TAKE THE STAGE BY STORM
I suppose this story really starts at the beginning – where all good stories start. It was two weeks into the school year when the audition notices for the annual musical started appearing. It was my first year at college, and with no school uniform to hide behind I had taken to the disguise of a ‘goth’. Real original, I know. It’s not like I’m disguising myself because I’m being chased by the police or anything quite so dramatic.
I’m hiding because my family comes from a long line of demon hunters.
Both my parents were blue-black haired demon hunters, and both Storms, but my mother came from a small offshoot from Germany and her parents had immigrated to Australia during the war. They’d lost the name due to marriages, but they were still recognised as Storms, and you’d find them on the family tree (if there was ever one big enough). My father’s side of the family had managed to come with the First Fleet to help keep the new settlers safe. It’s not like the two Storms were inbreeding or anything. That’s a gross idea. But when they met each other at a work ‘do’ they instantly recognised the hair, and the crackling of power that we Storms can feel whenever we’re gathered in a small space.
Every Storm knows their heritage. We’re not allowed to adopt because we don’t want the name being passed on to mortals without any power. Granted, there are some people around who are Storms and aren’t demon hunters, but they’re the people that were destined to be something else – politicians, lawyers, police, and other people who help cover up Storm involvement when a hunt gets messy. And there are demon hunters who aren’t Storms, but are still part of the family. And then there are the regular demon hunters. My brother Teddy and I are born Storms. Born demon hunters. Gifted with incredible power and cursed to use it to hunt demons. Sort of like a superhero, I suppose. Not that I fancy myself as a vigilante: most of the time, the demons find me.
It’s not an easy life, what with being a teenager and all. I have to worry about math grades and pimples and boyfriends – and demons trying to kill me and my family. I think that’s why I find it easier not to have friends at school. It doesn’t help me in an educational sense, but it does save those hypothetical friends from being hurt because of who I was born to be. Sometimes the Council of Elders (all annoyingly related in one way or another) send us on missions, like this one time I hunted a nix all the way from Germany to the arse end of Australia. She was honing in on a young musician so I enrolled at his school and quickly made friends. I suppose you could say we were ‘going out’, but Micah never knew I was a demon hunter until I vanquished the nix in front of him. I hadn’t seen him since, though sometimes I think I would have liked to look him up. See how he was going.
Anyway. I seem to have forgotten what I was talking about. My first year of college. Yeah.
In one of my numerous attempts to appear normal, I had decided, against my better judgement, to sign up for the school’s annual musical. I’m not particularly musical myself. It has been said that I am tone-deaf, and when I attempt to sing I sound like two cats in a tumble dryer. Not my fault. I can act well enough to pass an audition, apparently, and I’m a decent dancer. So I was put in the dancing chorus. This suited me just fine. The singing chorus would cover us during numbers, leaving us more breath to dance with.
Being a part of that cast? An interesting experience. Almost like a team environment, but with politics and reputations and egos to contend with. The two leads were beautiful people. The female, Sarah: tiny yet curvaceous with big brown eyes and long curling blonde hair. The male, Nick: tall and slim yet muscular with green eyes. I’ll admit, I was jealous. I’d love to able to sing like them, to convey that kind of emotion with my face and my voice.
The first rehearsal was OK. A gathering, a little get-together so we could learn everyone’s name. Normally it doesn’t bother me when people think I’m strange or aloof or hard to get along with. At my high school, people thought I was a lonely nerdy bookworm. Mostly because I spent a lot of time in the library researching the demons I was hunting.
This time it bothered me. As though I wanted to be a part of this group talking about harmonies and method acting and other stuff I had no idea about, and other things I did – like breath control and stretching.
I was in awe of the principal actors. They were all so confident and beautiful and charismatic. The girls in my dancing group were all lithe and little, the singing girls were loud and likeable - except for one sullen brunette, hiding behind her vociferous personality and mediocre voice. Not good enough to dance, she was put in the singing chorus. Clearly she thought herself better than chorus material, and tried to boss the other singers around. I tried not to judge.
Then strange things started happening.
It was almost like it was straight out of Phantom of the Opera. Things started to go missing – scripts disappeared, bus passes mysteriously vanished from wallets with cash left in tact. Accidents onstage were narrowly avoided. A light fell off the rig and smashed into the stage floor, where a few moments before, one of the chorus girls had been pirouetting. The other girls freaked, and not just because she was Sarah’s understudy. There wasn’t a backstage techie up there playing with the lights, nor had they even been adjusted recently.
Then, one fateful day, Sarah, our beautiful blonde lead was hit by a car as she was leaving rehearsal. It was speeding through the school zone, and she ended up in hospital with a broken leg, broken ribs, and a smashed face.
Needless to say, after a suitable period of mourning, we all expected her understudy to take her place. But no.
I wasn’t the only one surprised to see the sullen brunette strut into the auditorium one day, dressed in knee-high boots, a black leather miniskirt, and a tight white t-shirt. Her hair swung brilliantly around her waist and glittered with copper highlights. Her eyes shone piercing blue as she took her place next to Nick, who seemed as surprised as anyone to see her there. Her skin, previously suffering from mild acne, was completely clear and glowing with its own luminescence. She was beautiful and confident of her own place in the world.
The director cleared his throat. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the role of Belle will be played by Julia Hathaway. We are all thinking of Sarah and we hope she makes a speedy recovery. In the meantime, let’s get to work!”
