Demon of Dreams (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #1)

18. Noah

The fire crackled in the evening’s chill, sending sparks up to the midnight blue sky.

It was cold, but being cooped up in my cabin was making me antsy. I’d decided to make a fire outside instead, and was drawing my third-favorite knife across a whetstone. The soft rasp of metal on stone blended with the hiss and crackle of the fire, then swirled away in a plume of smoke.

I pulled the knife away and ran a thumb along the edge to check its sharpness. Then I held it up, looking for the edge to disappear into the air as I sighted along the blade. Almost there. I lowered it to the stone and resumed my task. Quiet and controlled. That was all it took.

If only I could make myself feel the same way.

A moment later, there was a faint stir in the air. Not a noise, exactly, and the wind hadn’t shifted, but I wasn’t alone any longer.

“Hello, Isaac,” I said without looking up.

“Good evening.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him step out of the shadows on the other side of the fire. He was dressed in his impeccable three-piece suit, and the gold handle of his cane glinted in the flashes of firelight. He held a bundle in his other hand.

His shoes and trouser legs weren’t damp with snow, despite the fact that he appeared to have approached my cabin through the woods. The path that led to it was ninety degrees to my left. He wasn’t wearing an overcoat either, despite the fact that it was below freezing.

Isaac crossed the tamped-down snow surrounding the fire ring and sat on a log next to me, as if he sat around campfires in suit and tie all the time. In point of fact, I could count the number of times Isaac had come to my cabin on one hand. He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankle, neatly adjusting his trousers so they wouldn’t wrinkle. I said nothing, waiting for him to speak.

Which was stupid, really. We could be waiting all night. Isaac would not be hurried, and his patience was as deep and dark as a well. I burned with curiosity over the bundle in his lap, but I was still frustrated from the last time we spoke. I refused to give in first.

I’m not sure how many minutes we sat in silence, me sharpening my knife and Isaac simply breathing the night air. Time had a funny way of bending around Isaac. Minutes felt like hours, hours felt like minutes. An owl hooted forlornly in the branches of the pines above. Finally, he spoke.

“Would it not be easier to sharpen that blade inside?”

That was what he was going to open with?

I shrugged, refusing to look up. “I like it out here.”

“The light would be better.”

I shrugged again. “I can see alright.”

Isaac nodded. “I suppose you would know. But are you truly so eager to take in the frigid temperature? I heard on the radio that we are to expect sub-zero lows the next three nights.”

That got me to look at him. “You listened to the radio ?”

The image was as incongruous as my grandmother in a miniskirt.

“I do know how the technology of this century works.”

I decided not to point out that radio technology dated farther back than that.

“It’s not that. It’s just—” I sighed, not sure I wanted to explain. I’d probably end up offending him. “I’m just surprised you got a radio to work here.”

“I had cause to make a trip into town last night,” he said. “The radio was playing at the Balsam Inn when I visited.”

Isaac tilted his head and eyed me from the side, as if assessing what sort of reaction that would get from me. I was annoyed to admit that I’d sucked in a surprised breath of air.

Ridiculous. It wasn’t as if I cared if Isaac knew how I spent my free time. I’d never kept my sexuality a secret from anybody. But for Isaac to have gone to the Balsam Inn last night, only a week after I’d seen Cory there… A thin thread of worry crept into my chest.

“Oh?”

“Tom had something to pass along to the school.”

Isaac picked up the bundle he’d brought. When I turned to look at it, he dropped it into my hands. I had to clasp it to my chest to keep it from falling into the snow.

As I did, I inhaled sharply and caught the scent of… what was that? Cotton and blackberries. It was faint, barely detectable under the woodsmoke and snow-blanketed pines. Where had I smelled that before?

I unfolded the bundle. It resolved into a man’s jacket, a forest green parka that was too small to fit me. I wondered why Isaac had given it to me, but he said nothing.

