Assassin, Tiffany N. [carter reed .txt] 📗

It was two in the morning and Jake was already up. Why? It was because the Starlight Festival was taking place. It was held every year but each year seemed to be more like a century to him. With all of the constant battling and casualties, it was nice to just relax and enjoy some roasted pork and other delicacies.
Jake Hunter was your average 14 year old. Or as average as an outcast kid living in a village of outcasts could get. Which wasn’t really average.
Jake was part of a rebel organization, called Omega that resisted the power of the King of Demons himself. He was a shady character. No one knew his name or how he had came to power over the Demons, but one thing was certain. He was deathly.
It had all started about two hundred years ago when the US Government - isn’t it weird how most problems start out with the Government of the US? – discovered Demon Seals in the Bermuda Triangle. They carefully covered up and guarded it for further research when they also discovered more Demon Seals in the most hospitable of places such as in a cave deep under the Sahara Desert, the center of Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean, even in the center of a volcano, and many other inhospitable places on Earth. When one unknowing scientist accidentally damaged the seal in the Bermuda Triangle, it caused a chain reaction and they had reopened the gates to another world which had apparently been sealed away thousands, and if not millions, of years earlier.
The good news about this was that it also released Magic that was also sealed with the other world and had returned to their rightful places inside some of the humans. But only a few people gained that ability. It was like one in a million chances that you were one of those who wielded Magic. And most of those Magic wielders had been killed by the Assassins. They were a group of thirteen highly skilled death machines. After about a month, it had become clear to everyone who weren’t butt heads that they had been ordered to kill all of those who had Magic in them as well as any of the Omega organization members that got in their way.
But enough with the details of our miserably small, insignificant lives. The Starlight Festival was held to celebrate the day when the Demons were weakest in the year. The Summer Solstice. It was also when the two moons – it had been like that ever since the Demons’ world was opened – were perfectly aligned and the shooting stars from the sky fell. It was strange that shooting stars only fell on that day. It was as if all the meteors were gathered up in the atmosphere then dumped on us all at once. It was a pleasant experience for most people. The ones who didn’t have any fun were the ones who had a space rock nearly split there skull in two. It wasn’t that uncommon for a star to be dumped you on the head today, actually.
“Jake! Get your ass in here!”
Jake flinched. It was Patrick Cooper, the weapon manager. He’s the one that makes sure all the guns and other deathly things were in good shape for battle at any given moment. But he was the one with the shortest fuse.
“JAKE!”
Not wanting to be told another time, Jake entered his tent. The hard dirt floor was littered with dirty rags, used Kleenex, hundreds of late water bill notices, and empty instant Raman bowls. It was a miracle he was still married to Jane Cooper, his devoted wife.
Jake found Patrick towards the back of his tent with a wrench opening crates as big as he was. Patrick was a big guy. And in height and stomach. He was also buff with his MASSAVE muscles that he liked to show off to his kid, Simon. His face was covered in soot and oil and it was like he had a permeate scowl on his face. Then he noticed that Jake was finally here and wiped his hands on his shirt, covering it with black oil and gun powder.
“I need you to clean all of this…” Patrick taped his oversized wrench on the contents of the crate.
It was loaded with guns of various designs, and all of it looked like it was dragged though the mud, torched, then dumped in the garbage heap for a month, and considering the fact Patrick was too poor to actually buy any weapons from the merchant that often passed through, that was probably what happened to them.
“You want me to clean all of this?” Jake said dumbfounded.
“Oh, not all of this.” He said, “All of this!”
He pointed at a stack of more open crates to the right that he hadn’t noticed. And they were all just as big as the first.
“Why? Where are you going?”
“Out hunting. I got to eat don’t I?” Jake doubted that he would be able to catch anything since he would scare half of the forest off when he shot at anything that moved. And he didn’t think he needed anything more to eat.
“But what about the festival?” Jake was really looking forward to attending this year.
“That’s today? Wow, how time flies when you’re pounding metal all day.” He said with heavy sarcasm, “That’s your problem not mine. Deal with it. Now get to work!”
Jake was busy scrubbing a machine gun and was about to move onto a silver, now brown, handgun. He glanced at the small clock on the table. Four o’clock in the morning. Great, Jake thought. Two hours and I’m not even done with half of the first crate.
“Jake, I think you can take a break now.”
He jumped at the voice, nearly dropping the still loaded gun and potentially shot a hole through his foot. Jake glanced over my shoulder and noticed that it was only Mrs. Cooper, Patrick’s wife.
“Sorry, Mrs. Cooper. I thought it might have been someone else.” he tried to keep things polite. Not one of his strong points.
“It’s OK dearie.”
Mrs. Cooper was a plump woman. Not too fat (*cough* *cough* Patrick) but not super thin like she’s been starving herself of food for her enjoyment – he would never understand girls.
“Are you sure that I can take a break?” Jake asked unsure.
“Oh, sure! The Starlight Festival is still young. You go have fun while you still can.”
Jake thanked her for her hospitality and nearly crashed into the elephant, which belonged to Jordan and was elaborately decorated with – fake – jewels, that was passing by the tent on the way to the festival. That thing weighed over a ton and was big enough to squish Jake and think it was just a bug.
“Make way!” Jordan hollered. “Elephant coming through!”
Jake thought it was kind of obvious that there was a ten ton elephant in the middle of a dirt road. But he knew that Jordan had wanted to show off his cleaned and decorated elephant.
Jake heard some of the kids gasping and pointing at the sky. He looked up himself and saw a marvelous sight. The sky was covered in shooting stars. Some were so close that it fell only half a mile away or on top of tents. Others were distant, landing in who-knows-where. Jake sprinted off to his favorite spot. On a small cliff that jagged out right over a small waterfall on the cliff face. It presented the clearest view of the shooting stars. For a while, he watched in awe at the amazing sight. The overlapped moons was glowing a light blue hue.
Then he spotted a very bright object in the sky. It’s probably going to land really close, the thought. And he was right. In fact, it was headed strait for him. The object streaked thought the sky at blinding speed. He didn’t have any time to react. He felt the thing whack him in the face. Then he saw black…

