Chapter 1

Shadows, shadows and more shadows that was all I could see as I made my way through Los Angles. I have been on the run from the schools Death Dealers for about a year now after I ran away from St. Patricks Academy. They had finally found me.

Then as I rounded a corner onto the street where my car was parked one of them stepped out from no-where cutting of my escape route. I immediately jumped into battle mode; no considering that I was outnumbered and out classed. I lunged for the one blocking my escape route with what I thought were lightning fast reflexes, but he was even quicker and blocked my attack with a wave of his hand. Then I realized that the ground was rushing towards me as I fell, so I did the only thing I could think of and twisted in such as way so that when I hit the floor I would land on my side. Even so it was still going to hurt, a lot.

Only it didn't. With the same lighting quick reflexes that he had used to block my attack he reached out and grabbed me to stop me hitting the floor. As he lifted me up he didn't release me when I had regained my balance. He held onto me until the other Death Dealers caught up to us, despite my fumbled attempt of trying to free my-self. When the others reached us he released me and handed me over to one of the Death dealers in the group that had been chasing me. Once I was facing him he spoke. "Jordan Noble, we have been sent to escort you back to St. Patricks Academy."

By the time we reached the airport and boarded a private jet the sun had begun to come up. Once on the plane I was seated in between two Death Dealer, one of whom was the one who had captured me. Now the sun was coming up and I could now see that they all had a wrist band with the schools crest on it. This meant that they were all Death Dealers of St. Patricks Academy. However I still didn't recognise any of them.

We all sat in silence during the flight which was fine by me because it gave me time to try and think of another escape plan, even thought in the back of my mind was a voice reminding me that it was useless. These were fully trained Death Dealers, no a novice death dealer who hadn't finished her training like me. Still I had to give it a try.

So I gathered all the evidence I could and tried to come up with an escape plan. Well they were apparently taking me back to St Patricks in Canada and since I didn't really like the idea of plunging to my death by jumping out the plane I began to make an escape plan for when we landed.

My train of thought was interrupted when the Death Dealer who I thought was the leader in this operation came up to me. I now recognised him as being the one who had captured me in Los Angles. "Hello Jordan my name is Tomas. I have just come to as you a few questions I have". He spoke with a slight English accent. "First of all were you really going to try and take on all of us?" "Yes I was." I replied stonily.

Tomas then wrote something down on a notebook he was carrying before carrying on with his questions. When he finally looked back at me he had a slight look of astonishment. I think it was because he had probably never talked to a novice who was willing to try and take on seven Death Dealers. "Ok and where is the girl who left with you, Ingrid Mathews?" He looked at me levelly. That question I refused to answer. So I instead just looked away from his questioning face. When he realised I wasn't going to answer he returned to his seat, leaving me to my own thoughts.

Instead of returning to planning an escape I found my thoughts retuning to last year when I had run away from school. It had been three weeks after my 17th birthday. I had been returning to my dorm room after attending a party held by one of my best friends, Ingrid. She was a Loru like me, a half human half Dango, and we had been best friends since 1st grade. Both of us had been trouble makers and we always ended up in the same detention class. Ingrid had managed to get her hands on some hard liquor and she had held a secret party for her and her friends. On the way back to my dorm I got lost. When I finally found my way back to my dorm, after nearly getting caught by one of the schools Death Dealers, I found Ingrid leaning against my door. However what really shocked me out of my drunken state was that she was covered in blood and crying. After getting her into my room and cleaned I asked her what had happen. She told me that she had killed her roommate, poppy, by accident while the two of them were play fighting after the party. Both had been high on drugs as well as drunk and Ingrid being the stronger of the two had accidently snapped poppies neck while she was in a head lock. As expected I didn't believe her, but when the Death Dealers found the body the next day I came up with the plan of her running away from the school. However in the end she didn't want to go alone so I ended up going with her. Ingrid was killed four months after we left by a Torpio, and I had been on my own ever since.

The sound of the plane landing woke me up from my memory. The Death Dealers shot up out of their seats as soon as we touched down and made a circle around me preventing any escape. As we left the plane I began to put my escape plan into action, striking out with a back kick that managed to catch the Death Dealer behind me off guard. She grunted at the impact alerting the others to a fight. As they began to restrain me again I suddenly stopped fighting. The Academy loomed in front of me. No, this wasn't right the airport was at least 7 miles away from the school but here I was already inside the school gates. Apparently while I had been away the school had had a mini airport build within the school grounds. Well there went any chances of escape. The only way we had managed to run away from the school in the first place was because there had been a party the night we left and we had hidden in the truck of one of the cars that had left the school property. And it was impossible to try and climb the gates because they were over three storied high. The gates were completely unnecessary thought since the school is protected by shields. Shields are made up of the combination of the four elements by the witches at our school; the shields cover the school in a sort of dome shape and since magic is life and Torpios are dead Torpios can't cross a shield.

As we walked towards the school I ran up to the Death Dealer in front of me, who happened to be Tomas. Since he was the only one who had talked to me during the entire trip I figured that if I had any chance of getting any information then he seemed like the one most likely to talk. The other Death Dealers flinched but apparently thought that if I was going to 'try' anything then Tomas could handle it. "Hey. Tomas isn't it? Are you going to take me to the principle?" I said. Tomas turned his head but didn't stop walking as the spoke to me. "Oh so you want to take now do you. Well yes of course we're taking you to the principle, in fact your luck we're not taking you to the Royal Court since you help smuggle a suspect out of the school during the investigation of the murder of Poppy Harrington."

I shut up then since I noticed that they were in fact taking me to the principle office but they were taking me through the food court. There had to be at least seven different ways to get to the principal's office and they were taking me the way that would expose me to the most people. It was 7:15 am according to the clock in the food court which meant that it was breakfast time for the students at St. Patricks. In the food court they severed normal food for the witches and Lorus at the school, but for the Dangos there was a piece sectioned off for donors, humans that willingly agree to be a continues blood source for the Dangos at the school. There were little cubicle that had one donor in each and in front of the cubicles behind a desk stood an elderly Dangos women signing students in and out of the donor areas as they got their breakfast feeding.

As I was lead through the food court with all seven of the Death Dealers I can honestly say that every set of eyes in the room turned towards us. I refused to look embarrassed and walked with my head held high. I also looked around trying to see how the power in the school had shifted. Ingrid and I had once ruled the all Loru in the school while Cassidy and Jasmine rule the witches in the school, then finally Jason and Aaron ruled the Dangos in the school. Now it seemed that the witches and the Dangos still had the same leaders, but there were two new people where Ingrid and I had once been. One of them I recognised as one of Ingrid's ex-boyfriends Tony, but the other boy I couldn't remember the name of. All I could remember about him was that I broke his nose back in 7th grade for calling Ingrid a slut.

We finally made it through the food court and then we only passed a few students, all of who stopped and stared as we passed by. Then we enter the administration office, this was where the principal's office was located. As we passed a middle-aged Dango women at a desk one of the Death Dealers to her to sent a message to the principle informing her that I had been located and returned.

Once we reached the principal's office rather than knock on the door and wait for him to call us in like we had to do when we got sent here, the Death Dealers just walked straight in. Principle Collins was in his chair reading a book. Tomas indicated for me to sit down in the chair opposite the principle. All the Death Dealers except Tomas then left without a word to me or the principle.

As soon as the doors closed the principle heard the doors close he set down his book and looked me square in the eyes before saying a word. His first words to me were shouted.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?" He shouted.