Willow’s Legend

Dedicated to Cleo Kaiser, my first best friend, first reader, and most inspiring person in the world. Her endless support is the only reason why this book is completed. Without her, Willow’s Legend would be nothing. 

 And to all my Wattpad readers! Who've never given up on this story even in it's worst chapters and grammar errors!

Chapter One

        Alicia pulled the string back from her bow and released the arrow. It flew through the air quickly and precisely, just as she had intended it to do. The ‘twang’ of the string as the arrow flew startled the animal, but it was too late to save itself. The arrow hit the jackpot, piercing the Spider's thorax. It screeched and rolled over onto its back, blood spewing from its wound, staining the green moss underneath with a deep scarlet.

 Its life was quick the end, the light in its eyes quickly faded into nothing.

The young girl walked up and yanked the arrow out of its body, spitting on the ground next to the creature.

Her eyes left no traces of pity. After years upon years of being trained in blood and death, it was almost scary how fast and easy she killed, almost without hesitation.

She eyed the creatures limp body and felt a kick of pride in its death. These creatures were massive, their eight legs instantly stabbed, and their poison seeped into skin, slowly killing anything with a heartbeat. It was rare that anyone could kill such a creature, but Alicia had nailed it in a single shot.

"Hey, Michael!" she yelled when she realized quickly felt the emptiness behind her. He had been there watching her not two minutes ago and she wondered what kind of stupid thing he was getting himself into. Michael was one to go wondering about and exploring in things he probably shouldn’t be.

"Michael!" she yelled once again. Her voice echoed through the empty woods. Although sometimes she thought he could be pretty brainless, he would answer to her calls.

Sullenly stomping through the forest, she looked around. "Michael, where are you, you idiot!?" The girl showed no nervousness or faltering. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for Michael, but disappearing like that was Michaels’ expertise. It was why he was always the first one to be asked to spy when enemies seemed to be planning more than a death raid.

"Gaisus," Michael said as he emerged from the trees and his green eyes looked at Alicia with annoyed amusement. As usual, he was completely unharmed, no fresh scrapes to add to the old scars.

Gaisus was a special way of saying “Geez” or “Jesus” in human terms. Of course, the UnderWorld liked to inherit words from Earth, though no creature in the UnderWorld would ever admit that the Earth had much cooler words than they did.

They admired Earthly human ways as much as they feared them.

Michael’s eyes held urgency this time. Not a panic-like urgency, but the type of urgency of letting someone into a secret. He wanted to show her something.

"You might want to see this," he said, voicing what Alicia had immediately thought he would say. They knew each other all too well, it was almost scary.

"This had better be worth my time." She replied, faking annoyance, trying to lighten the mood. She had, after all, just shot a Giant Spider, something that was meant to cause great pride, not urgency.

 He lead her through the woods, not even looking behind his shoulder to make sure she was following. After a moment he stopped, at the ledge of a cliff.  Alicia stood beside him and took in their surroundings.

The ledge was high up, the height was enough to cause vertigo for someone not accustomed to heights. But the height was obviously not what Michael was intending to show her.

 It was the horde of monsters below.

They marched disorderly, smoke rising from their skin and she could smell it from here, it burned her nose and she wrinkled it. All hours hunched over books studying creatures connected the name of these creatures almost immediately.

Smoulders. Fire breathers.

Smoulders were nasty creatures with charred, black skin. Beneath the skin lay almost lava like blood, that pulsed and could even blind someone when needed.

The LostForest was very murky and wet. Most Smoulders were found in MountSmoulding or MountFekaz, great volcanoes.

“It’s so odd they are traveling so far South,” Michael whispered. “Do you think he’s gathering troops or something?”

He didn’t have to imply who he was. Machire, the one who seemed to be causing all the doom.

“They seemed to have left some damage,” Alicia remarked, looking over the horizon, the cool breeze felt nice on her face, though the ashy smell was so thick she could have coughed.

She looked over at the smoke rising from a nearby village. Alicia could tell without having to see it clearly that the poor village was burnt to the ground.

Creatures like Smoulders didn’t have much of brains but had lots of blood thirst, which meant they would listen to just about anything you would say. And attack just about any village with only a few words. 

