Arcane Dropout 3 Read online

  Arcane Dropout 3

  Edmund Hughes

  This digital book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this title with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Edmund Hughes

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Arcane Dropout 3

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 1

  As with many other activities, banishing a ghost could be either a loud or a quiet process. It depended on a range of factors. The disposition of the ghost in question. The specific area of the banishment. Ratio of glass to easily throwable rocks in the vicinity, and so forth.

  Primhaven’s cozy, climate-controlled campus was blanketed in the darkness of night as Lee Amaranth stalked his prey. His target was an ethereal blue outline of a tall, girthy man with tangled long hair and a scraggly beard. Lee shuffled along one of the walking paths, doing his utmost to close the distance to the specter without spooking it or drawing undue attention onto himself.

  “Maybe try talking to this one?” suggested Tess. “Who knows! It might work.”

  “It’s a specter, Tess,” he whispered.

  “What’s the difference between a specter and a ghost, again?”

  It was an amusing question, at least coming from her.

  “Specters are dangerous,” he said. “They can’t help but hurt or possess people. They lost the part of themselves that controls morality when they died.”

  Tess brought a finger to her lips and scrunched her face up in thought. Lee had already pulled her into his mystic stream, giving her usually ethereal body color and form for him and him alone. He did it almost automatically now, so close had they grown in the time since forming their pact.

  At a glance, she looked like any other cute, late-teenage arcane college student. Her hair was dark brown and hung loose across her shoulders like flowing strands of silk. She had faint freckles, which Lee sometimes liked to joke about being able to read her mood from depending on their visibility, along with cute, secretive dimples.

  She was wearing a ghostly replica of one of Lee’s hoodies, which she infuriatingly insisted on calling a “cloak sweater.” It was baggy on her, but he was still impossibly aware of every inch of the girlish body that lay underneath. Her small breasts, each just a single handful with nipples like cherries on an ice cream sundae, her perfectly pinchable butt. Tess was a nubile teenage sweetheart-throb stuck out of time, and Lee was hopelessly aware of how badly he’d fallen for her.

  “How do you know it’s a specter, though?” she asked. “We haven’t seen him hurt or possess anybody yet.”

  “I just know,” said Lee. “Ancient mystic secret.”

  “Don’t be a prat, Lee. Tell me.”

  “Wandering ghosts are rare,” he said. “Remember how you were stuck at Primhaven when I first arrived? Most wandering ghosts stick to roads, or hiking trails, places that people travel regularly during life. Specters, on the other hand, wander with darker intentions. I sincerely doubt a ghost would arrive at Primhaven by chance, but specters might seek a place like this out.”

  Tess looked unconvinced, and the feeling was mutual. Lee had dealt with more than one specter on Primhaven’s campus over the past few days, and it felt like a reach to try to explain away their appearance as a natural phenomenon.

  “He’s moving!” whispered Tess. “Ooh! Hurry, Lee!”

  “I see him.”

  The specter seemed relatively aware, glancing around its surroundings as it slipped off the path in an eastward direction. It was nearing midnight, well after the 10 p.m. curfew for initiates that Head Wizard Odarin and Lead Instructor Mattis had mandated after the House of Shadow’s infiltration of the college the previous month. Lee was already on thin ice academically. He couldn’t get caught outside his dorm.

  Luckily, there were only a few scattered students and instructors still awake and roaming around on campus who could identify him. A group of boisterous boys was headed up the path from the front gate, their loose body language suggesting that they’d come from the Frostfire Tavern. An instructor, probably Constantine, was doing a slow circuit around the school’s inner wall.

  Lee waited for the specter to move off the main path before making his move. He slid his hand into his sweatshirt and pulled out his kris dagger. It wasn’t enchanted, but its blade was pure silver, which was the next best thing when it came to dealing with ghosts.

  He began jogging, then broke into a full-out sprint as soon as he was sure that there weren’t any eyes on him. The specter was oblivious to his approach, its full attention centered on the scattered buildings of the Spell Range directly to the south of them.

  Lee leapt the last few feet, gripping his dagger in a tight fist and pulling it back in anticipation of a single, definitive strike. He wanted to make it quick. There were far too many ways for a rogue entity to sow chaos in a place like Primhaven to risk a long, drawn-out fight.

  At the last instant, with supernatural speed and awareness, the hulking specter dodged out of the way of his strike. It was fast, which he found surprising even though he shouldn’t have. The specter’s impressive waistline would have slowed a normal human down to the maximum speed of an electric wheelchair, but of course, spiritual entities didn’t adhere to the same laws of physics that the living did.

