The amputated undead gouged into the dirt around it with the stump of its wrist. What had been a slow procession of undead bodies suddenly turned into a frenzy. It was as though the first undead triggered a starter gun to go off. They crawled their way out of their graves like they had Lucifer himself on their tails. The guards leaped on them, slashing and striking with such speed my eyes were unable to settle on anything for too long.
“How many bodies are buried here?” a Fae boy named Kieran hissed.
He hadn’t seen the faint grey glow in the grass that was scraping against my skin and making it difficult for me to breathe. Even if there were no dead buried under Bloodline, it didn’t matter. Professor Flint was transporting them from elsewhere. I had a feeling there would be no shortage.
“He shouldn’t be able to do this!” I heard a girl scream. She came racing from the back of the dorms.
“Why isn’t the Iron Court here?” another Fae kid whimpered.
Diana rolled her eyes. “Bloody Fae,” Roland spat. “Too stupid to see what’s happening right in front of their faces.”
He was referring to the edge of black that we could see swirling in the horizon. It was a dampening field. Something that high-level demons were notorious for. As non-native inhabitants of this dimension, their magic caused a ripple in the atmosphere. It clashed with the wards around the schools and dampened them so that we weren’t able to communicate with the outside world. None of the elite guards were here because they had no idea we were in trouble. Such was the fury of the demons. That’s how they rolled. Though they had numbers on their side, they fed on the fear and confusion of their prey. Cutting off all forms of escape, all avenues of hope, made the demons stronger. If they could get into this school, they would have a feast on their hands.
Billy was shaking uncontrollably in my arms. His skin had turned ice cold. I was basically holding onto a stone encased in hard scales.
Charles bit out a cuss that would have turned his mother’s face blue. I followed the direction of his gaze. The slew of curses that came out of my mouth was no less abrasive. To the far right of the window, a figure walked leisurely towards us. When I’d left him, Professor Mortimer had been struggling to maintain his humanity. The only way I knew it was him right now was because of the clothes he wore. His magic floated around him in a twisted mauve nimbus polluted with brown stripes. It choked out behind him like smog. Horns had actually broken through his skin. They sat like a pointed crown on his head. But it was his eyes that had every bone in my body liquefying. They were pitch black. Empty.
“Cassie!” I screamed. She came running from the common room with Luther following after her. “Take Billy.”
The goblin had to be wrestled out of my arms. He curled into a ball and howled. I blocked it out. “Get back into the common room and bar the door.” I grabbed Charles by the shoulder and was rewarded with a toothy snarl. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Very scary. Save it for your next birthday.” He protested when I shoved him away.
“I can fight!” I didn’t doubt it. Even at his age, I would bet money on him against some of the kids in my year level. He was already taller and bigger than most of the Fae. I pressed my palms to either side of his face. To do so, I had to stand on tippy-toes. There was no time to comment on the scrape of stubble that grazed my palm. He was growing up right in front of me. Something twisted in my chest, but I shoved it aside.
“Listen to me,” I said. Two feline eyes latched on to me, their rims turning to copper. “If something happens and the wards go down, you grab the kids and you run.”
A snarl rent the air. I shook the refusal from him. “I know you don’t like it. I don’t either. But if something happens to the rest of us, it’s your responsibility to look after them.” I glanced at Luther. “You know how to create a portal, Lu. Run as fast and as far as you can until the demon sphere allows you to teleport. Don’t look back.”
Where Charles would fight me to the death, Luther nodded. He grabbed his friend and tugged him away. Not before I saw Luther blink slowly, his eyes glassy but his jaw firm. One day those kids would be formidable. Even now I wished I had half of Luther’s cool head in a crisis.
Unfortunately, I was too human. Like most humans, when I was crapping my pants like I was at the moment, all I could think of was to lose my shit. I went back to the window and came face to face with Professor Mortimer gliding through the outer perimeter barrier as though it didn’t even exist.
“Son of a bitch,” I spat. “I take it Professor Mortimer was the one who placed the protection wards on this place?”
Sophie’s muted nod said it all. Protection wards were unbreakable to a weaker magic user except in a few circumstances. One was if someone inside let down the guard. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. The other was when the creator of said wards decided to unmake them. “What are the chances that the magic won’t recognise him?” I hedged.
In answer, the professor lifted his arm and the building groaned. Bran shot from the left like a golden cannon, his broadsword raised in a deadly strike pose. For a second, I held my breath, unsure how I wanted this to go down. If Bran struck true, the professor would die. There was no room
