Mystic Bonds

by C C Solomon

  Jared raised a hand. “Can I get some of that?” he asked, wide eyed.

  I threw some magic on him and he went from neutered dog to scary werewolf. Well, at least his hand he used to test his magic was scary, which looked like a furry monster claw. It was twice the size of his hand previously, with 4-inch, black talons at the end. One swipe with those and I would be maimed for life if I were a regular human or a paranormal with no regenerative or healing abilities. And that was if I survived.

  “Great, back in business,” he said, checking out his hand with a wicked grin.

  “So, we work in sync. We fight and use our powers in the worst way until we are off these grounds,” I stated. “If we have to kill, we will.”

  “I’m all for that,” Jared replied, sounding a little too eager.

  Charles gave a curt nod. “What about Chelsea and everyone else?”

  “I think we’re limited on time. It took me long enough to find you. So, we get out, get some folks to help us and tear this place down. I feel sick saying this but… I’m not sure we can chance any more time finding Chelsea.”

  Jared frowned and Charles shook his head. “That’s not right,” he said.

  “I think Amina’s right,” Jared stated. “The best we can do is get reinforcements and come back for her.”

  Charles nodded silently.

  “I promise, we are coming back for her and everyone else. You ready?” I asked them.

  Chapter 6

  I’m not a cocky person, so I in no way thought getting out of there would be easy. “Whatever you do, don’t stop. Just keep running,” I stated.

  “Are you going to stay invisible?” Jared asked.

  I nodded but then forgot he couldn’t see me. “Yep, until I need to fight.” I wasn’t able to use two of my powers at the same time. “Let’s go.”

  And we ran. Luckily, we weren’t far from the first floor and Charles’ room was near the exit stairwell.

  Naturally, a guard appeared before we got halfway down the hall.

  Charles raised his hands upward and the ceiling shook; plaster cracking and breaking in large chunks. Several electrical wires shot through and wrapped around the guard, carrying him up and into the ceiling.

  “That was dramatic.” I said, running below the squirming guard.

  “Go hard or go home,” Charles said, running along-side me; Jared ran behind us surveying Charles’ work.

  A camera hanging from the ceiling was slowly turning towards us. Charles snapped his fingers and it stopped, the red “On” light going dark.

  A blood taker carrying some empty blood packs turned a corner. I put him to sleep like I did the woman in Charles’ room earlier.

  I knew, as we turned off each monitor and disabled each approaching personnel, that we were alerting attention to our escape. I didn’t care; we kept running. We reached the exit door on the first floor and pushed through, undeterred.

  We ran straight past a garden on the left and a wide parking lot on our right. At the end of the parking lot was the electrified gate leading to the woods. Still moving, I turned and saw a guard on the hospital roof, pointing what had to be a rifle at Charles.

  “Charles, on the roof!” I shouted, now visible.

  Charles threw his hand out and whispered a releasing spell. The gun flew from the guard’s hand; zooming towards us. I put the guard to sleep; half of his body hanging over the side of the building. Several other guards appeared and we got in sync to handle them. I made them sleep, Charles lifted their guns, and Jared…scared them and if they weren’t scared, he made them hurt or worse. I tried my best to avoid his monster claws—which were ripping and shredding the chests of guards, releasing blood and intestines—or those giant, furry hands twisting their heads all the way around. Just more images to add to my nightmares, since this whole supernatural world became real.

  Charles continued to take the weapons until he and I had two. Jared preferred to fight with his claws…and teeth. Although we had powers, having weapons was extra protection in case we faced something we couldn’t get through.

  We raced towards the fence but were hindered by several guards appearing from our left. They yelled for us to stop.

  We didn’t.

  “Keep going. Charles, get that fence down,” I ordered my brother.

  A guard aimed his gun at Charles and pulled the trigger.

  Charles flung out his left hand, his mouth moving silently as he whispered a stop motion spell, and the bullet stopped in midair, several inches from his chest. The bullet then dropped to the ground. The spell only worked on nonliving things but it was useful in situations like this or when a car tried to run you off the road.

