Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books)

by L. A. Banks

  “She’s my daughter!” Carlos said. “Don’t lecture me, Reaper, when you’ve never had a child of your own!”

  “In this school I have three hundred children, Vampire!” Professor Razor said through clenched teeth. And as fast as light he called a scythe off the wall to come whirling into his hand, then caught it in his grip and brought it with a clang against Carlos’s quickly drawn sword.

  “You were the only one that got away, Rivera. The only Vampire I chased into the depths of Hell all the way to Level Six and missed. But a Reaper always reaps what is sown. Do not make me forget that you are now a being of the Light.”

  “Any day or night, mother—”

  “Carlos!” Damali shouted.

  “Gentlemen!” Headmistress Stone said loudly, and banged her stick on the ground.

  “Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, wiping at tears that wouldn’t seem to stop flowing. “I know with Ayana missing this is the last thing you need, but—”

  “No, Sarah,” Professor Razor said, stalking away from her father, still swinging his scythe. “Your father owes you an apology.”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to a fifteen-year-old! I did what I did for her own protection!”

  Sarah’s mother left her side as her grandmother closed her eyes. “Carlos…what did you do?” She grabbed Carlos’s arm, then looked at Professor Razor.

  “He made a deal with Counselor Z to hide Sarah in Blends,” the professor said. “You can’t lie to a Reaper—and now that I have you both in the same room, I know my gut hunch was right! He thought that if she was with the less developed students she wouldn’t be so competitive and her ability would lie dormant for years.” Professor Razor looked at Carlos hard. “Tell her! Tell them! You have the strength as a Neteru and an ex-Vamp to block seers, but not a Reaper angel!”

  “Carlos…” her mother whispered, hurt singeing her tone.

  Sarah’s grandmother simply closed her eyes.

  “Dad?” Sarah ran forward. “You put me in Blends—made me test three times to be where I wasn’t supposed to be?”

  “Z wouldn’t have done that unless coerced,” Sarah’s grandmother said quietly, her gaze now fixed on Sarah’s father, and the weighted accusation went off like a siren in Sarah’s head.

  “You put our daughter through that?” Sarah’s mother said, her voice a near whisper.

  “Tell the truth, Carlos,” Sarah’s grandmother said in a calm voice. She gazed off into the distance as if seeing something the rest of them could not. “I should have seen this before, but I had no reason to vision-check family. Counselor Z tested the girl three separate times just to try to give you a chance to accept the truth…a chance not to ask her to do something that went against her core values as both an oracle and a guidance counselor. But you knew Z would do anything for you.”

  “You had no right to do that to her,” Sarah’s mother said, tears shimmering in her eyes.

  “I had every right!” Sarah’s father shouted, exploding. He used his sword to point at Sarah, his haunted gaze going to each face as he spoke, but landing on Sarah’s last and longest. “You don’t know, but I did. From the day she was born, I knew. It was in her blood, in her skin. I could smell her. I knew she was the one we’d lost, Damali! She’s not a twin. She’s our firstborn, my baby girl that Hell snatched from me once. I will not, do you hear me, I will not, send her into the darkness to hunt anything! I don’t care about destiny. Damn destiny! And she’s definitely not going to learn how to smoke demons in Hell from a Reaper! Never!”

  “Destiny is the province of God, and the last time I checked, you ain’t the One, son!” Professor Razor shouted, lowering the scythe at Carlos. “Don’t forget your place in the food chain, Neteru. Switch sides like Lucifer did in a fit of hubris, and it’s your ass.”

  “I don’t want her in the Shadow class,” Carlos said in a low, warning rumble. “I ain’t having it.”

  They were arguing about her as if she wasn’t even in the room! Didn’t she have a say about anything happening in her life?

  “It’s my choice,” Sarah said firmly. She looked her father in the eye. “Who I am, who I will be, what I do with my powers and which battles I choose to fight—they’re all my choices. You had no right to take that away from me. Do you know what you’ve done to me? Do you know how scared I’ve been? And all because I didn’t know?”

