Descending Into Darkness (Moonlight Academy Book 2)

“What the fuck?” Lachlan snapped. He sounded terrified when I finally caught up with him.

The smell of urine and burned skin wafted around the space. For a split second I thought I was going to be sick, but then I saw what Lachlan was looking at.

It was some sort of creature, at least five times bigger than a human with one eye in the middle of its forehead. I’d read about these creature in books, but they weren’t supposed to exist.

They were called cyclops, but now I was not hallucinating. One currently stood right in front of me terrorising two shifters. They were probably potential students. I just stood there, mesmerised, staring, as the cyclop was tried to chase after them with a giant log in his hand.

I had no idea what to make of it. One of the shifters zoomed past me, and then a huge stone nearly hit me. I jumped to the right, finally waking up from my frozen state.

“Jaymin watch out!” Lachlan’s deep voice echoed through the space. I got up and looked up, but it was too late. The one-eyed creature had gotten to me before I even knew what was happening. He grabbed me and lifted me up, holding me by my left foot. Blood rushed to my head, and my magic was going haywire at the same time as I was dangling upside down.

A new wave of energy rushed through my core, and I didn’t know how, but I managed to grab one of my knives and jab the motherfucker’s finger with it. The creature let go with a terrible howl-like shriek, and then it threw me across the room. I landed on something hard. I lost my breath for a few seconds before crashing on the ground.

Everything hurt, but I somehow managed to shake it off and get up. My breathing was laboured and I knew I had a broken rib because it hurt like hell. I could barely move.

I glanced behind me, seeing that the creature was chasing after the shifters once again. The students were in their animal forms. Drops of blood began dripping down onto the floor. I touched my nose.

“Are you all right?” Lachlan asked, getting to me. My fingertips were charged with energy and I had never been more pissed in my entire life. I pulled out a tissue and put it in my nostrils.

“Yeah, sort of. Is he part of the trials?” I asked Lachlan, trying to breath evenly. We were both staring at the cyclops, observing that he was slow and sloppy. The smell coming off him was absolutely rancid.

Lachlan laughed, then shook his head.

“I have no idea, but I guess so. We have to finish that motherfucker off. This might be the part of a small initiation task. How about I distract him and you attack him with some magic. These two idiots here seem to have no clue what they are doing,” Lachlan said, staring at the shifters.

“Gladly,” I answered. I spit some blood on the ground and then headed towards the creature.

The one-eyed monster was now squeezing the life out of the first shifter when we surrounded him. I had no clue what had happened to the other one.

I had my two knives ready in my hands. I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly, trying to bring his attention to me. I really had no idea what Lachlan was going to do.

“Hey! You ugly moron, over here!” I roared, charging my hands with flames at the same time.

The cyclops noticed me and threw the shifter away. The poor bugger hit the ground and I wasn’t sure if he was just unconscious, or dead. Then I heard barking right behind me.

I noticed that the other shifter was moving closer again, staring at me with his large yellow eyes. The cylops too was heading in my direction. The wolf was only inches away from me, his back was bent and his fur stood up right.

“What the actual fuck?” I whispered to myself, not understanding why that shifter wanted to attack me.

Then everything happened all at once. The wolf attacked and the ugly creature reached out, trying to grab me again.

In that one moment I had to make a quick decision. Either die by having my throat ripped open by a crazy-ass shifter or by a huge stupid cyclops. Damn it, I refused to accept either ending for myself. Instead, I rolled on the ground and stuck my first knife into the shifters stomach. The cyclops tried to hit me with his log.

Magic pounded through me at the same time as I twisted the knife, roaring.

The last thing I saw was a huge log heading in my directing. Everything was happening in a slow motion. I shut my eyes, expecting pain, but nothing happened.

Then, another terrible howl echoed through the space. It was so loud that I felt like my eardrums were going to explode.

I covered my ears, then opened my eyes, seeing Lachlan. That idiot was hanging over the cyclop’s neck, and at the same time trying to stick something in his eye.

