Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2)

by Elizabeth Rain

  #

  The roar of the helicopter’s blades made hearing anything else difficult. So it wasn’t surprising that Wendy Seul was almost upon them before they realized it, a yip of terror issuing from her throat, followed by a scream of insane excitement close behind her.

  Sadie and Nick whirled, his eyes expanding and heating in an instant when he took in the scene of his mother, in her Other form, barreling down the trail at them followed by two insane vampires, teeth gnashing at the air and eyes blood red with insanity.

  Without conscious thought, he raised his hands. Discovery be damned. Sadie was right there with him, the corner of his eye catching hers as her pupils slid sideways and became more predator than human.

  And then he paused. The power was there. He could fry at least one before they reached him. Instead, he reached left and grabbed Sadie’s hand, dragon claws already expanding to join the scales at her wrist at an alarming rate. Using those ready-made knives, he made a deep slash along his arm, the blood welling immediately and beginning to drip. He stepped into their direct path and screamed.

  “Hey, you toothy goons, over here!” he shouted.

  The smell of blood and the chance for bigger prey worked like a charm as the pair snuffled at the air and immediately veered in his direction, the small red fox forgotten.

  Nick turned on a dime and snatched Sadie’s hand. “Run!” he screamed. Together they took off across the tarmac and straight for the helicopter.

  They reached the startled group at almost the same time as the vamps, conveniently blocking the guards or anyone else from taking them out before they reached them. The ensuing moments were a blur. The vamp guards and Fino Vas attacked the two vampires en masse, claws expanding and teeth moving to rip and shred.

  Under normal circumstances, it would have been a quick fight. Most vamps were no match for an Elder like Fino. But these were not normal and they were beyond hungry. Lucas jumped into the fray, threads of fire weaving through his fingers as he shot. Flaming currents quivered along the ground and at their backs, just missing the vamps. His aim was off.

  #

  I called my dragon back. Instead, I manipulated the twin balls of energy in each hand, the sizzling crackle of heat bouncing on the ends of my fingers as I flung them straight for the vampire’s head. They grazed the cheek of the female vamp with a sizzling pop and then bounced along the tarmac before blinking out. She gave a howl of fury. Beyond my target, a scream of pain was cut short. Nick jumped in and flung bolt after bolt in their general direction. Every single one was a direct hit, but the damage superficial. Hair along the backs of their arms and legs singed and burned as they screamed and pounded it out, continuing to attack.

  All at once, Fino Vas hissed, his face a snarl of rage as he snatched one up and dispatched with its head, the body following in a puff of ash as the vampire disintegrated. The second vamp soon followed under the flaming blade Lucas had produced and wielded. Time froze as everyone stood still to catch their breath and take stock of what had happened.

  Fino turned on them all with a sudden roar of fury. “Where are they? Where did the prisoners go?” he yelled, his eyes glittery and mean. He looked accusingly at the Seul’s and Sadie.

  “It was you! You let them go, I know it! I’ll have you up on Court Marshall, I’ll take your hea…” he screamed, so mad he rattled on the tips of his toes, clawed fingers digging into the palms of his clenched fists hard enough to draw blood.

  “Judge!” Roared Lucas, hands still flaming, as power ebbed and flowed in an agitated glow over his arms and shoulders.

  Fino Vas stood shaking, eyes red and glaring at them all.

  Lucas bent down and picked up his wife, still shaking and still in the guise of a fox. She whimpered and buried her nose beneath his chin and snuffled, shaking like a leaf. Nicholas moved closer to his father, his eyes never leaving the trembling shifter that was his mother.

  Lucas spoke, his voice dripping ice. “May I introduce my wife, Wendy? As you can see, she is a fox shifter. She was running for her life. This fine young man next to me is my son, who stepped in to draw their attention away from his mother. The rest you saw, didn’t you judge? They were running for their lives and needed our protection. I don’t know how the prisoners escaped. They were your responsibility, not mine. I take mighty big exception to the meaningless accusations you are throwing around with no proof.”

