Dark Heritage Trilogy

by Hoffman, Samantha

  Ever.

  I woke screaming, and I searched the pitch black confines of my room for whatever ghoulish creature was attacking me. My sheets were soaked through with sweat, and my clothes clung immodestly to me, but I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to calm my racing heart and my pounding head. For long minutes after waking, is at in the dark, gasping for air.

  When my heart had stopped racing, I lay back against the soaked bed, and thought about the nightmare that was quickly dissolving into the back of my mind. Is that what will happen to me if I get my powers under control? Is that what I’m capable of? Could I be a threat and a danger to the Council and all the other supernaturals out there?

  I should tell someone about this dream…

  I couldn’t though. If I did, there was a very real chance that I could end up locked away for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t do that. I’d be stuck here forever, treated like a guinea pig and feared like a freak of nature. I could only imagine the looks, the rumors, and the disgust that would be evident on people’s faces. I understood the need for me to stay here long enough to master my powers, but I didn’t want to stay longer than I had to.

  I tossed and turned until morning, just thinking about the nightmare and what it could possibly mean. Lisa Valentine mentioned that witches could sometimes see the future. Is that a glimpse of my future? How can I prevent something like that from happening? I won’t let myself be a threat to everyone!

  There was a knock on the door, and it opened slowly. Light flooded in from the hallway, and Tanya poked her head inside. “Hey. How are you feeling today? Are you up for some breakfast?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. Thoughts of the nightmare swirled around my head, making me feel both nervous and afraid of myself. I should have forced myself to stay away from Tanya and anyone else that has shown me kindness, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Tanya was the only person that had really been nice to me, and even though I’d only known her for not even three whole days, I couldn’t let her go.

  She understood me and what I was going through, and she was helping me get used to the idea of being part of this community. She might very well be the only friend I had until I got the ok to leave the compound, and I knew I wouldn’t make it without her. She stepped into the room and frowned. “Are you alright? You look like crap.”

  Moaning, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the edge of my bed. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Plus, I had a…gruesome nightmare.” It was better to just be honest with her and tell her everything about it. “I raised an army of dead people and was planning on using them to take over the world. It freaked me out a little bit.”

  She sighed. “Ronnie, I’m not really that surprised. You accidentally raised quite a few animals yesterday, and it freaked you out, but you didn’t do it on purpose, and you wouldn’t do something like that on purpose. Plus, you’re not a witch, you’re a necromancer. Only those that possess magic like witches, sorcerers, or fairies can see the future. It was just a nightmare; everyone gets them from time to time.”

  “Really? You mean it won’t actually happen? I won’t enslave anyone and try to take over the world?”

  She perched on the edge of my bed and forced me to look at her. “Ronnie, I consider myself to be an excellent judge of character. If there was even a bit of evil in you, I would have noticed it. I haven’t even known you a week and even I can tell that. The Council is made up of wise, powerful supernatural beings, and they’ll see the same thing I do. You’re not a monster, Ronnie, and you won’t become one.”

  I heard what she was saying, and it didn’t make me feel any better about myself. Just thinking about it sent shivers up my spine, and I knew that it would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. It wasn’t every night that you dream about creating an army of undead salves to destroy the world and rule what little was left…

  Tanya put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast. Maybe that’ll start to cheer you up. Ezra will be there. I’m sure he’ll listen to you if you feel like talking. He’s good like that.” She immediately began to blush, and I raised an eyebrow. “Um–”

  “Do you like him?” I asked, surprised.

  “No!” she said quickly, looking away from me. “I don’t, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Fairies and demons, even half demons, aren’t allowed to be together anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, a long time ago, demons used to prey almost exclusively on fairies. They would rape, torture, and feed on them.” She saw my horrified look and hurriedly continued. “That was a long time ago, and it doesn’t happen a lot anymore, but fairies are never supposed to trust a demon or their offspring. If there was something between me and Ezra–and I’m not saying there is–we could never be together.”

  “There shouldn’t be stipulations on who you can and can’t love,” I said. “That’s not fair, and it’s not right. Ezra seems like a nice guy, and you seem like a really nice girl. You should be able to love whoever you want. I know if I loved someone, I would never let anyone tell me I couldn’t be with them.”

  “Have you ever been in love?” Tanya asked with a smile.

  “No, I haven’t,” I admitted. “I will someday though. Until then, I guess I’ll have to be content to just train and hope for the best. Of course, growing up, I never once thought I would have a fairy, a sorcerer, or a werewolf for a potential husband. I thought he’d be an accountant or an insurance broker.”

  Tanya laughed and I joined in. This moment right here was the lightest my mood had been in the last couple of days and I wanted to hold onto this moment for as long as I possibly could. I knew that the rest of my life probably wouldn’t be this happy and carefree, and this might be the last time for a while that I could actually laugh with someone.

  Finn walked toward us with a blank expression on his face. “Annette sent me to find you,” he said, obviously unhappy at the thought of being a messenger. “You’re to report to her in the freezer room. By order of the Council,” he added. “You can’t refuse them.”

  Tanya sighed. “I’ll take you to the freezer room.”

