Hawthorn Academy- Year Two

by D. R. Perry

  The leech mumbled something about time.

  “Did I say you could talk?”

  “No.” Noah snorted. “Fine, we’re getting down. Come on, Jonah. We can pretend we’re on a picnic. In a rainstorm.”

  “That’s right, but only the leech is getting anything to eat. He’s turning you, Morgenstern.”

  “No.” The vamp kneeled but shook his head. “I won’t take away his choice.”

  I held one hand up, drawing water out of the air around it until I had enough to drown a man. I flung it at Morgenstern, pushing it down his nose and throat.

  “Turn him or he dies.”

  Noah’s eyes bulged, and he clawed at his throat in vain. I almost thought the leech wouldn’t go through with it, but he caved when Noah toppled over. I called the water back, not wanting to kill Morgenstern too soon.

  My lip curled into a sneer as I watched the leech drink. It was every bit as nasty as I’d imagined, and the fact that I’d forced them into it had my heart racing. I chortled, finally victorious, owning the undesirables.

  Until that leech raised his eyebrow at me because of course, his unnatural hearing let him hear my heartbeat.

  “Stop.” I splashed the coldest water I could find at them.

  “I’m sorry,” the vermin said, but not to me.

  “It’s okay,” Morgenstern croaked, tears running down his face. “I forgive you.”

  “Now drink from the leech, Morgenstern.”

  “Noah, don’t.” The leech’s eyes filled with what could only be crocodile tears.

  “Listen up, parasite.” I patted my device. “I’m giving you ten seconds to say farewell to Morgenstern’s humanity. If he’s not vamped by then, I’m frying both of you.”

  I punctuated that long goodbye with my voice, counting their last moments down.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Aliyah

  I stood transfixed by the scene before me, frozen in time and space as Temperance spoke.

  “Time’s up. Any last words?”

  "Go hump a gnome." Noah rolled his eyes.

  "Lies!" she screamed. "Fake news!"

  "Protest much, Gertrude?" My brother was a master of sass and awe. "Wait. Hamlet’s mom didn't get nasty with gnomes."

  "You took everything from me," she snarled. "Now drink!"

  “Please don’t.” Jonah sobbed. “Let him go. Just kill me instead.”

  “Shut up, leech!” She stamped her foot, splashing in maybe six inches of water. “You both die.”

  I stepped forward.

  "You have to get through me first."

  Temperance turned her head, took one look at me, and sneered.

  "Grace's pet extramagus? Fire and sunlight, all out of control. Try taking me down without killing them both in the process. I dare you."

  "Okay." I held my hands in conjuring position, stepping closer to Noah and Jonah. “Ember!”

  My dragonet reared up, letting out a throaty roar as she mingled her magic with mine. I took a deep breath, preparing to superheat her weapon so she’d drop it, but Ember’s roar turned into a yawn, and she sat back on her haunches.

  She drained your familiar just now.

  Tempe pointed the device at me. As she pulled the trigger, I experienced an all-too-familiar feeling.

  "Poison?" My legs wavered. "Is that all you've got?"

  I turned my fire inward, sending it through my veins and burning the toxin out of my blood. I resumed my stance, inching forward to put more of my body between the device and the boys. Jonah tried to push Noah toward the door.

  “Precious!” Temperance called. “Make sure he’s turned!”

  The grundylow emerged from a drain in a disturbing fashion, squeezing up through the holes to head Noah off. Precious leaped at my brother’s bloodstained neck with his webbed hands outstretched.

  A cry pierced the air, and a streak of white feathers and fur flashed toward the grundylow in mid-leap, knocking him aside.

  Precious hissed, retreating under the shower spray. Mercy the gryphon circled, trapping him in the corner.

  "Aliyah!" Dorian called from the doorway. He wheezed, and the water in the air made his shirt cling to something under it in the front. "Run defense!"

  "You lying bitch!" Temperance pointed the device at Dorian.

  Mercy’s wings stopped flapping and she dropped out of the air, hitting the wet tile with a sickening smack.

