Montrose Paranormal Academy, Book 1: The Nexis Secret: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel

by Barbara Hartzler

  “Me?” My hand flew to my chest. “Who am I? I’m nobody.”

  “No. Don’t ever say that.” He pressed his palms on either side of my face, forcing me to look at him. I wanted to look anywhere else, but he waited till my eyes settled on his. “You are the one. You’re the Seer, and a full two years before the prophecy. Your destiny is to stop Nexis and save the world, and that’s the only thing that matters right now. Even if it means we can’t be together.”

  “I don’t understand. I can’t save anyone, not even myself. I wouldn’t know where to start.” Tears percolated in my eyelids. How could this be true? “It doesn’t make any sense. I should be able to date whoever I want.”

  “If the Watchers know who you are, then Nexis will find out soon enough. When they do, and they figure out you’re dating a Guardian leader, they could lash out. Even call for war.” His expression shifted, his lips set in a line of stone.

  “That can’t be true. War?” Now that I wanted someone in my life, I couldn’t have him? More importantly, was I really destined to stop some crazy secret societies all by myself? Not to mention war, or at least rumors of war. It didn’t make any sense. “If that is being the Seer, I don’t want any part of it.”

  “But you are the Seer, and you have to remain neutral. For now.” He rubbed my temples with his thumbs, as if that would help. “You see, if the Seer joins one side, any side, the others immediately declares war.”

  “For now? What do you mean, for now?” I stared at him, willing him to make eye contact.

  He stared down at me, holding his gaze steady. “Unfortunately, war is imminent. The Guardians in Europe are close to declaring war against Nexis. It’s the most active of the four sectors of the three societies, where spies from all sides are actively trying to steal sacred stones. If war breaks out in Europe, America will follow. I’m guessing that why your gifts emerged before your eighteenth birthday—because the world needs the Seer. It’s unprecedented, though.”

  “Oh.” The word tasted pathetic on my tongue. “There are Guardians in Europe? Is that where my brother is?”

  “I think so, but I’m still trying to find out for sure.” He combed his fingers into my hair, halting as they bumped across my scar. “What’s this, Freckles?”

  I bit my lip. The soft way he said that stupid nickname and the revelation about James sparked hope in my heart. Since he finally told me the truth, didn’t I owe him the same? “It’s from an accident, after I caught Jake cheating. Eleven stitches, one concussion, and three days in the hospital.”

  “Ouch. That must’ve been the first vision I saw.” He parted my hair, pressing his lips against the bumpy ridges. “If only I could make it go away.”

  “I wish.” My scar tingled with his warmth, and I huddled into his arms.

  He smoothed my hair back in place. “I know nothing makes sense right now. But once we figure things out, we’ll see about making you a member of the Guardians.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” With a limp effort, I shrugged my shoulders. Maybe I didn’t want to join the Guardians anymore.

  “I’ll be here to help you every step of the way. Don’t worry.” His words sounded hollow and empty after all we’d just shared. His cold hand brushed against the small of my back, leading me to the lobby like a little lamb back into cruel reality.

  I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, fighting to keep the tears in check. The truth escaped anyway. “This sucks.”

  His lips curved. “I know. But it’s my job, after all. To protect the Seer.”

  “Great. That’s just what a girl wants, a bodyguard.” More hollow words hurled at my already bruised heart. I tried to push them away, like I pushed away everything else, but numbness wouldn’t come. Instead my whole body ached, more than the superficial injuries from the fire. Why did it have to hurt so much? A sharp pain filled my chest, searing me straight through. Maybe he didn’t understand how much I needed him. How could I make him understand? Even I didn’t understand right now.

  I followed him outside, watching as the bagpiper caught the water bottle and tossed it back to him. That was supposed to mean all clear, right? Nothing about tonight felt all clear. My life felt muddier than ever, all because someone finally knew the truth. And here I thought the truth was supposed to set you free.

  Chapter 19

  The academy chapel was becoming my favorite place on campus … and the most frustrating. Every time I came here to study my brother’s postcard, someone always interrupted. Maybe my secrets weren’t so secret after all.

