky breath. “The director is going to want me to report this.”

  “Will it get me kicked out?” I asked.

  “No. Not if you can handle a spell like that.” He readjusted his hands on mine and began to mumble words under his breath. His magic was immediate, the glow of it lighting up the small space between us with a faint green light.

  I sucked in a breath as the healing started, the pain sharp as the burn wounds were reversed, the skin reforming with each second. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed.

  To block the pain, I focused on what was going on around us, outside the tent.

  “You said he was dead,” Mr. Helix roared.

  “Then you should be happy he isn’t!” Mara yelled back. “When I left him in the tent, there was no heartbeat. He was dead! You felt that magic holding us back, we all know—”

  “That is impossible. Bringing people back from the shadow of death…”

  “Not impossible. Forbidden.” The director’s voice cut through all the yelling. “And if I am correct, his teammates were the ones who did it.”

  My eyes flew open and I stared at Wally, Orin, and Pete. “Go, get out of here!” I growled at them, a sharp stab in my hand making me grimace.

  Wally shook her head, fatigue heavy in her words. “They will know it wasn’t you alone. There is no point in running. The odds of us escaping…very low. I don’t know what they would be exactly but very low indeed.”