  Dorian’s eyes widened and his lip trembled, but he conjured ice anyway, trying to block her attack. It melted because she’d shot him with a copy of my fire. The resulting water knocked him face-down in the puddle, the remainder of the flames burned away the back of his hair and shirt, revealing a binder.

  Everything seemed to happen at once, like when I freed Alex at the dance. Tempe’s device let out another blast of flame, at my brother this time. Precious thrust Jonah’s bloodied wrist into Noah’s mouth. Mercy’s wing flapped once, weakly. Temperance raised her free hand, then punched down, flattening the gryphon with a watery hammer.

  "Murderer!" I pointed at her.

  "Pest control." Tempe narrowed her eyes. “And I’m not done yet."

  I’d never seen a vampire Rage and had no idea how primal a force they channeled.

  Jonah tore free of Precious’s grasp, flinging the grundylow away. His eyes glowed a baleful red, his bared fangs sharp and long. He crouched, hissing, prepared to pounce.

  I leaped in front of Jonah, expecting her to use the device to incinerate him. I held my hands out, a small orb with both my elements in front of me.

  Bishop's Row was the closest thing I knew to battle tactics. My defensive play might have worked, but Temperance had watched me all year. She knew my biggest weakness on the court—the classic fakeout.

  She aimed at Noah instead. He should have perished on the spot because even Jonah's vampiric dash back to his side wasn't as fast as lightning, but he didn’t die.

  The bolt hit him, fanning out along the water. The lightning paralyzed him and it had the same effect on Jonah, so he was turned.

  Water arced over Tempe’s head, forming what looked like a Faraday cage, but its deadly bolt continued toward Dorian and me.

  Ice crashed through the room in a shimmering glacial wall and the lightning shattered it. My hair crackled and stood on end, but it absorbed enough of the charge to save us.

  The ice was purple like in the mural, but nobody had conjured that since my great-uncle's time here with Filberto Luciano.

  Bert became an extramagus when he fell in love, and his powers had reverted once Noah the elder died. That's what's in his sealed record.

  "Stop, Miss Fairbanks." Professor Luciano stepped forward, shaking purple ice off his fingers. "I won’t let you hurt them."

  She laughed.

  "Look at them." She smirked. “Slavering monsters. I’m defending myself.”

  “We’re all witnesses. You’ll go to prison.” He held out his hand. “It’s not too late to do the right thing, Tempe. Let me help you. Give me the device.”

  "If I kill you all, I write this story and win my family’s legacy." Her grin was sharp and painful. “I've got all the power here. You just want to steal it.”

  "Love is my power." He stepped beside me. "My love for this school and everyone in it is a strength beyond your imagination. You will do no more harm. Miss Morgenstern, get them to safety."

  I wanted to defy his orders and make this stand with him because nobody should have to fight evil alone, but Noah gasped and Dorian groaned. They needed me more.

  The heat and light had driven Jonah to the brink, and his closest, most vulnerable target was Dorian.

  Noah wasted no time. He squinted, wincing at the solar flares in his hands, but managed to keep Jonah at bay.

  I dashed for Dorian, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him into the common room before going back in.

  Tempe blasted Noah's hands with more solar energy, overloading him. If I couldn’t help him banish it, we’d all get in
cinerated.

  Jonah's hands were on fire, and he wasn't in the shower spray any longer. He shrieked, the Rage transforming into a flight response. I could see the bones in his fingers.

  Professor Luciano pulled ice from the floor and encased Jonah’s hands, dousing the blaze. The injured vampire dashed into the dark cave of the changing area. I hurried to my brother’s side.

  "Aliyah, get out." He sobbed, staring at the twin suns in his hands. "I can't banish it. I'm going to kill everyone."

  "We'll stop it together." I stared at his eyes. "Look at me."

  I knelt beside him and took his hands, using the same banishing technique Elanor had taught me. He finally met my gaze, nodding. I took a deep breath and remembered every time we'd saved each other in much smaller ways. They flashed through the blinding light between us in an instant.

  The night I was sure the Kraken hid under my bed, and he let me sleep in his room.

