right.
Once I trapped the Dean and had control of Fortune Academy, I would get to Hell and Sonya would help me figure out how to deal with Lucifer.
One problem… my plan hinged on finding Cole and taming him.
Step one of that plan was proving difficult.
Now that the demon attacks had stopped—at least Lucifer was living up to his end of the bargain—the Dean decreed that student life must go back to normal. Which meant homework, exams, and a ton of shit I didn’t have the time or energy for.
Thanks to Olivia, I didn’t completely fail my classes. I was still a sophomore and even if I didn’t care about graduation, I couldn’t afford to get kicked out just because of poor grades.
Wouldn’t that be hilarious. “Sorry, humanity, I couldn’t stop the Third Echo of Calamity because I slacked off and failed magical histories.”
On top of my general classes, I also had to mentor with Olivia under the guise of being monster experts as part of our plan to find the vampire from her vision, which meant I needed to be a certified mentor.
Olivia was the bookworm… not me. I was totally screwed.
As predicted, the Dean had grilled me on my knowledge of vampires, sirens, incubi, demons, and a number of supernaturals I’d never heard of before to see if I was suitable for the role. Olivia luckily had an orb in my ear to feed me the right answers. I was suddenly very grateful for all that time she’d spent in the library while I’d been running around trying to get a handle on my Virtues.
Or as Olivia put it, wasting far too much time doing the hanky-panky.
Regardless, we took on our roles and got to work. Today was day ninety-one of our daily grind and I still didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to finding this mystery vampire Olivia had seen in her visions, no matter how many vampires we’d come across as part of our jobs as mentors of Monster Studies, much less seeing any hope in gaining entrance to the Monster Arena.
Today was supposed to be different, though. Dante had brought in a unique vampire, one who had warlock powers. Of course I heard that through Olivia. The Hunter still wouldn’t see me, all for the sake of pretenses. He was being a bit too thorough in making sure the Dean didn’t figure us out.
So, instead of enjoying “hanky-panky” with my mates, I got to sit and thumb through a massive textbook on vampires with Olivia and Yuri while we unsuccessfully tried to figure out what the heck we were going to do next.
“You say he keeps asking to see someone named Evie?” Yuri asked, popping out her cherry lollipop before tapping it on her fang as she pondered. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
I rolled my eyes. Either the vampire was a total idiot, or Olivia’s memory tampering on the girl was having some serious side effects.
Olivia shoved a glass at her filled with cherry-blood champagne, by far our best bribe when trying to jog the memory of our ally from Monster Academy. “Because Lady Evelyn is one of Fortune Academy’s founders,” she said. “That sounds kind of like Evie.”
Yuri chuckled. “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he was friends with a founder! You guys would be in biiiiig trouble.” When Olivia glared at her, Yuri grabbed the drink. She took a sip and wiggled with delight. “This stuff is the best.”
I shoved the textbook at her, pointing at the vicious vampire with blood dribbling down his chin. “Focus, Yuri. What can you tell me about warlock vampires?”
She shrugged. “It’s not really that unusual. All warlocks came from vampires, and witches too, originally anyway. They just don’t like to talk about it.”
Olivia’s eyes went wide. “Who told you that?”
Yuri downed her drink and released a small burb before covering her mouth. “Excuse me.”
“Let me guess,” I said, leaning my elbow on the couch arm. “Monster Academy 101?”
Yuri winked. “You’re catching on.”
I glanced at Olivia. “I feel like we attend the wrong school sometimes.”
She smirked. “Ditto.”
I tapped my chin. “So, let’s recap. The Dean is only allowing Dark Mages into Monster Academy as part of the surplus Blood Duty needed.” She’d been claiming the extra sacrifices were for protection against the monster invasions in the event they resumed, but thanks to Olivia, we knew the truth. The Dean had gone mad and was searching for some “vessel” to reincarnate her lost lover who was stuck somewhere