Sorcery and Scholarships

  All so he could put his legs up on another chair and his hands behind his head. "Yeah, I guess Dark Essences would be good at things like this."

  There was a sudden rush of Maleficium from Jaden, stabbing out at him. It was vicious hatred, but only a fraction of the strength of Aki's attacks. He didn't need to do anything to block it, and a moment later Jaden realized it had happened subconsciously and paled.

  Emile glanced in their direction. "Please don't try to sabotage one another during class."

  Morissa Khatri spoke up. "As opposed to sabotaging one another later?"

  "If you can reverse engineer a effect as specific as this, you shouldn't be in this class. But really, that doesn't need to be a concern. Nothing much is going to get through the dampening effect of the Axis buildings."

  "How does that work?" Someone from the back this time.

  "You should know the answer is Propitiation. The only thing close is Fetishism and that isn't good for widespread effects."

  Aki looked up from her own circle, which Blake noted was already mostly there. "Does that mean there's some kind of charm equivalent? Would there be any law against selling them?"

  "No, but I wouldn't advise getting into the business. Too many regulatory industries and too much liability. And if anyone is getting ideas, please don't peddle them as some kind of harmonic crystal or something. We don't need Axis students spreading that kind of nonsense."

  By the end of class about half the students had been successful. Emile explained how to apply the exercise they learned to real life and Blake really did tune out then. It wasn't really something that deserved to be explained, and as far as he was concerned the exercises were already too many steps removed. But he had prior experience with his parents, so perhaps it was clearer for him.

  As he filed out of class, he noted a woman moving in the opposite direction. She was attractive, or might have been if not for the hostile expression some models inexplicably wore. Most likely she was Emile's wife, which had him curious enough to glance over his shoulder at her. Let others think he was looking for different reasons.

  "You gave up student dean for crass tricks like this?"

  Emile responded in a quieter voice and Blake decided he didn't need to hear any more of the conversation. He saw Jaden was headed in his direction and went the opposite way. His will to deal with people was gone and he just wanted to get back to his room and sleep.

  ~ ~ ~

  By 4:00 PM Aki was already running on caffeine. She took another drink and then tried to make the words on the page line up so she could read them. The book wasn't magic, she was just tired. Maybe she needed sleep, but her Fetishism exam was early tomorrow and she wanted to be ready by the time she woke up. This one apparently counted toward graduation at the end of the semester and though she wasn't sure exactly how that worked, she wanted to start off on the right foot.

  If she was already like this, finals were going to kill her. According to Keisha, Propitiation had a project instead of an exam. That didn't help her, since Franz Barth had done exhaustive exams since whenever he started teaching and he wasn't about to change.

  Her other classes were easier. She'd done more than enough studying for the Maleficium exam, since she'd had one session with Blake and another with Keisha. But she didn't have anyone to help her with Fetishism. Half the students didn't impress her mentally, and she was worried the other half would point out "Asian" was a fetish and start making cracks. That half didn't impress her mentally either.

  What she needed was a distraction, but she had come to the student center in the afternoon because it was so quiet. She settled for staring at the doors, which is why she immediately noticed when a lean man wearing all black walked in. He had killer looks, gorgeous eyes, and a nasty set of magic hooks digging into her brain.

  "Asshole." Aki brought her Maleficium down on the lines. As soon as they were severed, her head felt much clearer. The guy looked alright, and there was something unusual about him, but without the glamour he wasn't anything special. And his all black leather outfit looked ridiculous.

  Unfortunately, as soon as she broke his effect on her, he glanced in her direction. He gave a wide smile and slipped onto the couch opposite her. "There aren't many first semester students who could do that."

  "So you were looking for fresh meat? Leave me out of it." Aki went back to her studying.

  "Not at all. The effect is just part of who I am."

  She tried to stay focused on the textbook, but that line made her glance up. "And what exactly are you?"

  His mouth opened and his tongue coiled around fangs.

  Aki sighed. "Oh, hell, I was hoping you guys didn't really exist."

  "There are more of us than you might think. It is said we once walked Spirit in the Night Realms, but we have been exiled to the Mundane."

  "How appropriately angsty." She looked back down and found she was much more interested in Fetishism than before. Maybe she could figure out a way to ignore these kinds of effects automatically. "Now that you've satisfied your curiosity, you can go brood somewhere else."

  "I'm more interested than I was before." He leaned back on the couch but his eyes never left her. "So many women are limply falling over us, it's interesting to get someone with more substance. Would you at least give me your name?"

  "You can look me up in the directory."

  "I won't play so hard to get. My name is Reylin Shadowrunner."

  "Seriously?" Faced with that, there was no choice but to set down her book. "And you people are trying to fit into human society?"

  "Ah, have I interested you in the darkness?"

  She wished there was some way to record the conversation, but she would have to settle for repeating it later. "I imagine it's probably too dark to see anything there. But if I was, I have friends who already have Darkness covered."

  "You'd think I'd threatened you somehow." Reylin looked hurt, then his expression shifted to an unpleasant smile. "I assure you that was nothing more than the effect of my presence. If I was trying to influence you it would feel more like this."

