Scholomance 3: The Devil's Academy

by Logan Jacobs

  “My group is not too far behind me.” He smirked. “We can battle it out then.”

  He quickly pulled out his wand, and I did the same. Then I took a step sideways and stood in front of my coven as I silently dared him to try and attack. I saw a shadow behind him, and for a moment, I thought it was his own team coming to join him, but when I looked closer, I realized the shadow belonged to something else entirely.

  My face remained neutral as the snow beast quickly lunged out, brought his massive paw down on the warlocks’ head, and started to squeeze. The ginger-haired warlock’s two-toned eyes widened, and he began to scream as the beast lifted him up from the ground. Then he dropped his wand, and it landed with a clank onto the stone floor.

  I couldn’t look away as the beast squeezed his head with just one paw. The warlock’s eyes bulged out of his face, and blood began to drip down from the top of his skull as the creature gripped even harder. He cried out in pain and fear as we heard bones starting to crunch, and then his eyes abruptly popped out from their sockets and dangled out of his head. Finally, with one final squeeze and cry of agony, his head completely smashed open like a watermelon, and blood, brains, and bone splattered everywhere.

  The beast dropped the headless body and began to pull the corpse out of the mountain by the legs. None of us said a word until the creature disappeared from view, and then the crocodile turned away from us and just slowly sauntered out of the cave. I thought it interesting the crocodile didn’t protect his master, but perhaps he realized he was no match for the beast, and that his master’s fate had been sealed the moment he was grabbed.

  “That was nasty,” Akira finally whispered. “Even for me.”

  “One less dickbag to worry about, though.” Morgana shrugged.

  “Still,” I reminded my women, “it doesn’t mean we’re in the clear yet. He said his team was right behind him.”

  “So, let’s haul ass.” Vesta nodded.

  How are you going to haul ass when you don’t even know where to go? Alexander giggled.

  “Hey, man, if you know where to go, be my guest,” I sighed. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly playing a little fun game here.”

  Fine, fine, follow me, he muttered. Damn, you are grumpy. Was it because you didn’t fuck your women last night?

  I didn’t answer, and Alexander hopped over to the other familiars, and they grouped together before they scurried across the stone floor and toward a red, Persian carpet that was frozen at the edges.

  Check under the rug, Alexander ordered. Hurry.

  I started to drag the carpet out of the way, and the witches all gasped as I revealed what was underneath. When I looked down, I saw the hidden doorway against the floor and grinned.

  “Well done, Alexander,” I laughed.

  Don’t thank me yet, boss, he warned. We still have several obstacles ahead of us.

  “Agreed.” I nodded. Then I tried to pull the doorway open, but it was frozen solid. “Shit.”

  “Hold on,” Morgana said as she pulled out her wand and aimed it at the knob, “step aside. Templum!”

  The door below started to shake before it finally swung open, and all we could see was darkness down below us. Icy air wafted up and hit me like small knives against my skin, and I shivered before I aimed my wand at the hole.

  “Illuminana,” I said.

  My wand glowed with fire, and all we could see was a rickety wooden stairwell that led down to Satan knows where.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked Alexander.

  Positive, the black rabbit replied. I can sense a magical pull from down there.

  The familiars began to crawl down, and we followed suit. As soon as we were inside, we heard deep masculine screams from above us, and I realized it must have been the warlock team and their discovery of the headless body.

  “Morgana, seal the door,” I commanded.

  The brunette pulled out her wand and aimed it at the opening above us. “Glacio!”

  The opening above us sealed shut, and the secret door froze at the hinges.

  “Great job, let’s go,” I urged.

  “Wait,” the genius brunette breathed, “one more thing. Invisibilis.”

  Slowly, the door above us morphed into stone, and it was as if no entry had ever existed.

  “Nice work, nerd,” Akira commented.

  “It will only last for a little while,” Morgana responded. “So, we’d better hurry… Silvia, where to next?"

