Awakening the Red Claws

by C P Sennett

  Awakening The Red Claws

  Book 2 of the Suffolk Sentinel Series

  ©2019

  Having purchased this eBook from Amazon it is entirely for your own personal use. It may not be copied, reproduced, printed or used in any way at all other than in its intended Kindle format.

  This book is published by the author C P Sennett and it is entirely meant in its original format as a novella story.

  This is a fictional story and the characters and events depicted in this bear no relevance to any persons living or dead. It is purely a work of fiction and as a result it should be treated this way.

  We hope you like this and be sure to look out for the sequel to be released before Q3 of 2019.

  Titled – Power Of The Mind

  Prologue

  Well my life has changed a lot as I’m sure you can guess. A few months have passed and I’ve had some tough decisions to make as Christmas is closing in.

  Tabitha, a girl I ended up rescuing from some Essex based vampires is now staying with me. Also, she now knows her parents are dead. Poor kid, I had to tell her though before she went home and found out the hard way. Also, I’ve somehow picked up a mist mephit called Fern and to my annoyance both are still living with me and both in hiding.

  On the night my Broker Monika was killed, we fled. Monika was kind of an employer I guess, a broker for jobs. She provided me with well-paying work which helped keep me busy. It forced me to get out of the house, to take my nose out of my books and to engage with what was around me. The problem is I have too much work to do. Covering a county as a Sentinel is hard enough but me, I’ve got two counties to cover. Suffolk and currently I am looking after Essex as well and both are very different.

  The night Monika died someone got to her and shot her three times. Since then, I’ve had time to think things over and a couple of weeks ago I realised, it was someone close to her.

  The killer was someone she knew as the person instructed to Monika to use our code at the start of the call. They knew if our call didn’t start with the Wonderland passcodes I would know something was wrong. Therefore, the killer had to be someone she knew, most likely an agent for her just the same as I was.

  Hearing Monika say goodbye to me before the gunshots rang out was horrible. She knew it was coming but still she had the balls to give me what warning. So, at least I’ve got a fighting chance, a heads up that someone is most likely coming for me and for that I owe her.

  I liked Monika, in her own way I guess she was a friend.

  On that night that young Tabitha and I fled to the edge of Suffolk, right up on the Norfolk border and we spent five days living out of independent bed and breakfasts. Our criteria was simple. No more than one night per place, no calls, no credit cards or anything like that. We were as off grid as we could be.

  I usually had enough cash hidden in the Beast to get me through tough times. There was always £5,000 hidden in it for instances such as this or in case I need to bribe someone. Occasionally, believe it or not it’s easier to grease the wheels of people than it is to risk influencing someone’s mind. Greed after all is a very powerful motivator.

  It’s the second time I’ve been intentionally living rough and not going back to my house so it’s not all alien to me. The other time was a false alarm though.

  We had been home now for seven weeks and in that time I’ve gone from nobody living here to having a 16 year old girl called Tabitha and a mist mephit called Fern staying with me. It’s not like I was short on space but I was short on patience. I’ve been on my own forever so my willingness and ability to share was practically zero.

  Fern is living on the top floor as my place has three floors and a basement. She is now inhabiting my top floor spare room. It’s nice enough and it even has an en-suite bathroom which she doesn’t need. For her though it’s a space to keep her away from me which is good.

  I’ve been trying to persuade her to leave but for some reason she is convinced that someone is after her.

  She won’t tell me who but I suspect it’s Ali most likely or whoever she is working for.

  The only reason she is still here is she has helped Tabitha through the loss of her parents. I wasn’t much use there but she was. Fern hasn’t been feeding on her emotions though, it’s a nasty quirk of how mephits survive. I think she had just helped the young girl with good old compassion, something which isn’t my strong suit.

  Tabitha asked if she could stay and eventually the two of them ground me down. It was easier that than put up with their noise as when Fern goes for it she really goes, as she did when Tabitha let her out in the car and the two of them first met when off grid.

  Tabitha was looking for a drink and instead she scared herself witless and me. Then I had to explain to her about Fern and supernatural things very quickly, in the Beast, whilst on the run. It wasn’t ideal as I had to deal with an angry Fern at the same time.

  Still, we all eventually got through it and Tabitha has been staying on the first floor in what was a spare room.

  I know it’s hard for the poor girl, hell it must be the worst, but I couldn’t just give her some money and kick her out, that would be wrong. I didn’t want to call the Order, not on her, the death of my Broker or the whacking great big serpent creature I found in Essex.

  Now, granted these are all things I should be reporting into the Order but I’ve chosen, not for the first time to leave these well alone for now. The big snake monster didn’t want to be disturbed so I haven’t called it in and it doesn’t appear to have done anything. I’ve not looked anymore into Abby Oaks who runs the Valencia nightclub, a club for vampires. This was a Colchester venue I wasn’t supposed to know about, so, I left it. Also, Martin Stone, the vampire snitch has gone to ground. Thankfully, he didn’t damage my place but he didn’t leave a thank you card either – rude blood sucker!

