“Kurt, whatcha doing?” Declan asked the young man who was sprawled on the floor outside Declan’s room, sniffing the bottom of the door.
“There’s a vampire in there. A female one,” the kid accused, face almost snarling.
“Yup. Not really polite to stick your snout under other people’s doors, you know.”
The kid frowned angrily. “What are you doing with a vampire in your room?”
“None of your business.”
“Does your girlfriend know?” the young werewolf asked, suspicious.
“Does his girlfriend know what?” another, much deeper voice asked. Declan and Kurt turned to find a giant standing in the hallway, frowning at both of them.
“He has a female vampire hidden in his room,” Kurt said.
The black-bearded giant turned to Declan, who looked back at him calmly. “That true, Deuceland?”
“In the interests of keeping you from shoving your snout under my door too, Smell Hood, then yes.”
“Does your wolf mate know?” Dellwood asked.
“Again, not anyone’s business. But yes. Now, Kurt, get away from my door and don’t disturb my guest or I’m going to fry you whole,” Declan said. The hall lights flickered.
“You should probably move, Kurt. It seems he means it,” Dellwood said, looking up at the dimming and fluttering lights with a frown.
“But he shouldn’t have a girl in there,” Kurt protested.
Dellwood moved suddenly, the air of his passage moving Declan’s hair. Dellwood had the smaller werewolf up against the wall, one hand around the kid’s neck, Kurt’s sneakers hanging two feet off the ground.
“Kurt,” Dellwood said, deep voice deceptively mild. “When I tell you something, you don’t argue with me in front of others.” He shook the other male lightly, then dropped him to the ground.
“What’s going on?” a new, female voice asked.
All three turned to find Dellwood’s sister, Clary, with a guy that Declan didn’t know.
Kurt opened his mouth and sucked in a breath, then froze when Dellwood looked his way.
Declan sighed.
“A friend is staying in my room for daytime cover. Kurt was overly curious,” Declan said.
Clary sniffed the air twice. “Nika? Tanya’s almost sister?” she asked mildly. The kid next to her gave her a sharp look at the names.
Declan just nodded.
“Kurt, if you’re gonna sniff everything out, you gotta learn to keep it to yourself. Declan will fry you if you bother his guests,” Clary said. The boy with her now turned huge eyes on Declan.
“Who’s your friend, Clary?” Declan asked, uncomfortable with the intense staring.
“Oh, this is Keitan. He’s new,” she said.
“To Arcane? Or everything?” Declan asked.
“Everything. Keitan, this is Declan.”
The kid nodded hello but made no move to come any closer.
“Aww, you shouldn’t be worried about any witches,” Kurt said, noticing his caution. “Even old Declan,” he said, putting one hand on Declan’s shoulder and shoving playfully with werewolf strength. Declan went back against the wall with a thud, but not before a thick, blue spark snapped out and shocked Kurt right off his feet.
He lay there stunned until Dellwood reached one hand down and picked him up by the waist of his pants like a sack. “Making us look stupid, Kurt. I think we need to talk about things we’ve already talked about. Like representing the team.”
He carried the kid down the hall to the last room on the left, opened the door, and tossed the young werewolf through before following him inside.
Declan pulled himself away from the wall. “Welcome to Arcane, Keitan. It’s usually a nice place.”
“Declan’s right. Kurt’s just being a weenie. Too snoopy, and he has a short memory for how powerful witches can be, especially Declan.” She reached down and took the other kid’s hand in hers. “We’re gonna grab an early dinner. See you around, Declan.”
“Bye, Clary,” the witch said, watching them leave with a bemused look. When they were gone, he checked over his door wards to make sure they were untouched. As he finished, his Bluetooth unit spoke in his ear.
“Father, Chris’s group is arriving in the next five minutes.”
“Thank you, Omega,” he said. The door to his room suddenly opened, revealing Nika standing there.
“Drama done?” she asked, although he knew she knew the answer long before opening the door.
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Some of the kids here are kinda busybodies.”
“Actually not as much as you think. It’s just that you occupy a particular place here and almost anything you do is interesting to the rest. Plus Stacia is the global face of weres. He’s expecting you to do something stupid and mess up your relationship.”
“Well, the odds of me doing something stupid are admittedly high, but I have no interest in messing up.”
She raised one eyebrow and smirked. “Yeah, I know that you know it as soon as I think it, but I still like to say it,” he said. “Chris and the team, or at least part of them, should be here any minute.”
“Tanya, Galina, and Lydia to Europe, huh?”
“Yeah. Some issue with Elders,” he said.
“Hmm, I’ll text Lydia while I get ready. Just give me a few minutes,” she said.
“I’ll go meet them in the parking lot.”
“Right, see you down there in a few.”
Declan turned and headed back downstairs, arriving at the main door, which was already crowding up with people. Gina and Toni Velasquez were there, along with a few of the staff members. Mr. Jenks, the defense teacher, was conspicuously absent, which surprised Declan not at all.
Beyond that, a group of kids were hanging around, intensely curious about the possibility of seeing the co-founder of the school.
Out in the parking lot, three big black SUVs pulled in and swung around till they came to stop right in front of the school. Doors opened and dark-suited men and women stepped out, scanning the area. Then the rear door of the middle car opened and a giant wolf flowed out, followed by Chris.
