Student Bodies

by Sean Cummings

  She didn’t have to do this. Her grandfather didn’t have to do this. I gazed out at the unspoiled land as the sound of singing filled my ears. Dozens of voices cried out in a language as old as the land itself and a drumbeat echoed through the valley below. I looked down to see Twyla Standingready’s hands still covering mine.

  A Shadowcull and a First Nations practitioner with a leather pouch full of magic beads. Old and new magic together; combining to defeat a dark force that threatened to destroy anyone or anything that got in its way.

  Yeah. We could do this. We could find Willard and save everyone.

  I looked up at Twyla; her chestnut eyes blinked a few times as the vision dissolved amid a shimmering film of magical light. We stood together now in my kitchen surrounded by the people we loved.

  Hell, yeah. We could do this.

  We could win.

  CHAPTER 23

  There wasn’t time to eat supper. There wasn’t much time to do anything more than throw on a fresh pair of jeans and a new sweatshirt before I donned my Shadowcull’s cloak and headed out to the car. Somehow we had to squeeze four adult-sized people and a Great Dane into my mother’s car and it occurred to me that if Adriel really wanted to eliminate any potential threat to her plans, all she would have to do is take out our car and there would be four fewer practitioners to worry about.

  Mom’s leather satchel dangled from one shoulder as she hit the keyless entry and unlocked the door. Inside was a simple bag of salt and a number of other spell ingredients that she’d thrown together when it became clear that all hell was about to break loose in a big way. She’d contacted the Blessed Maven and informed her that Willard Schubert was most definitely going to be at the school dance, and ground zero for whatever the hell Adriel had planned was probably the gymnasium.

  And so we piled into the car and pulled out onto the slippery street. Light snow was falling from thick, puffy gray and black clouds overhead and the streetlights cast a haunting amber glow that seemed to make every shadow thicker somehow. This was the real deal. My duel with the Witchfinder General was nothing compared to what was about to happen. We didn’t know where Adriel and her blood coven would come at us, but one thing was for certain: we had to get all the kids at school out of the gym and as far the hell away from Crescent Ridge High School as we possibly could. We had to find Willard. We had to break Adriel’s hold over his mind, because the anger that was bubbling inside him, the sheer scale of the malice he’d amassed since his torments began, was the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb waiting to explode.

  “We’ll be at the school in a few minutes,” Mom said grimly. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly and I could have sworn that she was shaking. “Goddamn your father and his unfinished business.”

  Betty was panting heavily in my right ear. She was wedged tightly between me and Twyla and her fetid doggy breath was fogging up the rear window. “Adriel wouldn’t dare attack so openly,” the giant dog rumbled. “There’s something else going on. I can feel it in my bones.”

  The car sped over a bump and we wound up being tossed around the back seat like a trio of rag dolls as Mom pressed down hard on the accelerator. “Jesus, Mom, try to get us there alive, OK?”

  She gave me a cold glance through the rear view mirror. Her lips were pressed together so tightly they disappeared entirely from her face. Her magical signature flared sharply for a moment and I could tell she was trying desperately to keep it together.

  So, I decided to back off. Mom needed my support if she was going to make it through whatever the hell we were driving into.

  George Standingready made a grunting sound as he pulled his deerskin pouch out from the breast pocket of his parka. He gave it a little shake and said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of because between the five of us, we can pack a hell of a wallop. And I’d bet my very last bead here that whoever this Adriel is, well, she ain’t never dealt with sacred magic before. When the time is right, I’ll let loose something that hasn’t happened on these lands for over a hundred and fifty years.”

  OK, that was cryptic. I bit my tongue to stop myself from asking what the old man was planning, but there was something about the calmness in his voice that told me we’d be OK no matter what Adriel and her blood coven was prepared to throw at us.