  The specter’s face, at least, was still predictably expressive. Its eyebrows shot up and its lips pinched together as it took in the sight of Lee with his kris dagger in hand. It straightened, puffing out its chest, and then it smiled.

  “Definitely a specter,” said Lee. “Told you so.”

  “Gloating isn’t noble or gentlemanly,” said Tess.

  “Whoever said I was either of those things?”

  He circled his opponent, still cautious of being seen by the other late-night denizens of Primhaven’s campus. The specter breathed heavily through its nose, snorting like a wildebeest as it focused its anger on Lee.

  It attacked in a rush of movement, launching itself forward with the sort of deftness that would have better suited a chee
tah prowling the savanna. Lee slashed the air with his dagger, still holding out hope for the single, lucky blow that would let him end his night early.

  The specter reeled back as Lee’s blade landed a cut on its arm. Lee rushed forward, stabbing at the entity’s ample stomach. The specter dove around him, and Lee felt a sudden flash of pain emanate from his shoulder. It went deeper than the flesh, making his bones grind and ache from within, as though a million dental drills were touching a million buried nerve endings.

  Lee spun, pulling his kris dagger into a whirling attack. The specter was already on the move again, this time running onto the grounds of the Spell Range. He took off after it at a sprint, accepting the fact that the situation would give him a full cardio workout whether he wanted one or not.

  It felt surreal to be in the Spell Range at night. It was the only place on campus where students could practice offensive magic, and even though the casting lanes were decently sound-proofed, it was usually bustling with noise and activity. Lee had lost sight of the specter, and he turned in a slow circle, scanning his eyes across the still, silent space.

  A flash of ethereal blue came from his left. He spun, pulling his kris dagger back. Tess let out a surprised yelp as the specter hurtled out from behind a wall and crashed into her, knocking her out of Lee’s mystic stream. It tried to get an arm around her neck, but she was savvy enough to curl up into a tight, defensively sound ball. The specter grabbed a fistful of her hair and let out a growl as it tried to pull her back to her feet. Tess screamed in pain.

  Lee shifted his kris dagger so that he was holding it with only his thumb and took hold of his wrist with his free hand. Focusing his will and drawing from Tess’s spirit essence, he pushed his open palm outward, casting a concentrated force spell.

  Tess was low enough to the ground, curled up as she was, to be out of the line of fire. The specter wasn’t so lucky. The spell had no visual component beyond the displaced air and grass as it hurtled forward like a clump of charging linebackers. It struck the specter and sent it tumbling through the air, safely away from Tess. The specter landed in a sprawl, head and neck under shoulders and abdomen. He surged after it.

  The specter started running again. Lee swore under his breath. This was how all of his recent encounters with the entities that had been haunting Primhaven’s campus had gone. They always ran, and he always had to run after them. He sighed, sucked in a deep breath, and silently lamented the fact that he’d fallen into the habit of doing his job for free.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lee followed his quarry on a winding, pointless path across the college campus. It felt more like chasing a squirrel than chasing a dangerous opponent, though the analogy fell apart when he considered that most squirrels weren’t capable of possessing or draining the life from a human on a whim.

  He tried, ineffectively, to corner the specter. If he could force it over to the edge of the wall, the fight would go much more smoothly. With one of the instructors still patrolling the college’s edge, he’d have to be quick, but it was easier than fighting it out in the open.

  He wasn’t so lucky. The specter broke off toward the southwest quadrant of campus. He followed as fast as he could and swore as he watched the hulking ethereal figure disappear into the Ewix Center through the front door. He didn’t have time to do anything other than follow it.

  The Ewix Center was one of the only locations on campus that remained open and accessible late into the night. A student in pajamas eating a bag of chips was walking down the hallway toward Lee as he entered. He watched as the specter slapped the bag from the boy’s hands as it passed by, drawing a confused and slightly disappointed reaction from the student.

  It wasn’t as though Lee could keep charging after the entity as he had been. He could get away with it outside, where the occasional fitness enthusiast going for a late-night jog could shield his energetic behavior from scrutiny. Within the college’s buildings, he needed to be more circumspect.

  The specter led him around the corner. The oncoming stretch of hallway was empty, so he tried to keep his footfalls quiet as he broke into a quick run to eat into some of his target’s lead. He followed the specter on a path that still seemed random, eventually ending in Primhaven’s gym.

  The rhythmic sound of a jump rope striking at quick intervals was the only noise coming from inside the spacious, brightly lit workout floor. He hurried after the specter, ignoring the two students dedicated enough to their fitness to be exercising at such a late hour, and followed the entity into one of the smaller side rooms.