Jake woke up with a groan. His head throbbed but he didn’t find any blood when he rubbed his temples. He looked at the sky again. He could see a faint hue over the horizon. It was morning. He slept through the whole festival. He frowned. Jake was looking forward to watching the torch juggler and the pie eating contest, though everyone always lost to the all time champion, Patrick. Not to mention the battle tournament that was held. The winner got a HUGE sack of gold and silver coins.
Jake surveyed his surroundings, wondering where that object had landed. It was pretty close. Only twenty feet away. It must have skidded over after it had hit him in the head.
He went over to survey the object. Then he noticed something strange. It was a book. He frowned. Why would a book be falling through the sky? Where did it come from? Did I really get brained by a book?
He picked it up. It had a tough scarlet colored leather cover. On the spine was written in dark letters: Violet Blackbird. Violet Blackbird? Who was she? Whoever it was, this book was really prized to her. There was a heavy gold chain that bound the book with a thick lock. Jake also noticed that in the center of the front cover, there was faint etches of a spell circle. Puzzled, Jake pulled out a little wire out of his pocket. His lock picking tool. But no matter how hard he tried, the spell circle prevented him from picking the lock. It probably only works with the real key, he thought.
Jake decided to take the book with him. His dark side told him that whoever lost this would pay big bucks to get it back. But he shook that thought aside. Obviously whoever owned this book knew magic. He didn’t stand a chance against this mystery girl.

Violet’s eyes stung in the constant bright light. Sure she was fine on most days. But she hated more than a couple of hours in bright light. She also hated summer. The sun was unnaturally out way to long. She much preferred the winters on Earth. The nights were chilly and long. Then when it got cold enough, little white flakes of frozen water would fall. Snow they had called it. She especially liked the places they called the north and south poles. They had the longest winters of all. That was probably why most of the demons had settled in there, migrating yearly to avoid the constant hours of light. She especially hated the full moon. Though there were full moons back in the