Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn

Chapter 1

"There's a dick-severing machine down in Hell," the trickster demon says casually, walking backwards in front of me as he leads me towards the door he wants me to open. "We rarely use it, though. Severing dicks is so cliche. Very been-there-done-that. These days we mostly flatten them into pancakes."

Reggie dryly mutters, "Riveting."

I'm too stuck in my own thoughts to really pay attention to the demon, though. About the only thing keeping me from shrieking in fear and horror is the steady warmth of David's wolf form beside me, leaning up against the side of my leg, his thick fur there when my fingers drop down to pet him like the dog he isn't. If I didn't have his form beside me, I think I'd probably be a gibbering puddle on the ground.

I can't let demons out of Hell. Not even to save my mother. But I'm running out of time to come up with a plan to stop it.

If the door to Hell is opened, I don't know how it'll be closed. Who will close it. How many demons will get through. All I know is that the campus of Phoenix Academy—my new, tentative home now that I've lost my entire family—will be overrun with monsters. And there won't be a Black Phoenix there to stop it, because Dani Carpenter is off somewhere, doing a mission that has taken her and the demon quartet bonded to her away.

I wish that she were here. Even though I didn't know Dani well, she was the only one on campus who felt really got me. We share a special bond: being fucked-up phoenixes with strange pasts and family tragedy. She would understand why the thought of my mother's spirit being tortured for eternity is the worst thing I can imagine, second only to the thought of being responsible for opening the door to Hell and letting demons run loose on Earth.

As we follow the trickster demon through a garden hedge maze, Xavier glances back at me, something insistent in his eyes. I can tell he's trying to communicate with me—maybe he has a plan or something—but my brain is too full of panicked thoughts to understand. Witch or not, I'm no telepath or foreseer.

But I feel David tense beneath me, and I wonder if maybe he has some idea what Xavier is trying to tell us with his motions. The trickster demon doesn't seem to be aware of our attempt to communicate—he keeps wandering off the garden path to shove his nose in flowers and lick them with his forked tongue—so I decide to try something a little dicey that might actually work.

I'm not a telepath, but I am a naturalistic witch. I can commune with animals. That includes shifters in their animal form, though it seems to be easier with a proto-shifter like David, who wasn't born with his abilities. Something about the sharp way his spirit refuses to completely settle into his wolf form makes it easier to reach towards his mind and sense his thoughts, albeit primitive versions of human thought.

Digging my fingers into the ruff of his fur, I let my naturalistic senses spill from my fingertips and race along his wolf-form.

Within his mind I get a single, sharply clear thought: connection. It's what Xavier is apparently signing with his hand, though his form seems to be off, something that irritates David. The black panther shifter is trying to sign subtly so the demon doesn't see him and understand.

The only thing is, I don't really understand either.

"You're going to just love my friends," the trickster demon says, casting his strange eyes on me and tearing my attention away from Xavier's signal. "They're very interesting people. Or not-people, as the case may be."

"Fascinating."

"You don't sound excited."

"It wasn't exactly what I was expecting."

"Hmph. Well, I suppose if that's the case, I could always remind you why you're going to help my friends escape through the door to Hell." Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a tiny glass marble, and my heart does a few running leaps off a cliff. "Remember now, if Mommy Dearest's soul is destroyed here in the Spirit Realm, it's destroyed forever. Gone. Done for. So do try to look excited for what's coming next, hmmm?"

I paste a smile on my face. Seeming satisfied, the demon turns around and continues to lead us through the twisting garden hedge mage, while I bite my tongue so hard pain sparks.

Somehow I've gotten here, in the Spirit Realm, near