Storm Witch

by D. N. Hoxa

  It was no surprise when Melinda stood up to her feet again with the help of the Pencil Skirt girls. She had a nasty bruise on the right side of her face, and blood trailed down her nose, and into her lips, painting them red. Her blue eyes had turned dark, and when she looked at me, the hatred in them revived mine. She didn’t care about the pain she put me through. She didn’t give a shit about my screaming or begging. Instead, she pushed the girls off her, and spit blood on the floor in front of my bed.

  “That’s it,” she said angrily. “I’m cutting her into fucking pieces!” I couldn’t tell you at which point this became so personal for her, nor what I’d done to make her feel this way about me.

  Fuck it, I thought to myself and smiled just to spite her. She was going to have her way with me anyway. Why fight it?

  “What…what are you doing?” A shaky voice came from the left. It was Fallon. She’d woken up.

  “Fallon, no,” I whispered, terrified that she could see my hand, or what was going to happen next.

  “Get away from her!” she shouted when she saw them gathered around my bed. “You monsters! Get away from her!”

  “Fallon, please!” The last thing I wanted was for Melinda to hate her the way she hated me. I was pretty sure she would find ways to make Fallon suffer if that happened.

  But Melinda didn’t even look at Fallon, who kept shouting for them to get away. She leaned down to get something from her bag, and when she came back up, she was holding a katana in her hands. The sword was long, the blade square, so sharp the edge of it shone under the blue light. It was going to cut through my flesh and bone like it had never even been there. But at least the job would be done with one strike.

  “Where the fuck is the medical team?!” she shouted at nobody in particular, and everybody watched the door. Hadn’t Eddie gone to get them? I hoped he didn’t find them. I hoped I died of blood loss. That way, my miserable life could at least have a happy ending.

  Lucky for me, Melinda didn’t wait for anyone. She nodded at the Pencil Skirts and they quickly took their place by my bed again. They chanted in a whisper, putting the spell stones from my arms onto the bed—a sure way to say that they hadn’t worked. Whatever they were supposed to do, they’d failed, and now, their help wasn’t needed. The girls also untied the leather belts around my arm and shoulder, but their magic held me even tighter. Melinda positioned herself in between the girls, her katana ready. She touched the blade to my forearm, right where the dragon tail ended, taking note on where to cut me. I wanted to turn my head the other way, I really did, but something wouldn’t let me. Something insisted that I needed to watch. That I needed to remember. So my eyes were on her when she raised both her arms, her fingers wrapped tightly around the leather handle of the katana, and she exhaled loudly.

  Then, she—

  “Do you hear that?”

  Melinda froze, and the Pencil Skirts stopped chanting. Even Fallon stopped shouting.

  “What?” she spit at Cain.

  “The noise,” he said, and took a step toward the door, his index raised to tell us to keep quiet. “It’s…it’s…”

  It was screams.

  We all heard them now. Adams strode to the door, swinging it open with all his strength. It slammed against the wall, the sound drowning the screams for a second, and he stepped out into the hallway.

  Laughter bubbled from my throat. I couldn’t believe my own ears! He’d come back. The green-eyed man had come back for me. My kiss hadn’t been wasted.

  I sounded like a lunatic, but nobody cared. Everyone was looking at Adams, who stepped back inside the room in a hurry, and shut the door. But that door wasn’t going to hold the green-eyed man back. He could walk through fucking walls! And mirrors, too. With my heart in my throat, and enough excitement to drown the whole world, I waited for the second he’d appear in front of me. For the second he’d laugh at me for thinking he’d tricked me, and then he’d finally set me free. It was so close, I could taste it.

  “It’s…it’s…” Adams stuttered, unable to say anything else, shaking with fear.

  And the door finally opened.

  The view in front of me knocked my breath away. It wasn’t the green-eyed man standing in the doorway.

  It was a demon.

