See All Evil Page 3

  “You!” Alfred pointed his finger at me, and I braced myself for the unescapable speech he was about to unleash on me. “Sitting down, having a break, eh? You lazy cretin.” He waved his arms around frantically, slurring his words. “The moment I turn my back, you stop working. Can’t expect you to do one single thing right.”

  He then glanced over at Cassie and the others and noticed the broken glass. “What the hell?” He yelled, turning his anger back toward me. “What, are you too lazy to clean this up? Go fetch something to clean that up, you lazy bi—”

  He hadn’t even finished the word ‘bitch’ when someone snapped his neck. For a moment, Alfred’s alcohol-clouded eyes stared into mine, then his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his head fell to the side.

  I reached out, trying to stop Alfred’s body from slumping to the ground. I grabbed him mid-way through his fall, trying to support his weight. But instead, the weight of his corpse brought me down with him, and I landed on my knees next to his body.

  No one screamed.

  Why was no one screaming?

  The room seemed cloaked in an unnatural silence, as if a cocoon was wrapped around myself and the weird strangers who had managed to ruin my birthday by not only showing me that evil was real but also bringing it onto my footsteps. Prime example of that was Alfred’s dead body slumped over my arms.

  My gaze was drawn to the person standing behind Alfred, the person who had effortlessly snapped the old man’s neck and ended his life.

  This creature was supernatural, all right, judging by the enormous black, bat-like wings sprouting from his back. The wings then folded behind his back, disappearing, but for the moment I’d seen them, they had mesmerized me. So magnificent and so terrifying at the same time.

  Which was, coincidentally, a good description for the man himself. He had bright red eyes, glowing like the devil’s, and shoulder-length black hair combed to the side. He wore a tailored suit that made him appear slightly older than the others. Everything about him screamed confidence, even the way he adjusted the sleeve of his shirt, oblivious to the carnage he’d just committed. As if killing a human being meant nothing to him.

  Maybe it meant nothing to all of them.

  Demons, warlocks, these were creatures of evil. The ‘Academy for the Wicked’ wasn’t called like that because all its occupants liked to sing ‘kumbaya’ around a campfire. Even sirens were evil, luring sailors to their deaths in the middle of the ocean.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that these creatures killed people, but somehow, even when sitting with them at the table, even when recognizing what one of them had done to my mother this morning, I hadn’t considered them capable of doing this.

  “Damian, seriously!” The voice came from behind the tall guy dressed in a suit. The more I sat at him, remembering the bat-like wings sprouting from his back, the more terrified I became.

  “Was that really necessary?” the voice continued from behind him.

  Why did none of the customers scream? Why was no one trying to move? I looked around the diner. My head seemed to turn from left to right in slow-motion.

  Someone should call 911 at least, even if Alfred was already dead. Where was my cell phone?

  From behind Damian, the owner of the mystery voice appeared, interrupting my attempt to glance around and look at the customers. He was a good head shorter than Damian, and not that much taller than me. He had blonde hair and clear blue eyes, and of all of the guys I’d met today, he looked the most like a regular everyday person. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t attractive, but more in the guy-next-door kind of way.

  “Oh, hello,” he said to me. “I’m Tristan, and this one here is Damian.” He pointed his thumb at Alfred’s murderer.

  “You sure know how to make an entrance,” Alec commented dryly. He and Christian looked unimpressed—I took this as a clue to assume that going around killing people was just day-to-day business for them.

  God, I had ended up in a living nightmare, surrounded by creatures who didn’t even bat an eye at the thought of killing human beings.

  “I wasn’t planning on killing him,” Damian said. “He just… annoyed me. You know I hate curse words. So vulgar.”

  The guy who had introduced himself as Tristan walked past me, while I was still holding on to Alfred’s dead body. He went from one booth occupied by customers to the other, until he’d finished going around the room. “Okay, they’re all frozen.”

