Mystical (The Mystical Trilogy Book 1)

by Michael Weekly

  I think about getting the police involved in this type of situation and just minding my own business since I’m not sure if this is a witch’s business. Then the guy says, “You’ve killed three innocents within the last three hours.”

  “Those were just appetizers,” the girl says. She turns around and then back kicks the man onto the wet grass. Gracefully, she runs into the woods.

  Great another mystic.

  The guy was tracking down a mystic, but why? He gets up right after, as if the kick didn’t hurt him. He then charges into the forest after the mystic. My broomstick is in my pocket. I take it out and study it.

  What if it activates this time? Could my transformation be done?

  I go with my gut and follow them into the woods.

  ***

  Thunder booms above me as I brush the branches out of my way. My ears perk up. I hear footsteps on the fallen leaves. It’s weird because I can hear that over the rain and thunder around me.

  I grip my broomstick and walk into the darkness. A branch breaks off a tree nearby and crashes onto the ground. Another branch breaks behind me. I turn around quickly to see if the mystic was creeping around a tree.

  Wind brushes my cheek. I turn to my side and see a shadow briefly, but it disappears from my sight. I feel something crawling on my back. I freak out, but when I turn around and bump into a tree, there’s nothing.

  Ahead of me, I hear more sounds of someone running on the fallen leaves as well as the crackling of branches. Another brush of wind whips my hair around, but suddenly my strands are pulled by something, forcing me onto the ground.

  I turn around and, once again, see nothing. I try crawling to where I entered, but I’m surrounded by large trees. I’m lost in this forest with a mystic. As I try to get up, I am held down by a force. The ground vibrates and thin roots shoot up, slowly slithering around my thighs.

  “You should’ve just run away.”

  The roots squeeze my thighs and my hands are pulled down by more roots from the ground. The dirt stings my back and the leaves scratch my skin. I am being tortured by what seems to be an elf, one of the many dangerous mystics I’ve read about. I hear another movement of steps on the leaves and another branch from the trees above breaks off and falls to the ground.

  “Keep trying to fight back. It makes the game fun.”

  I hear someone land behind me on the leaves. Someone pulls my hair. The roots break off me as I am dragged across the muddy ground. A leaf slaps over my mouth as the mystic releases her grip of my hair. I see her shadow in the woods when she disappears again. My body has been pulled into wet mud. My legs are fully covered by the sticky liquid dragging me down.

  “If you don’t fight back, you’ll just die slowly.” The mystic’s voice is calm and persuasive.

  The leaf falls off of my mouth.

  “Help!” I scream.

  “Calm down and shut up,” a deep voice says from the shadows. This must be the stalking creep.

  As the guy kneels down in front of me, he glares at me in the darkness with blue, icy eyes. “Hold still.” His lips part.

  “I can’t breathe!” I cry, choking for air as the mud floods over my neck.

  “Stop talking. You’re only feeding your own death,” the guys says. Light glows over the mud. The dirt freezes and the guy punches it, shattering the mud.

  A tree’s branch moves to swipe the guy. I see this happening, but he seems to already be aware of the attack. He ducks when it tries to hit him. He then presses a button on an object he’s holding. I hear the scraping sound of metal my broomstick makes.

  “This is the second time I’ve saved your amateur ass…” He grunts, swiping the tree’s branch that attempts to attack him.

  Rain splatters on my skin. I glance up at his blue eyes and his hood. I can’t really see his face. “We need to lure the elf out of the forest. It’s the only way to kill one. I’m sure you know this.”

  I cough, trying not to reply to him so I won’t feed my death even more.

  “Don’t talk or make any sudden movements. She knows where we are, but eventually she’ll lose her mind if we don’t fight back.”

  I hear the sound of the mystic running across the leaves sound again. I want to turn around but the guy grabs my wrist to hold me still. My mind is going insane. I need to move around and see where the noise is coming from. Her laughter scratches the insides of my ears as the man tightens his grip.

