Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (47 page)

Two long, freaky hounds slunk around his
riding beast, eyes fixed on me.

The ground underfoot warmed and thawed as I
fed it borrowed heat. On the other side of the wards, I could hear
wings flapping toward us from the barn.

He kept his eyes on me but
his question was totally for Neeve. “Do you intend to fight for
this
boy
?” he
asked her.

“I intend to protect my charge,” she said.
“However, I would advise caution, Hunt Leader. I do not believe you
understand what faces you.”

“I see a weaponless boy, two children with
weapons of dishonor, our esteemed Speaker, a furred beast, an old
man and, of course, yourself. While I have the Wild Hunt at my
back,” he said, gesturing. Black and red filled the forest as at
least a hundred riders, goblin things, dog things, and horse things
appeared.

“Hunt smunt. I have golems,” I said.
Something the size of a basset hound flew out of the wards next to
me, landing in the tree over his head. Then I frowned because Draco
had been beagle-sized last I had seen him. He was definitely
larger.

“Here be dragons,” I said.

The assembled Fae stared at him, truly
startled at his appearance, which looked suspiciously like the
Hungarian Horntail from the Harry Potter movie. What can I say? I
was influenced by the arts. However, Ashley had told me he was
uncannily like her real dragons back on Fairie.

“Small ones,” the Leader observed archly.
Draco breathed a twelve-foot lance of fire into the air, the flames
falling to the snow and burning on top of it like jellied gasoline,
which his belly might have been full of.

“Oh, you want bigger?” I said, sending out a
thought.

The wet, melting snow erupted under the two
hounds as four-foot long arms of earth and stone smashed free and
enormous earthen hands crushed their throats. Robbie stood up where
I had buried him.

“I thought your aunt made you get rid of
him?” Mack asked, eyeing the eight-foot tall wall of man-shaped
dirt. He too was bigger than when I had entombed him in the ground
just outside our wards. He also never had rusty barbed wire from
the old farm fence wrapped around his left arm before.

“She said he had to go, but never said where.
I put him out here where it’s nice and quiet. Couldn’t really bear
to disassemble him,” I said, enjoying the reactions my giant golem
was getting.

“Just give us the Seer and this may all be
avoided,” the leader said, studying Robbie who was motionless,
holding both crushed dogs at arm’s length without effort.

“Dude. Leave. Now,” I said, losing
patience.

Ignis Solis,
Sorrow said in my head. A new spell swam before my
eyes. It used my own power, not borrowed, but it
looked—rad.

“Young man who will grow no older,” the
antler-headed leader began. “If this is your property and the
spellcrafter inside is your blood, then I do not need a key to get
in.”

“Oh no?” I asked.

His white-toothed smile against the sharp red
and black of his painted face was not pleasant. “No… for you are my
key.” His hand flicked a signal and shapes flew at me from four
directions.

Steel flashed by the side of me as Caeco
swung her axe and a hound head rolled up to my feet. At almost the
same time, my shields reacted to an impacting body. The Sutton kids
instantly fired four shots each into the goblin as it got
kinetically booted back into the woods. High in the branches above
me, Draco jumped from his perch to fly straight through the second
goblin to leap at me. I mean straight through its chest. Rock and
dirt beats muscle and flesh. The little dragon screamed in triumph
as it flapped its blue-blood-covered wings, blue mist spraying
everywhere. The fourth one to attack me never made it past Robbie’s
giant arm. The golem dropped the dog in his left hand and grabbed
the elf so fast, it was scary. Especially for the elf, who started
to melt and scream as his face came in contact with the rusty
barbed wire around Robbie’s arm.

“Clever. Four attempts at shoving me through
my own wards, so you could be free to kill my aunt and kidnap my
friend,” I said. “Here—try this.”

There was likely no real lag between the time
I spoke the words and the spell igniting, but a bunch of stuff went
on in my head really fast.

Ingis Solis
was Latin for Sunfire, and the spell promised to
be hot. But something, instinct maybe, made me hold back, not
committing to the spell to the extent the book wanted. I didn’t
trust Sorrow.

The spell was ridiculously easy—head-palming
easy, as in why hadn’t anyone ever thought of that. I tried a tiny
bit. Couple of milliseconds. Right at the bastard who had just
ordered the attack.

I pulled a measure of power from my reserve,
fed it through the spell, and held up my right hand.

A flash like the inside of the sun blinded
everyone. A feeling like a short, sharp bolt released from my palm.
I felt sudden emptiness inside, a weariness that struck me as the
spell went off. Next, I heard a loud wet pop and the patter of wet
stuff hitting snow.

A second later, my vision cleared. In fact, I
may have had my eyes shut when it went off, coached by the spell. I
looked at the Hunt Leader, but he was gone. From the waist up, he
was just gone. Blue mist coated the snow in an arc spreading out
behind the leader’s remains.

The lizard steed was frozen, eyes rolling
with alarm, its rider now just a pair of legs and an ass, all of
which started to sparkle and hiss. Behind the steed, the rest of
the Hunt was frozen as well, blinking rapidly to regain their
vision. Higher up, the top third of a medium-sized beech tree
toppled over and fell to the forest with a ground-shaking thump.
The upright base of the tree had a perfect smoking half-circle cut
through it.

Little sparkles of light began to float
upward, from the legs on the lizard, from the blue blood on the
snow, from the spatter on the elf woman who had stood closest to
her boss.

The Hunt looked at me and I looked back.

“Damn D, that’s kinda new, isn’t it?” Mack
asked.

Before I could answer, voices could be heard
behind us, then the crunching of snow as more than one person
approached.

