Student Bodies (2 page)

“Cool beans,” he replied. “Oh… Uh, are you wearing your copper band thingy? Because I think you might want to check something out.”

I held up my right arm and pulled the sleeve down on my jacket to reveal my Shadowcull's band fit snugly over my wrist. “What kind of something?” I asked warily.

Marcus held open the door and pointed to a solitary figure standing near the edge of the train platform. “Over there. He hasn't moved an inch for fifteen minutes.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That's Mike Olsen. What are you saying; that he literally hasn't even twitched just once?”

Marcus nodded. “Yup. I was going to ask him if he was alright, but you know our history. With my luck, he'd try to give me a wedgie.”

I looked at Mike closely. He was the star defensive back for Crescent Ridge High School's football team and when he wasn't sacking quarterbacks he made it his life's work to pick on lesser mortals like Marcus. Only a few short weeks ago, Mike Olsen was the bane of Marcus's existence. But ever since Marcus faced a handful of near-death experiences, during my run-in with a Matthew Hopkins-possessed Marla Lavik, he'd grown a pair and Mike knew it. Still, that didn't mean that Mike was below catcalling Marcus from time to time in the hallways of Crescent Ridge High; he'd just realized there was a line he shouldn't cross because Marcus literally put the fear of God into him as he looked into Mike's eyes and threatened to end him. Mike got the message and ever since that day, an uneasy truce has existed between them. That or it's some kind of weird-ass bromance-combined-with-grudging-respect thing that only guys understand. Who knows?

Mike and I have had a couple of run-ins, usually when I'm defending Marcus and the meathead suspects something isn't entirely right with me. He was dressed only in a hoodie and a pair of jeans, not exactly the best thing to wear when it's twenty below outside and the wind chill can freeze exposed skin in less than five minutes. His feet were perched a few inches over the edge of the platform and his head hung limply as a frigid gust of wind blew up the back of his hoodie.

I exhaled heavily and said, “Well maybe he's whacked out on something. He seriously hasn't moved at all?”

Marcus shook his head. “Nope. Nada. Total zombie.”

“Damn… When does the train get here?”

“In about five minutes,” Marcus replied. “What are you thinking?”

“I think he's probably stoned,” I said flatly. “And he's standing in front of the yellow line so if a train comes he's going to get his sorry ass clipped. I hate to say it, Marcus, but we need to reel him in. Maybe you might want to sit this one out. There might be a truce between you two, but Mike Olsen is trouble with a capital ‘T'.”

“And miss out on you possibly flipping into superhero mode?” he said with a loud snort. “Not on your life. Let's go get him.”

I nodded as we walked up to the end of the platform, the snow crunching loudly beneath our boots.

“Mike,” I said in a firm voice. “Get back from the edge of the platform, you dumbass, or they'll be scraping what's left of you off the front of the train.”

There was no response. I walked up beside him and noticed that his eyes were fixed on the train tracks beneath the platform.

“Mike!” I said again, this time giving his hoodie a strong tug. “Wakie-wakie.”

Marcus threw me a worried look. “Um… Julie? I think something else is at work here.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “With my luck you're probably right. What's your theory?”

Marcus glanced at his watch. “We're at the train station and Mike has wheels. When have you ever known Mike Olson to use public transportation when the guy drives a freaking pimped up Audi?”

Rats. Marcus was right. I slipped my amulet into the recess atop my Shadowcull's band and instantly could feel the hum of my magic begin to do its work. I took a deep breath as I turned to face Mike and whispered, “Reveal.”

Hundreds of tiny arcs of magical energy flickered all around me the moment I opened my eyes, so I intensified my focus. I gazed at Mike and nearly lost my lunch at what my Sight revealed – his entire body was shrouded in a film of maggots. Thousands upon thousands of them wriggled and wormed their way along the sides of his face, falling down in clumps onto his shoulders and then dropping onto the snow. Only they weren't real maggots, that much I figured out by the fact that each disgusting little larvae was nearly transparent. The sharp stench of malice filled my nostrils as a thick fog of inky magical energy pooled around Mike Olsen's feet. It bubbled and frothed like a stock pot that has been left on the stove too long, dripping over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks below.