  The car ploughed on through the freshly fallen snow. All around us Christmas lights twinkled brightly in the darkness. We passed an enormous inflatable snowman which bobbed back and forth in the chill breeze; its outstretched hand seemed to wave at us as our car drove past. We rounded a corner, slowing occasionally; as the volume of traffic increased the closer we came to South Center Mall. I could see the rooftop of Crescent Ridge High about five blocks away, so I slipped my amulet into my Shadowcull’s band.

  “When we get there we’re going to have to throw a fire alarm or something,” said Twyla as she zipped up her winter coat. It smelled of motor oil and was smeared with grease and soot from her grandfather’s burning pickup truck. “I can’t think of a better way to get everyone out of the school.”

  I nodded and said, “We’ve got to get into the school first. They won’t let us in looking like this.”

  “No need,” said Mom. “We’ll head in through another entrance. I’ll hex the lock. Willard will be in the school somewhere.”

  We blew through a yellow light and Mom steered the car into a side street that led to the teachers’ parking lot. She backed into an empty spot and threw open her door. “Julie, which is the nearest entrance to the school that is the shortest distance to the gym?” she asked as the rest of us climbed out of the car.

  “Follow me,” I said with a wave of my hand as I marched through the parking lot and then climbed a small flight of stairs. The sound of the wind whistled through a chain link fence that separated the parking lot from the sports field. In a few minutes we reached a double set of metal doors. I peered into the window adjacent to the left door and looked down the hall. The lights were out save for a blinking fluorescent at the far end of the corridor. I raised my magic and was about to hex the lock when Twyla grabbed me by the shoulder.

  “Don’t do it just yet,” she said pointing across the football field. “There’s a single set of footprints in the snow running alongside the building and the prints are fresh, like no more than an hour or so. Ten bucks says that’s where Willard went.”

  Mom shut her eyes tight and held out her left hand. “You said that Willard Schubert was a malice-filled bomb waiting to explode. He’s inside the building… Can you feel it?”

  I closed my eyes and raised my magical Sight, ignoring the cold wind as it blew snow into my face. I spun around on my heels in the direction from which the malice was strongest and then opened my eyes. The entire football field was blanketed with snow, but the footprints that were next to the school appeared as inky black spots; each one was thick with malice as if it had poured off Willard’s body and filled each footprint.

  “Twyla’s right,” I said. “The footprints are most definitely Willard Schubert’s.”

  “Then we split up,” Betty rumbled. “I’ll go with you and Twyla. Your mother and George can go in through here.”

  I could see the wall clock down the dimly lit hallway – it said 7.20pm. We had to move fast because the dance was already underway. “Sounds like a plan, Betty,” I said. “Mom, can you hex a fire alarm in twenty minutes? That will clear everyone out of the school and they’ll be safe. Crap… We need another cell phone.”

  George Standingready fished a grizzled hand into one of the pockets of his parka and tossed his phone to Twyla. “The battery is dodgy but it works,” he said.

  “Good. We’ll call Mom when we find Willard or Mom can call us if they find him first. You’ve got something in your satchel to deal with enthralment, right, Mom?”

  “I’ve got the potion I was working on,” she replied. “We can give it to Willard and it should break whatever link Adriel has to his mind.”

  “Your potions always w
ork, Mom,” I said. “OK, twenty minutes is all we’ve got so let’s make the best of it. We’ll get him out of the school and back to Coven House. As for Adriel’s plan to take down the coven itself, we know the attack is coming. I’m going to assume a coven of white witches knows how to defend itself.”

  “So do I,” said my mother as she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. “Be safe, Julie.”

  I hugged her back. “You too. Alright, let’s get going.”

  I felt a surge of magical energy just as Twyla, Betty and I were crawling through an opening in the chain link fence. I glanced back over my shoulder to see a shower of sparks fly out of the lock on the door and within seconds, Mom and George Standingready were inside the school. I pulled the hood of my Shadowcull’s cloak over my head to protect me against the wind as we followed Willard Schubert’s footsteps. We plodded down a steep slope, being careful not to slip and fall, and soon we were trudging next to the school. I looked ahead and saw the footprints leading to a concrete stairway that dropped down below the level of the field and we stopped to take a look. It was the entry door to the boy’s locker room. The door was wide open, as if someone were expecting us.

