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There was blood in the air. The remains of the old witch were floating like there was no gravity. The granddaughter wailed as she watched half of the witch's head twirl in slow motion. Dexen grabbed her when she seemed to have fainted for a mere second, but she pulled herself up after taking shaky breaths.
“Is somebody going to explain?” the girl asked, looking at the two brothers.
“We don't know anything,” Riley told her. “But magic is real and so is evil. My advice would be not to waste too much time trying to reject the truth, because it's much more easier in the long run. There are witches in this world and they posses magic, your grandma was apparently one.”
“I'm actually not surprised,” the girl whispered.
“What do you mean?” Dexen asked.
“Our family is strange,” she replied. “My grandma was the strangest. She would always whisper unusual words under her breath whenever she thought nobody was listening. I thought maybe she knew other languages, because she originally came from Europe and she never talked about it.”
“What's your name?” Dexen said.
“Annetta LeBlanc.”
“It's nice to – wait, LeBlanc? I've heard that name before!” Dexen said. “I used to live with a very big family of witches in Europe. We moved around from country to country, never staying in one place too long. But I met someone there with a name like that. She wasn't very talkative.”
“Well, my family is big. Grandma had seven children and I've never met half of them. My father used to talk about my uncles and aunts all the time. They're all strange, they must be witches as well.”
“She must have been your cousin, but I don't think she was a witch. She never did any kind of magic, but was always there in study sessions. And I never felt any of her power.”
“This is all overwhelming,” Annetta said, smiling a little. “But your friend is right, it's pointless to try to fight it. You can't really deny the facts when they're right in front of you.” She looked back outside as body parts hovered over some trees and quickly looked away.
“My name is Dexen, and this is my brother, Riley.”
“Nice to meet you, Dexen and Riley.”
“We should leave,” Riley said. “If this man was telling the truth when he said monsters, then we really need to find a better place to stay than a broken coffee shop in the middle of the hurricane.”
“I don't know this town as well as you do, so where do you suggest we go?” Dexen asked him.
“We could try the apartment I shared with my sister, but it's a long way.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
They walked outside and quickly made their way down the street, avoiding the massive stream of red water and sticking to the sidewalks. Riley made sure to tell them not to look at the sky, no matter how tempted they were. It was hard, since the sky was pretty much all around them, but Riley knew it was a way to capture people and control them. The sky might as well be their eyes, because everything about it was attracting and alluring.
All that Riley could think about was Seraphina and how she didn't look at them. There was something wrong with her, and if there was something wrong with her . . . then Hart was in danger, too.
Riley walked first with Dexen and Annetta behind. They seemed to be having a wonderful conversation about magic and monsters that Riley didn't want to be a part of. He had enough of magic and monsters and didn't need to relive the chilling memories.
There were many others who were walking, as it appeared that cars stopped working completely. There was also no electricity anywhere, so Jocelyn was more powerful than any of them had imagined. But still, no one had any idea why she was doing this.
Half an hour passed and they were just about to turn the corner to see Riley's apartment, when he overheard a conversation. It was loud; none of them had missed a single word.
“We're trapped in Bellumstone, there's no way out.”
Riley ran towards the voice and found two men by a bus stop. They were probably in their mid thirties and looked like they had seen hell.
“What do you mean trapped?” Riley asked them.
“It's hard to believe, but I think we're in space. Some of us tried to leave the town, but we found that there's a dead end,” the taller one said. “The earth just suddenly stops. There's a drop and you can't see anything at the bottom except stars. It's like a cliff.”
She trapped the entire town? Riley thought. Why would she do that?
Hart had warned him not to come back, but Riley didn't know he meant the town as well. Riley had assumed Hart's home was now a danger zone since Jocelyn was back, but he never had expected the town to be part of it, too. He felt a little safe knowing that the whole reason Jocelyn was back wasn't because of him, but something else that nobody seemed to know but her. With what had happened earlier, she might be hunting down people. The question on his mind was the same – why?
“Guess we're not going anywhere,” Dexen said, who had heard what the man told Riley.
“They're definitely hunting people,” Riley said softly as his eyes focused on two figures a block away from where they were. Dexen and Annetta turned their heads to stare in the same direction and their mouths fell open.
Hart and Seraphina were dragging a man out of his home, throwing him on the ground in front of Jocelyn. The unknown man took one look at the black witch and his face went pale and sickly. He shook his head furiously as she spoke words that no one but Dexen could hear. What bothered Riley the most was that Hart and Seraphina didn't look right. Their eyes were glowing yellow, but they were standing like statues, or more like servants.