  Her father walked back toward her with his sword in his hand and punched the metal table, causing her to jump. “As long as I’m your father, I will decide on matters like this! You have no idea what the Dark Realms can do to you if they get their hands on you. I’ve kept you safe!”

  But her mother’s stricken gaze left Carlos and went to Marlene. “Is it true what he says? When did you know she was the one I’d lost, Mar?”

  “If you had known too soon,” Marlene said with her eyes closed, not fully answering the question, “you would have mothered her differently—and it is her destiny to be a Shadow Walker.”

  Her whole family had kept secrets and told lies? The closest people in the world to her?Her father turned to her mother and held her with his troubled gaze. “Don’t fight me on this, Damali.” Then he turned and walked out of the Crematorium. Her mother ran after him.

  Sarah couldn’t believe that her father had just left like that. He had lied. He had tried to keep her back because he didn’t want her to even try. Did he think so little of her?

  Fury rose inside her, and Sarah took off after her parents. As soon as she stepped through the door, she held up her arms in front of her face. The hallway was filled with gale force winds as her father began to open an energy fold-away.

  “It’s my life!” Sarah shouted behind him. “I’ll do whatever I want to with it!”

  She hugged herself, crying tears of outrage and betrayal, then slumped against the wall when he didn’t even look back at her. He simply walked away into nothingness. Then the winds died down and he was gone. “I hate him!”

  Her mother walked over to her and drew her into a hug. “Don’t hate him, even when he messes up, even when it’s this badly. Sarah, your father loves you. He just has a strange way of showing it sometimes.”

  Her mother’s arms and wings surrounded her, and though she tried to stiffen against the embrace, the heartbreak of the one person she looked up to the most failing her the most was too much to bear.

  “He lied,” Sarah said angrily against her mother’s shoulder, breathing hard.

  “I know,” her mother said softly.

  “I will never forgive him for this!”

  Her mother stroked her back. “Never is a long time, baby, and forgiveness is divine. He was wrong. He was pigheaded. He was a lot of things, Sarah,” her mother said, finally holding her away from her to look into her eyes. “But your daddy loves you. That doesn’t make him right; it just makes him more human than most people realize.”

  Tears streamed down her mother’s face, and she didn’t try to hide them. The sight of her mother so upset by something her father had done was as upsetting as anything else that had happened that morning.

  “One day, maybe you’ll understand just how scared your father had to be to do something this outrageous. I’m not going to apologize for him anymore. It is what it is. He owns this all by himself.” She wiped Sarah’s face and then her own. “But I want you to put this anger to good use. Go in there and soak up everything you can from Razor, you understand me? He’s got a lot of experience. Remember how your nana Marlene used to say, ‘You can show ‘em better than you can tell ‘em’? Show him, Sarah. You become the best with whatever gift you were given. Nobody, not even your father, can take your destiny away from you.”

  Sarah sniffed hard and nodded. Yes, she’d show him. And she’d use every skill she had to help find Ayana.

  Chapter 24

  Professor Razor opened the door and came out into the hallway with her grandmother. “Let’s me and you take a walk, kid. Go get some fresh air. It’s the only
thing that clears the head after a good hell fight.”

  They walked along the corridors in companionable silence, and Sarah was surprised to find Professor Razor wending his way up toward the Great Hall. The moment the passed the barriers, he looked up at Mojo and snapped his fingers, waking the surly dragon.

  “G’morning, Mojo. Normally, I’d light you some incense and leave an offering, but this morning I just want you to meet a jumper.” Professor Razor turned to Sarah as he walked her toward the huge doors. “If you decide to break the rules and go for a stroll out here one starry night, bring him something and say a prayer, otherwise you and your date will be dragon treats.”

  The old dragon grumbled and resettled himself as they strolled out of the building into the small courtyard.

  Professor Razor held Sarah’s arm. “We’re going up to the top. But on the way up, I want you to think about three things.”

  She simply looked at him, frighteningly aware that if her grandmother and parents hadn’t introduced him to her, she would have run headlong screaming to get away from him.

