Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (49 page)

“It isn’t. I’m giving credit where credit is
due. Declan vaporized that elf dude and a big-ass tree behind him.
I’m giving him props before we kick his ass,” Delwood said.

“Hello, still standing here un-ass kicked,” I
said.

A loud crash sounded back over the mountain
and the crowd cheered or booed at whatever had happened.

“We best get on with it before your
girlfriend wipes out the rest of our team,” Delwood said.

“Yeah, time is not on your side,” I replied.
“What’s your line?”

“Me? I’m gonna let you and the robot duke it
out and stroll on over to yonder flag,” Delwood said. “T.J., quit
farting around and get to it.”

The robot rumbled forward, slowing as its
pointed feet sank into the deep, soft sand, raising its single shot
gauss guns. One shot from either of those would shatter an avatar
completely.

I activated one of my surprises by raising
DD’s hands over his head and corkscrewing down into the sand below.
The dried clay fell off his frame, letting my brass skeleton twist
through the soft grainy sand like a corkscrew, going in at an angle
under the robot. The seismic rocks I had placed told me where the
robot was and as I counter-screwed back up the surface, the
skeleton picked up sand as a replacement for the dirt.

I came up under the bogged robot and placed
DD’s left brass hand, the one with the rune Cen newly carved into
it, on the robot’s underside. A moment later, I was chatting with
the software that ran it. After reaching an understanding, the
robot powered itself down and left me facing a surprised
Delwood.

“Shit!” I heard him say while T.J. cursed and
made sounds like he was beating hell out of his controller.

Delwood took off at a sprint for the flag and
I moved to follow. DD wasn’t as quick or surefooted with sand for a
body, but I wasn’t far behind and Delwood had a lot to occupy
him.

A kinetic shield stone went off, throwing him
up, but he twisted and came down on the other side near the second
ring of rocks. I slipped through the gap and closed the
distance.

The next rock opened a gaping chasm at his
feet but the bastard jumped sideways, bounced off the sidewall of
the hole, and landed inside the second ring.

I was slowed by needing to
go around the hole, and now he was at the final ring, which ignited
into a white hot ring of fire as he approached. The
rocks
were all actually
made of compressed aluminum and magnesium powder in a mixture more
commonly known as thermite.

Delwood paused to grab some rocks from his
own loadbearing gear and throw them at the inferno. A sharp blast
of compressed air exploded, blowing the burning material up, back,
and sideways in a big enough arc to make me glad I had reinforced
the protective shields around the game course. Burning thermite in
a crowd would be spectacularly bad.

The resulting gap in fire was just big enough
for him to dive through and I threw myself on his back, a seismic
grenade slapping on his dude and beginning to shake it apart just
as his hand touched our flag.

“Game to the Were-Machines for control
o’their opponents flag,” Aunt Ash announced.

I pulled myself back to my body and looked at
her, meeting her expectant gaze.

“What? I just killed his avatar!”

“But he controlled your flag afore his
demise. This be Capture the Flag, Declan. He captured it, if even
for a few wee seconds,” she said, completely without sympathy.

“Hah! We won!” Delwood crowed, standing up
from his team’s bench. The crowd applauded as I turned to meet the
disappointed faces of my teammates.

“I killed him, just not quite fast enough,” I
said.

“We eliminated the entire team, but couldn’t
find the flag,” Justin said with a shrug.

“So according to the rules, they won, even
though their entire team died. That’s fucked up,” Mack said.

“Nonetheless, they won,” Caeco said. “We
played awesome and destroyed our enemy, but as luck would have it,
we lost the game. That’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Delwood’s family was congratulating him, and
the other families were coming over to the team area. I was
struggling with my disappointment so I turned back to the game to
clean up.

With a thought, I gathered all eleven dirt
avatars and T.J.’s robot in a telekinetic lift and pulled them to
me. As they floated over, I separated them, sending each to its
cubby, but only after affecting repairs. It only took a few
seconds, and then I pulled down the wards protecting the audience.
Turning back around, I found myself the center of attention of a
pack of wolves.

“Not fair, Diced Lung,” Delwood said, looking
menacing. “I win the game and you still steal the show.” Then he
was on me, grabbing one hand and giving me a furious bro hug.

“Good game, huh? I thought you had me,” he
said, grinning as he released me from the bone-crushing man
embrace. “Hey Mom, Dad, this is Declan O’Carroll. He’s that bully
witch kid I was telling you about.”

I had no idea what he meant by that and his
grin could have been for me or for my eminent demise at his
parents’ hands… err, claws.

“Good. It’s nice to meet the kid who put
Delwood in his place. He needs a regular thumping, especially when
I’m not around,” Delwood’s father said. He had the same dark hair
and eyes and while maybe an inch shorter than his son, out-massed
him by at least thirty pounds.

“Ah, nice to meet you Mr. Singer,” I said,
shaking a hand that made three of mine and had the power to jelly
my bones. His mother stepped up and shook my hand almost as
powerfully. She too was tall, with brown hair and hazel eyes.

“This is our daughter Clary,” Mr. Singer
said, directing my attention to the tall, pretty brunette next in
line, who was maybe a year younger than Del. I shook her hand,
uncomfortable with her direct gaze and sly smile.

“I’m a big fan of anyone who beats up my
brother.”

Delwood growled and I turned to him. “Ah,
just what have you been telling them?”

“You know. How we’ve traded some blows and
then you sucker kicked me in the junk and crushed my throat.”

“Oh, and did you mention caving in my ribcage
and breaking my jaw?” I asked.

“I love it!” Mr. Singer clapped his hands.
“He gives it right back to you,” he said to Delwood.