"Cirestain won’t be happy." Michael replied, which was true. Cirestain wouldn’t be happy. This was the fourth time this week something like this had happened, something that shouldn’t happen she should say. 

There wasn’t anything they could do to save the village. Two lone Ganashes had no power over the flames, the only thing in their power to do is to go back to RiverPlain and report the flames.

“Let’s go,” she said.

* * * * * * * * * *

One Week Later

Chicago:

                        "Just coffee, please, no sugar," Jasper said to the waitress. He readjusted his weight on the uncomfortable booth at Mooche's Diner. It was your typical quintessential diner—near the toll road, so there were many truck drivers who would stop by for some blueberry pancakes or strawberry pies. It was covered from head to toe in retro reds and honey yellows.

The waitress smiled at him, then looked over at Willow. "What would you like, Amnesian?"

Willow knew the waitress was a Fairy and the waitress knew that Willow was an Amnesian. Anybody from the Faery world could tell each other apart easily and look past the Lightlined trickery. Though many times, she wished she could hide her DNA from other Faery creatures, being tagged by your race wasn’t the funniest of things.

"Nothing for me," she replied, briefly glancing at the waitress before looking back down at her hand. She was pale today, well paler than usual. Her hands seemed almost translucent.

The waitress quickly flitted away, not even glancing back.

“Are you okay, Willow?” Jasper asked, looking at her with a half smile.

“Do I seem paler?” She asked, pulling her hand up to his face.

He laughed, but wasn’t surprised. After years of being friends he was used to the weird questions girls always seemed to ask.  “You do, actually. It’s like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I knew it,” Willow replied, letting her hand drop on her table. Jasper wasn’t ever the least bit awkward when questions like that came up, and Willow was never afraid to ask them.

The waitress arrived with Jasper's coffee in seconds. Though most people in the diner couldn't see it, she had bright purple wings sprouting from her back, along with green skin, and webbed fingers and toes. Humans would see her as an ordinary waitress with brown eyes and beige skin, but humans never saw anything worth seeing.

 Willow couldn't help but admit that Fairies were beautiful, even with their weird colored skin.

"Changed your mind?" the waitress said to her. Not even so much giving her a glance.

"No," Willow replied, grimacing. The waitress was gone just as fast as the last time.

Willow glanced at her skin again. She was always in general pale, and she never really cared that she didn’t have the tan skin most people desired. But this was different, she’d been paler than she’d ever been. As if all the blood had drained from her. Usually the only time she felt her blood draining away or that she was paler was when she was expecting something horrifying. Nothing was horrifying about today and she couldn’t begin to fathom why there would be.  Maybe the sixth sense that Amnesians were rumored to have was kicking in.

Jasper sighed and drank his coffee. Black, as usual. She had once hated the smell of black coffee, but Jasper had somehow accustomed her to strong, sour scent.

Glancing at her hand one more time she looked out the window, “It’s rather sunny today, don’t you think?”

Jasper put his cup down and leaned into her, “What’s wrong Will?” He asked.

Willow looked up, “Nothing, why?” She responded. It was the truth, she felt fine. Nothing was going wrong today, no exams to worry about. But yet, she was so fidgety, much more than usual.

Of course, Jasper had noticed that. He sat back, his dark eyes gleaming, “Well, for one you’re as pale as a ghost, and you can’t stop moving. But, more than anything, you talked about the weather. You and I both know you never try to make conversation with the weather.”

She sighed and looked outside, “I don’t know—I just, don’t know.” She was silent for a moment. “You know that sixth sense that Amnesians were always rumored to have? Do you…do you ever feel like you have it? Like you can tell when something horrible is about to happen?”

He stared at her for a moment, and she knew he was trying to read her mind, he knew that right now it wasn’t a light teasing conversation, but a serious one. “Sometimes I do, actually.” He murmured.

“At least I am not going crazy—“ Her mouth snapped shut in the middle of the sentence. She felt it, like a jolt of caffeine pulsing through her body and her eyes immediately trailed to them.

The attention seemed to be soaked on them, even Jasper’s eyes trailed right to them. They were in the shadows, slipping in out of alleys.

