Abby screamed long and high, a wailing cry that made some of the S.B.A. members cover their ears.
Then two huge, glowing, white angel wings erupted from her back in a blaze of light. Abby, to the wonder of all those who stood around her, flapped them, gusting wind and debris about.
“What the actual fuck, Abby!” Casey, said, backing away a couple of paces. “You’re half-demon. You can’t have angel wings!”
Abby grinned through the fading pain. “I guess our mom wasn’t a one-guy kind of gal.”
“But – but Frederick had that DNA sample.”
From off to the side, Abby heard Miss Hightide mutter, “A false positive… The tests were wrong! I don’t believe it!”
Abby looked around at the demons. They were closing like a pack of hyenas on a stricken zebra. She held out her arms and white light shot like searing prisms from the palms of her hands, sweeping them across a group of five of the nearest demons. They were obliterated instantly, turned to brown ash on the wind.
“To me!” Abby yelled, and the surviving S.B.A. members and Guardians ran to her, protected by the searing light that blasted out of her hands, vaporizing any demons that strayed too near.
Casey was livid. She had been left all alone, caught in the no man’s land between her obstructed demons and the men and women of the S.B.A., who were huddled around Abby.
“Wait until that funky blue caffeine wears off, sister!” she shrieked at Abby, her hair all over her face, wild and untamed. “Then you’ll be back to the useless wimp that you’ve always been, devoid of talent or powers! I’m going to unleash the wrath of the demons’ volcano on this town, I’m going to fill the streets with lava, just you wait and see! There’ll be no stopping it, pretty wings or no pretty wings!”
Miss Hightide took a step toward Casey and raised her finger at her. “Abby,” she said, in a voice as bottomless and cruel and powerful as the sea, “you must kill your sister. It’s the only way. Strike now before it’s too late!”
Abby raised her hands, her palms glowing white as she summoned the power of the caffeine roaring through her veins and nerves like boiling ice, her wings glowing a pearlescent silver. Casey cowered back, trying her hardest not to show her fear.
Then Abby’s hands dropped to her side and she said softly, “I can’t. She’s my sister. She’s still my sister.”
Casey smirked at her. “I knew it. You’re such a raven-pussy.”
She snapped her fingers and a couple of demons soared out of the throng and scooped her up. Before any of the S.B.A. could react, Casey had been borne away, vanishing into the night sky. The hordes of demons rose as one and followed their new mistress.
Without looking at Abby, Miss Hightide said, “You might come to regret that decision, Abby Hall.”
“Yeah,” Abby said, “but that’s the difference between angels and demons, isn’t it?”
She knelt beside Drake, who seemed to have fainted. She bent over him and kissed him tenderly, trying not to disturb him. She tried to put a lot of words into the kiss, a lot of what she was feeling, a lot of what she couldn’t say then and there.
“Dang,” he whispered into her lips, “somebody better call the gods because they’re missing an angel.”
Abby rolled her eyes and punched him in the ribs, but softly – for once. Then, as Drake whimpered with pain and joy, she kissed him again.
Chapter 15
The supernaturals still standing erupted into cheers at the sight of the demon horde winging its way into the darkness. S.B.A. members that Abby only knew by sight came up and clapped her on the back or hugged her. There was a lot of hugging all around. Abby supposed that it was well merited. They had, after all, just defeated the demons in a fight that could have gone either way. Only Abby’s sudden transformation had sealed the victory.
Glancing around, uncertain as to whether her sister would tuck tail and run without one last trick, Abby saw that humans were poking their heads out of the shattered shops and houses that lined the main road. Abby caught the eye of one woman and smiled but, instead of grinning back, the woman ducked back into the doorway.
Abby frowned and stood up, being careful to lay Drake’s head on a pillow she’d made from her hoodie. All along the street, humans were creeping tentatively out of hiding. Some were crying, others calling the names of loved ones that had presumably gone missing in the attack.
