by Alix Marsh
Flynn nodded slowly. His gaze landed on the notepad Mr. Rook held and, in that split second, he made his mind up. He wasn’t totally buying their story about everything. But if being a demon slayer meant he hadn’t murdered a person, then he needed to at least find out more about Victor Grey Academy and this supposed world of demons and monsters.
The top page of the notepad was blank, no dotted line or any writing. He flipped through another ten or so blank pages until he reached the stiffened cardboard at the bottom.
Mr. Rook offered him the silver fountain pen. “Sign anywhere on the top page.”
As soon as he’d scrawled his name, the ink seemed to sink through the pages, carving his name all the way through to the bottom. The black ink glowed silver for a second, and then the pages closed over the ink, the writing, the carving, like waves washing over an unnatural rift in the ocean to leave the top page totally blank again.
“Excellent.” Mr. Rook took the notepad back and inserted it into his inner pocket again. “We’ll finalise the arrangements with Mrs. Heath and expect you Sunday evening. That should give you a chance to settle in before the school week starts.”
“It might be best not to mention demons to your mother.” Mr. Bishop grimaced. “She didn’t take it well the first time and mind-swipes always leave a foul taste in my gut.”
Flynn had no intention of mentioning demons to anyone. “No one would believe me.”
“Precisely,” agreed Mr. Rook.
It was only a little later, as Flynn slipped out of the sitting room, that he realised how many questions he had and how little those men had answered. What exactly were demons, how many were there and shouldn’t they all be in hell? What did Mr. Bishop mean by mind-swiping his mom and how had that seemingly innocuous notepad eaten his signature?
And, most importantly, the one question that almost sent him back into the sitting room to confront the men before they left: why had that old man chosen him, Flynn Heath, a clueless thirteen-year-old kid, to make that pledge?
Flynn glanced over his shoulder, but he couldn’t go back in there. He turned forward, needing the privacy of his bedroom. In the last ten minutes since his mom had returned to the announcement that her son had agreed to attend Victor Grey Academy, she’d developed an annoying habit of spontaneously pinching his cheek and exclaiming this was just the beginning of great things.
Flynn couldn’t agree.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the beginning of the end.
But, again, as Mr. Rook had pointed out, Flynn had no choice. And it wasn’t just the questions he wanted answers to, or the fact that he was now on the demon radar and therefore vulnerable.
The moment he’d decided to attend Victor Grey, the churning in his stomach had released. And every time he contemplated changing his mind, the sickening grind returned. As crazy as everything else that had happened today, he’d swear his body was rejecting any other option. He knew this, with a certainty that had no place, with a clarity and sense of rightness that made no sense. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that this was what he was supposed to do. Whether he’d been born to it or randomly selected by some forgetful old man who’d mistaken him for someone else. Whether he wanted this or not. None of that made any difference.
This was what he knew. He knew it with a certainty growing inside him like a cancer that might just end up killing him.
When he reached the staircase, his sister was waiting for him on the bottom step.
“I’m telling,” she chanted.
“Not today, Ellie.” He squeezed past to go upstairs.
She jumped up and followed, pecking at his back. “I know what’s going on. I heard everything they said, hot shot slayer. Mom will freak when she hears about the demons.”
“You heard wrong,” he snapped over his shoulder.
“I’m eleven, not deaf.”
“Leave it alone, Ellie.”
“I also want to go to Victor Grey Academy.”
He slammed around to scowl at her. “You don’t understand anything.”
“I’m eleven, not stupid.”
“Will you stop that?”
Ellie was no cherub of a little sister who bubbled innocence while plotting evil. Her eyes were dark and intelligent, her hair coal black and scraped into a severe ponytail. Her grin was half sneer and half sinister. “If you don’t get me in, then I’m telling mom everything.”
“Whatever you think you heard, you’re wrong.” Flynn sucked in a breath, squinting at the brat. He was wasting his time. Once Ellie got onto something, she chewed until she was done. “Mom will never believe you.”
