by Sarina Dorie
“I can clean your chalkboard, sweep your classroom, or scream in someone’s ear if they annoy you.” Siobhan’s face lit up with eager devotion.
“No screaming,” Vega said quickly. “I will think upon a fitting boon that you shall have to pay me and require you pay it when it is most inconvenient. In the meantime, I expect you to sit quietly in my class, follow directions, and not cause trouble.”
Siobhan nodded. “I promise. I’ll be your best student ever! I can already tell you’re going to be my favorite teacher.”
Vega frowned. She hated goody-goodies. They reminded her of her sister—and where had that gotten her? She was dead.
There was no way Vega would encourage such optimism and blind devotion—even if Vega suspected she had earned it as the smartest, most skilled protective-wards teacher the school had ever seen—and the most gorgeous and fashionably dressed. She turned away and strode up the stairs before she lost the ability to keep up the armored exterior a modern witch needed to survive in a Fae-ruled world. Vega would save the lesson on promises for another day and explain at that time why it was unwise to make them.
Siobhan followed Vega to her classroom. A student was up out of her seat sharpening a pencil. The moment she spotted Vega, she hurriedly rushed back to her chair. Siobhan hesitated in the doorway, staring at her peers.
Vega pointed to an empty seat at the front. “Today you will sit here.”
Siobhan set the frog on Vega’s desk. Vega didn’t particularly want to be stuck with a frog, but she saw no other immediate alternative. She constructed a simple cage using a barrier spell so that the frog couldn’t escape, but air, insects, and Siobhan still could get inside.
“What’s that?” Celia Gomez asked, pointing.
Matilda Cypress whispered, “Students aren’t allowed to have familiars.”
“Fortunately, teachers are,” Vega said. “If only every new student brought their teachers presents, more of you might have passing grades.”
* * *
During fourth period, as students were practicing the construction of wards, Vega strode up and down the aisle, making corrections to students’ techniques. Students worked in pairs, giving each other feedback and taking notes.
“This ward is strong enough to hide your magic from a Morty, perhaps even another student,” Vega said to a sophomore.
The girl beamed.
Vega raised a finger in warning. “Unfortunately, it won’t do much against hiding your whereabouts from a Fae enemy who decides you look like a tasty treat. Your plant affinity shines through the ward like a beacon to any skilled Fae who should be passing by. Try again.”
The student’s smile faded. “But I’m only a junior. I don’t need to protect myself from Fae yet.”
Vega’s tone was thick with sarcasm. “Do you think a Fae who stumbles upon you during spring break is going to say, ‘Oh, look! A yummy Witchkin! Too bad I’m not permitted to drink up all her magic because she’s only sixteen, and she hasn’t learned proper protection spells yet.’”
They certainly hadn’t possessed that much morality when Vega’s loved one’s had been their targets.
The student crossed her arms. “It isn’t fair!”
“No, it’s not. But that’s life. Get used to it.” Vega drew in a deep breath, about to give another example of the unfairness of their world when she became distracted by the most delectable aroma.
Vega strode toward the opened door and breathed more deeply. The faint hint of roasting meat tingled in her nose. It was rare she could smell anything the cafeteria made on the third floor, but today was different. She closed her eyes, lost in the savory allure of grilled flesh. Her belly grumbled at the mere thought of sinking her teeth into tender, juicy meat.
“Ms. Bloodmire, will you grade my ward next?” a student asked.
Vega placed her hand on the door, knowing she should close it. The longer she tempted herself with the smells of food she couldn’t have, the more difficult it was going to be to resist whatever mouthwatering dish awaited her at lunch. Vega wasn’t a vegan for social reasons. Not following her dietary restrictions had dire circumstances. Banshees like the student who had screamed earlier gave their secret away with their screams.
For a ghoul, people usually caught on once they consumed flesh.
“What’s on the menu today?” Vega asked.
“Beef soup and salad,” one of the students behind her said.
This was not the smell of beef. Nor any other farm-raised animal. Vega knew that smell. Nothing made her mouth water like human flesh. The allure of it hooked into her like barbs, compelling her to take another step out the door.
“Ms. Bloodmire? Where are you going?”
Vega didn’t turn to see who had spoken. “I’m going to take a walk. Keep working. I have a prize for the student with the best ward.”
“What’s the prize?”
“Not failing.”
Someone was probably dead in the school. Her ghoulish hunger wouldn’t have been woken if it was anything less than a severed limb. Vega’s feet took her toward the smell. She told herself she was only investigating the smell to rule out that one of the students had died. As a teacher, it was her civic duty to ensure all students were safe. A banshee had screamed earlier that day. It might have been a divination that someone would die, not that a teenager had mourned her frog familiar’s potential demise.
Most certainly she would not eat anyone she found dead.
At the end of the hall, Vega descended the stairs. She continued down past the first floor and into the school’s basement. Mostly it was used for storage, but past a twisting passage and down another set of stairs was the school crypt. Sconces lit the way. The scent of decaying flesh from years long past mingled with a newer scent.
Braised meat had come this way recently. Probably not of its own volition. The dead rarely walked toward graveyards to rest.
