The Haunted High Series Boxed Set

by Cheree Alsop

  “Where’s Briggs?” Vicken asked. “Is Chutka still out there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said in answer to both questions. “I think—”

  I stopped speaking at the sight of a light in the darkness. It was faint and blue, barely bright enough to penetrate the depths.

  “What is that?” Vicken whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “I’ll go check it out.”

  I stepped away from him with the intention of leaving him there in case the light signified more danger, but Vicken grabbed my shoulder.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Step by careful step, we cleared the rubble of the bricks and made our way toward the faint blue light. When we drew closer, I watched the blue separate into three lines. After a few more steps, my werewolf eyesight made out scrolled letters.

  Trace Nathaniel Briggs.

  “No,” I said before I realized I had even spoken.

  “What is it?” Vicken asked.

  One more step was all it took to change my fears into reality.

  Alden knelt next to a motionless form. His head was bowed and tears showed on his cheeks. The name that glowed on his arm lit up Professor Briggs’ pale face. His eyes were closed and his eyebrows were pulled together as though he was in intense pain. The scar down his cheek appeared harsh in the faint light.

  I lowered slowly to the ground on Briggs’ other side. Vicken used my shoulder to help ease himself down next to me.

  Briggs’ labored breathing came harshly to my ears. I couldn’t see his legs or arms in the darkness, but I knew by the charred smell that the demon fire had taken a lethal toll.

  “Is he…,” Vicken began.

  Alden shook his head. “Not yet,” the Grim said quietly. He wiped his eyes and looked at me. “But your uncle….”

  Pain overwhelmed my heart. I couldn’t stop the tears that overflowed my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. “Did he…did he suffer?” I asked past the knot that had tightened in my throat.

  “Not in the end,” Alden replied. “I stopped it.” He sniffed, then said, “Your mother was waiting for him. She said she was proud of him. He couldn’t stop smiling.”

  I nodded and lowered my gaze to the professor. Hundreds of moments we had shared together in my short time at Haunted High flooded my mind. His hatred, his indifference, his kindness, and eventually, his friendship had shaped my ability to cope with being a werewolf. The thought of losing him was nearly unbearable. Yet, after all he had gone through, he deserved to be free.

  Professor Briggs’ eyes opened. He looked past us to a place in the darkness.

  “Zanie?”

  His voice was a croak of both pain and wonder. A smile touched his lips. The tears that trailed down his scarred cheek fell to the ground with little, muffled patters.

  “She’s here,” Alden said, following the professor’s gaze.

  I looked into the darkness with the hope of seeing the ghost who had helped us, but there was nothing. I lifted a trembling hand to my face and wiped my tears.

  “P-please take care of him, Mezania,” I said in a voice that refused to be steady.

  Vicken’s hand tightened on my shoulder and I heard the vampire choke back a sob. “Yes,” he said. “Take care of him.”

  Professor Briggs’ gaze sharpened and for a brief moment, his eyes shifted from the darkness to us.

  “My boys,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  He held out a burned hand. Vicken and I both took it.

  “We’re here,” I told him.

  He gave us a warm smile. “You did good.”

  I sniffed. “But we couldn’t save you.”

  A single tear followed the others down his cheek. “I made my choice.”

  I took a shuddering breath. “But what will we do without you?”

  The professor’s brow furrowed. “Create more trouble, I suppose.” He chuckled and then winced at the pain. His eyes closed.

  I tightened my grip on his hand and closed my eyes against more tears. I wished I could share his pain the way Dara was able to. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the Academy without the professor. It would feel empty and strange without his presence.

  “Finn?”

  I opened my eyes and met the professor’s gaze once more. He gave me a knowing smile. “You don’t stink.” His eyes shifted to Vicken. “Neither of you do. You’re good boys. Live….” His voice caught and he winced before he concluded, “Live good lives.”

  “We will,” Vicken said, his voice broken.

  “We will,” I echoed.

  Professor Briggs’ gaze clouded. He looked past me to the darkness again. “I’m coming, Zanie,” he whispered. “I’m finally coming home.”

  He sighed. The breath that rattled in his throat left to never return. The professor’s head lolled gently on the floor. Alden put a hand on his forehead and closed his eyes. As we watched, the pair brightened with a brilliant blue glow, and then Alden disappeared, leaving us in darkness once more.

  It took Vicken and I several minutes to collect ourselves. We leaned against each other there on the stone floor with the professor’s broken body until scratching sounds in the darkness brought us to the present.

  “We need to go,” Vicken said.

  “How do we know which way?” I asked.

  As if in answer, another light appeared. This one was purple-hued and further away, but it moved back and forth as if searching for something.

  A slight, pained smile touched my mouth when I recognized what it was.

  “Sparrow,” I called thickly.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The light turned and sped straight toward us. As soon as Sparrow reached me, she darted around me from top to bottom as though searching for injury. On finding only minor wounds, the dragon landed on my shoulder and pushed her head gently against my face.

  “I’m glad to see you, too,” I forced out past my tight throat. “Do you know where the gate is?”

