Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy) (2 page)

Chapter Two:

Good Intentions

“Guardian Purcell. Guardian Bennett.” Jackson Smith-Hailey’s baritone voice rang out over the
shink
of his blade being unsheathed. “Why am I not surprised?”

I took a step back as Lyle sputtered above us. “Love of my life. Heart of my heart. Howzitgoin’?”

“
How’s it goin’?
” Jack repeated. “Ami, you’ve violated seven, possibly eight levels of Guardian trainee protocols tonight, and you want to know
how it’s goin’
?”

“I was being conversational.”

Jack looked annoyed. “Are you aware of the punishment for this?”

“Death by coffee?” I said optimistically.

He frowned but didn’t reply. Normally, a six-foot-plus, sword-wielding dude wearing black Kevlar body armor would have terrified me. Tonight, not so much.

“Put him down,” I said wearily. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Define
anything
.”

“Nothing a normal person wouldn’t do for a friend.”

“Define
normal
.” Jack eyed my demon-charred hair and rumpled skirt. “Then define
friend.
”

I had just opened my mouth to admit it was all my idea when Jack drew back Lyle’s jacket to reveal the shoulder holster loaded with a sword and a variety of metal throwing knives.

“School property,” he said, then ran a hand through the air near my fingers. “And you’re warm. Have you been channeling?”

“I am
not
warm,” I objected through the shivers. “I’m arctic. And for your information, this is a perfectly legitimate school exercise. We’re hunting demons.”

“
Grrgggllpbfff,
” Lyle choked out from the end of Jack’s fist. Which I’m pretty sure translated to “shut up” in nonstrangulation language.

“You think hunting demons in a public venue is legitimate?”

“Yes, I do. And
necessary
, since no one else at St. Michael’s bothers to do it lately.”

At that, Jack’s eyes took on a stormy look, like those icy gray stones Meeks kept in the lab sometimes. Hematite, I think they’re called.

Very, very slowly, he set Lyle down. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Purcell, I need a word with Guardian Bennett.”

Lyle choked out something that sounded like
yessir.

“And next time you want to borrow school property”—Jack reached a hand into Lyle’s jacket pocket and drew out a pair of serrated throwing knives—“please fill out the proper requisition forms.”

Then he took three steps back and, as casually as swatting a butterfly, flicked his wrist and sent one of the knives in a glittering arc toward Lyle’s face. Lyle ducked about a nanosecond before it made contact.

“You,” Jack said, pointing at me. “Come.”

I swallowed hard.

It’s a discomfiting thing to have the person you love more than anything in the world toss a knife at your friend’s head and walk away. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Jack never gets angry. He does. Often. But that’s usually when he’ll start building a house for the homeless or crocheting like some insane elderly person. Happily so, because let’s face it, when Jack lost his temper, the infirmary got a lot busier.

“Coming,” I muttered and hurried after him.

By the time I caught up, he was already slouched against a concrete piling beneath the wharf, one hand in his jeans pocket, the other anxiously twirling Lyle’s knife by the hook in its hilt. I slowed to a stop about two feet away, just out of sight of Lyle.

“So,” I said.

“So,” he replied. “So.”

And suddenly things were awkward.

Mega awkward. Like last fall never happened. Like we’d never practically died for each other. Like we weren’t part bonded and crazy in love with each other. My stomach churned. My heart fluttered. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. It made me want to vomit, run away, and ask him to prom, all at once.

“Omelet,” he said, after a quiet minute, “what are you doing?”

I lifted the knife out of his hand and ran my finger along the metal hilt. Omelet was a nickname Jack had given me while he and I were hiding from the Guardian Elders. It brought back a thousand warm memories with him—none of which made me feel like an obedient Guardian trainee. “Why? Are you asking as my trainer?”

“I’m not your trainer.”

“Why are you here, then? Dad put you on babysitting duty again?”

Jack frowned. “Do you really think Bud would call
me
if he thought you were in trouble?”

Honestly, I had no idea who my father would call if he thought I was in trouble. Since I’d been in trouble more often than not over the past decade, one would think he’d be used to it.

In the distance, a purple haze shimmered over the city, signaling the coming dawn. Or maybe a ton of smog, I couldn’t tell.

Jack frowned. “It’s Lisa, isn’t it?”

All I could do was sigh. It bugged me that he could read me so well, especially when I didn’t want to be read.

“Lisa contacted you, and you didn’t tell me. You went to Lyle for help instead,” he said, super quietly.

“It’s not what you think.”

