Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books)

by L. A. Banks

  “Down there!” Sarah shouted, urging Peggi forward.

  Sophocles landed behind her, prancing, nervous, alert for anything as Sarah jumped off her mount and ran to her brother. Val finally got Sophocles to stop dancing long enough for him to get down, and he followed Sarah to Al’s side, but when they tried to hoist him up, he let out a blood-curdling scream.

  “My wing, man! Not that side—don’t touch me!”

  Black beetles and maggots already covered the bloodied flesh where the broken bone protruded.

  “Oh, God,” Sarah said as Val helped her drag Al over to the horses.

  He’d lost a sneaker, his clothes were bloody, dirty and torn, and more maggots infested his hair. Peggi backed up nervously at the sight and smell of him, and Sophocles reared.

  “They won’t carry him like this,” Sarah said, staring at Val as her brother passed out in their arms.

  “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” Val said, hoisting Al’s entire dead weight in both arms. He held him around the waist, Al’s back to his chest. “If I carry him like this, I can follow the horses in the air.” Val closed his eyes as beetles scuttled from Al’s body up Val’s chest, one even crawling up the side of his face. “Let’s go!”

  But just as Sophocles opened his wings for takeoff, the huge, golden-eyed werewolf that had been chasing Alejandro barreled through the trees. Peggi and Sophocles charged side by side. Beep and Bop let out a simultaneous high-pitched shriek and attacked. Then a huge translucent entity with a cruel face, bat wings and a massive spade-shaped tail hurtled toward the werewolf. The small Collectors dashed away and threaded themselves between Sarah’s legs.

  “Sarah!” Val came down, clearly torn between airlifting his friend and going back for her.

  The werewolf went airborne toward her in the fragile seconds while Val lowered Al’s body. The demon lobbed a cinderblock punch that knocked the werewolf off course. Peggi leapt, spearing the beast through the temple, and Sophocles scorched the wolf’s body the second Peggi yanked her horn free. The beast roared a final death call as the red stallion’s massive golden hooves crushed its skull. Then Beep and Bop pounced on the carcass, wrangling it out of sight through a small fissure in the ground.

  The huge demon saluted the horses, who both reared and pawed the air in triumph, then Peggi went down on one knee so Sarah could ride.

  “You kids get out of here,” Mr. Hubert shouted, taking human form again. “I’ll keep the rest back while you all high-tail it!”

  Sarah climbed onto the red stallion, waiting for Peggi to take off, reaching over to give the smaller horse a quick pat. She had to let the mare rest; she just wasn’t as strong as Sophocles.

  “Are you all right? Can you carry him?” Sarah shouted to Val as they took to the air.

  He nodded, even as he strained to hold onto Alejandro. “I am a Valkyrie! This is what we do. We airlift the dead and wounded to safety. Our motto is ‘Be valiant, be victorious!’ We never drop a warrior!”

  Peggi’s shrill whinny made Sarah clutch Sophocles’ muscular red neck more tightly. The small Peguni broke formation and dipped down into the green zone.

  “Keep going!” Sarah called to Val. “Get Al to the hospital before he goes too far into shock!”

  There was no time to argue, no way to argue. Peggi was spiraling down like a missile, with Sophocles right on her heels. Both animals touched down, and what Sarah saw in the dark was a boy just a bit older than her brother, curled up in a fetal position.

  Stefan was naked, shivering, beginning to turn gray from the contagion; his lips were black, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His upper and lower canines were extended, and his tongue was swollen and beginning to turn black. He held out two gooey, stained PIUs to Sarah, showing her his prize, then clutched them tightly to his chest.

  Sophocles and Peggi dashed forward, clearly intending to stomp Stefan to death. Sarah realized that they’d mistaken him for a demon that had slithered out of the dead zone and into the fields where the Fae farmers worked.

  “No!” She jumped off the huge war horse and covered Stefan with her own body.

  “You’ll catch it,” he croaked. “Get back.”

  She shook her head no. “I’m a Neteru, daughter of two Neterus. I’m immune, and so is my brother. If you knew the Shady Path was booby-trapped…then why?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Stefan said shuddering. “I didn’t know.”

