“Don’t piss her off,” Gabriel muttered. “She has a hell of a right hook when her temper is high.”
“Shortstuff got the drop of you?” Rodrigo busted out laughing. “Man, I wish I’d seen it.”
Once the weight of my wings lifted from my back, I straightened and stretched my spine before taking the wings from Amalia and setting them carefully aside on a table behind the guy passing out entrance tickets.
“I swear, if one feather gets busted, I will hex you with the longest string of bad luck you’ve ever had,” I warned.
“Don’t worry, freshie, it’ll be fine.”
Gabriel put a hand on my waist and guided me away from the table. “Ready to be scared?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Rodrigo cracked his knuckles and looked over. “Twenty bucks says me and Amalia get through before the two of you.”
“Aren’t we all going in together?” I asked.
“The path splits a few times. It’s like a choose your own adventure book, and there are different exits. If you can find your way out.” Rodrigo made a scary noise and waggled his hands at me. “OooOooOoo.”
Amalia rolled her eyes. “Meaning he plans to make me shift and sniff the way out so he can keep his twenty bucks.”
“Sure, I’ll take that bet. I mean, if Gabriel is game.”
“Make it fifty and you’ve got a wager,” Gabriel countered.
“Deal.”
The dude running the queue let us in, and another senior directed us down a shadowed hallway designed to resemble a graveyard, continuing the theme from outside. An open elevator, one of those old-style gated ones, stood at the far end. Rodrigo took the lead, and Gabriel brought up the rear. We made it halfway down the path before the fun started. A hand popped up out of the dirt of a nearby grave, a headstone exploded on the other side, and a hair-raising howl echoed through the room.
Gabriel stepped forward and bumped our shoulders together. “Scared yet?”
“After the shit you pulled in Tir na Nog, no.”
We made it into the elevator before the first “zombies” shambled to their feet. The cage rattled and shook as it lifted, taking us up one floor, then two. All the light vanished and the elevator lurched to the side, trembled, and went still.
Rodrigo growled. “I can’t see anything. That you, Amalia?”
“That’s my boob.”
“Oh.” He laughed. “Whoops!”
He didn’t apologize.
Before I could feel my way toward Gabriel or the other two, something slammed into the top of the elevator from the outside of the box, shaking it. I gripped the wall for balance. Then something tickled my ankle in the dark.
Flourishing my wand for a Sunlight glamour resulted in a shower of harmless sparks.
“There are enchantments designed by Tristal and Riordan throughout the whole place to dampen magic,” Gabriel said. “Don’t bother trying.”
“Shit.” While I’d become confident in most beginner glamours, there was no way I’d overcome a master-level charm.
Another shudder shook the cage around us, like a wild animal battled with the emergency exit to come inside. It snarled and shrieked an eardrum-piercing wail.
Not enough to scare me. Thanks to Gabriel, my figurative balls were cast iron. I waited it out until the doors opened to reveal a narrow hallway illuminated by ghost lights. At the far end, a slavering ghoul huddled with only its side profile visible.
“Neat,” Rodrigo said.
Amalia snickered. “Yeah, not really scary th—”
The ghoul’s head snapped up and hungry eyes darted to us. Like the rest of the illusions I’d seen across the campus, its realistic appearance, coupled with its dead sprint, raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and I began to have my doubts.
“It wouldn’t be a real ghoul, right?”
No one spoke.
“Right, guys?”
It dove toward the open door, blood-smeared mouth yawning open to reveal every jagged tooth. Before it could hit us, the doors slammed shut.
The lights flashed on, revealing the coils of snakes surrounding our ankles and feet. Amalia shrieked and stumbled back against the wall. Then the lights were out again. When they came back on, the bottom was empty.
We shot up. Then the elevator plummeted a level. My stomach flipped and flopped with the rush of anxiety, someone screamed—I suspected it was Rodrigo—and then it was suddenly all over.