Vega’s belly cramped with yearning. Her head was light, and the bottomless pit of starvation inside her reminded her of how long it had been since she had feasted on any kind of flesh—animal or otherwise.
The heavy wooden door to the crypt was unlocked—a first in the history of the school. Usually Vega had to use a spell if she wanted to get in—not that she came here to dine on teachers and scholars of the school’s past. But sometimes she visited the dead, proving to herself that she was strong-willed enough to resist her weaknesses.
Today she had a feeling she might break her diet.
The crypt was dark. Vega held out her hand, filling her palm with heatless fire so that it wouldn’t disturb the cool ecosystem where dead bodies rested in peace. This outer room of the catacombs was more like a parlor, a waiting room where preparations were made before entering the actual grotto behind the next door.
In the center of the room on a table was a body. A sheet was draped over that form. This was where the delectable aroma of charred meat came from, mingling with older tantalizing aromas of ancient death. A sharp pang of hunger lanced through Vega’s belly.
If she went through with this, she would be giving in to her demon instincts. Eating people—even if they weren’t alive—was the socially unacceptable behavior that made ghouls outcasts. If she were caught, she would be shunned. She would be fired. Forget finding a new job. She would probably succumb to living in cemeteries and digging up bodies with her bare hands. Her manicure would be ruined.
“Once you start eating flesh, you won’t be able to stop,” Vega’s mother had warned her as a child.
Growing up, Vega had seen Nashira Bloodmire as perfect. Her mother had been tall and lean, and her complexion fair. She wore her midnight hair in elegant French twists. She had possessed Celestor magic, her affinity strongest at night, just like Vega’s father. Vega had assumed she would take after her mother’s perfection in every way.
Only she hadn’t.
As Vega grew older, it became obvious she had food sensitivitie
s. Each time Vega had eaten dairy, she’d suffered from horrible stomachaches. Consuming chicken and other fowl caused more pain. Pork, lamb, and beef was even worse. Dining on the meat of mammals could never go without consequence.
The first time Vega had turned into an animal after eating that creature’s flesh, the pain had been unbearable. She’d been forced to transform with no control. Her mother had told her then what she was.
Nashira admitted the family secret. Vega was descended from ghouls. Not the high Fae, the beautiful overlords who ruled over the Witchkin classes. Vega was part monster.
Even years after Vega’s first transformation, Nashira Bloodmire still looked at Vega with disdain.
When Vega had been a teenager, her mother said, “If this hereditary defect skipped me, one would think it would have ended there. It’s unfortunate my only living child has the proclivities of a monster.”
By “proclivities,” she meant the cravings that would reveal what Vega was if she weren’t careful—a defect that would be blamed on Nashira.
Vega drew the sheet aside. Following her nose to a dead body and feasting on it was not one of her best examples of discernment. But that was part of the problem with her eating disorder. Usually the freshly dead didn’t tempt her to this extreme, which just went to show how deprived she was.
With the sheet thrown aside, Vega gazed at a blackened corpse. The cadaver must have been a student, but that was only a guess from the remains of the school uniform stuck to the girl’s flesh. It was difficult to tell at this point who she might have been. She no longer had hair, and what was left of her face was partially burned away, revealing perfect white teeth.
The greatest extent of damage to the victim’s body had been to the face and hands, raised up protectively, though not in time to save her. She no longer had fingers, only charred stumps. It must have taken an impressive amount of heat to do that kind of damage.
Her upper body was charred to a crisp, but the lower half of her was only seared on the outside. Vega drew back the sheet farther. This corpse was like a steak that had been on a barbeque but dropped onto the coals—the outside scorched but the inside still full of juicy, savory flesh just beginning to decay.
Vega gripped the edge of the table, fighting the demon instinct in her. The ghoul in her said this was right—an opportunity like this never presented itself, and now that it had, she couldn’t let it go to waste. This was a feast laid out on a table just for her. She could take a few bites without anyone knowing. So what if she turned into this student at night? She could hide herself in the forest, and no one would know what she was.
The voice of reason whispered that eating a student might not be a good idea.
Tears filled Vega’s eyes as she fought the demon hunger in her core. It had been so long since she had eaten a corpse. She wanted it more than chocolate mousse, a class of well-behaved magical prodigies, and even more than sex in a graveyard.
Yet if she did this, she would be consumed by pain. Ghoul magic would control her instead of her controlling it. Going back to a vegan diet would be harder than before.
Vega was so lost in torment that she failed to hear anyone approach.
“Vega Bloodmire, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” the principal asked from behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
Bad Ghouls Have More Fun
Vega stumbled back from the table. She turned to find the principal standing there in the doorway, hands on her hips. The older woman lifted the brim of her witch hat, perhaps to see better in the chamber of shadows.
“I didn’t do anything,” Vega said quickly. Tears blurred her vision, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. If she was lucky, Principal Allegra Gordmayer would think she was crying out of sentimentality rather than ravenousness.
“Why are you down here instead of teaching your class?” Principal Gordmayer demanded.
That was a good question. Vega dragged herself farther from the body, focusing on the present, rather than the meal that had almost been.