  “One,” he said, ticking off his points on his wide, calloused fingers. “People screw up, so what are you gonna do? Spend your whole life whining about your mom or dad and what they did to you, or are you gonna suck it up and move forward with your own life? Two, like Headmaster Shabazz told you guys at the opening ceremonies, we aren’t stupid. We know students have been opening illegal vortices around the school to sneak out and do what young people do. We also know that too often they’re also getting high while doing something dangerous. Foolish. No newsflash, but we will find the culprits,” he added when Sarah’s eyes got wide. “What, you think with all the advanced seers in this joint we wouldn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “Yeah. We know. The problem is, these kids’ve gotten really good at masking who’s doing it and when. More about that later, during my class, but I’m going to show you a known danger area right now. Seeing it is better than reading it on your PIU—since I’ve heard you’re the adventurous type, prowling the halls unescorted. Need I say more?” He gave her a meaningful look, then began walking toward the steps that would take them to the top of the Great Hall.

  “You said there were three points?” Sarah said, catching up to his long strides.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, not bothering to look at her. “Don’t fall. It’s a long way down.”

  She peered over the edge, stepped back and shut her eyes for a moment.

  “You coming or what?”

  Summoning her courage, she took a deep breath, said a quiet prayer, then began the steep climb up to the last platform that separated the school from the floating capstone. Moving very carefully, she placed each foot with precision, going up sideways so her entire sneaker would fit on the narrow steps. But Professor Razor took the steps two at a time, without holding onto anything, and only hit each step quickly on his toes, since his large combat boot wouldn’t fit no matter what.

  “Don’t look down,” he said with impatience, waiting for her on the platform, half of his boot hanging over the edge. He popped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a snap of his fingers.

  Sarah stopped for a moment and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the feeling of vertigo.

  “A demon is on your ass, kid! Move it and get up here pronto!”

  She began climbing again with a little more gusto, and when she finally reached the top, he held out a hand and pulled her to stand beside him with amazing strength.

  He looked at her, then looked up at the sky, blowing out a stream of white smoke. “You almost feel like you’re up in the clouds from here.” He let out a wistful sigh, took another long drag on his cigarette, then sent his gaze out toward the horizon.

  Sarah stood beside him, captivated. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly, taking it all in slowly.

  Gorgeous snowcapped mountains rolled out in a blue-mist range before her, and as she glanced down she saw a black ring of burned-out forest. Beyond that, the leaves of the dense tree line in the valley below made everything seem to be nestled in a sea of fire-orange, red and yellow confetti.

  Above her, the huge floating capstone cast a shadow on the platform, but there was enough light that she could see into the base of it. The way the stairs spiraled up and the way the shelves were built into the walls reminded her of looking into a seashell. Her mother had brought her one from one of her many journeys when she was just a little girl. For hours the queen conch shell had fascinated her as she tried to spy into the pretty pinkness by holding it up to the light, wondering how the thing that had once lived inside it might have made such a winding place of beauty its home. Now she wondered how students got up into the ultimate library in the world, and once in, how in the heck did they select an Akashic Record or sacred text, much less find a place to sit and study?

  She craned her neck to stare up and almost lost her balance.

  “Counselor Zehiradangra has her living quarters up there.” Professor Razor cupped a hand to the side of his mouth, holding his cigarette in the other hand and called out, “Hey, Z, I’ve got Sarah up here. …Yeah, yeah, she’s in my class now.” Then he turned to Sarah. “Counselor Z says she’s sorry and really feels bad about what happened.” He let out an impatient breath. “That’s the one thing I can promise you. I will give it to you straight. If you screw up, I’ll tell you. If you do good, I’ll tell you that, too. Angels cannot lie—well, one did, and we know how that turned out.”

  “You’re an angel?” she said, looking at the cigarette he held.

  “Gimme a break, kid. None of us is perfect—except the One. This is my one vice since they took me off Hell patrol.” Professor Razor took a deep drag of his cigarette, let the smoke come out his nose and briefly closed his eyes. “Headmistress Stone and about a hundred thousand white wingers tell me it’ll be the death of me one day, but, hey, I’m immortal, remember? Besides, it reminds me of the good times me and my buddies had down in the black sulfur smoke of hellfire and brimstone, kicking demon butt.” He took another puff, then crushed out the smoldering butt between two tobacco-yellowed fingers, and finally made it disappear. “Just because I do it doesn’t mean you should, though. You’re not immortal, and your lungs are still pink and alive. Mine are tar pools after working in the mines demon hunting for so long.”

