Chapter Text
When was the last time you were chased by a minotaur with an axe through the lunchroom with only one spell in your arsenal? Okay then, don’t judge. I mean, how did I, one out of fifty kids stuffing their faces with half cooked chicken sandwiches and chocolate milk, get singled out by an angry daemon with the bad habit of trespassing on school grounds with sharp objects? That’s very illegal, you know.
I was sitting by myself, seriously don’t judge me, studying. Marcus was staring at me as if I wouldn’t notice. Or maybe he wanted me to. He does enjoy making people feel uncomfortable. He had this stupid grin on his face every time he looked over like he wanted to toss a football at my head. Again. I could almost see him lining up the shot with the squint in his eyes. We were all sitting in a lowered area in the middle of the room at benches lined up like a discount amphitheater in front of the hallway to the gym. Yeah, it was a weird setup. Sometimes they would leave the double doors open, and every time they did, a stray basketball would find its way onto someone’s lunch tray. It was a good cover for his target practice. Nobody wanted to be near the sweat stained wood of the gym while they ate, so it was perfect for people who wanted to get their work done. Or people with no friends, but that’s beside the point.
My notebook separated me from the neatly divided tray of processed food. I wasn’t missing much in letting it cool back down. The flavor can only change so much when it was shipped in a frozen box from somewhere out of state. The markings spread across the page, in perfectly ordered charts, might I add, stared back at me in defiance. But it wasn’t like I couldn’t read them. Of course, I could. I’d been studying them for weeks. The hard part about magic is understanding how to use what’s on the page. Even for a normal language, a slight change in order or variation in the length of a line can change the whole meaning of a word. And these symbols are far beyond words for describing the color of grass or the temperature of ice. Each curve and angled line forms its own sentence, showing the shape of reality and how to bend it just enough for a certain affect.
My pencil didn’t even touch the page when I heard the screams. Occasionally someone got excited over a new couple or some thrown cheese slices and yell, but the scream I heard then stopped my heart. The grating of chairs sliding back formed a chorus that led everyone’s attention to the top of the stairs forming a ring around the eating area. A black mist clouded the hallway like an angry squid blasted a hole in space. What came out of it responded with a roar that shook its way into my bones. It felt like ice dripping into the back of my spine, freezing everything from my thoughts down to my legs. My heart started again as a dark hoof slammed into the tile. Hard. Kids were either hiding under tables, staring blankly with food still in their mouths, or running into walls trying to get as far away from the hooved beast as possible. I just sat there like a deer waiting to get run over by its truck of a body. Lucky for us, hooves don’t have nonslip coatings and work terribly on smooth floors. Unlucky for us, it was heavy enough to sink into the crumbling tile like custom fit shoes.
Black mist twisted in its hairy fists, shaping into an axe that splintered the nearest bench. Half the room was emptied of students by then, leaving me to flip through the book I was reading for any kind of solution. I know, leave it to me to do more studying while a mythical nightmare chops my school to pieces. I knew I saw something about it in one of the chapters on extradimensional taxonomy, but forgive me if the stress of the situation kicked its exact location out of my mind. The beast was getting closer to the back of the lunchroom and I needed to move. Plastic sporks and wet paper cartons jumped into the air with every ground shaking step like even the dead trees wanted to escape. It was clear I couldn’t do much about it without any preparation. The most I could do is less than the least of what anyone decent could do, and my feet weren’t the best at keeping my face above the ground when that ground is being ripped apart.
That’s when I spotted Marcus right in its path making a barricade out of flipped tables, the same tables that the minotaur crashed through with a single swing. Yeah, number ninety-three was not the brightest guy on the field, but at least he was trying to do something. That something just happened to be something idiotic because I was too busy staring to do my job. He stood a couple inches under six feet tall, unnaturally large for a guy just starting high school, but just at chest height to his attacker.
I knew I couldn’t just ignore him and leave with the crowd rushing to the front of the school despite how much I wanted to, and worse, I needed his help. It took a running jump and all of my weight to tackle him out of its way. Yes, I should have done something about the big hairy problem, but the last time I checked, barely shifting Marcus with a running start doesn’t make me daemon hunting material. At least I learned something useful from my time getting bruised in PE class.
