Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (39 page)

The goddamned book had tested me, judged if I
was worthy. Suddenly pissed beyond belief, I started to drop the
book again but remembered the scream.

Odd. When Sorrow had been at our family
restaurant and Levi had been translating it, I could feel it from
anywhere on the grounds. So could my aunt. But nobody here was
pounding on my door. If I let go of it, all hell broke loose among
the witches. The stupid thing pitched a fit. I put it on my
jeans-clad leg and tentatively let go. It didn’t scream, but it
suddenly pressed on my senses like it had that time at home. I
quickly covered it with my hand and it stopped.

Okay. Sorrow wanted to touch skin. Well it
was skin… hmm, what kind? I looked closer. Then recoiled back. This
wasn’t deerhide or rabbit skin; this was human. The twisted thing
was written on and bound with human skin. I almost heaved up. I
won’t lie… I did throw up a little bit in my mouth. Enough that I
was forced to steal a swig of Mack’s mouthwash, spitting it into an
empty soda bottle.

It was a breach of the Roommate code, but
hey, this was an emergency.

The doorknob rattled and I shoved Sorrow
under my baggy tee. The knob spun and Mack opened the door.

“Hey, what’s this about a fight? You
alright?” he asked. Caeco and Jetta were right behind him, shoving
him in to make room.

Under my shirt, I felt Sorrow squirm into
place, sticking itself to my skin. My gorge rose again, but I
wrestled it down.

“You look sick,” Jetta said.

“Well, ah, I’m a little fucked up, if you
wanna know. I mean I just killed some witch in the parking lot and
I have no idea why she attacked us.”

Der Test der Trauer.

Yeah, I got it… the test of Sorrow. My face
must have been priceless because all three were watching it like a
movie screen.

“Why were you with Ryanne?” Caeco asked, her
tone suspicious.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my temper
flare. I just killed someone and she’s… what… jealous?

“How would you not know?” Mack asked,
glancing quickly at Caeco.

“She wanted to talk to me, had something to
tell me. She was nervous, it had something to do with her family or
her sisters or something. She seemed like she thought I was going
to be mad. Never got to tell me, as that bitch just blasted her
away like a bug.”

“Who was the witch?” Jetta asked.

“No idea of her name, but I’m pretty sure she
was the New York City witch that drained that circle. She had a
buttload of power… and tricks.”

“Why would she come here?” Caeco asked.

I considered. Tell or no tell. No tell seemed
good, but they were my friends. My best friends.

I stood up and faced them, then raised my
shirt enough to show them what was stuck to my ribcage.

“Is that…” Caeco started to ask.

“Sorrow? Yeah, it is. I think it drove that
witch to come up here. I think it wanted to find me again,” I
said.

“Sorrow? What’s sorrow?” Jetta asked at the
same time her brother asked, “What the hell are you talking
about?”

So I explained. I told them about how my aunt
had used a spell from Sorrow to create Toni’s necklace, how Sorrow
was a half-century-old grimoire from the nastiest witch to ever
come out of Germany. How it had been found down south at some old
house in North Carolina and Chris had taken it into safekeeping,
only to have it disappear.

“You talk about it like it’s alive,” Mack
noted.

“Because I kind of think it is. It… well, it
talks to me. In German.”

“German? You don’t speak German,” Mack said.
“And what do you mean it talks?”

“It puts words into my mind. I’ve been using
Google translate.”

“What does it say?” Caeco asked.

“So far that the witch was a test, for
me.”

“You should get rid of it,” Jetta said.

Schinden sie für ihre Frechheit

I grabbed my phone and plugged in what it
said. It helped that I could actually see the words in my mind.

“It wants you to flay me for my insolence?”
Jetta read over my shoulder.

“You
are
kind of uppity,” Mack
said.

“It said the same thing about Gina—out in the
parking lot, only I didn’t know it was the book,” I said.

“You said that book was evil… before, when
Chris brought it to the restaurant,” Caeco said. “Get rid of
it—destroy it.”

