Monster Unleashed: Blood Moon Academy Book 3

by Demi Dumond

  She glanced around like she was looking for answers on the ceiling and the floor for a moment. “None of this makes sense.”

  “The door,” I said. “Keira’s locked inside. We have to get in there.”

  This time she touched the door, closing her eyes as she listened. Then she opened them and shook her head at us. “There is one spell I could try, but it’s dangerous. And there are no guarantees.”

  “Yes,” Malachai said.

  Professor Kiln took a deep breath. “You boys put at least two hallways between me and you. You have sixty seconds.”

  I looked at Ian and Malachai and then the three of us walked briskly down the hall away from Advising and Professor Kiln.

  Once we had turned down a new hallway we stopped. We were close enough to peek around the corner at what Professor Kiln was doing but certainly not two hallways away.

  “I’m staying here,” I announced.

  “Professor Kiln said we have to go farther away,” Malachai said.

  “You go farther away, I’m staying here,” I shot back.

  “Maybe we’ll be fine,” Ian said. “I mean, I’ve never seen magic travel around corners before, have you?”

  “Thirty seconds,” Professor Kiln’s voice rang out. “You still sound too close to me.”

  “Shit,” Ian said. “What should we do?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I repeated.

  “Ten seconds,” Professor Kiln shouted.

  I hunkered down behind the wall, and the others got down behind me.

  The three of us knelt in the hallway waiting for something to happen. I heard a footstep and a few muttered words. Then I waited.

  A thunderous boom filled the hallway, reverberating for at least five seconds. Then I saw a flash of light in the distance.

  That’s when the boom caught up to us. The light flashed again right in front of me. I was thrown backward by the force of the spell. I landed almost a full hallway away on my back. My ears rang and my body ached from the force of the blow and the hard landing.

  Bits of plaster fell like snow from the ceilings, and when I got to a sitting position, I could see that there were actual chunks missing from the tile floor.

  Whoa. Whatever Professor Kiln did, it looked like it worked. I checked on Ian and Malachai. They were both still shaken, but okay.

  I could still hear ringing in my ears. I saw Ian and Malachai’s lips moving, enough to get the idea of what they were saying, but I couldn’t hear the actual words.

  Then I ran down the hall toward Professor Kiln. As I got closer, two things became clear. One, the spell Professor Kiln had done was powerful, but it had taken out everything except for the door.

  The place looked like it had been shelled by artillery fire, and yet the door still stood. I ran to it and pounded again, but it was no use.

  And the second thing was that Professor Kiln was lying face down on the floor.

  Malachai and Ian ran to her first, checking her pulse and then lifting her to a sitting position. She looked drained but not injured.

  She looked up at the wooden door and shook her head sadly.

  “I’m sorry, boys. I tried.”

  9

  Malachai

  “No!” I shouted so I could hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears. “There has to be something we can do. We can’t leave her in there to die.”

  Professor Kiln blinked a few times and shook some ceiling plaster out of her hair. “Malachai, you have a little bit of dark magic. But you have no idea what kind of power you’re dealing with here.”

  She stopped speaking to study the door for a moment. “That door is impenetrable. In every sense of the word. Has been for centuries, probably. I doubt there’s anybody alive today who could pull off that kind of enchantment.”

  “There’s got to be a way,” Rafe growled.

  “Don’t get snippy with me, shifter,” she answered. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  Rafe screamed in frustration and threw himself at the door with a loud and hollow thud. Then he did it again. And again. I glanced up at him. He was losing it. It was exactly what we didn’t need from him right now.

  “Hmm…” Professor Kiln said as she stared at Rafe. “I wonder.”

  “What?” I asked breathlessly.

  “You’re not going to like it, Malachai. But I’m afraid you’re out of options here. Maybe if you had a tank. Then you could take out the opposite wall. Basically, you’d have to knock down that entire section of the academy to even have a chance at getting to her.”

  “Tor,” I said.

  Professor Kiln raised an eyebrow at me. “I doubt it. He’s scrawnier than Rafe.” Then she realized what I was suggesting. “You mean you want to turn that poor kid back into a dragon to knock the building down for you?”

  Rafe stopped pummeling the door and turned around. “The dragon. He’s the only one who could literally knock down that wall.”

  Professor Kiln reached a hand out to me and I helped her up. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, boys. That takes a lot of tricky forbidden magic.” She turned to me. “By the way, how did Keira transform him back into a human in the first place?”

  “The books,” Malachai shouted. “From the administrative records room. The books I stole for you. She stole them from me and read them. That’s where she got the spell from. I have forbidden magic too. What if I just reverse the spell?”

  “It’s worth a try, right?” Ian asked.

  Professor Kiln fixed me with her bleakest, squintiest stare. “Maybe. If that’s what you want to do, I’ll help you. But it’s going to take a toll on you, Malachai. And you can’t do it to that boy against his will. We really don’t know what another change like that will do to him. The only thing for sure is that you won’t have enough dark magic left to change him back when you’re done.”

  10

  Malachai

  A few minutes later, we were racing down the hallways to get back to Keira’s dorm room. And I was hoping like hell that Tor and Ivy were still there.

