THE CHALDEAN ORACLE

Freeing Ishtar

Chapter 9

“You’re going to be fine,” I repeated to myself for the hundredth time, but still didn’t move from my spot standing in front of the human High School. It wasn’t exactly big and it was made in grey brick just like my real school, the wall covered with windows, still felt like this place was completely foreign, closed up and dangerous.

            I would be alright, so why was I so frightened?

            Usually people did not die on their first day. There was more of a build up. I could expect the same right? Plus dying was totally not on the to-do’s list.

            I took a deep breathe, pushed the strap of my backpack up on my shoulder and walked towards the main entrance.

            People automatically gazed my way as I walked in the large corridor of the neoclassical styled building. In a seemingly small school a red hair like myself didn’t exactly go unnoticed.

            I kept my gaze down, trying not to bring attention to myself. The last thing I needed was that.

            I had studied the blue prints to the school during the weekend so I pretty much knew all the exits point and such and I knew where I was suppose to head to go get my schedule and what-not. I wasn’t late, but I wasn’t exactly early either so I guessed Joseph had already arrived.

            To not arise too much suspicion—many new students all subscribing in schools being one—we had been enrolled in the school as part of an exchange students program. I was supposedly from Houston and Joseph was from San Francisco from what I had understood.

            When I got to the reception, a woman in her thirties sat at the desk, speaking on the phone. She raised her hand, motioning me to wait a second, scribbling things on a sheet, nodding her head.

            When she finally hung up, she raised her head to look at me, smiling. “You must be Miss White?” I had been enrolled here as Clea White. Ivory, such as many surnames of my fellow Ishim, were too uncommon and easily related with our race, therefore they were changes to more common ones for this Assignment.

            “Yes that’s me,” I answered, trying to smile.

            Don’t show fear, humans can smell it… wait, can human smell fear? Of course they can’t… right?

            “Well, I’m not going to make you wait for too long, here’s your schedule and Dominic here will help you get around the school,” she informed me, pointing behind me at someone, and I turned around to see a boy, barely taller than my five feet six inches, with dirty blond hair and brown eyes.

            Damnation! I wasn’t prepared for real human interaction just yet!

            I mean, he didn’t look alarming or anything. I was worry I might just screw up things right from the start by opening my big mouth and saying something I shouldn’t like “Where should I put the small arsenal the Ishim in charges of my real school provided me with?”

            The human boy offered his hand to me. “Hi I’m Dominic” No really? I hadn’t heard it five seconds ago. Okay, tone down the sarcasm Clea…

            I took his hand, though it might have taken me one or two seconds too many to do it. “Clea.”

            “It’s nice to meet you Clea.” He smiled. “I’m part of the student counsel and my duty is to make your transition to your new school as easy as it can be.”

            “That’s really nice of you,” I smiled, though it was fake, and I hoped the sarcasm hadn’t been too obvious.

            I wanted to assess my environment on my own, not have a human beside me breathing down my neck. I wondered if Joseph had to deal with this too.

            Dominic looked at the schedule in my hand. “Your locker is just down the hall if want to drop your things there,” he started to walk and I followed him.

            Lockers. What a weird thing. In our Ishim school we just let our things lying around the school or at our desks. Stealing wasn’t exactly an issue.

            As we made our way to my locker, students around kept glancing my way, nudging each other, whispering things. Being under the spotlight like this made me uneasy.

            Dominic chatted happily, as we walked, about how our school basketball team and football team were great and blah blah blah, I was barely listening and looking at the people around, trying to spot Demons. If only I could have had the seeing the pureness of the heart skill…

            Chatty-Cathy beside me finally shut up when we got to my locker. “Here we are.”

            I nodded and smiled a bit. “Thanks.”

            “So, where are you from,” he asked and I wondered why he wasn’t leaving.

            “Houston…” I trailed and opened the locker. “And I don’t need to hear any redneck jokes” I quickly added.

            He laughed. “No problem.” I put a few thing in the locker, like my jacket some of my books to lighten my bag and then closed the thing. “So, shall we go to your first class?”

            I looked around, and spotted a bathroom. “Huh, actually I need to use the ladies room so I think I’ll manage,” I smiled and this time I think it was a decent one.

            Dominic wasn’t a bad person or anything, he seemed nice enough but his overly joyfulness and constant chatting wasn’t helping my nerve; it just brought me closer to snapping. I felt disturbingly uneasy ever since I had stepped in the school, like I needed to attack someone at any given second.

