Outside of New Orleans
Xander and Xaria stepped off the bus at the end of a wooded drive.
“I don’t know why Senemut don’t just get me a car,” Xander mumbled, as they began to walk down the gravel road.
“It’s not like he can’t afford it.
You know how embarrassing it is to have to walk like a mile through the woods to get to the house.
I mean, we could get ate up by a bear or sumthin’.”
“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” Xaria said, sighing.
“One, it’s not quite a mile.
Two, we have a better chance getting eaten by a gator than a bear and three, who was the one who told Sene ‘I ain’t no kid.
It’s embarrassing to have you pick us up like we six’.”
“I thought he would go buy me a car!”
“Humph!”
“You know I meant ‘us’,” Xander said sweetly.
Xaria rolled her dark brown eyes as her twin brother went on about the injustices of not owning a car.
She shook her wild, curly auburn hair as she looked back at her brother.
His skin was the same warm cinnamon tone as hers.
His eyes were the same dark brown as hers too.
But what else would you expect from twins?
Though their looks were similar, their styles were very different.
Xander loved his relaxed fit jeans, oversized T-shirts, hoodie and Nikes while Xaria preferred her skinny jeans, funky tunic blouses and ballet flats.
Xaria smiled as she reached over and playfully tugged the end of one of his auburn braids, hoping it would distract him from his rant.
“Bout time to get that hair did!” Xaria said, laughing.
“Yeah, I know.
I was going to ask you to re-braid it this weekend.”
“You are such a girl!”
“Hey!” Xander said, running his hand over his braids.
“The ladies like the braids.”
Xaria laughed but stopped abruptly.
Her face went blank.
Then she turned to Xander.
He knew this look all too well.
He knew his sister had the gift of visions.
She could see into the future and sometimes the past.
“What do you see?” Xander asked anxiously.
“Move!” Xaria shouted as she shoved Xander hard.
They both fell to the ground.
Spikes of ice shot out of the ground and encircled the very spot they were standing just seconds before.
“What the hell!” Xander exclaimed.
“Someone is attacking us!”
“No duh!”
Xander and Xaria stood up and dusted themselves off.
“Look!” Xaria cried.
She pointed at a thin trail of ice that was spreading along the ground towards them.
“We need to move,” Xander said, grabbing his sister’s arm.
They began running through the trees.
As they did, Xander ripped off a big, silver chain with a round basketball pendent on it from his neck.
After they ran a few yards, he stopped.
His eyes flashed and an astral projection of him appeared.
“Go!” he shouted, as he ran behind a big tree.
Xaria and Xander’s astral-self disappeared into the forest.
Xander waited for their attacker.
As he waited, he began to twirl the chain.
The chain grew longer and thicker while the basketball pendent grew larger and formed spikes.
Soon, he was no longer twirling a necklace.
Instead, he was swinging a chained mace.
He kept swinging it, trying to build up as much momentum as he could before their attacker came.
He was not disappointed.
A woman with long, raven hair was walking slowly through the trees.
Xander waited until she had past the tree he hid behind and released his weapon with all his strength to the back of her head.
To his surprise, she turned around and caught the mace by the chain.
“Well,” she said, her voice slightly accented, “you are quite crafty.
Now be good.
I mean you no harm.”
“Yeah right,” Xander said as he yanked the chain and swung her into a nearby tree.
The tree broke in half under the blow.
The woman rolled out of the way as the tree came crashing down.
She hissed something under her breath in a language that Xander couldn’t understand.
Xander swung the mace over his head as he stepped towards her.
He released his hold again.
This time she dodged the blow, and the spiked ball went crashing into the tree, splintering it.
“Where’d she go?”
Then he heard the sound of breathing behind him followed by a sudden gasp.
Xander turned in enough time to watch their assailant fall to one knee.
In her back were two throwing daggers.
She looked up at Xander as he was about to bring down his mace and vanished.
Xaria ran up to Xander.
“Cutting it kinda close, don’t cha think?” Xander said, taking his astral-self back.
