Scarlet Angel | Next Chapter

Apr 12

Apr 12 Scarlet Angel

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Science Fiction

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1 - A Magic Trick

Getting a second chance at life is not all it’s cracked up to be.

* * *

Scarlett’s vision went dark. She didn’t like not being able to see.

Cash tied the blindfold tight and took her hand. “Now, you’re not going to try an’ peek, are you?”

She tweaked the corner of her mouth in a smirk. “No. What is this all about, anyway?”

He tugged at her hand to get her to stand. Scarlett heard the smile in his voice. “Emma and Ruby want to surprise you.’

She didn’t bother asking any more questions. She knew he’d just be evasive. That was one thing he was good at, keeping secrets.

Cash pulled her along through the living room. He guided her away from the floral slipcovered couch and around the oak coffee table. In her mind, she saw her feet shuffling over the cream berber carpet, just missing the sharp wood corner.

Scarlett turned her head and saw the trickles of light filter through the fabric in blurry sparkles. Cash pulled her to the right and her feet shimmied onto the hardwood floor. From there, it was a straight shot into the dining room.

Gentle tugs nudged her closer to where she knew the cherry stained table was. A chair touched the backs of her knees and she sat down. Light no longer filtered in between the threads of her blindfold and she heard the whispers of children struggling to stay quiet. “Before I remove this blindfold, you have to promise you won’t be mad.”

Scarlett tilted her head and turned to his voice. “Why? Cash? What did you do? Emma? I know you’re here. What did he do?”

The whispers morphed into giggles.

“Promise.”

Scarlett pinched her lips tight and sighed through her nose. “Fine. Promise.”

To her left small hands clapped softly, quickly followed by a “shush” as Cash fumbled with the blindfold.

Emma’s voice cut through the darkness. “Really Cash? Can’t undo your own knot?”

“Oh, hush you. I didn’t want it to fall off.”

A second later Scarlett felt the knot loosen. The scarf fell away.

In front of her sat a large white cake. In chocolate-brown letters were her name and an even bigger “5.” Five small, unlit candles surrounded the number.

She looked up from the birthday cake, already feeling her eyes swell.

Ruby’s dining room was not large. The cherry china cabinet on the far wall and the buffet to her right left little space for the people crowded in the room. All of her friends and family surrounded the table, including Cash’s wife Emma, their two kids and his mother Ruby. A few other friends she’d met through her work at the dojo were there as well, nearly a dozen people in all.

Scarlett craned her neck around to look at the man she considered her brother. “Cash, what the heck is this?”

He smiled down at her. “Five years ago today, my mother pulled you from the bank of the river. It hasn’t been easy for you, starting a new life. I know my mother thinks of you as her own daughter, and I cannot imagine being closer to a sister than I am with you. You’re a fantastic aunt and a helluva sensei.”

Cash strolled over and put his arm around his wife. “On that day, mom didn’t just save you. She brought a new member into our family. You’ve brought joy into our lives. So, happy fifth birthday, Scarlett.”

The room erupted with cheers and clapping hands. Little Ethan even stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a shrill whistle. His mother shot him a disapproving glance.

Scarlett sniffled and struggled against the wetness forming at the corners of her eyes. As she scanned the room and the faces of her friends and family, the lump in her throat grew tighter and tighter. She sniffled again and a salty bead of water trickled down her cheek to her jaw.

Her soft smile broadened into a face-wide grin. More droplets followed the first until both her cheeks were wet and tears of joy dripped from her chin.

When the noise died down, she wiped her eyes and cheeks. “Thank you all. You guys have been such a great family. I still have no idea what happened to me or what my life was like before. But, in a way, it doesn’t matter. You’ve brought me into your homes and your lives. Given me a job and a life. You’ve helped me become a part of this community. Thank you.”

Another brief round of clapping ensued. “But...” She raised one finger and waited for quiet. Her smile faded and she looked serious. “But... I think you guys missed something.”

Cash’s brow wrinkled. He and Emma exchanged glances then looked back at Scarlett. “What?”

“You forgot to light the candles.” Scarlett’s face broke into a smile.

Everyone chuckled. Cash’s four-year-old Sofie piped above the rest with her squeaky voice. “Ethan... Ethan want’s t’ do it.... Ethan’s got a trick!”

Emma smiled at her daughter and looked up at Scarlett. “It’s true... Ethan’s been working on this magic trick all week.”

“Well then. Don’t let me stop you.”

Sofie turned to her brother and tugged at his sleeve. “Ethan…do the trick Ethan! Do the trick!”

