by J. E. Cluney
“Don’t say that, sweetie. It’ll be okay,” Emma murmured as she squeezed me tighter.
I hoped to God she was right.
Because if this was my new life, foretelling death and finding bodies.
Then I already hated it with a passion.
7
I sat on the red lounge with Marcus, grateful that Ollie had stuck on some ‘Good Place’ for us to watch. I needed something to take my mind off everything.
Skip had chosen to cook up a simple bacon and eggs for dinner for us, and now I had a bowl of ice-cream as we all watched the show.
I was grateful not one of them wanted to leave me alone now.
Mr Brady had called Lucas, and he’d informed us that Derek had died earlier today, probably roughly when I’d gotten off work. The thought made my stomach twist.
It was also definitely the wendigo, and they were still hunting for it. Mr Brady was perplexed that none of his spells could find it. It made him cautious of the creature and showed just how strong it was.
It really did worry all of us that little bit more.
I managed a giggle at the show, and I felt all of the guys relax a little. Even Skip, who’s shoulders slumped a bit as he glanced at me affectionately.
I was squeezed between Ollie and Marcus, while Lucas was sprawled out with his legs on Skip again.
At least the dread had finally dissipated, but it left a worry in its wake instead.
We needed to sort out this wendigo thing. It was going to keep killing.
It needed to feed, it survived by feeding on supes and humans, and it stressed me out to think it would go after someone else.
‘We’ll figure it out,’ Lucas said, and those forest green eyes bore into me with determination.
He and Marcus were resolved to get this handled.
Ollie was more concerned with keeping me safe rather than going after the wendigo. He was going to leave it to the two stronger guys.
But this was something that involved me, and I wanted to be able to defend myself.
I wanted to be the one to end this thing. To find the wendigo and deal with it.
Even if the thought terrified me.
Monday started off difficult. It took me a while to get into the zone and focus on the lectures, but with Ollie’s comforting hand almost always touching me, whether it be holding mine or resting on my leg, I was able to fall back into the routine.
There were soft murmurs as students discussed Derek’s untimely death. They were freaked out, and it was hard for me to avoid the guilt and worry.
A few students even looked at me during class or walking between the lectures, and I hated it. Did they somehow know?
‘No, you’re just over self-conscious right now. They’re not staring at you any more than before. It’s just cause you’re a halfling,’ Ollie said lightly as he held my hand. We were headed for lunch now, where Lucas and Skip were waiting for us under the fig tree.
‘What if Mr Brady told some of the students? To warn them?’ I thought. It was silly. It was a private investigation, he wouldn’t just go around telling people. But I was still worried.
‘He wouldn’t have. Besides, I spoke to him just before. Nothing new yet, but you’ll be starting with your new instructor today, I’ve got the room number for you,’ Lucas informed me.
I couldn’t see him or Skip yet, so they must’ve been under the fig tree already.
We stopped at one of the kiosks to grab lunch. I chose a ham and cheese sandwich, while Ollie got the usual caramello koala and a bacon and egg wrap.
When we finally sat down with the others, I was too busy thinking about my banshee class. I’d be the only student there. Which was probably a good thing. I was nervous, wondering just what it was I was going to learn.
“Her name’s Sasha. Miss Sasha O’Donnell,” Lucas informed me, and he gave me the room number. It wasn’t far from my pixie class thankfully, but it was one of the smaller rooms.
“Must be interesting,” Skip remarked as he bit into his sausage roll. “How are you feeling about it all?”
“Nervous, I guess,” I answered, watching as Lucas crunched into his apple. He had a selection of fruit for lunch, like usual.
“But you’re a bit excited as well,” Ollie smiled as he focused on his wrap, those amber eyes flicking my way as he bit into it.
Lucas was propped against the trunk of the tree, while Skip was sitting beside him.
Ollie was sitting cross-legged beside me as we faced the pair.