  “Don’t fall for it, keep it together rookie.”

  Soon the torture stops and the guy takes one step forward. Immediately the elf jumps out from the darkness, aiming for me.

  He pushes me aside as I fall onto the ground. His weapon glows silver. He clicks the button and I see a metal whip come from the object and wrap around the elf’s neck. A purple string of electricity shoots through the blade, aiming for her skin.

  The girl’s ears are pointy and her eyes are black. I hear the zap. She gargles in pain as she gets electrocuted from the whip around her. There’s another swift press on the button. The whip slides back into his weapon’s handle. He presses the button again and the bar he’s holding turns into a dagger. He then cuts a piece of flesh from her neck. She snarls, falling against the muddy ground. He lands on top of her, forcing his dagger against her frantic heart. “Straight into the heart,” he controls his breathing. I hear his leather gloves around the handle of his broomstick. The mystic vanishes into green mist as soon as her head falls to the ground.

  “That’s how you kill an elf.” He moves his wet glued black hair from his cheeks.

  “I thought the only way to kill one was to lure them out of the forest.” I rub the side of my neck. The rain stops as I wipe the water off of my face.

  “I don’t talk to rookies,” he says, walking into the shadows.

  “But you kind of are…” I mutter, he stops walking to look at me. I see the light from where we entered. He turns around, I hear the sound of his wet combat boots, and he makes his way to the entrance.

  The elf must have been messing with my mind by making me think I was deep in the forest. I look behind me at where he vanquished her. I rush after the guy who is now standing at the curve of the road.

  “Hey!” I shout.

  He turns to me and gives me the most arrogant stare. He’s holding a broomstick, so he’s definitely a witch. He clicks the button, turning it off. He waits for me to say something, his jaws clenched. He places his weapon on the strap of his belt.

  “Who are you?” I say.

  He holds tightly on his hood as he waits for the cars to pass and then crosses the street. I run across with him, not aware of the oncoming traffic. A truck beeps its horn and something grabs on to my jacket, pulling me to the side.

  “Dumbass!” The man in the truck yells.

  I turn around to see the guy standing in front of me, clenching on to my arm tightly.

  “Third time,” he mocks, shoving me away from him. “How rookie can you get?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Whatever,” he clears his throat, “stop following me.”

  “No.”

  He stops walking, as if he wanted to say something, and then continues. I reach for his shoulder and pull off his hood. The side of his head is shaved and on the top, wet thick black hair is flopped to the side. He turns around slowly, glaring at me.

  “Don’t touch me,” he grunts between his clenched teeth as he glares down at my fingers.

  “Thanks for saving me from the mermaids.” I bite my bottom lip. “But you’ve been following me! Why are you coming off as a stalker? How could you be so…so…?” I start breathing frantically, then purse my lips together. I can’t think of a mean word to say to him.

  He walks closer to me, forcing my back against the brick business building I followed him behind. Trapped in his little cage between his thick arms, his warm breath brushes against my skin.

  “So what?” He snaps. “You have a lot to learn. I can tell you aren’t trained. You’re letting y
our emotions control you, clouding your judgment. It’s a typical rookie thing.” His chest is practically brushing against me now.

  “Get off of me!” I snap, glaring at him.

  “What’re you going to do?” He mocks. “You’re weak.”

  His hands brush against my thighs as he shoves himself on to me. He forces my back against the wall. I stare at his piercing light blue eyes and his rough face. He looks at me seductively, biting on his bottom lip. I feel violated.

  He stops touching my thighs and he glances to his side, rubbing his chin. He laughs.

  “That’s what I thought,” he says, “just a lame rookie and a useless witch.”

  He turns and lifts his hood back onto his head.

  “I guess I’m not the only witch out here…” I say, more to myself than him.

  He pauses. Then he places his hands into his pocket and vanishes into the darkness.

  I walk in the rain back to my car, utterly humiliated. My hands fly up into my messy strands, and my heart begins to beat harder. I think about Dawn and how she’s missing along with my mother and her strange boyfriend.

