Josephine Lancaster is saved by Kelly Osbourne from a witch hunter who is a part of a secret society that has an agenda to destroy witches. Kelly takes Jo to a boarding school for witches so she can be safe and also learn about her heritage, Jo meets new friends and bad boy Edward Scratch who uses his powers to cause mischief and that gets Jo interested in him. Jo discovers that the school for magic and witchcraft is not perfect and the school has a lot of secrets and she learns more about her birth mom who went to the school when she was younger. Her mom died in a car accident but now that Jo knows about the supernatural she's not so sure about that anymore. She believes there's a high chance that she was killed by one of those hunters and that makes her want to dig deeper into the secret organization and her mother's past with the help of her new friends and allies.
Chapter 1 One
Jo
In my sixteen years of living on this planet, I never thought that I'd get stabbed ever, phonophobia is one of the long list of phobias I have, but it has never been my number one fear my number one fear is being burnt alive well, I guess I should be grateful no one has the intention of setting me on fire this very moment. Instead, I'm going to be stabbed and the loss of blood is going to kill me.
This person has stabbed me once and is ready to stab me again, God knows how many times this person is going to stab me until I give out my last breath.
Let me start from the beginning, as soon as I walked into the house I saw my foster parents Greg and Samantha laying dead on the ground. When I saw the blood my instincts picked up. I turned to run and I was expecting to meet the door but I was met with a tall figure wearing a dark cloak and a scary-looking mask. Fear gripped me and the tall figure shoved a knife down my abdomen. I groaned and I kicked him on the leg then ran.
I don't think that kick hurt him, it confused him because this mother fucker's leg is hard as fuck.
This brings us to what's going on right now, me and this killer are currently playing a game of cat and mouse. He's the cat, unfortunately, if he's Tom then I have to be like Jerry and Jerry always wins.
Jesus, I'm still making up jokes when I'm probably going to die tonight. I never thought I'd die this way, I've considered suicide in the past but I didn't want a painful death. I wanted a painless death but I got over it, no thanks to therapy and I never thought of dying anymore, but now this mother fucker wants to kill me when I haven't even graduated high school yet, no way. I have to be smart and get myself out of this situation.
Poor Greg and Samantha, do I love that they're dead? Of course not, did I like them? Hell nah, I wonder why the foster care system thinks it's a great idea to let white people be a guardian of a black kid who is rebellious as hell. Maybe this is punishment for being a pain to my other white foster parents. I gave them a headache until they couldn't have it anymore so they kicked me out.
According to Greg and Samantha, they believed they would discipline me and teach me the Christian ways like I was some lesbian struggling with homosexuality and this was a gay conversion camp. I laughed when I heard them speak now they're dead, killed by whom I thought was my guardian angel but it isn't, because what kind of a guardian angel would want to kill the human they're guarding?
I wince, and I clutch my stomach, if I don't get to the hospital right now then I'mma end up like Greg and Samantha and I don't want that to happen I don't want them to get the last laugh. I want to survive, and be one of those final girls in horror movies.
Shit, I'm black, black girls don't survive in horror movies despite us being smarter than most white girls. I'm so dead, but I have to remove such a mentality from my head because I want to survive.
I'm in the kitchen slowly walking toward the kitchen knife set. The killer casually walks into the kitchen like he has all the time in the world. He's not even chasing me, he's not bothered because he knows that somehow he's going to kill me, somehow he's going to win.
I don't want to let that happen.
I throw a knife at him but he catches it with his right hand, shit I wanted to distract him with it so I can make a big run for it, turns out that was a huge mistake and a dumb thing to do.
He tilts his head looking at the knife like he's observing it, like the object he's looking at is more beautiful than any diamond or pearl. Then he looks at me and before you know it I receive a sharp pain on my shoulder, I scream. This bastard threw the knife back at me. Shit, what if it hit my neck?
But no jokes now I think I'm going to die because I don't have the strength to stand and every where's getting kinda blurry and I think he knows that fact because he's walking closer to me. He has his knife ready for me, I'm breathing heavily getting ready to embrace the pain. Getting ready to face death.
Well, goodbye world it was fun while it lasted. Off to hell, I go.
Before the killer can touch me I hear a loud explosion and all of a sudden the killer goes flying in the air. And he catches fire.
What the fuck? Am I in hell already? The killer is burning, he's shaking and twisting as the fire melts his skin. But how come I'm not feeling that fire if I'm in hell as well?
"Jo." I hear someone call my name, the person holds me up. "We have to get out of here." This person's voice is angelic, feminine of course we women are the shit. But wait a minute I can't go anywhere with this stranger, what if she's working with Mr. Ghost face over there?
"Come on Jo we don't have much time." She says to me. But hold on a damn minute who is this chic and how does she know my name? This looks super shady."We have to get you help, you're bleeding."
Yeah, no shit Nancy Drew.
Being stabbed has never been on my bucket list, I've always wanted to travel to Paris or South Africa I'm not like those weird white people who want their lives to be horror movies so they'll have that main character treatment once they save the day. Nope, call me boring but I'd like to do things that don't involve being stabbed or killed or kidnapped like what this lady is doing right now. She's kidnapping me. . . Or helping me, I don't know.
Oh no.
"Jo, stay with me!" The world is spinning and spinning and spinning until my body touches the ground and everything is pitch black.
I wake up to the sound of a car engine and the smell of expensive perfume. I'm in the backseat of a car, I don't know what car this is because I'm not a huge fan of cars, I've always been afraid of cars ever since I heard that my mom was killed in one even though I wasn't involved in the car accident with her.
I feel a little bit of pain in my stomach and my shoulder, and the strangest thing is they're covered in bandages. Holy shit, it wasn't a nightmare, the whole thing was real I was assassinated I thought I was going to die but here I am alive and well.
