Demon Accords 8: College Arcane Read online

  College Arcane

  A novel from the Demon Accords

  By

  John Conroe

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2015 John Conroe

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

  ISBN:

  The Demon Accords series:

  God Touched

  Demon Driven

  Brutal Asset

  Duel Nature

  Fallen Stars

  Executable

  Forced Ascent

  College Arcane

  Cover Art by Ryan Bibby

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 3 4

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Carpet adhesive. Carpet adhesive and pleather. Those were the smells I would always associate with the first day of college. Well, not college really, because that didn’t start till Monday and this was only Saturday.

  Still, it was move-in day and the first day of being away from home and the first day of whatever this was. X-Men academy or Hogwarts, or maybe just the school for the freaky and furry kids.

  Caeco was sitting next to me, absolutely still, reclining in the plush pleather cinema seats of the classroom, re-reading the material we had received along with our ID cards and room keys. Not sure why she bothered, as I’m certain she’d memorized the whole damn thing the first time she read it. Having nano-sized computers in your bloodstream is useful that way.

  The room was brand new, as were the dorms, the student lounges, and every other room and hall in the place. The building itself wasn’t new, just completely redone and redesigned. The shell was an old industrial building on Pine Street in Burlington, a remnant from the city’s youth. There were numerous old factory and warehouse buildings along Pine, now converted to artists studios, architectural salvage and recycling stores and, of course, restaurants. In Vermont, everyone is a foodie, and new restaurants pop up all the time.

  The building stood a bit apart, surrounded by what might have once been storage yards but were now newly paved parking lots. Beast, my trusty ‘72 Toyota Land Cruiser, was safely parked between the gleaming white lines of a secluded spot, well away from the other students’ cars.

  It was so bizarre—just a few weeks ago, I’d been in high school, a place my friends, Rory and Jonah were still stuck in, and here I was about to begin college.

  Despite the smell of adhesive, which was strongest in the carpeted tiers of seats, the room wasn’t classroom typical. The brick walls and overhead steel beams had been left exposed and the floor of the room, at the teacher’s level, was concrete that had been polished to a gleaming shine. The effect was much warmer, more of an artsy marketing firm vibe, like everything here was balanced to enhance the creative juices. The halls and even our dorm rooms were similar.

  Aunt Ashling, her partner Darci, Levi, and Caeco’s mom had all left after helping unload our stuff in the freezing January cold and then taking us to warm up for lunch downtown at the wood-fired pizza place. Since coming back, we had barely enough time to meet our respective roommates before all four of us headed to the largest of the three classrooms in the building, following the instructions of the staff. It was time for a mandatory welcome meeting with the program director, Gina Velasquez. Caeco and I had met her once before. She was just a weary, distraught mom then, excited and relieved beyond measure to get her daughter back. But that’s a whole other story.

  Caeco’s an on-time kind of girl, no doubt the result of her military programming, so that meant all four of us were almost the first into the meeting room. With all seating options open, we had mutually decided on the middle of the three sections, third row from the top, with nobody above us. From there, we watched the others file in.

  It looked like about forty of us, in a room that would seat a hundred to a hundred and twenty with ease.

  Caeco was on her third time through the brochures, policies, and other propaganda, so I occupied myself studying my classmates.

  My new roommate, Mack, was sitting one row below me with his sister, Jetta, who was Caeco’s roommate. They seemed really close, which made sense as Mack had told me they were orphans. He was nineteen, a lean five-ten or so, with a surprisingly deep voice and messy brown hair. His sister was two years younger, sporting bottle bright red hair and brown eyes. Standing about five-six in leggings and a Lycra performance top, she looked athletic—and serious. Cute though. My initial opinion was that she might be a good fit as Caeco’s roomate. In fact, even her bracelets were those paracord survival things that you see being sold in outdoor stores and surplus catalogs. Her belongings were minimalist and she appeared to favor practical over flashy. Much like her brother. Mack hadn’t brought much stuff, either. All of their personal gear had fit in their older compact Chevy pickup truck. But everything was clean, well cared for, and functional.

