Chapter 27 - Luna
CHAPTER 27 - LUNA
M y high from my incredible weekend came crashing down the moment I stepped into the classroom. Tollen stood stiffly beside a crestfallen Blaze. Dark vibes choked the air.
The lack of occupied chairs spelled I was the first to arrive, which was weird, since Astra beat me to it most mornings, her Asperger’s routine coordinating her arrival always on time, if not ahead of time, every time. Unlike me, who often slept in and rolled out of bed late.
Brimstone nipped at my ear, tugging it, and I brushed him away.
“Luna, may we have a word?” Blaze spoke like he caught me cheating and prepared to expel me.
Talon crossed to the door, flicking the latch, locking the door.
The dark vibe turned ominous, and my stomach clenched. “What is it?”
“It’s Astra.” Blaze’s words hit like the toll of a bell, and I felt the reverberation in every bone, clanging and unsteady.
Brimstone shuddered and flapped his wings.
“What about her?” I wrung my hands. “Has she been in an accident? Has the Brotherhood taken her?”
It was out of character for her not to meet me outside of the classroom this morning with a smile and hug. Monday mornings, she caught me in my dorm room after my shower or post breakfast, filling me in on her weekend.
This morning, my men and I arrived later, traveling back from our Sydney break. We left at 5Am to make it on time for class commencement at 9AM, stopping back at the pie house to grab a quick breakfast on the run and hightail it back to the Academy. We arrived just after 8AM and I went to my room, tossed my bag on my bed, cuddled Brimstone and consoled his separation anxiety, let out the cat, fed the two gargoyles, then freshened up and changed into my uniform, before heading to class.
A sour, burning sensation spread across my stomach.
Blaze scratched at the tail of the snake on his wrist.
Talon took over for his brother, assuming his role as Darnax. “She’s been caught stealing from a restricted area of the Academy.”
“Astra stealing? No way.” I slashed my hands through the air. “My bestie isn’t a thief. She’s a straight arrow.”
“I know she is,” Talon muttered. “Unfortunately, she was caught on camera and reported to Kymbal as the headmaster was away visiting family.”
Kymbal. Oh, fuck. He was out for revenge. Ice dropped into my veins, splintering through it, tearing me up inside.
“What did he do?” I could barely get the words out past the concrete setting in my throat.
Talon’s Darnax side gave way to my boyfriend, delivering the bad news slowly and softly despite his gruff exterior. “He called an emergency Gildron Council meeting, and they sentenced her to service in the Guardians.”
Brimstone croaked out a pained sound.
The Guardians. Where Cole’s Mom was sent.
My entire body began to shake uncontrollably and the nausea in my stomach swelled. “No. This isn’t true. This is impossible!”
My friend wasn’t gone. She wasn’t a criminal, serving time in a Guild prison, forced to complete dangerous missions to hunt and apprehend the worst gantii offenders to lower her sentence.
Blaze remained frozen and silent.
Talon reached for me, but I waved him away, not wanting to be touched this instant. “The headmaster is up in arms about the Council making such a severe punishment and he’s in the process of preparing complaints to senior Guild and Guardians officials to get her released.”
I pinched the brim of my nose to stave off an ache behind my eyes.
Talon’s eyes slanted to Blaze, and my teacher’s gaze went to the floor. “That’s not everything, Princess.”
How could it possibly get any worse?
I paced a few steps to reduce the urge to greet my breakfast. Bitter tears stung my eyes. White noise rushed in my ears at the surge of my pulse. The ice in my veins reached my heart, a dagger piercing it.
Talon caught me by the shoulders, holding me steady, preparing to deliver the kick in the gut. “She claims she ran into Blaze in the hallway on Saturday and he asked her to take your mind map.”
“What?” My eyes burned black holes into the side of Blaze’s face. “Why would she say that? You were with us at the festival three hours away!” None of this made sense, and my head ached with greater confusion.
Talon let go of one shoulder to scrub at his jaw. “I checked the security footage. Blaze portalled into the Academy at 11:32AM and spoke to Astra.”
I turned all my attention to my teacher, who remained stricken and pale. “What’s going on, Blaze?”
“I don’t know.” The urgent scratching motion reddened his skin. He’d dig a bloody groove in his skin if he didn’t stop. “I have no memory of this encounter.”
I caught his hand, brushing my fingers along his marking. “Could it have something to do with this?”
“Maybe.” Blaze tugged his arm away, grazing so hard he drew blood, a man on a mission to remove the mark by any means. “Gable thought I blacked out in the bathroom stall. That might explain everything.”
What in the absolute fuck?
Talon’s expression said he was about to kick his boot into my gut harder. “Blaze’s snake branding glowed red the entire time he appeared on camera.”
There it was. My grandfather’s influence.
“What do you think that means?” I voiced.
“Your mind map vanished into another portal,” Talon advised, low and dire, “which leads me to believe that Camus may have something to do with it.”
I pressed a hand to my forehead. “So Blaze is a Manchurian candidate for my grandfather. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Possibly,” Talon agreed.
“How can we stop it from happening again?” I didn’t want to think what else my grandfather might do. “Will Blaze be suspended again?”
My teacher finally spoke again. “I already am, sweetness.”
“I’m so sorry, Blaze.” I wrapped him in my arms, holding him tight, his body cold and hard. “This is all my fault.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Luna.” He stroked my lower back.
How could I not? My grandfather sought the information stored inside me, and now he had it.
The insides of my wrists began to burn, the skin pinching and warping. Something pierced from my skin and crawled over my wrist, and I leaped back from Blaze, expecting a spider or bug on my skin. Tiny snakes slithered over them, dividing into two and multiplying in numbers.