  So, as you can see I’ve been pretty busy of late. I’ve been on the run but as nothing was happening we all then came back and I’ve got two strays living with me as well as a ton of other shit to look into.

  Oh, to be the Sentinel of Suffolk and bloody Essex.

  Chapter 1

  As I’ve mentioned, a few months have gone by and things are starting to settle. I had only been out investigating two things in this time. Once was another sighting of the so called Black Shuck Dog in a Bungay. The other was from something in the paper, a possible sprit appearance. Scared some kids but this was a dead end. It seemed without my Broker Monika, I needed to get out more.

  In the house though we have ironed out some of the issues about space, what is acceptable, what isn’t and the ‘girls’ keeping a low profile.

  I had been doing some magical experimentation with Tabitha. She thinks it’s me trying to teach her a bit of the arcane. In truth though, I’m not, I’m actually trying to find out how she got into my basement a few months ago but I’m not having much luck on that front and she doesn’t seem to know either and I believe her.

  Somehow, she simply doesn’t see the illusion that my glyph creates or there is something else going on. To most people it’s looks an old, dark and miserable looking passageway leading to an unused basement. It is full of cobwebs and general junk making it difficult if not impossible to pass through. She just sees a clean, empty basement corridor and also, she somehow got past my code lock which doesn’t make sense either. If she had no magical skills she wouldn’t have gotten in at all, the mechanical lock should have stopped her and I didn’t feel she had the makings of a world class cat-burglar either.

  The funny thing is magic is the logical go to place here but try to give her the merest hint of magical direction and she simply can’t grasp it.

  Also, we’ve had the ‘talk’
. No, not the one about boys and stuff but the one about vampires, werewolves and magic. We had this talk on the night she let Fern out of the cocktail shaker. We then had the full talk the next day, which in truth, Fern’s actually helped make a lot easier. I’ll give her that, the mephit was good with the girl.

  Normally the human brain rallies against seeing what’s really around you. Most people try to rationalise what they are seeing as some trick or just something weird with their eyes. Kids today, they seem to think when you have flames in your hand that it’s some gimmick with lighter fluid and a match that’s hidden. They claim to have seen videos of such on the internet…how little they know!

  There is some nasty stuff out there, predatory creatures looking to pick off people who won’t be missed or to claw away at the minds of those in a bad place. Still, the Order and people like I can’t come out and say this as we would be hounded on social media, that I don’t give a shit about but it would bring us into the light.

  In the past this has happened even in Suffolk. There was the Bury St Edmunds witch trials. Mary Lackland was burned to death in the 17th century in Ipswich. Most likely she had no magical power but even a hint of the dark arts was perilous then. Now though, people have guns and the law on their side so it’s not like we can let ourselves be known. We, like the dark creatures, we have to keep ourselves in the shadows. Some of us are little better than the creatures we have but we try to police ourselves. Me though, I never get nudged for promotion and I don’t like to share my expertise with others of my kind. My secrets are what keep me alive and our silence has ensured there is no resurrection of another Matthew Hopkins - the Witchfinder General.

  When we returned home some weeks back Tabitha had finally gotten her head around the basic concept that real magic was alive. She had seen me move things which at first wasn’t enough, fire in my hands and that still wasn’t enough to bring her round. At the time I didn’t want to go much bigger but thankfully Fern showed her magical light ball trick a few times and let Tabitha put her hand right through her. It unnerved the girl at the time but we managed to explain things simply and she seems to have a strong mind and some good constitution about her. A tough girl has to be easier to have around rather than one who faints all the time like in romance novels, or so I am told.

  Still, after time and practice I think she most likely does have some magical talent but it’s not one I am familiar with. Most likely it’s minimal or only just emerging but it’s certainly not something conventional.

  Over the past couple of months, we had been building on what she could do, which wasn’t much. Mostly me trying to find out how she got past my illusion and today hasn’t revealed any epiphanies either.

  “Ok Tabitha, that’s enough for now, don’t worry that it’s slow going, it is for everyone, you’re still learning to harness an element.” I said, as she was getting water to move in a bowl, well only managing the smallest ripple you’ve ever seen a few times.

  In fairness, she was advancing so slowly at such a simple task that a heavy footstep to the side of the table could have made the same effect.

  She shook her head in frustration. “I can’t help but feel I’m not achieving anything.” she said in frustration with her posh accident.

  I smiled. “It takes time, just relax and it will come.”

  “Ok, you know best at this.” she said smiling. “You said you were a slow starter with it weren’t you.”

  I saw her looking at me wanting encouragement but it was hard to muster some encouragement with such a poor showing. All I could manage to say was “Take a break, doing this is taxing at the start. You are ok with air and wind but water is a bit harder to master.”

  She nodded and got up from the kitchen floor and went off up to her room. As she stopped and turned her quirky style making the most of the charity shop clothes I had recently bought for her. She looked as though she was going to say something but then she changed her mind.