  It’d been five days since that horrible church fire. We’d all agreed to lie low for a while. For the poor beat-up guys, it meant wearing baseball caps everywhere, even class when they could get away with it. The scar on my wrist had started to take shape. I’d have a triangle with an oval, swirling eye in the middle stamped on my wrist for the rest of my life. Yeah, I think I could definitely scratch the Watchers off of my list of secret societies to pledge.

  After that strange library initiation, I’d already scratched Nexis off the list, too. Those guys had some seriously weird plans to take over the world, and I didn’t even want to know how they planned to use me. But I’d still play along as long as my sanity would let me.

  Even though I’d mentally crossed the Watchers and Nexis off of my list, I didn’t have to tell them my decision. But after Bryan’s odd reaction to what I’d thought was a great kiss, I wasn’t so sure about the Guardians either. There had to be more to my brother’s story than either Nexis or the Guardians were telling me. I still had to make sure he was safe over there in Europe.

  As soon as the sun set, lights illuminated the stained glass windows from the outside. Instead of sitting in one of the nearby pews, I decide to walk down the aisle in front of the windows to get a closer look at each scene. The stained glass depicted typical Bible scenes, but all were somehow connected to the three societies. The flood, Noah’s ark, the tower of Babel were all on the West wall.

  At the end of the aisle, close to the altar, I stopped in front of an all-too-familiar scene. Etched in glass, St. Lucia stared back at me, holding a tray with two eyes. A shiver ran down my spine. Why did this saint matter so much?

  With a shrug, I pulled out the telltale postcard and analyzed it line by line.

  Wish you were here, lil sis. I found a great church here. I hope you find one, too. At first, I’d thought that meant this chapel, but now I knew he’d wanted me to find St. Lucy’s church all along. What our favorite saint had to do with the sacred stones, I still had no idea.

  I’m not sure what you’d love more, the stained glass windows or the libraries full of old books. Books hold so many secrets, just waiting for you to find them. Did he mean the stained glass here, or at St. Lucy’s, or both? I’d found the book with the pages he’d ripped out, but it probably burned up in the fire. Maybe, since he wrote the word books twice, he meant to lead me to more than one book.

  Don’t worry about me. You just take care of yourself until I see you again. Love, James. At first, I’d thought he meant that literally. Now I wondered if his farewell had a deeper meaning. Was he trying to take care of me somehow?

  “Ahem.” A shadow loomed over my shoulder.

  I practically jumped three feet in the air. My blood ran cold at the sound of Will’s familiar voice.

  Shoving the postcard in my back pocket, I turned to glare at Will. “What do you want?”

  Leaning in closer, he murmured in a low voice. “I heard you joined the Guardians.”

  “What?” I screeched, my cry echoing around the stone sanctuary. “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” His lips curled, and he stepped closer. I could smell the cinnamon on his breath. “Is it true?”

  “Of course it’s not true.” I backed up, an odd feeling settling in my stomach.

  “But you had some sort of special initiation, right?” He exhaled a sigh, his breath hot on my face.

  I planted my hands firmly on my hips and
steeled my gaze. “Listen, Will. Just because they wanted to initiate me, doesn’t mean I’ve officially joined. You should know that better than anyone.”

  “Good. Then I still have a chance.” Clad in dark jeans and a black leather jacket, only his gunmetal-gray eyes glinted as he studied me.

  I squirmed, my face surely giving me away. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on with you.” He threw his hands up in the air, that gorgeous chin cleft dropping practically to his chest in frustration. “I thought you wanted to know more about your brother. I can give you that. I don’t know what the holdup is.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides, fingernails digging into my hands. “You seriously have no idea how creepy Nexis is, do you? Why don’t you tell me what they plan to do with the Seer? How exactly do they want to use me to create Nephilim and take over the world?”

  He turned toward the stained glass version of St. Lucia, then back to me. “Okay, I get it. But it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “Oh really? Enlighten me.” My stomach clenched into a thousand knots I could never untie.

