Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2) by Lan Chan (best e ink reader for manga TXT) 📕

the presence of the open portal to the Hell dimension on campus, I’d had no more dreams in which the demons spoke to me. Until now. I struggled in between sleep and lucidity. My feet touched down on a cold, linoleum floor. In front of me was a corridor lit by fluorescent lights. Above the door to the left was a no-exit sign. The one on the right would not open unless you were in possession of a key pass. I knew this place. It was the psychiatric hospital where they had housed Nanna before Kai extracted us.

As I glided past a mirror, I glanced at my reflection. At least I looked at the area where my head should have been. In its place was a dark smudge that hid my features. I was much taller in my dreams than in real life.

The dream me stalked the halls until I came upon the room I had been searching for. Peering through the spy hole, I caught sight of an emaciated patient. A male who looked to be in his mid-fifties.

He sat on the edge of his bed scratching at the bald patch on his head, his eyes unfocused. Once upon a time, I might have thought he was out of his mind. Now I knew better. The dream me swiped a pass over the access panel. A buzz sounded and the door opened. The patient didn’t look up or react when I walked in. He continued to mumble something under his breath as he stared at the wall. Were all of the patients in this place afflicted by demons? That couldn’t be the case. I had walked past several wards and hadn’t stopped to look in on them. This one was special.

Until now I had acted under the influence of something sentient. I was a passenger in my own body. A spectator in somebody else’s reality. It was why all I could do was watch as my host lit five red candles and set them on the floor. She, it was definitely a she, produced a piece of chalk from her pocket and proceeded to draw a circle with it. I recognised some of the symbols. An eye for truth. A set of three wavy lines for wind or transportation, a symbol of the sun for rebirth.

The spell was quite obvious. She was going to attempt to exorcise the demon. What puzzled me was the glass tumbler with a stopper on the top that she had placed in the middle of the circle. We’d learned in Demonology that a small portal had to be opened up during a proper exorcism in order to return the demon back to the Hell dimension.

I gasped when I realised what she was doing. She was going to try and trap the demon inside the glass crucible.

My hands reached out and scored the man across his palm with a small paring knife. The blood that was drawn dripped black instead of red. Sensing that it was being disturbed, the demon sprang to the forefront of the man’s mind. His cloudy grey eyes became orbs of darkest black. He lurched forward, arms outstretched as though he was going to strangle me. I lashed out, smashing the heel of my palm into his temple. There was no way I was strong enough in real life to render a blow like that. In the dream, it incapacitated the man. He went limp. I allowed him to fall where he lay.

The demon would have protested except that it had become caught in the barrier of the circle. The man’s mouth opened in an agonising scream as dream me grabbed his hand and placed the bleeding palm against the inner line of the circle.

I bolted awake, sweat making my shirt cling to my collar. Sophie was shaking me. Basil stood on the dresser, looking at me like I had just been screaming bloody murder in my sleep.

“Hey,” Sophie said. “Are you feeling alright?” She did that mum thing where she checked my temperature using the back of her hand on my forehead.

“I’m not sick,” I said. “It was just a really bad dream.”

“It sounded very real,” Basil said.

I massaged my forehead. “It felt real. I was back inside the psychiatric hospital and for some reason I was harvesting demons. But I wasn’t me. I was someone else who was using me. If that makes any sense.”

“What did you look like?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got no idea. Every time I caught sight of my reflection, the image was blurry.”

“That doesn’t sound at all like a normal nightmare,” Sophie said.

“Nothing about our lives is normal,” I reminded her. “Did your mum tell you about the job offer?”

She nodded. “She also told me she declined it right away. Said she tried to do the same for you, but the board wouldn’t accept her claim to guardianship.”

“You sound disappointed.”

She rubbed her eyes. “If I’m going to be freaked out, I would have liked the option of doing something about it. Let’s go get something to eat. Doctor Thorne said you need to replenish all the energy you lost.”

I would never say no to food. It was just the venue that bugged me. On the other hand, there was something really sad about eating on our beds in the dorm.

I knew people were watching us, but I was at a point now that I just didn’t care anymore. It seemed like such a shallow thing to be concerned about with the possibility of assassins roaming around. Brigid did not get that memo. This time, it wasn’t me she was directing her vile personality towards. Sophie and I were only just walking our trays around to a deserted table when her voice cut through the dining hall.

“You have the nerve to come here after joining the other side?” she spat.

“What now?” Sophie said. Despite not wanting to be part of the drama I couldn’t help turning in Brigid’s direction.

She was standing at the edge of