Sky

By Rachel Maso

I have come to learn a few strange but true things in my lifetime. Well not that long of a life time but who’s been counting? I have recently just come to learn that all legends are real, not just products of fantastical authors and movie producers. I have come to learn that every person is not always as they seem to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Maso
• Release date: Sep 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215873878

Rachel Maso

Rachel Maso, (R.M) write Urban Fantasy fiction about unknown communities, gifted people and paranormal societies.The Southern African girl has a riveting imagination and loves to have great stories take place in her various laidback hometowns."writing is like waking up after having a dream and then creating a world where that dream can fully exist like it could even be real"

Book preview

SKY

(Scarlet Book 3)

Rachel Maso

Copyright© 2023 Rachel Maso. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

1

MISSIONS

SUSANNAH

I have come to learn a few strange but true things in my lifetime. Well not that long of a life time but who’s been counting? I have recently just come to learn that all legends are real, not just products of fantastical authors and movie producers. I have come to learn that every person is not always as they seem to be.

But what sucks about this new knowledge is that in the normal world where the abnormal just doesn’t puzzle fit into the sequence of everyday life, people like me always end up in the nut house. I can’t exactly write a book and introduce the curriculum into the educational system. Though at this point I deem it necessary.

But what I do know that seem to merge well with the real world as people would often like to refer to it, is that all feelings have colors. Interesting. The feeling I was currently looking at was fear. Not because the man did look freaked out for the both of us, or it’s just his wide eyes and nearly about to puke expression that told me what I needed to know. No! It was the giant swirl of red and black invisible to the ordinary eye smoke that billowed around and from him that told me the man knew more than he was telling me.

Now, I have been encountering people like him more often than I would like to admit, (because it makes my job less cool) and I knew for a fact that he was just another clueless puppet who got himself into all this mess because of money. The situation was both liberating and irritating.

Liberating because now I know the mysterious person who broke into people’s houses in the middle of the night was not a blood thirsty supernatural being or gifted as they are often referred to. Irritating because the real culprits were still out of touch. Two years since I started bounty hunting for wayward gifted thugs and I haven’t even glimpsed one of them.

‘Is that all? Peter doesn’t look up from his pile of latest stories waiting for approval to be published.

I glanced at my rather too thin file for a month research project, ‘it turns out Casey Dlovu has no story to tell—I’m not interested in her love life.’

Peter looked up giving me an irritated look

‘Or how many husbands she had for the past seventeen years or how she still manage to look like she is in her twenties at age forty.’

Peter gave up the glare when I don’t even flinch, ‘what am I going to find in that paper thin file of yours?’

‘I think her connection with the drugs network would make front page—after all everyone loves a scandal.’

‘I am not going to be involved in this Susannah—destroying people’s reputations cost a lot of money,’

Same old line, ‘all I want is a few words with the woman—a friendly chat over tea.’

‘And you think Casey wants to have a cup of tea with a reporter?’

I gave off an easy shrug that doesn’t match the purplish anxiety spewing from Peter’s pores, ‘as damage control—shouldn’t we know how to rescue an innocent woman from a world of accusations?’

Peter gave me the stink eye—I knew he didn’t know what to do with me—most people don’t. I see too much and I know too much for their sanity.

‘I thought this was the direction you would take so I already had all this set up.’ he raises a finger to stop my triumphant jump, ‘but if you screw this up know that you will find your office well packed and cleaned out.’

I flashed a confident smile, ‘you won’t be disappointed, and believe me.’

Well he shouldn’t believe me.

As soon as I entered my office I typed in the new information I got from the courier I caught this morning. It was all the same. These people were recruited on the internet, I even tried tracing the operator but didn’t get anywhere. These were no ordinary cyber-crime lords hiring people to traffic drugs and kill people. These were supernatural beings on a mission and hiring people was just a small puzzle piece of that mission.

For seven years I’ve stayed away from these supernatural issues. Afraid that they will uncover me and come for my son. Maybe it worked because for seven years I didn’t encounter anything that caused for panic.

