Root Rot Academy: Term 3

by Rhea Watson

  When no one was looking, I’d shoved him down the hillside stairs and got back to fighting, hoping he broke his neck on the way down but too distracted by gunfire to confirm.

  To our credit, we hadn’t lost a single student. Yes, a band of den mothers led by the ferocious polar bear had to hunt the fleeing escape party with a few kids in their grasp, headed for all-terrain SUVs parked somewhere in the distance, but otherwise, all the little darlings had survived the night.

  The same couldn’t be said for all the staff.

  Knobhead security warlocks had taken the brunt of the assault, but we had lost one professor—alchemy, a grey-haired warlock who died fighting his way into the courtyard. Some of the den mothers sustained serious injuries; their shifter genes would see to that, but the lot looked like they had faced true battle when I last saw them.

  And their stock went up in my eyes.

  According to the Root Rot grapevine, Iris Prewett had ridden out the entire invasion in a panic room attached to her office. Even her gaggle of admin vipers had been left to fend for themselves.

  Jack would have been in the thick of things. He might have been dense as fuck when it came to Alecto and their shared whatever, but he would have done his duty.

  He would have been the captain who proudly went down with the ship.

  Only the ship wouldn’t go down with Jack Clemonte—of that I was sure.

  Bjorn and I, meanwhile, had spent most of the night ferrying students to the library vaults. When the invading army caught wind of the student stockpile, they followed after, nipping at our heels.

  And were met with a fury who had no qualms casting hexes that literally made the bastards implode. At one point, Bjorn hung back to help her hold down the fort, charging me with the collection of students. When the rest of the faculty learned the plan, they kept the black-eyed fucks out of my way.

  For the most part, anyway.

  Heads still very much rolled throughout the night, my blades happy and spent.

  No news on how or why an army of the possessed had invaded the castle.

  Who had let them through the ward was anyone’s guess, but given all of security had temporary tattoo sigils to open and close the damn thing, the list of suspects was a mile long.

  Myself and Benedict included.

  I might have dealt with Lucifer, but demons weren’t worth my time—and if I were to have dealings with them, I’d trade with legitimate demons, the type who had earned their body back through their cunning and savagery.

  Dark souls permitted to possess were barely over the starting line in the race back to personhood.

  Bottom of the barrel.

  Useless, powerless, only capable of manipulating a meatsuit once they had seized control.

  I’d never heard of so many in one place before…

  And as much as I longed to speculate with my people, my found family, they seemed exhausted.

  Well, Alecto did, stretched across the hardwood, slowly going limp as her breathing started to even out. Bjorn, still shirtless with his trusty axe by his side, looked like he was in a food coma and loving every second of it.

  My vaults had seen better days, glass cases upturned and books scattered.

  Ugh.

  The cleanup of this night was going to suck.

  Not that I intended to lift more than one measly finger—

  “Gavriel of the Ash Court?”

  Well, that sounded rather formal. I popped my head up, scowling at the clamor of boots tromping across the library in our direction. “What?”

  A beat later, security filed out of the stacks, charging for me with their wands drawn, many still bloody from battle. Eyes on them, I faintly heard Alecto shuffling upright with a barely contained yawn, and a quick glance back showed Bjorn was already on his feet, eyeing the newcomers warily.

  “What’s up, boys?” I, meanwhile, settled back on my folded arms, refusing to give them a damn thing. If they thought this little show of brute force was unnerving, they clearly hadn’t seen me cull half that wannabe demon horde solo. My armor sat a few feet away, in need of a good cleaning, but I’d happily don it again to show them how woefully ill-equipped they were at intimidation. I cracked a grin instead, one that stretched wider when one of the warlocks suddenly loomed over me, one booted foot on either side of my head. “Need me to fight more of your battles?”

  Bald with a split lip and a black eye, the warlock in question tipped his head to the side—and then dangled a pair of handcuffs over my face. “Gavriel of the Ash Court, you are under arrest for—”

  “What the fuck?” Alecto blurted.

  “—the invasion of Root Rot Academy.”