The lights returned and the box dinged open. We stumbled out into a small room with two doors. The one on the left had a glowing exit sign over it and the words “you lose” painted across the wood. I wondered how many people took it after the elevator ride from hell.
We all went for the door on the right.
Something cold and wet wrapped around my ankle. My gaze darted down. Something had crawled out of an opening in the wall, and a pair of glowing red eyes glared up at me. The same ghoul, with its wrinkled humanoid face slid its tongue over the narrow half inch of space between my boots and the hem of my leggings.
I tore away from it with enough force to lose balance and fall to the side. I slammed against the wall, and the brittle drywall crumbled away as momentum carried me into a nest of spiderwebs occupied by golf-ball-sized arachnids.
Our six-foot-eight bear shifter shrieked.
Amalia and Gabriel tripped over each other and stumbled against the opposite corridor wall. It also broke away, and dozens of glossy, hissing roaches flooded out of the holes.
Rodrigo shouted a string of Spanish swears and high-tailed it down the corridor while Amalia spun in circles and brushed the bugs off her arms and chest, stomping her feet in a mad panic.
Gabriel laughed until he doubled over, arms wrapped around his middle despite the insects skittering down his arms.
By the time I’d crawled from the hole and danced enough to dislodge the spiders, Amalia had snatched off her shirt and shaken off her six-legged attackers. “Screw you, Gabriel,” she muttered.
“I’m not the one who shrieked over roaches.”
“At least I didn’t run like your cousin.” Amalia grimaced. “I should go catch up to him. He took the left fork, so I guess that means you two get the right. See you at the end, if you make it.”
“You all right?” Gabriel asked once we were alone. He reached over and plucked a spider from my hair.
“Yeah. I’m good.” I’d probably feel phantom creepy crawlies on myself for days, but I was fine. “So how are we going to get out of here?”
“Go right and hope for the best.” He grinned and offered out a hand.
We left the bug corridor behind and ventured into the next devious creation. The moment we entered the chamber, a door slammed shut behind us and cut off any escape back the way we came. Around the next bend, we entered a room filled with mirrors. The walls rumbled, then shifted, the reflective surfaces swinging around into a confusing array around us.
“Wow, this is so much better than that escape room I did in Virginia,” I muttered.
“What’s an escape room?”
“Me and a friend paid admittance to this thing where you’re supposed to solve clues and find keys to escape whatever the storyline says. Like, the one we did required us to find a spell book to defeat a mummy and escape his tomb.”
“You paid to fight a fake mummy?”
“Yup. All in less than an hour. It’s fun. You should try it sometime.”
Every corner we turned brought us face-to-face with ourselves, sometimes stretched or fattened in distorted images, sometimes with magically altered appearances. I saw myself as a werewolf and Gabriel as a half-fae, his hair bright blue and eyes silver.
“Neat!” I cried, only to step in front of the next mirror, shriek, and stumble back into the one behind me. My body struck the glass with a thump. In front of me was the creepiest, grossest bird-like creature I’d ever seen.
At first glance, it resembled the world’s largest raven, but closer inspection re
vealed it was something else. Where there ought to have been the keratin of a bird’s bill and fleshy nasal ceres, only pale white bone gleamed instead. Strings of meat and gore hung from its sharp edge, and hollow sockets glared from the reflection of the enormous, man-sized beast.
Unusually quiet, Gabriel stared at it then took me by the elbow. I couldn’t see much of his reflection—the mirror had made him a hulking troll too large to fit into the frame. Trolls were only darkling fae.
Had the mirror given us our corrupted forms in reverse?
“C’mon,” he said.
“What is that thing?”
“Just another monster.”
“But what—”
“You’re in luck. I don’t have a wolf’s sense of smell, but I can smell the fresh air. I think we’re almost through this thing. Be on your guard in case it throws another trick at us.”
Elated by the discovery of a possible exit, I clapped and put the strange bird-demon out of my mind. “Lead the way, buddy. I’m in it to win it.”
