by Lan Chan
“You think they’re demon-related?” Nora said.
Samantha blinked. She threaded her hands together in front of her and rested them on the newspaper. When she opened her eyes, they found me in the group. “We think it all started with that first demon in your grandmother’s psychiatric hospital,” she said. “Something was triggered that day that has led to the build-up of demonic energy in the Earth realm.”
“Is that why you’re back?” I asked through the stone in my throat. If what she was saying was accurate, it meant that I had been the one to start all of this.
“We never left,” Jessica said. “We’ve kept a watchful eye on things for centuries. But now things are hurtling at a pace beyond even our control. We need Gaia.”
Nora turned her head to the side. “What do you mean you need her? She’s been gone since the Dimension wars.”
Samantha’s attention hadn’t left me. “That’s where all your legends are wrong. Maybe the invention of technology and the pollution of the oceans angered her, but Gaia has always been amongst us. Until recently.”
“Recently?” I stuttered.
“As recent as seventeen years,” Samantha said.
“What are you trying to say?” Nora asked.
“Your friend the mage with the wrong body must have told you by now that your great-grandmother was one of us. She held this post, Grand Mistress of the Sisterhood, for over four decades. She betrayed us by making a pact with a demon. When she defected, Gaia disappeared.”
I tried to pick my jaw off the floor. “You’re not trying to say…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yes, Alessia. Your great-grandmother bound our deity and hid her from the world. We believe these natural disasters are a result of Gaia’s attempts to break free. The only problem is that the more she fights, the more destruction we will see. Lucifer is using the fear of the humans to manipulate them. If this goes on for much longer, he will find a way to breach the barrier.”
“That’s impossible,” Nora said. I wanted to contradict her but my throat locked up tight. The thought of revealing what the Morning Star had said to me made pain shoot behind my left eye. I pressed my lips together. It was only when I forced my thoughts away from Lucifer that the pain subsided.
Samantha stood and picked up a tablet that had been charging on the long table pushed up against the window. She brought it back and switched the screen on. “We’ve been cataloguing everything we believe to be related to the encroachment of the Morning Star.”
“You call him that too?” I asked. Tired of standing, I sat my ass down beside her.
“We might disagree on many things, but there are some facts that are indisputable.” She pointed to some articles. “These are the reports on the rise of widespread disease pandemics. We’re in a health crisis at the moment. People are getting increasingly sick.” She swiped right. “These are the figures on the resource crises the world is currently facing. Our oceans are being depleted. Our forests are being cut down. Our water is being polluted.”
This time when she glanced up at me, there was a shadow in her eyes. “I understand the seers amongst the monsters have also seen a battle looming.” She nodded towards Jessica. “Jessie is a sight witch. She too has seen the impending confrontation.”
I was glad I was sitting down. “What are you saying exactly?” I asked.
She laid the tablet on the table. “It is said that before the end of days, the world will be given portents.”
“Oh Gaia,” Sophie said. She touched the screen of the tablet and went through the articles again. “The Four Horsemen. Pestilence, famine, war...”
“And death,” Samantha concluded. “We’re almost halfway there.”
My head was pounding. “What does this have to do with me?”
She laid her hand over mine. I was too shocked to pull away. “We’ve lost our balance. Our ability to fight back. We need Gaia. Your blood bound her. We believe your blood can bring her back. We want you to join us. Finding Gaia might be Earth’s last hope.”
I let my forehead drop onto the table. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy?
8
Nora clucked her tongue. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on her.”
“I understand,” Samantha said. “That’s why we believe she would be best suited here with us. We can help her learn to be what she was made for. Far better than anyone at Bloodline can help.”
A heavy sigh. I wasn’t sure which of the Mwansas made it. “If everything you say is true,” Mani said, “it means that there will be demons looking for Lex. They’ll want to stop Gaia from returning. Your abilities are adequate when it comes to stopping the supernaturals, but humans, even the Sisterhood, are less equipped at fighting demons. She’ll be safer inside Bloodline Academy.”