  “What the fuck?” she reiterated, squeakier this time as she scrambled to her knees.

  “This is absurd,” Bjorn growled. “Did you not see us defending the academy all night? Who issued these orders?”

  “We have substantial proof to show his affiliation to demonkind and Darkwell Academy,” the bald twat announced, voice deep and much, much too full of himself. I intended to ride this nonsense out here, on my back, ankles crossed, cool as a fucking cucumber until one of them pushed me. After all, this was absurd.

  I’d never left so much as a crumb to suggest I had ties to Darkwell.

  They swarmed just as the memory of Benedict Hammond’s jeer from the greenhouse reared its ugly head, ten warlocks on me in a heartbeat, wands at my throat, hands everywhere, boots slamming into my rib cage before someone hauled me upright. Teeth bared, I almost fought back, almost annihilated them…

  Until I saw her.

  Eyes alight with panic and outrage, there was my girl just a few feet away, well within the danger zone. One wrong move and they could easily drag her into this beating.

  Add more scars to her beautiful face.

  Hurt her to hurt me.

  No. Never.

  I surrendered to the manhandling, hands wide and weaponless.

  Let them drag me off.

  I’d be free as soon as the coast was clear.

  Yet my submission proved useless, because with some bastard’s hand in my hair, wrenching my head back, their fearless leader made things so much worse.

  “Collect Professors Clarke and Asulf for questioning about their involvement before you return them to their cells.”

  Shit.

  Shit.

  She didn’t have it in her to fight another battle tonight.

  I locked eyes with Bjorn for a split second, cavalier attitude gone. We said nothing, our expressions neutral, but he responded just how I needed him to.

  Wordlessly, Bjorn blitzed to Alecto’s side, just a shadowy Viking blur, grabbed her, and vanished.

  Good.

  Let them focus on me in the meantime. As long as she was safe, I could confidently make heads roll once more without the fear of retaliation against the witch I loved—

  One of the bastards clamped a pair of iron cuffs around my wrists, the pain instant and brutal, skin sizzling as the strength drained from my limbs. I gritted my teeth and snarled, stars dancing before my eyes, flesh already raw and blistered.

  Two warlocks then hauled me out of the library, feet dragging, the iron doing its sordid work. A glamor must have disguised the cuff’s make, because I hadn’t sensed the element in the air—hadn’t felt its telltale buzz, offensive to my delicate senses like nails down the ether chalkboard.

  Iron cuffs. Shit.

  Shit. Not good.

  Not good at all.

  21

  Bjorn

  “You ready?”

  Alecto stared at me for a moment, her gaze vacant, her eyelids swollen from lack of sleep. The nod that followed might have convinced a stranger, but it too was hollow. Having spent a very, very long day hidden in a crawlspace at the back of Seamus Norman’s office, she certainly didn’t look ready for what needed to be done—but we couldn’t stay here.

  Root Rot Academy was no longer a port in the storm; that much was clear after Seamus’s in
terrogation this morning. The head healer had been drilled for the better part of an hour, questioned about his roommate, his connection to Alecto, his friendship with Jack Clemonte. To his credit, despite also facing a new day drained after the demonic raiding party swept through, he did well. At no point did he fold. The warlock responded to every absurd line of questioning with a deadpan expression—one I heard in his sardonic tone—and denied, denied, denied. Sure, he did not, in fact, get along with Gavriel, so that was true, but he had seen us.

  He had hidden us.

  Cleared out this little rabbit hole in the back of his office closet, originally full of traveling trunks, and stuffed us inside just before daybreak.

  He had even slipped Alecto a test tube’s worth of a very basic regeneration draught—with all supplies funneled toward student recovery, anything larger might arouse suspicion. Anything missing from his inventory would stick out like a sore thumb.

  Apparently.

  Root Rot’s head healer had also dismissed his purported friendship with Jack Clemonte—when I knew for a fact that he was the spy feeding Jack intel.

  His heartbeat gave him away.

