by D. N. Hoxa
“What the—” Ax was cut off by the sudden beat coming from somewhere behind us. Terrified, we jumped around to see where the music was coming from.
Holy cow, when did all these people gather behind me? Easily another hundred, but the boom, boom, boom that was shaking the ground was coming from the open trailer of a massive truck, where about thirty witches, dressed in white flowing dresses with white flowers forming crowns on top of their heads, stood with wooden bowls in their hands. Bowls filled with flower petals of all colors. In front of us, in the back of the trailer, stood two women, these dressed in pink, in front of two microphones. I’d seen them on YouTube before. They were some famous singers, one a witch and the other a werewolf but I didn’t know which was which. Soon, they began to sing.
The loud music left no room in my head for thoughts for a second, and that terrified me. The entire floor of the truck trailer was made of glass, underneath which lights of all colors shone, momentarily blinding me of my surroundings. A hand wrapped around mine and Sienna squeezed it tightly, her eyes wide with fear as she watched the women waving and smiling at the audience. The people went wild. A loud horn honked, just before the singers began to sing, their voices crystal clear against the music.
The truck began to drive forward. The current of people rushing after it took us with them.
“Ax!” I shouted, so panicked I wanted to puke my guts out, until I saw his pale face just a few feet away from me, behind Grover. They elbowed their way to us, which was harder than one might think, considering how eager the people were to move forward.
“They’re here!” Ax said and my heart skipped a beat. It took me a while to be able to see the other vehicles behind us. They were all full of people now. The BMWs, the busses, and the two carriages. The wider one was packed with whom I thought were coven and pack leaders, while the one behind it, a foot taller, was where the ECU leaders had sat. My eyes zoomed in on Erick Adam’s face. He was smiling, that snake of a witch, and waving at the cheering crowd. My hatred for him was like the sky—it had no limit. As much as I would have liked to walk up to him, past the ten soldiers walking around the carriage with their automatic rifles in hand, the crowd didn’t let me. It pushed me forward and all I could do was hold onto Sienna’s hand.
I never had any trouble with people pressing against me before, but now, they took my breath away. They raised my panic to incredible levels. My face was numb and my thoughts a mess. The faces flashing in front of my eyes were all joyful, excited, screaming and calling, throwing flowers and candy at everyone. The music hurt my ears, even though the beat had slowed down, and the singers were singing some kind of a ballad. In a blink of the eye, we were on the main street, going toward Midtown. Even more paranormals were waiting for the truck there, but they weren’t the only ones. Humans watched the lights and heard the music, completely amazed. You could see it on their faces. Some had their phones up to record, and others were just watching with their lips parted, eyes filled with wonder. The ECU was going to have a heck of a time finding and deleting those videos. The chanting had already begun. Paranormals didn’t whisper. They shouted out their spells onto the crowd. The truck led the way, driving extremely slowly, and the carriages, the busses and the cars followed close behind. Disoriented, my body refused to pick a direction. Instead, I let the crowd carry me forward. The women on the open trailer continued to smile and throw flower petals at the crowd.
“Scarlet, we need to get out,” Grover called, pushing the people back just as hard as they pushed him forward. But there were too many of them behind us and it was impossible to stay in one place, or they were going to knock us down and step all over us. What a tragic way to die.
“Just hang on!” I called back. “They’re going to stop.”
Ax met my eyes. “They’re going to Geraldine Street,” he said. Geraldine Street would normally be half an hour away, but at this pace, it was going to take a couple hours.
A couple of hours in that crowd? God, help us.
“We need to abort. Get the fuck back!” Grover shouted angrily, trying to find his way out of the crowd, but now the humans had gathered, too, and it was a mess. Wherever you looked there were people. All we could see was the truck. Even the carriages and the honking BMWs had disappeared from our view. We could only make out the lights coming off them.
“Grover, no!” I shouted, but before I could say anything else, someone grabbed me by the shoulder. Instinctively, my magic growled and rose inside my chest, rushing to the tips of my fingers, ready to make a mess out of every paranormal within touching range.
Good thing I looked back first.
Elisa’s wide blue eyes filled my vision. Oh, it was so good to see her face, I almost cried out. Laughing, I pulled her closer. She had a thin frame so she moved between bodies with much more ease.
But she didn’t laugh when she was in front of me. On the contrary. “We have to go.”
Ax grabbed me by the arm and held on tightly while the crowd pushed us forward, until he was another foot closer, with Grover right behind. Sienna was still holding onto my hand tightly.
“We made it this far. We’re not going to back down now,” I said, but my voice was weak, my will weaker. The laughter, the spells, the music—it was all too much.
“This is only the beginning. More people are coming, and more are waiting in the streets to join them,” Elisa said. “We can’t do this. Not tonight.”
My heart fell all the way to my heels.
“It’s okay, Scarlet,” Ax said. He’d surrendered, too. “We’ll come back.”
Come back? How? When? A promise to come back wasn’t going to stop the ECU from killing innocents right under the people’s noses. If we waited, how many people were going to be left? Worse yet, how many of them were going to trust us when we called for them again, after we put up the signs for tonight and then did nothing?