  To my horror, I recognized him. The wide-set eyes and his square face weren’t something you just forgot. I’d met him in the construction site the first time, and then again when they’d kidnapped us and took us to that abandoned hospital. He stepped inside like he owned the goddamn place, and five others were right behind him. My blood was frozen, no longer coursing in my veins. My brain struggled to come to terms with this ending, one that was not going to be happy at all. The only thing worse than being an ECU prisoner was being a demon prisoner.

  Adams stepped forward, together with Cain, and they began to chant at the top of their voices, their arms outstretched toward the demons. But their spells didn’t affect them, not like Elisa’s had. The Pencil Skirts joined in, and Melinda charged forward with her katana in hand. The screams coming from outside grew louder. Trying to move was useless. The cuffs hadn’t disappeared. All I could do was watch the demons easily knock Adams and Cain out by throwing them all the way to the other side of the room with a simple fist to their chests. The Pencil Skirts and Melinda were a different story. They didn’t use their magic. They used weapons and their bodies to fight, and demon blood spilled all over the room. My heart almost stopped beating every time Melinda’s katana or the girls’ daggers came close to cutting a demon’s neck, but they always ducked at the last second. They moved so fast, it was hard to keep up. Where the hell was the backup? Why weren’t soldiers swarming this place already? And why didn’t anybody have a fucking gun?

  The others had woken up, too. The screams were loud, the sound of the fighting going on in front of us louder. But nobody said a single word as we looked at each other, knowing with certainty what was coming. Those demons were here for us, and they weren’t going to stop until they got us.

  I tried to tell them how sorry I was with my eyes. They’d believed in me and I’d failed them. Just like I’d failed my father, my mother, myself, and even the green-eyed man. I hadn’t been strong enough to find a way out, and now, the demons had gotten rid of the Pencil Skirt girls. Only Melinda was left standing. Fire burned in her eyes, but there were six demons against her. In eight seconds, one grabbed her wrist, and another her hair, and slammed her head against the mirror three times. She slid to the floor, motionless, and didn’t get up again.

  Now, it was just us and them.

  The demon I recognized stepped closer to my bed, a bright smile on his blood splattered face. He looked at me, analyzed my body, and took in a deep breath.

  “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

  I must have died and gone to hell, because he spoke. The demon spoke.

  Which was ridiculous, because they didn’t speak. They didn’t make a single sound, in fact, not even when they were hurt. They just stared and smiled, and they sucked my magic, but they never spoke.

  “Your magic,” he whispered, then raised his head toward the ceiling. “It’s so special. So strong and easy to follow. My favorite.”

  My God. Not only did he speak, but now, he was telling me that I brought him there.

  “And he is my favorite.” The demon standing in front of Luca’s bed spoke, too. He smiled while he searched Luca’s face, licking his lips as if he was preparing to eat him raw.

  Fallon, Ax and Grover shouted curse words at them, but Luca and I didn’t bother. We already knew that no matter what we did, they were going to suck our magic, and they were going to take our limp bodies to wherever they pleased. This time, there would be no Elisa to come to our rescue. This time, we’d be all alone.

  They’d grown smarter, the demons, and I suspected it had something to do with the amount of magic they’d sucked from us. And now that we were practically theirs, nobody was going to stop them.

&nb
sp; The demon stepped closer to me, while the one in front of Luca’s bed began to feed off his magic. Mine leaned his head close to my face and sniffed deeply, as if my smell alone enriched his soul. I knew it was useless, but my right hand was free and my instincts refused to back down. I swung my arm with all my strength, but the other cuffs still around me pushed me back against the bed. The demon was too far away. Closing his eyes, he relaxed his shoulders, and he began. At first, I thought that whatever didn’t let me use my magic was going to stop him from sucking it, too. But I was wrong. My magic slipped through my veins in a rush at his call, and it left my skin in waves, as if it had never been locked inside me in the first place. The demon’s chest rose and fell steadily as my magic swirled around him, then became one with him. It was too painful to watch him, or the other demons sucking out the others, so I closed my eyes. If that made me a coward, so be it.

