Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (13 page)

“Ah, I drove. Want a ride?” I asked.

“Now yer feckin’ talking, O’Carroll. Let’s
go,” she said, hunkering down even further into her coat.

Beast was just a short walk away and soon
enough, I had the engine running. The ride back to Arcane was short
and the heater had only just started to pump out warm air when we
were back to our home away from home.

“Goddess bless you, D. I think I would have
froze me blasted ass clear off if I’d had to hoof it,” she
said.

“So you’re saying I saved your ass?” I asked
as deadpanned as possible.

“Just so, O’Carroll, just so. These leggin’s
are comfy as hell but a bit too sheer to be warm in this cursed
cold,” she said, pinching her gray tights along her hip with a
finger and thumb. Her motion brought my attention to the
aforementioned body part that I was credited with saving. Somebody
should give me a friggin’ medal.

We got to the doors, flashed our ID’s at the
guards, and slipped into the shocking warmth of the building.

“Right then, tanks fer the lift,” she said,
standing very close. A cell phone ringtone started to play the
beginning strains of a song.

“‘Galway Girl?’” I asked as she scrambled in
her parka pocket for her smartphone.

“It’s me sister, Gael… the flirty redhead?” I
nodded, instantly remembering her sexy, fiddle-playing sister. “Me
sisters always call me their very own Galway Girl on account of all
this,” she said, waving a circle around her face and head.

“What do ye want, ye chancer?” she answered,
back on the phone. “It’s all jest fine, not counting all the
international calls from you fockers.

“The bobs? There are some. Got a savage one
right here wit me now. Say hello to Declan.” She held up the phone
and I heard Gael’s soft voice: “
Hey there, Declan. ‘Ow’s it
going, then?”

“Oh it’s brilliant, it is,” I answered in my
best brogue, which isn’t half bad.

Ryanne frowned, a cute little furrow forming
between her eyes.

“Enough flirting wit me friends, ya poacher,”
she said into the phone before bringing it back to her ear. She
gave me a wave and a smile as she turned, heading for the stairwell
to her floor. I would have headed up to my own room but I spotted
Mack coming around the corner from the dining room.

“Hey, you already at dinner?” I asked.

“Yeah, your girlfriend got hungry so we just
came down. She thought you’d be turning up about now,” he said. “I
was just heading to take a piss.”

“More information then I needed, dude,” I
said.

“Speaking of information, was that the Irish
hottie I saw you come in with?”

“Ryanne? Yeah. She’s in my English class and
I gave her a ride back is all,” I said, maybe slightly defensive.
“Didn’t want her to freeze her ass off.”

“No, ‘cause that would be a crying shame.
Must be an Irish national treasure,” he said with a grin,
continuing past me toward the bathroom.

I headed into the dining room, dragging my
bookbag and jacket with me.

Caeco, Jetta, Ariel, Justin, and T.J. were
sitting at one of the round tables, Mack’s spot obvious from the
rumpled cloth napkin. There was only one buffet table tonight, and
it was covered in desserts.

“Hey D, grab a seat. We get to order off a
menu tonight,” T.J. said, obviously excited by the prospect.

“Yeah, I just saw Mack. Where’s Ashley?” I
asked Ariel as I sat down next to Caeco.

“Having dinner with her dad and Neeve,” she
said.

“Oh, I met her dad today. Tough-looking dude,
but what would you expect from a bladesmith?” I said as
nonchalantly as possible. Both Caeco and Jetta fastened their gazes
on me like lasers.

“Did you ask him about making new knives?”
Caeco asked.

“Why would I do that?” I said, making a
production of looking at my menu. It had four entrée choices, two
soups, and a couple of appetizer selections.

Steel-strong fingers gripped my thigh under
the table, getting my immediate attention.

“Because you have a deep and abiding interest
in the happiness of your girlfriend,” Caeco said.

“Oh, well, then yes, I asked him. He’s going
to look into pricing them. Silver’s gone through the roof since
they
all came out,” I said, pointing to the table of weres
across the room.

Delwood chose that moment to look our way and
when he saw us looking, he raised his glass and gave a nod, but I’m
pretty sure he was only looking at Caeco when he did it.

“Is he looking for another ass kicking?” T.J.
wondered.

“No. He is offering his admiration,” Justin
suddenly said, surprising us in what he said and that he even spoke
at all.

Unsettled, the whole group shifted to the
menu, discussing the choices. I chose the chicken cordon bleu while
Caeco picked the grilled mahi mahi.

By the time dinner was done, we still had an
hour before the TAP seminar with Gina Velasquez, so we headed to
our own rooms.

I dumped my book bag and hung up my jacket as
Mack took a running dive onto his bed.

“So you gonna whammy that Deldouche or what?”
he asked.

“What?” I asked.

“Well he’s got his eye on your girl. You
should give him fleas or mange or something,” he said, holding both
hands out and twitching his fingers, spell-like.

“You think it’s that bad? Shouldn’t I let
sleeping dogs lie?”

“He’s not sleeping, and I think Justin’s
right. I think he’s become fixated on the only person to give him a
proper butt whipping. I doubt he thinks you’re a threat, what with
the rep you dude witches have,” he said.

“Hmm, “ I said, studying the suddenly
unsettled feeling I had in my stomach. Probably not a premonition,
‘cause I kinda suck at those. Maybe gas?

“You do have enough juice to do
something
, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, but wait, you don’t think Caeco would
even go for a meathead like that, do you?”

“Listen, I absolutely don’t understand how
chicks think, but I never discount anything. I mean the dude’s a
giant, he’s ripped, and he’s a born killing machine. A girl like
Caeco, raised for combat, wouldn’t she maybe find that kinda
hot?”

The feeling in the pit of my stomach had just
gone from mildly upset to hold the bucket, she’s a-coming up.

