The most horrible screech Irene ever heard bellowed through the cafeteria. Irene clasped her hands over her ears, losing the support that kept her from falling into Jordan’s chest. He followed suit. She tried to block out the noise. It wasn’t helping. The sound pierced through the cracks in her fingers.
The entire ground shook. Tables and benches vibrated. From beneath the table, Irene could see the cinder block wall collapse inwards as the beast charged in.
As it charged across the room, the nun dodged and rolled off to one side. She came to a stop next to Irene’s table. The bull crashed into the counters leading into the kitchen.
It turned, slowly, as the nun launched another lightning bolt. Its head was too high to see, but it stopped turning when its legs faced the nun. When its legs faced
“Jordan,” Irene said, pulling his hands away from his ears. “We have to move. We have to move
His head snapped up to the bull. It already started its charge.
Arms gripped around Irene’s backside and pulled her down. She heard something not unlike the sound of a pillow hitting her. Her vision went dark for an instant before everything came back.
Everything came back wrong. She was wrapped in Jordan’s arms beneath a table. It wasn’t their table. They were further from the cafeteria exit, almost at the opposite wall. The bull trampled over their oh so recently vacated table with the nun only dodging by the skin of her teeth.
“Just standing there, huh?”
“Maybe if the Elysium Sister hadn’t been so eager to throw lightning over the tops of students’ heads,” Jordan said as he shoved Irene off of him. He gripped his wand tightly in his hand. Irene hadn’t even seen him draw it.
Two cowered in a corner of the room, hugging each other tightly.
The bull had oriented itself towards them in its battle with the nun.
“Those two,” Irene said as she patted his chest then pointed. “They’re about to get–”
He didn’t wait. The body beneath her turned black and white. His own shadow reached up and pulled him under the floor.
Irene looked up to see him emerge from the student’s shadow against the wall. His hands, one with his wand in it still, clasped around both their shoulders. Two screaming students turned black and white before their own shadows consumed them.
The bull rammed into the corner only a second after. Fractures snaked up the blocks. Chunks of the wall and even some ceiling fell down on the bull’s back.
“I hope they didn’t recognize me.”
Irene jumped. Her head knocked against the table before she rounded on Jordan. He had a goofy grin on his face. “I don’t think it matters,” Irene said as she rubbed her head. “Stop enjoying this and do something.”
He glanced back to where the nun tossed very ineffectual lightning bolts at the creature. They didn’t seem to do much except infuriate the beast. After it charged through another set of unoccupied tables, the nun changed tactics.
White fire burst from her fingertips. It shot out like a flame thrower, dousing the bull.
Screeching filled the air once again. Irene and Jordan both tried to block the sound out with their hands.
From the pained look on his face, he wasn’t any more successful than she was.
The flaming bull charged once again. The nun dodged and turned to face where the bull went.
It wasn’t there.
The moment the nun dodged, the bull flapped its massive wings. It stopped–or even went backwards–without another step being taken.
The nun spun around to face her target just as the bull swung its head. Its single, straight horn pierced her chest. Red liquid splattered across the room directly behind the nun as the horn emerged from the other side.
Students remaining in the room screamed. Irene screamed. Jordan did not.
The bull tossed its head to one side and the nun with it. She flew off the horn and slammed into a cinder block wall. The nun stuck against the wall before gravity remembered its duties. She slid down off of it and collapsed on her face. A trail of blood marked her path.
Flames on the bull’s back withered and died as the nun disappeared from Irene’s view.
Irene turned, grasping for Jordan. She wanted nothing more than to tell him to get her out of the room that instant.
He wasn’t next to her.
He knelt next to the nun with his back to the bull like some kind of idiot.
The bull was already charging after him.
It skidded to a stop as shadows peeled themselves off the floor and the walls and anywhere there was a shadow. A wall of darkness formed around Jordan and the nun, blocking them from view.
The bull stared for just a minute. Its head slowly moved over the room until it came to a rest on Irene.
Her heart caught in her throat as she scrambled backwards. All the bars under the table were in the way.
