Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (43 page)

“There. Let her cool and you can repaint
tonight. Plenty of time till your next match,” I said.

She inspected her avatar, walked her around,
and then gave me a quick hug. “Thanks Declan. You’re right about
the paint. It would have looked trashy without a full strip and
repaint,” Lacy said. One of her teammates, possibly her roommate,
was waiting with her and she gave me a fist bump as I started to
walk away. Heading back to my friends, I noticed that much of the
audience had stayed to watch the repairs and now I was under too
many sets of eyes to be comfortable. At least four of my fellow
witches were there with their families, and all eyes were watching
me.

“Declan, I want to introduce my family,”
Paige said as I walked by her, sitting in the lowest level. I met
her mother (a witch), her father (not a witch) and her little
brother (also not a witch). They all looked alike: pleasant,
average height, and maybe all a touch overweight. The trim,
middle-aged woman sitting with them didn’t look related. “Declan,
this is Sylvia Westcom, our Circle leader,” Paige said, clearing up
the mystery and proving Ryanne’s month-old prediction accurate.

“Very nice to meet you, Declan. Paige tells
us that your mother was Maeve Irwin,” Sylvia said, getting right
down to the pedigree, her eyes shining with a little greedy gleam.
I nodded, seeing my aunt approaching from the referees’ box, her
eyes locked on my little scene.

“True,” I said, reluctantly shaking her cool
hand.

“She never told us who your father was,
though?” Sylvia asked.

“Mostly, that would be fer the reason that
the lad himself don’t know,” Ashling said, arriving alongside
me.

“My aunt, Ashling O’Carroll,” I
introduced.

“Oh! Oh, very nice to meet you,” Paige’s mom
gushed. Sylvia, on the other hand, had pulled back, clearly not
expecting a witch celebrity.

“Yer daughter is a joy to have in me class.
Quite gifted,” Aunt Ashling said to Paige’s parents before turning
to me. “Ye’d best be explaining the repairs to the agents, as they
look a might perplexed.”

I took her cue and said goodbye to the
parents and her brother. Paige grabbed my arm before I could get
away.

“Declan, Davey was wondering if it would be
possible for him to drive my avatar. I didn’t know if we could make
that work?” Paige asked, patting her brother’s shoulder.

I thought about that and shook my head. “That
would be too hard to patch together and the control would be
off—disorienting. Why don’t we just hook him up to one of the
spares? Make it just a temporary link in case we need it for the
tournament players. We could do it tomorrow after breakfast.”

“Really?” her brother said, openmouthed.

“Yeah, not too tough. Now, if you’ll all
excuse me.”

I beat feet for my friends and the two
federal agents, leaving my aunt to deal with the circle leader. I
was beginning to see what Ryanne had meant.

“So the avatars are self-repairing?” Mazar
was asking Caeco when I arrived.

“Mostly, although that’s not allowed during
the game, and if the underlying spells on the steel frame get
damaged, they have to be respelled, which is what you just saw
Declan do,” Caeco said.

“That seemed easy,” Krupp said.

“
Seemed
is the word. He’s been
fiddling with these little monsters all his life, so he’s rather
adept at it,” Caeco said. “He has his own game course set up in an
old barn at his home and there’s a dragon there that would
fascinate you, Agent Mazar. Acts like it’s alive and can even
breathe fire.”

In mid-February, when the cabin fever was at
its worst, I had taken my friends home to see my own game layout
and have dinner at Rowan West. T.J., in particular, had gone crazy
over the dragon, insisting on calling it mini-Smaug.

“What was the bomb or whatever, that took
that avatar out?” Krupp asked.

“Erika, the Air witch who created it, calls
it a Pole Dancer, which is, as you know, a stripper who spins
around something. The rest of us call it a Dyson, like the vacuum
cleaner,” I said. Then in my best British accent, “Driven by
cyclonic forces, the Dyson spins rocks and debris around the
victim, dicing them.”

