Prophecy Girl (Angel Academy) (25 page)

Strands of Crossworld power slipped through my fingers…still not enough to channel. If the Queller worked the same as before, my power would strengthen in a few minutes. I just wasn’t sure I had a few minutes.

By the time I got to the Hall of Angels, the bond-warmth inside me flared like a Halloween bonfire. Jack was definitely close. And in trouble. I did another quick scan of the surroundings, then sidled up to the door and gave a firm tug.

Nothing happened.

“
Abertura
,” I whispered, and pulled again, harder. Still nothing.

Okay, whatever wards held this door shut had been charged with a level of power I couldn’t touch yet. Which meant the Graygirl, if she wasn’t already in there, had to be nearby. I’d just begun to entertain the possibility of hacking my way through with Jack’s weapon when I felt an icy hand on my shoulder. I swiveled, blade at the ready.

“Brilliant. Abandon me to a beating on the front lawn, then threaten to chop my head off?” Luc griped. “Bloody Americans.”

I lowered the sword. “Luc, you scared the crap out of me. Where were you?”

“Got tossed by one of your trainers. Blond gentleman. Bit like a Viking. He kept trying to interrogate me.”

“That’s Marcus. You didn’t kill him, did you?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Do I look like a murderer?”

“Frankly, yes,” I admitted, “but Marcus is a good guy. He just follows orders a little too mindlessly. He’s actually kind of funny once you get him talking. There was this one time—”

“Much as I’d love to hear it,” Luc said, with no small measure of sarcasm, “there remains the tiny matter of saving my species.”

“Right, sorry.”

Luc led me down the corridor lining the main offices until we reached the door marked
Faculty Lounge
. He shoved it open.

I’d expected something grand and elegant, with wooden beams and vaulted ceilings. But the room was nothing like that. The walls were gray and rough, à la industrial sandpaper, and the floor hard and slick. At the back corner, a narrow metal staircase wound upward, spiraling in tighter and tighter circles. A dank smell, like wet sheep’s wool, teased my nose and I pinched it, determined not to sneeze. The last thing I needed was my allergies causing some unexpected demon rift.

“Let’s go.” Luc pressed a hand to the small of my back, pushing me toward the stairs.

“Quit groping me.”

The smell grew stronger as we neared the top, and the mildew took on a chalky flavor, like the air of a stonecutter’s quarry.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” I snapped.

“Stunningly, yes. Some of us actually studied the school’s blueprints.” Luc yanked the face off an intricate grate set low in the wall and crawled through it, disappearing into the darkness.

Okay, call me paranoid, but I was beginning to think there might be something about me that made men want to crawl into dark holes. Maybe Lisa was right that I should rethink my feminine mojo.

Inside the heating duct, pale dust bunnies lined the vent walls like permanent tenants. Luc wriggled around on his elbows until we reached the right opening—the one that led to the Hall of Angels—then backed up beside me.

“You go in first,” he said. “Once you get a handle on the situation, signal me.”

Below us, black smoke billowed into the hall, the chandeliers and torchieres dark and bent. Chunks of plaster were scattered across the floor and teardrop-shaped scorch marks stained the walls above the sculpture alcoves. I had to swallow another sneeze as the smell of fuel pushed its way through the mold.

I wrestled out the grate and leaned my head through. Thirteen feet up.

Around the edges of the room, a series of gray blocks was cemented to the walls, each one stuck with a metal pin and draped in black and red wires, not unlike the wires Jack had untangled last night. My stomach plummeted. I’d prepared for a personal threat, for my friends in danger, for Jack at death’s door. But this? What kind of maniac takes a whole building hostage?

A smart one,
my unhelpful inner voice muttered.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Luc asked from behind me.

“Nothing.”

I muttered a quick prayer of gratitude for Henry. If he hadn’t pulled that alarm, there’d be more than just a building at stake.

There already was.

About halfway down the hall, Jack knelt in the center of a charcoal circle, his hands black with blood and limp by his sides. A ripple, like waves of heat, blurred the air around him, but I could tell he was in bad shape. His body sat, hunched, crimson whip-marks staining his shoulder blades, and forearms shredded. It looked like someone had tried to carve the tattooed glyphs out of his skin with a knife.

“Holy crap!” I breathed. “Luc, help me down.”