  Tor’s leg injury had looked pretty severe, so he probably hadn’t gone far. But stranger things had already happened today.

  I threw open the door without knocking and went in first, and then we all crowded around.

  Ivy was smoking some kind of cigarette and sat bare chested and cross-legged next to Tor, who was doubled over in pain from his leg wound. He sat with his leg out in front of him on a blanket and raised onto a pillow. When Ivy saw us, her eyes got wide and then she looked concerned.

  “Where’s Keira?” she asked.

  Tor groaned in pain.

  “And somebody get Tor some ibuprofen for heaven’s sake. I can’t get up without breaking the spell,” she added, pointing and coughing from the smoke.

  “You picked a hell of a time to pick up a clove cigarette habit,” I said, waving the smoke away from my face.

  “I’m a shaman healer, asshole, show a little respect. I need smoke. The bonfire the other night was super powerful. This piece of crap cigarette I found in Keira’s drawer, not so much. But it was all I could find.”

  “It doesn’t look like you’ve made a lot of progress in the healing arena,” Ian said.

  Ivy shot him a look. “I don’t have a lot to work with in here. And, um, hello Professor Kiln. What brings you down here?”

  Rafe went and knelt down next to her. “Keira’s locked in a magically sealed room with the Headmaster. Ivy, that area of the academy is creepy as hell.” He stopped talking and his voice broke.

  “What is it?” Ivy asked.

  “There’s a blood trail leading away from that room. To a dead body. If we don’t do something soon, we’re going to lose her.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me that you people couldn’t get into a door?” Ivy asked, exhaling a beautiful smoke ring. “And what body? Who’s body?”

  “Hang on,” I said. “We’re really here to talk to Tor.”

  “What about me?”
Tor asked.

  “Where are the books with the spells?” Professor Kiln cut in.

  “Hang on, Tor,” I said. Then I ducked into Keira’s room to find the books that she had stolen from me after I had stolen them from the records room.

  Looking around Keira’s room and bed with her clothes thrown onto it made me think of her. A lump rose in my throat.

  Then I tried to focus on finding the book. I knew just the one, too. I had seen her reading it when I visited her. She had put it away like she was stashing porn.

  I didn’t see it lying around, so I went to her nightstand and opened the door. The book was there. I breathed a sigh of relief as I grabbed it and opened it up. There was a bookmark in the middle of a spell. It must have been the last one she used.

  Fear washed over me. Keira was much better at all of the dark magic stuff than I was. Just because she had pulled off the spell didn’t mean I could. And now I had possibly two lives hanging in the balance. No pressure.

  I heard the floor creak and turned to see Professor Kiln approach. Her eyes flicked to the book in my hand and then back up to my face.

  “I know what she means to you, Malachai. But you don’t have to do this. There are no guarantees. Whatever happens, you will still have to live with yourself.”

  “I have to try,” I answered. “Besides, unless you have a brilliant plan I don’t know about, Keira’s probably our best bet to take out the Headmaster and pop the time bubble. Otherwise he wouldn’t be targeting her.”

  Professor Kiln shot him a look. “Hey, I do have a plan. Well, I have an idea for a plan. It’s true that we have to pop the time bubble. I’m pretty sure it’s the source of his power.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m in. We’re all dead anyway unless we can pull this off. But Keira first.”

  Professor Kiln nodded. “Okay, we’ll try to free Keira first, but only because we have no time to argue.”

  She followed me back to the sitting area where Ivy, Tor, and Ian waited. I held up the book. “Found it.”

  “What’s going on here?” Tor asked, breathing through the pain. His leg looked bad. “If Keira’s in danger why are you all standing around here. And why are you waving a book around? What are you going to do with that, throw it at him? You don’t know how much power Headmaster Crowe has.”

  I could see the frustration on his face, and I tried not to stare, but even a casual glance revealed the exposed bone in his leg. I didn’t even know how he was still conscious. The pain had to be unbearable.

  Now that I was looking at him, I didn’t know how to tell him the plan, especially since it was all up to him. What if he said no?

  “Um, we can’t get into the room where she’s being held, Tor. And we’re pretty sure the Headmaster’s going to kill her.”

  “You don’t understand,” Rafe broke in. “There was blood trail and fresh remains. He’s killed at least hundreds of students. That we know of. And Keira’s next if we don’t do something.”

  Tor listened to Rafe and then turned his attention back to me. “What’s the plan? Out with it, demon!” Tor said. His social skills still weren’t on par, but his instincts were absolutely spot on.

  I looked around and shifted from foot to foot, remembering what Professor Kiln said about not being able to do the spell against his will. One word from him and we would go from a crazy long-shot plan to no plan at all. I couldn’t bear the thought of it.

  Tor deserved to know the truth though. “Professor Kiln thinks the only way into that room is to knock that entire part of the building down.”

  Tor and Ivy both stared at me like I had gone mad.

  Ivy’s hand went to her face. “Oh no. You didn’t tell me it was this bad. That’s your fucking plan? Do you have an artillery tank stashed somewhere that I don’t know about?”