“That you trust Lyle more than you trust me?” he said. “Because that’s what it looks like.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know—”

“Are you planning something? Is it Luc? Just tell me.”

“You’re never around,” I yelled.

For a long time, he couldn’t answer. Since Jack had given up authority over me last fall, it was rare that he’d allow himself to be in a position of having to discipline me. Or listen to me. Or interact with me at all, actually. It might have made sense for us flying under the radar, but it sucked for my mental state.

In silence, I pulled out the note Lisa had left for me and handed it to him.

“Here. If you want to break up with me,” I said, watching his eyes absorb the text, “I won’t blame you. I won’t even be mad. But Jack, I can’t just sit around and let her get hunted. And I definitely can’t help the Elders. She may be our number-one most-wanted criminal, but she’s my sister. I need to find her.”

He looked at the ground. “Amelie—”

“It’s cool. Dad can buy me a bunch of cats, and I’ll dress them all in matching sweaters and be one of those psycho cat ladies who eats
Spam
and yells at the neighbor children,” I said. “I’ll keep to myself and mutter about government conspiracies and how evil hedgehogs are. You can go on avoiding me. In fact, you won’t ever have to see me again—”

I had to stop then. Not because I was done with the self-pity rant, but because my lips were suddenly occupied with something
way
more compelling.

“What are you doing?” I mumbled against his mouth.

In silent answer, he slid his hands up my back and pulled me closer until the heat of his skin radiated through his shirt, warming my body.

As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sensation of being kissed by that boy. It’s like gravity, and fire, and jet propulsion, all wrapped in a warm, velvety package and topped with candy corn. My heart skittered to life as his lips brushed mine, as soft as I remembered and every bit as intoxicating.

Within seconds, my mind quieted. My body went floppy in his arms as the vivid edge of a vision nudged my brain.

Jack and I sat huddled in a small clearing with a narrow stream burbling nearby. A moss-covered cabin stood behind us, and a carefully laid fire cast soft licks of orange and red across our bodies. But that was nothing compared to the bond. It glowed brilliant gold beneath our skin, its threads snaking through me like a hug. And all I could feel was that overwhelming chorus of
yes
.

Yes
, this was right.
Yes
, this was where I needed to be.
Yes
, this was my future.

He reached to tuck one side of my hair behind my ear. It was an oddly intimate gesture that left me feeling shaken and wobbly inside.

While we’d kissed, a slow sheen of light had spread across Jack’s skin, liquid gold trickling up the veins on his wrist. And the longer I stood pressed against him, and the harder his fingertips dug into my hips, the more the air around us began to swirl and buzz and twitch, until eager strands of gold light throbbed around my chest.

“Omelet,” he murmured again, pressing his forehead against mine. “Don’t you get why I avoid you? Why I send Marcus to deliver your assignments? Why I want you to stay away from this thing with Lisa?”

I shivered at his touch as light threads spilled into the air. I
did
get it. When he worried about me, stuff happened. Weird stuff. Powerful stuff. And if anyone saw that we were bonded, they’d try to separate us again. Because I was too dangerous.
We
were too dangerous.

Eyes shut, I leaned closer, my hands tracing up the bumpy indents of his ribs. He’d lost weight since the last time I’d touched him, and his body felt different. The same layers of lean muscle over bone, but harder now, more wiry.

“So don’t go back to school,” I urged. “Let’s run away.”

“To where?”

“Alaska.”

“What’s in Alaska?”

“No clue,” I whispered. “Find out with me.”

Jack dropped his hands but left his forehead pressed to mine. “Until you turn eighteen, I’ve got no claim on you. The Council of Elders would strip us both of our rank, assuming your father didn’t kill me first.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t care—that Dad could come live with us in an Inuit hut if it meant being together. Away from the Guardian Elders. Away from the Immortals. Away from Lisa and her stupid
civitas terrena
Post-it.

I’d just begun to formulate the wish when something shifted and the air got quiet.

Unnaturally quiet.

I can’t really explain it beyond that—it was just a heavy, weighted silence that seeped through my skin and rested at the bottom of my stomach.

“Jack, what—?”

The words had barely formed before a crack of lightning ripped across the sky, making it bleed pure white. In the space of a heartbeat, Jack twisted me behind him.

“Shields,” he ordered.

I summoned the protective channel between my fingertips and tossed it at the air in front of us.

Before either of us could speak, Lyle’s voice spilled across the rocks from the parking lot. “Sir, I think we have a breach.”

“A breach?” I asked, tightening the channel in my hand. My blood fizzed with the taint of the Crossworlds. “Is that like a rift?”

