Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books) (13 page)

Large gold and silver embroidered tapestries with the world’s old, pre-One World Order national flags emblazoned on them in monochrome stretched from mahogany rods and were suspended from the ceiling by thick satin ropes. But the longer she stared, the more she came to see that the entire suspension mechanism was made from the fluid, interconnected movements of living dragon art.

Flames from broad iron wall torches licked a path up the stone until it practically glowed. Dragons guarded opened stone skylights with slow, undulating movements full of threat. Aunt Jasmine gave her a quick wink. Her aunt’s specialty was drawing things to life, and she’d obviously taken great care to draw to life the protectors of the Great Hall. Aunt Jasmine loved dragons—believed they were good luck. Maybe they were. Or maybe there was a reason why all the uncles and aunts had brought weapons. If the dragons were the good guys, then what did the demons that were threatening the school look like? Maybe none of what Ayana had told her was embellishment. One thing for sure, the thing that had attacked her last night had been bad enough that she didn’t want to meet anything worse.

Atlantean, Kemetic-Egyptian, Cuneiform, Aramaic, Coptic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Rune, mound-dweller wall art, Aztec…they all scrolled by at a dizzying pace. Then a word stuck out:
Nexse.
Within a second it was gone again. Sarah froze. That was the same word the Light being in the darkness had used. As soon as she had seen the word, it was as though she could hear the being speaking it in her head. Sarah glanced around, but no one else was paying attention.

She stared at the columns intensely, but the word didn’t appear again. What did it mean? Then she was jostled from behind and snapped back to the present, and she hurried after Tami, Hyacinth and Allie.

Thick plumes of frankincense and myrrh tickled her nose and made her eyes water as her gaze haphazardly wandered. The Great Hall was pure sensory overload. In addition to the grand splendor of the building and the strange moving words, she’d also noticed Wil again. It was a long shot to think he’d ever notice her, with all the pretty girls at school. She tried to stop staring at him, but that was next to impossible, even though he was way out of her league.

Without consulting her brain, her gaze remained on Wil. He looked away from his conversation with her brother and Val and gave her a smile. Problem was, he was standing close to Melissa and company. The moment he glanced in Sarah’s direction, Melissa caught it and whispered to one of her friends, and they all laughed.

Sarah’s face burned, and she quickly looked away.

“Dare to dream,” Hyacinth whispered, making Tami giggle.

Sarah reached around Allie and pinched Hyacinth, who squealed. “I’m warning you, quit barging into my private thoughts.”

“Did you see the Uppers,” Allie whispered, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, oh, my gawd.”

“Did I see the Uppers?” Tami murmured, her gaze slowly roving the students surrounding them. “You mean did I see the pure eye candy in every delicious flavor from semi-sweet dark chocolate to amaretto to pure blond macaroon hunk?”

“If you don’t keep your voice down, I swear I will never speak to you again, Tamara Rider!” Hyacinth snapped.

Allie’s nervous gaze darted through the crowd before returning to Tami. “And what about the Upper Sphere girls, huh? They’ll probably kick our butts for even looking.”

“Just for looking?” Sarah let out a hard sigh. “Be serious, Allie. I think you’re overreacting. The seniors aren’t worried about us. We’re no competition. Just look at them.”

“Spell casters,” Tami said with a smirk, moving toward the seats arranged in semi-circular rows on the far side of the hall. “I’m not scared of those bitches, and I’m pretty sure I could give any one of them a beat-down they’d never forget.”

“Do something with her, Sarah,” Allie lamented, stepping closer to Sarah to distance herself from Tami.

“You know you can’t do a thing with Tami but love her and give her a tissue when she gets her nose bloodied and the snot beat out of her.” Sarah shook her head.

“All right, all right,” Tami whispered back, laughing. “Chill out. Geeze Louise, don’t get your panties in a knot. But just look at all the available trouble on two legs.”

Sarah followed Tami’s line of vision, much to Allie’s and Hyacinth’s horror, and checked out the rows of students settling themselves on intricately carved, gleaming ebony Ashanti stools, grouped according to division colors. Suddenly it hit her. Every female student’s stool had a Sankofa bird on it, the same tattoo her mother had on her lower back. All the male students’ stools had the same tattoo that her father had been given years ago to cover the Vampire bite on his throat at his jugular vein. It was the Nkyin kyin symbol that was carved into the boys’ seats.

