Heritage: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Elmwick Academy Book 3)

by Emilia Zeeland

  “Start here,” Tasha points at the left wall. “There might be another stairwell on the other side. Then you’ll be directly under the entrance to The Den.”

  The banshees nod and take position to swing the heavy hammers at the wall.

  “Go now, girls,” my grandma signs. “We need the sound to cover us.”

  I hug her. “Stay safe, please.”

  I punch the code into the keypad and pull the door. Without knowing how many hunters remain inside the compound, I prepare for anything. Tasha gives me a quick nod, and we sneak inside.

  I hear the hunters by the ring before I see them. I duck out of sight and glue myself to the wall. I’ll fight them if I have to. There won’t be a way out of it, but if we can set off the sound first, they’ll be slower, less capable targets.

  Tasha closes the door behind us with a soft click, which the hunters below, engaged in conversation, seem to miss. I concentrate on the sounds they’re making—rushing, packing, loading weapons. They’re gearing up.

  Tasha signals me to keep going. With soft footsteps, we get to the other side without being spotted. This is where Zach and Mason found the study. We pass it and halt in front of another door on the way to the restrooms.

  I sign, Is this it?

  Tasha nods and responds in sign language as well. I think so. I’ve only monitored the corridor and the shifts they take. Too risky to open a panel here.

  I let out a deep breath and push the door open, one hand ready to guide my scream at whoever may be inside. But we barge into the room to find it empty. Mason and Zach must be keeping the hunters busy enough that they couldn’t spare a single person to watch the video streams.

  Tasha slips into the seat at the main computer and looks for a port so we can transfer the sound. I keep the door to the corridor open a few inches so I can watch out for any movement out there.

  “Cami?” Tasha hisses, so I cast a glance at her over my shoulder. “Catch.”

  She throws an over-the-ear noise canceling headset at me. I barely catch it in my surprise.

  Now that she has my attention, Tasha explains in sign language. You’ll still be able to hear it, but it might help a little.

  I grin when I thank her. The headset is comfortable, though it makes my head feel ridiculously small. It takes Tasha another couple of minutes to get the sound transferred onto the computer, during which I test the headset. It blocks the distant noise of the hunters well enough, though it’s nowhere near as efficient as the charm placed on our house in Elmwick.

  Tasha presses her lips together with a finger on the mouse. I nod, hands clasped over the headset, keeping it stuck to my ears.

  The sound splits the silence, making me cringe and squeeze my eyes shut on reflex. I force them open. The hunters will know we’re here now, and if we want to keep broadcasting this sound so the others can escape, we’ll need to guard the room. A concept I hadn’t factored in when we were making the plan.

  Dark worry rises in me like a tidal wave, but I swallow it down. We need to barricade the door since it has no lock or latch. I look around for a chair, but a hunter kicks the door open, fingers in his ears and a pained expression across his face.

  I scream, forcing intensity into the vibrations, and direct the sound wave at him. It flattens him against the opposite wall in the corridor. I scramble to push the door closed, but he recovers quickly and pushes back.

  I growl as I put my weight into it. Tasha drags a heavy chair toward us to help me block the door, but I can’t hold it long enough. So, once she’s close behind me, I let go and swerve out of the way.

  The hunter tumbles inside the room with a yelp of surprise. I smack the door closed, then help Tasha block it with the chair. She’s still adjusting it when my glance lands on the hunter again. Lying on the floor, he levels a crossbow at us.

  I scream at the same time as a dart flies from the weapon. My sonic wave pushes it back, so it won’t hit us, but I squeal again and direct a second wave from below. It scoops up the dart and swirls it in the air—its tip now facing the hunter. One final scream sends it right at him.

  His head lolls back almost immediately, his expression woozy.

  “Tranquilizer darts...” I whisper, then turn to Tasha. “Can you hold the door by yourself for a while?”

  She signs yes, but her forehead wrinkles, her brow furrowed. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s not like you’re going anywhere in the meantime.”