Something heavy weighed down the right front pocket. I fished it out and stared at a dead cell phone. The screen protector was spiderwebbed with cracks. Out of curiosity, I dipped my hand into the left pocket and pulled out a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste.

Examining the interior pockets revealed a folded leather wallet, an opened pack of men’s boxers, and a barely used stick of deodorant. I was returning everything to where it had come from when my fingers brushed something new. From the right front pocket, I drew out a feather—long, glossy, and gleaming blue-black.

As if on cue, a raven’s caw rang out through the air. Both Isaac and I looked up, but there was no bird to be seen.

“Coincidence,” I muttered, shoving the feather back into the pocket.

“Perhaps,” said Isaac.

“So what’s with the jacket?” I asked. “Why did Tom want you to have it?”

“He didn’t,” Isaac said. “He wanted to return it to its owner. Who he correctly deduced was a student here.”

I frowned, and that thread of worry thickened. “Isaac…”

“It belongs to Cory Dawson,” Isaac said, as if I hadn’t spoken.

I dropped the jacket like it contained a rattlesnake.

“He had some difficulties reaching Vesperwood,” Isaac continued, not commenting on my reaction. “Misplaced some things along the way. Tom said he left those at the Balsam Inn last week.”

I glared. “So?”

“You were off campus that same evening, I believe. You didn’t happen to see him, did you? Or were you not in Pointe Claudette?”

My chest felt tight. It would be dumb to deny it. Isaac could easily double-check what I said against Tom’s memory. Maybe he already had.

“I was there,” I growled. “But I didn’t see him.”

Seeing wasn’t the right word for it anyway. I’d only been in the same room with him for a minute, but it was enough to have burned the image of him into my brain. That wrinkled gray hoodie and his haunting eyes. It had to be because he was an incubus. Nothing more.

“Ah, well.” Isaac sounded unperturbed. “It’s a big enough town. Perhaps you simply passed each other by.”

Pointe Claudette was miniscule, but I wasn’t rising to the bait.

“Well, if it’s supposed to go back to its rightful owner,” I said, bending down to pick the jacket up and hold it out to Isaac. But he didn’t take it. He just laced his fingers together and looked at me.

“I thought you could give it back to him,” he said blandly.

“No.” I shook my head firmly.

“Any particular reason for your refusal?” His tone was mild as milk.

“Just—no.” I shook the jacket, but Isaac made no move to take it.

“You have him in class tomorrow, don’t you? I’ll be busy with meetings all day. It’ll be faster for you to give it to him.”

“He has class with lots of people tomorrow. Nat. Gallo. Seb. Give it to one of them.”

“Natalia and Sebastian have other responsibilities, and asking Fabrizio to do it will require thirty minutes of supplication and praising his ego before he’ll deign to do something as demeaning as act as a courier.”

“And you think I’m eager to do it?”

“I think you’re reasonable enough to comply with a simple request without requiring that I abase myself before you.”

I liked Isaac. Mostly. But he was an expert at getting what he wanted. Not through force of threats, but through the simple means of making you feel like a fool for refusing him.

“Fine,” I grunted. “I’ll give him the damn jacket.”

“Excellent.” Isaac stood, the head of his cane again gleaming in the firelight. “I’ll leave you to your work. Thank you, Noah. For all that you do for Vesperwood.”

I grunted something noncommittal, and by the time I looked up, Isaac had melted back into the darkness across the fire.

I stared at the jacket in my hands, holding it as far from my body as I could manage.

You’re being an idiot. It’s a jacket. It’s not contagious.

I humphed softly, looking out at the trees that surrounded the cabin. Against the flames of the campfire, the blackness of the pines was impenetrable. Mouse was out there somewhere, but she hadn’t come to my door when I’d arrived home.

For a moment, I wondered if Isaac had spooked her. But she couldn’t have known he was coming. She was a cat, not a psychic.

Regardless, I really should go inside. My knife was plenty sharp by now, and Isaac was right about the cold.

