I’d have to tell the others soon, but there was no time to explain before class, even though I knew my women would want to know what Theodora had to say as soon as possible.
When I finally reached the open door of the premonition classroom, my jaw nearly hit the floor. Then I stepped past the threshold, craned my neck to stare up at the ceiling, and gazed in wonder at the vision above me.
Theodora had truly outdone herself this time.
The ceiling was painted royal gold, and there were hazy crimson clouds with malicious looking children flying through the sky. The cherubs had angelic faces, but their chubby bodies were a ghoulish shade of green, and black bat wings supported them.
The intricate ceiling wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention, though. An enormous black iron chandelier dangled from above us with hundreds, if not thousands, of tall ebony candles that lit the room. They cast a warm glow on the students, and the air smelled of pinewood and dying roses.
The floor was a sleek, ink-black marble, the desks were the same texture and color, and I also noticed the seats were made of red, soft velvet. Students were leaning back with satisfied smiles plastered on their faces, and I knew they were enjoying the new comfortable chairs.
When I spotted my coven, they all grinned and gestured for me to come and join them.
“So, what happened?” Akira asked as soon as I sat down.
“I think that’s a conversation best saved for a later time,” I muttered.
“What do you mean?” Faye questioned with an arched, red eyebrow.
Before I could respond, a purple cloud of smoke erupted right next to the black wooden desk at the front of the room, and as the wisps of smoke dispersed, Theodora stood there with a proud smile on her face.
“Welcome, class,” she said, “to Advanced Premonition! I hope you’re all ready for a very trying but rewarding experience.”
“Always,” Morgana sighed dreamily under her breath.
The bookworm already had her quills, books, and parchment out, and Akira playfully rolled her eyes at the brunette but then quickly turned her attention back to Theodora.
“Now, we will first begin with a brief introduction.” The professor smiled. “Who can tell me a little about divination?”
As per usual, Morgana’s hand shot up into the air like her life depended on it, and we couldn’t help but chuckle under our breaths.
“Yes, Miss Morgana?” Theodora asked.
“Generally speaking, divination is the practice of acquiring knowledge about the future through magical skill,” the brunette responded with her chin raised, “but just because a witch can utter the correct spell, doesn’t mean that she… or he… can successfully gain insight into the future. Not everyone is born with the skill, and sometimes magic can backfire.”
“How so?” Theodora questioned.
“Occasionally, visions acquired through divination can deceive you,” Morgana replied. “This can trick a witch into seeing an incorrect future, or even drive them to madness.”
“Very well put.” Theodora nodded. “Now, with that out of the way, I will warn you all this class will certainly push your limits. Do not be upset if you cannot master the skills on the first try. It takes years of practice, but we all must begin somewhere, correct?”
Everyone muttered their agreements, but I could feel a shift in the air. They were all worried because, deep down, every single witch wanted to prove their worth to the headmistress.
“Well, without further ado.” Theodora grinned and raised her hands. “Let’s get started.”
The headmistress extended her right hand outward and stared long and hard at a tall, black cabinet placed near the front of the room. The wardrobe door swung open, and a small cauldron, a jar of herbs, and then something that looked like pickled organs came floating through the air and toward her desk. Students smiled as objects bobbed in the air and landed gracefully on Theodora’s desk, and when the ingredients were neatly situated on the table, I leaned forward with anticipation.
“Now, first things first,” Theodora said. “Open your books to page three-hundred-and-seventy-two.”
We turned to the page, and the first thing I saw was a sketch of a man splayed out on a table. He was bound to the table with rope and was stark naked, and his eyes were open wide with fear as two witches hovered above him with malicious smiles on their flawless faces. The witches were sticking needles into his eyes and cutting him open from his neck down to his penis. The instructions were written in red cursive on the side, but before I could read them, Theodora called my name.
“Cole,” she said in a sweet voice, “would you care to read the page aloud?”
