Chapter 609 Revenge
Across the field, the other children were playing. Drake was winning something. Kelpie was splashing someone. Felix was standing in a corner, probably judging everyone. Luna was watching from her bench, her bandaged knee propped up.
Alina was talking to a little girl.
Gabriel was announcing something.
Professor Hobb was standing near the principal’s chair, holding a clipboard and looking confused.
And Dante was sitting in his exclusive chair, watching the field with his usual calm expression.
Boo felt safer knowing the principal was there.
Nothing bad could happen with the principal around.
Probably.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Boo went back to spying on Kael.
Kael was now lying on the grass, staring at the clouds.
"Classic exorcist tactic," Boo whispered to himself. "Pretending to be relaxed. Waiting for the right moment to strike."
He watched.
And watched.
And watched.
Nothing happened.
Kael rolled over and picked a dandelion.
Boo was about to give up when something changed. A strange feeling crept over him. Cold. Heavy. Wrong. His translucent skin prickled, and his cap trembled on his head.
"What..." Boo whispered.
His mind flashed with dark and unclear images. Fragments. Things he didn’t understand.
The feeling was eerie. Unnatural. Like something was pressing against the edges of reality, trying to push through.
Boo shook his head. "What was that?" he asked himself.
He looked toward Dante.
The principal was still in his chair with a calm expression. But something was off.
The air around him shimmered slightly. Like heat rising from pavement. Like the world was bending.
Boo blinked.
And then Miss Clara appeared.
Out of nowhere. One moment, she wasn’t there. The next, she was standing behind Dante’s chair, her hand raised, her fingers glowing with dark, swirling light.
Boo’s eyes widened.
"PRINCI—" he started.
He didn’t finish.
Miss Clara’s hand swept down. Dark light exploded from her palm and slammed into Dante, Professor Hobb, and Gabriel all at once.
They froze.
Not like they were scared. Not like they were shocked. They froze like statues.
Dante’s hand stopped mid-gesture. His eyes, usually so sharp, went blank and glassy. His chest did not rise. He did not blink.
Professor Hobb’s clipboard slipped from his fingers and hung in the air, frozen mid-fall.
Gabriel’s smile stayed on his face, but it was wrong. Empty. A painting of a smile, not a real one.
Boo’s mouth fell open.
"NO—" he tried to scream.
He looked around.
The other teachers. The staff members. The servants carrying trays.
All frozen.
Miss Kelly, her hand raised to wave at a child. The servants, their trays tilted, juice hanging in the air like frozen waterfalls. The upperclassmen volunteers, their poles still, their faces blank.
Every adult was frozen except Alina.
She was standing near the snack table, her back to the chaos, talking to a little girl. She hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t see.
"TEACHER!" Boo screamed.
But his voice didn’t carry. Something was muffling the sound. The air itself seemed to swallow his words.
And then the ground shook.
Boo grabbed the tree trunk, his ghostly hands slipping through the bark.
The earth split.
Cracks ran across the playground like lightning bolts, black and jagged and deep. Children screamed. The frozen teachers didn’t move.
From the cracks, something rose.
Huge. Massive. Monstrous.
Earth worm monsters.
Their bodies were thick as tree trunks, their skin dark and slick with soil. Segmented like insects but wrong, too big. Their mouths were circular rings of teeth, spinning, grinding, hungry.
One. Two. Three.
More.
They ripped open from the earth, their bodies towering into the air, blocking out the sun.
Children ran.
Kelpie splashed water at a monster. The water sizzled and evaporated before it touched the creature’s skin.
Rocky stood frozen, his stone body trembling, his favorite rock clutched to his chest.
Felix was shouting something, but Boo couldn’t hear. Everything was noise. Screaming. Crying. The grinding of the monsters’ teeth.
And Alina was running toward the children, her face white.
Boo floated higher, his cap gone, his ribbon torn, his eyes wide.
"WHAT’S HAPPENING?!" he screamed.
No one answered.
Miss Clara stood in the center. Her dark hair whipped in a wind that no one else could feel. Her eyes were black. Completely black. No iris. No pupil. Just void.
She was smiling.
"Finally," she said.
Her voice carried across the playground, cold and calm, cutting through the screams.
"The barriers are down."
She looked at the frozen principal.
"You were too confident, Lord Dante," Miss Clara spat. "You thought you had removed all threats and controlled everything. Hahaha! For this day, I trained day and night so I could take revenge! You dared to fire me! Now you will see how I will destroy this whole kindergarten with worm monsters! Hahaha!"
She laughed.
It was not a nice laugh.
Children screamed as the earth continued to crack, more worm monsters pushing their way up from the darkness below, their circular teeth grinding, their massive bodies blocking out the sun.
But Alina’s voice cut through the noise.
"ALL KIDS WHO CAN FLY, FLY HIGH WITH YOUR FRIENDS!" she shouted.
Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes kept darting toward Dante. Frozen in his chair, his hand still raised, his eyes blank and glassy. Professor Hobb beside him, clipboard suspended in mid-air. Gabriel, his smile frozen like a mask.
Statues.
All of them.
But she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t panic. The children came first.
Drake heard her.
His wings spread wide, and he shot into the air, his eyes scanning the ground below. He saw Sable and Lucien running toward him, holding hands, their faces pale.
"GRAB ON!" Drake shouted.
He swooped down, grabbing Sable with one arm and Lucien with the other, hauling them both into the air. His wings strained, but his new scales held. He was stronger now. He had to be.
Nearby, Vlad Jr. was running toward Luna, who was still on the ground with her bandaged leg, unable to run fast.
"Luna!" Vlad Jr. shouted.
He reached her just as a worm monster’s shadow fell over them.
Vlad Jr. didn’t hesitate.
His body shifted. In an instant, the small, proper vampire boy was gone, and a dark, small bat appeared in his place. He swooped down, and Luna grabbed onto his tiny legs, her fingers gripping his fur.
"Hold on!" Vlad Jr. called out, his voice coming out squeaky but determined.
Luna held on.
They flew up, away from the monster’s reach.