  The darkness roars, tall as a castle wall, towering over me. As unavoidable as it is powerful. Through the five links, my friends’ distress bites at me. It isn’t as bad as when the measures were in place. Still, I’m afraid of the dark fogging my mind. And I’m afraid for them.

  “I need to see.”

  Tasha gapes in growing confusion, but there’s no time to explain. I snatch a tranquilizer dart from the hunter’s stash and stab my thigh with it.

  “Cami?” Tasha squeals.

  My fingers loosen around the dart. I lie back on the floor, only able to whisper, “I need to see them...in my dreams.”

  My vision swims, chasing away the surveillance room and Tasha’s face. Despite the drowning sense of impending doom, growing from the darkness inside me, new images appear almost at once.

  This time, I’m in Vanessa’s head. That’s the only explanation for the split view in front of my eyes. She’s worging into six snakes at the same time. Looking up at a distorted angle only the vipers must be used to, I feel the need to vomit from the dizzying movement of all six snakes. Thankfully, Vanessa zooms into the view on the top left with her mind and I’m drawn to it along with her.

  The snake is following the light steps of a girl, who looks down to check on the viper’s location. I gasp when I recognize her dark, chin-length hair and willowy frame. It’s Fiona Davis.

  She stalks through a bushy garden, the snake slithering behind her, as if to guard her back. But the air ripples in front of the creature, making it withdraw. The viper hisses and strikes forward again, only to slam into the invisible barrier once more.

  “I’m blocked,” Vanessa says. She zooms out of that snake’s head back to the split view. Hissing, the vipers are all unable to continue on their paths. “It’s dried thistle. I can’t help her.”

  The split-screen view disappears as Vanessa ends the worg and faces Awan, Bryar, Jean...and Fiona Davis. If I weren’t under the influence of this tranquilizer, I probably would have awoken from sheer shock. How?

  “She’ll be all right,” Fiona says. “They trust me. So long as she looks like me, she’ll be safe. And she’ll hear their exact plans, word for word. I hope you now believe that I’m on your side, guys?”

  My friends nod, but cool dread pools at the bottom of my stomach as I make sense of her words. Out there, sneaking to visit the hunters, is Charity, masked under one of her special charms. To copy Fiona’s looks exactly, she probably anchored the charm to the hunter girl now sitting with them.

  The darkness presses against me from all sides with suffocating strength, but I must be able to navigate this. I focus on the anxiety I’ve felt so many times before, the force always perched on my friend’s shoulder.

  I need to see Charity, I chant inside my head, begging the power I’ve barely begun to use to obey me.

  Like a whirlpool, the view from Vanessa’s eyes swirls and adjusts. I’m back in the dark garden, seeing Charity, looking like Fiona, sneak through the bushes. With a trembling hand she knocks on the window of the shed. It’s dark inside, but a door creaks open to let her in.

  “Did anyone see you?” Andreev’s poisonous voice asks as soon as she sets foot inside.

  “There were vipers in the trees, but they can’t get through the thistle,” Charity replies in a good imitation of Fiona’s voice. I guess her charm can help with that too, although I can hear a difference.

  “Figures,” someone in the crowd of hunters says.

  The others mumble their agreement, but Andreev silences them with a brief, “Eno
ugh.”

  Charity fades into the group, barely daring to breathe.

  “Our reinforcements from the nearest cities will arrive within the hour. The time of Elmwick Academy, the time of the legacies, is at its end. We’ll level the school where they poison them with darkness, and then, we’ll go hunting. It takes one, just one death, and the power of the banshee’s circle will be history again. But this time, we must not stop. This time, we can’t trust the sweet words of legacy sympathizers like Theron Fowler. This time, we’ll hit the legacies so hard, they’ll never think about rising again.”

  He pumps his fist into the air. “Who’s with me?”

  The hunters explode in roaring cheers as the wave of darkness, fueled by Charity’s desperation and fear, threatens to pull me apart. I can’t let it. My friends need me. Our town needs me. And I can’t let any of them down.

  I gasp awake with a splitting headache. The image of Tasha in front of me is semi-transparent.

