by D. N. Hoxa
“Nothing on them, either. They seem to drop off the face of the Earth whenever I don’t see them. Nobody knows they’re there.” And that had haunted me for a long time. It had made me believe I was just seeing things a few times, too. It was hard to fight, or even run from an enemy nobody knew existed except for you.
“What exactly can they do except take our power?” Ax asked.
“I’m not sure.” I wasn’t sure about everything I could do in the first place. “They seem to learn by watching. They mimic physical moves like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They never speak, or make a sound, no matter how much I hurt them.” My mind went back to the night before, when I’d cut off the hand of one of the mindless thingies. Any other creature would have at least let out a sigh—but not him. “It’s almost like they’re…young. I don’t know how to explain it, except they give me the impression that they’re learning.” Every time I came across them, they got better and better at fighting, and faster in moving, and their senses seemed to become sharper, too. Last night, they smelled me much faster than before.
“Just like we are,” Ax said, bringing goosebumps on my forearms. “What if we’re here because of them?”
The question hung in the air and we all refused to acknowledge it for a while. I looked at the desktop of my middle screen with a picture of an adorable Beagle puppy, and pretended I wasn’t there. It worked when I was alone. Maybe it would work with other people, too.
“Scarlet?”
It looked like it didn’t.
“We’re not here because of them,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Come on. If we were, what are other witches here for? It makes no sense. There’s no reason anyone is here—we just are.”
“They’re lured out by our magic. They suck our magic. Don’t you think that’s at least a bit suspicious?” Ax asked.
“Vampires are lured by blood. They suck on blood, too,” was my answer.
“Teach us how to block them,” Luca said before Ax could say anything else. “For now, the most important thing is to hide from them, until we can figure out what’s going on. So teach us.”
Suddenly, I was sweating a bit. I’d thought about this, too, lying in bed, but there was no other way to tell them this:
“You just…imagine your powers are locked in this huge vault inside your chest.” It was simple. It did the trick.
“A vault?” Ax said, and I expected him to start laughing his guts out, when he surprised me. “That’s actually…smart.” Was he surprised? I spun my chair around to face him, arms folded in front of me.
“Yes, I guess you could say that I’m pretty smart.” I had to rub it in, just a little.
Ax smiled mischievously. “Well, Miss Smart, walk us through the process so we can start learning.”
“What, you don’t want to know the price?” I pretended to be surprised.
“I’m paying you with the pleasure of my company,” he said with a shrug. Perfect answer, dammit. I was jealous—and at a loss for a smart comeback.
“In that case, let’s get started.”
***
My stomach growled to remind me of how empty it was. I hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and it was…I checked my phone. One in the morning? Where had the time gone?
“This isn’t working,” Grover complained for probably the hundredth time.
We sat on the floor—the five of us because Sienna, the girl who’d grown up with humans, was sleeping in the guest room. I’d been trying to teach them how to meditate and how to sense their magic for apparently more than three hours now. Ax and Luca claimed it was working. Grover kept complaining, and Fallon kept her eyes closed most of the time.
“You have to be able to separate your magic from the rest of you first,” I repeated.
“I can’t separate my magic,” he said angrily. “I am my magic!”
“Then imagine it,” Ax said impatiently. “Imagine you’re separated. If it works for me, it’ll work for you.”
But the truth was, we had no idea if any of it was working. I didn’t have a mindless thingie in my closet for special occasions like this, so there was no way to test it. Experience told me that they were nowhere near ready, though. It had taken me a very long time to learn how to block my magic.
“This is bullshit, and I’m starving,” Grover said, and my stomach sang to me again in response.
“Me, too,” said Fallon with a sigh, as if she had been waiting for someone to speak the magic words.
“We can order pizza, if you like.” I’d had pizza in the morning, but it was easy and it took less time than preparing something.
“I’ll take a large one. Pepperoni,” said Grover, his eyes wide open all of the sudden.
They all made their orders and I typed a quick message to Lorelei’s Place, a fast food place a block away that delivered superfast. Calling them would just confused them, and texts were always easier when interacting with humans. All they sent back was a thumbs-up emoji.
“I’ll have to go get them in front of the building,” I said reluctantly. I wasn’t looking forward to having to put my weapons on me right now, but I had no choice. Nobody had the keys to the basement, and I liked it that way.
“I’ll come with you,” Ax said. I’d have been thankful if he’d offered his help, but he didn’t. He simply didn’t trust me and probably thought I’d go rat them out or something. I shrugged to tell him that I didn’t care. He was going to carry all the boxes, anyway.
“After we eat, we’ll call it a night,” said Luca, yawning.
“Or not,” said Ax. “I’m not looking forward to sleeping on the floor.”
I stood up to go to my room for my weapons. “I’ll be right back.”
It didn’t matter whether they wanted to call it a night—I wasn’t going to let them out of the apartment long enough for us to be spotted by either the mindless thingies or the ECU. I could go get camp beds in the morning, but for the night, they’d all have to sleep on the floor, because I wasn’t going to give up my bed.
