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

Daryl McCain, the team captain, stepped out from behind the girls. She was distinctly different, cut but skinny. She wore an oversized, unbuttoned jersey over her tee, with her ball cap turned backward. I knew about her from her rep on campus. She was a fantastic illustrator and a star baseball player. Although she exuded male energy, she identified as female. She was on the same level with The Nameless One as an APWDFW—a person we don’t f#@k with.

“I think you owe my friends and me an apology, li’l guy,” said Daryl in a friendly but aggressive tone—all smiles and chewing gum.

Apt in her description, Gene had to look up several inches to lock eyes with her. Firm in his conviction, he continued to dig a proverbial hole. Myles and I stood stunned.

“You’re kidding me, right? Your damn ball hit me.”

“We walked over here to tell you it was our bad. But calling us a filthy word reserved for men? That’s not working for any of us!”

“Bastard is a gender-neutral word. But yeah, I did assume you were dudes before…”

All the women groaned at Gene’s unnecessary confession, and the tension escalated quickly.

“Dudes? It’s obvious we’re women, jerk.” Daryl was no longer smiling or chewing gum.

Keen to sussing danger, I fixated on a short-haired girl in the back, twisting her hands tightly around a bat. Sneakily, I tugged at Gene’s coat. It was beyond time to get out of there, but he ignored my warning.

“I know it’s obvious. You all have on ladies’ softball uniforms, but…”

Gene fell silent after all the girls started pushing forward.

Daryl extended her arms and acted as a barrier; without words, she reinforced her leadership and let her team know she had this under control.

“Softball. Does that look like a freaking softball? Throw me our freaking baseball. I am ending this before we have to kick your ass.”

With his following action, Gene hit the rock bottom of the hole. He leaned down and rolled the ball to Daryl.

In a flash, immediately after the ball had left his hand, Daryl scooped it up and pushed it inches from his face.

“I should ram this ball down your freaking throat. First, you call us bastards. Then you throw shade on us as women and our sport. Then you roll the ball at me? You rolled it! Are we dudes or frail women who can’t catch a ball? Which one are we?! I’m hoping you say both!”

All the girls stood ready, eager to hear their captain give them the word to stomp Gene. Right before he could mutter a response, I inserted myself into the situation. I couldn’t let him speak again—no telling what faux pas he had dangling at the tip of his tongue. I had to silence him for his own sake.

“Hi, Daryl. Billy Bramwell-Gates. Nice to meet you. Please forgive Gene. He has very little social insight.”

“He’s practically a shut-in,” Myles quipped out a truthful statement.

“Mr. Bramwell-Gates, didn’t see you. Tunnel vision when I’m on the offensive.”

“You know of me?”

“Hell yeah, you have that channel. It’s Magic! I Ain’t Gotta Explain Sh#t. And your family owns this campus.”

Daryl was back to smiling and chewing her gum.

“We’re sorry for this. Let us apologize for him. No, better yet, Gene, apologize to the women.”

“No need,” Daryl softly said as she pressed into Gene and snatched his shirt up to reveal a bruise that had already formed.

She drew attention to it. “Just as I thought, easily bruised. Maybe it was the Fates that made the ball hit you. The sisters knew you were a prick.”

The girls laughed and moved on. A collective relief washed over us.

“What the heck was that?” Gene exhaled, saying, “Days like this make me question my continued attempts to live in society. She’s crazy, but she impressed me with her reference to the daughters of Erebus and Nyx.”

Gene poked at his bruise and squeaked out a reaction to the sting.

“I blame your great-grandfather, Billy. Why in the world would he allow sports at an art college? Everyone knows sports and the arts do not mix!”

“You won’t get an argument from me. First, trouble with the football players, then the baseball players. They’re all thugs,” I replied sarcastically.

“You know, you guys did provoke them,” inserted Myles. Gene and I turned, fixing a death stare on him.

To save face, Myles added, “Your first order of business when you take over should be to nix the sports programs.”

That was a good observation, and it made me release a sinister laugh. If any athlete had heard, they would have labeled me a hard-core hater. My dark laughter lasted until Gene’s sudden concern snapped me out of it.

“Oh crap, I’m going to be late again. I have to get to class.”

“Crap, me too.”

Before we departed, I had to rally the troops.

“Gene, take your frustrations out on the table tonight. Because what’s tonight?”

We all geekily shouted as we took off in different directions. “Game night!”

Of course, my class was on the other side of the campus. As I jogged, the stand-off with The Nameless One and his goons played in my thoughts. Then I remembered: I’d meant to ask Gene and Myles about that strange book, Rules of the Black Arts for Advanced Users. Guess it had to wait for later that evening.

***

Mrs. Nelson-Perkins’ 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, arms crossed and eyes squinting. He looked smug. Images of his hands rifling through my backpack after our previous class quickly came and went. What had he done?

“Ha, I can assure you there is nothing in here even noteworthy, much less in the categories you named. Besides, this is 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 that The Nameless One had slipped anything in there. He didn’t have enough time. 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, almost like black fire or mist, became visible around her. The unworldliness of it escalated the fear burning in my nerves. I turned to the class. I could tell by their non-reaction that no one had seen what I had seen.

I turned 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 if I looked ludicrous 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. But why were they working now, in real life? 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.

From her seat, she twisted toward me. Firmly clutching the book, she shouted, “Abomination!” Her dark, bellowing voice verified my observation.

She was absolutely under the control of something wicked. As she continued speaking, her voice rose in intensity. “Your great-grandfather would have been disgusted if he could have seen how morally bankrupt his descendant 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.

At that moment, she was all aggressive. 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 spell book 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.

I turned and exited.