Keeping a wary eye on the Hunt, I glanced
back. Huge brown shaggy shapes bounded down our trail and in the
woods near it. Five massive forms, upright, but more wolf than man.
The lead wolfman was the biggest, eight or nine feet tall and
covered in black fur. Dellwood and four of his wolves had arrived.
Behind them came much smaller shapes and in a moment, I could see
that the witch pack was here, too.

The wolves spread out in an arc around us,
facing the Hunt, crouched with one or two arms touching the ground.
The girls, Britta, Zuzanna, Erika, Jael, Michele, Paige, and Ryanne
came silently into the clearing, hair floating around their faces
as they all held their power at the ready.

I looked back at the blue-goo-spattered
elf-woman whose face was sparking as the blood of her boss ignited
into primal energy and floated off our planet.

“This is College Arcane, ” I said, waiving a
hand at the my friends around me. “Don’t fuck with us.”

It was the lizard with the legs still on its
back that made the decision for them. It suddenly curved its body
and flowed out of there in one sinuous, snakelike motion.

Peace out.

The woman watched it go, her eyes a bit
envious at its speed, and then gave me a cautious nod, backing up.
The rest of the Hunt evaporated into the forest and within moments,
they were gone.

Chapter 41

My aunt took down the wards almost
immediately, revealing a rifle-packing Darci standing on the other
side, dressed in her uniform, sharp eyes studying my crowd.

“Hi, Darci. Can I have some friends over
after school?” I asked, wiping some sweat off my forehead. “We
might need snacks.”

I followed her gaze behind me. Her eyes were
locked on the werewolves and the big-ass bear.

“They just Changed, so it might be a bit
before they can change back. They’re gonna be hungry, too. How’s
Aunt Ash and Ariel? Everyone okay?” I asked.

She brought her eyes back to mine and raised
one eyebrow.

“Everyone’s good, Declan. Are those others
gone?” she asked, looking into the forest where the snow was
trampled.

“Yeah, they left. Most of them. A few stayed
behind but they won’t be a problem unless they’re still sparkling
after dark,” I said, glancing at Ian with raised eyebrows.

“They should be gone in the next ten minutes.
Or so,” he said.

Darci took him in with a measuring stare,
then looked over the rest of the party, noting Jetta and Mack, who
were holding their rifles muzzles down.

“You two clear those chambers before coming
in,” Darci said. “But everyone, thank you and welcome to Rowan
West. Come on in. Declan, the mud monster and the mud dragon stay
outside.”

The weres all looked uncertain, and I thought
they might be uncomfortable with the tight quarters. Odd, I was
introduced to werewolves a scant six months ago in New Hampshire
and here I was interpreting their beast form body language.

“Maybe we can use the tables outside for some
of us. The restaurant’s a little small till they’re ready to change
back. It’s sunny and warm out, so it should be okay,” I said.

She just looked at me. “Kid, life with you
gets weirder by the day.”

“Love you too, Deputy,” I said with a
grin.

I noted that she was holding Levi’s treasured
AR-15 SBR, or short barreled rifle. Darci had coveted it from the
moment Levi had paid the tax stamp and filed the paper work with
the BATF.

“How’d you get that?” I asked.

“We had a bet. I won,” she said, striding
ahead to get things ready. I was going to have to get the details
of that little wager.

My aunt and Ariel were waiting just outside
the back of the restaurant and when Ashling saw us, her eyes got
shiny.

Erika spoke up in her brassy
way. “Hi, Miss Ashling. We heard that someone was giving our
favorite teacher and best precog a hard time. We all came to
straighten them out.
Some
of us—” she looked my way, “—didn’t tell the rest
of us what was happening, so we got here just after the
action.
Some
of us
are action hogs.”

“Nope, you guys were right on time,” Ashley
said. “They were desperate for a reason to beat feet, and having
you guys arrive when you did was the perfect excuse. Your nephew
might have terrified them just a bit, Miss Ashling.”

“Me nephew? Me wee little Declan?” Aunt Ash
asked. “Well now, that don’t hardly seem possible, now do it?”

The kids laughed and Delwood made a strange
hacking noise in his beast throat that must have been the werewolf
equivalent of laughter.

“Actually, it was Caeco with that badass axe,
Mack and Jetta with their sharpshooter skills, and Robbie and
Draco,” I said.

“Well I believe that more, I do. And jest
what’s that great lump of dirt still doing about?” she asked.

“Guarding,” I said. “Robbie, please drag up
that tree that fell, then guard. Draco—perimeter patrol.”

The giant golem headed into the woods and the
dirt dragon flapped off through the trees.

Caeco looked at me and shook her head.
“Jesus, you’re a real menace, O’Carroll.”

“That’s for sure,” Jetta agreed. “Did someone
say there were snacks?”

We did better than just snacks. Darci, my
aunt, and I threw together lunch with the speed of long familiarity
with the restaurant and each other.

In short order, there were trays of sliced
roast beef, ham, and turkey, along with three kinds of soups left
over from the night before and a big tray of mac and cheese that
the chef had premade for a birthday party on Saturday. He’d just
have to make it again.

The weres had all caught the scent of the hot
food and as one big pack, including Justin, headed back to the cars
to Change and put on clothes, despite the pain it caused them to do
it so soon. They were now in culinary heaven, scarfing down massive
sandwiches and big bowls of soup.

Aunt Ash moved about the dining room, talking
to my classmates as well as Ian and Neeve, charming them all with
her wit and brogue. With everyone occupied, I snuck away to pull
off my sweatshirt and see about the wound Neeve’s weapon had
made.

Maybe I shouldn’t have used my aunt’s little
office to do it, but I thought I had time.

She caught me as I was putting a Band-Aid
over the little puncture wound in my left abdomen.

“When exactly were ye going to be telling me
about being all stabbed and such?” she asked.

“Well, it’s just a little wound. Not really
deep. But I don’t think the wound itself is the problem,” I
said.