Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
I Wish is the story of Shannon and her older sister Sarah and how Shannon gets used to her new life as a girl, a witch, and a model and everything that goes along with it.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
I Wish is the story of Shannon and her older sister Sarah and how Shannon gets used to her new life as a girl, a witch, and a model and everything that goes along with it.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
I Wish is the story of Shannon and her older sister Sarah and how Shannon gets used to her new life as a girl, a witch, and a model and everything that goes along with it.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
Shannon has gotten used to being a girl and a powerful Witch, but the new knowledge or her family history and the search for the remaining Sentinels are drawing her deeper into the world of magic and a war with the Demons seems unavoidable. Can Shannon, her family and friends even hope to win such a war? And what of Beth? Shannon's girlfriend and Familiar now seems to be trapped in the body of the Fae Ziralin, possibly for good. Can Shannon's love help her through this? Or will it just drive them apart?
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
Shannon has gotten used to being a girl and a powerful Witch, but between school, modeling and hunting Demons she is keeping far busier than a teenage girl should. Having her White Witch persona stalked by the Demoness, Khinara and being followed by a girl who wants to see her suffer has her feeling between a rock and a hard place sometimes. Can Shannon, her family, and friends manage to find a balance and get manage to find the last Sentinel before the Demons?
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 1 Promises Amethyst |
It was hard for me to believe sometimes that it had only been two weeks since Annie received Anjurael’s mark and gained her Celestial abilities. We had been so busy during those two weeks that it seemed much longer somehow. Of course, I still had school and volleyball keeping me busy, somehow I was still managing to get straight A’s and our team was undefeated in our first five games. Annie was still teaching most of us self-defense while Talisha trained Ziralin/Beth in her use of Faery magick, and Ziralin was now learning jewelry making as part of her training. As busy as we both were, my girlfriend/assistant/Familiar and I were also trying to spend as much quality time as we could together, but we were all spending time together as a family too; training our abilities to prepare for finding the last Sentinel, and trying to take it easy and act like normal people once in a while.
The latter wasn’t easy when we were out fighting Demons every other night. There had been a major upswing in demonic activity in the Toronto area since we had returned from Haven and I couldn’t help but feel that Khinara was responsible for this. The mysterious Demoness had taken an interest in me, or rather my masked alter-ego, during our trip to Haven, and having a Demon interested in you is never a good thing. I only hoped that she never found out who I really was. Between her stalking my White Witch persona and Lisa White still following me around and doing her best to slander me at every opportunity I was half-entertaining the thought of just going to live with the Faery in Tír na nÓg.
I also had other activities filling what little free time I had, like learning to drive. My new birth certificate, medical card, and other documents had arrived last week with my new gender properly displayed and I was eager to be able to drive on my own. Sarah was also busy looking at new houses with Talisha in their spare time. She had already put our house on the market and we had a few prospective buyers, with the help of the real estate agent that Jennifer’s parents had put us in contact with.
There was also work though, our daytime jobs were keeping us busy. Talisha was still having Elsaishe helping at the store and learning the business aspects of being a jeweler, Jen was helping her mom in product development for Divine Cosmetics, and Sarah and I were busy with modeling and that kept our assistants busy too. We weren’t doing anything for Divine Cosmetics at the moment since the public appearances and modeling for phase two of the ad campaign wouldn’t start until the beginning of December, but Jennifer’s parents had approved some modeling offers from people or businesses that they felt might help our careers and yet not negatively affect the Divine Cosmetics brand. The only stipulations were that those proposals go through our agent Peter and that any shoots take place in Toronto to not interfere with school.
That was why I was currently having a lot of time to think, while I smiled, looked pretty for the camera, and held a pose for the past forty-five minutes that was supposed to look casual and relaxed. It was anything but relaxed after that long, but I was getting used to holding poses for a long time and I really liked the challenge of it. Besides, I was being paid an obscene amount of money to model Giselle Collette’s newest clothing line for teen girls. She was a big fashion designer based out of Montreal and one of the people that I had met at the big Halloween party. She had been insistent that I was the girl for the job and her persistence had paid off when Jennifer’s parents had approved the shoot and Peter had negotiated a lucrative contract for me. It was well worth it, not only was I being paid a freaking lot, but I got to keep the clothes too.
The style was sort of an edgy girl next door look that suited me and wasn’t too revealing or slutty. I actually liked the clothes, and Giselle had contracted André to do the shoot so it had been a lot of fun so far. That being said, I had been working the whole weekend from eight to six yesterday and since eight again this morning. I was starting to get tired, though I was trying not to let it show. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but Andre had said this was the last outfit to shoot so I was almost finished.
“Très bien! Et nous avons fini, ma belle!” André pronounced with a grin.
I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself a careful stretch to get the kinks out of my muscles from holding that position for so long. “Thanks, André, did you get everything you needed?”
“Oui, ma belle, I will call you if we need to re-shoot anything, but I think that this should be just what Giselle wants. You can go and relax for the rest of the day, you have earned it, ma Cherie.”
“Great André, let me know what she thinks and you have Beth’s number if you need me for anything else.” I hugged him and gave him a quick kiss on each cheek and then went to give Beth a far more personal show of affection. “I don’t envy you your job, mon amour. At least I’m doing something, it’s got to be boring watching me sit and pose all day. Je t’aime.”
She returned my kiss eagerly and held me close for a moment after breaking it off, just staring into my eyes. “I love you too sweetheart, and don’t worry about me, I like the view while I’m working. And the benefits are more than worth it. You’re spending too much time with André I think, but it’s so sexy when you speak French.”
“Smooth-talker,” I teased before kissing her again.
I didn’t bother changing back into the clothes that I had worn this morning. The clothes I was wearing were mine now anyway, and I liked how they looked at me. Since I was finished for the day we started taking my new clothes from the shoot downstairs to the car. It took us a few trips, but we got it all stowed carefully in the trunk, all of them placed safely back in the garment bags by André’s makeup and fashion stylist, Janine. André had offered to have them shipped to my home when we were done, but I didn’t see any reason for the added expense when I could just take them home myself. As we finished putting the last of them in the car I asked Beth, “What time is it anyway? I kinda lose track when I’m doing my thing.”
“It’s almost four o’clock, you finished up earlier than we thought. You have nothing else on your schedule for today, so what do you want to do? We could try and catch the Rainbow Group meeting this evening, or pick Ellie up at the mall and do some shopping,” she suggested.
I shook my head as I opened the passenger door to get inside. “I’m too tired to deal with being glared at by Rebecca all evening. It kinda hurts that I can’t help her too, I mean I could, but then I would have to explain magic to her and the need to keep it secret, and nobody would believe that she just got turned into a girl overnight. She’d just be stuck with the same issues that I was at first, but with no wealthy, and eager to help, family friends to help sort it all out without asking uncomfortable questions.”
“Shopping it is then, Talisha suggested we stop by the store anyway,” my girlfriend replied with a nod.
The mall was busy with weekend shoppers as we made our way toward Fantasy Jewelry . Ellie’s shift would be over soon, but she would likely need a ride home since Talisha was supposed to be working until closing. There weren’t many customers in the store at that moment, just a couple who were looking through the engagement rings while Ellie made suggestions and told them about the pieces they were interested in. “Mom is in the back taking a quick break before I’m done or the day,” she called out. “You can head on back there, I’ll come let you know when I’m done.”
We headed into the back room where Talisha was sitting at the small break table drinking a cup of tea. She smiled as soon as she saw us enter. “You finished up early today Shannon?”
I nodded as Beth and I joined my elder Faery, cousin, at the table and I leaned on and snuggled against my girlfriend. “Yeah, it was a good day and André thinks that we got everything he needs. I am so beat right now. As much as I love my job, it can be exhausting. I’ve got a whole new respect for Sarah, doing this for as long as she has.”
“Well she’s pretty proud of the way you’ve been working so hard,” the Faery said with a smile. She reached into her pocket and produced a jewelry box, placing it on the table in front of us and opening it. “Speaking of pride in hard workers, this is the first professional-level work by my newest apprentice.”
Inside the box was a pair of identical platinum rings, with a delicate-looking Celtic knot atop arranged in a heart pattern around an inset pink amethyst surrounded by tiny diamonds. The inside of the bands were engraved with words that looked like they were written in the Faery language. They were so beautiful that I could only stare for a moment. Then what she said hit me, “Wait, your newest apprentice? But that’s’…” I turned to gape at my girlfriend. “You made these?”
Beth was blushing a bright red. “Yeah, Talisha has been working me hard during our lessons on shaping the metals and stones and making them look like the picture I have in my mind. I really worked hard to get these just right.”
“Don’t be modest Ziralin, you’re a natural. If you keep working this hard during your lessons then you will be as good as Elsaishe is soon, and she could surpass my skills someday. These could fetch a good price if you didn’t have other plans for them,” Talisha assured her.
“Other plans…” The words seemed to catch in my throat.
Beth let her glamour fade and suddenly I was caught in Ziralin’s amber gaze. Wait, when did she get down on one knee? She had apparently also claimed the box from the table while I was spacing out and was holding it out to me. “Shannon, I wanted these to be perfect, because they’re for you, well both of us really. They are promise rings and I wanted them to be as beautiful and breathtaking as you are every time I look at you. I know that we’re too young to get married, but these are to show that I plan on us being together for the rest of our days, however long that may be. So… umm… what do you say?”
For a long moment I couldn’t speak. Hell, I couldn’t breathe. My heart was fluttering in my chest and I could feel the tears starting to flow. Omigod, this was like, the most romantic thing ever. She could have taken me out to dinner or something and tried to make it all movie-romance, but she wanted to be able to be herself for this, not hiding behind a glamour. I could feel her love for me washing over me in waves from our link, but she was suddenly nervous too. Oh crap! I hadn’t answered her yet.
I wiped my eyes and took her hands in my own shaking ones as I fumbled over words trying to give her a response. “I… of course… Yes!”
She kissed me passionately, holding me tightly in her embrace, her love and joy wrapped around me like a warm blanket. For a while we just stayed like that, holding one another, kissing and running our hands over one another’s bodies. What finally broke us out of it was the giggle from behind me, followed by Elsaishe saying, “Well, I’m guessing that she said yes.”
We reluctantly relinquished our embrace, our lips parting far too soon. At that moment I could have kept kissing and holding Ziralin forever, but she quickly turned her attention back to the rings, examining the engraving on both before slipping one on my finger. “I love you more than words can possibly say, Shannon O’Reilly. Sorry, but I kind of chose the words without asking you and I’m still working on learning the engraving part, so I asked Talisha to do the engraving part for me, and…”
She was starting to babble, nervous about how I might react so I silenced her with another kiss. “I don’t care about that, I‘m still floored that you made these and that they’re for us. These are perfect, YOU are perfect. Besides, what girl can say that the person they love didn’t just give them a beautiful ring, but made it herself? And Talisha is family and your teacher, so her doing the engraving just fits. What do they say, my love?”
Ziralin flushed again and I loved that our link made us so close. No words were ever really needed between us, but whenever she said the right words, the perfect words, I think that made it that much more amazing. Just like when she said, “The one you’re wearing says, ‘My Witch, my heart, my life. Bound forever in love'.” Oh, Goddess, I was starting to cry again as she added, “Mine says basically the same, but Familiar instead of Witch.”
“You’re too perfect, what did I ever do to deserve you?” I managed to say between happy sniffles.
“You were being yourself, how could I not love that at first sight?” Ziralin replied, lovingly tracing a fingertip along my jawline before kissing me again.
I had just gotten my tears and sniffling under control and probably would have lost it again when she said those perfect words if it hadn’t been for Elsaishe giggling again. “You two are going to give me cavities. Seriously, you’re like the cutest, most lovey-dovey couple I’ve ever met. It’s like sweetness overload.”
Now we were both blushing, not to mention uncertain of just what to say to that. Luckily we were rescued by Talisha. “You can get going now Elsaishe, I can handle the next hour and closing up on my own. You girls will probably be on your own tonight for dinner, though. “Sarah, Annie, and I are going to go look at a house once I’m finished closing up.”
“Okay Mom, I’ll see you when you get home then.” Ellie wasted no time in snatching up her jacket and purse from her employee locker and then gave Talisha a big hug. “Love you, Mom.”
Beth had re-cast her glamour and we were out in the mall proper and heading for the food court, browsing along the way, when Ellie offered, “You guys can just drop me off at home and I can make something quick for dinner if you want. I kinda feel like you should be having a romantic date night what with the whole ring exchange and all. I don’t want to be a third wheel on your special day.”
I reached over to hug her. “You’re never a third wheel, cuz, we like hanging with you. I already had the most romantic thing ever happen, it would be hard to top that no matter what we do on a date. And I’m tired, so what do you think? We just grab some dinner here and then have a girls' night?”
That sounds good to me,” Beth agreed. “You’ve worked your pretty little ass off this weekend sweetheart. I know, because I was watching the whole time. I’d say that dinner and then going home for some movies and snacks sounds like a great idea. Besides, I doubt any date that we went on would be very romantic with Lisa following us again.”
“Again?” I more groaned than spoke the word. “She’s getting more subtle about it. You know the drill; don’t let her know that we’re on to her, text Sergeant Williams so she can request the security footage, and we stay in public places, so food court it is.”
“Yeah, she’s been watching us like a hawk since we left the jewelry store,” Beth quickly confirmed.
“Geeze, when is that crazy stalker bitch going to give up and leave you alone already?” Ellie muttered.
“Maybe once Sgt. Williams thinks we have enough for a restraining order, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting,” I said with a sigh.
“Well, at least the other shoe dropped early this time, I’m pretty happy that you’re wearing my ring so I’d still call it a good day overall. And now at least we’re not going to be wondering when something bad is going to happen. So what if it’s going to put a damper on an otherwise good night, we’ll just eat and go home to try and enjoy ourselves before something worse can happen.”
It was about then that my magic senses twigged on a demonic presence. It was right at the edges of my senses, so it wasn’t in the mall, but it was moving in our general direction. From the surprise and annoyance emanating from my Familiar’s mind, I was guessing that Beth had sensed it too. I let out a groan and tried to keep acting casual as I said, “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 2 Stuck In The Middle Amethyst |
Beth texted Sgt. Williams as we made our way to the food court and quietly talked amongst ourselves. “That Demon isn’t moving very fast, whatever it is,” I said quietly as we entered the food court. “It’s coming right toward the area of the mall though. We should warn your mom, Ellie.”
“I’m texting her now,” my Fae cousin replied as she rapidly tapped her fingers over the surface of her phone.
I used some of my stored magick energy and focused on finding out Lisa’s current location. Since she was fairly familiar to me and I had a general idea that she was following me through the mall the spell wouldn’t require enough power to attract any unwanted attention, or so I hoped. “Locate Lisa White,” I whispered under my breath. Then I frowned and sighed, “She’s still following us. She ducked in that Bed, Bath, and Beyond , but she just came out and is following about three store lengths behind us.”
“Sgt. Williams just finished dinner and she’s on her way here now to talk to security about looking at the footage. She’s hoping she can catch Lisa in the act and give her a warning too. We’ll just have to eat dinner and wait for her to contact us again,” Beth informed us as we made our way to a table and sat down. “What do you girls want? I’m buying.”
“Well, I hope that she can nab Lisa so we can slip away and deal with that Demon without being tailed. The last thing that we need is her finding out about our evening activities,” I said with a frown as I mentally followed Lisa with my tracking spell. She was moving across the food court and sat down at a table near the hallway to the restrooms. She was glaring at us now, not even caring if she stayed hidden. I really didn’t need this right now, my weekend had been going so well. I just finished a great gig, got some awesome clothes, and I was wearing a beautiful promise ring made by the love of my life, and Lisa had to ruin it all with the creepy stalker act. Couldn’t I go one day without her or some Demons showing up? “I dunno my love, whatever you think is fine with me, I guess,” I answered half-heartedly to Beth’s inquiry.
Beth put her arm around me and softly kissed my cheek. “Well, I’m guessing from Shannon’s response that she needs comfort food, so McDonald’s it is, it’ll be a nice treat to have a cheat day to celebrate our new relationship status. What about you Ellie?”
“McD’s is fine with me,” Elsaishe agreed. “I could really go for a chicken burger and a diet coke.”
“Okay girls, I’ll be back in a few,” Beth said before kissing me once again and heading off toward the McDonald’s .
Ellie tried to encourage me with a smile. “Cheer up Shannon. I mean, other than that crazy bitch, things are going pretty well for you. Don’t let her little bit of bad taint all that good stuff. I mean you’re freaking engaged and if her making that gorgeous ring doesn’t prove how much she loves you I don’t know what will. Besides, we all know that Lisa just wishes that she was in Beth’s place.”
I gave a half-hearted smile back as I texted Annie to let her and Sarah know about the Demon in the area. Maybe they could deal with it if we couldn’t scrape Lisa off our backsides in time. I wasn’t hopeful though since Sarah was supposed to be at a modeling gig of her own and hadn’t been expecting to finish up for at least another hour or so, and Annie would of course be with her. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, I got a response and let out a sigh. “It looks like Sarah is still in front of the camera, so we may need to deal with this ourselves.”
“That sucks, but I was half-expecting it,” Ellie replied. Casting a subtle sidelong glance in Lisa’s direction she muttered, “The bitch still has her eyes glued on you. I don’t know what’s worse, her bullshit or the Demons.”
“At least we can kill the Demons,” I grumbled back. “With Lisa, the only thing I can do is ignore her, make it look like she’s not bothering me, and hope that she goes away. It’s getting harder to do that though because it damn well does bother me and she’s not going away.”
“We could mess with her a bit,” the blonde Fae suggested.
I shook my head, though I was sorely tempted. “What and give her the ammunition she’s looking for? I’m not doing that. I don’t want to be one of those mean girls, even if she does deserve it, we’re better than that.”
“I wasn’t talking about being a bitch back to her, Shannon. I was thinking that if we just enjoy ourselves and be loud enough for our voices to carry while making a big deal about the promise ring and your pre-engagement to Beth that it might improve your mood and piss her off. It’s the best of both worlds. I mean it’s not like she’s seen the ring and Ziralin proposed privately, so why not give Beth a chance to propose publicly?” My cousin had a huge grin on her face and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“It’s a nice idea cuz, but Beth already gave me the most romantic moment that I’ll probably ever have in my life tonight. Anything more would feel kind of hollow by comparison and it would just be acting. Besides, I’m in the public eye enough already right now with all the billboards and magazine ads and such. Hell, there’s a billboard with me and Mason kissing here at the mall and people are starting to recognize me,” I said after a moment. I wouldn’t have minded our relationship being public, in fact, I wanted to show how proud that I was to be hers, but what worried me was how that might affect Beth.
“I don’t see the problem cuz, Ziralin sees you for who you are, not some face on a billboard,” Elsaishe told me gently.
“I think that fame can be hard on relationships,” I explained. “I said that I have a girlfriend in that interview for Teen Queen and when that comes out I’ll be getting a lot more attention and people are going to wonder who that girlfriend is. Being a model’s very public lesbian girlfriend/fiancée would only put Beth under a microscope as well, and she’s got more to hide than I do. I’d rather not put her under that kind of pressure unless she’s okay with it and knows what she’s probably going to be in for. I’m okay with keeping things quiet.”
“Come on Shannon, it’s just an interview in a fashion magazine, but you’re not that big a name yet and it’s not like you’re going to be on the cover.” She was rolling her eyes and I caught them widening once I looked down at the table, my cheeks bright red as I shook my head. “OMG! You’re going to be on the cover of Teen Queen ?!”
I sighed as her excited exclamation caused practically every teenage girl in the shouting distance to look our way, including Lisa, who was glaring daggers at me. There were even phones pointed in our direction now, and I was pretty sure that they were recording. “We got a message from Angela Zubreck earlier this week. The production manager and publisher loved the photos and the interview so much that I’ll be on the cover of the issue that comes out December first. We’re trying to keep it quiet right now, especially at school.”
Elsaishe slapped a hand over her mouth before offering in a whisper, “I’m sooo sorry… I just kinda freaked out a bit. I’ll try to keep it quiet at school. But really, this is why it even makes more sense for a public proposal before you’re getting all that attention. People are going to pry to find out who you’re dating if you’re famous and they will find out if it’s not already public knowledge. It’ll be better for both of you if you’re not trying to hide it, and people won’t think that Beth is some kind of gold digger if you show that you had a solid relationship before all the fame.”
“It doesn’t matter what other people think, we love one another, and everyone important in our lives knows that. Besides, I’m wearing her ring and I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t love her and know that she loves me back. I appreciate the sentiment cuz, but...” I told her as I attempted to rebuff her idea.
“Forgive me Shannon, but this is for your own good,” Ellie whispered so quietly that I could barely hear her, cutting me off as she grabbed my hand and made a big show of staring at the ring. That was when I noticed that phones were still filming us from her earlier exclamation, probably thinking that I was someone famous, or soon going to be. “O M G Shannon! She proposed?! And this ring! I mean, I work in the jewelry biz so I know how much this is worth! I wish that someone loved me that much! You’re wearing it, so you said yes right?!”
I was bright red by now and so was Beth who had chosen that moment to come back to the table with our tray of food. “I… of course I did. I love her, and it was the most romantic proposal ever. Geeze cuz, did you have to announce it to the whole mall? I told you that we’re trying to keep it quiet for now. My sister doesn’t even know yet.” At least I didn’t have to act flustered, I really was, and I resolved to get Ellie back later, probably with something cold and squishy in her bed. Or I could freeze her bra, while she’s wearing it. Then Ellie turned on Beth. “That’s a whole lotta love there, girlfriend. Congratulations! I’m so happy for both of you!”
Beth had no idea what was going on. I could sense the confusion from her mind as she stumbled over her words. “I…. umm… thanks, Ellie. Shannon’s worth it though, I’m totally in love with her.” Then she leaned over and kissed me, wrapping me up in her arms as our tongues danced and her caresses sent a warmth radiating through my body. If I was flushed before, now my cheeks, and other places, were like an inferno. I decided though that I didn’t care that we were being watched. It was Beth, I loved her, and we were both showing that love, not to those idiots with the phones but to one another.
Thankfully the phones started to disappear as we broke off the kiss though there was at least one still filming during the smattering of applause and few hateful looks that followed out little same-sex PDA. Beth whispered breathily into my ear, “Okay, why do I feel like I’m in a reality show?”
“Could be the applause,” I suggested in a return whisper before licking her earlobe. “Ellie thinks we need to make our relationship more public so you don’t look like a gold digger when I’m on the cover of a magazine instead of just in some of the ads. That cat is out of the bag too, and she accidentally announced it to half the food court, so she thought she would make the most of the attention from it, I guess. And I’m pretty sure she wanted to piss Lisa off too.”