“She's controlling them,” Dexen said, answering the mind-numbing question that had been irking him since Seraphina had entered the coffee shop. Jocelyn was controlling her children to fetch and collect these people. That was why Seraphina hadn't seen them, because her only objective was to find these people and bring them to Jocelyn.
Something the man had said must have angered Jocelyn, because she screamed furiously and scratched his face, slicing the skin open. She pointed at Seraphina and the girl went back into the house. A minute later high pitch screams were heard and she came out dragging a little girl.
“His daughter, they're gonna kill them,” Dexen quickly said, his eyes darkening with lust for violence. He grabbed one of the bombs from his vest and levitated it in front of him. “Earth.” As soon as he whispered the word at the device, he launched it with such speed that it reached Jocelyn in a matter of seconds.
Riley was going to ask how he had done magic, until he saw one of the tattoos moving across his neck.
The bomb exploded as it hit the ground and it created a massive earthquake that shook the entire neighborhood. It was so strong that they lost all sense of balance and Riley was thrown around like a weightless doll. His head almost came in contact with the edge of the sidewalk, which would've been an instant death if it hadn't been for Dexen grabbing him just in time and pulling him back. It was like he knew that Riley only had his own life left.
“Riley, take Annetta and get out of here. Stay away from buildings until the shaking stops, otherwise they will collapse on you,” Dexen told him.
“What are you doing?!” Riley asked him in a panicky voice as the earth began to split in front of them, forming large cracks that slowly opened.
“I'm not gonna let these monsters kill innocent people, especially a child,” he growled, taking another bomb and whispering the same element. He threw it using his tattoo magic and it created an even bigger impact on landing. Jocelyn cowered into the shadows and vanished. Hart and Seraphina's eyes turned blue and they blinked, confused. The unknown man, who was desperately trying to stay on his feet, grabbed his daughter and ran back into the house for safety, but came back out with a gun pointed at Seraphina.
She slowly looked to her left, seeing the scared man holding the weapon close to her head and he pulled the trigger, but she was faster. Seraphina tore the man's arm in half and ripped it out of his body as the bullet fired and missed her by an inch. His screams were quickly silenced when she bit into his neck and ripped his throat with her sharp demon teeth. She wasn't turning into a demon, but she was definitely showing the signs.
As the man fell and bled to death, his daughter watched from the side with loud sobs. Seraphina approached the child and grabbed her, smiling with her father's blood dripping down her lips. She was just about to kill the child when a bullet went through Seraphina's skull and exited out of her forehead.
Hart screamed. Riley's heart pounded as he watched Seraphina fall, but not die. They could be harmed, but only his dagger could kill them. It was Dexen who had done it. He used his magic to find the bullet that was fired and used it to stop Seraphina before she could harm the little girl. It worked, because the little girl ran and didn't stop running even after falling down a dozen times.
As Hart came back from his pain, he saw Dexen walking towards him and Riley knew this couldn't possibly go well for anybody.
“Riley!” Annetta screamed at him, grabbing his hand and pulling him back as he tried to walk back to Dexen. They were going to fight and only one of them could die. He didn't want them to hurt each other, he didn't want to lose his only brother.
Hart's eyes glowed yellow as they walked towards each other, he was going to turn. Riley then knew that he couldn't let them fight, he had to stop them. Dexen whispered an element into another bomb and threw it at Hart, creating fire all around the man. But Dexen should have been smarter. Fire was Hart's friend.
The fire that was created by the bomb cleared itself as Hart walked over it. It hadn't even damaged a single thread on Hart's black suit. Fire couldn't do anything to him, so why did Dexen think that it would? Riley was starting to believe his brother was scared, because in reality, he should be. He had no magic but the one on his skin, and Riley was positive that it wasn't enough.
The ground continued to tremble strongly, sending Riley from side to side. He eventually had to grab onto a nearby tree on the sidewalk to keep himself from flying. Now he understood why Dexen didn't want him using the bombs, they were surely something.
Riley watched as Dexen made a light appear between his hands and shot straight forward, hitting Hart and knocking him back. The light was majestic, like it was sent straight from heaven. Dexen's magic was unquestionably beautiful.
Hart got back up and jumped high in the air, soaring across the block to where Dexen was. He went to grab Dexen's neck but a light screen appeared between them, blocking his attack. Dexen pushed the shield back and it slammed against Hart's body, pushing him back away from him.
“Did you forget that white witches are the masters of defeating darkness, especially demons?” Dexen told Hart.
Hart flashed him a little smile before running at full speed, breaking through the glowing shield and finally clutching Dexen's neck.