Brennen!

“Shut up!” I said to the book.

“What did it say?” Mack asked.

“Brennen, whatever that means,” I said,
considering my options.

“Burn them,” Mack said, looking up from his
phone. “Hey, good idea.” He dove down to the floor, burrowing in
the mess under his bed. A moment later, he popped up with a propane
torch, the kind with the trigger lighter. A few seconds later, it
was burning fiercely in his hands.

But the flame did nothing when he applied it
to the book in my hands. In fact, the hair on my arms started to
smoke until I used magic to grab the heat and reapply it to the
spot he was trying to incinerate. Still nothing. Frustrated, Mack
pulled out his favorite Balisong folding knife, flicked it around
his hand till it was open, and stabbed down at the book.

The cover dimpled under the point, but there
was no penetration and when he pulled the knife away, no damage of
any kind.

“I remember something about it being
protected by strong wards and spells,” I said.

“So what do we do? You can’t hang on to that
thing,” Jetta said.

“If I let go, it
screams
. Some kind of
mental cry that witches and psychics pick up. If the other witches
or their families hear that and find Sorrow, there will be a blood
bath. It’s like the most valuable grimoire ever,” I said. “I think
I
have
to hang on
to it for the time being till we can figure out what to do with
it.”

“I think you are right,” Caeco said, sadly,
“and I fucking hate it.”

Chapter
3
4

I was hungry, so we headed
downstairs to grab some food. I decided to text my aunt about the
attack. I explained as much as I could squeeze into a fairly
lengthy couple of paragraphs. Her reply back:
I know. Gina called. On my way.

I think I won some points for telling her but
lost a few for telling her after Gina did. And speaking of Gina,
into the dining room she came. Her eyes flicked around the room
till they found me, hands and mouth each full of PB&J sandwich.
She waved me over to her so I went, but my sandwich went with
me.

“Listen, we—meaning Oracle—reported the
attack and death to the FBI because they take over interstate
crimes. They’re sending your favorite FBI agent, Krupp, but it’s
mostly a formality. And I told your aunt… she’s coming too,” Gina
said.

“I know—about aunt Ash. I texted her. Should
I have a lawyer or something for when I meet with Agent Krupp? I
don’t think she likes me much.”

“I doubt she dislikes you,
although you did antagonize her. But like I said, I’ve been assured
that the crime scene work that our own guys did was satisfactory
and that the school cameras caught the fight supporting the
unprovoked attack. The fact that she flung you and half the cars
around along with Miss Flynn’s condition make it clearly an open
and shut case of self-defense.
I
will sit in on the questioning. She’ll be here
shortly.”

“Okay. Awesome,” I said. “But thanks for
telling me.”

“You should probably say hi to Ryanne. She’s
asked about you.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll pop in on her now,
then.”

Dr. Rosewell nodded to me as I came into her
office before going back to the pile of papers she was filling out.
I wondered for a second how you classified a witch attack on health
insurance forms.

The exam room was around the corner from her
office and as I poked my head around, I immediately spotted
Ryanne’s sister, Gael. She saw me before I could pull back and beat
a retreat.

“Here now. Here’s the lad of the hour,” she
said, pinning me with green eyes that matched her sister’s.

Ryanne’s oldest sister, Aileen, poked her
head around the corner and beckoned me into the room. “Declan, is
it? Come on in. Ryanne’s been wondering how ye were?”

Trapped like a mouse on a sheet of glue, I
moved further into the room. Ryanne was sitting up in bed, her last
sister, Mary, by her side. An older man and woman stood at the foot
of the bed and in the far corner, an old woman and young girl sat
in folding chairs.

“Hey, D, I was wondering if ye were still
among the living or not. Gina told me ye were jest banged up a
bit,” Ryanne said.

“I’m, ah fine,” I said, glancing around.

“Aye ye are,” Gael agreed with a smirk.

