Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books) (7 page)

Allie threaded her arm around Sarah’s waist, dipped her head low and said in a quietly frantic tone, “They’re making me nuts. Make them go away. I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire school if everyone finds out that my grandparents run the Upper Sphere dorms. They promised before that they wouldn’t let people know, but now they want to come with me to see me settled in? No!”

“It’s gonna be okay, seriously.” Sarah gave her friend a supportive hug. But they both knew the truth, the poor girl was doomed. Upper Sphere students hated rules and regulations imposed on them by the dorm monitors, and the moment they found out Allie’s grandparents were the enforcers, Allie would have hell to pay.

Trying to figure out anything positive she could say, Sarah pressed on. “Ayana’s Grandma Delores and Pop Pop Monte run the kitchen and maintenance services over there, and she lived, right?” Sarah added, searching for something positive to cling to. “Plus, Hyacinth’s and Donnie’s grands run the lower dorms. So don’t worry. The kids at school can’t hold that against you.”

Tami had come over to where they were standing to pour more black coffee in her mug, and from the surly way she did it, it was clear that her morning mood hadn’t improved. “Yeah, they can,” she muttered now. “Nobody else’s grands came to orientation to totally embarrass them in front of the whole school.” She flung her long brown hair over her shoulder, hazel eyes glinting with mischief. “You gotta work it to your advantage. Lotta kids in the Upper Spheres wanna get out, wanna go down the mountain with the Regulars. You have influence with the people giving out demerits. So, you know, one hand washes the other. Make ‘em think you have the power to screw up their day passes if they mess with you. I’d make ‘em be real nice to me.” She smiled, using what Sarah liked to call her vamp smirk, then she took a sip of her coffee and closed her eyes. “Damn, I hate mornings.”

“How do you think this stuff up?” Allie sniffed and glanced up at Tami.

“My mom passed a little political savvy to me. Glad I didn’t get my dad’s schnozz, though. Woulda sucked, puking up my guts all of first year. I would hate to be an Olfactor like him.”

Sarah had to silently agree. Freshmen Olfactors, otherwise known as Ollies, were infamous for their reaction to first-year training. Every new smell set them off.

“Just as long as they don’t split us up in the dorm—you think they’d actually do that? It’s bad enough the talent classes are going to be separate tracks,” Allie whispered. Her voice was tense, and she sniffed again.

“I told you what Ayana said. No. We’ll all be together in the dorm, so stop stressing before you start giving everybody static cling again.” Sarah glanced over to her uncle Jack and aunt Tara.

“Okay, okay,” Allie said, hugging herself as the girls headed back to the main table.

“You’d just better hope they’re gonna let us get out of this joint to even experience school,” Tami muttered under her breath.

Sarah cut Tami a warning look to knock it off and then nervously glanced around at the adults. Yeah, something was still wrong—big time. Her mother’s private warning to her dad last night, coupled with her own senses, told her there was a silent undercurrent of worry running through the group, and it went beyond general separation anxiety.

Tamara’s parents looked as worried as hers did; the only difference was that her aunt Tara had a cool, vampire reserve, her gaze slowly traveling over each of the compound kids, whereas her uncle Jack looked like he was ready to have a nervous breakdown. Whatever they’d seen on the hunt last night could not have been good. Later she’d have to pull Tami to the side so they could dissect the problem even further.

But Tami was right about one thing: They had to get out of the compound before one of the nervous parents changed their minds. Last night Sarah had been dreading going to school, today she was dreading staying at home. Just looking at the adults’ faces instantly clinched the decision for her. Going to the Academy with the whole gang was better than being left alone at home on twenty-four-seven lockdown with a bunch of freaked-out parents. Being able to be with Ayana again would be great… and maybe there’d also be someone else at the Academy like her—a blend of everything and master of nothing.

Sarah released a quiet sigh. At the Academy, maybe she could finally do something to make her parents proud—or make herself proud. She clearly wasn’t ever going to overachieve here. Maybe she could go away, train hard and come back awesome and filled out and beautiful. There was a hopeful thought.

As Sarah looked around, it was easy to tell who’d been out all night on the mission. Her dad was gripping a mug of coffee between his palms as though it was the only thing keeping his head from hitting his plate. His eyes were closed, he hadn’t shaved and a dark five o’clock shadow covered his jaw. Her mom yawned, picking at her fruit, and every now and then she wrapped her white silk robe around herself more tightly.