“You’re welcome,” Xaria said with annoyance.
“Now, where did she go?”
“You children are more resourceful than I have been led to believe,” they heard the woman’s voice say through the trees.
“Why don’t ya show yourself and we’ll show you sum moe ‘resourcefulness’!” Xander shouted as he looked around.
“I think not,” the woman responded.
Xaria and Xander could hear the woman’s voice echo through the trees but could not tell from which direction it was coming from.
Xaria grabbed two more spiked charms off of her necklace.
They instantly transformed into throwing daggers as she held them.
Xaria grabbed Xander’s shoulder.
“She has guns,” she whispered.
“She’ll be behind us in three, two.
.
.”
Xander’s eyes flashed.
Five astral projections appeared and surrounded them.
Each swinging the heavy chain of the mace in front of them just as the woman appeared from behind a tree with two guns.
The air was filled with the sound of silenced gun fire and the clanging of bullets hitting the chains.
Xaria looked at the ground expecting pieces of metal, but the ground was littered with shards of ice.
“She’s shooting ice bullets!” Xaria shouted, as she watched the shards spread.
“We’re going to have to move!”
“Give me a minute!
This takes a lotta concentration!”
As they spoke, the ice spread around them and encased their feet.
Xaria used her daggers to try to break the ice, but it formed faster than she could break it.
The woman stopped shooting as they and the astrals became trapped in the ice.
Astral projections melted away as ice surrounded them.
Xander’s eyes flashed again.
Two astrals appeared with chains and ran for their capturer.
The woman vanished and reappeared behind them and stabbed them with two shards of ice that she had formed in her hands.
The projections melted away.
“Do you have any more tricks?” the woman asked.
Xander’s eyes flashed again, but he was stopped by his sister.
“You can’t win,” Xaria said.
“She can counter your every move.”
“I don’t care!” Xander said as more of him appeared.
They watched as the mystery woman cut through the droves of Xanders at lightning speed, faster than Xander could create them.
Finally, the woman stood in front of him with a sharp shard of ice at his throat.
“Enough!” she commanded.
Xander let out a heavy sigh and glared at their attacker.
She wasn’t very tall even with the heels she wore.
She was still a few inches from his 5’11” stature.
She was clad in dark tan leather from neck to toe.
She used a gloved hand to sweep her black hair out of her face revealing a large ankh tattoo covering the right eye.
Xaria gasped as their assailant opened her eye revealing the dark abyss.
“She has the same tattoo as Sene!” Xaria said.
“Who is Sene?” the woman asked.
“Why don’t cha ask him yo self,” Xander said with a smirk.
“Wha—,” the woman said, turning her head to see a flash of light hit her.
The force of the blow threw her through several trees.
They watched as one of the trees fell on top of her.
A tall, medium tone man stepped out of a portal.
His vivid green eyes were filled with anger.
A frown formed across his handsome face, making his neatly trimmed goatee jut out.
His shaven head reflected the few rays of sun that shone through the trees.
He threw down his navy sports coat as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his long sleeve button down shirt.
He pulled the ends of the shirt out of his brown slacks, preparing for the fight to come.
Alongside him stood a young female with short platinum blond hair and electric blue eyes.
Her skin was a rich luminous cream making her look like an angel.
She was dressed neatly in her designer boot cut jeans and a pink long sleeve light-weight sweater.
Her face was emotionless as she held a hand up ready to release another blast of energy.
“I don’t think she will be getting up anytime soon,” the blond said.
“Nice shot, Raylin,” the man said to the blonde as he turned to Xaria and Xander.
“Are you two alright?”
“Yeah, Sen,” Xander said.
“What took you guys so long?”
“You guys were moving so much it was hard for me to get a lock on you,” Raylin said, trying to melt the ice.
“Yea,” Xander said, sarcastically, “next time we have some hot, super-powered chick trying to turn us into human popsicles, we’ll just stand still.”
“It would help,” Raylin said, smiling.
“Did either of you get a good look at this ‘hot chick’?” Senemut asked, walking over to examine the ice.