All I had to do was give the kid his jacket back. I didn’t have to explain. We didn’t even have to talk.

I needed Cory out of my life, but if that couldn’t happen yet, the least I could do was keep him out of my head.

I’d give him his jacket and be done with it.

That was all.

My determination carried me through the next morning.

I woke up, stretched, and ran through my morning exercises, limbering up for the day’s classes. I did my best to empty my mind, focusing solely on my breath and the forms as I moved through them. One stance flowed into the next, and heat rose within me, warming me from the inside out.

After five minutes, I’d built up enough heat to step outside into the frozen clearing on the far side of my cabin. My breath misted in the morning air. I grabbed a staff leaning against a tree and incorporated it into my movements, jabbing, blocking, parrying, using it as leverage, swinging it under and over imagined opponents.

The wound on my chest protested as I stretched it. Was it growing worse? I couldn’t be sure. I wondered if it would kill me, if I gave it enough time. I’d never planned on staying alive long enough to find out.

After half an hour, I’d worked up a sweat and my lungs were full of the scent of the forest in winter, white spruce and cedar, fir and pine. The sun had just risen above the horizon and was slanting through a stand of birches like a flight of arrows. Pleasantly tired, I went back inside to take a shower.

A handful of blueberries and a cup of black coffee sufficed for breakfast. I brushed my teeth and donned the clothing I wore when teaching—snapped joggers, a T-shirt, and running shoes—slipping the knives I always carried into place. I looked around the cabin. Everything was in its place—except for the bundle Isaac had dropped off last night.

My mood soured instantly. I had half a mind to leave it where it sat, to ‘ forget ’ to bring it, but that seemed cowardly. So I grabbed the jacket and set out.

My cabin was set well into Vesperwood’s grounds, not far from the ice-fringed waters of Lake Superior. The lake was calm today. I could barely hear it as I headed towards the gym, and the sound was soon lost in the murmuring of the trees.

It had snowed again last night, lightly. A dusting of white flakes covered the trail I took through the woods, winding around old-growth pines, reaching for the sky. A huge tree had fallen in a storm three years ago, exposing half its roots to the air, but the other half remained under the soil, which was enough to keep it alive. New shoots now grew upright from the trunk like the bristles of a gigantic toothbrush.

The path took me around the tree, through a thicket of maples, and deposited me at the back of the gym. I undid the lock and slipped inside, flicking on the lights as I walked from the office in the back to the main exercise room up front. I dropped the jacket on a stack of mats in the corner and did my best to forget about it for the rest of the day.

My first class was a group of sophomores, old enough to have joined their respective havens but young enough that the Hunters still took general combat with all the other students. Maybe my morning exercises hadn’t calmed me as much as I thought, or maybe the Hunters were being particularly annoying, chafing at having to work with students they believed they outclassed.

Halfway through the class, I stopped the routines we’d been running and put them through a punishing core workout instead. Nothing to do with combat, just pure conditioning. My patience was thin today.

It got worse with my second class—junior witches. God, I hated juniors. They were finally competent enough to do damage, but low on the humility that would keep them alive. Every single one of the Hexers wanted to use spells to attack, forgetting they also needed to defend themselves—from physical attacks as well as metaphysical ones.

“What the hell was that?” I barked at Mo Kirmani, a Hexer who’d launched a sparkling swirl of silver light at his opponent, Kelly Anselm. She blocked it with her wooden practice sword, which exploded in a shower of sparks. When the smoke cleared, the wooden blade was a foot shorter than it had been.

“What do you mean?” Mo demanded. “It worked. Look at her sword.”

“Wonderful. Now if we can just get all of your opponents to agree to stop, mid-fight, while you spend thirty seconds casting that spell, you’ll be all set.”

“It wasn’t thirty seconds,” Mo muttered. “It was more like twenty.”