“Well, she succeeded, because Lisa looks like she wants to rip your head off, or maybe mine. Probably both, actually. We really should eat. That Demon may be moving slow, but it’s getting closer every minute and it has a powerful aura. I just hope it doesn’t show up before Sgt. Williams gets here or we can shake Lisa.” Her hushed voice was tinged with concern and I could feel it in her mind as well.
“You’re right, I don’t want to fight a powerful Demon in the middle of the mall if we can help it. Even if I used a spell to put everyone in the area to sleep, we’d still have to deal with security cameras and such. We’ll need to draw it away. I don’t think that it’s actually moving slow, or that it has any specific destination in mind. It’s more like it’s stopping every few blocks and moving in a straight southward line through the center of the city. I think it might be searching for something. Or someone. Maybe it’s looking for us, we have been kicking Demon ass recently. If it isn’t then we can probably get its attention anyway.” I reluctantly ended our embrace with one last kiss and we sat down to eat.
Beth, Ellie, and I ate our dinner and tried to have a normal teenage girl conversation while Lisa continued to watch us balefully. Beth enjoyed her Big Mac, Ellie her chicken burger and diet coke, and me my chicken nuggets while we shared a large fries between the three of us. We were finished eating and Beth and I were finishing the chocolate milkshake that she had gotten us to share with two straws when Sgt. Williams approached us in uniform. “Good evening girls.”
“Hi, Sgt. Williams, Lisa is just over there. She’s been watching us since before I texted you,” Beth offered with a nod of her head in the direction of Lisa’s table, where she was hurriedly gathering her things.
“I know,” the police officer replied with a nod. I liked her, she had taken this matter seriously from the start and Detective Hanson had said that we could count on her. So I could feel some of the stress from the whole situation melting away as she added, “I would have been here sooner but I’ve already looked at the security feeds and I’ve been watching her watching you for a few minutes now. I just came to let you know that you should be safe to go home now while I go talk with Miss White. I’ll call you later to discuss what happens from here.”
We barely had time to say our thankyous before she strode purposely in Lisa’s direction. Lisa took off like a shot and Sgt. Williams was off in pursuit, leaving us safe to go deal with whatever Demonic threat was out there. I breathed a sigh of relief as we gathered our things and walked briskly for the mall exit. We were heading in the same direction that Lisa had run off in, but I assumed that she had parked in the same lot as we had and Sgt. Williams could handle her. That Demon was getting too close for comfort though, if it wasn’t in the mall it was getting pretty damn close and its direction had changed. It had looked like it was going to bypass the mall completely, but it had just turned toward us and quickened its pace. The aura was very powerful and sickeningly familiar, I recognized it even before that sultry voice entered my mind as we neared the exit. “I can sense you witchling, you are very close.”
“Khinara,” I thought back at her with undisguised disgust. “What do you want?”
“I want a lot of things. For instance, I would love to know how you became so powerful. You would make a powerful ally, but you have already chosen your side, haven’t you? You work with Celestials and Faery filth. As soon as I heard how many Demons have been vanishing in this city I knew that I would find you here,” she purred in my mind.
“Congratulations, you’re so frickin’ clever,” I retorted. “So you came to kill me then? Good luck with that, you’re not the first of your kind to try.”
“It’s nothing personal, I assure you, but I can’t have you killing off my Demons. I have been ordered to establish a beachhead on this world and you and your friends are bad for business. Those were minor Demons that you defeated before, witchling. I am Khinara, one of the Demon King’s seven generals,” she offered casually, with a healthy dose of arrogance.
“How nice for you, but all of the other Demons we’ve killed thought they were pretty hot stuff too,” I pointed out with more confidence than I felt. I could tell from the feel of her aura though that she really was way beyond anything that we had ever encountered before among the Demons.
“We both know that they pale in comparison to you and me, little witchling,” she countered with something almost like respect. “So many people, do you really fear battling me so much that you hide among the masses?”
“It’s a coincidence, you caught us at a bad time. If you really want to die that badly then I’m sure that we can arrange a nice quiet spot to try to kill one another,” I goaded her, as we stepped outside and into the dimly lit parking lot. It had gotten dark outside while we had been in the mall, but I didn’t mind since darkness would make it easier to keep any magick and our identities a secret. I just wanted to get somewhere without a lot of people so we could change to our Demon-hunting personas and draw that Demoness away from the mall and innocent people who I couldn’t risk seeing magick.
“Not tonight little witchling, it’s no fun if it’s over so quickly. I know that this is the city that you reside in now, so we can make a game of it. Besides, I used a lot of magick energy searching for you and I find myself feeling famished. As luck would have it I can sense a veritable banquet of hate, anger, and lust nearby. Enjoy this reprieve witching, because I will find you and your friends and then you will die. Do try to make the game a little entertaining.” Then her voice was gone and, at the same time that I felt her spell being cast, all the lights in the parking lot went out just before Khinara’s aura vanished altogether.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 3 Cat and Mouse Amethyst |
I had cast a shielding spell on Beth, Ellie, and me the moment that I felt Khinara using her magick, but it seemed that we weren’t the target. The lights in the parking lot had all sort of flashed and then gone dark and the few cars leaving or looking for parking spots were stopped in their tracks. “A banquet of hate, anger, and lust?” It only took a fraction of a second for me to figure out that I knew a pretty good candidate for the feast that the Demoness spoke of. “Oh shit! Lisa!” I took off at a run through the now dark parking lot, dodging parked and stalled vehicles as I ran for the place where I had last felt Khinara’s demonic aura before it had vanished.
Beth and Ellie were right on my heels, even if they weren’t completely sure what was going on. They may not have been privy to my conversation with Khinara but Beth could sense my emotions and they both knew that I wouldn’t take off like that without a good reason. In the darkness, I nearly tripped over Sgt. Williams, who was laying on the pavement with another uniformed police officer laying nearby. There was no sign of Lisa or Khinara, but fortunately, it seemed that both officers were merely unconscious. They were a bit bruised and their pulses were slightly erratic, but they were breathing.
I pulled out my phone and, thank Goddess, it was still working. I was afraid that it might have died along with the lights and vehicles. I quickly hit 9-1-1 and almost immediately a woman’s voice answered on the other end. “9-1-1 what is your emergency?”
“Ummm… hello. I’m in the north parking lot of Dufferin Mall. All the lights went out as we were heading to my car and we just found two police officers unconscious.” I talked with her for a few minutes and she informed me that emergency services were on the way. Since none of us knew first aid she advised us to just wait for them to arrive.
We used the flashlight function on our phones to make it easier for emergency services to find us in the middle of the huge parking lot, though it was several minutes before they arrived. The uniformed officers asked us what we saw and we told them honestly that we had just seen the lights in the parking lot flash and go out and then I had nearly tripped over Sgt. Williams in the dark while going in the direction of my car. I also told them that we knew her and why she had been at the mall since there was no harm in giving them information that they probably already had anyway and I didn’t want to look like I was trying to hide anything. There really wasn’t much else that we could do or say, so while Sgt. Williams and the other officer were being loaded into the ambulance we were asked for our phone numbers in case the officer in charge had any further questions for us and then we were allowed to go home.
We were all sitting in my car when Beth asked, “So what do you think that was? I felt some kind of spell being cast and it came from the direction that the Demon aura was in.”
“I know who the Demon was,” I admitted with a sigh. “Her name is Khinara and she claimed to be one of the Demon King’s seven generals. She’s been looking for me, well all of us I guess, since she popped in my head in Haven. She thought that we might live here what with all the Demon ass-kicking that we’ve been doing lately. I guess that we’re making her work more difficult. She was speaking in my head as we left the mall and yeah, she wants to kill us all, but she wants it to be fun and challenging. Before she fired off that spell and vanished she mentioned a ‘banquet of hate, anger, and lust’.”
“And of course you thought of Lisa,” Ellie said with a nod. “Do you think Khinara knows who you are? That could be really bad.”
“I think she’s a Skarik, they really love feasting on lust and strong negative emotions and well, you don’t need to be a Demon to sense those coming from Lisa,” I said with a sigh. Then I shook my head after thinking about my cousin’s question for a moment. “No, she could sense my power, but she was having trouble picking me out of the crowds in the mall. She’s never really seen me and I’m pretty sure that it’s pissing her off that she can’t do anything more than talk in my head. If she could then she’d have tracked me down right after the big fight in Haven. Even if she did physically see me in Haven, she would have only seen me in my White Witch disguise. But she only sensed my presence then too because she wasn’t in Haven, she was holding the dimensional door open for the other Demons from the other side.”
“So, what did she do here then? Some kind of EMP spell?” Beth asked.
“Probably. I think that the spell had concussive properties too, from the bruising on Sgt. Williams and the other officer. We didn’t hear gunshots so I don’t think that they even saw what hit them. Our phones are probably only working because I instinctively covered us with a shield spell when I felt her charging up a spell,” I replied as Beth attempted to start my car.
Thankfully, it started. I had been hoping that it would since it hadn’t been running when that spell hit. We were all quiet as Beth drove us home and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the only one thinking of Lisa. It was a pretty good bet that Khinara had taken her, though we couldn’t be absolutely certain if it was Lisa. My gut said that it was though and that we needed to do something. If Khinara really was a Skarik then Lisa was in grave danger.
We had killed a Skarik just over a week ago when investigating some people who had seemed to vanish into thin air for Detective Hanson. It was a young Demon and not near as powerful as Khinara, but the mere thought of its victims left me shaking with cold fury. Skariks feed on a person’s emotions, and after a few feedings, the feeling becomes such a rush for their victims that the more they experience it, the more they will do anything to experience it again. It’s like a drug addiction and the victims of repeated feedings become mentally and emotionally unstable and prone to violent outbursts until the Skarik finally drains them completely, leaving the victim a lethargic and broken husk of a human being.
After we had defeated the Skarik we had had to put the more recent and violent victims to sleep because they were too dangerous and unpredictable to safely approach. The rest had been dead or near-dead; starved half to death and laying in their own wastes because they didn’t care enough to move. We had secretly passed on a tip to Detective Hanson so they could be taken to the hospital to get the care they needed, but the long-term victims were little more than vegetables now and the more recent ones required psychiatric care.
As much as I disliked Lisa I was not going to allow that to happen to her if I had any say in the matter. She was a bitch, but she was a person and nobody deserved to have that happen, not even Lisa. Khinara would likely want to savor the meal and take her time, but we needed to find Lisa soon. From the knowledge that Ysuriel had passed on to Sarah about Skariks they liked to give their meals a few days between the first few feedings to let the fear and other negative emotions build up again, but a victim could only take one, possibly two feedings before they began to suffer from the negative effects.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it as we left the parking lot, so I quickly cast my locator spell. I may as well have thrown a stone hoping to get lucky and hit her because I couldn’t sense anything. That left four possibilities. One, she was already dead, which I didn’t want to even consider. Also, it didn’t make sense if Khinara really was a Skarik and planned on enjoying her meal. The second possibility was more likely, that Lisa was out of my range for that spell. I had located people all over the city though, so while it was possible, I felt that it was unlikely with Khinara wanting to make a game of hunting me down. That left the third and fourth and most likely possibilities. She had either taken Lisa to another Plane or wherever she was hiding out was warded to keep her presence hidden and it was blocking my locator spell as well.
I was trying to think of other ways of finding her and was starting to get sick to my stomach when Sarah called. “Hey, Sis is everything okay? Annie said that there was a Demon in your area.”
“Yeah, do you remember that Demoness I told you about after we left Haven, Khinara? She’s been trying to find us and now she wants to make a game of hunting us down. She claims to be one of the seven generals of the Demon King, I’m pretty sure she’s a Skarik, and I think that she snatched Lisa up to be her unhappy meal,” I reported with a sigh. “I tried using my locator spell, but I’m getting nothing.”
“Shit.” Sarah swearing is never a good thing and it was a moment before she spoke again. “The seven generals are Heil’s most powerful Demons, except for the Demon King himself. The Demon King originally appointed them to take down the Seven Sentinels of Haven and win the first war after one of the Sentinels nearly killed him, though Ysuriel’s memory doesn’t have a lot of specifics on that. Ysuriel and the other Sentinels were able to take some of them down but it wasn’t easy, and I imagine that if there’s still seven of them that new ones must have been appointed when others died. Are you sure that she has Lisa?”
As quickly as possible I explained to Sarah everything that had happened at the mall, what Khinara had said, and my suspicions that she had Lisa and might be in town somewhere, but hiding behind wards or on another Plane altogether. I finished by telling her, “It doesn’t even matter if it’s Lisa she has, Sarah. She has somebody and she’s going to make a meal of them.”
I could hear her let out a long sigh on the other end. “You’re right of course, Shannon. We’ll need to look for any Demon presence so we can shake them down and see what they know. We’re on our way to meet Talisha and look at a house, but we’ll come up with a plan of action as soon as we get home. Give Mason and Jennifer a call and let them know what’s up. I love you, Sis. Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”
It was over two hours later that Sarah, Annie, and Talisha returned home. Annie had been pretty much living with us and sleeping in Sarah’s room since we had gotten back from Haven. She claimed it was easier with her spending most of her time working as Sarah’s assistant and the whole Demon hunting thing. They were a cute couple though and Sarah seemed so happy now, even with all of the supernatural crap that we kept getting buried in.
All three of them loved the house that they had looked at, a five-bedroom and two and a half bath with a hot tub and an unfinished basement that was spacious enough for most of it to be made into a training room for Annie to give our martial arts lessons and a possible magick library/workroom as well. It was also just two blocks away from Beth’s place and close to our school. They planned to get an electrician, plumber, and such in there to check for any issues, but if everything checked out then the three of them planned on putting an offer on the house.
While they had been gone we had called Jennifer and Mason to inform them of the situation and I had received a call from Detective Hanson, who was investigating the scene in the parking lot. He had phoned me as soon as he had discovered that Sgt. Williams was involved and read the report that we had given to the uniformed officers. He couldn’t tell me much officially, but he was able to tell me that Sgt. Williams and her partner had only received minor injuries, including a minor concussion. Both were now conscious and would be released from the hospital the next day after a night of observation.
Annie called Detective Hanson once they had gotten home and had been able to get a bit more information out of him, information that she was now sharing with the rest of us. Apparently, neither officer saw what had hit them nor whatever had taken out the lights. Whatever it was had also taken out all the security cameras in the parking lot and the cameras on the officers’ vests as well, so he had no idea what happened at the moment. Sgt. Williams had radioed in just before the incident to say that she was in pursuit of Lisa, and her partner had replied that he had found Lisa’s car and was waiting there to cut her off. After that, they had no information though.
Some of the cars in the area had been damaged, probably from the spell, including Lisa’s. Her purse and keys had been found nearby but so far there was no sign of her. Detective Hanson had just left her house, but she hadn’t been home and her parents hadn’t talked to her since early that morning when she left the house to go ‘look up a friend’. There had been evidence that she had been following me though, including some photos of me in her car and a receipt in her purse for that afternoon from the café around the corner from André’s studio.
“Creepy stalker confirmed,” Ellie spat bitterly. “Do you think that Khinara killed the lights and cameras on purpose, or was it just a side effect of the spell?”
“My gut says that it was deliberate,” Annie replied, “probably to keep her identity secret.”
“I’d want to keep myself off camera too if I were a Skarik, they don’t exactly blend in,” Beth pointed out.
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, “and I believe that they want to keep the existence of magick a secret from the general population of our world as much as we do. While the true existence of magick is still known to only a very few they can keep working from the shadows and have minimal interference from people like us. A human may not be a match for a Demon normally, but we do have a very large population and some powerful weapons, even if most of the population can’t use magick. They won’t risk revealing themselves to the general population until they’ve established a beachhead and a large military presence.”
“Well, we’re gonna take her down before she can do that. So how do we do find her?” I asked.
Sarah put a hand gently on my shoulder. “Shannon, I know that you want to get on this tonight, but realistically there isn’t a lot that we can do until we can find out where she is or we can draw her out. Tonight all of you need a good night’s sleep because tomorrow while you’re at school Annie and I are going to fly all over the city in our Celestial forms to scan for anywhere that Demons might be hiding out. We can’t do anything more than that in broad daylight, even while invisible to mortal eyes, but the Demons can’t move against us either since they don’t want the existence of magick known publicly any more than we do. We’ll make a note of every hotspot and then tomorrow night after dinner, as soon as it’s dark, we’re going to hit all of them.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 4 Viral Amethyst |
My sleep was broken and plagued with troubling dreams. I was getting used to the dreams of fighting Demons and visiting strange places and stranger people, those had become a constant in my life since I had become a girl and all of this magick and Demon-hunting stuff began. That was understandable under the circumstances, but these dreams were different. I kept seeing a Skarik feeding on Lisa and the whole time she was blaming me. I couldn’t really fault her either, since I was blaming myself. I should have shaken Lisa and left the mall sooner. I should have tried to take Khinara down as soon as I had felt her aura approaching.
In my head, I knew that I couldn’t have done either of those things, not without risking revealing the truth that magick was real to at least one person and/or revealing my secret to one or more enemies. My heart was not quite so forgiving though. Lisa was in this mess because she was following me. After all, I had dared to stand up to her instead of backing down. She wasn’t the only one who had gotten hurt because of me either. Sgt. Williams and her partner had both been hospitalized because they had been after Lisa, and that was on me too.
It was just after two in the morning and the third time that I had woken up in a panic. For a time I just sat there in my bed, my knees pulled in as I rocked back and forth. At least I wasn’t crying this time, but I had to very carefully control my breathing in an attempt to slow both it and my rapid pulse. I closed my eyes and tried to put my thoughts in order as Sarah had taught me. Panic never helps anyone so she was having me work on carefully organizing and prioritizing things in my head whenever I got like this. She said that it would help me to avoid any snap emotional decisions and also with multitasking with my magick when in stressful situations.
As I thought about it, I realized that my sister was right. There was really nothing that we could do for Lisa right now. First, we needed to find out where she was, and we could only do that by getting that information from Khinara or some other Demon. We had to hurry about that too because every minute that Lisa spent as a captive the risk of some sort of permanent harm to her increased. If I was going to be spending most of the next night fighting Demons though, I needed my rest. If I wasn’t alert and prepared then I would be a danger to myself and everyone that I cared about and it could lose us the chance of finding Lisa in time. With a sigh, I curled back up under the blankets, closed my eyes, and tried to get to sleep again.
I was on edge and distracted for most of the day as I anxiously waited to do something about the situation with Khinara and Lisa. Somehow, I managed to pay attention in my morning classes, but at lunch I found myself picking at my food as I paid far more attention to my plans for the evening than to what was going on around me. It was an elbow to the ribs from Beth that brought me back to the present.
We were eating lunch with Jennifer and some of the girls from our volleyball team and it seemed that someone was asking me something. I could see Dorothy leaning expectantly across the table. “Sorry Dot, I was kinda spacing out there. What did you want to know?”
“Molly Jenkins was with her little sister Meghan at the mall last night and they caught the whole thing in the food court on camera. So, is it true?” she asked again.
“Which part?” I asked carefully. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dorothy, after all, she was on our team and they all knew about me and Beth and were really supportive about it. It could be bad though if Molly really did record that video, she had a reputation.
“Well, all of it? You being on the cover of Teen Queen and the engagement?” The other girls at the table were leaning in, just as eager to hear the dirt. “Molly is the worst gossip in school, so at least half of the school has probably seen that video by now. Whether it’s true or not people are going to be talking about it.”
I turned to glare at Elsaishe and my Fae cousin shrank back in her seat a bit, giving me an apologetic look. Then I let out a sigh and nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. We heard about the thing with Teen Queen last week and Beth… umm… proposed yesterday in private. It’s not an engagement ring though, just a promise ring. We were trying to keep both of those things quiet, especially at school, but somebody got over-excited.”
Ellie winced and shrank even further into her seat. “I’m sorry, but you shocked me with the whole magazine cover thing and then people were already filming and I didn’t want people to think that Beth is some gold-digger when it’s not like that. And those rings are really nice, Mom didn’t let me see them before Beth popped the question.”
“Can we see the rings?” Jennifer asked. “I’m your best friend and you didn’t even tell me about the proposal. I only knew about the magazine thing because Mom and Dad had to approve the photos, article, and the mock-up of the cover.”
“Jen, it just happened yesterday and I had other things on my mind with Lisa following me around and other stuff. And you know the rules, we’re not allowed to wear jewelry in school, or I’d be wearing it.” I countered before looking toward Beth.
My Familiar/intended nodded and we took a quick look around before we each extracted a ring box from our purses. Every eye at the table went wide as we opened them to display the matching rings. “Omigod! Those are gorgeous! Where did you get them?! They must have cost you a lot, Beth!” Kelly squealed from beside Jennifer.
“She made them,” Ellie teased. “She’s been studying jewelry crafting as an apprentice for my mom when she’s not working for Shannon. Mom said that Beth and I could be even better than she is someday. Those rings are worth at least a grand each.”
“You made them?!” Jen gasped. “Those are amazing! I didn’t know that you were that far along in your lessons with Talisha.”
“She said that I’m a quick learner and she’s been pushing me hard to keep improving. I had to get her to do the engraving though. I didn’t want to mess it up, and I wanted these to be perfect,” Beth replied, scratching her head and looking self-consciously at the table.
Our table was starting to get a lot of looks from the other girls in the cafeteria and it was making me a bit uncomfortable so I hurriedly put my ring away and motioned for Beth to do the same. "Let’s get these out of sight. It’s bad enough that Molly is probably spreading that video around to every girl in the school, at this rate it won’t be long before…”
Of course, that was when the intercom activated with a crackle of static, followed by the voice of the Headmistress’ receptionist. “Shannon O’Reilly, Bethany Sanders, and Elsaishe Ferreire please report to the Mother Superior’s office.
I groaned and gave Ellie another glare before sighing and gathering my things. It wasn’t like I had much of an appetite anyway. Beth and Ellie followed suit and looked about as thrilled by the summons as I was, which was not in the slightest. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Ellie suggested hopefully as we trudged off toward the office, with everyone in the cafeteria watching in either interest or sympathy.
“Oh yes, how could this possibly be something bad?” I retorted in a wry whisper. “You’ve only made a very public deal about Beth and I being ‘engaged’ and now it’s all over the school after Mother Josephine specifically asked Beth and me to keep our relationship quiet here.”
“I’m sorry, Shannon, I was caught up in the moment and it seemed like such a good idea at the time,” she whispered back, shrinking under my look.
“You’d better not walk in the office all hunched like that, Ellie,” Beth advised. “Or Mother Josephine will send us all to Mrs. Simmons to work on posture and acting more ladylike if we are in for detention. Lily had to go through that once and she swears that she’ll never slouch again. Walking around with books on our heads and whatever else she can cook up does not sound like my idea of a good time.”
