They’d seen this
sword—a katana—inside an antique shop down this narrow
alleyway in a forgotten corner of the city. Her parents had been
buying her all kinds of souvenirs like Hello Kitty figurines and
comic books and things, but her father told her he’d never seen
her eyes light up the way they did when they first saw that sword.
Her mother, of course,
had forbidden her from getting it. She’d thought it was a
ridiculous gift for a child. Plus, getting it through customs would
be a complete nightmare. But her father had bought it for her anyway.
It ended up on the wall
as decoration. They never even let Parrish touch it, not that she
could really blame them.
But today, neither of
them were here to tell her what to do.
She stood on the bricks
of the fireplace and lifted onto her tip-toes, reaching for the
sword. The moment her fingers closed around the hilt, she felt a
strength surge through her body.
With all the strength
she could muster, she wielded the sword like a baseball bat and swung
at the TV screen. She’d hoped the blade would slice through it,
but instead it just bounced off. Still, she felt an odd sense of
accomplishment as the screen shattered and went dead.
But Parrish wanted
more.
She gripped the sword
tighter and aimed at the vases and picture frames lined up across the
mantle of the fireplace. One at a time, she smashed them all to
pieces, not caring when one shard of glass shot out and cut her cheek
just under her left eye.
She just wanted to
destroy something. Everything. To feel like she was in control of it
all. Maybe to prove that this was all just a dream. None of it was
real so there were no consequences.
Parrish walked around
the room with the katana, destroying everything her mother never let
her touch.
She swung hard at a
lamp on the table next to the couch and tiny white pieces flew out,
scattering across the carpet. The mirror over the piano? Her mother
loved that giant mirror. She used to sing and play piano, watching
herself in that stupid mirror like it was some kind of private
concert.
Parrish lifted the
blade. She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down, putting
all her weight behind it as she swung. The mirror shattered, sending
shards of glass all over the piano.
She destroyed
everything in her path. And when the carpet was covered in broken
glass, Parrish’s mind went to one item in the house she’d
always wanted to destroy. Something her mother had made her hang up
on her bedroom wall years ago after Zoe was born. Something she’d
hated for as long as she’d had it. Something that mocked her
with its dead promises.
Her violin.
Parrish let the sword
fall from her hand. Glass crunched under the soles of her boots as
she crossed the living room and made her way up the stairs to her
bedroom. There, on the wall, the violin taunted her. It represented
everything her parents had hoped she would become, but never would
be.
Every broken promise,
every crushed dream was ingrained in the wood of that violin that she
could never play worth a shit.
Parrish grabbed her
desk chair and dragged it under the violin. She stepped on the
cushion of the chair and reached up for the instrument of her
childhood’s greatest disappointments. Dust floated across the
air toward her face, and she waved it away with an angry hand.
Her body coursed with
adrenaline as she held the violin. It had been expensive. Fifteen
grand. That was why her mother hadn’t let her give it away when
she’d quit taking lessons. Instead, she’d made her put it
up where she could be reminded every day of just how big of a
disappointment she’d turned out to be.
She ran her hands
across the deep brown wood of its curves, wiping away the dust that
had collected there over the years. One finger strummed the strings
like a guitar and it gave off a haunting, discordant sound.
I hate this violin.
Her grip tightened
around the neck and she stepped down from the chair.
She lifted the
instrument high over her head, then brought it down in a lightening
quick motion, smashing it across the back of the chair. There was a
loud crack as the wood splintered into a thousand pieces. The strings
sang a sickly sweet melody that hung in the air as they continued to
vibrate with the force of the blow.
Parrish opened her
palms and let the broken violin fall to the floor. Like a wave, the
realization of what she’d done hit her. Her breath came in
quick, choppy bursts as tears poured from her eyes.
Not even destroying the
violin could bring her mother back. She realized all she’d
wanted was to somehow force her mother to appear. If she destroyed
enough of the things her mother loved, she’d thought that
maybe, somehow, her mother would show up and tell her this had all
been some cruel joke.
But it wasn’t.
This was real. Her
parents were dead. Her sister was stranded hundreds of miles away.
The world would never be the same again.
Parrish fell to the
floor, picking up what was left of the expensive violin. She cradled
it in her arms, tears spilling down her face and onto the splintered
wood.
A single drop slid down
the surface of the violin, then seemed to slow. It hardened and froze
in place.
Suddenly, the broken
violin became cool in her hands. She watched in wonder as the wood
became covered in frost. She reached out with a finger and touched
the frozen teardrop. It was like ice against her skin, cold and hard.
She plucked it from the wood and watched in wonder as it melted on
her fingertips.
The stone was cool
against the witch’s skin.
She sat at the kitchen
table in the large farmhouse, turning it over in her fingers,
studying each mark.
Before he died, Tobias
had said there were five guardians. She’d heard of them before,
but it was just a fairytale. Something parents told their children at
bedtime to make them feel safe and proud. But in the secret meetings
of the Council of Fire, the elders spoke of the guardians as traitors
and villains.
The witch had never
actually been invited to one of those meetings, but that hadn’t
kept her from sneaking in and listening from the shadows.
The guardians had lived
over a thousand years ago. They lived in the time of the Dark One—a
powerful sorceress who was said to wield both sides of the power.
Fire and Ice. It was unheard of for a witch to have both of these
abilities. Everyone else was born with either one or the other.
Sometimes a child was born with neither gift. But never both. Not
until her.
The elders spoke of her
as if she were a God. She was mighty and powerful and had a vision
for the world that no one had ever dreamed of. She had many
followers, but as her powers grew, she became unsteady. Unbalanced.