  The raccoon below started to furiously squeak as we headed down the stairs.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She said, ‘hurry the hell up, and you’ll find the chalice,’” the brunette replied. “But she warned that we have to be careful… there are snow goblins and massive ice rats down here.”

  “Are they difficult to combat?” I questioned.

  “Well, one or two won’t be a problem,” Morgana nervously laughed. “But a pack of them… that might be tricky, and I don’t think we should wait around to find out.”

  “So, let’s move it before we have to deal with it,” Akira growled.

  We moved quickly down the stairs and finally came to a cold, dark corridor. My light was still showing us the way, and we crept through the mysterious hallway. We were halfway down the aisle, and I thought we were in the clear until we heard a menacing laugh. It didn’t belong to any witch or warlock, though, of that, I was sure.

  “Snow goblins,” Faye whispered as she tiptoed behind me, and I noticed the cuts on her chest had healed, so the only remnants of her injury was her bloodied and tattered shirt. “They may be small, but they would love to make our familiars into meals, so Lily, stay close.”

  “How about we all stay close?” I muttered.

  Before anyone could respond, there was the sound of something breaking through the mountain walls, and when I turned around to see what it was, I was face to face with a small white beast. It had burrowed a hole through the wall, and it was staring at me with its ragged looking face. The goblin had bright yellow eyes and a skeletal nose and mouth, and when it opened its mouth to screech, it flashed rows of blood stained sharp teeth.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  The snow goblin cackled, looked down at Alexander, and licked its thin lips, but before it could pounce down and take a bite out of my familiar, I snatched it midair by its puppy scruff.

  “Not today, ugly,” I growled as I started to squeeze.

  Then its eyes bulged from its small head, and I twisted its neck and let it fall limply to the ground.

  “Nice one,” Morgana said from behind me.

  “Let’s keep going,” I replied, “before more of them show up.”

  As soon as the words left my lips, we heard a deep rumbling coming from within the walls. We all exchanged panicked looks, and Faye’s small ferret turned up her little pink nose, squealed, and ran in front of us. The other creatures followed after her, and we all sped toward the end of the hall, where I could make out a plain wooden door ahead of us.

  “That’s where the chalice must be,” I shouted. “Come on, let’s go.”

  As we tried to move faster, though, we heard more screeching all around us. The goblins were breaking through the ice walls, and I knew that soon, they would be gaining on us.

  “More of them are coming!” Vesta yelled.

  “So, let’s move it!” I ordered.

  I could hear the little beasts scurrying behind us, and their screams grew louder and louder. As I ran, I turned and saw a mass of them right at our feet, and then one fell from the ceiling in front of us and landed right in front of Alexander. The goblin opened its mouth and prepared to take a chunk out of my familiar, but Alexander was too quick for the goblin. My black rabbit pounced on the small creature, tore its throat out with his large teeth, and continued to run onward as if nothing had even happened.

  We were ahead of the pack, but if we didn’t get to the end of the hall, they would surely kill us all.


  There were just too many of them.

  We looked at the door, and we could hear the snow goblins right on our heels. So, we sprinted hard and fast down the hall, and when we came to the mysterious door, I yanked on the handle. I half-expected it to be locked, but it opened with ease.

  As soon as we stepped into the next room, we slammed the door shut, and my witches pressed their backs against it. My light went out, and I struggled to see what the hell I was doing. It wasn’t pitch-black, but it was still difficult to see where we were. The space we were in looked like a small room with junk all splayed against the stone walls of the mountain, but everything was just obscure shapes in the gloom, and I needed light if I was going to find the chalice in all this rubbish.

  “Illuminana,” I repeated as I lifted my wand.

  But nothing happened.

  “Oh, no,” Morgana wailed. “It’s a spell proof room… I bet the only way to break the barrier is to find the chalice.”

  “Okay, that’s a small setback, but so what?” Akira hissed from somewhere to my left. “Let’s use our fucking brains and barricade the door before we start looking for the chalice.”

