Academy of the Devi- the Complete Collection

by Eva Brandt

  Was that a quote from Mein Kampf? I’d never thought I’d see the day I’d have such a conversation with a demon. Then again, I doubted the imp’s idea of suns and stars was similar to Hitler’s.

  “I never wanted to be a star,” I replied. Taking a sudden leap of faith, I added, “Trying to be as powerful as a fallen angel is a fool’s errand.”

  “Indeed.” Adolf’s smile was full of teeth, sharper than Gemma’s had ever been. “Very few can ever reach the levels of power Lucifer had. But aren’t you at least going to try?”

  He arched a brow at me, and his disdainful expression made me bristle. “Of course I’m going I’m to try. But like I said, being Satan isn’t my goal. All I want to do is to survive this hellish place with my brain, soul, and sanity intact.”

  The imp laughed. “I wish you the best of luck then, Ms. Michaelis. They say fighting a war for peace is like screwing for virginity. Your little battle to save yourself? It’s much worse.”

  His words rendered me mute. It was just as well that he didn’t seem to expect a reply. I blinked, and just like that, he was gone.

  I had no idea what was going on, but all of a sudden, I suspected Adolf the imp was far more than he seemed. I fully intended to find out what he was hiding.

  Through Anger and Envy

  The next day

  “Say, Gemma, what do you know about imps?”

  We were seated together at the breakfast table of the Sloth Dorms. A half-asleep Darling was by my side, staring dazedly at her plate. In fact, almost everyone was still sleepy except me and Gemma. She had shown up earlier, claiming that she wanted to avoid sitting with her own house today, on account of its members being ‘classless peasants.’ I hoped to take advantage of this opportunity to badger her for more information.

  Gemma eyed me over the edge of her goblet and licked her blood-stained lips. I’d sort of realized she was a vampire even before now, so her diet didn’t really take me by surprise. I’d decided to focus more on my side-project of figuring out Adolf’s true identity.

  “Imps?” she asked. “They’re low-level demons, servants of Satan, usually in charge of creating minor mischief or chaos. I heard the academy used to have some as service staff during the time of the Big Guy, but they all left. Unless, of course, they didn’t, and you actually saw one yesterday.”

  I’d seen more than one, if I thought about the group I’d run into while on my way to the academy. I debated the merits of mentioning that, but decided against it. “Who knows? Maybe I just imagined it. I was tired as fuck. Those Sloth Dorms hit me hard.”

  “I told you that always happens,” Gemma replied. “You seem to be doing better this morning.”

  That was because I’d decided, on a whim, to see if I could sleep in the library. No one had come to bug me, and with Shiro watching over me, I’d had no trouble whatsoever.

  But that was probably against school rules, so once again, I lied. “Maybe I’m getting used to it.”

  “Well, it’s good that you’re well rested! We have PE today. You’re going to need the energy.”

  Her words almost made me choke on my juice. “PE? What? But that wasn’t on my schedule!”

  “It’s in today’s Mundane slot,” Gemma explained. “Each Mundane class is different and on Tuesdays, we have PE.”

  I hadn’t thought I could dread anything more than my upcoming class with Ammit, the Devourer of Souls, but PE changed that. Courtesy of good genes—or, as I now knew it, possibly magic—I’d always been a well-proportioned girl, which was a good thing, because exercising clashed badly with my condition. Having Shiro meant that I did a regular amount of moving around, and that helped, but I was never going to be a fitness-oriented person.

  For the most part, I’d gotten used to that thought and adapted to it, and teachers in my former school had given me a free pass. I doubted things would go so smoothly at The Academy of the Devil.

  I’d already decided to not tell anyone I was an epileptic, and my first day hadn’t changed my mind. The problem was that if I didn’t mention it to a teacher and he or she asked me to do something too physically strenuous, it could make me sick.

  This sucked so much.

  Could I talk about this to the dean? I’d yet to see him at any meal, but he might be my best bet.

  Come to think of it, none of the teachers made themselves all that available to the students. How did one even arrange a meeting with a member of the faculty if there was a problem?

