A Demon's Horns: Vice College For Young Demons: Year One

by Marie Mistry

  My name didn’t register for a second. When it did, I remained seated in shock. Pruitt’s gaze locked on me and her mouth turned downwards at the corner as though she had smelled something particularly foul.

  “Get over here, lazy slattern,” she commanded.

  There were some mutters about that and Maddox openly gave her a death stare, but no one made a move to do anything about it. Although if most of my group hadn’t already been called out, I was certain one of them – probably Nelly – would have taken a swing at the old hag.

  Embarrassed, I stood up and gathered my things, following Aeron and Bane towards the doors. When I was within sight of the outer doors, I frowned to find both of my parents there, with my mother preening at the sight of another man with mahogany brown hair and a wolfish grin.

  I hung back for a second, observing them. The man himself was classically handsome and seemed to draw the eye of every woman in the line. I saw more than one father angrily watching his wife stare at him. He was standing with a plain looking woman with kind eyes who seemed to be covered from head to toe.

  An unshown, I realised. Someone’s mother was an unshown.

  As I watched, uncomprehending, Bane and Aeron moved towards the odd pair. The unshown threw her arms around Bane. She also smiled widely at Aeron before giving him the same hug, while the man gave both boys pats on the back.

  I frowned as I saw them together. Usually Aeron and Bane were nowhere near each other. However, side by side like this, I could see that they had the same height, dark hair and facial structure as the man.

  They were brothers, I realised suddenly, or rather, half-brothers.

  That would make the older man between them Kellert Krossian. The man who Rina had once told me slept with everything that moved.

  I realised with a start that Pruitt was glowering at me and hastened to catch up with her. The fact that neither Bane nor Aeron had ever told me about their relationship suggested that they didn’t want me or anyone else to know about it. So I respectfully kept my distance, despite Pruitt’s angry looks.

  When my mother saw me, she instantly morphed from a preening peacock to a disgusted vulture. Without a word, she strode off towards the grounds, my father following absentmindedly.

  I had to half-jog after them through the cold, foggy grounds. I finally caught up with them both by the moat behind the Haughty Tower. I hung back slightly, the chill, damp grass grazing my ankles and making me wish I was indoors in the warmth. I was so distracted by the miserable, cold weather that I only noticed that Mum was literally shaking with rage after the silence had gone on for an awkwardly long amount of time.

  “Hi Lily,” my dad said from in-between us, as if only just noticing I was there.

  My mother exploded.

  “How dare you!” she cried. “You selfish, stupid, repulsive child!” She strode up to me. “Take those fake horns off right now you little tart. You dare wear those and dishonour our family by claiming to be part of a misfit caste instead of a Pride as you were meant to be!”

  I flinched as she saw the ring I used to decorate my horn.

  “You’re proud of this, aren’t you? You wicked, wicked girl. Take them off this instant, I command it!”

  To my horror, she grabbed a hold of my horns and began pulling at them, ripping off the ring and chucking it into the moat as she did so.

  “Mum, please,” I begged. “Please stop, you’re hurting me.”

  “Nonsense, you can’t hurt what’s not real.” She gave a screech as she cut herself on the tip of my left horn, dripping hot blood into my hair. “You dare cut me, you filthy little tart?” she demanded. “Fine, I demand a duel.”

  I paled. “Mum I can’t, please. Stop this.” I looked around me with dread, seeing that several families had stopped to watch my mother lose her shit.

  A blast of pyrokinesis shot past my hair, singing one horn. I cried out.

  “Dad, please,” I called, but he shrugged, seeming intent on something on the back of his hand.

  “Duels are good, Lilith,” He called back absently.

  I dodged another blast of fire from my mother. I couldn’t duel her. Not here. Not with all these people and not my own mother.

  I tripped as I dodged a flying piece of earth she had sent at me with terrakinesis. My ankle twisted with the motion, and I was flat on my ass.

  In desperation, I created a small shield of PK around myself.

  “Lilith?” I dimly heard Nelly’s voice, but when I looked for her, I found her parents holding her back.

  “Stay back Nells,” a man cautioned her. “You can’t interfere in a duel.”

  My mother, oblivious to our audience, continued yelling at me. “You filthy little piece of shit.” Her eyes were wide with madness. “You should be living in there!” She gestured to the Haughty Tower with one hand as she continued lobbing projectiles at me with the other. “You should have been a Pride, but instead you decided to be a little slut. How long did it take you to sleep your way through the school after your showing? How long?”

  “Mum, I haven’t–” I was choked off by a lack of oxygen.

  Aerokinesis, I thought as I choked. She was really going to kill me.

  With that startled realisation, I knew there was only one way I was going to survive to see tomorrow. I had to fight back.