  She had no comeback to that. The professor was so not what she’d imagined a hell-fighting angel to be. Looking for a graceful way to change the subject, she stared out at the horizon.

  “Thanks for bringing me up here,” Sarah said, casting her gaze around as she turned in a slow circle. “I think I needed this.”

  “All right, but I’m going to make this lesson quick, so you don’t miss the rest of your classes today. Assembly is going to inform everybody about the things you already know. Then your dad is gonna whirl out those kids whose parents are nervous and want them home. But what you need to know is this: No matter how upset you were or whatever they might have done to you as a prank, going after a fellow student is something that has to be addressed—especially when you’ve got powers like you do. Next time, you could kill somebody. So this isn’t a hooky session or a reward for screwing up in Miss Tittle’s homeroom. I’m just giving you a little time to get your head on straight so you can go back to class without doing more damage. We clear?” Professor Razor said, breaking her quiet communion with nature.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, feeling the sting of his reference to what she’d done to Melissa. Up here in the fresh air and cloaked by peace, she’d almost forgotten about it.

  “See that black ring in front of the tree line?” he said, stretching out a long arm and pointing for her gaze to follow. “That’s the no-fly zone. You don’t have to worry because none of you guys in my advanced class have that gift. But every year there’s at least one winger who thinks he or she knows enough about aerodynamics to fly over the ring of darkness down there and make it to town. Tell your brother not to be stupid.”

  �
�Is Al about to move up from Specials into the advanced Shadows class as a flier?” she said, suddenly feeling dejected.

  “In his dreams,” Professor Razor said, and then kicked a small pebble over the edge of the platform.

  Mixed emotions coursed through her. This was a first. She was in a talent division class that was more advanced than Al’s? All her life she’d thought it would be great to one-up him, but now it felt really strange…and she felt oddly sorry for her brother. This kind of recognition meant more to him than it did to her.

  “He’s not so bad,” she offered quietly.

  “Reminds me of your father—needs a lot of discipline before he’s ready for my class.”

  “So…am I really in your division now?”

  “Hmmm…let me think about that some more while we’re up here. To be a Shadow, you’ve gotta really want it. If—and I do mean if—I agree to take you on, you’ll meet everybody tomorrow, last period, at which point I’ll become your living nightmare.” Professor Razor gave her a sidelong glance. “Today, spend your time getting your head together and following your normal roster.” He hesitated, then looked away from her. “Everybody is a little thrown off by what’s been happening lately. It’s tough losing a compound sister. I’m sorry about what happened to Ayana. But tomorrow, I will have no mercy. You can’t be a loose cannon or do anything that could hurt a fellow student, regardless of what’s going on.”

  She noted that, unlike her grandmother and parents, Professor Razor didn’t tell her everything would be all right and that they’d find Yaya. He just said he was sorry about whatever had happened to her. His statement was true but not comforting.

  “I already have detention from Miss Tittle,” Sarah finally said, hoping that would help mollify him. It didn’t.

  “Tough break. But if I were you, I’d honor it as a matter of principle—just so it doesn’t look like your grandmother gave you a pass on a serious school infraction. Sure, you could argue that Miss Gray provoked you with an earlier prank, blah, blah, blah, but in the end, the Academy has a zero-tolerance policy on student-against-student violence, for obvious reasons. Kids can die. If the other students see you walk and not get punished just because you were extra upset about Ayana, you’ll never live it down. Plain and simple. So suck it up. Other kids around here have gone missing, too. The only difference is, they were all orphans and didn’t have an entire posse of family to come barging into the school to turn everything upside down. Yeah, there was an exhaustive search for them—an ongoing search, just like this one—but there were no parents, aunts, uncles and cousins coming to school in full-metal-jacket mode, ready for war.”