Strange Academy (Hot Paranormal Romance) Page 9
There was nothing left. Gray had won. She’d leave. Just start driving and not stop.
Knowing it was pointless, she wrenched down a last handful of titles. A face appeared in the gap between the books.
Sadie screamed.
When her heart stopped pounding, the pale girl peeked around the corner, big eyes glancing through her bangs. “Carmina! What are you doing here?”
“Please don’t leave Strange Academy.” Carmina’s round eyes went glossy with tears.
Sadie pulled Carmina to her chest, letting the girl sob into her shirt. “You’re the only one like me, Miss Strange.”
“What do you mean?”
Despite their mutual misery, she smiled at the combination of Carmina’s hiccups and her Slavic accent. “Everyone else is...extraordinary. But you are like me. You’re my friend.”
Her stomach plummeted. Most of the teachers had a special bond with a couple of students. The administration even put a lot of research into assigning students a particular faculty advisor long before they arrived. Aunt Pippa’s advisees had all been assigned to other teachers. Sadie had breathed a sigh of relief when she found out.
But here was Carmina, and Sadie hadn’t done anything to make her feel welcome. She was as bad as the snobs around here.
Well, no more, she vowed. Carmina would have a friend.
“But you’re wrong. You are extraordinary, Carmina.” Black eyes wet with tears shone up into hers. “You have great powers of persuasion. You just convinced me not to leave.”
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Gray didn’t feel bad at all. He was happy Sadie was gone. He wouldn’t miss anything about her. Not her sharp tongue. Not the way she treated him exactly like—no, worse than—everyone else. Not the way she filled out her repressed librarian suits.
He flicked on the lights in his classroom, and the twelfth graders followed him, laughing at their fire drill adventure.
“She hiked up her skirt to here—” a boy gestured to a girl who gazed at him with twinkly eyes “—and ran into the library. It was so funny.”
“Settle, people,” he growled, filled with sudden irritation.
The kids did as they were told. They always did, of course. “Who remembers what we did last class?” The question was less a test for them than a reminder for himself.
A hand shot up at the back of the class. He struggled to remember the name of the kid with blue hair, and gave up.
“Temporary reanimation,” he said.
“Then get to it.” Gray’s shrug sent a wave of pain from his stress knot down his spine. Nothing to do with Sadie, he told himself, or the fear in her eyes. Fear of me. Well, she’d called these kids monsters.
How many Nons would have tried to put out a fire that size? he wondered.
He got up and wandered between the science desks as the kids fired up their Bunsen burners. As he approached Irina Love, her back stiffened. “How are you doing?”
“Fine, sir,” she said, but gnawed on her lip.
“Did you remember to make your counterspell first?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Very important with animation.” He smiled at her. Of course, he didn’t tell his classes about the blank counterspell in his desk drawer. In case of an emergency, he could add a sample of any potion and it would become the counterspell.
As he walked away, her back loosened. It was just respect, he told himself. She wasn’t nervous of him.
“Sir? I think I’m ready,” the Leaving kid said. Gray knew his parents from the incident with the time rift on the Oxford University campus.
“Cast your magic circle, then.” Leaving shoved his Coke-bottle glasses up his nose before pouring some golden dust out of a vial. The dust settled into a perfect circle around the dead frog on the desk.
Gray poked the air above the circle with a finger and was rewarded with a painful zap shooting to his elbow. “Not bad.”
Leaving puffed up a little.
“Have your counterspell handy—reanimation spells are notorious for going wrong.”
Wham! The door banged open.
“Gray.” Sadie’s pointed chin aimed at him in defiance.
Her eye makeup had run a little, making dark eyes darker. She looked like a Goth out for Halloween in a librarian costume.
Something in his chest thudded. “You didn’t leave.”
She seemed to become aware of the students. She laughed nervously. “Oh, you have a class. Guess the periods changed. I’ll come back some other time.” And then her jaw dropped. Gray followed her line of sight straight to Leaving’s desk.
