Student Bodies Read online

  “Give me a hand with him, Marcus, he’s under magical attack and he’ll be toast if we can’t get him away from the edge of the platform!”

  Marcus didn’t waste any time as he leaned into Mike’s side and started shoving. “Jesus,” he gasped as his feet skidded in the snow while he pushed. “The guy is a freaking brick wall.”

  I could feel the vibration of the approaching train and I glanced down the tracks. I quickly realized there wasn’t a chance in hell that we were going to pull Mike away from the edge of the platform without a little help. The small handful of bystanders on the platform weren’t paying us any attention, but that would change the minute I started slinging magic around. I’d wind up in a ton of trouble with my mother when she found out, but Mike Olsen’s life was at stake so I drew on my spirit and pointed to a power box about a hundred yards down the tracks.

  “Hexus!” I whispered, as a surge of invisible force flew out of my hand, smashing into the power box like a battering ram. There was a small explosion as a shower of sparks flew across the tracks amid a thick blue cloud of smoke. I glanced down the tracks and saw the headlights of the oncoming train flicker for a short moment followed by the deafening scream of metal on metal. Bright orange sparks spilled out from either side of the train and bounced off the snow as its wheels locked up. I leaned into Mike again and pushed with all my strength, gritting my teeth together the entire time.

  “That train is still coming,” Marcus groaned as he leaned into Mike. “I don’t know if it’s going to stop before it reaches the platform.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see the train screeching down the tracks, less than a hundred yards away. I had to do something, anything, to get Mike Olsen back from the edge of the platform otherwise he wouldn’t be the only one to be ground into C-Train hamburger. I placed both of my gloved hands on Mike’s ghost maggot-covered cheeks. I swallowed back the bile that I could now taste in the back of my throat and wrenched Mike’s head so that I could look into his eyes. I didn’t know what kind of dark spell had attacked him, but I knew enough to realize that his brain needed a sharp jolt – something that would cause a spasm in his central nervous system. If I could send enough juice into his brain, there was still a chance that the spasm would help to push him away from the oncoming train.

  “Stand back, Marcus,” I said sharply. I drew once more on my spirit as I gathered my magic into a tight ball of energy and stared hard into Mike’s eyes.

  “I’m clear!”

  I dug my fingers into Mike’s cheeks and snarled, “Hexus!”

  A small burst of supernatural energy surged through my hands and Mike’s neck snapped back. As if he could read my mind, Marcus threw himself into Mike, driving both Mike and I back from the edge of the platform just as the C-Train screeched past. The air smelled of hot metal as I opened my eyes and quickly got back to my feet. I looked down at Mike, who’d managed to raise himself up onto his elbows.

  “Where am I?” he whispered weakly.

  “C-Train station,” said Marcus, who stooped over and offered his hand to Mike.

  “But I was home,” Mike said, clearly dazed. “I was using my PlayStation.”

  Once again I raised my Sight and gave Mike Olsen a quick scan. The magical aura had disappeared, along with the ghostly maggots. My counterspell must have short-circuited the magical attack and I shivered for a quick second because whoever was behind this probably ended up with a mouthful of my magical signature.

  And that meant they’d be able to detect me.

  Shit.

  Mike blinked hard a couple of times and then looked up at me. “J-Julie Richardson? You’re Julie Richardson, right?”

  I nodded. “And Marcus Guffman, your best buddy in the whole wide world.”

  Mike latched onto Marcus’s forearm and slowly got back up to his feet. “So cold… But I was at home… Everything is foggy.”

  Marcus and I looked at each other and then Marcus said, “Arctic fronts generally have that effect on the jet stream,” said Marcus. “Let’s go inside the station and warm up. I’ll even buy you a hot chocolate. Sound good?”

  Instead of firing off one of his patented insults, Mike actually agreed to accompany Marcus inside the station – clearly his brain must have still been in the process of rewiring itself after I jolted it.

  No wedgie. No threat of dismemberment. Nothing.