“A Pole Dancer?” Krupp asked.

“She’s a bit… forward,” I said.

“You do know that she really only calls them
that around boys, right? The rest of the time she uses Dyson,”
Ashley said.

“Ah, didn’t know that. Did you, Mack?” I
asked, uncomfortable.

He laughed. “Dude, open your eyes.”

“She knows you’re together, right?” Mazar
asked, looking at both Caeco and I.

“Witch boys are rare. Witch circles prize
them for breeding purposes. Almost always guarantees a powerful
witch daughter. Declan is in a special class, and a big chunk of
the guests here are Circle leaders looking him over,” Ashley said.
“Erika, the class slut, would love to add him to her trophy room
and her approach is, shall we say… direct.”

“Fascinating,” Mazar said, reminding me of a
female Spock.

Krupp, for the first time since I met her,
looked positively amused. “That would piss me off,” she said.

“Yup,” Caeco said. “The only thing keeping
her alive is that Declan despises her.”

“Really? The tall blonde with the big boobs?”
Krupp asked me.

“Yeah. Cheerleader type. My history of
interactions with cheerleaders has been thoroughly unpleasant. I’m
not a fan, whatever the exterior looks like,” I said.

“Hmm, what about her twin?” Krupp pressed,
watching me closely.

“Britta’s okay. She’s got a boyfriend back in
Michigan. Much more serious than her sister,” I said.

“And there’s only a handful of witches,
right?” Krupp pressed.

“There’s less than fifty kids here total.
It’s a pilot program and the supernatural community is skeptical.
Very reluctant to send kids here. Which is the reason for visitors’
weekend. Wytchwar and other demonstrations of some of our classes
are geared toward improving that opinion. So we only have nine
witches and like ten weres. The rest are mostly psychics,” Caeco
explained.

“Or not,” Mack said lightly.

“Right, Mack, Jetta, and I are not psychic,
witchy, or lycanthropic,” Caeco said.

“And you three were handpicked by Chris
Gordon and Miss Demidova,” Mazar stated.

“Yup,” Mack said.

“What about the Irish witch, the one you with
you when the attack happened?” Krupp asked.

“Ryanne? I don’t think Chris even knows her,”
I said.

“She means how do you feel about her if
you’re not attracted to Erika?” Caeco said, her eyes locking on me
like lasers. “You know: the witty, beautiful Irish singer who
charms everyone she meets.”

Achtung!
Again, no shit, Sorrow.

“Ah, well, she’s a friend. We have an English
class together,” I said, proud of my smooth and nonchalant
delivery.

“Yeah, a friend,” Caeco said. “I’m going to
get something to eat. Excuse me, agents,” she said, standing and
jumping to the floor below with casual agility.

I didn’t need Ashley’s elbow to tell me I
should be moving, but I got it anyway.

“Okay, great chat. See you around,” I said,
putting my long legs to good use. I caught up in five strides.

“Not sure I want you around me right now,”
Caeco said, moving toward the stairway at a formidable pace.

“Right. You’re upset. You don’t like Ryanne,
Ryanne likes me, and I’m still friends with her. I get all that.
But I’ve made it clear that I’m with you,” I said.

She stopped so fast, I got whiplash. “So… you
told her you’re with me, is that right?” she asked dangerously.

I had made a mistake, but for the life of me,
I couldn’t identify it. “Ah, yeah,” I offered carefully.

“So, in effect, you’re
telling her, when she tells you she likes you, that you can’t be
with her because you’re with someone else,” she restated. I nodded
slowly, sensing a trap I was helpless to avoid. “But you never told
her that you didn’t like her like that, did you? So being a bright
girl, she’ll assume that you could, in fact, like her, but that you
are currently, what,
obligated
to another?”

And there it was. Damn, I hate when I walk
straight into those. I’d rather fight Dellwood with no magic than
spar with Caeco verbally. I held silent for a moment, thinking
about my answer.

