Draiochta Academy: All Genres Academy Anthology

by BBB Publishings

  I squared my shoulders and stopped pacing. I turned to face them.

  “Tell me what I have to do.”

  On the night of Halloween, my mom was working late at the grocery store, which made me unhappy. Setmon and Ipfimel were sent to guard her and Mrs. Washington, who were both there at Tompkins Foods that night. Adziel came with me.

  We took my car to the swamp and parked as close to the gate as we could get. There were a lot of other cars parked there, so I wasn’t able to get as close as I might have liked, but beggars can’t be choosers. There were ladders up against the fence, and I looked at Adziel.

  “When we climb over that fence, we won’t be near the gate anymore, and even though the Academy is right there, it’s not right there, you know?”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “They won’t be able to help.”

  “Not immediately, but they will. And I will be there at your side.”

  I took a deep breath and got out of the car. He followed me and held the ladder for me when I climbed over the fence. He followed quickly, moving with the nimble surety of an athlete. Adziel dropped down beside me and took my hand.

  “Hey. ‘Bout time you got here.”

  The voice scared both of us out a year’s growth, and Adziel let out a sound like a raven’s caw. A man in work clothes came forward from where he’d been standing up against the fence. He was tall and dark, with a no-nonsense look in his eyes.

  Adziel relaxed. “Sam Jones, Maysie Douglas. Maysie, this is Sam. He’s the person from Slidell I told you about.”

  We shook hands, and he nodded. “Right. Now let’s do this.”

  There was a huge bonfire by the chimney of the plantation house, the only part of the structure that was still standing, and music was playing loudly out of someone’s radio. People’s silhouettes cavorted lewdly around the campfire, and it was clear that most everyone was well into their cups.

  Jeremiah sat on a pile of rubble that had probably once been part of the plantation’s wall. He had a shotgun in his hand, and he was running his hand over the muzzle as if it were a favorite dog. Beside him, Reginald and Stephen were slouched, each one of them with a gun in one hand and a beer in the other. It was a combination that did nothing to settle my nerves.

  We came closer, and by now they could see us in the light from the fire. Jeremiah hopped down off his stony seat.

  “Well, what have we here? Miss Maysie Douglas, I think you brought a plus two,” He sauntered over and stood with his nose practically touching Sam’s. “Y’all weren’t invited.”

  Sam smiled. “Now, don’t be too hasty, Mister Jeremiah,” he said, his voice thick with an accent and a deferential demeanor that he hadn’t displayed before. He pulled an invitation out of his pocket. “This here says I was.”

  Jeremiah snatched the invitation out of his hand and peered at it. “How’d you get this, boy?”

  I cringed, but Sam only shrugged. “Came in my mail. Seemed like a fun time, so I thought I’d check it out.” He looked around. He and I were the only ones here who weren’t white as the driven snow. “I can leave, though, if y’all think I should.”

  Stephen came over to join Jeremiah, and he peered at Sam and Adziel. “Who are these people?”

  “I’m Sam Jones, from Slidell,” he said, “and this here’s my boss, Andy.”

  Adziel nodded. “Hey.”

  “Andy, huh?” Stephen asked, his eyes narrow. “Are you sure about that?”

  I had learned enough magic by now to be able to tell when I was being magically scanned, and that was exactly what this cretin was doing right now. I stood tall and glared at him. When he turned his probing gaze onto Adziel, his eyebrows rose.

  Adziel spoke in a voice that had a subtle echo. “Just a normal person, me.”

  “Right….”

  Jeremiah looked at me, then at my escorts. “Well, y’all can come in, but if you cause any trouble, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “No sir,” Sam said. “No trouble at all.”

  We made our way over to the bonfire. Reginald pushed cold bottles of beer into our hands, and Sam popped the cap with a twist of his square hand. He handed me the open bottle, then took mine and opened that one. Adziel flipped the cap with his thumb, and it went flying. Reginald looked both surprised and impressed, and he faded back into the party.