“Leave off, ye shameless flirt,” Ryanne said,
taking a swipe at her sister, who just stepped back out of range.
“Declan O’Carroll, this is me mum, Megan Flynn, and me da, James
Flynn.”

Her father wasn’t big, being a bit under
average height, but he was fit looking in a working man kind of way
and his grip was firm and callused when I took his extended
hand.

“Thank ye for being there fer my lass,” he
said, his eyes holding mine. He looked shaken, while Ryanne’s
mother seemed calmer. She, too, held out a hand, studying my face.
When I took her hand, she instead pulled me into a quick hug and I
noticed the power of another witch in her aura, even as I felt
Sorrow slide itself around to the small of my back .

“Oh,” she said, pulling back, eyes wide. “Ye
leak magic like it’s water.”

“I, ah, didn’t mean to intrude or anything.
Just wanted to make sure your daughter was all right. Let me get
out of your hair,” I said, trying to back away.

“Nonsense, yer the hero of the hour. We want
to hear about the attack and all that,” Gael said, smiling.

“Not much to it, really. She ambushed us,
knocking out Ryanne before we knew she was there and then we
fought. I got really lucky and she fell and hit her head.”

“Oh, ye look Irish, but ye don’t know a thing
about proper bragging, now do ye?” Mary asked. “Our plane was
landing about that time and we felt the fight from the airport, we
did.”

“Aye, it was like fireworks
going off all at once,” Aileen said. “Ye don’t have to hold back
with us, Declan,” she said, glancing at the old woman in the
corner. “We already know who yer mum was.”

I looked closer at the old lady, noticing
that her expression wasn’t all warm and welcoming like the Flynns’.
Hers was closed and cool and the girl by her side held herself the
same way.

“Ah, Declan, these are some more folk from
back home who came to meet you,” Ryanne said, her tone nervous.

The old lady tapped her finger on her knee
once and power flowed like the Niagara Falls.

Only it was the girl who drew it, pulling
waves of energy from all around. Instantly, my shields snapped up
and I started my own pull, finding myself in a tug of war with a
hazel-eyed, freckle-faced teenage witch for the surrounding energy.
She’d already glommed onto the ready power in the air around us, so
I put my hand on the light switch and pulled current. The lights
snapped out as the girl threw up a shield.

It was a shield of Air and it was so thick, I
couldn’t have got through it with an ICBM. It went from the floor
to the ceiling, blocking off their side of the room, like a bomb
shelter. The Flynns were all casting their own shields, watching to
see what would happen. The girl was strong and her shield massive,
yet it only protected their front side. I could attack the
building, knock out the walls behind them or drop part of the
ceiling on them. But that would be excessive. My hand was still on
the outlet and the answer came to me in a flash. As did a spell I’d
never seen before, one that just popped up, superimposed on my
vision, ready to be cast. It was an extraction spell and it was
designed to drain the two witches in the corner of all their power
to the point of death.

Sorrow’s contribution stopped me in mid-draw,
my body stepping back of its own accord.

A foot scraped behind me, but the voice that
came next stopped my defensive response. “They be testing ye, lad.
Waiting to see what ye can do and what ye will do. Right, Macha?
So… whatcha going to do, lad?” my aunt asked. How the hell did she
keep showing up at these awkward moments? Ah right… witch with
strong divination skills.

I put my back to the wall so she could enter
the room, but I didn’t take my eyes off the two in the corner.

Several things popped into place in my head.
It helped that Aunt Ash was cool as a cucumber.

I reversed the flow of power through the
outlet, pushing instead of pulling. My outlet connected with the
rest of the room’s outlets, including the one on the wall behind
Macha Banfill and her young assistant. A blue arc of electricity
snapped out and licked the metal chairs they sat on. With a cry,
both jumped up and the girl’s shield slipped, just a bit, but
enough. I slipped a bolt of force through the sudden opening near
the ceiling and picked both witches up, slamming them lightly
against the wall. The Air shield dropped completely.