Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3)

by Lan Chan

  Oddly enough, she turned around and skimmed her fingers over some of the books in the loaded shelf behind her desk. She pulled out a thin-spined one that looked like it had been very loved. When she handed it to me, I saw that it wasn’t a book but a journal.

  “This has been handed down to us for centuries,” she said. “Your great-grandmother was the last one to own it. There are some notations in there about bone witches. It’s not an ability that we’ve had much contact with. But you might be able to make more sense of it than we can on that small front.”

  I latched on to it greedily. She didn’t let go straight away. “Bear in mind that if you try any of this, I want you to do it inside a protective circle. Not your usual one. A circle that contains your power rather than amplifies it.”

  I nodded. She gave up her prize. I swallowed hard and touched the old black leather cover. It was well-worn but also well-kept. At least my great-grandmother wasn’t messy.

  “You understand why you can’t reveal what you can do to the monsters?” she asked. “If they know that you can tap into the power of the river of souls, they’ll label you a threat. I understand your friend Sophie has felt the taint of that brush before. And she was only touched by association. Being able to harness the power of the dead is not something to be taken lightly. They will want you contained.”

  “How do you know so much about the supernatural world?”

  “We’ve had a lot of time to watch them while they believed we were extinct. It’s a shame Sophie has spent so long with the shifters. She would have been a great addition to our ranks.”

  “Why does it have to be one or the other?”

  She cocked her head like I was asking something silly. “Because that’s how power works. There can only be one alpha.”

  “Two,” I corrected. “Male and female.”

  “It amounts to the same thing. We’re not living in a time of peace. Sooner or later you’ll have to choose, Alessia. Your friend seems to have already chosen.” An alarm beeped on her phone. It still tripped me out whenever someone took out their devices and checked them. I hadn’t even turned my phone on. Not that I’d had a chance between getting half-drowned and all.

  “Time’s up. I can tell you this has been truly enlightening. I wish we’d had the chance to get to you earlier. Next time I’m bringing in somebody else who is proficient in soul splitting to join us.” She brushed a stand of hair that had come out of her bun when I’d shocked her with the dark power.

  Somebody knocked on the door. I thought it might be another student but it ended up being Jessica. She popped her head in, saw me, and nodded. “Sam,” she said. “There’s been another incident.”

  Samantha’s spine went rigid. “Which facility?”

  “Geelong.”

  “Alright, I’m coming now. Alessia was just about to head off to her next class.”

  I understood the dismissal but not the hurry. “Facility?”

  She waved me off. “We’ll talk about it another time. Someone else will be able to fill you in.”

  They put their heads together, and Sam grabbed for what I saw were charms from the top drawer of her desk. At that moment, she looked the part of the head of a witch coven.

  I went up to my room and grabbed the phone. Somebody had already done the hard work of installing everything. That was good because I didn’t have the slightest clue about sim cards or the like. I had heard a lot of talk about it when I jumped on the trains to get out of the cold, but it was all gibberish to me.

  I scrolled through until I saw the downloaded icon and opened up the document that was my timetable. Curious. I had a class with Ashton now. Maybe this was part of my studies into animal agriculture. They tended to blend the magical with the practical in this place. Maybe I’d get to milk a cow. I stowed Hilary Hastings’ diary in my suitcase and left.

  When I reached the lawn beside the big paulownia tree, I came to a halt. There were a few other students milling around including the Evil Three and Rachel. But they were peripheral to what I was focused on. Sitting on the grass were a number of metallic weapons. I’d never seen the likes of them before, but the sharpened points on the machine that looked like a gigantic crossbow didn’t leave much to the imagination.

  “Alessia.” Ashton grinned.

  “Ahh...hi.” I took a step closer.

  Harlow smirked at me. “Come over here,” she said. “Let me show you the angel killer.”

  I could feel my face morphing into a grimace. “The what?”

  Rachel grabbed her arm and pulled her away, speaking furiously into her ear. I turned to Ashton. “What did she just call that thing?” I pointed to the crossbow machine.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Ignore her.”

  A furry head appeared at my side. Phoenix nudged my palm until I patted him on the head. “That doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like it could pierce right through armour.”

  “Nah,” Winnie said. She ran a hand lovingly over the notched metal arrow. “It doesn’t need to go through armour. Just bones. Like the ones in the wings of a Nephilim.”

  I stared at her for a second before taking a step forward. My eyes flicked between them and the thing sitting like war refuse on the lawn.

  “What kind of class is this?” I said. “It says Containment of Beasts on the timetable.”

  Harlow flung Rachel off her. “What kind of beasts did you think we were talking about?” She waved a stem of wolfsbane in front of her face and pretended to sniff at it. Wolfsbane was unscented.

  I turned on my heels. Somebody grabbed me by the bicep. Ashton appeared beside me. His hold wasn’t crushing but it was firm. I wasn’t going anywhere. “Just hear us out,” he said.

  “No. I’m not going to stick around while you discuss how to hurt my friends,” I said. When I tried to yank out of his hold, he constricted his fingers. “Get off.”