Vega avoided looking directly into the principal’s eyes in case she had the ability to see inside her soul. “I had a vision while in class. I saw death.” She stood taller, trying to embrace the posture of a courageous and heroic teacher doing her duty to protect students. “I thought I could save the girl. I arrived too late.”
“Obviously. Perhaps you should work on your divination skills.” Mrs. Gordmayer crossed her arms, not looking like she bought the act for one minute.
Vega swallowed. She doubted it was divination. Probably someone had tattled. Hazel? Malisha?
Principal Gordmayer strode forward, lifting the sheet from where Vega had tossed it. She placed it over the corpse once again. “You do realize families pay for the best educational experience possible for their daughters, do you not?”
Vega nodded. She could feel a trap coming on; she just didn’t know from which direction the principal intended to strike. Was she about to reprimand Vega for being a dunce at powers of prophecy? At Lady of the Lake School for Girls, everything was always about recruiting good families who could afford tuition and who would donate to the school.
“It is a pity such a great witch as yourself hadn’t foreseen this moment. I believe my powers of divination tell me you’ve left your classroom not once, but twice, in one day.” Mrs. Gordmayer’s tone was as frigid as ice. “It will be difficult enough alleviating parents’ concern about a student dying at our school, but calming them after they hear about the negligence of our teachers is another matter.”
Vega edged closer to the door.
The principal’s cool eyes raked over Vega. “It would be a shame if I gave you not one, but two formal warnings in the same day for leaving classes of hormonal and inexperienced teenagers to practice dangerous spells on their own.”
Vega had risked her reputation and her job in one weak moment—and nearly gotten caught. She hadn’t even been able to indulge in the dark side and satisfy that need for a tasty snack.
“I’m watching you, Ms. Bloodmire,” the principal said as Vega hastened out.
Only after she made it back to her class, and without the distraction of temptation before her, did Vega actually wonder who had died.
* * *
As if the principal’s chastisement hadn’t been enough, the note that magically appeared on Vega’s desk ten minutes later didn’t help. Vega rolled her eyes at the line:
At Lady of the Lake School for Girls, we believe that freezing a student is excessive. Please refrain from doing so again.
Probably that meant the principal had unfrozen the girl.
Pity.
Vega suspected she might have gotten away with leaving her classroom unattended if Principal Gordmayer hadn’t caught her in the crypt. She’d seen how the principal had looked at her with disdain. She couldn’t have known Vega would have eaten that student, otherwise she would have confronted her about it. But she must have suspected Vega had been hunched over the corpse for some reason other than concern over the student’s death.
As soon as the lunch bell rang, students ran out of the room with glee. Vega took her time locking up.
There was nothing on the lunch menu that could come close to what Vega most desired. Nor was she going to make herself sick by ingesting unsatisfying soup and turning into a cow later. The only substitute that was even halfway close to the scrumptious allure of death and forbidden temptations was sex—and that was another no-no at an all-girls school.
Not that any of the male staff members came even close to enticing her. If they weren’t wizened and weathered old men, they were married. The ones who weren’t married were gay. Out of the selection that remained, the only eligible bachelor left was the dean of discipline, who was always disgustingly optimistic and a morning person. That was not one but two unforgivable qualities in Vega’s book.
The cafeteria was a jungle of students, the chaos of their voices bouncing of
f the walls. For some reason, they were especially excitable, reminding Vega of a wild pack of hyenas.
Sunlight spilled in from the stained-glass windows depicting scenes of past witches performing heroic deeds, painting rainbows across student faces.
When Vega had been a teenager, the tables used to be so full of students, sometimes she hadn’t known which table to squeeze into. As a student, it had been so much easier to escape to the graveyard and sit in the quiet where no one would disturb her or bully her.
As an adult, she couldn’t help envying the empty tables or those with only a few girls seated on the benches. If only she could have been so lucky as a student. Did the fewer number of students mean more ate meals outside the cafeteria these days, or were there fewer students at the school?
Vega eyed the selection of food on the table for staff. As usual, there was no vegetarian option for soup. Her belly ached with hunger, but she moved on to the salad and scooped some onto her plate.
“The beef bourguignon soup is really good.” Hazel waved at Vega from farther down the table where she sat alone.
“Not interested,” Vega said. She wasn’t about to reveal her weakness to another teacher she hardly knew.
“There’s plenty of room down here,” Hazel said.
Vega supposed the sasquatch teacher probably thought they were best friends now that Vega had come to her rescue and salvaged her second-period class—and probably had thwarted a delinquent student from using a spell she would have used on Hazel instead. Either that, or Vega’s nemesis had told Hazel about Vega’s secret, and she intended to slip something in Vega’s food to find out if it was true.
Vega avoided the bacon bits and salad dressing, pouring oil and balsamic vinegar on her salad instead. “I imagine the principal probably thawed that student I iced into place earlier.”
“No, some students helped melt the ice during passing time.” Hazel said cheerfully.
Vega rolled her eyes. Typical. The student hadn’t even escaped on her own.
Hazel continued with clueless amiability. “Henrietta’s fine, in case you’re wondering.”