Hades Academy: First Semester Read online

  Hades Academy: First Semester

  Hades Academy, Volume 1

  Abbie Lyons

  Published by Abbie Lyons, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HADES ACADEMY: FIRST SEMESTER

  First edition. July 28, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Abbie Lyons.

  Written by Abbie Lyons.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Free prequel

  Afterword

  Chapter One

  You can spot an idiot from a mile away. And this guy with thinning hair and a suit three sizes too big was definitely an idiot. He might as well have had the word “sucker” written on his crappy dollar store tie.

  “So how does this game work?” he asked.

  I was in a quiet little alley in Brooklyn sitting behind a cardboard box that I was using as a makeshift table. On top of the box were three playing cards—that was all I needed to earn some quick cash. Over the course of a day, I’d call over any easy marks I saw walking down the street, asking if they were the “gambling type” or “feelin’ lucky.” Once I had their attention, I’d be guaranteed to make at least a few bucks off of them.

  “It’s really simple,” I said. “As you can see, we’ve got three cards here: the queen of hearts, the jack of spades, and the jack of clubs. What I’m gonna do is flip these cards face down and quickly rearrange them. After that, all you have to do is pick out which one is the queen of hearts.”

  He scratched his head. “That’s it?”

  Of course that wasn’t it. But that was all I was going to tell him.

  “That’s it,” I said sweetly. “It’s fun.”

  “How much do I have to bet?”

  “Ten bucks minimum. If you choose correctly, you’ll get twenty bucks back.” I looked back up at him and batted my eyelashes. Literally batted them. “Something tells me you’ll be good at this, big guy.”

  That much wasn’t a lie. Something always tells me when people are going to be good for me. Call it women’s intuition—barf—or call it a knack for cold-reading honed through a childhood of foster homes and a teenagehood weaving my way through Brooklyn, but I knew people. And this guy was going to be a winner.

  For me.

  “Here,” I said. “First one’s on the house.” I held up the queen, Vanna White-ed my hand over it, and dropped it back on the box. One, two, three quick whirls with the other cards, and I gestured for him to pick.

  “Uh...the left?” he said.

  Would you look at that—he was right. I held up the card with a smile. “Nice work.” I started to take a ten-dollar bill out of my pocket—my last goddamn ten-dollar bill—then paused. “Tell you what. Want to buy in for round two? Double or nothing. Just another ten.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” the guy said, in the fake tone of voice of someone pretending to consider. He fished around for his wallet, and I treated him to another eyelash bat. I wasn’t going to pretend that being a nineteen-year-old girl with a decent collection of shoplifted Sephora didn’t help my enterprise. Shameless, maybe. But I could afford shame later.

  My latest mark produced a ten that I could tell without touching was going to feel sweaty, and I placed it beside the card set-up. That was the first part of the scam: keep the money out as long as possible. If people could still see the bills, they thought they still had a chance to get them back.

  Suckers.

  A breeze blew through the alleyway, pushing my hair back from my neck and washing us in the smell of Chinese food and dumpster. I really needed to find a better alley. I used to have a setup down by the Barclays Center, but then the cops got too aggressive, and no amount of eyelash-batting would get me off the hook.

  So I’d relocated.

  Tonight was a chilly night for early September, and I was trying not to let the cold freak me out. When you’re broke in New York City, cold can be killer. Literally. And all I had for insulation was my thrift-store leather jacket and my fiery personality (thanks, Foster Dad #3, for that clever neg).

  No. I shook my head. Focus. Another ten, twenty bucks and I’d be fine.

  “So, you...live around here?”

  Oh, great. We’d reached the question-and-answer portion of the evening. It wouldn’t be the first time a mark had tried to transition my three-card monte setup into something even more illegal. But I wasn’t a whore, and there were at least six guys in downtown Brooklyn with the pepper-spray burns across their eyes to prove it.

  Still, I didn’t get that vibe from Mr. Sucker here. And, like I said, I get vibes. A prickle at the back of the neck, a kind of third-eye feeling, what Foster Mom #2 would’ve called mal ojo right before she called me a devil child and kicked me out her front door while brandishing holy water at me.

  Anyway. As woo-woo as it sounds, I’m grateful for my vibe-getting. It’s probably what’s kept me alive for so long.

  “Nearby,” I demurred. “My boyfriend and I rent a place. He’s big into MMA—you know, mixed martial arts? So he wanted to be near the, uh...dojo.”

  Shit. Of course I didn’t have a boyfriend—physical relationships were something for girls with stable incomes. But I had a fake one. Tough guy. Usually enough to end that line of conversation. And usually one of the many lies that rolled off my tongue with ease. I was off my game for some reason. I shook my head.

  Focus, Nova.

  “Oh,” Mr. Sucker said, clearly trying not to sound disappointed. I gave him another quick glance. Yeah, there was no way this guy would be a match for my imaginary MMA-fighter boyfriend. Or even my trusty can of pepper spray. “Yeah, my girlfriend’s really into, uh, yoga and stuff.”