I lifted my head. The notion of safe had lost all meaning. “How am I supposed to look for Gaia?” I wanted to know. “I can’t even unbind the curse that I supposedly put on my grandmot –” I choked on the word. It brought back everything that had been thrown at me today. I clenched my hands to keep it together.
“You haven’t been able to unbind her soul because you haven’t been taught how to do it. We can teach you here,” Samantha said.
I hazarded a glance at Nora. There were creases in her brow. When she turned her attention to me, I made an open handed gesture that I hoped translated into how confused I was.
“There’s no way the headmistress will accept Lex withdrawing from Bloodline Academy,” Nora said.
“That’s not her choice to make,” Samantha corrected.
“Maybe not. But she has considerable sway. And if she doesn’t outright forbid it, there are other considerations.”
“I’ll say,” Sophie muttered. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to herself or to the other friends I’d made. If I chose to transfer to Terran Academy, I wouldn’t be able to see any of my friends. It still tripped me out that I actually had friends to miss. My mind projected an image of Kai’s arrogant smirk at me. Right. No Bloodline meant no Kai. A couple of months ago I might have jumped at that chance. Now that he knew why I had wanted to keep my distance, it was hard to justify doing it. My heart ached at the thought.
“You see why you need to be here,” Samantha asked me. “This is about more than just the ties you’re comfortable with.”
“Believe me,” I said. “None of this makes me comfortable.”
“Then the only question now is whether you will agree to come to Terran.”
“What will happen if I don’t?” I couldn’t get the threat in their so-called invitation out of my mind.
“We can’t force you. But you’ve seen now the reasons why we can’t allow the world to continue on as it is. Without us, the binding around your…grandmother, will continue to erode until she won’t ever remember who you are.”
“And you won’t show me how to save her without my attendance here?”
She rapped her clear-polished nails against the table. I noticed there were black smudges under her cuticles and figured it was dirt. “We have to make some hard choices. This is one of them. We don’t have the enticement of ethereally beautiful beings to offer you. The only bargaining chip we have is your grandmother’s freedom.”
We both knew she had me. My reaction to learning Nanna wasn’t truly my grandmother had probably been enough. The rest was semantics.
Still, once we were back outside and in the presence of the others, I refused to allow myself to be manipulated into attending yet another magical school without having any say in it at all.
Professor Mortimer was standing again, though he looked slightly the worse for wear. His hair was dishevelled and there was a crack in his glasses. But he smiled at me nonetheless. It was in that small gesture that I knew I couldn’t just leave Bloodline. For better or worse, they had taken me in and given me stability.
“A trade-off is the best I can agree to,” I told all of them. “A few days a week at each Academy.”
“Two days at Terran is the maximum we can accept,” Jacqueline said.
“And alternating weekend,” Samantha corrected.
I balked. “Wait, weekends? I’m not going to school on my weekend!”
The grand mistress sighed. “Maybe not. But you need to spend some time back in the human world.” She dragged her gaze over the party I had arrived with. Her attention came to rest on Kai. At the base of my neck, I could feel a slow sweep of cold whispering over my skin. I had never even thought to ask what kind of witch she was. “You’ve forgotten who you are.”
I had to give Kai credit. He had done pretty well up until this point. But the way Samantha turned herself in dismissal of them made his jaw clench. Jacqueline enclosed her hand around his forearm as he inched forward.
“Alternating weekends is too much,” Jacqueline said. “That’s almost half the time. She’ll never be able to catch up.”
Samantha laughed. “Then do what you must to ensure the lessons she learns from Bloodline are the ones she can only learn from your Academy. But I daresay she doesn’t need your Herbology lessons or any more of your Arcane Magic classes. We are much better equipped to help her in those areas.”
Professor Mortimer pushed his glasses up his nose. “If you’re going to end up teaching her those same courses then what’s the point?”
