ARC: Crushed (7 page)

I tense, seething. He’ll be the one crying for his mama after I…

Good,
the word stings.

He slides closer so he’s talking nearly into my ear. His voice lowers. Not low enough that everyone avidly listening can’t hear, just enough so it rumbles out nastily. “That incompetent bitch is gonna get someone killed.”

“Keep talking, and you’re going to get someone killed.” It just slipped out!

He doesn’t listen. “I heard that Chi wants to ditch her but he can’t.”

This is a new storyline. Curiosity turns my head. We’re close – kissing-distance close. Or biting distance, in our case. He must realize this and pulls back slightly, but keeps his smirk. His eyes spark, like I suspect mine do right before I deliver a death-blow.

“Because the dumb slut slept with him, and he’s too nice to–” WHAM, out of nowhere he nose-butts me in the fist!

Yeah, I don’t think Jo’s gonna believe that either.

I wince, imagining Jo’s response. My arm’s still outstretched from where it slammed into his face and I whip it back to my side. Isaiah’s on the floor, blood bubbling from between the fingers clenched over his nose, the bags under his eyes already darkening. I look from him to the room full of dead-silent witnesses.

Screw it. In for a penny, in for a pound. As they say, if you’re gonna do the time, you might as well enjoy the crime.

Suddenly my day is looking up.

I glare around the room, the ferocity I’ve been feeling all day displayed for anyone to see. A couple kids gasp, and they all step back. “Anyone have anything else to say about Jo? Rope-climbing? Demons?” I snarl. I let a wicked smile curl up my lips. My eyes spark with challenge and I hope someone does. “No one?” I catch the eye of one wide-eyed sophomore and she actually shakes her head before she ducks it behind the girl next to her.

Isaiah makes a groaning noise as he shuffles around on the floor. He pulls himself up using a table, then moves to place it between us. He pulls his hand down from his nose, so he can shout at me. “You are screwed!” Blood still pours from his nose and runs over his mouth. It sprays as he screams. “When Crusader Grayland gets here–”

But I am not afraid of ancient Grayland. I am not afraid of Isaiah. I’m not afraid of anyone. But Isaiah should be very afraid of me. The wolfhound has slipped her leash.

I slam my hands down on the table between us with a loud
whack
, then throw it into the wall so hard it shatters. I fly at him, whip fast, and he stumbles backwards into another table. I grab a fistful of shirt so we’re nose to bloody-nose. “I’d be careful if I were you Isaiah – he’s not here yet.” I use my creepy, lyrical, tone. The one I reserve for people I’m about to peel apart limb by limb. Like almost everyone, he immediately recognizes it. He pales, white skin behind red blood. “And, as you pointed out, I’m already in trouble” I lean in, my cheek almost touching his neck, as I breathe into his ear. “I have nothing to lose.” I pull back and bare my teeth. He glares back, but doesn’t say anything.

I was wrong; maybe Isaiah is a bit clever. Because in that moment, suspended, enraged, and free, I can’t say for certain what I would do if he did say something. Delightful options play through my mind in red-splashed tableaux. The vision makes my breath catch, and some of my thoughts must have played on my face, because Isaiah’s breath catches too.

Then the classroom door opens, and the spell’s broken.

“What the devil is going on here?” Crusader Grayland asks in his creaky voice. Then he gasps too. “Miss Porter! Release him at once.”

I don’t. I want the whole class to understand what I could do to Isaiah before Crusader Grayland – or any of them, really – could stop me. They have never seen me as I am, only the tamed, washed-out water-color Jo makes me be.

I want it to be an image they never forget.

The tension builds, until Crusader Grayland pops it with a “Miss Porter!” in a stern tone. I hear the cane-tap and shuffle of the old Crusader moving toward us.

With one more parting glare, I shove Isaiah away, hard enough for the table he slams into to fall over so he lands on the floor once more.

