Standardized Testing

  Hunters’ Academy

  7: Standardized Testing

  Ivy Hearne

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About Hunters’ Academy 7: Standardized Testing

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Coming Next: | Hunters’ Academy 8: Year One Final Exam

  Academy of the Damned: A Hunters’ Academy Novella Series

  Hunters’ Academy 1: Entrance Exam

  Hunters’ Academy 2: Winter Break

  Hunters’ Academy 3: Crash Course

  Hunters’ Academy 4: Independent Study

  Hunters’ Academy 5: Valentine’s Dance

  Hunters’ Academy 6: Spring Break

  Hunters’ Academy 7: Standardized Testing

  Hunters’ Academy 8: First Year Final Exam

  About the Author

  About Hunters’ Academy 7: Standardized Testing

  It’s the biggest test of her life—and she doesn’t know what to study.

  With the threat of the Lusus Naturae and the dark presence Kacie senses moving toward the Hunters’ Academy hanging over them, both the students and their instructors are under pressure to prepare for a showdown unlike any they have seen before.

  But how can Kacie train when no one will even tell her how she can use her powers to help them win?

  Chapter 1

  Returning to the Hunters’ Academy after our extended spring break hurt.

  But after the last few weeks, I needed some time on campus to figure out what to do next.

  Reo, my hunting partner Souji’s brother and the senior active hunter on campus, had decided that the three of us should stay at the beach for a few days after taking on a monster there, just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything.

  And even more than that, he wanted us to discuss the dark presence I had begun to sense was a menace to the school—something bigger and more dangerous than just the power wielded by the Lusus Naturae.

  Reo and I had been sitting on towels on the beach just outside our hotel room, digging our toes into the sand, when Souji strolled out of the room in his human form, wearing swim trunks and carrying a towel.

  He spread it out on the sand, so I sat between him and his brother. Reo simply glanced up and said, “Hey, bro.”

  I followed the hunter’s lead, acting as if it weren’t odd to see Souji as a human rather than a black panther.

  “Borrowed some trunks,” Souji muttered.

  Reo waved it off. “No problem.”

  “So if what I’m feeling isn’t because of the Lusus Naturae, then what is it? What other magical source is that powerful?” I picked up the conversation exactly where it had been, trying to ignore Souji’s presence beside me. I’d only seen him like this a few times before, and yet somehow, I regularly forgot how damn hot he was, with his smooth skin, silky black hair, and brown eyes with a hint of the panther’s amber-green glow deep inside them.

  Now, he regarded me steadily for a moment, then glanced at his brother.

  “You don’t think any of the Old Magic is returning, do you?” His question was directed at Reo, but he quickly went back to watching me.

  A girl could get lost in those eyes. If they weren’t attached to her hunting partner. Apparently it wasn’t exactly uncommon for hunting partners to hook up—but it was frowned upon, since it could cause the whole killing-monsters dynamic to fall apart if the relationship went south.

  “At the beginning of the school year, I would have said you were crazy for suggesting that.” Speaking from the other side of me, Reo practically radiated sexy.

  Of course, the family resemblance was unmistakable—he was like Souji’s lighter half. The less brooding half. The half who hadn’t lost his first hunting partner early on. Who hadn’t decided to stay in his leopard form all the time to avoid having to deal with grief—or with other people.

  “And now?” I asked Reo.

  Part of me was absolutely convinced that I should go ahead and allow myself to develop a huge crush on Reo. It would be safer. To start with, he was way too old for me. And he was a huge flirt. A crush on Reo would be like having a crush on a movie star—too impossible to be serious.

  A crush on Souji, on the other hand, might actually lead somewhere.

  Reo’s response to my question snapped me back to reality when he shrugged and held one hand out as if presenting me to someone. “Now? We have a gorgon attending the Academy and putting the campus back together stone by stone.”

  We hadn’t even had much time to discuss the whole I’m-a-gorgon issue. I’d been too busy fighting and traveling to even figure out what I needed to learn about it. I opened my mouth to ask more questions about that, but Souji spoke first.

  “But does having a gorgon on our side suggest Old Magic?” I could practically hear the capital letters on the words as Souji said them.

  “Why is it such a big deal that I’m a gorgon?” I asked.

  “Well, for one thing, you’re supposed to be extinct.” Reo’s mouth quirked up in a half-grin. “And since you’re obviously not, it must mean something, right?”

  I wiggled my toes in the sand, letting it run back over my feet. I didn’t feel any more unusual than I ever had. “I’m pretty sure I feel like a human.”

  Reo let out a bark of laughter. “But if you really are a gorgon, you wouldn’t know how a human feels, would you?”

  I guess not. I didn’t say it aloud, though.

  As much as I would have liked to sit there considering all the possible ramifications of my gorgon-ness, Reo’s next words finally brought us to the topic we’d all been avoiding.

