Storm legacy, p.1
Storm Legacy, page 1
part #3 of Scarlet Jones Series
STORM LEGACY
Scarlet Jones, Book Three
D.N. HOXA
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Copyright © 2018 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Also by D.N. Hoxa
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Also by D.N. Hoxa
———————————
Winter Wayne Series (Complete)
Bone Witch
Bone Coven
Bone Magic
Bone Spell
Bone Prison
Bone Fairy
Starlight Saga (Complete)
Assassin
Villain
Sinner
Savior
Morta Fox Trilogy (Complete)
Heartbeat
Reclaimed
Unchanged
Demonic Mage
Nova Unchained
One
My wrist and fingers were sore from writing for the past two hours. Now, as I closed the notebook—our new registering and inventory book, formerly a witch’s journal—I felt a bit dizzy. It wasn’t because of the dragon. Though it had been only a few hours since Sienna had created a self-sustaining energy source for the weapon, I still hadn’t been knocked out by it.
The night had been restless, to say the least. The rooms we slept in felt a thousand years old, and it took us an hour just to dust off the furniture and sheets. The monk who’d stayed there sure hadn’t bothered to keep things clean and tidy.
The monastery had one hundred and seventy rooms in total in the dormitory wing. I say rooms, but they were barely holes in the wall, some with twin beds, most with singles. The five-story building had one bathroom on each floor, with a tub and a rusted bucket for water close to it because showers were too modern. Sharing bathrooms was going to be a pain, but who was complaining? The administration buildings—we guessed—and the eating hall was in the middle, with the chapel to its left. There was space, lots of it, but most things looked about to break, even the walls. They had no TV, no computer, and the only thing that said the monastery had actually heard of technology was the old landline phone in one of the administration offices. Lots of handwritten folders in their shelves—and lots of Bibles, too.
The garden was as wide as all three buildings. It was a potential source of food, but the overgrown grass barely let us see a few rotten tomatoes. If we were going to use it, it was going to take a lot of work. The canned food we found in the kitchen cabinets—a donation from a foundation to the monastery—was going to last us a week, if that. The thought of keeping all those people fed and clothed was making me sick. There were a hundred and seventeen in the monastery now, including myself. Three more had shown up at the doors, about three hours after we sent the announcement.
Now, as I sat in the chapel with the former journal in hand, looking at the crowd sitting on the benches and on the floor like I was doing, I tried hard not to start crying.
We’d done the inventory of things we owned and were willing to give to our “community” for use. We had three laptops, more than a hundred phones (half without chargers), twenty-four pocketknives, fifteen guns, two flashlights, and a lot of gum packs. As for the money—based on those who told us how much they had and were willing to give away—we had just a little over six thousand. Yep. We were broke as fuck, on top of other things.
“Listen up, guys,” Elisa said, calling for attention. She was sitting next to me on the floor, with a sketchbook some of the others had let us borrow, where she’d put in the names, birthdays, occupations and families of half the people in that room. “We’re in deep shit here, as I’m sure you all know.”
I elbowed her on the side of her waist. “Don’t be an asshole,” I whispered, but with the tall ceiling above us, each one of my words echoed, and everybody heard. They laughed, which was a big surprise to me, because what Elisa had said was true. We really were in deep shit.
“The ECU is probably preparing to fight us. The demons, those people with the cat-like eyes you saw at the Carnival last night, are on the way to find us, we barely have food to last us a week, and we have little to no weapons, not to mention the almost nonexistent connection to the outside world,” Elisa continued as if I hadn’t said anything.
The only people not laughing were Franky, Cade and Tanya, sitting on the bench closest to me, watching the others. Sienna sat in the corner of the room all by herself, resting her back against the wall, watching us in silence.
“My laptop works just fine,” a guy sitting on the bench to my left said. His name was Jimmy, and he’d been the one to send out the announcement to every Storm witch in the country, telling them where we were and that our doors were open to anyone in need of shelter. I’d never forget the moment he hit post on Facebook and Twitter. At that rate, I was going to bathe in my own sweat and not even need the ancient bathtubs.
“Yes, John, your laptop works just fine,” Elisa said.
“It’s Jimmy,” the guy corrected, but she paid him no attention.
“I’ve got a list of half of you here. I’m going to start with what we need the most: weapons,” Elisa said and turned to the sketchbook. “Tyler White?”
A guy on the right raised his hand. His round face made him look a lot younger than twenty, which was the age he’d given to Elisa. I could see it in her sketchbook. He came from a family of Bone witches, and his father had been a weapons master. “How good are you at making weapons?”
Tyler flinched. “I guess I’m good enough.”
For the state we were in, yeah.
“What can you make?”
“Swords, knives, bows,” Tyler shrugged. “But I’d need tools to do that.”
