Demon Accords 8: College Arcane Read online

  There was a smaller collective groan at that.

  “In just a bit, we’ll adjourn to the dining room for dinner. I think you’ll be pleased at the quality, variety, and quantity of food that we have here for you. I’m quite confident it exceeds anything that any of the colleges provide. The dining area is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks available at any hour for those with accelerated metabolisms. Your ID cards also work at either college in any of their eateries for those times when you are stuck on campus between classes.

  “Speaking of classes, in the next few days, please introduce yourselves to Malcolm Tessitori, our in-house counselor and liaison to the colleges. He is the one who will help guide your college careers and facilitate your schedules and classes. “

  The bald guy stood up and waved.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday, the day before classes start. You can spend it as you wish, but I would suggest finding your classrooms on campus and picking up your books. They are all bought and paid for, but you will need to visit the college bookstore and show your ID to get them.

  “Next to last, let me introduce our on-site medical specialist, Dr. Rosewell. She is a gifted general practitioner with years of experience at Oracle. Please, please see her if any of you experience any change in health.

  “Finally, I’m going to turn the floor over to one of our sponsors for a few words on behavior.”

  Beside me, Caeco suddenly stiffened, as if startled, then almost instantly relaxed. Her reaction and my instant awareness of it were the only reasons I didn’t crap my pants when an iron hand clutched my shoulder. Almost as fast as Caeco, I knew who it was, maybe by the aura of power or the steely feel of the hand. The real issue was that I was dead certain that absolutely no one had been behind us when we sat down.

  “That’s my cue. Sorry for the scare, but I wanted to get a covert look at the group. Kind of hard to do these days. I’ll chat with you two after,” said a soft voice, one I recognized immediately. That’s when the most famous man on the planet stood up from the empty seat behind us and started down the stairs to the floor below.

  Chapter 2

  Chris Gordon stepped lightly down the rows, reaching the bottom before the rest of the kids fully understood who was among them. Wearing jeans, running shoes, and a loose-fitting green long-sleeve t-shirt, he nonetheless commanded attention.

  He hugged Gina, then turned and looked at the audience, who were either stunned or excited or both. He seemed edgy, not nervous or anxious, but there was something there, an undercurrent. He smiled as he looked around the room.

  “Hi, I’m Chris Gordon and I represent one half of the partnership that is responsible for this opportunity,” he said, as if no one in the room had seen a television screen, newpaper, or magazine cover in the last few months. “I’ll go ahead and apologize upfront. I believe I’ve met many of you before but I’ve had a little accident. It seems that my brain met a bullet a while ago and I haven’t gotten all my memories back yet. They’re coming slowly, but please don’t be offended if I don’t remember you.

  “With that out of the way, let me welcome you to college or, as Oracle likes to call it, College Arcane.”

  A hand shot up and Chris looked at its owner, a brown-haired girl with glasses and a super excited look on her face.

  “Ah, yea?” he asked.

  “What do the words mean? The ones that make up ARCANE?” she asked.

  “Good question. I had to ask to find out for myself. Oracle loves this acronym shit… hmm, excuse my language... oh what the hell, you’re all in college now, right?” The kids all laughed.

  “Anyway, anomalous means rare or aberrant. Recondite has several meanings: hidden from sight, not well understood, obscure. Combatives… well, to be frank, we’re hoping to teach you how to protect yourselves and others. Lastly, Oracle ranks talents and abilities among the trained and untrained. The highest untrained ranking is Noble echelon—sort of a guess at your potential. There, clear as mud, right?”

  “What are the trained rankings?” the same girl asked.

  “Gina?” Chris turned.

  “Paladin, Knight, and Champion echelons. We will go over this as we progress throughout the year,” she said.

  “So there you have it… you’re in an academy. For what? To learn to survive and thrive as representatives of the supernatural realm. Why would we do this? That part is simple. At the end of your education, you will be prime candidates for recruitment by Oracle as operatives, should you chose that route, or recruitment by the Demidova Corp. Personally I’m more than a bit biased for the corporate path. But if you prefer the government path, you have Oracle. You are also completely free to pick neither of those choices, but to forge your own path.”

  “Would you recommend Oracle even after what they did to you?” Jetta blurted out, loud enough for everyone to hear. The room froze, all noise stopping instantly. I’m not sure anyone was even breathing as the room waited for his response.

  Chris stood still for a second, his jaw muscle jumping a bit. Then he turned to look at his questioner and I swear to God his purple eyes flashed lighter for a second. Ah, now I understood the undercurrent… he was pissed… deeply, thoroughly pissed and I was pretty sure I could guess the direction of his anger.