  Caeco and I had each brought a dorm-style fridge and small microwave, gifts from Levi. When I extended fridge rights to Mack, he had seemed both surprised and cautiously pleased.

  Mack was a freshman like Caeco and me, but Jetta would be finishing out her high school degree here while taking college courses too. I never heard of that before, but what the hell… anything to get out of high school.

  Most of the kids in the room seemed to be just kids—human, that is. I know that because I scanned them with my Sight and their auras were the solid blue of normal humans. They sat in pairs or quads, looking around at their peers with expressions of curiosity. But a couple groups stood out to my Sight.

  Sitting several rows below us was a small group of weres. At least I was pretty certain they were weres. Chris Gordon had told me that weres had an aura of blue flecked with green, which matched theirs exactly. Six males, spread out over twice that many seats, lounging. Talking and joking among themselves, they were studying the other students, particularly the females. One kid was a giant, maybe six-five or so and built like a wall. He was the loudest, having draped himself over three seats, demanding that people notice him. I already didn’t like him. Much of his attention was centered on the four girls one section over, but that was understandable, as mine was too.

  Attractive yes, but it was more the fact that they were all witches that had me studying them, their auras flecked with black. A pair of tall,
curvy identical blonde twins who had a Nordic look going on, a girl of obvious Native American ancestry, and another dark-haired girl I hadn’t been able to get a good look at all sat in one row.

  Above them sat a very pretty Asian girl and a small brunette who didn’t look old enough to be out of high school yet. Those two had normal auras.

  Sitting even further above them was another young brunette, but this one had a white aura. The only aura I had seen like it before belonged to Tanya Demidova and her two vampire teammates, so I was pretty certain this girl was a vampire. She was strangely isolated; the three seats next to her and the row above and below her were all empty. Maybe some deep-seated instinct warned the other kids not to get too close to a dangerous predator. She suddenly swiveled around and locked eyes with me. I jerked my gaze down toward Caeco’s reading material as if I, too, found it fascinating. Smooth, O’Carroll, smooth.

  “Stop creeping on the other kids, Declan,” Caeco said in a quiet voice, not looking up. “Especially the vampires and werewolves.”

  Below us, a brown-haired boy in the wolf pack snapped his head around to look up at us and I could just about feel the vampire still watching. The boy started to turn back around, but noticed Mack and Jetta giving them a shy wave before facing forward.

  “You know they probably have hearing as good as yours,” I said in a whisper.

  “Maybe,” she allowed, finally looking up at me and smiling.

  Five adults filed into the room, led by a pretty woman with very dark hair and deep brown eyes. She was in her thirties and wore a genuine smile and a blue aura. She looked much different than the scared mom I had met several months before. Her name was Gina and she was the director of this school for monsters and maniacs.

  One of the two men following her had the green and blue aura of a were, giving possible explanation to the deep scar that trailed from his lower right jawline, down his neck, and under his blue golf shirt. He was muscular and fit, also looking to be thirty or so, with a decidedly military air about him.

  The woman behind him was a witch, and possibly forty years old. She was tan, with dark hair and dark eyes.

  The other male was even tanner than the witch, with flashing white teeth and a bald head. Maybe fifty to fifty-five. The last person was a woman, the oldest yet, with unabashedly grey hair, but thin and healthy looking.

  All four sat in in the very front row of the room facing Gina.

  “Good evening everyone and welcome. I’m Gina Velsaquiz, the Director of this little experiment, and I sincerely hope you are feeling at least a little excited about our futures together.

  “For most of you, this is your first time away from home and that’s an unsettling thing, so please, please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you acclimate.”

  She smiled through the whole thing, looking honestly happy to be there. Her right hand tapped the big white board next to her and words appeared, stacked vertically.

  Anomalous

  Recondite

  Combatives

  Academy

  Noble

  Echelon

  “Oracle, one of the two sponsors of this program, is inordinately fond of acronyms. So we have this little beauty.”

  She tapped the board again and the first letters of each word self-highlighted, the rest of the words dissolving away and the letters swirling about to form ARCANE.

