The Haunted High Series Boxed Set

by Cheree Alsop

  “Cold,” came the soft syllables.

  I grabbed a ragged blanket from the mattress on the floor that made up her bed and carried it to her. As gently as I could, I spread it over her shaking form.

  Sparrow flew to me and curled around my wrist. It felt right to have her there again. I ran a finger down her back and smiled at the sigh of contentment that came from the dragon.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I looked up to see Ren watching me. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill over.

  “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be alright,” I reassured her quietly.

  “I attacked Alden,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I stopped you. He’s fine. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

  She closed her eyes and the tears trailed down her cheeks. “But I wanted to.”

  I took a seat on the box next to her and brushed her hair back from her face. “No, you didn’t. Whatever is controlling you wanted to, but you fought back.”

  “Only because you chased me. I would have hurt them if you hadn’t been there.”

  The pain in her voice at what she almost did gripped my heart in a fist. I had almost killed her and there hadn’t been any other voices telling me to do so. Only Vicken’s reasoning had stopped me. Guilt at nearly succumbing to my instincts made me all the more determined to help her.

  “We’ll find a way to stop the voices,” I told Ren.

  “I hope so,” she replied without opening her eyes. “Because they’re getting stronger. Soon, I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to stop them.”

  She fell quiet as I smoothed her hair gently with my fingers. I don’t know why I did it, but it seemed to help calm her down. As I brushed the last of the auburn locks from her face, her breathing slowed into a steady rhythm. I pulled my hand back and studied her peaceful expression. There was beauty in the gentle curve of her cheek and the way her brow smoothed when she slept. Little scars marked the edge of her hairline and along her left cheekbone. Before I could stop myself, I touched her cheek gently with my fingers.

  A memory surged through me. Stronger than the fox or the two-headed cat, Ren’s memory made my arm tingle as it forced its way up my arm and into my mind. I gasped at the power of it as it took over my thoughts.

  “Act like a runaway dog and you’ll be treated like one,” a stern voice said. Ren’s mind brought up the name Dr. Fagrin. “Make her regret leaving us, Mr. Scarnaugh. Let her know what will happen if she does it again.”

  My mouth opened. “I’m so sorry,” I heard the words come out in Ren’s voice. “I won’t do it again.”

  “Too late,” a gruff male voice replied.

  I opened my eyes in time to see a fist connect with my face. Stars danced in my vision as pain lanced through my cheekbone. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood on the fist before it hit me again. After two more blows, darkness flooded my mind and I sighed at the release from pain.

  The memory refused to let go. Awareness dawned in the unfamiliarity of Ren’s mind. I felt her pull on her arms only to find them bound. Stark fear flooded through her. She opened her eyes. I saw a white-walled room. Scents of sterile equipment, bleach, and a bagel touched her nose along with the underlying smells of pain and fear that let her know exactly where she was.

  “Not again,” Ren mumbled.

  “Yes, again,” the man’s voice replied. “This is for the good of us all. Remember, Lark? You are the key, sweet thing. You are the one who will help us learn what we need to know. Mythics are a disease, a scourge that we need to wipe out before it destroys us. Our world has no idea the danger we are in. History has taught us that the strong survive while the weak are destroyed. Mythics may have advantages over the human race with their use of affinities, vampire strength, werewolfism, or magic, but we are smarter and we’ll learn how to fight back before they overcome us.” His voice lowered. “I refuse to let the human race succumb to the likes of these paranormal terrors. Nightmares have no place in this world. We will find a way to stop them, and you are our key.”

  “I don’t want to be the key.” Warm tears fell down the sides of Ren’s face. She couldn’t turn her head. A strap across her forehead held her so that if she opened her eyes, she stared into the round light that shone brightly above her.

  A head blocked out the light for a moment. “Don’t cry, Lark, dear. Your mother might not be here anymore, but we have a gift for you, something I know she would want you to have.” A smile crossed the face of the bald man who looked down at Ren. “Your mother would be happy to know that you have her heart.”

  “No!” Ren shrieked. “No! No! No!” She fought against her restraints. The band on the right wrist snapped.

  “Mr. Scarnaugh, Mr. Rowe, hold her down,” the man said.

  Something slid into Ren’s arm. She struggled, but couldn’t fight the heaviness that flowed through her limbs. A sound beat close to her ear. As her eyes closed again, the familiarity of her mother’s heartbeat lulled her to sleep.

  I opened my eyes and found Ren watching me.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, her quiet voice laced with threat.

  Sparrow flew away from the girl and landed on my shoulder. The dragon’s breaths huffed in her throat. I realized it was her way of warning Ren not to mess with me. I dropped my hand and stood up from the box I had been sitting on.

  Ren sat up slowly, her eyes never leaving me. “What are you doing here, Finn? You think you’re helping? You think you can actually stop them?” Her eyes sparked with anger. “I showed you that memory on purpose. You can’t stop them. They’re too powerful. They’ll make you just as helpless as I was and use your abilities to learn how to destroy those you care about. Is that what you want?”

  Speechless, I shook my head.