“The train will be here in less than two minutes,” said Marcus as he glanced at his watch again. “What gives?”

I gazed down the tracks to see the headlights of the C-Train flickering through a haze of falling snow, so I reached out with a gloved hand and grabbed a handful of Mike's hoodie as I forced down a wave of nausea. The maggots began squirming furiously as they came into contact with my gloves. In seconds they began to spread across my fingertips and it was everything I could do to stop myself hurling up my lunch. I had to move fast, so I pulled with all my strength, trying desperately to yank Mike Olsen away from the edge of the platform, but it was as if his feet were encased in cement. He simply wouldn't budge.

“Give me a hand with him, Marcus, he's under magical attack and he'll be toast if we can't get him away from the edge of the platform!”

Marcus didn't waste any time as he leaned into Mike's side and started shoving. “Jesus,” he gasped as his feet skidded in the snow while he pushed. “The guy is a freaking brick wall.”

I could feel the vibration of the approaching train and I glanced down the tracks. I quickly realized there wasn't a chance in hell that we were going to pull Mike away from the edge of the platform without a little help. The small handful of bystanders on the platform weren't paying us any attention, but that would change the minute I started slinging magic around. I'd wind up in a ton of trouble with my mother when she found out, but Mike Olsen's life was at stake so I drew on my spirit and pointed to a power box about a hundred yards down the tracks.

“
Hexus
!” I whispered, as a surge of invisible force flew out of my hand, smashing into the power box like a battering ram. There was a small explosion as a shower of sparks flew across the tracks amid a thick blue cloud of smoke. I glanced down the tracks and saw the headlights of the oncoming train flicker for a short moment followed by the deafening scream of metal on metal. Bright orange sparks spilled out from either side of the train and bounced off the snow as its wheels locked up. I leaned into Mike again and pushed with all my strength, gritting my teeth together the entire time.

“That train is still coming,” Marcus groaned as he leaned into Mike. “I don't know if it's going to stop before it reaches the platform.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see the train screeching down the tracks, less than a hundred yards away. I had to do something, anything, to get Mike Olsen back from the edge of the platform otherwise he wouldn't be the only one to be ground into C-Train hamburger. I placed both of my gloved hands on Mike's ghost maggot-covered cheeks. I swallowed back the bile that I could now taste in the back of my throat and wrenched Mike's head so that I could look into his eyes. I didn't know what kind of dark spell had attacked him, but I knew enough to realize that his brain needed a sharp jolt – something that would cause a spasm in his central nervous system. If I could send enough juice into his brain, there was still a chance that the spasm would help to push him away from the oncoming train.

“Stand back, Marcus,” I said sharply. I drew once more on my spirit as I gathered my magic into a tight ball of energy and stared hard into Mike's eyes.

“I'm clear!”

I dug my fingers into Mike's cheeks and snarled, “
Hexus
!”

A small burst of supernatural energy surged through my hands and Mike's neck snapped back. As if he could read my mind, Marcus threw himself into Mike, driving both Mike and I back from the edge of the platform just as the C-Train screeched past. The air smelled of hot metal as I opened my eyes and quickly got back to my feet. I looked down at Mike, who'd managed to raise himself up onto his elbows.

“Where am I?” he whispered weakly.

“C-Train station,” said Marcus, who stooped over and offered his hand to Mike.

“But I was home,” Mike said, clearly dazed. “I was using my PlayStation.”

Once again I raised my Sight and gave Mike Olsen a quick scan. The magical aura had disappeared, along with the ghostly maggots. My counterspell must have short-circuited the magical attack and I shivered for a quick second because whoever was behind this probably ended up with a mouthful of my magical signature.

And that meant they'd be able to detect
me
.

Shit.

Mike blinked hard a couple of times and then looked up at me. “J-Julie Richardson? You're Julie Richardson, right?”