Uncle Yonnie’s wild afro looked like someone had been pulling his hair, and every few minutes his head would loll forward until he’d catch himself with a hard jerk, open his eyes and then go back to nodding. His daywalker fangs were down, like he just didn’t have the energy to retract them. She swallowed a laugh when her aunt Valkyrie stretched out a long, graceful amber wing and reached past aunt Jasmine to give her husband a shove to get him to stop snoring at the table.

“Morning, everybody,” Sarah said quickly, receiving a round of good mornings in return. Her uncle Jose just gave her the thumbs-up, his mouth was so full. But she made it a point to keep her back to the boys at the far end of the room, where her brother was sitting, suddenly remembering the zit.

There was an open seat, as always, next to Tami, and after helping herself to pancakes and fruit, she slid into it. Anybody with any sense avoided Tami’s morning snipes. Tami had clearly gotten her ex-vampire mother’s aversion to morning and could be crazy-wicked verbally if you got on her nerves. If very slightly provoked, she’d also fight and go round for round, pound for pound at the drop of a hat. This morning, Sarah truly wished she could sit anywhere but next to Tami, who was no doubt going to start in on the whole zit issue. However, if she elected not to sit by Tami, that would start a whole hot mess.

But somehow, because her aunt Inez was blind to any flaw in anyone she loved, despite being a great psychic, and because her normally sarcastic uncle Jack hadn’t said a word about it, nor had her lovable uncle Mike—not to mention Val had been so cool about it—the Everest-sized thing protruding from her forehead had momentarily slipped her mind.

That is until Tami brought her back to harsh reality.

“No progress, I see,” she muttered, spearing a sausage.

“I tried the compress,” Sarah whispered through her teeth, keeping her head down low close to her plate. “It didn’t work.”

“Understatement. I think it made it worse.”

Allie put her hand on Sarah’s back and stared at her with big gray eyes. “It’s okay, Sarah. Nobody will notice.” Her red curls accidentally spilled over her shoulder and into the syrup on her plate. “Oh…no…” High-strung and beginning to spark at the fingertips, Allie unsuccessfully tried to rescue her hair.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Sarah said quickly, pressing down Allie’s silverware, which was beginning to levitate. She caught her friend’s juice glass before the electromagnetic charge around it toppled it and created a mess.

The static outburst was common enough that nobody at the table paid them any attention. But at school, something like this would be a disaster.

Sarah let out a sigh as she quickly grabbed both of Allie’s hands, feeling the charge ripple up her arms. She looked down at the delicate tea-and-milk hued fingers that held hers tightly and then glanced at Allie’s parents, wondering how Aunt Heather, a Scottish Druid stoneworker, and Uncle Dan, a Tactical Guardian, two relatively serene individuals, had wound up with a kid who sparked at the least provocation.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” Allie said, dripping syrup onto her pink robe.

“It’s okay. We’re all just nervous about going to school this morning—day one jitters,” Sarah said, feeling the charge beginning to wane.

It had taken everything in her parents’ powers to get Allie to calm down enough while taking the school placement tests that she could be put in the tactical division. It was a real coup, and it had the side benefit of being the talent division that had all the good-looking jocks. T-Rexes. That was where the true athletes were, the guys who could do the heavy lifting with just magnetic force alone, but poor Allie was far from a kinetic athlete, and the girl was a nervous wreck.

“Look at my hair,” Allie wailed softly. “There’s not enough time this morning to get it back to how I had it. I got up extra early this morning so I—”

“That’s what you get for lying to Sarah about that volcano on her face,” Tami muttered over a sip of coffee, but then her head flew back as her mother yanked her ponytail.

“Ow! Mom!”

“Ease up,” her mom said, flashing fang. “Leave the poor girl alone.”

Tami stuck out her tongue at her mother’s back, while Sarah grabbed a napkin and tried to dab syrup out of Allie’s hair.

“I’ll help you blow dry it after you wash it again—don’t panic,” Hyacinth said, her wide blue eyes focused on Sarah’s forehead. Hyacinth’s voice was as soothing as her hypnotic stare. Her gentle smile, framed by her pretty heart-shaped face and long, onyx hair, seemed to summon calm if anyone just looked at her. “Listen…we have to all stick together, especially when we get to the Academy.” Then she leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Especially with everything that’s going on.”