  We frantically searched the barely lit room, and my leg knocked against something in one of the corners. It felt heavy, like a wooden piece of furniture, and when my eyes adjusted and I studied the shadow, I realized it was a wooden chest. As quickly as possible, I started to push it toward the door we came in through, and the others helped me. The trunk was much heavier than it looked, though, and despite the cold, I was sweating by the time we had it against the wall.

  And we did it just in time, too. As soon as the chest was against the door, there was banging and screaming on the other side.

  “We’re going to get in there,” one of the other witches screeched.

  “Like hell, you are!” Akira yelled back.

  “Looks like they took care of the snow goblins,” I muttered.

  “We need to hurry,” Faye whimpered.

  We had two groups of murderous teams after us and possibly a herd of snow goblins that could attack at any moment.

  So far, this wasn’t looking too good.

  “Let’s find the fucking chalice,” Akira said. “Damien, do you sense anything magical?”

  Well, duh, we all do, hot stuff, Alexander laughed. Check the fucking chest!

  I squinted my eyes and stared at the wooden chest we’d shoved against the door, and it took me a moment to realize there was a massive gold lock on it. The lock looked kind of like an ordinary padlock, with the hooped shackle piece threaded through the latch of the chest. There wasn’t a space for the key on the bottom, though, but then I noticed the face of the lock was peculiar. The edges of the device made a kind of frame, and a number of golden jagged pieces, almost like a jigsaw puzzle, loosely jostled against each other as I tilted the lock this way and that. I guessed the pieces were meant to be arranged in some kind of pattern, but I had no idea what it was. My thumb slid one of the pieces to the side, and I felt something in the lock catch like the piece was in the right place, so I was confident I could eventually figure this out.

  The problem was, I wasn’t sure how much more time we had.

  “Well, fuck,” I grunted. “This might take me a moment.”

  The witches on the other side of the door banged harder, and the force nearly sent the chest flying forward. I braced the heavy chest as hard as I could against the door, and then I gripped onto the lock and focused all my willpower on figuring out the puzzle, but it was difficult when the opposing teams wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

  “Shit,” I hissed. “They could blast the door open at any moment.”

  “No,” Morgana replied, “not with the forcefield preventing magic of any kind.”

  “Forcefield or no forcefield,” Akira snapped, “we need to hurry! Come on, Cole, use those premonition skills of yours and figure out the lock combination.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” I huffed as I continued to mess with the lock. The pieces slid smoothly beneath my thumb, but none of them were clicking into place. I growled under my breath as I swiped my finger to the left again, and then something caught my eye. I squinted and finally saw what looked like the profile of a face, and I didn’t know if that was the pattern I needed, but it was my only lead right now. So, I fiddled and turned the parts of the lock as quickly as possible.

  “Hurry, Cole,” Vesta urged.

  “One more second,” I muttered.

  I continued to twist and turn the pieces of the lock to fill out the face’s profile, and I got several parts to latch into place, but then I couldn’t get the final pieces to line up, so I had to start over.

  The pounding on the door was getting louder, though, and sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes, but I couldn’t let any of that distract me.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to hone in on my premonition power. Theodora always said my premonition skills were unparalleled, and they hadn’t failed me yet, so I continued to let my fingers blindly slide the golden pieces around.

  Suddenly, the lock gave a satisfying loud click in my hands, and my eyes shot open. The puzzle pieces had snapped together and formed a woman’s face. Her chin and nose were sharp, her eyes large, and her mouth was set into an open scream. Then I gave the lock a sharp tug, the shackle clicked open, and my coven gasped when the lid slowly lifted.

  “Damn,” I gasped as we all stared down at a glittering, golden chalice. I grabbed it, and as soon as we stepped away from the door, a blast of purple light shot and splintered the wooden barricade.

  The others were breaking in. The barrier had been lifted as soon as I touched the chalice.