He must have seen something in the monster’s red eyes that pinned him behind those tables, because when he lost sight of them, he grabbed me and ran. I was in shape, or at least I thought I was, but not a football player. It was more like he tucked me under an arm like a football and my feet occasionally touched the ground in frantic skids. I would have been grateful if he didn’t follow the crowd that ran into the gym, though.
There were no PE classes inside that day, but people were scratching at the walls trying to fit under the retractable bleachers. Another minotaur swung at them with a broadsword stained from running through their teachers. The thick smell of sweat and soggy iron fought the screams in the cafeteria pushing us inside. It hadn’t noticed us standing stiff at the door. Clanging steel against the aluminum rails of the bleachers echoed across the basketball court. I pulled myself from Marcus’ grip and kept running down the hall, and no I didn’t leave him there. I hated him, but not as much as I hated a giant monster trying to split people in half.
We had no other way to go but right towards the locker rooms. Slashes and cracks scarred the walls and ripped the lights out of the ceiling. Most of what remained came from the lunchroom and the gym, darkening the hallway the deeper we went. We stepped over wet spots and Marcus kicked the metal door open. It wasn’t a subtle move, but I guess he gets a pass for the necessary urgency. A growl rang through the narrow hallway and I shut it behind us.
We held our mouths closed as the tile creaked and snapped under the weight of another beast just on the other side. I could see the faintest bit of light reflecting off of Marcus’s eyes in the darkness of the cold room, refusing to turn to the door. They were shaking, but clearly moved between me and the door on the opposite side of a row of perforated lockers with a burning that I hadn’t seen before. That was our way out. Of course, I expected him to kick that door too. He never had the most original ideas. Then we’d have had the monster behind us all over again.
I had to make sure there was enough time for us to actually get out. Good thing I had that one spell I’ve been studying for a week. Focusing on my hands until they began to give off a slight glow, I touched the door. I could feel it waver with each pulse of my heart, taking the time to slow my breathing enough to stabilize the energy stretching from my palm. The metal was perfect for it, graciously conducting the light into roots that extended into the door frame and locked it into the wall. It’s a miracle that it barely took me a few seconds with the smell of body spray and fermented sweat seeping into my brain. It’s nowhere near the scent of calming herbs and incense of a practice room. He waved me over to the exit and I happily obliged. I couldn’t tell from the sounds of its nostrils flaring, but my fear convinced me that the beast had its ear to the door waiting for a reason to break it down.
There was just one problem; someone forgot to leave the door to the practice field unlocked. I racked my brain trying to find a way to stay alive while he loudly fidgeted with the knob. Say what you will about the definition of insanity, but he was determined to twist it until the door gave in to his sheer will to be on the other side.
“My truck’s in the lot by the practice field,” he said over the sounds of banging behind us, keeping his eyes trained on the copper knob. Of course it was. He was a high school football player; he could get away with anything as long as his stats were good. He spent half of those get out of jail free cards on doing doughnuts in the parking lot to impress cheerleaders. And that was his big plan, to outrun a giant bull across an open field to the parking lot and drive away. Easy. My stupid mind thought of at least ten ways that could go wrong while he banged at the door with his shoulder.
I was confident in my ability to cast binding spells. That was the only one I knew, after all. Yeah, sure, someone my age should know at least three, but a thin metal door held back an ax wielding minotaur until Marcus got the back door unlocked. Do that with a ward.
I tried to lock it behind us as it approached to buy us more time, but there was barely a second between its shoulders bursting through the glowing frame in the hall and its horns piercing the outer door and flinging me onto the grass. Marcus was already halfway to the fence by the time I got up. “Melia,” he yelled, more frustrated than worried. Why would he be? His whole deal the first semester of school was finding new ways to practice being a quarterback with my head as a wide receiver. At least he actually pronounced my name right this time. Of course that means every other time he mispronounced it was him being annoying instead of him being stupid. Who would have guessed?