The eight-year-old stood and pulled a black plastic wand out of his pocket. He tried not to smile but the corners of his mouth turned up to spite him. The boy cleared his throat and held his hands over the cake.

The room grew silent. Ethan waved his hands back and forth over the candles in his best great magician impression. “Abracadabra... Lightus Upis!”

Scarlett watched the cake with rapt attention. For a long moment, nothing happened. Ethan looked at his father, his eyes wide with disappointment.

“Try again, Ethan.” Cash nodded for emphasis.

The boy repeated the words. Scarlett grinned at the boy’s best effort at a commanding voice.

At first, nothing happened. Just as the boy turned to his father again, the candles burst into flame.

The ring of candles turned and flashed brighter, exploding in Scarlett’s face. Wind rushed in her ears. She closed her eyes and flung her arms up to shield her face, but there was no heat.

Then the light vanished. When Scarlett opened her eyes, she was no longer sitting at the table. She was not even in Ruby’s house. Scarlett was in a large, dark room littered with computers and people in suits and lab coats. She glanced down at her own lab coat and the Universal Dynamics logo embroidered over her left breast.

The floor sloped down to a massive window. What she saw on the other side of the window made her heart stop. Three horizontal spires of metal, silicon and wires were aimed at a fixed point a few dozen feet away. The spires pulsated with lights blinking in time with each other.

Blue sparks flittered along their lengths, leaping off the spire and curving back to it. The energy gathered into glowing balls of blue-white light at the tips. The air itself felt electric, as if she might get a shock just from breathing. The energy balls grew until they were a couple feet across.

Everything was quiet except for a whine in Scarlett’s ears. She blinked and the spires released their energy. Thick beams of light shot out from each piece.

Where the beams met, space itself began to distort. Like looking through a sphere of water, the area began to ripple. The center of the sphere, where the beams met, throbbed with a brilliant blue glow.

The glow grew into a ring and spread outward. Inside the ring, Scarlett saw only black. Somewhere in the distance, someone yelled. “Increasing power to seventy-five percent.”

The ring grew larger, until it was a dozen feet across. No longer was the darkness inside the ring pure black. Tiny speckles of white, pink and light blue dotted the space.

Then the realization hit her. That actually was space.

A wave of terror flooded through Scarlett. Without knowing why, her eyes were drawn away from the hole into deep space and back to the blue sparks. She knew the bolts of energy were part of the process, they were expected.

One of the sparks leaped off the spire and licked the glass window. A small, black scorch mark of melted glass remained. Scarlett felt the world around her shrink. All of her perception focused in on the spires and the energy they were funneling to the wormhole.

Another spark, this one larger, leaped off the spire furthest away and touched the back wall. A crack appeared in the wall, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Somehow, Scarlett knew what was coming. She watched in slow motion as a third, even larger bolt of energy shot from its spire and curved backward, away from the wormhole. The bolt touched a knot of wires.

Sparks exploded from the wires. The sparks grew in size. Massive bolts of energy broke off from their spires, melting the glass and shattering the back wall.

Someone screamed.

The ring vibrated for a moment then collapsed in on itself, shrinking into a tiny pinpoint of light that exploded outward in a blaze of death. The people in the room shrieked in terror and pain.

Agony, unlike anything she could have ever imagined, seared her body. She felt her skin dissolve and her flesh evaporate. She screamed until the roar of the explosion consumed her and everything else in its path.

* * *

“Scarlett! Scarlett!”

The voice was far away. It took her a moment to recognize it as Ruby’s. Scarlett opened her eyes to find herself lying on the ground. A crowd of people stood over her with Ruby right in front.

Her terror and pain were gone. The room and the explosion were nothing more than a dream. When she spoke, her throat was scratchy and sore. “What the?”

Cash helped her sit up. Ruby handed her a glass of water. “Are you okay?”

Scarlett took a sip of the water and moaned at the cool liquid soothing her throat. “Yeah. I think so. How did I get on the floor?”

Cash’s face twisted like he was trying to suppress a snicker. “When the candles lit, you catapulted yourself back and hit your head on the floor, hard.”

A quick disapproving glance from Ruby made any semblance of a smile on his face disappear. “Sorry. What happened?”

Scarlett pulled back one of her sleeves to look at the three-inch burn scar near her elbow. She scanned the faces of the party-goers. Her eyes stopped on Ruby’s worried face. Scarlett gave the only explanation that made any sense.

“I... I think I just remembered something.”