            “Do you want me to wait for you? My job is to make you feel welcome here.” He was still smiling, still overly happy.

            “And I feel very welcome, but I’m sure I’ll be okay,” I told him. If I had known him better I would have almost patted his head, sort of like, you’re a good dog, now stay here, okay?

            “Alright.” He agreed almost reluctantly. His job in the school comity must be boring, I’m sure they rarely had many newcomers. “But if you ever need anything just come find me. This isn’t a very huge school, I should be easy to spot.”

            “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you,” I answered, as kindly as I could—I did need to interact with humans after all and this one seemed nice enough—and headed for the bathroom.

            There, I hid for a few minutes in a stall, breathing in and out, in and out, grateful that the people in charge had actually cleaned the place and I wasn’t breathing in and out pee-stench air, trying to calm down. I read the many graffiti, a lot of Someone+Someone=Love, or SomeoneHeartsSomeone, or Someone Is A Bitch. It was kind of amusing to read and it eased up my nerves a bit.

            Finally, I came out of the bathroom. I didn’t want to be late for my first class and while looking at the numbers on the room doors, made my way to my classroom.

            It wasn’t really hard to get around here, always just one big all, turning at some points but you never really had to choose between right or left, you just always followed it.

            I tried to raise my head more to look at people around. There were lockers on each side of the corridor so group of people were hanging together one or two person in those group leaning against them. I wanted to find Joseph. A familiar face wouldn’t hurt and I wanted to know if he was okay. I’m sure he was but I still needed to look out for him, we were in this together, we had to watch each others back.

            I was still on my way to my class when my eyes landed on a guy’s back, taking things out of his locker. A hot, hot back.

            My pace exponentially slowed.

            I couldn’t see his actual back, but the covered with a long sleeve shirt version I had of it was enough to make me suddenly imagine myself walking up to him, turning him around and attacking—OH MY GOD! Set me on fire and pee on my ashes!

            This was impossible.

            The sexy backed dude had obviously felt the hungry gaze I’d been sending his way because he had turned around.

            And I was now looking in the deep brown eyes of the Fallen Angel that had saved my life.

            This was the last place, the last place, I had expecting him to be. I had expected him to be in another country, flap, on another continent, but definitely not still in the same city an even less in the same school as me, or even simply in a school for that matter, What the flap we he doing in a school?

            He looked my way going from shocked, to surprised, to confused, to smug.

            He half smiled, closing his locker loudly. I jumped a bit on the spot. “Yassou moro mou.”

            Again with that moro mou thing. Yassou… that was Greek. I wasn’t sure what moro mou meant. I’d have to look through my school books, again.

            I shook my head in disbelief. And then it was like in the alley, when a little voice in my head had urged me to stab him quickly. I had to get to the Fallen Angle and wrap my hands around his throat. Choke the life out of him. Behead him, right here and there. It doesn’t matter that there are people here, you need to kill him now, and quickly so it’s done and he can be wiped from the face of the Earth and sent to eternal doom! “What are YOU doing here?” I hissed walking right up to him.

            Woah… something’s wrong… I frowned, looking down, pressing my palms against my temples.

            “Easy there Tiger,” the Fallen Angel smiled, amused.

            I looked up again and glared.

            Kill him!

            Oh flap. Little voice in the back of my head… That was an Exousies!

            My eyes widen in disbelief. Why was an Exousie talking to me? In my head I chanted You are not supposed to be interfering with Ishim minds. The voice automatically calmed down and the urge to kill the Fallen Angel too.

            The Fallen Angel, Levi was frowning, probably taking in my shocked expression.

            “What’s wro—”

            He didn’t finish his sentence because a beautiful tall girl with raven hair walked up to him, completely ignoring me, smiling broadly at Levi. Good thing, I needed to clear my head. “Edouard, I just finished our project… so that means you’re free tonight. Want to go out?”

            I looked between the two of them utterly confused. Edouard?

            Woah, okay seriously, what was happening?

            He coughed and mumbled very quickly though I still got it, “I’d rather you scratch my eyeballs out with holy water.” Wasn’t he the gentleman? Still part of me kind of rejoiced over the fact that he wasn’t drooling while looking at her.

            The girl looked at him, confused. “Excuse me?”

