by D. N. Hoxa
But when the door slammed open, we all jumped, and the sword slipped from Ax’s toes. Before I could blink, a mindless thingie was in front of my face, grabbing me by the throat while he took the sword with his other hand and threw it across the room.
“No!”
The last strings of hope escaped me as I looked into his strange eyes, the light brown color around his vertical pupils. If he’d been just a little closer to me, I’d have bitten his fucking nose off, but he pushed my head back before he straightened his shoulders, and began to suck on my energy.
I knew I wasn’t going to survive it. This was the third time they were sucking me dry in who knew how many hours, and when I slipped into unconsciousness, I wasn’t coming back. My body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not an ounce of strength was left in me.
Still, I held his eyes as he emptied me of my magic, and I felt it all leave through my pores, the same way it did when I used it by will. Something Ax said before came to my mind as I looked at death in the face. Ax thought we were made for these things, whatever they were. What if he was right? It felt so, so natural to surrender all my magic to this guy, in a way I’d never noticed before, and part of me really believed that this was why I existed. The purpose of my life—to get sucked at by some freaks with no names.
Someone shouted but I couldn’t tell who it was. My strength was leaving me, and the pain in my shoulder and thigh intensified as he took away everything I had.
Reality began to take on the quality of a dream, in which everything moved extra slow, and the sounds reached my ears a few seconds after they were made. Which is why, when the window behind the guy sucking me dry shattered to pieces, it took me a while to realize it. I only heard the glass hitting the ground when something like a tip of a sword came right of the mindless thingie’s mouth.
It was a gruesome sight and some of his blood splashed on my feet, but my mind still refused to make sense, even when he fell to the ground on his knees first, then with his face on my lap. Ew. The person standing in front of me now was small, shorter than me, and the black eyeliner on her eyes said she was a girl, though she had her head and most of her face covered in a piece of dark brown fabric.
Her hands were cold when she touched mine, and when she cut the rope holding my arms up, everything came crashing onto me at once: sound, sight, smell.
My arms ached from being held up for so long, but having a mindless thingie oozing blood all over my thighs was too terrifying. Instead of giving myself a second to breathe, I pushed him off me and jumped to my feet. The stranger with the covered head was already freeing Fallon and Sienna, and the guys were standing up, holding themselves against the wall. Thinking that this was indeed a dream—or just a figment of my imagination, a way for my brain to handle the end of my life—was useless now. I’d take what I could get, and I already knew that other mindless thingies were on their way. Getting all my weapons was hard because every time I leaned to grab them, nausea would hit me hard, and I lost balance for a few seconds.
“We only have one minute, if we’re lucky,” the girl said, her voice soft, despite the expression in her eyes. “Follow me, and run. Just run. Don’t try to stop and fight. You’re not going to win.”
Without waiting for a reply, she spun around and jumped over the wall, through the window she’d broken, and into the hallway.
I looked at the others one last time before nodding, and I followed the girl who was going to get us out of there. When I jumped on the other side, my legs shook and I had to hold onto the wall for support. My swords were in my hands but I put them away in the back of my waistband, and grabbed my gun. Fighting was not an option in the condition I was in. Running was turning out to be an issue, too, and when we went through the exit doors, the stairs leading down made me dizzy. I grabbed the railing and stopped moving, aware that I was going to fall face first if I took another step.
Somebody grabbed my arm and put it around their shoulder. “Let’s go,” Ax said, propelling me forward. Resisting was out of the question, so I let him guide me, and let my body do the rest. One step in front of the other. It sounds easier than it was.
The stairs seemed to last for hours before we made it to another hallway, this one much wider and longer, with lots of doors, old vending machines, and a couple of old beds on wheels just left there to the side. It was a sight I knew was going to be the main location of my nightmares from then on, but luckily, the stranger didn’t take us through the glass doors. Instead, she took us left, through a narrow hallway and another door.