Ellie was walking like she had an iron rod strapped to her back as we were ushered by Miss Jameson into the Mother Superior’s office. Okay, all of us were, but really who could blame us? None of the girls in school would want to spend any more time with Mrs. Simmons than they had to, it was bad enough having her for an hour of Home Economics every day. She was one of the strictest teachers at the school, a total perfectionist, and she expected her students to be the same. Woe befell any students who didn’t measure up to her exacting expectations on anything because she would not stop working them until they did.
“Good afternoon, Reverend Mother,” we all recited dutifully as we stepped before Mother Josephine’s desk.
The school’s headmistress leveled a hard look at me and Beth. “I thought that I told the two of you to keep your relationship quiet at school. And now I’m hearing every girl in the hallway talking in hushed tones about your engagement.”
I winced and, even though I was keeping my eyes locked in front of me and on Mother Josephine, I could sense Beth and Ellie doing the same. Ellie took a deep breath and stepped forward. “This was all my fault, Reverend Mother. I kinda freaked out about Shannon being on the cover of Teen Queen next month and I didn’t realize that anyone was filming it at first and I got kinda carried away I guess, with the ring and stuff too.”
“You’re not a bad girl and I think that you mean well, but you need to learn to restrain your excitement and your impulses, Elsaishe. I will let you off with a warning, this time, but be more aware of your surroundings and circumstances in the future and think about how your actions could negatively impact both your cousin and Bethany. For you, I think that should suffice as a punishment,” Mother Josephine told Ellie sternly before turning her attention on me and Beth. “Now, as for the two of you, what should I do with you? You have made your engagement fairly public.”
“Umm… to be fair Reverend Mother, it wasn’t an engagement ring. It was a promise ring, though it means the same thing to me. We were trying to keep it quiet at school but this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion and that video and the gossip are being spread like wildfire. The news only got out because of phones taking video footage at the mall, so technically it didn’t start in school and we weren’t the ones making a big deal of it on school grounds,” I suggested hopefully.
“Which is the only reason that you’re not getting detention,” the Mother Superior said with a sigh. “I realize that you’re becoming a bit of a celebrity, Shannon, and that puts you under a microscope. Because of this, your behavior reflects on this school more than other students, even when you are not on school grounds or wearing your uniform. Those close to you will naturally draw similar attention. That being said, your lives outside school are yours to live as you please. I only ask that you try to behave responsibly and do nothing that will reflect poorly on St. Catherine’s. You’re good girls, all three of you and I would hate to see any of you hurt because you didn’t properly consider your actions or their consequences.”
“We understand, Reverend Mother. We’ll keep doing our best to keep our affection to the minimum at school and we’ll try not to do anything that could look bad for the school,” Beth offered.
“We will do our best Reverend Mother,” I agreed.
She nodded but continued giving me a long and steady look. “Now as for this magazine that you are going to be gracing the cover of, Shannon. Is there anything in that article that could negatively impact the school?”
I thought back to the interview, but I couldn’t think of anything that would make the school look bad. “Well, the interviewer did mention that I’m a student here, but I only said how much I love the school and the staff. I did admit to being bisexual but I told them that I try to keep a lid on my orientation at school, I wouldn’t ask a girl who hadn’t already shown a definite interest in me, and that I’m already in a relationship with a girl, but I never mentioned Beth by name. I also told them that we do not have a physical relationship and that I don’t think either of us will be ready for one until we’re much older. I wasn’t going to lie about anything, Reverend Mother.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Shannon. I am sure that shouldn’t cause any problems, if anything it should make us appear more forward-thinking and accepting, which could be a good thing. It also shows you to be a girl of good morals, which will also make the school look good. I just hope that your celebrity status won’t put the school under a microscope as well, not all of our students are as level-headed as you,” she said before letting out a sigh.
“We really didn’t want any of this getting all over school like this so fast and I would hate for this to cause problems for the school. I don’t want to be a celebrity, I was happy with my life the way it was and I’m already way too busy as it is. I’m already dreading how many copies of that issue of Teen Queen that I’m going to have to sign now that word is getting around school about that.”
To my surprise, Mother Josephine smiled. “We don’t always get what we want, Shannon, but I’m sure that you won’t let all of the attention go to your head. So, for your punishment…” She let it hang there for a moment, making me very uncomfortable and I could sense that same sense of dread coming from Beth through our link. “Well, perhaps it is more of a favor than a punishment.”
“A favor?” Beth and I asked at once, a little uncertain of where this was going.
“Yes, a favor,” she clarified. “You do not have to accept it. Normally I would not involve my students in what is essentially a personal matter, but I think that you and Beth could help my niece, Michelle. She’s a bit younger than you and she admitted to her parents that she’s attracted to girls when she was fourteen, just before Bethany’s orientation was made public in school. I had originally found the support group that I referred Bethany to for her. She’s not like the two of you though, she’s so alone and isolated right now. She’s very timid socially, a bit of a social misfit, and lacks confidence so we haven’t been able to get her to go to the support group yet. I was hoping that she might gain some confidence, feel better about herself, and possibly get the support that she needs with the right example. Maybe you could even sign an extra copy of that magazine for her. She needs to know that she’s not alone.”
I knew what it was like to feel all alone in the world and if I could help free someone from that burden then there was only one answer that I could give. “I’ll do it, Reverend Mother.”
“Me too,” Beth quickly agreed.
“We’ll all do it,” Ellie chimed in. “I know what it’s like to feel all alone and not know where you fit in socially. That was my life until I came to stay with my cousins. What do you want us to do?”
The Mother Superior smiled at us as she breathed a sigh of relief and quickly scribbled something on a post-it note before handing it to me. “You are all such good girls, you make me proud. This is my sister’s cell number, you can make the arrangements with her. Just tell her that you’re the girls from my school and that I asked you to call, she’ll know what it’s about.”
“We’ll call her after volleyball practice, Reverend Mother,” I quickly promised.
“Thank you girls, now you should all hurry or you’ll be late for class. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have Miss Jenkins summoned so that she and I can have a little conversation about the consequences of idle gossip.” She sighed again and waved us out of the room.
“Well, that could have gone worse,” Beth said in a relieved tone as we made our way to our lockers.
“Yeah, it could have,” I agreed. Just remind me to make that call after practice, I don’t think that we’ll have the time tonight. We have a busy night ahead of us.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 5 The Hunt is On Amethyst |
The afternoon classes seemed to drag on forever. Finally, though, we were released and Beth and I headed to Volleyball practice with Ellie, who went to get the equipment ready while Beth and I changed with the other girls on the team. At least Volleyball helped me to use up some of that nervous energy that had been building up since Khinara had disappeared with Lisa. I couldn’t help it, I had a really bad feeling about it. The practice also allowed me to focus both my mind and body on something else and it was a welcome distraction.
We had just showered, retrieved our things from our lockers, and were heading home with Elsaishe in my car when Beth reminded me, “We should call Mother Josephine’s sister before we get too involved in things tonight, sweetheart. We did promise her we’d help.”
“Thanks for reminding me my love, I’ll do it now.” I looked through my purse and came up with the post-it note that Mother Josephine had written her sister’s name and phone number on. Once I had the information in hand, I quickly tapped in the number on my phone and then tapped the call button.
It took a few rings before a woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Umm… hello, Mrs. Dubois?” I inquired.
“Yes, who’s calling?”
I took a deep breath before speaking in my friendliest voice. “You don’t know me, but my name is Shannon O’Reilly, I go to St. Catherine’s and Mother Josephine suggested that I call. She thought that my friends and I might be able to help support your daughter. We could hang out with her and get to know one another a bit and maybe help her to see that she’s not alone.”
“Oh, yes! My sister told me earlier this afternoon that you would be calling. I’m… not really sure what to do about Michelle. We’re worried about her. She won’t talk to us about what’s going on with her since she came out to us last year, she doesn’t leave the house much except for school, and she spends most of the time that she is home in her room.” Her voice was low, and I could hear the heartbreak in it.
“Do you think that we could maybe come to your home to meet her later this week? Maybe Thursday?” I asked. “I’m kind of busy tonight and tomorrow and Wednesday we have Volleyball practice, so it would be almost dinner time by the time we’d be ready to meet her. Thursday we could come right after school though.” As much as I wanted to get right on this we still had Lisa to worry about and it might take a few days to find her. If we didn’t find her by Thursday though, rescuing her might be a moot point.
“You want to come to see her here? I thought that you would want to meet Michelle at the mall or something, and getting out of the house would do her some good.” Mrs. Dubois responded. She didn’t sound against the idea, just surprised.
I began to calmly explain my reasoning. “With all due respect Ma’am, if we’re going to build a friendship with Michelle, help her feel better about herself, and show her that she’s not alone then I think that we need to build that relationship on honesty and trust. We need to be open with her about why we’re meeting her and we need our first meeting to be somewhere that she feels safe and secure. Somewhere that she can end things if they don’t go well. I don’t think the mall would be good for that and I don’t want it to look like we might be manipulating her by having her go somewhere where she isn’t comfortable. Real friends don’t do that to one another.”
There was a pause on the other end before she spoke again. “My sister was right, you have a good head on your shoulders, Shannon. Michelle usually gets home around three-thirty so she’ll probably be home by the time you can get here from St. Catherine’s. Let me give you our address.”
The address was pretty easy to remember but I added the info to my phone along with the phone number by adding Mrs. Dubois to my contacts list. By the time we had gotten home, I had also looked up the address to get a general idea of where it was. It was practically on the other side of the city and it would likely take us a good forty-five minutes to get there from school on Thursday. We could take mostly back roads though so I thought that it might be a good time for me to get some more driving practice in. I really wanted to get my license by December if possible. Sarah said that I was doing well so far and I had done a few short drives in my car with Beth as well, though she couldn’t legally teach me.
Everyone was already gathered in the living room when we stepped inside the house and Sarah had prepared a platter of cheese, crackers, veggies, and her special chipotle ranch dip so we could have a quick meal while we were planning our evening search for Lisa. From the looks of the city map that was laid out we had quite a bit of work ahead of us too. While they had been invisibly surveilling the city by air in their Celestial forms earlier in the day Sarah and Annie had sensed the presence of Demons in nine different locations. Even if we split up into three smaller groups we were going to have to hit at least three locations each, kill whatever Demons were there, and leave at least one alive long enough to grill for information. This could take all night, especially since neither Elsaishe nor I had a Celestial form to allow us to fly and remain invisible to mortals so that we could avoid traffic.
We had finished eating and were poring over the map when Sarah quickly jotted something down on three post-it notes, keeping one for herself, handing one to me, and the other to Mason. “The targets in the northern part of the city are spread fairly far apart and a good distance from here so I think that it would be best if Mason and Jennifer take the three to the northeast and Annie and I take the four to the northwest. Shannon, Ziralin, and Elsaishe, you’ll take the two locations to the south. One of those locations is on the University of Toronto campus, so you may have to use glamours so that you won’t be recognized and can blend in on the campus if you have to search in any places where there are people gathered.”
“We still have those fake ID’s from the Vampire hunt, Sis,” I suggested. “We can use those identities if we have blend in, they’re about the right age, and Ellie and Ziralin didn’t have much trouble with the glamours last time.
“Good idea Shannon,” Annie agreed with a nod. “You may need them for some reason, you should all take a change of clothes too. Your hunting gear might attract a bit too much attention on campus.”
“Couldn’t Ellie and Ziralin just include normal-looking clothes in the glamours?” Jennifer inquired.
Ellie shrugged as she replied. “We could, but it would be more complex and use more magick energy. It might give us away to any Demons.”
“…and if it did they would actively avoid us or attack us first,” Ziralin added. “It’s probably best that we put as little magick into the glamours as possible, so we’ll just change our hair and eye color, make our eyes and ears look more human, and make subtle changes to our faces to make us look older, just like we did last time.”
“Let’s get going then, I’ve written down the general area for each Demonic presence so you’ll know where to start looking, but if any of you feel like you’re going to be in over your head you call us, or Shannon can use a communication spell if things are looking really bad,” Sarah advised.
Our first target location was Tommy Thomson Park. It had started snowing since we had gotten home from volleyball practice and several centimeters of fresh powder already covered the trails that we were walking in search of our quarry. It was cold too, nearly minus twenty degrees Celsius and our breath was fogging as soon as it left our mouths. I found myself extremely glad that Sarah had spelled our Hunting clothes to protect us from the elements and to keep us comfortable in any weather. We had been walking the trails for over half an hour by the time that I could feel the excitement of discovery coming from my empathic link with Ziralin.
“You sense something?” It was more of an observation than a question since I knew that her magick sense and ability to detect demonic auras was more sensitive than my own.
My Fae girlfriend and Familiar nodded her pretty elven head and pointed to the south. “That way, I think that it’s somewhere close to the shoreline.” She took off at a run and Ellie and I quickly followed, though the two Fae were careful to set a pace that I could keep up with. We turned when the trail that we were on intersected another but stopped short when we spotted the footprints in the snow. “These are fresh, maybe five to ten minutes ago. I can still see the tread marks fairly easily. Men’s hiking boots I think, and from the depth of the indents in the snow it looks like he’s a pretty big guy.”
“Do you think he’s our guy?” Ellie asked with a frown, her hand reaching for her duffel bag. The bag contained the silver-coated swords that Ziralin had used before gaining her Celestial form and a paintball pistol with extra CO2 cartridges, paintballs, and two extra 7-ball clips. The ammunition had a little more stopping power against Demons though. I had enhanced the paint pellets much as I had the shotgun shells when we were in Tír na nÓg, by stuffing them full of pure holy magical energy and spelling them to explode and release that holy magick when they hit a demon. If they didn’t hit a Demon then they would just splatter like a regular paintball.
“It’s possible,” Ziralin replied as we jogged along the trail, following the tracks. “The tracks aren’t spaced like a person walking or running though, they’re uneven and dragging in places like he’s staggering. It could be some guy drinking out here who’s had a few too many, but I don’t see anything other than the tracks to make that a likely possibility.”
I nodded in agreement. While Ziralin had been examining the tracks I had been examining something else. There was dark magick at work here, it tasted like overripe cherries and vinegar and felt like satin wrapped in thorns or prickles. “I don’t think he’s drunk, at least not on alcohol. Do you feel that magick?”
“Yeah, it feels weird,” Ellie said, her hand still resting on the duffel bag. There’s some dark intent there, desire, and a sort of pulling sensation too. Do you think he’s been magically roofied?”
“Yeah, it’s got to be some sort of attraction spell, and it’s pulling him right toward that Demonic aura,” I told my cousin with a frown. Then we were off running again and near the shoreline of Lake Ontario by the time we saw a large man in a tan parka shuffling through the snow toward the water’s edge. I couldn’t let him reach that water, even if the Demon didn’t get him he’d likely drown or freeze to death. I used some of my stored magical energy, focusing my intent on the man pushing my desire upon the world and my target as I said, “Sleep.”
The man collapsed, falling to the shore about fifteen feet shy of the water. The second that my spell was cast and he hit the ground a bone-chilling shriek sounded through the evening air. The source was a woman, sort of. She had been mostly submerged so I hadn’t really seen her in the darkness until her shadowy form had emerged from the lake and ran for the man that I had felled with my spell. Ellie and Ziralin had seemingly caught the movement as well, because my cousin had cast several Faerie-fires to shed a little light on the situation and Ziralin had changed to her Celestial form, her wings spread and her twin swords linked at the pommels to form her holy bow.
The Demoness had barely left the water when the first bolt of holy light left Ziralin’s bow to strike the snowy ground, mere millimeters from the Demoness’s toes. “A Siren,” Ziralin spat in distaste. “If she had gotten that man in the water she would have drowned and eaten him.” The Siren’s face was beautiful, nearly angelic with long black hair, full pouty lips, and bright blue eyes that were almost hypnotic. She wore no clothing and she had a near-perfect hourglass figure with large breasts and wide hips, but from the hips down her legs were covered in blue-black scales. Her legs weren’t the only strange thing about her either, at first I thought that she had a bird’s wings instead of arms, but as we got closer I could see that they were some kind of large scaly fins with clawed talons at the ends.
She shrieked in rage, displaying a mouth full of needle-like teeth but instead of attacking us she turned and made a break for the water. Before she had gotten knee-deep I had cast my next spell, freezing the water around her solid and stopping her in her tracks. “I have a question for you Demon,” I said, putting as much venom into my voice as I could muster.
She turned her head to sneer at us. “I will tell you nothing. I have nothing to say to Faerie filth and Celestial scum.”
“Are you sure about that? My friend here can be very convincing,” Ziralin suggested threateningly.
“You’re going to kill me whether I answer or not,” the Siren hissed angrily.
Elsaishe shrugged. “You kill and eat men and you’re part of a Demon invasion force, if we let you live and stay in our world then every death at your hands after that is on us. So yeah, we have to take you down one way or another.”
I thought about the platinum hand flowers underneath my gloves, I could probably get her to talk with those. No, she wouldn’t talk, she’d scream and probably wouldn’t give me an honest answer anyway. And when it came right down to it I didn’t think I could condone torture, even with a Demon, that would just be sinking to their level and we were better than that. Instead, I gathered my magick, focused my willpower on her and how she was going to tell me the truth, and then I released the magick and let the spell fly. “Just one question, if you answer it then maybe I can send you back to Heil instead of killing you. Where is Khinara?”
The Siren laughed. “You’re looking for Khinara? She will end you, and all of your friends. She’s the most powerful Demon in Heil except for the Demon King himself. I wish that I did know where she was, if only to hasten your demise.”
“You have no idea where she is?” I pressed.
“No, but wherever she is I’m sure she’ll be pleased when she finds out that I killed you!” She turned toward me as best she could with her legs trapped in the ice and flicked her wing-like appendages, causing several small objects to fly toward me. Ziralin dove to knock me aside, narrowly avoiding both of us being impaled by the spikes. It was as she knocked me to the ground that I heard the *pfft* of Ellie’s paintball pistol being fired and the Siren’s final scream before she turned to ash.
“Are you okay?” Ziralin asked from atop me looking down in concern and breathing heavily.
“Yeah, you knocked me out of the way in time, what the hell was that?” I replied breathily, my heart racing.
“Toxic spines, deadly to humans,” she answered, kissing me tenderly before standing and offering a hand to help me up. “Apparently, Torphael has fought Sirens before. I saw her fins flexing and I knew what was coming.”
‘Thanks, both of you. Your Fae reflexes saved my ass,” I said with a sigh as I let my girlfriend help me to my feet and looked to where the Siren had stood a moment before. “I guess we’re not getting anything out of her, maybe we’ll get more out of our next target.”
“Sorry Cuz,” Elsaishe said sheepishly. “She tried to kill you and she didn’t know anything.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Ellie, you did what needed to be done. She was of no more use to us and if I had sent her back to Heil, she probably would have caused more trouble for us later. Thanks for having my back.”
“So what do we do about this guy?” Ziralin asked, nodding toward the parka-clad man lying in the snow.
“He didn’t see anything, and even if he did he probably wouldn’t remember it, so let’s get hidden in the trees over there, and then I’ll wake him.” We gathered our gear and hid in some brush and, once I had used a spell to smooth out the snow and erase any signs of our battle or our presence, I released him from my sleep spell. It took a few minutes before he stirred, but after looking around in confusion and trying to get his bearings he got to his feet and then he was back on the trail that he had come from.
We waited a good ten minutes to be sure that he was gone before emerging from our cover. I took a deep relieved breath and as we were heading back down the trail ourselves I muttered, “One down, one to go. Hopefully, we’ll have better luck at the university.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 6 Higher Education Amethyst |
It was nearly nine-thirty by the time that we had gotten home to change from our Hunting gear and into some normal clothes. Since it was snowing and freaking cold out we hadn’t wanted to try finding a quiet spot to change and it wasn’t too far out of the way to come home between our two targets. The others were still out hunting it seemed, so we quickly changed into some casual clothes that we figured university students might wear, and then Ziralin and Elsaishe cast our glamours using the pictured from our fake ID’s as a basis so that once again I became Kiley Anderson and Ziralin and Ellie became Rebecca and Allison Pond.
It was damn cold out and since we might have to wander the campus a bit, I decided on a blouse and tight jeans combo. I chose a nice powder blue poet blouse with white lace frills on the hem and the cuffs and a daring V-neck that showed a lot more cleavage than I would normally be comfortable with. Resting in that cleavage was a silver pentacle on a chain that Ellie had made for me. The good thing about the blouse was that the billowing ruffled sleeves concealed a good half of my hands and the platinum hand flowers that adorned them. I just had to keep telling myself that Kiley wasn’t me, she was an outgoing university student.
Then there were the Pond sisters. Ziralin, or rather Rebecca, was wearing tight jeans as well, and a crimson halter top that looked really sexy on her and went well with the black hair she was sporting. Ellie, or Allison, though decided on a pair of white leggings and a really tight-fitting knit dress in an emerald hue. Since the duffel bag would be impractical, unless the Demons happened to be gym-rats, she made sure to carry a fairly large purse to store her fake ID, some of the stuff from her usual purse, and the paintball pistol with one extra clip and CO2 cartridge. She was also wearing a collection of simple silver rings and bracelets, just in case she needed the metal.
Once we had gotten our coats, boots, and other suitable cold-weather gear on we were back in my car and on our way to the campus. I had been tempted to get some driving practice in, but sadly it was still snowing fairly heavily and I didn’t have any experience driving in the snow. Not that Ziralin did, except for earlier that evening, but it was far more than I had and she also had her Faery reflexes.
Once we arrived we tried to wander around the main areas of the campus, but there were certain areas we couldn’t access because we didn’t have student cards, or TCards as they called them. The cards not only acted as ID cards but also provided access to various services and facilities. From what I’d seen and heard while we were searching, and talking to some of the students, if you wanted to use the libraries, athletic facilities, printing services, and other facilities or even take your exams, get on a meal plan, or use the online learning services you needed a TCard and a passcode to go with it. “This might complicate things,” I muttered as we left the area of the athletic facilities and took off in a random direction.
“Couldn’t you make a fake one like with the Driver’s Licenses?” Ellie asked, looking around warily as we walked. It was nearly eleven o’clock and we were all getting a bit cold and tired.
I shook my head sadly. “I would need to be able to see one up close to do that, and it would only make it look like the card, it wouldn’t be cleared through security to work like a real one and we wouldn’t have a passcode anyway.”
“Well, that really sucks,” Ziralin replied with a groan. “We’ll just have to keep looking in the areas that we can access. If we don’t find anything by midnight we’ll call it a night and head home. Maybe we can come right after school tomorrow and see if we can somehow get one of us a card.”
“I don’t know, maybe, but it’ll involve getting in people’s heads and I’m not very good at that. And I don’t really like the idea of using magick like that unless it’s absolutely nec…” I stopped speaking mid-word as I felt a very familiar Demonic presence at the edge of the range of my magick sense. Ziralin sensed it as well and we both stopped in our tracks and looked at one another in shock.
