No, Hybrid Academy’s location was a careful secret. They only allowed hybrid students to attend the school and even that was after a careful screening and selection process. Students who came to the school required protection and care. They didn’t need to be trying to study while scared for their lives.
If the students became scared, then they would simply stop attending the school. Although Alicia was apparently quite evil, she had done an effective job at weeding out anyone who might bring harm to the school.
Although now that Maddison knew who Alicia really was, she couldn’t help but wonder if the protective measurements she’d taken had been for another reason. Hybrid Academy had changed hands before, but Alicia had been in charge for several years now. When Maddison had met the woman years ago, she’d never really pinpointed her as the leading type. Alicia had always seemed more like a follower than a leader.
Had she taken over Hybrid Academy simply to lie in wait for Maxine?
It seemed impossible, yet Alicia wasn’t who Maddison had thought. She’d bested her, and Maddison would venture to guess she wasn’t the only one who had been tricked by the woman throughout the years.
“Our best bet is to find the king and queen,” Maddison said.
“Yeah,” Rita said. “We don’t need to worry about the auditorium right now.”
“If we can kill the leaders, then the rest of the vamps will kind of lose where they’re going and just fall apart,” Donald pointed out. “And I’d venture a guess that enough of the kids in the auditorium know magic, or their parents do, to stop them once they lose their organization.”
Maddison would guess that the only thing keeping the auditorium in place right now were a few careful spells. Not huge enchantments, no, but there were no wands allowed at orientation. She had always found that to be a strange rule. Now it made more sense. Without their wands, the parents would still be able to do magic, but it would be weak and fizzle out much more quickly. Many of the parents worked in non-magical jobs where they didn’t practice honing their magical abilities.
Others didn’t know magic at all and were just accompanying their children out of moral support.
“There was movement near the center of the school,” Wendy said, listening to the second orb.
“How can it possibly detect that? I thought it just looked in the windows,” Tia said.
Wendy shrugged and smiled lightly. The woman was clever as hell, but not used to compliments or questions about her work.
“This one can detect body movements,” she said.
“Like heat signatures?”
“Well, vampires are cold, so no,” Wendy said. “But it can detect human-like movement, and apparently, there’s something happening right in the middle of the first floor.”
“That’s where the headmistress’ primary office is,” Maddison said.
“What are we waiting for?” Rita looked around at the little group. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 11
“You just don’t give up, do you?” Alicia said, staring down at Maxine. She and Aunt Erin had made it all of five feet from the office before getting caught.
Again.
This time, Alicia didn’t force her back into the tiny room, which was just as well. It reeked. After a day of yelling and shouting and fighting and bickering and magic and escaping, the office smelled like fear and sadness. It was disgusting, and Maxine thought she might throw up if she tried to go back inside.
Alicia snapped her fingers, and suddenly, Maxine could talk again.
“You suck,” Maxine said, and Alicia slapped her in the face. The attack smarted, but Maxine fought the urge to rub her cheek or hide from the woman. No, she’d hidden long enough. She’d kept her head down, and she’d tried to stay out of trouble, but Alicia was too much.
It was time for the vampire queen to leave.
Or die.
And Maxine didn’t really care which it was.
She leapt forward, throwing her body at the woman. She didn’t think it through, and she didn’t consider the pros and cons, and she didn’t know if it was a good idea. She just knew that the time for running and hiding and running again was over. It was time to end this, so she started fighting.
At the same time, Erin leapt at Alexander, who seemed caught off guard that a wolf-shifter would be attacking him. Maybe the vampire king was used to having his body guarded. After all, he was a notorious recluse. He didn’t wander out of his home very often, even among the vampires. Maybe he’d never been in a fight before, but Maxine couldn’t focus on them.
Instead, she reached for Alicia’s hair and yanked, pulling the vampire queen’s head back.
“You stupid brat,” Alicia yelled, and she reached for Maxine’s hair, too. Maxine tried to think of a spell she knew that could help in this sort of situation, but her brain was coming up empty. Alicia seemed to have the right idea, but before she could say anything, Max shoved her hand over the woman’s mouth.
Max could whisper spells for things like food. She could whip up pizza now, for dragon’s sake, but she didn’t know the enchantment to make people unable to speak, and she knew that if she took her hand off of Alicia’s mouth that the woman would have her tied and bound so quickly that there would never be another chance for Maxine to escape.
No, this had to end.
And it had to end now.
They wrestled on the floor, tumbling around. Robes and clothing were flailing about, and Maxine tried not to lose her grip on Alicia, but it was hard. Alicia was older and taller than Max, but she was more clever, too. Maxine had struggled to do anything at all with magic, from the smallest spells to the greatest incantations. For the past few years, it had been an uphill battle, and she knew that she was outmatched with Alicia.
The headmistress knew it, too, and she snarled as she pushed and managed to get Maxine on her back. Max’s hand slipped, and Alicia pinned her arms at her sides to keep Max from being able to fight back.
“You think you’re so clever,” Alicia hissed.
Maxine stared into the vampire woman’s eyes. Hatred, anger, and pain swirled around in a toxic mix that was almost painful to look at, and Max realized that this was it. This was how it all ended. This was what came next.