  I was at my rope’s end here, with no way out and no hope. “Take it,” I whispered to the demon. If he wanted my magic so badly, he could have it. “Take it all.”

  I opened myself to him for the first time, willingly pushing my magic his way. I didn’t want it anymore. I wasn’t sure if I ever did. But without it, I would be no more. If the demon took all of my magic away, it would kill me. Even knowing that, and welcoming it, I still wished I had a sword, one long enough to reach him with a swing of my arm, just so I could hurt him one last time. The energy spilled from my pores in a hurry as if it had waited a lifetime to be set free. My mind slowly slipped away from me. The bed, the room, the demon, were all gone, and I floated in the darkness. At least there was no pain now. The demon filled himself with my magic, until what had always felt like an inexhaustible source began to fade. My ears no longer heard the screams, if there were any left, and I preferred it that way.

  Then, something disrupted the peace I’d found. My magic, which had left my skin at an incredible speed, now stopped moving, and what was left of it crashed onto me, waking me up all the way. There was light behind my closed lids. Bright, blue light, right in front of my face. At first, I thought that this was what death felt like, that it was the light at the end of the tunnel. But…

  “Scarlet?” Ax whispered, and I knew I was still alive. So I opened my eyes.

  The demon was still there, standing to the left side of my bed, looking at my hand. At my right hand. I looked at it, too, but the image didn’t click. It was like a puzzle, with a lot of its pieces still missing. It made no sense that there was a sword in my hand, the longest one I’d ever seen. It made no sense that its blade was made of light, either. That it was made of lightning.

  I must have blinked a thousand times, expecting it to disappear, but it never did. Then it occurred to me: what had I wished for just a few seconds ago?

  For a sword, long enough to hurt the demon one last time.

  Could it be that somebody had actually heard my prayers? My muscles screamed in response. They begged me to just move. If this was an answer to my prayers, it was only fair that I honored it by doing what I said I’d do. The cuffs around me weren’t going to let me move as much as I wanted to, but the sword was really long for that reason, wasn’t it?

  Only one way to find out.

  I swung my arm while half my mind laughed at me. It was still worth a try. Everything moved in slow motion. The light of the sword shone in the demon’s dark, cat eyes, growing bigger and bigger the closer it came to him, until the light touched him in the neck. Or stabbed him?

  “Suck it, asshole,” I muttered with my last breath, hoping to see some blood before he killed me. Hopefully, that wasn’t too much to ask, but my ego needed stroking now more than ever.

  Instead, I saw something much worse.

  My muscles ached and my arm fell on my stomach, taking the light sword with. The demon was still frozen in place, so it was easy to see the hole in his neck. The hole that burned his skin with a flameless fire, and spread to his torso in mere seconds. His clothes turned to ash, falling to the floor, while his skin turned black, and every inch of him burned like charcoal. He never moved a single muscle. I didn’t think he could. It spread up his neck, too, to his face and around his head, and his eyes simply disappeared, leaving two black holes behind.

  In less than a minute, I was no longer looking at a demon. I was looking at a human-shaped charcoal, still burning orange in some places, without flames.

  I looked at the sword again, and followed it to my hand. My fingers were wrapped around the handle, from which lightning strikes shot up to the tip of the sword, then came back again with a rush. And the dragon…it was gone.

  Two figures appeared in front of my bed, breaking my focus. The demons looked at me and at the sword, and they growled before they jumped up in the air. They both landed on the bed, right on top of me. One of them stepped on my stomach, chasing the air from my lungs, and both of them reached for the sword with both their hands, its light shining in their eyes.

  Terrified that they’d take it from me, I swung my arm as fast as I could. It wasn’t much, and they both moved away easily, but then, they reached for the sword at the same time. As soon as they touched it, I moved my arm up with all the strength I had left. Some fingers were cut off in the process, falling all over my body, and both demons froze in place, watching their hands where the sword had touched them.