  “You’re Jetta?” he asked. She nodded. I couldn’t see her face but her shoulders and neck betrayed her sudden tension.

  “Well, I not sure that I’m the one to give Oracle a rousing endorsement, but if you’re determined to go government, there are much worse choices. See, Oracle answers to the President and at the end of the day, they were just following orders. And while I will not be telling you exactly what happened, I will tell you that it will never happen again,” he said. The teachers in the front row were frozen and the Oracle agents near the doors had turned to stone.

  “But there are good people in that organization, some of whom I owe big time,” he said, turning and looking at the witch girls. Or rather at the pair sitting above the witch girls. The young-looking brunette blushed and squirmed just a little bit. I studied her for a moment before looking back at Chris, only to meet his eyes straight on. He gave me the tiniest of nods before continuing. Bewildered, I nonetheless was aware that several people in the audience might have caught that little exchange.

  “Your teachers come from Oracle as well and represent a tremendous amount of experience,” he said with a smile, his eyes still hard. “Experience that you all need.”

  The anger was still there, just buried, simmering. “So, to sum it up, you may get a job offer from our company or the government or both or neither. Our real goal is to see that you all have the skills to stay alive and prosper. Our world, the one that till recently has been confined to the shadows, is a very dangerous place. Exposure has not changed that, but it has changed some of the dangers. We want you to be prepared and we want you to find your way. Now, you all are under an obligation to follow the rules of conduct here. You all have power to some degree or another. Some small, others great. And with great power comes… Anyone?”

  “Great responsibility,” about six different kids all said more or less simultaneously.

  “Nope, that’s Stan Lee. The word I was going for was temptation. Temptation to use your advantages against those without advantages. Now, this isn’t like using a talent for singing to win a contest or allowing a naturally high IQ to achieve the highest grades. I’m talking about using your strength or telekinetic power or telepathy or ability to shift into a veritable killing machine to intimidate or bully your peers.

  “Don’t. Period. When we find you doing it, we’ll send you home, no second chance, no matter who you are.

  “There’s also a second reason. Not to steal Mr. Jenks’s thunder, but let me kick off your survival lessons with one of my own observations. The supernatural world is a violent and dangerous place. It is also a murky, mysterious place where things aren’t always what you think. Assuming you are superior to someone else and using your abili
ties against one of your peers might result in them kicking your ass. It’s one thing to be physically imposing like… what’s your name?” Chris asked the giant werewolf boy.

  “Delwood,” he said, tying to be cool about it but just looking smug.

  “Right. So Delwood is an imposing guy. What you might not know is that he is also a werewolf. That makes him strong and tough with a second form about the size of a black bear. You might be thinking he is the most dangerous student among you. But you would be very, very wrong. There are at least a couple students here who are vastly more dangerous… and you probably won’t be able to point them out for a least a few weeks, if even then. There are also those among you who have yet to fully develop their abilities. So no bullying, no use of magic against each other unless supervised, and no violence.”

  Delwood the werewolf looked seriously displeased. In fact, he started looking around the room like he was going to find whomever Chris was talking about and take back the title of most dangerous right then and there.

  “Sorry, Delwood. I didn’t mean to pick on you. But my warning is valid. Let’s say one of the twins over there,” Chris said, waving at the blonde Viking witches, “—got ahold of a strand of your hair. She could cast a spell on it and pretty much make you her bitch. Not that she would, I’m just making a point. As time goes on, you will all learn more about your classmates. I guarantee you will be surprised.”

  I glanced at the twins and the one I had begun to think of as a bit stuck up was blushing furiously and looking embarrassed and her sister first went wide-eyed, then glanced at her sibliling with an I told you so look.

  “So I might suggest you work with each other and not against one another. Look at it this way. As Gina said, the supernatural cat is out of the bag. Which is my fault, by the way. The world knows you exist. And people, no matter what race or species they are, tend to be intolerant at the best of times. You’ll do better together rather than separately. The connections you make here might just change your life… or save it.

  “That’s it. So now we can eat. Right Gina?” he asked. She nodded and flashed a quick smile, but her eyes studied him even as she was standing up. Before she could speak, Chris turned back to us.

  “One last thing. Your welcome packet has a contact number in it for the Demidova Corp. If you need me, really need me, call that number, give your name, and ask for me. You will be patched through to myself, Tanya, or one of our team. But that’s for serious problems and emergencies because Gina and her staff more than have things under control.”