  I followed the pair inside as I realized that my date night had just been wrecked. On the one hand, I was glad that we managed to save Mike Olsen from becoming C-Train road kill, but on the other hand, it would have been nice to snuggle up to Marcus in a dark theater surrounded by the deafening sounds of explosions and machine gun fire.

  I glanced down at my Shadowcull’s band and then quickly removed my amulet. Mike Olsen had been attacked by someone who was schooled in dark magic, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just a simple case of casting a spell on the meathead; someone had meant to kill him.

  And I needed to find out why.

  CHAPTER 3

  We escorted Mike back to his house and the entire time he said nothing to us unless he was prompted. I don’t think he was keeping tight-lipped to be an asshole, either. It was clear that he was still pretty dazed and I had to wonder if whoever had thrown the spell Mike’s way would be brazen enough to take another shot at him after winding up on the receiving end of my counterspell.

  Dumb question. Of course they would. Go Julie.

  But why would anyone want to kill Mike Olsen when I’m the one with the magical target on her back? Better yet, who at my school possessed enough magical skill to try and pull something like that off? I decided that I’d have to hit up the laboratory in the basement of my house and dig into the spell books, because the kind of magical attack Mike experienced was something I’d never before encountered.

  The wind had died down by the time Marcus and I made it back to my house. I live in an unassuming two-storey in Lake Sundance – a thirty year-old section of South Calgary where all the houses look like each other and where the cookie-cutter neighbors get uppity if your property breaks with the mass-produced look of the community. In spring and summer we’re not the most popular people on the block because my front and back yards are a mass of what appear to be weeds if you’re the average person. Everything that grows has a purpose specific to the practice of witchcraft and we don’t get any complaints when there’s a foot and a half of snow on the ground. It’s the one time of the year when our house blends in with all the rest of them.

  I deactivated the magical wards that protect our home and clumped in through the front door with Marcus in tow. “You’re back early,” my mother said with a slight edge to her voice. She was lounging on the sofa with a thick book on her lap. The house smelled of ginger and honey and my stomach rumbled slightly because I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. Marcus and I had planned to gorge ourselves on popcorn during our date, but duty calls.

  I slipped off my boots and hung up my coat in the closet. “Things didn’t go as planned,” I said as Marcus handed me his parka. “Where’s Betty?”

  Mom made a sour face and pointed to the back door. “She’s in the yard doing her business. Just so you know: cleaning up dog poop is your job, Julie.”

  I padded into the living room and sat down on the armchair opposite the TV as Marcus poked his head around the living room door. “Good thing that Betty buries it,” I replied. “Marcus, would you go to the back door and let her in? We need to have a chat.”

  “Will do,” he answered, and he headed down the hall.

  Mom had a look of expectation on her face. If she was thinking that our talk was going to have anything to do with our little encounter session, she was going to be massively disappointed. I heard the back door open with a loud squeak followed by a huge doggy sneeze and then the sound of four heavy feet hobbling through the kitchen. Betty and Marcus both sauntered into the living room and I noticed the Great Dane looked like it had shed a few pounds.

  “A
re you alright, Betty?” I asked. “Er… I mean, is your host OK? I think you’ve lost some weight.”

  She dropped onto her haunches with a slight doggy groan. “It’s nothing. Let’s just say that the Betty part of me doesn’t exactly enjoy the taste of kibble. And besides, I can always find another host if something happens to this one.”

  Marcus sat down on the edge of the armchair next to me. “I think I’ve mentioned before that bodysnatching is just plain wrong on a multitude of levels, right?”

  Mom cocked an eyebrow and she gave Marcus a quick once-over. She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off before she had a chance.

  “Something happened at the C-Train station,” I said. “I had to switch into Shadowcull mode.”

  Mom swung her legs off the couch and her eyes narrowed sharply. “What kind of something?”

  “Mike Olsen – the guy who pushes Marcus around at school?”