  “Why’d you run, then?” She looked at him as tears filled his mysterious gray eyes.

  “My whole life, just because of my blood, no one’s ever believed in me,” he said in a rasp. “They judge who I am before they ever get to know me. Even Headmistress Stone doesn’t believe in me anymore, and I don’t think Headmaster Shabazz ever did. But I swear, I didn’t think those guys would get so high they’d kill themselves. It was supposed to be a party drug—fun, not dangerous. I just distributed what Ernie and Josh made. I’m not a monster. I mean, I guess I am, but not that kind. My mom got scratched by a werewolf when her Guardian team was on a hunt, and my dad couldn’t bear to kill her. She was pregnant with me at the time. The moon was full the night I was born.

  She had me just before moonrise, then transformed and killed my dad as well as half the compound, before they took her down. The people who lived raised me, watched me, then finally gave me to Headmistress Stone out of fear. My own compound rejected me. The headmistress, she’s like my grandmom, too, so why would I do anything to hurt her or the Academy?”

  “Okay, but what about the drugs? Those hurt the school,” Sarah asked quietly. “And how about whatever Melissa took from you?”

  “Yeah, okay, I was making a little profit on the side, running stuff into town and bringing back cool shit for the fellas that they could trade for favors, but I wasn’t trying to get anybody killed, and I definitely didn’t mastermind how to make blue lady. Melissa lifted some forgetmenot from my stash, and I think she was gonna use it to get back at you guys somehow, ‘cause she was jealous of Tam. I didn’t want her using it, not for anything. It’s some wicked shit that Ernie cooked up. All you have to do is let it dry in a cup, and when somebody fills that cup and drinks, they forget everything. I don’t have time for her games and didn’t want to be involved. Look at the PIUs when we get back. They’ve recorded everything that happened out here. If a student gets downed, a PIU keeps taking data like one of the old airline black boxes. They’ll prove I didn’t hurt anybody.”

  Deep, resounding sorrow and empathy filled Sarah as she looked at Stefan. For some reason, she believed him. A measure of guilt threaded through her, as well, because she had thought he was involved in everything he’d mentioned. All she could do for a moment was hug herself as she stared at him.

  Stefan’s voice turned gravelly with emotion as tears rose in his eyes but didn’t fall. “Sarah, I had to come out here and right this wrong. Those fliers crash landed, according to their PIUs. They went down hard, but they were strong and weren’t hurt too bad. They could’ve made it out, but while they were trying to find a clearing where they could open their wings, Peter got scratched by a werewolf…and you know the deal. One scratch is all it takes, and then you become a werewolf, too.”

  He let his breath out hard. “In here, there’s no incubation period for anything like that. If you get scratched or bitten, you don’t even have to wait till the next full moon—there’s an instant transformation, the darkness out here is so intense. Greg didn’t even know that Pete had been nicked until suddenly Pete ripped out of his clothes and transformed. It’s all on the PIU recordings. Pete got hold of one of Greg’s legs and ripped that off first. And that was the least of it. The rest of what I saw on there was really sick, Sarah.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sarah whispered.

  “Yeah,” Stefan said and then coughed. “Maybe you don’t wanna watch the playback, but Pete ate his own best friend. Beetles and slugs covered both PIUs when Mr. Hubert and Professor Razor went looking. I guess they eventually f
ound both guys’ clothes and whatever was left of Greg, so they figured both guys were dead.”

  “That’s so awful,” Sarah whispered, wrapping her arms around her waist. “But I don’t understand how the contagion got in the school.”

  “Neither do I, really. You said the Path was booby-trapped? I can’t help you there. All I know is Peter knew the school inside and out. Was a Spec, a strong Valkyrie flier, plus a serious Clav. He was addicted to blue, and after he was supposedly dead, he couldn’t just walk back into the Academy to get some, that’s for sure. So I’m thinking he used the Shady Path to get in and feed his habit, while hiding in the green zone taking down livestock, and the more blue he did, the more he needed, until he needed it so bad that he came in that night—hungry for blue, hungry for human flesh. I felt him. I was in there. I did the Shady Path the night you guys got attacked. I was in there and about to take a hit when the hair on my neck stood up, and then I was out of there. You make sure Tami knows that. Make sure she knows that no matter what. And yeah, I supplied Brent, but I wasn’t about to help him break your cousin down so he could get what he wanted from her. Hell no!”