  “If you just join, I can tell you everything. Don’t you see that?” His soft tone jarred the knots.

  “Yeah, that answers that questions for me.” The words burned and choked my throat. So many things I could say to him. I leaned in close enough our noses almost touched. “If you think that I’m going to join any one of the three societies without knowing everything they have planned for me, then you don’t know me at all. I’m not some stupid girl who is so easily manipulated. So, if you want to tell me the truth about Nexis, I’m all ears. But until you decide to man up and bend your dumb rules a bit, you can count me out.”

  Without another word, I marched out of the chapel and never looked back.

  ~

  Butterflies danced up and down my arms as I dabbed on some lip gloss, the final touch to Shanda’s masterpiece ensemble. After a horrible week of lying low and wearing long sleeves to cover my new scar, I was ready for a night of fun. What better time than Halloween night to let loose and have a little fun?

  Clicking the giant bracelet over my wrist, I opened my dorm room door and stepped right onto the streets of Hollywood—if Hollywood suddenly went low-budget and decked itself out in cardboard and paper-mache. Pink and gold celebrity stars lined the floor from the stairwell, past our room, all the way down to room 220.

  To walk down our hall, the Halloween Open Dorm judges had to enter through velvet curtains that outlined a bright red carpet path, flanked on both sides by giant gold-painted cardboard cutouts of the Oscar statue. Behind the giant Oscars hung more cutouts of cameras with blinking flashbulbs. Speech bubble captions by the cameras read, “Over here,” “Who are you wearing?”, and “You look fabulous.”

  After the Oscar mob, the scene turned into Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where Laura had laid down movie star hand prints as tiles on the floor. Then the judges had to veer single file around the huge Hollywood Hill, a paper-mache monstrosity that engulfed half the floorspace.

  Somehow Laura had roped me into spray painting that giant hill made of paper-mache and chicken wire until I’d sneezed green and brown paint. Shanda finagled the easier job of hanging up movie posters with flashing Christmas lights. Even the fluorescent lights overhead were covered in colored tissue paper, a different hue for each section.

  “Nice.” I nodded at Shanda.

  “Way better than spray paint duty, right girl?” She elbowed my ribs.

  I rubbed my nose, careful not to mess up Shanda’s perfect make-up job. After tonight, I planned to make a few more trips to the chapel library, to see if I could find anything on St. Lucia and the sacred stones. But for now, it was definitely girl time.

  Laura and Monica insisted all the girls on our floor wear “red carpet attire” and do our best Hollywood waves when the judges came by. Of course, Shanda dressed me up like a Barbie doll in her silver sequined one-shoulder cocktail dress. In our doorway, I waved like a pageant princess and smiled until my cheeks hurt while the judges passed.

  At the end of the hall, Laura had hung cardboard that accordioned down gradually like amphitheater seats leading to the Hollywood bowl. On the stage, she tacked up a giant picture of all the Nelson second floor girls with pasted musical instruments and microphones in our hands. If those judges didn’t award her the title over Lenny, they needed to have their heads examined. I guess the open dorm contest was a long-standing feud between the twins.

  As soon as the judges disappeared up the stairs to the next floor, Shanda grabbed my arm and shut our door. “Let’s go see if the boys are any competition.”

  “Shouldn’t we change first?” I ran my hands over my sequins, my excitement fizzling away at the thought of seeing the guys dressed like I was ready for the prom.

  “No way.” Shanda twirled in her ivory satin halter dress. “Let’s go show those losers how fabulous we are. Then they’ll know we’re gonna win.”

  “If you’re sure.” A frenzy of double-espresso butterflies fluttered up my arms. I cracked open the door and pulled my fuzzy gray scarf from the coat rack, draping it over my shoulders like a shawl. After all, maybe a certain someone needed to see me in Shanda’s gorgeous dress just to remember I still went to Montrose. “Let’s pick up Laura and Brooke on the way out. I’m sure they want to rub their imminent success in their brothers’ faces right now.”