  Even warned by his sentence, she couldn't stop another set of hooks. They cut through her defenses and she wasn't sure she could break their lines this time. But she had already made a link to fire and was ready to unleash as much as possible. She didn't know what weaknesses real vampires had, but she was willing to bet they didn't enjoy fireballs to the face.

  "What are you doing?" There was a new voice and with it a dampening presence. Her Manifest link weakened and the hooks disintegrated. Reylin hissed and jerked backward.

  When she saw who had acted, Aki was surprised to see Edgar Clark. They'd nodded when they passed one another around campus but she hadn't spoken with him since the initiation ceremony. Not only was the dampening field coming from him, it was the same kind of odd magic Reylin used. The vampire lurched to his feet.

  "You're in the way, youngling."

  "And right now you're useless." Edgar moved so he was eye to eye with Reylin. They faced off for only a moment before Reylin swept away, snarling curses under his breath. As soon as he was out the door the room felt normal again and Edgar dropped onto the couch.

  Aki cocked her head in his direction. "Thanks and everything, but what was the deal there?"

  Edgar gave a long sigh. "I really thought he was going to attack me for a moment, but I guess he didn't want to break a nail."

  "Seems vampires are the preening type."

  "Yeah, that's... a little awkward. I should tell you that I'm a vampire too."

  After blinking a few times, Aki shrugged. "Really now."

  "There a lot of different kinds."

  "Why would that be?"

  "Good question." He ran a hand through his hair. His brown, not particularly luxurious hair. "Historically every culture has its vampire-like creatures, and they're really not exactly the same thing. Whatever causes vampirism is flexible, though I don't know why. So there are several schools of thought abou
t what vampires should look like today."

  Now that the tension was long gone, Aki felt a smile worming onto her face. "Like what?"

  "Well, there are basically three groups in the US. The classic Stokers are from Quebec, but there are a lot of them in New England. They tend to be pretty civilized, involved in politics and business. I'm your basic L.A. vamp - we're pretty close to human and we weaken the abilities of nearby vampires."

  "That explains it, then. What about Reylin? If he's a Stoker the poor man must be rolling in his grave."

  "Hah, no. His group calls itself the Coven, but we tend to call them the Fraternity." When he saw her quizzical expression he smiled weakly. "As in 'Welcome to the party, freshmen girls, here is some punch that is definitely not alcoholic.' They're all pretty happy about the recent young adult vampire craze."

  "I think I get the picture. How many of you guys attend here?"

  "Not sure exactly. You won't see many non-humans your first semester since we're stuck in our own classes. Different basic abilities."

  That explained why she saw fey around campus but not in classrooms. Of course, if some of them looked like Edgar, she had no way of knowing how many there were. And so long as not many were like Reylin, it didn't really matter. Aki sat back and watched the vampire across from her. "Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

  "Actually, I do mind. Sorry, it's kind of personal."

  "That's fine. What about classes? How are the exams treating you?"

  Edgar groaned. "They're kicking my ass. I thought I could take four hard classes without trouble, but this semester all the tests are in one week. It's brutal."

  "Don't let me bother you, then. Did you come here because of Reylin?"

  "Snack break. I'm going to get some chips or something and go back to work. But since I ran into him I guess I'll have to follow up on that. He's always been kind of sleazy, but as far as I knew he went for easy targets and didn't spend much time here. I'm going home after this weekend, so I'll ask around then."

  She wouldn't have minded talking to him, but understood the crushing demands of examinations. Still, something about the way he was talking bothered her. "You think something's up?"

  "Oh, we've got all kinds of strange things going on right now. I'm just a student; don't ask me about vampire politics. Or American politics. I'm cynical about all of it, everything is corporations now, but you don't want me to start ranting about that."

  That was good advice, especially since she had plenty of her own concerns. But as she tried to go back to studying, Aki found her mind sliding back to the incident. Whatever was going on with the vampires probably had nothing to with Axis University and it probably had nothing to do with all the other strange things that had happened.

  Probably.

  ~ ~ ~

  She had formed an opinion with the first bite, but since Aki was watching her expectantly Keisha decided to chew thoughtfully for a while. Then she took another bite and kept the same skeptical expression. By the next bite, Aki realized and rolled her eyes.

  "So you like it?"

  "It's very good."

  "Told you." Aki dug into her own pasta cheerfully. "This is the best Italian I've ever eaten. Even if you just order spaghetti or lasagna or something it's incredible."

  "Even if it was bad, it would be worth it to get away from campus." She sat back and tapped her fork on the edge of her plate. It was a fairly small restaurant and had hand-written menus, but was surprisingly nice. The prices fit an expensive restaurant as well, but with her living expenses covered by scholarship, she could afford to eat out occasionally. Especially to celebrate the last exam of the day.

  "Not to mention cafeteria food."

  "Let's not talk about the cafeteria, not here."

  Aki grinned. "That would be a little profane, wouldn't it? I agree it's nice to get out. A lot of people seem content to stay on campus but it's too small for me. Though I have to admit I haven't really spent much time in the arboretum or even gone to the north end. Err, the empty space I assume is north."