There was no way we could outrun it like that. I had to do something to slow it down. It was time to show off my skill with binding spells, if only my heart would stop beating against my eardrums so I could focus. My hand stretched out between the grass blades, forcing roots of light into the dirt. Even with all the things I didn’t understand about the situation, I felt my gut twist at the thought of leaving these things to continue their rampage. “Move,” he yelled again, jogging back to pull me away. I could tell the exact level of irritation in his voice from being ignored. I heard it a few times before while being more focused on trying to keep the color in my shirt after one of his chemistry class incidents.
My other hand stretched out towards the charging axe. “If you want to run, then do it. I have to stop this thing.” Bold words from someone with a quivering lip, but they were true. Who else knows what these things even are? They don’t teach daemon hunting as an elective in 9th grade. At least not at public schools. My body shook with each step of its booming hooves.
Maybe Marcus was mad I didn’t listen to him. Maybe he was upset that a girl half his weight stood up to a monster he ran from. Maybe he was just too stupid to think I was crazy. The last option was much more appealing. He definitely wasn’t concerned for my safety. Marcus stood next to me bent over like he was ready to tackle the minotaur, asking what my plan was between gritting teeth. To be fair, that was his solution to most problems.
I didn’t have much of a plan besides holding it down long enough to get away, but with his farm boy strength, I could do more. We had to level the playing field, and enhancement spells were not something I was good at. We needed to bring that charging monster down to our level, or close as two high school freshmen can take it. “Grab the axe. You’ll know when.” The minotaur came rushing between us, and I tagged its arm as I leapt just out of reach. It was as smart as he was, but nowhere near as accurate. The spot I touched began to glow with lights wrapping around its forearm like a hungry vine stretching from my palm. The light shot out and connected with the roots on the ground, anchoring it with glowing rope. The monster’s neck jerked around as it landed on its back, making the dirt jump as it hit.
Another glowing rope grabbed the curved horn on its head as it flailed the axe in my direction. I had to work fast. I wasn’t keen on pressing my luck when a single arm was larger than both my legs strapped together. It got up as I reached for another limb, shoving a free hand at my head with the speed and weight of a train. I closed my eyes, focusing on just keeping my body in one piece as it shot towards me. I felt the light branch from my head down to my toes, stiffening my skin as much as the time allotted to my reflexes would allow. It missed, but barely. Just a finger was enough to knock the wind out of me and drop me a few feet away.
I felt the ropes strain to stay together from its might and my focus shifting on the ringing in my brain. I could have made them stronger, I should have, but it was too late to worry about that. Marcus grunted as he struggled to free its weapon while it was still staring at me, but all I could see was the blurry shape of the grass it tossed me over. I had to get up. My legs buckled every time I tried to move my stomach. I held it tight, afraid the contents might fall out if I let go.
By the time my feet were under me, the sounds of metal piercing bone and ear shattering roars died down. The minotaur came into focus with a shake of my head. It had one horn remaining and deep slashes that bled the same black smoke it arrived in. There was even an open slash running across its neck. I knew daemons were hard to kill, but that was just plain freaky. My stomach jumped again. A few of the ropes broke and I was straining to keep the last one holding it back by the horn with a lasso spiked to the ground.
Marcus was breathing just as hard as it was, standing across from it with his shirt ripped at the edges as if it tried to squeeze him like a tube of toothpaste. He turned and yelled “how do I kill it?” like he just noticed my presence. He didn’t even ask if I was fine after being thrown twice. I wasn’t. He was probably thinking I owed him an answer because I was always studying and knew everything. Well, I did know something, but not because of anything they taught at Cliffwood High. If he knew how important my book was for his survival, he probably would have stopped taking it from me all the time.
The question felt asinine, like an artist asking what color grass was. “Have you tried aiming for the heart?” I yelled. Or I think I yelled. It was hard to tell when one ear rang enough to knock me off balance and my heart was punched up from my chest into the other. My strength, along with my patience, was fading as my shaking hands held the swinging monster back with the glowing lasso. He needed to finish it quickly and I hoped he’d just swing and get it over with.
