by Rebecca Hall
He was halfway up the first flight of stairs when he realised that it might have been more sensible to visit the bathroom on the ground floor. Going back down seemed like too much effort, as did detouring to one of the other bathrooms. He went up to his room, dripping blood up the stairs and along the corridor until he found a tissue and awkwardly held it to his nose while removing his wet clothes and finding a spare pair of pyjamas. He’d have a hot shower and go to bed, God only knew why he’d wanted frozen jelly.
THE CONTRACT
Mitch glared at the corner of the common room where his former friends were sitting. Everyone was laughing at some joke Gwen had made, probably at his expense. She was sitting on Richard’s lap. Richard said something and they all laughed even louder. Dickheads. He had meant to sit by the fire and read but not any more. He stalked out, tossed the book onto his bed and grabbed his coat.
He couldn’t believe that it had taken less than a week for his entire life to turn upside down. Mindy and the zombie horse, Dr Henly, Gwen. He’d avoided her as much as possible since, he wasn’t sure how to talk to her without yelling and then she’d probably use a laser to castrate him, never mind that he had every right to yell at the cheating bitch. He scuttled past the common room as fast as he could on his way outside.
Everything was grey, buried under a fresh layer of ash. The plants that usually survived the winter were slowly wilting under the continuing rain of ash. He hoped Ruapehu stopped erupting soon, he was getting sick of everything being grey and dead and depressing. The newspapers said that the scientists were beginning to get unusual readings from Tongariro and Ngauruhoe as well. He didn’t like the combination of unusual readings and volcano any more than he liked being one of those people who read the newspapers every morning.
He shuffled through the ash, avoiding anywhere where there might be people laughing at him, the entire school seemed to know about Gwen and Richard. He made it through the buildings without incident and abandoned the footpath in favour of the empty field. For a fraction of a second he considered sneaking out but he might meet someone at the lake. He kept walking instead. He was tempted to break the rules a little, just so that they’d throw him in detention where no one would be able to whisper or make snide remarks. He was probably the last person in the entire Academy to know about Gwen and Richard, Cullum had probably known before him. He kicked a rock and it exploded into a puff of ash that clung to his pants. Mitch scowled, the rest of the world was grey why shouldn’t he blend in?
He reached a tree and kicked that instead, it was less likely to dissolve on him.
“That’s not very nice.”
Mitch jumped and looked up. “What are you doing up there?” he asked Nikola, “Shouldn’t you be in the infirmary or something?” A quick glance at Ruapehu confirmed that it was still spewing smoke and ash into the air. Nikola hopped from branch to branch, apparently unconcerned about the risk of falling and cracking his head open or even if the branch could take his weight, until he was just above eye level.
“Volcanoes have been known to erupt on their own Mitchell,” Nikola said, “I only have an issue with it when there are angels involved.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in a tree.”
Nikola smiled and pulled a packet of seeds out of his pocket. He tipped some into his hand and held it out. A few seconds later there was a flutter of wings and a tiny bird began to peck at his hand. Mitch took a half step back and the bird fled. Nikola shot him a dirty look and spread the remaining seed across the branch before jumping down. The ash didn’t puff up about his feet when he landed, nor did he sink into it up to his ankles as Mitch had.
“Did you know?” Mitch found himself asking rather stupidly.
“Know what?” Nikola called over his shoulder as he set off around the field. Mitch followed him, wishing he could work out how it was that Nikola wasn’t sinking into the snow and ash; he wasn’t that light.
“About Gwen and Richard.”
“They’re best friends aren’t they?”
Mitch almost sniggered, he hadn’t thought that there was anyone more out of the loop than him. “Something like that,” he said. “Bates suggested that I have a three way with them,” he continued before his brain could tell his mouth to shut up.
“So that’s why you’re following me around like a lost puppy.”
“Do you have something against lost puppies?” Mitch asked, unable to come up with a proper response. He didn’t look that pathetic.