  From my spot on the floor I checked my power levels. I’d taken power from Ryon this morning, so they were pretty high, but my mum would gather more with the pride from every victory she had against me. I quickly modulated my shield to be more efficient, and then sent a single hesitant PK missile at her. A warning shot hit her and sent her flying.

  It was enough to distract her from her aerokinesis, and I gulped in huge breaths of air as I struggled to stand.

  Mum was climbing to her feet, righting her clothing as she did so. “You dare strike me?”

  “Mum, I’m warning you…” I trailed off.

  In a scream of rage, an inferno of pyrokinesis assaulted my shield with licking tongues of scorching orange. Its warmth made me sweat, despite my shield holding strong.

  With my eyes squeezed shut, I shoved a hand forward, grasping towards the moat with my hydrokinesis. Using a chunk of my power, I summoned forth a torrent, soaking my mother with cold dirty water. Then I used terrakinesis, sending a hail of tiny stones flying at her, praying that one drew first blood, so we could end this.

  Not that I thought she would stop there, but perhaps if I could survive that long, one of the elders or teachers would step in.

  My mother deflected the stones with a hysterical scream. “Are you trying to tickle me, girl?” she demanded, sending more pyrokinesis at me.

  My shield was crumpling, the silvery curtain flaking away under the onslaught. I didn’t have enough power to hold it and fight back, but dropping it would give away to everyone watching that I could deflect attacks, something way beyond what I was supposed to know.

  My mother called upon the water on the ground around her, forming it into a long, thin icicle javelin. With a well-practiced flick of her wrist, it flew towards my heart.

  Something in me snapped.

  With a roar, I threw off my shield and sucked all my power into my hands. Stealing control of the icicle from my mother by brute force, I reversed its trajectory.

  Instead of skewering me, it went through her hand and out of the other side.

  In shock, she raised her pierced palm to her face.

  “The duel is over!” boomed Vrosis, from the front of the crowd. “First blood has been drawn. As elder, I declare Lilith Carazor victor.”

  My mother screamed in rage. “She will never be a Carazor!” she growled. “She’s not worthy of the name of a noble caste family. She is not our daughter.”

  I looked at my father who just shrugged, as indifferent as his sub-caste declared. He had chosen the opportunity to generate more power over defending his own daughter. I wanted to sob.

  I turned; ready to get away before I felt th
e air heat around me.

  My mother hadn’t accepted defeat.

  She was gathering her power to wipe me off the face of the earth.

  I had no time to react.

  Before I could do anything, someone else’s shield covered me. Protecting me as fire scorched the ground where I stood.

  Before I could figure out who the shield had belonged to, both the fire and the shield had disappeared completely.

  I turned back to my mother, only to find her writhing on the floor in ropes of PK. Elder Vrosis was standing over her, murder in his eyes.

  “Did I not make myself clear?” he asked, threateningly, before turning to me. “Are you unharmed, Lilith?”

  “Yes, thanks to someone,” I said, searching for the owner of the shield. No one came forward. “If I can, Elder, I would like to go back to my room now.”

  Vrosis nodded. “I shall escort your parents from the grounds.”

  With a stone in my gut, I began to walk back, only to realise that half the school had watched my mother’s meltdown. Nelly and Lulu looked sympathetic, but with their parents there, they didn’t come over to me. Babette was off to one side, and she gave me a small nod of support. The final kick in the gut was when I realised Aeron and Bane were both standing just beyond the crowd with their father and the unshown who must have been Bane’s mother.

  No one offered to help me as I walked back to the tower, so I took care to disguise my limp all the way. It was only once I reached the common room that I allowed myself to fall into a seat and examine my ankle. It had swollen to twice its usual size and turned an ugly puce colour. I could move it, which I thought meant it wasn’t broken. I peeled off my shoe and sock and, to help with the swelling, I stuck my foot in an ice bucket that had been meant for champagne. I lay on the sofa, my leg dangling over the edge so that my foot could stay in the bucket on the floor.

  Then, while the room was empty, I let my head fall back against the arm of the sofa and sighed.

  My parents disowned me today, I thought to myself, I should be upset, or crying, or something. But I wasn’t. I just felt numb.

  Before anyone else came in and found me, I carted the ice bucket up to my room and locked the door. Ignoring my painful ankle, I paced the room endlessly, pausing only when I saw myself in the mirror.

  I was covered in dirt, sweat and grass stains, and my clothes were ripped. My hair on the left side of my head was matted with my mother’s blood, and my horn was coated in it.

  In my mind, I could still see that javelin of ice heading for my heart.

  I ran to the loo, uncaring of my protesting ankle, and vomited.

  It took three lots of shampoo and conditioner to remove my mother’s blood from my hair. During my shower, three people hesitantly knocked on my door. I ignored them all, climbing into bed with my leg hanging out of one side so that my foot could stay in the cool ice.

  I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep like that, but I did. I’d used so much power I barely even felt a lick of it left. Exhaustion dragged me down, despite my mind and ankle trying to keep me awake.