  When the interrogation had concluded, Seamus went about his day, leaving Alecto and me under the floorboards to ride out the sunshine. In time, he had stopped checking on us, stopped hovering over the hidden trapdoor and asking after Alecto’s injuries. Not that I faulted him for that; he had work to do, more than anyone, to help Root Rot find its feet again.

  But we had to get out.

  No one would touch my elskling again, and no one was shoving us back in those fucking cells.

  My internal clock had kept time; the hours had crawled by, and while it was nothing to me, it weighed on Alecto. Even with the gulp of regeneration potion, exhaustion made her sluggish, yet she was too wired to sleep. Her belly had been howling for ages, and she whimpered every time she adjusted her position, searching for comfort and finding none on the stone at our backs.

  Meanwhile, I counted down the minutes, desperate to help but unable to provide more than an icy embrace.

  Now that night had fallen, my senses attuned to a near-silent castle, darkness beckoned me to play, to hunt, and I could finally be useful.

  I could save my girl, my love, my heart.

  Then, once she was somewhere safe, belly full and dead to the world asleep, I’d work on finding Gavriel—who, according to a rather loud conversation between Seamus and a nurse earlier this afternoon, had been escorted off campus after breakfast.

  And who wasn’t guilty. At all. More and more, the last few days played out like the aftermath of a political coup, with Iris and her cronies culling the last Clemonte supporters from their ranks, pruning the branches, before she seized power for good.

  I mean, yes, I had broken all my headmistress’s ribs—but she deserved it.

  I’d have done worse had I the time. I used to be quite… creative.

  Maybe I would still have the chance to show off my talents. Yesterday had awoken the monster, and he was even more ravenous than usual, incited and alive, hungry for the simple pleasure of disemboweling our enemies.

  Watching them bleed out.

  Watching them squirm.

  Anyway—one problem at a time.

  As the two-o’clock bells tapered off, I grabbed the rusted round clasp hanging from the hatch, then turned it and pushed the wood panel up. Only an inch at first, tensing for an assault. While I detected no other heartbeats in Seamus’s office, maybe Iris had finally swallowed her pride and brought in a vampire night guard to clean house.

  Nothing.

  Not even a whisper.

  Confident we were alone, I nudged the trapdoor fully open, then climbed out. Again I waited, tensed, prepared to rip someone apart guts first if they struck—and again, nothing. Once out of the closet, I blitzed to the office door, Seamus’s domain scented by the plush leather couch in front of a dwindling hearth, the embers flaring, clinging to life. Hardwood mahogany floors and a shiny trophy case of awards. Healer of the Year. Research nonsense. Their only lure for me was all the razor-sharp angles, carved geometric crystal that, with enough heft, could split a skull just as readily as my beloved axe.

  Which I had abandoned in the library.

  And regretted to this second.

  The infirmary was a twenty-four-hour operation, but as I poked my head into the corridor, I found nothing and no one to stand in our way, only shadows and stone. Good. With a nod, I hurried back to the closet, slowing when I spotted one final kindness Seamus had left for us: a fresh pair of clothes folded on top of his desk.

  Right. Snatching the men’s dress shirt, I stalked back to the crawlspace door and crouched, undoing the pearl buttons along the way.

  “All clear,” I murmured, offering a hand to Alecto. She grabbed it with both of hers, and together we hauled her stiff, creaky body aboveground. Her soft whimpers killed me, but as desperate as I was to stop and coddle, it was just better to keep moving.

  “Lavender’s your color,” she croaked with a pointed look at the silky cotton dress shirt, then limped over to rifle through the offerings on Seamus’s desk. My elskling peeled off her bloody sunflower sweater, rigid and black with dried demon blood, and lobbed it back in the closet before tugging on a much-too-big maroon Root Rot Academy jumper over her collared blouse. With my new shirt buttoned, I marched her to the door, then stole another peek before rounding in place and squatting.

  “Climb on and hold tight, elskling.”

  I offered her my back, preferring to carry her there and not cradled in my arms again. Tentatively, her hand crept between my shoulder blades, then slid down as she sucked in a sob.