“Yes,” Nikola replied, “people should take better care of their pets.” Mitch scowled, by that logic Bates and Gwen should be taking better of care of him. He didn’t think explaining that to either of them would get him very far.
“You don’t have anything else to say?”
“Humans,” Nikola muttered.
“You’re one of us,” Mitch reminded him, “you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
“What do you want Mitchell? If you don’t want to sleep with both of them then don’t, that is the problem here isn’t it?”
“It’s Richard,” he protested. Either he wasn’t being as clear as he thought he was or Nikola was completely missing the point.
“You’re allowed to like boys Mitchell, or would you prefer another girl?”
Neither, Mitch thought. When he’d thought about it at all, it had always been two girls but Bates had definitely ruined that fantasy.
“Umm,” Mitch began nervously, there was putting your foot in your mouth and then there was stepping on a land-mine and he didn’t know a lot about Nikola. Even his German origins were an assumption based on his name and the fact that he’d transferred from Munich. “You’re not gay are you?”
“No.”
Mitch barely kept from sighing in relief, he got the impression that Nikola was a lot more comfortable with this than he was, though he’d never heard of him making a pass at anyone. Nikola didn’t seem inclined to throw him a lifeline either.
“It’s all just the curse right?” Mitch asked, “if we take them away from it then they’ll be themselves again.”
“They’re themselves now,” Nikola said. He frowned at the Burning Yard and then started up the hill towards it.
“But,” Mitch said, struggling after him.
“The Twisted Curse works with what is already there, I don’t think they’re doing or saying anything that they wouldn’t have said or done normally. Of course the effects are being compounded over time.”
“So he is a completely different person. We have to stop this.”
“You can’t.”
“What about you?”
“Why would I stop it, after two and a half years I finally get to leave, my guardian agreed that I can drop out if the curse is still in effect at the end of the year.”
“But–”
“But what Mitchell?” Nikola asked, striding ahead and spinning to glare down at him. “You can’t possibly think that I like it here. I was never sick at home. I had tutors who taught me at my own pace instead of forcing me to wait for everyone else and there were people who actually wanted to talk to me.”
“I–”
Nikola cut him off, “I’m your last resort Mitchell. You wouldn’t be here if you still had your friends.” He turned away and stalked the final metres to the Burning Yard. Mitch followed, he was really beginning to hate the truth. Nikola was right, if things had still been ok with Bates and Gwen, or even just Richard and Mindy, he wouldn’t have been out here.
“I’m sorry,” he said, catching up to Nikola, “I would like to be friends.”
“I’m leaving,” Nikola reminded him. He sighed, “You won’t get them back you know, no more than you’d get an alcoholic or a drug addict back, you can take the poison away but they’ll always feel its effects.” Mitch swallowed, he hoped that Nikola was wrong but he’d suspected as much himself.
“What are we doing up here? This place is creepy,” Mitch said.
“I wanted to see why the
gates were closed, they’re usually open.”
“Probably another funeral,” Mitch said, rubbing his arms. Outsiders used the Academy’s medical facilities sometimes, why not the Burning Yard as well. Mitch was impressed with the speed with which they’d repaired the gate but they’d been taught that incomplete sigils could react in unpredictable and dangerous ways once activated.
“And I thought I was sheltered growing up,” Nikola said. “Crematoria are fine most of the time, the Burning Yard is only necessary where there’s lot of uncontrolled background magic. Besides,” he tapped a sigil carved into the gate, “it’s not locked, the gates would have sealed the second the pyre was lit if a funeral was happening in there.”
“It says all that?” Mitch said, peering at the tangle of sigils. He couldn’t make heads or tails of them, he couldn’t even tell where one ended and another began.
“Yes.” Nikola kept tracing out the sigils, following some complex order that Mitch couldn’t make out. “This has to be Faerie work.”
“What?”