“We don’t you put together a list of things you absolutely must have to get to work,” Elisa said.
“And how do you propose we get those things?” I whispered to her while Tyler got his phone out and began to type.
“There’s a lot of trees we can cut and more than enough metal. The fences, for example. I’m sure we can put something together,” Elisa said, but I doubted it. Even if we had the raw materials, he’d still need the tools to shape them into weapons.
Suddenly, the bench on my right groaned loudly, as if warning the people sitting on it that it was about to break down. My heart almost jumped out of my throat, and my eyes landed on the double doors on the other side of the chapel. Closed.
We had ten people outside keeping guard, Ax and Grover with them. They were keeping an eye out for demons or the ECU. I kept waiting for a gunshot that would tell us that somebody was out there. So far, there had been no gunshots, but I was constantly on edge, and now, even my ears were beginning to play tricks on me.
“Next, we have Lois Garcia,” Elisa said. “A thief.” She grinned.
The girl smiled proudly, her ginger hair tied behind her back. There was nothing about the freckles on her cheeks or the warm, brown eyes that said she stole for a living, but there she was.
“What exactly can you steal?” Elisa asked her.
“Anything, really. You name it,” Lois said calmly. Some of the people around her patted her back. Way to go, Lois.
“I’m going to have to think of a few things,” said Elisa. I rolled my eyes and cleared my throat.
“How many of you have family members or friends out there that are willing to help us?”
Only eight hands rose. That was bad. I’d expected at least twenty.
“So when are we going to get to the good part?” Maddy said.
Still the youngest among us, I’d been so happy to see her that morning. To know that she’d been safe. I was dying to ask everyone how they’d managed to stay hidden for so long after we had to separate in Long Island. So far, twenty of the twenty-seven were with us. The rest we were still waiting for.
“What’s the good part?” I asked Maddy.
“The magic!” she said and pointed behind Elisa and I—at Sienna. “What she did.”
“All right, so how many of you know how to use your magic?” I asked next. Maddy was right, our magic was the only reliable thing right now. If we learned how to fight with it, we at least would feel safer in case the ECU came asking for a fight. The demons were a whole other story.
All but six people raised their hands. Better than I expected.
“Here’s the deal. Sienna has no idea how she did what she did,” Elisa said. She just loved to overdo the whole straightforward thing. “And we have no idea how to train you without spells. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to try it out yourself.”
“For which we need a safe environment,” I said. “And that’s going to be the dining hall.” It was the biggest room in al l the buildings, save for the one we were in. It was also the least useful one. We weren’t going to stay there forever, and we could eat out of those cans standing, if need be. “Nobody is allowed to use their magic out of line and out of the dining hall. Do you understand?” They sure didn’t like that. I could see it in their frowns, but none voiced their complaints. “Neither of us have any idea what we’re capable of. This is very important, guys. The whole world is after us. It would be a tragedy if we lost someone out of recklessness.”
On that, they definitely agreed.
“So who’s in charge here?” one of them asked. I had no idea what her name was. Elisa had signed her up. She was a tall girl, younger than me by a couple years, with dark eyes and ash blonde, dyed hair.
“She is,” Elisa said, pointing back at Sienna.
“Who put her there?” another guy asked.
“The universe, it seems. A Bone witch saw it in a vision. She’s your leader,” Elisa informed them. I wondered if any of them had seen Karim, too.
“I want to be in charge, too,” said another. Ugh. I hated talks like this.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right? Let’s figure out how to protect ourselves from the demons and the ECU, and then we can talk about who’s in charge of what. For now, we’ll just work together.”
I saw it in their eyes—the greed. Some had it more than others. We had self-proclaimed ourselves a community of witches of the same kind, fighting against the outside world until said world accepted us. Of course they wanted a seat in the front row. What I didn’t know was how much trouble they were willing to cause about it.
“I’m ready to see what I can do,” Franky said and stood up from his bench. Cade and Tanya joined him.
“Get Ax on the way out. He’ll help you get started,” I said reluctantly. I wanted to go with them desperately, but I needed to talk to Sienna, ask her why she’d stayed silent the whole damn day, and to ask Elisa if she had any spells we could use to protect ourselves from the demons. Again.
Tyler White brought her the list of things he needed to start making weapons. I didn’t even look at it, already knowing there was no way we could provide anything for him.
In a matter of minutes, the chapel was empty, save for Elisa, Sienna, and me. Standing up to stretch my legs, I went to stand in front of Sienna. She’d talked like she knew exactly what was going on the night before at the Carnival, but now, she was looking down at her fingers, resting on her lap.
“Are you okay?” I asked because she looked awfully pale from so close up.
