Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (6 page)

“Stacia, you mean Stacia Reynolds?” I
asked.

Mack nodded with a gleam in his eyes and a
wistful smile. “Yeah, how could I forget
her
name?”

“Dude, really,” I agreed, which earned me a
raised eyebrow from Caeco. “Oh please. Like you didn’t already
admit that you thought Chris was hot? We’ve covered this already,”
I said.

“I will grant you that both Tanya and Stacia
are attractive, but you don’t have to be quite so enthused about
it,” Caeco said.

“Did I ever embarrass you in front of them?
Drool or anything?” I asked.

“No. No you didn’t,” she admitted. “But only
because your brain had basically shut down.”

“Wait. You know
her
and Tanya too?”
Mack asked.

“We’ve met,” Caeco said, just a touch
stiffly. I was nodding at him with a big smile from my secure
position behind her. A sharp elbow came back and smacked my
stomach.

“Oof. Yeah, just in passing” I said. “Most of
his team came along to finish the rescue of Toni. Not much for them
to do, though. Chris and Tanya kind of obliterated the place.”

“Wow, you got to see them work up close and
personal? Against AIR operatives?”

“We saw the aftermath. They went through that
place so fast, there wasn’t time to see them do much—other than
Chris tearing apart our jail cells like toilet paper.”

“Shit, that must have been unreal,” Mack
said.

“Extremely unreal. I’ve fought AIR combatants
most of my life, and they were never pushovers,” Caeco said.

“What? Your whole life? Bullshit. Now you’re
making stuff up,” Jetta said.

Caeco had said more than I think she’d
intended to, but now that Jetta was calling her out, I could just
about tell the moment she decided to share more.

“I was raised in an AIR lab. Trained to fight
from birth. My opponents were almost always AIR agents. Singles,
then pairs, and finally entire Gladus teams. Of course, I usually
had weapons and time to plan.”

“Why? Why would they train some little kid
like that?” Ashley asked.

“Because they built me to fight and they
wanted me trained properly,” Caeco said.

“They
built
you?” Jetta asked.

“I’m a test tube baby,” Caeco said.

“Genetic engineering?” Ariel questioned.

Caeco just nodded, leaving everyone silent
while they thought about that.

“So no wonder you could beat up that agent in
Toni’s cell,” Mack said admiringly.

“Miseri was tough. I had a lot of help,”
Caeco said with a glance my way.

“So you’re like the Bruce Lee of warlocks?”
Jetta asked me.

“Not so much, but I can punch throats with
the best of them,” I said.

“So what did Chris want you to look at?”
Ariel asked.

“My aunt did some work for him. He asked me
to look the spells over and make sure they were all okay.”

“Work?” Ashley asked.

“Basically a very complex set of wards to
protect Toni and her family,” I said.

“And you’re a good enough warlock to do
that?” Ariel asked.

“Yes, I helped Aunt Ash make them in the
first place so other than her, I’m the best one to check it
out.”

“So what happens if a student plays a prank
on her or something?” Jetta asked.

“That’s a remarkably bad idea,” Caeco
said.

“But what if it’s another witch and they
circumvent the spell or whatever?” Jetta pressed.

“That would be really bad for them, like
possibly lethally bad,” I said, trying to think of what the
dopplegheist necklace might do. “I don’t think the
wards
would let that happen, unless maybe my aunt did it.”

“Or you. The spells recognized you, right?”
Caeco said.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’m getting the impression that you’re not
an ordinary warlock,” Ariel said.

Caeco snorted but let me answer. “That’s…
true,” I said, not wanting to continue. “But enough about me.
What’s everyone’s schedule look like?”

It didn’t fool anyone, but they all allowed
my blunt attempt to change topics, and we all discussed our
classes. Most were attending UVM, but Ashley had courses on the
Champlain College campus, which was almost adjacent to UVM. The
discussion changed to picking up books and meeting for lunch at the
Davis Student Center the next day.

“Hey, what’s up with the blonde twins and
their little pack of groupies?” Ashley asked. “Personally, I think
they’re going to be trouble.”

“The real trouble is that giant meathead wolf
kid… Delwood. He already think’s he’s king shit,” Mack said.

“Well, Chris said he isn’t. Who do you think
he was talking about?” Jetta asked.

“Time will tell. But I have some ideas,”
Ashley said, “that I’m not ready to share,” she finished with a
cryptic grin. I was looking at a little decorative twig house that
was on the top of the built-in bookshelf on Ashley’s desk. The tone
she used made me turn to get a look at her, but she wasn’t making
eye contact with anyone, just looking down at her hands as she
spoke. There was an awkward silence so I took it upon myself to
give her a hand.

“Ashley? What’s this thing? It looks like a
fairy house,” I said, more to change topics than anything else. Her
head whipped up and her eyes widened. “Don’t touch that!” she
said.

I snatched my fingers away before they could
make contact and raised both eyebrows at her.

“It’s… delicate,” she finished, a little
lamely.

I looked at it with my Sight and while I
still couldn’t see into the dark interior, it fairly glowed with
magic. And movement… something was inside it, something that might
be alive. Not saying a word, I sat back down next to Mack and
studied the little house from a distance while the girls turned to
fashion topics.

After a bit, we all headed back to our own
rooms, agreeing that the next day, after get our books, we would
find our classrooms, possibly have lunch, explore downtown, and
maybe begin some Caeco-fu lessons.

Chapter 6

As a first year computer science major, I had
Website design, Calculus (yuck, more calc), Introduction to
Programming, English 1 (expressive writing), and a TAP class, which
if I understood it was a writing intensive seminar. Great. My TAP
class was listed as Awakenings taught at an ‘alternative venue’ by
a G. Velasquez on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Caeco had all different courses except the
same TAP class, which was obviously the ARCANE class that Gina
taught.

