Chapter 3: Go Straight to…the Dean’s Office

My aimless wandering added up to—late to class again.

Mrs. Nelson-Perkins’s class was impossible to sneak into without being seen.

I think she chose the classroom for that reason alone.

Her desk, squarely positioned by the only entrance, served as the perfect perch to dole out her warden-like oversight.

When I peeked into the room, she tilted her head, reading from a notebook. I casually walked in instead of my usual brisk walk to draw less attention to my tardiness.

“Mr. Bramwell-Gates.”

“Going right to my seat, Mrs. Nelson-Perkins.”

“No, you are not, Mr. Bramwell-Gates. I need you to come to my desk.”

The mean inflection in her words caused me to approach with caution.

“It’s come to my attention that you have a very offensive object in your backpack, which is inappropriate and possibly dangerous.”

Instinctively, I glanced across the classroom. He was in this class too—The Nameless One.

He sat at his desk.

His arms crossed

His eyes squinting.

He dripped with the smugness I loathed.

Locking on my gaze, his blistering cold aura swelled.

Images flickered—his hands rifling through my backpack during our confrontation.

What had he done? What had he planted? What if it’s still in there?

“Ha, I can assure you there is nothing in here even noteworthy, much less in the categories you named. Besides, this is my private property. I don’t have to open it for you.”

I turned away and started to walk toward my seat.

“You must think we are in town, but at this school campus, Mr. Bramwell-Gates, all I need is reasonable suspicion. Either submit to my small request, or I can have security take care of it.”

I turned back. Her thin, veiny hands reached for her cell phone.

I approached her desk. The backpack, weight-wise, felt the same. No way The Nameless One had slipped anything in there.

He didn’t have enough time—did he?

I dropped the backpack from my shoulder, then positioned it on her desk with some hesitancy.

Mrs. Nelson-Perkins slowly reached up to unzip the bag.

Was it possible?

Had The Nameless One stashed banned e-cigs—no, nudie pics—drugs, maybe drugs—into the bag?

I’m so screwed.

He did promise to humiliate me.

The zipping sound ended.

Mrs. Nelson-Perkins reached down into the bag.

A look of fright washed over her face.

When she grabbed what she was looking at, something strange—no, something bizarre—happened.

A blackness.

Black fire or mist—retched around her.

Cold unworldliness burnt my nerves.

I turned to the class.

No one reacted.

No one saw.

Only me.

I pivoted back to Mrs. Nelson-Perkins, and the blackness was still lingering.

It intensified as she slowly removed her hands holding the object from my backpack.

What was in there? What did she have in her hands?

BOOM-RRP!

An unearthly sound followed as Mrs. Nelson-Perkins slammed a book onto her desk.

Rules of the Black Arts for Advanced Users.

I must have looked like a fool, standing there shaking.

To everyone else, Mrs. Nelson-Perkins had pulled a book out of my backpack.

But I was caught in a scene ripped from a horror manga.

The classroom chattered:

“What’s happening?”

“What did Mrs. Nelson-Perkins snatch out of Billy’s bag?”

At the time, I didn’t care how ludicrous I looked in front of the classroom.

I firmly pinched my nose and tried to breathe through it—a reality-testing technique I learned from a lucid dream guidebook.

The classroom chattering continued: “Why is Billy acting weirder than usual?”

I couldn’t breathe, so I knew I wasn’t dreaming.

It had to be my mage powers.

In The Lords of Omni, they granted me the ability to see behind the veil.

In real life, my real magic has always been murky, difficult to access.

So why were they working with such overwhelming clarity now?

My heart raced with panic and excitement.

The darkness surrounding Mrs. Nelson-Perkins expanded, filling the entirety of the presentation area behind her.

And there was something else.

Sure, the old crone had a reputation for being mean. But her contorting facial expressions were an outpouring of pure evil.

Sitting in the darkness—

She looked positively possessed.

She twisted toward me.

Firmly clutching the book, she shouted, “Abomination!”

Her voice bellowed—inhuman.

As she continued speaking, her voice rose in intensity. “Your grandfather would have been disgusted if he could have seen how morally bankrupt his grandson turned out.”

I hated the fact that Mrs. Nelson-Perkins had a history with my great-grandparents.

She had a long and esteemed career with the school.

Like most of the teachers at the institute, she had graduated and returned to teach.

But that was like sixty years ago, and throughout my time knowing her, she never lost an opportunity to passive-aggressively tell me how disappointed my grandparents would be in me.

But at that moment, I knew her outright aggression was being siphoned from somewhere else—something else.

She forcefully slid the book toward me.

And as soon as it left her hands—the darkness vanished.

Just like that, Mrs. Nelson-Perkins slipped back into her usual mean-spirited self.

“I heard from the students that you thought you were a magician, but this is sick. Sick!”

Despite the scorn in her words, I welcomed the return of her sharp-tongued, soft, annoying voice.