“And that’s twenty seconds for your enemy to shoot you with an arrow, stab you with a dagger, or cut you apart with a sword, all while you sit there mumbling to yourself,” I said with disgust. “Just because you can use magic now doesn’t mean you can neglect the fundamentals. Plain old steel can kill you just as effectively as a spell.”

My Third Hour class was the worst yet. A group of senior Hunters, all weapon-bonded, and all sick of taking orders from someone who wasn’t a Hunter himself. They had individual tutorials with Leon Zi, the head of Hunt, but they still had to come to class with me too. They were big on grumbling when they thought I wouldn’t notice, and the mere sound of their blades clashing set my teeth on edge.

“Watch your wrists,” I snapped at Beth Wong. “You’ll need quicker reactions than that if you want to pass this semester.”

Beth nodded and firmed up her grip. She deftly met her opponent’s blade and flicked his sword wide as she advanced, putting my note into immediate practice. It did nothing to improve my mood.

“What are you doing?” I asked sharply as I moved onto the next pair.

Cal Tyrell was practicing against Indira Gupta, broadsword against saber, and his stance left his right side wide open. He should have known better than that by now. He did know better than that. Cal flicked a glance at me.

“Are you trying to lose a kidney?” I said. “Guard your right.”

Cal shifted, which then left him exposed on the left. “Stop,” I growled.

The duo froze immediately, and I stepped forward, taking Indira’s saber from her. Not my favorite weapon. It would get the job done, but it was better for the heat of battle than a duel, and the single-edged blade could reinforce bad habits if the wielder wasn’t careful, which Indira hadn’t been.

I moved into her place, waited for Cal to nod his readiness, and then attacked. It took three passes before Cal shifted, exposing his left side again. In seconds, I’d cut forward and brought the blade of the saber within millimeters of his side. He froze, and I waited until I saw recognition of his mistake in his eyes before I lowered the blade.

Junior year, everyone used wooden weapons to spar. Senior year, I trusted the Hunters enough not to draw blood if they used steel. Not to draw much, anyway.

I turned back to Indira. “Just because your blade has one edge doesn’t mean you can only attack him on one side.” I touched the tip of her blade, where the back edge has been sharpened. “And don’t forget that you can thrust as well as cut. Hell, even the broadside of your blade can be useful in the right hands.” I looked between the two of them. “Your blade is only an extension of you. You are the real weapon. Don’t become so reliant on metal that you forget to use your brain.”

“Yes, Professor Braverman,” they said in unison.

I returned Indira’s sword and stepped back to watch them spar again. Their form improved…for a minute, before Cal was back to exposing his flank and Indira neglected her forehand entirely. I rubbed a hand over my face. This day could not end soon enough.

But before it could, I had to get through Fourth Hour, with the group of freshmen that contained Cory. I kept my face impassive as they streamed in, half of them hunching their shoulders and shuffling their feet, the other half brash and desperate to prove how much they didn’t know.

I saw Cory’s hair first, a shaggy brown that wasn’t all that different from half the class’s heads, but stood out like a beacon nonetheless. I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as the head moved closer to me.

The awkward, unruly clumps of students formed into a vague impression of a line across the center of the gym, and I schooled my face to stillness. I’d had practice at this by now—no surprise on my features anymore. I was calm. Stoic. A boulder in a thunderstorm, unmoved and unmoving.

Cory stepped into the line, and every defense I’d drawn around myself was assailed. Those gorgeous gray eyes, those full pink lips. He was gnawing on the bottom one, and when his eyes met mine, his posture collapsed, and he shrank in on himself.

Was he afraid of me? Of this class? I supposed I should be happy. That was my goal, wasn’t it?

It doesn’t matter , I reminded myself sternly. I don’t care what he does. I might be stuck with him, but that doesn’t mean I have to get to know him. I can just ignore him .

If only it were that easy. Ignoring Cory was like ignoring a flashlight shining in your face. Something deep inside me twisted, like tangled bedsheets. It took every bit of strength I had not to move forward, not to bring myself closer to this boy who was everything I no longer was.

Everything I could never be again.