The shifter crashed on the ground and howled. The magic was rushing through my skin. My skin was burning as I pulled the knife out of the shifter’s stomach.

He was dead and I felt guilty because I hadn’t planned to kill anyone tonight, well apart from that one giant monster in front of me.

The cyclops was shaking his head, roaring with pain. Lachlan managed to jump safely back to the ground, leaving a knife in the creature’s eye. It was almost comical until the magical energy hit me out of the blue. A bright yellow light exploded all around us, blinding me.

Was this my magic? My energy?

I had no idea. The energy was suddenly rushing through my system; the light was attacking the creature and I was thrown back onto the floor.

I must have blacked out for a few seconds, and as I came around, the whole placed shook and there was a loud crash. The cyclops was on the ground, a few bits of ceiling had fallen down around it.

I was surprised that the entire building hadn’t collapsed on us. I rubbed my eyes, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. The dust was getting into my eyes and I needed to take a clear, deep breath away from all the rubble and dust that had been kicked up. My eyes were watering and my throat was tingling.

A deadly silence filled the space. I started to walk towards the creature, truly hoping that it was dead. My limbs were tingling as I glanced at the shifter as he started to move, he was lying several meters away from the cyclops. I was surprised that he wasn’t dead.

“He attacked her. She was trying to defend herself,” someone suddenly said.

I had no idea who was speaking. I couldn’t see anyone until Lachlan appeared right in front of me.

He had a large cut across his forehead and several other bruises. The shifter that had crashed on the ground walked up to us. He looked disorientated and he was completely naked.

“Quickly, Dominic is still alive. We have to help him,” he said with panic. I exchanged nervous looks with Lachlan.

“What are you talking about mate? Your friend is dead,” pretty boy said, but the naked shifter kept shaking his head.

“No, no, he’s not dead. He has been poisoned. The next part of the task is right in front of us. We need to find the antidote,” the shifter explained, dragging his hand through his hair and looking at us like we were crazy.

“Your friend is dead. My friend here stabbed him in the gut to protect herself,” Lachlan pressed. He walked over to the one-eyed creature and pulled his knife from its eye.

“I’m sorry, but he attacked me. He was ready to kill me,” I added. The terrible odour that was drifting around from the monster was making me feel sick. I’d killed a lot of supernatural convicts in my life, but I had never stood face to face with a cyclops. The first trial, well if it was even a trial, had been a little underwhelming.

The naked shifter didn’t give up. He ran over to his friend. I was ready to get out of here.

“Come on Angelica,” Lachlan said, sighing loudly. We started walking away when the other shifter, that I had supposedly killed, screamed.

Lachlan and I turned around, seeing that the shifter that was almost positively dead for at least ten minutes, had woken up. He collapsed once again and it looked like he was choking.

“Students, you must work together to save this shifter. On your right, there is a table with herbs, use them to find an antidote,” a deep voice echoed around the room.

We got to the shifter on the floor. His friend was pale and he was mumbling something nonsensical. The previously dead shifter was choking; white foam was coming out of his mouth.

Blood rushed to my ears. I had some healing abilities but I wasn’t very experienced with this kind of craft. Lachlan moved past me. We needed to save him.

I didn’t want to kill him in the first place, so this was my chance to fix this.

“There are herbs here. Come on help me,” Lachlan said. I turned around, spotting the table.

The Scot was lifting various flasks, trying to read the labels. I didn’t recognise most of the herbs there. In Moonlight, I had studied herbology and potion making, but I was never any good at it.

“What are you doing?” I asked Lachlan who was mixing some white powder in a flask with red liquid that look a lot like blood.

The other shifter stayed with his friend.

I was trying to think on my feet, but my mind had gone blank. Sweat was dripping down my neck and my heart was pounding inside my chest.

“No idea, improvising and I think you should do the same,” he snapped then rushed to shifter. Then he shoved the liquid into his mouth. The other shifter was pacing around his friend; he wasn’t any help at all. We had only a few minutes to save the poisoned supernatural.

