Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (20 page)

After that, I went back to the section I was
most interested in, the one that would deliver my retribution.
Sipping my food, I looked at the complex drawings my mom had done
years ago, reading her words, hearing her voice, feeling more
connected to her than perhaps ever before.

Delwood had humiliated me, had beat me badly,
but it was nothing compared to what my father had done to my
mother. How badly had she wanted to avenge herself, how strongly
had she wanted to make him pay? Instead, she and Ashling had run,
avoided further conflict and avoided their treacherous circle.
Ultimately, it hadn’t worked. Somehow, avoiding direct face-to-face
confrontation hadn’t saved my mom. Eight years after the crime,
she’d tried to reconnect and look where that had gotten her…
dead.

My mom had been powerful. So was my aunt, and
they’d avoided using that power. That tactic hadn’t worked. So I
would learn from my mom’s book and my mom’s mistake. No more
avoiding what I am. Face it head on.

I copied the drawings on notebook paper,
learning the strokes, correcting my errors. Each practice paper
disappeared in a brief flash of fire, then a second flash of flame
as I burned the gases and reburned the ash. The excess heat I
pushed outside, using it to melt off the big icicles that hung from
the roof above. Finally, exhausted but satisfied, I lay back in bed
and fell asleep, thinking about my mom.

Chapter 20

The weekend passed in relative quiet. The
partygoers had failed to get into any of the upperclassmen parties,
instead spending the evening traipsing around Burlington in the
freezing cold.

Saturday, I was either resting or, when I had
a bit of energy, doing homework. Mack and the others went to
Burlington’s shopping district on Church Street. Basically a
walking street, it was liberally endowed with shops, restaurants,
and even some outdoor kiosks.

I gave Mack some money and made one request
of him, giving him the name of the store where he could find what I
wanted.

Staying in the room, I continued to drink
protein shakes and soup, although I’d taken off the head bandage
and could now move my jaw just enough to get scrambled eggs and
applesauce-type foods in. I used the second of my aunt’s healing
charms to speed my recovery along.

Sunday, Mack went out with his sister, taking
their truck to Walmart for some needed supplies. I took the time to
use the tube of henna ink that Mack had acquired for me and begin
the applications. It was tricky, as most were never intended to be
self-applied. There was almost a ritual to drawing them and some
had to be done backward when I applied them to my opposite side.
Each had to be figured out in advance, very carefully, as the dark
ink did not allow me to make any mistakes.

The ones for my back and butt had to be drawn
on cardboard and then I had to oh-so-carefully lie or sit down on
them without smearing the glyphs. It was exhausting and time
consuming, using up every bit of my energy, so much so that I was
napping when Mack got back. The evening was spent watching a couple
of Netflix movies on our laptops and then we turned in. Monday was
going to be a big day.

I was up early the next morning. I showered
and washed for the first time in several days, the henna ink dry
enough to resist the water. Mack looked at me like I was an alien
as I rousted him for survival class. That look became increasingly
speculative as I dressed in black cargo pants, combat boots, and a
black Krav Maga t-shirt from Levi’s school. Just before we went
down, I popped my aunt’s last charm and applied it to my ribs. They
were only slightly sore, but the charm would maybe protect them
from further abuse.

Sleepy heads swiveled to take me in as we
entered the gym. Delwood and friends came in, loud as usual, but
did a double take when they saw me. I stared directly at the giant
wolf kid, trusting in werewolf psychology to do my work for me.

He stared back, my challenge making him
increasingly angry. By the time Jenks got there, Delwood was just
about boiling mad. Jenks was surprised to see me and took in my
combative clothing choices and the direct stare I gave him as well.
When he called us to get in lines for warmup exercises, I made sure
to stand right next to Delwood. My intent was blatant, obvious to
everyone in the class. Caeco asked me several times just what I was
doing, but I couldn’t answer, my jaw still too sore.

I sweated out the warmup, pushing just enough
power into the combat glyphs to give me strength and dull my pain
sensors to get me through the workout.