Ellie had gotten several steps ahead of us before she realized that we were no longer with her and quickly turned around. “What’s wrong? You both look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did you sense something? Is It Khinara?”
I quickly shook off the queasy feeling in my stomach and shook my head before answering her in a hushed tone. “We’ve got something, but it’s not Khinara. It’s something disturbingly familiar though.”
“Yeah,” my Familiar/girlfriend agreed with a grimace spreading across her glamoured face. “It feels almost like…”
“Aarianna,” I finished for her. “You killed her though and the flavor and texture of the aura aren’t quite the same. It has to be a different Succubus.”
“More than one from what I’m sensing,” Ziralin pointed out. Then she closed her eyes and her brow furrowed in concentration for a moment before she finally let out a sigh. “Yeah there are three of them, but they’re fairly close to one another.”
“We can’t afford to go easy on them, Succubi are strong, fast, and very capable at using magick, even if Aarianna couldn’t. We’ll leave one alive to question but we need to take down the others hard and fast if we can,” I said as I looked in the direction of the three Demonic presences.
“Well, at least they can’t put the whammy on us, right? Their charms only work on men, so all we really need to worry about is taking them down and not letting them use magick,” Ellie offered as we started off at a fast walk toward the auras. “Maybe we can wait for them and take them by surprise while they’re looking for a meal.”
“It’s a good idea Ellie, but you’re wrong about them not being able to whammy us,” Ziralin supplied with a frown. “They only feed on tantric energy of men, but they attract people through a combination of really powerful pheromones and a hypnotic gaze, like Vampires. Remember how that Vampire bitch whammied Annie? It could work on me and Shannon since we’re attracted to girls. They may not think of that though, Aarianna didn’t.”
“Yeah, but Aarianna hadn’t been a Succubus for long when we fought her, she wasn’t exactly well-adjusted, and you had her too angry to think straight,” I quickly pointed out.
“Okay, let’s be extra careful then,” she agreed. We were almost off-campus now and it felt like we were really close. “We’ll find them and pick them off one by one once they’re alone if we can, I mean it’s not like they’re all going to be staying in the same place… oh hell!” the last was spat out as Ziralin stopped short and I nearly slammed into her back.
I looked at the massive house in front of us with Greek letters over the main entrance as Ellie gave a curse of her own. “Shit. It just had to be a sorority house didn’t it?”
“Of course it did, why wouldn’t it be?” I grumbled. “Ziralin, my love, you really have to learn to stop tempting Murphy’s Law.”
The lights were all on and it looked like there were a lot of people inside on the ground floor from what we could see. “Some kind of party?” Ellie suggested.
“Seems like it,” I agreed. “Maybe we can go inside and blend in while we track down our Demonic friends.”
“It’s worth a try,” my Fae Familiar said with a shrug. “Just be careful and don’t drink or eat anything unless you’re absolutely sure of what it is and that it’s safe.”
“If we have to interact with a bunch of people we’ll need to keep our stories straight,” I quickly added in a whisper. “We should keep the backgrounds as close to our own as possible too, so we don’t get tripped up. Graduates of a prestigious private school, good grades, Kiley is looking into getting into fashion or modeling, and she and Becky are both here on a volleyball scholarship. Hopefully, we won’t run into anyone who actually plays volleyball here. Allie is here because she wanted to study economics for when the two of you take over the family business.”
Both of the Fae nodded and Ellie said, “That should be easy enough to follow. If people want to know more than that we’re probably talking to them more than we should be.”
“Well, here goes nothing,” I muttered, as I took a deep breath and led the way to the door to ring the doorbell. I was a little worried about this. We would have to make sure not to get too close until we were ready to take them down. I wasn’t too worried about the hypnosis portion of their powers. I seemed to have some protection from mental attacks when Khinara tried, and as my Familiar Ziralin was resistant to any magick but my own, but if we got too close those pheromones could be a problem. I was a bit concerned about Ellie too. She had told me that she wasn’t sure what her orientation was yet, but she had also admitted that most of the Faery seem to be bisexual to some degree. Ziralin wasn’t, but she wasn’t exactly born a Faery either.
I was almost ready to call the whole thing off as we waited until the door opened and a very pretty brunette appeared. She wore a cheerful smile, a short pleated white skirt and white heels that really showed off her legs, and a pastel pink crop top with the same Greek letters that were over the door sprawled across her large chest. She gave the three of us a quick once-over with her eyes and greeted us. “Hi, are you here to rush?”
“Rush?” Ellie asked, a bit uncertainly.
“You know, for the Informational?” she asked, then she didn’t even really give us much chance to reply before cheerfully chattering on. “This is your chance to get to know some of our members, ask any questions you might have, and find out if Alpha Kappa Phi is right for you. And we can find out if you’re right for Alpha Kappa Phi. You’re a bit late, things got started like ten minutes ago.”
“Oh yeah!” I quickly responded once she came up for air. “Being an Alpha Kappa Phi girl is, like, totes my dream! I’m Kiley, and this is my BFF Becky and her sister Allie.” I felt ridiculous acting like a perky ditz, but I had a persona to portray.
“Yeah, sorry for being late, we live off-campus right now and the streets are like crazy with all of this snow,” Ziralin, or rather Rebecca offered with a shrug.
“I’m Selina, come on in and get out of the cold,” she offered, opening the door wider and stepping aside so we could pass through. Once we were all inside with the door closed behind us, she led us to what seemed to be a large coat-room. “You can leave your jackets and stuff here, and then come mingle in the main room,” she said.
I mentally cursed as I removed my scarf, gloves, knit cap, and coat. “Shit. Why in the hell would a bunch of Succubi want to join a sorority? They don’t usually need help attracting men and if they have a taste for frat boys then all they really need to do is show up on campus and their looks and abilities can take care of the rest. It doesn’t make any sense. Now a frat party, on the other hand, that would make sense.”
I could sense similar uncertainty coming from Ziralin’s mind, but we didn’t dare talk openly about it with Selina standing there waiting for us. Once we had all shed our outerwear and had rejoined our guide she looked us over once again, taking in our glamoured personas this time without the heavy winter coats and stuff in the way. “Nice, you girls definitely have potential. If you’re lucky maybe one of our sisters will take an interest in you and take you under their wing.”
“OMG that would be so awesome!” I enthused, playing my part to the hilt.
Apparently, we had missed the big introduction, so Selina made the rounds, taking us around and introducing us to some of her sorority sisters, all of whom were wearing shirts similar to her own. At least that made it easy to tell who the sorority girls were and who the guests were. I was carefully looking at each of the guests, but none of the ones I passed by or gave an overly cheerful “hello” to, seemed to be our Succubi. We made the minimum of small talk. but I was beginning to lose hope of finding them in the crowd at all when I felt it. My head snapped around in the direction that the uneasy feeling was coming from almost at the exact same second that Ellie and Ziralin did the same.
Three incredibly beautiful young women were descending the stairs from the second floor of the house, an Asian, a brunette, and a blonde. They all wore those pastel pink Alpha Kappa Phi crop tops but the Asian wore a black leather micro mini skirt, the brunette wore a similar skirt in what looked like white latex, and a blonde had on the tightest skinny jeans I had ever seen. Seriously, if she had a dime in her pocket I probably could have known the year that it was minted without her having to take it out. I didn’t need to feel their demonic auras to realize that they were our targets, they were just too gorgeous to be regular human beings. I was actually a bit jealous and, given my confidence about my looks, that was saying something. I couldn’t help but stare a little.
“Who are they?” I heard Beth cautiously ask Selina.
I could hear the envy in Selina’s voice as she replied, “Oh, the brunette is Danica, she’s our chapter president. The blonde is Lily, one of our recruiters, and we call the Asian girl Kari since none of us can pronounce her real name. Kari is a new member, she just joined us at the beginning of the year, but I guess that she, Danica, and Lily really hit it off because they made her a member so quickly, she hardly had to do any pledging at all. Most of us thought they were closet lesbos when she came and wrapped them around her little finger, but now they’re as bad as she is with the frat boys, it’s like they have a new one every night. God, I get so jealous of them sometimes, I wish that I looked half that good. Hey, they’re coming this way, I’ll make the intros. If they like you, your chances of getting in are pretty good.”
Nobody needed to tell me that they were coming toward us, as soon as they were halfway down the stairs Kari stopped and seemed to sniff the air before whispering to the other pair for a moment and looking directly at us. As soon as they hit the bottom of the stairs they came straight at us like a homing missile. That told me two things; first, they had probably detected our glamours. Second, Kari was the one in charge. The others were either newbie Succubi, or she had given them a Demon Brand. I suspected the former since I couldn’t sense the presence of a Brand and the aura that they gave off was just too similar to Kari’s. She wasn’t trying to join the sorority, she already had and now she was trying to control it, but why?
The three practically glided across the floor toward us, gracefully navigating the crowd and smiling like a pack of wolves with a nice tasty deer in their sights. This was not a good idea, we needed to get out of here. We knew who they were and where they were, and that should be enough for the moment. I grabbed Ellie’s hand and sent a mental distress signal to Beth and was turning to leave when a soft hand tightly gripped my shoulder and a wonderfully musical voice asked, “So Selina, who do we have here?”
“This is Kiley, Becky, and Allie. Girls, this Danica, Lily, and Kari, the girls that I was just telling you about,” Selina said smoothly giving us a wink as I tried to keep smiling and not grind my teeth or inhale too deeply. I could sense that Ziralin was fighting it too, but a look to my right showed Ellie gazing adoringly at Lily, fully caught under her spell. This was the worst possible time to confirm that Ellie liked girls. I reached into my purse for my phone, I needed to text Sarah an S.O.S. I wanted to cast a spell, but my brain felt fuzzy and I couldn’t really focus.
“It’s nice to meet you girls,” Kari said, flashing me a smile that seemed to light up the whole room. “Danica? Lily? What do you think? They look like Alpha Kappa Phi girls to me, maybe we should give them an interview?”
Damn was she gorgeous. “NO!” I told myself, “I already have someone that I’m in love with… wait, what was her name? Oh, yeah, Kari. How could I possibly forget that? She’s everything to me.” I was suddenly giddy, my heart pounding in my chest as I asked, “An interview?”
“Of course, you want to be Alpha Kappa Phi girls don’t you?” I think it was Lily who asked that, but I only had eyes for Kari. She was an Alpha Kappa Phi girl though, and if I were too I could spend so much more time with her.
Wait, why was I gripping my phone so tight? I shook my head and giggled. It probably wasn’t anything important. Nothing was as important to me as Kari “I’ve never wanted anything more,” I finally answered with a dreamy sigh.
Somewhere to my right, I heard Danica’s voice say, “Let’s head upstairs for some privacy then, I’ll take Becky here and, Lily, you can interview Allie. Kari, do you think that you could interview Kiley for me?”
Kari gave me that beautiful smile again and my heart took flight as she said, “I’d love to. I can’t wait for you to join the sisterhood, Kiley.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 7 Interview With A Succubus Amethyst |
I was so happy as I followed Kari and her friends upstairs. The moment we were upstairs and in a hallway leading off to a bunch of rooms Kari told Danica and Lily, “Find out what you can from them, and once I’m done with this one I’ll prepare the potion so they can join our little family.” Kari was definitely the one in charge and it made me so happy that she had chosen me. And she said we were going to join. That meant that I was going to be an Alpha Kappa Phi girl and spend more time with Kari. I couldn’t remember ever being so happy in my life. Sarah and the others were going to be so jealous. Wait, Sarah, she’d sent me… us here, but why?
“Stop fighting it, give in Kiley,” Kari instructed.
I shook my head trying to clear it, something was wrong there was this little nagging voice in my head that kept trying to tell me that, but what could possibly be wrong? I was alone with the girl I loved and she was going to let me join the sisterhood. I tried to relax and Kari smiled at me, making my heart melt. “So my dear Kiley, why don’t you tell me why three Faery who haven’t even gotten their wings yet came to join Alpha Kappa Phi?”
I suddenly felt horrible. She thought I was a Faery, what if she hated me when I told her the truth? And I needed to tell her the truth, I loved her too much to lie to her. “I’m not really a Faery, Kari,” I told her apologetically. “My name isn’t really Kiley, well I guess it sorta is since it’s my middle name, but my real name is Shannon. I have some Faery blood, enough for their glamours to work on me, but I’m really a Witch. I didn’t even know that I wanted to join Alpha Kappa Phi until I met you. We came here hoping to find out where Khinara is.”
She laughed at that, she had the most wonderful laugh I had ever heard, it was like music. “And just what do a witchling and two Fae want with Khinara?” She wore this really intense expression on her face and her eyes narrowed when she said that name. She didn’t like Khinara, but that was okay because I didn’t like her either.
“Oh, she took someone she shouldn’t have and it’s my fault so I’m going to find her and kill her,” I told her with a big smile.
She laughed that amazing laugh again and I felt so pleased that I could make her laugh like that. “You’re going to kill the most powerful Demon from Heil other than the Demon King himself?”
“Yeah, she’s scared of me because she can’t get into my head and she said something about me being possibly the most powerful being that she has ever seen.”
Kari’s eyes widened in surprise, her lips curling into that magnificent smile of hers. I felt a pressure sort of pushing into my brain but then it suddenly stopped and she was staring at me in admiration. Well, I hoped that it was admiration since I really didn’t want to scare her off or anything, I just loved her too much. “I… can’t. Something is protecting your thoughts, you’ve placed some sort of barrier there that I can’t break through. Lower it, Shannon.”
“I’d love to, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t put up any barriers, or if I did I have no idea how I did it,” I admitted sadly, feeling terrible that I couldn’t take them down.
‘How could you put up something that powerful and not know how? Are you just naturally that powerful? And Khinara fears you?” At my nod that amazing smile returned. “If you’re this powerful as a mere mortal, how powerful will you be when I’ve used my blood to turn you into one of my own kind? You’ll have the power to kill Khinara and maybe even the Demon King himself and you will be bound to my will.” She shivered in pleasure as she grinned at me. “You’d like that wouldn’t you Shannon, to drink of my blood and become one of us and to serve me? I’ll be the Queen of Heil and you will destroy anyone who dares oppose me.”
Drink of her blood and serve her? There was something very familiar about that and I was trying to remember what it was as she leaned in and kissed me passionately. There was something about an Incubus and another Succubus… wait Kari was a Succubus?” It was getting so hard to focus as her tongue darted around in my mouth and her hand began to caress my breast through my top. My nipples were painfully hard and I was well aware that I was soaking my panties as I reacted to that kiss. Nobody had ever kissed me like this, made me feel like this before.
As Kari pushed me down onto her bed a face flashed through my mind, long silver hair and beautiful green eyes. My heart skipped a beat. Ziralin, she was the one that I really loved. This wasn’t real, something was wrong. No, Kari loved me or we wouldn’t be here doing this and she wouldn’t want me to join her. Kari was atop me reaching to open my blouse when she pulled her hand back as if it had been burned. My breath caught in my throat, had she been hurt? “You’re wearing silver, take it off,” she instructed coldly, looking at my silver pentacle with distaste.
I reached up toward my throat, how could I have left that on? Kari could have been hurt. I couldn’t possibly hurt the one I love. Again the image of the silver-haired girl flashed through my mind. Ziralin. I could feel the pull connecting us, how could this compare to that bond? But Kari was so beautiful and she wanted me and right now my body wanted her so very badly. The image of Ziralin vanished and I found myself looking up into Kari’s eyes as I reached for my pentacle to remove it. She was so beautiful and I felt a sudden uncontrollable urge to reach up and caress her face, to make sure that this was all truly real.
I smiled up at her adoringly and reached up to cup her face in my hands. My ruffled sleeves fell from my hands and as I cupped her face, oh so lovingly, she screamed in agony. The smell of burning flesh and her screams brought me back to reality. The rings of my platinum hand flowers were causing her flesh to sizzle and the stink filled my nostrils as I gripped her head tighter. Normally I’d be against this method of questioning, but since she had just tried to turn me into her personal butt-monkey and was having her minions doing who knows what with Ziralin and Ellie I felt a little less bad about it. Besides I needed answers fast if I was going to help the others. “Where the hell is Khinara you succubitch?!”
“Aiiii!!! I don’t know! She sends her orders through her other servants!”
“Who?!” I pressed.
“I don’t know!” she screamed in agony. “Whoever her favorite servant of the week is! It could be anyone! Someone is supposed to be coming tonight at midnight to check on my recruitment drive!”
“Your drive is over and you’re not going to be here when whoever it is comes calling,” I told her. I drew in magical energy, purifying it as I did so, and then I released that holy magick from my hands, turning her head and the rest of her to ash. I got up from the bed, straightening my clothes as I tried to wipe the ashes off, and tried really hard not to think about what had almost happened. No such luck. “Eww ewww ewwww! Her slimy forked tongue was in my mouth! That taste is never going to go away!”
I shook there, crying on the bed for several minutes trying to get control of myself, and then I threw up. It was like I could still feel her hands on me, her tongue in my mouth, and worse yet how my body had responded. I felt so violated, so dirty, worse yet I felt like I had betrayed Ziralin. The taste of vomit was only a mild improvement to the taste of Kari’s tongue and I had to force myself to shake off the what-ifs and the mental breakdown that I was certain was going to come later. Ziralin and Ellie needed me.
I could feel that my girlfriend was fighting as hard as she could, but she could handle herself if I gave her the right push. I sent my determination and my love for her along our mental link. Not lust, like the Succubi used, but love. Lust is hollow, empty, and temporary there’s no real emotion there but the body’s reactions to desire. Love on the other hand is a torrent of emotions, wild and sometimes conflicting, but real. It’s missing you and worrying about you when you’re gone, contentment and happiness when you’re together. It's grief, pain, loyalty, trust, need, wonder, exhilaration, and sometimes even fury because when you truly love someone you don’t just feel things because of them, you feel things for them too. As I followed the pull of her mind I sent Ziralin all of that and that one more thing. Three little words that I focused all of my thoughts on. “I love you.”
I was almost to the door that I felt her behind when it flew off its hinges and into the wall with a succubus attached. A torrent of arrows or light followed it out, leaving Danica looking like an iridescent pincushion for the brief seconds before she turned to ash. Ziralin stumbled out of the room in her Celestial form, wiping her mouth on her arm and looking as sick to her stomach as I felt. “Thanks, Babe, I needed that.” Her eyes looked me over in concern, as she asked “Are you okay?”
“I’m saving the nervous breakdown for later,” I admitted, looking away guiltily. “Ellie needs us right now. Any idea where she is?”
“Near the end of the hall, or that’s where her scent leads. Did you get anything out of the bitch?”
I nodded grimly. “Someone connected to Khinara should be showing up at midnight, so we’ll wait to see if any Demons or a person with a Brand shows up. Hopefully, they’ll know where Khinara is, or better yet, where Lisa is. Let’s go get Ellie and then figure out our game plan. I think maybe we should call the others and see how they’re doing. They might have more info and if they didn’t get anything… it might be wise to have them back us up. I… I don’t feel so sure if we should handle this on our own right now.”
Ziralin nodded, her bright green eyes filled with understanding. She knew just how I was feeling. We followed Ziralin’s nose to the door in question and finding it locked Ziralin kicked it open. She wasted no time, as soon as the door was open and she caught sight of the succubus trying to tear off Ellie’s clothes she let her arrows fly.
It was a while that we sat there in Lily the Succubus’ bedroom with me holding Ellie while she threw up and through the tears that followed. It wasn’t just Ellie crying, we were all shaken and it was Ziralin who had the presence of mind to check in with the others. Both Jennifer’s and Annie’s phones had gone straight to voicemail though. It wasn’t overly concerning though, after all, they could be in the middle of a fight or on the move. As much as I really wanted my sister at the moment though it looked like we were going to have to handle it ourselves. It was almost midnight anyway so I wasn’t sure if they would have the time to get there before Khinara’s lackey showed up.
It was ten minutes to midnight when we finally collected ourselves enough to replace the glamours that Ziralin and Ellie had dropped during their “intoxication” and straighten up their clothes. That was what we were calling it, I don’t think any of us really wanted to call it what it truly was. I was trying to keep looking confident and unshaken but it was all an act and worse yet I didn’t even know why I was doing it. My emotions were an open book to Ziralin, even those I tried to keep from showing on the outside and it wasn’t like I was going to be able to hide the breakdown that I knew would come later when Ellie and I were alone in our shared bedroom.
Maybe I was doing it because if I could make them believe it, then maybe I could make myself believe it too. I wasn’t really feeling it as we went downstairs and tried to look like we were enjoying ourselves. Selina caught sight of us making our way down the stairs and ambled over. “Hey girls, how’d the interviews go? Are you in? It looked like they really liked you three when you headed upstairs.”
“Oh…. Uhhh… hey Selina. Yeah, they really seemed to want us. They said they’d discuss it amongst themselves and let us know before we leave. They might be up there a while, but it’s looking pretty good.” I tried to smile, but my heart just wasn’t in the perky blonde act anymore. I was having a hard enough time just keeping it together.
“You okay Kiley?” Selina asked in what seemed like genuine concern. “You were so excited before going upstairs with Kari.”
“I’m good,” I said flashing a model smile and trying very hard to look as good as I claimed that I felt. “I’m just, y’know, like, totes nervous now. I think it’s all just catching up with me now.”
“Relax Kiley, they have to at least make it look like they’re considering the other girls too. But I’m pretty sure you girls are a shoo-in. If those three took that kind of interest in you, I’m sure that you’ll be Pledges by tomorrow.” She giggled and gave me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “You girls should sit down and chill for a bit, have a drink, and loosen up.”
In my current state, I was half tempted to give in and take that offered drink, maybe more than one, and I was pretty sure that Ellie and Ziralin were feeling the same. I could sense it in my Familiar’s thoughts and it was written all over Ellie’s face. “Thanks but I can’t, I’m driving and it’s going to be hard enough with all that snow,” Ziralin said after a tense moment.
“Yeah, and I don’t drink. It totes messes up my blood sugar.” I sighed as I gave the made-up excuse. I was tempted but tonight’s bullshit was going to hard enough to deal with without Sarah, Annie, and Talisha killing Ellie and me for under-aged drinking.
Selina gave a sad pouty look. “That sucks, feel free to help yourself to any sodas in the fridge then and get to know some of your future sisters. You said you’re here on volleyball scholarships right? We don’t have anyone else in the sorority on the volleyball team, but if you want to talk sports Bonnie and April over there are on the basketball team.”
The three of us went to grab a soda from the fridge, making sure they were properly sealed, and then went to go talk sports with the pair Selina had indicated, just so she’d feel like she was being a good big sister and helping us fit in. It also served to pass the time and distract us a little. Bonnie and April were trying to convince us to give basketball a try when the doorbell rang.
“I wonder who that is, they’re a bit late if they’re here to Rush,” Bonnie said with a frown.