The unmistakable sound of a gunshot punctuated the night, cutting off the cheers and hollers of delight among the supernaturals. Everyone fell silent.
A middle-aged human with a shotgun resting on his hip came forward. His head was tilted back and his jaw set in that special way of a man who is, on the inside, shitting his pants while trying to appear calm and in control on the outside. Clearly, he had worked himself up to say something, or had been elected to confront the supernaturals.
“All right!” he yelled, his voice quavering audibly. “All right! We want you weirdos to clear the hell out of town. There isn’t any place for you here, you hear?” He pumped the shotgun to emphasize his point and an empty shell flew out of the gun and into the road. It was so silent that the sound of the plastic shell hitting the tarmac could be clearly heard.
“Okay,” Miss Hightide said, moving slowly forward with her hands raised, “we’ll leave.” She turned her back on the man and spoke in her clear, silvery voice. “All members of the S.B.A. and our allies, let’s regroup at Base-B and leave these folks to clean up the mess that the demons have made. Anyone who doesn’t know the location of Base-B make sure that you pair up with someone that does.”
Miss Hightide strolled toward Abby as everyone else started moving.
“Miss Hightide,” Abby said, “what about Drake?”
“Our three fae will bear him,” Miss Hightide said, gesturing at Spiridon and the two little fae, Cherry and Pea, who had flown Abby to the S.B.A. on the day she had been picked up by Drake. As Abby watched, the three fae heaved Drake’s big body onto a conjured stretcher, which they then picked up – the two little fae at the front and Spiridon holding the rear handles – and then struggled into the air and flew off.
Abby observed them as they disappeared into the velvety folds of the night. Then she cast about until she found Radella. Walking up to her, she tried to take one of the brooms that the witch had retrieved from the roof, but Radella held on to it.
“What’re you doing?” the witch asked with her customary bluntness, though it was tempered now with a hint of friendliness.
Abby pulled at the broomstick. “C’mon,” she said, “I want to follow the others and make sure Drake is all right.”
“Well, go on then.”
“Give me the broom.”
“Darling, you’ve got wings now.”
Abby blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”
Radella hopped onto one of the brooms and hovered up into the air, waiting for Abby.
“I’ll guide you to B-Base,” the witch told her from mid-air.
Tentatively, Abby flapped her wings a few times. She rose unexpectedly easily, about four feet, freaked out – in the same way that a child panics when the training wheels come off – and crashed in an undignified heap to the ground. Radella burst into laughter and slapped her thigh.
“Goddamn, this is harder than a bag of raven-dicks at a sorority party,” Abby grumbled, pulling herself to her feet.
“Come on, human!” Radella snorted. “Haven’t you ever seen a vermillion albatross take off?”
“Of course I have. What’s your point?”
“Try a run-up, girl.”
Abby, cursing Radella’s undeniable logic, dusted herself off and sprinted as fast as she could down the street, her friend whooping behind her in encouragement. She tried not to overthink it. Instead, she ran until she felt the wind catch under her wings, leaped into the air, flapped her wings, and kept her eyes directly ahead of her so that she couldn’t see the ground disappearing.
I’m doing it! Abby thought. I’m goddamn do
ing –
She was concentrating so hard on the rhythm of her wings that she was practically nose to nose with the billboard before she even noticed it. Abby smashed through it in a shower of paper and wood, followed by gales of mirth from Radella, who was following along behind on her broomstick.
Abby, blushing, pulled a strip of paper from her face. She had managed to keep to the air even though she had plowed through the giant advertisement, and that, more than anything, made her realize that flying was a bit like breathing. You could just do it without thinking – it was instinctive, a natural process that the body picked up without too much interference by the brain.
Radella led Abby through the night, and Abby reveled in the rush and glorious sense of freedom that accompanied flying. It was the most liberating feeling she had ever experienced. The broomstick had been fun, but to be soaring through the dark of the night, with the wind whipping through her hair and the town unraveling underneath her, on her wings… It was magical. Around her, flitting in and out of view, other members of the Supernatural Barista Academy flew, some on broomsticks, others on wings and still others utilizing hovering spells or levitation brews.
