I’m greeted with sunshine and a cool breeze when I step outside. I take a second to suck in a deep breath. I’d forgotten how thin the air was up here in the mountains. It’ll take me a couple days to adjust.
I check my watch. I’d planned on staying at the pub, but now that I’m stuck out here … I might as well make the most of it.
I hike my backpack up on my back and start walking up the main road toward Saint M. It’s going to be a long walk, but that’s all right. I could use the exercise after the last day of trains and planes.
Cleaver runs ahead of me, circling back and barking occasionally. I have to pick up my pace to keep up with him. Absently, I remember my entrance trials last year. They happened the day before school opened. Do they run on the same schedule every year? I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Maybe I can catch some of them if I hurry.
I jog the rest of the way to Saint M, barely breaking a sweat—my stamina has skyrocketed since I’ve been training in earnest, but even I’m surprised that I’m hardly winded despite the altitude.
I don’t stop until the school looms above me, its central bell tower flanked by gargoyles, its white-brick walls gleaming in the sun. Last year, when I walked through the courtyard and took my first real look at Saint M, I was nervous, anxious, but also excited. Now, I’m determined.
I know who I am now, what my goals are. I’m going to be a legendary monster hunter, just like my parents. I’m going to get revenge for them—and some for myself, too.
Cleaver barks, snapping me back into the present. “Yeah, I know, boy,” I say to him, leaning down to scratch his ears. Not wanting to run into anyone just yet, I avoid the big double doors that lead to the entrance hall and circle around the back of the school, heading for the woods beyond.
Near the edge of the woods, I stow my backpack in some underbrush. I couldn’t leave it with the bartender, what with all the monster books and weapons inside, but I also don’t want to be lugging it around the forest here. I’m not sure if I’m technically allowed to go watch the trials, so I’d rather not be discovered. With Cleaver at my heels, I follow the sound of chattering voices, taking care to avoid the trail.
I find the trials easily. They’re on the second one already, which is the obstacle course. I smile ruefully as I think back to how proud I was of my performance last year. Now that I’ve gotten better, I realize how sloppy I really was.
A few hopeful students are clambering about on oversized monkey bars or crawling under barbed wire, which seem to be exact copies of the course I did for my own trial. One boy falls off some swinging ropes and plunges into the muddy water below. I see the test administrator shaking his head and scratching some notes on his clipboard at the sight.
There are some bleachers erected for the small audience watching the first years’ trials—judges, past alumni, the board of trustees. I glimpse the dark hair of Mason Dagher, Piers’ father, but he’s too far away for me to see his expression. My lip curls just thinking about him.
He was the last man to see my parents alive, and I suspect he had something to do with their deaths. He might not be the monster who killed them, but he’s certainly a monster still.
I hear a branch snap behind me and Cleaver growls. I whip around, peering into the trees, looking for the source of the noise.
I’ve taken to carrying a weapon at all times, since there are plenty of monsters around my parents’ old cabin near Aunt Trish’s house. I’m partial to longer blades, but my mother’s daggers are more practical for everyday protection. It’s a little difficult to pass by undetected with a katana strapped to my side in broad daylight.
I pull one such dagger out of its sheath in my boot and hold it at the ready. These woods have monsters. Real monsters—not like the creatures I hunted over the summer. I say I hunted monsters, but really, I mostly hunted muskrats.
Same thing, really … when it comes to tracking. But when it comes to danger, real monsters are an entirely different matter.
I see movement in the trees. I crouch, getting ready, but a figure steps out of the shadows and a voice speaks my name.
“Avery?”
This is no monster. At least, not of the inhuman variety.
I sigh and relax, but only slightly. I know that voice. Piers steps out of the trees, holding his hands up.
“What do you want?” I snap. “Were you following me?”
“I just wanted to watch the trials,” he says.
I snarl. “Bullshit.”
He shrugs and stuffs his hands in his pockets, not bothering to deny it. “I’m not gonna do anything,” he says. “You can put your dagger away. I’m not going to feed Cleaver any poison to make him freak out or something,” he adds with a laugh.
My hand clenches on the hilt of my dagger. How dare he? Last year, Piers put some sort of strange-smelling chemical on one of my gloves, making the monster I was assigned to look after go crazy and bite me. It was an action that ultimately got her put down. She was a kelpie named Aurora, and I loved her.
Because of her outburst, she was put down while I looked on. Her screams still haunt my sleeping mind, and now he’s joking about it?
Instead of putting it away, I point my dagger directly at him. His hands fly up out of his pockets.
“You stay the fuck away from me, or else, Piers,” I snap. “You know your dad’s out there watching the new recruits? He’s got no clue you’re out here. And he couldn’t care less if I was a monster mauling you to death.” I take a step toward him, and he takes a step back, his blue eyes wide. “I won’t have you or anybody else getting in my way.”
I don’t mention that I can’t afford that right now. I know what kind of monster killed my parents—a powerful, ancient monster called a djinn. If I want to defeat a monster of that caliber, I’m going to have to do a lot of work. Not even my parents could kill it, and they were legendary.