“I’m a stranger,” she whispered. The sound of her own voice seemed to startle her, and she dragged herself up to her feet. “I know what I saw and what I did, but it’s hard to face everyone and promise them something I have no idea of myself.”
Oh, no. She wasn’t having second thoughts, was she?
“There’s no need to promise us anything. We’re in the same situation as you are. We’re all fighting for survival. Whoever chose you to be the leader, they did so for a reason,” I said in a breath. “You can make lightning fall out of the sky.” In case she forgot. I didn’t. The memory was still very vivid in my mind.
“But how do I show you? You need that more than me. I’m just one person.”
Her confusion came out in waves toward me. Her fear. It wasn’t unlike my own.
“We’ll figure it out. One thing at a time.”
It was all I could say to her. We were all in over our heads here, but there was hope. Or there used to be. Now? I wasn’t so sure when I kept hitting dead ends about everything. One attack was all it was going to take. Just one attack.
Taking in a deep breath, Sienna nodded. “I’m going to need your help with something. I want to write to the ECU.”
My eyes almost popped out of my skull. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because of what you said. They will see what we show them, and the best way to show them that we meant what we said is by reaching out to them first.”
“She’s right,” Elisa said. “Or at least it’s a better option. The other is to sit and wait for them to attack.”
“We’re not going to sit and wait. We’re going to look for the Spellmaker.” Turns out there was still hope—or that’s what I called the sudden numbness that took over my chest.
“I’m not looking to provoke them in any way,” said Sienna. “I just want to officially tell them where we are and let them know that we will be expecting a call for a meeting from them to discuss what will happen to us if and when we leave this place.”
It sounded so simple when she said it like that. As if the ECU was even going to give us a chance.
“I just don’t t—” I was cut off by one of the entrance door screeching open.
My heart jumped again, my magic making its way to my fingers, as ready as ever to attack.
But it wasn’t a demon or the ECU coming in. It was Ax and Grover, together with a man I’d never seen before. It seemed we had another newcomer.
He was as tall as Ax but smaller in build. His blond hair was cut close to his head, and his dark eyes were cold. He analyzed us in detail even before they made it in front of us. His skin had leftovers of a tan, as if he’d been on vacation not too long ago. The clothes he wore were expensive. Very expensive. He looked better than all the rest of us combined.
“This is Eight,” Grover said, patting the guy on the back. “This is Scarlet, Elisa, and Sienna.” Grover waved his hand at us. Eight only nodded.
“What kind of name is Eight?” I asked. He definitely didn’t look like an Eight.
“He refuses to show us his magic,” Ax said. He sure sounded pissed off. Now that I noticed, he was pretty tense, too, and he wouldn’t look away from Eight. Why hadn’t he gone to the dining hall with the others?
“Because I don’t know how,” the guy said.
“You don’t know how to do magic?” That was…stupid.
“No. I’ve never been allowed to try,” the guy said through clenched teeth.
“That sounds interesting,” Elisa said with a grin. “Where do you come from, Eight?”
“My real name is Oscar Sullivan,” he said. At the mentioning of the name, I involuntarily flinched and thought of the werewolf who’d handed us over to the ECU to save his daughter. “My mother is Theodora Sullivan.”
Holy cow…
Theodora Sullivan was a Green coven leader. I’d read about her before. My mother hated her guts, which meant Theodora stood up for something or was better than my mother in any way. But then, my mother hated other women for wearing more expensive jewelry than she did, so that wasn’t saying a lot.
“Are you a Storm witch or not?” Ax said, his foot tapping against the floor rapidly.
“I am,” Eight said with a nod, “but I’ve never been allowed to use my magic before, so I’m not sure how strong I am.”
“Strength is irrelevant,” I said. “How do you know you’re like us if you’ve never tried it before?”
Pressing his lips together, he looked at the floor for a second. “I did try it when I was a kid. My parents caught me. They made sure I never tried it again, right after they were over trying to convince themselves that their son couldn’t possibly be any different from them.” Not much love for his parents, it seemed. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Confused, I shook my head. “Then why are you here?”
“Because of the ECU,” he spit, making my flesh break out in goose bumps.
“What about the ECU?” Elisa took a menacing step closer to him.
“They killed someone. Someone I cared for,” Eight said. “She was like us, too.”
My brain did its best to make me want to gouge my own eyes out, by putting together images of a girl my age being shot down and killed for no reason at all.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Though nobody close to me had died, it must have sucked for him to watch.
Eight nodded again. “They spared me because of my parents. Hers weren’t rich or powerful. She was the one who wanted a better life for our kind, and I’m going to honor her wish by being here and helping you.”
“How close is your mother to the ECU leaders?” Ax suddenly asked. He no longer sounded so angry.
“As close as all coven leaders.”
