The Haunted High Series Boxed Set

by Cheree Alsop

  They walked up the steps without bothering to be gentle. Keeping my eyes open just a crack, I watched the doors pass by followed by the sweeping ceiling of the entrance corridor. I heard the bang as the plates in front of the doors slid shut once more. It sounded as though it sealed my doom.

  My instincts beckoned for me to fight before I was thrown into one of the barred cages and it became too late. But I bided my time and forced myself to concentrate on my toes. It was a strange exercise, something I had never done before, and with the adrenaline pounding beneath my skin and my limbs still held in paralysis, it felt like a vain task. But I didn’t give up. With each step the guards took, I found that my toes responded a little bit more. As soon as I could move them completely, I shifted my focus to my fingers. I kept my lidded gaze on the ceiling. I didn’t have enough time. I had to make it count.

  We were almost to the escalator, I was sure of it. One more step, just one more. Their footfalls hit the tiled floor like the tromp of a herd of elephants. As soon as the last one fell, I channeled my strength and pushed off.

  Surprised, the guards let me drop. The instant my feet touched the floor, I took off running toward the caged rooms on the far side of the escalator. My legs responded sluggishly and I ended up in a half-skip run; it wasn’t pretty, but it would have to do.

  “Stop him!” someone shouted.

  I watched Vicken turn from his seat on his bed and saw his eyes widen when he spotted me with what was probably the entire horde of guards chasing me down. I lowered my shoulder, pushed forward even faster, and felt at least six bullets hit my back and legs at the same time.

  Fortunately, their impact actually helped the momentum of my haphazard run. As the paralysis took over, I slammed into the bars hard enough that it threatened to jar my teeth from my skull. I slumped to the ground with Vicken’s face hovering above me.

  “Finn, why did you come back?” he demanded, his voice tight with worry.

  With my jaw locked, I couldn’t have said anything. But one glance as the hands of the guards hauled me back showed that I had done what I intended. Vicken followed my gaze to where the bars met the floor. The force of my impact had broken several of them free. Vicken’s eyes widened and he hurried quickly to the other end of the cage to take the guards’ attention away.

  “He tried to kill me!” he shouted. “Get that feral werewolf away from me! He’s dangerous!”

  I wanted to roll my eyes at his theatrics, but at that moment, my heart was wondering if receiving so many bullets had been a good idea.

  A loud humming sound filled my ears along with the slower-than-usual thumping of my heart.

  “How many of you shot him?” Madam Opal demanded in a shrill voice.

  She could have stood above me or been in the next room for all my senses said. Everything spun, and with my eyes closed, I had no way to make it stop.

  “Take him to Sir Harbrand!” she ordered. “Tell him I want this werewolf fit for display by this afternoon.”

  “Yes, Madam Opal,” a man replied.

  Hands grabbed me and the present faded to a fuzzy blur. Footsteps ran together, doors beeped, rooms echoed, and the rushing sound continued. I lost track of how long I wandered in my mind. It was nice and relaxing; no need drove me and no thought stayed solid for longer than a second. I enjoyed it until something struck my chest so hard I fought for breath.

  “That’s it,” a familiar voice said. “Breathe or die. That’s the way of things. Normally I’m fine if you choose either option, but Madam Opal was very clear about what would happen if I let you die on my table.”

  My body felt hot and cold at the same time. Tremors ran over my skin while my heart beat angrily in my chest. I was relieved when my eyes opened at my command. I squinted.

  “Sorry. It’s a bit bright.” The lights dimmed and I found myself looking up at Sir Harbrand. “I’d say no hard feelings, but that would be a lie.” He glared at me. “You caused mass hysteria with my students. They’ll always fear werewolves now.”

  “Good,” I said between gritted teeth.

