Promptly, I dropped my arm from Lyra’s shoulders. “Sorry about that.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay.”
I offered her a small smile. She could be a snob given her family name and status, but she wasn’t—quite the contrary. Anyone who didn’t know her name would never guess this kind and shy girl was a legacy in our world.
As we entered the Statice building for our next class, my phone—the one I wasn’t supposed to carry around on campus—chimed.
Covertly, I fished it out from my bag and spied at the new text.
Meg: Party tonight.
Chapter Three
I didn’t agree to the party right away, and I blamed it on Doreen’s reminder about our family honor. But that was the only thing that had made me hesitate. Because, come on! I had been invited to one of the secret parties after only a month at the academy. That had to be some sort of record.
I had exchanged the school uniform for tight black jeans, a dark green blouse, and some high heel boots. And I had blow-dried my hair, otherwise I would look like Princess Merida. I picked up a think black jacket with a hood from my closet, so I could use it while outside and blend in better in the darkness.
Not that I was going far. The party would be hosted in an empty room in the Snapdragon building, which housed the male dorms, and was right beside the Gardenia building.
As instructed, I waited by the front doors of the dorm and looked out for any patrols. Some demon hunters who didn’t want to join the ranks of the Blackthorn Hunters, but also didn’t want to retire in Chasseur Ville, stayed at the academy and became guards. I saw two guards turning a corner at the Statice building, going away from this side of the academy, then I stepped out.
My heart raced on the short walk there, and I felt a little rush of adrenaline for sneaking out at this time of night. It was the most exhilarating thing I had done in a long time.
The front door of the Snapdragon building was unlocked, as Meg had told me, and I stepped into near darkness. Only a small nightlight glowed from a wall. I glanced around, expecting to see Meg and any other students who had been invited to the party, but there was no one. The wide lobby was empty.
I retreated to a corner, just in case someone decided to wander around at this time, and texted Meg.
Me: Where the hell are you?
Meg: Shoot. I fell asleep. Omw!
I chuckled. Only Meg would fall asleep when there was so much excitement and expectation involved.
The faint sound of a door swinging open caught my attention. My phone almost slipped from my hands and I froze as Sam stepped into the lobby.
“Who is there?” He halted in the center of the lobby and looked around. He probably saw my silhouette in the dark, because his eyes fixed on the exact spot where I was.
Letting out a defeated sigh, I stepped away from the shadow. “It’s me.”
“Kayleen?” His brow furrowed as his gaze traveled down my body, taking in my clothing.
I felt the urge to hide myself again, because I was sure Sam wouldn’t go to a party. He looked like he had been exercising—he wore a damp tank shirt, black shorts, and running shoes—and Sam didn’t have many friends at the school.
Like Meg, Sam hadn’t come from a family of famous demon hunters. The last real demon hunter in his bloodline had been his great-grandfather, and even then he hadn’t been the most notable. After that, no one reached the academy’s standards and they weren’t accepted. Instead, most of them lived in Chasseur Ville and worked mundane jobs. Some tried to leave the demon hunter life behind and hid in human towns.
It wasn’t until his older brother Max—Maxwell—had proven himself that their family fortune began to change. Max had recently graduated from the academy, and like Sam, he had been the best in his classes. Though being smart apparently wasn’t enough. He had been ostracized by most of the students because he hadn’t come from a distinguished family.
Meg had been told me all of this, and I had no idea what was true, but every time I saw Sam, I could see in him the will to prove himself, to prove to everyone that he deserved to be here. That he would succeed.
I like that about him.
“Hey, Sam,” I muttered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hm …” I shifted my weight. “I could ask you the same, you know.”
“And I can answer it easily. I sometimes have insomnia, so I go out for a run. It tires me out and then I can sleep.”
“So you sneak out for a run?”
“Actually, I don’t sneak out. I have a pass for that. You can ask any professor or the guards. In fact, I was seen by a handful of guards while on the track.”
I felt so stupid. “Oh,” was all I said.
“You’re here for one of the secret parties, aren’t you?” His voice wasn’t reproaching, but it was somewhat disappointed, and that was worse. I didn’t answer. He ran a hand through his damp hair. “I expected better from you.”
Oh, there was the reproaching tone.
I put my hands on my waist and puffed out my chest. “Why? Just because I’m a Byron?”
His frown softened. “No, not that. It’s just …” He shook his head. “I guess I pegged you wrong.”
“And how did you peg me?”
Sam took a step closer, his height towering over me. “At first glance, I thought you had it all. Beautiful, strong, smart, kind.” He tsked. “But I guess looks can be deceiving.”
My jaw fell open.
Sam walked away before I could come up with a good retort. And what retort could I have come up with when the thing that stuck up to my mind was: Sam thought I was beautiful.
That was crazy!
“Hey,” Meg whispered, entering the lobby.
I straightened and pushed all thoughts of Sam from my mind. For some reason, I didn’t want to talk about him to Meg.
“Have a good nap?” I joked.
She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, if you hadn’t texted me, I would still be sleeping. Thanks for that.”
“No worries.” I glanced around. “So, what now? We wait for others, or do you know where to go?”