He cracked a weak smile. “Good.”
Moving ahead of me, Gabriel guided our path into the next row of mirrors, leading me occasionally left or right to make a turn. At one point, we encountered a pair of mage students posing as our reflection with a Masquerade spell, and they scared the shit out of me.
“I was wondering when you’d notice them,” Gabriel said.
“You could have warned me.” The two had looked just like us.
His smile widened. “That ruins the fun.”
We met a dead end after another minute of navigating the scary maze. Our normal, harmless reflections stared back at us. I touched cold glass just to be sure.
“Weird,” Gabriel muttered. “I felt the breeze. In fact, I know I smelled—”
The floor dropped from beneath us.
“Shit!”
After plummeting a short distance, smooth and polished floor interrupted the fall. The downward momentum coasted us along on a high-speed slide through a dim tunnel.
“Gabriel, what’s happening!”
“It must be a new addition! I don’t remember this from last year!”
We soared through the dark, the occasional light flashing before us, while chattering skulls and terrifying animatronics glowed in the pitch-black chute. It figured a magical school would have included the Halloween attraction from hell as part of its “fun” house.
Legs entangled and fingers clutching his shoulder, we shot down the slide together at an impossible speed. I screamed as a ghoulish, nosferatu figure leaned forward from an opening above us with its arms outstretched.
Even Gabriel swore.
We hit another drop before the monstrous creature could reach us, and while it didn’t hurt, I had to wonder about the haunted house’s dimensions. It seemed impossibly large.
The slide ended when we shot out of its exit and landed on thick cushions meant to soften our fall. We tumbled across the mats and hit the padded wall, coming to a stop. Gabriel had kept his arms around me the whole time.
“Holy crap that was intense,” he said.
He sprawled over me. One of his hands cupped the back of my head and the other gripped my left hip. All I could think of in that moment was the memory of his bare chest and how much I wanted to explore it with my fingers. Which led to an uncomfortable warmth inching up my neck into my face while a pure jolt of lust curled between my thighs.
“You good?” he asked in a low voice.
“Uh-huh.”
He didn’t move away, and I didn’t mind at all. In the dim light, his dilated pupils made him resemble his raven side more than ever. Our locked gazes held, the breath caught in my chest, and the hammering pulse slamming through my veins became a dull roar.
I told myself over and over again that kissing him would be wrong, no matter how delectable his lips would be. It didn’t matter that I’d fantasized doing it over a dozen times the past few weeks, and fate didn’t care about how unfair it was that Jada got to have him when I could treat him with the respect and dignity he deserved.
Our noses touched, a light skim, and his warm breath whispered across my lips.
Wrong. He didn’t belong to me.
So wrong, echoed through my hazy thoughts, blurring my weakening self-control. Even as desire exploded within me and yearning blossomed in my stomach, my brain screamed that it was wrong. Right when I thought he’d kiss me, Gabriel pulled back and the moment ended, what little intimacy there had been between us over. He helped me sit up and brushed my hair back from my face.
“We should probably get out of here before the next poor victim falls on us,” he said.
“Yeah,” I whispered, hating the way my voice shook. Damn him for being a good guy and me too for being tempted by a dude in a relationship.
A dark chute led us from the padded room and back out into the house. Our exit wasn’t far. I welcomed the breeze against my flaming cheeks.
“Do you think we beat Rodrigo and Amalia out?” I asked. We’d both been silent since our almost kiss.
“I don’t see them, so looks like. Guess you don’t have to pay up.”
“Weren’t you offering to pay since you upped the stakes to fifty bucks.”
“Nah. I was just adding some incentive for you to win, but since I’m a generous kinda guy, I’ll let you keep his money.”
A second pair of bored seniors waved us to a giant plastic cauldron filled with candy. “Congrats on surviving. Help yourself.”
“Ooh. Candy.” They didn’t have to tell me twice. I darted over and dug down through the sweet hoard, picking out every Kit Kat I came across when no one told my greedy ass to knock it off.