  Tonight has been a complete mess.

  I learned that my mom has been going to a different world called Ravamere, and, according to Jared, it’s a place full of corruption. I hold on to my door’s handle as all of these thoughts travel through my mind. I don’t know what to do at this point. I’m going to start off with finding my best friend first.

  I hold my broomstick in my hands tightly, glancing down at its slim size. That guy’s broomstick turned into many weapons—a whip, then to a dagger. How is it that my broomstick doesn’t do any of these things? Why does it only resize itself? I tuck the useless weapon into my pocket.

  I need to get more answers.

  Not to mention, now I have to worry about some jackass who’s been saving me lately.

  Chapter 15

  I open the door to my little condo and enter the darkness. Within I see beaming silvery markings coming from inside. I flick on the lights. My mother is sitting patiently in a chair. She is wearing black leather clothes. She lifts up her right leg slowly and crosses it over her left leg. On the arm of the chair, she taps her fingers, obviously annoyed. Her markings are still glowing. The tattoo she tried to cover up is more than visible. She doesn’t just have one tattoo. She has several now, and they’re all on her neck and collarbone.

  I hear sniffling right next to her and in my mother’s hand is the same silvery syringe she used before on Dawn. Slowly, I glance to my left and see Dawn wiping her cheeks from crying. My mom purses her lips as she looks at me.

  “Why were the two of you at Witcher’s Place?” Her neck crooks to the right as she waits for me to answer.

  “I needed to get some weapons to defend myself since you refuse to tell me anything.”

  I walk over to Dawn, removing my mother’s grip around her arm. She gets up immediately. Her boyfriend walks out of the shadows in the house. He glares at Dawn and I, his eyes a vibrant green.

  “I don’t know who he is or why both of you are in my home.”

  I know she’s been to Ravamere from what Miss Canary told me. This lady in my house is not my mother. Her posture is upright, like she’s ready to attack at any minute. She twirls her broomstick behind her back and slowly walks to me.

  “Didn’t I tell you that you’re in your transformation?” She takes a piece of my hair, playing with the strand with her fingers. “You’re luring in evil,” she whispers in my ear.

  “I think evil is already here.” I move my head away from her and look at her eyes. The greyish blue isn’t there anymore. Her eyes are now just light grey.

  The same vinegar scent from my recent encounters pervades the room, but it could just be from David. Mom didn’t know that we fought another mystic here. Then it makes sense. Mom was around the area we were in. Then we lost track of where she went.

  Why did she come back to steal Dawn?

  She lifts her eyebrows. “Oh really?” she says, like she doesn’t care. Mom clears her throat. Her boyfriend stands in front of us as the room becomes stiff. Dawn looks up at me and places her hairs behind her ears. “Eliza, how do you know about that store?”

  I remembered the time Mom talked about this store when she used the syringe to cure Dawn. When it popped up on Google I decided to officially go and check it out myself. I figure not to remind my mother of the time. Maybe she might forcefully erase Dawn’s memories.

  So I say, “Google,” which is also true.

  “What were you doing there?” Her boyfriend asks.

  “I wanted to see what witches use on a day-to-day basis? Is that a bad thing? How else am I supposed to protect myself?”

  “Use your broomstick,” Mom says. Her boyfriend wraps his hands around her waist, pulling her back toward him.

  “I don’t think I’ve met you yet.” I walk over to him. “Hi. I’m Grace’s daughter, Eliza.”

  “I know who you are.” He looks up at me and then over at my mom. I wait for him to introduce himself, but he doesn’t. He just walks around the house. “Well, that was rude,” I say.

  “Don’t mind him. He’s difficult.”

  “To think you can’t even tell your daughter that you have a boyfriend?”

  “You have your life and I have mine.”

  “I can see that, so why must you keep interfering in mine? If you want to keep certain things from me, I might as well just have our locks to our condo changed.” Mom looks at Dawn, then at me, as if she isn’t hurt by the statement.

