Hybrid Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  In this moment, I wasn’t thinking about any of the problems that plagued me at Hybrid Academy.

  I wasn’t thinking about anything except the feeling of freedom.

  I ran, and I ran, and I ran.

  A little meow sounded from beside me and I looked over to see Henry running beside me. Even in his little kitty-cat form, he was keeping up with me. Apparently, I was slow for a wolf. Either that, or he was ridiculously fast from years of running as a cat.

  I moved swiftly, quickly, and confidently.

  Eventually, the ground in front of us dropped away and we found ourselves looking over a huge cliff that plummeted down to a wild and rushing ravine. We sat, side-by-side, and just looked at the water. We looked at the waves. For a few minutes, I felt small compared to the vast size of the universe. The sound of the waves rushing was loud. We were careful not to get too close to the ledge, but we looked down, and in some ways, I could relate to that ravine.

  My life had been like the rushing water: crashing into the sides of the canyon I was being guided down.

  But I still didn’t have all of the answers.

  And I still didn’t know where I was going.

  And I still didn’t know what was going to happen next.

  But somehow, I knew that no matter what happened, I had some incredible friends and together, we’d make it through everything that life threw at us.

  We had to.

  Chapter 7

  Erin stared at the women gathered around the table in her kitchen. The women of the coven had been her family for years. She’d grown to love each and every one of them as sisters. Well, and Donald, whom she saw more as a little brother. Perhaps it was unusual and a breach of tradition to allow a man into the coven, but Erin had never exactly colored within the lines. Not when it came to anything important, anyway.

  She looked now at each and every face staring back at her. Tia was the pretty one with the gentle spirit. Rita was the bold one with the smart mouth. Wendy was never afraid to speak her mind. Hannah was always looking for ways to solve problems.

  And there was Donald.

  Donald was a little bit of everything all rolled into one.

  Erin had called the meeting together because it was time to share information with the people that she trusted more than anyone else. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told them about Maxine or Maddison, but she had. She’d known, somehow, that these people would never betray her. Not her coven. Never them.

  Erin had lost more than she’d cared to lose in a lifetime. Her family had been torn apart by a quest gone wrong. She’d lost Maddison, somehow, and she hadn’t even realized just how much she missed the old bat until she was gone. Then there was Maxine. No, Erin hadn’t lost Maxine yet, but the fear was there. It was always lurking, just out of reach, just in the darkness.

  And she didn’t want to feel that fear.

  It wrapped around her sometimes when she wasn’t careful, gripping her. The fear was icy and palpable. It almost seemed alive. Erin’s fear held all of her greatest enemies: her worries, her past, her future. It whispered to her that if anything were to happen to Maxine, it would be all her fault.

  She didn’t want that to happen.

  She couldn’t let it happen.

  So, Erin met with these people – her people – and she poured her heart out. Over cups of hot cocoa and chamomile tea, she told them what had happened over the course of the past week.

  She told them what she’d discovered.

  “It started with a hunch,” she said. “Something a teacher said when I was at orientation with Max.”

  “What did she say?” Hannah asked.

  Erin considered how she could explain what she had learned. It seemed strange, really. It seemed almost impossible to even be toying with the idea.

  “My brother was an explorer,” Erin said.

  The coven sat quietly, sipping their drinks.

  “But then, you all knew that.”

  She stared at her own drink, holding it tightly. It was an anchor in this moment. It was a rock. She didn’t know what was going to happen next, but she knew with certainty that everything was about to change.

  Erin had found a string on the end of a sweater. Everyone knew that you weren’t supposed to tug. If you did, you’d end up with something you didn’t like. You’d unravel the whole sweater.

  Right now, Erin had a solid understanding of what had happened to her family. She knew that Cara and Falcon had gone on an adventure, a quest. She knew that they’d been trying to discover something that could change the world. They’d been trying to find a potion that could cause you to shift into a different animal.

  “There’s a teacher who is offering classes on potions and shifting this year.”

  “That’s not so unusual,” Rita, ever the neutralist, said. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything fishy going on, Erin.”

  “No, but it could,” Tia pointed out gently. “Maybe it has something to do with Cara and Falcon’s disappearance. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” Tia asked.

  Erin nodded.

  “What? Do you think this lady knows what happened to them?”

  Erin shrugged.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “Well, at least, I wasn’t, and it’s not a lady,” she added. “It’s a male teacher. His name is Casper Elkridge.”

  “Funny name,” Donald wrinkled his nose.

  “You just don’t like the idea of a male witch who is in a position of authority,” Rita said accusingly.

  “We’re called warlocks, dear.”

  “Whatever,” Rita rolled her eyes.

  Erin looked from one to the other. It was unusual for Rita and Donald to bicker, especially within the coven. They’d been a couple for as long as Erin could remember. There hadn’t been a time when they weren’t together in some form or another, so what was with the fighting?

  “Wait,” Erin asked. “Did you two…break up?”