“Could just be one of the girls ordered some pizzas, you know how these Informationals can get,” April replied with a laugh.
I had a very strong feeling that it was neither pizza nor a new applicant for the sorority. I could feel the Demon Brand from where I was sitting and the Demon who had given the Brand was powerful. It had to be Khinara’s messenger. I gave a slight nod to Ellie and Ziralin and we all stood up,. “Excuse us, we need to go use the ladies, we’ll be back in a few,” Ziralin said as an excuse.
We didn’t really wait for a response as we headed to the door trying to look for the bearer of Khinara’s Brand. When I did see her I stopped short in stunned silence. Ellie and Ziralin, who had been following slammed right into my back. “What’s up Kylie? Ellie asked, keeping the presence of mind to use my alias.
I could barely get the words to leave my mouth. “It’s Lisa.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 8 Lisa Amethyst |
It was Lisa at the door, no doubt about it. She had been the last person I was expecting since it was her that we were trying to rescue. I grabbed Ziralin and Ellie and quickly ushered them up the stairs while one of the Sorority sisters was still talking to her at the door. As soon as we were upstairs I pulled them with me into Kari’s room. “Okay, new plan. Do you two remember what Lily and Danica looked like?”
“Ugh, I don’t think I’ll ever forget,” Ellie said with a shudder, looking like she was going to get sick again. Ziralin nodded grimly in agreement.
“Okay, I need you two to make yourselves look like them. Ellie glam me up as much like Kari as you can remember, give me a succubus makeover. If you can’t remember what she looks like just make me look Asian and inhumanly gorgeous. I doubt that Khinara gave Lisa much more than a brief description. Go downstairs, like nothing is wrong, and offer to bring her up to see Kari like good little succu-puppets. Then we’ll play it by ear.”
The pair of Fae quickly changed up our glamours and then left the room to go downstairs and retrieve our ‘guest’. I was a little worried since all that I knew was that Lisa had a Brand. That told me nothing about the actual nature of the curse or abilities that Khinara had given Lisa. Demon Brands are largely dependent on the intent of the Demon casting them. Just because the Vampire we encountered used hers to make obedient little Vampires who could blend in as human didn’t mean that Khinara would do the same. I had also felt that Lisa’s brand was active. If she was hiding in a human form like Laramie when I had first sensed his brand it would have been a lot harder to detect. The fact that she still looked human and the same as before probably meant that Khinara had imbued the brand with some ability or curse.
As I thought and waited I decided to try to get into my role. From what I had seen of Kari she was conceited, power-hungry, and wary of other Demons. She wouldn’t take on another Demon head-on but rather play along and wait to stab them in the back later. I also quickly sent a quick text to both Sarah and Jennifer. -Found Lisa @ Alpha Kappa Phi. Branded.-
I had barely managed to put my phone back in my purse when I heard voices through the door. Lily’s voice was laughing nervously. “What can I say, Alpha Kappa Phi party hard.”
“Yeah, that’s my room,” Danica’s voice admitted. “I got a little excitable with one of my meals.” Shit, I should have thought about the damn door that Ziralin had knocked off the hinges and into the hallway. At least it was covering the pile of ash that was all that remained of the room’s actual former occupant. “Anyway, Kari is waiting for you.”
The door opened and I did my best to look imperious as Lisa walked in, flanked by ‘Lily’ and ‘Danica’. I gave my very best indignant snort. “So you’re Khinara’s new minion of the day? If she’s going to check on my progress she could at least come in person.”
“You call this progress? She said you were supposed to be making her a small army of Succubae, but I only see the three of you. Some of those girls downstairs are pretty but they obviously haven’t been turned yet. They’re nothing like you three.” Well, that was one question answered, she couldn’t seem to sense the magick of our glamours or see through them. That, or she couldn’t identify them due to inexperience and thought that the glamours were what Succubus magick felt like.
“I’m working on it!” I snapped pseudo-haughtily as I tried to mentally come up with excuses and plans that Kari would use. “It’s going to take time since I need to make each of them drink the potion with my blood. I can’t exactly slip it into their breakfast unnoticed and my powers of seduction won’t work on most of the girls here, they’re straight. Putting it into the punch bowl would just dilute the potion and make it useless too, so I have to be subtle, have you ever heard of that?! I have seen a few potentials tonight though and I’m working on them, some girl named Kiley and her friends. They’re very eager to join us. I’d be doing that now but I was stuck waiting for you to show up! I also plan on making all of the Pledges drink the potion as part of their initiation, it’ll be easy now that I have control over Danica and Lily.”
“Fine, I don’t care. I wasn’t sent to report your progress to Khinara, just to warn you that some Faery, Celestials, and a Witch might come for you. So you’re supposed to keep a low profile, ” Lisa barked. If there was one thing she didn’t like it was being out-bitched. Then her eyes lit up as her frown turned into a smile. “If you need lesbos though, I may have just the girls for you.”
I had a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew exactly which girls she might be talking about, but I needed to keep playing my part. “Fine, if they’ll be useful, but you’d better not be wasting my time.”
Lisa was smiling like a shark. “One is named Shannon O’Reilly. You can’t miss her, she’s the redheaded teenage bitch on billboards all over the city. The other will be the jock-chick with the short black hair hanging off her arm that claims to be her assistant. I know what she’s assisting the little bitch with. I get her little blonde cousin with the big mouth though, and once you’ve turned Shannon I want her under my control until I get tired of her.”
Danica’s face contorted in fury while Lily looked sick. I wasn’t sure if I could keep Ziralin from killing her then and there with how angry she was. I tried to remain calm and send that calmness to my Familiar as I carefully controlled my own nausea and anger to retort, “You don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t turn or what is to be done with them!”
“I already promised the blonde to Khinara. I need to give her a meal to replace me. I’m not going through that again and I wanted to make the other two suffer myself,” Lisa spat.
“Tell me where Khinara is and I’ll take this up with her,” I said. I was torn between trying to find a way to save Lisa, wanting to kill her, and wanting to find Khinara to put an end to all of this.
“No, Khinara doesn’t want to be bothered while she’s searching for her little Witch and friends. I don’t know where she is anyway, she sent me here and said that she would come to find me for her promised meal once she’s finished with the Witch. If you don’t want to do things my way then I’ll just have to make them suffer on my own.” A blood-chilling smile lit up her face as a small blue ball of fire appeared in her hand. I could feel the cold and sickening feel of her magick even as she summoned it. “And Khinara promised that the more I make people suffer, the more my power will grow.”
Well, shit. Khinara had used the Brand to make her into a goddamned Sorceress, and now she wanted to make me suffer for some reason. If we didn’t deal with her now, then I and everyone close to me would have to constantly watch over our shoulders for a crazed magick user. I reached out with my magick senses as I tried to keep her talking. “Obsessive much? What did some little human do to you to make you hate her so much?”
“She made me want her,” she spat. “And she saw things about me that I didn’t see myself and I hated her for it. I hated myself for it. So I got angry and tried to make her as miserable as was. Through it all, I wanted her but she’s always with her girlfriend and even if I did try to talk to her why would she be interested in me after what I’ve done? Then the blonde had to go rub their happiness in my face. I’m going to make them all suffer, and one way or another I’ll make Shannon mine. If you’re not going to help me then stay the fuck out of my way.”
As much as she had made me uncomfortable, I had never really taken the time to think about how she might see things. I felt bad for that, but she knew that what she was doing was wrong while she was doing it. I may not be able to get rid of the brand, but maybe I could seal her magick as I had with Ewen. I tried to give a typical Demon response while I probed for more information. “I’m not saying that I won’t help you, I just want to know what’s in it for me. Is magick the only gift that she gave you?”
Lisa twirled a strand of her blonde hair around her finger as she thought and then shrugged. “Okay, I can totally get that. If you help me get what I want I’ll help you get what you want, new recruits. Khinara told me that magick is all I need to get what I want, as long as I use it creatively.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed with a smile as I focused on the magick within her and sealed it with a silent spell.
“Wha…” Lisa uttered in confusion as the blue ball of flame in her hand evaporated.
“It’s called using magick creatively,” I said with a grin. Then pushing my gathered magical energy toward her once again I commanded, “Sleep.”
As soon as Lisa fell into Ziralin’s waiting arms I pulled out my phone, checking for return texts from Jennifer or Sarah, but finding none I just texted again. -Got Lisa but it’s complicated. Bringing her home.-
I had to cast an obtusification spell over all of us before we could go back downstairs since we would look pretty suspicious if we walked through the gathering of young women and then across campus with Ziralin carrying Lisa slung over her shoulder. For the next ten minutes, people would be less likely to notice us and if they happened to look directly at us their gaze would just slide on past us and they would forget seeing us in the first place a moment later. Soon we were in my car and driving through the snowy streets toward home.
None of us spoke much during the drive, I think that all three of us were all trying not to think about what we had been through, and while trying to avoid thinking about it, of course we couldn’t help but think about it. The silence was broken halfway home as my cell phone rang. Seeing that it was Sarah, I quickly swiped to accept the call. “Hey Sis, we should be home soon. You may need to work your mind magick on Lisa. Things were a little complicated.”
“Annie and I are on our way home now,” she replied. “Sorry we couldn’t get back to you sooner but we were dealing with a huge nest of werewolves and it took a while. I think the Demons are trying to increase their numbers by turning Humans to their side. We didn’t get anything on where Khinara is hiding out though.”
“Umm yeah we ran into a Succubus who was trying to use a sorority to do the same thing, she already turned two of their leading members. None had a clue where Khinara is, not even Lisa, and she was playing messenger girl.” I said, trying to keep the emotions from my voice.
I guess that I wasn’t all that successful because she quickly asked, “Are you all okay, Shannon?”
“Yeah, we’re… uhm… fine,” I lied. “It was just a long night. Khinara gave Lisa a Demon Brand to make her a sorceress, but I think that I’ve sealed her magick, so maybe we can get Lisa back to whatever passes for normal for her. We’ll see you soon.”
Lying, changing the subject, and cutting a conversation short. Three things I never liked to do with my sister, but I didn’t want to worry her and we all needed to process what we had gone through. Besides, admitting what had happened would have been humiliating for all three of us. I already felt dirty, violated, and sickened that I had wanted it so badly. That was the worst part, I had wanted it. That I had been oh-so-eager to please her and for her to take something that I was saving for Ziralin. In my heart, I also knew that I was to blame, we had all suffered because I wasn’t smart enough to see the signs and once I had, I had let Kari whammy me like some love-struck bimbo. I guess that I didn’t want Sarah and the others blaming me too. If I hadn’t touched her with my platinum hand flowers… I couldn’t finish that thought, it would only hasten the breakdown that I knew was coming.
It was almost one-thirty by the time we got home and Annie and Sarah were waiting for us. I was a bit concerned that Jennifer and Mason were nowhere to be seen, but Sarah quickly told us. “Jennifer and Mason left a note for us. They took out the Demons on their list, but their phones got fried when one of them tried to electrocute them with a lightning spell. They’d be here, but they had to hurry to get home before their midnight curfews.”
We explained to Sarah and Annie about our hunts and unfortunately, they insisted on hearing the entire story of what happened at the sorority house. By the end of it, Ziralin, Ellie, and I all had the mental breakdowns that we had been trying to hold off since our encounter with the Succubae. They held us as we let it all out and once we were merely sniffling and sobbing rather than outright freaking out Annie ordered, “Girls look at me.”
I turned my head to look at my sister’s tiny Chinese girlfriend and saw Ziralin and Ellie doing the same. She had a serious expression on her face as she spoke again. “I know what it feels like to have someone have that kind of control over you, making you do and feel things that aren’t real. Ziralin and Shannon, you saved me from him when things could have gotten a lot worse. It could have gone a lot worse for you too, but you got control of the situation when it mattered. I know that that isn’t much condolence, believe me, I know, but it is true. What you were feeling wasn’t you, it was them manipulating you and you did nothing to deserve it nor are you to blame for it. Don’t hate yourself for that, place that blame and hate where they belong, on those who took advantage of you.”
If anyone knew what we were going through, it was Annie. She told us what we needed to hear and how she had managed to cope after her ordeal. It didn’t really make us feel better, but it did give us something else to think about. Once she was done she offered to drive Ziralin home, since she didn’t think that my Fae girlfriend should be driving in her current state, especially with all the snow out there. Once she had dropped off Ziralin and my car she would return home by flying in her Celestial form. Once they had left Sarah ushered Ellie and me to our bedroom and put us to bed.
“I should help you with Lisa,” I protested weakly as she tucked me in like Mom used to do when I was little and kissed me on the forehead.
She shook her head, looking away for a moment, but I still saw her sadness and guilt. “No, it’s already late and you have school in the morning. Besides, I have questions for her and I don’t think that you need to hear some of the answers to those right now. After that’s done I’ll take away her memories of everything since Khinara captured her and then I’ll fly her to a hospital or something so she can be found. If either of you wakes up or needs anything Annie or I will be here as soon as you call.”
As she spoke I wondered what she had to feel guilty over. But then I remembered that she had chosen the assignments for the evening. As she walked away I took her hand in mind. “Sis, please don’t blame yourself. None of us had any idea what we would be facing, it could have just as easily been you and Annie who faced them and you would have both been affected just as much as we were. Annie was right, we need to place that blame where it belongs, and it’s not on you. There’s only one thing that I could ever blame you for and that’s making my life better in every possible way. We’ll get through this, but I need you to be there for me like you always are because we’ve always been stronger together.”
Sarah wiped at her eyes and came back to hug me one more time. “I love you, Sis. I will always be there for you, no matter how, where, or why you need me. That goes for you too Ellie, you’re part of this family now too and no matter what, we stick together.” She hugged Ellie again as well and then left to deal with Lisa, leaving Ellie and me alone to try to find sleep that I didn’t think would ever come for either of us.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 9 River of Emotions Amethyst |
Sleep did not come easily that night for me. My mind just didn’t want to slow down enough for sleep and it had become a hurricane of darker thoughts, what-ifs, and turbulent emotions. Fear, shame, guilt, anger, and self-loathing just kept battling for dominance over my heart and mind and it seemed that every time that I closed my eyes I could feel Kari’s hands on my body and her tongue in my mouth again. I felt like throwing up or better yet curling up in a ball under my blankets and never facing the world again.
I could sense Ziralin having similar emotional turmoil through our link and across the room Ellie tossed and turned for a while before I started to hear her softly crying under her blankets. I wanted so badly to comfort my Fae cousin, but I was such a mess myself and I was afraid of how she might react and how I might react. I knew that I didn’t really want anyone touching me after what happened, so trying to hold and comfort her right now could be a bad idea.
Poor Elsaishe probably felt the worst of us all. She had been still trying to figure out her sexuality and to have to discover it like that was bad enough, but that Lily had been going at her hot and heavy and trying to tear her clothes off when Ziralin and I rushed in to stop her. It was far from ideal as first sexual experiences went. And at least Ziralin and I had done some serious heavy petting with one another before. Ellie also hadn’t been able to snap out of it on her own. I had been fighting it and I probably wouldn’t have snapped out of it if I hadn’t kept having Ziralin pop into my head and had that strange powerful urge to touch Kari’s face, while Ziralin had me pushing at our mental link to help her shake the whammy.
“Cuz?” I called out to her side of our darkened room.
Her sniffling intensified for a moment before she got herself under control enough to respond, “Yeah?”
“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault,” I said morosely. “We should have called in backup as soon as we sensed that there was a Succubus involved. It was stupid and overconfident to rush in and think we could handle it when we knew damn well that Ziralin and I could be affected by them, especially since we weren’t certain if you would be too.”
“It’s not your fault, Shannon. *sniffle* We all decided to go into that sorority house when we knew what was waiting in there. I guess Mother Josephine was right, sometimes we need to think things through a little better before jumping into things. Please don’t blame yourself,” she pleaded before sniffling once more and then speaking again. “Yeah, what happened sucked, but Annie’s right too, it could have gone a lot worse and we were there for one another.”
I hesitated, my heart aching for her. “I… just don’t want you thinking it’s always going to be like what you experienced with Lily. First, she was a Demon so there was bound to be some trauma with that. And second, even with everyday people, there might be people like Lily but not all of them are like that. You’re one of the sweetest and most wonderful people I know, so I’m pretty sure that someday you’ll find someone worth taking a chance on like I did with Beth. Sure she might have been turned into a Fae and we’ve gone through things most people can’t even imagine, but we’re still together because we love each other, and love helped us through this tonight. Don’t be afraid to pursue it if you find someone that you feel like that about.”
“But what if they’re jerks or they try to…”
I didn’t let her finish that sentence, I didn’t want either of our minds going back there. “You’re learning to defend yourself so between that and your Faery physical abilities you’ll be able to handle any normal humans who go too far, and you’ve got family and friends in your corner now, Ellie. You’re not alone in this and anyone who mistreats my cousin, I’m going to have words with them because you’re special and you don’t deserve that.”
I could hear her sniffling in the dark again and it was a moment before she finally said, “You’re special too, Cuz.” Hesitation filled her trembling voice as she spoke again. “I… I don’t think that I can sleep alone.”
I figured that she was as uncertain as I was about having someone else so close and intimate with her so soon after what had happened. But Ellie was Faery and as I had learned while in Tír na nÓg, Faery are big on physical comfort. I had to remind myself that it was Ellie. We had slept in the same bed before and she was like a little sister to me. Right now that sister needed me to feel comforted and safe and her needs would trump any physical or mental discomfort on my part every time, because family are there for one another, even when it’s hard. “Climb on in, Cuz. There’s room for both of us.”
Elsaishe climbed into bed beside me and I quickly squashed the sense of panic that stabbed through me at having another person so close to me. Once she was comfortable I pulled the covers over us, put my arms around her, and held her until the crying and shaking stopped and she fell asleep in my arms. It wasn’t the best sleep, she was having nightmares and called out in panic a few times but each time she awoke I just reminded her that I was there with a whispered word and gently stroking her hair until she fell back to sleep. I was still awake when the alarm went off, but Ellie had gotten a few hours of sleep and that made it worth it. She needed it more than I did since she had work after school and I still couldn’t close my eyes without feeling Kari’s hands on me anyway.
I gently woke my Fae bedmate and after turning off the alarm I went to prepare for the day. A nice cold shower woke me up some but did little to alleviate that dirty feeling that had stuck to me since the encounter with Kari. I went through my whole morning pampering routine, trying to give myself a sense of comfort and normalcy but, while it was soothing on the outside, on the inside I didn’t think I would ever feel like myself again. I surrendered our bathroom to Ellie, who still looked as shaken as I was, and then got dressed in my school uniform and went downstairs for breakfast.
I didn’t feel much like eating but Sarah and Talisha made sure that I had some yogurt, a bagel, and a strong cup of coffee, even if I did have to put a bunch of sugar in the latter to make it close to palatable. Sarah must have told Talisha what had happened since all through breakfast the elder faery was watching both her daughter and me in concern. They both looked like they wanted to say or do something, but when Talisha began to speak Annie just placed a hand on the Faery’s shoulder and shook her head. For not saying a word Annie’s message was pretty clear, “They’ll talk about it when they’re ready.”
Neither Ellie nor I wanted to talk about what happened at the sorority house, but I couldn’t bear the uncomfortable silence either. Finally, just to have someone say something I inquired, “How’d things go with Lisa?”
My sister sighed, but answered the question. “I managed to remove all of the memories since she ran from Sgt. Williams and into the parking lot and left her at the hospital to be found. There was a pretty big chemical imbalance in her brain though, enough that it was probably affecting her thinking, but I don’t have much experience dealing with Skarik victims and I’m not a neurologist so I can’t be sure if it was from the feeding on her emotions or something inherent to Lisa herself. I fixed it regardless, that kind of imbalance can’t be healthy for a person.”
“Derek called before you got up to let us know that Lisa had been located and is currently in the hospital. There’s nothing physically wrong but they’re concerned about her memory loss. He said that while they can’t really charge her with anything there was enough evidence between the video footage and what was found in her car that you can still push for a restraining order if you want to,” Annie added.
As grateful as I was to both Detective Hanson and Sgt. Williams for their help with Lisa I wasn’t sure that I was really in a state of mind where I could make a decision like that right then, especially since I wasn’t sure exactly what doing that would entail. Also, as much as I hated to admit it, Lisa was probably as much a victim as I was, even if she couldn’t remember it. The thought of pushing a restraining order at someone who was in the hospital with no idea of how she had gotten there or what had happened to her for over a day just didn’t sit well with me, even if she had been a bitch to me. “Can I think about it for a few days?”
Annie nodded. “Of course, Shannon. I can understand not wanting to make any snap decisions at the moment. I can go over your options with you after tonight’s self-defense lesson if you want and you can take a day or two to think it over.”
Soon Ziralin, or rather Beth, came to pick Ellie and me up in my car. The drive to school was as uncomfortably quiet as breakfast had been and it looked like my girlfriend hadn’t gotten much more sleep than Ellie had. When we got to school we all headed straight for our lockers and I found Jen waiting beside mine. I guess that made sense since it was right next to hers. “Good morning, Shannon,” she offered with a smile.
I managed to get a “Hey, Jen,” in as I opened my locker.
My best friend noticed my lack of enthusiasm, but I guess she wouldn’t be my best friend if she didn’t notice things like that. “Is everything okay? You’re not really acting like…” she put her hand companionably on my shoulder and since I was too busy dealing with getting my stuff for my first class of the day I didn’t see it coming.
I instinctively recoiled, pulling away as I felt panic surge through my chest. She was so stunned that she stopped speaking mid-sentence and I immediately felt horrible for my reaction. I couldn’t say anything at first, clutching at my chest as if it would slow the hammering of my pulse and ease my breathing. I leaned over placing my head on the locker next to mine as I tried to rid myself of the surge of panic and the assault of emotions that had accompanied it.
“What’s wrong Shannon?” she asked again in concern.
“I… I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t want her worrying about me and I was just too ashamed to talk about what had happened the night before. I knew that I had to tell her something though so once I had managed to control my breathing enough for more than a few words I told her, “We just had a rough night last night and I didn’t sleep well... at all.”
“Oh… okay,” she knew I was holding things back, but that I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Not that we could have talked about our evening activities anyway with all the students milling around in the hallway. She watched me in concern as she tried to distract me by telling me as much as she could publicly. “Sorry I couldn’t call you last night. My phone got fried by a power surge or something while I was charging it, it looks like it was hit with lightning or something. I’ll have to get a new one after school.”
“It’s fine,” I replied quietly. “I can’t blame you for something that’s not your fault.” I didn’t really know what else to say to her. My mind really wasn’t in any shape for dancing around topics that I’d rather avoid. “We should get to class.”
I was actually pretty glad when class started. It let me put all my focus into something else though Jennifer had to nudge me awake a few times. It was a good thing that we shared all our classes, especially Chemistry. We were doing a lab experiment and Jennifer was better than me with that kind of stuff normally. As I was now, I was glad to have her as my lab partner because without her doing most of the work, me and possibly dangerous chemicals would have been a bad combination.