“What the fuck is this?!?!” I shook my hands, but they didn’t come off.
“Luna!” The dread in Talon’s voice matched my own. He grabbed my shoulder, and I shook him off, terrified I’d contaminate him.
Brimstone squawked and flapped onto my arm, pecking at the crawlies, their scales sizzling and shriveling. He wasn’t fast enough, and they kept proliferating until rows of serpents covered my entire arm
“Don’t!” Blaze caught Talon’s electrified baton and lowered it. “You blast them, and you’ll hurt her.”
“I can’t get them off!” I shrieked, flicking some, yanking off others with the help of Brimstone.
“Calm down, Princess,” Talon tried to reason. “Command them off.”
Right. Use my powers. My brain scrambled for the snake tongue, but all that came out was broken fragments.
The snakes hissed and released a dark mist that circled me, tugging at my will, dragging me away from them into a dark tunnel that breached the room.
“Luna!” Talon’s shout was barely audible over the funnel surrounding me.
The darkness carried me with it, and the next thing I knew, I was on my knees, on the floor in a circle of rune stones in room with stone walls and no windows. A basement, most likely.
Black wax dripped from lit candles, though the flames burned with darkness instead of light. The only pale glow in the room came from the radiance of my mind map, laid out on a table in the corner. Fangs bared on a series of cobra sculptures forming the magick circle. A deep part of my brain identified the breed by the shape of its head, teeth, round pupils, smooth scales, and the hood on its neck. I had to get out of here or at least figure out exactly where here was.
I stood and rubbed at my arms, the tiny snakes gone.
I raised my hands to sense magick and detected a barrier of dark forces.
Hello, granddaughter . Camus’ voice invaded every corner of my mind.
It took everything in me not to step back, startled.
He slithered out of the shadows with my grandmother, both coiled by scaly chains of snakes. Dark robes shrouded their bodies, the slightest hint of a long black gown peeking from beneath Phoebe’s. Whatever spell he cast from the Book of the Dead restored her health, beauty, and clarity to her eyes. Neither of them looked old and withered like previous times we crossed paths. Camus certainly wasn’t on death’s door, thanks to the Ghul curse he absorbed. Stealing Blaze’s magick obviously cured him of that.
Childhood memories struck me. Playing games, him taking me to the play park, us making various items out of Play Doh, painting on paper, building cubby houses. Activities that a normal grandparent and grandchild did together. Cheap tricks designed to inspire a moment that would overwhelm me and suck me into his trap.
“Cut the crap!” I shouted. “What do you want? You’ve got my mind map. You killed my parents. Turned my boyfriend into a slave. What else do you want to take from me?”
He laughed, full of pride, triumph, and gloating.
My grandmother’s reptilian eyes landed on me. “Welcome back, poppet.”
Like hell I was her poppet. We might be related by blood, but that was the only connection. I was not one of them.
“Let me out of here right now.” I raised my palms, searching for a weakness in the barrier to exploit and escape.
Phoebe smiled a mouth full of sharp fangs she didn’t have when we’d met previously. Snake magic obviously worked wonders for her appearance. “What a way to speak to your grandmother. All these years apart have done nothing for your manners. In the new world that’s coming, Luna, you’ll learn to comport yourself if you’re going to be one of the rulers of it.”
All those years in a catatonic state must’ve fried her brain if she thought I’d want to rule with her. I kept that to myself and played along, exploiting her insane illusions.
Phoebe slithered across the room to a lectern holding an open spell book. The Book of the Dead, presumably. My stomach cramped.
She stroked the open page. “Now that we have all the missing puzzle pieces from your traitorous parents who tried to hide it from us, we have the ability to conjure the sixth element.”
The warning from the biker struck like lightning. Ultimate power.
My heart raced, and I broke out in a cold sweat. “You already have power. What more could you want?”
Phoebe gripped the book’s edges tightly as if afraid it might be stripped from her. “You’ll understand soon, poppet.”
“All right. Get to it then.” I was under no illusions that I’d survive beyond the moment she capitalized on this ultimate power and got whatever she needed from my summoning.
“That’s the granddaughter I know.” Camus wriggled his steepled fingers, and I resisted frowning at the ugliness of their power lust.
“It’s time for you to surrender the sigil to us.” Phoebe uttered a chant of dark language that made my insides crawl and itch.
The sigil rumbled, resisting the summons of a new master. An idea to prevent them from taking it from me snapped in my brain. I had no clue if this would work while trapped inside a dark magick circle, but I took the chance. I called on the Veil energy to weave around me into a cocoon of defensive power. Dark venom spat from the snake sculptures, dissolving my protection, subjecting me to my grandmother’s dark hold. Pressure mounted in my head like a dark force sucked it from my head.
No!
They took everything from me. My parents. My life. My bonded. And now my best friend through their filthy, corrupt channels in the Guild. They were not having this power.
I threw everything I had to repel it. Bit by bit, I lost the battle, the spitting venom burning my skin, absorbing into it. Retching, I collapsed to the stone. Fire ignited in my veins as the poison corrupted me. She crawled into my mind, hunting for it, and cleared the symbol from my memory.
Phoebe held her palm skyward, the fateful sigil glowing an inch above it. “You will be punished for not cooperating.”
Numbness wrapped around my being, and I crumpled onto the stone floor.
Phoebe extended her elbow to her husband. “Come, my dear. We leave for the djinn planet immediately.”
Everything made perfect sense. The djinn were masters of the five elements, and it only seemed fitting for the sixth elemental to dwell among them.
“Lock her in here until we return,” Camus ordered, and two Sanctuary guards nodded, closing the door after them, the key twisting the lock clanking like it sealed my fate.