Karizma

Chapter 1

Ryleigh's footsteps pounded against the asphalt beneath her as she ran. The trail in the park extended endlessly, and she had been assaulting the asphalt beneath her for at least the last two miles. Her long, crimson red hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that swayed feverishly behind her as she continued to push her body to pursue the asphalt faster. She was wearing a blue sports bra with a pair of black yoga pants that made her pale skin vibrant in the sun. Her bright green eyes were fixated hard in front of her. Breathing behind her prompted her to pull her magic through her body, down to the soles of her feet. Just as quickly as the breathing had begun to reach her neck, it vanished. Ryleigh's magic propelled her forward suddenly in a burst of a jump that landed her a few feet ahead of the person that was diligently following her.

"Ryleigh, we said no magic!" her sister's voice yelled in frustration. Ryleigh grinned and turned around to face her sister as she ceased her running. Bailey's crimson red hair had been pulled into a tight bun, her brown eyes dull with annoyance. Bailey stopped in front of Ryleigh with a scowl. She was wearing a pink sports bra with a pair of black yoga pants. Bailey was a few inches taller than Ryleigh's five-foot frame, and her tanned skin severely contrasted Ryleigh's pale skin. Aside from the signature crimson red hair of a Karizma daughter, the two girls looked nothing alike. And Bailey will need to dye her hair soon enough, Ryleigh reminded herself.

"That's cheating," Bailey hissed. "Besides, what if you got caught?"

"Relax, I checked before I did it," Ryleigh said. "There's no one on this trail for at least the next half a mile."

"Sure, but when I do it, I get in trouble."

"Because you actually need to be more cautious with your powers. Mine are bubbling like crazy with my birthday approaching," Ryleigh said.

Ryleigh was turning twenty-three within the month, which signified that the warding spell that was protecting her blood from enemy detection would dissolve. Ryleigh and Bailey were the last two living witches that descended from the Karizma bloodline. Their ancestors had enacted such a warding spell on all that shared their bloodline upon birth, allowing them time to come into their powers and master their powers over the span of ten years; only the women in the Karizma bloodline inherited the magical abilities, and the abilities made their debut when the child turned thirteen, at the start of puberty. Their ancestors determined that ten years was enough time for the child to begin mastering her powers.

Maybe for a regular child, Ryleigh thought bitterly. Just before her thirteenth birthday, their parents had been killed in a car accident. Ryleigh and Bailey had been home with their aunt at the time when they had received the news. Since the nature of witches was seen more as a threat amongst the humans, witches never spoke of their nature with people that were not witches. Other than their father, no other human had known about the girls, and their mother had sworn him to secrecy with a spell to not reveal the nature of the girls for their own protection. Their aunt, their father's sister, had no knowledge of what Ryleigh and Bailey were, and the powers that they possessed, which rendered Ryleigh alone when her powers surfaced. She was her own teacher; they had no other living relatives on their mother's side of the family.

Any Karizma that had come into her abilities, and the warding spell dissolving after her twenty-third birthday, was deceased not longer after the spell ended. Ryleigh and Bailey had conducted research on their ancestors' demises, and discovered that, not only did they come from a long line of witches, but they also came from a long line of vampire hunters. When a Karizma's warding spell terminates, the smell of her blood saturates the hemisphere due to the amount of power that has been passed down from generation to generation. To other supernatural beings, such as werewolves and ghouls, this smell was repulsive. To vampires, while it was more than likely equally repulsive to them, it also made the Karizma bloodline an easy target for elimination.