Summer Reign

by John Conroe

  “Russia demands the same,” the other ambassador said.

  “Of course, Ambassador,” she said, leading them both further away to talk.

  I reached out a foot and scuffed the chalk, the sound immediately falling away.

  “Yer sitting on the edge of a knife, lad,” Aunt Ash said. “Jest how are ya feeling after hearing all that?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, I kinda of understood most of that before, just didn’t dwell on it. The China-Russia stuff is new though.”

  “And what yer artificial brain said about ya?” she asked.

  “Valid points,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “It don’t make ya feel used?”

  “He’s being logical. That’s what he is. But Aunt Ash, there has to be a reason why I was born with this. Why I can do all this. Doesn’t it make sense that this is it?”

  “Does there have to be a reason, boyo? Can’t ya just be what ya are? What if ya choose to do nothing with it?”

  “That seems a huge waste. Didn’t you and Mom always teach that we’re supposed to serve. Supposed to use our skills and powers to help, to give back?”

  “Oh, aye lad. We might have said that a time or two,” she admitted, a satisfied look on her face. “But tell me this, me Declan… how far will you go to give back, to serve? What are ya willing to do, lad, to protect this world?”

  “Whatever it takes, Aunt Ash. Whatever it takes.”

  Chapter 37

  Two weeks after Boston, I found myself again in front of a class of witches. A bigger class, by like almost three times. Ten of those additional students sat in two very distinct clusters, watching my every move.

  The first group all hailed from China. Biyu, Chunhua, Lanfen, Mei, and Ying sat in two rows, staring at me with dark, super serious eyes.

  Two rows over sat Valeriya, Alyona, Zoya, Zoya’s brother Demyan, and last, but very much not least, Nadia. This group was also pretty serious but more facially expressive.

  Between the two groups sat a handful of other foreign girls. Kaya from India, Beth from England, Makiko from Japan, Pascalina from France, and Della from Germany.

  My original group sat to the left of the newcomers, mostly suspicious of them. Mostly. Two of the Chinese witches, Biyu and Mei, had met my classmates in China during my first trip to Fairie, when Team Demidova had been fighting Vorsook. These two were more readily accepted into Arcane than the others. Their countrymates probably would have been as well, but for the fact that they were hard to like. They were just plain hard.

  “Why do you use the Elvish glyph frot in the lower left chord of this portal circle in this instance when you used moosht in the last one?” Lanfen asked.

  “Frot denotes an opening parallel to the ground, while moosht denotes one that is perpendicular,” I said.

  “But how do you determine the distance the parallel portal opens above the ground?” she pressed.

  “I haven’t got there yet. That will be in the lower right chord,” I said, starting to get exasperated. She had questioned every step of every diagram I had written so far.

  “You know, if you just let him teach, you’d get your answers a lot faster,” Alice Morloft said.

  “It remains to be seen if he is even qualified to teach. If I don’t check everything, this trip may well be a complete waste of time,” Lanfen replied.

  “Do you regularly disrespect your instructors?” Tami asked, turning in her chair.

  “Real instructors? Never,” Lanfen said smoothly. Biyu and Mei were sitting behind her and looked worried.

  “Lanfen, you can leave,” I said, pointing at the door.

  “I will not. My country is relying on me to dig out whatever little value I can from this mistake,” she said, staring at me.

  I stared back. A shifting of long, bare legs off to the right caught the attention of my animal brain and I looked before I could stop myself. Nadia smiled languidly at me, bouncing the aforementioned leg on the equally bare knee of her other leg, her miniskirt barely keeping her modesty intact.

  That was another thing. Almost every girl sent by the foreign countries was attractive, if not really attractive. I think poor Mack was almost in sensory overload. Behind Nadia, Demyan was staring back and forth at Britta and Erika, clearly liking what he was seeing.

  “Declan, perhaps a demonstration is in order?” Alice suggested, raising a brow.

  Odd how things had changed.

  I turned back to the board, stepping to my left and drafting another circle, my hand moving fast, the glyphs popping up as quick as I could chalk them.

  “You never finished the first one. Now you draw another?” Lanfen asked. I didn’t answer, instead hurrying through my draft as fast as I could.

  “Father,” Omega admonished in my ear.

  I ignored him too. Finishing, I reached my left hand down toward the nearest wall outlet and pulled an arc of pure electricity into myself. Behind me, I heard chairs shifting as the class took in my power drain. The arc continued to pour energy into me at a high enough rate to raise the air temperature. The overhead lights flickered, then flickered again before I shut off the electric draw. Holding enough energy to power the whole building for at least ten to fifteen minutes, I turned back to Lanfen. She was sitting up straight, eyebrows slightly raised, her attention locked on me.

  Without breaking her stare, I reached out and touched the circle with my right hand.

  Power snapped, a wave of pure energy lifting hair, pencils, and paper as it broke over the class.