As her gaze lingered, she instantly spotted Ayana sitting in the first color band with the fourth-year students. Sarah was about to wave, but Ayana gave her a shake of her head, then turned away. She could understand that Ayana wanted to separate herself now that she was with her classmates, but it still stung. Sarah faced forward, feeling disappointed. Then the hair began to rise on the back of her neck. She glanced around and saw Melissa Gray giving her the evil eye. She turned to look at Ayana again, but her cousin seemed lost in her own conversation.

Faculty members stood at the ends of the rows, guiding the new students toward the correct section, while the students who’d been there before already knew the drill and quickly took their places. Most parents sat in the very back, but hers were headed toward the stage area.

Suddenly Ayana got a message through to her. Your mom and dad built this. Don’t let those hater witches make you forget who you are.

Sarah nodded as she looked over her shoulder toward her cousin. Ayana’s eyes were angry, and that gave her confidence to turn around and return her attention to the goings-on. Somebody had her back. The disappointment she’d felt faded. Ayana hadn’t abandoned her. But she was still conflicted. Wil was only a few rows away, and his gaze was fastened to the female splendor that surrounded him. And Melissa and her crew were still whispering and sending visual daggers in her direction.

Then everything hit her all at once. This was all so new, and she was so unprepared. Her parents had built monuments, and that was a lot for a kid with mediocre powers to live up to—and being hated on sight by a bunch of mean girls didn’t help.

Just look at this place, Yaya, Sarah mentally shot back.

Yeah, I know, but what are you gonna do? Ayana shrugged.

A slight shudder of awareness ran through Sarah. In reality, Ayana had been conservative in her descriptions about what it was like at the Academy. There had been no yeast in her story to make it rise into a full-blown whopper. If anything, that would have made Sarah feel better—because that also would have meant that Ayana had probably exaggerated her stories about school and about her senior training battles on the road. But Yaya hadn’t exaggerated a thing, which also meant that her parents’ exploits might have been way more dangerous than they’d ever let on.

As she looked around, a dozen plaques in the Great Hall were dedicated to the significant battles her parents and the other Neteru Guardians had fought.

Sarah spotted eight empty stools at the end of the closest row, where other Lower Sphere students had already taken their seats. At a subtle nod from her mother and after a bit of shuffling, she and her compound siblings were seated on the appropriately carved stools.

Front and center, her grandmother stared down from her seat on the dais. Sarah counted thirty-three stone steps up to the platform where her nana, now Headmistress Stone, and Baba, now Headmaster Shabazz, sat on silversmith-created versions of the student stools.

Never in her life had she seen her stand-in grandparents look so regal—or so serious. She was glad they’d taken over for her real grandparents, who had died fighting vampires. She wondered what they would have been like if they’d lived. As she stared up at the platform, she saw kindness in her nana’s eyes but also unwavering authority. Quiet pride filled Sarah, chasing away the dread for a moment.

Elegant. Today, Nana Marlene was elegant. She wore long, finely embroidered, iridescent purple robe with gold embroidery. Her ancient white dreadlocks were swept away from her dark brown face, and her head was covered in the same heavy fabric, but tied in such a striking way that the headdress seemed almost like an exotic bird. To her left sat her husband, the school’s head of security and defense training. Baba wore a golden grand Boubou African robe with pantaloons that had deep purple embroidery—the reverse color pattern as Nana’s—his small square cap of the same rich fabric, his graying dreadlocks flowing down his back.

Unlike Nana, Baba didn’t study any of the compound students—never made eye contact, not even with her. Today he was clearly the enforcer, while Nana was responsible for spiritual and educational pursuits. Beside them were golden stools etched with symbols from the Akhan and from Kemet, symbols that she had seen in the fabrics and art gracing the compound all her life. Semi-circular rows of stools behind the headmasters were filled with a very strange collection of warriors and beings seated with proud postures. Teachers? Had to be the weird faculty Ayana told them funny stories about.