  The day he came home from middle school friendless, and I said I'd always love him.

  The Sukkot he’d shared his sleeping bag so I'd be brave enough to sleep outside all night.

  The Passover he came out as gay, and I was the first one to hug him.

  The day he helped me pack for my first year at Hawthorn.

  "I love you, Noah. No matter what."

  "Forever, Aliyah."

  That was supposed to be our goodbye to each other and the world because all that effort wasn’t enough. This amount of energy was impossible for us to banish on our own.

  Through the light, I saw a feathery shadow diving. It flew at Tempe’s face, and she flung her hands up to fend off the strix’s poisoned claws. The professor lunged forward, grabbing the device. He clutched it to his chest, then turned his head to look at me.

  “Professor, no.” My eyes widened. “It drains life.”

  “I choose whose.”

  Professor Luciano pointed the device at the impossible globe of light. He staggered, knees splashing on ice, water, and tile. He pulled the trigger with one hand and clutched his heart with the other.

  I gripped my brother’s hands tighter, still contributing my effort to banish what felt like the sun. The light diminished, damping back down to normal levels for the human eye. Noah's hands were colder than a winter ocean. A stain darkened the front of his jersey, red rimmed his eyes, and blood caked his lips. He wasn’t breathing.

  We locked gazes, me and my brother the vampire.

  Temperance lay on the floor with her eyes open, a single shallow scratch on her cheek. I could tell by the way her chest rose and fell and how Precious held her head between his webbed hands that she was paralyzed.

  Professor Luciano curled motionless, still clutching the Axis device. His strix hopped toward him, waterlogged feathers temporarily grounding her. She preened a tuft of hair behind his ear, then let out three mournful hoots.

  Ember swooped off my shoulder, landing beside the professor's familiar. She keened, as she had on the day we all thought Doris had died.

  "No."

  My brother ran toward the door. I rushed to the professor's side. There had to be hope. I pulled his shoulder, turning him from his side to his back, and he opened his eyes.

  "Thank you." His hand remained on his chest over his heart.

  "I got you hurt." I sniffled, my face wetter than it had been. "Bad."

  "Badly," he corrected with a final raised eyebrow. "I banished the sun to spare all of you.”

  Noah returned. “Hold on. Help is coming.”

  “Stay with me, Bert.” I pulled his hands away from the device, wrapping mine around them, but they were almost as cold as Noah’s.

  “We all die, but love doesn't." He gasped. "Keep fighting. Heed the magic. Its tone is harsh but never wrong."

  "Is that the voice I hear in my head?"

  He glanced down at my Shema Yisrael pendant, then back at my face. He smiled, somehow looking through me as though he’d just recognized an old friend.

  Professor Filberto Luciano had no more answers for me or anyone else in this world.

  He'd left it.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Pulling the purple and gold robe off, I used it to cover Professor Luciano's head and shoulders.

  Some part of me would never stop shaking and crying, even after the physical feelings had passed. That sorrow felt vast and eternal, just like love. Maybe that was why it loomed so large, because grief is the space our loved ones leave behind.

  Turning to Noah didn't come close to filling it, but it helped. We embraced, leaning together in the dank shower's relative quiet.

  "Peep." Ember nestled against me, curling her tail around my shoulders.

  "Hiss." Lotan slithered away from him and on to my shoulder with Ember, though I couldn't fathom why. She'd always comforted him through sadness before. Noah clung more tightly to me, sobbing harder. I hoped she was just cold, not rejecting him.

  A quartet of adults arrived, but I only noticed one at first. I was mesmerized by Stephanie Hawkins saving Jonah Arnold, something only a dhampyr could do. She deliberately cut her wrist and used it to coax Jonah out of the changing room and down from his Rage. He reached up, pulling the arm close and covering it with his lips.

  All the polish and poise, the wide-eyed cheer and positivity about her person vanished as though her ex-husband had transported it away with space magic. Mrs. Hawkins was exactly as dour as Hal had described. As Jonah drank from her, flesh knitted over the charred bone of his fingertips and the blisters on his face faded. Stephanie sobbed, eyes focused on something or someone not here.

