Brew (Salem's Revenge Book 1)

  Screeeeeeech!

  I flinch away from the window, as if it might burst inwards, but no…whatever’s tearing through the metal is outside. At least for now.

  Voices from the other room, muffled at first and then raised, shout, “Jasmine! Stay in your room!”

  “What’s happening?” my sister cries through her door.

  “Just stay inside!” Dad’s voice thunders through wood and plasterboard. “Rhett! You, too! My gun, Trudy!”

  “Take it,” my mother says. There’s a double click—chook-chook!—and my father’s heavy footsteps pound past my room and rumble down the staircase.

  Kicking my legs over the side of the bed, I almost trip on the sheets, which are tangled around my ankles like vines. I high step and manage to slip free. Two long strides and I’m at the window, peering into the unlit yard, searching for the source of the ruckus.

  Under the glow of the half-moon, the wrought-iron fence around our front yard is shining, mangled, and ripped in several places. The white, wooden gate at the end of the brick path is missing…no, there it is! Two jagged halves lie on opposite sides of the yard, splinters scattered like straw. Whatever did that is strong beyond imagination…

  There are shadows on the lawn.

  The dark echo of the big rosebush, tenderly cared for by my father; a wheel barrow, still half full of mulch, casts a black spot amongst the lush, green grass; the shadows are moving. Not the roses or the barrow, but others, darker and lurking, creeping toward the front door.

  There’s a bright flash of light and the rosebush bursts into flame, its thorny stems painted with chaotic red and orange strokes. Glowing orbs appear in the midst of one of the moving shadows and they’re—they’re—

  —staring at me.

  Unnaturally large eyes in the dark. The shadow raises a finger, points at me through the glass…

  The wheelbarrow rockets through the air, spinning and sending clumps of brown mulch flying in all directions, heading right toward me…

  I dive and duck just as the window explodes inwards, glass shrapnel raining all around, tinkling like crystal wind chimes. There’s a whoosh! and a whoomp! and a heavy crash as the barrow bashes into my door.

  A scream. Jasmine.

  A shout. My father.

  A gunshot. Then another.

  Covered in shimmering glass shards, I push to my feet, ignoring the spots of blood welling up from my skin and the pinpricks of pain. The wheelbarrow is on its side in the hall, having destroyed my bedroom door. I barely spot my sister’s bare foot as she climbs past and toward the staircase.

  “Jasmine, no!” my mother shouts, clambering over the barrow after her. “Rhett, stay here,” she says through a mop of unkempt blond hair.

  My entire family is running toward the danger and I’m frozen, glued to the floor, unable to speak, unable to act.

  There’s a roar of agony from somewhere downstairs, another gunshot, and then my sister’s scream, a wail of fear and terror. Something snaps inside me and I can move again, charging through the opening, leaping over the barrow, rebounding off the wall, half-stumbling down the hall. I take a sharp left and bound down the steps two at a time.

  A cool breeze hits me in the face, unimpeded by the front door, which is wide open and hanging awkwardly by a single hinge. To my left the couch is overturned, splinters of ceramic from a broken vase littering the wooden floorboards around it.

  Where’s my family?

  I glance into the yard, where the rosebush is nothing more than a glowing pile of ash. The moving, bright-eyed shadows are gone. Are they inside?

  “Mom?” I say, surprised when my voice comes out more than a whisper. “Dad? Jaz?”

  No answer. Silence. Silence. And then…

  A scream. Not inside—but somewhere else, down the street perhaps. Another house. Can’t worry about that now. Have to find my family.

  I tiptoe into the living room, stubbing my bare toe on something hard. My father’s gun skitters away, clattering across the wood as more screams fill the night. Screams of terror and pain. Neighbors, friends…what’s happening?

  I bend down and reach for the gun, my brown skin appearing even darker in the shadows…

  “Death finds you,” a voice says from behind.

