Sticks & Stones Spell Werewolf Bones: A Why Choose Academy Romance

by Rae Stapleton

  “There were strings attached to the special dispensation.” Bodhi framed the last two words with air quotes. “We had to continue as the Supernatural Council’s bitch unit—all patched into the police network so we can monitor and chase monsters day and night. They might as well call us the Scooby Doo gang.”

  “Well, that’s a piss poor way of looking at it. We’re trackers and look at all the cool new gadgets, smart cameras, and computer systems we have to use. It’s not as if the job is hard.”

  “We’ll see how you feel about Evie’s isolated accommodations after we visit the murder scene in the women’s dorm. A female werewolf is dead.”

  “Evie’s dorm? You’re sure it’s murder?”

  Bodhi nodded, unclenching his hands and jamming them into the pockets of his denim-clad hips. “Silver burns! There are silver burns around the victim’s mouth. Would a werewolf commit suicide like that?”

  Demas shook his head, pity and sorrow burning through him. “Zephyr and Colten, you stay here on the Island and keep an eye on things. Put all those expensive toys you wanted to good use.

  “Grand-mère Delphine, Zoe, is still in the wind and we need to track her down. And don’t forget, Evie will be late returning today. She’s taking the portal to New Orleans first, to have lunch with her mom and my own. Don’t worry, Bodhi! My mother’s security will be guarding her the whole time.”

  “Actually,” Colten interjected, “I’m guarding her. I promised her I would. She doesn’t like your mother’s goons.”

  “She doesn’t, or you don’t?” Zephyr questioned.

  “Shut up!” Colten said. “Anyway, I’ll check the perimeter here but then I’m heading to the New Orleans University’s campus portal to meet her.”

  “Fine, you go to New Orleans with Evie. Zephyr, you stay here on the Island and look for Zoe. I’ll take the portal to the Arcanum Academy for the Supernatural. Bodhi, Eleutian, gather up our forensics gear in the boat and meet me there.”

  “Why don’t we just take the portal with you?” Eleutian questioned, “What if you need back-up?”

  “We need an option in case we have to go off campus, and why would I need back-up?

  “Because the dead girl was a wolf, Sir,” Eleutian replied.

  “Fine. Eleutian, help Bodhi pack up the boat and then follow me through the portal. I’m leaving now to run interference. As you imply, all hell will break loose if the victim’s pack hears about this before we get there.”

  “We’ll be right behind you, Boss,” Eleutian said.

  “Let’s move it, people!” Demas yelled and hurried away.

  Colten watched as Zephyr opened the tech closet and handed Bodhi a new phone.

  “What, no smart-ass comment about the phone, Zephyr?”

  “I think you should get your smartass over there. How long before Evie is in the middle of this? Scratch that, you’re probably too late.”

  3

  Professor Werewolf

  D emas exited the portal in a secluded area of the library’s back stacks and took a shortcut across the campus to the dormitories, which was on the opposite end of the building. The Midnight campus of the Arcanum Academy for the Supernatural was made up of three sections, which all attached to one another to form a U. Overall, the academy had the appearance of a gothic mansion. He jogged back inside and up the side staircase, noticing the portraits of Evie’s Midnight ancestors watching him from within their gilt frames until at last he came to the dull roar of questions being shouted at someone. The focus of all the attention was a grim-looking middle-aged woman. She wore a fitted black dress with matching black ballet flats. She had shadowed eyes, and dark hair that had been dragged back from an aristocratic, high forehead, revealing one very large white streak like Cruella deVil.

  She shouted and waved her hands like an airport wing walker minus the orange batons. Obviously, she was trying to clear the bottleneck of students near the door at the end of the dormitory hallway, but she wasn’t getting far. He fought his way through the crowd to reach her. His height gave him an advantage and Demas surveyed the chaos reigning all around them.

  “Is it safe to assume you’re the one in charge?”

  She nodded. “Headmistress, Barbara Barnabas.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Demas Batavian. I believe the Supernatural Council told you I was coming.”