  “Pushed me around, Julie,” Marcus interrupted. “He and I had words, remember?”

  I nodded. “I was going to get to that. Anyway, Mike was standing on the edge of the platform; over the yellow line. Marcus said he’d been standing there like a zombie for fifteen minutes before I arrived. We tried to talk to him, but it was like… I don’t know… Like he was in a deep trance. So, I slipped my amulet into my Shadowcull’s band and I saw that he was covered from head to foot with maggots, only they weren’t real, you know? They were transparent, like a spirit. We tried to shove him back from the edge because the train was coming and it was like trying to push a boulder. He didn’t budge.”

  Betty’s head cocked sharply to the right. “And then what happened?” she rumbled.

  I threw her a shrug. “Well, Mike was going to wind up getting splattered by the train so I hexed the power supply to the entire northbound track. Only it didn’t stop the train, it just slowed it down. Mike was still about to end up getting clipped, so I jolted his brain a little bit with some magic. It freed him up enough for Marcus to shove him back to safety.”

  “And he can’t account for how he got there,” Marcus added. “Mike said he was at home and the next thing he remembers is waking up on the platform.”

  Mom nodded slowly and said, “Ghost maggots? Clearly your friend Mike Olsen was under some kind of magical influence.”

  “He’s not our friend,” I said sharply. “He’s a class-A jerk, but even he doesn’t deserve to wind up being murdered by someone.”

  Betty sneezed again, this time sending a spray of dog snot across the hardwood floor. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “It must be the cold weather. Do you know anyone who would want to hurt this boy?”

  I shook my head. “No, and if anyone from school did want to take down Mike Olsen, they’d have to be a practitioner like me. I mean, I’d probably detect their magical signature.”

  “Marla Lavik had you fooled,” said Marcus, with an uneasy look on his face. “Nothing personal, but you and Betty both didn’t have a clue.”

  “Soul Worms,” Mom said grimly.

  I blinked. “Come again?”

  She leaned forward and glanced at Betty. “Those ghost maggots might well have been Soul Worms.”

  “Spirits protect us all, I hope they’re not,” said Betty. “That’s seriously black magic, and it’s not a spell that just anyone can pull off.”

  “OK, I’ll bite. What are Soul Worms?”

  Betty and Mom glanced at each other again and I thought for a quick second they were communicating telepathically.

  “It’s a spell, a vile, malicious and twisted spell,” said Mom. “Soul Worms bore into the very fabric of the victim’s humanity in much the same way as termites bore into wood. They feed on a person’s soul, nibbling away at their feelings, their hopes and dreams and aspirations. If the infection is severe enough, the victim becomes altered as a result, changed forever into an empty shell.”

  “An empty shell?” asked Marcus. “What does that mean?”

  Betty took a deep breath and said, “In days gone by, those who had the misfortune of winding up on the receiving end of this particular spell became known as ‘hollow people’. It was the only way to describe someone who is unable to discern right from wrong… Unable to feel, to know the joy of falling in love. These poor creatures could no longer experience their lives the way human beings were intended to. They were transformed into empty vessels, and completely susceptible to the whims of whoever infected them. I’ve seen whole armies of hollow people used as cannon fodder in the great battles of the past. They’d throw themselves en masse straight into the enemy while the real soldiers attacked from the flank. It’s just terrible. Terrible business, Soul Worms.”

  I felt a sharp tug of panic as the gravity of what Mom and Betty revealed hit home. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “But who would do such a thing to a freaking dumbass football player? I mean, he’s Mike Olsen for crying out loud! He thinks farting in class is entertainment.”

  “Well, maybe Holly Penske is up to her old tricks again,” said Marcus.

  I shook my head. “I doubt it. She’s a player in the supernatural realm, but she’s not a killer. She uses people to achieve her own aims, just like she used me to capture the spirit of Matthew Hopkins.”

  Marcus nodded as he knelt down in front of Betty. He stroked her chin a few times and then scratched behind her left ear as the dog’s tail thumped agreeably on the carpet.