  She must have been a blood doll.

  "Hold me back." Noah lunged, so I caught him.

  Like before, he felt colder than he should have, but the biggest difference between now and then was a drastic increase in strength. No matter how hard I held on, I couldn't fight him. Not even with all the extra training. My grip slipped and he dashed toward Stephanie, fangs out. Somewhere behind me, a dog barked.

  "Hold!" Faith called behind me.

  My brother froze in place, jaw dropped, bicuspids impossibly long.

  "March." She stepped into view, holding her hand out to Noah, who followed her command.

  The air shimmered between them, but I knew better. I was watching undeath magic at work. She continued, accompanying him until they both got out of the room.

  "You murdered my colleague." Professor DeBeer glared. "And this poor gryphon. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

  Temperance held her hands in front of her, bound by a set of black metal cuffs. Precious muttered glumly inside what looked like a fishbowl with a lid made of the same black metal.

  "I should have thought bigger. Exterminated the inferiors, not just the vermin who infected them.”

  Professor DeBeer sniffed. "I hope they throw the book at you."

  "You would have taken the fall." Tempe giggled. "The way you carry on about extramagi, you sound almost exactly like them."

  "Keep talking if you want," Azrael's aunt from Salem PD said from the doorway, "but you have the right to remain silent."

  Kim Ichiro stepped out from behind her with a contingent of local MCSIs.

  The squeak of a knob turning caught my attention. Headmaster Hawkins stood by the shower's control with a blue nitrile glove on his hand and turned it off, his face covered with water, dark and still like welder's glass. Whether it was from the spray or tears, I couldn't tell. He reached down, touching Jonah's head. Stephanie put her free hand on his arm. He snapped his fingers, and they all vanished.

  "Poor Dorian." Nurse Smith shook his head. I watched his back as he bent down, scooping the gryphon up.

  "Mercy?" I asked.

  "She's gone." He turned, revealing the tears on his face. "Are you the one who moved him?"

  I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.

  "Probably saved his life. He could have drowned face down in this water."

  I couldn't hold myself together anymore and collap
sed to the floor, ears ringing. Somewhere in the distance, a woman sobbed. When I took a breath, it paused. I was making that noise.

  The karkinos crawled out of Nurse Smith's pocket and enlarged, then lifted me to his back. The rocking motion of his stride was the last thing I remembered before passing out.

  I woke in my room instead of the infirmary. Oddly, I felt good, until the memory of what had happened crashed like a wave against my consciousness.

  My eyes stung as I went through motions. Get the bathroom bag. Put on the robe. Walk to the restroom. Brush teeth, wash face, shower. Back to the room to dress, not paying attention to which clothes go on the body. Open the door again.

  "Aliyah?" Elanor stood in the hall, her uniform on, including ankyr, ballistae, and cestus. "I brought a spare uniform. Whistle's in a half hour. Are you going to make it?"

  "Is Noah?"

  "He can't." She shook her head.

  "I'll make it. For him."

  "Are you sure?"

  "If it were Logan, what would you say?"

  "Same thing."

  After changing, I followed her down the hall, the stairs, through the lobby. Faith joined us, also wearing her uniform and walking over from the café.

  "Drink this." Faith handed me a smoothie, then took a swig from her cup.

  "Not banana berry."

  Noah will never drink banana berry smoothies again.

  "No. Green tea and coconut."

  "Good. Thanks." I slugged it down so fast I got an ice cream headache.

  We pushed through the doors to the academic wing. Long Division. The mural held a different meaning for me now, just like its counterpart, Fire and Ice. Together and separate. Opposite and intimate. Contributions from students like us, two generations ago by people learning in the same halls. Maybe we didn't have to repeat their mistakes.

  "Where's everyone else?"

  "Either the locker room or the bleachers," Elanor answered. "You remember who we're playing?"

  "Messing." I nodded. "Gallows Hill after."

  "Just checking." She held her hands against the gym’s doors. "You ready?"