I wanted to be next to him. To touch him. To merge myself with him so he could take me back to the world I’d been locked out of.

I wanted to howl.

I’d lost my connection to the dream world, to my power, but part of me would always be an incubus. I’d always be able to sense what I could no longer touch, like a cup of water in the desert, held just out of reach.

It baffled me that no one else in the room could feel it, though rationally, I knew they couldn’t. Enough of Cory was human that even Hunters couldn’t sense him, and the other witches wouldn’t discover his true nature unless they cast a specific spell. To them, Cory was no more than a regular eighteen-year-old, bumbling and insecure and trying so hard to hide it.

I wrenched my gaze away from his face and looked up and down the line of students.

“We’re continuing with evasive maneuvers today. Remember, the point is not to permanently incapacitate your opponent, nor even to fight them. It is simply to free yourself of the hold they have on you, and to buy yourself enough time to get away.”

I glared at all of them, Sean Donohue and Timothy Kim in particular. Those two would be the death of me, from sheer frustration if nothing else. Sean opened his mouth, no doubt to make some comment on the cowardice inherent in running away. I was not in the mood.

Sean had never been in a life-or-death situation. He’d never fought someone more powerful than he was. I wasn’t sure he’d ever fought anyone, period. Tim, from the looks of him, had been in more than a few brawls. Kids weren’t born with broken noses and split lips. But because he was bigger than everyone else, he’d never learned what it was like to be weaker than his opponent.

He would. I knew too much about the world to doubt that. The world that awaited these kids outside Vesperwood’s walls was a hungry one. My only hope was to equip them with enough skill that they wouldn’t get themselves killed the moment they left campus.

I raised an eyebrow at Sean. He closed his mouth and swallowed. Then he shrugged, like he wasn’t going to say anything in the first place. He was probably worried I’d assign him to clean the gym again. For a guy who was so eager to show off his skills, he had a real distaste for manual labor. Evidently, he’d decided his smart-ass comment wasn’t worth it.

Good.

“Erika, Keelan, come up here,” I called.

Erika Martinez was a short girl with long brown hair in French braids that reached the small of her back. Keelan O’Byrne was a good bit taller than she was, with deep brown eyes and the beginnings of an unfortunate mustache that no one had told him looked terrible. Keelan was a budding Hunter, but he didn’t boast about his prowess—not in my hearing, anyway. Erika was likely to apply to one of the other havens, but she was a good listener, which was what I wanted for this demonstration.

“Keelan, you’re going to place Erika in a headlock from behind. You’ll take turns when you practice this, each of you playing both roles. Remember, the goal is not to do permanent damage here, nor are you going to stick around to get your own back. So Erika, to get out of this, you’re going to start by ducking your chin down. Your instinct will be to lift it up to create space for your airway, so this will feel unnatural, but it will actually help you more. At the same time, you’ll force your hands as far as they can go between his arm and your head. And then you’re going to drop your shoulder and hip down and back, curving back into his body. Then you can duck your head again and slip out from under his arm. Alright?”

The two of them nodded.

“Okay, let’s go through it step by step.”

They followed my instructions as I gave them a second time, and Erika let out a ‘ whoop ’ of excitement when she got free. Keelan was just as capable when roles were reversed. They were both good listeners.

I ran them through a side headlock variation after that, and things to look out for when getting free. Then I broke the class into groups of three or four, two students completing the exercise as another one or two watched and gave feedback, while I circulated around the room.

I saw Cory move over to a mat with Felix and Ash in the corner of the room, and decided to give him his jacket after class. Eventually, I’d have to go over and watch them practice, but that didn’t mean I had to do it now.

I moved to work with a different group. Rekha Bakshi, Adenike Odediran, and Meredith Stein stood around a mat, debating which two of them should go first. Adenike had volunteered, but neither of the other two wanted to practice with her.

“You,” I barked, pointing at Meredith. “You’re up.”