Jenks and Caeco handed out eskrima sticks,
both eyeing me sideways as I swung mine around in big circles. I
accidentally
hit Delwood with my right one twice. The third
time was the charm. Turning, he swung his own stick straight at me,
choosing a moment when both Caeco and Jenks were looking away.

I blocked it with my left hand stick, the
resulting thunk loud enough to capture everyone’s attention.
Delwood stared at my unmoving stick, thoroughly pissed off but also
slightly surprised. My right hand stick snapped around and hit him
in the hand, hard enough to make him drop the stick.

Jenks and Caeco both headed for us, Delwood
dropped to the ground to pick up his stick, and I fully activated
all my glyphs. Time slowed, my heart pumped, and my nerves and
muscles almost sang with energy.

Delwood was turning his squat into a leg
sweep, an artfully executed reverse spin that would normally have
taken me off my feet. I jumped over his leg, landing on my left
foot, and kicked into his helpfully exposed groin with my right
foot, as his foot swung on past. His hands and sticks came down to
block, but the horse was out the barn so to speak and the damage
was done. It made me happy though because now I could hit him in
that massive head with both sticks, causing his too-slow block to
reverse itself. My right foot was on the ground, close to his body,
too close, but he was preoccupied with my strikes and as his hands
moved up to guard his head, I dropped one stick, grabbed the other
by both ends, and jammed it crossways into his throat as hard as I
could.

The combat glyphs on my arms, chest, back,
butt, and legs gave me power and speed I’d never felt before, maybe
not on full par with a werewolf, but close. My strike crushed his
throat and his chin snapped down, his eyes disbelieving as he tried
to suck air that had nowhere to go.

A hand grabbed my arm and I was suddenly
flying backward. Time was still slow and I calmly executed a
breakfall. Bouncing back up, I saw Jenks turn to block me from
Delwood. Caeco was already there, trying to get a look at his
throat.

“He may need a tracheotomy,” she said to
Jenks.

He spun back around and looked at Delwood,
who was on hands and knees, choking.

“He needs to Change. Everybody get back,
now,” he commanded, glancing at my classmates and giving me a
baleful look as he bent down and started speaking quietly into
Delwood’s ear. The big kid fastened his eyes on Jenks, his
thrashing slowing, then suddenly changing to something
different.

His back arched and he silently screamed,
eyes bulging, tendons and veins standing out on his arms and neck.
A liquid popping, crunching noise came from under his t-shirt, and
one running shoe tore across the seam as his foot became a whole
new shape. A new kind of spasm tore through him and then he was
shaking and vibrating all over.

Within seconds, his clothing was tearing
apart and black hair was sprouting across newly exposed skin. His
arms lengthened and his legs shortened, face erupting into a muzzle
and ears jutting up from the sides of his widening skull. Less than
a minute later, a monster that had to go almost five hundred pounds
stood on all four legs, shook itself hard, and roared loud enough
to knock dust from the metal beams overhead.

I was thoroughly impressed. Delwood the kid
was imposing, Delwood the werewolf was a true heart-stopping
monster.

“
You
should have run. I don’t think I
can control him,” Jenks said to me, angry yet resigned. He had both
hands on Delwood’s shoulders but the beast was too big and strong
for him to slow down.

Delwood sighted me and roared again, claws
scraping the concrete as he started toward me.

I almost immolated him. Self-defense right?
Completely understandable. Yet I didn’t. Couldn’t bring myself to
pull the mental trigger. I could, however, bring myself to pull
Earth energy in shitloads from the floor below me and fling the
giant wolf across the room and into the brick wall twelve feet off
the ground. He stuck there, kicking and thrashing, amid broken
brick and concrete, held in place by my power.

Jenks turned to me, disbelief written across
his features. He glanced at my Witchwards and then back at my face,
flinching a little from whatever he saw there. Caeco was frozen in
place, staring at me as well. The rest of the class had scattered
around the room, none of them making it very far before stopping to
watch the spectacle in full view.