  He’d barely closed the door when the first attack came, a lumbering punch that Lee suspected would have landed him out cold, physical strike or not. He drew his kris dagger and slashed twice under the specter’s armpit, eliciting a shrill scream that only he and Tess could hear.

  The specter flailed, striking him with an open palm. A sinister, throbbing coldness vibrated against the inside of Lee’s jaw and against his teeth, stealing the air from his lungs and making him feel like he’d just taken a breath of ice water. He stabbed low with his kris dagger, but there was no force behind the blow, and the specter was already on the move again.

  “God damn it!” he shouted. “Stop running! Come on… I’m tired.”

  He summoned his resolve and took off after it. His focus was on keeping the specter in sight and preserving his energy, which meant that when it juked right and then dove through the door on the left, Lee followed without a moment’s hesitation.

  He followed it straight through the door that led to the women’s locker room. A surprised gasp came as he spilled out onto the other side, followed by a shrill screech and a chorus of curse words.

  Something struck him in the face. Not the specter. A workout bra.

  “Sorry! Wrong door!”

  Lee spun back out into the hallway out of socially conditioned reflex. He chewed his lip as he considered his options, or lack thereof. Leaving the specter alone, in a confined space, with several tired young women was an extremely bad idea. He gritted his teeth and set his hand back on the door.

  “You can’t!” hissed Tess. “Lee, that’s the women’s changing room! You just can’t!”

  “It’s not like I’d do this if I had any other option,” he said.

  Tess folded her arms and raised an unconvinced eyebrow. Lee made a pitiful attempt at shielding his field of view with his arm, shook his head in silent admonishment of himself, and then pushed back into the women’s locker room.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Get out!” cried a female voice. “You pervert!”

  Lee glanced around the room. A female student with unexpectedly large breasts was glaring at him with her hands set on her hips. She was clad only in panties, and Lee felt his thoughts run off in an odd direction as he considered whether the sweaty sports bra that had hit his face a minute earlier had previously contained the student’s large, supple, god-given assets.

  The specter poked its head out from behind a row of lockers, noticed where Lee was standing, and then rushed past him and out the door. The busty, mostly naked female student began stomping toward him, each step sending a salvo of jiggles through her wonderfully curvaceous figure.

  “Wow,” he said, momentarily entranced. “I mean… wrong door, again?”

  The girl screamed. Lee ducked out into the hallway and took off after the specter. Despite the pair of distractions the locker room had presented, he was gaining ground on his ethereal opponent. The specter burst out of the Ewix Center through one of the side exits. Lee was almost within striking distance.

  He kept running, drawing a pace closer every few steps. The specter seemed to realize it too, and finally slid to a stop in front of the large, central statue of Shay Morrigan, Primhaven’s founder. Lee pulled his kris dagger out again and ran his thumb across the hilt.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “Do you have a master? Why have so many specters been appearing around Primhaven rec
ently?”

  The specter’s eyes narrowed and gave no answer. Lee didn’t waste any time. He grabbed his wrist and cast his force spell, drawing from Tess’s spirit essence as he pushed his palm outward. The specter was knocked off its feet, falling at an odd angle on its back against the statue’s base. Lee leapt forward, not taking any chances, and plunged his kris dagger down into the entity’s chest.

  There was a rush of ethereal blue light as he banished the specter. The essence supporting the entity transferred to him. Usually, a rush of jumbled memories would also come along with the essence. But this time there was nothing, as though the specter’s mind had been wiped clean.

  Lee breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the stone base of the statue, breathing heavily. He tried to act natural as he wiped sweat from his forehead and tucked his kris dagger away. Outside of the student he’d walked in on in the locker room, nobody else had taken notice of the chase, as far as he could tell.

  “That’s the third one in just over a week,” whispered Tess. “Mercy me. This is bad, Lee.”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head and rolled out his shoulder. “It’s no coincidence. Someone is trying to scout out the college. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

  He’d let his mystic stream drop during the chase and now pulled Tess back into it. She moved to sit behind him, petite legs on either side of his, arms hugging underneath his shoulders.

  “Good thing you’re here to keep the college safe,” she said. “You’re a hero.”

  “I’m a freelancer,” muttered Lee. “I need to start sending invoices for labor and expenses.”

  “Heroes don’t concern themselves with trivial matters like that,” said Tess, in a teasing voice. She kissed him on the cheek and gave him a squeeze.

  “I told you, I’m not a…”

  Lee trailed off as a set of eyes became visible in the darkness, reflecting the pale moonlight and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Soft footsteps padded across the grass as a massive white dire wolf strode up to him.