  “They did. Thank you so much.”

  “Would you mind if I provided a little crowd control here?”

  “Not at all. This is a total fire hazard, especially with the dragons around and the water sprites are hardly the most cooperative of students,” she said.

  “I can only imagine,” Demas agreed and then slid his pinkies into the corners of his mouth, letting loose a shrill ear-splitting whistle, which effectively shut everyone up. Mission accomplished. Wide eyes stared back at him, while a few students were shaking their heads like agitated dogs, probably werewolves. That was a quick way to identify them.

  “Listen up, people! You four head shakers in the back,” he pointed to the probable werewolves, “I want you to go with the headmistress to her office immediately. The rest of you – have you seen anything unusual in the last hour?”

  A bunch of heads shook no.

  “Anyone here a friend of…” Demas stared at the headmistress to fill in the blank.

  “…Maggie,” the woman answered after a second, startled into action. “Howl.”

  Demas closed his eyes. Howl was the local alpha’s surname. Damn! Of all packs. “Anyone here a friend of Maggie?”

  In the crowd, a small hand was raised. Just one.

  “I need you to go with the headmistress as well. I’ll join you shortly,” Demas said.

  “I’d rather stay with you.” The crowd parted like the red sea to reveal the one and only, Evangeline Midnight.

  “Shit,” Demas muttered as he looked past the crowd to see his teammate arrive. “Alright, everyone else, give your name to the blonde guy, Eleutian Dupre III, at the end of the hall there, then you are free to go to your rooms. However, if you’re planning to leave the campus, you need to provide contact information and details on where you’re heading.”

  Demas turned to Headmistress Barnabas. “Would you please escort the four werewolves to your office and keep an eye on them until I get there? Please confiscate their phones. I think you would agree that if the alpha finds out before we contact him, there will be trouble.”

  4

  Midnight Witch

  I kept my eyes on Demas’ face as someone pushed their way through the students behind me. I felt the crowd shifting, shuffling, jostling; heard the muttered protests and the gasps of surprise and annoyance as people were pushed aside. At last I sensed the person who had been doing the shoving stop in their tracks right behind me, their gaze burning a hole in my back.

  “Evie! Why aren’t you in New Orleans?”

  Ah. Mystery solved. I’d know that gravelly voice anywhere. As much by the shivers running up and down my spine as by sound. The condescending tone sent my anger meter into the red zone.

  “You will turn around right now and march that cute little ass of yours back to the portal in the stacks. Colten is waiting to escort on your lunch date.”

  I whirled around and stabbed Bodhi in his hard, well-muscled chest with one finger. Bodhi was a typical Scorpio sign of the zodiac. He loved to attempt control and therefore required loving boundaries be set and enforced often—a service I was happy to provide.

  “For your information, Demas just asked for any friends of Maggie Howl to remain here. Guess what, bucko? I’m it!”

  “Oh shit, Howl, as in the pack alpha?” Bodhi backed down.

  “As in his daughter and the only friend I’ve made here so far.” I blinked back the tears at this confession.

  Bodhi’s face softened. That was the thing about Bodhi. He was hard on the outside but his tough love act came from a place of passion. He pulled open his leather jacket and wrapped his arms around me, so that
I was enveloped by him and his comforting scent. He must have felt his shirt getting damp because he squeezed me tighter.

  “Has anyone been in the room yet?” Bodhi asked while rubbing my back soothingly.

  I stayed quiet. Now wasn’t the time to tell them I accidently messed with the crime scene.

  “No, I called Aurora. She’s sending a small forensics team, but you should get in there. I can’t stall on informing the pack alpha much longer,” Demas said.

  Bodhi tried handing me off to Demas. “No, I need to help, I was her only friend and I’m the only person who’s been in her room. I can tell you if anything is missing or looks out of place.”

  “This is going to be a shit storm of epic proportions. The daughter of an alpha is bad enough, but everyone knows the Redrum Rebels, especially Razor Howl, are barely one step above the wild wolves of the Adirondacks.”