“Yeah, well…” She gave an exaggerated shrug and turned. “If you’re willing to risk it.”
“Ellie!”
She froze, her back to him.
“Why do you even want to change schools?”
Her head dropped to the side, her sullen gaze sliding up to him. “I want to be a slayer, like you.”
Seriously? Of all the times for his baby sister to start looking up to him? He shook his head, but gentled his tone. “Even if I was a demon slayer, which I’m not, and even if I could get you into Victor Grey, which I can’t, you’re too young.”
She turned fully to face him. “You’re only thirteen.”
“And you’re eleven, as you keep reminding me.”
Ellie fisted her hands on her hips. “Do we have a deal then?”
“What deal? I just told you—”
“When I turn thirteen, you’ll get me in and I’ll never breathe a word to Mom.”
Flynn rolled his eyes. What the heck. Two years was a long time to come up with a better argument. “Deal.”
THREE MILES NORTH OF Little Rislin, an unmarked slipway took them onto a narrow road that wound deeper and deeper into the forest, massive elms and giant pines packing thicker and thicker until a wall of blackness funnelled the road on each side. Above, vines tangled with green-laden gnarled branches to form a canopy that allowed only a few speckled slithers of light to filter through. The sun had already started going down before they’d left home, but now it felt as if they were driving straight into midnight.
Every bad feeling Flynn had had since Friday multiplied by a factor of ten.
“Nervous, sweetie?” His mom’s eyes, the exact same grey as his own, reflected with a glint in the rear view mirror. “You’ll make new friends in no time, you’ll see.”
That wasn’t the problem. He was perfectly happy with the friends he had and they didn’t need replacing. But he could hardly say what was really on his mind. “I guess.”
His dad shifted around in the passenger seat to look at him in the back. “Nothing’s ever set in stone, Flynn. If you’re not happy here after a couple of weeks, there’s no reason you can’t transfer back to Keltham High.”
“Liam!” his mom huffed. “Don’t encourage the child to give up before he’s even started.”
Dad just smiled at him and winked before turning forward again.
Flynn’s gaze drifted out the window. Everything about his dad was gentle, comforting, from his premature salt-and-pepper hair to his warm brown eyes. Flynn loved his mom, of course he did, but his dad was the one who always knew what to say and do. It wasn’t always the most sensible thing, or the properly correct thing, but it always made Flynn feel better.
For the hundredth time, Flynn wondered what his dad would say if he just told him about the whole demon slaying business. For the hundredth time, his mind came up blank. He thought even his dad might be stumped by this one, or he might have chanced it.
He hadn’t even told Rose and Toby the truth. He’d intended to. He’d opened his mouth to tell them all about the old man and the pledge and the monster that was or wasn’t a demon, but what had come out was the story of Mrs. Crowley’s scholarship and him not wanting to disappoint his mom by turning down the offer. That hadn’t gone over well, but Flynn didn’t think the mention of demons would help the matter any.
The road ended abruptly, bumping up against a gate of solid iron arched into a stone wall that looked to be at least twenty-foot high. Flynn strained his eyes to read the plaque on the gate in the fading light: Victor Grey Academy. The forest encroached so thoroughly, only the small section of wall immediately around the gate was visible.
The gate swung open automatically, although Flynn couldn’t see any security cameras or anything to announce their arrival. Just then, his phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his front jeans pocket, surprised and happy to see he’d received a message from Rose. Neither emotion lasted long.
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SOLD OUT.
A second message came through while he was reading.
I HATE YOU!!!!!!
Did she really need that many exclamation points?
Flynn shoved his phone back into his pocket. He’d have to think of something to tell them…maybe even the truth. But they wouldn’t believe him. Heck, he wouldn’t believe himself if he’d had a choice.