  Liar. Besides the fact that it was plainly obvious Mr. Sucker would never have a yoga-doing girlfriend, I could feel it—just the way I felt everything. The vibe. The only thing I was better at than spotting idiots was spotting liars.

  I’d never been wrong. It was the only thing I was actually good at.

  “All right,” I said, moving the conversation back to the matter at hand—making me some fucking money. “See this lovely lady?” I held up the queen card. “Just keep your eye on her. Easy peasy.”

  Who the hell said things like easy peasy? Me, I guessed, when I was super out of practice.

  Mr. Sucker glanced at the card, then glanced at me.

  “What’s your name?”

  Shit. His voice was timid, kind of high-pitched. And I didn’t feel anything—not the way I usually can when something’s up. But I knew better than to let down my guard. And I couldn’t look frustrated, because that’d break the illusion of this magical fun game we were about to play and win him the untold riches I was obviously hiding under this cardboard box.

  Yeah, right.

  I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “Nova.”

  Mr. Sucker looked taken aback. �
�Really?”

  Yes, really. That was the name on my birth certificate—not that I knew where my birth certificate was, of course. The name that my mother had picked for me. The one thing she gave me that I’d been able to keep. In my memory, she’d told me it was because when I was born, it was like a new light had come into her world. Hokey as hell, I know. But that was my mom for you.

  Is. Is my mom.

  Because there was one thing that I was absolutely certain of, even with no birth certificate or permanent residence or money in my back pocket. My mom was still out there somewhere.

  “Yep,” I said to the mark. “Like the birth of a star.” I held up the card again. “Ready to follow?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah,” he said, a little too eagerly. “I’m Mark.”

  I choked back a laugh. It was too perfect. Mark the mark. I managed to swallow my reaction and throw him my coyest not-a-whore-but-still-gonna-make-you-feel-good smile.

  “Nice to meet you.” I dropped the queen onto the box, face-down. “Let’s play.”

  Three-card monte is a classic scam for a reason: it’s simple, it’s cheap, and it’s portable. All I needed was a deck of cards and the choicest cardboard box in the alley. As I arranged the cards in my hand, I slipped my fingers just slightly, so that the bottommost cards swapped places. That part took practice, but it was the only real skill involved. Now the “queen” Mark had his eyes fixed on was the jack of spades, and he had no idea.

  “Follow the lady,” I said, lifting and dropping the cards over and under, back and forth. Corny, but marks—and Marks, I guess—ate it up. “Follow the lady.”

  Heat prickled at the back of my neck as I flicked the cards around. Had I set up under an exhaust valve again? That would explain the Chinese-food smell. But I didn’t feel the breeze anymore.

  No time to check. I kept shuffling.

  A few more flourishes and it was time for the big reveal.

  “All right,” I said, lifting my hands with fingers spread wide. “Where is she?”

  Mark studied the cards—sucker move, trying to psych me into thinking he was a clueless sucker, as if I hadn’t had that pegged from the beginning—and I clenched my fists just out of his view. This heat was spreading from my neck down to my chest. Maybe my trusty leather jacket was making me too hot. But the air around us was still cold. I didn’t feel stuffy; I felt like I was burning on the inside.

  Jesus, Nova. Keep it together.

  The last thing I needed was for Mark the mark to mistake me for a junkie and call me an ambulance. Because he would, this nice guy. Totally the type with a white-knight fantasy, rescuing the poor urchin with a weird name from her life on the streets. And I’d swoon with gratitude and move into his Mom’s Staten Island basement with him and we’d live happily ever after.

  “Middle one,” Mark said at last, pointing a stubby finger at the box. I raised an eyebrow, feigning alarm—oh no, did he get one over on me again?

  Then I flipped the card.

  “Jack of spades,” I said. “So close!” I started to slide the bills towards my jacket pocket as the heat went from prickling to pulsing. Shit. Maybe it was low blood sugar. When was the last time I’d eaten something? I swallowed and focused. “Tell you what—one more round? Double or nothing again?”

  Mark the mark didn’t seem to like that. I quickly tucked the cash away as the pins-and-needles feeling taking over me turned into knife-points.

  Maybe this was a new kind of vibe, trying to tell me...I didn’t know what.

  “Now, wait...” Mark said. “You...you at least...give me back the...”

  I should have been afraid. That had to be what this feeling was—fear. I’d known fear pretty well my whole life, and I thought my threshold was pretty high. But maybe not. Maybe there was something about Mark the mark that I’d missed.

  Maybe he really was bad news.

  Maybe I should run.

  Mark looked into my eyes with his watery blue ones, and it hit me. The feeling. The vibe. I wasn’t afraid.

  He was.

  The heat was overwhelming now, pulsing through me. It was almost like I was electric, crackling with some kind of power, like fifty cups of coffee without the heart palpitations.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he said, then shook his head as if he realized how lame that sounded. “I mean...I don’t want trouble. Just...this is all I have. Take it.” He fumbled around for his wallet, producing more sweaty-looking bills, then stopped. His flabby jaw fell open. “Y-you’re...”