Luc clasped both my hands in his and swung me down from the vent. I hit the ground hard and fell, only vaguely aware of the bloody smears my hands and feet left across the smooth marble floors. The blood didn’t worry me nearly as much as the crackle over my skin at the grate’s threshold—like a wall of electricity being breached. It couldn’t be an accident the room was warded so heavily when the rest of the building wasn’t; and not just the doors, either. Whoever did this was serious. But what were the wards for? Anti-demon? Containment?

I only wasted a second thinking about it. Wards weren’t my priority. My priority knelt on the floor about twenty feet away. And if I didn’t get him out safely, our whole world would be plunged into war.

I snatched the sword from where it had fallen, pulled myself to my feet, and hurried toward Jack. Whatever charm held him in place would probably affect me, too, so I’d have to be careful. Tightness gripped my foot as I lifted it across the circle’s smudged boundary, and a numb sensation skittered across it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

A deep, cigarette-tinged voice spilled from the edge of the room and I froze. The last time I’d heard that voice, it had been offering me a future, wishing me luck with my post-graduation goals. Lying to me.

“If I were
you,
” I retorted, “I’d throw myself into a lion pit at lunchtime. But I guess we can’t always get what we want.”

The Chancellor laughed. “So much like your father. Pity Alec neglected to finish him yesterday. The boy’s always been too soft.”

He hobbled forward, his legs weak and buckled. Any sympathy I’d felt for him before had evaporated. His cane flicked in a quick gesture toward the circle, spatters of blood flying off it. Probably Jack’s blood. Sick bastard.

“What did you do to my bondmate?”

He smiled. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Our perceptual vortex worked so well at your test, I thought it might make a nice prison for your boyfriend. Excuse me, your
bondmate
,” he corrected with a condescending nod. “It’s a mercy, I think. Dulls the pain.”

The suction slipped over me again as I pulled my foot out of Jack’s vortex. Through the layers of smoke, I could just discern the outline of three figures standing behind Chancellor Thibault. Their faces were obscured, but I knew who they were. My best friends—the people I’d grown up with.

They stood in a row, their hands bound behind their backs, blindfolds cloaking their eyes and gags over their mouths. Katie’s body quaked with sobs, the bodice of her ice blue halter constricting. Behind them, Alec stood with his double-bolted crossbow. He’d obviously come as Katie’s date. The blue of his cummerbund coordinated with her dress, just as Matt’s vibrant red matched the glittery orange and crimson stones sewn into Lisa’s dress. The two girls had even styled their hair with similar clips, clusters of gemstones that reflected the orb-light like crystals of ice in Katie’s blond twist and licks of fire through Lisa’s brown curls. My friends looked amazing. I could only imagine the jealous snit Veronica must’ve had when they arrived.

“Glad you decided to join us,” Thibault said with a smug grin. “Alec assured me you would. Your sister very much wants to meet you.”

“I don’t have a sister,” I told him. “If your soul-sucking lap-dog wants to meet me, she can ‘friend’ me on Facebook like everyone else.”

I felt myself backing up, eager to put as much space as possible between me and the raving lunatic. My fingers spread open as I pulled at another channel. This time there was nothing—no answering crackle or buzz like there’d been before. Just a fizzle of darkness. I shook my hand and tried again. No luck.

Suddenly, I understood what the wards around the room had meant. “Blocking spell, huh? Lucky I brought my sword.”

“Amelie, dear, don’t be so dramatic. We’re all family here.” Thibault’s thumb whispered absently over a small metal box in his hand. Good grief, was that a detonator?

“Family?” I said, trying to sound calm. “You’ve killed hundreds of people.”

“Out of necessity,” he pooh-poohed. “Do you have any idea what will happen if Guardians join with Inferni? If we train them? Let them fight with us?”

“Um, world peace?”

“
Armageddon!
” In an instant, his pleasant expression dissolved into rage. “Heaven will stand open and the armies of God will come; the angels will rise and all shall be judged. I, for one, refuse to stand beside those murderous infidels, proclaiming their innocence as if they were still besouled, singing their virtue as if they carry God’s blessing. They disgust me!”

“That’s a nice speech,” I interrupted, “though I don’t think ‘besouled’ is a word.”