  Tor banged his head against the wall. “I’m the tank, Ivy. I’m expendable. The one nobody cares about. They want to turn me back into a dragon.”

  Ivy and Tor searched my face and I nodded. “I’m sorry, Tor. It’s not like that. It’s just that it’s our only chance.”

  Ian stepped forward. “Will his leg be healed if he turns back into a dragon?”

  “Dragons get wounded, but we don’t feel pain the way that humans do. Shit, listen to me. I’m more beast than human still anyway.”

  “Will you do it?” I pressed, feeling like a jackass.

  Tor exhaled and looked at Ivy. “I promised myself I wouldn’t go back. You don’t know what it’s like, being trapped forever without hope.” He studied my face. “Can you change me back when I’m done?”

  I shook my head. “I promise I’ll try, but the only one with enough power to do that is Keira.”

  There was a deep silence in the room. The air was thick with tension.

  Tor shifted and sat up with a groan. “I have to,” he said softly. “It’s for Keira. I’d do anything for her. I just didn’t expect it to be this.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We don’t have much time. Rafe and Ian, can you carry him outside?”

  11

  Keira

  The Headmaster had always creeped me out, but now he was scaring the hell out of me. I believed him. I knew he wasn’t lying or bluffing.

  He was really going to transform into that hideous monster I had seen in the hallway. And then he was going to kill me and feast on my flesh. My skin crawled. I tried not to let my fear show. I clamped down on a tense smile that probably made me look like an insane person.

  And now he sat there patiently like a psychopath. I got the feeling he was waiting for me to panic, to freak out. I was afraid. All of the hair was standing up on my body, which had gotten enough of the conversation to know that soon it was going to be time to fight.

  I didn’t want to show fear, to give him the satisfaction, but I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to hold out. I wanted to shriek and to fight and to run all at the same time as I looked into those cold, dark, predatory eyes.

  No matter what he said, though. I was holding out hope for the guys that I had bonded with. I wanted to see them again, feel them again. I longed for their touch and their smiles and the feel of their warmth against my skin. I wanted to have a chance of survival.

  If that meant spending a little more alone time with the Headmaster, then so be it. My eyes darted around the room and landed on the minibar between the two of us. If I ever needed a lot of alcohol, it was right now.

  “Well, if you’re going to kill me anyway, can I at least have a drink?”

  12

  Malachai

  Ian and Rafe carried Tor outside. I grabbed a flashlight out of Keira’s nightstand and then Professor Kiln and I followed. I held the book and the two of us studied the spell as we walked. Ivy followed all of us.

  All too soon, we got to the double doors. I knew Keira was in trouble, but everything felt like it was happening too fast right now. I couldn’t believe Tor said yes despite his objections. It was a huge sacrifice. And we didn’t even know if it would work.

  Passing through the double doors, we emptied out into the courtyard. It was still dark, but the sun would be coming up soon. Most of the academy wasn’t up yet, but it wouldn’t be too long until the students started to stir. And all of us hanging out in the courtyard with a book of spells was probably going to attract attention.

  I glanced up and saw a few of the dorm room lights on, but right now we had the whole courtyard to ourselves. We were going to need the room, especially if the spell worked. And I was glad for the privacy since I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing.

  “Hey,” Rafe said as he and Ian lowered Tor gently down to the damp earth. “You said you needed Tor to turn into a dragon and basically knock down that entire section of the building, right?”

  “Yes,” Professor Kiln and I answered at the same time.

  “Well, which part of the building did you mean? I know it was away from the student dorms, but I had never been to that part of the academy before. We
can’t just have him knock down random parts of the building. He might not free Keira. And other people could get hurt.”

  Shit. He was right. As I scanned the building, I had no idea where to even start. All I knew for sure was that the room marked Advising was generally west of the student dorms. That still left too much of the building to cover.

  “I’ll go,” Ian said. “I’ll find the advising office again down that awful orange hallway. Then I’ll find the nearest window and let you guys know where to point the dragon.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Ivy said. “I want to know where Keira is anyway.”

  The two of them ran across the courtyard and then back into the building. The door closed with a loud clang. That left me, Tor, Rafe, and Professor Kiln in the darkness of the courtyard.

  Once we heard them clear the double doors on their way back into the building, Professor Kiln and I turned our attention back to the spell in the book that Keira had used to turn Tor into a human. I switched on the flashlight.

  The spell itself was maddeningly vague and based in part on the transformation category of Professor Kiln’s forbidden magic lecture, which is probably where Keira got the idea in the first place. I had strong feelings against the spell then, but if this worked, at least it would come in handy now.

  But damn if I knew how she pulled it off. I re-read the spell in its entirety for the fourth time before looking up at Professor Kiln. “Do you think it’ll work? It’s a really vague spell.”

  Professor Kiln wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, she was studying the outside of the building. “Hmm…what?”

  “The spell,” I said, growing more concerned by the moment. “I keep reading it, but I don’t understand how it worked in the first place.” I whispered it, but I could see Tor paying close attention.

  I wanted to tell him I had it under control and that everything was going to be fine. But by the look on his face, he understood only too well that everything was royally fucked up.