Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,1
the edge of Hell. Somehow I'm following a demon in a three piece suit, my mother's soul trapped in a marble he's now bouncing carelessly on the ground. Somehow I'm a Blue Phoenix, a being with multiple lives and mysterious powers, bonded to three familiars. But despite all this, I still feel like a helpless little girl.
Connection. Reggie glances over at his twin brother as Xavier once again does the sign for the word. Connection. What does it mean? I wish my brain had room for things besides panic, rage, and fear. Connection.
Seeing my confusion, Reggie motions between himself and Xavier. Then the two of them and me. Then me and David. Annoyed, I glare at him—I know what the word connection means. He's being less than helpful, as usual.
Then it hits me all at once what they're saying.
When I was frightened and alone in the woods shortly after I came back to life, I accidentally turned the three shifters into my familiars. The connection we shares means they're bonded to me, whether we want it or not, their lives protecting mine, my witch senses reaching out to their shifter selves and influencing them. My magic seems to have a different affect on them—and I can, if I try hard enough and they're receptive to it, control them just a little.
The demon is no shifter, but he's not a human either. What they're suggesting is that I might be able to somehow bond him to me, the way Dani is bonded to her quartet of demons, and exert my influence on him just like a Grim would.
It sounds risky, though. Certainly I would never willingly choose to be connected to a fork-tongued demon who's got my mother trapped in a marble. But maybe I can use the connection to keep him from escaping this place, or at least make a bargain with him in exchange for dissolving it.
It's not perfect, but right now it's the only idea I have. If Auerbach were here he'd probably have a better solution—some sort of rune or ancient spell—but all we have are me and my familiars. My witch magic may not be as fancy or moldable as mage magic, but it has a primitive kind of strength, the kind that just might be able to pull this off.
As the demon leads us further into the twisting maze, high hedges on every side of us, it occurs to me that it'll be easier to forge a false connection if I know more about him. So I inquire, "I don't actually know your name. Just the name you went by when you... appeared to me as a spirit." Tricked me, that is. "What should I call you?"
"You can call me Isiah," he says casually, "though it isn't my true name. My human name was Percy, which is a truly terrible name. I've chosen several since. Isiah is one of my favorites."
Isiah. A human name. It's hard to imagine him having a name that isn't a screech of horror or a series of curse words. From his human-like face to his three piece suit, he looks just as human as Dani's quartet does, but the forked tongue gives him away. I wonder if that's something he was "born" with, or if it's an affectation, like the name he chose.
"Isiah." It makes me nauseous to speak to him like he's some kind of friendly acquaintance, but I force myself to do it anyway. "How many of these... friends are we going to be making a path for?"
"Oh, just a few thousand or so." Slipping the marble with my mother's spirit inside it back into his pocket, he casually reaches into the suit and pulls out a strange-looking billfold made of old and cracking black leather. "I've shrunk them down as well. Brought them here with me years ago. Didn't think I'd be able to slip out, but then... well, you came along. With that blood of yours, ready to unlock the First Gate. Who am I to resist? Certainly it'll be more fun than continuing to torment and torture all these mad souls."
He means the spirits who refuse to cross over, like my mother, and wind up staying in the Spirit Realm so long that they become poltergeists. My stomach tightens for them. I hope my sister Lizzy didn't wind up similarly stuck, but I have the feeling if Isiah had her trapped in a marble he would mention it to me gloatingly. Hopefully that means she's