“Yeah, he’s a pain in the ass. But how many
others here, besides me, can say they got to fight with the only
Champion class student?” Delwood asked.

“What?” I asked. “What are you talking
about?”

“Oh, my. He’s humble, too?” Mrs. Singer
exclaimed.

“Yeah, still a pain, though,” Delwood said.
“Hey let’s go eat. They’re setting up for dinner upstairs. The food
here is really good. Clary, you’re going to love next year when you
get here.”

Their attention shifted to food, the family
Singer moved as one toward the stairwell, Clary smiling back at me
over her shoulder.

The space they vacated was suddenly filled
with Chris and Tanya. Stacia, Katrina, Lydia, Nika, and Arkady all
appeared on either side of them.

“Declan, that game was magnificent,” Tanya
said. She looked genuinely excited by it.

“Yeah, but we lost. I lost for us,” I said,
trying to smile as I did.

“Bah, you destroyed your enemy, who died
touching your flag,” she said. Over her shoulder, I met T.J.’s
stare. It was shockingly full of hatred. For a split second, I
didn’t understand, then I remembered turning off his robot. He was
furious with me.

“Yeah, that was really good tactical work by
both you and that werewolf kid, Delwood,” Chris said, pulling my
attention back to the conversation.

“He’s actually a really good strategist. I’d
rank him and Caeco as the top two in the class. Me, I’m more of a
close quarters tactics guy.”

“Yeah, we saw the footage from your
semi-final game. You brutalized almost the entire other team by
yourself,” Stacia said.

“I was in the middle of a fight with Caeco
and I sorta took it out on them,” I said.

“You guys okay?” Chris asked.

“Well, yes and no. We’re having some issues,
but we’ll figure them out.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Stacia said. “Hey, changing
the subject completely, is there any way I could run one of those
things?”

“Yeah, me too,” Lydia asked.

Fifteen minutes later, I had them all, except
Chris, hooked up with our spare avatars. They were tumbling about
the course, tackling each other and climbing things, running around
like little kids, Katrina showing them how it was done with her own
avatar.

“Can we chat a minute, Declan?” Chris asked.
I nodded, still watching the dirt dudes cavorting on the game
course.

“So do you have any plans for the summer?” he
asked.

“No, it’s only March. I’m just trying to get
through my courses,” I said.

“Well, we’d like you to work for us this
summer, sort of an internship, but nothing that formal.”

“Would it pay?” I asked, then mentally kicked
myself for being an ass.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think I’m an ass. You’re paying for my
entire college; the least I can do is help you this summer.”

“Well, you’re wrong. It definitely pays and
the scale may surprise you, but we can talk later. I just want to
get my offer in before all these others descend on you with offers
of jobs, money, and concubines,” he said, waving to the people who
were still mysteriously still down in the basement when the action
had long ended and the dinner was getting started.

“You think I’ll get other offers?” I
asked.

“I think you’ll get dozens.”

“Well, don’t worry. I see myself with a
Demidova t-shirt and a Team God Hammer hat,” I said.

“You’re damned right!” Tanya said from her
spot on the bench, her eyes closed and her avatar turned our way.
Lydia’s avatar dove onto Tanya’s back, taking her to the ground.
They were physical equals in Wytchwar, Tanya’s vast powers
cancelled out by the dirt. Tanya rolled Lydia off her, came to her
feet, and executed a perfect spinning back kick that knocked the
dirt girl sideways. Okay, maybe not all her skills were
negated.

“Good, glad we got that figured out,” Chris
said. “Now, do you have any left for me to drive?”

“Well, how would you feel about running mine?
I can jury rig my own better than someone else’s.”

“That would be awesome,” he said, sounding
like an excited mid-twenty year old and not at all like an Angel of
God.

Epilogue

“You’ll need to be very still for this, which
might be hard as the solution burns a bit, so I’m told,” I
said.

“You tested it on your werewolf friends?”
Stacia asked, sitting stiffly, facing forward. We were all in one
of the empty classrooms at Arcane the day after the big game.

“Well, I tested it on Delwood, so no
worries,” I said, dipping the first rune stamp into the beeswax,
iron dust, wolfsbane, and silver nitrate mixture. The stamps came
from my aunt’s online shop, a complete runic alphabet. They were
perfect for applying the glyphs that would allow Chris’s team to
escape any cuffs or explosive collars should they ever be captured
again.

I had already inked the vampires, each
sitting like a statute and with no visible reaction to the mild
silver content of the solution. But Stacia was a were, and they
don’t sit still very long.

“What’s the deal between you two anyway?” she
asked as I applied Cen, the base rune, at four equidistant points
around her slim neck.

“Well, underneath all the aggression and
bluster, he’s still something of an asshole, but an okay one. He
has no real filters, jumps at any challenge—which makes him easy to
manipulate—and has an ego big as a dump truck. He’s also fairly
smart, a good strategist, fearless, and pretty much has the back of
any student at Arcane. We have a mutual respect thing going
on.”

“But you insult each other?” Lydia asked.

“Of course. That’s how guys do it,” I said.
Another dip of the special sauce and I started on Gar, the spear.
“Does it hurt?”

“It stings a little, but that’s fading,” she
said.

“I put just a hint of silver and aconite in
it to fix the iron dust. I think the whole thing will fade to just
a faint mark, but the magic will stay strong,” I said.

“You think these will really work?” Chris
asked, looking at his wrists.

“They worked for me. Let me get the last two
runes on Stacia, and we’ll go over how to use them,” I said,
working as quickly as possible without making a mistake. It wasn’t
easy to concentrate with all the scented tan skin exposed by her
tank top. She must use a tanning bed to stay this dark in winter, I
thought, which formed an image in my head. My hand shook a little
as I applied the last rune, Stan or stone.