Phoenix and the Dark Star Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Other books by Gerald Pruett

  Back Cover

  Legacy

  Phoenix and the

  Dark Star

  by

  Gerald Pruett

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  Legacy: Phoenix and the Dark Star

  Copyright ©2012 by Gerald Pruett

  ISBN-13 978-1-927360-06-4

  First Edition

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Pruett, Gerald, 1963-

  Legacy [electronic resource] : phoenix and the dark star / by Gerald Pruett.

  Electronic monograph in PDF format.

  ISBN 978-1-927360-06-4

  I. Title. II. Title: Phoenix and the dark star.

  PS3616.R837L443 2011 813'.6 C2011-907499-0

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Publisher:

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  www.ccbpublishing.com

  Chapter One

  Halloween fell on a school day, and Ellen Anderson wore her vampire costume to the Savannah, Georgia high school that she attended. Half of Ellen’s fellow students were in assorted costumes as well, and when she stepped into her first class, she saw Jessica Harman dressed as super girl.

  Ellen stepped up to Jessica and greeted her with, “Hey, Jess. When your dad had pulled you out of school last Monday, I expected that you’d be out this entire week.”

  Jessica looked at Ellen and slightly grinned before saying, “Karla and I wanted to be here today… for costume day.”

  “Mmm,” Ellen said with an agreeing nod.

  “Oh, I’ve been reading my…” Jessica slightly hesitated while glancing at her fellow students—the ones who were in hearing distance—before continuing with, “my family’s diaries.”

  “Learn anything interesting about your relatives?” Ellen questioned.

  “I learned a lot actually.” The bell rang to start the class as Jessica was continuing with, “I learned that my great-great grandfather—Lawrence Stone the Third—came to the United States from Birmingham, England in search of his father—Lawrence Stone the Second. Lawrence Stone the Second was the big game hunter who had captured most of those stuffed animals at my house.”

  Ellen slightly grinned before asking, “Did your great-great grandfather find his father?”

  Jessica shook her head while saying, “No.”

  Ellen didn’t hear Jessica’s answer as Mr. Guildford ordered, “Okay, class, quiet down! If you’re wearing a mask, remove it. —” Each of the three students wearing masks went to remove his or her mask. “—Ellen, take your seat.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ellen said before walking towards her seat—near the back of the class.

  Ellen hadn’t reached her seat yet when Mr. Guildford went into his lecture.

  Not far from the high school, the attractive eighteen-year-old shaman and vampire hunter Winona (Winnie) Jocelyn Rivers was introducing her twenty-year-old boyfriend Riley and their twenty-year-old friend Brad to her Great Aunt Bonnie—her mother’s aunt on her mother’s father’s side.

  Winona—as with her mother (Dakota)—was five-foot-eleven and slender. Her skin color was naturally russet, her waist-length hair was black and her eyes was chocolate brown, which she had inherited from her Seminole parents; however, Dakota was only half Seminole on her mother’s side. Winona’s skin would also darken easily without burning; however, it would return to its original russet color quickly if she would remain out of the sun for any length of time.

  Riley and Brad were also vampire hunters. Riley stood taller than Winona by a couple of inches while Brad stood shorter than her by half of an inch.

  Bonnie—as with her brother (Dakota’s dad)—was born in the United States, but her parents were from Holland. Dakota’s dad stood six-foot-four and Bonnie stood five-foot-ten.

  After the introductions were over, Bonnie invited them to sit in the living room. Once everyone was seated, Bonnie began telling stories about Winona’s childhood. Riley listened eagerly.

  Several hours later, in an upper class neighborhood, Ellen, Everett, Jessica, Karla, Simon and Karla’s date Allen went to a costume party in Allen’s minivan. The house that was hosting the party was not much smaller than Jessica and Karla’s mansion.

  Ellen (as earlier) was dressed as a vampire; Everett as a pirate captain; Jessica (as earlier) as super girl; Karla as a female grim reaper; Simon as a doctor and Allen as a cowboy.

  As they were walking from the minivan to the house, Karla—as if it was an afterthought—uttered, “Oh, uh, Ellen. Any more psychic visions?”

  “No,” Ellen said sullenly as she glanced nervously towards Allen. Allen didn’t seem to have heard as he was talking to Simon. “Just that one and only time.” Ellen then continued barely loud enough for Everett, Jessica and Karla to hear. “Harris, on the other hand, has learned to move small objects through telekinesis.”

  “Jessica and I still haven’t attempted astral projection yet,” Karla said.

  “We’re still reading the books on astral projection and self-hypnosis,” Jessica added.

  Ellen nodded before saying, “Perhaps I should get books on how to develop my psychic powers.”

  “Or maybe you just need to duplicate the conditions of when you had done it,” Jessica suggested.