She shrugged, clearly bored with the conversation. In her mind, things were already settled. The contrast between her behaviour now and how she had acted five minutes earlier was drastic. In fact, both Sean and Jessica appeared to have done a Jekyll and Hyde as well. Inside the walls of Terran, I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to smack Sean across the head. Right now, the smirk on his amused face made my skin crawl. How would this ever work if there was such animosity between us?
“Never mind the lessons,” I said. “When the hell am I going to get a break?”
Nobody said anything. Samantha gave me a pointed look which I translated into a question about what was more important. Rest or saving the world? I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine. Whatever. Can we go now?”
“We’ll expect you back here at the end of the week,” Samantha said. I felt a door closing in my mind. Or maybe it was shackles rattling. Whatever it was, it sealed my fate.
Back inside the bus, I let out a long sigh. Our party was quiet during the return trip. Jacqueline took over driving because Professor Mortimer was still rattled from his encounter with the soul gate. She put her foot down over a pot hole and the bus fishtailed. I gripped the seat in front of me. Kai shot me an I told you so look. I closed my eyes as the bus slipped through the portal and landed with the grinding of gears on the short runway.
Professor Magnus and Peter were still waiting for us. My inside clenched at the sight of him. Had I really just agreed to stop taking Herbology classes? And Arcane Magic. My two favourite classes at Bloodline. I must have let out a sound because the seat beside me dipped.
Warmth blanketed my side. Without turning, I allowed my head to slump on Kai’s shoulder. “You know you can always change your mind,” he said.
I thought of what Samantha had told me about Gaia and the planet going to hell. Suddenly I was so weary I could barely keep my eyes open. The knot in my mind was fraying at the edges. This time I turned and buried my head into the crook of his neck. He wrapped his arms around me, seeming to understand the source of my anguish.
“She’ll always be your grandmother. Nothing could change that.”
The bus door opened. I allowed myself a few seconds to steady my breathing. When I lifted my head, his eyes were soft. We’d been trying to figure out how I could use what I’d done to Basil to free Nanna. But the one time we had gone to Seraphina to attempt it, all I’d done was tug and Nanna had fallen unconscious.
“Time to get off the bus,” Basil said. My tension dissolved into irritation. Basil didn’t care. It was his mission in life to come between Kai and me whenever he had the chance. Rather than argue, Kai unfolded himself and took my hand. He lifted me up to my feet and stepped aside so I could turn down the aisle. Basil waited for me at the front of the bus. He too let me pass, and then he stepped in front of Kai to block the way. Despite everything, Sophie had a small smile on her face when I stopped in front of her.
Nora wrapped one arm around me. She pulled us both aside. “I know this is a big ask,” Nora said, “but the Council are having a difficult time containing the news that the Sisterhood have been here all along. There are rumours flying all over the place. We need to make an announcement soon. I was just thinking, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to do that publicly.”
I could see where this was headed. “You mean like at a party?” She nodded.
“We could set something up in Seraphina.”
Sophie raised a brow. “After what happened with Artemis, how would the Council feel about allowing the Sisterhood into their inner sanctum?”
“They might not have a choice,” Kai said, coming up behind me. He grabbed hold of a chunk of my shirt and pulled me back into him. I wasn’t sure if it was for my benefit or his. “We’re either going to have to bend or break from this, and I have no intention of breaking. They have Blue, for now, and that’s going to mean we need to play nice with them.”
“Do you think you could float the idea of a meeting with them?” Nora asked me.
I turned me palms up into the air. “I haven’t even started school there and you want me to ask them for a favour?” The straight face she gave me said she wasn’t asking. I groaned. “Fine. But maybe if you let them see Giselle it might sweeten the deal.”
“No,” Kai said.
“But –”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
I yanked myself out of his hold. “It better be, because I’m not your lackey. We have one of theirs locked up. You might have noticed they’re slightly possessive about their people.”