  “Call it what it is!” I snapped. “It’s a morgue full of dead animals that they want me to resurrect.”

  Tanya flinched and Finn looked away. “Alright, I’ll take you to the morgue.”

  Tanya led me through the halls, which I was unfortunately beginning to recognize, and she stopped me at the morgue. The door was freezing cold and every fiber of my being wanted me to turn around and run away, screaming if I have to.

  Tanya patted me sympathetically on the back. “I’ll be waiting for you in the cafeteria. It’ll probably be time for lunch before you’re done. I don’t know if you’ll be able to eat, but…” She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Good luck in there, Ronnie.”

  Annie was waiting impatiently for me, and I entered the morgue slowly. She looked up at me and frowned. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

  “The Council ordered me to be here. If they hadn’t, I would never have set foot in this room again.”

  “I understand. Yesterday freaked you out and I’m sure you’re in no mood to repeat the experience. I’m afraid you’ll have to, though. The Council needs me to assess your strength, so they can accurately determine how much of a threat you are. I’m afraid that no matter what happens in this room today, you won’t be able to just run away and hide. You’ll have to work through whatever may scare you, and just get this testing done.”

  I took a seat on the stool across from her and folded my hands in my lap. “I’m ready for this. Bring it on.” I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I sounded, but I did just want to get it over with. The sooner we moved on from testing, the sooner I could become normal again.

  “Very well.” Annie sat a dove on the table between us, and I noticed that it looked like the same one as yesterday. “Raise the dove. Do it the same way as you did before, just try not to raise the others this
time as well. I want you to tighten your focus on just this one spirit. Cancel all others from your mind.”

  I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. When I was calm and collected, I searched inside myself for the ball of energy that was the source of my “power”. It pulsed and grew in response to my call, and I could feel the power spreading through my entire body, from my eyes to my toes and fingertips.”

  My energy wasn’t the only thing in the room though. In my mind, I could see Annie’s ball of energy–smaller and less bright than mine–and it was pulsing and sparkling just like mine did. Why is mine brighter than hers? Is it because of what my mother did?

  When I opened my eyes, I began calling to the dove’s spirit. I focused on that one spirit, trying to ignore the other ones in the room, even though they were all calling out to me, begging me to release them. They clouded my senses, making it hard for me to concentrate, and I could feel my focus slipping.

  “Pay attention to what you’re doing! You don’t wanna raise the entire room again, do you?”

  That broke what little control I had, and I could feel the spirits explode angrily around me, swirling around the room, clamoring to be released. I tried to get them back under control, but they escaped, flooding back into the nearby waiting corpses. The dove on the table flapped its wings, before launching itself at me, shrieking and attacking me with its claws and beak.

  I screamed and tried to shield myself with my hands as the dove went for my eyes. Annie leapt up and her hands closed expertly around the dove, and in just seconds, the bird went still. The pounding from the freezers stopped, and I knew that she’d released all of the trapped souls in the room.

  When I was brave enough to look at her, I saw the look of fear and helplessness in her eyes. She thinks I’m dangerous, and she doesn’t know how to help me…Without being dismissed, I got up and ran from the morgue, fighting tears the whole back to my room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tanya found me later, with my head buried in my pillow, sobbing hysterically. She sat on the edge of my bed and patted me on the back. “Ronnie, I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time with this. I can’t even begin to imagine what you must be going through. When I first started to learn how to use my powers, I accidentally set fire to the building I was in, but my teacher was there and was able to put it out, and nobody got hurt. Your teacher is there to do the same thing for you. We’re all beginners at one point in time, even the Council leaders. You have to remember that. It’ll get better with time, trust me.”

  I raised my head just enough to look at her. “Can you raise an army of the undead?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then your advice doesn’t really do much for me, does it? Yeah, you set fire to a building, but I can force poor souls back into their rotting corpses, Tanya. I’m a monster, and I can do terrible things without even trying. All I had to do was raise one little dove, and instead I brought back the entire morgue again. I just lost my concentration for one second, and all hell broke loose. I’m hopeless!”

  “It was your second lesson, Ronnie. Give it some time.”

  Sighing, I rolled over to look at her worried face. “Has the Council said anything about my slipups yet? Am I doomed to stay here forever, locked away like an uncontrollable beast, never being allowed to live my own life?”

  She shook her head. “The Council won’t keep you here forever, because you’ll get this. Now, come have lunch with me, Holly, and Ezra. Holly’s promised to be on her best behavior this time, so there won’t be any talk about eating people.”

  That startled a laugh out of me, and she smiled. “Wow. You know, last week, I never would have thought I’d hear something like that. This place is just so weird sometimes. Well, all the time,” I said, thinking about all the things that had happened in the last couple of days.

  Tanya forced me down to the cafeteria, where Holly, Ezra, and Finn were sitting at the table, already eating. Finn eyed me with distrust when I sat down across from him, but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t stop eating. Holly just slurped away at her bottle of blood, and Ezra offered me a smile.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked when I sat down.