Yes! That means Greg and Samantha didn't get the last laugh, I won.
But wait a minute, whose car am I in? Am I still safe? Surely if I wasn't safe I wouldn't have gotten my wounds covered.
"Good, you're awake." I hear the driver say, it's a lady. She has long curly blonde hair and she's wearing a leather jacket. I think she saved my life, that was such perfect timing. But who the hell is she?
"Uh. . . Yes?" I simply say, gosh my throat, I need something to drink ASAP, my throat's all dried up.
"Here." She takes a bottle of water from the front seat and hands it over to me. "I knew you'd be thirsty." I look at the bottle of water and then at her, I quickly swipe the bottle from her hand and I begin to drink. Damn, am I that thirsty? Facing death makes one this thirsty huh?
"I'm Kelly, Kelly Osbourne." The lady says and I stop drinking. I swallow quickly because I want to tell her my name but then I remember this woman said my name back in that house, which means she already knows who I am. So I asked her this question instead.
"How do you know my name?"
"Oh, I'm psychic, somehow I kept seeing you in my dreams, I had a vision of you being attacked by that maniac."
I pause for a minute then burst into laughter because this is the funniest joke I've ever heard. But then I stop once I see she's not laughing her eyes are focused on the road she's neither smiling nor frowning, and her expression is blank.
"You're joking. . . " I say. "Right?"
She giggles. "it sounds like a joke, but it's not."
I scoff. "Come on, you're psychic? How does that- listen, lady, I don't know what foster care system sent you but you should tell them that I am tired of being taken care of by religious and supernatural freaks. I am an atheist I do not believe in a man in the sky or psychics I don't believe in non of that."
"I don't blame you, Christians themselves make it so hard to believe in the supernatural these days." I can feel her eyes roll. Wow, I was expecting her to be defensive like other Christians get whenever I tell them I don't believe in a God or the supernatural but she's being civil about it. "But you believe in witches don't you?"
"I don't- I don't know." The thought of witchcraft has not crossed my mind, sure I love movies like Charmed and The Craft but I don't think witches exist, yes they exist but not the casting spell kind and I'm sure she's asking about the witches who cast spells.
"Well, Josephine-"
"Jo." I correct her and she clears her throat.
"Sorry, Jo. I'm a witch, and so are you and so was your mom."
I shoot out a small laugh then I stop. Is this lady sick or what?
"Your mom was one of the most powerful witches ever, almost every coven and witch knows her. That person that was going to kill you was a sorcerer, a human being given supernatural abilities by the devil because he's angry that witches stopped worshiping him and started worshiping Lilith, the first woman."
"Hold up hold up hold up. You're saying that the devil sent a sorcerer to kill me because I'm a witch?"
"He doesn't want to kill you in particular, he sent sorcerers to kill all witches because we turned against him."
This is all too much for me, witches, sorcerers, the devil? This is too much, why do these supernatural lovers like to torment me? Why can't they leave me to not believe in anything?
"Prove it."
"Prove what honey?"
"That you're a witch!"
"Honey, I already told you. I kept on having visions of you being attacked by that sorcerer. I'm a psychic."
No, no, no, no. This can't be happening I am not a witch, my mom couldn't have been a witch, I mean she would have told me. This has to be a joke or a prank, but what kind of a prank would lead to my foster parents getting killed or me being stabbed? This woman looks legit either that or she's crazy and I hope it's the latter because I don't want no devil to exist.
Before I can ask another question, the car starts misbehaving and screeching I begin to scream as the car almost comes in contact with a truck but luckily the truck moves without hitting us. As soon as the car stops, Kelly immediately gets out of the car and tells me to get out as well, I do as I'm told and I almost stumble, I check the time on this car and it's 3:30 am, oof, all this in one morning?
I look over at Kelly, and damn this lady is hot, if I were a man I'd tap that. She looks like a Victoria's Secret model, she's wearing a dark green crop top, a leather jacket, black skinny jeans, and black boots. She looks badass. She's currently holding what seems to be a sword. Damn, she's ready to fight. But what does she want to attack? I look at the direction she's looking at and I see my worst nightmare.
There are three of them, three kill- three sorcerers staring back at us their style blends in with the dark of the night. How the heck did they find us? I had to deal with one sorcerer now I have to deal with three? And am I calling them sorcerers right now? Do I suddenly believe in these things?
"Jo, stay back and if anything happens, you run." She commands and before I can stop her she charges towards them, she swings her sword at one of the sorcerers causing them to fall, I wince like I'm the one she used that sword on. Kelly charges toward the other two and I'm confident she's going to whoop their asses but then something strange happens, something I've never seen in my life happen before.
Kelly's stuck in the air, and it seems like the sorcerers are the ones controlling her with her powers.
"Jo! Run!" She yells and I turn around to make a run for it but then I stop. No, I won't, this woman helped me and I'm not about to let her die.
So I confidently, but fearfully, walk toward the bastards that decided to kill people for no reason because the devil told them to.
"Leave her alone," I command, I may sound convincing but I'm scared as hell.
"Jo, no run! Please run." Kelly cries
"I said, leave her alone!!" I scream at the top of my lungs. I scream for a long time, I can feel the energy leaving my body, I can see Kelly falling to the ground and the sorcerers explode leaving behind nothing but ashes. I stop screaming and my knees touch the ground. Kelly runs toward me.
"Are you alright?" She asks and I nod even though I feel so weak right now. She looks at me frighteningly. "I can't believe it, you're not just a witch you're a. . . You're a banshee."
"A wha. . ." Everywhere goes blank. . . Again.
Other books by Emi Briggs
More