No one in the room moved, all of us entranced by the dark tale Coco was weaving.
“Demons are nothing to mess around with,” she continued, “and as magic users you will be tempted through your journey to sorcerers. You’ll be tempted with your own darkness. Tempted with the power of the demons. It’s my job to prepare you to deal with that temptation.”
The rest of the class was a history lesson on demons—bodyless entities that existed in a parallel world between ours and Faerie.
I added another planet to my mental image of Faerie and Earth, and I was pretty impressed that I’d nailed the parallel world thing. Even though it also made my head spin at all of the weird in my life now.
“Step-throughs are the fastest way for sorcerers and sorceresses to travel,” Coco continued. “We use them to move between the worlds and within our world. This is a fast, complex, and dangerous way to travel. You’ll not do any classes on them until at minimum your fourth year. Do not ever attempt to open one yourself. You most likely will die.”
Alrighty then. As warnings went, that one was pretty solid.
Someone raised their hand and the teacher nodded at them. “What do the demons want?”
Her expression turned fierce. “Mostly they want power. They wanted it when they were alive and they want it even more after death. They’ve drained their own world. There are no ley lines there.”
No one else looked confused, and I quickly flicked through the textbook in front of me to find the section on ley lines.
Ley lines are beams of energy that run in multiple axes around the world. Deep under the ground, invisible to the naked eye, they power the earth, magic users, fey, shifters, and a multitude of other supernatural creatures. Ley lines are used for particularly strong spells that an individual does not have enough power for.
There was more under this, going into deeper details, but I stopped reading when another student asked, “Why don’t they just come here? The demons. What’s stopping them?”
Coco’s smile was tormented. “The specters that are left are almost parasitic in nature. They can’t come here without a host. Their essences cannot survive on Earth. Which is why this class exists. Demons are seductive … they’ll make you crave the power. But you must never give in to it. My entire family was killed by a demon-touched sorcerer in one of the last battles. It’s why I’ve dedicated my life to teaching other supernaturals of this danger.”
Her words were heavy, and sadness pressed to my chest. I didn’t know Coco, but her pain was tangible. It made me want to really pay attention and learn the lessons she was about to teach.
We had seemed to only uncover the very basics of the origins of demons when the music chimed and class was over. After Demon Mythology, it was time for Sword and Sorcery. This was in the practical section of the school, and I followed the crowd because I figured some of them had to be in my class.
Sword and Sorcery ended up being in the same room as Basics of Magic. With bark underfoot, we all crossed to where a very tall, very handsome man stood waiting. He was the tallest person I’d ever seen. Like … ever. I tilted my head back to try to take him all in.
“Is he part giant?”
I swung my head to find Simon at my side and I shot him a broad smile. “He’s got to be seven feet tall,” I agreed.
Not only was he seven feet tall, but he had a fully shaved head, and since he was shirtless I could clearly see his multitude of tattoos, ranging from a panther along one arm to a dragon that spanned his entire back and side. The only thing he wore was black leather pants.
His feet were bare, and I wondered if the bark, despite its squishiness, still felt like walking on LEGO pieces.
“Hurry up,” he said brusquely, waving his hand toward the stragglers still making their way slowly into the class. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
His voice boomed, and the students started to run. No one spoke, all of us staring at the very intimidating and quite spectacularly Viking-hot teacher. “I’m Striker,” he said shortly. “I’ll be teaching you how to defend yourselves using weapons and magic. I’ve been in five wars and have killed hundreds. Or at least I stopped counting in the hundreds.”
He wasn’t bragging; he spoke factually, like he was reading from his fucked-up resume.
“Most of you are learning the basics of your magic, so for now we’ll be discovering our weapon of choice and training with it. It might take you some time to figure out which is the weapon that resonates with you, so try more than one.”
He waved his hand toward a wall that was somewhat hidden back in the shadows. I hadn’t noticed it until now, and as we moved closer I wondered how I’d missed it—it was huge and filled with shiny weapons. Countless different styles of swords, knives, chains, whips, maces, and a ton of shit I’d never seen before and had no name for. Most of them looked deadly, like the sort of object that I could easily kill myself with.
“Today just touch the weapons … lift them if you feel the urge,” Striker shouted. “No one is to use any of them in attack or you will find yourselves out of my class.”
Simon stayed close to me as we moved toward the wall. I was nervous about touching the sharp and shiny swords, but I didn’t want to piss off the scary teacher, so I reached for what looked like a pair of nunchucks, twin silver handles with a spiked chain between them. The handles had spikes too, surrounding a small open space that was just large enough for me to wrap my hand around.
I felt no spark or need to pick it up, so I moved on to the next one. This continued on and on, and by the end of class nothing had called to me, which was actually a relief.
Simon, on the other hand, had a pair of short blades that he was half in love with.
“I’m a warrior,” he said, eyes wide as he held his hands in front of him.
I laughed. “Yes, Simon. You’re a warrior. Now put them back before you cut your own arm off.”