  “Welcome to College Arcane, an educational experiment funded jointly by the Occult Research Alternative Combat League, also known as ORACLE, and the Demidova Corporation. Our purpose is to provide you, the children of the supernatural world, with a unique blend of college education and training specific to your own unique natures.

  “Some of you were born into families with long histories of exposure to the paranormal. Some were born to normal families that had no idea how to handle your special gifts. And some were just exposed, early and often, to the darker side of life. Whichever path you come from, the hidden world has left its stamp on you, perhaps making it harder to fit into normal society, to find your place. That’s our mission: to help you fit into this world.

  “We’re also going to develop your skills, help you achieve the most you can get from your gifts while learning to control them. So although I’m sure you’ve all read your welcome packets as well as the information we mailed to you last month, let me layout the structure of our program.

  “You will all pursue the educational direction of your choice, attending either the University of Vermont or Champlain College or, in some cases, both. Most of you are starting as freshmen in the spring semester. Several of you are technically still in high school, but you will be finishing your traditional education here, taking college courses and receiving a diploma from your hometown school while advancing toward a college degree.

  “I won’t lie. College is hard work and to make matters a bit more difficult, you will also be taking a few classes here. Three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, all of you will be taking Supernatural Survival, taught by Mr. Jenks.”

  The tough-looking werewolf stood up and waved at the group before sitting back down.

  “This class will be taught in the morning, before your regular classes begin up the hill on the campuses. Specifically, six a.m. You will meet in our gym facility.”

  There was a collective groan, although we all should have known this from the packets.

  “Your survival class is a combination of personal self-defense, situational awareness training, modern survival skills, and a honing of any particular personal abilities that you have.

  “Additionally, following the same Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, you will each have an evening class that has already been selected for you. The majority of you will take Explorations of Power with Miss Berg.” The tan witch stood up and smiled, giving a little wave and even nodding toward the four witch girls.

  “Those of you with more volatile natures,” she said, smiling at the weres below us, as well as at a boy and girl sitting to our left who looked like a brother and sister. “—will be taking Control, also taught by Mr. Jenks.

  “Control will teach those of you with physical gifts not only how to manage your tempers, but to better use your strength and speed. If you Shift, it will teach you to gain the third form, the midway mode.”

  The were boys looked excited at that, but the brother and sister combo seemed unimpressed.

  “Explorations is a carefully constructed curriculum designed to help you build control and skill with your gifts of the mind while exposing you to other facets of the supernatural world. Some of you have gifts that we term psychic for lack of a better classification, with maybe one or two specific abilities. We will hone those. Some are more broadly endowed with abilities. Witches, as it were. We will explore the spectrum of your Craft and share various approaches.”

  She looked at the four teenaged witches as she said this. One of the blondes smiled broadly and tossed her hair. Her twin blinked like she’d been daydreaming and the native girl looked… blank. The one on the far end leaned forward and I finally got a good look at her.

  Black hair, light-colored eyes that I knew for a fact were green. Ryanne, one of the Sisters Eeire. An unsettled feeling of anxiety flooded me, mixed with a thrill of excitement. I tried to squash the thrill part but damn, she was pretty. Immediately, I felt guilty, looking away from her. I had thought about her occasionally over the last several months, but I honestly never expected her to be here. She had told me she would be attending this program, but what did that mean for me? Ryanne and her three sister witches knew I wasn’t just a regular warlock with weak powers, not since I had squared off with them in a back alley not far from where I was now sitting. But I wasn’t ready for everyone to know just how different I was. College was supposed to be a chance to start over, wasn’t it?

  “A few of you fall outside either of these categories and so you will audit both classes to broaden your understanding of the other world you’ve found yoursel
ves a part of.

  “Tuesday and Thursday evenings, the entire group of you will spend some time with me. We’ll be discussing the recent events in Washington and across the planet and what it means for each of you. The supernatural races have been exposed, permanently, to the normal world. Demons have gotten the greatest exposure, but weres and vampires are out as well. Witches and psychics won’t be far behind. How will governments and societies respond? How should you conduct yourselves? Who do you tell, and when do you hide your abilities? We will analyze all of these topics and more, using both oral and written techniques.”