Storm Witch (Scarlet Jones Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  Shutting down my senses in relief, I stepped back into the hostel. No time for alleys now. I was going to have to fight him right there.

  Getting back my sword, I took my position in front of the stairs in the narrow hallway, and I waited, my eyes locked with his. He smiled but I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. Now that he’d smelled me, he knew exactly what the reward for killing me was. The others had gotten away, though, and I let that thought cheer me up when he stepped inside the building entrance. I shot forward with all I had. He moved away from the blades easily, but I expected him to move aside. Spinning around twice with my arms outstretched, I cut through his gut deep enough to make him fall against the wall, giving me a moment to get my balance back. When he came at me with his fists raised, I dodged the first two, but the third hit me right on my temple and he spun me around half way before delivering a hell of a kick on my thigh. My leg gave, but my arms were still perfectly functional, and as soon as he stepped forward, trying to grab me by the hair, I swung my swords and made a mess out of his torso. I think I might have cut him between the legs, too, but I couldn’t be too sure. Blood oozed out of his multiple wounds, and when he looked down at his body to assess the damage, I jumped back to my feet and fisted him in the mouth. To return the favor, I hit him with the handle of my sword in the temple. Dropping my other sword, I reached for my Eagle and pointed the barrel right at his forehead.

  I pulled the trigger, but the bullet buried in the wall. He moved to the side and kicked my forearms so hard, my gun slipped from my fingers. The next kick connected with my face and I almost fell to the ground. Blood filled my mouth in seconds, but I didn’t dare allow myself to stop. With my arm outstretched, I spun around, sure that he’d be right behind me. The blade of my sword was aimed for his neck, but I hit nothing. The mindless thingie was frozen in place, looking down at the ground.

  Hello?

  Why had he stopped attacking me?

  I was going to ask, but then he turned to the exit and looked out in the street for a second, something like realization flashing on his face. Then, just as fast as he’d come, he ran out the door.

  Stunned in place, I couldn’t even remember to breathe for a second. This had never happened to me before. Ever. The thingies only left after they sucked my magic. What the hell was going on?!

  Getting my shit back together, I grabbed my gun and sword from the floor, and ran out the building. To my horror, Luca’s car was right there.

  “Get in!” he shouted, and the back door opened. Spinning around, I searched the area for the mindless thingie, and when I saw him walking East as fast as he could before turning the corner, I almost cried in joy. This was a blessing. A freaking miracle. I ran to the car and got in, half sitting on Ax’s lap because Grover was taking up most of the backseat. I’d have blushed but I was too excited. Luca spun the car around in the middle of street, ignoring the honks and curse words from other drivers, and sped up right away.

  My mind was still a mess, trying to make sense of what had happened. The mindless thingies had never run from a fight before. I’d been the one to run from them whenever I saw them and could escape. This was the first time that this was happening, and I really was thankful for the break, but…

  But it made no sense. Unless…fuck.

  “Stop!” I shouted, much louder than I intended. Luca hit the brakes and my face slammed against the back of his seat, but it didn’t matter. The guy had walked away from the fight, but it wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a break. It was something far worse.

  “Turn around, now,” I said to Luca, slamming my hands on his seat as if that was going to make him move faster.

  “What? Why?” he said, panicked.

  “Because there’s another.” The words tasted foreign on my tongue. I never thought I’d get to a point where I’d actually consider that there was another one like me out there. But what else could it be? Why would the guy just walk away from a fight, when I was right there, full of magic for him to feed on? He sure as hell wasn’t afraid of me, which meant that there was another. Someone else he could have access to, easier, to suck dry.

  “How do you know? I don’t feel anything!” Luca shouted, but he’d already turned the car around—again in the middle of the street and without warning. I’d be surprised if we managed to make it back without getting hit.

  “Because he left, and he wouldn’t have, unless he smelled another source of power. I’ve been sucked dry by them four times now, and ran away from them countless other times, and they never back down. Not ever.”

  “There’s no change in weather,” Ax said, trying to look out the window, practically hugging me in the process. It didn’t slip my attention how I fit perfectly in his arms, mind you. “And what if there are others?”

  “Whatever happens, you stay in the car and you drive away as soon as any of them spot you, okay? Don’t stop for anything,” I said. If I had them to worry about, too, I was going to lose.

  “You’re already bleeding. You can’t fight like this,” Ax said, grabbing my hand and pulling it up to get a better look at my torso. I wasn’t keen on watching him stare at my breasts, so I took my hand back fast.

  “I’m fine. Turn left here,” I instructed Luca. That’s where I’d seen the mindless thingie turn the corner. “Go slower.”

  The street was crowded, but I was used to looking for mindless thingies and I was confident in my ability to spot them anywhere. Luca slowed the car down considerably. My nerves were a mess as I scanned almost every face on both sides of the street, but couldn’t find anything.

  “We can search better on foot,” Luca said.

  “No, no, no! You stay in the car, remember? If they feel you, too, it’s going to get a whole lot messier.”

  “Stop the car, Luca,” Ax said, and his friend did as he said immediately. “Go. We’ll be right here, waiting.”