  "I think it's just unused athletic fields." Keisha's mind was still on the implications of the transfer. It had been no problem to get permission to transport outside of campus, and students who could tunnel on their own didn't even need to ask. "Why do they need student housing? It's just as difficult to reach the university's realm from anywhere on Earth, right? It'd be easy to commute from anywhere."

  "Some students do, I think. I'll probably stay on campus, but I'm looking forward to being able to transport in and out for its own sake. Now that I think about it, though, the housing is probably mostly for non-human students. It's not easy to get to the campus from anywhere in Spirit."

  "Ah." That brought a frown to her face. "It's easy to forget about them and I don't like that. Axis feels very... human-controlled."

  "It's like an international university made for students from one country."

  "You were familiar with all this before, weren't you?"

  "Well, not familiar." Aki sat back and played with her glass for a moment. "I had a lot of things wrong and I wouldn't call myself any kind of expert. But I have an uncle that works in aethomancy and I learned to swim in a pool with a water sprite as a lifeguard."

  The man had come to stand by their table silently, waiting until a pause in the conversation. Well, not exactly a man. "Is everything fine this evening?"

  "It's great, Mike."

  "Call me if you need anything."

  As he moved away, Keisha felt a twinge of guilt. She swallowed it with her pasta. Her instinct shouldn't have been to view him as any different. Fey and sprites had men and women just like humans, and though she heard some of the stranger species didn't have genders, they were still living beings. They didn't make her uncomfortable, but the fey weren't part of her view of the world. Not yet.

  "I was going to say I'm not used to having the fey around me, but I guess I could have eaten at a place like this for years without seeing through the glamour."

  Aki glanced at her with an odd smile. "It's weird for me to think there are people who didn't know about this."

  "Oh, I knew, I just didn't know much. It's like anything else. How much do you really know about Burkina Faso, for example?"

  "Fair point."

  "No one has time to learn everything. You've never studied law and I don't know nearly as much about physics as I'd like. Before all this, the fey and magic just weren't an important part of my life." Keisha took another bite. "How does a fey learn to cook such good Italian? Was he born there or is it just a hobby?"

  "Mike? I'm pretty sure he was born in France, ran an Earth restaurant in some other realm for a while, and immigrated to the U.S. recently. Come to think of it, I wonder if he had a hard time getting into the country."

  "That I know." Keisha set down her fork and was about to give the full explanation when she realized it would probably bore Aki. She settled for a shorter version. "Fey can get visitors visas easier than most Earth foreigners and they take the same residence permit tests. The only difference is they have to apply to use a glamour. Immigration law changed surprisingly fast to deal with them."

  "Not so surprising. I think most governments have known for a long time, and there have always been groups of humans that knew. It's just that only recently people started moving across borders more often."

  "The usual world getting smaller effect."

  "I heard you can take a semester abroad in another realm, but I'm not sure I want to. It'd be a thousand times worse than going to another country, you know? Except for the vamps and a few other things that live on Earth, they have their own civilization and history. I'm not sure there'd be any common ground at all."

  Keisha swallowed her pasta and frowned. "Except for this prophecy."

  "Well, yeah, except for that." Aki frowned as well. "I thought it was an Earth thing."

  "I think no one's entirely sure. All the information about it is extremely old and so we have to piece th
ings together. It's like how everyone knows about Ragnarok even though we don't have any clear descriptions of all Norse mythology."

  "We are full of similes tonight."

  "Apparently." But Keisha's mind had latched onto the subject and was still churning. "I know we're not going to find any answers about that over dinner, but it bothers me. People are going to a lot of trouble for something so old."

  Though sobered for a moment, Aki quickly smiled again. "You know, maybe that explains why so many of the guys around campus are jerks. Back when the prophecy was given it was probably all clubbing women and dragging them by their hair."

  "Dehateh said 'Neanderthal' was an insult; I wonder if it's related."

  "I can't imagine actually saying that, but it would be awesome if I could pull it off."

  Despite herself, Keisha smiled. If someone like Aki held a Light Essence, she would feel much more comfortable about the theoretical war. It was too easy to imagine herself taking a cause too seriously and making the wrong decisions.

  She tried to set such thoughts aside and enjoy the fact that finals were over and she didn't have much work for the weekend. Immediately she felt uncomfortable. Was she really using something like the weekend to get over thinking about an apocalyptic war?

  Maybe so, but she had just been telling herself she should be less serious. Keisha ate some more pasta.

  Chapter 12

  He was awake, he just didn't want to admit it. When he closed his eyes, too much light filtered in, and if he opened them he would lose a staring contest with his ceiling. At this point he wouldn't go back to sleep, so there was no point lying there, yet it was almost ten more minutes before he surrendered to the inevitable.

  As he washed his face Blake realized that his old contacts had dissolved and he needed to put in a new pair. They were wearing out sooner now, which meant they'd bankrupt him if he didn't find a different solution. Once a new pair was in, he stumbled to the bathroom door and stared at the apartment.