  However, Charles couldn’t keep that much power up and I didn’t have the power to

  command them all to sleep at once so I had to think bigger. “Inferno!” I shouted.

  A wall of fire a quarter of a mile long and several feet tall, rose from the ground in front of us. It was wild and angry. I pushed it, hands outstretched in front of me, towards the guards who quickly scattered back from the flames and heat.

  I felt him coming before I saw him.

  David, beyond the smoke and fire and guards. He raced towards us like a possessed man at full speed, arms pumping. His steel-blue eyes, almost otherworldly now, were focused on me.

  “Gate’s down, Mina, but you got to unward it,” Charles shouted.

  “Go, I’ll make sure no one gets past this fire,” Jared stated, his hands out, both fully clawed. He began to shift fully now into a two-legged wolf nightmare that stood over seven feet tall.

  I turned to the gate. Aside from de-electrifying the fence, Charles magically made a three-person-sized gap in the links for us to get through. “Stop David!” I shouted.

  Charles joined Jared and focused his attention on the guards and David, while I looked at the ward.

  I could see it; a wall of translucent red. I didn’t know the witch’s spell but I didn’t have to. It was over nine years as a witch now and I had some experience with breaking wards. I held my breath and touched the magic wall with both hands. The zapping pain was still there as it had been when I touched my very first ward, but I was prepared for it this time. I didn’t move my hands and instead pushed into the wall. It was strong and non-yielding. The burning pushed up my arms and spread through my body. I kept pushing; pouring my strength and magic through my fingers. The translucent wall became slightly softened, yet I could not break through. Sweat pooled at my hairline and under my arms as I strained against the ward.

  I heard Charles and Jared yelling as they fought the guards. In seconds, David would be on us. I had a feeling that he was doped up on blood serum and wouldn’t be stopped by my wall of fire. I also knew that maintaining the fire was weakening me and prevented me from breaking the ward. If I were going to break this ward, I’d have to use a spell and that meant I had to stop my fire spell.

  I sucked in a breath and pushed at the wall again. It weakened more but it still proved too strong to push through. I had to stop the fire. I turned my head towards Charles and Jared, just in time to see David jump over the six-foot-tall wall of fire.

  Damn.

  He landed on his feet right in front of Charles, who shot the semi-automatic rifle he was holding at him but David was scarily fast. He dodged the bullet and knocked the gun out of Charles hands and they began to wrestle.

  My options were few now. I had only one hand to play.

  I let the fire fade. Since it was magic made, it didn’t need water to go away. Just me letting go of the magic keeping it alive. I turned to the ward with full strength and I whispered a chanting, barrier-breaking spell to demolish the ward. It broke in seconds, already weakened by my earlier efforts. The witch who made the ward was strong but fortunately I was stronger. I thanked God as I watched the ward crack then crumble. I pushed my hands through and felt air on the other side. But I didn’t have time to rejoice.

  I turned and spotted David grab Charles, w
ho was sitting on the ground, by the throat; Charles clawed at his hands. Jared was surrounded by several guards and he swiped out at them as they closed in.

  “I will kill him, Amina. I will crush his fucking throat. I know you’d hate your brother to die,” David shouted.

  “Let him go! You know I’m stronger than him. You want me,” I yelled back.

  “I’m not here to negotiate. You all come back.”

  I peeked movement from my peripheral. On my left, Jared was now being held down by several guards on the ground. Several more slowly advanced towards me on my right. I needed something massive to stop them all.

  I put my hands up in surrender and dropped to my knees. “Fine.” I stared at Charles, who was giving me pleading eyes. I knew he wanted me to run but there would be no way I would leave him. I dropped my hands to the ground and felt the earth. I touched the grass and dirt between my fingers. I’d never done this before. I knew no spell, but if I focused on what I wanted in my mind’s eye, maybe it would work anyway. “Move,” I whispered to the ground. I hadn’t used a power word. The ground did not have to magically listen to me. And yet…

  A tremendous rumbling erupted from below, shaking the earth. The guards lost balance and fell. They struggled unsuccessfully to get up again, letting Jared go, who got to his feet and used that time to attack them. I grimaced as he slashed the throats and faces of fallen guards.

