by L. A. Banks
Both she and Val glanced at the library as they passed and then looked away. Something new and different and exciting and forbidden and private had been opened within them outside the Shady Path, but it was much too fragile to contemplate right now.
Mr. Anansi scurried under the door and ran up the wall. The strangeness of that made both Sarah and Val stop and stare. Val tilted his head and listened hard.
“What?” Sarah whispered.
“Shhhh!” he said quickly. “I coulda sworn I heard Miss Tillie scream.”
Sarah looked around, the open hatch doors leading from the school up to the field flashing in her mind, blue streaks of something not human covering the floor. Beep and Bop appeared and started jumping up and down. Suddenly she sucked in a huge breath, pulling Val forward. “Run!”
They were down the hall like a shot, and a split second later the library door exploded. Alarms went off, and heavy footfalls echoed behind them. Val glanced over his shoulder and started stripping off his shirt. Sarah turned to look and saw a half transformed werewolf bearing down on them, gray eyes gleaming. Val grabbed her by the waist and flew, gaining momentum as the beast gave chase, a dozen Collectors racing behind it. A blast from a pump shotgun left cordite residue in the air but the wolf kept coming. Sarah knew the security guards had to be careful not to cause a deadly ricochet that could hit her and Val.
Titan Troy’s voice boomed from behind them, shouting for them to go to the Great Hall, and Headmaster Shabazz added, “Now!”
Doors opened magically as Val swooped through the corridors, catching up to more students running in the same direction. The goal was clear: draw the beast out of the building where it could be surrounded, and where Val had the aerial advantage and could help protect the fleeing students.
Sarah glanced back as Val flew up the stairs and saw the beast unfurl massive leathery wings marred by scraggly patches of fur. It was stronger, faster and wasn’t carrying the weight of a passenger. Headmaster Shabazz was giving chase, fully transformed, but he couldn’t catch the beast as it spiraled ahead of him onto the platform. The beast snapped at Sarah’s feet, and she drew them up, screaming.
Tapestries lit, dragons awakened. Fae archers ran up the pyramid steps and took aim, but held their fire because of Val and Sarah’s orbiting flight.
There was nothing for her to hold onto as Val clutched her in front of him, and she could feel his fatigue. His palms were sweaty, and she began to slide, kicking her screams up a notch. Then the center opening from the great pyramid platform up toward the floating library entrance above it belched out a long-bodied dragon streaming into battle, his form sinuous and seemingly neverending. Gongs sounded inside the Great Hall, vibrating the air and hitting both fliers like a sonic boom.
Thrown off his trajectory, Val plummeted, his grip on Sarah continuing to slip. At the last moment two lithe dragons wrapped them like brightly colored ribbons and deposited both students gently on the platform. Headmaster Shabazz paced protectively in panther form around them and Headmistress Stone raised her lightning-charged walking stick as though conducting a cosmic orchestra. Light shot from the tip of the staff. Mojo caught the charge and shocked the air, hitting the demon so hard that it stopped falling and actually hung in mid-air for a second.
Out of nowhere, Professor Razor appeared, hovering, black wings glistening, his silver scythe swooshing through the air as he severed the head of the beast. As the creature fell, Mojo gulped the flaming pieces, then belched.
Sarah looked at Val, who looked back at her. No words could come close.
Chapter 32
“Yo, hold up,” Wil said, catching Tami by the arm. “I want to ask you something.”
Tami yanked free of Wil’s hold, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t talk to you right now, okay? Whatever questions you have will just hafta wait.” She wiped at her face angrily and then hugged herself. “It’s all because of me, don’t you get it? Stefan only went out there to prove he wasn’t a monster and now he’s half dead with the contagion. Al almost got eaten in the dead zone. Even this whole bullshit with Melissa Gray was from her being pissed at me…not Sarah, not any of them—me!”
Wil looked around the vacant hall and then at Mr. Everett’s door. “So what are you planning to do? Go throw yourself into the portal and disappear? It’s not even there, Tami. It got shut down, remember?”