  “I thought you and Brent were tight,” Sarah said cautiously.

  “He’s a business partner. Period. But he’s got everything, you know? He’s rich and spoiled and got both parents, and he was working on your cousin ‘cuz he wanted to use her to expand his influence. But your cousin is strong. She didn’t break, and it pissed him off. I loved it. Privileged SOB.”

  His story rendered Sarah mute for a moment, but then she pressed forward as panic bubbled up inside her. “I understand how the guys died, but Ayana and everyone else who’s missing, like Art and Casey and Alexis, and Josh and Ernie. Do you think, Peter…?” The question was too horrible to voice, so she just hugged herself more tightly and practically held her breath waiting on Stefan’s answer.

  He stared at Sarah like a man who needed to purge his soul before he died, even if it was to someone he wasn’t sure would even believe him. She waited and let him talk, hoping her eyes would convey trust and the fact that every fiber in her said he was telling the truth.

  “I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I left the Shady Path that night because I could feel something stalking me in there. Something way stronger and crazier than me. I admit it. Strengthwise, I’d be nothing to Pete. He was a fully transformed alpha. A wolf always knows when another wolf is present, and when an attack is going down,” Stefan said in a low, raspy murmur. “So as soon as I felt Pete, I was out. Didn’t wanna get blamed for something I didn’t do or catch a silver slug because somebody didn’t understand. I don’t know why everybody got so sick so fast, but he was in the Shady Path and then came in the building. Maybe the energy he left behind is what everyone’s calling a booby-trap. I don’t know. But a demon-infected werewolf, one that’s a flesh eater, is from the Dark Realm, and anything coming from Hell is dragging along nothing but pure contagion.”

  “But, you didn’t get sick right away.”

  “Wolf genetics… already got the dirty strain in me, so my system isn’t gonna get shocked to hell as fast as a hundred-percent human, I guess. Anyway, after I heard he attacked you guys, I went after Tami to warn her, but I overheard that your brother and his boyz had a bounty on my head. Then everybody started getting sick, so I came out here thinking maybe I could get the PIUs and fix things somehow.”

  “How’d you get out here, though?” She tried to help him up, but he was heavy, and so weak that they both fell.

  “I stunned Mojo. I didn’t want anyone knowing where I was or what I was doing, ‘til I could find the missing units. Needed to clear my name once and for all, or die trying—who wants to live with everyone thinking you’re a monster or even some exotic oddity…sexy but dangerous? That’s why I can’t stand Melissa—she just wanted to brag about doing a wolf. Tami’s not like that.” He coughed and wheezed and had to take a moment to catch his breath after his long confession.

  “Anyway, I’m a good tracker—got that wolf nose. It’s how I could always harvest the right ingredients in the right concentrations for that crazy bastard Josh. I knew I could find the PIUs if I could put my nose to the ground. I knew I could, and I did.”

  “But your clothes…you’re naked. It looks like you transformed out here, and that looks bad for you, Stefan. Like you wanted to go over to the other side or something.”

  “If you go into the dead zone smelling human, you won’t last long.” Stefan motioned to a small, dark pile off in the distance. “I went in, rolled in the scent of the place…the place where Greg died, found the PIUs and was trying to get back to the school when I started to feel like crap. The searchers, even Mr. Hubert, didn’t know where to look. You have to know the wolf, be a part of the wolf, to know where to look.” He fell silent then, clearly weakening.

  Feeling the pressure of time, Sarah stood. “We should get back.” She ran over to grab Stefan’s clothes and spoke to Sophocles as she passed. “I know he smells like walking death and werewolf dung, but he’s a student from the Academy. And as a Neteru, I’m asking you to take him home to Nana Marlene.” She glanced over at Beep and Bop the second they leaped out of the shadows and started heading for Stefan. “No!” she told them firmly. “He’s a friend.” She shook her head as they fussed and hid behind Peggi’s legs.