  “I think we can manage,” Gina said dryly but still smiling. “All right, if you will all file in an orderly fashion out this side door and down the hall to the first left. Dinner tonight is a buffet style and I think there is something for everyone.”

  The other teachers stood and moved to the bottom of the steps, covering all the sections and herding the students toward the doors that Gina and Chris had already walked through.

  Mack and Jetta stood up, shared a glance, then both looked our way. “So, he was sitting behind us for how long?” Mack asked. There was no question who he was speaking about.

  “Not sure, maybe the whole time. He has lots of… skills,” I said.

  “You know him, don’t you?” Jetta asked.

  “Yes, and it appears so do you,” Caeco replied.

  “True. He intervened and saved our lives just before he got shot. But that’s a long story,” Mack said, following his sister toward the stairway. “How about you?”

  I looked at Caeco and read agreement in her eyes. “You know that whole thing with the missile silo in New Hampshire?” I asked. They both nodded. “We were there. With his goddaughter. But it’s a bit of a story too,” I said.

  “Wow, understatement much? Maybe later we can trade stories,” Jetta offered. I nodded, then looked toward the end of the row where our stairway was. The vampire girl was still sitting and making no bones about staring at us curiously. I gave her a nod, but she just tilted her head slightly, then looked down at her phone and started texting or something. Odd or snobby or maybe just normal by vampire standards. I was mildly curious, but my brief interactions with the vampires of Tanya’s group had taught me serious respect for the species’ abilities. Keeping our distance would be a really, really good idea.

  She was still sitting there when we filed out the door and into the hall. Sitting and texting. Wasn’t she coming to dinner? Oh wait, if she did, then who would be her dinner?

  Chapter 3

  The dining room shared the brick-wall-and-open-overhead-décor style of the classroom, but the concrete floor was colored to look like granite. That made it seem a bit dressier, as did the various pieces of art hung on the walls. The air smelled of delicious foods and my stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  Eight round tables were spaced about the room, draped with white tablecloths and each set for eight places. Three long buffet tables were set with stainless steel chafing dishes lined up, each with a card identifying its contents. At the end of two of the tables were carving stations; one chef cutting roast beef, the other slicing a turkey and a ham. Chris was already at the roast beef station, two overloaded plates in his hands, chatting with the chef. There were a few other smaller tables with other things on the sides of the dining room.

  We were among the last to arrive but there was obviously lots of food. One buffet table was nothing but salad and cooked vegetables. Jetta headed to the line of girls already there, while Mack, Caeco, and I gravitated to the table with the turkey and ham.

  Gina had been right. There was something for everyone. There was even a taco table set up with all the fixings and another table of nothing but desserts. I loaded a plate with mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn before accepting a big slice each of turkey and ham. Caeco had already secured a table and I headed her way.

  A few moments later, Mack showed up, followed by his sister, who had a really serious salad mounded onto her plate. We still had four places open but nobody else sat down. That is until Chris came over, leading the two girls who’d been sitting behind the witches.

  “Declan, Caeco, meet Ariel and her roommate, Ashley. And this is Jetta and her brother, Mack,” he said, smiling.

  My radar was up. First the look and the nod in the classroom and now a direct introduction. He had an agenda.

  “Ariel is precognitive and Ashley has a very special form of telepathy. Mack and Jetta are extremely capable hunters. And Declan and Caeco are the reason my goddaughter is still alive. The six of you should get to know one another,”

  he said, giving me a clap on the back. “And Declan, can I see you after dinner? There’s a certain something I’d like you to take a look at for me,” he said.

  “Ah, sure Chris. Where will I find you?” I asked, already having a pretty good idea what he wanted me to look at.

  “Gina’s apartment is at the other end of this floor. Just knock on the door marked Director.”

  He smiled and nodded at everyone, then proceeded back to the teachers’ table, veering past the taco station and grabbing a pair of tacos.

  Almost everyone in the room had seen that little exchange, most of them staring at us curiously. At the witch table, one of the Viking girls looked like she smelled something foul while her sister seemed puzzled. Ryanne was staring as well, but when my eyes found hers, she just smiled and winked, then went back to eating. Beside her, the fourth witch looked our way for a moment, mildly curious maybe, before going back to her own food.

  At our table, we all looked awkwardly at each other. Ashley, who was really quite pretty, pointed her fork at Caeco and me.

  “You two saved his goddaughter? For real?” she asked, incredulous.

  “We were in the missile silo with her. The people who held her were using her as bait to bring Chris in. It worked a little too well for them,” I said.

  “Why were you there?” Jetta asked.