  “That’s what they did with me,” she continued, her voice level. “They found out how to beat witches from experimenting on me, then they used what they had learned to kill my mother and every other witch they found. They’re working on vampires and werewolves next, which is why they gave me my arms and legs.” Disgust twisted her face. “Do you know what it’s like not to be yourself any longer?”

  I found my voice. “You are yourself, Ren.”

  She laughed, a cruel, self-deprecating sound. “Ren? Really? I am myself, a girl named Ren?” She shook her head. “I don’t even remember who I am.”

  I thought back to the memory. “Lark. You’re Lark.”

  At the name, she pushed up to a standing position. She held the blanket to her chest as if for protection. “Where did you hear that?” she whispered.

  I knew that telling her the man who had hurt her said it would be the wrong thing. I hoped she would believe a lie. “I heard your mother say it in one of your memories. Lark is your real name, not Ren or Render. I won’t call you those anymore.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a mother.” But the truth of her words showed on her face instead. Her hard expression fell into one of deep sorrow. “I miss her.”

  “I miss my mother, too,” I told her.

  Her gaze held mine with desperation. “Did you lose your mom?”

  I nodded. “She got sick when I was little. I was four when she died. It was really hard on me.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes. A string hung from the hem of her tattered shirt. She toyed with it, wrapping it around her finger until her fingertip turned purple, and then unwrapping it. I was lost in thoughts of my own mother until her voice broke the silence.

  “She used to make fairies out of light and I would chase them.” A sad smile crossed her face. “She told me that fairies were real and that if I was really good, I would see one someday. But I've learned since that she was just a kind mother making up something magical for her daughter to hold onto.”

  “Fairies are real, Lark,” I told her.

  “You’re lying,” she replied.

  At her look of disbelief, I smiled. “We have dragons, remember?” I held up my wrist to show her Sparrow. �
��Fairies are just as real as dragons. I've learned how to speak fairy a little bit. They teach us at Haunted High.”

  Her gaze was skeptical when she said, “Tell me something in fairy, then.”

  I thought for a moment until I remembered something my mother had written on the wall of the clubhouse when she was around my age. “‘Sarian twee mericous trenel, la larious tree truss vrenel’,” I recited. I had butchered the pronunciation horribly, but the look on Lark’s face was one of awe. “I only remember it because it rhymes. Lyris says I need to let the s's linger, but I can't quite get it.”

  “What does it mean?” she asked with wide eyes.

  I tried to remember. “It means something like, ‘If you look you fall, if you leap you fly.’”

  “That’s really deep,” she replied. A tentative smile touched her lips and she asked, “Finn, do you think when all of this is over, you could teach me to speak fairy so that if I ever do meet one, I'll know what to say?”

  I nodded. “When this is over, you're coming back to the Academy with me. You'll be speaking fairy better than I do in no time.”

  “You think so?” Lark asked in a soft voice.

  I grinned. “Anyone can speak fairy better than me, trust me.”

  She shook her head and moved her gaze back to the string when she said, “No, I mean do you really think they'll let me come back after what I did to Alden?”

  I could see how much what she had done bothered her. I kept my voice gentle and reassuring when I replied, “You didn't hurt him. I think they'll understand.”

  But doubts pressed against me. If a werewolf came to the Academy who proved to be dangerous would they kick both of us out? Would I risk giving up the only place I had left in order to give her a shot? My conscience immediately said yes, but the doubt lingered in the back of my mind.

  Lark finally looked at me. “Briggs gave me a message to tell you.”

  I stared at her. “He did?”

  She nodded. Red touched her cheeks when she admitted, “I was embarrassed to tell you, but I feel like I owe you after you stopped me from hurting the Grim.”

  Chapter Nine

  Silence filled the room. I wanted to shake her, to scream, to plead, anything to get her to tell me what Briggs has said, but I made myself be patient. It was the longest minute of my life.

  Finally, she said, “Briggs told me to tell you that when he first met me, I didn't stink, but before he helped me escape, I stunk.” Her voice softened and she looked away from me again. “It's embarrassing, but he said you would understand.”

  Her words made my heartbeat slow. Professor Briggs was a warlock. His affinity was that he could smell good from evil. When we first met, I had asked him if I stunk. I was convinced that with what had happened to Sebastian, I must have been the evilest person he had ever met. But Briggs had surprised me by saying that I didn’t stink. I think even he was disappointed because it contradicted his prejudice against werewolves.

  I rose and walked around the perimeter of the room to the bed and then back to her as I thought.

  “You didn’t stink when he first met you?” I repeated aloud.

  Lark nodded. “Yes. I figured it was because I hadn’t had a surgery for a while. They let me shower sometimes if it’s been a while since surgery.” She smiled. “I like showers. The sound of the water makes me happy.”

  I glanced at her. “But you had another surgery after you met Briggs?”

  She pulled down the middle of her shirt to show the scar I had seen that ran down her sternum.

  “This one,” she said. “This is the one I had before Briggsy helped me escape. That’s why I was bleeding when you guys found me.”