“A little,” I admitted, unable to hide the small smile. “I want to learn about everything that I can do. But Derek’s death…” I sighed, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
It still bothered me. Everyone kept saying it wasn’t my fault. But the wendigo was after me. That’s why it was here.
In a way, it was my fault.
Even if he was a dick, he hadn’t deserved to die. Not like that.
“You can’t dwell on it, Cupcake,” Lucas sighed, turning his head so that that gorgeous face was focused solely on me. He’d trimmed his stubble, always wanting to maintain his five o’clock stubble everyday. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if he did shave or if it was magic.
“Magic,” he smirked, his eyes glinting with humor.
“I hate feeling like I’m left out of all these mental conversations,” Skip sighed, pouting before taking a swig from his coke can.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn soon enough,” Lucas gave him a teasing smile.
Skip choked a little on his coke as those bright blue eyes flashed with anticipation as he looked at me.
I just chuckled and shook my head. I did not want to get into this whole mate thing right now.
“Mates, how strange. I mean, I know many supes have them, never thought I’d be one,” Lucas mused, those eyes twinkling with delight at the thought. He cared for me, that much was clear, but in his own way. I enjoyed how he maintained his carefree, wild-child personality.
“Why us though?” Ollie murmured as he took my hand. It was like he had this strange need lately to be touching me. I know the thing with Derek and the wendigo the other night at home had set him off badly. He didn’t want me out of his sight.
Marcus was constantly in my mind too, watching me in his own way, while Lucas made sure I was always wearing my pentagram necklace.
As for Skip, he was the only one who I didn’t really know what he was up to.
“Who knows, I guess cause you all care about me and want to keep me safe. Whether that’s because of it though, I have no idea. I don’t understand it,” I shrugged.
It really wasn’t something I could completely understand. I was just accepting it. There was no changing it, and quite frankly, I enjoyed what we had.
“So when will I get my turn, Bee Sting?” Skip asked, his voice turning husky as he cocked his head at me.
I stared at him, my mouth going dry at the naughty look in his eye.
“Probably when she’s not got a monster trying to kill her,” Ollie said, although he was grinning stupidly as he said it.
I had no idea. Did I want it? Hell yes. But right now, there was a whole lot more on my mind than sex.
Derek had just died.
And I’d foretold it and then found him.
My smile I’d been wearing faltered as I got sucked back into my concerns surrounding it.
At one point in my life, I had loved him. Sure, he became an arse, but he’d taught me to shift. He’d loved me in his own twisted way, until he’d changed.
I watched as Ollie spied a rhinoceros beetle in the grass. He looked excited at first, until he realized it was dead upon picking it up.
“Well, looks like we’ve got some fun coming our way,” Skip sighed, frowning over our shoulders.
“The pink really needs to go,” Lucas groaned as he rolled his eyes.
Great. Just great.
“Ollie, I see you’re spending a lot more time with your new lay.”
Ollie j
ust gave me a tired look before clenching his jaw and looking over his shoulder.
I turned, glaring daggers at the pink powderpuff. My life could really do without Glenda.
She was sneering, and this time, she had her entourage. They were all just as glammed-up as each other, with their rich, fancy clothing and over the top makeup.
And girls was the term, not young ladies, considering they were snickering like we were in high school.
“You really need to move on, you and Ollie ended a long time ago,” I snapped, not wanting to deal with her shit today.
I could feel my power swirling inside me. I wasn’t sure if it would do anything if I got upset. I had no idea what my banshee magic could do.
“Oh, but I like to check on my leftovers. I don’t really want mutts taking them,” she shot back.
“Fuck off, Glenda,” Skip growled, causing that perfectly contoured face to scowl. God, she was beyond fake. At least she’d swapped the pink dress for a pink frilly top and denim shorts. But her handbag was pink, and I wondered where she kept her textbooks and notebooks. Hell, she probably didn’t need them for a makeup class.