A drop of animation spell hovered on the lip of his beaker, just above the dead frog. The moment froze. Sadie’s interest. Leaving’s fear. His own panic.
The drop fell. The potion contacted the gray frog and its skin bloomed, a perfect healthy green. The frog, temporarily returned to pseudo-life, wiggled and righted itself.
The room went silent. Just to be irritating, the idiot frog gave the loudest croak in creation.
She turned to the chalkboard, where he’d written the homework assignment for the previous class in hieroglyphics. At least she couldn’t read hieroglyphics.
“Grade 5 Alchemy. Chapter Seven: Transmutation of Base Metals to Gold,” she translated.
“Fuck,” said Gray, before he could stop himself. Were hieroglyphics important in comic books or something?
A dozen teenaged heads swiveled toward Gray. Fix this, they silently pleaded with him.
He squared his shoulders.
“Leaving, you’re in charge.” Gray vaulted over a desk and shoved Sadie out the door.
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“You’re doing magic in there.” Her calm tone made Gray’s stress knot pulse. Why wasn’t she hysterical?
“Nah, couldn’t be.” His mind spun, searching for the solution to this problem. “You must be dreaming.”
“I dream about Aunt Pippa, not the students doing magic.”
Gray slipped a vial out of his inside jacket pocket and pressed it into her hand. One sip and this would all be over. Just like before. If she could forget their first kiss, she could forget anything. First kiss? Only kiss, he corrected himself. “Why don’t you drink this? You’ll feel better.”
She took the vial, barely noticing it. “Is your class the only one?” Sadie rapped her foot on the floor of the hallway distractedly. “No, all the kids here are...extraordinary.”
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“This makes so much sense. Things Jewel said...The way you freaked out when I called them monsters...Count Burana...” Sadie gave a nervous laugh. “You know, this is funny, but at times, I thought he was...”
“He is. Drink up, now.”
“And my aunt who thought she was a witch?”
“Was a witch.” Gray popped the lid from the vial. One drop. Just one drop would fix both her brain and his clamped stomach. “Why are you still here?”
“Carmina convinced me to stay. I came here to tell you.” Gray’s gaze followed her hand, which she waved around, seemingly unaware of the vial. Her eyes widened. “Carmina. Is she...”
“Not yet.”
Sadie slumped against the wall. “Aunt Pippa really was a witch. Which means...” Her face went white.
“Don’t faint and hit your head.” He moved closer, ready to steady her. “Head wounds bleed like a sonovabitch.”
The hand without the potion in it flattened against him, just above his belt. Her fingers burned through his silk shirt. “The letter. I got a letter from her the day she died. But if she was a witch, then she could have known she was going to die. A witch could, right?”
Her eyes searched his, looking for the truth. He nodded.
“So no one killed her,” Sadie concluded.
“You thought someone did?” He pulled away.
She nodded. “I thought everyone was hiding something. But it was just the magic.”
Just the magic. Her reaction was nothing like he expected. Nothing. Her entire world had just changed; she should be freaking out. Instead, she asked about people. Burana. Carmina. Pippa. Her eye wasn’t even twitching. “You’re taking this very well.”
She absentmindedly raised the vial to her mouth and tipped it. He tensed, but just before the first drop reached her tongue, she pulled it away. “Dammit! All these kids have magic?”
“Not all. I guess some of them, you’d call them mutants. Genetic anomalies.”
“But you’d call them ‘Metas.’”
“Short for Metanormals.”
“Superheroes,” she said. “And I’m a...Non? Is that the word for normal people?”
Gray nodded.
“No wonder I suck teaching here. I’ve been in the hole since day one. They should have a teacher like them.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying for the last month.”
She lifted the vial to her lips and paused. “I suppose you really are the most extraordinary chemistry teacher in the world. Are you a wizard?”
She’d forget this anyway, he told himself. Why did he feel a pang of regret? “I prefer mage.”