In silence, Jack drew a Magic 8 Ball key chain out of his jeans pocket and pressed it into my palm, drawing some of the Crossworlds poison off me. “Go wait in the car. You’ll be safe there.”

Through the darkness, I cast a doubtful glance at the dilapidated blue Gremlin Jack had bought last October. As much as I loved the guy, I had to disagree with the word “safe” being applied to it. I might take issue with the term “car,” too. Rust covered the bottom half so thickly you could barely tell its original color, and the top looked like it’d been chewed by a demon. Which, to be fair, it probably had.

Jack had made it only a few steps toward the docks when a series of sharp thudding sounds rang out and I turned. Immediately, I could tell something was wrong.

Several things, actually.

The first was that the sky, instead of calmly existing like a sky is supposed to, now swirled in angry funnels.

The second was the river. Only moments ago it had been a lovely shade of sludge flecked with white froth. Now it blazed purple fire.

But the last thing—the thing that left me wanting to curl up in a corner and suck my thumb for an hour—was Lyle. On the ground. Facedown in the water.

Utterly still.

Chapter Three:

Down the Rabbit Hole

“Lyle!”

Blood spilled out of a cut on his forehead, staining the moonlit shore a deep scarlet. Tentative waves lapped at his pale body. Apart from the cut above his brow, I didn’t see any marks on him. But given the bizarre damage our enemies could inflict, that meant very little.

Jack dashed toward the water at a full sprint, sword drawn and ready. “Get Lyle,” he ordered me, “and stay down.”

I ducked as a chunk of stone flew through the air at my head. Like I needed to be told to stay down. Did he think I was an idiot?

Jack’s car keys clattered to the ground as I dodged flying debris.

“
Inergio,
” I whispered to myself, calling open a channel. It pulsed heat between my fingers, making the skin under my fingernails burn. Of course, I had it dialed to kill mode, not heal mode, but that could be adjusted once Lyle was out of danger.

At the shoreline, I rolled Lyle over and lowered my face to his mouth. No breath, no heartbeat. Beneath the silence, I felt something else wiggle restlessly. Something small, but important.

His soul. Still intact.

“Jack, what do you see?”

Near the water, my bondmate ducked and twisted as rocks flew by his head. A few glanced off his sword, then skittered across the rocks. Most just whizzed past harmlessly. It was weird how chaotic their strike pattern was—more like a tornado than an actual assault.

“I don’t know. Can you close it?”

Leaving one hand on Lyle’s quiet chest, I lifted the other toward the source of fire. Immediately, my palm ignited with power.

“Concedia! Exitus!”

The dismissal and closure commands sliced through the night with a vicious zip, then fizzled into the air. Like something had swallowed them. A moment later, the power swirled, and another burst of purple flame shot out of the water. It slammed into Jack and sent him sprawling against the rocks.

“Can’t close it.”

“Got that, thanks.” Jack ducked as another missile smashed against the stone pillar by his head, sending up a spray of chalky black dust.

With soft breaths, I shut my eyes and shifted the channel between my fingers to the hand that rested on Lyle’s chest. Instantly, the energy took on a lighter feel—more peach sunrise than flaming sky.

“
Salve pacem,
” I whispered into the darkness, pressing my hand to Lyle’s forehead.

Warmth coursed through me, igniting the nerve endings beneath my skin. Healing was a skill they taught us in grade school, even before Channelers got our full powers. It was one of the few Guardian skills I’d always felt comfortable with, and one that drew significantly less energy off the Crossworlds. So instead of the usual headache and blood fizz, the sensation left me with a sense of well-being and empowerment.

Which I totally needed now.

It terrified me that Jack couldn’t see what was attacking us. More so, that I couldn’t feel anything, either. If a portal had opened, or if there was a swarm of angry demons funneling in from the Crossworlds, that would have been bad, granted. But the fact that no rifts were present meant that whatever had attacked Lyle could have been here the whole time.

Watching. Listening.

It could be anywhere.

“
Salve,
” I said again, drawing more energy into Lyle’s body.

In the distance,
thuds
and
clangs
sounded as Jack deflected the onslaught of flying rock.

As much as I wanted to stand and fight, I had to trust that Jack could give me enough cover to heal Lyle. I’d only been in two active battle zones, both of them last fall. Regardless, I’d taken enough classes to know that healing during a battle was always a dicey business. If there are injured Watchers on the field, a Channeler needs to heal them. It’s the only way to get them back into the fight. The problem is, most Watchers don’t just heal in an instant and go straight back to active duty. They’re disoriented for a few minutes, then they do the whole where-am-I thing. If you’re not careful, they (and you) might get killed by a dive-bombing demon before anyone can convince them to pick up a damn sword.