She stopped walking, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Damn… Yeah, yeah, I remember.” She opened her eyes and looked into Mr. Everett’s abandoned classroom, then dragged her fingers through her hair in frustration. “I just wanted to get away from this school, maybe go rogue…go into town, blend in with the Regulars, just be away from all this pressure and everybody looking at me like I’m some kind of virus. Just for a while.”
“Tami, it wasn’t your fault,” Wil said quietly.
She groaned and turned away, allowing her back to hit the wall, then new tears brimmed and fell. “Just my luck they closed up every ticket to town, huh?”
“C’mon…I know everybody is gonna be worried about you, looking for you. Maybe we can go to the infirmary and—”
“No! I can’t go back there right now,” she said wrapping her arms around her waist. “The guys are both messed up because of me.” She bit her lip. “Stefan could die…and Christ, Al broke his wing—what if he can never fly again?”
“Look, I know it’s awkward.” Wil let out a long, weary sigh. “I don’t want to run into Val holding Sarah’s hand or some crap like that, either… him being the hero of the day and all. It sucks.”
Tami pushed off the wall and began walking quickly, forcing Wil to jog to catch up to her.
“You…like…them both, don’t you?” Wil said, catching up to her at the end of the hall.
“How can something like that happen?” she asked quietly, wiping her face with both hands.
“I was hoping you could tell me. That’s what I wanted to ask you. Like…do you think Sarah is—”
“Playing you and Val like this bitch played my sister’s boyfriend—or like you played me?” Patty stepped out of the shadows with a sneer, her complexion still gray.
“I never played you,” Wil said, stepping in front of Tami, but she pushed her way around him, ready to fight.
“So what happened in Boston stays in Boston, huh?”
“It was over when you started acting crazy and helping Josh and Ernie distribute,” Wil said, lifting his chin. “I tried to protect you—even lied for you and told everybody you didn’t do that, hoping you’d get a clue and stop!” he shouted, his voice filled with disgust.
“I was your first, Wil,” Patty said in a scornful hiss.
“And you would have been my last,” Wil said, swallowing hard.
“I was there when your mother died, and you picked that flat-chested, skinny little nobody over me?” Patty shrieked.
“Go on! Call my girl something else, bitch!” Tami shouted, about to lunge forward, but Wil caught her arm.
“Stay out of this, Tami!” he commanded, holding Tami by both arms now and turning away from Patty to face her. “This is between me and Patty, and she needs to get it straight about how I feel about Sarah.”
A high-pitched scream of rage was followed by crackling static, and then gale-force winds filled the hall. A dark vortex opened, all three combatants standing at the edge. Wil tried to send an electromagnetic Tactical charge to lasso anything that might anchor him and Tami, but there was nothing for it to hold onto. They fell, clawing the floor.
Centrifugal force simply pulled them in.
Sarah got up slowly, holding onto Val and her grandmother’s hands.
“It’s over,” her grandmother announced.
Sarah stared up at Professor Raziel, fuming and confused. “Why didn’t you come earlier, when we were in the forest?” She shrugged away from her grandmother and Val to get up in the Reaper’s face. But to her surprise, he smiled.
“I wasn’t late to the party, k
iddo. I saw history in the making and just let you work.” He turned to Val. “Nice job, flier.”
“You didn’t…?” Headmistress Stone said, glaring at him and gripping her staff so tightly that it began to spark.
“I told you, if I’m to be her mentor, we have different teaching styles. Tonight that young lady came into her own.”
“So you almost let her die!” Val bumped Sarah out of the way to challenge the professor.
Razor lowered his scythe in Val’s direction. “Watch it, son… let the adrenaline damp down. Don’t go there.”
“We almost died!” Sarah shouted, pushing Val out of the way.
“Yeah… quite a rush, isn’t it?” Professor Raziel said in a blasé tone. “Taste it, remember it. It’ll make you a stronger warrior next time. But the important fact is, you lived.”
Sarah was so furious that she could only stare at the ground for a moment…and then she saw them. Tami’s and Wil’s shadow echoes. Seeing the traces of her friend’s footsteps gave her pause. Surely the adrenaline rush and the intensity of it all had boosted her powers in a way she’d never imagined was possible. Beep and Bop came out of hiding from behind Professor Raziel’s legs, so agitated that she knew something was horribly wrong. Her gaze shot to the professor and then to her grandmother’s exhausted face.