“But just so I’m clear. If you did want to
put the pox on him, you could do it, right? I mean, I know some of
the kids seem impressed with your Wytchwar game, but do you even
have enough juice to bother a beast like Delwood?”

I looked at him, considering all he’d said
and what he was implying, and my temper rose like a live thing.
Pointing my left hand at the nearest outlet, I pulled an arc of
electricity from the wall. My hair started to stand as the juice
built up inside me and the lights dimmed and flickered. After a
couple of seconds of draw, I released the arc and put both hands
together about eight inches apart. Blue twisted bolts of
electricity passed between them, snapping and popping.

Mack’s expression was half shock and half
awe, his eyes glued to the inch-diameter strands of raw power. I
dropped both hands, letting the electricity slip back inside me,
pooled and waiting. He looked up to my eyes and recoiled a bit.

“Dude, your eyes…” he started, words falling
away.

“Mack, nobody here knows how much
juice
I have. Caeco has a little idea, but even she doesn’t
really know,” I said.

“Okay, okay, I’ll take on faith, especially
after that,” he said.

“
That
was a fart in a hurricane.”

His face was blank for a moment, then it
twisted in disdain. “Really? That was the best badass statement you
could come up with? We gotta work on your verbal skills,” he
said.

I reached over and gave him a tiny zap on his
sock-covered foot. He jumped backward on the bed, giving me a
Dude, really?
look.

“Sometimes Mack, actions speak louder than
words.”

“Ow… fucking oww, you skinny Bewitched
warlock son of a bitch,” he said, rubbing his toe.

I laughed and dug out a notebook and pen for
the seminar.

“Hey, what did you guys learn in your
werewolf control class with Jenks?” I asked.

“Yoga.”

“Yoga? You’re bullsitting me, right?” I
asked.

“Nope. Jenks says it teaches control, both of
body and mind,” he said, changing his voice to make it deeper and
more mystic sounding.

“That’s kind of funny.”

“Not if you saw old Delwood eyeing your lady
while she nailed some of those bent-over poses,” he said.

He was right. It suddenly wasn’t funny,
wasn’t funny at all.

Chapter 13

Gina made us all sit on the lower levels of
the smallest classroom, forcing the class to be closer together. I
deliberately sat so that my body blocked Delwood’s view of Caeco,
suddenly seeing him as a new kind of threat.

“Okay, let’s start with a quick video montage
of recent news,” Gina began, using a remote to turn on the giant
sixty-five-inch monitor on the wall.

(Footage of mobs of people with protest signs
outside of a building labeled Demidova Incorporated.

A news anchor with a scrolling banner under
him labeled ‘Cure for Cancer, AIDS and Ebola?’

A Wall Street shot that morphs into a
climbing graph of silver prices. A news graph showing the decline
in attendance at NFL games and other public events.

A shot of Chris Gordon, Tanya, and team
leaving a building on a cobblestone street at night, surrounded by
men and women wearing black combat fatigues with POLICE across the
back and little French-looking uniform caps, darkness lit by
flashing emergency lights on European cars.

A swirling helicopter shot of the famous
Battle of DC, the giant demon prince holding half a body in each
taloned hand.

Another news anchor, female, with a caption
indicating church membership was rising across the world in all
faiths and denominations.

A man in a black robe wearing an upside down
pentacle being interviewed under a sign for the New Church of
Satan.

Blurry footage of a seven-foot white werewolf
in beast mode, running through the fight-torn streets of
Washington.

The cover of TIME magazine showing a full
portrait shot of a beautiful blue-eyed woman with the headline
‘Tatiana Demidova: Heiress, Business Tycoon, Vampire?’

A screen shot of a blog page with the title
‘What Else Roams the Night?’

The video ended frozen on the final title and
Gina turned to the class.

“So, what do you think?” she asked the
class.

Silence. Finally, “About what? The video?”
asked the same girl who had asked Chris so many questions just a
few nights ago.

“About everything, Ilda. About how the world
is reacting to proof of the supernatural. About what that means for
all of you,” Gina answered.

“Listening to kids around the campus, I think
most of the normal people are scared to death of demons and worried
about weres and vampires,” T.J. said, glancing apologetically at
the vampire girl sitting alone at the far end of the seating.

“Okay. Katrina, what do you think?” Gina
asked the vampiress.

Sitting unnaturally still, the girl studied
her in a way that would have made me uncomfortable. Then she
spoke.

“I think it will complicate things. Probably
make life more dangerous,” she said.

“How so?” Gina asked.

“Pointing out the healing powers of Darkkin
blood will only make us targets.”

“Turn around is fair play,” one of the
werewolves, Matthew, muttered.

“I know. Ironic, right?” Katrina agreed with
an uncharacteristic display of animation, like a normal
eighteen-year-old girl might. Then her face went cold again. “Of
course, everyone will want a hunting license for werewolves now. I
heard there are groups waiting for the next full moon.”

“Is that true?” the girl of the
brother-sister were pair asked with a light accent.

“Yes, Darina, I have heard the same thing,
although I know that Chris is working with Stacia Reynolds to lobby
Congress to pass an immediate law. We’ll see what happens. But
Katrina’s point about danger is very, very real. It’s the reason we
haven’t seen many more supernaturals coming out. The leaders are
all waiting to see what, if any, protections can be passed.
Currently, any new weres or Darkkin are immediately hounded by the
media. Only those in an organization like the Demidova Corp, the
bigger packs, the Coven, or Oracle are protected. Did you notice
the final blog post? It’s by Brystol Chatterjee and in the article,
she wonders about everything from ghosts and goblins to witches and
zombies. So the rest of you are very much at risk as well.”

“I should very much like to see a human
attack me or Darina,” the were brother said, his accent very
European but hard to judge exactly where.