  As Bodhi and Demas conferred, I slipped past them to the threshold of an arched doorway typical of this campus. I could feel the start of another panic attack coming on so I concentrated on my breathing. I couldn’t let the team see me melt down. My eyes once again focused in on Maggie’s long sable hair hanging off the side, looking as though someone had flung a wig on the bed. I was afraid to go back inside that room, but if I was going to get her justice, I had no choice. And if I wanted to become a tracker for the Supernatural Council, then I had to toughen up. It’s not like I hadn’t seen dead bodies before. My father was a necromancer, and I’d been through the undead uprising in New Orleans this past year, but it was different when it was a friend. Pulling up my big girl panties, I started to take a step, then realized how unprofessional and reckless I’d been earlier at the crime scene. For crying out loud, I took forensics classes. You wouldn’t expect there to be a forensics class at the magical branch of the university, but there were a few specialized classes I needed to become a tracker. Special treatment thanks to my name.

  “Holy shit!” Bodhi said, stepping inside the room and startling me from my memory. “It looks like the set of the Exorcist in here only they used Pepto Bismal instead of pea soup.”

  Bodhi looked at my shocked face, but a giggle forced its way out. “My God, Bodhi, you exaggerate. The walls are still white. And anyway, that was in poor taste. My friend is dead over there.”

  He cupped my cheek. “I know, but I was hoping to shock a laugh out of you. I care that your friend is dead, but I care much more about you. It’s called gallows humor—something that we all do to stay sane from seeing so much death.”

  I nodded. I did understand how he felt. I would have done something similar if the roles had been reversed even if I didn’t know gallows humor was a thing. And honestly, Maggie’s room was too pink. I like pink, but every single item in Maggie’s room was pink except for the walls and the wood. Certainly not what I expected from a werewolf, but you know what they say about judging books.

  Bodhi pulled paper booties and gloves out of the duffel bag hanging on his shoulder, handing a set of each to me. These were not only to prevent contamination of the crime scene, but specially treated to shield the wearer from any dangerous spells that might be active and lingering. A little late for that but I played along.

  As we suited up, I thought I heard a tapping at the window. I walked in its direction to peek. The air stank of decay, even worse than before, and I wished I could air out the place. “Is Demas coming back to have a look around?”

  “No, he’s interviewing those four werewolves, then he has to let the alpha know. I need to do this quickly, to see if I can give him any information that he can pass on to Razor.”

  I pulled the curtains open and jumped back, startled by a looming gray face on the other side of the glass. I caught myself and laughed—it was only one of the school’s gothic protectors, protruding from overhanging eaves.

  “Feeling a little jumpy?”

  “I guess so,” I agreed. “These gargoyles are all over the academy, but I never noticed this earlier, I mean before. He’s kind of cuter than the rest, don’t you think?”

  Bodhi rolled his eyes. “Leave it to you, Evangeline, to give a stone monster an ego boost.”

  “Ha-ha.” I turned back to the window. The stone creature hung there, glowering and unmoving. Backlit by the sun, its silhouette was dark and hulking. I really wanted a closer look but even if the window had opened, proper forensic procedure wouldn’t have allowed for it. “What do you know about gargoyles?”

  “What’s to know. They’re just soulless inanimate objects—downspouts, really.”

  “Downspouts?” I questioned.

  “Yeah, you know water spews from their mouths, hence the name, ‘gargoyles,’ which is French for ‘gargle’ or ‘throat’ or some shit.”

  “Are you teasing me? I always thought they were believed to be guardians of some sort.”

  “Well, hell yeah. I guess they’re ugly enough to scare off the evil spirits.”

  I looked back at the gargoyle and could have sworn it moved just a little. Today was a weird day.

  “Can I ask you a question, Midnight?”

  “You just did,” I said, and smirked.

  “Very funny. You’ve never talked about this girl before. How did you become friends with her?”