“Of course, Professor.” I nodded as I glanced at the text. “According to advanced divination, one must be able to take the life of an unwilling host and harvest their life force for their own gain. One must replace the organs of the victim with new tissue that has been soaked in one’s own blood and mixed with the hellbine herbs.”
“Now, I have two needles.” Theodora grinned. “Both made from unicorn bone. The only thing we seem to be missing is a host!”
The headmistress snapped her fingers, and clouds of smoke wafted above everyone’s desks. Manlike screams filled the air as naked hostages appeared out of nowhere and were splayed out on the tables, and my coven and I had our own test subject spread out on our elongated desk, with his arms and feet bound by rope. He squirmed on the table, and my coven all scrunched their noses in disgust as they stared down at him. He reeked of piss and shit, his eyes were red-rimmed, his skin was sallow, and it was clear he hadn’t had a proper meal in months. He was all skin and bones, and it surprised me that he had enough energy to even wriggle around.
“Please!” he wailed. “Let me go!”
When I glanced back at Theodora, she was standing by her desk with her own hostage pinned down. She snapped her fingers, and then everyone received their own cauldron, two needles, pickled organs, and a jar of herbs.
“If you carry out the experiment successfully, you will have accomplished the first step toward achieving divination greatness,” Theodora said with her chin raised. “And now that we have all we need, the real fun can begin.”
“No, pleeeeease!” her victim protested. “Please, have mercy on me!”
Theodora rolled her eyes and flashed the class a mischievous smile. Then she stared down at the man and shook her dark curls as if she were annoyed with a misbehaving child.
“I know they can be noisy little pests,” she sighed. “If you want to sew their mouths shut, you may, but I prefer to hear them suffer since they burned, tortured, and mutilated our Wicca sisters.”
“Fuck, yeah.” Akira grinned. “I’m down with that. Let the motherfucker scream.”
Our test subject turned his head and shot the short-haired witch a petrified stare. Akira then flashed him a menacing smirk, and her black eyes were filled with nothing but bloodlust and contempt.
It was fucking hot.
“No, no, no,” the man wailed. “I did nothing of the sort. That woman is lying! I swear to God.”
“You truly expect us to believe that shit?” Vesta growled as she leaned forward and bared her teeth. “Your kind is even more pathetic than I thought. You’re nothing but a bunch of inbred liars and witch-killers.”
There was venom in the purple witch’s silver eyes, and I knew my women were all itching to tear this bastard apart. When I looked down at the man, he continued to wriggle around the table and beg for his life, and it was absolutely pathetic. I felt no pity for his filthy ass, and I couldn’t wait to make him fucking bleed.
“Now, pay close attention to what I’m about to do,” the headmistress ordered in a firm voice.
Theodora took the two bone needles from her desk and then stuck both of them into the eyes of her victim. He cried out in agony and wriggled on the table, and then a thick trail of blood pooled down from his eyes.
“You bitch!” he shouted as he bucked against h
is restraints. “You’ve blinded me!”
“Tut, tut,” she replied in a sing-song voice. “No need for foul language.”
Theodora then strode over to the other side of her desk and pulled out a sharp dagger. It was a beautiful weapon with a hilt made of bone and gold, and it somehow gleamed like the sun under the small amount of candlelight. The headmistress then raised the blade high above her head for all the class to see and smiled.
“I prefer to use a dagger to cut my victim open, but the rest of you will use your wands to do this next part,” she explained. “Understood?”
“No, please,” the man on her desk sobbed. “I’ll do anything!”
Theodora ignored his pleas, and she proceeded to cut him open from his neck down to his torso and stopped just above his penis. He screamed so loudly, I was sure glass would shatter, and several witches laughed and snickered as his pathetic cries turned into manic sobs.
“Now, you must take one needle from the eye and prick your finger,” Theodora explained. “Be sure to get nice, thick droplets and squeeze it into the pickled organs. It is key to remember that the first drop is always the most important one.”