It didn’t take long before their target emerged out of the dark. Set on a headland, about a ten-minute flight outside of Ravencharm, the Rotwood Harbor lighthouse stood like a white finger on the peninsula. Abby watched as members of the S.B.A. swooped in pairs and landed easily on the small pad set at the lighthouse’s pinnacle. She followed Radella, but as the witch touched down, Abby pulled up and circled back around the tower. She might have gotten to grips with the business of flying, but she had never landed before, and she felt that trying to land on the architectural equivalent of the head of a pin might be pushing her luck a bit.
It turned out to be a shrewd move, as her landing ended up being more of a controlled crash than a textbook touchdown. She picked herself up out of the gravelly road, brushed the chalky dust off her knees and headed toward the huge metal door that marked the entrance to B-Base. She reached out her hand to push, but the metal door swung open on its own.
A hugely fat, gray-skinned but jolly figure was standing in the doorway. He wore a bright waistcoat and had a mustache that looked like the head of a broom balanced on his top lip. He looked as if he had been made, simply, by stacking a smaller, ball-shaped head onto a huge, spherical body. He raised his arms in greeting when he saw Abby. This was quite a gesture, as the man had eight octopus-like arms.
“Come in, come in, come in, and welcome,” he said, his voice a rich burble, like pouring caramel.
“Hi,” Abby said a little awkwardly. “Um, where do I go?”
The rotund, eight-armed gentleman gestured toward the only door in sight. It looked more like a submarine hatch than a traditional door.
“Through there,” he said. “Through there and down the spiral staircase. Follow the corridor until it opens out. There is only one way to go.”
The man used one of his arms to spin the wheel set in the center of the door and opened it for Abby, who stepped through and started to descend a staircase that wound like a helix down into the cliff.
After two minutes of downward travel, the spiral staircase opened out and Abby gasped. She was standing at the beginning of an eerily lit glass tunnel, bathed in rippling blue-green light. Above and around her was water; the sort of view that was usually only available to visitors at the Ravencharm Aquarium.
In a sort of dream, she walked through the tunnel, captivated by the huge scorpionfish that floated menacingly with their bright yellow eyes peering disapprovingly down at her. There were shoals of crested pike flickering like shards of orange and green glass, hordes of little lava crabs flowing like solid rivers of crimson along the seabed, and wide, rippling blue-bellied rays that moved like silk sheets in the wind.
Before she knew it, Abby found herself at the end of the gorgeous glass tunnel and in a large room that opened up like an enormous box. It was a simple affair with a small kitchen in one corner, a curtained alcove at the far end containing several bunk beds, and a single door that Abby assumed must be the toilets and showers.
As she was standing there, Miss Hightide and Spiridon approached her.
“Welcome to B-Base,” Miss Hightide said.
“It should be called C-Base,” Abby replied.
“Why is that?” the leader of the S.B.A. asked.
“Well, because it’s under the sea… Sea – C-Base. Get it?”
Miss Hightide’s face was a picture carved in stone. “Very clever,” she murmured.
Spiridon rolled his eyes and smiled briefly.
“I was just about to ask Miss Hightide how long she thinks we have before your sister’s demons retaliate,” Spiridon said. “Miss Hightide?”
“It will not be long,” Miss Hightide said. “I would be willing to bet that Casey won’t order an attack until nightfall – demons being stronger when the sun has gone down. Casey, however, might be impatient. We could have as little as six hours before she makes good her threat and releases the lava from the volcano.”
“Abby has been to the volcano, haven’t you?” Spiridon said, turning to Abby.
“Yes,” Abby said, “I’ve seen it. That’s where I was taken.”
“Can you recall where it was?” Miss Hightide asked.
Abby shook her head. “I had a bag over my head when they flew me there. I have no idea.”
Spiridon cursed. “Then we have no idea how they’ll release the lava, or from which direction it will come.”