The idiot had the nerve to stick his tongue out at me in a mocking snarl like our lives weren’t in immediate danger. The weapon rose into the sky as I yanked the monster’s head back, pulling the glowing ropes through the anchors in the ground with all my weight like I was trying to stop a raging horse. The blade crashed down with the sound of crunching flesh and a faint glass like crack. Every bulging muscle that fought against my rope went slack. Smoke erupted from the minotaur’s chest, followed by the roar of another beast making its way through the back of the school towards the locker room’s open door.
We were too breathless to talk. Marcus took off to the fence guarding the parking lot from the late spring grass. I stopped, mostly to catch my breath. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the axe slowly smoking away in the grass. The chances of us escaping and finding somewhere safe weren’t high enough for my liking, and that weapon might make the next encounter with a murderous beast more in our favor. To be frank, we got lucky. Really lucky. And I wasn’t big on pushing my chances when it came to large hairy monsters.
I reached out and grabbed the only thing not fading away into the wind like an evil bath bomb. The severed horn glowed with my light, and my other hand pushed light into the axe. That thing was heavy; only a monster with arms the size of my torso or a dumb guy with farm boy strength could use it without looking like an idiot. I put whatever strength I had left into binding the weapon to the bone, hoping my hunch was right as the glow wrangled the seeping smoke trying to escape into the wind. Symbols etched in a ring around the pointed end, marking the white bone with the smoke made from the axe. Each one curved around the ivory, marking circles joined with thickening lines on the points of highest energy. All my focus was set on the horn gathering, binding, containing the shape of the weapon with my own light as a cage. Whatever smoke was escaping from it sucked into the markings and held to its surface. I was so focused on making the spell work that I missed the familiar earth-shaking rhythm approaching me from the school. Give me a break, it was my first time and I wasn’t fully sure that it would work at all.
I felt a hand grab my arm and tug me to my feet, almost making me let go of the severed horn. Marcus led me over the fence and straight to his truck. It was obvious which one was his even before we climbed the rusted fence. The whole body was put on stilts to fit heavily textured tires that were a size too big for anything reasonably driven on the streets between the neighborhoods and the school. Dents in the old baby blue paint invited rust on the bumpers, but they were barely visible under all the lines of mud dried over the wheel wells. Handles that were once chrome squeaked as we flung the doors open and climbed inside.
A second minotaur was untangling its sword from between the fence’s twisted metal as he turned the key. You know how they say never get in a car with your bully? Well despite the fact that he would argue for at least ten minutes on how this is actually a truck instead of a car, I’d rather have a wet willy than be dead. My eyes shifted between rusted metal and mud crusted plastic looking for some way to help get it moving.
I could have sworn the truck was held together with duct tape and dreams with how Marcus gently begged it to move under his breath. The body rocked like a boat every time the engine turned over with a dry wheeze. Once. The monster shoved a hoof over the bent wire separating it from the sidewalk. Twice. I stared over Marcus’s shoulder out the brown tinted side window as if it would stay encumbered in the knot of steel wire if I weighed it down with my eyes. It was kicking the ground with its hand balancing its stumbling form on the pavement and its sword held straight at us. Asphalt seemed new to it. The monster slipped a little before gathering its balance. The third twist of the key and a lucky kick made life stick to the cold engine.
The monster was mid charge as smoke erupted from the thick exhaust pipe above the cab. The tires squealed and the engine growled. The minotaur hesitated, stopping sloppily with its sword raised as its hooves scraped over loose gravel. I guess I would have stopped, too, if I had witnessed an angered metal beast twice my size for the first time. That was just long enough for Marcus to twist the wheel and drop the truck from the curb to the main road.
We made it out alive, but just barely. We could see it taking confused steps towards the road in the rear-view mirror, then turning back to the school. I couldn’t help but watch it as it grew smaller in the distance. My heart wouldn’t let me look anywhere else and I could have sworn it was trying to rush out my chest to outrun the accelerating truck.