  The dragon leaped from my shoulder and flew in front of me. I knelt to gather the professor’s body in my arms. With Vicken leaning against my shoulder for support, I made my way carefully after Sparrow. She flew on ahead and then retreated back to us, covering the distance at least a dozen times before we were ready to move on. Our progress was slow in the darkness, but with the dragon’s light, at least it was a bit easier. The scratching sound in the distance stayed at bay, but my instincts warned that if we didn’t get out of there soon, we would be prey to whatever watched us from the deep shadows.

  More lights heralded the dragons waiting near Dara’s unconscious form. They had carried her to a haze and waited around her body in a protective circle. As we drew closer, the haze behind them solidified to form an iridescent wall. A jagged line down the middle showed where the crack had been, but it was sealed tight. Brack’s warning that they wouldn’t be able to open it again surfaced in my mind.

  I laid the professor’s body carefully on the floor and then knelt by Dara. The dragons parted to let me close to her. Their small forms crowded anxiously around me.

  “Thank you,” I told them.

  I touched Dara’s cheek gently. She didn’t respond.

  “Is she alright?” Vicken asked.

  I glanced back at where the vampire leaned against the haze wall. With the light of the other dragons, I could see the blood that streaked the side of his face and the dull sheen to his eyes. He looked as though he was barely standing.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “She’s unconscious. I don’t know what Chutka did to her.”

  “Maybe bringing her to this place was enough,” Vicken said with a meaningful look around. “It feels…wrong. Maybe as an empath, she can’t handle it.”

  I nodded. The same creepy-crawling feeling had been pressing against me. I felt as though I wanted to run away or curl into a ball and stay there forever to hide from this strange, dark place. We didn’t belong, that much was certain.

  “The sooner
we get out of here, the better,” I replied. “But how?”

  I studied the crack. There was no sign of a break. I ran my fingers down it to the bottom, and then paused.

  “What’s this?”

  Vicken leaned closer. “Are those claw marks?”

  I traced a set of four claws away from the crack. A tiny bit of light showed through.

  “Yes, demon claws. But where are the demons?” I asked.

  Sparrow gave a tiny huff from her seat on my shoulder. Her small blue flame puffed away from her into the darkness. Before it dissipated, it revealed a single form on the floor. The lump didn’t move. I took a step closer.

  “Is that a demon?” Vicken asked.

  Sparrow huffed again. This time, the other dragons blew tiny flames as well. A multitude of colors spouted out from our circle to light the area beyond.

  “Demons,” I said. “Hundreds of them.”

  “Thousands,” Vicken corrected.

  The flames did indeed reveal demons, but they were motionless and lying in huge, unmoving piles. It appeared as though they had fought to reach the crack before Chutka died. His final breath had become theirs as well. It was everything I had hoped for, except—

  “They almost made it,” Vicken said. “They could have.”

  The realization that the demons could have made it back through the crack before they died was a terrifying one. If the flame had taken one moment longer to devour Chutka, or if our team had been unable to keep the crack shut past their struggles, we would have failed and they would have swarmed the world.

  “But without the demons, we’re stuck here,” Vicken said. He met my gaze with defeat on his face. “We killed Chutka, and by doing so, we killed ourselves.”

  He slid to a seated position against the haze. The weary acceptance of his expression ate at me.

  “Vicken,” I began.

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t you see? This is how it was supposed to end.” He opened a pale hand to indicate the demons. “We started out to defeat them, and we did it.”

  “But we’re supposed to survive,” I replied.

  He let out a flat, humorless laugh, and then winced. After a moment of silence, he said, “Good vanquishes evil. The hero destroys the bad guy.” He looked up at me. “You ran headlong into this one, and came out on top.” The light faded from his gaze when he said, “It’s not your fault that on top also meant being locked away in some dark, demon reality until we’re killed by whatever else is out there.”

  His words sent a shiver down my spine. “You heard them, too?”

  He nodded. “It doesn’t take a werewolf’s ears to know that there’s a whole lot more evil here than just Chutka.” A slight smile touched his lips. “At least Brack is good at keeping things closed.”

  I looked from Dara’s unconscious form back to the vampire. The thought that my friends would die because of me made my heart ache. I walked around the circle of light from the dragons until doing so made me dizzy, then I walked in the other direction. I searched for anything that would get us out of there. The problem was that I didn’t know any spells or chants, and I didn’t have the skills of a warlock to use them even if I knew them. There wasn’t any form of weapon I could wield against the wall. Even the dragons wearied of my pacing and eventually settled in around Vicken. The vampire went so far as to run a finger down the back of an orange and green one.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” he told them. “You were brave. You don’t deserve to die down here.”

  The thought of Sparrow being taken by whatever waited in the darkness made me mad. I grabbed one of the demon’s bodies and carried it back to the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Vicken asked with mild interest.

  I shoved one of the demon’s claws against the crack.

  “Anything I can,” I replied. “I’m not giving up.”

  The crack didn’t show any sign of breaking down beneath my efforts. Whatever power the demon’s claws had once had on the gate had apparently vanished with its death. But I tried until I was too weary to hold up the creature any longer. Defeated, I dropped it at my feet and slumped to a seated position beside Vicken. My foot touched the dead demon’s body, but I no longer had the strength to care.

