A cackling laugh broke out of the professor’s throat. It sounded nothing like him. He raised his hand and tested the circle. Sophie and I both gasped at the scorch of demonic magic. I punched the wall and held my ground. The professor planted his feet.
The undead that had made it out of their graves without being cut down began to swarm the circle. They scraped at the sides making me want to scratch at my own skin. Their nails were sharp, but they weren’t even close to being as powerful as the professor. Sophie shuddered. She rolled her shoulders as though trying to throw off something unpleasant.
I gripped Morning Star’s hilt and took a step towards the door. Diana grabbed my shoulder. “Are you insane?” she yelled.
All I could see in my periphery was Bran’s colourless body. His expression was blank. His once-warm brown eyes saw nothing. I could feel my cheek twitching. “Yes,” I told Diana. “Now let me go so I can run my demon blade through that asshole’s neck.”
She shook me. I swayed with each thrust. “No way you’re going out there!”
I tried to push her off. “What’s the alternative?” I snapped. “Sit here and wait for him to break through the circle?” The scraping of it was already driving me insane. I wanted to peel off my own skin where the undead were slashing against it.
Irritation shot through me. I gathered up a blast of magic and threw out circles that spun and seared the undead into smaller pieces. My blue light flared in the Ley dimension. It gained ground and ate at the darker magic that was trying to invade. Like the rolling tide that was the undead, my hedge and bone magic obliterated everything it touched. There was a moment of blessed silence. No more gnashing of teeth and keening from throats that had long ago lost their ability to produce speech.
It didn’t last.
The ground broke once more. Undead popped up like weeds. Somebody spat out a string of curses. The sky above us boomed as Kai and Astrid hammered at the forcefield the professor had erected. It was a waiting game now. Which of the circles would break first? I had a feeling I knew.
“He needs to be exorcised,” one of the Fae said.
“He’s a bit past that, don’t you think?” Sasha bit out. His eyes had gone red. When he spoke, the tip of his fangs snagged at his bottom lip.
“What do you suggest then?” the Fae snapped back.
We all went quiet. I could hear a low rumble above the sounds of the fight outside. In the back room, Charles was finding it difficult to maintain his composure.
“We could break out and take him down,” one of the wolf shifters said.
“Hanging to die young, are you?” Roland asked.
“Better than cowering in here!” The wolf’s eyes had turned into shards of yellow diamonds.
“Shut up!” Diana roared. She turned to Sophie who was the best out of all of us at this sort of spellcasting. “Do you think there’s any chance it might work?”
Sophie bit the inside of her cheek. I reached out and held her hand, pulling her away from the window. “He’s so strong,” she said finally. She brushed the moisture from her cheek. “I don’t know if we have enough power –”
“Bullshit!” Kieran said. He pointed at me. “We’ve got Lucifer’s scion in here. If that’s not power, I don’t know what is!”
“You don’t want me anywhere near a word of light,” I said.
“Screw words of light! Just obliterate these bastards already.”
I gaped. He was asking me to speak Angelical. “What if I hurt other people?”
“We’re going to end up dead anyway if we don’t do something,” a kobold boy said. I could only tell he was male by the tunic he wore around his hips. What caught me was that there was no condemnation in his voice. He turned his head to the side. “Aren’t you sick of prostrating yourself in front of these pricks on the Council?”
Behind his back, the door to the dorms had opened. All along the cracks, dozens of eyes peered out at me. The walls vibrated again. Sophie and I both winced as Professor Mortimer took a dent out of our magic. I laced my arm around her when she almost toppled. If we were going to do this, we had to do it now while we were still strong enough to enchant. She gripped my hand tight.
“Let’s do this,” she said.
“I need chalk, salt, parchment, ink...” Sophie rattled off ingredients. Cassie and Luther raced off to find them. Sophie’s attention returned to the scene outside. She blew out a shaky breath. “I’m not exactly sure how we’re going to get an item of significance from the subject,” she said.
“Finally, some luck!” I said. I pulled out the patch of Professor Mortimer’s jacket.
“Where did you get that?”
I shook my head at her at the same time a boom shattered the atmosphere. Everyone raced to the window again to watch as the highest spire of Pantheon’s tower crumbled. Demons crawled up its face. One of the bigger ones must have run right into the foundations. It turned to dust and sent up a cloud of debris. The roofs of the other academies looked like they had come over with a case of the demon boils. Demons had monopolised the space. Where were their students hiding?
Cassie and Luther raced back into the room with ingredients hugged to their bodies. Clearly they had ransacked bedrooms. The salt came in a little satchel with initials embroidered on it. Whoever G.H. was, they might end up saving our asses.
Everything was dumped in a heap. While they were gone, the boys had cleared an open space of furniture. Now Sophie and I scrambled to set up a circle. She tossed the chalk stubs at me. Out of