No way would I let that happen to Lyle.

“Lyle”—I prodded my fallen friend—“wake up.”

No response.

As gently as possible, I slipped my arms under his body and used one of the rocks to brace myself for the effort. I needed every advantage. We’re talking 180 pounds of dead weight. Of course, it wasn’t the
weight
part that bothered me. It was the
dead
.

“He’s gone,” I said, then realized I’d said it far too quietly for Jack to hear. “Jack, Lyle’s dead.”

“So, call him back.”

Call him back.

Simple enough. I mean, that’s what Wraithmakers do, right?

Yeah.
And if I could have snapped my fingers and brought him back to life, I would have. I would have prayed and chanted and channeled until I turned blue. I might have even given up a few years off my life or whatever the stupid source of my power demanded. But it just felt so…futile.

Lyle and I had worked on the whole raising-the-dead thing a few times at school and again at his house last October. After hours of failure and a few epileptic seizures from the Crossworlds energy draw, it usually ended with me in tears and Lyle making jokes to lighten the mood. Then he’d feed me cookie dough and we’d watch
Comedy Central
till his mom came home.

I hated it.

Not the cookie dough—I liked that part. But what was the point of having all this power—claiming Lucifer as my bloodline and enduring all the crap from my fellow students—if I couldn’t even save a friend?

“Okay, Wraithmaker,” I whispered to myself as I shook out the tension in my hands. They flexed into hard planes of power. “You’re Lucifer’s blood. You can do this.”

I took a breath. Around me, the air tightened and my chest constricted like it’d been strung with rubber bands.

“
Inergio
,
” I called, tugging the channel open.

Instantly, power sparked. Even though Jack wasn’t near me, his energy reverberated off mine in an echo chamber effect that made my bones hum and my muscles yawn with power. It was one of the most intoxicating feelings on the planet. Even amid the cold horror, hope trilled through me.

“Ami, what’s your status?” Jack called.

My status was
awesome
.

Power threads flitted over Lyle’s skin then bounced back to my palms like tiny boomerangs. Occasionally, they’d make a wide circle toward Jack, but they always came back to me. Each circuit seemed to draw them tighter around me until I felt like one of those pictures of an atom in Gunderman’s science lab. In the distance, Lyle’s soul huddled in kaleidoscopic warmth—purples and blues and greens, all shifting together in panicked twists.

It wasn’t anything I could describe, but somewhere inside me, a switch flipped into the on position.

“Ami?” Jack shouted again.

Ignoring Jack, I reached out to the soul blob. This was it. I could feel it.

It was as if all the things that had made up Lyle—the strength and fear and courage—had all collapsed into this tiny, basketball-sized thing. Heat built in my bones as my skin vibrated.

I could totally do this.

With a final push of energy, I yanked the healing powers out of the Crossworlds and shoved them into Lyle’s body. Beneath my hands, the channel bucked and kicked like a living thing.

“Lyle,” I shouted, as his eyelids fluttered. “Wake up!”

“
Nrrrngh.
” He made a groany noise then shifted so his face angled into my skirt. A pool of drool dribbled down my knee in a mucus snail trail. Normally, that would’ve been gross. At the moment, I couldn’t be anything but grateful.

“Lyle!” I jostled his head, and his eyelids popped open.

The first thing to register was a look of shock, followed by a cloud of confusion. It was like watching a baby wake up—that moment where he’s not sure whether to scream or cry or shut his eyes and go back to sleep.

“Where am I?” he began, but I smacked him across the cheek. Then I gave him a giant hug.

“Don’t be an idiot. I just brought you back. There’s no way I’m letting you die again.” I withdrew the knife from my thigh sheath and shoved it at him hilt first. “Now, go kill something. And if you ever die on me again,” I added, “I’ll tell every girl in school about the
My Little Pony
action figure collection you keep stashed in your closet. Are we clear?”

Lyle blinked at me for another blurry moment then hustled to his feet.

I barely had time to watch him stumble across the rocks to the wharf before the howling began. It started as a low drone, like a distant swarm of bees, then increased to something decidedly more locomotive-like.

“Jack? What’s going on?”

My bondmate continued deflecting the stone assault as he assumed a back-to-back battle stance with Lyle. “I need you.”

That was all he had to say.

