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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Movement rustled in the trees beyond the Barrier, hiding in the shadows of the forest. A rhythmic snapping of twigs and a jostling of branches crept through the white-barked tree trunks, originating on one side of the Barrier and fading into the forest on the other side. The sound moved after each announcement, slowly circling about the perimeter of the red-pink obelisk. The movement was far too deliberate. Whatever moved out there wanted to be heard.
"What's that?" Jackson's voice was a hoarse whisper. One of his revolvers was balanced on his good knee, which he had drawn up to use as a makeshift platform for his gun hand. With each movement in the forest, his gun jerked to pinpoint the sound. "Think it can get through the Barrier?"
June crouched to one knee, a sword drawn out with its tip resting on the ground before him. He too followed the sound, but with his eyes. "Yes. I'm sure it can get through the Barrier. Now shut up."
The snapping sounds continued to circle them. As the sharp echoes began to cross the sparse clearing in front of June and Jackson, the creature causing the disturbance passed through a few of the white-barked trees.
The movement did not belong to a demon, but June thought perhaps the culprit was just as bad, or possibly worse. In the dim light, June could make out the figure of the demon man in the large hat and cloak. The man watched them, one eye obscured by the wide brim of his hat, the other catching the Barrier's red-pink light to glow like a cat's caught in the moonlight.
June spat out a curse under his breath—the hat-and-cloak demon had found him, or perhaps he had always been waiting in the shadows and only chose now to make his presence known. He had a name, which June couldn't remember.
"There's someone out there." Jackson tried to shift against the tree trunk. "I saw a person. Is that one of ours? Another Cross?"
June shivered in the cold humidity. "That's definitely not one of ours." Those moonlit eyes glowed once again as the figure stepped through another copse of trees before fading into the shadows. No matter how human the man looked, no one living had eyes like that. He was a demon. June was certain of that.
"July? July!" Jackson's voice rasped low and quiet with a clear undertone of fear. The upperclassman pointed furiously off into the woods to a particularly sparse collection of the bone-like trees.
The rustling and the snapping stopped, plunging the forest into the thick, heavy silence that made June's ears ring. There amongst the thin trunks just off to June's right stood the demon man, his figure mostly hidden in the shadows. Only his body above the shoulders could be seen—a disembodied head floating in the forest. His wide-brimmed hat created an unmistakable void, blotting out the forest. As June's eyes focused on him, the man stepped out of the shadows to stand boldly in a large pool of moonlight.