“Follow me,” Elisa said, and with my hand in hers, pulled me to the right. But my body refused to move. This was wrong. How many others were out there, waiting for us? How many were going to die tomorrow if we just left?
“Scarlet, go!” Grover shouted, completely terrified, but even the crowd could no longer move me. My feet were stuck to the asphalt. I needed to think with my head clear, but it was impossible! The people, the chanting, the honking, the music was b—
…The music.
Invisible barriers closed around my ears, drowning out the sound completely. I was suddenly all alone in my head, my magic the only thing keeping me company as I thought about what to do next. We’d come too far to back down now. We’d started because the hunt against us needed to stop.
And we were going to try our damn hardest to make it—tonight.
Turning to Elisa, I allowed the sound of the world around me to fill me up again. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
Shaking her head in confusion, Elisa reached for something behind her back. With difficulty, she brought back two knives—one as small as my palm, and the other big enough to cause some real damage.
“What are you doing?” she asked me, already terrified by my answer.
“Follow my lead. Protect yourselves,” I said, and before they could stop me, I went for the crowd with a new resolve.
The shawl fell from my shoulders in the sea of people, but I didn’t care. I was no longer trying to hide. Getting violent against people with my fists and elbows in order to get to my destination was a necessity. Though I might have hurt some more than I’d have like, I didn’t feel bad. The edge of the open trailer was barely six feet away from me now.
Screw coming back another day.
I was going to hijack the truck and make sure everybody saw and heard us.
Harder than I’d hoped, a bit easier than I’d feared, I finally managed to push the last guy from in front of me with all my strength, and grab the edge of the trailer. There were guards around it, but at least ten rows of people were between them and us. If they had the okay to shoot when there we
re so many civilians around, our magic was going to protect us.
The people didn’t try to stop me when I pushed my body up. A hand wrapped around my ass and pushed me instead. One of the singers saw me getting up to my feet, and took a step aside.
This is it, Scarlet. Your purpose. Your whole damn life comes down to this.
The best pep-talk I’d ever had with myself.
Calling for my magic, I raised both of Elisa’s knives to the singers. The other—the werewolf who hadn’t seen me at first—screamed, and the microphone picked all of it out. The sound of her spilled through the speakers at the end of the trailer, attached to the truck. The women around the railings stopped throwing their flower petals at the crowd.
“Move,” I said to all of them, the singers and the women. “Get down, right now.”
I had no idea how much of a threat I looked like, but so far, nobody had shot at me. My mini tornado spun around my body, protecting me and making a mess out of my hair in the process. But there was no way I was stopping now. Taking a threatening step forward, I evoked another scream from the singer, before she hurried to the other side of the trailer and jumped off.
A few others began to scream, too. Ax, Sienna, Grover and Elisa were already up there with me now. Ax moved to the back where the speakers were, because the music was still extremely loud, about to blow us all off the trailer. Magic spun around us, except Elisa, as we faced the confused crowd, watching us like they weren’t sure if we were part of the show or not.
But we were. We were about to give them the best show of their lives.
Now that they’d stopped moving forward, the soldiers had enough room to come in front of us, all twenty-three of them. More were on the roofs and in the buildings, but they weren’t shooting at us yet. Erick Adams and the other ECU leaders had stood up on their carriages, more annoyed than afraid.
“Good evening, my fellow paranormals. So good to see you all gathered in one place.”
The microphone whistled with Grover’s voice. At that, the music stopped. Grover stepped forward, taking the microphone off the stand. His magic moved the microphone wire to the sides but he didn’t care. With my arms raised and my knives in hand, I focused on the soldiers in front of us. They were the ones we could see and who were closest to us. If anybody made a single move, I was going to be the first to know about it.
“We’re very sorry to crash this party, but we had to, because we have something to say,” Grover continued, his voice now crystal clear without the music background. Ax stepped right behind me and Sienna. “And you all are going to listen.”
The ECU soldiers moved. They all went down on one knee and directed the barrels of their automatic rifles at our faces.
Come at us, I thought. “Shield me when they start to shoot,” I said to Ax. “I’ll blow them off.”
“Do it quick,” was all he said.
It was only a matter of seconds now before they began to shoot. It was a matter of minutes before more soldiers made it to us. The crowd began to part, moving away from us on both sides.
“But first, are there any Storm witches in this city?!” Grover shouted into the microphone, raising his arms. My ears whistled with the words. I had no idea how he maintained such perfect control of his shield, and spoke as excitingly as he did. “Before these guys here start shooting, come gather around us. We’re here for all of you.”
Holy cow, I couldn’t have said it better myself. It was exactly how I’d pictured it when I got the idea to hijack the trailer. If we couldn’t find the others, we just needed to show them how to find us—and Grover did just that. When this was over, I owed him a hundred kisses. Turning to Sienna, he bowed and offered her the microphone. “My lady.”
Sienna looked at me, as if she needed reassurance. The silence around us was heavy. Nobody dared to even breathe. “I’m right by your side,” I said and got closer to her, while Elisa, her face completely covered in a red shawl, stood by her other side. “Keep her safe,” I told her and she nodded without a word. Grover and Ax stepped behind us. I focused on the soldiers again, waiting for them to shoot. Whatever had stopped them until now, I sure hoped it lasted.
