Hannah Jayne - Under a Spell

Now I was snarling. “I’ve had my first kiss. I’ve gone all the way—you know that.”

“Half this floor knows that.”

I narrowed my eyes, hopeful they were shooting daggers. Nina might be my very best friend and, she might have the ability to kill me with one soft press of her pinkie (or fang), but she was often the most supremely annoying person—undead or otherwise—I’ve ever known.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. Why are you so uptight? It usually takes you, like, ten chapters to get really upset over a murder.”

I let out a long sigh. “It’s not the murder I’m upset about. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m very sorry for the girl who got murdered last year and I will absolutely not stop until we bring Alyssa home safe but, but . . .”

Nina put a hand on my shoulder and even though it was ice cold, the gesture warmed me. “It’s okay, Soph. Whatever you have to say, it’s okay.”

“I. Hated. High school.”

A slick smile made its way across Nina’s perfect porcelain face. “Do over . . .” she sung.

I bit my bottom lip to stop its trembling and let Nina’s words wash over me. But I couldn’t stop the tears that bubbled and clung to my lower lashes.

“And . . . you know how I told Alex—I told Alex I loved him?”

Nina sucked in a deep breath—which was purely for show as vampires don’t breathe. “I’ve heard about it incessantly.”

“Now I’ve barely heard from him in weeks. Weeks!”

In my mind, I wear kick-ass black leather and wield a sword while taking down the rogue demons (and occasional big baddie human) in the Underworld. In actuality, I am a blubbering, blotchy-faced mess in the Underworld Detection Agency ladies’ room.

“It’s probably nothing, Soph. And even if it is, it’s not like he dumped you after you had sex or anything. He dumped you after you told him you loved him. That’s saying something.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and cocked out a hip. “It’s saying what, exactly?”

I could almost see the cogs in Nina’s head spring into action as her eyes widened. “It says you’re great in the sack.”

I was about to respond when Nina went back on her dreamy rampage. “Imagine the things you can teach those girls, Sophie.”

“Really?” I glanced at myself in the mirror, saw my blotchy, snotty reflection staring back at me, and sighed. “I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty living with two vampire roommates, working in an organization that immediately calls me when the toilet roll needs refilling or when a corpse turns up. What, exactly, should I be teaching those girls?”

Nina opened her mouth, but I stopped her, holding up an index finger. “And don’t say I could teach them about being great in the sack.”

My heart was thundering in my ears even before my clock radio started blaring something awful and upbeat. I sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and feeling like I’d stared at the ceiling all night—mostly because I had. Murder, I could handle. I wasn’t especially fond of it, but I was the kind of girl who found corpses and evil like a Kardashian could find paparazzi and Apple Bottoms jeans. But high school chilled me to the bone.

I took a leisurely shower, tossing an entire canister of “Soothing Lavender” bath salts over my head hoping for some Prozac-like relief. It made my head feel like a nicely scented gravel pile, which calmed me enough to allow me to remind myself that I was an adult. That I was no longer that horrible-haired, buck-toothed, scared-of-her-own-shadow girl. I was Sophie Lawson and I kicked supernatural—and the occasion natural but unsavory—ass. I was feeling sassy and confident until I caught a glimpse of the clock and stopped dead.

“Shit!”

I was an adult Sophie Lawson with a heap of wet spaghetti hair boring a damp spot on the back of my blouse, not a speck of makeup on, and exactly eighteen minutes to make it to my first day at Mercy High. I bit my lip, one foot in the bathroom where pretty, pale pink cheeks, under-eye concealer, and sleek, straight hair lay, the other aiming toward the front door and respectable punctuality.

I blew out a sigh, grabbed a morning Fresca and my purse, and decided that my supermodel return to Mercy High School would have to happen another day.

It’s not like there was anyone I was expecting to impress at an all-girls high school, right?

“Whoa, love. You’re out of here like a Tasmanian devil.”

I was chest to chest with Will Sherman, my floppy hair snapping his cheek with a wet smack. He wore his sandy hair just long enough to let a few strands flop over his forehead, making any red-blooded woman willing to sell her soul to push those few strands out of his hazel, gold-flecked eyes. He had the lean, muscular build of a soccer player and an accent that made panties drop, and he lived across the hall from me. Also, he was my Guardian—but not in an “until I’m eighteen” or 50 Shades of Grey kind of way; he simply was the man in charge of defending me against anyone who might seek to gut me, quarter me, burn me alive, or perform any other such unfortunate activity. And for all of this, all I had to do was house a supernatural vessel that held all of the human souls of the world that were stuck in a kind of limbo. It is—or I am—called the Vessel of Souls and it is an artifact that the angelic and evil planes desperately fight over—kind of like a Hatfields-and-McCoys kind of thing that could destroy the world and possibly enslave all humanity. And it was in me. No one is quite sure why, but my guess is some half-naked diaper-wearing cherub thought it would be a hoot to hide the most valuable thing in creation in the spirit of a San Francisco woman who would rather just say a few Hail Marys while eating a donut than spend her life dodging all manor of weaponry—even if it did come with a drool-worthy Guardian.

I jumped back and blinked at Will, then blinked again. “You look fantastic. Like Professor Plum or something.”

Will beamed, opening his arms to show off the crisp pale blue button-down he wore under his tweed jacket, and I took the opportunity to sweep my eyes over the nice way his chinos hung on his hips, the way his blazer did nothing to hide his broad, strong shoulders, the way that button-down clung to his taut, sinewy chest.

“Wait!” He held up a silencing hand. “You haven’t seen the best part.” Will rifled through the battered leather briefcase he was carrying and slid on a pair of heavy, dark-rimmed glasses. With his usually bed-headed muss of sandy brown hair combed back from his forehead, he had a distinctly David Beckham-does-Harvard look, and I wanted to sit down and learn everything he had to tell me.

“Sophie?”

Will was leaning into me, and I felt a blush rush over my cheeks and made a mental note to pray for my overactive imaginary libido to dry up and stop turning me into a puddle of ooze every time Will shot me a grin or a view of one of his pecs.

“No, right, you look terrific. Why?”

“Work. Isn’t this what all the good professors are wearing?”

“You’re working as a professor? That’s funny, because I’m going in to my old high school as a substitute—” I felt all the color drain from my face. “You’re my help.”

Will fell into step beside me. “With all due respect, love, I’m not the help, I’m the Guardian.” He said it as though he was channeling Superman, but I was still flummoxed.

“Sampson is sending you in to keep an eye on me, isn’t he? He doesn’t trust me!”

Will scratched his head and pulled the downstairs door open for me. “Uh, no, I believe he doesn’t trust whatever wiggy it is that’s running around the high school, disappearing girls and carving them up.” He flashed a quick grin and waggled his car keys. “Shall we take Nigella?”