“Yea, I did,” Xaria said.
“She looked like any human woman.
She had black hair that stopped about halfway down her back and one blue eye and one freaky looking black eye.
And get this, she has the same tattoo you got, but it’s on her face.”
“Really?” Senemut said, distracted by the ice.
The ice intrigued him.
It seemed to have an unnatural glow.
He reached out to examine it, but when he touched it, it burned him as if he had touched fire.
Xaria’s words began to register in his thoughts.
He looked up at Xaria.
“Did you say she had a tattoo?” Senemut asked.
“Yes, on her face.”
Senemut flicked out his forked tongue to taste the air.
A fragrance filled the air and coated his tongue.
The flavor aroused memories he thought he had long forgotten.
He could feel conflicting emotions stir within.
“Myrrh?” Senemut said to himself.
“It couldn’t be.
No, it couldn’t be.”
“Senemut,” Raylin said with concern.
“This ice .
.
.
I can’t melt it.”
Senemut looked over at Raylin, still in a daze.
“What?”
“It won’t melt,” Raylin repeated.
“In fact, I think it’s absorbing my magic.”
Senemut snapped out of his daze.
He looked in the direction where their assailant had been thrown.
He took a step but stopped as he noticed the broken tree began to frost over.
Soon, it transformed into a block of ice.
The ice began to whine and crack as if under pressure.
With one loud pop, it exploded, sending shards of ice everywhere.
Raylin formed an invisible barrier of magic to shield them from the flying ice.
The woman stood in the midst of the chaos with the falling shards swirling around her like snow.
She clutched one hand over one side of her abdomen and used the other to support herself against one of the broken trees.
Her ankh tattoo glowed brightly.
“That.
Hurt,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You thought that one hurt,” Raylin began.
Her eyes began to glow.
“No!” Senemut cried as he took hold of Raylin’s wrist and pulled it down.
Raylin looked at him with her mouth gaped in disbelief.
Senemut turned to the woman.
“Hatshepsut?”
She looked at him with wide eyes.
She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
Her lips moved and formed a word, Senemut.
Senemut’s heart stopped beating as he saw her mouth his name.
He took a step forward with his hand outstretched.
He wanted to touch her to see if she was truly real or a cruel apparition taunting him.
Senemut saw weariness in her blue eye as he stepped closer to her.
He could hear her heart beating faster with each step he took towards her.
The sound made his heart began to beat in tune with hers.
When he had gotten within a few feet of her, she pushed herself off the tree and vanished.
As did all the ice she created, releasing the twins from their bonds.
“What were you thinking?” Raylin exclaimed.
“I had her!”
“She’s the least of our worries,” Senemut said, looking in the direction she disappeared.
He turned to Raylin.
“Get them home.
I’ll make sure we don’t have any other visitors.
Then I will tell you all about my old friend.”
***********
Hatshepsut kept running until she could assure herself that Senemut wasn’t following her.
She leaned against a tree and examined her wound.
This should have healed by now.
That girl .
.
.
She had to be wielding some powerful magic to do this to me.
Hatshepsut held her side and began to wonder who she knew that could remove the enchantment.
Suddenly, her phone began to vibrate.
She clicked her earpiece.
“Having difficulties?” a digitally altered voice said.
“You have deceived me!” Hatshepsut said between shallow breaths.
“I don’t understand…it was a simple retrieval.
It shouldn’t have been too difficult for someone of your caliber.”
Hatshepsut chuckled, but it did not reflect humor.
“You said the children were human, but that was not the case.”
“They are human.”
“You lie!
You also failed to mention they had a witch for a bodyguard along with the demon.
I am beginning to think that everything about this job has been a lie.
In fact, I think you have lied about every job.”
“You shouldn’t say such things.
Throwing around accusations like that could end this very lucrative relationship.”
“Go to hell!” Hatshepsut cried into the phone angrily.
“In fact, I will send you there myself!”
The only reply she received was the dial tone.
I hope you are enjoying the read so far