by G. Bailey
Makes things worse that they all think my parents murdered a load of people. My parents? Murderers? The couple who knit Christmas jumpers for me every year and even knitted Amethyst one? Before all this, the thought of my parents being murderers would have made me laugh. Now I just feel cold to the bone at the thought. Just imagining Am last year when I tried to get her to wear the purple jumper my mum made for her makes me smile until I realise she is alone and god knows where. Hopefully, someone will take her in, sarcastic comments and all.
Cold air blows against my cheeks as a pair of big steel doors are pulled open in front of us, and the Heller in front of me looks back at me, nodding his head forward. I reluctantly walk out of the building and down the stone steps, where a limo is waiting. I don’t know where we are, but it’s damn cold for August here. It was cold back home but not to the point of making each one of my breaths look like a cloud. I glance back once more at the building behind me, where I know my parents are trapped.
I’m leaving them for the first time...and they are in danger. The guilt threatens to swallow me whole, especially when I remember how bad Dad looked and how I didn’t even get to see Mum. The leaders said force had to be used to take them...that means my mum might be hurt. I know I have to leave and do as I’m told, and then I can make some kind of plan to get my parents and escape this Demon Academy they are sending me to. I just have to learn how to use my supposed powers, and then surely that will help me plan my escape. My hands shake as the Heller gets to the bottom of the stairs first and opens the limo door for me.
“Will they kill my parents?” I ask the Heller, knowing I have no right to ask him, and he or she has no reason to answer me.
“Death is a blessing for your parents. By the devil, we all pray that is all they will receive,” he coldly tells me. I wish I hadn’t asked now.
“What?” I ask, looking back at the giant stone building. “I have to speak to Magnus and whatever that woman was called again. I have to—” I’m stopped as the Heller grabs my wrist, pulling me closer to him.
“Trust me; you need to get into the limo now. They are forever watching you, and you cannot do anything to help your parents,” he warns me, almost kindly this time. “Their patience with you will wear thin if you do not do as you are told.”
“Would you get in the limo if you were in my shoes?” I ask him, wishing I could see his eyes under the slits of his hood.
“Yes, without question. I would know that my death will not help my parents,” he replies to me, letting my arm go.
“What’s your name?” I ask, feeling like I need to know it.
“Claus,” he tells me and shoves me into the limo before I can reply. The door slams shut behind me, and the limo instantly starts moving as I scramble to sit up on the leather seat, enjoying the warmth of the inside. The limo is basic inside, nothing but three leather seats and cream carpet. Though there is a dodgy pink stain near the door, making me wonder if that was blood and they didn’t clean it very well. I suck in a deep breath, smelling nothing but bleach and leather, and knowing I need fresh air because this is all too much. I’m seriously going to puke. I try both tinted windows, but they don’t open. I crawl to the front, knocking on the closed blacked-out window.
“I need fresh air, please. I’m going to puke otherwise,” I shout through the screen, and I bang my hands on it a few times. There is silence instead of a reply, and tears prick the corner of my eyes as I sink to my knees, sucking in deep breaths. I feel like I can’t breathe, and the limo slowly starts to feel like it’s the worst place in the world, just as one of the windows starts sliding down, and fresh air slams against my cheeks. I crawl to the window and lean my head against the side.
“It’s all going to be okay,” I keep telling myself the same thing over and over until I can say the words without tears and my voice breaking down. I need to get it together; I’m not falling apart now. I can save that for later. Right now, I need to focus on where the hell this Demon Academy is. I finally take a second to look up and see the castle we are driving toward. Of course it’s a damn castle.
The castle looks like something from the old Dracula movie Dad used to watch all the time, and it sits on the edge of a big cliff. The cliff downright terrifies me as I move my eyes to the castle, seeing the seven spiralling towers, and each of the towers has a pentagram symbol at the top of the tower, filled with red stained glass. The sun shines through the clouds every so often, shining red light all over the castle and the grounds surrounding it. There doesn’t seem to be any other buildings, and there is nothing but high wire fencing walls making a circle around the academy until it hits the cliff. I guess they aren’t concerned with students running away by jumping off the cliff. It’s too high for anyone to survive anyway, and the sound of the crashing waves means the landing wouldn’t be good either.
So this is The Demon Academy. The limo speeds down the one road, which has watchtowers strategically placed alongside it, manned by Hellers. It takes about ten minutes before we get to the gate, and a Heller speaks with the driver before walking off, waving his hand in the air for a signal to open the gates. I know from the second we drive through the gate, there is no going back to my old life. There is no future unless it’s a future as a demon.
I’m a flipping demon...and I lived in a church. The Heller that caught me was right; it was a funny place for a family of demons to hide. I would laugh, but then again, that would be what crazy people do—laugh at their own misfortune and all that. Maybe if I were crazier, then I wouldn’t be in this giant ball of crap life I’m currently finding myself in.