By the time I reached them, the onslaught had started to slow, and Jack and Lyle stood facing a wall of flames by the river. No humans had called the fire department—at least, no sirens were audible—which probably meant it was demon fire. Much harder for human eyes to see.

“
Protorum.
” I positioned myself between them and threw up a shielding charm. “What’s happening? Is it a demon?”

“Smells like it,” Lyle said. “But that could just be the river.”

“It’s not a demon. Purcell, fall back,” Jack said. “Ami, keep shields up.”

A light dust of snow had collected on his arms, and tightly corded muscles shivered under his thin cotton undershirt. Even the scar-pocked skin along his forearms prickled goose bumps.

Unfortunately, the goose bumps weren’t just about the chill.

Not twenty feet away, knee-deep in watery flames, stood a girl so striking I immediately felt like a human pimple. She was at least four inches taller than me (impressive, since I’m not exactly petite) and had iridescent hair that flowed in cascading, multicolored ringlets over her bare shoulders. Black fingernails jutted out from her hands in pointy, inch-long talons, as if they’d been specifically sharpened and painted for battle. Even her skin glimmered like liquid bronze shot with diamond dust.

And I do mean
all
of her skin. As in, the only thing covering it was a skimpy black bikiniesque outfit with a bandeau top and a bottom that resembled a wad of shoelaces. Retro, but in a Charlize Theron
Mad Max
way. Of course, she managed to rock the look.

“Who is that,” I whispered to Jack, “and can I please kill her?”

With a disapproving noise, Jack shoved my frozen self behind him.

In typical idiot fashion, Lyle leaped into an enthusiastic ninja stance beside us, effectively shutting me out of the action.

And there it is—a snapshot of everything that’s wrong with guys.

Don’t mistake me, I appreciate heroics, especially when it means I get to watch my boyfriend fight dark, demony things. But if push came to shove, I was pretty sure I could do at least as much damage as Jack and Lyle combined. Maybe more, considering they’d both gone into hormone arrest and started that adorable head-to-toe scoping thing boys do.

“You could take a picture,” I suggested drily. “It’ll last longer.”

“I was looking for weapons,” Jack explained.

“Yeah, me too,” Lyle concurred, snapping his gaze off her shimmery cleavage. “She’s clean.”

Nerves pricked like needles under my skin. Part of me wanted to offer her Lyle’s jacket. Another part wanted to run for my life. And yet another part wanted to ask how she kept her skin so flawless and her hair so shiny and voluminous. Seriously, the woman was like a magnet. A beautiful, sparkly, psycho killer magnet.

“Petra,” Jack said in an even yet guarded tone, his sword still raised. “What do you want?”

“
What do you want?
” the girl parroted. “Is that how you greet an old friend?”

“We’re not friends.”

“Family?”

Jack scowled in response. “Petra.”

“I want her.” Horrifyingly, the girl leveled a black-lacquered fingernail at me.

I didn’t move.

Jack didn’t, either—didn’t even flinch—though I felt his urgency rise through the bond. “She’s claimed by the Immortal Synod and the Council of Guardian Elders. She’s no danger to you.”

“I didn’t say she was a danger to me. I just said I need her.”

Jack raised his sword. “Why?”

The girl smiled, but not an evil smile. It was one of those friendly, megawatt smiles that made you want to ask her out for beignets and coffee then buy her shiny things until she agreed to be your BFF. It kinda made me queasy. “Someone wants to talk to her. Think of it as a peacekeeping effort.”

“A
peacekeeping
effort?” I stepped forward. “What the hell kind of
peacekeeping
classes did you have back in psychopath school?”

“Amelie,” Jack warned. “Settle down.”

“Lyle
died
,” I reminded him. “She can’t just waltz around killing people then claim to be a goodwill messenger. That’s insane.
She’s
insane. And her outfit is ridiculous.”

“Don’t be rude.” The girl folded her arms over her ample chest.

“Y’all, I’m not dead,” Lyle contributed. “Also, I like her outfit.”

That earned him a nasty look. Especially since I could already see him mentally splashing on cologne.

I was poised to start griping about how body bronzers and hair extensions are only proper attire for skanks and
Cirque du Soleil
performers when the girl started closing the gap between us. Honestly, I’m not sure why Jack didn’t just cut her down right there. He had his sword raised and all. But for some lame reason, he hesitated, and by the time he got back into striking stance, she’d already kicked him a good five yards across the rocks. Right through my shields.

Very peaceable.

“Ami,” she said, dusting her hands. “Can I call you Ami?”