That was my school. I sat in those classes staring at white paint stained grey with time, listening to the tick of wall mounted clocks waiting for something, anything, to happen in that old building. I never would have imagined something like that. That may have been the last time I would eat a school meal in a room full of kids yelling over each other, the last time I saw Pete or Molly, the last time I would see any of the people I passed by in the halls working the register at their father’s deli or their uncle’s convenience store on the weekends.
I held my mouth, begging my lunch to stay away from the truck’s dashboard. A tear would have been welcome, but the shaking kept my eyes wide. My lungs ached as I gulped air to ease their endless hunger. I thought about rolling the window down, but something about the scratched glass made me feel safer, like a barrier against whatever other monsters might be lurking outside. Hard to imagine feeling safe anywhere near Marcus, let alone in his truck going who knows where.
The ride was quiet after he stopped checking behind us between curses, each one a spark that shot into my spine and up my neck. Visions of the axe coming down in wet slashes filled my mind with each word crashing through his teeth as if I was the next target. We were about a mile deep in a faded two-lane road surrounded by woods and stretches of finely lined corn when he slowed down to a legal pace. He kept glancing between me and the road, but not as menacingly as usual. His face had a curious confusion set into bloodshot eyes. I held down a beast that weighed as much as a car and bound a daemon weapon to a world it was never designed to stay in, not to mention that I survived being used as a human paddle ball, so he had to forgive me if my breathing was a bit on the unsteady side. I was tired. All that said, my attitude wasn’t the best, and hints of residual adrenaline brought out my anger.
“What?” I mumbled into the window, avoiding whatever his sharp eyes would answer with.
“How did you do that stuff with the light and junk? You like them monsters?” A flair of paranoia erupted from his eyes. It made me angry, like he was accusing me of being in league with the monsters that destroyed my school. No matter how much my body ached, it was always his words that made my head ache worse.
“Yeah, I'm definitely a nine-foot-tall daemon. I'm a witch, Marcus.” Geese, I even looked like a stereotypical witch according to the stupid things people said in the hallway. I was thin, with black hair running from my widow's peak straight down to my shoulders like a sad waterfall and had dark eyes that made me look terribly unhappy in a sundress. I bet the solid grey blouse I wore still smelled like witch hazel from working in the garden behind the natural pharmacy my mom owned. Yeah, one of those stores.
“You threw my spell book over the lockers every day between classes. Bet you wish didn’t now, huh?” He had regret on his face, or something close. I'd never actually seen it form that shape before, so I wasn’t sure. A heavy sigh pulled the heat from my face long enough to notice the color turning on his from my outburst. My next words came slower and much quieter. “Long time ago, my people fought things like that to protect yours, but business was kinda weak till now.”
“So you a magic soldier? How come you ain't fight ‘em off all fireball style?”
“You kidding? That’s not how- I'm in high school. I'm not even an apprentice to anyone and I only know one spell. And last time I checked, there haven't been any monsters running around before today anyway, so you’ll have to excuse me for having an empty resume. How bout you go to war right now, fresh out of class, and skip boot camp?” I took a deep breath, probably more burnt diesel than air, to keep my head from spinning as I spoke. “No. You saw what they can do. There’s no way anyone was ready for that. And even if we were-”
A few moments went by as he filtered through the words stalled between his ears before he held up the horn I dropped under the windshield and gave me a weak smile like he was scheming, almost making me regret the decision to make it. “I have this now. We can take them on. You can help me.”
Never mind my concern. That guy was an idiot. “Wow. That one win and your head’s filled with the worst ideas imaginable. You know what, that wasn’t even a win. We ran, Marcus. That's one weapon against one minotaur that I held down for you and we barely got away. Get some practice before you go all Braveheart on the world. Geese, where are we even going?”
The question made his smile grow wide and toothy, full of a confidence that shouldn’t be anywhere near a person with so many scratches and dirt stains. It made me wonder if he was the one that should be compared to a daemon. “Home.”