The limo comes to a stop right outside the castle where a little black sign has a logo with The Demon Academy written on it. The logo has two crowns on either side and a pentagram under the writing in a badge symbol. There are little swirly things going off it all over the place, and I just close my eyes before pushing the door open. The door slams into something hard enough to bounce, and sounds of metal twisting fill my ears. What the hell? I step up out of the limo to meet the most vibrant green eyes I’ve ever seen. They look like the forest, and I could damn well get lost in them. I shake my head, losing eye contact with the stranger to see he has silky black hair that is short at the sides and the back from this angle, and much more on the top, falling onto his forehead. He has a tanned, golden glow to his skin, and that is all I notice because then he spreads his black, soft-looking, glossy wings out.
Wings.
“The holy hot stranger has wings,” I mutter, my cheeks burning red when I realise I just said that out loud, and the hot stranger just flipping well heard me. He does not look amused though. In fact, he seems like he wants nothing more than to rip my head off. Thankfully, he rips the door off the car instead. The metal breaking and crunching hurts my ears as I think about hiding in the limo. I gulp before jumping out of my skin as he throws the broken door of the limo onto the ground, where it slides and smacks into the stone steps leading up to the academy.
“Next time, watch what you are doing for heaven’s sake,” he growls, his foreign accent and gravelly tone making it really hard to be scared of him. One part of me is definitely not scared of him. Flipping hell, there is something wrong with me.
“Is that an angel thing?” I ask, clearing my throat. Real smooth, Lexi.
“Is what an angel thing?” he growls. Okay, I’m annoying him more. Not what I was going for, but I might as well finish my question.
“Ripping car doors off in anger?” I ask.
“What is your name?” he enquires, taking two steps closer, and I arch my neck to meet his eyes. They don’t look like the forest anymore, not unless that forest was on fire—a green burning fire that wants to destroy absolutely everything in its path.
“Lexi,” I finally find the guts to say.
“Stop being a fucking baby, Lexi, and walk into the academy. If a door being ripped off and thrown scares you, then you won’t survive what is in there,” he barks at me. Okay, thought we had
a moment where he might not be scary—I was wrong.
“Then why should I walk in?” I ask him. He already doesn’t like me; how could I make this worse?
“Because I want to see you fail, baby,” he replies, a smooth smirk lifting his lips from the frown that was there. I don’t have a comeback for the utter asshole, so I lift my middle finger at him as I walk around the broken limo door and up the steps. I only look back once to see my strange angel following me into my new school.
I guess the academy can’t be worse than he is.
Chapter 6
They kidnapped the cat too
After walking up two dozen wide stone steps to the academy, I get to three open doors, each to a separate corridor, and each with a lot of students inside who all stop and stare when they notice me. They all wear matching uniforms of white shirts with red logos, and either red and black plaid skirts or black trousers. It’s like they have never seen a new person before, because they all watch me.
I’ve never liked being the centre of attention, and it only makes me itchy to hide somewhere. It reminds me of the time I thought I was a good singer and signed up for the talent contest at school. Five seconds into singing Beyoncé in front of my class, I realised they were all laughing and I really needed to stop singing. My ass never ran so fast out of school like I did that day. I remind myself that I’m not nine years old anymore, and I’m old enough to handle myself in this school, even if they all stare. I guess they see me as the runaway daughter of murderers.
The hallways of the academy are just door after door, with yellow walls and white-tiled floors. There are lockers dotted around, but they look old and rusted, and I’m betting they are for decoration more than actual use. I also spot several people carrying around bags full of books, suggesting they aren’t using the lockers between classes.
“Ah, you found her, Mr. Morganach!” A middle-aged man wearing a black cloak over a white shirt and black trousers runs over to us, though he is speaking to the angel who stops at my side. The man has thick brown hair, small glasses that perch on his long nose, and his brown eyes watch me like I’m fascinating. “My name is Mr. Bisgaard, and I am the headmaster of The Demon Academy. You must be Miss Alexandria Cameron. Correct?” I nod. I don’t see who else I could be. There isn’t exactly a row of new students lining up at the door.
“What should I do with the door?” someone asks, and we all look back to see three Hellers picking up the car door between them at the bottom of the steps, and another Heller closer to us who spoke.
“Miss Cameron hit me with a car door as her way of saying hello,” Mr. Morganach smoothly explains. What a tattletale. It was just an accident.
“Ah, well, perhaps you should help them with that,” Mr. Bisgaard says, looking rather flustered before he seems to take a deep breath and calm himself down. “Miss Cameron, this way.”
I look back at the gates in the distance, seeing how high and imposing they are. There is no escaping, but hell, I want to try somehow.
“Don’t run now, baby. It would be too disappointing,” Mr. Morganach whispers to me, and I sharply turn my eyes to his, only to be frozen again by the beauty of them. He really has some dark, fucked-up humour, but he also has a really pretty face. What the hell is an angel doing at Demon Academy in the first place? Mr. Morganach walks down the steps, and I turn back to see Mr. Bisgaard walking into the middle corridor, never looking back to see if I’m following. I jog to catch up with him, passing many whispering students gathered together, many of who don’t hide the fact they are staring at me. I jog quicker to catch up with Mr. Bisgaard.