  “You just want to see Bryan.” Her eyes gleamed at me. Was I that obvious? “And why not? You look great. That’ll show him. I’ll get Brooke. You find Laura.”

  I huffed out a breath, practicing my best runway strut past the decorations in Shanda’s super-high heels. Sometimes, I wished I hadn’t told her about that night, the elevator. But of course she’d insisted she just “had to know” why we were acting like awkward middle-schoolers every time we saw each other between classes or in the dining hall. At least she never teased me in front of anyone else. That girl was proving she could really keep a secret.

  I found Laura with a trash bag in her hands and my Shanda-tude kicked in. “Girl, the night’s only begun. Let’s enjoy this while we can. You can clean up tomorrow. Right now you’ve earned some well-deserved bragging rights.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” She giggled at me, grabbing her purse. “I’ll get pictures of third floor Denby and put them next to mine in the Brewster family scrapbook.”

  “There won’t be any comparison.” I pushed her toward Shanda and Brooke.

  She paused at the end of the hall to tell Monica the judges had been by. Our gorgeous blonde RA was decked out in a red taffeta ball gown, a strange shadow slithering around her feet. When I blinked, the image was gone. Weird.

  “Don’t you clean up nice?” Shanda eyed Monica up and down. “Like one of those girls who hands out the statues at the Oscars. How perfect are you?”

  “Thanks, I think.” Monica smoothed down her dress with a frown. “Someone had to be the belle of the ball.”

  “Don’t mind her. You look gorgeous.” Laura tried to drag Shanda out the door, but the poor little red-head didn’t have enough strength.

  “That’s always you, isn’t it?” Shanda flipped her hair over her shoulder and flounced out the door.

  I clicked down the stairs after her, with Laura and Brooke tumbling through the front door behind me.

  Once we hit the night air, she finally turned around. “Before you say anything, I know, I shouldn’t be so catty. But I saw her flirting with Kevin yesterday. She just gets to me.”

  “Can’t say I blame you there. For some reason she’s always seemed just a little off to me.” A gust of cold wind blasted us, so I wrapped the scarf tighter and picked up the pace.

  “Right? Thank you,” Shanda said, pumping her fist in the air like she’d finally been vindicated.

  Laura rubbed her shoulders and edged close to me, while Brooke huddled against my other side. My teeth chattered as I tugged down the hem of the tiny dress Sha
nda had talked me into. It barely came down to my knees.

  Shanda didn’t seem to notice the cold. Blind rage probably kept her warm.

  “Maybe it’s not what you think. It could’ve been a misunderstanding.” Laura’s tiny voice almost got lost in the wind.

  “I know you’re probably right. I should just let it go. He’s my boyfriend, not hers.” Shanda rubbed her arms. “Wow, it’s cold out here.”

  “No kidding.” I turned my head to Laura and Brooke, rolling my eyes.

  Our heels clacked against the pavement, a hollow sound on the almost empty sidewalk. We scurried for the warmth of the boy’s dorm.

  The third floor of Denby screamed its superhero theme at us. Lenny had decked the place out with giant paper-mache versions of Spiderman, Batman, and all the comic book heroes. He also had painted life-size versions onto plywood and cut out holes in each face.

  “C’mon, let me get a picture.” Laura practically shoved my head into Wonder Woman. Shanda peeked through the Captain America cut-out, scowling as Laura snapped the shot. “Now get me and Lenny.”

  She handed me the camera, then hollered down the superhero tunnel. “Lenny, get down here.”

  A bright orange head peeked out of a doorway.

  “Nice costume, Lenny. Are you wearing PJs?” Brooke cracked up as he shuffled toward us in his black cape and faded Batman t-shirt.

  “It’s not as nice as your lovely outfit, I must say.” He eyed the purple flowy dress she’d borrowed from me.

  Her ears and neck pinked up. Not from the cold this time.

  “Nice, Lenny. Smile now.” I held the camera to my eye, stifling a giggle.

  “Wow.” Bryan’s whistle carried up the tunnel as he approached. “You look amazing.”