The Afterlife Academy (22 page)

C
harlie sat chained to a metal folding chair in the middle of the Conrad High School boys' locker room. Locker doors with jersey numbers taped above them lined the walls. Everything stank of sweaty socks and underwear. Up a flight of stairs and out on the field, the decorations for the Wraith Festival's crowning celebration, the Demon Dance, were in their final preparations. Dozens of people were bustling around the stadium, draping streamers over the bleachers or tying balloons to the goal posts, without any clue as to what was taking place below.

Wisdom had tied up Charlie's parents in the shower room. Charlie couldn't see them, but he knew they were there, because they hadn't stopped arguing with each other since the three of them awoke to their current predicament.

“All this is your fault, Martin!” His mother's voice echoed in the tiled room.

“My fault?” his dad asked. “
My
fault? How is any of this my fault?”

“If you had taken more paid leave to spend a weekend with your son every now and then, none of this would've happened.”

Mr. Dewdle laughed derisively. “That has nothing to do with this. If anything, it's your fault. Charlie takes after you. Always reading—”

“Oh, reading books is the culprit? Is that what you're saying?”

Charlie's chin dropped to his chest as the arguing continued. “Oh brother,” he whispered.

Standing at attention by the locker room entrance, a pair of demons with alligator snouts and multiple pairs of wiry arms shook their heads in disapproval but kept quiet.

“You think
this
is bad? You should hear them at Christmas dinner,” Charlie muttered.

Charlie could still see the demons despite the absence of Walter. He figured his reading of
The Summoner's Handbook
had brought on the permanent change. His parents, however, had not received the gift of sight. The two demons standing guard over them had entered the shower room several times, and his parents had continued arguing without skipping a beat.

When Wisdom Willows descended the steps and entered the room, he wore a hooded green robe and carried
The Summoner's Handbook
in his hands.

“Hello, Charlie. Good to see you. I trust you've been taken care of since arriving?”

“I've been tied up in a disgusting locker room,” Charlie said. He glared at Wisdom.

“It
is
disgusting, isn't it?” Wisdom glanced disdainfully at the rows of lockers. “But this is where it all happened. The beginning, if you will, of my long, painful, but soon-to-be-glorious journey to greatness.”

“In a locker room?” Charlie asked.

Wisdom sighed. “Yes. In this very locker room. With Gopher Phillips, captain of the varsity football team. I was fourteen at the time. I won't bore you with the details, but it involved what we used to call a wedgie and my underwear.”

“We still call them wedgies. I get them all the time,” Charlie replied.

Wisdom made a fretful expression as he knelt and placed his hand on Charlie's knee. “Bullies. What good are they? At any rate, my wedgie was inconsequential to this story. I did, however, see my first demon that awkward afternoon.”

“You did?”

Wisdom nodded. “And Gopher Phillips saw it too. He denied it, of course, as the feebleminded typically do when faced with a decision that could ultimately destroy their popularity. But I knew that he saw. Once you've seen something like that, you can't hide the truth. You understand, don't you, Charlie? You've seen things now, haven't you?”

“I'm tied up in a room surrounded by demons,” Charlie answered dryly.

“Yes, well, I meant you understood what it was like the first time you saw one. A creature. Unexplained. Unnatural. Yet real all the same. Do you remember the change that came over you?”

Charlie didn't respond. Wisdom's question had transported him back to that evening when he first witnessed the banshee hovering above his bed. It had terrified him, yes, but he couldn't deny the fact that something had changed inside him, in a wonderful way.

Wisdom smiled knowingly. “It was an awakening for you, wasn't it? Me too, Charlie. Finally, after years of believing in another world, I had been given a moment of proof. To this day, I have no idea why the demon appeared within these walls, but I'd like to think it was a sign, a symbol of my grand calling in life.”

“What happened to Gopher?” Charlie asked.

“Gopher?” Wisdom's eyes refocused. “Why do people always ask that whenever I tell this story? Does it really matter what happened to Gopher Phillips? I'll answer that for you. It doesn't. What matters is that I triumphed. I used that demon sighting to succeed in life. And this locker room has become something of a museum for me. I think it fitting to write the next chapter of my story here, in Conrad.”

Charlie nibbled on the tip of his tongue. “That's great. But why am I here?”

“My boy, you are here because of destiny!”

Charlie smirked. To think he'd once considered Wisdom a genius. An idol. Even a superhero. Not anymore. “How long have you been working for them?” He nodded at the alligator demons.

Wisdom chuckled. “I don't work for them. They work for me.”

“I don't understand.”

“No time to explain, Charlie. We need to begin.” Wisdom opened the book and riffled through to a dog-eared page. Once satisfied, he placed the book in Charlie's lap and pointed to one of the center paragraphs. “Now, if you will please read from here”—he dragged his finger down the page—“to here.”

Charlie nudged the book off his knees. “I'm not reading anything.”

Alarm altered Wisdom's features. “How dare you!” Scooping up the book, he gently dusted off the cover. “This is not some meaningless textbook that you can kick at your leisure! This is a priceless treasure, and you will treat it with respect.”

“Well, then don't touch me with it, or I'll do it again!”

“Tell him to keep his slimy hands off you!” Charlie's dad shouted from the next room.

“Yes, and tell him we're going to report him to the police!” Charlie's mom chimed in. “And then we're going to file a complaint with the Conrad school board. These showers are filthy, and the mold alone could kill you!”

“Noral! Pidge! Shut them up!” Wisdom commanded. Charlie watched in horror as the two guard demons raced into the next room and silenced his parents completely.

“What are they doing to my parents?” Charlie demanded.