  Sarah pulled out her PIU and thrust Stefan’s clothes at him. “Put on whatever you can so Sophocles will carry you. Pants would be nice. Hurry!” Punching in the alarm code, she called Sarina. “I need you to sync to the two PIUs Stefan is holding… and let Nana know we’ve got incoming wounded—Al broke his wing and Val will be there with him any minute, Stefan’s got the virus but he’s not the bad guy, Peter Matthews is. He turned, and he’s still alive.”

  Titan Troy greeted her at the barnyard. A full Fae infantry was waiting, along with a complete medical staff. They collected Stefan’s nearly unconscious form and Mr. Milton pried the PIUs from his hand.

  “What’d I tell you, lassie? Sometimes the gold is in the pile of manure. Once Headmistress Stone knew Peter was the one behind the sickness, she could see where the energy fabric on the Shady Path was ripped, and then she was able to set the exact calibration on the crystal pyramids over the patients’ beds.”

  “But, Mr. Milton—did Val come in okay with my brother?”

  “Aye, and he did a fine job carrying his first battlefield victim. A couple years of lifting weights and he’ll be able to carry Sophocles.

  The two horses pranced, and Sarah hugged them both. “They were brave. We couldn’t have done it without them,” she said, watching as the Fae medics took Stefan away.

  “You were brave, lassie. All you kids were. But we want you inside. Peter Matthews is still on the loose, and I’m afraid we can’t save him. He’s too far gone… he’s eaten human flesh.”

  Sarah stood in the infirmary looking down at Hyacinth, Val by her side. Her friend’s face had begun to clear. Protected as she was by the dwennimmen ward Ayana had given them, she’d been the first to respond to the new energy treatment. Sarah brushed Hyacinth’s damp bangs back, glad to see natural color in her friend’s face.

  “Nana Marlene said they’re all gonna recover,” Val murmured, squeezing Sarah’s hand. “You’ve got a lotta heart, girl,” he said, nodding approvingly.

  “You’ve got a lot of heart, Val,” Sarah said quietly. She looked at him and then up to the large, slowly spinning transparent pyramid filled with green and turquoise and silvery light rotating above Hyacinth’s bed. “That was some airlift. All those things crawling on you, and you still didn’t drop my brother. Don’t know if I could have done it.”

  “They blasted me with white light as soon as I touched down and the crawlers got off me. Medics took Al, then Mrs. Hogan sent me to her shower and bippity-boppity-booped me up some new clothes.”

  Sarah smiled. “Me, too.”

  “Let’s go check on Al,” he said, holding her hand and gently pulling her al
ong.

  Suddenly she stopped. “Where’s Tami?”

  Val shrugged. “Probably with Donnie and Miguel and Wil, I guess…or back in the girls’ dorm with Allie, Jess and the gang. Everybody is pretty stressed out. The guys are probably waiting to find out if they’ve been expelled for being up on the platform and going along with Al’s crazy scheme. We’re in trouble, too—even Allie—for leaving school and going to the stables.”

  Sarah nodded, but worry still tugged at her insides. With Hyacinth, Stefan and Al in the infirmary, it was hard to believe Tami wasn’t there, standing vigil. But she started walking again; she needed to see with her own eyes that her brother was going to be all right.

  Al was resting quietly on his stomach, his damaged wing folded in and bandaged. Sarah went to her brother and kissed his forehead.

  He opened his eyes and groaned. “Thanks, sis…Val. Can’t believe you’re still talking to me.”

  “We’re cool, bro,” Val said.

  “You know, Al,” Sarah said, “Stefan wasn’t the one who attacked you. In fact, he risked his life to save this school by going—”

  Al held up his hand. “I know, I know. Nana Marlene sent all the images. She even kicked my ass mentally while I was unconscious.”

  Sarah laughed, releasing all the tension that had built up in her nervous system. “Serves your dumb… I mean, I love you. If you’d died out there, half of me would have died, too, so stop being so reckless. At least for a little while.” She bent and kissed his forehead again as he slurred an apology and drifted off to sleep.

  “Walk you back to your dorm?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Sarah said quietly as Val’s long fingers laced through hers.

  They walked for a long time without talking, which was so nice…just companionable silence, lost in their own thoughts, lost in each other. But her prayer the entire time was insistent—Please, God, let them find Ayana.