“Well, Mr. Mage, I suppose it never occurred to you—” The sentence died on her lips. For the first time, Sadie looked at the vial in her hand. She stepped back, and he winced at her wide-eyed fear. “Are you trying to poison me?”
Chapter Eight
A million things added up in Sadie’s head. Why hadn’t she seen all this before? It was so obvious. How could she have imagined this was an ordinary school hallway, with ordinary lockers lining the walls? Why hadn’t she sensed the air of specialness at the school? What was wrong with her perceptions—couldn’t she see what was in front of her?
No wonder Gray treated her like an idiot. A chemistry teacher? Ha! Maybe, just maybe, he really was the most extraordinary chemistry teacher in the whole wide world.
He gestured toward the vial. “It’s not poison. It’ll just erase your memory. Perfectly safe. Drink up.”
The smell wafting up from the vial was oddly familiar. Something grassy, herbal.
“No way,” she told him. “Period. Is the silver coat you wore when Count Burana came to see me your superhero costume? Do you wear tights under it?”
“Listen very carefully.” He enunciated every word. “I have never—ever—owned spandex in my life. Not ever. And stop calling us superheroes. The word is Meta. And a few extra pockets for spells doesn’t make it a costume.”
Her own real-life superhero. Sadie’s heart pounded. No. Gray wasn’t hers. He didn’t even like her. Seeing the glass vial in her hand drove that home. “I won’t drink it, Gray. It’s my decision.”
He looked at the potion. Then he looked at her. She met his gray eyes and her heartbeat zoomed. He had eighty pounds on her. Hell, he was a wizard. He could dump it down her throat. Poof. Instant zombie. Or whatever. Her flight reflex kicked in, but his long legs versus her high heels? No contest.
Was he a good wizard or a bad wizard? Sadie felt her eye twitch. She drew in a breath. The tension in the hall gathered and hovered between them. They both knew he could force her.
A fierce, frozen moment passed.
“Your eye is twitching,” he said blandly, and looked away.
She exhaled in relief.
There was concrete in his voice when he spoke again. “You can’t even begin to understand the ramifications of this decision.”
“You’re a teacher.” She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Educate me.”
“I have class,” he said, dryly.
She barely repressed a snort. “That’s debatable. I’ll meet you after.”
“The chance of brain damage goes up exponentially every hour you wait,” Gray explained in a reasonable tone. Then he caught her eye. “Hmm. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that part.”
“Whoops,” she agreed. Another really good reason not to drink it. “Meet me after class. You have to tell me everything.”
He ran his fingers through his shiny hair. “I don’t have to tell you anything. Talk to Cross.”
She shook her head. “You’re the only one around here who hasn’t lied to me, aren’t you? You may have been completely evil to me, but you didn’t lie.”
He didn’t answer, confirming her suspicions. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll find you after class. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Despite the shivering in her belly, she tried for a smile. “Like invite an Eastern European into a children’s dormitory?”
His lip twitched. “Or poke around in the basement.”
Okay, that was confusing. “Why?” she asked. “What’s in the basement?”
Gray scowled and opened the door to his classroom.
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An hour later, Gray leaned against the Lost Arts Building, feeling the chill of the stone wall through his leather coat, and watched Sadie walking along the black pathway. She didn’t acknowledge him. Not surprising, since he wore an invisibility potion. He was a pair of footprints in a crusty snowdrift against the wall, and nothing more.
It snowed without enthusiasm. An occasional flake floated down onto the black tarmac of the campus path as if it didn’t have anything better to do.
He watched as Sadie’s ankle turned on a slick patch of pathway. But she caught herself and continued on, ignoring her stumble. Nearby, three young witches from the Senior Coven giggled behind their hands. Sadie shrugged.
He looked at his hand, outstretched to catch her. He folded it under his armpit. Of course. That was just his instincts kicking in. She was a Non. He was trained to protect them. His stress knot dug into his shoulder blade like a knife.
