Phoenix and the Dark Star

by Gerald Pruett

  Ellen took a breath before confessing, “The-charming-the-animals trait didn’t stop with my Grandpa Alex. My dad, my Uncle Brandon and I have the trait too. So did my brothers and sister before they died. And my Uncle Brandon’s kids have the trait as well.”

  “On the day I learned about your Grandma Holly’s death I thought I had seen that trait with Brandon,” Deloris shared. “What I saw had happened so quickly though that I shrugged it off. Anyway. Let’s move on.”

  As the minutes slowly passed, Deloris showed Ellen page after page of photographs; two-thirds of the photos had stories behind them that Deloris told.

  Ellen listened intently to those stories as the others listened now and then as they talked among themselves.

  When Sonya fell asleep in April’s arms, April gently put Sonya in her playpen, and then retook her seat.

  Deloris had been showing Ellen photos and telling the story for each one for ninety minutes before the doorbell sounded.

  “I’ll find out who that is,” Allyson said while standing.

  Ellen just glanced towards the door and back at Allyson without responding.

  “Ellen, you haven’t really told us anything about you,” Joshua pointed out as Allyson walked away.

  “What do you want to know?” Ellen questioned.

  “Do you have any hobbies?” Joshua asked.

  “I like bowling, playing softball, playing board games, shooting pool, throwing darts,” Ellen began. “Um… I just bought a magic kit from the hobby shop. I want to learn that. Oh and I like to swim. I haven’t ridden a horse, but I would like to.”

  When Ellen paused to think of other hobbies, April asked, “Do you like reading?”

  “Sure,” Ellen said. “I like to read.”

  “What do you read?” April asked.

  Ellen slightly shrugged before saying, “I have no favorite genre in books or TV shows. So as long as the plot interests me, I’ll read any book or watch any show.”

  “Okay, I’m a big reader, Ellen, and I have all kinds of books at home,” April informed. “You’re welcome to come to my house some time and look through my books.”

  Ellen grinned before saying, “I might do that.”

  “So, what are your plans for the future?” Wendell asked.

  “Finish high school, go to college and then go through the police academy,” Ellen replied.

  “You want to be a cop?” Joshua quickly questioned.

  “Uh-huh,” Ellen quickly agreed while nodding.

  Before anything else could be said, everyone’s attention was drawn to the man who Allyson led into the room. The man was carrying an envelope.

  Devon stood up while saying, “Everyone, this is Galvin. I had asked him to overnight me something, and I think that he had heard to hand-deliver it.”

  “Cricket was insistent that I bring it myself, so you would have it today,” Galvin said in an Irish accent. Devon stepped up to him. “She wouldn’t tell me why though.”

  “She rarely gives an explanation,” Devon said as he was being handed the envelope.

  “Who’s Cricket?” Ellen questioned.

  “She’s my baby sister and Devon’s wife,” Galvin informed. “Although Cricket is her nickname. Her name is actually Constantia.”

  Ellen gave Galvin a thumbs-up sign while saying, “Gotcha.”

  “Did Cricket sound anxious when she sent you here?” Devon asked Galvin.

  Galvin thought for a moment before saying, “Actually, her attitude towards this was the same as when she insisted that I went on my last job interview. I didn’t even want the job and I had planned to blow off the interview, but it turned out to be the best job I ever took.”

  “Cricket’s a psychic?” Ellen asked without thinking about her current visitors. Ellen then suddenly cringed before shooting Deloris and Wendell apprehensive glances.

  Galvin read Ellen’s reaction before replying, “I wonder that myself at times.”

  Ellen looked at Galvin again with an appreciative grin.

  “I swear, Mr. O’Brien—one of the patients who had come through the hospital two nights ago—has to be a psychic,” April shared.

  Ellen gave April a curious look before asking, “You work at the hospital?”

  April grinned before saying, “I’m a surgeon—a first year resident.”

  “Cool,” Ellen couldn’t help saying.

  “Why does Mr. O’Brien have to be a psychic?” Joshua asked.

