When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I glanced to the right and saw the two women running off down the tunnel. I ran after them, careful to dodge humans. I was invisible to them, but they would know something was amiss if I collided with them. The fae or merwomen made their way down the tunnel toward the back of the station. I knew there were many tunnels underneath this station, and they were probably full of supernatural creatures.
I wondered why these women were running from me. The wolves didn’t run when they saw me, but they did sense who and what I was. So that must be it. There weren’t many witches around anymore. Someone always used them for evil. They were wanted, so most of us had gone into hiding. That was another reason I hated power and magic. Every supernatural creature could sense a witch when it was nearby. More often when they used their magic. This was why I didn’t use my magic often. So by eradicating all the supernatural creatures I came across, I was able to stay hidden longer. I ducked and weaved through the commuters and ran down another set of stairs, going deeper under the station. I saw the women ahead of me. They leaped over the ticket gates and disappeared around the corner to the right. I sped up using just a little of my magic to give myself super speed. It was in times like this there was an advantage to being supernatural. I rounded the corner, and in the distance, I saw a glimmer of color reflecting off a light in the tunnel. I sped toward the glimmer, but by the time I reached the spot where the glimmer had been, there was no one there except humans going about their human business.
I spun on the spot, looking for a sign of the young fae/merwomen. Something growled in the near distance. For a moment, it sounded like the growl was right next to my ear. But that was impossible. No one was standing directly next to me. I heard the growl again, and that was when I saw her—one of the women from the platform was standing in a beam of sunlight in a courtyard surrounded by shops and restaurants. This was part of the underground tunnel with a stairwell or escalator that led back up to ground level, before continuing underneath the road and down toward the harbor.
This woman had aqua-colored hair and metallic fish scales on her cheekbones. She was definitely a mermaid. The growl I had heard came from a merman standing before her with his arms crossed and a furious expression on his face. They were having some kind of argument. I bent down and slowly and silently pulled my athame from my boot. When I was upright again, I found two sets of glowing eyes trained on me.
“Why are you following me, witch?” demanded the mermaid.
I rolled my shoulders back and raised my chin.
“Why are you revealing yourself to humans?” I challenged, tilting my head to the side.
“Humans can decide what they want to see. Most of the time, their brains can’t process what they believe isn’t real.”
“But humans have seen things. They do believe in what they saw. There have been reports of Faeries and fish-like people wandering the streets of Sydney.” I stepped closer to the woman, and the man bared his sharp teeth and walked toward me.
“Why would I be getting those reports if you haven’t been revealing yourselves to humans, hmm?”
The merman was coming closer and closer to me. He was trying to intimidate me, but I wasn’t going to let him. I was a strong and powerful witch princess. I was once the most powerful being in existence. I called on some of the power and authority I had let trickle away over the centuries. I had to learn to own it once more.
I stood tall and strong and called my power to me. My whole body emitted a fuchsia glow. I noticed the mermaid’s eyes. They were flicking around, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was scared. So she should be. I kept one eye on the merman and one eye on the woman, but the man was trying to distract me from his mate. I swung my athame around and held it up in front of me in a warning to him. But he only bared his teeth and kept approaching me. This was going to end now. I was sick of rogue paranormals. They had to learn their place.
The merman lunged, but I was ready for him. With a ball of pink electricity in my left hand and my athame in my right, I parried him and fought him from both sides. He was unprepared for my double attack. I threw my power at him, and he went down. That was when I struck. I leaped into the air and came down on him. With my knee pinning his chest, I plunged my athame down into his heart. The merman disintegrated into dust beneath me.
I got back onto my feet and brushed the ashes from my clothes. I heard a scuffling sound close by. I acted fast. Without looking, I twisted to the left and plunged my athame into the throat of the mermaid. She couldn’t scream. Black, foul smelling blood gushed from the wound as she collapsed. I yanked out my dagger and plunged in twice more into the mermaid’s body, once in her heart and the other in her abdomen until she too exploded into a cloud of dark gray ash.
I cleaned off my athame on my jeans and made my way out of the station. When I climbed the stairs and stepped out into the sunlight, I began to hear whispers.
They surrounded me. I twisted and turned but saw nothing.
“You can’t do this.”
“She’s here.”
“He’ll know.”
The whispering voices were like nightmares from my past. Who were they? What did they want?
Was the ‘he’ they were referring to, Darcy?
Who was the female?
Were they talking about me?
After a minute of being surrounded by whispers, the voices grew too loud and too close. I screamed and ran back toward my apartment. I was done for the day. I had to get home.