Something about Julia made my spine tingle in a horrendously familiar way. While I had no doubt she herself was human, I suspected foul play behind her uber-makeover and Sarah’s hospitalisation. My suspicion increased when she opened her mouth to sing: Suddenly she wasn’t simply loud and airy, but controlled and strong with vibrato, a magnificent range and beautiful timbre. It wasn’t her voice any more. It was superb.
The problem was her ego. I know decent singers can get up themselves, but this was taking the piss. She seemed to think her sudden promotion to lead actress made her some sort of demi-goddess. She assumed she was entitled to applause after her solos (there weren’t many, but there is only so many times one can listen to ‘A Change In Me’ without going insane) and if she didn’t get that attention, she’d get shirty and stomp offstage to sulk. The director spent most of his time soothing her. It was ridiculous.
But as all this was playing out behind the scenes, I was researching in the library, trying to figure out what kind of a demon would give her a makeover and send Sarah to hospital (for I was sure there was a link). A vengeance demon or some sort of demonic pact seemed my best bet, but from what I could gather, Sarah was one of those annoyingly beautiful and annoyingly nice people. It’d be tough to justify vengeance against her. I’d have to do some snooping around Julia to find an amulet or something from the dealmaker demon.
Snooping wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Unlike the rest of the cast, who kept their bags in the greenroom, Julia insisted on having hers backstage. While she and the director and the rest of the cast were taking notes on the rehearsal before going home, I – knowing it was totally wrong and that I shouldn’t be doing it – searched her bag. Of
course, if it was an amulet, she could have been wearing it, but I hadn’t seen a necklace on her at all. So unless I wanted to break into her house, which I wasn’t so keen on, I would have to find something among her personal possessions.
But there was nothing but books, make-up, a drink bottle, a phone, wallet, keys, another drink bottle… what have we here?
The second seemingly innocuous drink bottle was glowing. It was one of those metallic ones, and it tingled in my hand as I pulled it out.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I spun round. Julia stood before me, hands on her hips. The theatre was now empty, waiting for the night janitor to come and shut off the house lights and lock the doors.
“Nothing,” I said, trying to hide the bottle behind my back.
“Give that to me,” she replied in a low voice, stepping forward.
I told you I was a bad actor. I stepped away from her. “I know what you’ve done. You were the one who hurt Sarah.”
“Sarah was hit by a car. Not my fault.”
“It is if you wish it. Using a djinni.”
Julia stared at me. “Give me the bottle…” She seemed to hesitate at the end, like she wanted to say my name but couldn’t.
“You don’t even know my name, do you?” I demanded.
Confusion cleared and her eyes hardened. “So what? You’re just chorus. You’re a nobody. I’m the lead and you have to do what I say, or you will regret it.”
“This isn’t royalty,” I snapped back. “You’re not really some princess. I’m not afraid of you or your empty threats.” I twisted the cap of the bottle open. Soft pinkish smoke spewed forth from the neck and twisted in on itself, spiralling and twirling and warped with purple and green. In the middle of the smoke a figure appeared: a very beautiful and exotically clad yet strangely androgynous youth with longish light brown hair and oddly purple eyes. A djinni. A wish demon.
Julia moved faster than I did, leaping forward to attempt to snatch the bottle away. However I have demon hunter reflexes bred into me. I twisted out of her way, and in her sudden rage, she yelled at the djinni. “Kill her!”
The youth stood perfectly still and blinked slowly as I grappled with Julia. “I can only grant wishes, mistress.”
Julia threw her weight on me and I tumbled to the hard theatre floor. I refused to give up the bottle.
“I wish that she were dead!”
“I am afraid you will have to be more specific, mistress.”
“Her! Her! The one I’m-” I cut her off with a hard knee into her stomach and threw her off me. Gasping for air, she demanded of the djinni, “I wish for more wishes!”
The djinni turned his… her… its head and regarded her with indigo feline eyes. “You have forfeited your wishes.” And then the mystical smoke overtook the djinni again, in wisps of purple and pink and green, as it disappeared back into the bottle I was holding.
Julia and I both stared at the little prize in my hands. Then we looked at each other. Julia made a frantic leap while I hurriedly undid the bottle cap for a second time. Out poured the colourful smoke and the djinni took shape.
“Your wish is my command, mistress,” the djinni said, its strange quiet eyes locked on me. “Forfeit rule: no infinite wishes.”
“I wish for you to undo the two previous wishes made by Julia Hathaway.”
“Yes, mistress. Your wish is my command.”
Julia started screaming, “No!” but the change was already upon her. Gone: her lovely long shining hair. Gone: her expensive yet slightly inappropriate clothing. Gone: her luminous skin. Gone: her perfect vision. And when she cried out again in rage, her lovely voice, too, was gone.
But there was only one way to ensure the djinni couldn’t be used like this again. No matter how strong my lightning-vanquishes were getting, they wouldn’t affect something made entirely of magic. Before Julia could make another move on me, I said to the djinni, “I wish for you to be free.”
The djinni looked at me and smiled in gratitude. Then it melted away with the smoking tendrils curling into themselves.
Julia and I faced each other across the stage.
“You bitch,” she snarled. “I had everything.”
“At the cost of an innocent,” I replied. “Just be grateful I didn’t vanquish you.”
The next day, Sarah returned. She was her usual bubbly blonde self, and the cast rejoiced at the ‘miraculous’ surgery and healing performed on her leg. Our director was overjoyed as well, especially since the troublesome Julia had quit in a huff. But he got us to work quickly.
After all, the show must go on.