“Do you know what happens when you stare into my eyes?” Hart growled at him, his voice getting deeper, like it was changing, like he was changing. Dexen couldn't reply, he was being choked by strong hands that were turning rougher with nails growing longer and digging into his skin. “You become mine.”
“STOP!” Riley screamed as Hart leaned forward with his mouth wide open, razor teeth ready to rip. Riley was still a block away, but he knew that Hart would hear him, and he did.
The man closed his mouth and slowly looked in the direction of the voice. His eyes returned to their original color and his face fell when he saw Riley leaning against a tree while the ground shook violently. The houses around them were beginning to crumble to dust and the cracks that had formed earlier were now getting depth. There was no time to talk, they needed to get out of there, and fast.
Hart let go of Dexen, but only to reposition himself so that he could land the perfect punch across his face. Something cracked loudly; Hart broke Dexen's face. He then stalked towards Riley while he cleaned his bloody knuckle.
“Heal him,” Riley said through his teeth before Hart could say a word when he approached him.
“No.”
“Heal him,” Riley repeated.
“What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here.” Hart was calm, like always, but Riley had learned how to see past his wall and he felt his anger like it was fire and he was the furnace.
“I wanted to pick up a few things before I left,” Riley told him.
“What is so important that you had to come back to Bellumstone and risk your life?”
“It doesn't matter now.” But it did, because a photo of his sister was all he needed to help him keep moving forward and never forget.
“I can't protect you in here.”
“You didn't tell me to stay away from Bellumstone. You said to never come back to the house,” Riley said. “And besides, she can't kill me! Why do I have to keep reminding everyone?”
“It's not her I'm worried about. In here, you're nobody. She doesn't care about you.”
“Then why are you worried about me? I can take care of myself.”
“She's raising the dead,” Hart replied.
Riley stared at him for a while, wondering.
“Does this mean . . . Is my sister coming back?”
Hart looked away as he felt a sudden rush of guilt. Riley was still trying to get used to the random times that Hart showed emotions. It was a strange sight to see, but nevertheless proved that he was just as human as anyone.
“I'm not sure, I don't think so. The spell that I tried to do worked half way, then stopped when it didn't match the same blood as yours. Her body stayed, but her soul and mind was in the process of swapping with my mothers, meaning – “
“–meaning she's in hell,” Riley finished.
“Yes.”
“You put . . . my innocent sister in hell.” Riley visibly gripped his dagger so tightly that his hands turned white.
Hart blinked and his yellow eyes stared back at him.
“Don't be foolish, Riley. There are bigger things you should be worrying about right now.”
“Really?” He glared at him. “Like what? What is more important than finding out that all this time my sister has been in hell?”
“How about the army that my mother is pulling out of the ground? Or . . .”
“OR WHAT?” Riley snapped when Hart went dead still.
Hart pressed his index finger against Riley's lips to shut him up, which Riley found extremely unnecessary and plain weird. Hart walked around the street, listening to all of the sounds and watching every movement. When it was clear to him, he ran back to Riley and held his shoulders tightly.
“Hate me, hate me as much as you can, and I want you to use all of that hate to run from here and find the safest place you can think of. Demons are entering the town as we speak. I don't know how they found this place, but it wasn't planned.”
Riley looked up and down at Hart, studying him closely.
“But you're a demon.”
“I am a hybrid demon, they are the real thing. They are the demons you hear in stories, they are the epitome of evil, the center of hell.”
“Are they stronger than you or what?” Riley asked anxiously.
“No, they're just very manipulative and smart. Don't trust anyone, not even your brother. They could be anywhere or anyone. They possess people. Most of them keep the same body most of their existence, but they aren't afraid to jump around to get what they want.”
“What do they want?”
“You.”
Riley sighed.
Of course they wanted him, everyone wanted him. He didn't have to do a single thing and he'd automatically put himself in danger just by breathing.
“Why? Why do they want me?” he asked.
“They want the dagger, but you own it. They want to capture you, they want to take the dagger. It's now a real war and you are caught in the middle of it. Every man, demon or monster for himself. We all want the power that the dagger provides and they won't stop until they kill everyone, including each other.”
“Can they find me if I hide?”
“Eventually, but not right away. They don't have the power that I do, so it will take them some time, but don't let that drop your guard down. There are many of them, I can still feel them pouring in.”
“Where are they?”
“They are making their way through the forest, it won't be long before they get here.”
“I'll leave as soon as you heal my brother,” Riley told him, looking at Dexen moaning in pain.