Miss Hightide put a finger to her lips in thought and said, “I can offer two educated guesses. The hills all around this town are either dormant, extinct or active volcanoes – hence the fertile slopes for coffee cultivation—so it’s hard to say with any real certainty where the demon base is located. I can only see Casey enacting her threat by diverting the lava, perhaps into the dam above Ravencharm, and flooding the town. The other way is to open fissures under the town so that lava could boil up into the sewer system and flood Ravencharm.” Miss Hightide sighed. “In the end, though, it’s all guesswork. The demons might have a way to trigger a volcanic eruption. This would effectively destroy their own base, but Casey might be angry enough to do it – and I’m sure that it wouldn’t be too much drama for the demons to relocate.”
“Right, so basically we have no real idea when, where or how they might attack,” Spiridon said.
“That sounds awfully gloomy,” Radella said, taking her place in the circle along with the pint-sized fae Pea. “In the face of almost certain annihilation then, do we have a plan for an evacuation of the human inhabitants of the town?”
Miss Hightide shook her head sadly. “You saw what the humans are like. They instinctively fear that which they don’t understand. They won’t listen to us, and I won’t risk supernatural envoys being gunned down.”
“How about an email to someone in charge?” Abby suggested.
“Oh yes,” Pea said, with a sarcastic cackle, “I can just see it now: ‘Dear Mr. Mayor, please evacuate your entire town before the demons start raining fire into your streets and filling the roads with burning, molten lava. Love, the Supernatural Barista Academy.’ Oh, yes, I can see that going down an…”
Miss Hightide raised her hand to cut off Pea.
“No,” she said. “There’s not enough time – even if the mayor believed us and acted immediately. Besides, a river of humanity all heading out of town would only mean that the demons would have a nice target to attack. No. Our best chance, unfortunately, was the super-caffeinated beans that Drake retrieved, with the help of the mermaids, from the bottom of the ocean. They have been destroyed, due to the unforeseen and unplanned rescue of one of our trainees, lost in the conflagration that was part of the S.B.A. booby-trap.”
Heads turned to look at Abby.
Abby blushed. “I’ll just go and check on Drake,” she mumbled.
“That might be best,” Hightide said, her voice cool. “Leave us to strategize.
Drake has been put in the infirmary.”
***
As Abby entered the tiny room, which was so small that it looked like a broom cupboard had been cleared to make room for a couple of beds, she almost collided with a doctor who was leaving.
“How is he?” Abby asked.
“He’ll be fine,” the medic said. “He just needs some good old-fashioned rest. It’s clear as day that he’s been pushing himself to the limit for too long. I’ve left him a few starfish to help with some of the worse contusions, but what he chiefly needs is sleep.”
Drake sat propped in bed, his eyes closed. Without announcing herself, Abby walked over to the bed, pulled the sheet open and tried to slip into bed with the big man. She might’ve managed it without waking him if it hadn’t been for the wings that she’d forgotten about.
Drake started chuckling quietly as she wriggled and cursed at the new and cumbersome appendages.
“How in the world do you close these freakin’ things?” she muttered. “They should come with an instruction manual.”
Drake laughed and winced. “Just take a deep breath,” he said quietly, “close your eyes, and imagine that someone is sliding an ice-cube down your spine.”
“What?” Abby said.
“Just do it, Hall,” Drake replied.
Abby – for once – did as she was told.
She shivered and felt a brief trembling sensation across her shoulder blades. Reaching a hand around behind her, she felt that the wings had retracted.
“That,” she said, “is awesome.”
She crawled in next to Drake. The bed was a bit of a squeeze thanks to the size of the Guardian.
They lay in companionable silence for a little while without saying anything. Abby’s head rose and fell in time with Drake’s deep, slow breathing.
“You should have done it, you know,” Drake’s deep, rumbling, bass voice echoed through her head.
“Done it? Done what?” Abby murmured.
Caffeinated Magic: Supernatural Barista Academy Page 21