  “How much time do we have before whatever you saw shows up, Kacie?”

  “A couple of weeks. Maybe a month, tops.” I couldn’t have said how I knew, but I was absolutely certain that the horror I had sensed was moving toward us steadily.

  “Still no idea of what it is?” Souji asked.

  “No.” I paused, staring out over the waves rolling onto the shore. Something about the incoming threat reminded me of the ocean—implacably moving toward us, deep and dark and teeming with intention.

  Full of monsters we couldn’t see.

  And inimical to life on shore—to us.

  “But it wants to kill us all,” I finally continued.

  “Everyone at the Academy?” Reo clarified.

  “No. Every magical being everywhere. No matter what side we’re on.”

  “The Lusus Naturae, too?” Souji sounded shocked.

  I nodded. “All of us.”

  Reo frowned and rubbed his eyes. “Do we have any chance of winning against it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I don’t even know what it is. Sometimes I’m not sure I didn’t dream it.”

  “Then I think we should head back to the Academy and see what we can find out. We’ll leave in the morning.” Reo turned to his brother. “You want a ticket for a seat, or will you be riding in an animal carrier again?”

  Souji snarled at him, one side of his mouth curling up to show an elongated fang. “I’m not going back into the cargo hold.”

  With a snicker, Reo held up both hands. “No problem, man. I was just checking.”

  As Reo strolled away, I found myself wondering if all of us would survive the battle I knew was heading our way.

  Or if anyone would.

  Chapter 2

  The Colorado Rockies were still cold and snowy, though even at our higher altitude, the snow was finally beginning to melt.

  Every time I looked aro
und the campus, I saw the destruction wrought during the Valentine’s Dance—not in the buildings, which my own magic had somehow repaired, but in the faces of my fellow students and of the faculty.

  The instructors were trying, but everything felt different and wrong.

  Even more than that, the students who remained on campus were scared.

  There weren’t that many students around at all. We had lost so many during the Valentine’s Day fire and subsequent magical attack. And many of the ones who were still alive had decided to leave campus for the remainder of the school year. My roommate Erin was one of them. She had decided to take her exams early and head back to her parents’ home for the summer.

  “But don’t you still have course material to learn?” I asked. We were in our room, where I had just dumped my suitcase on the floor after my return from the beach—the flight Reo booked had been delayed by weather, so classes were already back in session by the time we returned the next morning, but he swore our absences would be excused.

  When I opened the door to my room, I was surprised to find Erin packing.

  “I got the reading and all the homework and assignments and did them over spring break,” she told me as she folded clothes into a suitcase. “I stuck around here and finished all the work while everybody else was gone, and now I’m out of here. I have my exams tomorrow. I’ll finish packing up tonight.” She turned to the closet and flipped through the remaining uniforms and outerwear.

  I sat on my bed and watched her. “Are you worried about your grades at all?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. I know the material well enough. And I’d rather go home where I feel safer than stay here and risk another attack on the school.”

  She didn’t look at me as she spoke, and I was certain she blamed at least in part for the attack.

  I wasn’t surprised. I suspected everyone at school blamed me for the attack. I just hoped they also gave me credit for fixing the school up afterward.

  Still, I wished I could have stopped the attack entirely. I still wasn’t certain why the Lusus Naturae had focused on me. But it was true that until I came to the school, it had existed for over a hundred years without being discovered by the hunters’ enemies.

  So I might not be to blame, exactly, but our new vulnerability absolutely had something to do with me.

  I sighed and flopped back on my bed. It was going to be lonely without Erin here. “What about next year?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The Academy is not the only way to become a Hunter.” Erin ran a hand through her hair. “It’s just the easiest and fastest,” she said with a sigh.

  “Are you seriously considering not coming back at all?”

  “I don’t know what I’m considering right now.” She closed her suitcase and zipped it up. The sound had something final to it, as if in closing up the suitcase, she also closed her options. Or at least shut away her time at the Academy.

  She left to meet some of her friends in the dining hall for lunch. I sat in our room for a few more moments before heading out, too. I had promised to meet Reo once he’d had a chance to get Souji settled back into his room.

  As I walked across the quad, I took stock of everything around me. The buildings looked fine. But they were the only thing that did. All over the rest of the Academy, people look strained, anxious, fearful. Students and professors alike scurried from building to building, glancing back over their shoulders as if something might be chasing them.

  I had returned to campus with an urgent desire to convince people that we needed to prepare to face off against the darkness that was headed our direction.

  Looking around now, I suspected that even if they hadn’t said as much, a lot of the people here already knew on some level that something bad was coming.

  And for the first time since I had stumbled through a portal and into an upper-level students’ dorm, there was no one in charge for me to discuss it with.

  No one I trusted, anyway.

  The Council had appointed Dr. Novak, a vampire who hadn’t been on the campus before, to serve out the rest of the school year. I hadn’t even really spoken to him since he’d taken on the position.