Hart looked annoyed, but turned and jumped in the air, landing next to Dexen. Hart healed him up and walked back to Riley.
“Done.”
“Was that so hard?” Riley taunted him, realizing that all this time Hart was jealous. It was surprising, but entertaining. He wasn't going to say it out loud, because provoking Hart and making him angry would only end in people getting hurt, especially when he was a hybrid demon who couldn't control his transformation because of his repressed emotions.
“You can go now,” Hart told him.
“I will, but I have to make sure you're going to be okay. Jocelyn, why was she controlling you two?”
“What are you talking about? She wasn't controlling anybody,” he responded, a lost look in his eyes.
“But . . . Seraphina didn't see me earlier, and you looked like you snapped out of something.”
“We performed a spell to temporarily connect our thoughts so that we could find the people my mother was looking for. It helped me and Seraphina see their faces, making it easier. But the spell stopped when she left.”
“What the hell are you all up to?!” Riley demanded.
“NOPE!” Seraphina suddenly shouted as she glided over their heads, landing on top of someone who had just tried to jump at them unexpectedly.. Sera grabbed the woman's head and gave it a quick twist, removing it off the body.
“Oh, fuck!” Riley yelped, scattering back as blood spewed everywhere.
Seraphina laughed like she was having a blast.
“Stupid demon,” she said, scoffing.
“Wait, that was a demon?” Riley asked, walking closer to look.
“Yeah, wanna see what it looks like?”
“Sera, don't!” Hart yelled at his sister as she picked up the body and lit it in flames, but it was too late to stop her. Seraphina thrust her hand into the dead body and appeared to have grabbed something inside.
Hart pulled Riley by the shirt and spun him, throwing him as far as he could without hurting him. Riley landed on his back right beside his brother, getting the wind knocked out of his lungs. His back arched while he desperately gasped for air. He rolled on his side, watching Hart with watery eyes as the demon was pulled out of the woman's body, tearing her in half.
The demon had horns just like Hart and Seraphina, but this demon wasn't like them. They were roughly the size of humans, but thinner and more frightening than he had expected. He couldn't see skin, only red muscle and tissue. The demon's face had barely any shape, it resembled a snake but without a nose or nostrils.
Then, its empty, yellow eyes found Riley. It gave out a loud cry and opened its mouth wide, showing sharp teeth, like a piranha. As it looked into his eyes, Riley could see something human about it, but the monstrous appearance overshadowed it.
Hart suddenly walked in front of it, blocking the demon from further looking at Riley. Hart's own eyes turned yellow as they stared at each other. The demon knew who he was, everybody in hell knew who he and Seraphina were.
The demon began speaking in a language Riley had never heard. It was the same language Hart had used to perform his last sacrifice. It was the language of hell. The demon had a very raspy, deep voice. It didn't match his fragile looking physique.
Hart responded back, sounding very dominant. Seraphina also joined in the really unusual conversation that no one besides them understood. Dexen tapped Riley's back, alerting him that he was wide awake and better.
“Demon?” Dexen whispered beside him.
“Yeah.”
“Dude,” his voice got even lower, “we shouldn't be around a demon. They can possess us really easily.”
That explained why Hart had rudely thrown him away like a sack of potatoes. His mind had quickly come to the assumption that something was going to explode. Riley didn't understand how possession worked, but he didn't want to find out. Seraphina had possessed him, but something told him that these demons did it differently, possibly painfully.
“We should get out of here,” Riley told him.
“If the demon sees us, he can run after one of us and possess us. They are tricky to capture, so your little boyfriend and his sister won't be able to save us. Fortunately for you, I am here. When I say so, hold my hand and close your eyes. Do not open them no matter what you feel or hear, got it?”
Riley nodded, looking back at his brother as he slowly got up without being noticed.
Hart was still blocking the demon, like he knew what Dexen was up to, like he was trying to give them time to run away.
“Get up, take my hand,” Dexen told him.
Riley quickly jumped and grabbed his brother's hand. They disappeared and went invisible as soon as he closed his eyes. Dexen could see Annetta hiding behind a large tree, watching with terrified big eyes. He walked them around the three demons, slowly, not making any noise. They were invisible, not invulnerable.
Seraphina's eyes followed them, she could see them. Hart also turned his head a little as they walked by, but the regular demon did not see anything.
Dexen and Riley crept around the tree Annetta was hiding behind and let go of their hands. They were visible again and Riley wrapped his hand over the girl's mouth as she was about to scream from the frightening reappearance.
