Smoke and Mirrors Read online

  Smoke and Mirrors

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright ©2016 by Jess Haines

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art and design by Laura Gordon (www.thebookcovermachine.com).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  No part of this book in whole or in part may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized physical and electronic editions, and do not participate in nor encourage the electronic piracy of copyright materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  ISBN-10:0988972808

  ISBN-13:978-0-9889728-0-3

  Author ISNI: 0000 0001 2233 2442

  Jess Haines ° PO Box 7634 ° Clearwater, FL 33758

  www.JessHaines.com ° [email protected]

  SMOKE and Mirrors

  BLACKHOLLOW ACADEMY: BOOK ONE

  BY

  JESS HAINES

  www.JessHaines.com

  To the man who makes me smile. I love you, baby.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Someone saw you.”

  For an instant, Kimberly’s breath caught, thinking her teacher meant someone spotted her stealing more than her share of food in the school lunch line again and reported her thievery. Then her heart constricted in terror as the real meaning behind Professor Reed’s words sunk in.

  She had to swallow several times before she could choke out a few words around the lump that had formed in her throat. “I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone until after the finals?”

  “It couldn’t wait,” the professor said. “I overheard Professor Lim in the teacher’s lounge mention what he saw as cheating during your last couple of practical assignments. You know you’re not supposed to use illusions for that.”

  So it was true. She was out of time. The other students and teachers—the real magi—would soon know she wasn’t truly one of them.

  “I had no choice. How else can I pass the class?”

  Kimberly’s sputtered protest echoing in the vast, empty lecture hall was met with a flat stare. The professor set one hand on her desk, fingers splayed like a scorpion preparing to leap upon prey as she tapped an impatient rhythm with one finger. Her familiar, a sleek hawk on a standing perch set a few feet behind the desk, cracked one dark eye to focus on the source of the sound before fluffing its feathers and resuming a state of rest.

  “If you had come to me to discuss it first,” Professor Reed said after a long, thoughtful pause that did an excellent job of further fraying her student’s nerves, “we might have found some alternative. Regardless, it’s too late now. We knew this had to happen eventually. The good news is that the dean and faculty accepted my vouching for you and they will not strip you of your magic out of hand. The bad news is that they will be alerting the parents and local covens that there is a sorcerer attending Blackhollow Academy and the dean will be keeping very close tabs on you for the remainder of the school year.”

  “How bad is it? How much danger am I in?”

  “Bad enough. You have a rough road ahead of you. You need to watch your back, more than ever, and I won’t always be there to keep you safe.”

  Clinging tightly to either side of the flat wooden stool she sat upon, Kimberly fought against the urge to sink to the floor and pray for it to swallow her up. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. Dreams of clawing her way out of poverty through graduating from Blackhollow as an accepted member of mage society and finding a place in a coven were vanishing before her eyes.

  The tightness around the professor’s eyes grew into deep furrows as she frowned at her student, spidery digits tensing as she leaned over the desk. “Don’t give up hope yet, Miss Wells. As I said, they are not stripping you of your magic outright, which is more than could be said for any other sorcerer discovered in the five boroughs since the 1800s. If—if—you graduate without incident, you will be granted the legitimacy no sorcerer has had claim to since the Dark Ages. It’s too much to hope that the other students will not figure out that it is you. They will test your patience and your resolve. However, as I chose to sponsor you, I expect you to live up to my expectations and not retaliate to any teasing or bullying. You will graduate, and you will do so without incident. Yes?”

  Kimberly hadn’t even considered what the other students would think of her once they knew she wasn’t a true mage. Not like the rest of them. She’d been too busy worrying about having what little power she had stripped from her to even consider that aspect of her “condition” until that moment.

  Her voice was little more than a whisper once she managed to find it again. “I… Professor, I can’t—”

  “You can.”

  “They’ll hate me. They’ll try to—”

  “Their like or dislike has no bearing on your own conscience, abilities, or competence. The only one who can prove you would never use your powers for ill is you. You made it this far without doing so, did you not?”

  “I did, but I can’t summon. Professor Lim must have seen through the fakes I conjured. You said weeks ago you had a solution to that for me, right? I need a familiar, don’t I? If I can’t summon one, I can’t pass the finals.”

  “That’s correct, you need a familiar to graduate.”

  “So… am I pretending some other way? If he can see through the illusions, I don’t see what else I can do.”

  “No, absolutely not. Now that the other teachers know there is a sorcerer in the student body, they’ll be on the lookout for the signs and use any excuse they can to discredit you. You realize that cheating is grounds for expulsion?”