  “I can’t do it,” she whispered thickly, head bowed, and I noted her full-body quakes with concern. “I-I can’t… Not again.”

  Before we found sanctuary in Seamus’s kingdom, we had zipped around the castle searching for a good hiding place, growing more and more desperate as the sun crested the horizon, enemies around every corner. Our flat was off-limits, as were my classroom and her greenhouses. Anything remotely linked to Gavriel would be damning. Not every professor sided with us, and Alecto hadn’t wanted to shine a guilty spotlight on her friends.

  Stumbling into Seamus had been a stroke of luck and nothing more.

  But before that, Alecto had experienced a true vampiric blitz. Sure, I’d carried her around, darting through the highlands in halfhearted bursts of speed, smitten with her squeals and giggles. This was nothing like that: this was life or death—for her, anyway. I didn’t give a fuck about my fate.

  And I moved as such, to the point that when we stopped on a stairwell landing to reassess our options, she’d folded over and emptied her guts on the floor.

  Nothing but bile, of course, her stomach empty, her head spinning.

  I didn’t blame her for not wanting to go through that a second time, but we had no other choice.

  “Yes, you can.” I cradled her chin in my palm, then squeezed and forced her head up when she tried to twist away—to hide from me. “Elskling, you can. You’re stronger than this. Never forget… You’re stronger than the fire.”

  Breath shuddering, she looked ready to break, to collapse on Seamus’s couch and sleep for the next week. But then she sniffled and brushed her fingers under her eyes, determination shimmering in the amber.

  “Okay, yeah…” She bounced on the balls of her feet a few times when I let go, ready for another round in the ring. “Yup, let’s do this.”

  There she was—my shieldmaiden.

  I’d never been prouder of her.

  Never loved her more.

  When I gave her my back this time, she scrambled on and snapped her arms around my neck. Right. Good thing I technically didn’t need to breathe. Windpipe crushed, I waited for her to tuck in, ankles clasped at my torso and face buried against my neck.

  “Mush,” she mumbled at my throat, digging her heels in with a huff. Grinning, I gently pulled open the door—and ran li
ke the wind.

  And for a vampire, that wasn’t a metaphor.

  We blitzed through the Root Rot castle as a shadow, blowing by security, outside in the April chill less than a minute later. As much as I wanted to stop and check on her, maybe let her dry heave down my back, there were just too many warlocks prowling around in the darkness.

  After two loops around the grounds, I settled on the northwestern wall for our escape—the very back corner, to be specific, where the powers that be in their infinite wisdom had only stationed two security warlocks.

  Warlocks I plowed into like a vampiric bowling ball, the pair falling like pins. Heads crashed into the exterior stone walls, blood spurted like fireworks, and only when they were out for good did I abandon warp speed.

  Alecto groaned in my ear, her arms trembling, body barely clinging to mine, and I rooted around for what I needed in silence.

  “Are they alive?” she rasped. I nicked a wand from one and stuffed it in my pocket, just in case she needed it later.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  I wrenched one warlock’s sleeve up, right arm, then the left, smirking when I found the temporary tattoo that would open the new ward: a black illustration of the deity Janus, god of gates and transition. The floating head was two-faced as in all his idols, coins, and paintings, and his inked profiles mirrored those of the old bearded Roman emperors. A nice little tattoo, I suppose—must have stung quite a bit, glamored right over the tender flesh of this warlock’s inner wrist. As with all wards, only the caster could create the key—if they made one at all—and deities associated with passageways, paths, gates, and travel were common sigils.

  Obviously, Gavriel hadn’t chosen it. His shared ward was down before they took him away. Naturally, that left Root Rot’s spellwork master to cast the barrier and choose the key…

  Ahh, Benedict Hammond—psychotic and unimaginative. Who would have thought?

  “They’re alive, elskling.”

  “Barely?”

  “More than that,” I muttered, those steady twin heartbeats proof enough that they would see another sunrise. No telling how scrambled those empty heads were, but that wasn’t my concern.