  My heart skips a beat as I whirl around, instinctively taking a step away toward the tipped-over couch. Fluorescent bulbs stare back at me, too bright to gaze at directly. I shield my eyes with a hand, trying to discern who or what is connected to the blinding light. “Where’s my family?” I say. A black cloak, thin at the top and flared out toward the bottom, sits below the eyes.

  “You won’t need them anymore,” the eyes say.

  I reverse another step, feeling the gun clatter against my heel.

  I crouch down, watched by the animal eyes the entire time. Blindly grab for the gun. It’s warm and soft. For a moment, I risk tearing my gaze from the black-cloaked menace standing before me.

  I’m holding a small, dark-skinned hand.

  Screaming, I drop it and fall to the side, my breath coming in ragged heaves, my heart in my throat, my brain finally catching up to my senses.

  “No,” I breathe. And again: “No.”

  Jasmine watches me with wide, white unseeing eyes. Her neck is wet and glistening with spilled life.

  Tears blooming like dewdrops, I wail at the presence, at my sister’s body, at the empty room, my cries joining the screams and shouts that seem to be everywhere now, a cacophony of despair. “What have you done?” I cry. I’m dreaming—oh please let this be a nightmare. Pinch myself. And again, harder. A groan gurgles from the back of my throat, a cry of rage and hurt.

  I jump to my feet and charge the shadow, forgetting my father’s gun because I don’t need it, don’t need anything but my own two fists and unbridled anger.

  I blink and it’s gone.

  Ohcrapohcrap.

  “You can’t fight me,” the voice says, behind me again.

  I whirl around to face it, my heart stuttering in my chest, my every instinct urging me to get the hell out of the house. The shadow is hovering over my sister’s dead body.

  It’s a woman’s voice. I only now realize it. What is she?

  “Get away from her,” I growl through my teeth.

  A laugh. How could she be laughing when Jasmine is broken beneath her? Who is this psychopath? “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Your family”—she points at the couch and it flips over as if it weighs no more than a feather, revealing the still bodies of my parents—“is waiting for you in hell.”

  They’re not moving, not breathing: dead like Jasmine. Just like before. Not again.

  I clamp my eyes shut as a flash of pain sears through my skull.

  When I open my eyes, they’re still there. My newest family, the first one I’ve felt comfortable with in a long time—since after I lost my first foster family—gone to a place I can’t follow. The glowing eyes are still there, too, still staring. I run at the she-demon, and this time she doesn’t vanish, and I hit her so hard, like I’m hitting the tackling machines at football practice, but it’s like crashing headfirst into a stone wall. Her icy hands clamp around my throat and she picks me up like I’m not big for my age and over six feet and a hundred and ninety pounds. Like I’m the size of one of the dolls Jasmine will never play with again.

  “Guess we’re doing this the hard way,” she says, and I can see her teeth, straight and white and in perfect little rows above and below her lips, not rotted and sharpened into fangs like I expected. She squeezes my throat and I can’t breathe and I’m surprised when I realize:

  I don’t care.

  Breathing doesn’t matter. The sharp rap of the heartbeat in my chest doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now that they’re gone.

  And then something hits me, and at first I think it’s the demon, but we’re both flying backwards, and her grip loosens and she releases my neck. I crack the back of my head against the fireplace before slumping to the floor, my skul
l aching, acutely aware of the writhing presence beside me. A flash of metal cuts through the darkness and she disappears, like before.

  Three dark-skinned faces appear, each identical and framed by well-trimmed gray hair and webs of wrinkles. I shake my head and the three faces become one.

  “Mr. Jackson?” I say, glancing at the long sword my neighbor’s carrying in his left hand. Hastily, he shoves it into a loop on his belt.

  “She’s gone, son,” he says, bending over and picking up my body as easily as the demon did, surprisingly strong.

  “So are they,” I say through the tears and the wave of dizziness that assaults me, and he nods with sad eyes.

  “Salem’s Revenge has begun a day early,” he says gruffly, just before my vision fades and I lose consciousness.