As usual, Beth, Ellie, and I ate lunch with Jennifer and some of our teammates from the volleyball team. All three of us were quiet, withdrawn, and barely touched our lunches and it seemed that it did not go unnoticed. “C’mon girls what’s wrong? I’d think that Mother Josephine gave you detention for life or something, but you said yesterday that it didn’t go that bad when she called you into the office.” Kelly said.
“Yeah, you three are not acting like yourselves. Sure Shannon might space out once in a while, but she’s never completely out of it and she’s usually smiling and friendly. Did you get any sleep last night Shannon?” Dorothy added with a concerned look on her face.
“Yeah, Beth’s not really acting like herself either, did you two have a lover’s quarrel or something?” Penny asked.
“No, that can’t be it, because why would Ellie look so upset too? She’s usually smiling and chattering a mile a minute when we eat lunch. Come on girls, we’re your friends and we want to be there for you, but we can’t help if we don’t know what’s going through your heads. Ellie this isn’t like you, you’re usually a ray of sunshine. Please, talk to us.” Lily said, reaching out to put her hand on my cousin’s tenderly.
“Lily, I know you’re concerned, that all of you are, but if it were something they felt like talking about then they probably would have told us already,” Hope advised.
The sound of the name ‘Lily’ and the owner of said name reaching out to touch Elsaishe, even though it was meant to be comforting, had an immediate effect. My cousin practically jumped out of her chair, yanking her hand away. “I… I gotta go…” she said with a panicked look on her face and took off as fast as she could, leaving behind her lunch and a chorus of concerned looks on the friends of our faces.
“I... should go check on her, excuse me,” I said. It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid the topic, well I did, but I was concerned for Ellie as well. It wasn’t hard to find her since there were only two sources of Fae magick in the school and I was leaving one of them behind. I felt guilty about that for a moment as I looked back at my girlfriend, but she just nodded. She knew as well as I did that Ellie needed me.
I found Elsaishe in one of the otherwise empty bathrooms violently throwing up what little she had eaten of her lunch in one of the stalls. “Cuz, it’s just me, Shannon,” I warned as I approached. I knelt down beside her and held her hair for her with one hand as I held her in my other arm. “I’m here for you, Cuz.”
“I… I’m sorry. I just… heard the name Lily… and she touched me… and it all came rushing back. I probably made her feel terrible too, reacting like I did,” she managed to get out between sobbing.
“Shh, don’t worry about that,” I told her gently. “Beth will tell her that it wasn’t something she did. But that just proves that you have friends that care about you, about all of us. I… I couldn’t sleep at all last night. Every time I close my eyes I can feel Kari’s hands on me, taste her tongue in my mouth. I know that Beth is feeling the same way, she just hides her feelings better than either of us, but we’re all going to get through this, together.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 10 Wounded Spirits Amethyst |
Ellie and I managed to compose ourselves before our lunch period was over and returned to our table in time to collect our things before the bell rang. Our friends from the volleyball team and Jennifer all seemed worried, but none of them pressed the issue. That could have been because they didn’t want to upset Ellie again or because we had so little time before we had to get to our next classes. Ellie barely had time to blurt out an apology to Lily and let her know that she hadn’t done anything wrong.
I spent the first half of my next class worrying. Mostly about Ellie and Beth, but I was also worrying that our friends might be a little too concerned. The three of us and Jennifer had some major secrets that had to be kept secret. And people asking a lot of questions, even if it was in concern over our welfare, could stumble right into the very things that we needed to stay hidden. Between that and my mind constantly drifting toward what had happened the night before my focus wasn’t at its best. Jennifer had to keep prodding me to pay proper attention in class.
“Shannon!” A familiar voice called out, getting my attention. It wasn’t my teacher, Jennifer, or one of my other classmates though. Since it had been pretty damn loud and nobody else seemed to be reacting to it there was only one solution that made sense. Someone was in my head again. “Of course I’m in your head, silly girl. You don’t expect me to show myself in front of your observant little friend and a classroom filled with mortals do you?”
I was so surprised that it wasn’t Khinara’s grating mind-voice that it took me a moment to recognize who the feminine and throaty accented voice did belong to. “Xuriel! I thought you weren’t going to contact us until we get to Heil.”
I was sitting straight up in my seat now as she snorted derisively in my mind. “That does not mean that I am no longer watching you, child. Your current state of mind, and that of your Fae friends, must be dealt with. Your human friends are already asking too many questions in their concern for you and they cannot be allowed to find out what you really are. Khinara poses an immediate threat as well, and you cannot afford to face her at anything less than your best.”
“Maybe you should have done something last night then if you’ve been watching us that closely,” I snapped bitterly.
“I cannot allow the Demons, especially one of the Demon King’s generals, to find out about my involvement until the final battle, Shannon,” the Celestial’s voice insisted. “They believe that I am no longer a threat and they must continue thinking that. I have done all that I can to keep you safe without revealing my presence. Who do you think placed those protections upon your mind in the first place? I did, after our last encounter. And who do you think sent you the images of your little Fae girlfriend and the urge to touch that Succubus’s face with your platinum trinkets on as you tried to fight her control?”
I could feel myself blushing and hoped that nobody was looking my way. “That was you?” I managed to ask self-consciously.
“Aye, child, it was. You are far more important than you realize and I do not wish for you or your friends to suffer needlessly. You each have a part to play and you must all be strong in mind, body, and spirit to face what comes,” Xuriel replied.
“Needlessly?” Did that mean she would let us come to harm if her plans required it? Did she know this was going to happen and it was just another move toward her endgame? “Is that all that we are to you? Pawns, to be moved around in your little game of chess with the Demon King? We’re people dammit, and we have feelings!”
“Cease your hysterics, child!” the Celestial’s voice snapped. Then in a somewhat calmer and gentler tone, she said, “I cannot see the future, and I did not know what it was that the three of you faced until you yourself did. I would have gladly spared you that experience if I could have. I have watched your lineage for a very long time and I am trying to ensure that you survive to play your part. You are no pawn, if anything you are a queen. Believe that I care about what happens to you, even if you only do so because of your importance to the future of all living things on your world, mine, and so many others.”
Okay, so now I felt kind of terrible for snapping at her. Really though, what were we supposed to do? We’d all been pretty damn traumatized last night and that just doesn’t go away overnight. “So what do we do then? Pretend to be happy and cheerful at school and then see a shrink? I’m pretty sure that the moment we mention Demons, Succubae, magick, or anything else like that to them, there would be a nice padded room waiting for us with jackets that fasten in the back.”
Xuriel’s voice was kind as she spoke again. “Once you arrive at home the three of you must travel to Tír na nÓg, there is a spirit healer among the Faery that you met when you were last there. It is a rare gift among the Faery, but she can help to relieve you of your burden, or at the very least ease it. She and the rest of your troupe shall see that the three of you get the care that you need.” Then, as quickly as it had appeared in my mind, her voice was gone, replaced by the little noises of my classmates around me and my teacher giving her lesson.
School was out and I was anxious to get out of there for the day. Not only was I very tired from not sleeping the night before, but my thoughts kept drifting back to what had happened at the sorority house, what could have happened, and how badly it had shaken all three of us, especially Ellie. Then there was the fact Khinara was still out there gunning for us and Xuriel’s surprise appearance in my mind earlier that afternoon. “Spending some time among the Faery would be nice, especially if they have someone who can help. Even if they don’t maybe a day or two away from all of this craziness would help us to sort things out,” I thought to myself with a sigh as I finished filling my backpack and put on my jacket.
Jennifer looked me over in concern from where she was doing the same thing at the locker beside mine. “I hope you’ll tell me what’s going on when we get to your place, Shannon,” my best friend said in a hushed tone, concern written all over her face. “I’m worried about you three, something bad happened last night, didn’t it? C’mon Shannon at least nod or something, please don’t shut me out.”
I nodded, clenching against the nausea and tears that threatened to make themselves known again. I had managed to stave them off so far but I wasn’t sure how long it would last. I didn’t want to shut Jen out, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to talk about either. “I…. can’t…” I just trailed off not sure what I could have said even if I felt like I could get those words out. I felt dirty and ashamed just knowing what had happened in my mind, but getting it out there and having other people know, I was sure that would break me. Just having my sister, Talisha, and Annie know was bad enough. The way they looked at us. It was like we were broken or on the edge of breaking. I didn’t want anyone else to see me that way.
Jennifer sighed and I knew that she wanted to help us somehow, but if I didn’t know what she could do to help, how could she? “Shannon, I’m gonna go pick up Mason at school, I know that we usually just come to your place for Annie’s lessons after dinner, but we could meet you at the mall and hang out while Ellie’s working, y’know keep you and Beth company.”
“No need,” Ellie said as she and Beth approached. “Mom texted that we should go straight home, she’s giving me the night off. She got one of the part-timers to cover my shift and she has Nick covering for her tomorrow morning so we can spend some ‘family time’ tonight.” She looked like she was conflicted about that, and I could understand why. On one hand, she wouldn’t have to worry about breaking down in public again, but on the other hand, it looked like her mother, Sarah, and Annie were going to be hovering over us all night.
“I’ll go pick up Mason and we’ll be there right away, we can all hang out until dinner. Maybe we could all play some video games or something and I can help with your chemistry homework, Shannon. You were spaced out all through our classes.” Jennifer meant well, she probably wanted to keep us distracted from our problems until we were ready to open up about them. I figured that Sarah and the others had the same plan.
I thought a lot about that as Beth drove us home. The drive was silent again and as much as I wanted to think about anything but the previous night I just couldn’t shake it completely. Annie had told us that occupying her mind with other things had helped her process what she had gone through with Ewen without obsessing over it but I didn’t think that it was going to help us. She had been magicked and mind-controlled into doing something that she knew went against her nature, so she was able to resist until we came to help her. Everything that she had done under his control could be attributed to Ewen and it was pretty clear afterward that it was something that repulsed her, something forced on her.
In our case it was different. It wasn’t magick, it was our own hormones that had been turned against us. As much as Ziralin and I were able to resist the hypnosis component with my mental barrier and Ziralin’s magick resistance we couldn’t fight our own attraction to the Succubus super-pheromones they were pumping out. As much as we were fighting it mentally, and it was against our will, our bodies were responding and on some level, we had wanted it. If it hadn’t been for Xuriel we would have both probably gone happily along with it and woke up as succubae. Just thinking about it made me burn with shame and guilt.
It had been even worse with Ellie. She may have fought the hypnosis part of it if she was aware of her attraction to girls, but her body reacted and she was under their spell before she even realized what was happening. As inexperienced as she was with raging hormones she was responding and all too eager to go along with it until Ziralin had killed Lily. When she snapped out of it and realized what had happened, and where it had almost gone, she broke down.
Ellie had had a deep-seated fear of Demons since I met her, one that she was finally starting to get over. And the Faery consider love and sex as something beautiful and natural to be shared openly with those that you care about. Now not only had she had had a Demon use her and turn her own mind and body against her, but Lily had also taken something that the Faery considered wonderful and natural and perverted it into something that made Ellie feel dirty and sick, and she had done it so easily. I was afraid that my cousin may never recover from this.
As much as I felt dirty, used, ashamed, and hated myself right now, the guilt was the worst. Because if it wasn’t for me then Beth and Ellie wouldn’t have had to go through this. I should have considered the potential danger of the situation more. I should have called one of the others sooner. I should have broken free of Kari’s hold without Xuriel’s help.
I had managed to work myself into a pretty good depression by the time we got home and my mood wasn’t really improved when I saw Sarah, Annie, and Talisha waiting expectantly for us on the couch. Beth’s mother was there too. My girlfriend was the first of us to speak. “What is this, an intervention?”
“No, if it were an intervention your father and brother would be here too,” Beth’s mother replied candidly, before continuing in a tone that made my girlfriend cringe. “Ziralin Bethany Alice Sanders, do you realize how worried I’ve been?! We all got calls from your school today. Your headmistress was concerned, she said that you’re not acting at all like your usual selves and your teachers and friends are worried. You were so quiet this morning and you looked tired and down about something, between that and the phone call I was worried sick.”
“So she called us,” Sarah added. “Talisha and I told Mother Josephine that the three of you had a frightening encounter last night and that you were all a bit shaken up over it, but we didn’t go into any details. When Meredith called in a panic we felt that she should be told the truth.”
Mrs. Sanders sighed and gave the three of us a pained look. “I wish that I could do something for you girls. I might know about all of this, but there isn’t a lot I can do to help you with any of this magical stuff. I considered having Beth see a counselor of some sort, but I don’t think that would work out. They’d either think she’s insane or that she’s concocted some fantasy to avoid dealing with the real issue. We want to be there for you, even if you can’t talk about what happened yet, so take those glamours off and prepare for ladies’ night.”
“Yup, I already called Mason and Jennifer to tell them tonight’s lesson is canceled. Jennifer is going to grab some things and come join us,” Annie added.
“I… we… need to go to Tír na nÓg,” I said with a shake of my head. “Xuriel contacted me today and she believes that there is a spirit-healer among the Faery who can help us.” I didn’t mention the fact that she had also been the one to pull our asses out of the fire the night before as well by feeding my mind images of Ziralin and compulsions. I felt ashamed that I had to be saved that way, that I couldn’t break Kari’s hold on my own.
Talisha looked pensive a moment before nodding. “It’s a rare gift among the Faery, but if that troupe has one, they could help you. If we have an early dinner and leave right after, with the time difference we could have two whole days in Tír na nÓg before you would have to be back to get ready for school in the morning on this Plane.”
“We?” I asked uncertainly.
She nodded, giving Ellie, Ziralin, and me a look that would allow no refusals. “Of course, I’ll be going with you. You need your family with you and I want to be there if any of you need me. Besides, it would be nice to spend time with some of my people again and I could gather some materials for my jewelry crafting.”
“I’ll be coming too, Ziralin,” my girlfriend/Familiar’s mother insisted. “Your father and Jason can have a pizza for dinner tonight. My daughter needs me so I’m going to be there. I want to meet this troupe that’s adopted you anyway. If you don’t want us hovering over you the whole time we’ll find ways to keep ourselves occupied. I know that I have a lot of questions that I’d like to ask about our Faery blood.”
“We’re all going,” Sarah agreed. “Maybe if I meet the spirit healer I can create a spell to do something similar. Annie needs this almost as much as you do anyway.” Annie looked like she was about to protest when Sarah put a finger to her girlfriend’s lips. “We all get it, baby. You’re tough and can handle yourself. But I know that you’re still having nightmares and trying to deal with your own issues from the night we met. So I’m asking you to do this, for both of us.”
Jennifer arrived as everyone was preparing for our impromptu trip. She had a change of clothes, a nightie, a clean school uniform, and a shopping bag with chocolate and other junk food inside in preparation for a sleepover. Her parents hadn’t been sure about allowing a sleepover on a school night, but they gave her the okay once she had told them that something had me, Ellie, and Beth all really depressed and ‘we’ needed it. “Where’s Ziralin, I thought she was supposed to be here too,” she asked in concern as she looked around.
“She and her mom went home to get some changes of clothes and a fresh uniform for her to wear to school when we get back,” I replied from where Ellie and I were curled up together on the couch while everyone else was preparing for the trip. Sarah and Talisha were preparing our things and had pretty much ordered us to relax and wait for the pizzas to arrive. I wasn’t going to argue since I didn’t feel like putting forth the effort and Ellie had been having enough trouble keeping it together all day that I thought a reassuring cuddle might do us both some good.
“Back? We’re going somewhere? I thought we were having a sleepover?” Jen asked in confusion.
“Yeah, but the plan changed with some info that Xuriel gave me today,” I replied as I held Ellie close and stroked her hair to keep her calm. "We’re still sleeping over, we’re just doing it in Tír na nÓg for a few days.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 11 Healing Amethyst |
Immediately after dinner, Sarah had me cast the gate to Tír na nÓg. She didn’t want to tax me more than necessary, but since I had been there before so I could just picture the village instead of a general set of coordinates that was at least a six-hour hike from the new Faery village. I pictured the area in front of the Demon warning bell that Yanisse and I had made and as soon as the gate was formed and stable we stepped through.
The sky was alive with bright shades of gold, orange, pink and red when we stepped out on the other side of the gate but at first I couldn’t tell if it was sunrise or sunset. It could be difficult to figure out with time moving at different rates on the two planes but the last time we were here Ziralin had been able to glean from Torphael’s knowledge that a for each day in Tír na nÓg about five point seven hours passed on our Earth. Faery began to gather, cautiously at first, to inspect the large burst of magical energy that coincided with our arrival.
There was a village around the Torphael’s Tomb now or at the very least a good start to one. A large central dome had been set up in the center where the troupe usually cooked and ate their meals. The frame looked to be made of metal with smoke wafting from a chimney made of the same. There were no walls to the building, it was just open to the air, and whoever wanted to enter, and the vines with large leaves had been encouraged to grow along the support beams and flourished atop the structure where the thick foliage would provide cover from the rain. Dozens of smaller similar structures in various stages of construction surrounded it.
Yanisse approached, smiling as she saw us, though I noticed that her eyes looked warily to our companions. The Faery still didn’t trust humans, and I was only an exception because I was of the Cailleach dearg and thus sort of related to them and had proven my worth and sincerity. Still, she hadn’t dismissed them or asked them to leave outright, merely watched them cautiously as she welcomed Ellie, Ziralin, and me home. With that in mind, this was already starting better than our last trip to Tír na nÓg had.
The Faery relaxed quite a bit once we had introduced Sarah as my sister and Ziralin’s mother. Sarah was of course of the Cailleach dearg like me, and when Ziralin and Ellie had told stories about our encounters when the troupe was still unsure about me Ziralin had mentioned Sarah’s attempt to sacrifice her life for us and how, as a result, she had lost her magick and gained Ysuriel’s mark and Celestial powers. As for Ziralin’s mother, she did have some Faery blood, diluted as it might be and her daughter was very much a Faery.
They relaxed even more once we had assured them that Annie and Jennifer were trusted friends and they had shown that, like Sarah and Ziralin, they possessed the powers of Celestials. It seemed that the Fairy believed that only those pure of heart could possess the ability to take on a Celestial’s powers and memories as Ziralin had. Annie did get some curious glances though since none of the Faery from the troupe had ever seen an Asian before.
Apparently, except for Yanisse, none of them had been to our Plane since back during the witch hunts in England. Even then they had only explored Ireland, Scotland, and a few other parts of the British Isles. Yanisse had visited Earth again during the early 1940s, and that explained a lot about both her view of humans and why her modern English was much better than most of the others in the troupe.
Talisha was of course warmly welcomed, and since she no longer had a troupe of her own she was invited to join theirs since Yanisse wished to officially induct Ellie, Ziralin, and me as well while we were there anyway. Elsaishe’s mother was of course happy for both her and Ellie to have the chance to be part of a troupe again, but she did have a concern. “There are so few of us,” she commented sadly as she looked around at the Faery sharing the morning meal in the communal eating and gathering hall.
“Aye, we have lost another three in Demon attacks since the young ones were last here,” Yanisse offered in a sad tone. “There are sixty-eight of us remaining, and of those only two are males. I fear that we are an endangered people; on the Plane of Earth our blood will become diluted by breeding among humans until there is little Faery left in them, and here we will not have enough Fae born to increase our numbers while those numbers slowly drop. Still, we would be far worse off had the young ones not come in search of Torphael and had Shannon not helped us to prepare ourselves to fight back against the Demons.”
“What about my daughter?” Mrs. Sanders asked. “Shannon somehow awakened the Faery blood in her, could the same be done for others like her? My grandmother told me stories of our heritage and I think that I can speak for both of us when I say we would welcome such a chance. My son may wish the same, he has shown an interest in our heritage since Ziralin started being herself at home.”
Yanisse’s eyes widened and she broke into a smile. “There may be a way. There are two Faery in our troupe who possess the gift of the old magicks, I shall speak with them on this matter. I sense though, that that is not why you came here today.” She looked directly at Ellie, Ziralin, and me as she gently asked, “Does it have something to do with the haunted look in your eyes, young ones?”
I looked away in shame as I nodded. “I’ve been wanting to check on how you were doing, but we’re here because a Celestial named Xuriel told me that your troupe might have a spirit healer.”
“ Our troupe, Shannon,” the troupe leader corrected. “You have more than earned the right to be counted among us, and we will make that official tonight. I will take you to Jaenara once the morning meal is done. I will not ask what has happened, that is your burden and while we need not know what the weight upon your heart is, the troupe will help you to carry it as best we can.”
Wait. No pressure to tell them what had happened? I tried not to look at Jennifer as I awkwardly replied, “Umm… thanks. Our friends at school keep trying to get us to talk about it, but that only makes me feel worse because I can’t. There’s no way they’d understand even if it didn’t involve Demons, I’d just feel more ashamed, and no matter how they react they would never see me the same way again. I… can tell you that your gift to me saved us. Without them and Xuriel’s encouragement, we’d have been…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I choked on the words and I couldn’t stop the tears that suddenly started.
Until now I had been trying to keep my feelings about what had happened to myself. Ellie had needed me to be strong for her sake and I felt that showing just how much that the incident had rattled me would make me look weak. If I’d had any privacy I probably would have broken down completely the night before in the darkness of my room, and I had let my emotions slip a bit when I had comforted Ellie in the bathroom at lunch, but other than that I had kept it all bottled up. I felt both relieved and ashamed as I finally broke down in front of everyone there.
Ziralin gripped my hand harder in hers and I could sense her own mental battle with the shame and self-loathing. As I returned the strength of her grip I felt two pairs of arms wrap around me. One set belonged to Sarah of course and I knew that not being able to help me through this was killing her inside. The other set of arms surprisingly belonged to Yanisse. They both just held me there for what seemed an eternity as I let out everything that I had been holding inside until then.
I awoke after a horrible nightmare, reliving what had happened in Kari’s room at the sorority house. The difference from reality was that in the dream I hadn’t been able to fight off her control and she was doing things to me. I may not have had any personal experience with sex in real life, but I apparently had watched enough television and read enough for my imagination to fill in the blanks. I shot up into a sitting position screaming and on the verge of tears before realizing that it had only been a dream. Now though my heart was racing, I was crying and I felt like I needed to throw up.
“It’s okay, Sis. I’m right here with you,” Sarah said softly while looking over me in concern. I guess she thought it would be a good idea to let me wake up and let me know that it was her before hugging me tightly. She was probably afraid that she would spook me otherwise, and she probably would have, especially after that dream. I hadn’t even been aware that I had fallen asleep in the first place but I guess that my emotional deluge after more than thirty-six hours without sleep was enough to make me pass out.