  Twitching fingers went still. Then tugged so hard that the loose string on the hem of her shirt Kimberly had been toying with broke, her voice coming out as no more than a strained whisper. “Expulsion?”

  “Yes. There’s no room for games anymore. You may not be a mage, but you are still my student. Time is running out, and I don’t want to see a repeat of that incident from your second year.”

  Kimberly flinched
at the reminder of her failure, and how the professor had unearthed her dark secret. She had missed three days of work and had sported sickly pinkish scars on her arms for weeks after. It was one of the few times she had been thankful for being so different from the other magi; her illusions made it possible to hide her wounds from her mother and her coworkers.

  Before she could open her mouth to protest, Professor Reed continued.

  “I shouldn’t have to remind you that cheating by using illusions to make it look as if you have mastered a skill is dangerous. Not only for you, but for your classmates and teachers. I shouldn’t need to point out that you won’t be able to fool the senior staff at exams.”

  “Professor, please, I didn’t mean—”

  “Stop that, now. Excuses won’t help. Something needs to change.”

  Kimberly reddened, heat blossoming in her cheeks. “I’ve been trying my best to master summoning, but nothing I do is working. It’s not as easy for me to find a workaround for it as it was for the other arts.”

  “I know. That’s why I called you in to see me.”

  Kimberly bowed her head, waiting for the inevitable. She expected to be forced into private lessons which she couldn’t possibly fit into her schedule or afford. Having a bit of supernatural power at her fingertips didn’t mean she could magically make money appear in her bank account. Unlike the magi she was pretending to be, she didn’t have the ability to alter the nature of physical objects to create food or shelter. She could fool someone else to make cardboard look and taste like pizza or vice versa, but true transmutation was beyond her.

  There were still nights where the thought of using her skills to pass a few scraps of paper for dollar bills didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Nights she went hungry when tips weren’t so good. With all her time spent studying magical arts, she didn’t even have a G.E.D. yet. This meeting was already making her late for work, and she prayed her boss would cut her some slack. She couldn’t afford to lose any more hours—or her job.

  “You’re a gifted illusionist, Kimberly. I won’t deny it. But if you can’t summon a familiar, you’ll need to find something with fae blood already on this plane to bind to you.”

  That was not what she was expecting. “I thought both you and Professor Lim said we’re not supposed to bind Others. Isn’t that against the rules?”

  A grim smile briefly quirked Professor Reeds’ thin lips with a ghost of approval. “I’m glad you’ve been paying attention in class. However, seeing as you aren’t like the other students, I think your situation merits special circumstances. If you can find an earthbound supernatural creature powerful enough to offer a measure of protection and convince it to consent to a binding—convince, mind, not coerce with your skills—then you should take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “Wait, this is… So you’re telling me I should ignore the cardinal rule of Other etiquette? How am I supposed to convince—what am I supposed to convince? I’m guessing other magi and elves and vampires are right out—”

  The professor held up a hand, nipping off the full-fledged ramble Kimberly was building up in the bud.

  “Fae blood, Kimberly. Of course vampires don’t fit that mold. And no elf or mage would ever agree to such a request, or any other humanoid, for that matter. Review your planar studies textbook again. The rule is never to bind against the will of the potential familiar. If you can get one to agree to work with you rather than taking it by force, there would be no breech in the Accords and no reason for you to worry about retribution. That aside, you should be on the hunt for a creature that will be powerful enough to deter your fellow students—or any of their parents, for that matter—from attempting to corner you, which also means you would want its full cooperation.”

  The professor turned away for a moment, leafing through a stack of papers on her desk. The rustle of shifting papers was extraordinarily loud in the cavernous classroom. Kimberly’s foot twitched nervously in the interim, though she forced herself back to stillness once the professor tugged a single sheet near the bottom free and slid it across the desk.

  It took a long moment for Kimberly’s glassy stare to focus on what was on the paper. Her eyebrows slowly crept toward her hairline as she took in the neatly penned list of Others known to live in the area. A few made sense to her. She had seen gargoyles guarding numerous buildings throughout the city, and was very familiar with the names of the local werewolf packs and influential vampires. She had even had drinks in one of the vampire clubs once, on a very ill-advised date that she’d sooner forget.

  Frowning, she skimmed down to the less obviously humanistic creatures on the list. Some were as foreign to her as another language, but there were many recognizable types she hadn’t expected to see inhabiting New York City.

  “Faeries? We have faeries in Central Park? I didn’t realize… Oh, man. There’s no way a unicorn would give me the time of day. A gryphon, maybe? No, I don’t even know how to talk to one… Wait. A dragon? There’s a dragon in New York?”