  “It’s dark down there,” said Twyla with a note of trepidation in her voice. “Why do I have the feeling that we’re going to get clobbered the minute we walk through the door?”

  I narrowed my eyes and scanned the entrance. I didn’t detect anyone’s magical signature outside of Twyla’s, but then there was the question of how Willard managed to get inside the school through a locked door.

  “He’s not alone,” Betty rumbled as she shook her body clean of snow. “You said that you were attacked by something you called a tar creature? That it was inside the boy’s locker and it fell upon you the moment you opened it up?”

  I shivered at the memory of being nearly strangled to death by the monster and nodded quickly. “Yeah. I still don’t know what the hell that thing was.”

  “It was most certainly something from the dark place. A Demon Shade that clings to the shadows and is invisible to the naked eye of mortals but remains clearly visible to someone like me.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” said Twyla. She pulled out her fetish and squeezed it tightly.

  “I can see it grinning in the doorway,” the Great Dane growled. It raised its hackles and its thick black lips pulled back to reveal its canines. “On your guard!”

  And that’s when the tar creature flew out of the doorway and rushed up the stairwell. I immediately threw out a word of power that enveloped the three of us in a bubble of magic. The demon threw itself at us with lightning speed. It smashed into my protective dome and I grated my teeth together as I tried desperately to keep my spell intact. It continued to batter against my supernatural resistance and I dropped to one knee and literally leaned into the magical field to brace it for the next attack.

  “Betty, do something,” I said. “It’s sapping my energy. I can’t hold this shield forever and Twyla can’t use her magic while we’re inside of it.”

  “Right then,” Betty growled as she dropped onto her belly. A small tendril of spiritual energy drifted up and penetrated my magic shield. I looked up to see the phantasm soar high into the air as it readied to batter itself into us once more and that’s when the tendril of Betty’s essence flashed with blinding white light. The entire sports field briefly turned photonegative. I looked skyward to see the creature plummeting as it flailed its arms wildly.

  I dropped the shield and stood up as Twyla reached into her fetish and pulled out a bead. She tossed it up above our heads and whispered in her ancient language. The bead exploded into a shower of glittering emerald energy that splashed onto Adriel’s demonic minion as it fell hard into a pile of snow about twenty feet away. She continued chanting in her native tongue as the creature slowly got back to its feet. It stood nearly ten feet tall and took a human-like shape, but it was no human. There was no face, just as before, only a wild-looking grin that revealed a set of shining, menacing white fangs. At the end of each lanky arm were claws that looked like they could slice and dice solid steel.

  It tried to lift a leg and step forward toward us, but it couldn’t. It tried the other leg and pulled with all its might, shrieking in an unholy voice that echoed across the field.

  “Binding?” I said, as I tried to catch my breath.

  “You’d call it that,” said Twyla. “I’d call it a snare. That piece of crap isn’t going anywhere.”

  Betty got back up onto her feet and circled the monster, ready to lunge at a moment’s notice. We couldn’t keep the creature bound in the middle of the field and the last time it attacked it simply dissipated into tiny shards of shadow after I lashed out at it. You can’t kill a demon; you can only send it back to wherever it came from. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t grill it for information, so I whispered a word of magic and hurled a spell that smashed into the creature’s torso. A shimmering film of magical energy began to envelope its body and the monster screamed at the display of my power. I made a fist and squeezed. I gritted my teeth together and squeezed as hard as I could as I walked up to the creature. I held my fist in front of its face and said, “Adriel can see and hear everything through you, can’t she, minion?”

  “You will die this night, witch,” it hissed. “I’ll pick my teeth with your bones when my master is done with you.”

