Witch Clan: Warriors! by John Stormm (good book club books txt) 📕

Out of necessity, it was a few days before Johnny was could meet with the gang back in Broome Alley to use Cat’s scry mirror. His shoulder was healing nicely, but in public he was forced to appear to be moving freely, to avoid any questions concerning his injury. Already the media reports on the apparent attack on a top secret security post were circulating across the scrybox and every other form of news media in the realm. People were stopped going about their businesses. Eyes and ears were scanned for signs of possible Sidhe lineage and then endless questions about all of their friends and relatives. Calls and letters were intercepted and monitored and any objections raised were as good as a vague admission of guilt or complicity. Most accepted the inconvenience stoically as a part of their civic duty to protect their homes from invaders, but the Witch Kids knew differently. As the images from Stormy’s memories of the attacks upon the fae sylvan shrines unfolded in Cat’s scrying mirror, the gang watched in horrified silence.

“So that’s what Operation Cosmic Storm is really all about,” Hex remarked, shaking his head sadly. “I thought the Tome we jacked was the worst we would see.”

“You know all those people are going to hate us all as monsters,” Jinx said worriedly. “Here we were all so worried about being murdered by monsters sneaking up on us in the night, and all this time, we are the monsters.”

“But what were all the murders about then,” Dodger asked, “if they weren’t done by the Forest Devils? Do you think our own wizards might be unleashing some of the nastiness in that Tome upon our own people?”

“It seems obvious now, doesn’t it?” Charm remarked. “We know what that safe house place was for and we also know how we dressed up Stormy to keep them busy on the roof while you all rescued me. That was no concerted attack by Forest Devils to subvert the city. I’ll bet if we look hard enough on the people who were murdered, we’ll find they objected in some way to all the plans for Operation Cosmic Storm and were gotten conveniently out of the way and their deaths used to promote the program.”

Johnny cringed within himself, tamping down the guilt of his own birthright. Who would understand that until recently, in his own mind, he was as human as any of them?

“If we attempt to scry that close to government,” Cat warned, “they’ll trace us, hunt us down and then we’ll be the unfortunate victims of the next attack.”

“Cat’s right,” Johnny added. “If you’re going to look into this at all, I would recommend that you start by reading old news articles and see who’s names pop up in opposition to Mordred’s best laid plans and comparing that to the list of victims. In the wake of current sensation, people forget old news fast. My Grandpa taught me that one during our last election when I was trying to understand how politicians could lie their ways out of trouble and into office. This is a bit more extreme than anything I’ve seen at home, but it seems to work on the same principle.”

“Jolt was the best student here of all of us,” Hex pointed out, “You feelin’ like a little bit of research, buddy?”

“The library has all sorts of past issues of the news feeds for historical purposes,” Jolt replied. “I could start by making a list of the victims names and then cross referencing them with any earlier articles mentioning their names and writing down the subjects to see if there’s some sort of correlation. But then what?”

“Then we’ll have something we can take to Windwalker,” Jinx finished, “and we can get some adults involved. It’s their world at stake too and I think they should know what’s happening. We’re just kids, remember?”

“No.” Hex argued, “We’re Witch Kids, and we are wise to make a difference.”

“Exactly!” the group responded a little too loudly in unison. To which each also caught themselves and made shushing motions to each other and broke into a fit of laughing.

“I can promise you, “ Johnny raised his voice over the commotion, “that no Sidhe is planning on hurting any of you in any way. I can tell you that their primary plan is to get back the Rift Wand and use it to shut down the available options of what worlds The Pentacle can plunder. For that, we’re going to need some help.”

“Isn’t that treason?” Dodger asked. “You want us to betray our own forces?”

“Our forces?” Jinx asked, raising an eyebrow. “We steal here just to survive in a situation where our government has other plans for our lives. We never murder people for what we want and we never threaten anyone except when our backs are to the wall. We’re not perfect godlings, but we’re not evil. Face it, Dodger. Most of the people around here know who and what we are and wink and look the other way. Some complain and call the Jackets when the pinch gets too tight, but basically we have to admit the people of the Ivory City are a pretty decent lot and would never condone murdering innocents in their homes and shrines to steal their goods. We’re not monsters.”