  “Please,” he said. “I get it. Some of them have been nice to you.” He swallowed like the words were dirty. “Some of them might even care about you. But the vast majority of them still see you as prey. Can you really blame us?”

  This time, when I tugged, he allowed me free. I rolled my shoulder where he’d had hold of me. My muscle throbbed. I really needed to work on my strength. It didn’t escape my notice that Kai and even Max had often manhandled me when they were being particularly cavemanish. But not once had I come away with a bruise like I was sure I would get soon. The kind of restraint that must have entailed made the annoyance in my chest flare anew. Before I could storm off, Rachel hit me with one of her trademark glares.

  “You better believe they’re doing the same thing now that they know we’re still around,” she said. “If they weren’t already doing it.”

  “They have every right to,” I snapped. “Giselle was murdering them. She almost murdered me.”

  Harper snorted. “Please. Giselle was a pro. If she’d wanted you dead, you’d be a corpse right now.”

  Rather than curtail her, Rachel nodded. “We have just as much right to protect ourselves as they do.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it.” I could just imagine the shit I’d get if anyone at Bloodline knew I was involved in these classes. It was that thought that had me relenting. Because at Bloodline we sat through classes where we learned about each other’s weaknesses all the time. We fought with each other, and yes, there were times when we considered how to best restrain a human if need be.

  The smirk on Harlow’s face did not make it any easier to comply. I marched over to the bench beneath the arching branches of the paulownia and sat down heavily. Phoenix jumped up beside me. Good. Now there wasn’t room for anyone else.

  Taking his cue from my reluctant involvement, Ashton jump-started the class.

  “Okay,” he said, “as you can see, today we’re going to discuss how to disarm and dispatch a creature with the ability to fly.”

  The Evil Three sat down on the grass and crossed their legs.
Rachel remained standing. There were two other girls, already seated on the park bench with its back to the field. One of them was Asian with straight black hair that fell over her shoulders like a liquid ebony waterfall. The other girl was about my height with creamy skin and golden hair. They were the polar opposites but there was something calming about them. I couldn’t remember their names but I’d seen them at the lunch the other day.

  “How do we account for the teleportation?” Harlow asked. It was only then that it hit me why we were doing this today. They’d seen Kai teleporting me out of the ocean whirlpool. It was too much of a coincidence. It wasn’t until Phoenix whined that I realised I was gripping his hair. I released my hand and stroked it down his knobbly back.

  “You don’t,” he said. “You’ll have to anticipate. But they’re creatures of habit. And they’re arrogant. They’ll use their flight the same way as the vamps use their bite. You just have to wait it out. The membranes on their wings are incredibly sensitive. Even more so than any other skin on their body. They bleed like crazy as well. All we have to do is poke enough holes in them, and supernatural or not, they’ll come crashing down.”

  It didn’t surprise me that he avoided my gaze the whole time he spoke. I kept imagining somebody shooting one of those arrows through Kai’s wings. In between gritting my jaw, I wanted to point out that they were underestimating the pain threshold some of these supernaturals could endure. Kai wouldn’t stop if he was injured. In fact, it would just piss him off. Flight was just one of the many abilities in his arsenal.

  The whole time Ashton spoke, Rachel was inching forward. She held on to one of her throwing knives. Every once in a while she tossed it into the air and caught it absentmindedly. It almost seemed like a nervous tic. Like she was dying to try the arrow machine and just had to occupy her hands for a little while. She almost jumped out of her skin when Ashton waved for them to come up and have a go.

  I opted to remain where I was. Mostly out of protest. Partly because my track record with weapons in general wasn’t anything to jump up about.

  Rachel was another story altogether. Ashton had rigged one of those clay disc shooting machines in the field adjacent to where we were. The rest of them took turns shooting. Rachel didn’t miss a single shot. What had my blood boiling was that the arrows weren’t just metal. They had been constructed to come apart when they hit their target. Netting dispersed from an internal casing and enclosed the shattered disc. I would bet the netting was made of material harmful to the supernaturals.

  I was gnashing at my teeth when Ashton signalled for everyone to regroup. He waved at someone over in the house. Sean appeared holding a round wooden tray. Sitting atop the tray was a series of glass beakers. Inside the beakers was a sludge that made my insides turn cold.

  Sean wore green rubber gloves. He also had an apron on that looked like it was made out of silicone or latex. Harlow’s eyes widened. She made a grabbing motion but then restrained herself. I couldn’t look away from the substance in those beakers.

  Beside me, Phoenix yelped. He scented it too. That acetone chemical smell that had filled the air before Astrid went down.

  “What the hell is that?” I snarled.

  The Evil Three were unmoved by my sudden agitation. “It’s the thing that’s going to turn the tide of this war,” Alison said. She too was staring at Sean’s slow-moving form.

  I whipped my head around to look at Rachel. “That stuff was used on one of the Nephilim.” It didn’t surprise me when she shrugged.

  “What is it?” I wanted to know.

  “We’re not entirely sure,” Ashton said. “Industrial waste mixed with some other arcane ingredients I think.”

  “Surely that stuff is poisonous to us too!”