  “We’re not calling it that,” Rita said.

  “We’re just taking some time apart,” Donald added.

  “What?” Hannah looked devastated. “You didn’t tell anyone!”

  “It wasn’t really any of your business,” Rita said.

  “That doesn’t mean you should have kept this a secret,” Wendy noted. “We’re your closest friends, Rita. You should have trusted us with this. We didn’t even know you were having problems.”

  “We weren’t…having problems…” Rita said, slumping back into her chair. Suddenly, she looked like she might cry, and Erin felt completely terrible about bringing up their relationship, especially in front of the group.

  “I’m sorry,” Erin said quickly. Part of being a good leader meant knowing when to pull away. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

  “It’s okay,” Donald and Rita both said at the same time.

  Wendy looked back at Erin and raised an eyebrow.

  “You were saying?” She asked. “About the school?”

  “Well, I thought it was a bit strange that the school was offering such a class this year, so I went to the library.”

  “Ew,” Rita wrinkled her nose. Rita hated libraries. She said libraries used to be places where you could sit quietly and read books. Now they were full of people who were there just to use tech and cause trouble. She wasn’t a fan.

  Erin didn’t see what the big deal was.

  “Anyway, I started conducting some more research.”

  “What did you find?” Donald leaned forward with his elbows on the little table. It creaked, wobbling a little, and Erin made a mental note to cast a spell on it later. She figured she could straighten up some of the boards and make it a little more durable. Maybe she should change the colors, too. It certainly wasn’t going to do the little table any harm if she did that.

  If anything, maybe adding new color could brighten things up and make her feel better about her little home.

  “I wanted to know more about the potion my brother and sister-in-law
had been researching.”

  “And did you find anything?” Tia asked.

  More than she thought possible.

  “The problem before was that I didn’t know what I was looking for at all,” she explained. “When they went missing, I knew that they had been doing something secret, but I didn’t know what they’d been working on. When Maddison was taken and Max and I unlocked the secret book, we got her notes. We got a jump on what was happening.”

  “Which was?” Donald pressed her.

  “We knew they were looking for a potion. Now we know that the vampires are looking for that potion, too.”

  “So, you cross-referenced it,” Rita said, leaning back. “Sounds like something you’d do at a library,” she said the word like it was painful to say, like she couldn’t bear the idea that anyone would ever dare set foot in such a place.

  “Why do you hate libraries so much?” Wendy looked at her. “It’s kind of weird, dude.”

  “It’s not weird.”

  “It’s a little weird,” Hannah agreed.

  Rita sulked a little in her chair, but she didn’t protest anymore. Erin looked at the group again.

  “Apparently, the vampires were onto this a long time before my brother and his wife were. In fact, from what I’ve gathered, the vampire king was sending different expedition groups out in an effort to find it.”

  “Vampire king?” Donald looked confused.

  “Alexander,” Rita told him, momentarily forgetting her anger toward her possibly-ex-boyfriend. “He fancies himself something of a lord, if I remember correctly.”

  “He’s old enough to be a king,” Erin agreed. “He’s smart, too.”

  “He’s got mansions all over the place and somehow, he’s managed to organize quite a few vampire packs.”

  “Don’t call them packs,” Wendy said. “It’s weird. It’s like they’re werewolves, and they’re definitely not.”

  “What should I call them, then? Clans? Vampire clans? That’s just as bad.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we call them,” Erin said. “What matters is that we find out what they’re planning and what they’ve already done.”

  “What do you mean?” Tia asked gently.

  “It’s been 10 years since your brother went missing,” Rita said. “You think the vampires have found the potion since then?”

  “I’m not sure if they’ve found it,” Erin said. “But I think they’re trying to recreate it, and I have an uncomfortable suspicion that they’re going to use Hybrid Academy students to do it.”

  “Why the students?” Donald asked.

  “Why not?” Rita countered. She shot him a look that was filled with ice and frustration. “They’re flexible. They lack confidence. They don’t know their way around the world yet.”

  “These students are adults, though,” Donald said. “They have some confidence.”

  “I have to agree with Rita on this one,” Erin said. “Early twenty-somethings are an easy target. They want to fit in. They want to learn about the world. They want to blend in with their peers. They may not realize just how harmful something is until it’s too late.”

  The coven sat and sipped their drinks. Tia looked worried. Wendy seemed upset. Hannah and Rita both looked irritated. Donald seemed pensive.

  Finally, Donald was the one who spoke.

  “Maybe they’re using the students,” he said. “But even if they aren’t, perhaps this professor is. Could he be a vampire?”

  Erin shook her head because she didn’t know. There were screening processes in place to keep the students a Hybrid Academy safe. She knew Alicia Gregory, the headmistress, well. They’d known each other long ago. It seemed as though their friendship went back ages.