“Aw, rude,” she mocked him, holding a perfectly manicured hand over her mouth with, you guessed it, pink nails.
“After last time, do you really think you should be doing this?” I asked, smirking as I remembered the bin food attacking her. I’d never received a call about that, so I could only assume I’d gotten off the hook somehow.
Glenda scowled at me, her eyes narrowing with the vibrant pink eyeshadow. She was just too dolled up for a day at uni. Sure, if she was clubbing, she’d look more the part.
Not here.
Her entourage was watching me cautiously, and I reached out to see what they were. Glenda’s aura was the same rainbow as Ollie, a true shifter, while the other girls had yellow auras flecked with other colors. Shifters, but not true shifters.
“You try that magic on me again and I’ll have you expelled,” she growled.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said innocently, loving the way her face twisted in annoyance.
“Honestly, seeing how you shifted into a cat because you were scared, I guess you don’t even deserve a pure supe. A mutt is all you’re worth,” Glenda turned up her nose at Ollie, obviously not able to come up with a response to me.
Anger boiled up inside me, and I bit my lip, willing my magic to not do anything stupid.
Seems today was not my day though.
The beetle Ollie had picked up suddenly glowed to life, a strange white glow flashing from it before it shot towards Glenda.
I watched in mortification as it hit her straight in the eye.
She squealed, reeling backwards as she swatted at the beetle. Her friends were freaking out, and one was even stifling laughter.
Suck shit, bitch.
“Get it off!” she cried, the beetle latching onto her eyelid. They did have nasty little hooks for feet.
Lucas waved his hand, and the beetle disintegrated from her face.
I frowned at the bleeding scratch under her eye.
“You’re crazy. I could’ve lost my eye!” she wailed, but I could tell she wasn’t sure what had happened. Mischief magic didn’t affect creatures of the dead, so she had her attention on Lucas.
“Get out of here Glenda, before I get my father to deal with you,” Lucas said, completely dismissing her outburst as he looked at her lazily.
She huffed and stormed off, her friends fretting over her injury.
Please, it was only a scratch.
“Did you do that?” Lucas asked once they were out of earshot.
“Huh?” I frowned, realizing he was staring hard at me.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Guess my magic isn’t behaving today.”
“Your magic only affects food when it comes to emotions,” Ollie pointed out, and he looked quite concerned at the occurrence.
“Animating the dead isn’t something pixie magic can do, but apparently banshee magic can, but I didn’t think it’d be a randomly occurring magic,” Lucas stated, and the worry that had filled those dark emerald eyes made me chew my lip.
“Is it bad?” I murmured.
“Necromancy is the worst kind,” Skip answered for him, looking both worried and frustrated all at once.
“They’ve put down warlocks who’ve practiced it, or stripped them of their power,” Lucas said quietly.
I sat there in complete shock at this.
Necromancy? It was just a bug!
“Surely that’s not what it was,” I shook my head, disbelieving them.
“It’s a banshee thing, but I’m not sure what the Council will consider it. You need to be careful. I’ll talk to my father, he can let me know. Necromancy is something they’re very hard on, but when it comes to a banshee, I have no idea what the rules are,” Lucas sighed.
Great. Perfect.
Just another worry to add to my ever growing list.
I dug my nails into my shorts as I waited patiently for my lecturer. Hopefully I was in the right room. Lucas had even walked me to it, but there was no sign of Miss O’Donnell.
I sat in the front row with my laptop bag at my side with the MacBook, feeling quite stupid. Maybe she wasn’t coming.
Just as I thought that, a slender woman breezed through the door.
I instantly sensed that she was like me, feeling the unique darkness inside her.
The banshee.
I opened my own senses, wanting to investigate her aura.
She was a shifter, like me. And judging by the strange tawny color that ruffled like feathers, something from the sky. And then the strange blackness that my own aura had.
The banshee side.
She strode over to stand before me, peering at me with soulful blue eyes, the color of incredible sapphires.
