Page 87 of Demon of Dreams

Erika Martinez was a short girl with long brown hair in French braids that reached the small of her back. Keelan O’Byrne was a good bit taller than she was, with deep brown eyes and the beginnings of an unfortunate mustache that no one had told him looked terrible. Keelan was a budding Hunter, but he didn’t boast about his prowess—not in my hearing, anyway. Erika was likely to apply to one of the other havens, but she was a good listener, which was what I wanted for this demonstration.

“Keelan, you’re going to place Erika in a headlock from behind. You’ll take turns when you practice this, each of you playing both roles. Remember, the goal isnotto do permanent damage here, nor are you going to stick around to get your own back. So Erika, to get out of this, you’re going to start by ducking your chin down. Your instinct will be to lift it up to create space for your airway, so this will feel unnatural, but it will actually help you more. At the same time, you’ll force your hands as far as they can go between his arm and your head. And then you’re going to drop your shoulder and hip down and back, curving back into his body. Then you can duck your head again and slip out from under his arm. Alright?”

The two of them nodded.

“Okay, let’s go through it step by step.”

They followed my instructions as I gave them a second time, and Erika let out a ‘whoop’ of excitement when she got free. Keelan was just as capable when roles were reversed. They were both good listeners.

I ran them through a side headlock variation after that, and things to look out for when getting free. Then I broke the class into groups of three or four, two students completing the exercise as another one or two watched and gave feedback, while I circulated around the room.

I saw Cory move over to a mat with Felix and Ash in the corner of the room, and decided to give him his jacket after class. Eventually, I’d have to go over and watch them practice, but that didn’t mean I had to do it now.

I moved to work with a different group. Rekha Bakshi, Adenike Odediran, and Meredith Stein stood around a mat, debating which two of them should go first. Adenike had volunteered, but neither of the other two wanted to practice with her.

“You,” I barked, pointing at Meredith. “You’re up.”

“But she’s a Hunter,” Meredith whined. “I can’t fight her.”

“Some day, you might have to,” I told her.

“I would never fight them!” Adenike objected. “They’re my friends.”

I waved her words away. “Maybe not Adenike specifically, butsomeHunter, some day.”

I didn’t have the patience for this. They might notlikecombat, but I was going to make damn sure they learned it.

“Hunters are supposed to protect witches,” Rekha objected.

“And maybe someday, you’ll be fighting one who’s protecting someone else.” I turned back to Meredith. “Now get on the mat. You can put Adenike in the head lock first, if it makes you more comfortable.”

Meredith grumbled something under her breath about Adenike not breaking any of her nails, but she did finally join Adenike on the mat. I walked them through the steps again slowly, guiding Meredith into position and watching Adenike break free, following my instructions

“Alright, now try it at normal speed.”

I stepped back to assess them and sighed. Meredith’s grip slackened immediately, and as Adenike began to turn inwards, Meredith pulled her hair with her other hand. Adenike cursed and elbowed Meredith in the stomach. Meredith yelped, and Adenike shifted her foot behind Meredith’s to knock her off balance. She broke free of Meredith’s grip an instant later, and as she turned to jog away, Meredith raised a hand and began muttering under her breath.

“Hey,” I snapped, stepping up to grab Meredith’s wrist. “No spellcasting. You know that.”

“But she was getting away.”

“She’ssupposedto get away. That’s the purpose of this exercise.”

“But she hit me,” Meredith objected. “Hard. She wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“And you weren’t supposed to pull my hair,” Adenike shot back, rejoining us in the center of the mat. “If you fight dirty, you can’t expect me not to.”

Rekha watched the two of them with a supercilious air as they continued to argue, and I sighed again.

It was like this with every freshmen class. Every single one of them thought they knew more than I did, and all the witches wanted to use spells rather than purely physical combat. I didn’t allow that until later. Not because it wasn’t an important aspect of offense or defense, but because I didn’t trust them not to kill themselves with uncontrolled magic before then.

At this point in the year, half the witches couldn’t do much more than move a ball of light around, but there were always some who came from large witch clans, or whose powers had manifested early, and they were desperate to show off what they could do.

It took another ten minutes to sort those three out, which meant I was delayed in making my rounds with the other groups of students. As it happened, I just didn’t have time to make it to Cory’s group. It wasn’t that I was avoiding him. It just worked out that way.

Unfortunately, the remaining time in class passed more quickly than it should have. Probably because the universe knew how much I was dreading what I had to do when class ended. But soon enough, the bell sounded the end of Fourth Hour. Students flowed towards the front doors of the gym, and my stomach twisted.

I didn’t want to do this, but even more, I didn’t want tonotwant to do this. I didn’t want to care about this kid at all. He was no one. I knew nothing about him.

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