In the Face of Darkness

As Matthias and I left the fortune teller shop, a circle of flames leaped up around us. “Fire witches” Matthias said.

  “What do they want?” I asked.

  “My guess would be to kill you as they’ve never been fans of the Water Elemental” he said. “Now would be a good time to use your water powers” Matthias told me.

  “I don’t have powers” I told him.

  “Well, now would be a good time to figure it out” he told me. Then I saw the witch. His skin seemed to glow with a fire that burned from within. He stared at me, and I felt as if his stare would burn me to the spot.

  “He only wants to talk” the man said.

  “We don’t want to talk” Matthias said.

  “Did you think he would just let you take her?” the man asked.

  I put out my hands and thought about water, but nothing happened. I tried pushing energy into my hands, but again nothing happened. A slow smile spread across the man’s tan face just before he shot a fireball at my head. My reflexes were fast and I should have been able to move out of the way before the fireball hit me, but my body felt like it was rooted to the ground. I felt the heat of the fire, but then a coldness filled me. It felt like something inside me burst. I looked down at my hands, but they weren’t there. I realized that my body was just a mist; then as quick as it happened, it was over and my body was solid again. I looked at the man who was no longer smiling. In fact, he was looking at me the way I would imagine any normal person would look after seeing someone dissolve into mist then reform. It felt good to have been the one to erase that smile from his face.

  “How did you do that?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure” I said as his smile returned. I could still feel the water flowing thru me like waves crashing against the beach. I closed my eyes and felt the water flow from my head to my toes then back again. I waited until the water was flowing up from my toes before I put out my hands hoping that I could make the water shot from my hands, but that’s not what happened. Instead, the water dripped from my hands, forming a pool at my feet.

  “That would be really scary if I was afraid of a puddle” the man said.

  “Lily, use the mist” Matthias said.

  “I don’t know how it works” I told him.

  “Try running towards him” he said.

  “What, are you crazy?” I asked him.

  “Just do it” he said. The man sent another fireball at my head, and my body was again transformed into mist. I did what Matthias said. I ran towards the man as fast as I could, which was pretty fast since I'm a vampire. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when I hit the man, but what happened was more than I could have imagined. Once I enveloped him in the mist, I could feel the heat rolling off of him. Then I heard him yell out in pain. I forced the mist to become colder and colder until he collapsed onto the pavement. I moved away from him and reformed.

  “How did you know that would work?” I asked Matthias.

  “I didn’t, but your powers seem to work differently since you are a vampire so I thought it was worth a try” he said.

  “You thought it was worth a try” I repeated.

  “It worked didn’t it” he said.

  “And what if it hadn’t worked?” I asked.

  “But it did work” he said. “We have to go; he won’t be out for long”.

  “Why do the fire witches want me dead?” I asked Matthias when we were back in the truck. “When are you going to tell me what is going on?”

  “The fire witches don’t need much of an excuse for a fight, and they hate water witches. You are not only a water witch, but a direct descendant of the Water Elemental. No Elemental has had a child in almost a century” he said.

  “The water woman the fortune teller showed me is my mother” I said.

  “Yes, she is” he said. All my life I had wondered about my mother, and now I knew the truth. My mother was a mythical creature who either didn’t care I existed or was incapable of being a mother to me. It wasn’t like I thought I would meet my mother one day and we would become best friends. Maybe I had that fantasy when I was a child, but now that I was a vampire I hadn’t thought about my mother at all.

  “How much do you know about witches?” He asked.

  “The four clans can each summon one of the four elements of nature” I said.

  “That’s all you know?” he asked.

  “They don’t like vampires” I said.

  “Witches are the offspring of what we call elementals” he said. “There are only four elementals, one for each season, and back in their hay day they each sired many children with humans. These first generation witches were more powerful than the witches around today. The first generation witches saw that their offspring couldn’t control their powers, causing many great natural disasters. The elementals retreated into their realms and were not heard of until your mother surfaced and lived with your father for one year. This one year was long enough for her to give birth to you” he said. “You are a first generation water witch” he said. “Becoming a vampire masked the powers from you, but now that you have found them there is the chance that they will overwhelm you. You may not be able to control them” he said. “That’s why it is important for me to get you to the Island” he said.

  “And I will be able to control my powers on this Island?” I asked him. It was good to finally know his motives. He didn’t care about saving me, he just wanted to isolate me on this Island so that I couldn’t hurt anyone. He thought I was dangerous.

  “You won’t have to worry about your powers on the Island” he said.

  “If first generation witches were so dangerous why would my mother risk creating me?” I asked.

  “We don’t know” he said.

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “I’m part of a Brotherhood sworn to protect the world from those who would harm it” he said.

  “You want to protect the world from me” I said.

  “Just the powers that you can’t control” he said.

  “The powers are a part of me” I said.

  “No, they're not” he said, and I didn’t argue with him. It didn’t matter; we would never get to the Island. Endora would find me, and I would go back to just being a vampire. I would control my water powers. I had lived my entire life without using these powers, and I would never use them again. I didn’t worry about the water powers controlling me. I worried about Endora controlling me. I now knew what Endora and Castor meant by me having potential. I imagined that Endora had thought I would be unstoppable and destroy all her enemies. I didn’t know what she would do when she found out that I wasn’t unstoppable, and that I wouldn’t use my powers for her, but then I didn’t care. The worst she could do was kill me, and I should have been dead ten years ago. I didn’t fear death because I was already dead.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “We are going to visit my family before we go to the Island” he said.