Mack and Jetta hitched a ride in the mighty
Beast up the hill and we went to the bookstore in the Davis center
and picked up our books. Jetta, still technically a high school
student, was only taking three classes on the campus: an English
course, a math course that seemed like it might be a combination of
Trig and pre-calc, and a first-year American history class. She had
to go to a local high school three days a week for a biology class
and lab. Between the thought of exposure to high school and the
cold of northern Vermont in January, she looked pretty down.

“Hey, you only have to go for a couple hours
on three days. The rest of the time, you get to hang with us,” I
said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. She glanced up at my
reflection, then huddled back down into her brand-new Eddie Bauer
jacket and looked out the window.

“Awesome. Stuck at the Arctic Circle with
werewolves and witches. If my ass doesn’t freeze off, someone will
either bite it off or blast it with a spell,” she muttered.

“No one’s blasting my roomie with a spell,”
Caeco said, looking concerned. After a moment, she seemed to reach
a decision. She put her hand to the back of her neck and pulled off
the necklace I’d made her. “Here, put this on. It’ll protect you
from spells, right Declan?”

“Err, quite a few,” I said, looking at her
sidelong. That necklace was the first gift anyone had ever given
her.

Jetta put up both hands. “I can’t take that,”
she said. “Declan made it for
you.
”

A little flash of relief crossed Caeco’s face
but changed to determination. I intervened, even as I realized that
Caeco must have told Jetta about the necklace before.

“I’ll make each of them their own,” I said
hurriedly.

“Will they even help much. I mean, no
offense, but aren’t those girl witches lots more powerful?” Mack
asked.

“Ha. Don’t believe the stereotype, Mack.
Declan’s magic will stop all of them combined,” Caeco said.

I wasn’t so sure about that. I mean, I knew
what my Aunt Ash said and all, but come on… she was my aunt and
more than a little biased. I hadn’t ever gone up against any other
real witches before. Squared off with some, yeah, but we never got
to throwing power around.

“Warlocks are supposed to be weak,” Jetta
said.

“
Supposed to
is different from what
actually is. When you’re the product of five centuries of selective
breeding and your mother was arguably the strongest witch ever
produced by Ireland, well, things are different,” Caeco said.

I shot her a look, but she ignored me. The
siblings didn’t, though.

“Keeping that secret, Declan? Smart. We won’t
tell,” Jetta said, leaning back in her seat and actually coming out
of her huddle a bit.

“I’ll make you guys some amulets… maybe a
couple for Ashley and Ariel too,” I said, making eye contact with
both of them in the rearview.

“They seem nice, but I don’t think they’re
used to tough situations.”

“We might be surprised,” I said, thinking
that one of them had freed Chris and the other was basically a
diplomatic envoy to an entire planet.

We parked the Beast and lugged our books into
the main entrance of ARCANE, waving our ID cards over the locks and
nodding to the Oracle guards, who nodded back.

“I’m going to grab a Gatorade from the
vending machines. Anyone want one?”

“No thanks. Too much sugar,” Caeco replied.
Mack and Jetta just shook their heads and headed up the stairs.

“’Kay, see you in a minute or two,” I said as
Caeco followed them.

Heading toward the alcove in the hall where
the vending machines lived, I suddenly heard a little voice.

“Declan,” Toni called from down by her
family’s apartment. She started for me, but just as she crossed the
entrance to the dining room, a pack of boys came thundering out,
led by a six-five behemoth. My first thought was that she would be
flattened or at least bumped around. Then my Sight swam and twisted
as I felt the moment the necklace activated. It was like the buzz
of a million bees, all compressed into a microsecond burst of
sound. The pack of werewolves were split forcibly apart like a
river flowing around a rock, several of them stumbling.

“What the fuck,” Delwood said, coming to a
halt and spinning back toward the little girl. I was already
halfway there, having dropped my books and moved into a sprint.

“What are you? A pint-sized witch? Throwing
your magic around might get you into trouble, and you’re barely a
couple of bites,” he growled at her. The other boys surrounded her,
most still trying to figure out what had happened.

I slid between two of them and put an arm
around Toni. “Not her fault, Delwood. If you guys had been more
careful, it wouldn’t have happened. But everything’s okay, so let
me just get her back to where she belongs,” I said.

“Fuck that. She’s the one who needs to watch
what’s she’s doing,” Delwood said, focusing his sudden anger on
me.

“She’s like nine, dude. Lighten up.” There
went my mouth, all on its own.

“Then it’s past time she learned how things
work,” Delwood said, putting one massive hand on my chest. Krav
seemed unsuited to the task of dealing with a giant, superhumanly
strong individual who probably couldn’t feel much pain and would
heal almost instantly. I pulled power, enough to put him down.

The hall lights all flickered and went out
and the entire alcove of vending machines went dark.

Just at that moment, heels clicked on the
concrete floor and the blonde twins and Ryanne came around the
corner from the entrance, all carrying shopping bags, coming to a
sudden stop at the tense gathering in the dark. Ignoring them, I
concentrated on the menace in my face.

“Actually, dude, that’s a good idea. This is
Toni Velasquez. Her mother is Gina, ARCANE’s Director and her
godfather is Chris Gordon. The last time anyone hassled her,
he
dropped an asteroid on them. So by all means, big guy,
show us what happens when the big bad wolf goes after little purple
hoody here,” I said, still holding onto the power. I had no idea
what would happen if a freaking werewolf tried anything with Toni.
But my guess was that the necklace would leave nothing but wolf
paste. That would be bad for everyone.

“I donnae think thet anywon will be goin’
after the wee girl, Declan. Am I right there, Delwood?” Ryanne
asked him, a frown on her face.