by Lan Chan
She gave me a watery grin that said she thought I was being an idiot. But it was a smile and I’d take it.
“Do you enjoy playing the flute?”
“Not just the flute. I really love music. But like Maddison says, music isn’t going to save me from a demon.”
“So all the supernaturals around here grow up to become guards?”
“Not all of them. The ones who can fight do so to protect us.”
“And the others?”
“They get protected.”
I screwed up my face. “That’s total horseshit. If this world is just full of abject misery, what’s the point in protecting anything?” I wasn’t sure if she was gaping at me because of the profanity or because I’d actually said something that struck a nerve. “I’ve been to Rivia, and it didn’t seem like most of those people knew how to fight.”
“They don’t.”
“So I guess they’re all worthless too? It seems to me like the seraphim busted up your worlds, and the people who can’t fight are just trying to make the most of a situation that was foisted on them. Let Maddison fight if she’s desperate for it. But that doesn’t mean you have to.”
“But I’m an Amazon...”
“Yeah and I’m a senior, but somehow I’m stuck in the junior campus. Stuff doesn’t always have to be a certain way.”
She contemplated this for a while. Finally, she swiped at her nose again and smiled. “Okay.” She splashed water on her face and we left the bathroom. By the time we returned to class it was half over. Which was a bummer because I was already behind. Maddison glared at us as we took our seats by the side of the door. But instead of shrinking under the baby-Nephilim’s gaze, Cassie turned her seat so that her back was to Maddison.
As far as victories went, I would take this over beating a manticore any day.
26
Demonology 101 proved to be fascinating. I sat glued to the front of my seat as Professor Gordon, the billion-year-old dwarf, explained the nuances between what certain demons could do.
He explained using tissue paper how flimsy the barrier between dimensions had become in some places. Because of that, the demons could whisper to us and convince us to do their bidding. I couldn’t help thinking of the voices I’d heard inside my mind. I’d kept my mouth shut about it to Kai because they already knew about the presence of a demon. The last thing I needed was to draw more attention to myself.
Charles stuck his hand up. “What about if they come through a portal?”
“Then we’d better start running,” the professor said. He chuckled at his own joke in a very Dad sort of way. “We have contingencies for that.”
“Not if our so-called warriors spend their time playing the flute,” Maddison dug.
“If our other warriors don’t want to eat the rest of their meals through a straw they should keep their mouths shut,” I snapped.
Luther and Charles snorted, but there were several kids who glanced away. Including Cassie. “Don’t worry about it,” she hissed.
“Now, now,” the professor said. “Don’t get into a bother over an interdimentional portal. It’s very rare for one to open up and it takes a great deal of power. No magic user in their right mind would do that.”
Except we learned that there were definitely magic users throughout history who had done exactly that. Some of them had done it to gain the power the demons promised them. Some others did it to try and lead a frontal assault on the demons. The worst were the ones who had the power and didn’t know, accidentally opening up portals and being sucked into them. I was almost disappointed when the bell rang for lunch.
“I wish you could come to all our classes,” Cassie said as she escorted me back to the senior campus.
“No you don’t,” I said. “The last thing you need is the older kid cramping your style.” At the bridge I waved goodbye. “Don’t let her get to you.”
My parting words came in handy during Weaponry and Combat that afternoon. I’d successfully avoided my friends all day. When Professor Eldridge asked us to pair up, I sort of stepped back and let Sophie and Diana pick each other. Sophie had turned to me first but I pretended to be tying my shoelace.
I was really crappy at thinking things through though because people started pairing up quickly around me. As a last resort I had hoped I could have Fred in my team, but he seemed to be MIA from the class.
Karma came back to bite me in the form of Isla. We were the last ones to pair up. She stood there with her arms crossed over her chest. Her foot tapped the floor like she was expecting me to ask her out on a date or something. We hadn’t said two words to each other but she’d decided she hated me. So I decided I hated her. Two could play at this petty game.
“Okay, pairs,” Professor Eldridge said. “I want you to pick up your swords and practice the attack and block stances that I’ve been showing you.”
I went to pick up my sword. There weren’t enough wooden training ones so some of us had to use the real deal. The smallest sword I could find that could still be classed as a sword was still too heavy for me to hold up one-handed.
Isla smirked as she wielded a weapon that had twice the reach of mine. “I’ll attack,” she said. I hadn’t expected anything else. We were so poorly matched that I thought the professor would put a stop to it. I was sorely mistaken.
“Good,” she said when she came around to inspect Isla’s form. “It’s even better practice that you’re both physically uneven. A demon doesn’t care if you’re big enough to take it on!”
That was about as much sympathy as I got. Meanwhile, Isla wasn’t pulling any of her hits. Each time our swords clashed, a jarring vibration shot down my arm. As we parried and struck, her grin grew wider and wider. I swear I could have shoved a coat hanger into her mouth and there would still be room to spare. I glanced at the clock to gauge when this nightmare was going to end. Five more minutes.
The end of classes on the senior campus sucked bigtime. The older students sometimes had free periods in between. They often gathered in the doorways before their classes started. I suspected it was a way to psych out the younger students.