Val grabbed Sarah’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Let her hunt,” Professor Raziel said calmly, staring at Headmistress Stone but speaking to Val. “Let her go. This is what she was born to do.”
Two seconds later, Nana Marlene’s PIU sounded and alarm gongs went off all over the school.
Unable to speak, Sarah tore away from the group and began running, her shadowy little friends nipping at her heels.
“Sarah, wait!” Val yelled.
Nana Marlene, clutching her walking stick, ran behind Sarah, directing the dragons. “She is on a hunt. Val, stay with her!”
Professor Raziel just smiled.
Sound had become muffled. Sarah heard her grandmother call out something behind her, heard the timbre of Val’s voice but not the words. Racing through the school corridors, she could see Tami’s trail, the most recent one standing out strong and neon, like Wil’s. Shadows pulled away from the structures that cast them, following her, running beside her, folding into the walls and out again as she rounded stairwells, jumping half flights to get to where she needed to go.
The moment she entered the purple classroom level, tornadolike winds began to drag her toward an open funnel. She saw the claw marks scratched into the floor and didn’t even try to stop as the yawning entrance swallowed her whole.
Sliding, falling, twists and turns, she slipped down the tube as though on a giant water slide. She hit the ground on a pile of hay inside a dark barn, the scent of animals and manure reminiscent of the smells of the stables, and the shadows were everywhere.
“You brought my son here!” a disbelieving voice shrieked. A backhanded slap caught Patty in the mouth, sending her stumbling backward to hit the floor.
“Mom?” Wil slowly stood, his eyes on the woman wearing a hooded black robe and a huge, golden demonic pentagram swinging from a thick gold chain. “What’s going on?” he said, his voice fracturing.
He looked around, holding onto Tami’s hand, staring at the students—some of them unconscious, looking lifeless—chained to a wall next to several Fae held by iron shackles. Ernie Scheeler and Josh Abrams were crying but unchained. His gaze fastened on Ayana, who looked exhausted and about to pass out.
“Son, sometimes during war, there are sacrifices,” his mother murmured, her sea-green eyes filled with conflict and pain. She waved off the demons that had stepped forward to guard her son and the young woman beside him. “I am now of the Morrigan. Do you know what the word means?”
“Terror, or phantom queen… from Irish mythology,” Wil said in a dry rasp. “But…”
“I am a magus. My line is out of Medes, one of many destined to resurrect Lilith to fulfill the prophecy and secure the Antichrist his rightful place at the end of days. Join me, son. Your father took you away from me. He—”
“Told me you were dead!” Wil shouted, tears rising in his eyes. He let go of Tami’s hand as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“You see what a liar he is, son,” his mother said quietly and stepped forward.
But Wil stepped back. “What are all these people…these students…doing here? What have you done?”
“Draining their talents, that’s all… Soon, at midnight during the autumn equinox, each one of them will die on this altar as a blood sacrifice, increasing its power to its fullest potential. The dark magic requires power, as does a resurrection … and the master has been bereft since he lost his beloved Lilith. We will gain his favor and bring Lilith back in time to make sure the heir is placed—”
“Mother, are you insane?” Veins stood out in Wil’s neck as the demons hissed at his sides.
“It was your job to compromise him, your job to take his innocence,” his mother said, turning on Patty. “But you have failed. He is not ready to step into his inheritance!” She swung out her arm, and a black charge blew the girl against the wall to drop in a crumpled heap. “Is this the Neteru heir?” she asked, pointing to Tami.
“No, Desmonda,” Patty whimpered and covered her head. “It’s her best friend, but she’ll come for her. I know she will.”
“You’d better hope so,” Desmonda said, her green eyes flickering at the edges. “She was supposed to come for her mother seer,” she murmured in a near growl, pointing at Ayana. “But that only brought the adults and could have jeopardized the larger coven! I had to send Peter Matthews back to the school to defend our borders and throw them off our trail! Do you know how much energy it takes to keep a werewolf on a short leash? What use have you been to me? More importantly, what have you done to earn a place at my side…at my son’s side? Are you a real Morrigan, or just a pretender, Patty?”