The class lets out a collective breath. “Miss Porter!” Crusader Grayland says again, this time in a tone that’s half-relief, half-outrage. “This is unacceptable! Take yourself–”

I cut him off. “It’s Melange. Miss
Melange
,” I snarl. “And I’m already going.”

I grab my books and storm out, slamming the door so hard the glass shatters.

I smile savagely at the sound and take off down the hallway.

Chapter 9

I’m sure Professor Grayland intended me to go to the Headmaster’s office, but since he didn’t actually say it, I don’t feel inclined to obey. I turn the corner, intending to hide out in my and Jo’s attic, and come face to face with Crusader Beck. She stops when she sees me, but when I move to step around her, she slides neatly in my way. Of course. I may be done with today, but today is clearly not done with me.

As if to confirm my suspicions, she speaks. “Miss Melange, come with me please.” Her tone brooks no discussion. I gnash my teeth. Professor Grayland, clever old dodger, must have messaged ahead.

To my surprise she doesn’t take me to the headmaster’s office, but instead down and out of the school. We’re halfway to the new school before I realize our destination.

Now? Now
the Corporates decide they want to grill me? Of course.

The middle-aged man guarding the door nods as we approach and turns to grant us entry. He and my escort are careful to box me out as they cast whatever spell is used to deactivate the locks. The Templar blood-activated locks used at the last school were abandoned, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. None of this is news to me; it’s hardly the first time I’ve been hauled up in front of whatever visiting Crusader wanted to play one hundred questions with the Monster, but today I find it particularly irksome. The guard returns my disgusted glare impassively.

We walk into the infirmary then briskly up to the stairwell on the far side and head up to the top floor.

I hear Jo in my head trying to douse the fire in my heart. “Be good, Meda.” Good, good, good, good, good. The word plays in a loop until it means nothing. I’ve been good and they refuse to feed me. I’ve been good and they won’t train me. I’ve been good and they changed the locks. I’ve been good and they want to send me away.

So the Corporates think they want custody, do they?
Custody.
I’m not some big-eyed orphan begging, “
Please sir, may I have some more?
” or singing about how the sun will come out tomorrow. I’m not the foster kid who’ll smile on the Christmas card in an ugly sweater matching my new mom’s. Rather, I’m the kid in the back of the orphanage playing with a lighter and the head of the doll that belongs to the sobbing girl next to me – they just need to see it. We’ll see who wants custody then.

Besides, what
good
would good behavior do once they find out I broke Isaiah’s face? Actions speaking louder than words and all that. No, good is no
good
. In this case, bad is better.

My face must reveal some of what I plan because Crusader Beck eyes me suspiciously. My lips curl, but before she can say anything, my hand snaps out and slams the doors to the meeting room open. The tables in the room are arranged in a “U”, and the house is packed. I pause until I have everyone’s attention then I theatrically raise one arm over my head and one curled out from my body like a ballerina and enter the room in a series of twirls. The room is wide, but not particularly deep, so it’s not many spins until I reach the middle.

“Ba, badda-ba ba!” I sing and break into a few tap dance-steps – or at least my mocking approximation of some tap dance steps – jerking my arms back and forth like I’m holding a cane. Then I wrap it all up with a lunge and a clap.

“Ta-da.” I sing. Oh, and add in some jazz hands, naturally.

Stunned silence greets my performance. I don’t look around yet, but focus my eyes, and my snot-tastic sneer, front and center where the Sarge and Sergeant Graff are seated. At my energetic arrival the other corps leapt to their feet, and even now stand with their weapons out, ready to spring.

I look the well-pressed soldiers up and down. “Tough crowd,” I mock. I look to the Sarge, the only unsurprised face in the house. Her lips are thinned to the point of nonexistence.

“What?” I ask innocently, then let some of my anger creep into my tone. “I assumed I was the entertainment for this little party.”

The Sarge doesn’t bat an eye. “I am not amused.” The Sarge has this way of saying things, I don’t know if it’s her raspy growl or her one-eyed glare, or maybe just the knowledge that she knows more ways to kill someone than everyone on death row combined, that makes it really hard to disrespect her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you were expecting a comedic routine?”