“And by your silence, you are answering me,”
she said.

“Actually, I’m thinking about this very
carefully,” I said, starting to get angry. “You asked me a question
and I am going over everything I ever said to her so that I answer
you truthfully. Because that’s what you and I do—tell each other
the honest answer.

“So here it is: She asked me why we were
together, she thought you were pretty and everything, but couldn’t
put our personalities together. So I explained how much we share,
how we have such similar backgrounds and have much we’ve both been
outsiders and how we understand each other. How we have a bond. And
no, I never said I didn’t like her because it was never part of the
discussion.”

She studied me for a moment.

“But you could like her?” she asked. “If I
wasn’t in the picture, you could like her?”

“Like you could like Mr.
Jenks if
I
wasn’t
in the picture?” my mouth stupidly asked.

“Whaat?” she was shocked. Then angry, but
somewhere in between, I had seen guilt, even if it was just a
flash. “What did you just say?”

“Like I gotta say it again?” I asked, knowing
she had heard and could literally rewind the conversation. It was
something I had worried about and feared for some time.

“You’re an asshole,” she said, then I was
stumbling back from the stiff arm I didn’t see coming. “You’re a
total dick,” were her last words before spinning and leaving. I was
smart enough to stay put this time and smart enough not to say the
words that wanted to come out of my mouth.

“What the fuck did you do?” Ashley demanded,
Mack trailing behind her.

“She got in my face about how I could like
Ryanne if she wasn’t around , so I compared it to her liking Mr.
Jenks,” I said.

“Mr. Jenks?” Mack asked.

“Oh, no. How did you know that?” Ashley
asked, horrified.

“It’s kind of obvious if you watch her. She
doesn’t suffer fools and he’s an older, mature guy, very competent,
who treats her as an equal. Also, she never had a father so, I
don’t know, maybe that’s there, too,” I said.

“You can’t see how remaining
friends with Ryanne causes trouble, but you
can
see that?” Ashley questioned. I
noticed that neither Caeco or Ashley had denied the crush. “And
then you hit her with it? Now?”

“Yeah, I threw it back at her. And now? Now?
What about now? How is this bad timing? I’m the one who almost died
today. I’m the one who had to end a life,” I said.

“Ah dude. You might want to lower your
voice,” Mack said, looking around. We were drawing attention. I was
drawing attention.

Ashley ignored it. “That’s exactly what I
mean. Twice you’ve been in mortal danger and twice she wasn’t there
for you. It’s not all about you, Declan.” She turned and copied
Caeco’s exit.

“Dude, what just happened—aside from you
stepping in deep shit and claiming your girl has daddy issues?”
Mack asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Declan,” my aunt called, approaching us.
“Ye’ve had a bloody bad day, lad. Why don’t you come home for the
night and have dinner with Darci and me? Ye can come back first
thing in the morn for the tourney drawing.”

“Dude, that’s actually a great idea. You’ll
sleep better at home,” Mack said.

I thought about it. On the one hand, it felt
like running away, but on the other hand, I had been burying the
morning events deep in my mind all day and tonight they were bound
to come gushing forth. Maybe home was okay, at least for one night.
Caeco sure wouldn’t miss me.

“Okay. I’ll drive separate, though. That way,
I can be here when Miss Berg draws the matches tomorrow,” I
said.

“Grand, grand. I’ll make ye one of your
favorites for dinner,” Ashling said. I nodded, caught a shoulder
clap from Mack and then walked away, ignoring all the faces
pointing our way.

Chapter 38

Even surrounded by my own room, lying in my
own bed, I didn’t really get any sleep. The image of that
strung-out witch, staring at me through her unwashed bangs, was
burned into my eyelids—except when it was replaced with the
slow-motion timbering of her body and the crystal shattering of her
skull.

Luckily, I could distract myself with
memories of my girlfriend hanging on every word my sadistic
survival instructor uttered. That was helpful. On a good note,
Sorrow had managed to stay quiet.