Gabriel glanced at me. “Seriously?”
“What? It probably tops itself off anyway.”
“I guess I pictured you as a Skittles girl.”
“They’re okay, but chocolate covered crispy wafers win every time.”
“If you say so.”
With his help, I donned my wings again, and we waited for the others to emerge. They showed up ten minutes after us looking like they’d fought a battle and lost the war. Amalia’s chest heaved, and sweat gleamed on Rodrigo’s skin, smearing his phony tattoos.
“I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he grumbled to me. “No pockets.”
“Sure thing. Thanks for letting me run through with you guys.”
“Gabriel!” Jada called in the distance, voice like nails over a chalkboard. “They’re going to announce the winners of the costume contest soon.”
Like she had a chance in hell of winning with her lame costume, I thought in the heat of a jealous, petty moment. Wincing, I stepped back from my new friends and searched for an excuse to leave.
“See you tomorrow, Sky,” Gabriel murmured when she jogged over.
If looks could kill, I’d be a greasy smear on the sidewalk, but at least Jada didn’t say anything to me before dragging Gabriel away by the arm.
“Bye, Skylar,” Amalia called, louder than necessary, like she hoped Jada would turn to acknowledge me. She didn’t. Rodrigo gave me a sympathetic look and then trailed alongside Amalia.
Since that was the end of my fun with the older students, I moved to the courtyard path and wiggled my phone out of my pocket to check in with Lia and Pilar. All our friends had gathered in the recreation center for the party preceding the announcement of the night’s contest winners.
Jada didn’t take home the prize for best costume, but Pilar received an honorable mention for her detailed Cleopatra. The winner, a senior vampire mage, took home first place for his depiction of Hades and the magic he’d poured into making his Labrador Retriever look like a three-headed hellhound.
Liadan and I snagged second place in the scavenger hunt. On top of bragging rights, we each received a small trophy and a $500 gift card to the campus store. First place received one for a grand.
Next year, I promised myself, that would be us. We just had to survive until we were sophomores.
11
The Final Exam
December arrived, dumping a ton of snow over the campus and covering every cement surface with ice. The groundskeepers cleared and salted the pathways for us, and some clever upperclassmen found a way to charm colorful pansies to bloom in the snow-laden branches of the trees instead of the frozen ground.
Pilar called it a simple, unimpressive trick. I called it beyond my ability because hell if I knew how to make flowers grow in warm weather. There were days I felt like the worst faerie ever.
Shivering inside the double layers provided by a fleece sweatshirt and a heavy wool coat, I hurried along toward the parking garage to meet with Monica. Today was our last check-in with Sharon for the semester.
No Christmas gift would be as sweet as a freaking month-long holiday break away from her. As much as I would have loved to request a new mentor who actually did the job instead of slacking off while I earned her a grade, the chances of that happening were nil as long as she was in good with Mrs. Hansford.
Monica arrived long after the meeting time she insisted on, as unapologetic and spoiled as ever after making me huddle outside in my coat for twenty minutes. The heated seats inside her car helped. Twenty minutes later, she navigated the public roads leading into Chicago at terrifying speeds.
I clutched the armrest of the passenger seat every time she reached for her phone to text while driving.
“Do you mind?” I finally snapped.
“Mind what?” she asked, distracted by thumbing in words on the screen.
“Not getting us both killed.”
She rolled her eyes and tossed it into the beverage holder between our seats but managed to make the rest of our drive without checking her Facebook.
“Where’s Gabriel?” I asked to fill the silence. He was usually in the car with us and never far from his ward.
“Ugh. Birdbrain will meet us there. He was out in the city working his day job or something I guess.”
My temple throbbed. “Do you have to call him that? It’s rude. He puts his life on the line to make sure you get to and from your meetings with Sharon. At least show him some respect by using his name.”
The Hidden Court: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 1 Page 14