Cold night air filled my lungs and filled my eyes with tears. I could barely stand but I was smiling, holding onto Ax’s shoulder like he was my lifeline. Half the emergency stairs the stranger jumped over were broken, and Ax had to carry almost all my weight as we went down them and finally stepped onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t see much except for trees, large and small. The moon hid behind big, black clouds and there was no light around. We were behind the building and there was no road that I could see—or other people.
“Through there. My car’s on the other side of the woods,” the stranger said. Since we wouldn’t be taking any more stairs, I let go of Ax and stood on my own. My body screamed in protest, my muscles almost completely useless, but I gritted my teeth and followed them toward the tree line.
The door behind us slammed open so hard, it made us jump. Turning around was not a good idea because it meant seeing the mindless thingies, all six of them, coming after us, but it couldn’t be helped. My gun was raised and I pulled the trigger as fast as my still blue fingers worked. I doubted I hit any before the stranger pushed me to the side, and I almost hit the ground.
“Go!” she shouted before turning to the strangers that were beginning to materialize in different places, and raised her arms. She began to chant fast, the words of her spell unfamiliar to me. I’d heard Blood, Bone and Green spells before, but whatever she was chanting wasn’t anything like it.
Whatever it was, it was working.
There was no sight to magic, but the strength with which she charged the mindless thingies was obvious when all six of them flew back and landed on their assess on the ground.
Holy cow, it was amazing. I’d never seen someone use a spell that could do that to six people. The girl was small and didn’t look like much, but fuck, she was strong.
Somebody grabbed me by the arm while she began to chant again, completely entranced in her magic. I was dying to watch what she did next, but Ax dragged me towards the woods so hard, it was impossible for me to stop it. My body was too far gone.
The woods were worse than stairs—lots of things to trip over, and they slowed me down considerably. That, and the fact that I kept turning back to try and see what the stranger was doing to the mindless thingies. Then, the view turned upside down when Ax grabbed me by the waist and literally put me over his shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, paralyzed in shock.
But Ax didn’t answer me. He kept running, and with every step he took, the tips of my swords that I’d put in my waistband by the handles tore through the fabric of my jacket and shirt, and eventually touched my skin. I gritted my teeth to keep from complaining—he was making life much easier for me by carrying me over his shoulder.
After a few long minutes, just as I was about to finally throw up, Ax stopped running and put me down. I was going to say thank you, right after I gave him a piece of my mind for grabbing me without my permission, but he didn’t give me the chance. He ran toward the car—an old, dark green Range Rover, but I couldn’t see the stranger. The woods were dense, and they were the same on the other side of the empty road we were in. The darkness swallowed every detail, and while the others got in the car, ready to leave, I prepared myself for going back. That girl had saved us all. I wasn’t about to leave her behind.
Just as I took a step forward, she came running out of the woods like a freaking ninja.
“In the car!”
She kept r
unning like her life depended on it, until she was in the driver’s seat, which meant that the mindless thingies were coming. I didn’t give my body the chance to complain. Running to the back door, I jumped in and landed on Ax’s lap once again. The girl kept chanting as she hit the gas with all her strength. The strange spell was like a lullaby to my ears as I tried to look back and see if we were being followed.
“Don’t,” Ax said, pulling my hand to keep me from looking, and he was right. I was just going to enjoy the freedom for now. We were saved, even if it lasted just for a moment. The others were okay. Grover sat in the front, and Fallon in the back on Luca’s lap, while Sienna sat in the middle, shaking and crying.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said to her. I thought about holding her hand but she was in shock, and there was no way to know how she’d react. For now, I left her alone. I left her alone and counted the seconds until the mindless thingies caught up with us.
Eight
The mindless thingies didn’t catch up with us.