“Later,” Sarah murmured, and then she motioned subtly toward the adult end of the table. Just great, Hyacinth had picked up on stuff floating around in the ether, but the girl obviously didn’t have the good sense not to try to talk about it around Ascended Masters!

“Yeah,” Tami said in a sullen tone and then gave Hyacinth a look to shut her up. “It’s bad enough that they’ve already separated us,” she pressed on more loudly and off topic, as a cover for Hyacinth’s carelessness. “You’re going to the clairvoyant division, and me, Donnie and Sarah will be with the slow kids in Blends. All we need is a static outburst by a kid from our compound at the lunchroom table.”

“C’mon,” Sarah said, giving Tami a look. “She said she was sorry.” Sarah threw an arm over Allie’s shoulders as she glared at Hyacinth, warning her to play along.

“Thanks, Sarah,” Allie said, lifting her chin. “But at least we’ll all be rooming together.” She looked around the table at her other girls. “OMG, what if you’re wrong and they actually do change their minds and split me and Hyacinth up after all? That would be horrible. Tragic!”

“They won’t split us up. We won’t let them.” Hyacinth grabbed one of Allie’s hands. “Stop obsessing. Let’s go fix your hair, okay?”

“They so get on my last nerve,” Tami grumbled under her breath as Hyacinth and Allie took their plates and left the table. “I can’t stand that much sugar in the morning. The sweetness is sickening,” she said with a shudder, and then took another sip of her black coffee.

“Give ‘em a break,” Sarah said, picking at her food. “You know how they are…they’re really not that bad and—”

“They’re sickening,” Tami said with a frustrated snort.

“And they are our compound sisters,” Sarah said, giving Tami the eye.

“Do we have to be responsible for them at the Academy? Please tell me no.”

“Yes,” Sarah said flatly. She glanced at Allie’s parents and then at Hyacinth’s, and then leaned in toward Tami, dropping her voice low. “Do you want to be the one to tell Uncle Dan and Aunt Heather how you dissed Allie at school because her powers were coming in wobbly? Or could you actually look in Aunt Jasmine’s face and break her heart by telling her you didn’t have Hyacinth’s back because she got picked to be in the hot clairvoyant talent division? It’s not her fault she made it into the Clavs. Uncle Bobby would be crushed. It’s not ‘Cinth’s fault that her mom is the best dragon painter in the world and can make tapestries of dragons she’s painted come to life or her dad is a wizard. So she got picked to be in one of the most talented groups—don’t hate.”

“I’m not hating,” Tami said with a scowl. “It’s just hard enough to fit in somewhere new without adding a klutz and a goody-goody nerd to the equation.”

“Or a best friend with a gigantic zit.” Sarah looked at Tami hard.

“Well, now that you mention it—call me shallow… but I love you anyway.”

“Just great.”

“I’m just joking.” Tami shook her head and wolfed down her breakfast, now smiling.

Sarah sat back and stabbed her pancakes with a fork. Arguing with Tami when she dug in her heels on a subject was futile.

Voices drifted around her as she ate, snippets of conversation in a textured collage of sound. Aunt Krissy was at the far end of the table twirling a long blond lock around her finger, fretting about how Donnie was going to make out in school, while Donnie’s dad remained calm and just ate. Obviously Uncle JL didn’t want to discuss it. The old Ninja Tactical just calmly sipped his green tea and asked his wife to keep her voice down. Aunt Tara was clearly pissed at Uncle Jack again. She must have figured out that he’d snuck booze into his coffee. The slight hint of fang was a dead giveaway during their tense but quiet exchange. No wonder Tami was in such a foul mood—who wanted to deal with their parents bickering at the breakfast table?

Aunt Juanita’s voice sounded worried beneath the din of the boys’ rowdy banter halfway across the room. It was hardly more than a whisper and was all but drowned out by Al, Miguel, Val and Donnie’s raucous conversation.

Sarah cast her aunt a discreet sidelong glance. It was odd how Aunt Juanita looked like a younger version of Aunt Tara, although there was no blood relationship. Both women were almond-hued and curvaceous, but Tami’s mom was of Native American extraction, with darker eyes and hair, whereas Miguel’s mom was Latina, with long auburn hair. Uncle Jose, Miguel’s dad, looked like her own father’s younger brother, but again, like everyone in the house, they weren’t related by blood, just by battle. Uncle Jose was leaning toward her dad, and Sarah strained to listen.