  Sean had placed the tray down on the lawn table. He held up his gloved hands. “Hence these.” Their blasé attitude was really starting to tick me off.

  “Where did you get this stuff from?”

  “Does it matter?” Ashton asked.

  “Yes.”

  He regarded me for a second. How could they not see that this stuff had the potential to mess with us just as badly? Even from five metres away I could smell the chemical burn of it. I couldn’t even imagine what it might feel like to have it smeared on my skin. Everything inside of me revolted against it. The blue layer of my magic became erratic. How could Rachel stand being so close?

  “Somebody posted the serum online,” Ashton said. “We don’t know where it’s manufactured but they do pickups.”

  “So you bought random industrial waste off the internet?”

  “No, of course not. It’s not random. It’s survival.”

  “So there are witches and wizards out there who aren’t part of Terran, who are making these concoctions to sell for profit?”

  My pulse hammered in my throat. “Sometimes you have to do the unthinkable to survive,” Ashton said. It hit me then that survival was exactly how they saw this. How many times had I lamented during Weaponry and Combat that there was no way I would be able to physically keep up with the supernaturals?

  I withered back down onto the seat and hunched over onto my elbows. Sean produced a device that looked much like a dart gun. He loaded the serum into the vials and they all proceeded to continue with target practice. Every once in a while, one of the Evil Three would sneak a glance at me. Rachel ignored me completely, too engrossed in what she was doing.

  “Would you like to try?” Ashton asked me off the cuff after I’d been sitting there with a scowl on my face.

  I shook my head but didn’t say much.

  “We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t have to.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve lived amongst them. They’re your friends. But we live in this mortal world, and the things we’ve seen make it impossible to turn a blind eye.”

  “We’re on the same side. How does fighting each other help in the war against the demons?”

  This time, Ashton closed him eyes in what must have been an attempt not to roll them. “The war we’re fighting isn’t just against the demons,” he said. “This dimension is ours. Anything that shouldn’t be here is our enemy. Maybe you can’t see that now, but you will.”

  It was the absolute certainty of it that got me. Like he knew for certain and he was just waiting for me to catch up. As I sat there, all I could think about was the men in that guard tower. The ones who had been possessed into attacking us with this same substance. Phoenix growled in the back of his throat. Suddenly, I wanted to meet whoever it was that produced these chemicals. Lucifer’s laughter echoed in the back of my mind.

  “Maybe it would make me feel better if we could verify where this stuff comes from?” I said, trying to appear conciliatory.

  Ashton grinned. “You’re in luck, actually. Rach and I were going to pick up another load of inventory in a few weeks. You can come along if you like.”

  Oh, I imagined I wouldn’t like it in the least. But I agreed to it all the same. When did I ever do anything for the sake of liking it anyway?

  21

  On the day I was scheduled to return to Bloodline, I found myself standing in front of Phoenix’s run. Ashton left the gate open now because it was pointless even having a gate. This wasn’t normal behaviour in most domesticated dogs let alone a wild dingo. I’d only ever had contact with the strays I found on the streets. Most of them were pets that had run away. Usually I’d only have them for a night before the vets opened up in the morning and I took them in so they could go home.

  I petted the hair on Phoenix’s collar. “I’ll see you next week,” I told him. When I walked away, he followed me. “Umm...” I crouched down in front of him. “You need to stay here. You wouldn’t be able to handle it at Bloodline.” The message didn’t get through.

  “I’m not sure what to do,” I asked Ashton. He too had come to see me off.

  “What are the chances he’s going to follow you home no matter how far
it is?”

  Neither of us could answer that. “Are they seriously not going to let you keep him just because they think he’ll be a nuisance?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then just take him.”

  We didn’t have much choice considering Phoenix headbutted me out of the way and jumped in the car ahead of me. I bit my bottom lip. This was going to be a problem.

  Sean and Rachel drove me to the pickup point. Even though I had a million thoughts running through my mind, a thrill whipped through me when we got close to the swap point and I saw Kai leaning against a tree. Phoenix got up on all fours and barked once.

  In the front seat I saw Rachel grip her chair. If she had a knife she’d be flipping it right now.

  For some reason I didn’t jump straight out of the car when Sean pulled it to a stop. Phoenix whined to be let out. I sat there staring ahead. Rachel cleared her throat. “I know Sam asked you not to reveal anything about us,” she said. I suspected she was thinking about the toxic waste solution because I sure as hell was. “They’re going to ask anyway.”

  “They’ve already asked. So have you. That doesn’t mean I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.” It was when I wanted to say something and couldn’t that really got to me. “That little library you have, does it have any books on Lucifer?”

  She frowned. “Don’t think so.”

  Great. Yet another dead end.

  Kai lost patience and opened my door for me. Phoenix bounded out and tried to nip at his face. I got out after him with what I thought was a little more dignity. “Why is he here?” Kai asked.

  “He refuses to be left behind.”

  “He can’t stay at Bloodline.”

  “Why not?”

  Kai’s brow twitched. “You know why not. The concentration of supernatural energy will end up hurting him.”

  “It’s only three days.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation. There are strict rules for a reason.”