I nodded. “And Marcus Guffman, your best buddy in the whole wide world.”

Mike latched onto Marcus's forearm and slowly got back up to his feet. “So cold… But I was at home… Everything is foggy.”

Marcus and I looked at each other and then Marcus said, “Arctic fronts generally have that effect on the jet stream,” said Marcus. “Let's go inside the station and warm up. I'll even buy you a hot chocolate. Sound good?”

Instead of firing off one of his patented insults, Mike actually
agreed
to accompany Marcus inside the station – clearly his brain must have still been in the process of rewiring itself after I jolted it.

No wedgie. No threat of dismemberment. Nothing.

I followed the pair inside as I realized that my date night had just been wrecked. On the one hand, I was glad that we managed to save Mike Olsen from becoming C-Train road kill, but on the other hand, it would have been nice to snuggle up to Marcus in a dark theater surrounded by the deafening sounds of explosions and machine gun fire.

I glanced down at my Shadowcull's band and then quickly removed my amulet. Mike Olsen had been attacked by someone who was schooled in dark magic, and I was pretty sure it wasn't just a simple case of casting a spell on the meathead; someone had meant to
kill
him.

And I needed to find out why.

 

CHAPTER 3

 

We escorted Mike back to his house and the entire time he said nothing to us unless he was prompted. I don't think he was keeping tight-lipped to be an asshole, either. It was clear that he was still pretty dazed and I had to wonder if whoever had thrown the spell Mike's way would be brazen enough to take another shot at him after winding up on the receiving end of my counterspell.

Dumb question. Of course they would. Go Julie.

But why would anyone want to kill Mike Olsen when I'm the one with the magical target on her back? Better yet, who at my school possessed enough magical skill to try and pull something like that off? I decided that I'd have to hit up the laboratory in the basement of my house and dig into the spell books, because the kind of magical attack Mike experienced was something I'd never before encountered.

The wind had died down by the time Marcus and I made it back to my house. I live in an unassuming two-storey in Lake Sundance – a thirty year-old section of South Calgary where all the houses look like each other and where the cookie-cutter neighbors get uppity if your property breaks with the mass-produced look of the community. In spring and summer we're not the most popular people on the block because my front and back yards are a mass of what appear to be weeds if you're the average person. Everything that grows has a purpose specific to the practice of witchcraft and we don't get any complaints when there's a foot and a half of snow on the ground. It's the one time of the year when our house blends in with all the rest of them.

I deactivated the magical wards that protect our home and clumped in through the front door with Marcus in tow. “You're back early,” my mother said with a slight edge to her voice. She was lounging on the sofa with a thick book on her lap. The house smelled of ginger and honey and my stomach rumbled slightly because I hadn't eaten anything since lunch. Marcus and I had planned to gorge ourselves on popcorn during our date, but duty calls.

I slipped off my boots and hung up my coat in the closet. “Things didn't go as planned,” I said as Marcus handed me his parka. “Where's Betty?”

Mom made a sour face and pointed to the back door. “She's in the yard doing her business. Just so you know: cleaning up dog poop is your job, Julie.”

I padded into the living room and sat down on the armchair opposite the TV as Marcus poked his head around the living room door. “Good thing that Betty buries it,” I replied. “Marcus, would you go to the back door and let her in? We need to have a chat.”

“Will do,” he answered, and he headed down the hall.

Mom had a look of expectation on her face. If she was thinking that our talk was going to have anything to do with our little encounter session, she was going to be massively disappointed. I heard the back door open with a loud squeak followed by a huge doggy sneeze and then the sound of four heavy feet hobbling through the kitchen. Betty and Marcus both sauntered into the living room and I noticed the Great Dane looked like it had shed a few pounds.

“Are you alright, Betty?” I asked. “Er… I mean, is your host OK? I think you've lost some weight.”

She dropped onto her haunches with a slight doggy groan. “It's nothing. Let's just say that the Betty part of me doesn't exactly enjoy the taste of kibble. And besides, I can always find another host if something happens to this one.”