As Isla brought her sword down once more, my knees bent. I lifted my sword to block her attack but the force of her blow shoved me to the ground. “Seriously,” she said. “Why do you even bother?”
I scrambled to my feet to the sound of laughter coming from the doorway. A flash of indigo caught my attention. That was exactly what I needed right now. While I was distracted, Isla took the opportunity to bring the hilt of her sword down on my fingers.
“Ow!” I snapped my hand away and shook it to ease the pain. Isla shrugged noncommittally.
“Watch what you’re doing!” she barked.
“Ignore her,” Sophie said as she and Diana stepped past. They were parrying in perfect symmetry. It helped that Diana has been taught to fight as soon as she could walk. And she wasn’t trying to kill Sophie. I couldn’t say the same about my partner.
My whole skeleton was rattling. Most of the other pairs were winding down because it was almost the end of the class. Isla seemed to be working on the premise that she didn’t know when she would be getting another opportunity to kick my butt legally, so she didn’t let up for a second.
“That’s about as much as we have time for today,” Professor Eldridge said. Isla was in the middle of executing a downward strike. She followed through and bore down on me in my kneeling position. I’d gotten pretty used to planting my feet firmly on the ground to hold my position. But this time, as I staggered forward, an errant wind blew against my shins. The force of it was so strong it shoved me backward. Isla swung wide. Instead of meeting the blunt end of my sword, the tip of her blade angled downward.
There was a moment when time stood still. I saw the trajectory of her blade and tried to block it with my arms. But I was too slow and out of practice.
Isla’s dark eyes widened. She let go of the blade at the same time it struck my abdomen and lanced me right thro
ugh the middle. A scream tore from my throat to be joined by others around the room. I finally understood the difference between a normal sword and an angel blade. When Kai had stabbed me through the heart, it had been to exorcise the demon inside of me. Isla’s sword was nothing so divine. But it was sharp. The sword’s edge sliced through me like butter.
Searing hot pain erupted under my ribs. The white cotton of my T-shirt bloomed an ugly, sticky crimson. My eyes fluttered in my head as my legs collapsed. The sword I’d been holding clattered to the ground.
“Lex!” I heard Sophie scream beside me. Everything happened through a fog. Her ashen face appeared in front of me, tears stinging her eyes. I glanced down and shook my head at the piece of weaponry sticking out of me. My mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. Something wet trickled between my lips.
Professor Eldridge shoved students aside. Isla went flying as the Amazon bent down beside me. “Alessia,” she tried to lace her arms underneath me to lift me, but I swatted at her.
My voice was back. Like the sword embedded in my side, it was cutting. “Get off!” I screamed. Blood spattered onto her concern-lined face. “Get away from me. Leave me alone!”
I was so weak that when I went to push all that happened was that I scratched her. I tried to get up onto my knees but the world turned upside down. My feet slipped on the blood that spilled on the floor.
“Get out of my way!” Kai’s voice boomed from behind us. The crowd around me dispersed to allow him through and closed in again. When he’d been the one to stab me, his features were harder than granite. Today his green eyes blazed with such unearthly fury that it ignited something dark inside of me.
“Happy now?” I roared. “I can’t fight. And now I’m going to die. Would a demon allow itself to get stabbed?” I saw the blood seeping from my lips in the reflection of his eyes. Sophie was sobbing beside me, holding my hand. My skin was as white as chalk against her ochre tone. I was going to die on a gymnasium floor.
I was too weak by now to fight him off when Kai attempted what Professor Eldridge tried to do. So I scooted back when he reached out for me. Instead of touching me, he grabbed the edge of the blade in both hands. “Hold her steady,” he said. Sophie locked my torso in her arms. I was delusional because for a second I thought the blade became luminous green. Then it snapped clean off. He repeated the action for the part that was sticking out behind me. When there was no longer an obstacle in the way, Kai scooped me up in his arms.
My head lolled back, the world no longer a place of sounds and real images. I blanked in and out of consciousness. My eyelids closed. When I opened them again, I was in what appeared to be a private room in the infirmary.
“What the devil?” Doctor Thorne exclaimed when we suddenly appeared in the room.
“Move!” Kai barked.
The last thing I saw before consciousness slipped away were his hands as they pressed down on my wound, the glowing green light brighter than anything I’d ever seen in my life. I wasn’t sure how long I was out of it, but when my eyes fluttered open again, I was met by grim faces. Kai sat beside me in the same position, the line of his jaw a stark warning against his tanned skin. His hair was damp. Beads of sweat trailed down his sideburns.
When I glanced down, the rest of the metal had been removed from my body. A quick scan told me it was discarded on the linoleum floor. My head still spun, but the gut-wrenching pain had subsided a little.
Jacqueline stood behind Kai, her hand on his shoulder. She looked down at me and saw that I was awake. The shaky smile she gave me was enough indication of the severity of the situation. Before my very eyes, the open wound that had been leaking blood like a faucet was slowly knitting together. The sensation felt like I was being lit up from the inside out. It was the pleasure-and-pain sensation that accompanied transportation. Except this was drawn out until I was breathing heavily.
