Sixteen-year-old June Bae may very well be your typical high school student, but the Rose Cross Academy is not your typical high school. Instead of history assignments and English papers, June trudges through Alchemy mixes and Demonology homework.
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Chapter 12
Ghost Box
by Rissa Renae
Noel hoped the glare he had set on Professor Nevin would eventually burn a hole through the man's face. As junior Blaine Thompson of Riser Team Five finished wrapping a long strip of bandage around the wound in the man's shoulder, a part of Noel wished the professor would just bleed to death right there on the spot. A confinement Barrier stood guard around Blaine and the professor—a golden pyramid converging in a point of pulsating light just above their heads. By now, word had spread regarding what Noel suspected the professor of doing: orchestrating a situation in which demons had been released for the sole purpose of kidnapping or injuring Cross students. Several other Crosses were now gathered in the parking lot behind the school to stand guard with Noel.
The sun hung low and globular in the west stabbed through by a band of thin clouds. Its orange light kept watch over the students as it hovered just below the treetops, undulating in the sky across the soccer field. Air hung thick and quiet. Even the birds had stopped chirping long ago.
"That should stop the bleeding," Blaine said half-heartedly as he leaned back on his feet to admire the bandaged shoulder with a mild shrug. "At least until the Headmaster gets here."
"Thank you, my boy," Nevin answered with a flat expression from where he sat obediently in the gravel. The Barrier's golden glow glinted off a black metal ring with a Masonic crest on his right hand. Raising the hand slowly, Nevin laid his palm over the bandage on his shoulder and sighed. The letter E hung within the square and compass of the crest signifying he was an Exorcist. Noel frowned; the man did not deserve to wear that ring anymore.
The whine of sirens in the distance crackled through the stiff air, startling everyone in attendance. Even Professor Nevin looked up sharply with a frown.
"Someone called 9-1-1." Stella stood beside the Barrier, her compound bow slung over her shoulder and across her chest. "Even after we ordered them not to."
"Adults," Blaine said with a snort. He eyed Nevin.
"No one lets the ambulance through until the Headmaster gets here. Understand?" Noel knew several other Dreamers in the schoolyard outranked him, and frankly found it surprising Johann was not out here slinging orders as if he owned the place. Regardless of Noel's rank, a couple of juniors nodded in his direction.
The Order of the Rose Cross operated above the level of local law enforcement; even if perchance that ambulance came to tend to Professor Nevin, the paramedics would not be allowed to touch the man, nor would they be able to cross through the Barrier that contained him. Nevin sat in violation of the Order's most sacred of rules: he had conspired with demons—an act that had allowed Noel's best friend and teammate June Bae to be swallowed into the demon worlds of Below. And given the frantic way Marney Evens was pacing back and forth in the lot, Noel assumed Jackson and Jeremiah of Riser Team Six had also fallen Below with June.