  “He had openly admired a necklace that I wore and then made a point to tell me where I can get the clasp fix when—not if, but when—it breaks,” April shared. “I didn’t think too much about it until it was yanked from my neck and breaking the clasp thirty minutes later.”

  “Why was he in the hospital?” Joshua asked.

  “Car accident,” April replied.

  “If he was a psychic, it seems that he would’ve seen the accident coming before it had happened,” Amanda pointed out.

  “Perhaps he had,” April suggested.

  “What do you mean?” Ellen and Amanda said in cadence.

  “The witnesses had told the police and the paramedics that Mr. O’Brien had acted as if he had purposely put his car in front of the car that had hit him. And the car that had hit him had failed breaks.”

  “If Mr. O’Brien is a psychic and he did purposely put his car in front of the other, then he might’ve prevented a tragedy from occurring,” Joshua concluded.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” April shared.

  Wendell looked at his watch before saying, “Okay, well, we should get going.”

  Ellen shot Wendell a fearful look before quickly asking, “Will I see you again?”

  “You will,” Wendell assured Ellen. “We’ve been in the witness protection program for thirty-two years and we had enough of it.” Galvin gave Wendell a curious look. “While going against the advice of our handler to remain in the program, we’ve opted out of the program this morning.”

  “We’re going to keep our aliases though,” Tucker added.

  “What are they?” Ellen quickly asked.

  “I’m David Robinson. Your grandpa is Treat Robinson and your grandma is Kathy Robinson.” Tucker then gestured towards his wife and kids. “Amanda, April and Joshua don’t have aliases.”

  Ellen nodded.

  “We do need to get going,” April said while standing. “At least I do, anyway. I need to get home and get ready for my shift.”

  As Deloris, Wendell, Amanda, Tucker, Joshua and Ellen were standing, Ellen shared, “My boyfriend’s mom is the third shift supervising nurse in the psychiatric department at… at the hospital near here. I can’t think of the name of the hospital.”

  April slightly grinned before asking, “What is your boyfriend’s mom’s name?”

  “Kristen Delaney,” she simply replied.

  “I know her,” April said. “When I interned, one of my rotations was in psychiatrics and I met her then. Her husband’s a detective.”

  Ellen simply nodded in agreement.

  “I actually meant to ask you about that yesterday,” Tucker told April. “Anyway. It’s good meeting everyone. But we do need to get going.”

  As Tucker bent down to get the photo albums, Ellen said, “I’m glad you came.”

  “Us too,” Deloris assured her.

  Once Tucker had gathered the albums, he, Amanda, Wendell, Deloris, April and Joshua said their goodbyes with a hug and kiss for Ellen and left.

  After the door had shut behind Tucker’s group, Ellen asked, “So are you a psychic too, Galvin?”

  “No,” Galvin replied. “We think it was from a spell that was cast over five hundred years ago, but psychics only run on the female’s side of my family. The women in my family are powerful psychics though, and a lot of my female ancestors had even helped shape history on Earth.”

  “In what way?” Ellen quickly asked.

  Galvin hesitated before saying, “I’m not sure if I should share this.”


  “Why not?” Ellen asked.

  “I don’t think it would hurt her… Harris or Allyson to know,” Trevor said while standing.

  “Know what?” Allyson asked.

  “The women in Galvin’s family have the ability to see hundreds of years into the future,” Trevor began. “We British could’ve won the American Revolutionary War, but by doing so, it would’ve started a chain of events that would’ve put Adolf Hitler as the world leader in the 1940s. By you Americans winning the war, it had caused inconvenient situations for us British, but those inconveniences were minimal compared to what would’ve happened. So the Tri-Star Confederation had helped the colonies to win their war—in secret of course.”

  “That’s interesting,” Allyson replied.

  Ellen glanced at Allyson before asking, “Which events would’ve led to Adolf Hitler at being the world leader?”

  “I don’t know,” Trevor began. “I’ve never read them, but there are manuscripts in the Tri-Star Confederation library, written out by Galvin’s female ancestors that contain that information.”

