Bloodline Academy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 1) Read online

  Bloodline Academy

  Bloodline Academy Series Book 1

  Lan Chan

  Copyright © 2019 by Lan Chan

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  All names, characters, groups and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and all opinions expressed by the characters, whose preferences and attitudes are entirely their own. Any similarities to real persons or groups, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover by Christian Bentulan

  Editing by Contagious Edits

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

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  1

  If there was a difference between a prison and a psychiatric hospital, I had yet to see what it was. Not that I’d ever been inside a prison. I was only seventeen, though, so there was still time for that. Mike, the security guard, stood grim-faced as he scanned me for metallic objects. I tried to become as innocuous as possible. Not a difficult feat for someone who barely reached five-foot-two.

  “No school?” Mike asked as he swept the handheld detector over my body.

  “Clearly you don’t have kids,” I shot back. “It’s January. School holidays.”

  He grinned as he nodded for me to place my messenger bag on the conveyor belt that led through the bio-scanner. Shrugging the bag off, I placed it down and stepped through the doorway behind Mike. His gaze shifted to the sprig of rosemary in my hair.

  “Stuff stinks,” he said.

  “She likes it.” I bit back the wave of sorrow. When Nanna had been lucid, her garden had been filled with all manner of pretty plants and scented flowers. Now the room she occupied was legit padded on all four walls. There were no adornments besides a bolted-down bed. She couldn’t even go to the bathroom without assistance.

  Knowing the routine by now, I extracted the rosemary twig from my hair and waved it in front of Mike’s face so he could see there was nothing attached to it. He scrunched his nose.

  “Seriously,” he said. “Reeks.”

  “You’re the worst. It’s meant to be a good memory herb.”

  That fun fact came courtesy of a book I’d read about herbal medicine. I’d been in the library last week waiting out the rain. On cue, Mike’s dark brown eyes softened. I could see why he’d chosen this place over a prison. He’d be useless against their inmates. I swallowed hard as my bag was spat out on the other side of the security scanner. Pretending to ignore the look of pity Mike shot me, I scooped up the bag and set it back over my chest.

  “Good to go,” Mike said. “You got the permission slip?”

  I fished the bogus document out of the pocket of my ripped jeans. If he noticed that I always wore the same outfit on my weekly visit, Mike never said a word. The jeans, like the signature on the permission slip from my supposed legal guardians, were obtained through less-than-legal means.

  When Nanna had been placed in here six years ago, the sour-faced social worker had come with me to visit. It was her first and last time. It probably didn’t help that one of the other patients had a fit during our visit. Honestly, I don’t know what she was expecting. Given her vocation, you’d have thought she’d have a stronger constitution. Nope. She dropped my case like hot lead. Ever since then I’ve been turfed from one case worker to another.

  I wasn’t even sure who my official foster parents were. My file was probably buried in a computer system somewhere. That was fine with me. As long as I could continue to visit Nanna, none of that stuff mattered.

  Mike barely glanced at the signature. I’d been doing this a long time.

  I saw Nanna’s hunched figure through the peephole cut into the metal door. Her lips were moving.

  Mike unlocked the door for me. “You know the drill,” he said, but he went through it anyway. “Duress button is beside the door. Come out and then close it behind you. Do not let her follow behind.”

  “How is she doing today?” I heard myself say without really paying attention. The lump in my throat was pushing its shards into my voice box. Mike peered at the chart beside Nanna’s door.

  “Looks okay,” he said. Not that he knew much about medical diagnoses. A good day for him was one where he didn’t have to restrain a patient while they tried their darnedest to bite his face off. Nanna never did any of that. I wished she would. Aggression meant there was still some kind of life in her.

  “You’ve got half an hour, Lex.”

  I tried to give him a reassuring smile. In the metallic reflection of the closing door, it looked like I belonged in here. The lock clicked shut. There was a hiss of air. I knew the room were pressurized because of the air conditioning system, but the sound was always a death knell to my senses. Hastings women were not made for enclosed spaces. Half an hour was just about all I could stand inside the claustrophobic room.

  I heaved out a shaky breath and took a step forward.

  “Hi, Nanna.”

  She didn’t register my presence. I followed the line of her attention to a spot on the wall beside the door. It was elephant-grey padding. Nothing conspicuous or threatening. At least not that I could see. Nanna seemed to think it warranted strict surveillance.

  As always, when I was nervous, my mouth detached from my brain and I vomited word salad. “So it’s been a strange week,” I said as I approached her bed like a mouse approaching a lion. The thought almost set me off. Before the illness, she’d been larger than life. It was like someone sucked all of the vibrancy out of her and left behind a drab husk.