  “Of course, they are.” Alec huffed. “You act like I’m a first-year warlock still working on his first real spell. I froze them the moment I saw Damian looking murderous.”

  “And I waited for you to freeze them before finishing this piece of human garbage,” Damian said with a look of disgust toward Alfred. “I’m not some fledgling vampire who can’t wait five seconds for the perfect time to kill.”

  Vampire. Vampires were real too, and this guy was one. And he’d just snapped someone’s neck as if it was nothing.

  Even if Alfred had been a jerk and even if sometimes, I had wished I could strangle him with my bare hands, that didn’t make it okay. Not at all.

  “You monster!” I screamed at the vampire, forgetting my fears. “Why did you kill him?”

  Damian seemed slightly startled by my sudden outburst. He straightened the color of his jacket, sounding annoyed. “Didn’t I mention this like five seconds ago?”

  “Don’t worry about it, love,” Christian said to me. Neither he nor Alec had moved an inch in their seat, both seemingly relaxed, as if they were just a group of friends hanging out, and not a bunch of supernaturals who had invaded my life, killed my boss and threatened to abduct me to some kind of supernatural academy. “That guy was on the soon-to-be dead list anyway. Damian only cut a few days off his life, tops. Old Alfred over here was scheduled for a meet-and-greet with the man below anyway.”

  I stared at him, non-comprehending, until Alec explained. “He means the devil.”

  My gaze travelled back to Alfred, who lay deadly still on the cold floor of the diner he’d once owned. Even if Alfred was supposed to die soon anyway, Damian’s rash actions had cut his life short. He’d murdered him.

  “He has a blood disease,” Damian explained, looking at Alfred’s corpse with nothing but disdain. “I could smell it right away. Hence the neck-snap. Else, I would’ve gone in for a bite, because I’m starving.” His gaze flickered to my neck for a brief second before he focused back on my face.

  “You monster.” I balled my fists, not understanding why no one else was making a big deal out of this. He had killed someone!

  “What?” Damian asked while he leaned closer toward me. He towered over me like a giant, particularly so as I was still seated on the ground. “Do you think ‘wicked’ just means we look evil? We’re monsters, all of us.” He shook his head. “We’ve all killed, and so will you.”

  “All of you?” I looked at Cassie, but she refused to meet my gaze.

  “We haven’t petrified humankind for generations just because of our good looks,” Damian answered while offering me a hand to help me up.

  I refused his offer, getting up on my own. Despite what he said, I refused to forget about how this monster had managed to destroy a human’s life in seconds.

  The vampire turned to the others. “Have you explained to her yet about our respective houses?”

  “Houses?” My hands shook, but I’d managed to keep the fear from my voice. I couldn’t let them know that their very presence scared me to death.

  “We have different houses in our academy,” Alec explained. “There’s one for Creatures, to which vampires and sirens belong.”

  Cassie grunted. “That they put us in one house with those filthy…” She stopped talking when Damian shot her an angry look, and I figured that even with whatever powers she had, she wouldn’t dare to cross this guy.

  “Then there’s one for Casters, which includes witches, warlocks, summoners, and so on. Anyone with a touch of old-fashioned magic,”
Alec said. “Next, we have a house for demons.” He motioned towards Christian. “Or, to put it more broadly, all of hell’s spawn.”

  “There aren’t just demons in hell,” Christian commented matter-of-factly.

  “And then, there’s his lot,” Alec ended, gesturing at Tristan.

  Tristen gave a soft bow. “Necromancers.”

  “Necromancers,” I repeated the word. “You can… raise the dead?” Somehow, this sounded even more terrifying than all the other things they had told me today. And to think this Tristan guy looked like the least harmful of them all.

  A blush crept on Tristan’s cheeks. “Well…” He scratched the back of his head, almost looking apologetic. “Yes.”

  “He’s a bit shy.” Christian sat up straighter as he spoke. “Tristan can’t just raise the dead like in Night of the Living Dead or something. He can make them into puppets that do his every bidding.”