He took a menacing step towards me. His eyes deepened into a shade of green that was almost edging into black. “So are we.” The hairs on my neck stood up. Something had snatched my breath away.
Sophie tugged at my sleeve. It forced me to turn my gaze away from Kai. The tense air shattered and I could breathe again. The wicked glint in Sophie’s eyes told me there would be a long and drawn-out discussion about this later. Right now, she offered up a compromise.
“Even if we ask them to go to Seraphina, it might be a tactical disadvantage for them. After all, it’s a city full of Nephilim. Wouldn’t a neutral place be better?”
Nora contemplated this for a moment. “You might be right. The problem is, there is no such place.”
“Isn’t that what you’re there for?” I suggested. “For better or worse, you’re probably going to end up being the liaison between the Council and the Sisterhood.”
“Yay.” It was a dry lament that reminded me so much of Sophie that I had to smile. It made Nora cup my face in her hands. “Everything is going to be okay.”
I tried to hold on to my smile, but after a second it faded. What the hell was okay anymore these days?
Everyone dispersed. Sophie and I were about to head back to the dorms when Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer side-armed me. “We’re going to try and re-arrange your timetable so that it’s most efficient,” Jacqueline said. “I’m not sure how feasible that will be but we’ll try our best. In the meantime, you’re still here.”
I nodded at her. Yes, I was still here for now. But I couldn’t help wondering how long that would be the case if my mission had become finding Gaia. What if that meant I had to go on a hunt? As soon as we got back into our room, I flung myself onto the bed and screamed into my pillow. First term hadn’t even started and now everything was uncertain again.
9
As the Fae lights dimmed for the evening, I lay in bed trying to force my eyes closed. The latest Arcane Magic textbook lay butterflied on my chest. This year we were learning how to integrate our circles with other spells for defensiveness. We were going to try magic circles an
d potions first. Sadly, thanks to her win in the Showcase last year, Sophie had been bumped up to the third-year Potions class. So it meant I wouldn’t be seeing much of her. With the addition of my days at Terran Academy, plus alternating weekends, it was starting to look as though time was going to be a bit of an issue for me.
As I lay there in the darkness, my thoughts drifted back to Nanna. Reaching out, I took the picture frame of her and my mum off my nightstand. It was too dark to make out the real lines of their faces, but I had memorised their smiles and every other tiny detail about them. My brain still wouldn’t compute that she wasn’t my real grandmother. Why would she take me in and how did it come to pass? It didn’t escape my notice that if Nanna wasn’t my real grandmother then the other woman in the picture might not actually be my mum. I was probably not a real Hastings.
What the hell am I? I spoke those words to the seraph that had gone mysteriously quiet. Azrael didn’t respond. If I didn’t think it would wake Sophie, I might have kicked the wall. Needless to say, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned all night. Annoyance crept through me. It had been a while since I’d slept so poorly. Despite all of the things that had happened since joining Bloodline, this was the safest I’d felt in a long time. Now all of that was shattered.
I was surly as hell in the morning. When I arrived at the Grove to do my morning chores, the nymphs took one look at my expression, sneered, and made themselves scarce. They had gotten used to me dragging my demon blade around, but it didn’t mean they had to like it. Neither Kai nor I had seen fit to tell them that the Sisterhood had gotten in contact with me. I sure as hell didn’t want to be alone when they found out I would be attending Terran Academy half the time.
I was so zoned out that I didn’t hear the first warning bell. By the time I returned to the dorm to grab my backpack, I was already running late. Story of my life. The Academy sped by me on either side as I sprinted across the lawns, past the kitchen garden, and over the bridge that separated the two campuses. I reached the hill where the junior campus first came into view. The sun was already scorching at this time of day. I was so busy rubbing at the heated burn behind my neck that I wasn’t watching where I was going. My knee hit the barrier first. The rest of my body slammed into the invisible wall through sheer inertia. I landed on my left hip, the pain jarring up to my rib cage.