  “As long as you’re alive and safe, that’s fine by me. I wanted to come and see if you had the rose I took away from you when you were little.”

  I didn’t want to believe it, but my mom really is changing right in front of my eyes. I can’t tell her what Miss Canary said about her becoming corrupt. Maybe she already is? I don’t know how to get her back to purity. This is all too much for me. Certain things have been left unanswered, and I don’t know how to go about handling this sudden change.

  I end up lying to avoid confrontation. “I thought you snapped the stem that day.” When really it burned on the bookcase shelf. I placed the rose there after meeting Miss Canary and then it turned into red ash.

  What was so important about this rose?

  I watch her eyes search my face for any clues about me knowing where the flower is. I avoid eye contact, holding onto my broomstick tightly. I notice my grimoire on the couch in the living room. Her boyfriend picks it up. He flips through its pages.

  “It doesn’t break that easily. It’s a special rose and I need it,” Mom says.

  “For what?”

  Her gaze wanders around my home. She turns around and walks to her boyfriend as he rips a page from the book. I bite on my bottom lip and look at Dawn. Her eyes shoot to her room, and then she nods her head. I think she’s trying to tell me the rose is in her room.

  How did she have the rose and not me?

  I hear the sound of books falling on the ground and the couch pillows landing on the floor. “What are you doing?” I say, rushing over to them. Her boyfriend immediately pushes me on the ground, I land on my ass and release a grunt.

  “Eliza, are you all right?” Dawn yelps. She runs to me and helps me up.

  “She’ll be all right.” Mom laughs, picking the bookcase apart. “It’s in here somewhere. I know it is.” She mutters under her breath.

  She throws all of the books around and then goes into the kitchen. I hear glass shattering on the floor. I get up, making my way into her disastrous whirlwind of anger. I hate seeing my mom act like this. This boyfriend has really gotten to her. He’s a bad influence. Miss Canary said she senses he’s the cause of all of this.

  “Mom, what has this guy done to you?” I point at her boyfriend, who’s walking around the counter. She glances up at me. I see she’s cut her palms with the glass.

  “I want to help you.” I press my lips together. “Please stop this,” I say, walking
toward her slowly.

  “I need to deal with someone, and if you don’t have the rose, then stay out of my way. I don’t have time for games.” She pushes me aside. I crash into the refrigerator.

  Jared staggers down from the stairs and leaps onto a counter. “Oh, hi.” He waves his paw at Mom. She looks at him and ignores his greeting. Something is obviously up because she’s acting very stuck up and rude.

  Mom repositions herself, and her face becomes worried. She was the one who told me if anything happened to her, I was to go straight to Miss Canary. I’m puzzled why she’s looking at me this way and why her relationship with Miss Canary seems so strained if she wants me to go to her. I know this look, and it’s never pleasant.

  “My, oh my, what an entrance you’ve made Grace,” Jared says from the stairs.

  Mom brushes her eyebrows together and purses her lips, tapping the ends of her fingernails on the surface of a table next to us. She clicks her broomstick off. Then she places it in her back pocket and leaves out of the house with her boyfriend without a word spoke.

  “What is really up with her?” I mutter, looking at the door close.

  I turn around and say to Dawn, “Did she do anything to you? And how are you feeling?”

  I wonder if she remembers anything about David. My eyes search her skin for any bruises. There are none in sight. I bite my bottom lip, thinking of my mother’s weird relationship with that man. Could he be a witch?

  “No, she didn’t really do anything. I just felt like she was going to kill me.”

  “Are you two talking about Grace?” Jare hops off the counter. “I knew this day would come. It’s her own fault. She’s looking for that rare rose Miss Canary gave to you.”

  Jared bounces upstairs as we follow him into my room. Underneath my bed, he comes out with a rose in his mouth. He looks at Dawn and I.

  I guess Dawn didn’t have the rose then.

  “I kept it hidden from your mother for some time now. I don’t remember why it was so important to keep hidden.”