  The Judge’s eyes narrowed to pinpoints of hate. “Well, someone cut those ropes and let them go. What I bloody hell well know is that it wasn’t me. You walk a thin line Mayor, be careful how you cross it!”

  Lucas never wavered. “I might remind you of the same, Judge Vas. You may be in charge of your clan of vampires this side of the divide, but this valley and town are mine. You have no power here.”

  The Judge gave one last glare in their direction before he turned to his sentries and whispered instructions for their ears only. At once they took off, fanning out, their eyes scanning the woods for movement that didn’t belong.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what those instructions had been.

  I hoped Elise and Emerald ran fast for the portal and didn’t stop. My eye caught Nick’s. We’d meet them there later when it was safe to get away.

  My razored claws retracted and the bronze scales smoothed to fine brown hairs along my arms. I schooled my expression to one of indifference. The Judge had been wrong about one thing. I hadn’t needed a knife to sever the cords binding the vampires.

  #

  Much later, after seeing that Nicholas’ mother was fully recovered and settled in her kitchen cooking supper, we approached the Portal of Bane Lake and crossed into Wyndoor. Darkness had fallen by the time we got there. We had no idea where they would wait for us, but we had a mission to complete and we needed their help to do it.

  When Elise and Emerald stepped from the edge of the woods and waved us forward we wasted no time, breaking into a ground eating jog. Wyndoor was no place you wanted to be caught lounging around. The Monsters in Wyndoor were real, and they almost all wanted to eat you.

  The darkness had been deep as we crossed the small plain at a run, but the twin moons above our head had made visibility possible. My sight in the dark was far better than any human’s—or Sorcerer’s. Nick followed close behind, and several times nearly bowled me over when I paused, gaining him an elbow in his side for his efforts.

  The dense cover of the briar thicket was another matter. The heavy foliage and sharp needle like thorns were worse than anything back home. But if there was an upside, it was that anything else would also find it difficult to navigate the heavy cover and brutal vines to get to us.

  Elise’s eyes glowed a brilliant dark blue as they met mine. Too many emotions there to figure out when time was precious and we needed to be moving. My eyes traveled to Emerald, silent and watchful at her side. She seemed nervous, but she had no trouble keeping up with her mother.

  Together we moved through the thicket, holding back expletives. Elise and Emerald could barely see in the dense darkness. Here, with no moon at all to cut the gloom, I was as blind as Nick. I reached out and grabbed Emerald’s hand in front of me, and Nick’s in back as we navigated its treacherous path.

  The silence was broken by night sounds, creatures some distance off I had no desire to meet. I identified the enraged bellow of a Juggat on the far-off plains. The chittering of something smaller and closer made Emerald’s hand tighten on mine. Weis pack some distance out, but not far enough. The breeze that whispered through the dense cover failed to cool us down in the heavy humidity and by the time we neared the end and broke into the open I was damp with sweat, my clothes plastered to my body.

  Nick was puffing hard behind me, but he was going to just have to suck it up because Elise didn’t stop. As much as I wouldn’t miss the clinging scratchy briar patch, I would miss the cover it had provided. Now we were more vulnerable to whatever predators roamed these woods. I didn’t delude myself into thin
king we were alone.

  A sudden round of screaming not too far distant made me shiver. It sounded like the Weis pack had found something to keep it busy. I wasn’t unhappy about that. If they were attacking something else, they were leaving us alone. It sounded like they were having a rough time of it. In front of me, I thought I heard Emerald giggle.

  Three quarters of the way through the woods Elise looked back and hesitated, finally pulling to a stop long enough for us all to grab a long pull from our water bottles and catch our breath.

  She shot us a look. “We can’t stop long. We have to keep moving.”