The class watched as Theodora pricked her own finger and then squeezed the blood into the jar. As time passed, the man’s cries grew quieter, so we all knew he was close to death. When Theodora was finished, she took the hellbine herbs and sprinkled them into the jar of pickled organs. Then she took a step back and smiled at the class with her bloody hands folded neatly in front of her.
“Now together, we will begin removing the organs from our host and replacing them with the pickled ones,” she explained. “But first, you must stick the needles into your subject’s eyes. Go on now! Don’t be shy.”
Since the bone needles were right by my side, I snatched the pair and then stood up. The man on our table gaped at me with horror, but right before he could plead with me again, I swiftly stuck the two needles into his eyes. They slid in easily, like a hot knife through butter, and he screamed and sobbed as bloody tears poured down his sallow, sunken face.
He wasn’t the only one, though. The entire room echoed with a chorus of painful cries, and it brought a small, satisfied smile to my face.
“Excellent.” Theodora clapped once everyone had completed the first part. “Now, mix your blood and herbs into the pickled organs.”
Morgana unscrewed the jar, and then a strong, pungent smell hit us all at once.
“Oh, Satan,” Akira grunted as she pinched her nose. “That smells like shit.”
“Specifically like newt-shit,” Faye commented, “but as smelly as it is, it makes for great forest fertilizer.”
“Thank you for that snippet of enlightening information, Faye.” Akira rolled her dark eyes. “It still smells like shit, nonetheless.”
“Well, what did you expect it to smell like?” Morgana asked. “Come on, let’s just do this.”
Morgana dashed the herbs into the jar and then looked at me with her big sky-blue eyes.
“You should go first, Cole,” she suggested. “Your blood is probably the strongest out of all of us here. There’s no point denying it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” I shrugged as I took one needle out of our host, and he screamed even before I entirely plucked it out of his eye.
“Gods, please stop!” the man wailed and begged.
“Shut the hell up,” I warned him. “Or I’ll sew your lips together with poison vines.”
He clamped his mouth shut, and I pricked my finger with the sharp unicorn bone. Blood trickled down my finger, and I squeezed the crimson droplets into the jar. When I was done, I passed the needle around the coven, and once we had poured our own blood into the mixture, we knew what the next step was going to be.
We had to cut the bastard open.
“I’ll do the honors,” I offered as I pulled out my wand.
“Go for it,” Faye urged as her green eyes sparkled with delight. “I love watching you work.”
“Me, too,” Vesta added, and her plum colored lips spread into a sadistic grin. “It sends a lovely shiver through my entire body…. it’s almost erotic in a way.”
I nodded and then aimed my wand at the pathetic, squirming man. He couldn’t see a thing, but I had a feeling he knew the worst was yet to come.
“No,” he whimpered. “Please, don’t… I beg you for forgiveness!”
“Too late,” I hissed. “Secare!”
Bright light hit his throat, and his screams turned into a loud, gurgling sound as I dragged the spell downward, all the way from his Adam’s apple to his navel. Then his skin split open like a ripe melon and revealed his gory insides. His heart and lungs were pounding slowly, and his intestines spilled out from the opening like a blood-soaked snake and then landed on the marble floor with a splattering sound.
“Right, now you may remove all the organs, except for the heart,” Theodora stated. “That little gem must go inside the cauldron, but only once the other organs have been removed and replaced.”
Everyone then rolled up their sleeves and dug their hands into their subjects. I was elbow deep in warm blood and guts, and by the time I detached a massive lung, his heart finally stopped beating, so I knew the man was dead.
“Hell, it took him a while to die,” Akira growled as she tossed his liver aside into a tall pile of bloody organs.
“I bet Theodora placed a life extending spell on them before class.” Morgana grinned. “Just to keep them alive for some fun.”
