Mama said I should just tell her where to go. I didn’t see the point. It wouldn’t change anything. I just needed to stay under the radar for the rest of the year. In six months I’d be moving to the senior campus. Then I’d get reassigned to a new dorm. Many of the supernaturals would only be starting their Academy lives at seventeen after going to their specialist species schools. Or school in the human world.
Hopefully I’d land a better roommate. I had my fingers crossed for a goblin or maybe a troll. One of the dwarves might be nice too. The para-human species tended to be nicer than the supernaturals that could pass as fully human. They were also not on the long list of high-magic supernaturals that my great-grandfather bled in his rampage to master dark magic.
Right now I didn’t care for the inquisitive glint in Kate’s eyes. Curiosity killed the cat. Before I closed the chest, I reached into my small paper sack of black lava salt and silently sprinkled it in a circle around the chest. I thought of the magic protection circle in my mind. Only protection. The last thing I wanted was to really hurt somebody. I just couldn’t let Kate mess around with my stuff. Only child and all that.
Spell completed, I hightailed it to the library. There was a buzz of excitement in the air. The day before classes began was always like this. Everyone was hyperactive and desperate to tell their friends about their holidays. I’d gone home for mine. The compound was as it had always been. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it until my feet touched down on the red-brown dirt in Zambia. I had to bite my tongue to keep the tears from falling when the wolves greeted me with smiles. The only wolves who smiled at me here were the ones who knocked me on my butt in Weaponry and Combat class.
I had every intention of locking myself away into a quiet room in the library when something caught my eye on the noticeboard. Amidst all the usual flyers for music lessons, study sessions and the very blatant black market swaps, was a genuine ad for the dining hall kitchen. They were in need of a kitchen hand. I was in need of another hair spell. The last one had worn off over the break. Now my natural hair was back with a vengeance.
My hair took forever to grow. I’d let it free for nine months and it still wouldn’t budge past my shoulders. It conspired against me to curl into such tight ringlets that I had to flatiron it for hours to get it tamed. Don’t even get me started on braiding. It was hard to find a spare eight hours on the weekends. Not to mention the cost.
I could be a kitchen hand. Who could be better for that job than a kitchen witch? Feeling buoyed, I didn’t even let the side-eye I got from the boys congregating around the manga section steal my hope.
The feeling lasted until the second I stepped foot into the dorm hallway again. The hairs on my arms stood straight up as something insidious scraped up against my skin. It felt like someone pouring their ill intent over me. Instinct had me drawing a protective circle around myself. Low magic circles or arcane circles were a witch’s bread and butter spell. We couldn’t wield magical swords or levitate a building, but we could ask the Earth for protection. Grammy, Gaia rest her soul, had taught me circle magic since the day I could walk. In my mind, the glow of the circle was always a rich, rose pink.
Without knowing why, I sprinted toward my room. A cold sweat gathered around the crown of my head. I shivered at the sudden drop in temperature. It might have just been a trick of the light but the alcove in front of my bedroom door appeared to be overcast in shadow.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the paper bag of sea salt. The others made fun of me for always carrying it around. But I was a kitchen witch. Salt and pepper were part of my arsenal. I tested the doorknob with a sprinkle of salt. When the grains didn’t smoke, I grabbed the doorknob and turned it.
The scream lodged in my throat when the door swung open. I pressed my fist to my mouth to stop it escaping. Kate lay prone on the ground a couple of feet from my storage chest. The lock was mangled but intact. The spell around the chest was not. Her dark hair was a wild halo. Bits of her nkisi pendant scattered around her. What really got my heart kicking out of my chest was that her eyes were wide open. Her mouth was twisted into a gruesome slash of a scream.
I heard footsteps behind me. Somebody grabbed my shoulder. “Why am I not surprised?” the deputy headmaster’s cold voice said in my ear.
Crap! All I wanted to do was lay low. School hadn’t even started yet and I was already in trouble.
2
Being manhandled was always a hard pill to swallow. Being vampirehandled was like swallowing razorblades. Unfortunately, I was too familiar with both experiences. The glacial expression on the deputy headmaster’s bloodless face was only slightly warmer than the touch of his hand.
“What did you do to her?” His thumb pressed into my collarbone. I knew he had to be exerting a phenomenal amount of self-control to contain me and not shatter my bones with his vampiric strength. It didn’t make his hold any less painful.
“I didn’t do anything!” My feet fumbled over each other as he steered me away from the doorway. “She was like that when I got here!”
A pair of Nephilim guards