  David fought to maintain his balance but my mini earthquake proved too much. He let go of Charles, who then got to his feet and raced towards me, falling midway. He wisely stayed on all fours and crawled to me.

  David, still standing in a wide-leg balance, began to move slowly towards me as well. Forcing each step, slowly but steadily; his eyes were locked on mine.

  “Get behind the gate,” I ordered Charles once he reached me and he continued to crawl. I got up on shaky feet, pulling at my core to maintain balance. This was my earthquake, it would not get the best of me.

  I carefully backed up, trying to beat the pace of David but he was almost a foot taller than me with much longer legs.

  A gun went off close to my left ear. David, hit in the shoulder, stumbled back. I turned around and ducked through the space in the gate. Charles aimed a handgun he had collected earlier at David. He pulled the trigger again, hitting David in the arm and this time he fell. Turns out my brother’s years of playing video games and fighting real life monsters these past nine years had made him an excellent shot.

  “Jared!” I shouted as the werewolf continued to literally tear through the crowd of guards. He turned towards me, then eyed David. I already knew what he was thinking. “Let it go!”

  Jared looked to me again with a heartbreaking mixture of anger and sadness on his wolfen face. He looked back at David who was now getting up and advancing towards me, oblivious to my friend contemplating ripping his throat out. Jared looked back at me, this time his eyes were calm and resolute. “Go,” he shouted in a bass heavy voice, slightly foreign from his normal tone. He then jumped in the air and pounced onto David’s back, sending the man back to the ground. He raised a claw in the air and sliced down.

  I turned my head and grimaced.

  I needed my full magic and I released my hold on the ground. “Stop shooting,” I ordered Charles.

  I needed to make a ward but couldn’t do so if the bullets were passing through, interrupting the ward wall. I had to use this gift that Jared was giving us wisely. I quickly traced three symbols into the dirt where the former ward was placed, my magic pouring through my fingers into the ground. When making wards, I tended to fluctuate between symbols and spells. Neither was better than the other but I found symbols required less of my energy. This particular symbol would wrap ten square miles around the hospital grounds. Since I didn’t have time to cover the exact circumference of the hospital vicinity, I had to guess how wide to make it and I’d rather it be too large than too small.

  I then stood up. I looked to David who, bloodied, was busy tussling with Jared. Guards came at the pair as Charles tugged on my arm.

  “Let’s go!” my brother shouted.

  David turned to me as Jared raised his hand for another attack across his chest. He didn’t speak, just looked at me with icy hate.

  I smiled as Jared’s hand came down but the grin failed to reach my eyes. I then gave David my middle finger before turning and leaving with my brother.

  We were free.

  Chapter 7

  Six months trapped in that hospital facility, treated like cattle, and now I was free again. It felt almost foreign. The air smelled different to me. I felt hope again, filled with possibilities.

  “What’s the game plan, Mina? We left Chelsea and Jared behind. I don’t even know if he’s going to survive. It’s getting dark and we don’t want to be out in these woods. We gotta find a house, ward it up, and regroup in the morning,” Charles stated, walking alongside me as we moved further into woods, putting more distance between ourselves and the hospital.

  “We have to keep moving. I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to get a witch who can break my ward and then they’re going to be on us. They have dogs and cars,” I replied.

  “We should have stolen a car.”

  “In retrospect, that would have been the smart thing to do. I was in a rush.”

  “You could have left me.”

  “Yeah, right, silly.”

  Charles stopped walking. “Mina, I don’t even know how far we are from the road.”