Willow tried to focus her eyes on all of them; there were four.

One was on the roofs, and his golden hair shined in the sunlight. He was jumping across the tops of houses, his eyes were focused on one thing in the crowd. He seemed to be following it, but in the mass of the crowd, she couldn’t tell what—or who—he was pursuing. He wore what looked like heavy black clothes, with bulky objects attached to the belt. Willow shook the thought that it must be weapons.

There were two in the crowd, weaving their way in and out of people, their attention seemed to be on one thing as well and Willow straightened her back to see what it was, but she couldn’t identify it. One of the two was a girl, with short, pixie-cut hair that looked like caramel. She was tiny, and very short, but even from a distance, Willow could tell she had quite a bit of muscle on her. The other a man was huge. His skin was dark, and his shoulders were very wide. He was obviously…fit.

 The last one was a girl with long, brown hair that was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She stayed in an alley, leaned against the wall. The darkness obscured all of her features. And in that moment, when Willow’s eyes were trained on her, she reached into her belt and pulled out a long, deadly looking dagger and grinned.

Willow was immediately up out of the booth and heading for the door. She needed a closer look.

How come none of the humans were seeing this? How come her and Jasper seemed to be the only ones who noticed them?

They were all obviously holding weapons and pursuing someone.

Jasper was right behind her, he seemed to have seen what she saw, so she wasn’t going crazy.

She was outside in a matter of seconds.

 It was warm outside, despite being in Chicago, the WindyCity. The warmth hit her face as she exited the diner, Jasper right behind her.

            They all started moving faster. The boy on the roof making dangerous jumps between houses that made her sick just thinking about how high that must be.

She pushed her way through the crowded streets, trying to keep up with them.

Jasper said nothing as he followed her.

She felt compelled to follow them, it was as if a magnetic pull was telling her that she needed to figure out what they were doing, who they were pursuing.

Maybe it had to do with her sixth sense.

Her eyes immediately trailed up at the blond boy was jumping roofs. She literally stopped in surprise and a kick of adrenaline going through her. He had stopped, his feet poised to jump to another roof, and was looking straight at her.

Was she not supposed to see him? Her mind immediately raced through movies she’d watched; how they would kill her because she knew they existed or something.

Even with the sunlight draining most of the features, she saw him grin at her.

* * * * * * * * * *

Michael jumped from roof to roof with ease, not even stopping to worry about the heights or what would happen if he had one misplaced foot. It was warm today, warmer than it usually was in this part of the UpperWorld.

His eyes were trained on the Carevevs, who was speed walking through the crowd, disguised as a human. He saw Chelsea and Chris making their way through the crowd, right behind it. Alicia was somewhere in the alleys, getting ahead of the monster to sneak up on it.

He continued to run, jumping roofs his feet treading a good pace. He was supposed to be the bird’s eye view. Since he was the best a long distance jumps, heights, and at climbing things in general, it was always his job to do things like this.

He kept focus, not really glancing at the crowd below. The UpperWorlders could never see them unless they crossed some line like getting into a massacre fight with a escaped Bolesgire or something. Which was why they had to get the Carevev into a more exclusive place before finishing up their job and returning home.

He was about to jump another roof when he saw her. His feet literally stopped right at the edge of the roof and he almost lost balance for a second, but quickly regained it and looked at the girl who was making her way through the crowd, trying to see if he had hallucinated her.

He knew immediately that she was pursuing them, that she had seen them. Some Faery creatures (usually Amnesians) could catch them more easily than most because they were more keen to little details, little disturbances. People that shouldn’t be in their world.

She seemed to have noticed that she was being watched because she looked up at him and stopped in her tracks, her friend running right into her.

It was her, it was Willow. He could immediately recognize a face he would never forget.

In that one moment he swore she recognized him, that she saw who he was. But he soon realized he was tricking himself. She wouldn’t recognize him if he flew a flag over his head that read, “It’s me, Michael Midnight!”

So he did the only thing he could think of doing, he grinned and jumped over the gap between the two houses, showing his landing off  a little. He ran a little faster to catch up to the his partners. They were nearing their destination.