The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(50)

Normally I wasn’t at a loss for words, but I didn’t want to admit that Sam and Billy and my dad were weak spots for me. That I would always come for them if they called. So instead I clamped my mouth shut and smoothed my face.

“So is there no fight left in you, Wild? To be sure, let me show you just how serious I am about this situation.” Frost bent over Adam and, with a quick slicing motion, opened his throat up from ear to ear.

He gurgled and grabbed at his throat, blood spurting out through his fingers as he tried to keep it in. I watched the fear and shock in his eyes as his life bled out of him, as he bent slowly to the ground and then went still.

“Are we clear?” Frost said quietly.

I nodded once. “What are you?”

Frost smiled, and again I was struck by the difference in her appearance. She had to be a shifter of some sort to appear as an old lady when we’d first met, and now as a woman not much older than me. “You’ve noticed, have you? You see through the glamor I had on me, seeing my true age, while others saw me as you see me now—as young and beautiful. Most people don’t, but that is because they are not like you and me. Of course, this is no longer a glamor. But I’ll explain that later.”

“I am nothing like you.” I wanted to spit at her, disgusting though it was, but wasn’t sure she wouldn’t slit my throat. “You kidnapped all those kids? Locked them up?”

“Yes, and I drank them up.” She licked her lips.

Vampire was my first thought. But if Adam and Colt both possessed two gifts, it couldn’t be as rare as Wally had indicated. “You’re a shifter and a vampire, aren’t you? Like Adam was a magic user and a Shade.”

“Oh, she’s getting closer, Jared. I knew she was smart.” She walked up and linked our arms together. “Should I tell her?”

He laughed. “It’s rather fun watching her guess.”

“True. We have a few minutes before we reach the other end.” His hand tightened on my wrist. I was pinned between them as they began to march me down the tunnel Director Frost had pointed out earlier. But despite the blaring warning going off in my body, I knew it wasn’t time to act.

My moment would come—I just had to wait.

Director Frost sighed. “You understand that there are some people who carry more than one line of magical ability? Like your friend Colt. Mage and Shade blended together deliciously, equally strong in both. He’s an oops, you know? His father strayed.” She smiled and winked at me as if we were at a slumber party playing truth or dare. “That’s rather uncommon though. Perhaps five out of every hundred gain multiple abilities and most often they are pushed toward one or another in their training, allowing the secondary ability to wither on the vine.”

My jaw ticked, and I struggled not to pull away from them. “So?”

“Well, rarer yet is someone who carries three abilities. Perhaps one in a hundred. Your friend Drexia would know the exact stats.” She made a motion with her hand and the tunnel brightened ahead of us, lit up along the edges with flickering torches. Drexia? Oh right, she meant Wally.

“Let me guess. You have a trio of abilities?”

“Not quite. You see, you and I are very special, Maribel Johnson. One for every generation. According to the records, our abilities are never bestowed on a woman. I had a hand in that, to help hide myself. To help hide others like me.”

Chills swept through me, and they had nothing to do with the cold stone beneath my bare feet.

“What do you mean?”

“You are a Chameleon, Wild. A child who carries the ability to tap into all five gifts that the gods of the north bestowed upon supernaturals. All five. As you’ve seen in the trials, you are proficient in them all.”

Her words might as well have been a blow to my head I was so stunned.

And yet it made sense. This explained my raw ability with magic, my connection to the others in my crew.

“Yes, that is why you excelled in the trials. And why it was so difficult to capture you.” She leaned into me. “But better that I should be the one to catch you. He hunts for you too, Wild, and he will not be so gentle.”

The tunnel was narrowing, and I could see my chance coming up. I slowed my feet, forcing them to slow too. “Wait, who do you mean, him?”

“The one that everyone fears. The one whose blood you share. The Shadowkiller.” Director Frost looked at me. “You mean your mother never told you about him? She never warned you that he tried to kill her too? He was the reason she ran, the reason she hid you and your siblings away.”

Her words hammered into my skull. Bits and pieces of partially overheard conversations between my parents trembled at the edge of my mind.

Whispered fears heard through the floorboard.

The click of a gun being chambered.

Shouts in the yard.

Jared’s voice was silken. “Her mother sheltered them far more than I’d have thought. Stupid of Lexi.”

Director Frost snorted delicately, and the corner of her right eye drooped, wrinkles appearing even as I watched. “She was a fool who thought she could outrun death, and look where it got her. Dead. Just like her oldest son.”

My jaw ticked, the urge to defend my mother rising sharp and fast. “Your Botox is wearing off.”

She gasped and lifted a hand to her face as the skin began to loosen, wrinkling in front of my eyes. “What did you do?”