I took a quick look around as Sarah wrapped me up in her arms and tried to reassure me that everything was okay. I was in one of the smaller huts, alone with my sister. Once she had managed to calm me down to the point where it felt like my heart wasn’t about to jump out of my chest and run away she explained. “We’re in Yanisse’s hut. We thought that it would be better if it were just me here when you woke up. You’ve been out about three hours.”
“Where is everyone?” I asked, sniffling into her shoulder.
“Ellie is resting with her mother, her session with Jaenara was emotionally and physically draining, but she’s sleeping peacefully now and Jaenara said that she should wake feeling refreshed in a few hours,” she replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief for my cousin’s sake. “Ziralin is with Jaenara now and then it will be your turn, followed by Annie. Annie and Jennifer are out gathering food with one of the hunting and gathering parties right now and Meredith is speaking with Yanisse and another Faery woman named Kuraishe.
For a time she just sat there holding me in her arms, like our mother used to when one of us had a terrible dream. Trying to talk about it would have only made me feel worse so she didn’t say anything more until I was ready to speak again. I didn’t need words or platitudes, I just needed my sister to be there and she knew that.
After a while, a feminine voice that I didn’t recognize called out, “Sarah, is Shannon ready?” I looked toward the voice to see a lithe brunette Faery with piercing amber eyes standing just outside where the hut’s walls would be if it had them. The Faery may not have an overwhelming need for privacy, but they were trying to respect ours and I appreciated that, even if only for my sister’s sake. I had gotten used to their openness about everything during my last visit.
“She woke up a few minutes ago, I haven’t really had time to tell her what to expect yet. How is Ziralin?” was my sister’s response.
“Young Ziralin was reluctant to address her burdens, she doesn’t like appearing or feeling weak, but I was able to get her to talk to me after some convincing. She is with her mother now, they are both resting and recovering,” the Faery said with a calmness that surprised me. Even for a Faery she was relaxed.
“Thank you, Jaenara,” Sarah replied before reluctantly releasing me from her embrace. Then she gave me an appraising look and sighed. “Shannon is probably as ready as she’s going to be. You’re sure this will work? She’s not a Faery like Ziralin and Ellie and she’s had a barrier placed around her mind.”
So this was the spirit healer that Xuriel had sensed. She was pretty and had a friendly smile and that air of serenity about her but it was those amber eyes that got my attention. They seemed to pierce my soul with even the briefest of glances. Suddenly, I wasn’t so certain about this as the Faery woman nodded and said, “That barrier was designed to keep intruders from the deepest recesses of her mind. The link that I will form is consensual and I will only be accessing what thoughts she chooses to share.”
It struck me that her English was as good as Yanisse’s, I could understand her perfectly. When I was last in Tír na nÓg I had had trouble conversing with most of the Faery beyond the basics whereas Ellie spoke their language and Ziralin had picked it as well from Torphael’s info dump. I wondered how she had gotten so fluent in so short a time until she added, “I loathe to bring someone else in on a session, usually issues such as these are best addressed privately, but I may need you to act as a translator. I am afraid that I cannot speak your native language very well.”
“Wait, what? I can understand you just fine,” I said, furrowing my brow in confusion.
“Shannon, when did you learn to speak Faery?” Sarah sputtered in surprise.
“Ummm, if I were a betting girl, I’d put my money on sometime between when I started school today and when I woke up from my nap just now,” I muttered. To most people, waking up fluent in an entirely new language might be a cause for alarm. But my bar for weird shit had been set pretty damn high since being turned into a girl. “This has to be Xuriel’s doing, Sis. I mean she did place the protections on my mind in the first place, it wouldn’t be the first time that she’s messed with somebody’s head for my sake, and she did recommend coming here to see a spirit healer. There wouldn’t be much point in doing that if I couldn’t communicate with her.”
“She could at least ask permission before doing things like that, or show herself to us. We’re supposed to be working toward the same goal, dammit.” Yup, Sarah was not happy with Xuriel, but I couldn’t say that I was too happy with the way she operated either. She was manipulating us and had been for a while and I didn’t like that one bit.
Since I could indeed communicate with Jaenara, she guided me to her hut. It was set a bit away from the others and unlike the others, it had walls and a door. She explained that this was because sometimes the feelings she felt from looking at other people could be very overwhelming and her mind needed a break from it. Also, people who needed her help generally had some sort of trauma that they didn’t feel comfortable discussing with others, even other Faery.
She had me sit in the lotus position on one of two woven grass mats and explained how the session with her would work. She was going to have to get me to talk about the events that had traumatized me so that they were fresh in my mind and she could sense the emotions tied to those memories. It seemed that there was a bundle of raw and painful emotions all tangled up with that set of memories. As I talked about those memories she would use a form of mind magick to make them seem more distant and to weaken the negative emotions that were tied to them and overwhelming my mind and spirit while strengthening the positive aspects.
There would always be some negative emotions if I thought about the event directly, but it would no longer dominate my thoughts and I would be able to look at it more objectively when I did remember. And those positives would no longer be what-ifs running through my mind but assurances that I was alive and well and had learned from my experience. I had asked why not remove the trauma entirely but she had answered that it was part of who I was now and the lessons would be forgotten as well if we did that.
This therapy would help me to remember the important aspects and remain myself while not letting what had happened govern my thoughts. When I arrived in Tír na nÓg I was letting it rule my mind and dictate who I was and what I did, but by having that memory remain, but seen in the proper perspective I would rule it instead of it ruling me and it could become a source of strength because it was something I had survived and learned from.
So, for almost an hour I poured out the words and emotions to a woman I barely knew in a language that was new to me but seems to spill out effortlessly off my tongue. As I talked she sat there serenely and watched me with those intense amber eyes. With each jarring memory, each shamed admission, I felt that burden in my mind growing ever lighter. By the time we had finished, I was emotionally and mentally exhausted and in a bit of a daze as she stood up and offered a hand to help me to my feet.
“You have done well, Shannon,” she told me with a smile. “That was a terrible ordeal for you and your friends, but you are here now and safe among your troupe and family. You are loved, and strong, and the shame is not yours. It never was. Come, I will take you to your sister so that you can rest your body and mind. Soon you will awake refreshed and we will have much to celebrate.” I allowed her to lead me back to the hut where Sarah was waiting and I barely managed to get settled in my sleeping bag before I fell into a peaceful slumber.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 12 Troupe Amethyst |
When I awoke I felt lighter than I had in days. I still got upset and squeamish when I thought directly about the night at the sorority house, but it wasn’t weighing me down and I could think clearly again without it dominating my thoughts and feelings like it had been before my session with Jaenara. It was movement nearby that had awoken me and as I sat up in my sleeping bag and blearily rubbed at my eyes I saw Sarah kneeling beside me with a large leaf in her hands loaded up with berries, nuts, some kind of cooked vegetables, and roasted poultry.
“Sorry to wake you Shannon, but Yanisse thought that you might be hungry and we didn’t want you oversleeping so you can sleep properly tonight,” my sister offered apologetically as she offered me my water bottle as well.
I had to admit that I was a bit hungry, but I was so thirsty that I gratefully took the bottle first and gulped down nearly half of it before my dry throat and cottonmouth faded. “How long was I out this time?”
“Only about an hour and a half, our hosts are having their midday meal and Yanisse suggested that I bring some to share with you. Annie just got through with her session with Jaenara and she’s sleeping it off in the guest hut that Yanisse and some of the others grew for us to use while we’re here. How are you feeling, Sis?” She was still worried about me, I could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.
“I’m much better, my visit with Jaenara helped a lot I think. I feel a lot more like my usual self,” I admitted before asking, “How are the others?”
Sarah shrugged as she took a few berries from the leaf-plate and popped them in her mouth. “They’re awake and seem to be doing well, though Ziralin and her mom were both in for a bit of a shock when they woke up. Meredith pinched one of her new wings under her and screamed and that woke up Ziralin who didn’t recognize her. It was kind of funny actually, half the village came running.”
“New wings?” I asked, still a bit sleep confused.
“They were able to awaken her Faery blood, and they didn’t even need to make her somebody’s familiar to do it,” my sister said with a wry grin.
“Very funny,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “It wasn’t like I intended to do any of that.”
“I know,” Sarah replied as she reached out and hugged me tightly. “I’m glad that you’re feeling better Shannon, we were worried about you girls. We’re going to stay tonight and tomorrow night so we can all get some downtime and so Meredith can get some basic lessons in casting a glamour, flying, and her other Faery abilities. Talisha can help her refine her abilities later, but we’d like to make sure she has the basics down before we go home.”
“So she’s a full Faery now?” I asked. At Sarah’s nod, I bit my lip as I thought about how that might go over. “She’ll need to use a glamour whenever she goes out on our Plane. How’s she taking it?” I was a little worried that she might freak out, as Ziralin had at first.
“She‘s pretty happy about it, it’s something she’s wanted for most of her life, but she never thought it was possible,” Sarah responded with a smile. “She knows that there are going to be things she’ll need to learn, but this is big for her and the Faery of this troupe. It means that her grandmother and Ziralin’s brother could both get awakened too if they want it, and right now any population growth among the Faery would be a good thing. Ziralin’s brother could be very popular if he goes through with it and decides to spend some time here with the troupe. There are only two males right now and given the fertility issues that they already have, the Faery could very well be an endangered species unless we can find a way to get some population growth going.”
I nodded sadly. Maybe someday we could figure out a way to help with that, some sort of fertility spell or something. I thought about it as Sarah and I ate, but I was no closer to an answer by the time that we finished our meal and left Yanisse’s hut to join the others. We found them still in the central eating area, where Ziralin, Ellie, and Jennifer were all talking enthusiastically with some of the members of the troupe. It was a relief to see Ziralin and Ellie smiling again since I had thought it would be a long time before any of us were able to get over what had happened. I made a mental note to try and think of something nice that we could do for Jaenara to thank her for giving us our lives back.
Talisha was engaged in a conversation with some of the other Faery from the troupe and a Faery that I didn’t recognize who had a look of concentration on her face. She was obviously an adult because she had iridescent and slightly translucent dragonfly-like wings on her back. Age-wise she didn’t look much older than Sarah and she was very attractive with bright golden eyes and long hair that seemed strawberry blonde or lilac-colored depending on how the light hit it.
There was only one person that it could be since I’d already known all of the members of the troupe. “Wow, Ziralin’s mom is hot.” The words had escaped my mouth before I had even realized what I was saying and my cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She had been attractive and youthful before for a woman with two kids in their mid to late teens but now, like my girlfriend, she looked very little like her former human self.
Sarah laughed. “Yeah, her husband is pretty lucky. He’ll probably realize that if he ever gets over the shock. Annie reacted almost the same way, she called her a FMILF.” I just nodded but Sarah wasn’t exactly looking at me so when I didn’t say anything she added, “You know, a Faery Mom I’d Like to…”
“I got it!” I quickly sputtered to put an end to that sentence and line of thought. I did not need that in my head. She was my girlfriend’s mom. That was like, all sorts of wrong. “How’s Ziralin handling that?” I looked toward my girlfriend, who smiled and waved me over. From our link, I could sense that she felt calmer, more relaxed, and almost content, though I thought that I could sense an undercurrent of lingering embarrassment as well that seemed to be slowly fading.
“She didn’t really know who she was waking up next to at first and her reaction was a bit awkward for them both once she did figure it out. Her mind was a bit fuzzy and only realized who she was when her mind cleared because of the clothes Meredith was wearing,” Sarah explained.
I nodded in understanding, I was having trouble shaking off my own case of fuzzy-head. It wasn’t really surprising given that Xuriel had messed around in there to teach me a new language at the very least and then the memory work with Jaenara. A break from school for a few days was a welcome relief given the state that my brain was in at the moment.
Sarah and I walked over to join the others and I gave Ziralin a loving kiss in greeting before holding her close for a moment and just breathing her in as I felt her love and affection wash over my mind. This was how it should be, me and her content and wrapped up in one another’s arms. She tilted my chin up to stare into my eyes and as I was captured in her emerald gaze she drew me in close for another kiss. This one was tender, languid, and full of the promise of more to come. For the rest of our lives, even should we live an eternity.
When we finally pulled apart my breath caught in my throat and my heart was beating so fast that it was practically humming in my chest. I was light-headed and giggled a bit from the rush. This wasn’t about lust or desire for one another like some people might think. Sure, there was some of that. My nipples were like, diamond-hard and I could feel that now-familiar warmth building up in waves that seemed to spread from my damp panties to the very center of my being. But that was just one instrument in an entire orchestra of everything that I felt for her. It was like our love was tangible, like I was swimming in it, and I didn’t want to come back to dry land.
“I love you.” We both half-whispered it at the same instant, causing those gathered around us to echo my giggle or smile knowingly, some did both. The night at the sorority house hadn’t even scratched the feelings that we had for one another and now that it was behind us and put in perspective it made those feelings even stronger. It wasn’t just love that we had for one another, it was truth , and we weren’t going to ever let anyone try to take that away from either of us again.
Most of us spent the rest of that afternoon helping the troupe with hunting and gathering, doing homework, and checking on the village’s defenses. There were no Demons in the area at the moment and the Demon alarm that Yanisse and I had created in combination with silver weapons and the enchanted arrows and stones that I had made for them had helped them to hold their own against any Demons who had attacked in our absence. They had lost two people in that time, but we all knew that the losses could have been far worse.
That night, each of us was officially inducted into the troupe in the same way that the first Cailleach dearg had been, with an exchange of blood and the promise to be family; to lean on one another in the dark times, care for one another, and defend one another whatever may come. After that we celebrated as a troupe and those of us not familiar with Faery customs and traditions were given a crash course. Jennifer seemed especially pleased and she thought that, aside from getting her Celestial mark, it was the coolest thing ever.
It was as the four of us non-adults headed to the guest hut for a good long sleep that Jennifer gathered Ziralin, Elsaishe, and me all up in a big hug. She even changed to her Celestial form so she could wrap her wings protectively around us. “I’m sorry. You’re my best friends and I should have been there for you. I should have figured out a way to contact you and make sure that you were all safe. I don’t know what happened, and I’m not going to ever ask you about it again, but I’m never going to let anything else happen to any of you again if I can prevent it.”
“We all made a stupid mistake,” Ellie said as we hugged her back. “There was nothing that you could have done and we’ve learned from it. If there’s one thing that it taught me, it is that we may not always be able to be there to protect one another. We’ll do our best, but we also need to start training ourselves to fight on our own if necessary, because whether we’re alone or together I am never letting a Demon get the upper hand on me again.” Ziralin and I both nodded in agreement as we all held one another tight. From now on we were going to train to be prepared for anything that might come our way.
The next day we reveled in the company of our troupe, helping them with day-to-day activities that we would normally take for granted on Earth. Sarah and I spent some of that time replenishing their supply of holy magick charged arrows and stones in case of Demon attacks and Annie put us through an extra intensive martial arts class during the afternoon. Many of the Faery of the troupe joined us, eager to learn new ways to defend themselves. Mostly though, it was just a day of relaxing with no worrying about fighting Demons, school, or work. It was a day that all of us sorely needed with how hectic things had been lately. When the day was done I had the best sleep that I had had in ages, dreaming pleasant but indistinct dreams of my time with the Faery rather than the usual mixed bag of odd dreams and nightmares that I had been having off and on since becoming a girl.
It was four-thirty on Wednesday morning when we arrived back to our own plane of existence. This whole time difference between Planes was a bitch to get used to, it felt like it should be Friday but in the two days that we had spent in Tír na nÓg from our perspective, less than twelve hours had passed on Earth. It has been nice to have those days away to rest and recover and break up the school week though.
Since Jennifer, Ellie, Beth, and I all needed to get ready for school and we only had two bathrooms with showers we decided to start getting prepared right away. We had had a full night’s sleep before getting up to come home so we were already alert, awake, and ready to take on whatever the day may bring. Beth’s Mom headed home clad in her glamour and even though her husband likely wouldn’t have headed to work yet she was going to wait to reveal her new self until she and Ziralin could break it to both him and Ziralin’s brother together after my girlfriend got home from volleyball practice that evening.
School passed mercifully quickly that day and our friends were all glad to see me, Ellie, and Beth in a better mood than the day before. We explained to them at lunch that we had all had a bit of a scare on Monday night while we were out and that it had rattled us a bit. Then once we had assured them that we were fine now and had managed to put the whole incident in perspective they seemed relieved and they didn’t press us for any more details than we had already given.
Our teachers seemed pleased that we were back to our usual attentive selves in class and that we had gotten over whatever had been bothering us the previous day enough to get all of our homework done as well. It seemed that they hadn’t expected that and had been prepared to give us a little leeway on the assignments since we were all normally good students and I was actually a bit moved by their concern. By the time that the end of the school day and volleyball practice came around, it felt like another normal day at St. Catherine’s.
Volleyball practice was great. It was nice to let loose and have some fun on the court and Ellie got involved for part of the practice as well before we got a practice game going and she helped Coach Dawson to officiate. She had the rules down pretty well by now and some of the other girls were trying to encourage her to work on her skills with us during practices more, and to try out for a team spot next year instead of just the equipment manager.
It was such a good day that I should have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I wasn’t the only one caught unawares. We had left the front entrance of the school with our backpacks and gym bags in hand and crossed the parking lot when I noticed someone standing beside my car, seemingly waiting for us. She was bundled up for the cold so I didn’t recognize her until we were nearly upon her. My Fae companions recognized her a split-second before I did and both of them stopped in their tracks as Beth tightly gripped my hand in hers and hissed under her breath, “Lisa.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 13 Obsession Amethyst |
I watched Lisa carefully for a moment. What in the hell was she doing waiting by my car in the school parking lot? My experiences with Lisa, both before and after my transformation into a girl, made me anticipate trouble, but she didn’t make a move and she looked as nervous as I was. My magick sense didn’t pick up anything and I couldn’t sense the presence of Khinara, or any other Demons for that matter. I had Beth and Ellie with me so things seemed safe enough, and yet still I hesitated.
“Umm… hi,” Lisa said uncertainly, breaking the tense silence as she gave an awkward little finger wave.
Beth was as uncertain as I was and I could feel a surge of protectiveness from our link as she stepped between me and my stalker. “What do you want, Lisa?”
Lisa let out a deep breath, swallowed a lump in her throat, and then her cheeks flushed from more than just the cold as she said, “I… I’m here to apologize.”
Beth, Ellie, and I all stared at her for a long moment in stunned disbelief. Those were the last words that I would have ever expected to come from Lisa White. I still wasn’t sure that I trusted or believed her so after quickly casting a truth spell under my breath I cautiously asked, “Why?”
“I… uh… get that you probably don’t trust me, and I totally deserve that given the following you around and other stupid shit that I’ve done to you,” she began, looking down at her feet. Then she took another deep breath and looked me straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a total bitch, and I guess that I’ve kinda always been that way. I’ve always had to be the best at everything; the best athlete, the smartest student, the prettiest, have the best boyfriend, and I was like that with everything I did. Everything in my life had to be perfect. I got totally OCD about it and if I wasn’t the best at something or something didn’t go according to my plans it ate me up inside and I lashed out at others.”
I could only keep staring, words just didn’t want to come to me and, since Ellie and Beth seemed similarly shocked and confused, Lisa kept talking. “When I met you I was jealous of your looks and when you didn’t take my abuse and beat me at my own game I realized that you were smart and confident too. Then you had to prove yourself to be a better athlete as well. I had a meltdown over it and I had to try and prove myself superior so I started the gay-bashing and the rumors. When I confronted you at the mall you kind of turned my world inside out. I realized two things. The first was that I was attracted to you, very attracted. The second was that I’m not attracted to guys, I’ve been going through the motions but there’s nothing there, nothing like what I felt for you.”
“So you decided to stalk me?” I sputtered in disbelief.
“Realizing that I was attracted to girls was a blow to my massive ego, okay?” she replied sheepishly as she looked at the ground. “I knew that it was stupid when I was doing it, but if I was going to be a lesbian then I needed to have the absolute best girlfriend, and you were it. I got fixated on the idea and when I get all OCD like that I don’t think about consequences, I get totally focused on the goal and I’ll do anything to get there, so I started watching you to wait for my opportunity.”
“You know, trying to slander her and make her look bad was a pretty shitty idea if that was what you were going for,” Beth contributed acidly.
“I… I was already all-in on that and I kinda hated you both for making me realize that I’m gay. I know, I’m messed up for hating Shannon and wanting her at the same time. Besides, I thought that maybe you’d break up with her if things got too hot,” Lisa admitted awkwardly. “I don’t think clearly when I get focused on something like that. And then Blondie there had to announce your engagement to the world and that cop came after me so I panicked and ran. I… I don’t remember anything from the time I left the mall until I woke up in the hospital yesterday.”
“Yeah, something weird happened. We were walking to my car when all the lights and stuff in the parking lot died. We thought we heard something and we found Sgt. Williams and her partner out cold. We didn’t see you anywhere,” I said with a shrug, giving her the non-magic version of our story from that night. Then as an afterthought, I added, “We heard you were missing, so you’re pretty much the last person we expected to see waiting by my car.”
“There’s like a whole day missing from my memory, but when I woke up the cops were there to ask if I could remember anything that happened on Sunday night. They found me unconscious just outside the emergency entrance of the hospital at like four in the morning yesterday. I’ve been thinking about you since I woke up, both of you,” she said, giving both Beth and me a long look that actually looked genuinely distraught.
“Thinking about them?” Ellie asked with a raised eyebrow. “I think they’ve both made it clear that they’re not interested in you.”
Lisa quickly looked away. “No, not like that. I’ve felt different since I woke up yesterday. I don’t have that obsessive drive to be the best at everything. I haven’t had a single OCD thought and usually, even the littlest things like how things are arranged on a table or food tray can set me off. I’ve been thinking about what a bitch I’ve been, how messed up I was to do what I did. I’m very sorry about what I’ve done, neither of you deserved that. I… I’ve deleted all my social media posts about you, posted an apology… and I came out of the closet.”
Beth pulled out her phone and quickly opened Lisa’s social media accounts. She had been keeping an eye on them to see what she was posting about me. Her eyes went wide as she looked at each in turn. “Holy shit, you really did!”
“Yeah, you could have been bitches to me when I first cornered you in the mall, I certainly deserved it, but you actually gave me some pretty good advice. I’ve been thinking about that and a few other things since I woke up yesterday. I decided to quit sports for now and just focus on school and making some real friends. The only person to come see me in the hospital was my mom and I guess that says a lot about the kind of person I am.”
“The person you were,” I corrected gently as I looked over the posts that Beth was showing me on her phone. “That person wouldn’t have come to apologize in person, admitted that she was wrong, or done that whole thing on social media.” I wondered if this had anything to do with the chemical imbalance that Sarah had detected and fixed in Lisa’s brain.