We all kept silent, sneaking peeks behind whenever we could, to make sure we weren’t being followed—and we weren’t. Almost half an hour passed, and neither of us made a single sound. We were still in shock, but we were healing. At least I was. The wounds on my shoulder and thigh had closed. My muscles no longer felt like jelly, and I’d have loved to relax against the backseat, but I was still sitting on Ax’s lap. Not entirely uncomfortable, I might add. He was stronger than he looked and his chest pressed to my back made me hyperaware of his muscles. I’d never sat on anyone’s lap before, and now I was sitting on this guy twice in two days. Or I thought it had been two days. There were throwing knives in my back pockets, and I had no doubt they were hurting him as much as they were hurting me.
“What day is it?” I asked anyone who could answer, as I checked my pockets for my phone but didn’t find it. The fuckers must have thrown it somewhere. Assholes.
“Wednesday,” the stranger said. So they’d only captured us the night before. “I’m Elisa, by the way. And you’re welcome.”
Her eyes sparkled with excitement. Now that she’d taken off her head cover, I could see her better through the rearview mirror. She had ash blond hair, cut close to her chin. Her bangs were pretty cool, and her high cheekbones made her look a lot younger than her blue eyes said she was.
Since nobody looked like they wanted to say anything, I cleared my throat. “I’m Scarlet, and I’m sitting on Ax,” I said, and Ax snorted. “This is Sienna, and that’s Fallon and Luca. That’s Grover.” Grover kept looking at the side mirror, so he didn’t even look like he heard us speak. “And thank you for saving us.”
Elisa smiled, showing me her slightly crooked teeth through the mirror. That’s when I realized her mouth was bloody. Had she been in a physical fight with the thingies?
“You used dark magic,” Ax said, making goosebumps break on my arms.
“What?”
“She chanted dark magic,” he said, narrowing his brows as if to tell me that he was serious. I didn’t doubt it, especially since I was so close to him in that moment that I could see every line of his eyes made out of ice. They were even more impressive now than they’d been before, but maybe it was just the exhaustion speaking, and I didn’t really think his perfectly defined lips were just begging to be kissed—preferably by me.
“It wasn’t dark magic,” Elisa said with a tired sigh.
“I think it was. I’ve heard it before,” Ax said.
“You have?” Luca looked surprised. He held onto Fallon like she was his baby. It would have been adorable, had they both not looked as pale as ghosts and about to pass out.
“It wasn’t dark magic, for fuck’s sake,” Elisa said, but she didn’t sound pissed off.
“So what was it? Because it wasn’t Bone,” Ax said, making me wonder if he came from a Bone family.
“It wasn’t Blood, either,” I said. I knew how Blood spells sounded, and it was nothing like Elisa’s.
“Definitely not Green,” said Luca.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Elisa said.
“I’m telling you, I’ve heard it before. It’s dark—” Ax said but she cut him off.
“It wasn’t dark, you moron! It was Hedge.”
Now was probably not the best time to decide that I liked this girl, a lot, because she called Ax a moron, because what she’d said next raised every alarm in my head.
Hedge magic. As in, the kind of magic that was extinct. Night magic.
“You’re fucking with us, right?” Grover said, finally looking away from the side mirror. “There is no Hedge magic anymore.”
“No, Grover. I am certainly not fucking with you,” Elisa said, giving him a pointy look. “There’s always Hedge magic as long as there are Hedge witches, and I’m sitting right here.”
“Wait a second,” I breathed, wanting to smile for some reason. “You’re an actual Hedge witch?”
“Yep. That’s me.”
That shouldn’t have made me giddy, but it did. A freaking Hedge witch, right when the whole world thought that they no longer existed, and they hadn’t for at least two decades. Somehow, to me, that meant that everything was suddenly possible. That I was possible. That the world didn’t necessarily know it all, like they thought they did.
“How can you be a Hedge witch?” Luca said, pushing Fallon a bit to the side so he could get closer to Elisa. “You’re what, eighteen?”
“Oh, I’m much older than I look,” she said, wiggling her brows. “But thanks for the compliment.”