“Welcome to Demon Academy, Miss Cameron. We are the people of the devil, and we are cloaked in sin. That is the motto of the academy, and it would be best if you remember it. Lucifer is our King in Hell, though you may know him by other names like the first fallen, the devil, Satan, and the one true unholy King of Hell among others. He prefers to be called Lucifer.”
“This is crazy,” I mutter.
“Now, you’ve already met one of your teachers, Mr. Morganach, but there are five others you can count on to help and guide you through your years at DA,” Mr. Bisgaard tells me. So mister stranger angel is a teacher. Flipping fantastic, I’m sure my lessons with him are going to be fun. Mr. Bisgaard suddenly turns into an open room where there is little more than a desk, two chairs on either side of it, and a filing cabinet in the corner. The walls are a horrid orange colour, and the white tiles just make the orange walls all the brighter. An out of place posh chandelier hangs from the ceiling, its dozens of lights reflecting off the small crystals hanging from it. “Do shut the door, Miss Cameron, unless you wish for an audience. I’m afraid DA can get a little boring after a while, and the students become nosy about anything new.”
“Sure,” I say, shutting the door where there are indeed a lot of students hanging around.
“Do get me out of this cage. I am not one of those types of cats that are into bars and other kinky things,” Amethyst says, her voice drifting to me. I shoot my head around the room until Mr. Bisgaard lifts Amethyst in a cat carrier onto the desk.
“I believe this cat belongs to you, and she might be your familiar. She was rescued from the church your family was found in,” he tells me, and some part of me takes a deep breath of relief. Am is family, and I’m glad to have her with me, considering I’ve lost everything else.
“Rescued? They dared to pick me up, and then they locked me up in here. I would call it kidnapping,” Amethyst protests.
“She is mine, thank you. I can keep her here?” I ask. If he says no, I’m going to keep her anyway.
“Yes, you may, although it is strange for a demon as young as you to have a familiar. A familiar is a guide to help advise you in your darkest times. Most demons find their familiars around the age of twenty-five to thirty—if ever—and then only when they are working and their demon is at full strength,” he explains to me. “Familiars are more commonly found in hell, which there is no way you have gone to yet. Your situation just becomes more peculiar to us all.”
“Their demon? I’m not sure what you mean?” I ask because processing everything else he just said is going to take some time. Amethyst came from hell. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. She is a sarcastic little madam at times.
“We are demons, born into human bodies. Between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, our demon surfaces, and it either kills us or we find a way to balance our shared body. Demons need violence, death, or suffering to stay alive, and it is our way of life. Your parents’ demons must have fed off the suffering of the homeless that came to the food bank, at least that is what everyone is saying,” he remarks and hands me an envelope.
“I find it hard to process all this.”
“I could only imagine. Don’t worry; your demon will not appear until you get close to the age of eighteen,” he says.
“Something to look forward to,” I sarcastically say, but he doesn’t pick up on it as he smiles widely.
“Your key to your room is in there and the number. At the end of this corridor are the students’ rooms. Yours is on the first floor, right at the end. Just walk straight past the statue and down the corridor.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, gripping the envelope tightly. “Do we have powers?” If we do, there is a better chance I can learn them and save my parents. And perhaps myself.
“Our demons do, and it is their choice to share them with us. I’m afraid around sixty percent of the demon population never find a balance with their demon and end up dead,” he remarks.
“Great odds there,” I reply with a frown. He links his hands together, leaning on the desk and watching me closely.
“It is the way of the demons, the way of your people. Only the strong shall live in immortal sin forever,” he remarks, sounding like he is reciting some poetry.
“We are immortal?” I ask, my voice so low it’s like a ghost.
“Only in hell. If we stay on Earth, then we cannot be immortal for long
. Many of our people spend years in hell and some years here,” he explains to me.
“If death is normal for our kind, why are my parents on trial for killing?” I ask.
“Your parents didn’t just kill the higher demons, they took their souls, which means Lucifer never got their souls. We are unsure how they did such a thing, considering it is an angel power and there was no angel presence sensed in the area. Everyone is as interested in your parents’ trial as you are. What they did...it was unholy, and Lucifer himself wants answers,” he explains to me, and it only makes me mad. I clench my fists, sucking in a deep breath before I reply.
“They aren’t killers,” I bite out. His frown only deepens.
“I knew them both—your father especially well. I never thought they were...but they ran away with no answer. They resisted arrest when found, and they hid you from your own people. You are a demon with no knowledge of your heritage or your own world. I never thought any parents could be that cruel to their child,” he remarks. “I feel sorrow for you.”
“My upbringing wasn’t cruel. I love my parents,” I practically growl at him.
“It was cruel to hide who you are from you. You are painfully unaware of your world, and I hope it does not cost you your life,” he remarks, and I struggle not to argue with him, because honestly, he is right. Dammit.