  “Bert and Randall got into a fight over the good spot under the bridge,” I said as I sat down beside her. “Randall pulled a switch blade and then somebody called the cops. I haven’t seen either of them since Monday.”

  The bed dipped but she didn’t notice. Her eyes were glued to the spot on the wall. Absentmindedly, I plucked the rosemary from my hair. I rubbed it between my palms and inhaled the bitter, herby scent. Holding the end between my fingers,
I lifted it to her nose and held my breath. Nothing happened of course. I hadn’t expected it to, really. But while I had been sitting in the corner of the library, the stuff inside those books had seemed so authoritative.

  I sighed and dropped the rosemary back into my pocket. The essential oils still clung to my skin. If nothing else, it helped to smother the scent of bleach and chicken noodle soup that permeated this place. For that I was grateful.

  I sat in silence for a beat, wanting really badly to reach out to the woman who had raised me. My mum died giving birth to me. I only knew her from photos. Apparently, my dad ran off long before Mum was even showing. Nanna had never liked talking about it, but she made sure I always felt wanted.

  As the seconds ticked by, it hit me that she didn’t even look much like Nanna anymore. She used to wear ridiculous wide-brimmed straw hats in the summer to keep the sun off her face while she tended to the garden. Our clothes were bought from the charity shops. None of them matched but she somehow made the kooky style work for her. It helped that she’d been petite and slim, with the most stunning cerulean blue eyes. I would sit beside her on the lawn with a pencil and notebook, drawing the many circles she used to tell me about.

  This woman in front of me wore a loose grey sheath that had no pockets. There were no hiding places for sweets or packets of seeds. One slipper hung on her left foot while the other was on the floor. She hadn’t even noticed she’d dropped it. Her sun-drenched tan had long faded. Lines and liver spots seemed to be colonizing more and more of her skin.

  I was losing her. Something heavy settled in my chest. I couldn’t afford a cell phone. One day, I expected to turn up outside the administration office for the receptionist to tell me that she was sorry but Betty Hastings was no longer with them. The tear that had been teetering on my ducts spilled over. I swiped it away sharply and bit the inside of my cheek.

  On a whim, I reached out and placed my hand over her gnarled ones. It was selfish. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. The red block letters on her chart were very clear: PATIENT MUST NOT BE TOUCHED.

  Her head snapped up as soon as we made contact. For a second, a sliver of hope flared in my chest. And then her head turned in my direction. The thing that stared back at me wasn’t Nanna. I wasn’t sure how I knew. Maybe the stories Nanna told me when I was a kid could be true. Hastings women sometimes just knew things without any empirical evidence to back it up.

  Nanna’s eyes had been milky a second ago. Now darkness began to seep into them. Like a blot of ink soaking into a fresh sheet of parchment. The blue became blocked out. I tried to retract my hand but her other one came down on top of it. When I tugged, her fingers formed shackles around my wrist. They squeezed hard as my chest spasmed. She shouldn’t be this strong.

  “Nanna,” I winced. “Please let go.”

  And then she opened her mouth and everything stood perfectly still. “What pretty eyes you have,” a voice that didn’t belong to my nanna said. “Eyes are the window to the soul.”

  It was low but each consonant resonated through me. She smiled and terror vibrated through me.

  Panicked, I used my knees to push off the bed. She tugged me back and we became locked in a struggle. Years of fending for myself on the cold, mean streets of Melbourne had taught me the art of fighting dirty. But the thought of biting Nanna had me pausing. My hesitation allowed her to drag me closer.

  “No!”

  Nanna smiled wider. Her teeth were serrated. Her mouth had become a cavern. Inside, I couldn’t see anything behind a swirl of darkness.

  Overhead, the fluorescent lights flickered. I heard voices shouting in the distance, but they were peripheral to the twisted face of the thing in front of me. Sharp nails bit into my wrist where Nanna still had hold of me. I made the mistake of glancing down to find talons adorning the points of her fingers.

  “No need to struggle, little lamb,” Nanna said. “I promise this won’t hurt.”

  I stared into black eyes and something inside me snapped. Fight or flight. It was instinct. I’d decided at the ripe old age of twelve that Hastings women didn’t run. Not after that first winter on the streets.

  “I can promise you this is going to hurt a lot,” I spat back. And then I head-butted her. The key to a good head-butt is to try and go for the bridge of the nose with your forehead plate. It was like using the hardest part of my skeleton against the softest part of hers. Nanna reeled back. Her surprise allowed me to wrestle out of her hold.

