The Haunted High Series Boxed Set

by Cheree Alsop

  I rose with the chain in one hand, my muscles tense in case Chutka tried to struggle.

  “What are you doing?” the Demon Prince demanded.

  “Saving my friend,” I replied in a growl. I turned toward the door. “Open up! It’s me!”

  The door immediately opened, flooding the basement in pale light.

  “Finn?” Dara called.

  “It’s alright,” I reassured them. “He’s tied up. But we’ve got to hurry.” I glared down at Chutka in Vicken’s body. “The sooner we get rid of this filth, the better.”

  My team hurried inside. A single laugh escaped Dara at the sight.

  “Vicken would be proud,” she said.

  “Let’s hope he can tell me himself,” I replied.

  It took all of us to carry the Demon Prince in Vicken’s body up the stairs. When we reached the corridor, we stopped at the sight of the professors and students waiting.

  “What are you all doing here?” I asked in surprise.

  “Helping you save him,” Professor Mellon said.

  “He’s one of us,” Espy from Mr. Seedly’s class told me with a nod of her blue-feathered hair.

  “Yeah, one of us,” Aerlis from my second period class echoed.

  Professor Rexus cleared his throat. I recognized Dr. Six’s handiwork in the bandages around one of his thick horns. His deep voice echoed across the room when he said, “We are more than just a school. We are a family, and a family protects its own.”

  Headmistress Wrengold stepped from the crowd. “We’ll do this together, Mr. Briscoe.”

  Students and professors alike helped to carry Chutka to the middle of the moonstone ring. The need to phase surged over me the second I neared it. I backed quickly away with the rest of my wolf pack and watched the others set the demon-possessed vampire down. The Demon Prince struggled. It was clear by the desperation in his flaming eyes that the moonlight hurt, but he couldn’t break free of the chains.

  “Let’s begin,” the Headmistress said. “Lyris, what is the chant?”

  The little witch listened quietly for a few moments before raising her voice. “Witches and warlocks, repeat after me.”

  The words she said didn’t make sense to me, but they were swiftly taken up by the others. Their voices filled the room, bouncing off the walls and the ceiling until they intertwined and crossed in a beautiful tapestry of sound.

  “That’s it.”

  I turned to see who was talking, but nobody was there.

  “They’ve got to keep it up.”

  Warmth filled me at the fact that my mother’s friend was talking to me.

  “For how long?” I asked Cadish.

  “As long as it takes. You’ll know when to act.”

  I glanced behind me in surprise. “Act?”

  “The moonlight reveals our truth,” Cadish replied. “When the truth is revealed, you’ll have a choice to make.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” I told him. “Why is there a choice?”

  “There’s always a choice,” Cadish said elusively.

  As I watched, the moonstones began to glow. A shimmering, lustrous dome appeared over Vicken. The Demon Prince struggled beneath Vicken’s skin, but he couldn’t get free.

  “Will I know what choice to make?” I asked worriedly.

  “You’ve always known,” Cadish said.

  I felt something be pressed into my hand. When I looked down, I saw Professor Brigg’s walking stick. It had been cracked down the middle. Golden light glowed from the gaps in the wood.

  “Break it through,” Cadish told me. “Pierce their hearts. Kill them both.”

  I looked up to see that the chant was working. Vicken’s body was being separated from the Demon Prince. In the middle, their forms still merged as though reluctant to part. Vicken’s face was twisted in pain, Chutka’s in determination. He would fight to destroy us all.

  “Both?” I said. I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Then you’ve already failed,” Cadish told me. His voice faded until only a whisper met my ear. “Trust your mother.”

  I couldn’t imagine driving half of the walking stick into Vicken’s heart like a stake. Energy pulsed from the cracked wood. Numbly, I lifted it up and broke it in two. Each half was about as thick as a quarter and as long as my arm. I stared from them to the two separating bodies. The stakes warmed in my hands.

  “They’re almost apart!” Lyris called out. “What do we do?”

  “We have to kill the Demon Prince!” the Headmistress said. “Mercer, do you have anything strong enough?”

  “I don’t know,” the sweeper replied. He had brought a huge bag with him and was rummaging through it, but didn’t looked pleased at what he found.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Brack said, his voice tight.

  “It’s getting brighter!” Professor Mantis called out as she chanted with her double-jointed arms above her head. “We’re going to lose the stones!”

  As if on cue, one of the moonstones shattered. Gasps sounded across the room, and then another stone followed. The dome waivered.

  “Mercer, it’s now or never!” the Headmistress demanded.

  “I-I don’t have anything,” the stone-faced man replied. Fear showed in his usually expressionless gaze.

  “I do.”

  Everyone looked at me. My grip tightened on the stakes.

  “When I say so, stop chanting,” I commanded.

  “But they’ll lose the dome. It’s the only thing keeping Chutka at bay,” Professor Mellon said.

  “I can’t enter or I’ll phase. I need the pathway to be clear,” I replied.