  “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to end,” I said with my head in my hands. “You aren’t supposed to follow me to your death.”

  Vicken surprised me by patting my shoulder. “I told myself that not following you would probably keep me alive.”

  I gave him a dry look. “You should have followed that plan.”

  He shook his head. “And be locked up there never knowing what happened? We defeated Chutka the Shambler and we protected our world from the demons.” He smiled. “We did exactly what we set out to do.”

  “We didn’t set out to die,” I pointed out.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Like I said, you need to work on your plans.” His gaze shifted to the dead demon at my feet. “If the demons could have gotten through in time, they would have. We’re lucky your werewolf blood is so susceptible to burning.”

  That brought a wry laugh from me. I sat back against the wall and lifted my hand to view the barely discernable burn on my palm. “Yeah, lucky.”

  Vicken’s answering chuckle faded away to silence. I had just about closed my eyes when he sat up. I looked at him to find his gaze on the demon once more.

  “If they could have gotten through, they would have,” he repeated.

  “You already said that,” I pointed out.

  He lifted a hand to silence me. “I have a plan.”

  “Why do I think I’m not going to like it?” I replied warily.

  Vicken didn’t look at me. “You’ve done enough stupid things. My turn.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Vicken pulled the demon toward him. “Don’t try to stop me.”

  “Stop you from doing what?” I asked, alarmed.

  Vicken lowered his head to the demon’s throat. “This,” he said before he sunk his teeth into the creature’s jugular.

  “Vicken, stop!” I protested.

  I grabbed the demon and tried to pull it away, but the vampire held the body in his vicelike grip as he took several deep gulps of the creature’s blood.

  When he finally lifted his head, blood streaked his chin. “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  “What?” I asked with concern.

  “Demon blood is nasty,” he replied. He gave a choking sound and the demon body fell from his hands.

  “Vick!” I grabbed his arm.

  Vicken pushed me away. He fell to his knees in the middle of the circle of light from the dragons and bent over, gagging.

  “Not…pleasant…,” he gasped out.

  I took a step toward him, but he held out a hand. I stopped at the look on his face.

  “Demons can open the gate,” he said, his breath coming quickly. “So I become the demon and open it.”

  I shook my head. “That’s madness.”

  He gave me a wild, crazy look. “So is letting you die here.”

  I stared at him. “You came here because of me! I’m the reason we’re going to die!”

  He clenched his teeth. “Not if I can help it.”

  He doubled over and grabbed his stomach. A cry of pain tore from him. I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but he jerked back. A wail escaped him that turned into a yowl so similar to the demons’ that fear sent tingles along my arms. I couldn’t defeat Vicken at full strength. What if he couldn’t control the demon and turned on us?

  I backed away to place myself between Vicken, Dara, and the dragons. Sparrow hissed a warning from my shoulder.

  At the sound, Vicken straightened with his back to us. Spikes poked through his shirt. His knees lengthened and became jointed strangely, and when he rose to full height, he was taller than he had been. I could see an extra joint at his elbows that popped when he opened them. I sucked in a breath.

  Vicken turned.
My heart slowed. His eyes were larger than they had been and they were black and filled with green flames. His cheeks were sunken and hollow. His mouth opened and when he panted, I saw rows of pointed needle-like teeth where his fangs had been. He sucked in rapid breaths and wove his head from side to side like a snake. With his hair out of its band and hanging to his shoulders, his black tee-shirt tattered, and limbs double jointed, he looked like something out of my darkest nightmare. I had to tell myself that he was my friend. I wouldn’t fear him.

  “V-Vicken?” I said.

  He took a step toward me. Claws had forced their way through the toes of his favorite black leather shoes. The sound of them scratching on the ground with the step made my muscles tighten. I lifted my hands in an unconscious effort to keep him from Dara.

  Vicken stopped. He looked from me to Dara’s still form without blinking. It unsettled me to see the predatory cast to his gaze. Never in my time in the demon realm had I thought that maybe the creature to fear in the darkness was the friend I had come to trust.

  That thought solidified when Vicken took a step forward and then another. I backed up to stand in front of Dara. The dragons hid behind me. I could hear their little breaths of fear. They had been so brave. They didn’t deserve to die in this evil realm.

  “He won’t hurt us,” I told them. “Trust him. It’s going to be alright.”

  Vicken didn’t appear to hear me. The dragons backed away at his approach. They covered Dara with their wings and puffed little clouds of flame, but Vicken ignored them as well. He advanced with slow, scratching steps.

  “Vicken, stop,” I commanded when he was less than two feet from us.

  He could have reached out a clawed hand and torn my heart from my chest. I wasn’t sure if I would have fought him.

  Vicken merely looked at me, his gaze demonic and at the same time so familiar I told myself over and over that he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  Vicken turned away with slow movements as though he was fighting inside of himself. I let out the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. Vicken lifted a clawed hand to the crack in the wall. He put a single claw to it and brought it down slowly like a child scraping frost from a window. The mist peeled away to let in a tiny sliver of light. Vicken lifted his hand again and scratched downward. More lights appeared. Relief flooded me. I knelt next to Dara and the dragons.