  “Hey, Gemma. I have a curiosity. If I had some kind of issue here at the school, who would I have to talk to?”

  Gemma stared up at the ceiling, as if she was praying for strength. I found this sort of amusing, considering the fact that she didn’t worship God. “Usually, students from The House of Sloth just have to handle everything on their own,” she said when she looked at me again. “They’re not managed by anyone. The other students have heads of houses—like, for example, Callum or Stefan, and their patrons. Or there’s the dean, but I don’t recommend approaching him. He’s pretty terrifying.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned him.” She still hadn’t explained exactly why she’d been so adamant on showing me around that first day and why the dean had been so interested in having me arrive at the school in one piece. “And how do you arrange a meeting with him?”

  “With Dean Mephistopheles?” Gemma snickered. “You don’t. He comes to you, and usually, it doesn’t end well.”

  Mephistopheles. Okay, so my dean was the demon who’d supposedly claimed Faust’s soul. I wondered how that worked, if Faust was still a teacher at the school. Probably not very well.

  Maybe Faust was an option? He’d been a doctor in his mortal life. But what could he do for me, to keep me from having to go through with the coursework assigned by a different professor?

  In the end, I resigned myself to having to speak to whoever taught the PE class, but all throughout the day, I was very distracted and couldn’t focus at all. It was just as well that Ammit had taken out most of her hostility on Jax, and she seemed calmer today, because we had a double period with her, and the hours seemed to stretch on forever. The Mundane class was after that, and it was with much dread that I followed the others out of the main building of the academy.

  Despite the fact that I’d eaten the apple, the spatial distortion phenomenon still had an effect, because we didn’t seem to pass the dorms at all. The walk through the gardens seemed to end far too quickly, and before long, we’d reached the beach. Apparently, demons didn’t bother having regular gyms like puny humans. They needed to exercise outdoors.

  Fortunately, the school had given some thought to privacy, and a lighthouse provided us with a place to change and leave our uniforms. The good news stopped there. The PE suits were even skimpier than the dresses, and this time, they were white. This meant that, if we went into the water, the PE class would turn into a gigantic wet T-shirt competition. Based on what I’d seen so far, this didn’t seem unlikely.

  But I had other, more important things to worry about than indecency. I braced myself for the unavoidable and unpleasant confrontation with the teacher and prayed it wouldn’t get me killed or maimed.

  Fuck, it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask Gemma who the PE teacher was. I was such an idiot.

  That problem, at least, was fixed as soon as I exited the lighthouse. Down below, on the beach, a cyclops was waiting for us, leaning against his massive club and staring out into the distance.

  I took one look at him and started to panic. That was not a creature I wanted to cross. He could turn me and Shiro into paste with a single swing of that massive weapon. Then again, my other teachers were just as dangerous. A creature from Greek myth wasn’t out of place in a school where an Egyptian goddess devoured students on a regular basis.

  With my heart hammering, I tried to remember what I knew about cyclops. It wasn’t much. Beyond the fact that, in some legends, they were guardians of prized objects or opponents of brave heroes, there was just t
heir very distinctive physical feature—the sole eye in the center of their foreheads. I doubted their vulnerability to being blinded with burning logs would help me much.

  Hoping to be able to have a conversation with the teacher alone, I tried to shuffle to the back of our group. It didn’t really work, since some of the other students had about as much desire to work out as I did. “Move it!” the cyclops shouted in front of me. “Come on, you ants. Stop dragging your feet, or, by the time we end this lesson, you won’t have anything left to drag.”

  I believed him and had no desire to die in such a gruesome way. As such, I stopped trying to wriggle my way out of the ‘pack’. Could I have Shiro send the cyclops a message maybe?

  God, why did this have to be so convoluted? It wasn’t nearly so difficult in high school to have a simple conversation with a teacher.

  Maybe that was for a reason, though, because as soon as the cyclops saw me, his whole body went rigid. His lone pupil dilated and, for a few seconds, I was reminded of the strange symbiote that guarded the transport point. “Not you, Alyssa Michaelis,” he said. “Not yet.”