  I followed his gaze to where it was unfortunately trained on my boobs. An amber-colored light was glowing through my T-shirt, right in the center of my chest.

  “Oh my God,” I said. But my voice didn’t sound like mine. It was deep, and echoing, like there were three of me speaking at once. From inside a cave.

  Mark looked just about ready to piss his pants.

  “Go,” I said.

  The light grew brighter, illuminating everything in the alley: the brick walls, the dumpsters, the cardboard box, the tiny white face of the queen of hearts—and Mark, running for his life, his entire wallet spilled on the ground.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. Every fiber of my body screamed danger.

  So I reacted the most normal way I could figure to something this goddamn weird.

  I passed the fuck out.

  Chapter Two

  What was that smell?

  I sniffed a bit as my eyes slowly began to open. The first thing I saw when I came to was some strange man’s hand holding a meatball sub just below my nose. And—of course—my next thought wasn’t who the hell is this or what just happened or even is that Mark guy okay, but rather holy shit, that sandwich looks delicious.

  Yeah. Some girls need those old-timey smelling salts; I need marinara and provolone.

  “I thought that might do the trick,” the man said.

  I looked up at him. Middle-aged, a little portly, gold eyeglasses, dark black hair, and a swanky grey suit with a red silk tie that I’d guess cost at least, I don’t know, 1000 times more than the one Mark wore.

  “What the—get away from me!” I tried to get to my feet, but the ground was wobbling under my Doc Martens, and I plopped back on my ass. “Are you a cop?”

  The man smiled, and not even in a mean way. “Let’s just say I’m the person offering you a sandwich. Here, take it. You’re all skin and bones.”

  My stomach contracted. I wasn’t going to make it far without food—I couldn’t even stand up. So without even bothering to chew him out for immediately commenting on my appearance, I grabbed that meatball sub and went to town. Putting food in my belly was—at least for now—much more pressing than getting worked up over some light casual sexism. And if a cop was going to take me, I at least wanted a sandwich out of the deal.

  Not that I didn’t have about a million questions. For one thing, I was seated against a tree in some unfamiliar park. It could’ve been any park: chain-link fences, basketball court, trees, and a “no smoking” sign above a mountain of cigarette butts. Only the whoosh of the train with an illuminated “G” in the window confirmed I was still in the city. Which, in turn, begged the question of how this man could’ve carried an unconscious girl through Brooklyn without getting some serious accusations thrown his way.

  Then again, it was New York. People saw strange shit a hundred times a day.

  “All done?” he asked as I took my last bite.

  I stared him directly in the eyes and took my time to chew down every little bit of meatball. I was grateful for the sandwich—half the reason I was even running scams was because I was starving—but you don’t get anything for free. I knew that much.

  “Are you gonna take me in now?” I said. “Because, look, there’s some stuff on my record, but I can—”

  “I know you must be a bit disoriented,” he interrupted as he took a seat on the ground in front of me. “But I’m not a police officer.”

  “You look like one,” I shot back. Getting my
blood sugar up was clearing my head. And the guy did look like a cop, or at least wildly out of place. No one dressed like that in this neighborhood unless they had a badge or were cruising for an ass-kicking.

  “I can assure you, I’m not.” His smile was tight, sending kindly-looking wrinkles up the sides of his face, but didn’t fade. “You have questions, no doubt. Where shall we start?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hmm, well I guess my first question is what the fuck happened back there and who are you and what are we doing here?” I paused for a breath. “I guess that’s...three questions.”

  He laughed. And it felt genuine, like he was just as aware of the absurdity of this situation as I was. “Well, Nova, I would be happy to answer all of those questions for you.”

  I interrupted him. “Fourth question: how do you know my name?”

  “Before I answer—and I will answer,” he said, as if he could tell I was losing patience, “first, a question for you: I am about to provide a great deal of information, much of which you will undoubtedly find shocking, and I would like to know which way you would find best to do this. Shall we rip the bandaid off now or would you like me to deliver this information a bit more...gradually?”

  Hell, I wasn’t about to have this whole thing dragged out. My butt was freezing, and if I had to catch a bus back to my place, I wanted to hit the road sooner rather than later. “Give it to me straight, doc.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, Nova, my name is Professor Lattimore, and I teach at a school that you are compelled to attend. As you surely noticed back there in the alley, you possess great powers. Powers which, at our academy, we will teach you to hone. You see, Nova, there is no way to put this that won’t sound ridiculous to you, but...” He looked me dead in the eye.

  “You are a half-demon, Nova.”

  The bad vibes hit instantly. And to think I’d kinda trusted the guy.

  “Bullshit,” I said without hesitation. “Half-demon? Is this how you guys try to force confessions out of people these days?”

  He laughed. “As I said, I’m not a police officer. You truly think I could be one?”