            “I have other projects due. But feel free to offer your services again,” he grinned.

            She just huffed and walked away.

            I turned to the Fallen Angel, looking at him in disbelief, letting out a short breathe. “Edward? Really?”

            “It’s Edouard, actually, you know E-D-O-U-A-R-D,” he spelled, sounding overly proud of himself and started to walk.

            I followed him, though I didn’t exactly understand why. Shouldn’t I be trying to get him in a dark room to kill him? Or at least find Joseph and inform him there was a Fallen Angel in our territory? Why was it that all I really wanted right now was for Joseph to never find out the man I was walking beside wasn’t a man, but actually the enemy. Why did I feel like I needed to protect him, while at the same time I wanted to kill him? Well, the guy had saved my life…

            I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “Oh pardon me I totally didn’t get the gay accent there.”

            He laughed. He had a nice laugh. “Jealousy looks good on you.”

            I snorted. “That teen immortal going to high school charade doesn’t work for you,” I informed him smugly. “Sorry to break it to you but you don’t play the seventeen year old part well. I’ve seen you with your beard,” I pointed out, and kept walking to my next class. He was still walking with me. Or maybe I was walking with him, I wasn’t sure.

            His smirk didn’t leave his face. I was walking by his right and when I looked at him I could see three small horizontal black stripes on his neck—the Greek letter Xi. Was it to cover a birthmark or to fake a Greek letter? I couldn’t tell. 

            “You’re just jealous, it’s fine, don’t worry, I get it. And if you want a piece of this” he motioned to his body with his hand, “by all means just say the word Ishim, I will gladly let you see the rest of my puberty indulged hair.”

            I rolled my eyes and stopped walking. The number over the door on my right matched with the one of my first class. “You jump to conclusion fast Sir. I was just stating that you look like you’re up to no good.”

            This seemed to amuse him greatly. “Vampires look like they’re up to some good?”

            “You should look preppy,” I smirked.

            “Hey, stop hating; I’m totally playing the part,” he laughed.

            People around were staring at us. Attracting more attention, wasn’t that great?

            “I don’t think you share the same outlook on life as him.”

            Levi looked at me in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? We both fest on the blood of young virgins! How more alike can we be?”

            “How about sex before marriage,” I asked haughtily, trying not too much to think about the “fest on the blood of young virgins” comment. I didn’t know if he was serious or not on that one.

            “Oh wow,” he covered his mouth with his hand, “you’re kind of taking me by surprise here, but I’m definitely in, come on, I’m sure there’s a janitor’s closet with our names on it somewhere around here.” He gave me the lips-stretch-without-showing-any-teeth smile.

            I shook my head, my gaze switching from the people looking at us and the Fallen Angle in front of me. Why was I still speaking with him?

            “Woah, okay scratch that comment and… just… what’s going on here?” Why did it feel so natural to just chat and banter with him like this? I shouldn’t be doing this. “What are you doing here?”

            “Trying to get a better education,” he replied like it was the most reasonable and normal answer.

            I took a step closer to him and in a hushed tone said, “Tell me the truth or I’m going to be force to kill you.”

            He leaned his head down a bit, getting our face close enough that I could feel his breathe on my face. Minty. “Shouldn’t you be doing that right away? Shoot first ask question never. Isn’t that still in the protocol?”

            I blinked. He was right. I took a step back. “You did save my life,” I conceited.

            He nodded. “I did.”

            “Why did you,” I asked softly looking up at him. He was easily a head taller than me. With all the questions I had, it would be nice to have a few answers. The fact that he was here at this school didn’t meant he owed them to me?

            The Fallen Angel shrugged. “Gingers are almost extinct; I was doing your race a favour.”

            “I’m serious,” I hissed exasperated.

            He smiled, almost tiredly. “Me too.”

            This Fallen Angel was infuriating.

            I was about to keep pressing but the bell rang. I sighed in defeat.

            Levi opened the door to the classroom. Oh because he’s in the same class as me too?

            “How about we talk about this later moro mou,” he offered, still grinning broadly. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen him deadly in a dark alley I’d just say he was always and only a grinning moron.

            “Fine,” I mumbled and stepped in the class. He follow suit behind me. “And stop calling me moro mou.”

            He laughed so much to that remark that the teacher actually had to ask him to keep quiet.

            Well, this ought to be amusing…