  “Cami? Cami?” Tasha shakes me, then slaps the sides of my face for good measure.

  I groan and rub my eyes for a minute. On a slow exhale, I open my eyes again. The room isn’t spinning anymore, and Tasha looks more real.

  “I’m all right,” I say, despite the darkness that feels oily around me. “We need to go now.”

  It’s only when Tasha helps me to my feet that I realize there’s banging on the other side of the door. My hearing sharpens as I fight the influence of the tranquilizer. I feel weak and sluggish, but the bitter darkness inside me won’t let me rest. It screams, raging inside me. I hope the banshees have had enough time to break through to the exit, because now it’s my time to rage.

  My lungs are my weapon, and every breath of air—my ammunition. Tasha catches my eye and removes the chair, then pulls the door open. I let out a scream so strong that the hunters in the corridor smack against the wall, knocked out.

  Under the unbearable screeching that blasts from every speaker and the sounds of the other banshees demolishing this place with their hammers, I scream myself hoarse against every hunter in our way. Through the door, through a hole in the wall, up a service ladder, and through a hole in the ceiling, we make our way out of that cursed place, one by one.

  When Tasha helps me up into the entrance to The Hunters’ Den—the place I last saw Mason—I spot him fighting the last of the hunters with Zach as the banshees join in. They swing their hammers right at the hunters’ faces, blood splattering on impact.

  At the center of the room, a girl with a white cane fights quickly and precisely, like she’s dancing. Dark sunglasses cover her eyes, but she swerves out of the way in the exact right moment to avoid a blow and hits when her attackers least expect it. She also smirks knowingly as she does it.

  Despite the darkness booming inside me at the rhythm of my heartbeat, I let everything else fade. The last hunter fighting the girl with glossy black hair falls.

  I walk straight up to her and choke on the words in breathless admiration, “How did you do that?”

  Her full lips twist into a sly smile. “Didn’t Eddie explain it to you? I’m Sofia Narduccii, and I’m charmed.”

  Chapter 28. Mason

  The hunters surrender soon after the banshees hammer a hole into the floor and climb out of it to join the fight. Between Sofia, who the hunters can’t seem to strike despite their concentrated efforts, Zach and I, who’re frankly used to taking a beating, Cami with her powerful scream, and a group of banshees swinging hammers at them, Oggy’s men had to admit defeat.

  We let them be, leaving them to lick their wounds in their demolished compound. Outside on the street, the banshees hug. Tasha says a quick hello to Zach and me, and Cami has a whispered conversation with her grandma. Their eyes land on me, so I make my way over to them.

  “You must be young Fowler, then?” Cami’s grandma says, then coughs a little. This ordeal must have been a lot to go through at her age.

  “I am.” My throat bobs as I feel the slight awkwardness of meeting another member of my girlfriend’s family. That relentless push to present myself at my best. “You’re not safe here. Any of you.”

  Cami shakes her head, her eyes wary. “But they can’t come with us to Elmwick either. It’s too dangerous. Things are going from bad to worse there.”

  Her lips tremble, so she presses them together. I reach out a hand to grab hers and intertwine our fingers.

  “You’re not going to ask how I know?” She peeks up at me.

  “What is this? My first day?” I crack a smile, wishing for one in return from her. “If you say things are bad, they’re bad. It doesn’t matter how you found out.”

  “Grandma didn’t have the clue from the banshee room.” Cami shortens the distance between us and buries her face in my chest.

  I wrap my arms around her with a sigh. “Perhaps Eddie can help, then? But we need to go.”

  Cami shifts in my embrace, then pushes away from me to face her grandma again. “I hate to do this so soon after I got to see you again, but we can’t take you to Elmwick. It’s too dangerous with all the hunters traveling there.”

  “You’ve done more than enough,” her grandma says. “We can continue on our own.”

  Despite the certainty in her voice, guilt gnaws at my insides.

  “Or...I could take you somewhere safe? Perhaps to Eddie’s compound with the charmers?” Zach says.

  I whirl on him with a stiff jaw. “We need you if we’re going to attempt unbinding the joint spell. With your mother going dark, you’re the next best thing.”