I wasn’t the only one. Kai’s forehead was now crowned in sweat. It soaked into the collar of his light teal T-shirt, making it cling to his skin. His eyes were the pale green of a sapling, his skin no longer bronzed but a sickly grey. Still he kept going, his shoulders bunching like he was hanging on to a precipice and refused to let go. I’d learned in Magical History that Nephilim healing could work wonders on supernaturals because they all derived their power from the same source. The Seraph Dimension. Healing a human was vastly more difficult.
Jacqueline gripped his shoulder hard. I imagined her nails leaving imprints on his skin. “Kai.”
He shrugged her off, the light around his hands glowing brighter. In contrast, his lips turned blue.
“Stop,” I said. His head turned, those intense eyes blinking like he was seeing me for the first time. “That’s enough.”
He ignored me. I grabbed hold of his hands. Static electricity, or at least that’s what it felt like, raced up my arms. It saturated my skin until all of the hairs on my body stood up. Once I’d been lucky enough to score one of those energy drinks from the dumpster of a discount supermarket. The buzz it gave me was about one tenth of the magnitude of contentment that seeped into my chest right now. And yet, I knew it came at a cost. Kai’s back bowed. I latched on to his hands and bent his fingers back. Even weakened, he was miles stronger than me.
“Get off, you jackass.”
“You’re still hurt.”
“Am I still going to die?”
His lips formed a thin line but he shook his head. “Then get the hell off me. I’m already a martyr. The last thing I need is to be blamed for the demise of the Academy’s prince.”
He glared at me. “You’ll be in a lot of pain.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “How else will I know I’m alive?” He watched me carefully, as though testing the conviction of my words. It occurred to me that these supernatural beings were so used to their powers that perhaps it was strange for someone to suggest actually experiencing the unpleasantness of life.
“Let go, Malachi. I might just be a strange human, but I wouldn’t give that up for anything.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Maybe. But if you take it all away it’ll be like it never happened. Nothing worth having in life comes from a comfort zone. If I don’t feel it, I’m never going to get past it. Please let me go.”
I stared into his green eyes that were getting paler by the second. Something lurked behind there that seemed to watch me intently. I tugged at his hand one more time. He finally relented. Maybe it was what I’d said, but I reckon it was more that he didn’t want to collapse in front of me. The second he was gone, the dull throb in my side turned into sharp stabbing.
I grit my teeth to keep from crying out. I had to admit it was bad. But not so bad that I couldn’t take it. I’d had worse in my time.
“Blue,” he snarled. I was biting down on the blanket. He’d braced himself against the rail of the bed, his chest heaving.
“It’s not that bad,” I said through a mouthful of cotton. “You don’t have a belt I can bite down onto instead?”
I couldn’t be sure but I think the exhale of breath might have been the tail end of laughter. Jacqueline stepped in and forced him to his feet, dragging him out of the room while Doctor Thorne inspected my injury. He sighed.
“The wound is closed.” I wasn’t sure if he was shaking his head at me or Kai. “Do you want something for the pain?”
“You don’t by any chance have another Nephilim healer in the back for emergencies?”
His thick tail whipped up. “No more glibness, young lady.” His eyes were kind when he touched my cheek. His hands were ice cold. It was the perfect compress. I leaned up into his palm and sighed.
“Can you stand there like that for a while?” I asked.
“You’re not afraid I’ll bite your head off in your sleep?”
“Please. I just survived a stabbing. Nothing scares me anymore.”
I spoke too soon. He made me drink a bitter concoction that had my eyes watering and my throat gagging. “No more
.”
“Drink all of it.”
“What’s in here? You’re messing with me, aren’t you? Nothing tastes this bad!”
“It’s just knitbone mixed with some willow bark.”
“Urgh.” I pinched my nose shut and gulped it down. The doctor held a bucket in front of my face in case I hurled it all up like I kept threatening to. But my body was still too exhausted to do that. So I lay back down instead. No sooner had my head hit the pillow did my eyes start to close.
“Good girl. Go to sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
But I closed my eyes anyway.
27
My stay in the hospital lasted three days. Jacqueline came by after the first day to tell me that the incident was being investigated. I told her I suspected Brigid. She nodded as though she did too. But the way she wouldn’t look me in the eye told me there wasn’t much hope in actually catching her. Elementals, like low-magic users, were close to the Earth. Our magic was harder to detect. Wind was sometimes just wind after all. That didn’t make my mood any brighter.
I told the doctor that I didn’t want to see anyone, but when Fred came to see me, I made an exception. On account of being attacked by a fellow Academy student, I was allowed to stay in the private wing.
Fred spread the sheet of butcher’s paper on the floor and practiced the circles I helped him with. He kept going over the lines until they looked like they were the scratchings of a five-year-old.
“You’re in your head too much,” I said after he sighed and once again outlined the same circle again. “Just draw the line and let it be.”
“But it’s really crooked.”
“So what?”
“So I’ll get marked down.”
I highly doubted that. From what I’d seen, a lot of the third-years in my class had poor motor control too. “It really isn’t about the roundness of the circle.”