Declan pushed past the kids in the entry and held the door for Toni and her mother, then followed them out to greet the caravan. Awasos snuffled Toni and her mother, gave Declan a sniff, then took up a guard post spot on the sidewalk.
“Hey, how was the ride?” Declan asked Chris as the God Hammer turned and handed Toni one of the twins, Cora.
“Long, but the leaves got more colorful the further north we came,” Chris said, handing Wulf to Declan.
“Ajik?” the tiny boy asked, eyes gleaming as he held onto Declan. Cora spun around in Toni’s arms at the word. “Ajik?” she repeated, staring at Declan.
With a laugh, Declan turned his right palm up and formed a ball of blue lighting, just about the size of a billiard ball. Then its crackling, snapping arcs became smooth and silvery like a spinning orb of liquid mercury. The round shape lengthened out into a teardrop, then a tendril of silver that stretched forth a frond to tickle Wulf’s nose. At his giggle, the tendril snapped back like it was scared, becoming an orb once more. The mirrored surface expanded and the ball grew to orange-sized, then grapefruit-sized, and finally melon-sized, the silver turning to rainbow colors before it burst apart silently into droplets of individual colors that evaporated instantly into nothingness.
“Mor’, mor’, mor’,” a pair of little voices chorused.
“Now, now, let’s get everyone inside before Uncle Declan does more magic,” Toni said, sounding closer to forty than fourteen. Putting action to her words, she carried Cora inside, where a pack of young witches immediately crowded around the cute toddler. Declan followed a pace or two behind, not that distance mattered as he too was instantly swarmed, or rather, Wulf was. Within seconds, he was relieved of his burden by Erika, and oddly, it was her own twin, Britta, who now held Cora.
The rest of the party came indoors: Chris, Gina, Deckert and about half his people, and, of course, Awasos, who was himself the center of attention by the weres in the building’s foyer.
Relieved of the twins, Declan followed Chris and Gina into Gina’s office, where he gave them both an update on the state of the demon situation as he knew it.
“You think this demon came over, fully incarnate, from Fairie?” Gina asked.
“We closed a portal in Florida that has obvious ties to Fairie,” Chris said.
“Likely Summer,” Declan said. Gina raised an eyebrow in question. “It was guarded by Tinks and Summer goblins.”
“Wait, Florida? Do you think… Walt Disney?” Gina asked.
“Sure, why not? It was an older portal,” Declan said.
“The point is,” Chris said, waving the Disney bit aside, “that we tracked this thing up the East Coast.”
“And it did something to Toni’s necklace?” Gina asked, voice firming as she said her daughter’s name.
“And killed your family dentist,” Chris said, nodding.
“Why?”
“Remove a source of information. Nika would have been able to gather a lot of intel from poor Dr. Reynolds,” Chris said.
“Why so bloody? Why not an accident?” Gina asked.
“She might be just indulging her demonic nature,” Declan answered.
“Or throwing out a challenge,” Chris said.
“But either way, it confirms she’s here—in Burlington, Vermont,” Gina said with the slightest tremor. “Why, ah, why didn’t she attack Toni?”
Chris turned to Declan, who was frowning. The young witch shook his head. “She had to be so, so careful when Toni was in that chair. Any threat, any trace of her true nature would have triggered the necklace and she would have had to fight the full power of the guardian inside it. Whatever her purpose here—and the more I think about it, the more I think she has a specific purpose—well, getting into a fight with a God Tear-powered entity wasn’t it. No, I think it was to set a trap. Probably for me.”
“Why?” Gina asked. Chris opened his mouth to answer and she held up one hand, nodding at the witch, who was looking down at the tabletop. Slowly, he closed his mouth and waited, curious as to why she wanted Declan’s answer.
“The Summer Queen opened a portal to Earth for an agent of Hell. Why? And why didn’t a whole army of demons come through? She set a trap, a trap that seems aimed at me. Now she’s here, in Burlington. Why? Probably to drag me back to Fairie as a payment to Zinnia. Then Zinnia would have to give her some kind of payment, perhaps another gate. One to let Hell march through,” Declan said.
Chris felt a chill run down his spine. The Declan connection was always there, but he’d been thinking it more as Hell wanting to subvert the most powerful witch it could find. That the Summer Queen was involved hadn’t really entered his thinking.
“When did you come up with that?” Gina asked, focused on Declan.
“I’ve been thinking about it since coming back from Florida. And talking about it with Omega and Stacia. Now, today, with this slaughterhouse, well, it all just makes sense.”
“So what’s your play? Leave the area? Go into hiding while Chris hunts her down?”
“No, she’ll start hurting friends and family next. She’s around, probably watched me today on campus at some point. She’s hunting me, and now Chris is here to hunt her. So no, no hiding. We gotta think this through and not fall into predicable patterns. Break the box, come at this widdershins. Because that’s how she’s coming at me.”
Chris felt his jaw drop. Declan noticed his expression. “What?”
“That’s pretty much the only advice that Barbiel was able to give me. How did you come up with it?”
“I still know everything that was in the Book of Darkest Sorrow. Lots of demon lore. Girl demons are really tricky, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what Barbiel said.”