The 13th Witch Complete Trilogy

The blood pooled at my feet and I looked up into his eyes. There was nothing there but pure hate and death. I had to make my choice and hope that I could live with it later.

I woke up very early in the morning to meet the sun and smell of a true summer day. It had been a long school year and I was really ready for the summer to start. I opened up my eyes and looked over at the clock that had chimed every morning at 7 am to get me to my first class. Now that class was over, I was still managing to wake up entirely too early for my own good. I stretched my legs out from under my bright blue blankets. Even though it was June and tipping 85 degrees already, I loved having my blanket over me and could not sleep well without it.

My room was nice for an almost 18 year old. It had been painted a beautiful sky blue color last year. I remembered the smell of the fresh paint on the walls when we had finished it. My dad had helped me one weekend with it, but to be completely honest, he had about done most of it for me. I was busy with my schoolwork and trying to keep up my pitiful grade point average. Sometimes I wished I could make it a little higher, but a 3-point is really nothing to sneeze at.

I had a small shelf in the corner of my room that had all my favorite people on it, my mom and my dad and a couple of friends from high school that I'd met and stayed in touch with, even if we lived in different towns now and might not see each other again next year. I thought about my friend Nicky. She and I had had almost every class together, but she was thinking about going back to her home state of Kansas and finishing there. That made me sad, but I knew it was probably the best thing for her.

I crawled out of my bed and went to my bathroom to get ready to start the day. When I looked in the mirror at myself, I saw just a plain looking girl with long brown messy hair and dark eyes. I had never thought of myself as anything special.

When I walked down the stairs to the kitchen, I was surprised to see my dad standing at the stove making pancakes. He was a tall man with dark brown hair and a flurry of facial hair. He always seemed to be wearing one of his favorite trucker caps. My dad had never been into fancy clothes and was wearing an old green t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Dad gave me a big smile and pointed at the pancakes.

“Hey Lucy, do you want a couple of these guys?” He picked one up with the spatula that he was turning them with as he spoke.

“Of course I want a couple. It's been a long time since you made pancakes and they are always good.” I pulled my dark brown hair back into a ponytail with the hair tie that I had carried downstairs with me and sat down at the table. He turned to the little table and put a couple of pancakes on the plate that was in front of me. My dad had already put the plates on the table for the three of us as well as a fork and paper towel for each of us. He was always great at getting things together for the rest of us who were a little more forgetful.

My mother came in to the room from the living room area. She was a smaller woman that had blondish hair and dark brown eyes that were the prettiest things to look into. She was wearing a white dress that really flattered her small frame. It had small purple flowers on it that made it look like it was for a young girl. The only part of her outfit that showed her age was the flat shoes that she wore with almost everything.

“That smells good. I'm going to grab one before I head out to work, okay,” She said smiling. My mom worked at a law office as a secretary and had loved that job since she had started around 15 years ago. The lawyers were nice people that I had met a few times at some of the employee functions.

“You look nice today, mom,” I said to her. She sat in the chair facing me and gathered up her share of the pancakes while I spoke.

“Thanks, it’s kind of a big day for us. The head lawyer from Omaha is coming in to see how his office is going.” She took a big bite of her first pancake. I realized that she was really trying to hurry and get to work a little early today. I smiled at her and started in on my own pancakes. She had always been a great mother to me. I knew that I was adopted all of my life, but I could have never asked for a better family to take me in. There were times though, that I wondered about the family that had given me up. I wondered if I looked like them and if any of my odd little quarks were anything that they had given me. My dad turned the stove off and turned with a plate of pancakes. He put them on the table in the middle and sat down to eat some as well. He smiled at both of us and started to dig in to his plate.

“So, what are we doing for tomorrow? You know what day it is, right?” He smiled as he ate. I knew that he was teasing me. Of course I know what tomorrow is.
It's my birthday.

“Yes I know what day it is. I didn't have anything planned though. I might just go hang out with Jes.” Jes was a friend that I'd made in high school. We had had English comp together and she had helped me to not pull my hair out in that class.

“We could have a family party here at the house.” My mom said with a mouthful of pancakes. “Of course it would just be us, unless you have any good friends you want to invite.” I thought about the idea of a huge group of my friends from high school at my parent’s house. They would probably leave the typical mess of beer cans and pizza crusts all over the house like they did in their own rooms.

“Great. Well, I got to get going or I'm going to be late.” She said as she was glancing at her watch. “We'll talk about it tonight when I get home.” With that she was gone out the door and down the steps to her waiting car.

“So, what are you doing today? Do you want to hang out?” My dad was looking at me with a big smile. He was always glad to spend time with me and it was fun to just sit in the living room and watch that big T.V that he had bought last year.

“Maybe later,. I'm going to go see what Jes has going on for a little while. She's having a hard time finding a good place to live for the summer and I told her I would help her out and go to a few places with her.” I watched his smile fade a bit.

“Okay, I'll just work on my old truck.” He had an old 1960's ford in the garage that he had been working on for years. It still had a long way to go, but my dad was fine with working on it for the rest of his life. He had been a police officer for ten years and then just two years ago, retired from the force. He had been disappointed to stop working, but happy about seeing his family more often. I knew of at least a few lives that he had saved while he was on duty. The guys always said that they thought he could read the minds of the killers, but my dad always said it was just from being perceptive.