  I pushed and she went flying across the bed. Without thinking, I sprinted across the room. The tips of my fingers grazed the red button of the duress alarm. Something latched onto the back of my shirt and dragged me backwards. The momentum of the throw had me bracing so that when I was slammed into the wall, my muscles were tensed for the impact. I fell forward into a crouch, panting as my eyes tried to lock on to her position. She stood blocking the door. I’d watched orderlies helping her to the bathroom more than once. Today, her spine wasn’t bowed. Her steps weren’t shuffled. What in the ever-loving hell was going on?

  “Funny little lamb,” the thing that was Nanna said. A long, red tongue darted out between her blackened mouth. “So much fire. You’ll make a good vessel.”

  Much of what she said was drowned out by the thump of my pulse in my ears. I had finally pinpointed the thing that had every prey instinct in me on edge. As the light cast down on her, the shadow that her figure threw against the wall was not that of a sixty-four-year-old woman. The shadow had limbs where it shouldn’t. Long, arching limbs that crawled up the wall like a spider. The silhouette of a head twice the size of Nanna’s cocked to the side. The thing appraised me. “Don’t be scared,” it said.

  Too late for that. One moment she was on the other side of the room and the next she was in front of me. My mouth opened involuntarily as though I was going to scream. It was the wrong thing to do. The creature that was Nanna smiled and opened its mouth in tandem. My heart literally stopped beating as the darkness inside her open mouth gaped. My eyes must have been bugging out of my head. I watched a tendril of red begin to swirl in the darkness. She made noises like bone crunching. The red mist formed a river that inched towards my open mouth.

  When I tried to shut my jaw, Nanna’s arm shot out and clamped around my throat. She squeezed until my mouth opened again.

  The pulse between my ears was now beating a thunderous melody. Black dots floated across my eyes. I blinked again. The red mist had almost reached my lips when a popping sound permeated the room. My already stressed heart palpated when two figures appeared out of nowhere. Both were men of imposing stature. The one on the left was slim, built along elegant lines. The one on the right was bulkier, his shoulders broad, his build athletic. What really got me were the pristine white wings protruding from his back. An angel. That was the only way to describe him.

  The red mist was momentarily forgotten as a pair of startling emerald eyes bored into mine. But it wasn’t me that held his attention. An honest-to-God broadsword materialized in his hand. Green flames that matched the stranger’s eyes licked along the blade. When he angled it towards Nanna, his steely expression intent, I finally snapped out of my reverie. My numb limbs sprang back to life.

  I wasn’t sure what possessed me to do it, but my fingers drew the outline of a circle in front of me. I could see the perfect perimeter in my mind. I imagined it the way Nanna had always taught me. See the circle in your thoughts, project your wishes into the smooth outline. When I saw it now, I wanted protection. I wanted the undoubtedly sharp blade not to slice through the only person I had in the world.

  The mist entered my mouth at the same time the angel brought his weapon down. I closed my eyes, fully expecting the blade to hit its target. And then a roar like thunder scattered everything else to the breeze. My eyes snapped open at the same time the men were thrown back by an invisible force. Mist caught hold of my throat. The voice that belonged to Nanna’s captor was inside my mind, filling it with damning laughter.

>   2

  Nanna’s body slumped over. I didn’t have the wherewithal to catch her. For a second, a web of what appeared to be blue light flashed around her body. It disappeared as a red haze overlayed my vision. I took in the scene with a fresh perspective. The two men recovered from the chasm of the protection spell and stood, bracing themselves. A Nephilim and a mage. That piece of information was brought to me by the thing inside my mind. When the Nephilim’s blade had hit the perimeter of my circle, he was rebuffed.

  The Nephilim’s face twisted into a mask of unbridled fury. Around him, an aura of blackness seeped into the green light. Death. It clung to him in broken shards. Whether it was death that he dealt or his death foreshadowed, I wasn’t sure.

  The Nephilim spoke, but I couldn’t hear anything besides the cackled laughter in my head. The part of me that was still Alessia Hastings questioned whether I was going down the same road Nanna had gone. Hastings women had always been slightly touched by madness.

  So much power for such a little thing, the voice in my head mused. I could feel the thing’s delight in every atom of my being. Its essence raced along my spine, down my legs, through my belly. It soaked into the hardened shell that I’d tried to erect around my heart and then came to a sudden stop. I felt something push inside my mind. Kind of like the pressure I felt when a migraine came on.