  I was shocked to hear that the wound was so new. With her healing ability, the scar looked years old now.

  The tendrils of black that snaked from her heart ran down past the scar as well as up. I wondered how much the angry red flesh that surrounded the marks hurt. Lark didn’t give any sign of the pain.

  “Was it heart surgery?” I asked. “You were younger in the memory I saw of your other heart surgery.” I immediately regretted the words when I remembered that it was her mother’s heart she had gotten.

  Lark didn’t appear to mind. “I begged him not to take her heart out. He promised me he didn’t. Instead, he said he gave me something special to help me find my way.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I saw the lines again on her chest, the dark, angry, snaking marks. I pictured Dr. Fagrin talking to her, reassuring her. “You hear voices in your head?” I said, repeating what she had told me. “Demon voices?”

  “One demon,” she replied.

  My voice was steady when I asked, “Is his name Chutka?”

  Lark watched me as though she couldn’t understand the urgency of my question. She lifted one shoulder. “He doesn’t tell me his name, but he tries to get me to do bad things.”

  “Like attack Alden?” I guessed.

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  My heart raced at the implication of her words. She said Briggs was mad because they took his box and his hand. If she hadn’t smelled evil when he first met her and then stunk after her surgery, was it possible they had put the piece of Chutka’s heart next to her own? The thought made me sick.

  Footsteps sounded on the floor above us.

  “Finn, you down there?”

  “If he’s dead, I’m blaming you,” Dara said.

  I fought back a smile and called up, “I’m not dead.”

  “Is Ren?” Vicken asked.

  I glanced at Lark. “No. She’s fine, and her name is Lark. No more calling her Ren.”

  “Great,” I heard the vampire mutter.

  “We’re coming down,” Alden called.

  Alden slid down followed by Lyris and Dara. The tube shook when Brack made his way to the bottom carrying the book of chants that Professor Briggs had given them. When Vicken reached us, his yellow gaze flickered from me to Lark, and then back.

  I mouthed ‘later’.

  He gave a single nod

  Alden held out my backpack. “I brought your clothes. I figured you’d need shoes,” he said with a glance at my feet. “And a coat. It’s freezing out there.”

  “Thank you,” I told the Grim with a relieved smile. “I was worried about that but didn’t know how to reach you.”

  “I’ve got your back,” Alden said with an answering smile before he turned to Lark and said, “Are you sure you don’t mind us turning your home into a demon holding cell?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t mind. I’ve been the only one using it and it’s plenty big for company.”

  Everyone stared at her.

  Lyris broke the stunned silence to say, “You know you can’t stay here when the demons are locked inside, right?”

  Lark nodded. “Finn told me I can go back to Haunted High with you guys. I want to learn how to speak to fairies, so it’s a win-win for all of us.”

  Everyone’s gaze locked on me. Dara shot me a look that questioned who ‘all of us’ was.

  I gave her what I hoped was a confident smile and turned to survey the room. “Alright, Lyris, Brack, what do you need to start enchanting this place so it will hold?”

  Laughter sounded behind me. I glanced back to see all of my friends grinning.

  “What?” I asked.

  Lyris shook her head, her short black hair sweeping back and forth. “We’re not enchanting anything, Finn. We’re canvasing. Think of it as wallpapering the room in spells so the demons can’t get through.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that like enchanting?”

  “No,” Brack said with another chuckle. His deep voice bounced off the walls. “We’re canvasing.”

  I bit back my pride at being laughed at even though I didn’t know why and said tightly, “Fine. Do whatever you want to call it and let me know when you’re done.”

  The warlock and witch walked along the first wall with Alden close behind. The Grim carried the book as
the other two discussed where to start.

  Dara touched my arm. “Finn, are you alright?”

  I knew telling her I wasn’t stressed was an obvious lie since she could feel how on-edge I was. I looked around for an out.

  “Lark, we’re going to, uh, scout the rest of the building to make sure nobody’s left inside before we bring the demons.”

  “Good idea,” Lark agreed. “Though I’m pretty sure I scared most of them when I ran through the door. I have a feeling Sam isn’t going to let me forget about that.”

  “Who’s Sam?” Dara asked her.

  “A friend,” Lark replied. “He smells like urine but told me he has a bladder problem. He’s okay with me staying here as long as I give him a can of beans once a week.”

  Dara and I exchanged a worried glance.

  “Come on,” I said to Dara and Vicken. “I could use your help and it’ll get us out of the way while they work on the canvasing.”

  Lyris chuckled at my emphasis of the word. I shook my head and crawled into the tube.

  “Witches and warlocks are touchy about words,” I said when Vicken and Dara joined me at the top.

  “I think you’re the one being touchy. They’re just doing their job,” Vicken pointed out.

  I stared at him. “You’re the touchy one. I was worried you’d kill Lark if I let you chase her through the city.”

  Vicken’s hands curled into fists at my tone. “I probably would have because she almost tore Alden apart, or did you forget that already?”

  I stalked over to stand toe-to-toe with the vampire. “I dove through that door to save him. He would be dead right now if it wasn’t for me, or did you forget that?”