He opened his mouth to respond to Kody and couldn’t. Again, he had that frightening surreal feeling as everything in the hallway slowed down to a crawl.
Suddenly, he heard the strange eerie drumming of hooves rushing toward him. The sound of a horse screeching. It drowned out all other high school noises. Against his will, Nick turned in the hallway to see a rider in white billowing robes racing down the north hall on the back of a black horse as it passed through students and faculty. Snorting fire, the horse had blood-red eyes, searing with their hatred.
The rider held a set of old-fashioned scales in its hands. “Ambrose!” The voice was neither male nor female. It was strictly demonic and cold. Terrifying. Without pausing, it came straight at him in a dead run.
Unable to move, Nick was frozen as horse and rider tore through him and left him completely breathless and cold.
“Nick!”
Blinking at Kody, he shook his head to clear his vision as the main doors were blown open by the rider only he could see. Not even Kody or Caleb had detected it. They stared at him with duplicate frowns as teachers rushed to close the doors they thought the wind had caught.
How was that possible? They always saw things like that when he did. Usually before he did.
He opened his mouth to answer Kody at the same time the bell rang. What the…?
Nick blinked as he glanced around at everyone in the hallway. They were now all scrambling to get to their rooms. He’d had fifteen minutes until class a heartbeat ago.
Hadn’t he?
He glanced to the hall clock that confirmed it was time for school to start. That can’t be right.
“Gautier?” Caleb barked from the door of their homeroom. How had he gotten there so fast? Surely he hadn’t teleported in front of the humans. “You shooting for another tardy?”
A big negatory on that. He spent enough of his teenhood in this building. Last thing he wanted was to donate any additional time to it, especially when he didn’t have to. Shrugging off his delusions that he attributed to some kind of weird Nintendo-induced flashback, Nick headed into the room where Nekoda, Brynna, and Caleb were taking their seats.
Still, something seemed off. Like he was walking through heavy, thick foam… He leaned over to whisper to Nekoda. “I’m where I’m supposed to be, right?”
Her scowl matched his. “Are you my Nick?”
God, he hoped so. Why else would he be dressed in this fugly orange trout Hawaiian shirt? Last time he’d been in another dimension and body, he’d had a much better wardrobe. He’d also been a lot shorter than his normal, gangly, six-foot-four, bang-my-knees-into-everything stature.
He hesitated. “Are you my Kody?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she dragged the answer out. “Why are you asking?”
Nick rubbed at his neck. “Don’t know. Got a weird feeling all of a sudden.”
“It’s called detention, Mr. Gautier.” Richardson ripped off the paper with times and a room number for said punishment, and set it on the desk in front of him. “See you after school.”
Epically awesome.
Nick wasn’t sure what ticked him off more. The detention or the fact that the troll still couldn’t pronounce his name right. She always said “Gah-tee-ay” when she knew it was Cajun and pronounced “Go-shay.”
Don’t say a word.
He grimaced at Caleb’s voice in his head. Normally, he wouldn’t have listened. But for once, he was too grateful that this was typical of his luck, and decided to heed Caleb’s good advice. No need to antagonize the establishment.
Today, anyway. He just wanted the rest of the day to settle down and return to normal. No more freaky ghosts in the hall. No more unknown voices in his head.
Normal.
Please, for the love of God, let my day be normal for once…
“What?” Richardson snarled. “No smart retort, Mr. Gautier? Cat swallow your tongue?”
Nick gave her a charming grin he didn’t really feel. “No, ma’am. A gator named Sense Formerly Known as Common.”
Sneering at him, she tottered her way to her desk so that she could insult someone else and ruin their day.
Caleb let out an annoyed breath. Great, he projected to Nick. Now I have to get detention, too. I really hate you, Gautier.
Nick batted his eyelashes at Caleb. But I wubs you, Caliboo.
That succeeded in wringing a groan out of Caleb.
“What was that, Mr. Malphas?” Richardson asked.
“Severe intestinal woe caused by an external hemorrhoid that seems to be growing on my right-hand side.” He cast a meaningful glower toward Nick.
The class erupted into laughter as Richardson shot to her feet. “Enough!” She slammed her hands on her desk. “For that, Mr. Malphas, you can join Mr. Gautier in after-school detention.”