“But she’s a Hunter,” Meredith whined. “I can’t fight her.”

“Some day, you might have to,” I told her.

“I would never fight them!” Adenike objected. “They’re my friends.”

I waved her words away. “Maybe not Adenike specifically, but some Hunter, some day.”

I didn’t have the patience for this. They might not like combat, but I was going to make damn sure they learned it.

“Hunters are supposed to protect witches,” Rekha objected.

“And maybe someday, you’ll be fighting one who’s protecting someone else.” I turned back to Meredith. “Now get on the mat. You can put Adenike in the head lock first, if it makes you more comfortable.”

Meredith grumbled something under her breath about Adenike not breaking any of her nails, but she did finally join Adenike on the mat. I walked them through the steps again slowly, guiding Meredith into position and watching Adenike break free, following my instructions

“Alright, now try it at normal speed.”

I stepped back to assess them and sighed. Meredith’s grip slackened immediately, and as Adenike began to turn inwards, Meredith pulled her hair with her other hand. Adenike cursed and elbowed Meredith in the stomach. Meredith yelped, and Adenike shifted her foot behind Meredith’s to knock her off balance. She broke free of Meredith’s grip an instant later, and as she turned to jog away, Meredith raised a hand and began muttering under her breath.

“Hey,” I snapped, stepping up to grab Meredith’s wrist. “No spellcasting. You know that.”

“But she was getting away.”

“She’s supposed to get away. That’s the purpose of this exercise.”

“But she hit me,” Meredith objected. “Hard. She wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“And you weren’t supposed to pull my hair,” Adenike shot back, rejoining us in the center of the mat. “If you fight dirty, you can’t expect me not to.”

Rekha watched the two of them with a supercilious air as they continued to argue, and I sighed again.

It was like this with every freshmen class. Every single one of them thought they knew more than I did, and all the witches wanted to use spells rather than purely physical combat. I didn’t allow that until later. Not because it wasn’t an important aspect of offense or defense, but because I didn’t trust them not to kill themselves with uncontrolled magic before then.

At this point in the year, half the witches couldn’t do much more than move a ball of light around, but there were always some who came from large witch clans, or whose powers had manifested early, and they were desperate to show off what they could do.

It took another ten minutes to sort those three out, which meant I was delayed in making my rounds with the other groups of students. As it happened, I just didn’t have time to make it to Cory’s group. It wasn’t that I was avoiding him. It just worked out that way.

Unfortunately, the remaining time in class passed more quickly than it should have. Probably because the universe knew how much I was dreading what I had to do when class ended. But soon enough, the bell sounded the end of Fourth Hour. Students flowed towards the front doors of the gym, and my stomach twisted.

I didn’t want to do this, but even more, I didn’t want to not want to do this. I didn’t want to care about this kid at all. He was no one. I knew nothing about him.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I knew he was the kind of guy who jerked off in a public restroom. I knew he got off on being told what to do.

Ugh. No. I wasn’t thinking about that night again. I’d already decided that.

Cory, Felix, and Ash were at the back of the crowd, waiting for other students to jostle through the bottleneck at the front doors. If I just waited for them to leave, I wouldn’t have to give him the jacket…but I would have to explain that to Isaac later.

Fuck me.

“Cory,” I barked. His head whipped around, surprise painted on his face. “Come here a sec.”

I kept my voice as gruff and neutral as possible.

Cory’s face was wary as he made his way across the gym. I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t been kind to him this past week. His brow was furrowed, and he was chewing on his lower lip again.

God, I want to run my finger across that, pull it out from under his teeth. Taste it for myself and—

No.

I turned and walked to the far corner of the room, where I’d set his jacket. I didn’t turn around again until I could feel him behind me, only two feet away. I exhaled, attempting to empty my body of emotions, and turned to face him.

Even so, Cory’s presence startled me. He was just so close . It felt like my skin was humming, or maybe that was the air between us. I felt taut as a bowstring, ready for release. Except I couldn’t get any release, not where he was concerned. And not just because I wasn’t sure who his father was.