  The Headmistress nodded. “Very well. Students, back away.” She shot me a look. “Mr. Briscoe, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I didn’t, but there was no reason to tell her that. I crossed to the edge of the moonstone ring. From that proximity, the impulse to phase was nearly overwhelming. I watched Vicken and the Demon Prince struggle, the former to break free and the latter to hold on. Vicken’s body was Chutka’s last hope. The moment they separated, Chutka would be at his weakest.

  Another stone exploded. The two forms inside the dome pulled together.

  “Louder!” I yelled.

  The chanting rose to an earsplitting volume. Voices shouted around me with the professors leading, desperate to protect their school. The remaining moonstones glowed so brightly I could barely see beyond them. The two bodies pulled apart, and in a split second, I saw the gap between the pair.

  “Stop!” I commanded.

  The voices fell away and so did the dome. The instant it was gone, I leaped inside and raised both stakes above my head.

  “No, Finn!” Kiyah shouted.

  “Finn, what are you doing?” I heard the Headmistress call.

  “Finn, wait!” Dara pleaded.

  I ignored them as I stood above Vicken’s pale form and the Demon Prince’s insubstantial one. Vicken’s eyes met mine. He gave a barely perceptible nod. It was all I needed.

  I drove both stakes down as hard as I could. One pierced flesh while the other slammed through the ghostly dark form into the floor. Cries of pain came from both of them. I backed away and watched Vicken and Chutka writhe against the stakes that pinned them down. Vicken’s pale hands came away bloody and dark while the Demon Prince’s scrambled through the stake but were unable to grasp it.

  I heard Kiyah crying behind me with Dara trying to comfort her, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the two forms. Vicken’s eyes opened one last time and he looked at me with pain in his yellow gaze.

  “Thank you, Finn,” he whispered.

  He closed his eyes again and his head lolled to the side. At the same time, the Demon Prince gave one last shriek of pain that made everyone in the corridor cringe, then he was gone. Vicken’s body lost its shape, waivered, and then vanished like Chutka’s had done.

  “Where is he?” Kiyah demanded.

  “Where did he go?” Jean asked from
my left.

  “Did Finn kill him?” someone else asked.

  A familiar voice broke the thick silence to say, “Finn couldn’t kill me if he tried.”

  Stark relief flooded through me. I watched as Vicken stepped from the tear behind the moonstone circle as easily as if he was entering from another room. He appeared whole and complete instead of the battered, barely-standing vampire I had survived beside in the demon realm. Clawed tentacles and suction-padded arms reached from the crack behind him but didn’t touch him.

  “Brack, if you’d please,” the vampire instructed.

  “Gladly,” the warlock replied.

  Brack lifted a hand and the crack snapped shut, then vanished entirely. The reaching limbs broke off and fell writhing to the floor. I could only imagine the wails on the other side.

  Vicken met my gaze. “You killed me?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “I was told to trust my mother.”

  He nodded. “She was a smart woman.”

  “Yes, she was,” the Headmistress said from behind me.

  Kiyah shook her head. “I don’t understand what just happened.” Tears glittered in her eyes. She didn’t look as though she dared to approach Vicken.

  “The Vicken you saw wasn’t me,” the vampire explained. “When I bit the demon, it became a gateway for Chutka to come back. He used part of my soul and part of his own to meld a body that was both of ours. I could feel what he was doing, but I didn’t have any control. Chutka climbed through the crack and left me in the demon realm.” He shook his head. “I knew the only way to get through was for someone to destroy Chutka’s body and soul, but I didn’t know how to tell anyone.”

  “That’s where I came in,” a voice said in my ear.

  Vicken nodded as if he heard it, too. “Cadish found me. I was able to send Briggs’ walking stick with him. It was glowing in the darkness. The only light down there.”

  I couldn’t begin to imagine how it felt sending away the only source of light he had without the reassurance that he wouldn’t be stuck there forever. The briefest glimmer of the emptiness he had felt showed in his gaze before he blinked and it was gone.

  “I knew I could count on Finn,” he said, slapping my chest.

  He pulled his hand away to look at the blood that showed on his palm from my battle with the Demon Prince.

  “Now it’s your turn to be taken care of,” the vampire told me.

  “I’m fine,” I protested.

  Dara ducked under my arm. “No, you’re not,” she said. “It’s time you let us handle things for a change.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a horrible plan.”

  Vicken grinned. “That’s why I like it.”

  The moment we reached the infirmary, Dr. Six shook her head and sighed. “Stitches and sleep, that’s what you need,” she proclaimed.

  I turned around to flee, but my friends grabbed my shoulders and forced me back. It was only through intense grumbling and protesting that I was finally able to escape with bandages, a handful of crystals to place around my bed, and the promise that I would sleep in the moonlight for the next several nights. Only Dara’s reassurance that she would keep me on that strict schedule appeased the doctor’s concerns.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Dara said quietly from my side. “And the moonlight feels great.”