This was how her world would fade away into nothingness.
She’d spent the last two, almost three, years trying to become something that she wasn’t, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? Maxine had always felt like an imposter, like she wasn’t really meant to be at the school. She’d always felt like this was just a chance encounter. In her mind, this place was where she came to think, to learn, and to study, but she was never going to be what the world would consider a great witch.
She was never going to save the world.
She turned her head before Alicia could see a tear slide down her cheek, and Maxine saw that Alexander had Erin pinned to the ground. Erin was silent as Alexander stood over her. His foot was on her throat. Maxine saw her aunt’s wolf body, strong and tough, and it was sprawled on the floor in defeat.
“Bad doggy,” Alexander said, and he pressed his foot down ever just so. Erin cried out in pain, but she tried to hold back the howl. Even from where Maxine was lying on the floor, she could see that her aunt was struggling, but not giving up. Erin would never give up.
And suddenly, Maxine realized that it was that fortitude, that strength, that had gotten her through so very many things. Erin had never quit. Erin had spent years looking for her. Erin had come when Grandmother called for her in need. Erin had always been there, and she was here now, at the very end, in the moment when things seemed so dark and impossible.
And Maxine realized that if Erin was strong enough, in this moment, to be brave, then she would be, too.
She had to be.
Alicia had stolen her parents from her, but she wasn’t going to take Erin, and she wasn’t going to take Hybrid Academy, and she wasn’t going to take Max.
She wasn’t.
M
ax turned her head back toward the vampire witch, and her eyes narrowed.
“You took everything from me,” she said.
“Oh, pretty girl,” Alicia shook her head. “I haven’t even gotten started.”
Alicia opened her mouth to whisper a spell, but Maxine whispered faster. Her words, which had been so carefully practiced in the summer, flew out of her mouth more effortlessly than they ever had before. Alicia looked confused for just a brief moment, but then the pizza Max had conjured up seemed to appear from nowhere, and it landed on Alicia’s face.
The witch screamed, and she was distracted enough that Max was able to wiggle out from under her grasp. Alexander seemed shocked at the turn of events, and he loosened his foot from Erin’s neck. Erin didn’t miss a beat. She crawled out, turned around, and bit Alexander on the ankle.
The vampire cried out while Alicia was still screaming. She was trying to pull the gooey, cheesy mess from her face, but she couldn’t.
Max had made it extra-cheesy, complete with pepperoni stars. She didn’t take a moment to admire her handiwork, though, because at that moment, she heard footsteps in the hall, and she turned to see Patricia and Henry running down the hallway. Henry was in his cat form, sprinting quickly, and Patricia had Kiera tucked in her pocket. The little hamster’s head was peeking out of Patricia’s front shirt pocket, but from where Maxine was standing, the hamster looked angry as hell.
And there was another creature: one Maxine had never seen before, but she instinctively knew who it was.
It was a large, grey wolf, whose eyes were bright and familiar, and the wolf raced ahead of the others. It ran, throwing itself over Erin and Alexander and landing directly on Alicia. The force of the movement pushed her down, onto her back, and the wolf howled in Alicia’s face, which was still covered in pizza and cheese.
Alicia screamed.
“Catch!” Patricia yelled, and tossed another broken-off ruler to Maxine. She caught it mid-air and rushed over to where the wolf was pinning down Alicia.
“This is for my dad,” Max said, and she shoved the ruler into the vampire’s heart.
Chapter 12
“Y-Y-You!” Alexander screamed. “What have you done?” He tried to move, to rush to the pile of dust that had once been his bride, but Erin, in her wolf form, clung to the man’s ankle. He tripped, fell, and landed flat on his belly. He turned around angrily and swatted at Erin, but she held on tightly.
Then the other wolf moved to him and lowered her snout to his throat. Instantly, the vampire stilled. No, biting a vampire’s neck wouldn’t kill him, but Alexander was stuck with the body he had. It wasn’t like vampires could just change bodies if they felt like it. If he became mangled or damaged, he wouldn’t be able to repair that.
And the vampire was known for being both vain and crazy.
I stayed where I was, keeling beside the vampire dust. Alicia was gone. Dead. Vanished. She would never come back to haunt the halls of Hybrid Academy. I didn’t think I’d ever really know or understand everything that she did, but I did know one thing: her reign of evil was finished, and that gave me a tiny, little thread of hope that when this was all done and over, everything would be okay. It had to be.
“Let me go,” Alexander said, begging the wolf, but the wolf showed no signs of letting up. I knew who that wolf was, and my heart felt like it might explode because there were so many different emotions flowing through my veins in that moment.
Anxiousness.
Excitement.
Sadness.
Because if that wolf was my mother, the way that I thought it was, then my father’s absence was even more notable, and I realized that he would not be coming back. Not ever. He really was gone. I had lost him years ago, but part of me had dared to hope that maybe he would come back to me somehow.
Now, we stood, gathered around the vampire king, who suddenly looked so very small. He looked up at us and I could see that he was trying to come up with a way to escape from us, but there would be no escape this time. Not for Alexander.