  In hindsight, I should’ve known the PE teacher would realize I had a problem that kept me from performing difficult physical tasks. Maybe the cyclops had some kind of superpower—oops, talent—that allowed him to see my affliction. Maybe he’d just been informed about it beforehand by someone who’d known. In any case, I was grateful, even if it meant I was receiving special treatment.

  The other students didn’t feel the same. “Wait, that’s not fair,” someone immediately started to protest. “Why does she get a free pass? Being human doesn’t mean she—”

  PE class included students from upper years as well, and I wasn’t familiar with the unwise boy. Not that it mattered. The cyclops turned toward the student. His forehead twitched and that was when I realized he wasn’t one-eyed, after all. Instead, he had a secondary, smaller eye in the center of his forehead. When he glanced at the student with it, the boy turned to stone.

  “Any other comments?” the cyclops grumbled, already closing his petrifying eye.

  Unsurprisingly, there were none. I stayed just as silent as them, now torn between relief and guilt. The student’s fate was his own fault, but perhaps he wouldn’t be dead if not for me.

  No stories I’d read suggested cyclops had such abilities. What other things had I missed about the creatures around me?

  There was no point in thinking about it now. The cyclops was focusing on me again, and I had no desire to be petrified too. “You!” he snapped. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I replied. Much to my dismay, he was pointing to a spot straight next to the newly created statue.

  I was beginning to think everyone at this school was a fucking sadist. If he wanted me to sit the class out, could I not wait anywhere else except next to the stone corpse of the kid who’d just died?

  I knew better than to protest, so I made my way to the statue and plopped down onto the sand. As black as onyx, it felt scratchy and uncomfortable underneath my bare skin, but I didn’t complain. This was better than nothing.

  The other students were already on the beach, being divided in groups. Some seemed to have been assigned swimming lessons, while others were engaged in a version of dodge ball that involved throwing massive boulders at one another. At this rate, there would be far more casualties by the time class was over.

  But I needed to learn to think about myself a little more, instead of focusing on others. If I kept bemoaning the fate of each dead student, I wouldn’t survive either. It was just so hard. This might be The Academy of the Devil, but that didn’t mean I liked seeing all these people die.

  Thankfully, I still had Shiro, and when he padded to my side, I hugged him and took comfort in his heat. “What a clusterfuck, Shiro. Maybe we shouldn’t have come here at all.”

  A shadow loomed over me and I looked up, only to find myself facing Stefan. “Gee,” he said with a sneer. “What tipped you off on that one? Other than the fact that it’s perfectly obvious.”

  I ignored the predictable comment and didn’t bother waiting for the unavoidable slur. “Can you go away? I’m not in the mood.”

  Stefan bared his teeth at me. It was similar to what Gemma had done in the past, and yet, it looked completely different. Because of all the sunlight, I couldn’t distinguish the details too well, but I could’ve sworn he had two sets of teeth.

  The whole thing must’ve been my imagination, as when he sat down next to me, his face and mouth looked normal. “I don’t care about your ‘mood’,” he muttered. “Nobody here does, you know.

  “If you think Darling and Gemma are interested in your well-being, you’re wrong. And you’d better stay away from Callum and Mikael. They’re too good for you.”

  Oh, here we go again. I mentally prayed for patience. So far, I’d managed to stop myself from lashing out at the demons too badly, but I was beginning to reach my limit. “Why are you even telling me that? I don’t have any kind of relationship with those two!”

  “But you want to.” He sneered at me. “Little human sluts like you are all alike. You drop your panties as soon as you see an incubus, but once his true nature comes out, you run away screaming, claiming you’ve been bewitched. You’re a species of cowardly, disgusting ants that lack the simple strength to take responsibility for your actions.”

  He wasn’t completely wrong, but the generalization was still offensive. I released Shiro from my embrace and got up. Now, I was the one towering above Stefan. “Oh, yeah? And how many times are those claims true?