  “Get bent, asshole!” I roared as I reached into its chest. My hand penetrated its flesh as easily as fitting into a glove; only the monster’s innards felt colder than the drifting snow. I attacked once more with a whisper of magic, grabbed a handful of the creature’s innards and pulled. It raged and flailed wildly as my hand reappeared from inside its body. “I’m a Shadowcull and I’ll turn you inside out, you slimy piece of shit, where is Willard?”

  “It’s too late for you witch,” the creature said. “It’s too late for everyone. Mothers will wail and gnash their teeth after this night. Everything will change before the sun rises on this city and your stinking coven will be dead. Your mother will be dead. You and your dirty Indian friend will be dead.”

  “Where is the boy?” Twyla bellowed. “Where is he hiding?”

  “It’s too late,” the creature cackled. “Adriel has a message for you, Shadowcull. She sees your fear and she will burn you with witchfire before this night is through.”

  I’d had enough. Adriel’s familiar wasn’t going to tell us a damned thing and we were wasting precious time. I looked up at the creature’s face and said, “Witchfire, huh? Well, if your master is linked to you, then let her burn with you. Incendia!”

  My hand lit ablaze with a blue flame. I released the creature’s innards and sent the fire straight into its chest. It roared in an inhuman voice as it struggled against the fire that was burning from inside its body.

  Twyla and I turned our backs to the creature as it fired off a salvo of obscenities. We went back to the concrete stairwell and headed into the school through the darkened doorway. Betty plodded ahead of us, ignoring the monster’s screams of pain. She looked up at me and said, “You know, you can be a very angry young woman when you want to be. I’d hate to see what might happen if you were to switch sides.”

  I patted her head as Twyla tossed another bead that hit the locker room floor and glowed with emerald light. “Thanks, Betty,” I said, glancing at my watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes and I need a moment to recharge. Twyla, can you pick up any sign of the malice?”

  She held her fetish in front of her body and gave it a shake. “He’s not far. Let’s go get him.”

  We pushed through the locker room and the sound of dance music pulsed through the air, so I opened the door and poked my head outside to take a look.

  And there he was. Willard Schubert stood alone halfway up the hall and literally throbbing with malice. He was coated from head to toe with Soul Worms. The near-transparent larvae squirmed and slithered all over his body, falling in clumps that landed at his feet. But
that was nothing compared to what I saw next as I stepped into the hall. The entire floor in front of Willard was a squirming mass of Soul Worms. They rolled out like a carpet down the hall and into the foyer in front of the gym doors.

  “H-holy shit,” I whispered as I stepped out into the hall. “This is unreal… The Soul Worms, they’re everywhere.”

  “Holy shit is right,” Twyla gasped as she stood beside me. “What the hell are those things? They’re disgusting.”

  “Only the blackest of magic,” Betty rumbled. “Call your mother, tell her that we’ve found the boy.”

  I nodded as Twyla handed me her grandfather’s phone. I punched in Mom’s number and stared in horror at Willard Schubert as the gobs and clumps of the worm-like creatures fell off his body and onto the floor. It was as if Willard himself was a wellspring for Soul Worms. They were manifesting on his body, fed by the malice he emitted, like he was a pulsing beacon of evil.

  I held the phone to my ear as the percussive beat of dance music pounded up the hallway.

  “Julie,” she answered. “Where are you?”

  “We found him, Mom,” I said. “I’m looking at Willard Schubert and he’s standing about fifty feet in front of me. He’s somehow become a fountain for Soul Worms; they’re pouring off his body and onto the floor. The entire hall from where he is standing right up to the foyer in front of the gym is nothing but Soul Worms as far as the eye can see. Where are you?”

  “We’re inside the gym behind a magic shield. We spotted the Soul Worms the minute we made it to the first floor. They’re everywhere, Julie. Every single student and staff member in the gym is covered with them. Get behind a shield. It’s the only way you can protect yourself from becoming infested.”