Hybrid Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  “Vampires,” I whispered, and the word tasted sour. It was disgusting and horrible. The vampires were creatures who had taken so much from me and now, it seemed, they were back. Now they wanted to take just a little bit more, and I wasn’t okay with that. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized that there was no escaping them. No matter where I went, no matter how hard I fought, they would find me. They always found me.

  “What?” Kiera’s face paled.

  “Vampires,” I said again.

  “No way,” Patricia shook her head so hard that her hair bounced. “The school is warded. It’s protected against vamps.”

  “Then there must be another explanation,” I said.

  I wanted there to be.

  I wanted there to be another reason that Brax had been so strange.

  I wanted there to be another reason there were old people posing as students.

  I wanted there to be another reason Erin wasn’t back.

  But I couldn’t think of one.

  “You think…you think Brax has been turned,” Patricia said.

  “I don’t know anything, but haven’t you noticed that vampires have a certain way of moving and acting?” My scenting abilities weren’t good enough that I could just scent a vampire the way some creatures could, but there was nothing wrong with my eyes.

  “Yeah, they have a certain grace,” Kiera said.

  “Look,” Patricia suddenly interrupted and pointed. At the same time, we peered out of the corridor and down the main hallway. Alicia was there looking practically royal. She was standing outside of the assembly hall with a tall, strange man. He had long blonde hair and dark eye makeup.

  “Crap,” Kiera said.

  There was no way that dude wasn’t a vampire.

  And if he was at Hybrid with Alicia, it meant that all hell was about to break loose. Boo hissed quietly, and we ducked back down the corridor just as the vampire turned to look our way. We were fast enough that he didn’t see us. When we peered out again, the couple was gone and there were guards stationed at the doors to the assembly hall.

  “Are they locking people in?” Patricia asked.

  “They’re locking people in,” I agreed.

  “But why?” Kiera shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would Alicia want the vampires to get the students? She loves this school.”

  I racked my brain, trying to come up with any explanation that I could, but I was coming up short. Although, if Alicia was on the side of the vampires, then last year made a lot more sense.

  She was the one who had let Casper Elkridge work on his experiments. She was the one who had encouraged him to work on creating an antidote for the vampire’s secret weapon. She was the one who had let him test out his potion on students Patricia had turned into rodents. It had been her the entire time.

  “Alicia has only been headmistress for a few years,” I said, trying to remember what my aunt had told me about her, but it all seemed to blur together. Besides, Erin liked Alicia, right?

  They had been friends, at least judging by what my aunt had said. They had been classmates, at the very least. Maybe they had even been close friends. I wasn’t sure.

  What I did know was that Erin hadn’t come back from trying to meet with Alicia, and now Alicia was starting the orientation process by locking the student body into the auditorium with a clan of vampires. Yeah, year three wasn’t looking very promising for me or any of my friends.

  “What should we do?” Patricia asked. She looked around wildly, as though answers would pop up.

  My familiar jumped out of my arms and shifted quickly. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a pair of pants and a shirt. I tossed them in his general direction, and then we all turned our backs as Henry dressed quickly.

  “No shoes?” He asked.

  “They didn’t fit in the bag.” I probably should have tried to magic a pair up for him, but none of us had our wands. They were tucked safely away until after orientation. The entire no-wands-until-after-orientation thing had never made much sense to me. Any student who was magical enough to have a wand was responsible enough to use it. Still, our wands were locked away in our luggage, and Henry was stuck without shoes. I shrugged, looking apologetic, but I couldn’t do much about it.

  Henry didn’t seem to worry too much about it.

  “We need to find out where Erin is,” he said.

  “Should we split up?” Kiera asked.

  “No way. That’s the fastest way for the evil headmistress to catch us. Haven’t you seen movies?” I asked Kiera, but she shook her head.

  “My parents didn’t let me watch scary movies growing up.”

  “But they sent you to wizard school?”

  “They didn’t think very much could go wrong at wizard school,” she said. “I mean, everyone here uses magic. They didn’t think anyone would dare cause trouble.”

  “Well, they were wrong,” Patricia said.

  “Not really the time or place to point fingers,” Kiera said.

  “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “It’s cool.”

  “Erin was going to the office,” Henry said. “So, we should start there. Maybe she caught Alicia doing something she wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “Or maybe Alicia just realized that Erin knows too much.”

  Apparently, our orientation day was starting off with quite a bang. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I didn’t really have time to worry or stress. We heard footsteps coming toward us quite suddenly, and we hurried to react.

  Kiera grabbed wildly for the handle of a nearby classroom. She turned the knob, and we all slipped inside. We fell, landing on the floor in a not-very-quiet pile. We were still sprawled out when the vampire walked past us. Of course, he noticed the open door and the pile of Hybrid Academy students who were not where they were supposed to be. He stopped in the doorway and looked at us. His head cocked to the side and he smiled devilishly.