  Ms. Gayle might not have liked me much, but she’d been familiar. I would have warned her about the darkness.

  Or so I told myself.

  I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Dr. Novak.

  At least Reo knew what was going on, and he was headed to the Council to try to convince them to send reinforcements. Though he wouldn’t tell me where the Council was located, he was going through one of the portals to get there. I met him in the vestibule of the upper-level classmen’s dorm, then followed him up the back stairs to the portal floor.

  “Wish me luck,” Reo said after he’d mumbled a quick incantation and waved his hands around to open the portal. “They’re a bunch of stick-in-the-mud old types who don’t like change. This is going to throw them.”

  He sighed and shook his head, giving me a quick hug before he headed toward the other hallway I could see through the entrance he’d opened. It shimmered in a way that suggested it wasn’t real—or at least not really here.

  Before he stepped through, he turned back toward me. “Make sure Souji stays okay? Take care of him. Make him take care of himself, if you can.”

  “I will.” I raised one hand to wave. Reo stepped through the portal and it blinked out of existence.

  I felt more alone than I had in a long time.

  Chapter 3

  My next stop was the library. I had already researched gorgons to find out what I could about them. But I was certain I’d missed something vital.

  Even going through all the books and records, there wasn’t really all that much to find—nothing I hadn’t already seen, anyway.

  The gorgons were part of Greek myth, but I had no idea if there were any Greek connections in my family.

  If it’s a genetic thing, would I have to be Greek?

  Anyway, they were, as I had remembered, the snake-head ladies who could turn men to stone just by looking at them. Or having the men look at them.

  Part of the legend—or at least one version of it, was that they were so ugly that anyone who looked at them turn to stone.

  I didn’t like that version very much.

  In fact, when I read it, I stood up and left my books on the library table and marched straight to the bathroom. Once there, I leaned on the sink and peered at myself in the mirror. I ran my hands through my hair, pulling it out of its usual waist-length braid.

  Nope. Still long and blonde. Nothing green. No snakes.

  I might not be the most confident teenager in the world—but I was absolutely certain that I was not so ugly as to turn guys to stone just for looking at me.

  Okay. That’s not the reality. Time to figure out what is.

  I splashed a little water on my face, patted it dry, and headed back to the books.

  So, if the gorgon story wasn’t literal—if I really was one and I didn’t turn into a snake-headed, stone-turning monster, then all of this had to be metaphorical, right?

  I went back to the stories with that in mind. Maybe it wasn’t their appearance, how gorgons looked in general that terrified people. Maybe it was the power they could wield.

  I remembered the moment when I had begun putting the damaged school back together. The way I had reached out and stolen power from all the people around me. How they had frozen in place as I did it. And how they had looked at me afterward. There was definite fear there.

  And when Reo stopped me from resurrecting Ms. Gayle, there had been fear in his voice. Controlled fear, but it was definitely there.

  For that matter, I wondered if I could have turned people to stone with my power—either literally or figuratively. It wasn’t the kind of thing I ever had the urge to do, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of it.

  Ever since that night, I’d been convinced that being under the control of the Lusus Naturae for so many years had done strange
things to my magic, at least temporarily. Even now, I hesitated to use it, worried that it would hurt someone I loved.

  But what if I was wrong? What if what had happened the night of the fire had been only the beginning of the true power I could use?

  What would it mean to be able to turn that power against the enemies who had sought to control me?

  I shook my head, willing away the images that popped into my mind, and went back to reading the books.

  Another version of the myth was that Medusa was a beautiful woman who was raped by a god, and his furious wife cursed her so that any man who looked at her turned to stone.

  That seemed weird to me. Why curse a woman for what a man had done?

  Then again, no man would ever again be able to rape her.

  Something about that resonated in me.

  No man could ever hurt Medusa again. Not once her power was unleashed and she had the ability to turn her to stone.

  The only thing that could kill Medusa was beheading. And her sisters? They were immortal. They couldn’t be killed.

  And yet, until I’d shown up, the entire supernatural community had assumed gorgons were extinct.

  I rubbed my hands across my forehead. What the hell did all this add up to? My parents weren’t gorgons. Or if they were, they didn’t know it. And yet the Lusus Naturae had managed to find me and block me before anyone from the Hunters’ Academy had.

  In the end, I hadn’t learned any more from the library this time than I had last time.

  It was time to attack the problem more directly.

  BY THE TIME I HAD FINISHED at the library, my head was spinning with information. I didn’t exactly know what to do with it. So I headed over to Ms. Hush’s office. Nowhere in our library books could I find good information about how the gorgons fit into the supernatural world as I knew it.

  I didn’t know if she would be there. And there was a chance that she would chide me for skipping classes my first day back. But I needed to get as much information as I could before I attempted to start convincing people about the darkness.