NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20
Still telling Anna’s Flashback September 13th
New York Preparatory Academy, New York, NY
As the students and faculty were evacuated, so was the very expensive private security that the academy employed. More than half the students had left with about half the faculty and security. And Anna admitted to herself as she ran from one classroom to another notifying teachers of when there was a bus ready for them and their students, things had been going well.
Too well.
It was Prometheus Purple out there.
Where were the monsters?
That’s what some of the other kids were grumbling about. The city kids. The students from the U.S.A. They didn’t know.
America had magic collectors and defensive perimeters around their cities. America had an entire branch of the military dedicated to monster defense. That was in addition to every branch of the military and law enforcement organization being required to have at least twenty-five percent of their service members qualified as level eight magic license mages.
There hadn’t been a city-wide monster incursion in decades. Because the colonists of this great nation had learned. They had learned from Roanoke what happened when you ignored the warnings the natives gave about the things magic did to people here. They had learned from Salem the depravity of demons who preyed upon young warlocks. They had learned that the only way to live here was to conquer magic, reduce ambient levels in population centers by capturing it, and incorporate its use into their lives.
So…where were the monsters?
They were coming. Anna didn’t know when, or how, or what form they would take, but Anna knew it was inevitable. She redoubled her speed as she sprinted down the hallway to the next teacher in line. They’d started with classes furthest from the front gate so now, with only half of the student body left, she only had half the distance to run.
It was still taxing. Her legs were starting to get a burn in them from the constant relay back and forth. Sara and one of her friends had kept up, not surprising as they were cheerleaders and the school’s team trained competitively. One of the group was on the swim team and she did not fare well. Her legs were trained for a different kind of athleticism.
Honestly, Anna had been surprised that she was as fast as the others. Sure, she wasn’t out of shape. But she wasn’t in sports. She ran with her mom, participated in mom’s mandatory physical fitness training, and self-defense instruction with Sam, because her mom hit too hard even when she pulled her punches. Yet, she honestly hadn’t considered herself to be genuinely athletic.
“Mrs. Deville?” Anna called out as slid to a stop in front of the ninth-grade history teacher’s classroom. “The buses are on their way back, they’re ready for your class at the front office.”
The nervous woman, turned from her fretful watching out the window and smiled with relief. It always struck Anna as odd that someone so stunningly beautiful, even oblivious Anna could tell that Mrs. Deville was more than supermodel gorgeous. Many of the petty girls whispered that she’d used magical enhancements to make herself prettier, as if those same girls didn’t do the same.
“Oh. Excellent. Class...” She clapped her hands together several times, making the flowing sleeves of her dress flutter. “Like we practiced in drills. Line up and follow Miss Wattkins to the front.”
“You’re not coming with?” Anna asked with alarm when she realized that the teacher was not ready to leave campus. She lived in the on campus housing with her husband and they each supervised one of the dormitories for the international students. The resident faculty had been instructed to prepare for evacuation along with the students they supervised. “You don’t have anything to take with you?”
“I’ll escort the students part way.” She assured Anna nervously pushing a strand of brown hair with tints of green in it out of the way. “I’m not leaving without my husband. The dean knows.”
It always felt to Anna, like Mrs. Deville was extremely young. Though rumor was she’d been around for years. The woman blushed when she mentioned her husband and her voice got a little shy. Like was that just what happened to someone who was madly deeply in love with someone else? Because that was not even a little bit how her parents acted. Though, to be fair, Anna didn’t think that anything could make her mother blush.
“I’m right here.” Marax Deville called from down the hallway. He was hurrying up, his massive bodybuilder–esque frame trailing a grey cloak or cape – Anna could never decide which it was – from the epaulettes of his jacket. His cloak-cape seemed to change shape and style as necessary. It was yet another thing the students whispered about.
The huge man dressed like nineteenth-century royalty in military dress. Without the ribbons and symbols of rank of course. He could have stepped right out of a history book with his deep blue and dark grey heavily starched uniform and heavy epaulettes and gold braids. And he had this musty sulfur smell to him – magically, he didn’t actually stink – of hot stones and metal that always made Anna suspect him of sketchy magic. You know, the kind that was outlawed and resulted in priests and paladins showing up.
Wherever the case may be, his wife smiled a huge blossoming smile that made her already supernaturally beautiful face even more radiant. If one were to ignore their suspicions about Mister Deville, one could grudgingly admit that the couple were adorable. And maybe even have shipped them before they started dating.
“Right. Then since everyone’s here, let’s go.” Anna spun around just as the shattering of glass was followed by the crash of desks being overturned…and shrieking. Of course, there was shrieking.
“I was afraid that this was going to happen.” Eik Deville sighed like a monster crashing through the wall of her classroom was a normal everyday kind of inconvenience. “The arcanes have been twisting up pretty badly over there. I suspect this is just the first of a herd formation.”