Greedy. She became more and more violent. A great war broke out. Many
died.
That’s when the
five guardians came together to fight against her. They banished her
to a foreign world where they were said to have buried her deep
inside the ground. The story goes that she was stripped of all magic
and would never cast again.
But as the witch looked
at the mound of fresh dirt just outside the window of the farmhouse,
she knew that some parts of the story were right while other parts
had been very wrong.
The Dark One had been
banished. She’d been sent here to this earth by the five
guardians. She’d been trapped beneath the ground inside a block
of ice. All of that was true. But the guardians hadn’t been
strong enough to completely strip her of her magic. They’d only
suppressed it. The same way the Guardians’ League had
suppressed magic inside the cities in her own land. It was merely a
seal, keeping the magic inside, but giving it no way out.
But a seal was just
another type of magic. And like all magic, it could be reversed or
broken.
In her dreams, the Dark
One had told her that by spilling Tobias’ blood on the earth,
she had made a crack in the seal. A small crack, but it was enough to
allow the Dark One to cast a single spell. She’d created a
flower. Beautiful and simple and red as blood.
Inside this flower,
she’d placed the scent of death—an ancient necromancer’s
spell that took the power of life from one person and transferred it
to another. The Dark One had cast it in such a way that once the
first person was infected, the virus would pass from person to
person, blanketing this world in a matter of days.
As the virus grew
inside them, death sucked their life from them and pulled it deep
into the earth, finding its way to the Dark One, giving her more
power.
The death spell worked
like a virus, infecting anyone who came near it. And the more
infected there were, the more power the Dark One was able to drain
from this world.
And she was becoming
more powerful by the minute.
The witch could feel
it. The dark presence grew stronger and her dreams became more vivid.
The witch set the
purple stone down on the wooden table and leaned back against the
chair. Her hands twisted in her lap.
Could she really do
this?
The Dark One had
explained it all to her so clearly. She wanted proof of loyalty. She
wanted help creating a bigger crack in the seal. And that took
sacrifices.
The witch looked over
at the handsome man. He stood outside at the edge of his mother’s
grave. The older woman had died just yesterday, her power siphoned
from her body to become food for the Dark One.
He’d sent for the
doctor, but no one had ever arrived to help and the woman had died.
Her son had shown no
signs of infection. The Dark One had explained that those here who
had the strongest spirits and the closest ties to magic would be
immune from the effects of the virus. This young man must have been
immune to still be so healthy. He must have had a strong spirit.
Which is why the Dark
One wanted him for this task.
She needed to charge
the stone. It would help her track the guardians, she said. The witch
had been told to drain his life-force and place it inside the stone.
The witch closed her
eyes and swallowed. She didn’t want to do this. She liked the
man. He’d been so nice to her and she liked the way he looked
at her with such admiration. She didn’t want to hurt him.
But if she didn’t
obey the Dark One, she would never find her way home. She would never
get the recognition she deserved.
Her whole life, she’d
been nothing. How many times had the elders reminded her she was a
disappointment? That they’d wasted their best training on a
witch who was weak? That she’d never become anything more than
a maidservant?
Well, she would show
them.
When she came back to
her own world, she’d have the blessings and power of the Dark
One—the strongest and most powerful witch their world had ever
known. She’d be someone for the first time in her life. If she
helped the Dark One now, she would be blessed with great power and
would sit at her right hand when she took her rightful place as ruler
in the Land of Fire and Ice.
The witch picked up the
stone, closing it tight in her fist.
Yes, she would do this.
No matter the cost.
She stood and walked
out the front door, down the porch steps and around to the back of
the house where the man stood. She stared at him for only the
briefest moment. He’d been so kind to her. He’d taken her
in when she would have died out there in the heat.
It was truly a shame he
had to die.
The witch placed her
hand inside the man’s. He turned to her and gave a sad smile,
then squeezed her hand as if they understood each other. As if they
were sharing this moment of sadness and regret.
She pressed the purple
stone tight against his skin. It became hot, then cold, then somehow
both at the same time. The man tried to pull away, confusion in his
eyes. He yanked his hand harder, but the witch had hold of him now.
The magic of the stone was already tapped in to his soul, pulling it
through his veins like metal to a magnet.
He opened his mouth to
protest, but his voice caught in his throat. He fell to his knees in
the fresh dirt, choking for air as his life was stolen from him.
The witch could barely
bring herself to look at him. His skin shriveled and bruised,
clinging tightly to his bones as the last of his life-force poured
into the stone.
She wanted to tell him
she was sorry, but it was too late for that. She had chosen her path
and she was determined to see it through.
This man was only the
beginning of the work that was to come.
She was certain there
would be much harder sacrifices, but that in the end, it would all be
worth it.
When he was gone, the
witch released his hand and he fell face-first to the ground.
The stone hummed in her
hand and she held it up to her heart, letting the power of the man’s
life buzz against her skin. When she looked down, she gasped as red
flowers grew up from his corpse.
Proof that the Dark One
was pleased.
The amount of
information out there was overwhelming.
Night had turned into
morning at some point and Crash had barely even noticed.
His basement apartment
was cool and dark, much more appropriate for his mood than the bright
sunny day showing on his security cameras outside.
He stared at his
computer monitors. The information was an addiction now. He’d
been talking to some of his buddies on his favorite doomsday prepper
forum. They’d started a few new threads, sharing the most
recent and important information and videos they’d been able to
find online.
It hadn’t escaped
his notice that five or six of the regulars had stopped posting all
together.