Through the gate, the same high wall completely enclosed a gravel parking area. As Flynn climbed out of the car with his parents, a man dressed in black combat boots, black trousers and a zipped-up black leather jacket emerged from a small guardhouse adjacent to the gate. Not really a man, Flynn realised as he approached. He couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. Even so, his blond hair was clipped to within an inch of its life and the serious look in his eyes suggested he hadn’t found anything to be amused by in years, possibly since he was a toddler.
Flynn pushed a hand self-consciously through his own hair, long dark brown layers that fell around his face in a haphazard manner despite the last minute lick and slick from his mom just as they were leaving the house. He really hoped the buzz cut wasn’t part of the academy’s dress code.
“The security is impressive,” Flynn’s mom was saying. She cast an eye over the high walls, adding in her all-important voice, “I suppose it must be, given the calibre of students and their families.”
Dad nudged him and winked. “And then there’s us.”
Flynn grinned.
Mom wasn’t amused. And even less so after the combat boots guy introduced himself as Arran Marshall, student head of Perses House, and informed her she’d have to say goodbye to Flynn in the car park.
Mom’s mouth pinched. “Now wait a minute, young man, I’m sure we can drive—”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Heath.” His grimace held no trace of apology. “Only staff and students are allowed onto the Academy grounds.”
“Oh, but you don’t understand,” Mom insisted, a smile straining through her withered expression. “Flynn has never lived away from home before. We only want to help unpack him and make sure he has everything he needs. We won’t stay long, I assure you.”
Flynn felt himself growing smaller and smaller.
“I don’t make the rules, Mrs. Heath.” Although the tone was polite, when Arran glanced at Flynn, his lips were pulled into a sneer.
“Well, then,” demanded Mom, “why don’t we wait here until you call someone who does?”
Flynn gave his dad a desperate look. It was bad enough starting a new school in May, the last term of the year. He did not need this kind of conversation making the rounds.
“You were impressed with the stringent security a moment ago,” Dad said, placing a hand on Mom’s arm. “Don’t let’s go interfering with it now.”
“This is different.” Mom tugged her arm free. “We are parents.”
“Come on, Lauren,” Dad said in his firm voice, the one he only brought out every other year but, when he did, everyone listened, including his wife. “It’s getting late. Say goodbye to Flynn while I grab his bags.”
“I’ll be waiting in the hut,” Arran said, gesturing at the guardhouse. “Take your time.”
A few minutes later, after a lot of fussing and a lot of instructions, Flynn’s mom finally hugged him one last time.
“Take care, Flynn.” Dad mussed his hair, then grew serious. “Keep your phone on and don’t ignore your mother’s calls, okay? She has the right to worry as much as she wants.”
Flynn nodded, and then there was nothing left to do but gather up his belongings at his feet as he watched his parents drive away, the gate closing on his view even before the rear of the car disappeared into the shadows and trees.
With his school messenger bag and laptop bag slung over one shoulder, the canvas rucksack over the other, he lugged his suitcase as best he could with the tiny wheels crunching over the uneven gravel. He saw Arran ambling toward a gunmetal Range Rover partially hidden around the side of the hut and followed.
His phone vibrated.
Another message from Rose.
THERE YET?
As he walked, Flynn replied: JUST ARRIVED. CALL U LATER
When he rounded the corner of the stone hut, Arran was leaning against the driver’s door, his phone pressed to his ear.
“…first-year with mommy issues. Wanna swap?”
Flynn bristled. “Hey!”
“Gotta go.” Without a glance his way, Arran opened the door and climbed behind the wheel. “Throw your luggage in the back and let’s move.”
Fuming silently, Flynn did as he was told. He wasn’t very big, very strong or particularly fast, but that had never stopped him from standing up for himself before. He stomped around to the passenger side of the Range Rover and scrambled up onto the leather seat.
While he was still strapping his seatbelt on, Arran executed a sharp turn, revving the engine high and having to slam the brakes almost immediately to wait for another solid iron gate on the far side of the parking area to slide open.
