Excerpt: Where Evil Lies

"What's going on?" she thought as the TV vibrated off the dresser and fell to the floor with a loud thud. Then she heard a loud sound like a mix between crunching stone and grinding metal but it wasn't coming from the hall. It was coming from the wall behind her bed, the exterior wall. She switched the light on to see, the TV having gone out, putting the room into darkness, when it fell. When the light came on her eyes widened in shock. A crack was snaking its way along her wall, starting from somewhere behind the bed. "A quake?" she thought suddenly. She'd never heard of quakes down in this area, though.

Suddenly there was a loud cracking sound as the back wall of the room began to tear away, taking out part of the adjacent wall with Brandi's room as well. Suddenly her door flew open and banged into the desk beside the doorway and a High Guard came into the room, his long lance in hand. Dawn could hear the shouts and alarms even better now that her door was open. The Guard glanced at her then moved across the room to the wall, pointed the wall out toward the gap that had formed, and then a bolt of lightning zapped out, coming from the glowing yellow stone at the tip of the weapon, just below the blade.

She stared at the Guard in confusion as he fired off more bolts of lightning. Then, suddenly, he surged into the air and slammed into the ceiling before falling, too quickly to be normal, and slamming into the ground where he stopped moving. Dawn's eyes widened then and she considered running out into the hall. She had almost decided against it, she didn't want one of the Guard rushing around out there to attack her by mistake, when she heard a cry from the room beside hers. Brandi's room. She didn't even think about it, she picked up her bag out of habit and then turned and rushed out her door, ran the few feet down the hall to Brandi's door, and then ran inside. It had been standing open much as hers had been and there were two Guard on the floor by her wall, which was in far worse shape than the one in her room had been.

"Brandi!" Dawn cried, not seeing her anywhere, leaning against the dresser for support.

"Here!" Brandi said, climbing out from under her desk. "Dawn, what's going on? The two Guard, they just suddenly...." She caught off there as there was a thunderous crash as the wall suddenly fell over, out into the cool night. From where she was Dawn could see more lightning zipping down from above, probably one of the two guard towers along the northern wall, and balls of fire surging back up at them from the ground. Dawn shook her head that she didn't know, her shaking now caused by her fear and nerves as the tremors had ceased, and then made her way to the broken wall.

"Careful!" Brandi called, climbing to her feet as well.

Dawn glanced back at her, smiled, then looked back out through the completely missing wall. Out in the dark of the night she couldn't see much. She thought she saw a few figures in the distance when a bolt of lightning came down but she wasn't sure, and the balls of fire were coming up from beyond a hill rise. Suddenly she heard footsteps to her left and turned to look, barely making out Kayla's features in the darkness as she walked through what remained of her bathroom, then climbed over Brandi's bed.

"Any ideas?" Dawn asked her.

"Not really." Kayla said. "It's too freaking dark to see anything."

Dawn nodded and turned her gaze back out the window, wishing there was more light to see with. Then noticed that it seemed to be getting brighter and looked around for the source. She found it in the ceiling. The light of Brandi's room was sputtering, like it wanted to go out, but growing slowly and steadily brighter. Turning back to the outside her eyes widened as the new lighting revealed the woman in the blue sweater, from High City and the news earlier, walking toward them. As she reached the group, all of them watching her in shock, she smiled a little. Her arm came up then and there was a loud rumbling sound from behind them. Turning to look back they saw a rock wall growing out of the ground and blocking the door, and then the overhead light dimmed and nearly went out.

"Sorry for such a rude wake up." she said a moment later.

Dawn turned back to her again, eyes wide, and met her gaze. Even in the dim light she could see the other's gray eyes but, as she met her gaze this time, she didn't get that odd feeling. "Wh-who...?"

"My name is Miranda." she said. "We can do full introductions and explanations later. Right now we should go. My friends can't keep the High Guard away forever and one of the ones in the towers could get in a lucky shot."

"Go?" Brandi asked, blinking in confusion.

The woman smiled, barely noticeable in the dim light but for the white of her teeth, as she looked at Brandi. "You didn't think we went to all this trouble of breaking in here just to say hello, did you?" she asked. "Of course, none of you have to come with us. If you'd rather stay here and wait for your executions, that's fine." She turned her gaze back to Dawn, then. "Though I do hope you'll come with us, Miss Tobias, since all of this effort was for you."

"M-me?"

"As I said, full explanations later. If you're coming then let's go, we don't have much more time." Dawn started chewing on her lip not sure what to do. She didn't want to be here, didn't want to be executed, but... she didn't know who this woman was, what she wanted. "Well? What's your answer?"

"I say we go." said Brandi from Dawn's right. "I.... I don't want to be here. Come on, let's go. Please?"

Dawn nodded before she even realized she was. "Alright."

"I'm staying." said Kayla.

"Wh-what? Why?" asked Brandi, shocked.

"This is where I should be." she said. "I'm a Witch. For... for what I did...." she shook her head.

"You have to come!" Brandi said, moving past Dawn and grabbing Kayla's shoulder. "You have to, if you don't then...."

"I'll be executed next month." said Kayla. "I've always believed in the executions, that belief hasn't changed."

"You tried to avoid your grandfather." Dawn pointed out. "Once you knew you tried to avoid being discovered."

She nodded. "Yeah, I wanted to stretch out what time I had left, try and get as much done as I could. But once they knew I didn't fight, I didn't try and run. If I didn't run then why should I run now?"

"Because now you've got friends who don't want you to die." said Brandi, conviction in her voice.

Dawn smiled at her for a moment and then turned to Kayla. "She's right, you know. I don't want you to die either. Witch or not you're still a good person. You want to atone for the deal you made with Vincent, I get that, so do I. But dying isn't going to help anyone. It'll help you, sure, but what good is that to the rest of the world? If we leave then, maybe, we can do some good somewhere. Atone for what we've done in a way that will have meaning to the people still in this world."

"Well said." said Miranda. "So, are you coming or not, Miss Harrison? I need your answer, now."

"Please?" Brandi pleaded.

Kayla sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll come."

"Alright then, let's go you three. Quickly now."

They all nodded and then hurried off after her. As they ran a few bolts of lightning came down close to them, blasting out divots in the ground, and spurring them on faster. Finally they crested the hill Dawn had seen before and down below stood the fire Witch from the news hurling balls of flame up at the guard towers. Seeing Miranda and the other three coming she motioned to the other Witch with her who nodded and rushed over to join them.

"They're all yours, Rebecca." Miranda said.

"Follow me you three, quickly." said Rebecca, leading them off to the northwest.

Dawn heard a loud rumbling sound as she ran and glanced back. In the faint light of the stars above she saw Miranda with her arms held out and a massive wall of stone rising up between them and the prison. "Who... who are these people?" she thought, turning to look forward again. "How can they use magic here with the Guardian Rock just inside the prison? And... and why did they come for me of all people?"