Her face was sharp, a perfectly straight nose and angular chin, and her wavy brown hair was done up in a bun. She smiled as she studied me, wrinkles appearing around her thin lips and the corners of her eyes. She had to be in her late forties, or even her fifties.
“So you are Allison Smoak, the first banshee to attend Corviticus,” she stated as she straightened.
I was the first? That was quite a feat, considering Corviticus had been around for over fifty years.
“Miss O’Donnell,” I nodded in greeting.
“Please, no point for formalities,” she waved me off. “Call me Sasha. Mr Brady had some trouble locating me. He searched the teacher database, and there wasn’t a single banshee in the system. He spent many hours hunting around, using all his contacts apparently, before he dug me up. I was quite surprised to hear another banshee had awakened. I wondered if I’d ever meet another of my kind in Australia,” she smiled, revealing her perfectly straight teeth.
Wow. So Mr Brady had struggled to find a teacher for me.
“He asked me if I’d be willing to teach you. I’ve been around for quite some time, and I’ve learned the ways of the banshee on my own. Our powers will probably differ. Hunting down information on us is no easy feat either. I had to travel back to Ireland, where our lines originated from,” Sasha said, pursing her lips. “There is not much online about us, but with great difficulty, I found another banshee there, one who was far older than I.”
“How old are you?” I blurted, curious considering she’d said she’d been around a long time.
“Over a hundred years,” she grinned, her eyes twinkling as I gaped.
“How?” I murmured in disbelief.
“When your powers fully awaken, you begin to age slower, along with your mates,” she explained.
Oh wow. That was something I didn’t expect.
A wave of panic rolled over me at this information, and I knew the boys sensed it as they all crowded into my mind.
Shock and disbelief filled me from them as they learned what had unnerved me.
‘It’s not a bad thing,’ Lucas murmured instantly. Of course, he was a warlock, one of the few ra
ces who were known for prolonging their lives with magic.
But this was because of what I was.
‘I’m already immortal,’ Marcus stated.
Great help.
Ollie was perplexed, his mind working overtime as he thought about it.
He was actually waiting for me under the fig tree, studying rather than attending his true shifter class. He didn’t want to see Glenda, not to mention he couldn’t shift anyway with them.
Still, to learn I would outlive many was not something to be taken lightly.
“You’ll adjust to it, it’s not a bad thing,” she murmured, sensing my distress at this new information.
“Honestly, this past week has been crazy for me,” I sighed as I rubbed my temple.
Oh how I wished I could go back to just mischief magic being the main source of my problems.
Now I was going to live a longer life. I mean, I guess that wasn’t all bad. No one wanted to die. It could be interesting.
Only if this stupid wendigo didn’t get its way.
The thought ran through me with a chill.
“I want to learn to defend myself against the wendigo after me,” I said instantly, and Sasha frowned as her eyes darkened.
“Yes, Mr Brady did mention that you had one seeking you out. I’ve had the luck to not be targeted by one. He has actually given me this,” Sasha pulled the pendant out from beneath her light blue blouse. It was a pentagram, not as pretty as the one Lucas had given me. So she was being protected too.
“The magic in it is to keep me hidden from the wendigo. No such spell can be cast for you now that it already knows about you I’m afraid,” she gave me an apologetic smile.
Typical.
“As for teaching you to defend yourself against the wendigo, I’ll first have to discover how your banshee magic works. Being part pixie, it may have different qualities to my own,” she stated as she cocked her head at me.
“I made a dead beetle attack a bully,” I said with a shrug.
The corner of her mouth tugged into an amused smirk.
“Well, some would call that necromancy, but with a banshee, it is no such thing. We cannot will the dead to do our bidding, they simply can become animated to defend us. Necromancy is considered more to be when you bring someone back from the dead or animate someone or something to do your bidding. Banshee magic is short-lived in that regard, only flaring to life when needed or brought on, but can’t last,” she explained.