I said it’s hard, not impossible. At least not for someone as gifted in the art as I.

I clear my throat and affect a stand-up demeanor. “A funny thing happened on the way to this meeting…”

The Sarge interrupts my joke with a lifted hand. It’s probably better that way – me kicking Isaiah’s ass is probably the kind of funny you had to be there for, anyway.

“Miss Melange,” she says, all business. “We can play silly games all day, or we can get this over with in time for dinner.”

She gave me too big an opening to pass up. There’s one part of my nature no Crusader can, ah,
swallow
without disgust. Rude teens, they probably have. Rude teens who eat people…What can I say? I’m one-of-a-nightmarish-kind.

“My kind of dinner or yours? Because I admit, I’m starving.” I say the last bit lustily with a wide display of teeth. I cast eyes around the room. “I don’t suppose anyone’s brought any–” I pause deliberately, “
one
to eat?”

The Crusaders aren’t a squeamish lot, but I still hear a sharp intake of breath on the last question, and a few shift in their seats and trade looks amongst themselves. The reaction of the delegate I’m most interested in, Graff, is disappointing. He leans back in his cheap plastic chair. I can’t see his hands, but his elbows are wide, so I’m guessing they are neatly folded on his lap. I lock eyes with him and raise my eyebrows defiantly, but still get no reaction. I decide to push it.

“I can’t help but notice you’re all arranged a bit like a buffet–”

“That’s enough, Miss Porter,” the Sarge cuts me off, her tone as bland as the expression on the Corp’s face.

“Melange.”

She ignores me. “Your feeding is scheduled for a week from Thursday. You might be interested in knowing that Crusader Bergeron will be making the delivery.” She emphasizes the name.

Luke Bergeron. He was my mother’s best friend and fiancé before she was kidnapped and impregnated with yours-truly. After I was rescued from the demon headquarters, I learned that he and my mom had kept in touch over the years. I get the feeling he sees himself as a kind of stepfather to me, and I have to respect that kind of courage. After all, I murdered both my real parents. True, one was an accident.

But one wasn’t.

I have a short supply of friends (granted, that’s partially my fault), and an even shorter supply of parental units (entirely my fault), so it’s always a treat to see him.

Delinquent-foster-kid-Meda shrugs like she doesn’t care.

The Sarge doesn’t wait for me to respond, but launches right into the meeting. She doesn’t thank me for joining them, but wouldn’t have even if I hadn’t waltzed in like an ass. She’s too military to bother pretending I had a choice.

“You remember the delegates from the Northern Chapter, who were introduced this morning.” She indicates the Corporates. “Also joining us are representatives from some of the other Chapters.” She nods toward the far right, almost in the back corner and I twist to take a look. I can’t help it, what I see causes my sneer to crack for a minute. Floating about two feet off the table are the heads and most of the shoulders of Crusaders I don’t recognize. I’d heard of the communication spells the Crusaders use to talk to one another – it’s how the Crusader kids talk to their parents – but I’d never seen it in person. The Crusaders like to limit my contact with magic.

The Sarge’s no-nonsense voice clips into my shock and I slide my too-cool mask back in place before I turn to face her. Four are from the other major US Branches, LA, Chicago, Miami, and Wisconsin, but the rest are from around the world.

These aren’t the people who ask questions, they’re the ones who make decisions. Big ones. It’s the kind of thing you wish you knew before you walked into a room and showed your ass. Figuratively, of course – at least so far.

Hey, the day is young, it’s a little too late to change paths now. I freshen my sneer.

“On to business,” the Sarge says. “Before we start anything, I want to stress that everything that occurs here is to remain confidential.” She looks around the room hard-eyed, then pauses on me. My expression is not exactly cooperative. “It’s for your own safety. What we learn here today could affect how people view – and treat – you, and we don’t want anyone to do anything rash.” She looks back around the room. “Not until we decide how we want to handle it.”

That makes me a little uncomfortable.