  Jeremiah looked around. “Y’all think it’s almost midnight?”

  One of the other attendees checked his watch. “Almost. Five more minutes.”

  “Perfect.” Jeremiah jumped up onto the rubble where he’d been sitting, and he raised his hands. “It’s almost the Witching Hour, and we have work to do.”

  “Pssh,” Sam muttered into his bottle. “Witching Hour’s at three a.m.”

  A girl in the crowd of party goers asked, “What work, Jeremiah?”

  “God’s work!”

  There were mutters and approving head nods all around the fire. Adziel sighed.

  “What we gonna do, Jeremiah?”

  “We’re gonna rid this land of witches!”

  I heard a sound behind me and clenched my teeth. A lineup of six burly guys, all members of the Harmonville football team, had crept up behind us. Three of them had ropes in their hands. Jeremiah continued to hold forth.

  “There’s witches all around us, and we have to get rid of ‘em, like my daddy says. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Am I right?”

  “Yeah, you right!” Reginald answered.

  “Is that what you said to Mr. Burney?” I asked.

  Jeremiah snorted. “I didn’t say nothin’ to that crazy old man.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  Silence fell, and after an awkward moment of surprise, Jeremiah laughed. “I didn’t kill nobody, but if I did, it woulda been because he was a witch. Right?” He turned back to his cronies. “Am I right?”

  There was uncertainty in the crowd, but one of the football players behind me bellowed, “Right!”

  “Witches aren’t people!” shouted another helpful voice. “Killing ‘em ain’t murder!”

  “It’s our duty!”

  Jeremiah was looking and sounding like Reverend Tompkins, all wound up in the middle of one of his fire and brimstone sermons. The other people at the party were eating it up, and I felt sick.

  Sam muttered, “That wasn’t a confession.”

  “We’re not going to get a confession,” I snapped. “We’re going to get killed.”

  Adziel shook his head. “Not on my watch.”

  Jeremiah pointed at us. “Witches! All three of ‘em! String ‘em up!”

  The football team grabbed at us, and I tried to slip loose. I was normally pretty slippery - something I’d learned from living with my father - but the guy behind me was fast and he managed to tackle me. I hit the ground with bruising force, and all the wind was knocked out of me. His weight was heavy on my back, and he snickered into my ear and ground his pelvis into my posterior.

  “Too bad I ain’t got time to treat you proper, witch,” he hissed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and then he was gone. I scrambled up to my feet as well as I could with a spasming diaphragm and turned to see where he was. He was kneeling, but Adziel was holding him up by the back of his neck and he was as limp as a rag doll. A full set of raven wings had emerged from Adziel’s back, and his eyes had gone completely black. People at the bonfire screamed and ran away from him, and Jeremiah brought his shotgun to his shoulder.

  “Demon!” he screamed. “Demon!”

  Sam tossed his beer bottle aside. He began to move his hands in the air, and I recognized the beginning of a summoning spell. I had learned that much. I just didn’t know what he was calling.

  “He’s no demon,” Sam said, finishing the spell, “but he is.”

  In the center of the fire, a hideous creature like nothing I had ever seen before appeared. His skin was bright red, and his head was crowned with heavy horns like a Texas Longhorn. He was muscular, but in a
twisted way, and his eyes were black as jet. He tipped his head back and roared.

  “Who has summoned me?”

  Adziel dropped the football player and turned to Sam in concern. “What have you done?”

  “Sometimes you have to use black magic in this world,” he said softly. “Don’t get in the way.”

  I stumbled back from the fire, horrified by the feeling of raw evil that was emanating from the creature who stood untouched in the flames. Jeremiah turned his gun on the demon and fired, but the buckshot bounced off harmlessly and the creature laughed.

  “I have summoned you!” Sam shouted stepping forward. “You are commanded to find the murderer and give him his reward!”

  The demon looked at Sam with narrowed eyes, then stepped out of the flames. His feet were gigantic cloven hooves, black and gleaming, and fire danced around his hairy fetlocks. He was every nightmare of the devil that I’d ever had.