A panicky chill ran through them as a deafening roar echoed from no particular place. It felt like the voice was all around them. The three of them poked their heads out to see what was going on with the other three, but they were gone. Hart, Seraphina and the demon were missing.
“RUN! RUN NOW!” Dexen shouted, running back towards the town instead of away from it.
“Where are we going?!” Riley asked as they ran at full speed.
“We have to stay away from the edges of the town, that's where everything is. You try to leave, you die,” he said.
“Hart said demons are walking inside the town.”
“I know, I heard. I don't know how they're coming in if Jocelyn trapped the town. I think we're not completely trapped, but made to believe we are. Like an illusion, you know? It's quite possible that the town is still where it is, and everyone inside is just going crazy.”
“GUYS!” Annetta screamed when she stopped and the two brothers continued to run. They looked back at her, she was looking at something. Riley didn't want to look, looking meant bad things. He was done looking, he just wanted to go some where safe until all of this was over.
They ran back and looked anyway. Jocelyn was in the streets, using her darkness to cover the streets in a black fog. Behind her were thousands of dead people, marching inside homes and killing everything. Did she run out of old people to kill? Was she now going to kill the rest of the town?
“I have an idea, but it might hurt me,” Dexen said.
“What is it?” Riley asked him.
“If we can get as many people as we can in a large building, I can protect it using my magic. My shield is my signature move in the witch world. Nobody can project one as strong as mine. I think I can summon one and wrap it around a building to protect everyone, but it will put me into a coma.”
“No,” Riley quickly said.
“We have no other choice. Do you want to fight a war between the dead and demons? I don't really think you do.”
“No, but there has to be another way of protecting us without you hurting yourself.”
“I'll wake up when the shield is broken, maybe.”
“Maybe?!”
“Jaxon,” Dexen said, using the name his parents had given Riley. Dexen grabbed Riley and shook him, as if trying to snap him out of a daydream and bring him back to reality, “you are my brother, and it doesn't matter how long we have known each other, I swore our parents before you were even born that I would protect you and be there for you.”
“What if you don't wake up?” Riley said in a low voice.
“If I don't wake up, then I'm sure you and your demon boyfriend will figure out something. There's always a way.”
Riley eyes immediately became watery.
“That's what my sister used to say,” Riley told him as he tried his best not to cry. “She would always see the good in everything. If I was stuck on something, like homework or friendship drama, she'd tell me 'There's always a way.'”
“She's right.”
“I've noticed you two are similar. You're both good. You make me want to be better, but I am not. I will never be like her and I will never be like you. I don't know why you want to protect something that is destined to be evil.”
“You're not just my brother, you're my friend. And you are not evil.”
“Not yet,” Riley muttered, wiping his eyes.
“Don't let a silly label like 'Black Witch' tell you who you should be. You can do whatever you want, your life is yours. Map it the way you want to live it. You have full control over your actions. So stop pouting and pull yourself together, you're not evil and you won't be.”
Riley shook his head, not because he was disagreeing with him, because he was ashamed. If his sister could somehow have communicated with him while he was with Hart in the early days of his kidnapping, she would still tell him that there would be a way out. What made him feel ashamed? The fact that he didn't want out. He wanted in.
“If you don't wake up, I will kill you myself,” Riley told him, emotionless.
Dexen laughed. “Well, that sure doesn't help you not become evil. Just saying.”
They looked at Jocelyn one last time and left in search of a building they could use. In under half an hour, they found the perfect place, like it had been waiting for them all along. It was a high school and there were hundreds, maybe a thousand people inside, seeking shelter from the random heavy rain and the apparent monsters walking the streets.
Riley wished that he had seen Hart one last time. He wasn't sure what was going to happen to them, if he'd ever get to see him again. But he knew one thing, Hart had prepared him all along to be a warrior of the war they were currently facing. It made him wonder what else he knew would happen. Did he know the outcome of the war? Who would die and who would survive? Was that why he disappeared? Because he couldn't face the reality that Riley could die at any moment and not return? Or because he knew he couldn't save him? Riley was as good as dead.
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[Author's Message]: Hey guys! Hope you liked the chapter, I know many of you liked the last chapter and I was excited you did. So far the story isn't going as I originally planned, like the introduction of the zombies and monsters inside Bellumstone, but it's still fine. I wanted it to be a little more dramatic but there's enough dramatic in the story to add more lol. I don't think I have much to say, so just remember to vote and comment! Commenting gives you a chance to get a chapter dedicated to you, don't forget that! Also don't forget to watch the trailer that has absolutely nothing to do with the story on the side! WHOOO GO A LITTLE INSANE LOL.