Chapter 1

Magic destroyed the world once. Now, magic users are the enemy. To be marked with magic is to lead a cursed life.

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The Marked Ones is a YA fantasy alternate history novel set eighty years after a version of World War II where the Axis powers were magic users who lost to the technologically superior Allied Powers. If you love magic, coming-of-age stories, and non-stop action, then read The Marked Ones today. You can search through all my work on my website.

Rosie is completely average. There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about her in any way.

For most people, that would be a blessing, but Rosie wants nothing more than to have a spark of magic, even if people say that all mages are evil.

She wasn’t born with magic, though. She’s sure of it. After all, she is 17, and magic always presents when you are 13.

Always.

So, when she’s suddenly able to wield magic, Rosie is initially confused, then thrilled…until the soldiers come for her, and she realizes everything she’s about to lose.

There is one place that is truly safe for people like her. The lost city of Toledo – a haven for witches and warlocks since before the war, and the only place Rosie can be free.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.

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The Royal Military Police pounded their feet on the sidewalk above the sewer where I cradled my newborn baby. They had been on our heels since we entered Madrid, and with every step I took, the threat of the RMP finding us multiplied.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Keep calm. You knew the risks when you came here. It will be okay. Just put one foot in front of the other.  

I looked down at my sweet baby’s face, resting so peacefully. I didn’t want to give her Nyquil, but I needed her to sleep until we dropped her off and got out of Madrid. She would forgive me in time, if she ever found out who I was, that is. If all went well, that wouldn’t happen until her eighteenth birthday.

“Hey!” Tom said, slinking down into the sewer. His curly black hair fell over his ice blue eyes. I loved him so much it blinded me to the world we brought our baby into, and now we all suffered the consequences.

“What did you find?” I asked breathlessly.

“I found a way through the RMP blockade. Let’s go.”

I squeezed my baby tightly in my arms and ambled down the sewer behind Tom. This would be my last chance to hold her tight. The next time I saw her, she would be an adult.

“Wait,” Tom whispered, hearing the footsteps of RMP soldiers above our heads.

It wasn’t an easy decision to leave my baby, but she had a better shot at living here, with the Normals. It was a risk. If they found her, they would brand her a traitor to the crown, but concealing her identity was her best chance for a real life.

The sun on the side of Tom’s cheek glowed as he beckoned me forward down the grimy sewer.  

“Turn that off!” I whispered forcefully to him.

“We need the light,” Tom replied as he inched down the dark sewer in front of us.

“They’re going to see!” I said.

“Nobody will see, Susie,” Tom replied with a smile. “Trust me.”  

He didn’t make it five steps before he regretted those words. Something ripped off the sewer grate behind us, and a robotic Goliath peered down at us. Ten feet tall and crewed by Royal Air Force pilots, Goliaths were the most lethal weapon against magic users. They were built to take us down by the dozen.  

“Halt!” it shouted. “You are in violation of statute 20.986 of Her Majesty’s charter.”

“Cover your eyes!” Tom shouted to me.

Tom held up his hands, and the sewer went white. The man inside the Goliath covered his eyes as he stumbled backwards against the stone wall of the sewer, momentarily dazed. Tom grabbed my arm to pull me forward. I looked back at the destruction as we disappeared into the darkness.

“I thought you knew the path, Tom!” I scolded after a half hour of aimlessly wandering through the sewers. “We’ve passed the same dead rat a half dozen times already!”

“How do you know it’s the same rat?” Tom asked. “Maybe it’s another dead rat. Ever think of that, huh?”

I sighed. “I don’t want to have this discussion. Really and truly, I don’t. I just want to get our baby to safety.”   

I looked down at the baby. She breathed heavily in my arms and tossed back and forth as if trying to break free of a nightmare. Soon she would wake up, and if we weren’t safely hidden by then, she would cry and blow our cover. I kept a pacifier in my back pocket just in case we needed it, but she hated pacifiers; and even if she took it, I couldn’t promise it wasn’t covered in sewer sludge.

Heck, I couldn’t promise she wasn’t covered in sewer sludge. I could barely see anything in the tunnels.

“Which way are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t— We have to go up, Susie. It’s the only way. I can’t find my bearings down here. We should be at the Plaza Mayor, and if we are, it’s only a few more blocks to the drop point, but I have no idea if that’s—”

He stopped talking as helicopters landed overhead. That wasn’t a new sound, and it might not be for us, but more soldiers milling about was never a good thing.