  “And to do that I’ll need to be mentally linked with you and Harris,” Ellen said before they entered the house.

  “Perhaps you just need to duplicate your emotions at the time,” Karla suggested.

  “I don’t even remember what my emotions were,” Ellen retorted before a man at the door greeted them.

  The man was handing out color-coded armbands to indicate who were the minors and who were the adults.

  The house was packed with partygoers in assorted costumes, and half of them were friends and classmates from school. The other half were strangers and their ages ranged from fifteen years old to twenty-nine years old. Five thirty-something-year-old adults or older—three men and two women—were there as chaperones.

  Against one of the walls of the large party room was a long table, and setting on the long table were two large bowls of non-alcoholic punch and a wide assortment of food.

  On the floor next
to the long table were two kegs of beer, and the five older adults were taking turns at standing next to the kegs while making sure that the minors stayed sober.

  A record DJ was playing CDs on the opposite side of the room, and between the DJ and the food were dancing couples.

  As the evening slowly progressed, Ellen, Everett, Jessica, Karla, Simon and Allen socialized, drank punch and danced.

  After being there for an hour, Ellen had finally decided to try the barbeque little smokies.

  A pallid-looking seventeen-year-old male dressed in everyday clothes stood next to the food table while talking to anyone who would talk to him.

  As Ellen was walking up to the table, she noticed that the seventeen-year-old was looking curiously at her.

  “Hi,” Ellen told him before she grabbed an empty Styrofoam plate.

  “Hello,” the teenager said politely.

  “So are you enjoying yourself?” Ellen asked as she filled her plate with little smokies.

  “As much as I can.” When Ellen gave him a curious look he supplied, “I don’t really like Halloween.”

  “Bad experience?” Ellen asked as she continued to fill her plate.

  “You may say that,” he said with an amused grin.

  “Mmm, bummer. I actually like Halloween.”

  “From your vampire costume, I suspected as much,” he said. Ellen just politely grinned. “Do you really believe that vampires dress like that?” When Ellen gave him a curious look, he added, “If they really exist, of course.”

  Ellen slightly grinned before answering, “If they really exist, I bet I couldn’t pick out a vampire if I was standing next to one.”

  The teenager amusingly grinned as if he was thinking of an inside joke. He then gestured towards a mirror that showed his and Ellen’s reflections while saying, “At least I know you’re not a vampire.”

  Ellen followed his gesture. After seeing what he was talking about she faced the teenager again. “If vampires exist, I have a feeling that them not having reflections is a misunderstanding of the facts.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked curiously.

  “If vampires exist then maybe witches exist,” Ellen began. “So perhaps a witch has to cast an incantation on a mirror that would make it capable of reflecting spirits and souls before a vampire’s reflection can’t be seen.” The teenager’s expression went from amusement to an expressionless one. “Of course I’m only fictionalizing and throwing out what-ifs.” When the teenager nodded with a polite grin, Ellen stuck out her hand to shake hands. “I’m Ellen by the way.”

  The teenager stared at Ellen’s hand without taking it while saying, “Excuse me for not shaking your hand, but I am a severe germ-a-phobic.”

  Ellen dropped her handshake offer before saying, “Hey, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. So what’s your name?”

  He slightly hesitated before lying convincingly, “It’s Patrick.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Patrick.”

  “Likewise,” he said. “So do you think that there are witches out there… somewhere?”

  A vision of Ellen’s nightmare wizard had flashed across her mind, and in her vision, the wizard was ritually killing someone in New Orleans.

  When Ellen saw that the teenager was looking curiously and slight disturbingly at her, she shrugged and questioned rhetorically, “Who knows?” She then quickly gestured towards her group while saying, “I really need to rejoin my friends.”

  The teenager politely grinned and nodded while saying, “Of course.”

  Ellen nodded with a grin before turning and walking away quickly with her plate of little smokies.

  “Why did you lie about your name?” the teenager faintly heard a familiar female voice asking from a different direction.

  The teenager faced the eighteen-year-old woman—who stood thirty feet away—before grinning and softly saying, “Vampires not seeing their reflections, unable to enter a house uninvited and bursting into flames in direct sunlight are myths as you well know, but many myths have a grain of truth to them.”

  “What are you talking about?” the eighteen-year-old woman asked without moving towards him. “And what does that have to do with you lying to that girl about your name?”

  “Most of those vampire myths came about after a witch or a wizard had cast his or her spell to either identify one or to defend against one. However, the real danger for a vampire against a witch or a wizard is when a witch or a wizard knows a vampire’s true name—his or her birth name. If a witch or a wizard knows a vampire’s birth name then that witch or wizard could turn a vampire into a pyre with a simple chant.”

