Page 2 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
The man glares up at me. “Fuck you, you trash witch,” he spits, blood and saliva staining the points of my shoes.
“What did I tell you about the Tide pen, Jeff?” My hand lifts with annoyance while the other tightens around my weapon.
My muscles poise. My arm flexes. My blade slices a bit of his skin open with excruciating slowness. I swear he pisses himself.
“Please,” he begs. Funny how quickly he changes his tone when his life is on the line. “Why are you doing this?”
As if he doesn’t know.
I give him a wide-toothed smile that I swear, my Holy Lady of Death would be proud of.
He trembles at the very sight of it. “Please . . . mercy.”
“When those women you murdered begged for mercy, did you grant it?” I can see him pale in the darkness. I wonder if he’s remembering how young they were. How they never made it home to their parents. The cowardly fuck. “Didn’t think so.”
I lift my sword up, feeling it vibrate and hum with ecstasy. I hold it tightly, ready to swing it down . . .
“Emmera Lucero?”
I pause, lowering my sword to my side, and throw a surreptitious glance over my shoulder, meeting the owner of that mysterious, inquiring voice.
A man stands a few feet away from me, shrouded in the shadows. When he takes a step forward, I hear the snapping of fingers, and a small ball of light appears over his head, illuminating him.
It’s the bright blue rings around his pupils I notice first, glowing like beacons in the dark. They are like a mark amongst our kind; rings around our pupils that show us as what we are.Supernaturals.
“Warlock,” I greet coldly.
The next thing I notice about him is the collar around his neck. A simple, gray thing that gleams like metal with black spikes studded around the length of it.
The punk jewelry is completely at odds with the penguin suit he wears, his pristine white gloves bright against his clean-cut black jacket. It’s strange, but I’m not a kink shamer. Whatever he does in his free time is his own business . . .
“I have no quarrel with your kind.” I make sure the threat is obvious in-between my words.
Warlocks and witches have a tentative peace between our races. One would think magic wielders would find one another, bonding and mutual interests and all that.
It isn’t true.
Warlocks are alchemists. They have magic in their veins, but it’s usually activated by mixing chemicals and different substances together.
Witches are divided into covens. And each coven’s magic is derived from different forces of nature or deities.
Evil, the warlocks call us.
Parlor-trick bakers, we call them.
“May I have a moment of your time?” he asks demurely.
A scrambling on the asphalt makes me roll my eyes and sigh in exasperation. I whip around to see my victim running away on wobbling legs, one of them injured and nearly dragging behind him.
“See what you’ve done?” I demand. “You’ve lost me my kill, Rachel Ray.”
“Rachel Ray?” The baker’s whisper is a puzzled sound, but I don’t have time for him.
I’m tired of these games. Damios is getting annoyed as well.
I break out into a run, and my footsteps only prompt my prey to go faster. Not fast enough, but it’s a sweet effort he puts in for me.
I skewer him from behind to get it done and over with, without the contentment of watching his life leave his eyes. It’s nothing more than a lash of my weapon and a desperate gasp from his lungs.
