Charm School (The Demon's Apprentice Book 4)

by Ben Reeder

  Lucas let out a snort. “When are you ever legit when you go all Sherlock? I don’t think I need to tell him, but I will.”

  “He does this kind of thing a lot?” Hoshi said, leaning in over my shoulder.

  “He’s like a damn anime hero, only with normal colored hair,” Lucas said. “Ninja Detective Mage Fortunato. He’d be lost if he didn’t have to sneak around to solve a case.” Hoshi let out a short laugh of his own at my expense. “Look, bro, I gotta bolt. It’s almost midnight here, and I have a Calculus quiz tomorrow. I’ll give this to Dr. C tomorrow, and I’ll tell him to keep it off the books.” He killed the connection, leaving me with a smirking Hoshi.

  “What?” I asked as he let out a snicker.

  “Ninja Detective Mage Fortunato,” he said as he turned the lights out and went to his bed. “I’m so gonna draw that.”

  “And I’m so gonna kick your ass if you do.” I laid down on my blankets. Junkyard wandered over and pawed at the thick cloth for a moment before he plopped down beside me.

  “Maybe you can get Metallo-Baby to do a catchy opening theme for you.”

  “Maybe you’ll get a bad case of amnesia.”

  In the darkness, he hummed a few notes, then went silent for a few seconds. “Ninja Detective Mage Fortunato…go!” he sang softly.

  “So, this is what madness is like,” I muttered. Hoshi snickered, and for a few minutes, it was quiet. Just when I thought I was going to get to sleep, he broke the silence with another chuckle.

  “You need a signature fighting move,” he said. “And a pose.” It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 8

  ~ If what you’re doing isn’t working, try something else. You only eliminate one more thing if it doesn’t work. ~ Lao Chi, detective.

  “Isn’t that your dad?” a girl asked as a tabloid fell in the middle of the table. I looked up amid a chorus of snickers and malevolent giggles. My father’s face was plastered across a copy of the Boston Ledger. It was a particularly clear shot of him holding his coat up in front of him and his face turned to one side, like he was trying to avoid a camera pointed at him from another angle. Unfortunately for him, it presented the particular scowl he was wearing right at the photographer who had taken this shot.

  SPARTAN INDICTED!

  Empire toppled by inside informant.

  “Why? Looking for a date?” I asked her retreating back. She stopped cold for a second, then glared at me over her shoulder for a moment before walking on. I shook my head and looked down at my plate. Somewhere between my fifth and sixth bites, I’d dozed off and my fork had fallen into my oatmeal still bearing a chunk of scrambled eggs. With a sigh, I pushed my plate and bowl away, then reached for the mug of coffee. Even lukewarm, the black elixir was decent tasting.

  “Help me, Sunrise Roast. You’re my only hope,” I muttered before I took a second sip.

  “I’m never gonna make it to the weekend,” Kiya moaned. “Wait, what day is it?” I looked over at the paper.

  “Wednesday, I think,” I said. “September something.”

  “It’s Thursday,” Desiree said. “Grapefruit on the fruit bar. Gracie Solomon and Sarah Ellincot are eating breakfast together, because they have the same first hour class.”

  “So it could be Monday,” Hoshi said.

  “Too tired for Monday,” I said, my legs reminding me that I’d done my qualifying runs for the next cross country meet yesterday. A chorus of weary agreement followed that.

  “Thursday,” Kiya said. “I’m calling it for Thursday.”

  “When is your source going to get back to us?” Hoshi asked as the focus shifted back to the table. “It’s been three weeks.”

  “When did you join the Ninja Detective Mage agency?” I whispered back.

  “Since the Franklin Honor Code. I get the same punishment you do if I don’t report you. So, since I’m not reporting you, I might as well join up.”

  “Dr. C has a lot on his plate already,” I said. “Poring over a crappy cell phone video isn’t going to help that much. Bugging him about it sure as all Nine Hells won’t speed things up.” The morning bell chimed, and I grabbed my bagel as I got to my feet. “He’s also got classes to teach,” I said.