  “Since I’ve come here, I’ve seen plenty of demons having sex in broad daylight. And that’s fine with me. Whatever floats your boat, and so on and so forth. I get traditions here aren’t like in the human world. But it’s also obvious to me that some demonic beings emit magic that automatically makes people respond to them. I don’t see how that’s my fault. If anything, you’re the ones who refuse to take responsibility and then turn around and act like victims.”

  The words spilled out of me like a torrent, even when I knew I should stop. “Oh, boo hoo. I’m a poor demon. I’m a natural creature, but those abusive humans keep calling me by wicked, insulting names. If you and the others have a problem with that, Stefan, you’d best start putting your money where your mouth is and stop being rude to me. You don’t know me, so you have no right to judge me.

  “In other words, fuck you very much. I care about your opinion as much as you care about my mood. You can run along now and do whatever it is that demons do when they’re not pestering perfectly innocent humans.”

  Stefan stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head. His eyes began to glow with inner fire, at which point it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t have taunted and insulted someone very dangerous.

  I took a step back, intending to bid a hasty retreat. Before I even knew what was going on, Stefan was on his feet, clutching my wrist in an iron-like vise. “You really should be more careful with what you say, little mortal. People have died for less.”

  Shiro snarled and tried to pounce on him. Stefan turned toward my beloved dog and fixed him with a gaze darker than the devil’s own soul. “No.”

  Shiro whined and scuttled back, clearly intimidated by the larger, more dangerous predator. Then, he stopped and took a step forward, still glaring at Stefan in his own lupine way. He seemed torn between his need to rush to my aid and his fear of Stefan.

  The sight of my cowering, struggling friend sent a renewed surge of anger through me. I immediately started to fight Stefan’s hold. “Hey! Leave Shiro alone. If you have a problem, take it out on me, not him.”

  Stefan turned toward me, and in his dark eyes, I saw a glint of something savage. He cupped my cheek with a warm, dry palm, the touch gentle, but still unyielding. “You’re not afraid of me. Why?”

  Oh, I was afraid of him. There was just something about this place that infuriated me so much I ended up occasionally forgetting my
own fear.

  Was there a house dedicated to that? The House of Idiotic Lack of Self-Preservation, maybe? If it existed, I’d surely fit right in and wouldn’t have to sleep in the library.

  Admitting that would be humiliating, though, so instead, I said, “Did you want me to be? Earlier, you didn’t seem to respect humans who feared you.”

  “That’s right,” he whispered, licking his lips. “I don’t. I might be able to learn how to respect you. But you’ll find that’s not necessarily a good thing. I only ever respect my enemies, Ms. Michaelis, and they don’t get to enjoy it too long.”

  His hold on my arm tightened, and he leaned in a little more closely, so much so that we were almost kissing. From up close, he looked even more handsome than ever, the soft fall of his hair softening the sharp angles of his face. If I hadn’t been terrified for my life, I would’ve probably confirmed his earlier words and gotten horny over it.

  Luckily for me, we were still in public and under the supervision of a staff member. The cyclops finally chose to intervene. His club landed right next to us, the blow so powerful it made me jump and trip. I ended up leaning against Stefan’s well-muscled chest, which was awkward and embarrassing as hell. “Perhaps you should step away for a moment, Mr. Schwarz,” the cyclops said. “I don’t want any unfortunate incidents in my class.”

  Stefan made no attempt to pull away. Instead, he held me closer. With our bodies practically entwined, I could feel his erection nudging my hip. I shouldn’t have found it as arousing as I did.

  “Ms. Michaelis and I were just having a conversation, Polyphemus,” he said to the cyclops, without actually looking away from me. “I assure you I had no intention of attacking her.”

  “I doubt that very much,” the cyclops replied. “Now release her and go for a run around the academy. You need to clear your head.”

  Stefan let out a low growl, but complied. He let me go and took a step back, his stance as rigid as the cyclops’s club. “Yes, Polyphemus,” he offered between gritted teeth. “That would probably be a good idea. Thank you.”