  Now she wondered if her old friend had actually been doing what she’d promised when it came to protecting the students at the academy. The truth was that Alicia had seemed distant when Erin had seen her. She’d tried to brush it off as an overreaction. After all, Alicia had a lot on her plate. There was a lot of work and effort that went into running a school: things even Erin couldn’t possibly imagine.

  So why did this one professor seem so out of place?

  Why was she so worried about Professor Elkridge?

  “Can we do a history on him?” Donald asked. “Possibly a magical background check?”

  “The school probably did one when they hired him,” Wendy said. “I could look into it, if you like.” Wendy worked in magical tech. When she wasn’t hanging out with the coven and perfecting spells, she was helping witches and wizards deal with their magical problems, especially those involving computers or phones or personal devices that had been the victims of incantations.

  “Thank you,” Erin said. She didn’t know if it would help.

  But there was a shot.

  She needed to find Maddison.

  She needed to.

  It wasn’t just for Maxine’s sake, either. The more that Erin tried to figure out what had happened to Maddison, the more questions she had about her brother’s disappearance. For years, she had brushed off what happened as an unfortunate accident.

  Accidents happened, right?

  But what if there was more to it than that?

  What if everything she thought she’d known about her brother’s death was a lie?

  What if his disappearance was something that had been fabricated by people who didn’t want his family members asking questions?

  Erin hadn’t asked questions.

  She’d fallen right into the trap of complacency. She’d accepted the story of his death without question, but now she had questions.

  She had so very, very many questions.

  Chapter 8

  By the time winter came to Hybrid Academy, it was almost time for holiday vacation. The school saw its first snowfall at the first of December, and everyone was so excited. Building snowmen was a lot more fun when you could just wave a wand and make something magical appear. There weren’t just regular snowmen at Hybrid Academy. There were also snow ladies, snow dragons, and even a few snow toads. An angelic student managed to even create a snow castle just by crafting the right spell. It was incredible.

  A few teachers even cancelled classes so that students could go and play in the snow. We were like a bunch of little kids, running around, but nobody cared that the world might see us as being childish. The point was to have fun, and we were.

  We were having so much fun.

  Each day, I went to classes that were designed to give me a well-rounded education in the world of witchcraft and shifting. Despite the fact that I’d been studying for a year-and-a-half at Hybrid, I still had so much to learn. Some days it felt like I still had a lifetime of work to do before I’d ever be even close to being called a good witch. Still, sometimes there were days when I did a great job, and it was nice to see my own progress.

  At Hybrid Academy, there were moments when I felt like I just wasn’t improving.

  Then there were moments when everything seemed to fall into place.

  Most of my time was spent loitering in my room, studying as much as possible, and doing research in the library. Nothing crazy or bad had happened in what seemed like forever. It had been a long time since a student had been randomly turned into another creature or since anyone had gone missing. Every so often, I had a weird feeling that I was being watched, but I brushed that off to being uncomfortable with new surroundings. After all, Hybrid Academy was so full of magic that it took a lot of getting used to. I may have grown up in a semi-magical household, but I’d never really felt magic until I was older. Being around magic and using it yourself were two very different things.

  Kiera and I were walking to class one morning when the snow started falling heavily. She stopped and looked up at the sky. Kiera was a lovely fae. She was kind to everyone she met and no matter what the two of us encountered, I always felt like I could count on her for anything. The fact that she stopped mid-stride surprised me a little bit. I looked to see what had
caught her attention, but there was nothing.

  It was only snow.

  “What is it?” I asked. I blinked, unable to keep the snow from hitting my face. Kiera had cast some sort of spell so that the snow around her face just sort of bounced off an invisible barrier and landed on the ground. It was very different from what I was going through. I needed to learn that spell, I thought, shaking my head. Little snowflakes fluttered everywhere.

  “Does the snow seem heavier to you?”

  “No.”

  “Lighter?”

  “No.”

  “Does it seem like it’s wetter?”

  “For dragon’s sake, Kiera, there’s nothing wrong with the snow.”

  I felt a little bad for lashing out, but damn. What was with Kiera? The snow seemed like perfectly ordinary snow. It was normal. It was damp. It was an appropriate size and weight and width. I was just as paranoid when it came to Kiera, at least about some things. My mysterious roommate, for example, or the fact that she still hadn’t appeared. This wasn’t something we needed to worry about, though. This was just…snow.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  We stepped quietly, our feet crunching as we made our way to the main castle. We went through a side door, hopped up and down to bounce the snow off of our feet, and then walked down the hallway. There was no one around, but Kiera lowered her voice, anyway.

  “I have a feeling,” she confessed. “I can’t really explain it. It’s just that something bad is going to happen.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “It’s just an inkling.”

  That did make me worry.

  Fairies were notoriously gentle-spirited, but they were incredible when it came to sensing when there was a problem with something. If Kiera suspected that there was an issue with the snow, then she was probably right.

  I just didn’t know what to do with it.

  Then again, maybe the problem wasn’t the snow.