  Well, at least he was being reasonable. Without a word, I jumped out of the car. The sun fell directly on my face so I had to go to the other side of the street to see better. With every second that passed without finding that goddamn sonovabitch, I grew more anxious. My instincts were telling me to turn back, just forget everything that had happened since last night, and go home. But something wouldn’t let me. Something kept me going, even when I reached the end of the street and had no idea which way to turn. Going left was logical, just following the shade. The pizza I’d eaten a couple hours ago was rising up my throat again. I fisted my hands to keep from throwing up and focused on the people.

  Hope slipped from me little by little with every step I took, until I was sure that I wasn’t going to find whoever I was looking for. Was I wrong? Perhaps I’d misinterpreted the whole situation. The guy could have really just been scared of me.

  But as much as my ego liked that, it just made no sense.

  And when I saw a homeless guy with a large beard and a neon green tank top running out the alley with a bunch of cardboard boxes under his arm, something in my gut told me that that’s where I needed to be. The mindless thingies loved closed spaces—empty spaces. They felt more comfortable, I guessed, away from the eyes of the rest of the world. They wanted to remain a secret in their endeavors and I couldn’t blame them. Maybe they weren’t mindless after all.

  My fingers were outstretched, ready to catch my swords as soon as I straightened my arms and they fell from under my sleeves. The alley was cleaner than the usual, probably because there was a huge fast food joint at the corner, with a back door that led out there. That’s where I saw the back of his head as he strode forward—right by the door. And hiding somewhere must have been whoever this guy was after.

  Taking in a deep breath, I took a step forward, and nearly had a heart attack when I felt the presence behind me. I thought it was another mindless thingie, but it was Ax instead.

  “Dammit, what the hell are you doing?” I said, trying but failing to keep my voice down.

  But Ax didn’t mind my tone. “What’s he after?” he
said, nodding at the mindless thingie, who’d stopped in front of the freshly painted black dumpster. Somebody was hiding behind it, and he knew it. I knew it, too.

  “Stay here!” I said to Ax, and reached for one of the Eagles in my waistband. If there really was someone behind that dumpster, the mindless thingie would be too distracted to notice me pointing a gun at his head. We needed to be gone from here fast, before others joined the party.

  I walked as silently as I could and watched him grab the side of the dumpster. He pulled it back like it weighed nothing. A scream pierced the air, loud and clear. I began to run. The mindless thingie was in front of the girl sitting on the ground, so I couldn’t see his face. I waited until he began to draw out her power, and when I was just three feet away from him, I fired. My arm didn’t shake. I didn’t even blink. I pulled the trigger four times in a row with the utmost pleasure, and watched him fall to the ground face first like all his strings had been cut.

  Ax was already running for the girl. He grabbed her in his arms effortlessly before turning to me. “Let’s go.”

  Decapitating the guy with four bullets in his brains was a good idea, but I didn’t want to waste another second. One more person for them to hunt down now, and I felt like we were a beacon, shining bright for all the mindless thingies in the city to see.

  The sooner we got off the streets, the better. So I ran after Ax back to the car, dizzy from trying to scan every person that passed us, terrified of what I might suddenly find. Ax put the girl on Grover’s lap, and I squeezed in after him, half sitting on his lap again. But now, there was a bad feeling in my gut, one that didn’t even let me enjoy the fact that I’d shot that asshole in the head before he’d had the chance to really hurt this girl. And I was even more afraid to find out what it meant.

  ***

  My apartment was in East Harlem. I rented the basement of a human, which was a pain. We shared the world with humans, but there was something in our nature, about our magic, that confused them. Their brainwaves weren’t designed to perceive the paranormals, so they tended to get tongue tied when speaking to us, and they forgot all about our existence as soon as they turned away. It was the greatest mystery of our existence, if you asked me, but most didn’t think too much about it. My father thought that nature intended for it to be like this because of the humans’ protection. If they got involved in paranormal affairs, there was no way that would end up well. It was the only thing I agreed with the man on. And it was definitely easier not to have to explain about the weird things that went on in the world, courtesy of magic and paranormals. So much cleaner.

  We all had one rule: never mess with humans. It was the same as committing murder in the eyes of the ECU. We were stronger than the humans and our job was to protect them if we could, not harm them. But most of the time, we just stayed out of their way, and they naturally stayed away from ours.

  My landlord constantly forgot that he rented me his basement, and when I sent him the payments, once every quarter, he was always pleasantly surprised to receive the money. It was the perfect place for me. The apartment building was five stories high, and only humans lived in it. The basement was two stories below ground. I’d sealed it really tight with spell stones, the finest in the market. I’d paid a witch to set them up and charge them, from fear the mindless thingies could smell the magic in the stones as well, and find me regardless of the spells. For the past year and half, that hadn’t happened.

  We took the stairs running, as per my request. There was nobody but humans around, so even if they saw us running, they’d forget all about it. We wouldn’t be seen for long enough to raise any alarms.

  Other residents use their basements for storage, so I was all alone down there. The heavy steel door groaned when I pulled it open. The hallway was lined with three Pretters full of Blood magic—the strongest out there—designed to conceal my smell and my magic, and keep it under lock. All spells had the same scent, a mix of mint and wood after a night of heavy rain, but the mindless thingies weren’t attracted to it. At least not that I knew of. The basement stunk with the mix, and they’d never found me before.