  “How the hell are we going to get out of here?” Faye asked as she pressed against me.

  Why, through the secret passageway, of course, Alexander snickered as he stood on his large feet and pointed at a massive crack in the wall. I can sense a draft right through there. Just blast it open.

  So, I aimed my wand at the crumbling wall and hoped it wouldn’t cave in on us.

  “Oblitero!” I shouted.

  The rocks of the mountain blasted apart, and a strong gust of wind seeped through. The snow was painfully white compared to the darkness of being inside the mountain, and I squinted my eyes as I squeezed through the opening. Then my coven and our familiars followed closely as we headed back outside.

  As soon as we stepped out of that damp mountain, I breathed in the sharp, icy air and looked around. The wind pierced my skin and snow quickly coated my lashes as I turned to see where we should move on to.

  “We need to keep going,” I said.

  “Where to, though?” Akira asked.

  “Yeah, shouldn’t we be teleported back by now?” Vesta asked with wide silver eyes.

  Before anyone could respond, a blue blast of light shot out of nowhere and missed Morgana by an inch, and we whipped around to see a furious Nyx trying to squeeze through the opening I created. Her spell hit something that caused a crack as loud as thunder to roar behind us, and when I spun in that direction, I saw heavy snowfall was rapidly tumbling down another mountain.

  “Avalanche!” I cried out.

  All the witches gasped, and I wondered what the hell we were going to do. I stared down at the golden chalice, and for some reason, my mind flashed back to when we’d been stuck in that wizard's mansion. When we’d placed our hands on the stone, we’d been teleported back to the school.

  Maybe that would work again.

  “Everyone grab your familiar and then touch the chalice!” I yelled.

  My coven did as they were told, and they touched the chalice with pale, panic-stricken faces. This was our only chance at an escape, and if it didn’t work, I knew we would all die a horribly painful death.

  So, I willed us back to Scholomance as the white tsunami roared toward us.

  Chapter 7

  The next thing I knew, we came crashing down onto the banquet hall floor, and I landed face
first with a painful thud. I could hear people wildly whispering amongst each other, and when I finally managed to open my eyes, my coven was splayed out on the ground with their familiars by their sides. Everyone’s eyes were on us, and when I stared back at the enormous crowd, everyone stopped talking at once. Now, a heavy, uncomfortable silence hung in the room.

  “Ouch,” Akira suddenly broke the silence. “Motherfucker, that hurt!”

  I didn’t think she realized just how many people were staring at her, so I coughed awkwardly and nudged her, while her blue komodo dragon crawled up to her shoulder and started to lick her face.

  “What?” she snapped before I gestured to the ocean of students in front of us. Then her face turned beet red when she realized everyone was staring at us. “Oh, shit.”

  “Satan, we did it!” Morgana grinned as she pushed herself off the floor. “We won!”

  Vanessa finally broke through the crowd and stood in front of us. Then she raised her hands up into the air as she addressed the gathered students.

  “Congratulations, we have our first set of winners!” she roared.

  Scholomance students began to wildly clap as we all stumbled to our feet. Then Vanessa turned around and stared down at us with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment.

  “Bow, for hell’s sake,” Vanessa hissed.

  We all took a bow, and the headmistress clapped before she glided over to us.

  “As everyone can see,” she shouted over the applause. “Scholomance is officially in the lead!”

  As Scholomance students continued to clap and cheer, I could hardly believe we’d made it out of there in one piece. We all bowed and waved at our fellow students, while the Vipera and Mors students stood still with grim faces and folded arms.

  “Tonight, we shall celebrate their victory with a grand feast!” Theodora added before she turned to us and leaned forward. “You all may return to your quarters, but be sure to return in an hour.”

  “Um, Mother,” Vanessa whispered. “Why don’t you bring the other students back before they are buried under the snow?”

  “Oh, right, yes,” the headmistress replied quickly, “how thoughtless of me.”