  By that afternoon, even if Dr. C had given me the names and pictures of whoever had ripped Lodge’s soul away, I wouldn’t have had the time or energy to go after them. I set my stack of books down on the table in the common area and tried to decide which one to start first. Conjuring won, and I pulled the sketch book from my pack. The page flipped to the most recent set of elemental summoning circles, various shades of pastel reds, greens, blues and yellows, all marred by the bright red marks pointing out errors I still couldn’t see. No matter what I did, I never seemed to get the conjuring circles right according to Professor Kenneson. For a guy who had managed to summon lesser demons and spirits, that stuck my ego hard.

  Today’s homework was to do a summoning circle for a weather elemental, a very specific type of air elemental. I read the question from the book, having to go through it three times before I was halfway certain I understood it.

  You need to know the weather for three days from the current date. Draw the proper summoning circle for the proper elemental.

  My first step was to make sure I used the same color pencil as the chalk I would be using when I drew the actual practice circle. With less than steady hands, I put the colored pencil to the page and started on the central sigil, which would resonate with the elemental and draw it to the circle.

  “Temperamental little bastards, aren’t they?” Stewart said from over my shoulder. My pencil shifted, and the line went to one side.

  “Sorry about that,” he said as he plucked the half-used eraser from beside the sketch book. “I just hated Conjure Three with a passion. It’s hard to tell who’s harder to deal with, Kenneson or a pissed off elemental.”

  “If I could make a circle to summon and control him, I could retire before I graduated,” I said as I leaned back. Stewart bent forward and rubbed at the errant mark.

  “Just remember with this one, the point is information, not control. You just want to talk to it, but you want accuracy, so a truth…a truth sigil…right about…” he said, his words slurring as he swayed in place for a moment.

  “Are you okay, man?”

  “Yeah, fine. Better never…” His eyes rolled back and he slumped over on top of me.

  “Ethan!” I bellowed. “Get Mr. Emerson!” The hall captain barely took the time to register what was going on before he bolted from the room. People gathered around before I even had Stewart on the floor. Where his skin touched mine, I felt enough power flowing through him to make my hair stand on end, and it didn’t give me the same tingle as regular magick. No, this was the burn of Infernal power.

  “Stand back, what’s going on here?” Mr. Emerson demanded as he entered the room. With a blink, I opened my Third Eye, and saw the dark purple stain slowly spreading on Stewart’s aura.

  “I think it’s the same people who attacked Lodge,” I said. “It feels Infernal.” Suddenly, there was a lot more open space around us.

  “Mr. Stanwicke, activate the house wards. I’ll shield Mr. Hampton myself. Now step back Mr. Fortunato.” I moved away and felt the hum of the house wards against my senses. Moments later, Mr. Emerson’s circle shimmered into existence, a beautiful golden column in my Third Eye’s Sight, and Stewart moaned. After a few heartbeats, a thick, undulating strand of purple energy became visible. I traced it back to the wall, where I could see the fading remains of the house wards. If it had torn through the house wards…my attention went back to Mr. Emerson’s shield. His circle was still intact, but the energy strand was punching through it like it was barely even there.

  I lunged for the table and grabbed a stick of chalk, then shoved Mr. Emerson out of the way. He tried to protest, but I was already drawing a rough circle around Stewart on the floor. Once I had it done, I did a hasty circle outside it, then started filling the spac
e between the two circles in with symbols I had memorized months ago. Just drawing them felt like having flaming snakes crawl through my brain, but I could also feel the resistance from the attack as it hit the incomplete circle. I drew in the last symbol, then grabbed Stewarts hand and pulled my pocket knife. Too late, Mr. Emerson figured out what I had in mind, but even as he rushed forward, I thumbed the blade open and ran the razor sharp edge across the outside of Stewart’s pinky. Blood flowed, and I flicked the knife at the edge of the circle as I pushed myself away from it.

  The effect was spectacular. The instant his blood hit the edge of the circle, it sprang to hideous life, a translucent purple and black column that was visible to the naked eye. So was the energy thread that was attacking him, as the sudden appearance of the shield created a resonance feedback. I could see a pulse of energy flow down the thread and hit the shield. It flared, but, having nowhere else to go, flowed back down the energy thread. Instinctively, I laid my hand against the thread, and felt the power pulse brush my aura. Instantly, I got an indistinct image of a girl’s face with her lips pulled back in a rictus of fury.