With a sneaky smile, Meg fished a small silver key from her pocket and showed it to me. “I know where to go.”
She led us around a corner, past the media room, and into a long, dark corridor. She stopped at a random door and used the key to unlock it. She smiled at me and stepped inside.
I hesitated but followed her.
The room wasn’t a room at all. It was another short corridor with a staircase leading down. In silence, we took the stairs, which again ended at another corridor.
Once more, Meg stopped at a random door and used another key to unlock the door. I frowned, wondering how she got those keys, and how the party host secured such room.
She opened the door wide and gestured for me to step in. I stared inside, but there was nothing I could see, only black.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” I asked, a little wary.
“Just go in,” she urged. When I didn’t, she knotted her arm with mine and we went in together.
It was like we had crossed a veil suspended at the doorway. Once we stepped through, the large room came alive with lights, music, and people. I stared in awe, taking it all in.
“How?” was all I could ask.
Meg shrugged. “For the right price, witches sell any spell.”
“Meg, there you are,” someone said, turning to us.
“Sorry we’re late,” she said, bumping her fist against the guy’s free hand. He was holding a red plastic cup in the other. “I fell asleep.”
“Oh, that’s normal,” he said. Then he looked at me with his dark eyes. “And you’re Kayleen. Hi, I’m Patrick. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand to me.
I took his hand. “You too.”
“He’s a third-year student,” Meg explained. “And those—” She pointed to two other people approaching us. “—are Lewis and Abby. They are second years.”<
br />
They greeted me with a smile.
There were a handful of people in the room and I noticed I had seen at least two of them around, but I didn’t really know their names or what year they were.
It still amazed me that even though I had been here for almost a month, I still didn’t know the faces and the names of my classmates. I mean, there were a lot of students in the academy, but we probably crossed paths with all of them every day, didn’t we?
“I need a drink,” Meg said, walking to the other side of the room where several coolers were.
That was when I saw what was on the floor.
A huge circle drawn with chalk—a witch’s pentagram.
Patrick caught me staring at it. “You’re in for a treat,” he said, his voice full of excitement.
I glanced at him. “What—“
“Are we all here?” someone else asked. The music instantly stopped and the students in the room spread out around the circle. “Then we can start.”
I frowned. Start what?
Meg came back to my side with two red cups in her hand. She shoved one to me. “Ah, this will be exciting,” she whispered.
I took the cup and didn’t even need to look at it to know what it was. I could smell the cheap beer. “What is going on?” I asked her, my voice low.
“We’re summoning demons,” she said simply, as if that was as normal as ordering ice cream for dessert.
My jaw fell open and my cup almost slipped from my hands. No, that couldn’t be right. I had heard her wrong. First, everyone knew summoning demons was dangerous, even if you were a trained and powerful demon hunter. But students doing it in the school’s basement?
It sounded like a terrible idea.
A tall guy with his long hair tied in a bun atop of his head stepped inside the circle. “Remember, stay back until the summoning is complete. The demon won’t be able to escape the circle, but be careful as some of them can trick you into coming forward.” He turned into a circle, looking at everyone. “Ready?”
Everyone yelled yes.
Everyone but me.
I was rooted in place, suddenly sure I was in the wrong place, but as much as my mind willed my legs to move and leave, they wouldn’t. They were frozen into place, because deep down I knew that if I walked away from this, I would never be invited again. Meg would probably not hang out with me anymore.
Before I could decide, the guy in the center brought up a small knife, cut his palm open, and let his blood drip on the floor while he chanted something in a language I didn’t know.
“Another witch’s spell,” Meg said to me. “Phil there knows a witch and he buys this stuff from her.”
Just then, the lines of the circle started bubbling and the ground shuddered. Phil stepped out of the circle, but kept his hand over the line, still dripping blood.
“Any moment now,” he said, finally pulling his hand back.
I put my cup down and braced myself. This couldn’t be happening, right? Even with a witch’s spell, they wouldn’t be able to summon a real demon, right? It wasn’t possible. Besides, what if we were caught? Summoning demons in the academy was forbidden. We could be expelled, or worse.
A loud pop echoed through the room and dark smoke filled the circle. Sounds, like a clicking tongue and rasping teeth, came from the smoke.
My gut tightened and I took a large step back.
The smoke cleared and the demon appeared.
The demons. Plural.
The waist-high, gray-skinned monsters hopped from foot to foot, baring their pointy teeth and starting at us with their yellow catlike eyes.
Garrimps.
Lesser demons, easily killed … at least that was what I had learned in monster identification class. I had never seen one with my own eyes.
One of them lunged toward me.
I scrambled back, almost falling on my butt, but the circle held and the garrimp was knocked back by a magical barrier. It seemed to only anger it more.
Meg, Patrick, Lewis, Abby, Phil, and the others chuckled because of my reaction, but a second later, they forgot about me. The ones who were in their second year or older summoned their Dawnblades—the beautiful black swords and their dark green glow. They stepped outside the circle and swiped their swords at the imps, slashing them open in one try.
The other students cheered and yelled as they killed the demons.