  A three-foot-diameter portal opened in the floor under Lanfen’s desk and the whole thing dropped through, taking her laptop and smart phone with it. The portal snapped shut before she could finish flinching, leaving smooth, unblemished tiles where it had been.

  The class door opened and Stacia stood in the doorway, taking in the aftermath.

  “Sorry for the interruption. Wow, smell that tension, smell that ozone,” she said, looking at me before her eyes locked onto the new additions. “Hello, just who do we have here?”

  Lanfen was staring at the floor in front of her, the rest of the class torn between the newcomer and her missing furniture. The Russian cohort looked surprised and mildly astonished, while most of my original group wore either grins or, in a few cases, frowns.

  “Where did it go?” Tami asked, glancing at Stacia before looking back my way. “You drew on the board but that portal never opened? What is that, Declan?”

  “I call it a proxy portal, Tami. Lanfen, you’ll find your stuff in your room. Should make it easier to pack. Hi Stacia,” I said, glancing at my girlfriend and then her hands.

  There were scabs on her knuckles. Werewolves don’t, generally, scab. They just heal. In hours, minutes, or even seconds. If Stacia broke her hand punching through a wall, it would be healed in about ten minutes. They don’t scab—with two exceptions. Silver-inflicted wounds won’t heal till the silver is gone, and then it will take a very long time and leave scars. The second exception is when a werewolf fights another werewolf.

  Ever since we had gotten back from Fairie, Stacia’s knuckles had been scabbed and re-scabbed. My werewolf was fighting someone, or someones, every time she went back to the city for a Pack event or meeting. And she wasn’t talking about it. My questions were answered with “Pack business, nothing to worry about.” Bullshit. She was tired, beat-up, and worried. It had forced me to take drastic steps.

  “Okay class, that’s it for tonight,” I said.

  “But you explained nothing,” Zoya said.

  “Yeah, well, too many interruptions. And I demonstrated two, no, make that three portal designs, including new material never before seen,” I said.

  “Hold up. The Russian is right. You didn’t explain jack shit, O’Carroll,” Tami said.

  I stared back at her but she just folded her arms and waited me out. “Lanfen, you need to get out,” I said, glancing back at her.

  She looked terrified for a second then angry. “No! You are to te
ach us!”

  “I JUST DID!” I exploded. “I just taught you that portals are crazy adaptable and that you can create one by remote control. And the major point of this lesson was to stop fucking up my class! You think I’m a bad teacher? You’re right! I’m no kind of teacher. But I’m the only one on this world who can do this and, according to the experts on Fairie, I’m pretty good at it. But interrupting me every second, questioning everything I do, and disrupting class is more than I can handle. I don’t know classroom behavior management; I can barely scratch together a lesson plan. I can train others to do this. I can teach a non-witch to do magic,” I said, waving at Mack. “But my time is valuable. I have things I have to handle on two worlds. If you don’t want to learn, don’t waste my time. I’m not going to prove myself every other word. Either take what I teach or get the fuck out.”

  Cold hard Lanfen had tears in her eyes and had her arms wrapped around herself, but still didn’t move.

  I was vaguely aware of Stacia moving toward me but most of my attention was focused on the class, the new kids in particular. “Well?” I demanded. “Anyone want to leave? Anyone want to spot check my work?”

  “Declan, I think they got the point,” Stacia said, sort of suddenly next to me. Her hand was on my arm and when I looked at her, she gave me one of her looks. Sort of a I completely sympathize with you, but now you gotta stop having a tantrum look. Is that something mothers teach their daughters?

  I took a breath and turned back toward the chalkboard, looking at my proxy portal. Then I snorted.

  “What?” Mack asked, possibly the only person other than Stacia who was willing to ask a question.

  “Made a mistake on the coordinates,” I said. “I meant to send Lanfen and her desk through the portal. See here? This directs how big the circle should be. I used the wrong elvish number.”

  I wiped the offending digit and rewrote the correct one. “Writing portal code in a rush is a mistake,” I said.

  “Portal code?” Nadia asked, frowning.

  “Yeah. Creating portals is just like writing computer code. In my head, I call it portal code,” I said.

  Stunned faces looked back at me. “Ah, dude. Maybe next time you should lead with that,” Mack said. “Most of us know at least a little HTML, some probably know a lot of coding.”

  Most of the room was nodding. They understood code. Why hadn’t I ever mentioned that before?

  “Okay, so what? You’ve mentioned it now. Mack, make a note for future lesson plans. So what if you’re a new teacher—you’re learning too. And the rest of you? You better pay attention because this one here is as good as it gets in your world. He’s right. His time is insanely valuable and no one will want it wasted. Every government on Earth wants his attention. New kids, suck it up and shut it up or go home,” Stacia said. “And one more thing—he’s mine.” Her eyes flared yellow as she glared around the class. Then she leaned in and kissed me square on the mouth. “Now teach your class, professor. I’m gonna go see Gina, so I’ll catch you after class.” She held my eyes for a second, then turned and made an awesome exit.