I took a few deep breaths and told myself to stay calm. This was my last chance to save him. I had to do what I could. Lachlan’s potion, or whatever he had created didn’t work, the shifter’s condition didn’t improve at all.

I rushed back to the table staring at all the herbs and trying to remember any healing combinations possible.

I picked up some sage leaves, fairly certain that this was the only herb that could flush out all toxins.

“Fuck, this is not working,” Lachlan swore, throwing the flask across the room. It smashed to pieces.

Then it hit me. I remembered when Melody was healing that stray cat in the dark alley in Lviv several years ago. She’d used periwinkle. She basically squeezed the juice out of the flowers and rubbed it over the cat’s teeth. She later explained that a tincture from the petals was like liquid gold. It could apparently heal anyone. Melody used to carry a lot of herbs with her.

When I asked her why she was so determined to save that cat, she said that every living being deserves a chance to live.

I quickly grabbed periwinkle and went over to the shifter.

“Let’s try this. I think the liquid should help him,” I said, putting the petals into the shifters mouth. I then began squeezing the yellow liquid to the back of his throat. My heart was thumped loudly inside my chest.

“What are you doing Jaymin? We are wasting precious time,” Lachlan asked.

I’d had enough of his shitty attitude.

“I’m trying to save him. Have you got any better ideas?”

The shifter’s energy was fading and he was dying on us. We both knew it. Lachlan snorted and then walked back to the table of herbs. I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

Seconds felt like hours and nothing was happening. The shifter was getting paler and it seemed to me that Lachlan still had no idea what to do. In that terrifying moment I truly thought that this was it, that we both couldn’t do anything. After all, we only had a limited knowledge of herbs whereas most students used them frequently.

“Jaymin, look, he’s starting to move,” Lachlan shouted, pulling me away from my dark thoughts.

I got up, seeing that the shifter was coughing now, but the main thing was that his colour was coming back too. Something was definitely happening. This was working, I couldn’t believe it.

Maybe I could save the shifter after all. Split seconds later, the shifter opened his eyes, took a sharp deep breath and then looked at us completely confused and disorientated.

He probably remembered me stabbing him.

“Are you all–”

I didn’t get to finish my question though, because then he started throwing up. This made me feel a little sick too, but at least he was going to live. Which also meant that I had found the antidote.

He kept puking for a bit until I felt several other supernaturals appear, quickly surrounding us.

The doors began to open. I could see a few members of the faculty team from Elite. Ripley and the other professor that had greeted me at the door were here now.

The torches lightened the space once again and that’s when I finally saw how much devastation that creature had caused.

Ripley started clapping and now he was smiling at me. That was strange because I had never seen him smiling like that. Alexa’s potion had protected me well.

“Angelica Rust has won the antidote challenge and has been awarded with the maximum number of points,” the professor with the unknown name announced.

Other vampires showed up too. They started to clear out the damage caused by the cyclops.

Lachlan helped the shifter up. He gave Ripley a furious look when he noticed him and I nervously bit my lip, hoping that he was not going to blow his cover. He hated Ripley for goodness only knows what reason.

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Come on, let’s move to the next room. You showed us some incredible skills Angelica,” he continued speaking to me as we walked from the room.

I could feel Lachlan staring at me. He was not happy

In the next room, there were a lot more people standing around, waiting for something or someone.

I counted at least ten students and obviously more bodies. Other vampires were carrying them out. My heart skipped a beat as I hoped that the rest of the team were doing okay; that they were still alive at least.

“What is that fucking prick doing in here?” Lachlan whispered in my ear when he’d caught up with me.

“No idea, I was as surprised as you,” I answered, rubbing my forehead. He growled behind me waking up the lust that I had fought away for so long.

I shifted my weight to the side, trying to stay calm. I was ready to throw myself at him. What the hell was happening to me all of a sudden?

“Now that the most challenging part of your trials is over, let’s have a little break before the next task,” announced another professor that I had never seen before. “The initial trial survivors are all standing here in this room, so for now, you are all winners. However, now you have to prove to us that you are truly worthy of Elite.”