  “We can’t be far. Reggie, who told me where you were, said it was safer for us to go through the woods because we wouldn’t be followed in at night. We were in a hospital and it had to be accessible to communities so I’m assuming the woods can’t be too large.”

  We continued to walk. We didn’t speak, nervous as our surroundings seemed to come alive around us now that it was dark. We were only aided by the stars, moon, and a light from Charles’ old magic powered smartphone he kept in his bookbag.

  The world had gotten a better grip on living with the supernatural but we were still hardly where we were before. Between the Sickness and the supernatural, there were certain towns that were abandoned and left to become whatever the new supernatural nature had made of it. I assumed we were in one of those towns, since one would assume a filled hospital would draw unwanted attention for our captors.

  Charles stopped suddenly. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  I stopped walking and listened. I heard nothing at first but then a low growl. It sounded like an injured dog but I was pretty sure it wasn’t, which only made it creepier.

  There was something staring at us through the trees.

  It was about a hundred feet away to the right. It was large. Bright red orbs the size of basketballs glowed at us from about twenty feet off the ground. I didn’t need light to know what it was.

  A troll.

  “I am betting the road is west. The left,” Charles whispered. “That’s where the hospital entrance faced.”

  I nodded but of course he couldn’t see me in the dark.

  “Run!” he said in a loud whisper.

  We both took off. I stumbled a few times on rocks but Charles clung on to me, grabbing my hand as he led us through the woods. He was the more athletic one and I hated slowing him down but my brother was not letting go.

  The troll we were running from was silent behind us because I couldn’t hear it and I didn’t feel the ground shaking like I would expect from a troll probably the size of a house. Maybe it just wasn’t up to chasing us today. Perhaps the troll had enough to eat. Of course, I had no intention of turning around to see if my guesses were correct.

  Road. Civilization. Life. Those were my only thoughts.

  We ran for about fifteen minutes before we hit road and then we slowed to a trot. I took a chance to see if the troll was behind us but I saw nothing, as I expected. I began to wonder if it really had been a troll or rather some creepy-eyed, great big owl perched on a tree limb.
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br />   On the road we could find a car, hopefully with gas or electricity powered Charles was strong enough now to get a car going.

  We did see cars. Lots of them. They were moved to the side of the road, I assumed so the kidnappers could come and go easily, making this a dangerous road to be on.

  Past the cars, the road was lined with trees from the woods on the right and the backs of a few dilapidated fenced in houses on the left.

  Charles, who had a knack for finding cars he could get going easily, ran up to a black SUV that still looked in good shape. He opened the door to the driver’s side and sat down in the seat. The car started, headlights on. I ran to the passenger side and got in.

  “How far should we drive? We really don’t want to be moving around here too long in the dark. I’m telling you, we will be targets, especially in an area like this,” Charles stated nervously, driving the car off of the side of the road and heading north; away from the hospital.

  “We need to get on the highway, find out where we are,” I replied.

  I looked at the car clock and was surprised to see that it was accurate. Most likely due to Charles’ magic. It was almost 9 p.m. We spotted a sign for interstate I-79 South, leading to Baltimore. It appeared that we were in a rural part of Pennsylvania. Erie to be exact, which was about a six-hour drive to Baltimore. Longer, considering we had to drive at snail speed since the roads were still littered with cars, bodies—both the human and inhuman kind, of various sizes and shapes—and debris.

  “First stop on the highway, we pull off and find shelter. You’re right, it’s getting too dark to be on the road,” I stated.

  We turned off in Pittsburg, a little under two hours from Erie, to look for shelter. Minutes later we were cruising down a quiet abandoned residential area with large houses and a lot of land. Not the most ideal, since this was a great location for monsters but it was the best option for now and it was dark.

  Charles parked in front of a three-story, dingy white house with a large attached garage. We got out of the car on high alert and walked up the front porch steps. The house was still in good shape, all things considered. The grass was waist-tall and weeds had taken over. The windows were a bit dusty and a layer of dead leaves and dirt covered the porch but the bones of the house were strong.