Page 29 of Midnight Hunt

“Amber, I am sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I barked.

“You, and all those other professors justlooooooved Adrianna.And here I was, with moretalent, morepower, moreintelligencethan her…and did anyone notice?” She spun around on her heels, wheeling her arms till they popped back into place. The chunks that were ripped clean replaced with rotting flesh. One of the zombie sorority girls collapsed into dust. “No!”

Valerie was snatched by grabbing hands. The trees lashed out, ripping through the corpses. I yelled out to her, but nature whisked Valerie away into their shadowy canopy. Amber shrieked, sending her horde after her. “Don’t let that fucking faker get away with it!”

“Amber!” I snapped.

She stopped, lurching as my roots caught her ankles. While the zombies thrashed about, a few freeing themselves to chase my little witch into the woods that surrounded the campus, Amber was stuck in one place. I put out my hands, palms toward her, “Your anger is with me. With the staff here.”

“No,” she laughed, voice cracking with madness. Her face split into a creepy smile as she cackled harder and harder. I saw the way her skin sagged and her body swayed. The bog hex was still festering in her system. It’d progressed from sneezing fits to draining her. Her sallow skin looked clammy, red alreadycreeping into her eyes, and her fingers were turning blue. But she swallowed something and fought to stand up straight. “No! No, my anger is with all of you! Withevery. Single. One! Of! You!You want to know what happened when I returned this semester, going to ask professors to write me letters of recommendations? They were already writing them for someone else. I didn’t show enough mettle. I wasn’t a good candidate for their internship. Me? Me! Not good enough! I had top grades! I’m sorority president, when even my sister couldn’t get that! So, when I told my parents I was going to change their minds with my thesis project…do you know what they said?”

I shifted my stance, preparing to cast if needed, or rush my fur and fang.

“They said I should remove the obstacles in my way. If I wanted letters of recommendations, I needed to destroy the competition while working on my project. That I couldn’t slip up or they’d stop my funding.”

My heart sank. “What did Teddy have that you didn’t?”

Amber cocked her head ninety degrees to the left, her eyes spinning in her own skull. “My letter of recommendation from the Head of Religious Studies,obviously!”

“And Valerie?”

“Business Management!” Amber threw her arms up into the air. Something moved behind her but I had to keep my focus on her.

“And myself?” I scowled. More movement…the shadows were creeping. Despite the rain pelting over our heads, and the growling skies, I could see the change. Something was stalking out of the woods.

“You were going to be the crowning achievement! Professor, don’t you understand the power I would wield with an arch-druid under my control? I’d be wanted by every business in the realm! I’d have my pick of the fucking internships! I bet I’dgraduate with honors!” She giggled with all her teeth showing, her hands clapping out in front of her.

“Oh,” I nodded, completely baffled and a little dumbstruck by the sheer…fucking…audacity. “I think I’ve heard enough.”

Her face soured as she straightened up fully, “You’re. Not. Listening.”

“You’re not making any sense,” I countered with a snarl.

I tried not to show the shock on my face as I watched gnarly, gangly branches crawling across the ground behind her. They picked off zombie one by one, ripping their head from their necks and turning them into soil. With every body, the branches grew in size. Their thorns sharp as swords.

“I just want what is owed to me! I’m a McClanes! I should be top of the school, but no one appreciates me, the hard work I’ve done! Is it too much to ask for the recognition I deserve?” Her voice pitched up as lightning cracked the sky in half behind her. My eyes widened as I saw the monstrosity growing behind her. Amber stopped immediately, her body tensing.

Wrapped in a curling thicket was Valerie, eyes wide and made of glowing rubies. Her fingers were elongated into daggers, her teeth sharp razors, and mushrooms blooming out of her arms. Tufts of moss and little white baby’s breath decorated her cheeks and hair as she loomed over Amber’s back.

Amber turned, inch by inch, her body contorting backward to see my little witch towering over her.

“You really should have killed me and framed Teddy, Amber.” Valerie’s smile cracked her face in half to show three other rows of razor teeth. “It would have gone better for you.”

And then my little witch unhinged her jaw and swallowed Amber’s head whole like a praying mantis feeding on her prey.

Chapter Eighteen:

~Valerie Contempt~

My magic peeled back, sinking back from the depths from once it came, as the rain stopped. The clouds broke apart in clumps, allowing the afternoon sunlight to break through. I scanned across the college, my thicket having woven itself around every building. Each brick tower was wrapped with obsidian vines and ruby thorns, the bodies of all Amber’s zombies impaled upon them. My stomach lurched out of sheer shock.There are so many!I didn’t know if she robbed a graveyard or if she truly murdered this many people over the course of the semester. It all felt so sudden to me, but she’d clearly been planning this for some time. My heart sank into my feet. As the orange sun glowed behind me, all the wet puddles glistened. There was blood everywhere.

“Valerie?”

I flinched.This was exactly what I wanted to avoid.He could swear all he wanted to be in my corner, to love me for me, but…what happened when I put that to the test? My heart rattled in my chest as I twisted to face Lochlainn…and my body crumbled as he rushed over Amber’s corpse to scoop me up into his arms. “Little witch, are you alright?”

“Lochlainn, what…you didn’t…”

“I was stalling for time when I saw you working your magic. Normally I wouldn’t waste time with the nonsense she was spewing, but…I hoped it was you.” He kissed my cheeks. Thick clumps of mushroom and moss fell away from my skin. Tiny petals of baby’s breath fluttered around us and for a moment it was just us. He pressed his forehead to mine and held me tight. “You did good, little witch.”

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