  “Can I read those manuscripts?” Ellen asked. “When I visit?”

  “All members of the Tri-Star Confederation are allowed to look at certain documents within the library and those manuscripts are among those documents,” Blaire said.

  “Cool,” Ellen said.

  “Okay, I don’t know what Cricket has seen in her vision, but I believe Cricket wants us to do this spell sooner than later,” Devon said as he held up the envelope. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had Galvin hand-deliver it here.”

  “I’m ready,” Ellen assured Devon.

  “Let’s do it in the dining room,” Devon suggested before everyone went to stand up.

  “Alright,” Ellen said before leading Harris, Sadie, Blaire, Trevor, Devon and Galvin into the dining room.

  Allyson went to check on Sonya.

  The beast master incantation was a vivacious one. It was twelve lines long that Ellen had to cast alone and then burn the pages once the words were read aloud.

  Nothing visual had happened once the pages were turned into ashes, and after waiting for a short time, Ellen asked, “What happen? Why did it fail?”

  Devon took a breath before saying, “The beast master incantation doesn’t give off audio or showy effects when cast.”

  “Okay, well, how do I know if it has been cast correctly?” Ellen asked.

  “You’ll have to test it,” Blaire said. “However, as long as you say the words correctly and do the ritual correctly, I’ve never heard of it failing.”

  “Okay, well, I want to be sure,” Ellen said. “Harry, where can I go to test it?”

  Harris thought for a moment before saying, “I can’t think of a place. Allyson might be able to though.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask her,” Ellen said before walking towards the living room. The others followed her into the next room. “Allyson. Where can I go to test my control over the beasts?”

  “Public places—like the zoo—should be avoided during Ellen’s tests,” Blaire said. “The last thing Ellen needs is having the animals acting strangely in view of the public’s eye.”

  Allyson amusingly grinned before saying, “There have been wild dog sightings in Skidaway Island State Park for the past two weeks.”

  “Let’s go there,” Ellen urged.

  “Alright,” Harris agreed. “Let me use the bathroom first.”

  Ellen just nodded.

  Chapter Seven

  Ellen, Harris, Devon and Galvin went to Skidaway Island State Park in Harris’s car, and once Harris had parked, the four went hiking into the trees.

  The four hiked for ten minutes—with birds following at a safe distance—before they came upon a freshly slain deer—a large buck. The buck’s neck and throat were ripped open as if a wild animal had taken a large bite out of it. The four came to a halt after seeing the buck.

  “Okay, I’m going to say ‘yes’ on wild dogs within the park,” Ellen uttered as Galvin was staring at two sets of fresh shoe prints near the carcass.

  “Unless dogs wear shoes now, I’m going to say that dogs didn’t do this,” Galvin pointed out.

  “People wouldn’t do this,” Ellen said with certainty in her voice. “They couldn’t… at least I don’t believe they can.”

  “A normal person couldn’t,” Galvin suggested before the sound of something ruffling through the leaf-covered grass was heard.

  The four turned to look and watched as five wild dogs came into view. When the dogs saw the group, they stalked closer.

  “Ellen,” Devon whispered. “Do what I had told you, before coming here.”

  Ellen imagined what she wanted the five dogs to do while ordering, “Sit!”

  The five dogs whined, but obeyed. Ellen then acted as if she was getting a headache followed by a telepathic sensation of hunger. A sickening expression then came quickly across Ellen’s face.

  Harris saw Ellen’s expression and asked, “Ellen?”

  Ellen slightly shook her head before asking, “Am I supposed to be able to read their minds?”

  “You’re not hearing their thoughts, per se,” Devon informed. “When you make a command link with the animals, in a sense you become one with them. So as long as the command link is maintained, any senses they have, you inherit. However, depending on the individual, the telepathic senses that the person inherits can be very weak to very strong.”

  “Okay, I’m definitely sensing their senses, but it’s not overwhelming—except for the smell of blood,” Ellen informed.

  “The smell of the deer’s blood must be what had drawn them to this area,” Galvin suggested.