He stamped his bloody cane on the ground. “Any Guardians who support the Tenets have already denied their makers and turned their backs on the angels. Charlotte would have been among them had she stayed with the Guardians. It is by my mercy that they died.”

I felt something cold go through me. “Leave my mom out of this.”

“Child, I can’t leave your mother out of this. She’s the one who started it.” His eyes gleamed dark in the fiery light, like black flames. “Sacrificing her Watcher to save an Immortal child? That’s just the kind of gesture Guardian liberals needed to fuel this—
insanity
. It was disgraceful.”

My eyes narrowed. “My mother sacrificed you to save
me
. There’s nothing disgraceful about that.”

With unsteady strides, the Chancellor limped toward me, broken glass crunching beneath his boots. Before I could react, he lifted his cane and whipped it across my face. I was able to get a hand up in time to deflect most of the bone-crushing blow, but it still left bright spots across my vision.

“Liar,” he roared. “Who told you that? Your father?”

“No, I—”

“
Who?
”

“No one,” I yelled back. “I overheard Mom and Dad talking about it a few weeks after you visited the house. She was upset. Dad said something about how it was the right decision, to save a child’s soul. I thought they were talking about me.”

Behind me, the air carried screams and shouts through the walls and I could hear the distant sounds of slamming doors and running feet. It made me nervous to think that people would be coming back into the building so soon. Thibault was clearly several cans shy of a six-pack and, for the first time, I realized he just might be nuts enough to blow up the whole school.

As if on cue, he turned to Alec and said, “Kill them.”

Alec didn’t move. His gaze danced between Katie and Lisa then slid back to me. “That may not be necessary, sir. Katherine supports our cause. When the time comes, she’ll fight with us. The other two aren’t as committed, but they
will
defend our people if there’s an uprising. I think we should let them go.”

I stared at him, trying to read his intent. Alec knew perfectly well Matt would never fight against the Inferni. His politics were so far left, he made Jack look well-balanced. Alec could have mentioned that, and it would have been Matt’s death sentence. But he didn’t.

Why?

“He’s right, you
should
let them go,” I said. “Unless you’re a coward who hides behind children.”

Thibault laughed again, his thumb tapping the detonator harder this time. “Child, you have no idea what you’re dealing with.” He swept an arm to where Alec stood. “Very well, Alexander. Keep the traitor, but let the rest go. Their souls will be devoured by worms come judgment day.”

Uh-huh. Because
that
didn’t sound nuts at all.

Alec lowered the crossbow and, with one hand, cut Katie’s flexicuffs and gag. For a moment she seemed paralyzed. Then he whispered something to her and she sprinted—smart girl—out the door. Next, he untied Lisa, and retreated a few steps as Lisa untied Matt. Matt’s hands were dark, knuckles stained with dried blood, his face bruised and puffy. It made me wonder what kind of fight he’d put up when they tried to take him. As soon as Lisa was done with his bindings, she ran straight for me.

“Omigosh, Ami. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I hadn’t realized how scared I was until her arms encircled me, firm and familiar. After so many days thinking I’d never see her again, it was like a brief reprieve from hell.

“We’ll get help,” Matt promised from behind Lisa’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll find help and we’ll come back.”

“Don’t,” I told them, hushed. “The doors are warded from the outside. Besides, y’all are the only Guardians who know the truth. If I can’t fix this, it’s going to be up to you to tell the Elders. We already have a war with demonkind. The last thing we need is more killing.”

“Ami, I’m not leaving you,” Lisa said.

“Neither am I,” Matt insisted. “Come on, they don’t want you. If Smith-Hailey’s dead, that’s it. No more Peace Tenets. That’s all they want. We’ll find another way to save the Inferni.”

“He’s right.” Lisa touched my cheek like a worried mother. “Sweetie, you’re a mess. Just come with us. No guy is worth your life.”

All I could do was stare at her. Jack’s sword felt so heavy in my hand—so heavy, I thought I might drop it. My shoulders slumped as I glanced at him, still hunched in the center of his perceptual prison, knowing he was about to die. Alone.

“Lis,” I said softly. “He
is
my life.”

It took her a moment as the gravity of what I’d said washed over her. I watched her face harden from hope to annoyance, then finally to resignation. She nodded. “Then I’m staying with you.”