  A light of humor shone in Sir Harbrand’s eyes. “So the werewolf has a bit of fire, does he? Maybe Madam Opal was right. It’s better that animals stay animals.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. I tried to lift my hand, but it didn’t move. I glanced down and saw that my limbs were attached to the table. Sir Harbrand hadn’t used the leather straps that contained Donessa Ruvine, either; this time, he had wrapped full chains along each arm and leg. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Sir Harbrand gave a small smile. “A bit much, don’t you think? So did I before they showed me the damage you did when you broke the other monsters out of here. Now, I’m not leaving anything to chance.” His smile turned sickly. “Not if I want to keep my head. There’s a few waiting to be cremated down stairs thanks to your last endeavors and I’ll be trying my hardest not to join them, thank you very much.”

  The man looked a bit more frazzled than the last time I had seen him. His black hair wasn’t quite as slicked back and strands had worked free to tangle in front of his red bandana. Sir Harbrand’s mustache was no longer curled at the ends, and his short-trimmed beard contained pieces of something I couldn’t identify.

  He nodded toward the other end of the room. “Edgart, bring the stone.”

  I strained my eyes to follow Sir Harbrand’s assistant. The young man skirted around the table as far as he could go before he reached Sir Harbrand. By the way he refused to meet my gaze, I knew I had indeed left an impression. I allowed a grim smile to touch my lips.

  “Smiling, are we?” Sir Harbrand said. “Better enjoy it. It’ll be the last smile you have for a long time.” He winked at his assistant. “It’s a bit hard to smile as a wolf.”

  Edgart gave a nervous chuckle.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Sir Harbrand indicated the tray Edgart held. “What do you know about moonstones, my boy?”

  The word brought back something Lark had said when we first took her to the Academy. “I knew of a Remus,” she had said. “He was also a werewolf, but they used a moonstone to keep him in wolf form to see if staying an animal would eventually make him think like one. It was pretty cruel if you ask me. I could tell he missed being in his human form.”

  A whisper of panic started at the back of my mind. “Don’t bring that near me,” I said. I strained against the chains.

  “What? Afraid of your animal side?” Sir Harbrand asked with a hint of glee in his tone.

  I held his gaze. “You should be afraid of my animal side,” I growled.

  The man merely shook his head. “Unfortunately for you, Madam Opal is the one who commanded me to implant you with the moonstone. Her angry side has far more bite than I suspect yours does.”

  I didn’t know how I would ever have a chance to rescue Amelia or Vicken if I was trapped in wolf form. I struggled against the chains, but Sir Harbrand hadn’t taken any chances.

  “Let me go!” I yelled.

  “Sorry,” Sir Harbrand replied without the least bit of apology in his tone. “This is going to hurt a bit.”

  He held out a hand to Edgart. The young man placed a scalpel on his palm.

  Sweat broke out across my skin when Sir Harbrand put a gloved hand on my bare chest. He touched the scalpel to a spot just below my right collarbone and pressed down. A yell tore from my lips when he cut deeper, opening the wound wide.

  “The moonstone,” he said.

  Edgart set a small brown rock in Sir Harbrand’s hand. The man met my gaze. “Needless to say, while we call this a moonstone, it is actually a piece of a meteorite from the moon.” He held it up. “It’s hard to believe that this little rock used to be up in space.”

  “What brought it here?” Edgart asked.

  Sir Harbrand glanced at him. “It was ejected from the moon by the impact of an asteroidal meteoroid or maybe a comet. It rarely happens, so when they land here on earth, they’re worth
a pretty penny.” He winked at me. “Madam Opal has quite the corner on the black market for such things.”

  The feeling of my warm blood flowing down my shoulder wasn’t a pleasant one. I struggled against the chains again, but it was no use. Even being this close to the moonstone made my muscles ache with the need to phase.

  “This’ll take just a minute,” Sir Harbrand said. “Have patience.”

  The moment the moonstone touched my skin, I couldn’t fight the phase.

  “He’s changing!” Edgart said with fear in his voice.

  “Grab the muzzle,” Sir Harbrand instructed as he worked quickly at my shoulder. I felt the bite of the staples he used to close the wound even as my shoulders rolled and form changed.

  “Get ready,” Sir Harbrand commanded.

  “I’m ready,” Edgart replied, his voice shaky.