  “And it’s turning my stomach,” Ellen got out before receiving the telepathic sensation of sound that there was something ruffling in the trees above her.

  Ellen quickly looked to find the source of the sound. Harris, Devon and Galvin followed suit and after a short search, Ellen spotted two figures in the trees.

  “Patrick?!” Ellen called.

  The teenage boy and the teenage girl dropped from the tree and landed in a squatting position, several feet from them. As the teenagers rose, Ellen, Harris, Devon and Galvin saw their black eyes, their bloodstain mouths and their bloodstain fangs.

  “Vampires,” Galvin hissed.

  Ellen took hold of her necklace as the male vampire said, “Shooting us with your magic won’t be necessary.” From Ellen’s unconscious thought, the five wild dogs stalked closer and growled at the vampires. “Nor is sicking the dogs on us is necessary.”

  “You’re vampires,” Ellen pointed out as if to herself.

  “We hunt only animals,” the female vampire quickly informed.

  Ellen glanced towards the deer as Devon questioned, “Why should we believe you?”

  “We would’ve attacked before you could discover us,” the female vampire answered bluntly.

  “If we fed on humans, we could’ve killed at least two of you before the other two could chant your protection spell,” the male vampire added.

  As Devon and Galvin shot the vampires skeptical looks, Ellen asked, “You just feed on deer?”

  “Deer, wild dogs, wild cats…” the male vampire answered.

  “I need the dogs,” Ellen interrupted. She then turned her attention towards the growling dogs. “Sit! Hush!”

  The dogs obeyed. The vampires gave Ellen curious looks before the male vampire accused, “You’re out here for the dogs.”

  “That and to test my power over the beasts,” Ellen replied. “And you, Patrick, are out here to feed—on deer?”

  “I assure you that Patrick isn’t his name,” Galvin informed.

  “How would you know?” Ellen questioned.

  Galvin stared at the male vampire while saying, “A vampire will never tell a witch or a wizard his or her birth name. It’s suicidal for a vampire to do so.”

  Ellen shot the male vampire a curious look and when he made a facial gesture that what Galvin had said
was true, she accused, “Halloween night, you knew that I was a sorceress.”

  “I did,” the male vampire said.

  “What gave me away?” Ellen quickly asked.

  “When I was human, I was a psychic… although when I was a young boy my dad had a witch to cast a spell on me to suppress my ability,” he began. “Anyway, I’m a mind reader and I had been since I was born.”

  “You can read all of our minds?” Harris questioned.

  “I can,” he said.

  Suddenly, Ellen received the telepathic sensation of sound that twigs were snapping behind them and turned to look. The dogs got up and turned as well.

  “What is it?” Devon questioned.

  “The dogs are hearing something approaching,” Ellen informed.

  As everyone stared into the trees for a brief moment, a large mongrel looking dog came into view.

  The male vampire’s attention was suddenly drawn to another direction just before a glowing yellowish white crystal ball came flying through the air.

  “Run!” the male vampire uttered, but before he or the female vampire could do so, they both fell to the ground, paralyzed.

  “What the hell!” Devon and Harris uttered.

  Another glowing yellowish white crystal ball came flying in next to Ellen, Harris, Devon and Galvin. The mongrel looking dog charged as if to attack.

  “Sit!” Ellen ordered the dog. The dog continued to charge. “Stop!” Again the dog continued to charge. “Son-ander!”

  As if a giant invisible hand had swept through, the mongrel looking dog was forcibly swatted back several feet into the air and crashed hard into a trunk of a tree. The dog yelped in pain when it hit the tree, and then yelped again when it hit the ground.

  Their attention was then drawn to Winona, Riley and Brad when the three made noises to their left.

  “You four aren’t vampires,” Winona took note of as her group moved forward.

  Riley and Brad each had a wooden stake and a mallet in their hands.

  “No,” Galvin told her.

  “And you three are what?” Ellen asked. “Vampire slayers?”

  “You can’t slay a vampire,” Winona informed as she, Riley and Brad moved closer.