Satisfied, the Sarge continues. “The compounding of your Crusader and demon heritage has made you physically stronger than either alone. What we haven’t explored is whether that same compounding affects your magical abilities.”

My ears perk up at that. Crusaders all have different strengths when it comes to spell-casting, and the academic portion of it is quite challenging as well. I’m not going to lie, it has occurred to me (and Jo, of course) that my demon-Crusader heritage may have given me some extra abilities in the magic department, but there’s no way to test the hypothesis without teaching me magic, which the Crusaders are reluctant to do. But maybe that’s changed. I try to hide my glee. Meda the Magic Monster.

The Sarge shuffles some papers in front of her, and there’s something about the small movement that makes me uncomfortable. “With the war coming, we’ve been pushed into a faster time frame than we would have liked. There are Crusaders dying every day, entire Templar families being wiped out. There was a full scale attack on the Wisconsin community. We’ve lost twenty-two Beacons in the last two months.
Twenty-two
.”

I’m not entirely sure why the Sarge is telling me all of this. She’s known for a lot of things (most of them guaranteed to give a naughty demon nightmares) but explaining herself is not one of them.

She shuffles her papers again and it occurs to me why I found the motion so disconcerting – the Sarge is uncomfortable. The
Sarge
. Uncomfortable. Explaining things to me. The woman is three-quarters stone, one-quarter kick-ass. Maybe they are going to teach me magic, but the rising hairs on the back of my neck seem to suggest no. I look around the room, trying to drag clues from the other faces. Several look away, unwilling to make eye contact.

“We,” there’s a bite to the Sarge’s tone that suggests
we
didn’t do anything, “think it’s time to explore the effects your mixed heritage has had on your magical capabilities.”

I look back to the Sarge. “What do you mean ‘explore’? Are you teaching me magic?” It’s pure optimism that makes me ask at this point.

The Sarge clears her throat, a surprisingly high-pitched sound for such a terrifying woman. “We believe we have a method of testing your abilities that won’t make that necessary.”

“Method.” I get the distinct impression it’s not something harmless like, say magical litmus paper.

“Yes.” She looks to Professor Puchard and gives him a little nod. That explains his presence as the resident magical expert.

Like most of the faculty, he’s old. His speckled bald head reminds me of the brown eggs Mom used to buy when we lived in London. He pokes his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose before clasping his worn leather hands in front of him. “You are aware that the demons and Crusaders are mirror images of each other – equal opposites, so to speak. We’re not exactly the same, of course.”

“Yeah…” I had learned that in my classes, but I’m not sure how it’s relevant here. Really, I’m not sure how relevant it is period. I mean, how the hell can they be “equal opposites” if one side gets to come back from the dead? A Crusader can kill demons all day, but unless they take the time to drain the false life from them (a tricky thing in the middle of a battle), it doesn’t do much good. But that’s probably beside the point right now. “That’s what they tell me.” I force a little more sass back into my tone. I am trying to piss them off, after all.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Sarge’s lips tighten, but she’s not looking at me, she’s looking at Graff. Professor Puchard taps his curled fingers on the table before continuing. “Yes, well, I’m sure you’re aware there is one spell that the demons make quite a bit of use of that we, ah, don’t.”

I raise my eyebrows and glance around. The Sarge’s lips are even tighter. Whatever’s coming, she doesn’t like it.

Professor Puchard’s eyes shift sideways, but not to the Sarge – to Graff. That can’t be good. “Ah, you see, free will is the basis of goodness.”

What?

His tone becomes distinctly academic in nature. “Goodness is a choice, not an action.” Professor Puchard misreads my confusion and hurries to explain. “A charitable donation, for example, on its face appears ‘good’, however, it alone does not determine the goodness of the donor. If the gift is given to gain a lucrative position on the charity’s board, or for recognition by the community of the donor’s ‘goodness’, then it’s not ‘good’ because the intent is personal gain.” He is more comfortable in his usual role of pontificator and seems content to continue.