  “It could be that Mike Olsen is just a pawn or something,” said Marcus as Betty sniffed at his hand. “Maybe this was designed to draw you out… Like at Mrs Gilbert’s house. You are a Shadowcull. Maybe word travels fast among people like you… Among witches.”

  Marcus was right, but the key in this was Mike Olsen. We had to figure out why he was the original target and that meant coming up with a magical countermeasure in case things went south.

  Mom glanced at her watch. “It looks like we’re going to have to put our heads together on this, because if those ghost maggots were indeed Soul Worms, then something pretty big is brewing. Julie, we should probably hit the lab and do some research.”

  I sighed heavily and nodded. “Marcus, maybe we need to do a rain check on our date. Witch business and all.”

  He stood up and headed to the front hall. “No problem,” he said as he threw on his winter jacket and stuffed his feet into his boots. “Just text me. I’ve got nothing going on for tomorrow so maybe I can help you out in some way.”

  I followed him to the door and gave him a soft kiss on his lips. “Sorry about all this. Duty calls, I guess.”

  He placed his hands on my waist and gave me a hug. “It’s cool. I’ll talk to you later.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Mom and I headed down to the lab in the basement. It’s a large room with wooden shelves stacked with plastic and foil containers full of spell ingredients, not to mention notebooks and binders containing everything from spell recipes to general information about the arcane. There’s a pair of six-foot tables covered with beakers and mixing bowls and a couple of stools for Mom and me to park our butts on, because when you’re crafting a potion or blending a pair of spell recipes it’s really a matter of trial and error; minutes turn into hours and hours can turn into days in some cases.

  I might be a Shadowcull whose purpose is to dispense coven justice at supernatural bad guys, but I’m still an adept, the official designation for an apprentice within our order. We’re not part of a coven for reasons that have to do with internal politics and my being seconded to another witch for training. Mom has been teaching me witchcraft since I was in training pants and while she can sometimes be a control freak, there’s no other person in the world I’d rather learn from.

  You know, when she isn’t guilting me about dating Marcus.

  Betty hobbled down the stairs after us. I sat on a stool and watched Mom run her left index finger along the spines of more than a dozen binders.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  Betty slowly dropped down onto her bell
y and rested her head on her front paws. “Give your mother a moment, Julie,” the Great Dane said. “You can’t rush research.”

  Mom pulled a thick red binder off the shelf and dropped it onto the table. She grabbed a pair of glass beakers and then pointed to the shelf at the far end of the room. “Grab the bottles with the following names,” she said, as she flipped through the binder until she found the page she was looking for. “Coltsfoot extract, eyebright, prickly ash and red clover. Be quick about it.”

  I jotted down the names of the spell ingredients onto a Post-it note and trotted over to a wooden shelf filled with plastic two-liter bottles containing liquids of every color and description. Each bottle was labeled with the name of its ingredient written on a small piece of masking tape and, thankfully, the bottles were alphabetized. In seconds I was back beside my mother and I deposited each bottle beside a large glass bowl.

  “I’m thinking you’re planning a potion to either detect or protect,” I said as Mom poured a cupful of thick green liquid from the bottle of coltsfoot extract. “Please tell me that we don’t have to drink that stuff.”

  Mom sniffed. “Yes, you have to drink this stuff, it might save your life.”

  I blinked as she poured equal amounts of the other three ingredients into a large glass beaker. The mixture turned into a flat gray liquid with the consistency of tar, so I knew it was super-concentrated and we’d have to thin it out.

  “Here, Mom,” I said and handed her a large bottle of distilled water.

  “I’m glad that you haven’t forgotten how to make a potion,” she said as she uncapped the bottle. “With your new responsibilities as a Shadowcull, it’s altogether too easy for you to forget the basic functions of your craft. Anyone can sling magical energy around, but it takes a genuine measure of wisdom to concoct a bulletproof potion.”