“Here.” I pushed the bundle at him.

His arms folded around it, and I pulled my hands back quickly. I couldn’t risk my skin touching his. If I was this sensitive just breathing the same air as him, I didn’t even want to think about what skin contact would do.

“What’s—” Cory began, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish.

“The dean gave it to me. Yours, apparently. Next time, don’t leave your shit lying around. I’m not your errand boy.”

His face went from curious to hurt in an instant, and I cursed myself mentally. I’d been shooting for indifference, but I’d ended up in asshole territory. Which would be fine—it’s not like I wanted him to like me. But implying I disliked him implied that I thought about him at all.

My business is my own , I thought bitterly. Nothing to do with you, no matter what powers you have .

“But I—” Cory began again, but I looked away. I didn’t want to see the pain, the indignation gathering in those stormy eyes.

Which was why I saw the trouble by the door sooner than I might have. An eddy ran through the students clustered up front, like a rock thrown into a pond. A shape appeared—something I couldn’t make out yet, but something wrong .

Then the screaming started.

The cluster of students broke apart, and the unfamiliar shape resolved into three shapes. Suddenly, they shifted into focus, and my eyes made sense of the confusion.

Moraghin .

Three tall, shambling, gray-green bodies, their too-long limbs bent at unnatural angles, lurched and lunged at the crowd of students. Their jaws, protruding from painfully elongated snouts, opened hungrily, then snapped shut, as they anticipated attacking their prey.

One of them turned suddenly, and a chunk of flesh fell from its arm, exposing sinew and bone beneath. I was too far away to see the boils and blisters that covered their rotting bodies, but I knew that the stench would be overpowering.

What the ever living fuck? How were there moraghin here? Vesperwood was warded. They shouldn’t have been able to get past the front gate.

But I was wasting precious seconds asking questions. I sprinted across the gym towards the group by the door. A body hit the floor. I couldn’t see whose yet. Double fuck.

“Get back,” I yelled at the students, who seemed frozen in place as the moraghin attacked. “Spread out. Don’t make it easy for them.”

About half the class started moving, but the other half just stared. At me, at the moraghin, at their classmate on the ground, who could be just as dangerous to them now as the moraghin themselves.

I shoved two students to the left as I reached their clump, to get them moving, but also to get them out of the way. Two of the moraghin were circling Rekha, Adenike, and Meredith, while the third had bent low to inspect the body on the floor. Now that I was close, I could see it was Erika.

I didn’t hesitate. I reached to my waist to draw the two daggers that hung there. I whipped one at each of the creatures circling Rekha’s group, hitting one in the gut and the other in the upper thigh.

Knives weren’t the best weapons against moraghin, unless you got close, which sensible people tried to avoid. But the wounds should slow them down enough for me to deal with the third.

There was still a chance Erika could be saved, but only if I were fast enough, and if she were very, very lucky. I pulled a third knife—the one I’d sharpened last night—from a wrist sheath, and hurled it at the moragh inspecting her. It lodged deep in the back of its neck, right where it met the skull. That might have been enough to sever the brainstem, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

As the moragh roared and attempted to straighten, I pulled the knife from my other arm and planted a foot on its back. My weight helped hold it down, just enough for me to bring an arm around and slash across its throat. Blood spurted everywhere, and I jumped free, trying to minimize the amount that got on me.

I spun, turning to the other two moraghin, who were still reacting to their wounds. Something blue and sparkling zinged through the air from Rekha’s fingertips, but it went wildly off course, crashing into the wall next to the door, leaving a crater the size of a baseball, with flames flickering around the edges.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sean and Timothy approaching, carrying a sword and an axe they’d grabbed off the far wall, swinging them excitedly. Great. Just what I needed. I had to end this fight before any more of these kids got hurt.