  Chapter Four

  When I awake, my skin is itchy from the couch, and I feel achy all over.

  But that’s nothing compared to the splitting agony in my chest.

  Dead. They’re all dead.

  I may not have had a shred of love for the dozen other sets of foster parents that passed me around between my first foster family and my last, but I loved the Smiths.

  The death of my first foster family caroms through my memory, like a waking nightmare. A horrific car accident in which I was the only survivor.

  And now this. My heart feels like shattered glass crushed to dust.

  “What was that thing?” I murmur under my breath, seeing flashes of the gleaming eyes, of the rows of white teeth, of the dark cloak.

  “A witch,” Mr. Jackson says, startling me so much I almost fall off the couch.

  The curtains are drawn, and my neighbor’s dark form is shrouded in shadow, framed by a rectangle of light that sneaks past the navy blue drapes.

  Salem’s Revenge has begun a day early.

  Mr. Jackson’s words, from last night when he saved my life (with a freaking sword!), come back to me in a rush. I know what Salem’s Return is, but Salem’s Revenge? What does that even mean?

  “Ha ha. Funny,” I say, but I remember the way the…thing-woman-psychopath…disappeared. Unnatural. Impossible.

  Mr. Jackson isn’t a comedian. I can tell from the stone-cold serious look on his face. “You have much to learn, son. But if you can’t take this situation seriously…”

  “Seriously?” I say. “My family is dead. I should be. You saved my life. I heard screams all over the place. What’s going on?” I have to grit my teeth to hold back the emotion.

  “You’ve heard of Salem’s Return?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say slowly. “Crap like that is what gives the U.S. a bad name.”

  “It did a helluva lot more than that,” Mr. Jackson says. “It pissed off a whole lot of witches and warlocks. Wizards, too.” I raise a hand to object, but he rushes on. “Just hear me out, son. You saw what one of them can do. Imagine thousands of them striking together, unified for the first time in centuries.”

  I close my eyes and shake my head. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. Witches are characters in some of my favorite books. Not. Real.

  “I always thought the laws were a load of crap,” I say. “That magic and witches weren’t real. Just scared people making scared decisions.”

  “I know this is a lot to take in,” Mr. Jackson says.

  That’s the understatement of the century.

  Mr. Jackson remains silent for so long I think he must have left the room. But when I ease my eyelids open a crack, he’s still there, just watching me.

  “Ready to talk?”

  No. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s start with how you know about any of this. If there really are witches or warlocks or whatever—not that I believe there are—why would they tell you about their plans?”

  Mr. Jackson continues to stare at me. Does he ever need to blink? “Next question,” he says.

  I roll my eyes. “This is pointless,” I say.

  “Look, son, I just know things, okay? And either I can tell you those things, or not. It’s your choice.”

  “Fine,” I say. “So there are witches. How come no one ever knew about them until now?”

  He leans back. “Because they didn’t want anyone to know about them. They like their secrecy. But our silly little vendetta against them was the last straw and provided a common enemy.”

  “So Salem’s Return really was targeting real witches?” I ask, feeling stupid just saying the words out loud.

  “Yes. Only witches, because of our incorrect belief that only females can wield magic.” Mr. Jackson rolls his head, his neck cracking loudly. “The warlocks and wizards avoided detection. Truth be told, many of the witches targeted by Salem’s Return were merely fakes trying to make a living. But plenty of real witches got sloppy and were caught up in it. They’re now dead. The magical community exploded and started garnering support for a rebellion.”

  “Salem’s Revenge?” I say, remembering the last words Mr. Jackson spoke to me before I blacked out.

  Mr. Jackson flinches, as if surprised to hear his own words out loud. “Yes,” he says. “An hour of unity amongst witches, warlocks, and wizards.”

  I remember the screams. This was bigger than just an attack on my family. With a start, I realize I’m starting to believe what my reclusive neighbor is telling me. I try to speak, but the words stick in my throat, because…

  I can’t even think it.