My dad knew that I loved him; at least I hoped that he did. I got up from the table and put my plate in the sink. “I'll take care of the dishes when I get home,” I said as I turned from the sink and looked at him. I walked over to my dad and gave him a kiss on the check. “I'll see you later on tonight.” I started out the kitchen door and down the road. The air smelled sweet with the growing flowers and the heat of the summer was beating down on me even at this early hour of the day.

The neighborhood was full of nice and interesting people. Everyone seemed to know what everyone else was doing and how he or she did it. I thought about what life might be like when I was done with college. I wanted to move to Dallas and make a home there. I knew that the heat was even worse in that area, but at least it never really snowed there.

Before I knew it, I was in front of the small diner that Jes worked at. It was a fun place to hang out and we always did our studying at the back booth of the place.

“Snookers” was painted in the window of the mom and pop dinner in the middle of our small town. It was more like a whole in the wall that sat between the McDonald and the Pizza Hut on the main road of our proud, but small, Midwestern town. I saw Jes though the large picture window that faced me. She was taking the order of a short bald man that lives down the way from me. He looked happy to have this beautiful blonde girl taking his order and paying attention to him.

She was very pretty and always had some kind of man looking at her and that wanted to date her. She smiled brightly and walked out of view. I started up the walk to the glass door of the brick building with a halfsmile on my face.

When I opened the door, I was met by the overwhelming smell of hamburgers being grilled and steaks that were freshly cooked. The air was a lot cooler in the little dinner than outside and made me gasp at the temperature change.

The bright red booths lined the wall in front of the counter that the finished food came onto before being taken to the customers. Jes was picking up a signature turkey sandwich and walking towards a set of college jocks waiting in the corner. The blonde one was wearing a football shirt from the nearby college. He was built like a jock and clearly liked showing that off to Jes. His friend looked a little more conservative with a plain blue shirt and blue jeans. He smiled brightly at Jes as she sat their order in front of them. She also liked being the center of attention when it came to guys in the area, even if she never said it out loud.

Blue shirt stopped her with his hand as she was starting to walk away. He was talking to her in that cavalier way that some guys like to talk to girls thinking they are going to take home and sleep with. She pulled her arm away and put her hands on her hips. I knew that she was letting him down. He didn't seem too bothered by it, though. He was watching her walk away with a great big smile on his face.

I walked toward her smiling slightly to myself. I thought it was kind of funny the way people reacted to her. I was a pretty enough girl, but never really paid much attention the opposite sex. I thought about what I chose to put on today at the scene that had just played out in front of me. It was a pair of plain blue jeans and a brown t-shirt with the logo for the radio station in town on it. I was tall and did get some looks from the guys, but nothing that lasted beyond that.

I was startled out of my thoughts, by the bell that hung in the entry door. I looked back and watched a young man walk into the diner. He glanced at me and then took a seat towards the back of the diner. He was wearing a long black trench coat. That was odd in itself because of the high summer temperatures. He sat in the booth and pulled his jet-black hair out of his face. I noticed the most beautiful sky blue eyes. They scanned the diner and then settled on me for a moment. He flashed a slight smile in my direction as he watched me looking straight at him. I was fixed on him and just couldn't look away.

“Lucy! Hello. Are you listening to me?” Jes was standing in front of me now with her hands on my shoulders. She had a slight smile on her face as she noticed that she finally had my attention. She glanced back at the mysterious man sitting in the back booth, then back at me. She seemed to stop for a minute, like she was going to tell me something, but decided that it was best not to. I could tell she was waiting for me to explain the obsessed stare that I'd been giving him and I did feel kind of like an idiot. Here was this model type women standing in front of me that always got every man in the room’s attention, and then there was me. Why would any man pick me to look at over her?

“Yeah, I'm listening.” I shook off the distraction and pulled her to the other side of the diner. There was no one sitting there and it would be quite so we could talk. “Are you still looking for places to stay this summer?” I asked wanting to change the subject to something else.

“Actually, I found a place that should work. It's up the way so I can walk to work.” She fiddled with her long blonde hair as she spoke. “Do you want to come by and hang out some tonight?”

“About an hour. Do you think you can sit here without staring at every man that walks through the door?” She said though a huge smile. I squinted my eyes at her and walked over to the empty table a few steps away.
Of course I can
. I waved Jes down and ordered a small coke to drink while I was waiting. As I sipped on the sugary drink, I glanced in the direction of where the blue-eyed man had been sitting and realized he was no longer there. I made a face as I shifted my glance out the window.

Maybe I would have talked to him if he had still been here. I was usually not interested in any random guy, but there was something about him. Maybe it was the eyes. I'd always been a sucker for the eyes, even if all I did was look at them. I took a sip of my coke and sighed. It was almost my 18th birthday and I should be happy, but I felt like a tide was coming at me. Something that I didn't realize could be so important.
Stop being so dramatic
. I still had college and after that everything would change, but not yet.