Flynn rolled his eyes at the immature display. That was it. Maybe taking on the student head of his house wasn’t the wisest move, but he couldn’t hold his tongue a minute longer.
“It isn’t abnormal, you know, for a parent to worry about handing their child over to a stranger in a deserted car park.” He wondered if he should stress that he did not have mommy issues, but he reckoned his point had been made.
“Listen, kid, I’m only going to say this once because…” Arran slid him a hard look. “Well, because I really don’t care. But you see this…?” One hand came off the steering wheel, a pointed finger drawing a line in the air across the width of the gap as they cleared the gate. “This is where we leave normal behind.”
On this side of the wall, the forest had been beaten back about fifty feet to allow for a metal link fence that ran alongside the inner perimeter. The fence was the same height as the outer wall and, as the gate behind slid closed, they were stuck in the narrow strip between the two.
“That’s an electric fence,” Arran informed him as they waited for yet another gate, this one in the fence, to swing open. “If you so much as brush your small finger against it, you’ll be fried.”
“That’s rather drastic.”
Arran shrugged. “Everyone on the inside has been warned and any outsider who reaches the fence has already scaled a massive wall to trespass.”
They were moving again, passing through the gate and along a lane that plunged them straight into the depths of the forest on the other side of the clearing. The trees rapidly thickened, a labyrinth of snarled, giant, vine-draped boughs closing in on them.
A shiver rolled down Flynn’s spine. It felt as if they were driving further and further away from any sign of life, straight into the belly of a grasping, clawing monstrosity.
Suddenly reminded of why the fence might be a good idea, Flynn asked, “That fence… Does it keep the demons out?”
Arran barked out a laugh. “You’re a funny one, aren’t you?” He gave another laugh, shaking his head. “Hey, if things don’t work out for you at Atreus House, we might have a spot for you at Perses. We’ve always wanted a mascot.”
The blood rushed to Flynn’s face. He really, really did not like this guy. Then he realised what he’d just heard. “I’m not in Perses House?”
Which meant t
his idiot wouldn’t be his student head.
Arran’s chuckles dried up. He eased up on the accelerator and turned those icy pale blue eyes on Flynn. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Flynn bit down on his next question. He’d been laughed at enough for one day. He ripped his gaze from Arran’s stare and looked determinedly out his side window, surprised to see flashes of stone buildings flickering through the trees. He wondered if that was the main school building, but refused to ask.
“So, it’s true,” Arran went on. “I guessed as much, when I was warned your parents knew nothing and I had to watch what I said. But how can you not even know what house you’re pledged to?”
“Of course I know,” Flynn lied through a clenched jaw. Atreus… Atreus… Atreus House. He wouldn’t forget the name again. “I just didn’t realise it had anything to do with the school houses.”
“This is what I don’t get about slayers coming in out of the cold,” Arran muttered. “Now if you bothered to find out a little about what you’re getting into, okay, but some rusty relative spins your head and suddenly you think you’re a hero.”
They’d picked up speed again, zipping along the bends as the lane twisted through the dense forest with a few more brief flashes of stone. Arran was still muttering and Flynn still had no idea what he was going on about when he practically performed a handbrake turn. Flynn’s seatbelt sliced his shoulder as the Range Rover shot off the lane at an abrupt right angle onto a packed dirt path.
“Seriously?” Flynn snapped, glaring at the moron and rubbing his bruised shoulder. “Do you even have a licence?”
“Why?” Arran slammed the brakes, jolting them to a dead stop. He cut the engine and turned to Flynn, his stare hard and intrusive, as if he were trying to pick the answer off Flynn’s eyeballs. “What was going through your tiny brain that day when you accepted the Darswich and pledged your soul? Why did you do it?”
That part, Flynn had no trouble recalling. Everything else might be a blur, but the gut-twisting feeling that he was toast, that this was it, the day he died, was a sharp, hurtful memory. In fact, that was probably the reason, on top of the lightning bolt, that everything else was a blur.