  When the door was locked behind me, I could finally breathe easy. I was home.

  The basement had three rooms, plus the small kitchen and the living area, which I’d turned into everything. It was a large open space, so why waste it on furniture and a TV, when I could have three computers I used to keep track of the ECU as much as I could, some gym stuff to exercise in, and a circle lined with sacks of sand with three dummies I used to train. Or used, back when I paid a professional trainer, a Green witch who I may or may not have slept with a couple of times, but who trained me the best way he knew how for a whole year, without asking a single question. I paid him extra for it, anyway.

  I did have a sofa I used to lie in when the desk got too much for my back, and I wanted to watch movies on one of my monitors. My U-shaped desk was in the middle of the room, so I had to drag the sofa a bit farther away for Grover to lay down the girl we’d found in the alley, who seemed to be unconscious at the moment.

  “Is this safe?” Luca asked, looking around what was probably the weirdest living room he’d ever been in.

  “As safe as we’re going to get.” I had another five spell stones inside, and so far, none of them had let me down. I had no reason to think they’d start now, though with everything that had happened since the night before, maybe I needed to start worrying.

  What were the odds of my finding five new people like me in one single day? It was almost like someone was playing games with us, and rearranging us in whichever way they wanted while all we could do was play along.

  Shaking my head at myself, I looked at the others taking in their surroundings, most of them curious, except Ax, who wouldn’t look away from me, not for a single second.

  “Uh…there’s a fridge over there with food in it. Help yourselves,” I said, pointing at the kitchen. It was on the right of the living room, through a short hallway. I even put up a door because the smell of food while working out or training tended to make me a bit nauseous, or just convince me to quit whatever I was doing and eat. The door was a blessing.

  But neither of them seemed hungry at the moment. Instead, they all turned to me, their wide eyes demanding answers. I felt a little dizzy when it occurred to me that I might have given them the wrong idea.

  “We’re ready to hear it,” Luca said, pulling Fallon even closer to him, as if he was afraid I was going to start attacking them. I almost rolled my eyes.

  “Look, I don’t know everything. Just what I’ve learned from experience, so don’t expect any miracles, okay?” It was only fair to warn them.

  “Start from the beginning,” Ax said with a nod. We were all standing and my living room had never seemed smaller than it did that day.

  “I grew up in Boston in a family of Bloods. I knew I was different from a very early age, but I was pretty sure I was the only one. The ritual with my mother didn’t work. My magic didn’t really change after it.” I’d at least hoped that would happen, but no. “I came here two years ago, and was attacked by one of those guys on my first night. They seem to sense my power and find me everywhere in the city—except here. They caught and sucked me dry four times before I had any good idea about what was going on.”

  “Which was?” Ax asked, his brows raised in disbelief.

  “I needed to learn to shield my powers before I could walk out of this apartment. And I needed to learn how to fight.”

  This time, they all turned to look at Luca, who looked even more stressed than before. “Is it a spell? How do you shield your powers?”

  Laughing wasn’t exactly appropriate in the situation, but I couldn’t help myself. “Spells don’t work with my magic and I don’t know ones that do. Do you?” The day I’d find a spell that worked for me, I’d be a very happy camper.

  “No,” Luca said with a flinch. “I’ve tried everything. Bone, Green, even Hedge. Nothing sticks.”

&
nbsp; “Same here.” I wasn’t surprised because I didn’t think my magic was designed to be conjured through spells, or stirred in a cauldron. “It’s a mind frame, really. I just practiced a lot and basically imagined my powers being locked down inside of me, until it happened.” I tested it for about two months until I got it right. I’d run out of the apartment, hop in a cab, and go to the other part of the city because I couldn’t risk the mindless thingies finding out where I lived.

  “So it’s just you?” Ax said, looking around my apartment again.

  “Don’t worry, I have Pretters all over this place. I hired someone to activate them. She comes in every other week to check on them, so we’re safe,” I reassured him.

  “I’m even more confused than before,” Fallon said against Luca’s shirt. “Who are those people? And how can they just suck a witch’s power? How come nobody has done anything about it yet, if they’re so dangerous?”

  “They don’t suck on witches’ powers, just mine. And yours,” I added with a shrug. “I told you before, I tried to warn the ECU but nobody cared.”

  “So what, you just hunt them down all by yourself?” Ax asked with a weird smile on his face. I didn’t know what his problem was, but he judged me like he knew me all his life, and I didn’t like it.

  “I don’t hunt them down. I live here, or try to. Last night was the first time I invited them over to see if I could kill them.”

  “If you could kill them? You blew that guy’s brains out right in front of my face,” he said.

  “And I’m pretty sure that didn’t kill him. I did a whole lot more to others before that, then watched them heal back and walk away like they’d been on vacation. Last night, though, I decapitated them. If that doesn’t do the trick…” A shrug was all I could offer to end that sentence.

  “We need to leave,” Fallon said, her voice shaking as she clung to Luca’s arm. “We need to get out of this damned city, right now.”