Meg handed me a crude dagger. “Since we don’t have a Dawnblade …” She showed me she had a similar dagger. “Now let’s have fun.”
She stepped half a foot into the circle’s outer line and stabbed an imp behind his back. She cheered and jumped up and down twice as the demon fell, its body going limp.
I looked around me as the other students excitedly killed the demons.
A crude energy passed through them, an exhilaration, a comradely, a bond. This was their secret and they did it together as friends, as allies.
“Come on, newbie,” Patrick said, pointing his Dawnblade to the imps left in the circle. “You gotta kill one too.”
I gulped. The feeling that had assaulted me a few minutes ago came back. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t be in their group. I wouldn’t belong with them.
I held the hilt of the dagger tighter and took a deep breath. In martial arts class, we had learned how to throw punches and kicks. We had just started analyzing swords and daggers, but we hadn’t played with them yet.
But I had been born in a demon hunter world. I had seen my family practicing many, many times. I might not have done it, but I knew the theory of an attack.
Just do it.
I stepped forward, my toes inching the outer line of the circle, and jutted my arm out, extending the dagger in my hand as a garrimp rushed toward me. It ran right into my dagger, the skin breaking and wet sound of blood suddenly the only thing I could hear.
Shocked, I let go of the dagger and it stayed buried in its chest, even when the now dead imp fell backward.
“You did it!” Meg cheered. All the others smiled and nodded at me. Patrick patted my shoulder, Lewis winked at me, and others gave me the thumbs up.
Soon, all the garrimps Phil had summoned were dead, their little sickly bodies littered the floor around us.
My chest moved up and down, my heart beating a million miles per hour. I looked at my hands, aware that I had killed my first demon. If sneaking out in the middle of the night had felt exhilarating, this felt way beyond that. Being here, with this group, killing demons like a badass … that was powerful.
“So, what did you think?” Abby asked, approaching me.
“It was … exciting,” I confessed.
“I know, right?” Meg asked, chewing gum with her mouth open.
I looked beyond them. Phil was back in the center of the circle. He muttered another spell, and in a flash, all the bodies were gone.
“Wow,” I muttered.
Meg put an arm around my shoulders. “Last weekend was my first time, but I gotta tell you, this is pure ecstasy. You’ll want to come back over and over again.”
I could already taste the same adrenaline, the same empowerment running through my veins. “How often do you guys do this?”
“Every weekend if we can,” Patrick answered. “Don’t worry. You’re part of the gang now. We’ll let you know when it happens again.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
Chapter Four
“I swear, she said that,” Lewis said, and we all laughed. “Holy shit, you guys.”
We laughed some more and I almost snorted my orange juice out. I put a hand over my mouth and tried to take a short breath before swallowing the rest of the OJ.
My days had been like this for the past two weeks since I started hanging out with not only Meg, but also with Patrick, Lewis, and Abby. Sometimes, even Phil and some of the others joined us. Like now. Our table in the cafeteria was crowded, but this was how I liked it.
These past two weeks I had also skipped more classes, got drunk one nig
ht with whiskey, and taken the first try from a cigarette. Though we hadn’t summoned more demons since most of us couldn’t get away last Saturday due to visiting officials and increased movement in the academy, we had hung out a lot. And, if it all worked out, we would be able to get together in the basement this upcoming Saturday, and we would summon more garrimps.
I was so excited!
Someone walked by our table and I looked up. Lyra. I stared after her for a brief moment as she went to the lunch bar. Since I started hanging out more with Meg and her friends—my friends—I had barely talked to Lyra. She had even stopped sitting beside me in classes, and we only spoke if we saw each other in the dorm’s hallway. Even then, it was a quick hi and done. Despite knowing she was quieter and serious than me, I didn’t really like the distance between us.
Well, it was her loss.
Lewis kept telling us the story about the half-demon he had dated last summer and how she dumped him—it was funny!—and I finished eating my lunch. I stood up to take my tray away, then went to the dessert bar. Sometimes, there was a chocolate chip cookie ice cream that I really liked, so I often checked.
I leaned over the glass covering the desserts, scanning the ice cream section, when someone stopped beside me.
I glanced up.
Holding a small tray, Sam reached in and grabbed a chocolate ice cream bar, a slice of carrot cake, and a handful of chocolate chip cookies.
“Are you going to eat all that?” I asked, eyeing his tray.
“Nope.” He reached in and picked up a caramel ice cream bar. “This one is for me. The rest is for the guys.” He absently gestured to our back, where the cafeteria tables were located.
I had seen him earlier. He had been seated with his friends, Oliver and Lee, at one side of the cafeteria, as usual. His eyes had met mine a couple of times while we were there, but I had chalked it up to coincidence.
I nodded and went back to searching the ice cream variety. I had already noticed there was no chocolate chip cookie ice cream, but for some reason, I didn’t want to walk away just yet.
“They haven’t had my favorite dessert in a while,” I said.
Starlight & Shadows: A Limited Edition Academy Collection by Laura Greenwood, Arizona Tape, Juliana Haygert, Kat Parrish, Ashley McLeo, L.C. Mawson, Leigh Kelsey, Bre Lockhart, Zelda Knight Page 11