  When the door closed, Britta let out a breath. “Damn, she’s got style,” she muttered.

  I looked at my class and they looked back. “Alright. Valid points made. Let’s hit the rewind button and start over. Portal coding. Just what is it?”

  Lanfen borrowed a piece of paper from Biyu, wiping her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

  I started to teach.

  Fifty minutes later, I shut it down for real and this time no one complained. You could almost see the heads bulging with new ideas and concepts. I assigned the new kids the same battery charging homework I had given my originals and sent them out.

  Even Mack took off quickly, although that might have been because the Russian squad left last and I suspected he was interested in Nadia. Not sure what was happening with Erika, but who knows what happened while I was gone. I know that Mack would trade them all for Ashley but for some reason that connection had never happened. Somehow, sometime I was going to have to have a long talk with Mack. But not now.

  Someone came in as Mack left. I glanced over. Mason Conboy stood there, ill at ease, but a determined look on his face. “Mason, what’s up?”

  He was quiet for a second. Then, “You went to Boston.” It was a statement.

  “Yup. That’s the rumor,” I said, putting chalk and circle making stuff into my magic bag.

  “Why?” he asked, stepping forward. There was something aggressive about his movements.

  I stopped shoving papers into my class folder and gave him my complete attention.

  “That’s personal and none of your business.”

  He took another step forward and for a split second, I thought he was going to rush me. “Why would you go to Boston?” Was that anger on his face?

  “Lots of people go to Boston every day, for lots of reasons. My reasons are my own.”

  “My family lives in Boston,” he said accusingly.

  “Ah, that’s nice. Didn’t know that,” I said.

  He frowned at my words, eyes flicking over my face. His mouth opened to speak but nothing came out and he closed it, expression uncertain.

  “Wait—you think I went there because of your family?” I asked, frowning myself.

  Now he looked really uncertain, and worried… like someone who realizes they might have just made a big mistake.

  “You thought I went there to, what? Do something to your family? But you can hear the truth in my words, can’t you?” I asked, things clicking together in my head.

  “Ah, never mind. Forget I asked,” he said, turning abruptly. I waved a hand and he slammed to a halt. He tried to step forward two more times before giving up and turning back around.

  “Mason, why would I do anything to your family?” I asked.

  He fish mouthed a couple of times, like a goldfish, but nothing came out.

  I raised my right hand and circled it three times. Air rushed around the room, the door slammed shut, and an unnatural hush fell as all the normal sounds of a busy building went silent. His dark skin went pale.

  “Let’s get this out on the table right now. Someone, mostly likely Oracle, or maybe even higher, brought you here to spy on me, right? Your family is here on visas that are contingent upon your actions, correct?” I asked.

  He looked terrified, but then his expression hardened and he squared his shoulders. “I don’t have the choices that you do,” he said, bitter.

  “Is that a yes? Because I’d like to hear it from you, Mason. It’s been pointed out to me that you don’t like me, despite my helping you out, which you have no trouble accepting. Omega knows quite a bit about you, even though Oracle has only put the barest minimum in the data banks. Which was their first mistake. Deviate from the norm and it catches his attention. So he’s been watching and digging. Then Chris Gordon picked up on your attitude,” I said, watching his attempt at being tough weaken under every sentence. “So just admit it.”

  “What did you do to them?” he said, the anger flaring back up, fists clenching at his sides.

  “Who? Your family? Nothing,” I said.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. I wrapped him in kinetic bands that bound his arms tight to his body. “What’s that, Mason?”

  Holding a shield in front of me, I squatted down for a better look. It looked like dried plants. Seaweed? Wrapped around a black shiny thing that I first thought was plastic. But it wasn’t; it was organic. Two antenna-like fronds poked out of each end.

  “It is a shark egg capsule, Father. Constructed of collagen protein strands, it carries a fertilized egg. This one is from a bullhead shark. Some species of shark produce these egg cases, although most give birth to live shark pups,” Omega supplied in my ear.

  I looked with my Sight. The seaweed and egg case were wreathed in magic. “How unusual,” I said, meaning it. “You’ve made magic stick to salty organic material. What’s it do?”r />
  He struggled against my hold but got nowhere. “It hurts. Like being bitten by a shark… a baby shark.”

  “You’re a Water witch, aren’t you?” I asked, now fascinated with a new and unique piece of Crafting.

  “I am. A weak one, as most males are. Except you,” he said, voice filled with venom.

  “I am what I am. I had no say in the matter. You hate me for it,” I stated.

  “If I could do a tenth of what you can, I wouldn’t be here. My family would be safe. What did you do to them?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything. Why? What’s happened to them?”