  People were running, screaming, and they were heading for the fence. They were going to get away, and they were going to be convinced that witches were real and that I was one of them. This could not have been a worse result. I didn’t even know what we were hoping to accomplish by coming here, but whatever it was, we’d failed. Desperate, I did the only thing I could do.

  Using my first-year spell training, I erected a magical barrier that prevented anybody from leaving.

  The first people at the fence bounced off my wards, the collision with the invisible barrier throwing them onto their backsides. Jeremiah aimed his shotgun at Sam.

  “Call him off, nigger!” he shouted.

  Sam shook his head. “No.”

  Jeremiah cocked the gun. “I said…”

  He never had a chance to finish his thought. The demon strode over to him and grabbed the gun away, tossing it onto the ground at my feet. A handprint had been melted into the barrel, and smoke rose from the ruined weapon. I took a step back. Jeremiah screamed, and the demon grabbed him by the throat.

  “This is a murderer,” he announced. He pulled Jeremiah close, so the demon’s misshapen face was pressed to his cheek. “Thou shalt not kill.”

  Jeremiah struggled and cried out in pain, but the demon tightened his grasp. Jeremiah fell silent, choked into unconsciousness. The demon laughed.

  “Take him with you,” Sam commanded. “Witch killers have but one reward.”

  The demon stepped back into the flames, and I saw a fiery gate open around him. He stepped through, Jeremiah hanging limply in his hand, and then he was gone.

  Adziel was standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to remember this?”

  I turned and glared at him, confused and annoyed by the question. “Of course I do!”

  “Then hold on to me.”

  He raised his hands, and I wrapped my arms around his trim waist. His wings had vanished, but I could feel his angelic power all around me. I closed my eyes and felt that power washing over me like a tidal wave, rushing out of him and into the swamp, flooding the bonfire and the party and everybody in attendance. His power hit my wards and blasted through them, continuing out in all directions. I’d been trained to feel and recognize magic, and this was more magic than I had ever encountered before. I left me reeling, and I was finding it hard to breathe.

  “Adziel…”

  “Keep your eyes closed,” he told me.

  The power kept coming, and I started to drown in it. Unable to inhale air around all of the magic that was rushing into me, I blacked out.

  I woke on my bed with my mother bending over me, a cold cloth in her hand. She was mopping my brow, a worried expression on her face.

  “Mom?” I croaked. I sounded like a raven.

  Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Maysie, my baby girl.” She bent and kissed my cheek. “Oh, you’re awake! I was so afraid you’d never wake up again!”

  I struggled to sit up, but I was too weak and gave up. She stroked my face. I could smell sick sweat in the room, and I knew it was coming from me.

  “Mama,” I said. “Jeremiah…”

  “Who, baby?”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. She rushed to get me a cup of water and helped me sit up to sip it. I wasn’t able to do anything for myself, and she had to hold me up. The water that coursed down my throat was crisp and cool and a little sweet.

  “Jeremiah Tompkins. The demon… he…”

  “Shh, now, child,” she soothed. “You were raving about that the whole time you were sick. I don’t want you upsettin’ yourself again. There ain’t no demon, and I don’t know anybody named Jeremiah.”

  “But.. are we…” I fell back into the pillow and looked around. The room was bright, and the wallpaper was brand-new. There were pictures on the walls that I didn’t recognize, and the dresser I could see over her shoulder was unfamiliar, but I knew this was my bed and my room. I was utterly confused.

  “Are we what, baby?”

  I tried to finish the thought, but the words were difficult to find. I managed, “Are we safe?”

  She smiled at me. She was a healthy weight, and the scars on her face from my father’s abuse were gone. “Completely.”

  “What is going on?”

  My mother sat beside me and mopped my brow again. “We can talk about things later, baby. Just get some real sleep now the fever’s broke.”

  She kissed my forehead, then left the room, turning off the lights. There was still illumination coming in from outside, and it was the dark filtered orange of sunset. I turned my head toward the window.