When I left home when Sky was still a baby I was pretty sure a few months was all it was going to take for hell to break lose again. I didn’t know whether they just left me alone or I was really good at hiding. It was just recent that I started to get curious at the happenings around me. Of course supernatural activity wasn’t that uncommon. Based on the fact that most of them seemed to have set base in this part of the continent precisely. I could have ignored it, really and went on with my life…

But I wasn’t going to ignore the fact that Sky was growing older and he would be curious soon. Curious enough to want to look for the truth himself. Last I checked I know that Brian and his brothers were on a mission to restore their island. I figured maybe the happenings could have something to do with that.

It’s been seven years so I was sure they were already underway with restoring the place that wasn’t even on the world map. I checked. Even the old maps, Scarlet Island didn’t exist. But I knew that it was real. And I also knew that soon they would come looking for their prince. My son. I had to be ready when they did.

2

RECOLLECTIONS

SUSSANAH

It made sense that Casey wanted to meet in a public place. The crowds made her feel secure, she could just sneeze and everyone would be all over it, which wouldn’t allow me to confront her. Not that I had planned to. All I wanted to do was see the colorful pattern of her emotions and I can start working with that. The only problem was that with the crowd, meant many different colors swirling into the atmosphere.

I had to work of separating her own twirl of colors from the rest. Because I was sure she would have tons of them, like the complicated crafty human being that she was. I took a deep breath as I entered the restaurant. It was warm and didn’t feel like the early morning crowd was just entering.

I stood there at the entrance for a moment mesmerized by the colors that filled the café before I blocked them out. it was always clearer for me to see with my other eyes than my normal eyes, though it was safer to keep to my normal side since I didn’t want to risk being discovered by any other supernatural gifted being.

A vague memory of Brian crosses my mind and I brush it off. It’s been seven years since I last saw the bastard who tried to ruin my life, or partially ruin it. I was fortunate to escape from his clutches and I vowed to never think of him again.

So I was surprised why I suddenly remembered him after all these years? I shook my head and focused into the room. I scanned the crowd and it wasn’t hard to spot Casey. As ostentatious as she was.

She quickly made eye contact and flashed me a welcoming smile. I walked over to her table and sat in the seat she offered the same second the waiter brought me a cup of coffee.

‘You feel it too don’t you?’ Casey said as soon as our polite greetings were exchanged.

‘Feel what?’ I asked, not getting it.

‘Ever since the gruesome massacre in this café two years ago, people don’t just easily walk in here.’

I nearly laughed but stopped myself, I mean it was hard to imagine a massacre in a tiny little café such as this. Maybe a bar fight but a mass murder?

‘It was a robbery, the staff refused to cooperate and the psycho shot everyone,’ Casey shuddered and dark smoke twirled from her, ‘I was there, I was one of the few that survived.’

I shook my head at her, ‘oh god why on earth would you want to meet here?’

‘its high time I face my demons.’ she said, ‘I just didn’t agree to meet because you are so smartly tenacious to interview me—I read most of your articles, I think you can help me with something I want.’

I thought I was the one who was to pin her for drug trafficking not the other way round. Maybe I had underestimated the woman too much.

‘I don’t--.’

‘before you refuse, I know I have a bad reputation and you think I am trapping you—but I know what happened that night was much more than an ordinary armed robbery. I think most people were killed by something other than a gun,’ she let out a sigh, ‘I know I sound crazy.’

I wouldn’t deny that if I didn’t believe in the supernatural. I took a sip of my coffee and asked, ‘why me? Why don’t think I am just going to leave here and write what a wacko in the head you are.’

she gave me a simple look that made my heart skip a note, ‘like I said, I did my background research on you—I know you were kidnapped seven years ago and were not found until six months later and I know how papers wrote different insane versions of your story until you had to leave the country. I know you like to dig deeper into stories before writing them because you know what it’s like to not be able to tell the real truth that you have experienced.’

I have been freaked out by a lot of things over the years, and when I say things I mean borderline scary existences of the supernatural world that the rest of the population didn’t know existed—but Casey was freaking me out that moment.

I left the country seven years ago and changed my name so that no one would easily find me—how in