  Since her disappearance and the death of her parents we’ve seen nothing in the media. Nothing in the press or on Social Media about the death of her parents or her disappearance, it’s strange but not unexpected. Something is afoot with this and someone is covering it up, the questions are who and why!

  Tabitha hasn’t got her phone with her as that had been taken when she was snatched and to my knowledge, she hasn’t made contact with any of her friends. Typically, someone, a friend should have gone to the media by now asking about their missing friend but strangely, nobody has.

  When giving Tabitha a list of do’s and don’t’s I’d explained how she had to leave her old life behind for now at least. I’d also explained how her friends may have not gone to the media through threats of violence so she understands. Straying from this could cost her people’s lives, that I had gone to town on her about. So much so that Fern had come down to tell me to lay off her.

  What was even worse was one of her social media platforms, I’m not sure which as I don’t really use them has a few status updates but none by Tabitha…

  ****

  I turned off the shower, the scorching water helping to focus my mind on what I needed to do, the almost painful water is cleansing, almost purifying. I had caught up on sleep of late but the last week had been another week of long days and nights. I had been sitting up trying to improve my astral form. Trying to extend the range but it was hard and very draining, both physically and mentally but it was something I wanted to improve, and practice makes perfect. The mind for people like me is like a muscle – too many of my kind don’t use it lose it. Then, they get caught.

  As I stepped out of the shower and grabbed the small hand towel I used to dry myself. I have bigger towels but never bother to get them out. If you’re smart and using some guy logic here your clothes will dry you out. I had gotten my hair wet so I gave that a bit of a dry and walked out of the en-suite room then froze…

  “You’re not teaching her anything.” said a soft female voice to my left.

  As I spun around to see Fern, the mist mephit sitting on my bed.

  Instantly my hand dropped to cover my modesty. Had I been thinking straight I would have used the small towel around my shoulders, but she had caught me by surprise.

  Fern was sitting on the bed in tight blue jeans and a white top which showed off her toned midriff. She had her hair up in a slightly more modern punky look I guessed. That isn’t a good description of it but it was the first thing which came to mind.

  “Why are you not teaching her.” she said.

  “What passes between Tabitha and me is none of your concern.” I snapped as this was a conversation we had had before.

  “Listen, she has lost her parents and you’re not teaching her anything of use.”

  “What’s it to you?” I growled, keeping my voice low as Tabitha was most likely still in her room across the landing.

  “You need to be preparing her for who is after her. They could come for her when you’re not about.”

  “Fern, I’ve already told you, I am doing what is right for her.”

  “You’re doing something but it’s not teaching her. I’ve seen some magic and what you are doing is kids stuff.” she said accusingly as she stood up off the bed and stepped towards me in anger.

  “Buzz off.” I said childishly.

  “Really, well I’m going to tell her you are not showing her anything useful.”

  “Fern.” I sighed, keeping my temper in check. “What I show Tabitha is all she can handle at this point. This isn’t like you teaching another young mephit to take and hold a physical form. I need to know what she can handle and what areas of magic suit her.”

  “Bullshit.” she snarled, stepping right up to me pointing her finger at my face. “You’re up to something I can see it in your face.”

  I slapped her hand away but as she wasn’t in a solid form it went through her. Bloody mephits I thought as I clenched my jaw in frustration.

  “Get out of my room.” I said flatly.
<
br />   “You need to help that girl and help her properly Eddie. She is going to need your help. I sit with her and listen to her crying at night because her parents are dead. She doesn’t know how they died as you haven’t told her. She needs you though, she needs you to teach her how to protect herself.”

  “Protect herself. I’ve never had an apprentice, I don’t want one and even if I did she wouldn’t be my choice.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she is too old and I’ve not got the time. I’ve a job to do remember.”

  “Like what, sit in this place and read old musty books?”

  “Why are you always on at me Fern. If you don’t want to be here, go. I’m not keeping you.” I said wearily as I walked past her.

  “You’re not keeping me here. I’m trying to help that girl.” she flustered.

  “No you’re not.” I corrected her, painfully aware my voice was getting a little louder.

  “I am, I care.” she pleaded.

  “Fern, you’re cowering here for some reason. You’re hiding here, why?”

  She flashed with anger, it was a common occurrence when we spoke for any length of time at the moment.

  “Why are you always so defensive?” she asked.

  “Because you had a go at me you silly cow! Also, it’s true, you couldn’t wait to be cut lose when you was downstairs and the Order were coming and now you won’t go, why?”

  Fern had walked away and picked up a book on my beside cabinet. She took one look at the cover, couldn’t read it and threw it a little too hard onto my bed. “That girl needs me for emotional support and council.” I went to interrupt but she kept going. “I’m not feeding off her, you know this.”

  I raised my hands up to the celling. “Fern, I don’t care who you feed on so long as you’re not feeding on me or her.” I grabbed the book Fern had dumped on my bed and put it on a shelf feeling even more tired now. “So, you are saying I’m not being straight with her. You’re not being straight with me so we’re at worst, even, there.”