  “Come on, we shouldn’t talk about that,” Tristan said to him, looking more and more self-conscious. “It’s already more than enough for Devina to take in anyway, on her first day.”

  I actually liked the way he said my name. So respectful, as if he was addressing a goddess, not just regular old me.

  “You see, what’s going to happen next,” Alec said, ignoring Christian and Tristan, “is that Tristan will raise old Alfred over here. It will be like nothing happened; except that Alfred will no longer be that bad-mouthing, do-nothing, lazy, alcoholic bum. He’ll be a puppet on a string.”

  “Not for very long,” Tristan interrupted. “Just enough time for Alec to unfreeze everyone, us to get out of here unnoticed, and then puppet-Alfred will drop dead from a supposed heart attack.”

  “You act like you’ve done this before.” I stared at all of them, unable to understand how they could be so casual about this.

  “Not per sé like this, but it isn’t our first rodeo, love,” Christian admitted. The others looked unmoved about it; the only one with the decency to look slightly embarrassed was Tristan.

  “But before we do that, we need to tell you about what will happen next.” Alec focused on me, those green emerald eyes boring into mine. “You’re one of us, Devina. There’s no escaping your destiny.”

  Destiny. Like the queen of maggots from my nightmare had said. I was far from ready to face a destiny as something wicked. I wasn’t ready at all.

  “Most people know since they’re children that they’re different. Some of us are born directly into hell, like Christian, or are born into ancient families of vampires, sirens, werewolves, you name it.”

  Alec now gestured at Cassie, who seemed inclined to crawl under the table and disappear. She could probably sense how angry I was at her, but right now, with a bunch of supernaturals telling me I wasn’t normal and a dead Alfred waiting to be resurrected, my anger at my best friend was the least of my worries.

  “Now, some people don’t know at all, and you fall under that category. You could, technically, be anything. Do you have any idea of what you could be?” Alec asked. “Any magical mishaps happen while growing up? Objects disappearing or moving around on their own?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ever closed a deal with the devil?” Christian asked, crossing his arms on the table. “That could put you in line for being part of demonkind, and could be the reason why you’re invited to the Academy.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Ever had any affinity for raising the dead?” That question came from Tristan. “A dead pet you somehow brought back to life, maybe?”

  “No…”

  Damian moved closer to me, sniffing the air around me. I froze in my spot, standing completely still, too afraid to breathe.

  Was he going to hurt me? If I didn’t belong in any of their groups, would they kill me?

  And would Cassie just sit there and let it happen?

  Damian grabbed a strand of my hair, smelled it, and then moved away from me.

  My heart skipped a few beats, and I felt a panic attack coming up. “What the hell?” I asked, my voice barely more than squeak.

  “I’m just trying to figure out what you are.” Damian shrugged. “But you don’t smell like a vampire, a shifter, or any creature that comes to mind.”

  “So, I’m not one of you?” The thought filled me with equal amounts of dread and hope. I didn’t want to be one of them; they were terrifying. But if I wasn’t, did that mean they would kill me?

  I couldn’t outrun all of them, and I certainly couldn’t fight them off.

  “No,” Alec said. “And if you’re not one of us, that probably means…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but let it linger in the air, while the expression in his eyes was reflected in the others’ expressions.

  Cassie looked up for the first time in minutes, staring right at me. “It means you’re one of his.”

  Chapter Five

  “We should get going,” Christian said, without bothering to elaborate on Cassie’s last sentence. “It’s almost four o’clock, and you know the Testing House waits for no one.”

  “You can’t take her there without knowing for sure what she is,” Cassie protested. “How else are you going to figure out what she has to face inside the Testing House?”

  They seemed to be talking utter gibberish. “What is the Testing House?”