“No, I guess we’re not,” Dodger replied. “But you know, when it’s all said and done that this is what they’ll make us out to be. We’re bucking our own government.”

“Which is exactly what we were doing the day we helped get you loose from a safe house as an unregistered witch,” Sylph added. “We’re always bucking the government. That’s what we do here. Otherwise we’d all be a bunch of soul sold zombies, spouting government slogans as if it were the best thing for everyone. We can’t even kid ourselves, Dodge.”

“I just wanted it clear in my own mind,” Dodger continued, “when I volunteer to help Stormy, Grandma Emma and Little Fox. I think they’re the greatest, but I don’t want to go just flyin’ off the handle just because it makes me feel good for the moment. I want to be sure it’s the right thing to do.”

“If it’s any help, Dodge,” Jolt supplied, “I can tell you for certain about two of the victims of the phony Sidhe attacks. The Wiccan House Whip was Lillith Ravengood, and she nearly always voted against anything the Warlocks ever tabled since before Mordred came into power. The other one I know about was Tyr Morningwaite, a publisher who was responsible for a book tracing back the lineages of the most powerful wyrding families to ancient blood ties to the Old Race which is said to be the Sidhe. It has always been Mordred’s platform that humanity is the ‘apex of creation’ and the idea that any lesser races had contributed to our greatness was so much superstitious balderdash. If any of the rest of the names I can find, check out as obvious as these, I’d have to label us as revolutionaries and heroes and certainly not traitors. If anyone deserves the label of traitor, it would have to be those who broke their oaths of office to drag our society into the dregs of a war of worlds for their own personal gain.”

“Just the sheer gall it took to just march in, murder the owners and steal their artifacts, no matter what the reasons, would be enough to swing my vote,” Foggy offered. “That is, if I were allowed to vote. Which none of us are.”

“It’s settled then,” Dodger reasoned. “I’ll meet with Grandma Emma and Little Fox and see how I might help. I know the ins and outs of this city better than anybody.”

“If I know my grandma,” Johnny said as the smile lit his face, “she’ll be expecting you. I already have an idea of what they’ll ask and you’re going to love it.”

“Hey,” Jolt complained, “What about the rest of us?”

“Not that I’ve lied to you or anything,” Johnny replied, “but you really need to stop believing everything you’re told and look deeper into things to see what holds up and what falls apart. My Gramps used to tell me that every politician will paint his own picture and tell you his side is the right one, but scryboxes were never meant to replace the brains your creator gave you.”

“Stormy’s right,” Hex interrupted. “We need a strength of unity in our ranks and the best we can get is when we know the whole truth of the matter. If Stormy’s not just painting his side of the story and we know that for sure, we know we can trust him and Grandma Emma with our lives. We may believe his story now, but when we know all the facts then we have a means to convince others who don’t know him or care about other people in other worlds as much as we care about this world and our own people. We’ll need facts that anyone can believe in.”

“If we wanted to be party line witches,” Jinx added, “we’d never have struggled to be our own witches. Witch Kids.”

“EXACTLY!” they replied in unison.

Charm stayed busy in Windwalker’s kitchen and in the back room to stay out of sight of the authorities. As it was, there were questions asked through out the district about an Asiatic teenager somewhat matching her description. Jolting Joey found no less than fourteen victims of so called Devil assaults and twelve of these had some kinds of recorded histories of either disagreeing with Mordred’s regime or having debated contrary to the currently popular human centrist view of history to one which upheld the belief that humans had interacted with other species in the distant past or as recent as the last millennia or so. Two of the remaining victims had no public records that could be verified anywhere.

Jinx and Foggy soon joined in on the research and noticed the patterns emerging from what they knew of history and the current events they