The Royal Military Police were always hunting for Shiners like Tom and I. Ever since the war, we couldn’t go anywhere without the RMP or the US Army on our tails, but it had gotten worse of late, and I didn’t want that for our baby. She should have a real life.

The baby’s eyes fluttered open. There was no keeping her silent now. I kept her pressed to my chest, but she squirmed out, and let out a deep wail.

“Shh shh shh shh shh,” I said, rocking her with my arms. “Shhhhh…”

But she wouldn’t stop crying. She wouldn’t stop wailing. I reached into my back pocket to grab the pacifier, but it was gone. I searched the ground around me; I’d lost it in the sinewy labyrinth of the sewers.

“What do we do?” I asked Tom.

He looked back at me. “I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”

I caught his eyes for a moment. I knew he was going to give himself up before he pushed open the sewer grate.

“No. No. No.” I blubbered as the tears filled my eyes. “Please, Tom. Don’t”

“Just get ready to run.”

He leapt out of the sewer grate and held up his hands. The glow of his cheek brought the attention of a half-dozen RMPs and three Goliath mechs that surrounded the square above us. Then with a little nod, he turned back to me and unleashed a fire ring around his body that knocked all the guards to the ground.

“Remember,” I said to the baby. “Mommy loves you.”

The crescent moon on my cheek glowed a bright blue. I gathered all the sewage I could and pushed it out of the grate above me with all the force I could muster. The bile jettisoned me forward out of the sewers and into the air. When I hit the ground, I was already running away as the mech suits were rebooting their systems after Tom’s attack.  

“Tom!” I shouted.

He was already halfway to me by the time I shouted. We sprinted down the nearest alleyway, running as fast as we could, with our baby screaming loudly into the night.

“That was so stupid,” I shouted. “You could’ve been caught.”

“But I wasn’t caught,” Tom said, pointing backwards. “And did you see the statue in the center of that square? It was Philip III on horseback. This s Plaza Mayor, just like I said. We’re just a few blocks away from the drop point.”

I turned to look at King Philip III on horseback at the center of the square and realized Tom was right. We were close. I couldn’t believe we might actually pull it off and give our daughter a chance for a real life. I wanted to smile, but that was before the mech suits stomped toward us. Their steps quaked the ground under our feet.

“Run!” Tom shouted, but I was done taking orders.

“No!” I shouted back, stuffing my crying baby into his arms. “You run.”

I kissed our baby’s sweet head as I gave Tom one last glance, then I turned back toward the mechs towering over me. The soldier piloting the nearest suit sneered at me from her protective bubble, enjoying her job a little too much for my taste.  

The moon on my cheek glowed bright blue. I pulled my arms close until the pipes in every building burst into the street, creating a wall of water between the mechs and my baby.

The water rose into the air, and I shot it as fast as I could at the approaching mechs. I turned back to see Tom frozen in horror, unable to move his feet. The baby in his arms wailing for comfort.  

“Run!” I shouted. “Don’t stop!”

We would never see each other again. I would be arrested, detained, and tortured…at the very least. At worst, I would be executed as a lesson to all other magic users. I wanted to live and meet our baby again, but that wasn’t possible anymore, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that we got our baby girl to safety.

I teared up as Tom turned the corner, and my salty tears mixed with the water bursting from the pipes around me. I shot as much water as I could at the mechs, but they were ready for the blast the second time.

They locked their feet into the ground and stepped forward one after another. It was slow moving for them, but they would eventually be on me. Every slow step of their boots brought me closer to my demise.

“Enough!” A modulated voice screamed from the other side of the streaming water.

A metallic claw burst through the water and wrapped around my head. I couldn’t hold my concentration. The water fell around me, splashing harmlessly onto the stone.

The metallic arm pulled me close to the bubble cockpit that encased the driver inside, who smiled a maniacal grin at me. She enjoyed the chase. She enjoyed hunting Shiners like me. It was written all over her face. And she would enjoy hunting my child, too. I wouldn’t let that happen.

In one last burst of energy, I flung by hand up, and the water around me shot up from the ground into an icicle which crashed through the bubble and stabbed the driver in the stomach.

I fell to the ground, coughing, as ten MPs with machine guns surrounded me. In that moment, I lost the will to fight on and passed into unconsciousness.