  I pumped raw magick down my arm as my palm closed around the thread. Suddenly, the tingling energy strand felt solid under my hand, and it changed from dark purple to pale blue. Whoever it was must have tried to break off the attack. I shoved more raw energy into it, and suddenly the energy strand was all me. I got the impression of surprise and fear as I let go of it, leaving a glowing blow line in the air. Whoever was on the other end would be certain of one thing: I was coming for them.

  I vaguely heard my name as I dashed to the stairs, then I was down the flights and bursting out the door at a sprint. My eyes tracked the slowly fading blue arc as I ran for the woods, my hand groping for my wand. A ravine loomed ahead, and I leaped for the far side, my feet sinking into the soft loam just shy of the top. Stumbling, I got my feet back under me and took off again, accompanied by the sounds of people moving through the brush on either side of me.

  I burst into the clearing before I realized I was even close. The first clue I had was the tingle when I crossed the circle’s edge, and caught the residual barrier with my shoulder and my face. I saw at least two figures running into the woods, and I leveled my wand at them.

  “Ictus!” I intoned, and a half-focused bolt of telekinetic energy went crashing through the brush. “Damn it!” I yelled when I didn’t even get a yelp of pain back for the effort.

  “Fortunato, stand down!” I heard from behind me and to my right.

  “You guys know this wasn’t me, right?” I asked.

  “Don’t move, kid,” I heard a familiar voice say from my left. I looked down, suddenly realizing exactly where I was: right in the middle of the circle.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Now I’m that guy.” I felt six wands focus on me in a heartbeat.

  “Explain yourself,” another Sentinel said. “Who are you?” Understanding dawned in my head a few seconds later.

  “I’m still me, guys, still Chance Fortunato, your favorite pain in the ass. I meant that I’m the idiot who stomps around in a crime scene and makes a mess of things.”

  “You are that,” the woman I recognized said. Average height, round, forgettable face and brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, there was only one Sentinel who fit that bill.

  “Sentinel Dearborn, good to see you again.” I gave her a smile, but it didn’t seem to be thawing her attitude out any. Like most Sentinels, she carried two pistols, one a specialized paintball gun that fired alchemical rounds, and the other a regular semiautomatic that I would bet any amount of money carried silver rounds.

  “Wish I could say the same, kid,” Jane Dearborn said. The last time we’d met, I’d inadvertently broken through her concealment spell while she was following me during my Ordeal. “I need you to try to back out of there in your own footsteps. You know the drill.” I nodded and took a careful step backward, stretching as far as I could to match my running stride. Another step, and I was outside the circle.

  “Sorry about that guys,” I said, though I noticed I hadn’t been the only person who’d broken the circle. Another Sentinel was standing at the edge looking sheepish, and I knew he’d been closer to where I was a few seconds ago. “I don’t think I stepped on the circle itself, though.”

  “That’s nice, but you’ve still done more than enough damage. Report back to your house. I’ll deal with you later.” Dearborn moved to my side, her face a blank mask. “If you’re lucky, all I’ll mention is interfering with Sentinels. Who knows, they might even let you finish out the semester.”

  “Yeah, that’s awful nice of you,” I said. I looked down at the symbols scorched into the ground in front of me, a series that actually came close to making sense to me. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “What do we have to thank you for? You blunder into the middle of a circle, disrupting any chance we have of tracing it back to the person who cast it, scaring them off in the process. Why should I be grateful for that?”

  “Because I led you to that circle and saved the guy they were targeting in the process. I also know that there were at least two people involved, and I know that this circle is different. I know what they were up to.” I studied Dearborn’s face for a reaction, and was rewarded with an unpleasant look that promised nothing good.

  “Start talking, kid,” she said. “What were they up to?” In the distance, I heard Junkyard’s bark, and I could see half a dozen lights headed our way.