  “Don’t let me… hold… you up!” Nicholas hissed; the sound a gasp from his heaving lungs. It amazed me he still had the forethought to use his sarcasm. Not that I could point any fingers. My heart thundered in my chest, and I pulled in deep lungfuls of air myself. I wasn’t in much better shape.

  “We need to keep moving if we want to survive the night. We still have a way to go to get to Wyndoor Castle. And we don’t know that what waits us there isn’t worse than what chases us tonight,” she added.

  Nick jerked and looked behind us in alarm. “What?”

  Emerald turned and stared at us both, her expression grim. “Seggae. Ground spiders. They respond to the vibrations in the ground of passing prey. Guess what? We ran smack dab through their territory and woke them up. They’ve been closing on us for the past mile. Why do you think we haven’t stopped?”

  “Do I want to know what they are capable of? Worse than a Juggat?”

  Elise pinned me in serious gaze, the moon slinking through the clouds and branches above, to cast half of her face in the shadows.

  “No, not worse, not if you don’t mind being held down while they inject a toxin inside you that turns your innards to jelly so they can suck them back out while you are still breathing.”

  Nick let out a curious whistling breath and straightened, shoving his water into his pack. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Good.” She sent him a grim nod.

  We moved back into a steady jog. I spoke in a whisper; the sound carrying to Elise at the head of our line. “Why haven’t they caught us then? I have to think a spider could be fast.”

  She threw back, “Not sure. They should have. Something is holding them back.” She sounded as confused as I was. Ahead of me, Emerald giggled once more. She was beginning to piss me off.

  What she saw amusing about running through the woods in the middle of the night being pursued by body fluid sucking arachnids, I had no idea. I didn’t think it was funny one bit.

  Behind me, Nicholas, who had been a drag for the last hour, was urging me to move faster. He didn’t think so, either.

  At the edge of the forest, Emerald suddenly grabbed our attention, her eyes shifting behind her and growing wide. She was no longer laughing.

  Elise slowed down and my aching feet and heaving lungs were grateful. A small break before we ran at full tilt across the open plain would be welcome.

  “Can’t stop now. Some of them broke through. Go!” Emerald screamed, yanking hard on my hand and dragging me into the open behind her mother, who had started moving again. We were fifty yards onto the plain when we chanced a glance behind us. The collective scream of rage vibrated through our feet, and Nicholas and I both stumbled before regaining our footing.

  At the edge of the forest there were eyes. Little red dots staring at us with glittery purpose and shifting like fireflies in the darkness with rabid awareness. There had to have been at least ten sets. How many eyes did a spider have?

  “They won’t cross the plains. They’re afraid of the Juggats,” she admitted.

  My legs felt like they were going to give out any moment, and my dragon seethed inside of me from the limitations of my human form. Had we been alone, I might have risked my change and carried Nicholas through the air the rest of the way safely. But I couldn’t carry three, and I refused to leave them behind.

  We reached Wyndoor castle in the earliest part of the morning before first light when the world was still sleeping but restless and thinking about waking up. We bypassed the main door, in favor of the same long passage beneath the ground that we had taken the previous year to sneak in and rescue the Tuttles.

  As we moved along the passageway, I sidestepped several broken timbers and piles of stone and dirt that had fallen and then lay undisturbed for the last year. Juggat Dragons had run through this passage then, their immense bodies and swinging tails damaging the tunnel. I hoped it didn’t collapse on top of our heads.

  Elise hesitated at the end. Two doors, one in the tunnel's side and another set of double doors that led up into the courtyard.

  Elise reached out and touched the first door. “Should we check the dungeons first? Might give us a clue as to what we’ll find in the castle?”

  “Maybe. Not sure where to start. I know I don’t want to run into an army of hungry vampires.”

  Emerald nodded. “Neither do we. They are attacking each other too. None of us are safe.”

  The door creaked when she eased it open, but the smell that sifted through into the corridor was musty and dead. I remembered when it had smelled of rot and human excrement.

