“Let me go!” I begged. As my hand made contact with the bars, a spasm of electricity burned my skin. “Ow!”
“Don’t make a fuss,” the dark-eyed Nephilim said. “You won’t be in here long. Once the Academy is sorted out, you’ll be taken before the Council for sentencing.” Every word of what he’d just said struck me like a hammer.
“But I haven’t done anything wrong!”
He crossed his arms over his chest. The action made his already bulging muscles pop. I would bet my life he was one of Michael’s bloodline. I decided they were the meatheads of the Nephilim race. “You had possession of a banned magical artefact.”
“It was my great-grandfather’s diary! It was bequeathed to me as part of my grandmother’s will!”
“Your great-grandfather was a notorious serial killer. You know all of Enock Mwape’s belongings should have been destroyed or requisitioned to the vault in Seraphina.”
“It’s just a diary.”
“Does it contain accounts of his killings?”
“No. Besides, the Book of Beasts contains accounts of his killings. Everybody is still allowed to read it.”
“If you can’t understand why what you did was wrong,” he said, yawning. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
He sat down with his back against the opposing wall. I knew then he meant to watch me until somebody arrived to signal that things were okay. Except no one would be coming. That much was hammered home when he rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“Can’t you see what’s happening?” I pressed. “Something’s making everyone unconscious. Don’t you think it’s strange that the headmistress and the professors aren’t here?”
He tapped his head back against the wall a couple of times. “They are here. I saw them this…” He trailed off as though losing the stream of consciousness. The fact that a Nephilim was affected by whatever was happening told me this was demonic in origin. If I didn’t already know that based on what happened in Charles’s room.
I stomped my foot on the cement floor to make some noise. Inside the confines of the room, it sounded like I was a wildebeest. The Nephilim startled but he didn’t make a move towards me. The distraction was momentary. It was overtaken by another yawn from him.
“Stay awake!” I shouted. I tried to look for something to prod him with. There were small butts of chalk on the floor. I threw one at him but it had no effect.
He dropped his head in between his knees. The bars around me flickered. I dragged in a breath. Maybe him falling asleep would be a good thing. If the bars required his concentration, maybe I could get out of here if he fell unconscious. I had never hoped so badly for a man to fall asleep in my life.
That was until a small speck appeared in the wall beside his shoulder. It began as a single spark. My eyes bugged out of my head as the spark raced along the wall in an arc. I recognised it as the beginning phases of a portal opening. “No,” I breathed. “Wake up!”
The Nephilim’s eyelids shuttered. I could see him trying to drag himself awake. Like so many of the others, he was losing the battle. Above his shoulder, the spark gained momentum. It grew in size until the lines looked like a blowtorch mark. The air in the room cooled. I drew a protection circle around myself with the butt of a piece of yellow chalk. To double the strength, I drew the same circle in my mind. It was a race to complete the circle and one around the Nephilim before the portal opened.
The deputy headmaster had dragged me away from my backpack. I didn’t have any salt or any ingredients at my disposal. There was no door in this room. No way out for a low-magic witch.
“Wake up!” I screamed once more. Terror had me flailing about. For a second, I wished Mama had relented and allowed me to learn blood magic. The words in the preface of my great-grandfather’s diary came back to me: When there is nothing else left, there is blood. The meaning of those words finally resonated with me. I was helpless. If I had known blood magic, I could perhaps do something to defend myself.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the scorch line as it connected with the other end to complete a circle. The area inside the circle began to swirl. I made an involuntary keening sound as pain rippled in my chest. There was every chance my heart would burst before the first demon came through the portal.
I was wrong again. As the Nephilim’s chin dipped, the body of a popobawa demon hopped through the portal. A popobawa was a black-skinned monster with sinewy muscle that writhed as it moved. Long, pointed ears flopped on either side of its one-eyed head. They were hairless but for the little tuft beneath their chins. Professor Gordon had taught us the popobawa, like most mind-control demons, didn’t need two eyes in order to see. They saw most things through a metaphysical plane.
Even without eyes, it saw the Nephilim slumped by the wall just fine. The thing was joined by several of its friends. The Nephilim let out a snore. It was at that point that he lost control of the cage. The bars disintegrated, leaving both of us at the mercy of the demons.
17
There were some people who were genetically wired to go running into the jaws of death when it presented itself. I wasn’t one of those people. As the demons trespassed over the threshold, I backed up as far as I could go without leaving the outline of the circle.
Popobawa weren’t physically powerful, but they were stronger than a human female. My heart thudded in my chest as the first of the demons tried to body slam into the Nephilim guard. It was rebuffed by the circle I’d drawn around him in my mind.
If I were a