  A raven with white feathers in his wings was standing on the outside sill, looking in. I raised my hand as high as I could, but it was barely a twitch. He tapped the glass once with his beak, then flew away.

  Mom came back in with a crystal decanter that had a crystal glass over the top. She put it down on the bedside table and left again, and even though she hadn’t turned the light back on, I could see a tag on the decanter.

  It said, Compliments of Acadamh Draiochta. We never forget our own.

  About Tiegan Clyne

  Tiegan Clyne has been writing for longer than most of her friends have been alive. Armed with university degrees in Spanish, anthropology and history, she writes reverse harem and LGBTQ fantasies with dark, kinky edges and fantastical elements. She also sometimes writes harmless fluff pieces about magical animals and the witches who love them. She loves music, could not stop writing if you paid her, and is a crazy cat lady in training.

  Reckless Rebel

  Book 0.5 of the Metamorphosis Series

  By

  Darcy Ray

  Chapter One

  As I slide out of my ride’s backseat, I’m assaulted by Georgia's sticky air which makes sweat cover me like dew. Even with it being just after midnight, the cicadas greet me as they sing their song, hidden in the bushes and scattered around the raggedy trailer park. Stepping away from the looming beat up car, I make my way up the pebbled path towards the tin rectangle I call home. Just as I start to climb the steps onto the front porch, I hear glass shattering and cursing sounds. Dropping my head, I let out a sigh of disappointment. Yet another hellish night.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a rose vine wilting under the heat. With a wave of my fingers, I sprinkle some of my magic over the plant and watch as it goes from broken and brittle to elegant and strong. Its red petals exude a beauty to attract but looking a little lower under its stem, is a row of thorns - ready to protect. Reaching out, I run my fingers over its silky petals. "One day, I'll be as strong and resilient as you." My whisper is swept away under the luminescent rays of the moon and carried away under the guidance of the stars. Straightening up, I pull my tips from my apron and shove them into my bra. Untying the thin string from around my waist, I tuck it under my arm and then finish my dreadful trek inside.

  The front door hasn't even closed all the way before she begins. "Zerenity, you bitch! You stole my money!" Her voice is so slurred, I'm sure any normal person wouldn't be able to un
derstand, but thanks to my enchanted pearl earrings, I can understand everything. The soft pink studs act as a filter, clearing up words and translating any language. So when I hear what she is yelling, I just shake my head and walk past her.

  I make it to my desolate room and quietly close my door so she doesn't have a reason to stumble into my domain. Leaning with my ear against the door, I listen to see if she is stumbling down the hall towards me. After a few seconds of nothing, I release a breath and push off the door. Shuffling to my closet, I push past the beaded curtains and squat down. Pushing through my clothes that are piled on the floor, I dig out my steel box and trace my finger over the top in the shape of a star. The locks pop open but before I open the lid, I peek around the corner to make sure my mother isn't nearby.

  No heavy footsteps and no cursing. Good. Satisfied that it’s safe, I turn back to my safe and lift the lid off. Laying in the same neat pile that I put it in this morning, is a wad of cash, my passport, and all of my important papers. Reaching inside my bra, I pull out the cash I earned today and quickly arrange it with the rest of the bills. Almost ten grand. By the time I hit eighteen, I'll have enough to move out and forget all about this drunk bitch of a mom. Only two months to go.

  With everything stashed, I close the lid to my makeshift safe and set its lock back into place. At the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the hall, I jam my safe back under the clothes and stand up just as my door slams open. "ZERENITY! You no good whore! Where’s my fucking money!? I know you stole it!"

  "I don't have your money, Glenda! You spent it all buying your drugs and freaking booze!" I nearly gag as the smell of vomit and pee fill my senses. My nose hairs practically singe away with how god awful she smells. Pinching my nose, take a step towards her to usher her out. "You need a shower! Sewer rats smell better than you." Not wanting to touch her, I harness my magic to push her out.