She forcibly opened her desk drawer and retrieved hand sanitizer.

She squirted a large heap onto her hands.

As she rubbed them together, I couldn’t help but wonder what cruel and unusual punishment she was plotting for me.

In the middle of an aggressive rub, she stopped.

Eyeing me closely, she grabbed a saltshaker from her desk.

First, she delicately flung a pinch of salt over her shoulder. Then she quickly poured a handful and threw it directly at my face with as much vigor as possible.

I put my hands up to shield it from going into my eyes. The class’s befuddlement turned to laughter.

“Take it! Take it! Get that devil book off my desk.”

I slowly reached for the book, scared to touch it, afraid I might become possessed.

But nothing happened.

I quickly stuffed the guidebook back into my bag.

“If it makes any difference, the book isn’t mine. I don’t know how it got into my backpack. Besides, it’s just an unofficial supplement book for The Lords of Omni. You can probably get it at any bookstore.”

Even though I tried to minimize the book, I knew something was off.

“Take your witchcraft and report to the dean’s office.”

I looked back at The Nameless One, my mortal enemy—he hadn’t changed his expression since I had entered the room.

I strongly suspected he was behind Mrs. Nelson-Perkins’s search and seizure.

As I turned to leave, I caught Mrs. Nelson-Perkins giving me an evil eye.

Then she chillingly hissed, “Those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”

***

Nervousness,

Paranoia.

Hit me.

Many things filled my mind, but I was sure of one thing—the Lovable Bubblegum Myles had stolen caused my delusions.

This campus teemed with creatives who loved edibles infused with hallucinogens. I just so happened to be the lucky recipient of a strawberry microdose.

Come to think of it, the effects must not have worn off. I swore I had been sitting for five minutes. Yet, half an hour had passed when I looked at the clock.

Where had my mind gone? What is taking so long? It’s stupid that I’m even here.

The dean’s office was busy. I

did my best to keep my head down, but the not-so-subtle glances from Miss Bakirtzis, the dean’s secretary, and a few student assistants, in addition to an odd number of security guards present, made me paranoid.

I tried to calm myself, but I remembered that as soon as I had left Mrs. Nelson-Perkins’s classroom,

I noticed a security guard in glasses seemingly—or was it intentionally—following me across campus to the office building.

What was up with all the security guards?

Were they there to escort me to the police?

Do I look like I’m on drugs? I feel like I’m on drugs.

In one of my nervous outward glances, I noticed Teena Aoki, a Dean’s Student Advisory Council member.

Her recruitment skills, especially her ability to organize major successful school events, made her well-known across the campus—the upcoming We! Not Me! Rally! was her brainchild.

However, Teena’s skills, gorgeous looks, and socially spellbinding attitude put her on the unattainable list.

Before I dropped out of my pursuit of academic excellence, she and I had worked on at least two social campaigns, but I kept my distance.

I didn’t want her to see me crushing.

I wouldn’t have minded her looking over at me at that moment, but she never glanced my way.

Then, after a short while, she left the office, and I returned to my paranoia.

Rules of the Black Arts for Advanced Users sat on my lap.

Under the illumination of the dean’s office’s fluorescent lights, there was nothing remotely scary about it—more reason to buy into my Lovable Bubblegum theory.

Eleven-and-a-half by nine

Thick.

Leather.

Wooden cover.

I all added to its ancient allure.

The side latches were also a nice touch.

But the title had no artistic merit.

All in all, it looked like an old-school textbook from the seventies.

I flipped the book to its side, popped both latches, and scanned the parchment pages from back to front. Only one word came to mind.

Scratch that, make it two—effing badass!

I instantly became consumed with skimming the whole book.

Every randomly viewed page blew my mind.

I sensed myself slipping into a zone, like discovering a graphic novel with the perfect fusion of art and words for the first time.

What a fantastic expansion pack.

This guidebook was unlike anything I had ever seen for The Lords of Omni: kickass art, occult-looking diagrams, info charts, story factoids, hundreds, no, thousands of spells, and an off-the-charts listing of monsters and demons.

The illustrations of the strange and wondrous beasts fueled my page-turning frenzy. But one beast made me pause.

Daemon Canis Infernalis Familiaris.

Bold black letters crowned the title.

The word cracked beneath my breath as I whispered it, “Hellhound.”

It was completely majestic and mesmerizing,

My family’s crest. It’s surrounded my whole life.

The familiarity compelled me to brush my hand across its image.

It wasn’t just a drawing.

It was alive.

Its eyes—appeared to know me.

The fur was exquisitely detailed, as if the artist had delicately woven it together from tangible shadows and smoke.

From somewhere deep within, I knew this creature—an echo, maybe a fragment of a dream.

After lingering far too long, I finally worked my way back to the beginning of the volume.

I only stopped because I read the words: READER BEWARE.