  My arms slid free of the chains as they phased into the more slender limbs of a wolf. As soon as my legs had changed as well, I spun and lunged off the table. Unfortunately, Sir Harbrand was ready. An electric bullet impacted my side and I fell heavily to the floor.

  Edgart slipped the muzzle over my face before I could regain the strength to attack. By the time I had any control over my body, both Sir Harbrand and Edgart were standing over me admiring their work.

  “How long will that keep him a wolf?” Edgart asked.

  “As long as it’s in his body,” Sir Harbrand replied with a satisfied expression.

  I lifted my lips in a weak snarl. Neither of them appeared the least bit afraid of my paralyzed ferocity.

  “Let’s get him to a cage before he comes around completely.” Sir Harbrand said.

  To my dismay, the two of them sunk their hands into my fur and dragged me toward the door.

  “He’s heavy!” Edgart protested.

  “His mass doesn’t change from man to wolf, it merely shifts form, so he weighs as much as a wolf.” He grimaced as he dragged me to a cart. “But it does make for a massive animal.”

  I lay there helplessly as they drove out of the infirmary and around the escalators to the far end of the training grounds. To my chagrin, Sir Harbrand then pressed the button on an elevator hidden behind a fake building in the corner. That would have made our escape earlier much easier.

  When the elevator beeped and the door opened, Sir Harbrand drove us along the second floor to a display cage near the Maes’ meeting room. I wondered where the feathered woman I had seen in there before had gone, but I couldn’t ask.

  Edgart unlocked the door and I was pulled unceremoniously inside. He unbuckled the muzzle and backed quickly away, slamming the door behind him even though I couldn’t move.

  “Double check that lock,” Sir Harbrand commanded. “Madam Opal will have our heads if he escapes, and I mean that literally.”

  Edgart checked the door one more time, then backed away. “He is secure, Sir.”

  Sir Harbrand nodded. I wished I could turn away from his interested gaze, but the electric bullet still had me in its paralyzing hold.

  “Good, good,” he said. He rubbed his hands together like a child about to receive a much-anticipated gift. “Let the training begin.”

  He drove away and left me to ponder what that meant. But thinking was hard. With the moonstone below my collarbone, the effects were hard to ignore. My thoughts became disjointed, need-driven, pack-oriented, and filled with sounds, smells, and images instead of words. I thought of the girl sitting in the SUV waiting for me. Panic gripped my mind at the realization that I couldn’t remember her name. Instead, her smell, the way her footsteps sounded, and the rising of my heart whenever she was near surfaced at the thought of her. My human side was already slipping away.

  As soon as I could move, I pushed to my feet. My head hung low, heavy with exhaustion from the paralysis. But my need to find my baby sister pressed against me. I had never seen her or smelled her, yet the whisper of pack and the need to protect her drove me to check every edge of the cage. My strength slowly returned as I paced, but I couldn’t find a weakness in either the bars or the walls. This enclosure no longer even contained a bed. The walls were bare and the floor covered by only a threadbare carpet. When I scratched at it, I found cement beneath.

  The need to escape kept me pacing throughout the day. Members of the Society pointed as they walked by, and I could hear them speaking of the wolf behind the bars, but after only a few hours, their words no longer made sense. Panic pressed against me and made me pace again, but I didn’t know if I was running toward something or away. Only the thought that two members of my pack were in trouble kept me centered.

  I remembered Vicken. Though his name was elusive, thoughts of the pale-skinned, fanged vampire surfaced over and over again in my mind. I hung onto the memory of him behind the bars, calling to me when we drove away. Much of the memory didn’t make sense any longer, but the look in his eyes stayed with me. There was pleading and despair in them, yes, but also trust. He trusted that I would come back for him. He was part of my pack, and he needed my help. The heart of a wolf was loyal above all else.

  Toward the end of the day, the door to the meeting room opened again and my teeth bared of their own accord.

  A woman with white hair pulled back in a bun advanced to the cage. As she walked toward me, an expression of adoration warred with contempt on her face. She said something to the man next to her, and though the words didn’t mean anything to me, their tone made my ears lay back against my skull. When they stopped a few feet from the cage, my silent snarl rose to a deafening growl.