  I looked up from the bed of blankets she had spread across a tarp on the snow near the cemetery. She sat up near the pillows looking cozy in her long, thick coat. Her heart glowed as the light of the moon revealed her empath affinity. If my body hadn’t been so tired from fighting and healing, I would have been in wolf form beside her reveling in the healing light. As it was, I was content to lay there and watch the way the moonlight lingered in her hair and made her violet eyes bright.

  “I think they love it here, too,” she noted.

  I followed her gaze to the bears that nestled under the trees on the other side of the cemetery. They had put on weight with the diet of meat scraps and bones Mr. Handsworth dolled out to them each day. Away from the Den, the bears had become as docile as puppies. It was nice to see them as carefree as I felt.

  “They definitely love it here,” I agreed. “And so do the dragons.”

  We both looked up to see the slender forms flitting and twisting around the branches and bushes in their own game. Occasionally, little puffs of brightly colored flames would light up the air only to vanish with mint, berry, and lavender scents.

  “They do,” Dara said. “I can feel their happiness. Especially Sparrow’s. She’s found her family.”

  As if she knew we were talking about her, the little purple and black dragon separated from the others and flew down from the trees. She landed on one of my knees and curled up into a contented ball. As I watched, her red tongue snaked out to lick the remains of whatever bug she had eaten from her face.

  The other dragons drifted down as well. Dara seemed particularly pleased when a red and black one settled on her shoulder. A green and yellow one took up residence on one knee while a pink and orange one wrapped around the empath’s wrist.

  None of the other dragons came to me. It was as if Sparrow had claimed me for her own, and as their chosen leader, they respected her decision and settled onto the blankets instead.

  “We’ve been on quiet the journey,” I said. I ran a finger down the little dragon’s back, then turned to look at the gravestone where she had chosen to stay with me instead of going with Alden to the next life.

  The new tombstone beside Mezania’s gleamed in the moonlight. The name Trace Nathaniel Briggs showed in stark contrast to the marble. All across the face of the white stone, students had written the things they had learned from the professor. Notes like, ‘To never be late’ and ‘Electricity is scary’ paled next to my handwriting. The words, ‘Why cats land on their feet’, stood out in the bright blue ink Lyris had made for me. Next to the words, I had drawn a rough sketch. It was of a human holding hands with a ghost. Below it was written the words I had overheard Briggs tell the girl he loved who had been taken from him too soon.

  “I want to live where you live, even if that means we’re both ghosts.”

  Below that, Alden had written, “They are together in the beautiful beyond.”

  Past the two tombstones stood another new addition to the cemetery. The name Conrad Justin Roe was followed by an engraving of a dark-coated wolf. It watched the cemetery with calm golden eyes, a silent sentry guarding the realm he had fought so hard to protect.

  “So what’s next?” Dara asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.

  “Next?” I replied.

  She nodded. “For Finnley Briscoe, the werewolf daredevil who slew a thousand demons and rescued the girl who loved him.”

  “The girl he loved,” I replied, pulling her close. “There’s a difference.”

  She smiled at me. “It’s one and the same.” She rested her head on my shoulder.

  I slipped my fingers through hers and lifted our hands to study the way they matched up.

  “The Maes are slaying the rest of the demons that were in our world before Chutka died,” I said.

  Dara nodded. “So no more major enemies, for now.”

  “For now,” I agreed. “And Vicken is learning how to cope with a werewolf girlfriend.”

  Dara laughed. “Who would have thought?”

  “Definitely not me,” I said with an answering laugh. “And certainly not him. But he’s really smitten.”

  She smiled and it was beautiful in the moonlight. “Yes, he is.”

  “So I guess the next big adventure is the students,” I told her.

  She leaned back to look at me. “The students?”

  I nodded. “The Headmistress approved my syllabus for next year. I’m thinking of starting with a riddle, something Professor Briggs would approve of.”

  Dara smiled. “Something about cats?”

  I chuckled. “Something like that.”

  She leaned her head back on
my shoulder and I rested my chin in her hair. There would be plenty to do tomorrow, but for that moment, with the moonlight around us and the love of my life in my arms, it was enough to simply be.

  If you enjoyed this series, I’d recommend the Silver Series. Here is the link for book one for FREE on Amazon- The Silver Series Book One: Silver

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  About the Author

  Cheree Alsop is an award-winning, best-selling author who has published over 50 books. She is the mother of a beautiful, talented daughter and amazing twin sons who fill every day with joy and laughter. She is married to her best friend, Michael, the light of her life and her soulmate who shares her dreams and inspires her by reading the first drafts and giving much appreciated critiques. Cheree works as a fulltime author and mother, which is more play than work! She enjoys reading, traveling to tropical beaches, riding motorcycles, playing the bass for the band Alien Landslide, spending time with her wonderful children, and going on family adventures. Cheree and Michael live in Utah where they rock out, enjoy the outdoors, plan great quests, and never stop dreaming.