  What if…

  No.

  With barely a whisper, I ask, “How many people died?” I already know the answer before the question leaves my mouth. Do I really want to hear it out loud?

  Mr. Jackson purses his lips. Pauses, as if considering whether to tell me the truth. “Millions,” he says. The word is like a hammer to my chest. Millions dead is world wars. The Black Plague. Genocide.

  “No,” I say, not because I don’t believe him, but because millions could mean that they’re dead, too. Xave and Beth.

  “I’m sorry, Rhett,” Mr. Jackson says, which makes me look at him sharply. Hearing my name on the lips of the man I’ve barely spoken to in the five years I’ve been living on this street, the man who saved my life, sounds surreal.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say, sitting up quickly. I try to stand, but my head is spinning and I lose my balance, collapsing onto the couch. Mr. Jackson is at my side before I can try again, holding me down firmly. “You need to rest a little longer,” he says, and although I try to argue I can’t find the words, because the world is fading fading fading into dark oblivion.

  ~~~

  I wake up smiling and reaching for my phone to see if I have any texts from Xave or Beth.

  All I get is a handful of empty air. There’s no bedside table. No cell phone. Just me and a couch and a thin line of sunlight tracing a path across the worn gray carpet in Mr. Jackson’s living room.

  Xave and Beth. Beth and Xave. I have to find them. Have to know if they survived the attack.

  I throw off the blanket and sit up, fighting off the dizziness and the fear and the sadness that coat me like a black tar.

  “You can’t just leave,” Mr. Jackson says, startling me once again.

  “Will you stop doing that?” I say. Before he can answer, I add, “What—am I your prisoner?”

  “No,” he says.

  “Then I’m leaving.”

  “You’ll be dead in five minutes.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I say.”

  My chest heaving, I take a few deep breaths. “It’s that bad?”

  “They’re still killing anyone they find,” he says. A fresh wave of fear rolls over me. Not for me. For my friends.

  “I have to find my friends,” I say. “If they’re alive…”

  “Beth and Xave,” he says. Not a question.

  “How do you…”

  “I keep my eyes open,” he says. When I frown, he explains. “I’m not some creepy stalker, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I raise my eyebrows because that’s exactly what I was thinking. “I
’m ex-CIA. It’s always been my job to pay attention. Old habits and all that.”

  “Oh,” is all I can think of to say, when inside I’m wondering how I didn’t know there was a spy living in our neighborhood.

  “Do you think my friends are alive?” I ask. He won’t look me in the eyes, which is all the answer I need. “I have to be sure.”

  “I know, son. Just let me check out the neighborhood, see if there’s any witch activity. Then we’ll look for your friends together. Is that fair?”

  I shrug. Do I have a choice? “Okay,” I say.

  He grabs his sword and gives me a dark look. “Why a sword?” I ask. “Wouldn’t a gun be more effective?”

  His eyes go to the blade and he runs a finger along the metal, almost tenderly. “There are many ways to fight witches. And this isn’t a normal sword. It’s made by witches from cursed steel. I’ve managed to collect a few of them along the way.”

  Before I can ask how he obtained a cursed sword, he’s gone, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  Chapter Five

  Mr. Jackson exits through the back door, taking his long sword with him. Funny how you can know a man living a few doors down for a long time and not really know him at all. He doesn’t even look middle-aged anymore, as if the years have been exfoliated away like dry skin.

  I pass the time pulling individual hairs out of the skin on the back of my hand.

  When he returns an hour later, he has my journal and a thin smile. “Not all is lost, son,” he says.

  “What did you do, search my house?” I say, but I accept the book like a sack of gold.

  “Ex-CIA, remember?” he says.

  “Thank you,” I say, surprised when no tears well up. “Did you…?” I let the thought disappear like dew in direct sunlight.

  He shakes his head. “They were gone,” he says.

  I don’t ask who would remove the dead bodies of my family from an abandoned house because I don’t want to know.

  “Is it safe?” I ask.