“It wasn’t a compliment. It was me pointing out that you can’t be a Hedge witch,” Luca insisted. He seemed really frustrated.
“And this is me pointing out that I am.” Elisa shrugged like she couldn’t care less what we thought. “Anyway, you have more serious problems to deal with than my nature.”
“We do,” I agreed. “So if you can start by telling us how you found us, that’d be great.” If she found us, that probably meant that the ECU could find us, too. Worrying about black SUVs full of soldiers on top of being caught by the mindless thingies wasn’t exactly healthy for me right now.
“I would, but we’re soon entering Manhattan, and you all need to be out,” Elisa said. “Right before you tell me where to drop you off.”
I looked at Ax. Did he know what she was talking about? He shook his head.
“I’m afraid I don’t get what you mean.”
“Tell me where to take you, and I’ll take you there, no worries,” Elisa said.
“No, no, I mean by out.” She said we needed to be out to enter Manhattan, and she couldn’t have meant…
“Unconscious.” Yep. That was exactly what she’d meant, apparently. “If the ECU gets a whiff of a signal, we’re toast.”
This time, I looked at all the others, hoping somebody would know anything. No one did.
“Okay, you might want to explain a few things to us. Like how the ECU would even get a signal on us.” If that was the truth, I had no idea what the hell I was going to do to. “And what exactly do you think us are?”
“I take it you haven’t heard, but you should be fine. I’ve seen you around the city. Nobody seemed to be after you, but the rest…” Elisa shrugged. “What I mean is that the ECU has this weak device they’ve developed, that can read the waves of your kind. From what I heard, it isn’t at its best yet, but it’s a threat, one I’m not willing to take.”
“Our kind?” Ax said, pushing himself forward to see Elisa better, and slamming me against the back of her seat in the process. “What do you know about our kind?”
Stopping the car abruptly to the side of the road in a quiet neighborhood full of one story houses, Elisa turned to us.
“Look, I don’t know much about your kind. All I know is the ECU knows how to find you now, as of three or four days or so. I’m not exactly in their good graces, so I’m not going to risk my neck because of you.”
“But you just did,” I said, confused as fuck, un
sure of what question to ask first. “You just saved us from them.”
“The demons are another thing,” she said waving me off. A lump formed in my throat. Demons? “I’ve been hunting them down since they came. They’re not dangerous to me—they rarely even fight back.”
“Okay, okay, you’ve just put my brains through a fucking sewer. Can you please back up a bit and speak to me like I’m a first grader? Can you do that?” Steam was coming out of my ears and when Elisa looked at me, she knew enough to not make any comments that would piss me off even more. I was on the verge of screaming my guts out until I passed out, and unless she told us what the hell she was talking about, the feeling wasn’t going anywhere.
“Look, I hunt down demons. It’s what I do. I followed this group around for a few days, and I came to kill them tonight. I found you in there by accident, and decided to save you instead of killing them, for which you should be thankful, not yelling at my face.”
“Are you saying that they can be killed?” I was going to believe everything she said, and I hoped to God she said yes.
“Well, I—” But Elisa didn’t get to finish.
“How is that important right now?” Luca said. “I’m much more interested to hear about the ECU. You’re telling me that they know about us, which isn’t possible. We’ve been part of paranormal communities all our lives before going off on our own. We would have heard.”
“You wouldn’t have heard because Dirts are a secret. I’m telling you that they know, and it’s your problem if you don’t believe it,” Elisa said like she was reading every word off a freaking script.
“Dirts?” Fallon asked. “What’s Dirts?”
Elisa flinched. “You are, but that’s irrelevant.”
“Like hell it is,” I said. “We have a name? When did that happen? And Dirts? What the actual fuck?”
“It’s the smell,” Elisa said, rolling her eyes. “Vampires and wolves claim you smell like Earth. Like dirt. I’m just telling you what the ECU calls you, that’s all.”