Ax was waiting for me by the door when I came out of my room, most of my weapons on my person. We weren’t even going to leave the building, but one could never know. I’d rather be prepared.
“Here,” Luca said, and offered me some bills.
“Keep it. This one’s one me.” I was a good hostess, wasn’t I?
“Do you have a job or something?” Ax asked while we walked up the stairs. The delivery guy should have been there by now, and knowing that only served to make me hungrier.
“Do you?” I asked, because it was bad enough to have strange magic nobody knew about, but having to hide it from the whole world was worse, and it kind of flushed your chances at a career down the toilet.
“I don’t have an apartment in Manhattan and three computers that cost more money than I’ve ever seen in one place.”
“Well, I do.” I didn’t want to be a bitch, but I wasn’t about to give him my life’s story. I might have wanted them to stay with me, but that still didn’t mean I trusted them. We’d only just met.
The delivery guy was waiting in front of the building entrance, just like my text instructed. He was a skinny kid with a yellow cap that made him look paler than he already was. When he saw me open the door, he looked starstruck as his brain did whatever it did when trying to perceive my energy.
“Here you go, kid,” I said, and put the money in his hand after Ax took the five boxes. He opened his mouth to say something, but ended up narrowing his brows and looking at the ground instead.
“Go on, now. Get back to work,” I said with a wave. The sooner he was away from me, the faster his head would start to function again.
“These smell nice,” Ax said while I looked around my neighborhood before going back in.
“They’re not spectacular, but…” My voice trailed off when I saw the headlights of the car parked around the corner across the street. It was strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Hold on,” I said to Ax and walked west
a few steps, until I could see it better.
When I did, my whole body was paralyzed for a split second. Of course it was familiar. I’d seen ones like it before, countless times. Spinning around fast, I analyzed the rest of the street—and the people in it. Sure enough, I began to notice the odd paranormal standing here and there, pretending to do stupid shit people no longer did—like read the newspaper in the middle of the goddamn night.
My heart hammered in my chest as I slowly stepped back to Ax, who kept calling my name.
“We have to leave,” I whispered, feeling like a foreigner in my body. This couldn’t be happening. The ECU had no business being there, in my neighborhood, trying to hide in plain sight.
“Who is it?” Ax said, putting the pizza boxes on the ground.
“The ECU. They’re here.” My throat was dry, my limbs shaking. I kept looking at the strangers—all three of them I could spot on the street—and one sitting inside a bar by the window, looking right at me.
“I’m going to get the others,” Ax said in a heartbeat, and ran inside the building.
The second he did that, the strangers moved.
They moved so fast, I barely had time to blink before all four that I could see began to walk toward me, their hands behind their backs, possibly holding weapons. The headlights of the car hiding around the corner moved, too. Others I hadn’t spotted before were coming to my sides. The full moon shone brightly in the sky, and the lampposts and other street lights left no room for doubt that all these men coming at me were holding weapons. Some big, some small. Some had their hands in fists, possibly holding Pretters.
My swords were in my hands as I searched with my eyes for a way to escape, but found none. I could see all eight of them, and the car slowly driving closer to us. The others were already running up the stairs, but I barely noticed them, busy cursing myself for not thinking of an exit. Where the hell could we go now? The building had no back exit, and my apartment was in a goddamn basement.
The ECU was right in front of me now, all eight of them forming a perfect half circle around us. The few people walking by, both human and paranormal, had already started to move away, their instincts telling them that shit was about to hit the fan
This was it. My worst nightmare come to life.
Before it began, I only knew one thing for certain: I would not be taken alive.
“At the first chance you get, run,” I said to the others, who were stunned into silence as they assessed the situation. “Don’t look back. Just run.”
“Give me your gun,” Ax said, stepping closer to me, but I didn’t dare break my focus.
“Reach for it in the back of my waistband,” I said, and he did exactly that before one of the ECU soldiers raised his hands, two of his own guns pointed at our heads. The next second, all his friends did the same.
“We have to use magic,” Luca said, stepping forward, too.
“Dammit!” I spit, more scared than I’d ever been before. Using magic meant attracting the magic suckers.
But going without it, we’d be dead before the minute was done.
“Steady,” the ECU solider that had first pointed his guns at us said. By the looks of it, he was a witch, but I couldn’t tell what kind. “If you move, we’re—” But he didn’t get to finish the sentence.
Luca outstretched his arms and a wave of wind hit the soldier square on the chest before sending him back, flying. It was the right thing to do, attacking. Trying to negotiate with the ECU was worse than accepting to die.
Then it began.
The gunshots coming at us from all sides turned me deaf for a second. The only way I knew how to stop a bullet was to swirl my magic around me, which resulted in a small tornado moving around my body. It’s not as cool as it sounds, both because I couldn’t use guns, either, or the bullets would ricochet back at me, and because my hair was all over the place and the dust took away fifty percent of my vision when I shot forward with my swords raised.
I’d been training for two years to fight with my body, and survive to tell the tale. Now, even if my brain was wiped clean of any strategy, my body knew exactly what to do.