  Zach’s eyebrows draw closer together as his electric-green eyes rest on me. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “Don’t you want a shot at being the next free fire drake?” I try to joke.

  Zach remains calm as he shakes his head. “I get the feeling this circle needs you.”

  Cami’s expression stays frozen for a long moment before she licks her lips. “You’re right. Emotional connection plays an important part of binding a legacy to the circle. It would be easiest to link to Mason. But, in any case, we need her.”

  Cami’s gaze lands on Sofia, who straightens her back as if aware we’re all looking at her.

  “I’ll come with you to Elmwick,” she says evenly, “but there’s one more thing...”

  “I know, Sof,” Zach assures her. “As soon as I get the banshees to the charmers’ hideout, I’m going after Issa.”

  I clap a hand on Zach’s shoulder to guide him a few steps away from the others. “Are you sure now is the right time? What’s going down in Elmwick could change things. If this works, we could...”

  I can’t even frame the wild ideas in my head—visions of a future where hunters and legacies work together.

  “I believe you and Cami can change things, I do. That’s another reason why it has to be you and not me. These people are your heart and soul. You belong with them.”

  Under normal circumstances, I would have cringed at my next sentence. “And this Issa is someone you belong with, isn’t she?”

  Zach shrugs, frowning a little. “I don’t know, but she’s in trouble because of me. Every day I don’t get her back is another day I don’t deserve her.”

  I squeeze his robust shoulder on exhale, knowing exactly how he feels. “Go get your girl.”

  “Go save yours, mate. And your town and friends.” He snickers.

  I crush him into a hug, each of us clapping a hand on the other’s back.

  “I know you’re my sister’s other brother,” I say through a breathy laugh, “but you’re mine too.”

  “Same, mate, same.”

  I pat down my jacket pockets, trying to find the pages we took from Oggy’s office. I hand over the Ice Spire blueprint and the sketch of the skyscraper. “I have no idea if these will be helpful, but it’s a start.”

  Zach nods his gratitude. To break the creeping feeling of finality this goodbye holds, he turns to the banshees. “Who’s ready to get to safety?”

  He says a q
uick goodbye to Cami, gives Sofia a brief hug, and leads the banshees away.

  In the cooling midnight air, Cami, Sofia, and I watch them go, but only for a second. There’s no time to waste.

  Sofia, now using her white cane to help her navigate, takes us to the car. Her driver, Ren, is outside, leisurely drinking a soda. He opens the door for Sofia and waits for me and Cami to get in after her.

  “What about your folks?” I ask Sofia. “Won’t they be against you going to Elmwick? And helping us?”

  Sofia’s lips spread in a deliberate, devilish smile. “That’s something you don’t understand about legacies like my family. Because of the agreement we have with the hunters, the child with powers is the one everyone monitors. Older siblings, such as myself, have all the freedom.”

  I glance on my left to see Cami’s reaction to that, but she cups her face in her hands and doesn’t even look like she’s listening.

  “Are you all right?” I ask as the car gathers speed.

  She rubs her eyes. “Things are bad in Elmwick. The legacies are barely holding it together. The hunters are gearing up to wipe us out. And if we don’t stabilize the circle, I’ll need to break it. Otherwise, we won’t be much better than the killers on our trail.”

  “I’m confused,” Sofia says on my other side. “First you sounded surprised to see me fight, and now this? Didn’t Eddie tell you about the charm?”

  “The one anchored in your own belief?” I ask, frowning. “Err...he did, but it sounds so bogus.”

  Cami wraps her arms around herself and peers out the window into the starless night. “Do you mean to tell me that’s how you’re able to fight?”

  Sofia sucks in a breath, slowly, so it sounds like a viper’s hiss. “I’ve known about my situation since childhood. I’m the older sibling, so in order to make sure that only one viper will inherit my father’s powers, I was required to refuse mine. In the months before my Claiming, I practiced little curses and wished for a more durable one that would strike everyone who attempted to hurt me in the future when I would not be able to curse them myself.”