“Or one of the older vampires, the Obsidian Mirror as well, humans aren’t this good at Alchemy.”
Mitch ground his teeth together, Nikola clearly didn’t think much of his own species. “You are,” if Nikola could be this good at it then so could someone else.
“Of course, it was my first language,” Nikola said. He frowned, his hand pausing its journey, “Vampire,” he muttered so quietly Mitch almost missed it.
“Language?”
Nikola smiled at him, “The other name for those sigils,” he said pointing to the Burning Yard, “it’s Faerie, it’s the most complex written language in the world.”
Mitch just stared. Finally he found his voice, “but what about syntax and grammar and...” He’d studied a lot of linguistics over the years and the sigils didn’t have any of the concepts he associated with a language. The sigils weren’t even words, they were loosely defined concepts at best. There certainly weren’t any prepositions or articles or anything. And there were thousands of sigils, all of which had dozens of permutations depending on what they were connected to.
“What about them?” Nikola asked, his smile widening, “there’s only one real rule in Faerie; you have to speak the truth or have the power to rewrite reality. Everything else is window dressing.” He spoke a single word in an unintelligible tongue and the gates swung open revealing the pristine Burning Yard. There was no layer of snow and ash, even the centre, where the pyre had been, was spotless.
“Belle?” Mitch said. She was sitting in the corner of the Burning Yard, huddled out of the wind, a deck of cards laid out before her. “What are you doing up here?”
“Avoiding everyone else,” Belle said, playing another card. Mitch crossed the Burning Yard, his footsteps strangely silent, and sat down next to her, careful not to disturb her game of solitaire.
“What about Hayley?” Mitch asked. Nikola was meandering across the Burning Yard, scrutinising the sigils laid into the ground.
“Detention, she got caught cutting class.”
Nikola muttered something under his breath and joined them, leaning against the wall and hugging his knees to his chest with one hand. With the other he fiddled with the packet of bird seed, but it didn’t seem likely that any birds would be drawn into the Burning Yard, Mitch had never even seen any alight upon the wall.
“You can see the past can’t you?” Mitch asked, moving a five onto a six.
“Yeah. Why?”
“So you can see what caused this can’t you?”
Nikola laughed, “The cause of the Twisted Curse is well known.”
“I meant here,” Mitch growled. He’d been spending a lot of time in the library and his research had shown that there were sometimes loopholes that could be exploited, he just had to find it. Somehow.
“I’d need something to look for, otherwise it’s like trying to find a drop of water in the ocean.”
Nikola sighed, “Try the end of Easter. There was something here that night.”
“You mean...?” Mitch asked, remembering Belle’s wide and bloodshot eyes. Nikola nodded. “Maybe we should just forget about it and transfer to Munich,” Mitch said. Nikola laughed.
“It’s ok,” Belle said, “the past is easier than the future.”
“So how does this work?” Mitch asked.
“You and Nikola play cards, quietly, and I try and see what happened that night.”
Mitch gathered up the cards and started shuffling while Nikola edged around slightly so that they wouldn’t have to reach across Belle to play.
“Threes?” Nikola suggested softly. Mitch nodded and dealt. It didn’t take him long to become certain that Nikola was card counting, not that he could say anything when he was doing the same, but they played on in silence. Nikola dealt again when they finished the first game.
Belle gasped and Mitch jumped, useless cards spilling from his hands.
“M... Miss Band,” Belle sniffed, wiping her eyes. Nikola silently offered her a tissue pulled out of thin air. “She summoned Azrael and asked him to fight the Eternity War elsewhere.”
Nikola frowned, “Elsewhere from where?”
“The Academy,” Belle replied, looking as puzzled as Mitch felt.
“Nikola,” Mitch said, tossing a card at him when he failed to explain.
“Specifying the Academy probably localised the curse’s effects,” Nikola said. “If we get the Academy closed down it would break the curse’s hold on everyone.”