“Cool.” Faye nodded as she took out a kidney and stared at the organ with fascination. “Hey, I have a question for you, Morgana.”
“Yeah?” the brunette replied without looking up.
“Why do we put needles into their eyes?” the redhead asked. “I mean, what was the point? We didn’t even harvest the eyes.”
“Oh, honestly, do any of you read the chapters before class?” Morgana sighed.
“No, because we have you,” Akira chuckled. “A breathing, walking library of endless information.”
“I know that was meant to be an insult,” Morgana huffed, “but I’ll take it as a compliment. Anyway, the reason we use needles is because we have to blind the hosts before we harvest them. It’s an ancient tradition.”
“Fascinating,” Vesta murmured, and her silver eyes were sparkling under the candlelight. “So, why do we save the heart for last? It has always been my favorite organ to work with…they are usually so pure and full of hate.”
“That will be the ultimate step before we enact the spell,” Morgana explained. “Theodora will show us once we empty this thing out.”
It was as if Theodora had heard Morgana from across the room because the headmistress lifted her bloody hands into the air and clapped.
“Attention, everyone!” she bellowed. “Now that you’ve harvested the organs, it’s time for the last couple of steps before we recite the incantation. First, you must fill the hollow body with the pickled organs and then remove the heart and place it into the cauldron.”
We did as instructed, and it took us a moment to remember exactly where everything went. It was like trying to solve a bloody puzzle, but I had to admit I was having a fantastic time. I placed the liver and lungs inside the body, while the others replaced the intestines, stomach, and other missing parts. When there was nothing left but the heart, I pulled apart the ribcage and ripped the muscle out of the body. I then dropped it into the cauldron, and we waited for the rest of the class to catch up.
“Is everyone ready?” Theodora finally asked.
We nodded, and Theodora smiled at the students.
“Now after this demonstration, you’ll aim your wand at the heart and repeat after me,” Theodora instructed as she pulled out her wand and directed it at her own cauldron. “Ignis prudentia!”
A blue light lit the cauldron on fire, and deep sapphire flames emerged from the pot, towered upward, and almost touched the ceiling. The students oohed and ahhed at the incredible sight, and then the body
on the table caught on fire. A cerulean inferno devoured the man, and wisps of smoke wafted toward Theodora. They seeped up her nostrils and into her eyes, and she breathed them in deeply as if she were inhaling an intoxicating drug.
When the flames came to a stop, Theodora focused on the class and then stared at each student. She studied us and furrowed her eyebrows as if she were trying to make a tough decision, and when she finally turned to look at my table, her ice-blue eyes focused on Morgana.
The bookworm gulped, loud enough for us to hear, and it made the headmistress break out into a wide smile.
“Why, Miss Morgana,” she purred. “You’ve forgotten something rather important today… something you usually put on before the rest of your clothes… how very risqué of you.”
Akira stifled a laugh as Morgana turned beet red, and the brunette squirmed in her seat and avoided looking at Theodora, or anyone else for that matter.
“I will never forget this moment,” Akira wheezed as quietly as possible.
“Please, shut up,” Morgana moaned before she bowed her head low.
I could tell she wanted to shadow port the hell out of here, but Akira was right, this shit was hilarious.
“Now, moving on.” Theodora clapped. “The next thing you will do is enact the spell, and then you will split up into pairs or groups and ask each other whatever you want. See if you can gain a clear insight into your partner, and if you can’t… well, do not fret. There will always be a next time.”
“Cole,” Akira said before any of the others could say a word. “Do you want to pair up?”
“Sure.” I shrugged with a relaxed smile. “Why not?”
We huddled close together, and then we all repeated the spell with our wands aimed at the cauldron. Blue flames engulfed the dead man on the table, and then his heart. A moment later, smoke seeped up my nose, and it didn’t smell like blood or guts. Instead, the scent reminded me of pinewood and dead leaves, like a deep, dank forest.
Scholomance 4 Page 2