The moragh with the knife in its gut was hunched over, roaring in pain. I advanced on it first, drawing one of the knives that was strapped to my calf through a slit in my joggers. The creature looked up in confusion as I sank the knife into its kidney, then gawped as I pulled the knife free and ran it across its gullet. Blood sprayed out and splattered my clothes.

I was already pivoting to the third moragh. I’d gotten lucky with the first two, but the third creature had removed my knife from its thigh and seemed torn between advancing on me, or closing in on the students closest to it, its real quarry. I didn’t give it a chance to decide. I threw the knife I’d just used at its chest.

The moragh dodged, so the knife landed in its shoulder rather than its heart. It didn’t matter. I just needed it distracted enough not to anticipate my next move, which was to launch myself at it like a battering ram.

Moraghin had superhuman speed and strength. The magic gave them that, along with their infection. I wasn’t sure they were capable of thinking, per se, but to the extent that they could, they probably didn’t expect anyone to go head to head with them, and surprise was the only edge I was going to get.

Screams filled the air around me, along with shouted incantations and fizzling spells. One shot right by my head, and I ground my teeth at the chaos. It would be just my luck to survive a moraghin attack only to get killed by one of my own students. There was a reason they weren’t allowed to use magic until they had better control.

The moragh’s eyes were down, its left hand drawn up to tug at the knife lodged under its collarbone. That was all the opening I needed. I threw myself at the creature, smashing into its torso. Someone screamed as we hit the floor.

The creature snarled and writhed, its nails clawing for purchase at my skin. I couldn’t let myself worry about that right now. Straddling it, I leaned my forearm across its neck while reaching for the second knife strapped to my calf.

The moragh’s hands, scaly and rotting, closed around my neck. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t its prime target—it wanted to kill me as surely as it wanted any of the witches in the room. Sparks of light flashed in my eyes, not stray spells, but my own vision going dim as it constricted my airway.

Finally my fingers grasped the hilt of the knife, and I pulled it free. With the last bit of air left in my lungs, I exhaled and thrust the knife home, deep into the creature’s chest. The moragh convulsed, its hands loosening around my neck.

I gulped in air filled with the smell of blood and rot and smoke. I’d never smelled anything sweeter. Another deep inhale, and I pushed to my feet. I was covered in blood, but I was fairly certain it all belonged to the moraghin. Somehow, I’d managed not to get cut.

It felt like the fight had taken hours, but I knew it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. I surveyed the room around me. The other two creatures lay where they’d fallen. Keelan and Min Tang were crouched by Erika, who seemed to be unconscious. The rest of the class stood in a rough circle around us.

I heaved a sigh. “Keelan, Min.” They looked up at me. “Wrap her in your jackets and get her to the infirmary. Be careful not to touch any open wounds you see. Rekha, go get some snow to put that fire out.” I pointed at the crater she’d made, still burning merrily in the wall. “The rest of you, make sure everyone gets to the manor safely, go straight to your rooms, and wait for instructions.”

I didn’t like the idea of letting them disperse unattended, but there was only one of me, and I needed to get to Isaac. If moraghin had attacked our group, that meant Vesperwood’s wards were compromised. Who knew what kind of chaos had overtaken the campus? I needed to warn him, and get a status report, immediately.

As Sean and Tim turned to follow the group out the doors, I put a hand on Sean’s shoulder.

“You two. What the fuck do you think you were doing?” I asked, glaring at the weapons in their hands.

“Helping you,” Sean said. “Or we would have, if you’d given us a chance.”

“I would have been giving you a chance to die,” I spat. “Now hang those up before you—”

“Cory!”

A shout cut through the air. I turned towards Ash and Felix, the only two students with their backs to the door. Ash was the one who’d shouted, and I followed his eyeline to see Cory, back in the corner where I’d left him.

A moragh towered over him, claws extended, tongue out, ready to attack.

Thanks for reading!

Check out Strength of Desire , the sequel to Demon of Dreams , on the next page.

But first…how about a sweet coffee shop AU for Cory and Noah?