Breath escaped from Sadie’s pink lips in chilly white puffs. She wore an old-fashioned black coat a couple of sizes too big for her. Except for the red circles the cold made on her cheeks, you could barely tell where her white scarf ended and her pale skin began. What was she doing now? Why was she unzipping that blond kid’s backpack?
Black leather wings exploded into the air, knocking Sadie back. He winced as she landed on her heart-shaped ass, the air escaping her with a whoosh.
Nikkos. Even at this distance, he saw tears welling up in the boy’s eyes. He probably thought he’d get suspended for letting the cat—or hydra—out of the bag. He reached into his coat pocket for the invisibility counterspell.
“Well, this is—” the masculine voice paused for a dramatic beat “—freakish.”
He twisted and saw the owner of the voice. “Dr. Cross. I was just...uh...”
“Stalking her?” Cross tipped his chin toward Sadie. “Seems Miss Strange has discovered more than we wanted her to know.”
Gray watched Sadie put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and, even though he didn’t hear the words, he caught the reassuring tone of her voice.
“It’s—” Not my fault, Gray nearly said, having flashbacks to his school days, when he’d had to defer to Cross. Dammit, he wasn’t some student who’d done something wrong. He hardened his tone. “I said this would happen. No one listened.”
“You did,” Cross agreed. “Loudly. I remember, because the ringing in my ears didn’t go away for a week.”
The hydra looped crazy circles in the sky. Sadie stared up, her jaw dropped in wonder. His vow had come true. Nikkos’s pet was out in the open and it wasn’t Christmas yet. But he hadn’t done it. She had.
“You expected this,” he said.
Cross shrugged, not taking his eyes off Sadie. “She’s Pippa Strange’s niece.”
“You knew she’d figure it out. But she’s Pippa Strange’s niece, so it’s okay? Don’t you think letting a Non know about this place is dangerous? One e-mail to a newspaper and we burn eight centuries of secrecy.”
“Temple moves in mysterious ways. Mine are les
s mysterious. I have appropriate countermeasures in place. Nothing is more important than this school. Not you. Not me. Not Sadie Strange.” Cross blew out a long stream of white breath and watched it float off. “You understand things. Explain them to her.”
There was no point in asking Cross about his countermeasures. Instead, Gray watched the hydra spiral down to land on Nikkos’s shoulder, one head whuffling at blond curls, the other eyeing Sadie. He nodded and started toward Sadie.
“Gray,” Cross called to him. “She might take it better if you’re visible at the time.”
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“Nikkos.” Sadie started at the growly voice behind her. Gray walked down the path toward them, wearing a smoke-gray leather coat that matched his eyes and emphasized his broad shoulders. The brisk, snowflake-touched breeze ruffled his black hair.
“You’re not in trouble,” Gray said to the boy.
A sweat bead dripped from Nikkos’s temple. “The principal—”
“He knows.”
Nikkos visibly relaxed, more relieved by Gray’s words than by anything she could say.
The hydra launched herself from Nikkos’s shoulder with a cry of pleasure, soaring to a height where any Non who saw her would mistake her for an eagle. Sadie caught the grin on Nikkos’s face before he walked off toward Strange Hall.
“She looks good.” Gray stared up at Iphigenia the hydra, a black dot against a sky tinged purple by the setting sun.
“A real hydra. Amazing.” Even to herself, her breathy voice sounded full of wonder.
Gray shrugged. “I guess.”
He strode down the path and, for an instant, she hesitated. Was she supposed to follow? She supposed so and hurried to catch up.
They walked in silence for a while. When they came to a crossing of three tarmac paths, she let Gray lead them down the one running behind Strange Hall.
A few snowflakes stuck in the black waves of Gray’s hair. She could deal with magic being real. It was harder to accept she and Gray could actually walk together and not snipe at each other.
She wasn’t the only one surprised. Several of the students who passed them on the path did head-swinging double takes in their direction.