  I forced myself to shrug nonchalantly. “I’m alright. It was only my second lesson, like Tanya said. I’ll get better with time. Until then, I’ll just have to be careful to only use my powers when Annie’s around to reverse whatever it is I’m doing wrong. Hopefully I can tame my powers and get out of here soon, because I don’t know how much of this place I can take.”

  “Ronnie, don’t worry about it too much,” Ezra said. “This place really isn’t all that bad. We were all forced to stay here at one point in time or another. I’ve only been here for about two months, and at first, I couldn’t stand this place, but now I can’t imagine leaving.” His gaze shifted briefly to Tanya’s face, before darting down to his plate of food.

  Tanya looked down to hide her blush, and I smiled to myself. Even if I couldn’t get the hang of my powers, I could at least enjoy the time spent with Tanya and Ezra. They seemed like nice people, and when they spoke or smiled at me, I could almost forget that they weren’t normal people, and neither was I. they were supernatural beings, just like me.

  I was just about done with my lunch when the alarms started blaring from the speakers in the walls. Everyone in the room tensed, unsure of what was going on, until a nearby door burst open. Eight masked figures tumbled into the room, almost like ninjas, each brandishing long, dangerous knives, and their eyes locked onto our table.

  They darted forward, intent on reaching us. Ezra threw himself at Tanya, shielding her with his body as a masked man attacked, and Finn and Holly took angry stances. When the next masked man reached our table, Finn rushed forward and slammed into him, sending him flying back at least thirty feet! The masked man hit the wall with a loud crack, before slumping to the floor.

  I could crush someone’s windpipe without breaking a sweat…That was what Finn said to me the night he snuck into my room again, and I kind of doubted him, but it looked like I was wrong. He was a beast, and he wasn’t afraid to show it.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and a masked man spun me around. “I’ve got her!” he shouted. His hand creeped up to my throat and he began to squeeze. I kicked and hit and scratched, but his hold was unwavering, and I couldn’t dislodge him. Trying to free myself was like trying to move a building: impossible. He didn’t even budge, and I could feel my vision begin to fade around the edges as he slowly choked the life from me.

  Finn wrapped a heavily muscled arm around the stranger’s throat, and he ripped the man away from me. Air flooded into my burning lungs, and I slumped to the floor, gasping as my vision began to return. When I looked up, I saw Finn boxing with the masked stranger, and it quickly became obvious that the stranger was losing. When Finn hit him squarely in the jaw, I heard a loud crack, and the man spun away from him, collapsing to the ground in an unmoving heap.

  Finn leapt over him, intent on finding the next person to fight, and his eyes landed on the closest masked man, who was trying to cut a girl with a long knife. Finn jumped and kicked. His foot connected solidly with the masked man’s back, and it snapped as he pitched forward, sliding along the floor on his stomach. The knife flew from his hand, having been mere inches from the girl’s throat.

  She was sobbing, and she tried to hug Finn, but he pushed her away, searching for his next victim. A hand wrapped around my waist, dragging me kicking and screaming to my feet, and another masked man dragged me away from the table. The blade of his knife pressed against my throat and he hissed in my ear, “Don’t move bitch, or I’ll bleed you dry!”

  A small whimper escaped my locked lips, and the blade slid softly across part of my neck. A thin trickle of blood dripped down into my shirt, and I tried to slow my breathing and calm down. I wasn’t going to get out of this by acting like a hysterical fool; I’d survive by doing what he said, when he said it.

  He dragged me s
lowly toward the nearest door, and I when I saw his two remaining masked fighters waiting, I began to panic again. I had a feeling deep in my gut that if I went with them, I’d die, or I’d wish I was dead, and I couldn’t let either of those things happen. So I brought my foot down hard on his, crunching the bone in his left foot under my boot, and he cured, but loosened his hold enough so I could slip out.

  He reached for me, grabbing a fistful of my short hair, and he yanked me back. Yelping, I brought my elbow back, driving the point directly into his hard stomach. He bent over, coughing and gasping for air, and Finn yanked me roughly behind him. He took a protective, dangerous stance in front of me, staring down the remaining masked fighters.

  The alarms were still blaring, but Finn didn’t seem to notice. He bent down into a defensive crouch, and he growled from deep in his chest. I was glad that he was there to protect me, not fight me, because with his savage qualities, Finn could be truly savage to anyone. Right now, he was baring his sharp canines in a menacing way, and I almost felt sorry for the man that held the knife to my throat just seconds ago.

  Raised voices reached my ears, and I looked over my shoulder just as several other very large men entered the room. They immediately saw Finn staring down the masked men, and they rushed over to our side. Their eyes all burned the same way as Finn’s–though they were different colors–and they took up defensive stances next to him. Now that the masked men were outnumbered, they quickly retreated. The one that threatened me with the knife limped on his broken foot and he spared me one last cold look.

  All of the large men in the room rushed after them, but Finn stayed behind while the rest of the cafeteria began to breathe again. I looked over at the table I was calmly eating at moments ago, and saw Ezra comforting a shaken Tanya. His hands were rubbing her arms gently, and he was peering into her eyes, checking to make sure she was alright. She nodded several times before she seemed to realize that she wasn’t allowed to be in such an intimate position with him, and she backed away.