“What the bleeding ‘ell is going on here?” a
new voice demanded, a voice I’d thought was safely home in
Castlebury.

My aunt stood in the doorway to the gym, Gina
Velasquez to one side of her. Gina looked shocked and my aunt… my
aunt was well and truly pissed. Her auburn hair floated around her
head, telling me she was holding her full power in readiness as she
took in the scene before her. Then she looked at me directly, her
attention completely on me, and horror spread across her
features.

“Just what the feck have ye done to me boy?”
she hissed, her tone more dangerous than a yell. “Declan?”

Chapter 21

I couldn’t answer her, my jaw still too
fucked up to work properly. I tried though, and in hindsight, that
was maybe a mistake.

“Eymmm ulllriipe” is what came out in a harsh
gurgle.

She came straight across the room like an
arrow, straight to my side where she reached out to grab my jaw. I
pulled back just before she made contact.

“He can’t open his jaw, Miss O’Carroll. It
got dislocated on Friday,” Mack said, tentatively, from his spot
fifteen feet away.

“Dislocated, ye say? What kind of fecked-up
nightmare are ye running here?” she said, whipping around to spear
Gina with a glance. Gina flinched as I think would almost anybody
when faced with a thoroughly pissed off Ashling. “Why did me nephew
get his jaw dislocated, why is he beaten bloody black and blue and
had to activate three of me most powerful healing charms, and just
exactly why is he holding a fully changed werewolf against the
fecking wall?”

“It’s complicated,” Gina said.

“Then uncomplicated it,” she commanded.

“Ma’am, you’re obviously related to the
warlock,” Jenks began, but Ashling turned back around and glared in
his direction, which made him pause. Then something occurred to her
and she looked at me again. Grabbing my arm, she turned it till she
could see the henna glyph on my right bicep, the one on my forearm
and the back of my hand.

“Ye broke yer promise. Away jest a week and
ye broke yer bloody promise to me,” she said, a combination of hurt
and disbelief in her eyes. Then her expression hardened and turned
to something else. She held my eyes as she answered his
question.

“This
warlock
is me nephew. And thanks
to this fecking shitty school, he now truly is a warlock. Eighteen
years I’ve loved and protected him and one fecking week away and
it’s all ruined,” she said. “How… how and why?”

Gina looked at a loss for words, Jenks was
gaping at my aunt, and I couldn’t speak to save my life. A new
voice piped up. Katrina, the vampire girl, spoke from atop one of
Jenks’ wooden kung-fu training dummys, apparently perched to see
the fight or escape the action or both.

“I can tell you. It’s pretty simple really,”
she said. “Let me start at the beginning. Jenks here made the
soldier girl his assistant, which makes sense as she’s apparently
been birthed to know all this crap. The big bully kid who’s
currently wearing fur up there on the wall pitched a fit, all butt
hurt that he wasn’t the teacher’s pet. Soldier girl beat him up and
put him in his place, only in some perverse manner, he became
infatuated with her. Started to hit on her, pay attention to her,
except she either ignored it or failed to notice it. Personally, I
think it went right over her head.

“Anyway, he’s trying to get her attention and
it ain’t happening but Declan there is noticing in a big way, so
wolfy decides on a new tactic. Push the boy witch until he makes a
move, then beat the piss out of him in front of his girl. It’s a
wolf thing—impressing the bitch wolf with your strength and power.
Instructor Jenks here allowed it, as he seems kind of clueless
about how weak and soft regular students are. Soldier girl follows
orders instead of interfering as she should have, and now she’s all
self-ashamed. Wolfy whispers some trash talk into your nephew’s ear
about taking his girl and making him his bitch. Might work with a
wolf but frankly I think he misjudged your boy, who’s supposed to
be powerless ‘cause of those fancy bracelets Jenks put on him, but
apparently has some tricks up his sleeve. He used magic on himself,
at least that’s what I think he did, and beat the piss outta the
wolf. Just about killed him.