“No one is letting you go,” I said.
“You,” he said. His eyes turned toward me, but he couldn’t really move very much. Not with all of the wolves holding him in place. “You did this.”
“Oh, Mr. King. I believe you did this to yourself.”
I reached for the ruler, and I raised it up. I hadn’t really considered myself to be a vampire killer until today, but then again, sometimes life happens and you just have to sort of go with the flow. I was capable of this, I realized. I could do this. Alexander had stolen so much from me, and now it was time for him to leave.
I closed my eyes and was just about to plunge the ruler into him when I heard a shout.
“Wait!”
“Don’t kill him yet!”
“Hang on!”
I turned to see a group of witches – and Donald – hurrying down the hallway. Grandma, Rita, and the rest of the coven had all come. They came in the opposite end of the school from where Henry, Kiera, and Patricia had entered with my wolf-mom.
“Did you come in the front doors?” I asked. My grandmother was known for being polite, but that seemed a bit much.
She just shrugged. Her eyes assessed the situation and she noticed the wolf holding Alexander in place. Her eyes widened, and I knew she realized exactly who had found her way back to us, but there would be time for a tearful reunion later.
“Don’t kill him,” she repeated.
Alexander smiled.
“The Darling Witches want to speak with him.”
Alexander’s smile faded.
The Darling Witches were a group of high-level magic users who sort of made up a strange council of magical enforcers. They were known for being quite terrible and quite mean and quite protective of their own.
Wendy produced a pair of enchanted handcuffs that glowed a strange shade of orange. Alexander seemed to know exactly what they were because he shook his head.
“No,” he said, and he tried to wiggle away. A nip from Erin had him holding still once more.
“Afraid so,” Wendy snapped the cuffs on him and pulled him to his feet. He didn’t try to move or get away, and I wondered what sort of magic the cuffs contained to keep a king in place like that.
Donald, Tia, and Hannah all surrounded the vampire. They held hands, and Wendy said some sort of spell. My grandmother threw a pocketful of dust at them, and then they all vanished.
“What the hell was that?” Patricia asked once they were gone.
My grandmother turned to her and shook her head.
“No? Come on,” Patricia crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “I want to know.”
“Uh, I kind of do, too, actually. How did they vanish like that?” I had seen a lot of things at Hybrid Academy, but people blatantly vanishing out of thin air wasn’t one of them.
“He’s a dangerous criminal,” my grandmother said. “And although this type of magic is expressly forbidden, it’s the safest way to ensure he makes it to the Darling Witches without incident.”
Just then, we heard movement coming from one of the adjacent halls, and a couple of vampires rounded a corner.
“Hey!” One of them said. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Gentlemen,” my grandmother said. She stayed calm and graceful even as the vampires ran toward us, obviously not knowing what they had just missed. “Your queen is dead, and your king is gone.”
“W-w-what?” One of the vampires paled even more, if possible.
“You have two options. You can go back to the auditorium and free all of those students and parents, or you can die. Your choice.”
One of the vampires turned and instantly ran back toward the auditorium, presumably to let everyone out.
Grandmother looked at the remaining two.
“If I see you again, I’ll kill you,” she said.
“But, Maddison,” one of the vampire men said. “I thought we were friends.”
“You held me
prisoner for months,” my grandmother hissed, and I realized that she knew these vampires. They had been her captors, once upon a time, and they had kept us apart for a very long time. “We are not friends. Now leave before I kill you.”
The vampire looked almost sad for a minute, but then he, too, turned and ran.
The third vampire, however, wasn’t looking at my grandmother. He was looking at Patricia.
“Is it true?” He asked her.
“Is what true?”
“The queen and king…they’re gone?”
“Yeah, uh, we kind of took care of that for you,” Patricia said with a gentle smile. The vampire boy, who was probably about our age, jumped up and down.
“Hell yeah!” He said. “I’m free! I’m free!” Patricia laughed at his antics, and then the boy came a little closer to her, and I realized that this was a vampire she’d encountered before. He was very familiar with her. A little too familiar, maybe.
They started whispering to one another, and I looked away to give them some privacy. I heard noises and yelling and shouting coming from the other end of the school, and I realized that the parents and students who had been in the auditorium were now free.
“Well then,” my grandmother said. “First things first.” She went into one of the nearby classrooms and returned a minute later with some robes. She held one out to Erin, who quickly shifted and changed. Henry followed suit. Keira was still a hamster, but she was starting to flicker in her glow, and I thought she might shift back pretty soon.
The other wolf, though, didn’t shift.
Instead, it looked up at me sadly, and I knelt down beside her and wrapped my arms around her.
“Welcome home, Mom,” I whispered, rubbing her soft fur. “I really missed you.”
Chapter 13
I could tell that Erin wanted to stay with us, but she also needed to do damage control and she was the only one who could do it. She knew Hybrid Academy inside and out, and she’d be able to figure out a way to make things work. At the very least, she could help calm the parents down until a plan was able to be put into place. There would still be some non-vampire teachers left, I hoped, and they could figure out what would happen to the school.
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