  “Now, what are you doing here?” He said. “Orientation is in the auditorium.”

  So, he didn’t know who we were.

  Good.

  That meant Alicia hadn’t realized we weren’t in the auditorium and she hadn’t realized we weren’t where we were supposed to be. There was no doubt in my mind that if she was working with the vampires that she’d come after us.

  After me, especially.

  For years, the vampires had wanted one thing: grandmother’s spell book.

  They’d taken my grandmother.

  They’d taken my aunt.

  But they weren’t going to take me.

  No way.

  No how.

  No thank-you.

  “I thought this was the auditorium,” Patricia said, standing up. She looked around the little room with the perfect mixture of confusion and sadness on her face. “This is my first year,” she said. “Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be?” She scratched her head, adding to the look of confusion she was playing up. Wow, she was a great actress. If I didn’t know her in real life, I would definitely have thought she was being honest.

  “Nope,” the vamp shook his head. “The auditorium is down the hall.” He pointed back toward where we were supposed to be, as though that would help guide us there.

  “Oh, no!” Patricia said. Her mouth formed a little “o” and she reached to cover it. She looked at us and motioned for us to stand up quickly. “Ya’ll! We’re going to be late! Come on!” She turned back to the vampire. “Thank you so much,” she said. “We are so lucky you came at just the right time. Aren’t we?” She motioned to us once more and we all sort of half-stumbled to our feet in a not-very graceful way.

  “Yeah.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks a lot, man.”

  Patricia smiled brightly at the vampire.

  “I don’t know how I can ever thank you! You saved me on my first day of school!” She reached forward to give him a hug. He smiled and reached back for her. Of course, he would do that. Patricia
was beautiful and flirty and fun. She was sweet and interesting, and totally stunning. Even after traveling all day, she still looked just as perfect as she did when she woke up in the morning. As someone who had spent a year living with her, I could confirm that everything about her was just about flawless.

  I knew there was more than meets the eye, though, and I waited carefully for the twist. As Patricia reached forward to hug the vampire, I saw a little flash of wood in her hand. A ruler. There were several sitting on the counters of the classroom. It must have been an herbology classroom or a space where students measured different plants because there were dozens of rulers.

  As she wrapped one arm around the vampire, she smiled and sighed this deep sigh of relief and gratitude. The vampire smiled, too, and I almost felt bad for what she was about to do.

  “Thank you,” Patricia said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Then she slid a half-broken wooden ruler deep into his heart. She’d obviously broken it just before he’d burst into the room, before anyone had had a chance to do anything else. The vampire’s entire body froze for just a second. Then he aged. He turned older and older until eventually, his body turned to dust and he fell to the floor of the room in a strange pile of dust and bone fragments.

  “That’s disgusting,” Kiera said.

  “Have you ever seen anyone kill a vampire before?” Henry asked.

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “How did you know how to do that?” I asked Patricia. She just shrugged, though.

  “My mother always told me not to date demons. She never said anything about vampires.”

  She tossed the ruler on the ground and headed for the classroom door. Then she stopped in the doorway and looked back at us.

  “Well? Are you coming or not?”

  Chapter 5

  Maddison stared at the books in front of her. They were spread out on Erin's kitchen table, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the fact that she'd only just discovered the books herself. One of the coven members had dropped them off to her earlier that day and she'd spent the afternoon pouring over them. She hadn't been quite sure what to expect when she'd received the stack of old, leather-bound spell books, but recipes? How peculiar.

  They called for any number of ingredients, but she was beginning to notice there were patterns here. Rita had managed to source a few copies of old magic books that dealt with shifting potions of varying degrees. Some of the potions were supposed to turn the user into a bird that could fly up to three feet at a time. Other potions were designed to enhance the user's regular magic abilities. They were designed to help shifters shift even faster, smell even better, see even more clearly.

  "How did you find these?" Maddison asked, looking up at Rita.

  A shrug.

  It wasn't an answer.

  Maddison didn't have the impatience she used to have. Back in her younger years, she'd always been in a hurry. Now, she was happy to take her time. She was comfortable waiting for answers. In fact, she'd discovered something quite interesting. If you waited silently, and you waited long enough, the other person would almost always speak.

  She couldn't understand that, but it was a truth that gnawed at her.

  Other people seemed to struggle with bouts of silence. If there was a lull in conversation, the other person would seek to fill that space with words, with rambling, or with answers.

  Maddison hoped that would work with Rita.

  She waited, placing her hands in her lap. Then she looked up at the young witch. Rita was lovely. She probably didn't think she was beautiful, but she was. That was one of the problems with women: they never knew exactly how pretty they were until it was too late, and they were too old to do anything about it.

  Rita sighed and stared right back.

  "I have my ways," she said.

  Maddison waited.

  "They're from a friend," she said.

  Maddison just looked at her.

  Finally, Rita leaned forward, placing her hands on the table. Then she hissed at Maddison.