  I thought back to my first day—how nervous I’d been to be attending a school with my family name on it. “I guess you could say she liked my dance moves.”

  “Seriously?”

  “What, you want the whole long sordid story, right now?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ugh, fine. It was first period. I was just outside the door of my classroom and I heard this snotty voice coming from inside. I didn’t know who it was at the time, but I realize now that it belonged to Lennon Sidhe. Anyway, she was going on about me. She said something like,” I threw my voice and did my best impression, “It’s untenable to not only get into our prestigious academy with just your name, but for them to add special classes for her? Pfft. Who does she think she is? We all had to perform to their rigid expectations to be accepted here and now this little nobody witch waltzes in…” I stopped to laugh at the memory.

  “Oh hell, no. What a princess!”

  “Right?! Daughter to the Queen of the Winter Court, actually. So you’re not far off. I don’t think they call them princesses though. Queen-to-be or something is the title.”

  So, what did you do?”

  “Well…she said I waltzed in so that’s what I did. I danced in, literally, arms wrapped around my books, steps twirling. And, that’s how I met Maggie; she had snorted at my antics and endured dagger-filled glares from the other students. I realized quickly we were both deemed outcasts.”

  “That’s funny. I think I would have liked her.”

  “I think you would have too,” I said, tearing up. “Anyway, back to work,” I said and shifted, letting my backpack swing forward so I could dig through it for a sketchbook.

  My eyes traveled around the room looking for any major inconsistencies. Standing with my back to the window bay, I began to sketch the room. Directly in front of me was the twin bed, sticking out into the middle of the room and half-hidden by the tulle and twinkly lights that hung from its princess canopy. The large pillows from it were still scattered on the floor. Beside the bed was the door, propped open by Bodhi’s duffle bag. Maggie’s desk sat in the corner beneath family photos she had hung on the walls. Her laptop was turned to face the bed and sat open on a forty-five-degree angle, as if bowing to its mistress. To my left was the kitchen area: a tiny sink and stovetop set into a counter barely large enough for the microwave and cutting board that sat on it.

  “Hey there, now. I’m sorry about your friend, Evie,” Bodhi offered, grabbing my hand holding the pencil.

  I just nodded. I’d been doing well while sketching the room, looking through a critical artist’s eye at first, until I again thought about being her only friend when she had been hoping for several. I guess that’s the trick to this type of work, turning off emotions
in order to deal with facts and objects. I could always cry again later and anyway I was determined to find her killer, as a friend and as an apprentice tracker. Time to apply what I’ve learned in my first three months here at university.

  “So, aside from dirty looks thanks to you on the first day. Has Maggie had any problems here at school?”

  I snorted. “How long has it been since you were in school? Everyone has problems.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know, they credit Darwin with Survival of the Fittest, even though Herbert Spencer was the first to quote it. It’s been the practice in every school from the beginning of time.”

  Bodhi narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you trying to change the subject, Evie? Was that your way of saying that you’ve also been having problems?”

  I shrugged.

  “Why haven’t you said anything to anyone?”

  “It’s just name calling, nothing I can’t handle. I’m one of the lucky ones. There are factions here that can be truly terrifying for some of the kids though. Unfortunately, Maggie was being bullied hardcore. I encouraged her to go to the headmistress about it and she did, but her dad was a real dick. His solution was to stand her ground and manage the kids in school. As a werewolf she needed to toughen up in order to make it as an alpha’s mate.”

  “Dick! What is the matter with people? It seems we supernaturals have a lot in common with humans after all. It’s time to get a closer look at her. Are you sure you can handle this?”

  I bit back the words on the edge of my tongue. I wanted to confess so badly. Admit that I’d already seen her, touched things, messed with the scene, but instead I nodded and followed behind as he readied his phone to snap crime scene photos. Bodhi moved the tulle aside. I closed my eyes momentarily, took a deep breath and then peeked around his side. It wasn’t any easier the second time around. I tried but couldn’t stop the gasp from escaping.