  “…manners…,” my brain understood out of the string of words she said.

  At the woman’s gesture, the man pulled a stick out of his belt. He pressed a button and blue light sparked between the prongs at the end. I snarled at them and made the mistake of sticking my muzzle out between the bars. The man touched the stick to it. The ensuing shock sent me back with a yelp. I growled louder and launched myself at the bars in an effort to reach him and tear him apart. He shocked me again and again. Each time I fell back, I jumped at the bars again. I wouldn’t show them any cowardice or weakness. They might have caged my body, but my mind wasn’t weak and my heart refused to give up.

  The woman laughed and goaded him into shocking me over and over. While the voice in the back of my mind reasoned that I should hang back and reserve my strength, the wolf side of me was mindless with fury at being trapped and tormented. With the hold of the moon streaming through the windows overhead and the control of the moonstone in my shoulder, my wolf side took precedence. I didn’t care how often I hit the bars hard enough to jar my mind; I ignored the way the sparks from the stick made answering flashes appear behind my eyes. I would fight him as long as he stood there. I would prove to her that I was a danger. I would fight until I no longer had the strength to do so.

  Eventually, I collapsed against the bars. The man stuck me again with the stick, but though it hurt, I no longer had the strength to move. A weak yelp escaped me at the second-to-last prod, then I had nothing left. At the woman’s word, the man stopped. She said something else and they both turned to walk away. I listened to their footsteps disappear, then allowed my mind to go black.

  When I opened my eyes, the woman was back. The windows on the roof showed that a new day had dawned. I felt anxious about that, but couldn’t say why. Next to the woman stood a small girl. She held something in her hand. I willed my eyes to focus on it as I stood. It was a weapon. Pain would come from it, that much was sure. It seemed the appearance of the woman was destined to cause pain. I hated her even though I couldn’t put into words why.

  With the sunlight overhead instead of the moon, I was better able to contain my instincts. I didn’t attack the bars, I merely sat behind them and watched the pair with the knowledge that I couldn’t escape what was coming. Or could I? A thought struck me, an impulse hinted at through desperation. Wolves didn’t do well behind bars. The wolf side of me was ready to give whatever rational thoughts I could muster a chan
ce in the name of survival. It was worth a shot.

  Given the weapon in her hand, the young girl was my biggest threat. I wanted to direct my anger toward the woman with the white hair, but something told me she gave the orders for others to act upon. If I could stop the action, maybe I could slow her torture for a bit.

  I found a memory that I felt would work and focused on the girl. I could hear Professor Mellon’s voice in my mind. Some of the words made sense. I forced my mind to focus on them and put them together.

  “Let down your walls. Pull inward like you’re taking a breath through your fingertips.”

  I did the opposite. Instead of pulling in, I pushed toward the little girl using my muzzle instead of my fingertips as a focal point. I wasn’t sure it would work given my form and the distance between us, but then the girl’s gaze widened. I shut my eyes and let the memory flow.

  At four years old, I sat on my mother’s bed. Drake, only three at the time, played with blocks on the floor. Something was wrong with my mom. Dad had said she was sick and that we should give her space, but she didn’t want space. She wanted us there with her for as long as we possibly could be. I played with my action figures near her pillow. She smiled as I reenacted a ferocious battle. The fighting was intense; plastic swords clashed and I made the most of the sounds my dad had taught me when we played together.

  “Mine.”

  Drake grabbed one of the toy soldiers.

  “No, mine,” I replied, taking it back.

  Drake started to cry. I stared from him to Mom. Dad had said that if we did anything to upset her, we had to leave the room.

  “I’m sorry, Drakey,” I quickly apologized. I handed him back the toy. “You can have it.”

  “No!” Drake replied. He threw the soldier against the wall and cried even harder.

  I looked back at Mom. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it better.”

  I slipped off the bed and knelt in front of Drake.

  “Please calm down. I’m sorry. You can play with my toys anytime, I promise. Just stop crying,” I pleaded.