“I thought you... oh right.” Nikola wanted to leave, he’d have no problem with breaking the curse if it meant he could.
“Do you think that if we proved what was happening to the school board they’d close the Academy?” Mitch asked. He really would have to transfer to Munich then, or one of the other schools, but Nikola would probably go back to Munich and it did have a good reputation.
Nikola grinned, “Probably. Did you see anything else?”
Belle hesitated and nodded, “Azrael said he couldn’t protect the Academy indefinitely. It... The curse will break when one of them dies.”
“Right,” Mitch said, fixing his smile in place. They’d already had one dead teacher, he didn’t want to see another. If he did it would probably involve his brother and lots of acid. He didn’t know how to summon an angel either, let alone kill one, and Nikola wouldn’t help with a project that would let the Academy remain open. “Let’s start with the discipline records, it’s kind of circumstantial but they’ll believe us won’t they? I mean, Dr Henly is dead and Mindy...” he trailed off, not wanting to remind Belle of the zombie horse.
“We could just ask Miss Band to confess,” Nikola said.
“And if she’s fallen under the curse’s influence as well?” Mitch asked. It would certainly be a lot easier if she just came clean but she’d had plenty of chances to do so on her own.
Nikola shrugged, “Truth potion.”
“That’s not on the curriculum,” Mitch said. Much like invisibility spells, truth potions were only semi-legal; they weren’t allowed on Academy grounds and Mitch didn’t think he’d be admitted to any school if he was caught drugging a teacher.
“We’ll find as much evidence as we can and tell the board it was Miss Band,” Mitch decided, looking from Nikola to Belle. “They can investigate or use truth potion or whatever.” Mitch didn’t really care what they did, or want to know; he just wanted his friends back.
#
The Academy auditorium was full of noise. Mitch wanted to clap his hands over his ears. He used a little magic to deaden the sound instead, it wasn’t as if there was anyone here that he actually wanted to talk to. He hated full school assemblies; even when they’d had the primary kids up here they hadn’t had one, but they’d been known to happen. It was probably Dr Henly’s death and funeral that had prompted this one.
He wished that the entire Academy was between him and Gwen instead of a single row of seats. She shot him a glare as he shuffled into place
though she was the one who had cheated on him and Richard’s arm was around her. She’d cheated on him but somehow he was the bad guy who’d lost all of his friends over it. He’d have to make do with Nikola, though he was nowhere to be seen, and maybe Sam though she didn’t seem to do anything other than mope any more. Of course there was always Hayley and Belle. They were sitting at the end of the row though Belle really should have been with the rest of the year nines. Their teachers were too busy trying to corral the children to notice.
The auditorium door closed and Mitch tried not to shiver; closed doors didn’t seem like a good idea any more. The microphone screamed, they really needed to get Dr Dalman a bell or something, and everyone fell silent. Mitch stopped using his magic to deaden sound.
“Excellent,” Dr Dalman said, “I’m glad you’ve all chosen to attend.” Mitch snorted, their teachers had ambushed them in the dining room reasoning, correctly, that even those of them who skipped class wouldn’t want to skip breakfast. Mitch had been forced to abandon half a bowl of cornflakes; at least he’d had time to scull his scalding coffee and burn the roof of his mouth.
“I expect that many of you are curious about today’s proceedings.” Not curious enough to give up breakfast, Mitch thought; he was hungry. He wasn’t the only one whose attention was wandering; Hayley was staring at Miss Band. Mitch scowled, she’d got Belle and Cullum trapped in a basement and the whole Academy under the influence of the Twisted Curse. She didn’t look happy now; no doubt she had heard about the chaos up here and was worried about how to protect her students without a basement to flee to. Maybe she regretted her decision, just not enough to do anything. He hunted along the rows until he found Cullum and fixed his location in mind. If, when, something happened he’d drag his brother out, literally if necessary. Everyone else could look after themselves.