“To those of you who don’t know,” Sienna said, her voice surprisingly strong coming out of the large speakers behind our backs. The people continued to move farther away from us, giving the soldiers more than enough space to maneuver. “We are a new kind of witches, born in paranormal families, just like the rest of you. As you can see, there is no difference between us. We look the same, we speak the same, we breathe the same, because we are the same.”
Erick Adams began to laugh, his voice piercing the silence, though he was more than twenty feet away from us. The other leaders joined him, but that didn’t stop Sienna.
“It is our magic that is different, and for that, we have been hunted by those you call your leaders for a very long time.”
Whispers from the crowd. The people were turning to one another, asking questions or commenting, or simply laughing at us the same way the ECU leaders were.
“We’re being killed every day because we’re different, something the world hasn’t heard of yet,” Sienna continued, her voice raising even higher. “And that needs to end.”
“You have no place here, Dirt!” someone shouted from the crowd.
“Go back where you came from!”
“Why aren’t you shooting them already?” they said to the soldiers.
But none of that interested me more than Erick Adams, who raised his chin and took in a deep breath. It looked like he was about to speak, and remind me of every word he’d ever said to me and the others.
“Who are you to speak to us as if you know us, may I ask?” he said to Sienna, but he had no intention of waiting for an answer. My magic begged me to unleash it upon him, to take him and throw him to the other side of the world—preferably in tiny little pieces. “You and your kind are nothing but a threat to our world. What did you think you’d accomplish by ruining a hundred years old tradition? Respect?” He laughed some more.
“Freedom,” Sienna said, as calm as ever. I’d gone to find her, brought her back here together with Ax and Grover, but I was ashamed to admit that I never believed she could pull this off the way she was doing right now. “We’re here to tell the people that we exist. That we are the same. That we are being hunted because of your ignorance. You kill what you don’t understand. All the innocent lives lost because the very people who were supposed to protect them, failed to do so. You are driven by fear. Now, we bring that fear to you.”
The crowd erupted in whispers and curses yet again. Through the corner of my eye, I watched Sienna. She rarely even blinked. She spoke as if she’d been part of our world all her life. As if she’d witnessed the ECU killing people first hand. What was it that she said to us back at her father’s farm, that she could sometimes see time? I wondered if she’d really seen everything she was speaking about…
“There is a threat far greater than we ever were or will be to the world, and the people have the right to know that, too,” Sienna continued. The smile on all the leader’s faces dropped. “Another thing your leaders have been hiding from you are the monsters who prey on us, too. Monsters who will be unstoppable, if you refuse to stop them now.”
This time, there were no curse words from the crowd—just wide eyes and open mouths. To my knowledge, Sienna had only seen a demon once—the day we found her in the alley. Again, she spoke as if she’d seen them, felt them, had her magic sucked off by them. She shocked me all over again. Just who exactly was this girl?
“Look to the side,” Ax whispered behind me, and when I did, I almost passed out.
There were people close to the trailer now, where they hadn’t been just a few minutes ago.
People…like us.
It was easy to figure it out. They were the only ones who stood close to the trailer, and the only ones who weren’t scared shitless of us, or who didn’t look at us like we’d lost our minds. They
looked up at us with hopeful eyes, and if I wasn’t mistaken, three of the fifteen people were ones we’d rescued from the demons in the abandoned hospital.
My eyes filled with tears. They’d seen the signs. They’d come.
“There’s more,” Ax whispered next. “On the other side. A lot more.”
But the other side of the trailer was too far away and I couldn’t move away from Sienna. My magic and Elisa’s was shielding her.
“How dare you,” a very big guy standing close to Erick Adams said. He was Andrew Brigham, the Alpha of the Brigham wolf pack, and the newly elected ECU leader. “This Carnival is holy to our kind, and you come here to speak of things that you don’t even understand?!”
“How dare you murder my people without right?” Sienna said without missing a beat. Take that, Brigham.
“It is our right to protect our people,” another one of the leaders said. I’d seen his picture before, too. Simon Reed, leader of the Blood coven, elected by all kinds of witches as their new leader.
“In trying to make fools out of us, you’ve only succeeded in making fools out of yourselves,” Erick Adams said, raising his arms to his sides. “The people have seen you. You matter no more than you did before. We do not wish to spill blood here on this holy night and ruin our only tradition with the human world. Get off the trailer and follow the soldiers, now.”
The crowd cheered—but not all of them. In fact, most of them were looking at Adams like he’d lost his mind. Yes!
“We didn’t come here to make fools out of anyone. We came here to show you and the world that you can’t stop us, no matter how many you kill. We’ll keep rising,” Sienna said. I risked another glance to the side.
The fifteen people had become close to forty. “Oh my God,” I whispered, both in awe and terrified. They were all like us. They stuck close to the trailer and…holy cow, there was Franky and Cade! There were no smiles on their faces, but there were guns in their hands. They pushed others to the side until they reached the trailer, then pulled themselves up by the railings.