  "Okay, I got them from a warlock who sells black market magic books. Happy?" She stood up and waved her arms for a moment, stressed and anxious.

  "What kind of warlock?"

  "The kind who doesn't like attention drawn to himself."

  "Where did he get these?" Maddison asked. She was so curious. These were volumes she'd thought for years had been lost entirely to the magical world. She recognized the authors, but the books themselves? They were long thought to have been lost or stolen. That was the problem with old and magical items. They had a habit of being vanished.

  Rita sighed. She shook her head at first, and Maddison knew why. The entire world was at odds. Things were tense in the magic community. Everyone was on edge. Since Maddison's return to the land of the living, other important witches had been taken. They'd been stolen away, and no one knew why. No one knew where they'd gone. Maddison suspected, though, that the vampires who stole her were also responsible - at least partially - for these disappearances. The vampires had lost Maddison, a witch who knew quite a bit about shifting potions, and they were trying to find a reasonable substitute to last until they could get their hands on her once more.

  “We’re in trouble, Rita.”

  “I know.”

  “If you could find these, then the vampires can find them.”

  “I know.”

  “They won’t stop until they’re able to accomplish their mission from years ago.”

  “They’ve tried to take over the world before, Maddison. They’ve never been able to. Why are you so damn certain they’ll do it this time?”

  She couldn’t put it into words right away. There was just something different about this time, something more severe. Things felt a little more…tense…then they usually did. Things felt more personal.

  She’d said goodbye to her daughter and son-in-law years ago. She’d whispered her farewells and she’d managed to move forward. She’d tried desperately to create a good life for both herself and Maxine, and in some ways, she’d succeeded.

  In other ways, she’d never really been finished.

  She’d been searching forever for answers, and now she was so much closer than she’d ever been, but she still felt so far away.

  “I’m missing something,” she said.

  “What? Like a page from the book?” Rita peeked over her shoulder. “I didn’t take anything out, and the warlock assured me that these are in pristine condition.”

  “No, something else,” Maddison said. Something had been itching in the back of her mind, like a sneeze that tickled your throat but wouldn’t quite come out.

  Things had been too perfect.

  Too precise.

  Cara had disappeared and nothing had happened for ten whole years. Nothing. Not a damn thing. The wards placed on Maxine had kept both Maddison and Max safe and out of the spotlight for years. Then the wards had worn off, Max had gone to Hybrid Academy, and one problem after another had come barreling at their family.

  But why Maxine?

  And why Maddison?

  She knew part of the problem was her spell book. She’d written down so many secrets in it over the years that if it ever fell into the wrong hands, someone could use it to destroy the world. In fact, Maddison had been wondering if writing everything down in one place had actually been the best idea at all. Although the book was carefully protected and unable to be read by anyone but Maddison or her direct bloodline, which was Maxine, she still worried that she had made a mistake in creating it.

  Maybe she should do the world a favor and just destroy the book.

  Then everything would be over.

  Only, it wouldn’t.

  The vampires would keep coming after her because she knew exactly what they needed to do to create a world of shifters and to destroy all of the other beings in the world.

  If the vampires could somehow mass produce and distribute the shifter potion, th
e Wolaftiam spell would work to destroy everything. The shifters would all die, and the rest of the world would be trapped in their new bodies. Wolaftiam wasn’t something that even had to be ingested. From what she’d gathered, it could simply be applied to the skin and that would be enough. That was all it would take to completely destroy someone.

  You could be walking to work or playing at the park and then – bam! – instantly be turned into a creature you had never been before. That was how this potion worked. That was how they got you. That was how the vampires were going to destroy the entire world.

  What she couldn’t figure out was how the vampires had managed to stay one step ahead of them.

  Maddison knew how they’d found her. Sweet Maxine had inadvertently led them to her.

  But how had they found her at Hybrid the next year?

  That was something Maddison hadn’t been able to figure out. Maxine had brushed off the experience, saying that her teacher had obviously been working for the big bad, but that was it. They hadn’t really gone into a lot of analysis, and Maddison regretted that she hadn’t pushed her granddaughter harder.

  Hybrid Academy was warded.

  Magical wards weren’t just some casual spells designed to keep people away. No, wards were much stronger than that. If the wrong person so much as looked at Hybrid Academy, they wouldn’t be able to see the castle or the grounds. To them, the Dragon Mountains would just be that: the Dragon Mountains. There wouldn’t be a magical school nestled in the foothills. There wouldn’t be students walking around like they owned the place. There wouldn’t be anything.

  So how had Elkridge done what he’d done?

  Last year, he’d managed to infiltrate the school and try to attack Max. He wanted the spell book and he wanted Maxine to use it. Well, her or Maddison. He didn’t much care which of the Hawk women used the book. He just knew that one of them could turn people into animals and he had, somehow, managed to create a sort of antidote that was actually quite effective.