The soldier closest to me was a werewolf—large shoulders, huge fists, and hungry eyes. When he saw that his guns weren’t working and I was already in front of him, he dropped them and turned to his fists. My sword had already made a clean cut over his ribcage before he swung at me, and I dropped down to the ground, driving one of my swords onto his foot. The werewolf howled and fell back. I pushed myself up and charged him. Because I was small, and he easily twice my size, I needed to put some strength behind my stabbing efforts, so I put my hands in front of me, pressed the handles of the swords against my chest, and jumped forward. He swung his fist again, but my blades were already inside him, possibly breaking some ribs, and I pushed until the tips of my swords came out his other side.
My own ribs were bruised but I was still standing while the guy fell to the ground when I pulled my swords from his body. That wasn’t going to kill him, but it would keep him down for a while. With no time to waste, I turned right to the next ECU soldier closest to me—the witch who’d spoken to us.
He was fighting Ax, who was focusing on his magic, and no matter how many spells the solider chanted, the air waves washed them away from Ax’s body. Reaching for a throwing knife in my back pocket, I threw it forward and hit the witch on his cheek, but I didn’t anticipate him turning toward me, swinging his arm. His fist connected with my jaw and pushed me to the side. I almost lost my balance and tripped over my own feet, and when something cold hit me on the back of my neck, I rolled on the ground, terrified. It was a spell stone, because why else would a witch throw stones at me?
I was right, the stone fell on the asphalt when I rolled, and I jumped away from it as fast as I could. Reaching for my magic, I threw the guy away from me, and Ax behind him pushed him forward. Stuck between two invisible walls made out of air, the solider struggled to breathe. His wide eyes met mine. He was as terrified as I was, but now was not the time to think that we were in the process of showing the whole world what we could do—something I spent my entire life avoiding. There were people around, and there would be recordings. There would be proof. But hopefully, we’d be alive to see them.
When something hit me on my thigh and sent a burst of flames up my body, I looked down to see a knife buried in me. My focus slipped and the witch fell to his knees, but another solider came at me from behind, and kicked me right between my shoulder blades. There was no time to get that knife out of me so I didn’t bother. I rolled on the ground again, which was better than falling flat on my face, but by the time I made it to my feet, the other solider charged at me with his fists. He hit me four times before I was able to dodge, then he buried another one of those knives into my right shoulder. Reaching for my magic was hard when the pain threatened to paralyze my body. I was barely holding onto my swords, and as I charged the solider with my magic, the tornado spinning around me disappeared. Taking advantage of the witch’s distraction, I ignored the pain as best I could and I spun around with my swords forward. The witch was conjuring his spell when his chanting stopped abruptly. My legs gave when my feet hit the ground, and I fell to my knees in time to see him falling, with two cuts around his neck.
Shit. If he didn’t get a healing spell right away, he was going to die. I’d killed him. I’d killed an ECU solider. I’d killed another for the first time in my life.
The distraction cost me. Someone wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck and pushed me down. I kissed the asphalt before he kicked the hell out of me, and air rushed out of my lungs. I focused on my magic, but how was I going to release it when I was flat against the ground?
“Bitch,” the solider shouted as he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up. He stepped in front of me, his fingers wrapped around my neck, squeezing like he meant to break it.
My vision was a blurry mess again. He held me up easily—possibly a werewolf—and I could onl
y touch the ground with the tips of my toes. With his free hand, he reached for something in his pocket—a spell stone. My swords were not in my hands, but I had two knives in my body, one of them buried in my thigh. Reaching for it was agony, and pulling it out of me was worse. I was afraid I was going to pass out, and for a second, I thought about using that knife on myself, instead of him. Like I said, I’d rather die than be taken alive by the ECU.
In the last second, my survival instincts took over, and while he pressed his spell stone against my cheek, I stabbed him on the side of his neck three times.
Guilt can’t even begin to describe how I felt when he let go of me. The air burned as it went down my throat. I couldn’t look away from the solider, who was trying desperately to close the wounds on his neck with his hands, but failing. Dammit, if my magic had worked on a healing spell, I’d have saved him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure he heard me.
“Don’t move.”
Something touched the back of my head just as the werewolf fell to the side, his eyes turning in his sockets. He’ll be alright, I told myself. A healing spell and he would be fine. I hadn’t hurt his heart. A werewolf only died immediately when you stabbed them in the heart.
But while I’d been busy feeling sorry over my enemy, the guy who’d tried to kill me, I hadn’t noticed that the fighting had stopped. I hadn’t noticed that Luca, Fallon, Ax, Grover, and even Sienna, were all sitting on the ground a few feet away from me, bloody and breathing heavily, with two soldiers in front of them, holding up their guns.
And another was behind me, the barrel of his gun kissing the back of my head.
My eyes met Ax’s, and I saw his exhaustion. I saw the desperation in the ice of his eyes. He was asking me to help him, too. But couldn’t he see that I had a gun to my head, and no more energy to even connect with my magic?
Yes, I’d trained, but fighting for so long, and getting hurt so badly in the process wasn’t something I’d done before. And now, I realized just how weak I really was.