  “Okay, this sequence here, it’s a nullifier. See those gaps in the runes? They’re for whatever spell you want to attach to it. I used almost this exact same thing when I escaped from my old boss to get past his wards. This is basically an armor piercing bullet of a spell. All this circle was designed to do was break through the school’s wards, which I’m guessing you beefed up on the sly after Lodge got a soulectomy.”

  “That’s need to know only,” Dearborn said. “How did you save the target?”

  “Different kind of shield, one they weren’t expecting.”

  “Okay, we need to make you scarce,” she said as we heard the crash of brush and someone cursed nearby. “Fortunato, don’t let a word of what you just told me slip. Lie if you have to. Drummond. Get him out of sight, take him back to the dorm and check on whoever it was they were attacking,” she said to the Sentinel who’d stumbled into the circle with me. He came to my side and grabbed his cloak by the edge, then swept it up over my shoulder with a muttered word.

  The moment the cloth touched me, the world went sort of hazy and out of focus, like a watercolor painting. Inside a small area, everything was still in sharp detail, but even the sounds around us were muted.

  “Stay still for a few seconds,” Drummond said. “Let their senses adjust.”

  “Is that a chameleon spell on the cloak?” I asked

  “New and improved, since you blew past Jane’s spells last March,” he said, then put a finger to his lips as someone stumbled into the circle.

  “Did he see them?” I heard Talbot’s voice ask. More people came right behind him, the tips of wands and other items glowing.

  “Okay, let’s move,” Drummond said. He led me way from the circle, not heading straight toward the school at first, then slowly angling us toward Jefferson House. Once we were at the main doors, he flipped the cloak away from me, and the world shimmered back into focus around me. He stopped me at the door with a hand on my arm.

  “Officially, you didn’t see the circle for right now,” he said. “You found me and brought me back to look at your friend. Not a word about anything else. You got it?”

  “Yeah, I know how it works,” I said. “Leave crucial details out, let the real perp trip themselves up by revealing too much. And leave the detective work to you guys.”

  “Keep that up, and you might actually survive to adulthood.”

  “Boy, wouldn’t that disappoint a lot of people.” Junkyard caught up to us as we got to the stairs, giving me a look full
of reproach for leaving him behind. In the common room, we found Stewart sitting in the chair I’d abandoned, with Mr. Emerson hovering near him.

  “There you are, Mr. Fortunato,” Emerson said with a frown. “And being brought back by a Sentinel, no less.”

  “Actually, Mr. Fortunato was leading me back here to check on your head boy,” Drummond said with a gesture toward Stewart. “Seems as though you saved the young man’s life.”

  “I beg to differ,” Emerson said. “I had the situa- excuse me, did you say I saved Mr. Hampton?”

  “Yes, I did. Why don’t we discuss this in your office, shall we?” Drummond said. Stewart got to his feet and followed slowly. He caught my eye and mouthed a silent “Thank you” as we left the common area and went to the office in the middle ground between the boys and girls sides of the house. The head girl, Rebecca and Mrs. Emerson came in behind us, and Mrs. Emerson insisted Stewart lay down on the couch along the wall. Emerson took his place in the tall, leather chair behind the broad desk, but he didn’t offer us a seat. Drummond took a chair anyway and gestured for me to sit down. As I sat, Rebecca left the room.

  “Now, as I was saying, I was handling the attack quite nicely on my own when Fortunato here shoved me to the ground and scrawled that gibberish circle around him. If I hadn’t…” Emerson said, but Stewart cut him off.

  “With all due respect to your skills, Mr. Emerson,” Stewart said, “it was Chance’s circle that stopped that attack cold. Yours barely slowed it down.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Hampton?” Emerson asked, his face going from stern to shocked.

  “It wasn’t until I was inside Chance’s circle that I could think straight.”

  “We’re going to go with the story that it was Mr. Emerson’s circle that protected you, though,” Drummond said, which got a smile from Emerson. “At least until we catch the warlock who did this. We don’t want to endanger Chance by advertising his ability to defend against their magick now, do we?” The look on Emerson’s face told me that was exactly what he wanted to do, but it looked like his vanity won out.