  Chapter 12

  When I woke, I had an awful headache, and I was late for breakfast.

  In consideration for my still swollen ankle, I wore flats. And in defiance of my mother’s words, I slid three rings onto my horns before I headed out of the door and rushed to the grand hall.

  It was packed, probably because I hadn’t managed to get here first as I usually did. As soon as I walked in, people started pointing and staring. I stared back, daring them to talk as I searched for my friends in my peripheral vision. I joined the lunch queue that they had managed to save me a seat. I grabbed as many pastries as I could fit onto a plate before I went to join them.

  Lulu bounded up and hugged me before I could sit down. “Are you okay?” she demanded.

  I nodded, taking my usual spot.

  “That was insane duelling,” Babette informed me. “But you could have refined your attacks more. I mean, flinging pebbles at her? What were you thinking?”

  The morning’s conversation swiftly turned to an analysis of everything I’d done wrong. Chief among them in Nelly’s opinion was reversing the javelin.

  “You should have just deflected it!” She growled. “That takes less skill than taking control over someone else’s hydrokinesis and would have called less attention to you. You’ve painted a target on your back. And for pity’s sake, if you were going to stab her with it, why not just skewer her through the heart like she wanted to do to you?”

  I groaned. “I don’t know Nelly, maybe it’s because she’s my mother.”

  “Not anymore,” Lulu informed me. “It’s all over the College: your mother has put in a request to the elders for a formal emancipation.”

  My stomach dropped. “Will it go through?”

  “Vrosis is against it,” Ryon spoke around his mouthful of toast. “He still holds a little influence over some of the others. So, I doubt it. But, without her name behind you, you’ll be kicked out of Vice. You know how much importance they place on proper lines.”

  I sighed. “I could write to my dad’s parents. They’d probably speak up for me against her if I asked.”

  “Do it,” Nelly encouraged, fishing out a piece of paper and a pen.

  I sighed and reluctantly did as she commanded; folding the letter in three and handing it back to her when I was done.

  “I’ll post this before going to my morning lesson,” she announced, standing. “Djinn will understand.”

  She left, and the talk turned to Vrosis’ evening tutorial.

  “Do you think he’ll be angry with me?” I asked.

  Lulu shrugged. “At least for the second half, you can just run away to practice.”

  My stomach lurched at the thought of practice. The memory of my mother’s punctured hand flashed across my vision.

  “No practice tonight,” I muttered. “Not again.”

  “Lilith…” Ryon began his tone cautioning.

  “I just can’t tonight,” I refuted, staring at my croissant.

  “Tomorrow then,” he insisted.

  “Fine,” I replied.

  When we got up to leave, Aeron grabbed me and pulled me behind everyone else and into a corner behind one of the several gargoyle statues that littered Vice College.

  “What is it?” I asked, looking up at him confused.

  He twisted me in his grasp, using one hand to keep me in place and cover my eyes at the same time. Once I had struggled for a few moments and he seemed satisfied that I couldn’t get away, he used the other hand to slip something over my horn.

  My ring. The one my mother had thrown in the moat. He twisted me back out of his hold and I opened my mouth to either berate him for manhandling me or thank him – I wasn’t yet sure which. But he pressed his palm over my mouth, silencing me.

  “Be sure not to get into anymore duels,” he told me. “And if you tell anyone about my father or Bane’s mother, I swear to the Strange God…”

  His hand over my mouth forced me to breathe through my nose, and when I did, I was stunned. He smelled like sandalwood. Sandalwood and strong black coffee. My first kiss had been… Aeron?

  When he removed his hand, I was silent with the strength of my confusion. “You gave me my innocence gift,” I whispered.

  For just a second, his eyes narrowed on my lips.

  He abruptly cursed, shoving away from me and leaving me behind the statue. Alone, bewildered and a little bit scared.

  “Why would he bother?” I asked of nobody, not sure if I meant the heels or the ring now resting on my horn.

  With a groan of frustration, I took off after him.

  “Wait,” I entreated, following his back through the crowd. “Aeron, wait!”

  He didn’t stop, and I gave up chasing him. Aeron Saxon was determined to be an ass, and I wasn’t going to chase him around like a puppy while he did it.

  The lessons of the day barely sank in past the throbbing hea
dache that persisted without letting up. Maddox, perhaps in fear of my class’ reaction to more duelling after my mother’s freak out yesterday, had determined that we needed a new subject topic and chosen the dullest one imaginable: the rise and fall of demonic dictators.

  It was so dull because there were so many of them. At one point in at least every ten years since time began, a Pride, Greed or Envy demon got it into his or her head that he or she was better suited to rule the demons than anyone else and declared a dictatorship. None of them ever really did anything, and each was soon deposed, because very few demons collected the support required to effectively run their own country. Mostly because the castes they were in didn’t like to share power.