  “Several, actually. Your choice is ambitious, but I believe you’ve made the correct one.” The professor tugged the paper out of Kimberly’s grip and returned it to its place in the stack before her student had a chance to spit out the ‘you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me’ on the tip of her tongue, then folded her hands and leaned across the desk. “Now, let’s be honest here. I am aware of your monetary troubles, which means you can’t afford the special tutoring you require, or the bribes it would normally take to seek an audience with the local draconic representatives—”

  “But I don’t know any—”

  “—so I’m going to recommend you speak to Cormac Hunter. He can direct you where to find what you need and tell you how to get it.”

  Kimberly wasn’t sure herself what she needed. Dazed, she took the thick, cream-colored business card her professor slid across the desk and into her numb hands. Aside from the hours of work she’d miss going on a ridiculous hunt like this, the thought of asking a dragon to be her familiar filled her with dread. Not only did she have little to nothing to offer a creature so powerful and influential, they were cunning, crafty, and had been known to eat magi. Not for a few hundred years, of course, but there were documented cases.

  Then it occurred to her that her professor was reminding her in a roundabout way that dragons had hoards. And a dragon as a familiar had to be considered a golden ticket into a coven. No one would want to turn her away with a dragon at her command, even if she could barely summon enough spark to light a campfire.

  Even if she wasn’t really a mage. Even if they normally killed her kind on sight.

  Maybe she wouldn’t even need a coven to support herself if she had a dragon familiar. At the very least, she’d never have to count on stale pastries to tide her over until payday again.

  “Cormac is expecting you this evening.”

  That pronouncement brought Kimberly crashing back to reality. “But I have to go to work!”

  “Yes, yes, I know. I made you an appointment for 10:30PM. His office is only a few blocks from that coffee shop of yours. If you bring him an extra hot latte, heavy on the cream and hazelnut syrup, that should offset any hard feelings he will have about your request.”

  Kimberly gave a reluctant nod, staring down at her hands, not really seeing the text on the business card, only briefly registering that the letters were printed in silver foil. She couldn’t help but worry about what the next school day would bring—and why the professor was so intent on helping her survive it.

  “Kimberly.”

  Dazed, she looked up, meeting the fierce green glow of her professor’s gaze and doing her best not to flinch from the sparks of power that danced in the depths of her teacher’s pupils.

  “You can do this. Now get moving. Stay alert. And good luck.”

  Grabbing her backpack and stuffing the card into her jeans pocket, she ran out of the classroom, not looking back.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As Kimberly rushed down the
hall, she kept glancing from side to side, and then behind her. The multihued globes of light suspended at intervals between now-empty classrooms allowed no shadows, but the skin between her shoulder blades itched, as though she was being watched.

  In the morning and early afternoon, this place would be bustling with activity and she’d be lucky to sprint more than a few steps at a time. This late in the day, the squeak of her sneakers on the marble tiles was the only sound echoing in the hallway, which opened into a cavernous room ringed with columns of pale rose stone. The skeleton of a rearing unicorn faced those of a plunging dragon in the center; a nod to the Barosaurus and Allosaurus in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda in the Museum of Natural History several stories above.

  Aside from the architecture and arrangement of the bones, there was little about the room that bore any resemblance to the museum. Caged juvenile salamanders—summoned planar beings made of fire, not the amphibious sort—hung from decorative golden cages scattered throughout the room and cast enough warmth to dispel the sensation of being underground. Illusory daylight shone through the arched windows high above. Between most of the columns, separated by their own queues of velvet-roped stanchions to form orderly lines, were gigantic mirrors surrounded by stone frames etched with numerous arcane symbols on the sides. Each mirror had a huge imprinted metal label on top advertising one of several convenient locations—Central Park, Grand Central Station, both JFK and La Guardia airports, to name a few—all in multiple languages.

  Kimberly looked around one last time, verifying there were no small familiars, such as insects or mice or the like, following her. Then she hitched her backpack higher on her left shoulder and stepped into the “77th and Columbus” mirror.

  The tingle of the Gateway’s magic whispered against her skin like unseen cobwebs. The brisk April wind did not.

  Shivering and tugging her jacket closed, she rushed away from the gate that was disguised as a conjured deep shadow beneath one of the trees lining the street. She fell into pace beside a man about her height who was headed in the same direction. With a brief extension of her will, she made it appear to any prying eyes as though she continued on at his side, using him as an “anchor” for her illusory self while she stayed where she was, making her true self disappear. She couldn’t manage full invisibility, but by bending the light around herself—she’d seen an alien do that in a movie once—spotting her without the aid of tracking magic would be nigh impossible.