  The eighteen-year-old woman turned towards Ellen while asking, “That girl is a witch?”

  “She’s a sorceress actually,” the teenager corrected. “There are two other sorceresses here too; however, they don’t suspect people here of being vampires, so you and I aren’t in immediate danger.”

  “Are they... wicked sorceresses?”

  “No,” the teenager said simply.

  “We hunt animals; not humans, so they might accept us.”

  “We won’t volunteer that we are vampires, but if they would find out then we will plea our case. Until then, don’t let them find out your birth name.”

  After a short deliberation, the eighteen-year-old woman nodded in agreement.

  “I had a vision,” Ellen announced gravely, barely above a whisper to her group as she stepped up.

  “That’s great,” Karla said.

  “Who’s that guy you were talking to?” Everett asked.

  Ellen gave Everett a curious look and saw that Everett was giving the teenager his focus as he tried to see through the crowd.

  “He’s Patrick, and he’s not important,” Ellen told Everett before looking towards Karla. “What is important though is that I had a vision, and it wasn’t great.”

  “You’ve wanted to get another vision,” Jessica pointed out. “So why isn’t that great?”

  Ellen glanced warily towards Allen before saying, “The morning after you and Karla had stayed the night at my place, I’d told you about a dream that I had…”

  “What about it?” Jessica interrupted.

  “With the vision that I just had, I don’t think that dream was a random dream,” Ellen explained.

  “What do you mean?” Jessica asked as Ellen was noticing that Everett was still trying to see the teenager through the crowd.

  Ellen moved over and blocked Everett’s view while saying, “I believe that my dream was a psychic dream.” When Everett attempted to see around Ellen, Ellen demanded to know, “Are you jealous, Everett, that Patrick spoke to me?”

  With a confused expression across his face, Everett looked at Ellen. After Ellen’s question had sunk in, he said, “No, that’s not… I’m trying to see Patrick’s aura.”

  In a drawn out manner Ellen asked, “Why?”

  “Because earlier, I don’t think I’d seen one,” Everett explained while looking around Ellen. “And as I was trying to verify what I think I saw, the dancers were getting in the way.” The dancers were no longer blocking Everett’s view; however, the teenager was no longer standing by the table. “And now he’s nowhere in sight.”

  Ellen turned to search for the teenager too, but when she couldn’t spot him, she turned back towards Everett and said, “Patrick might’ve gone to the bathroom. When he gets back… from wherever he went, I’ll introduce you two. Meanwhile, can we focus on my disturbing vision?”

  “What exactly did you see, Ellen?” Karla asked.

  When Ellen glanced warily towards Allen again, Karla sweet-talked Allen into getting something from the food table for her.

  As Allen was walking away, Karla told Ellen, “Now you can talk freely.”

  With an amused expression on her face, Ellen said, “In my vision, the wizard was ritually killing someone in New Orleans.”

  “And you’re sure that the wizard from your vision was the same one from your nightm
are?” Jessica asked.

  “It was most definitely the same one,” Ellen assured them.

  “Please tell me that you aren’t planning on going to New Orleans,” Everett quickly requested.

  Ellen thought of her answer before saying, “By your dad being a detective, I wouldn’t make it out of Georgia before he put out an APB on me. Plus rushing in blindly would be foolish, if not suicidal. So we need to learn everything we can about this wizard before we plan anything.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that when all we know about this wizard is from what you had seen from your dream and vision?” Everett quickly questioned.

  Ellen thought for a second before asking, “Could you sketch this person if I describe him to you?”

  Everett shrugged, and before he could respond with more than that, a fifteen-year-old girl dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz stepped up to them.

  When Ellen and her group looked, the girl timidly looked into Ellen’s eyes while saying shyly, “He sees you… too.”

  Everett, Jessica, Karla and Simon stared curiously at the girl. Ellen stared curiously at the girl as well, as she asked, “Who’s seeing me?”

  The girl made a gesture as if she was listening to an invisible someone next to her before saying shyly, “When you see him—the one who is in New Orleans—he sees you at the same time.” The girl then made another gesture as if she was listening to someone before she continued. “He doesn’t know where you are at though. Not right now anyway.”

  “You’re a psychic,” Ellen accused. The girl made a gesture as if she was looking at an invisible someone for the proper response. “Is there someone else here? Someone who we can’t see?” The girl fearfully shot Ellen a ‘caught red handed’ look. “I assure you, you’re among friends. So if you see someone… or some spirit that we can’t see, we will believe you.”

  The girl hesitated before nodding and saying shyly, “I can see ghosts, and a ghost had come in with you.”

  “A ghost had come in with me?” Ellen asked in a surprised tone.

  The girl glanced at the invisible someone before saying shyly, “Yes, and she’s here now.”