  We eased in after Elise and her daughter and followed. The passage to the dungeons below was a twisted labyrinth of false starts and hidden traps. Hundreds of years before, when vampires hadn’t been as civilized, they had chased their victims through the corridors for sport. I shivered. We’d thought those days were over.

  The sconces set in the wall along the way lit the passages, but barely. I noted that several appeared to have been knocked loose from their holdings and littered the corridor floors. We grew near the bottom, expecting to hear signs of life. But there was nothing, the air just as still as it had been above.

  We stepped into the opening to the long passage that held the cells and stared. They were empty, the doors on most of them hanging askew where they had been ripped from their holdings. Whatever had been down here in the cells or guarding them was long gone.

  “Where are they?” Nicholas asked, edging up beside us and looking at the mad destruction.

  Elise looked grim and worried. “Good question. Maybe the answers are above us. For sure they aren’t here.”

  I nodded, but I had noticed something else. “The doors are off their hinges, but have you noticed? They look like someone has ripped them both ways. Like something tore at them from the inside, and outside too. I mean, why not just use the keys if you are letting them out?”

  “That they were letting them out at all is what worries me,” Elise admitted.

  Emerald spoke up, “Maybe because whatever has attacked them and made them mad is affecting their ability to think logically or reason. They are animals at their most basic function right now.”

  Her expression reminded me she wasn’t just describing strangers. Her father and grandfather were some of those animals now. I knew she had to be wondering, like we all were, whether what they were afflicted with could be reversed at all.

  “Let’s go,” I breathed. There was nothing for us here.

  Elise headed back the way we’d come.

  #

  We emerged with caution into the central courtyard, easing the door open, unsure of what we might find. It was deserted, the grass overgrown and showing no signs of wear. Nothing much had been walking there for a while.

  We moved along the covered walkway that led to the doors leading into the main ground floor of the castle. Like below, it appeared devoid of life. Where had they all gone?

  An hour passed as we explored every closet and room on the main floor and then moved up the stairs to go through the four wings that led to the apartments in each. All were empty. Both Elise and Emerald stood still in the doorway of their own apartment, staring with emotionless eyes at the destruction. Anything that could be smashed, was. Their belongings scattered like so much refuse. Elise firmed her jaw and steered Emerald away, ignoring the faint quivering of her li
ps.

  There was no time for sentiment. That would come later if they lived.

  “It’s like they just vanished…” I said, back on the main floor with everyone else and looking around. Elise’s eyes hardened.

  “They’re here. Something is. I can sense it, so can Emerald. But a base vampire, reverting to its most savage self? They wouldn’t go up in the morning light.”

  I stared at the central stairwell. “No, they’d go down.” I realized.

  Elise nodded. But she didn’t look happy about it.

  In for a dollar… I mused as we took the first step into the basement and down the rabbit hole.

  At the bottom we looked around. Like above, it appeared empty of life. We moved along the corridors, testing doors along the way. Most were open, the rooms empty. At the far end of the hall, Elise moved along and then suddenly froze. And took a step back until she was staring at a painting that hung on the wall. It was a talented rendition of Wyndoor Castle in the spring when the flowers were in bloom and the trees were just filling out. Elise wasn’t interested in the painting. She placed her palm flat beneath it on the wall and closed her eyes as Nicholas and I stared on in confusion.

  Her eyes opened and she turned to look at us. “There are people in here. Quite a few of them. I can smell them. Humans.

  We drew nearer to the wall and saw what we had at first missed. Long scratches bisected the mortar, crisscrossing in every direction as if something else had smelled what Elise had and tried to get in.

  Grim faced, she reached out and touched several points in the painting. We stepped back smartly when the last figure in the painting she touched resulted in a low grinding sound, like gears spinning on cogs that needed greasing. The door slid open to emit a fetid smell that made our noses wrinkle in disgust. The aroma of fear and the result of a lengthy confinement in close quarters by too many people slammed into us.