“I have done everything I could for you. Everything. I booby-trapped the portals to keep any Guardians and school staff from following,” Patty said quickly, instantly regaining her normal complexion. “I let them think I was sick so I could stay in the infirmary long enough to pick up on their plans while they thought I was unconscious, and I brought Ernie and Josh to you safely. I got my sister to swipe the forget-me-not from Stefan’s stash, made her think I was going to help her and her stupid friends, without her knowing any of our real goals, just like you asked, and I put it on Ayana’s toothbrush, so she could be taken. I did everything you asked.”
Ernie looked up, cowering from where he sat on the floor. “Please don’t be mad at us, even if you’re angry at her. We did our part. We drugged them all just like you wanted so it was easy for Patty to lead them here.” He motioned to the pile of bathroom cups and toothbrushes on the altar. “We tainted that stuff like you said and didn’t even bury it on school grounds. We sent it back through to you so there’d be no evidence.”
Josh nodded emphatically. “We’ll keep making your stuff, anything you want—just don’t kill us.”
“It took us a long time to infiltrate the Guardians,” Desmonda said in a near hiss as she turned toward her son, then smiled wickedly at Patty, completely ignoring the two boys. “For years we didn’t know where their stronghold was, and their powers were too great for us to locate them, but every citadel has a weakness, and theirs is the children. We only needed one on our side so we could focus our energies to her beacon, then let curiosity and human nature take its course. That is the only reason you are still alive, Patricia Gray. Don’t make me regret my decision.”
“You used to be a Guardian, Mom,” Wil sobbed. “You used to fight—”
“We were poor! Living in hostile barracks! Food was scarce, water was scarce—don’t judge me for making a choice your father was too weak to make!” She swept away from the altar she’d been tending and drew herself up in front of her son.
“Since the moment I supposedly
died, you have experienced nothing but abundance. Boston fell, the East Coast Guardian teams are holed up in tiny villages, like the one above us, or in hiding in big cities, unable to buy or trade because they foolishly resist the mark of the beast. But you had everything you ever wanted. Your stupid father never had a clue as to why he was practically showered by good fortune after I was gone.” She held Wil’s face. “But now you know.”
She released him when he jerked his head back. “Why do you think I allowed you to go to the Academy?” She smiled an evil smile and walked back over to her bloody altar. “Because you needed to sharpen your skills, learn their ways, so when it is your turn to become Morrigan, as is your birthright—”
“Never!” Wil shouted. “Death before dishonor!”
“Either way,” his mother said coolly. “We’d only bring you back to work with us.”
This time, when the shadows coalesced, Sarah didn’t run from them. Instead she followed them deeper into the barn, noting how they stopped at the wall, the same way faint traces of Wil’s and Tami’s shadow echoes did, then saw that they were joined by another.
Something whooshed past her head and made her jump back. Two red-glowing eyes came out of the nothingness, and she realized that the whoosh had been a shadow, pulling her safely away from a swinging scythe. More eyes appeared, and Beep and Bop leaped at the demons, stealing their attention away from her for a split second. Panic made her drop to the ground to avoid another blade, and she rolled hard, hitting the wall as yet another demon stepped out of nowhere. The moment she touched the wall a trap door opened and she was falling into the blackness of a stone tunnel. But there, in the darkness, a face rimmed in light leaned in and touched her, forehead to forehead.
“Awake,” the floating face murmured.
Sarah hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of her, but Tami’s and Wil’s collective yells put her instantly on her feet. She saw Ayana weakly reach out to her from the corner of her eye even as a haughty laugh and a chorus of growls filled her ears. Huge beasts with glowering eyes and dripping fangs were closing in on her, but even as she screamed, her attendant shadows swept between their legs. She felt a pulse of energy run down her arms as she reached out to block the demon trying to grab at her, and it exploded, sending soot and embers flying everywhere.