“Nothing. Yet. But if you don't start cooperating, I'll have Noral and Pidge pull their lips off! Read this. And don't knock it to the floor!” Wisdom placed the book once again on Charlie's knees, and Charlie had to fight the urge not to spit on its pages.

W
alter couldn't stop gawking at his fancy new threads. Like the other Agents, he wore stark white fatigues and a utility belt complete with standard Afterlife Academy Agent gear. Secured in one of the compartments was his very own piece of Celestial stone.

Crouching just outside the football stadium entrances, Walter, the Logan brothers, and thirty other highly trained Agents, pulled from their other assignments all over the world, planned their attack.

Despite the late hour, the stadium buzzed with excitement. Under the steady sheet of pouring rain, several demons and wraiths patrolled the area while uniformed festival workers wearing raincoats constructed a stage on the fifty-yard line, oblivious to the deadly creatures all around them.

Walter and the Logan brothers hung back while the high-level Agents took out the enemy guarding the stadium perimeter, furtively prowling up to their targets and disposing of them like skilled assassins. The dark creatures never had any inkling they were being stalked until the silenced weapons of the Agents winked them out of existence.

This continued until every watchdog demon and wraith vanished from the stadium.

“That was easy,” Walter said.

“Too easy.” Ronald surveyed the stadium through a pair of binoculars. “These guys were nothing. Low-level classifications.”

“Willows has no idea Darwin's scheme has been discovered,” said a tall, muscular, older Agent named Teague. “As it stands, we should have the element of surprise to our advantage. But that won't last long. We're picking up heavy readings of Underworld essence at the south entrance of the locker room. Wisdom must have an entire horde of demons down there. We're going to have our hands full.”

“That one-eyed freak will be there, for sure,” Reginald said, staring down at the painful bruises on his arms. “During our battle, I was able to tag him with a homing device. There were seven of us back at the hotel, and we hit him with everything we could, but he still got away.”

The others whispered Hoonga's name with recognition and smiled as they remembered their own encounters with the giant Cyclops over the years.

“That monster's nasty!” Walter said. “Is he like the biggest and baddest of them all?”

Teague shrugged. “No. Not by a long shot, but he's one of the craftiest demon-outpost Controllers in the country. We've had that guy on our radar for over two decades.”

“Then how is this Wisdom Willows lowlife controlling Hoonga?” Riley asked. “His powers are far superior.”

“It's because he has a huge piece of Celestial stone!” Walter said. “It's bigger than all of ours combined.”

Reginald narrowed his eyes. “No way! Where would he get a stone that big?”

“From the vault,” Teague explained. “They're off-limits to the general Afterlife population, but members of the board have access.”

Walter nodded. “Yeah, and Darwin's on the board.”

“
Was
on the board,” Teague clarified. “If Wisdom knows how to operate the stone, we won't stand a chance against him. Our only hope is to somehow get ahold of it and cause it to self-destruct.”

Squatting, Teague pulled a small electronic device from his belt, and a holographic layout of the locker room appeared in the air. “The locker room has only one other exit, here.” He pointed to a spot on the holograph. “It's a bottleneck. If we charge in there with our guns blazing, Wisdom will barricade the way with as many demons as possible and escape out the rear exit. If he bolts before we can tag him, we lose.”

“We could come down through the ceiling,” an Agent named Monroe suggested. “Create a hexagonal point of attack with strikers here and here.”

“That would require subterranean travel,” said the Team Leader, dismissing the idea. “How good are you guys at submersion?” he asked Walter and the Logan brothers.

Walter smiled. “Submersion? Like a submarine?”

Teague shook his head. “They're not trained for that sort of maneuver.”

“We can pass through walls, if that's what you mean,” Ronald said.

“Submersion is different from walking through solid objects. It requires a great deal of balance and focus. Without the proper post-Academy training, you'll be too dizzy to offer us any help against a demon horde.”

“We should split up and cover both entrances,” Monroe said.

Teague nodded. “Agreed. Take half of our forces here”—he pointed to a spot on the holograph—“and wait for my command. Do not get spotted. I'll take the four rookies in my squad.”

“We're not rookies,” Riley said. “Well, Walter is, but we know what we're doing.”

“Hey, we still don't know what to do about Wisdom's massive Celestial stone,” Ronald put in.

The sound of giggling arose behind them. Teague spun around in time to see two girls, one of whom was dressed in a Wraith Festival costume, approaching the locker room.

Walter's natural instinct took over as he sprawled out on the ground, trying to hide. The other Agents remained where they were. They were all invisible to the girls.

“He went in there?” one of the girls, the older one, asked.

“Yes. I just saw him! And that was his limo parked over in the lot. It's Wisdom, I promise! He must be performing a ceremony, because he was wearing robes.”

“You're seriously going to go into that locker room? You're out of your mind. If Mom knew what you were doing—”

The younger girl pursed her lips. “But she's not going to find out, is she? Do I need to remind you about Lavender Falls?”

“Fine. Just don't take forever. I can't stand this place. It's like the worst Halloween party ever.”

“What the heck is
she
doing here?” Walter looked on in shock.

“You know them?” Ronald asked.

“That's Melissa Bitner. She goes to Charlie's school. It sounds like that's her older sister. She must've followed the limo from the hotel.”

“Well, she's about to add to our problem.”

Melissa broke away from her sister and approached the stairs leading down below the stadium.

“We have to stop them!” Walter stood. He reached for his belt to search for one of his devices.

“They're mortals, Walter. They've not been exposed to the Underworld or the Afterlife. We have no means of controlling them,” Teague explained.

Melissa, still giggling with excitement, crept down the stairs and opened the locker room door.