However, war and hatred has diluted not only our powers but also our resolve. I was incredibly gifted and determined as a hunter. The taste of Warlock blood completely consumed me and I wanted nothing more than to see them dissipate. Dark Hunters are nomadic so I lived an isolated life, scouring the earth alone in search of the next kill.
Of course, the Dark Ones have their own force of hunters. They are called the Shadow. The Shadow are more than just assassins; they are the law enforcement for the Dark. They, too, were in fear of exposure that could end their manipulation of humans. They had their tricks: changing their distinct appearance, downplaying their beauty, hypnotizing unsuspecting humans to do whatever they please. The defenseless mortals around them had no free-will, and were fashioned as slaves, playthings for the Dark.
While the Warlocks have a much more structured and intricate regime, we do have rules that must be followed to conceal our identity. Those who choose to disobey those rules are punished…harshly. The rules are engrained in us from birth.
1. Do no harm to the innocent.
2. Conceal the identity of the Light. And all other supernatural beings.
3. Never consort with the Dark. Ever.
This brings me to OUR story. The story of the creation of my precious daughter, sent to us to save our kind from hatred, greed, and evil. And the story of my demise; the reason I was put to death and forced to abandon you.
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I unconsciously let the book fall from my fingers and take a deep breath. If this is a sick joke, someone has gone an awfully long way to create such an elaborate story. But part of me knows that this is no ruse. Though every fiber within me is hoping, praying for it to be fictitious. I can’t be some… Enchanter. Or is it Enchantress? Oh my God, why am I even entertaining this garbage?
I clench my fists until the skin over my knuckles is stretched white and translucent. I will not succumb to such idiocy and read another damn word. Picking up the journal, I turn it over in my hands before throwing it against my bedroom wall. It takes out a couple old stuffed animals before landing open-faced on the floor with a thud. There’s no way this could be real! There’s no such thing as magic! No such thing as Warlocks and Enchanters, and Sorcery! This shit is utterly ridiculous!
And as if my anger and confusion conjured up some sleeping force within me, I began to feel the heat from my discontentment. I can feel it oozing from my pores, radiating in a fog around me. What the…? I hold my arm out in front of me and I swear there is a reddish orange mist hovering over my skin, twirling and writhing before my eyes. It’s like the feelings of doubt and turmoil are seeping right out of me into the vapor. My intoxicated haze has dissipated and I am completely abstemious. I feel so subdued, gazing into this auburn fog in awe. Seconds tick by but it feels like hours. Absolutely mystified.
My resolve falters for just a fraction of a millisecond and the mist is gone. It has disintegrated just as fast as it manifested, as if it were…magic. I’m alone again with my uncertainty and anger. But I’m also left with something else: A new found determination to find out exactly who I am and where I came from.
They say in order to know where you’re going, you need to know where you’ve been. Is that why I’ve been so undecided about just about EVERYTHING? School, career, even my feelings for Jared? I walk over to retrieve the rumpled book on the floor before running my fingers over the worn cover and placing it gently on my comforter.
In these pages lie my past, and hopefully a glimpse into my future. Am I willing to take a leap of faith and believe that these supernatural beings really could exist? And as asinine as it sounds, could I actually be one too? Could there really be a secret, underground world full of magic and mayhem?
So many questions bombard my mind and there’s only one way I can find the answers I seek. I have to keep reading. And whatever I may find, I have to accept it. Because this is me. This is my story.
Chapter Three
The morning light greets me with warm kisses of sunshine. I chuckle at the irony and rub my tired eyes. It feels too early but my alarm clock tells me it’s close to noon. I spent the better part of the early morning hours reading through my mother’s book until I fell asleep, sometime around 4am. I had gotten close to the end, reading about my birth mother, Natalia, and her conquests as a bad ass Dark Hunter, hunter of the enemy race of Warlocks that had tormented her kind, our kind, for years. I smile at the read memory, wishing I could’ve met her. Anyone that could single handedly lure and annihilate an evil adversary is pretty freaking awesome in my book.
Wait a minute. So am I accepting this tale of fantasy and myth? Can I actually believe in this stuff? Do I really even have a choice? Nothing in my life has made sense and finally I have just an inkling of hope that I just didn’t fall from the sky or come down in the mouth of a stork. I have to hold onto to something but can I really instill my trust in a fairytale?