Staring at Sarah, her grandmother suddenly stood. It was such a swift motion that all murmuring fell silent. Her grandmother lifted the thick ebony walking stick that she always carried, grasped it tightly in her right hand and brought it down with a loud crack against the floor. Immediately the etchings along the surface of the wood were lit from some preternatural source within. All the students in the Upper Spheres quickly got to their feet, so she and all the other new students quickly scrambled to their feet, as well. From the corner of her eye, Sarah could see her parents and the rest of the compound parents forming pairs along the purple runner that led to the bottom of the steps, which led to the platform.

At another crack of her great walking stick, the flames in the Great Hall sputtered as Headmistress Marlene began to speak.

“Anetgh hrak atef mut Neter, ita em, amen tua en Hetep. We ask for ancestral knowledge and permission to begin.”

“Ashe,”
rang out from the faculty and Upper Sphere students in unison.

Her grandmother’s voice was loud, majestic and strong. A male faculty member in white brocade stood, holding a water-filled gourd and walked forward, as a female faculty member in matching traditional ceremonial robes brought forward a small fern. The woman positioned the plant at Headmistress Stone’s feet, and then the man handed the gourd to her. With an agile flip of her wrist, a clear stream of water spilled over the lip of the gourd as she continued speaking, her voice echoing through the hall.

“Supplant unknowing with wisdom, supplant education with knowledge, keep these the last children of a generation of Guardians safe. Keep their hearts pure. Ashe.”

Again the word Ashe rang out in response. But this time the parents were on the move, walking to the front and heading up the steps single file. Her mother and father were leading the group of Neteru Guardians.

Thunderous applause followed them, causing Sarah and crew to look at one another with questioning stares. As the Neteru Guardians stood before their stools, whatever they had on slowly dissolved into white and silver traditional ceremonial robes. Sarah’s jaw went slack as the students behind them whooped and cheered, stomping the floor in three-beat stanzas, until Headmistress Stone lifted her walking stick.

“They have brought the Light. They have conquered the darkness. Now you must conquer the darkness within your own minds and be hungry for true knowledge—that is your job here until it is your time to battle.” She glanced around the massive hall and then nodded to her husband.

Headmaster Shabazz accepted her walking stick and raised it high in the air, then slammed it down against the stone floor, sending out a sudden white light that rippled down the steps, flowed over the floor like translucent lava and crawled up the walls, making the dragons roar. Students gasped. Her nana’s eyes glowed white. Within seconds, the metallic tapestries were illuminated, and soon scenes of battles moved across them, as though they all made up one continuous high-definition television screen. It was amazing.

“Every year, to educate our new students and to refresh the memories of our already inducted Spheres, we review the sacrifice. This is what your parents faced, what the Neteru Guardians faced. Many have sacrificed for your education. Many brave warriors did not survive. This—education, time to learn and grow and become whoever you are destined to be, in a safe haven—is a privilege. You must never forget that.”

Using the walking stick as a pointer, Headmaster Shabazz motioned beyond the horrific scenes playing out on the tapestries toward the hieroglyphics. “These walls tell the stories of great human civilizations that came to be and devolved to dust thousands of years ago. You do not have the luxury of thousands of years or many lifetimes, many incarnations. The last Guardian children that we know of are all assembled in this Great Hall. If there are to be more, then they will be your children—but that will happen only if you survive and create a place for them to thrive.”

Mesmerized, the students stared up at the epic battles being played out in living color. Sarah had never in her life seen her mother as she appeared in that moving spectacle. It was all so real, so much larger than life, that she could almost taste the dirt and smell the sulfur. Her heart was practically beating a path out of her chest. Sweat covered her body as she watched, adrenaline racing through her veins. Demon splatter suddenly hit the screen, causing students to cover their faces and groan as the creature’s head fell with a thud at the bottom of the screen. Sarah peered through her fingers. That was her mom and her dad?

Sure, she’d seen the silver glare when her dad was annoyed. Had seen him get a little toothy…but in full battle mode? Transfixed, she watched as a multi-eyed demon came up behind her mother, who’d just beheaded two zombie walkers. Her father spun out of an energy whirl to rip out the demon’s innards with his bare hands, and then called a blade into his grip as her mother took flight with her aunt Valkyrie.