  Just like their friend, they now had begun to burn. Their skin darkened, the fire spreading up their arms even faster. Their clothes turned to ash and swirled in the air before settling on the floor, by which time both the bodies on top of me were nothing but black charcoal figures. A scream left my lips and my whole body jolted, trying to get them away from me. At the movement, they both crashed into black dust, and fell all over me and to the floor.

  “What…what…” What question could I even ask? How could they just freeze, turn black and burn without fire? What the hell was that thing in my hand?

  Three more demons were in the room, looking at me and at the sword, uncertain of how to proceed. Did they want to come after me and end up as dust on the floor? Because I hadn’t imagined any of it, or lost my damn mind. They had seen the same things, too.

  In the end, they didn’t want the same fate. Fear was written in their faces, something I was witnessing for the first time, and before I could move a single muscle, they turned to the door and ran out, lightning fast. Breathing heavily, I stared after them, expecting them to come back with a gun or something. Or with more demons. How much more could I fight before passing out?

  “Scarlet,” Luca whispered, barely keeping his eyes open. “The cuffs.”

  The cuffs? Yes, the cuffs were still around me. And the sword was still in my hand, and the screaming in the hallway had stopped. Silence reigned in the room, and everyone who was conscious looked at me as I gathered enough courage to touch the sword to my cuffs, scared out of my mind. If it had done that to the demons, what could it do to me?

  But others would be on their way. The ECU backup was only thirteen minutes away, wasn’t it? I had no time to analyze, so taking in a deep breath, I aimed for the cuff around my left hand, and brought the sword down to it.

  The steel melted, making a hissing sound. Terrified, I pulled my arm up, waiting to see my own skin turning black. But it didn’t. The cuff was cut into two, and my skin looked perfectly intact. My hand was free. Being happy, or even hopeful about it would mean jinxing this good luck, so instead, I got to work and didn’t stop until all the cuffs around me were cut in half.

  Finally, I was free.

  My legs were wobbly, my whole body still numb from having stayed in the same position for so long, but I fell against Luca’s bed and I worked on his cuffs like my life depended on it. Then, Grover was free. And Fallon. And Ax.

  He ran to the door and looked outside, barely standing on his feet. All those demons had managed to feed off everyone for a few seconds, and it hadn’t been enough to knock them out, but it had taken most of their strength away. No need for worry, though. Past experien
ce had shown me that we’d all be as good as new in a matter of hours.

  “Nobody’s there,” Ax said, turning back to the room.

  The floor was full of bodies. They were all motionless, bloody, their eyes closed, except for Cain. He was sitting at the end of the room, next to an unconscious Adams, holding his hand to his heart, breathing heavily as he watched us.

  “Help me,” Luca said, going for Melinda’s body. I had no idea if any of them were alive or not, but I doubted we’d be able to do much without healing spells.

  “Stop,” Cain said, his face glistening with sweat. We all froze in place and watched him. I expected him to tell us to stand back, that we were still their prisoners, but he surprised me. “Leave them.” I almost asked him to repeat himself, but Luca didn’t give me the chance.

  “They need help.” He waved at the bodies, but I couldn’t focus on anything but than the sword in my hand. It was fascinating how fast the strikes moved from the handle, to the tip, and back again. When I brought it close to my face to inspect it, it gave off waves of heat and it smelled like burned hair. From so close, I could hear it, too. It buzzed like electricity, like a broken light sign.

  “You need to leave,” Cain said in a whisper. “If he wakes up and finds you here…” His voice trailed off for a second and he turned to look at Adams’ body. “He’ll never let you leave. He’s going to kill you.”

  And he wasn’t?

  “These people are hurt. If they don’t get help soon—” Luca tried again, but Cain stopped him with a shake of his head.