  Alec got up from his seat and walked toward me, putting an arm over my shoulders. I was as uncomfortable as a fish on land, but I was too scared to shrug him off. And of all of them, Alec at least seemed the least scary one. “You don’t just get to enter the Academy without having to complete a test first. Once you’ve joined the Academy, you’ll realize life there is nothing but tests, trust me. You thought high school was hard? It’s about to get a lot worse.”

  Cassie and Christian also got up from the booth. Even if Cassie had hidden a whole part of herself from me, she wouldn’t let me get killed. Not by these idiots, not by some stupid Testing House. No, we were best friends. Sisters. She wouldn’t let them hurt me…

  Except I was starting to have some doubts. What could Cassie really do? In the grand scope of things, sirens didn’t sound as scary as a supernatural team comprised of vampires, necromancers, warlocks and demons. Even with Cass helping me, chances to escape were minimal, if not non-existent.

  “All new invitees to the Academy have to complete a test. Do you know that creepy house in your town that all kids are afraid of and all neighbors claim is haunted?” Alec asked.

  Instantly, a house popped into mind. Three blocks from where I lived was a run-down, derelict building with a creepy vibe. Whenever I had to walk past it, I always quickened my pace, as if lingering too long in front of the house could summon the ghosts from the past. All neighbors claimed the house was haunted even though, as far as I knew, no one had ever lived in the house, let alone died in it.

  “Yes…” I replied reluctantly.

  “Well…” Alec gently shoved me further to the back of the diner, away from the spot where Alfred’s body lay. “That is the Testing House. Every town has one. Nobody pays much attention to it, which is perfectly fine. From that house, you can access the Academy directly.”

  “It acts like a passageway,” Christian explained while he stood next to Alec and me. “The first time you enter, the Testing House challenges you. To see if you’re worthy. If the house deems you worthy, and after your test, the house will allow you to travel the Academy just by unlocking the front door.”

  “So, if you survive the Testing House once, you get free lifetime access,” Alec recapped what the demon had just explained. He sounded as thrilled as if he’d announced we were going to the fair or the circus rather than to the creepiest house in town.

  “What do you mean ‘survive’?” I was sorry I’d asked when Alec cringed slightly.

  “Well, let’s just say, I like your odds.” He winked at me, his fingers wrapping around my shoulder. Under other circumstances, I probably could’ve liked him, especially
given how attractive he was. Now, I was too preoccupied with the thought of not surviving.

  “Guys, is there like no option to just… not do this?” I tried desperately. “I mean, I’m perfectly happy being a regular old human. Can’t you just brainwash me or something, and then we forget this ever happened?”

  Christian shook his head, a smirk on his face. “Afraid not, love. If the Academy sends you an invite, you’re in no position to say no.”

  I was afraid they’d said that.

  “I assure you chances of not surviving are very slim,” Damian said, as if that would somehow reassure me. “It’s been at least a decade since the last mauled-up corpse was found inside a Testing House.”

  “Mauled-up?” I sounded as timid as a mouse.

  “Damian.” Tristan poked him in the ribs. “Don’t mind him. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” The necromancer nodded at me.

  “Still, if she’s one of his brethren,” Christian said, “then he should at least have the decency to show up. All of us are here, and who is the big no-show? Mr. stuck-up, pompuous ass, of course.”

  “With our without him here, we have to get going.” Alec let go of me and glanced at his watch again. “Tristan?”

  “Okay.” The necromancer stood next to Alfred’s corpse and started whispering gibberish in an ancient language I didn’t understand. Was it Latin? I had taken a few Latin classes in high school, but my attention span for dead languages had always been close to zero.

  “This will scare you,” Christian said as he moved next to me. “Mark my words.”

  Seconds after Tristan stopped muttering the words, Alfred opened his eyes. I let out a small yelp and grabbed onto Christian’s arm—a reflex since he was the one standing closest to me. My eyes became the size of flying saucers while Alfred’s corpse jerked up, almost like a puppet on a string. Then, the corpse titled its head to the left and smiled at me.