“Yeah, I guess. Congratulations on the engagement. Anyway, I did what I came to do so I’ll leave the three of you alone now and I’ll try not to bother you again. I’ve got to go catch the bus since my car needs to be repaired.” She turned and started walking toward the street and I felt kind of bad for her. What she just did couldn’t have been easy and it took both guts and class to do it.
I was kind of concerned about Khinara coming after her too. If she came to collect her promised meal and Lisa didn’t have it, or even know who she was. things could go bad for her. Sarah had tagged Lisa with a spell to let her know if any Demons got too close to her and I quickly cast a similar spell as she started to walk away, but I still felt bad leaving her like that. She had just come out of the closet and was probably going to have it pretty rough in school between that and quitting the volleyball and basketball teams. If she was really trying to change and be a better person, then I couldn’t let her go through all of that alone.
I looked toward Beth and Ellie and they both took one look at the expression on my face before smiling and shaking their heads. “You want to help her, don’t you?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, that can’t have been easy for her and she’s going to be out of the closet and you saw how the girls on her volleyball team latched onto the nasty lesbian gossip. She won’t have any friends to help her through this and everyone who she thought was a friend will probably be doing the same thing to her that she had them doing to me,” I said uncertainly.
“Some might call that justice served,” Ellie pointed out. “I don’t think I would be one of them though. She didn’t do anything to me directly so it’s really up to you and Beth.”
Beth leaned over to kiss me tenderly. “If you can put the past behind us then so can I, sweetheart. We’ll be careful just in case it’s not on the up and up, but we’ll give her a chance if you want to. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t feel responsible for her and want to help her, it’s who you are. You’d help your worst enemy if you thought it was the right thing to do and you’ve shown me that the path of most resistance can be pretty rewarding. You’d better call her before she gets too far.”
“Lisa!” I shouted as I ran toward her, and once I caught up I tried to sound friendly. “Look, there’s room in my car for one more. You don’t need to freeze waiting for a bus, we could give you a ride. I live near your school so it’s not really out of our way.”
“Yeah, I know. Why are you being so nice? I don’t deserve it, I was such a bitch to you and your girlfriend.” The look of guilt and surprise on her face when she turned around decided me. This wasn’t an act on her part, she felt genuinely bad for what she had done and she didn’t expect forgiveness.
I shrugged and took her gloved hand in mine. “Because I can be, and I’m told that I’d probably help my worst enemy if it was the right thing to do. Yeah, we kinda got off on the wrong foot, but we don’t need to let that define our relationship. C’mon, let’s get in the car and warm up, you look like you’re freezing.”
“But your…”
I quickly cut off her argument. “My girlfriend and my cousin are used to me doing things like this and they’re both cool with it. They’re willing to give you a chance too. I think that you could use some good friends, Lisa.”
“You’re sure about this?” Lisa asked one more time.
“Totally,” I assured her. “Even if we don’t become friends, we can at least try to put the past behind us. Now, c’mon, let’s go.”
I walked her back to the car where Ellie and Beth introduced themselves and tried their best to be friendly and not scare Lisa off. Soon we were in the car with the heater going and Lisa was giving us her address so we could drop her off at home. It turned out that she only lived a few streets over from our house so it wouldn’t be too hard for us to find our way there. As she waited for the car to warm up, Beth looked in her purse and came up with a pad of paper and a pen, which she quickly used to write down some information before tearing the page off and offering it to Lisa.
“What’s this?” Lisa asked uncertainly.
“That’s the place and time for the Rainbow Group meetings, and I put my phone number down in case you have any questions,” my Familiar/girlfriend explained. “Coming out of the closet can kind of turn your life upside down and it’s hard enough just realizing that you’re gay and coping with that without the way that some of your classmates and other people will treat you when they find out. I’ve been through that, I had a lot of problems when I came out last year, and having a support group has been a big help. I thought that maybe you could use a safe place where you could go to talk to people who will understand what you’re going through.”
“Well, besides us of course,” Ellie contributed as Beth put the car in gear and made for the snowy streets. “I’m still trying to figure out what my orientation is but I kinda figured out the other night that I’m probably bisexual, though it’s not as hard for me to deal with as it might be for some people. I mean, we have lots of rainbow members in our family, right cuz?”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a laugh, “My sister is a lesbian and both your Mom and I are bi, and let’s not even go into all of the extended family that we visited recently.” Knowing that most of the Faery in our troupe were at the very least bisexual had made it easier for Ellie to adjust to the idea once she had put some emotional distance between her and the trauma that had made her figure that out.
“We’re all pretty busy outside of school between volleyball and our jobs, but if you need someone to talk to or hang out with give me a call. Part of my job is taking Shannon’s calls and managing her schedule so if we can free up the time we’ll do our best to be there for you,” Beth said before asking somewhat uncertainly, “How did your parents take the news?”
“It’s just me and my mom,” Lisa corrected matter-of-factly. “My dad died when I was really young, I barely remember him. Mom… well I think she’s in shock, but she’ll probably be okay with it. I told her while I was in the hospital and she was already freaked out that I disappeared for a whole day and don’t remember anything, and I kinda laid everything on her at once, being gay and what I did to you.”
“You told her about that too?” Ellie asked staring at her in shock. “Was she the one who convinced you to apologize?”
“No, I decided to do that on my own, but when I told her that I planned to do it she said, ‘You damned well better after everything that you did.’ I didn’t want to wait and chicken out and I thought that you had volleyball practice today so I got her to drop me off at your school before she headed to her shift at the hospital.”
“She works at the hospital? What does she do there?” I asked. It was interesting learning more about her home life. All I’d ever seen was the miss perfect act she put on at school, but the things that I was learning explained a few things about her.
“She’s a trauma surgeon in the ER,” Lisa replied to my questions. “She usually works nights so we don’t see much of one another except for whatever evenings or weekends she gets off. She was working the other night when I was dropped off. She was totally freaked out when I woke up and I’m, like grounded forever, but I guess that I deserve that.”
Beth pulled the car up in front of a large house with darkened windows and I felt a sudden stab of guilt at the thought of leaving her in that house alone. I knew all too well what it was like being a latchkey kid since before my birthday Sarah was often gone for modeling gigs for days at a time, leaving me to fend for myself. I turned to look at her in the back seat and offered, “Lisa, we haven’t had dinner yet. Maybe you could come over to our place for something to eat. Beth has to go home for some family stuff, but I’m sure that my sister, her girlfriend, or Ellie’s mom wouldn’t mind giving you a ride home afterward.”
Lisa smiled, and it was still kind of weird seeing a genuine smile on her face, but she shook her head. “Thanks, Shannon, I appreciate the thought but I’m grounded and I should take my punishment and catch up on the schoolwork I’ve missed. Maybe some other time. If you still want to do it some other night then maybe we can talk to my mom about it. I think that she’s going to want to talk to you anyway.”
“Okay, if you need us for anything you can call Beth and she can give you my number, or we’re only a few blocks away,” I told her as I stepped out of the car to let her out of the back seat.
“Thanks, I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine. I should probably give you some space for a few days anyway so you can think about whether hanging out with me is really a good idea. I’m used to fending for myself and no offense, but it’s nice to not be thinking about you constantly. You’re really cute, but I am so over obsessing about you,” she said with a wry smile as she got out of the car. “Good night and drive safely.”
She headed up the walkway to the house and I waited until she was inside, the lights were on, and the door was closed before getting into the car. As we pulled out of the driveway and headed for home Beth said, “Sometimes you’re too nice for your own good Shannon, but for what it’s worth, I think that trying to be there for her is the right thing to do.”
“Me too,” Ellie added from the back seat. “I’m kinda worried about Khinara showing up while she’s alone too, and it seems like that will be a lot of the time, especially if she really quit sports.”
“I’m worried too,” I admitted, “but Sarah tagged her with an alert spell in case that happens and I did earlier as well. If any Demons come after her we’ll be there for her as soon as we can. And I know that she wasn’t lying about anything that she said because the truth spell I cast on her won’t wear off until we’re at least a block away.”
Beth dropped Ellie and me off at home and after a long and tender kiss goodbye, she headed home so she and her mother could break the news about her mom’s new Faery-ness to her dad and Jason. Ellie and I spent the rest of the evening doing homework, getting in some magick practice, and just hanging out with Annie, Talisha, and Sarah. We told them about the update to the Lisa situation and, while they all advised us to be cautious, they were happy with how we had handled it.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 14 Broken Amethyst |
Thursday was another normal day at school. Since we had informed Sarah, Talisha, and Annie about the favor that we would be doing for Mother Josephine earlier in the week, Annie had canceled our self-defense lesson for the night and Ellie had gotten the evening off from work. As Jennifer and I were at our lockers putting our homework for the evening in our backpacks and grabbing our coats and boots I asked my best friend, “So, what are you doing tonight while the three of us go to meet Michelle?”
“Mason and I are going to meet at the public library to get our homework done and then we’re going to go for dinner and see if Nathan Phillips Square Rink is open yet so we can do some skating,” she said with a grin.
“That sounds fun, I haven’t been skating since I was ten. Have fun Jen, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I replied as I finished putting on my coat and shouldered my backpack.
Beth and Ellie met me halfway to the doors and we quickly made our way to the exit and then across the parking lot to my car. I had wanted to try getting some driving practice in again but we had had some freezing rain the night before and more snow while we were in school. I didn’t dare try driving on snow-covered ice yet. Most of the major streets were already plowed and salted but a lot of the backroads would still be treacherous.
So, once Beth and I had taken our promise rings from our purses and put them on our fingers where they belonged, Beth ended up driving us across town to the address that Mrs. Dubois had given me, a nice little red brick house with dark green trim. Once all three of us were out of the car and gathered at the front door I tentatively rang the doorbell. It was a moment later that a raven-haired woman in her forties who bore a resemblance to Mother Josephine opened the door. She quickly took in our school uniforms under our unzipped coats and a smile touched her lips. “You must be the girls that my sister sent.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I’m Shannon and this is my girlfriend Bethany and my cousin Elsaishe,” I answered trying to be as respectful as possible. Being respectful doesn’t hurt anyone and she was my elder and someone with whom I was trying to make a good first impression. Some people seem to think that respect should be earned, but I’ve always thought that the opposite is true. Respect should be given to everyone and disrespect is earned.
“It’s nice to meet all of you, please come inside,” Mrs. Dubois offered. Then as we were all taking off our boots and coats she smiled and added, “Michelle is upstairs in her room, I’ll go and bring her down, why don’t you all make yourselves comfortable in the living room?”
She led us to the room in question where I got comfortable on the couch with Ellie and Beth to either side of me as she went upstairs. After a moment we could hear voices emanating from the second floor and neither voice sounded very happy. After several minutes of awkward waiting, Mrs. Dubois returned with an unhappy-looking girl with long black hair and brown eyes. Her style was very emo with a black hoodie with the hood up and black jeans and her hair was kind of scruffy, falling around her face as if she were trying to hide it.
“Hi, you must be Michelle. I’m Shannon and this is my girlfriend, Beth, and my cousin, Ellie,” I said trying to stay positive and giving her my best smile.
“Look, you don’t need to be here,” Michelle said with a frown. “You can go, and tomorrow you can tell my aunt that you tried to make nice and I wasn’t having it. You don’t need to be stuck here with me and she’s not going to punish you since you tried, she’s not as mean and tough as she acts. So don’t worry about whatever it is that she had on you to make you come here.”
Beth was looking at her intently and I could hear her sniff to my right as Ellie did the same to my left. Beth’s mind was filled with concern as she stood up, shook her head, and tried to give Michelle a smile of her own. “She didn’t have anything on us. She and your parents are worried about you and she thought that you could use some friends who can understand what you’re going through. We volunteered to try to help you because we’re all into girls too, and all of us have known what it’s like to be bullied and treated as outcasts. We’re all stronger if we stick together.”
“Omigod!” Michelle fake-enthused, “Well, why didn’t you say so before?! Now that the baby dyke squad is here everything is just fucking perfect!”
“Michelle!” Her mother snapped, looking completely aghast.
Beth gave her a long searching look before shrugging. “Sure Shannon and Ellie are still kind of new to this whole thing, Ellie just figured it out earlier this week. From what your aunt told us though, I’ve been out for as long as you have and honestly, none of that has any bearing on whether we can be supportive of you and maybe even become friends.”
“I don’t need any more friends to stab me in the back, thanks. And I don’t need your support either if it’s anything like the support I’ve gotten from the other LGBT kids at school,” Michelle snapped.
I looked from Beth to Michelle, and then to Ellie, uncertain of what to do. My eyes fell upon my Fae cousin just in time to see that same determined look on her glamoured face as had been there when she announced mine and Beth’s “engagement” to the world. She stood up and smiled and said, “Well, we’re good listeners so why don’t you tell us all about that, and while you’re telling us about that maybe you can…”
I didn’t hear the last of what Ellie had said as she moved very close to Michelle and whispered it in her ear. Whatever it was though, it got the hostile girl’s attention. Her face went white and she looked from Ellie to her Mother and then back to Ellie, Beth, and me. “Fine. We’re not talking about it here though. Mom, we’re heading to the mall.” She turned on her heel and made for the front door where she quickly put on her boots and jacket and grabbed her purse. We had to hurry with getting our own things on to catch up with her and I promised Mrs. Dubois that we would take care of her daughter and do our best to help her as we scrambled out the door.
Michelle waited until we were all in the privacy of my car before turning to glare at Ellie. “How the fuck did you know that I’ve been cutting?”
“Basic powers of observation,” my Fae cousin said with a dismissive shrug as I turned in my seat to watch the pair and Beth put the car in gear. “There are bloodstains on the sleeves of your hoodie, good choice wearing black, they’re barely noticeable, probably not at all to those with less acute vision.” She and Beth did have really sharp vision and they probably smelled the blood as well with those sensitive Fae noses of theirs. That certainly explained them sniffing like they were.
“I noticed too,” Beth agreed as she pulled into the street. “I’m not going to tell you that you should stop or anything like that because if you didn’t realize that you wouldn’t have looked so scared when Ellie whispered about it. We’re not going to hurt you, we want to help you, so why don't you think about that and tell us what happened to make you doubt people so much while we drive to the mall.”
“I just said that we were going to the mall to get you out of the house so Mom doesn’t overhear this, that’s the last fucking place I want to go,” Michelle grumbled.
I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Well if you didn’t want her to suspect anything then you should have thought of another excuse. Have you ever heard of four teenage girls going to the mall and not buying anything? You’re going to have to go home with at least something or she’s going to wonder why you were so quick to get us out of the house.”
Michelle seemed to realize the trap that she had put herself in and sighed. “Dammit, it’s been so long since I’ve been to the mall that I didn’t think of that.”
Michelle still appeared to have her doubts about us but as we drove to the nearest mall she told us her story. She probably did it just because the words filled the awkward silence and because she thought that after this mall trip she would never have to see us again. She didn’t seem to trust people in general, but then I probably wouldn’t either if I’d gone through what she had at the hands of so-called friends.
It had started in her bedroom on a Saturday afternoon while she and her best friend Ginny were hanging out. They were talking about some of the boys at their school and what it would be like to have a boyfriend. Michelle had never really been interested in any of the boys and she figured out why when Ginny had suggested that they should practice kissing so that they would be able to do it properly once they got boyfriends. Michelle realized then that she was into girls and Ginny had looked like she was enjoying herself too so she admitted it to her friend.
Ginny told Michelle that she thought she might be bisexual but that she wasn’t ready to come out of the closet, so any relationship they had would have to be kept secret. Michelle agreed, but she hadn’t wanted to hide anything from her parents so she told them that she thought she was gay. They had been surprisingly cool about it and she was actually happy about things until school the following Monday.
Ginny and Michelle had both been a part of the popular crowd at their school but while Michelle was in school that Monday she discovered that all of her former friends had turned against her. Ginny had told all of them that Michelle was a lesbian and had tried to force herself on her. That was when the bullying began; the girls who were formerly her friends spread rumors about her, she received threatening and inappropriate text and voice messages on her phone, pictures of male genitalia were stuffed in her locker and slurs painted on the outside, and if any of them saw her outside of school they’d follow her and do their best to humiliate her in public.
Her school was as bad as my former school, if not worse. The popular kids, rich kids, and athletes could get away with anything and the principal had said that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove anything when she tried to get something done about it. There was plenty of evidence though, just the messages on her phone should have been enough, and everyone had seen the way that they treated her in the halls. So her bullies got even worse and none of the other students would come forward to help or even be seen with her. Even the other openly LBGT kids wouldn’t go near her, for fear of bringing the same thing down upon themselves.
Michelle had hoped that her tormentors would lose their interest in their little game over the summer if she stayed out of sight and out of mind, but it just kept going if they saw her alone in public and when she returned to school in September they picked up where they had left off. She couldn’t bear to tell her family what was going on and she threw her phone deep in her closet where she’d never have to look at it again and stopped leaving the house unless she absolutely had to.
We were all pretty furious by then. It was like a raging inferno in Beth’s mind and Ellie looked pissed in the back seat as she reached out to take the other girl’s hands in her own as Michelle finished her story. “So, yeah, I couldn’t take it anymore and after school started I… tried to kill myself. I guess I didn’t cut deep enough or at the right angle or something because I didn’t die, and that’s when I started cutting. It hurts, but there’s kind of a rush to it too while I’m doing it. The pain makes all the other pain in my life go away for a few minutes, and it’s something that’s mine, something that I’m in control of and those assholes at school can’t take away from me.”
“Okay, we’re calling Sgt. Williams and Detective Hanson about this later. They’ll do something about it or put us in contact with someone who can,” I said, trying to hold back my anger. “Michelle, do you still have any of those messages on your phone?”
Michelle regarded me with a look of uncertainty on her face. Finally, after a moment, she shrugged but kept looking at all three of us warily. “Yeah, though my phone is in the back of my closet somewhere and it hasn’t been charged in months. Why do you fucking care, and why are you being so nice? What’s in it for you?”
“Because we can, and nobody should be treated the way you have been. Real friends stick by you and help you when you’re in trouble or going through something, they don’t turn on you. What’s in it for us is you being happy, that should be enough for any real friend,” I stated firmly.
Beth ended up driving us to Yorkdale Mall, it was about halfway between my place and Michelle’s and we hoped that we would have less chance of being seen by anyone from Michelle’s school there. It was a risk though because Yorkdale was quite a bit bigger than any of the malls near Michelle’s place and could draw in anyone serious about some after-school shopping. As we trolled the mall we told Michelle a bit about ourselves and picked up a few things and it looked like she might be starting to relax a bit around us.
One of the things we picked up was a change of clothes. It was too warm in the mall to keep wearing our coats and Ellie, Beth, and I were getting a lot of attention in our school uniforms, so we each bought a new outfit to change into. Soon we were garnering slightly less attention in our new clothes. Ellie had chosen a mid-thigh length denim skirt and a baby pink t-shirt, Beth had gone for a pair of tight low-rise jeans and a crimson crop top that showed off her awesome abs, and I had decided on an emerald and black sleeveless skater dress with a built-in bodice and mid-thigh hem that went really nicely with the black leather ankle boots I was wearing.
We had our uniforms in the shopping bags and had convinced Michelle to at least buy some new jeans to maintain her cover before we started to get hungry and headed toward the food court. We were halfway toward our destination when Beth sighed and muttered, “Don’t look now girls, but we’re being followed.”
“I thought that Lisa was over that,” I grumbled.
“It’s not Lisa,” Ellie quickly put in. “A girl and three guys and they’re not even trying to be subtle. Hell, they’re pointing at us and making rude comments and they’ve mentioned Michelle by name.”
I leaned over to tenderly kiss Beth. “Okay, sweetheart, it’s time to text Sgt. Williams and let her know that we might have a problem here.”
“On it, babe,” she replied as she extracted her phone and began rapidly thumb-typing. “Done. They’re closing in on us so let’s find a place with plenty of surveillance cameras in case things get ugly.”
“They’ve already gotten ugly,” Michelle said snidely as she risked a glance in a store window and we continued walking to a storefront that Beth whispered had good camera coverage. “The girl is Ginny and the guys are her boyfriend Dale and some of his teammates from the football team.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 15 Confrontation Amethyst |
We managed to get to the storefront that Beth suggested before Ginny’s group caught up with us. “Well, if it isn’t Michelle the muff muncher,” a voice that I assumed belonged to Ginny said from behind us as we looked in the window of the lingerie shop. She sounded snooty and didn’t look much better as we turned to face her. She was bleach blonde, wore too much makeup, and the sneer on her face distorted her somewhat pretty face as she looked over Michelle and Elsaishe as my Fae cousin gripped Michelle’s hand reassuringly. “Aww, is that your girl friend?” she taunted, causing the jock with his arm held possessively around her and his friends to laugh.
Poor Michelle looked like she wanted to bolt, but Ellie kept a hold of her hand and looked Ginny over and then stared her right in the eyes. “That’s not your business, but if she is then I’d say that her taste has improved. But then, anything would probably be a step up from you.”
“You bitch! You can’t talk to me like that!” Ginny raged as she wound up in an attempt to slap Ellie.
I saw it coming and quickly intercepted the blow, catching her wrist in my hand. “What’s the matter?” I asked, “Can’t take what you’ve been dishing out? From what Michelle has told us, you and your clique have been doing and saying a lot worse to her. Maybe you shouldn’t treat people that way if you don’t want it in return. People like you are the raw sewage of society.” Then I gave her hand a disgusted look and let go of it before deliberately wiping my own off on the hem of my dress.
Ginny looked even angrier than before. She managed to get control of herself enough to sneer at us though. “Whatever that little bitch told you, it’s all a lie.”
One of the jocks with Ginny’s boyfriend was giving me a long look and just his eyes on me made me feel dirty. That feeling only got worse as he grinned at me and said, “You’re hot, so you probably know the deal, being seen with her is social suicide. Why don’t you drop the muff munchers there and come hang out with us? I’ll show you that it just takes a real man to…”
He had barely reached out to grab me before Beth acted, her mind filled with cold anger. Before anyone realized what was happening, my girlfriend had reached in, grabbed his reaching hand, and rolled him over her shoulder to slam him into the hard mall floor. She crouched on his back holding his arm behind him at a painful-looking angle and gave it a good hard twist to let him know that she meant business, causing him to yelp in pain as she spoke in a glacier cold tone that gave me chills. “Listen, asshole, if you or any of your friends try to touch my fiancée or any of my friends again I will break you. Starting with this arm.” She gave another twist to demonstrate her point.
Satisfied that Beth had things in hand I turned my attention back to Ginny and the other two guys who were all looking at my Familiar/assistant/betrothed in stunned disbelief as she didn’t move to get off the jock who was almost twice her size. Sure Beth was fairly tall at five foot eleven and athletic-looking, but he was at least six foot five, broad-shouldered, and looked like he did a lot of weight training. “She means it,” I told them coldly. “But if you’re so sure that Michelle is lying to us, why don’t you tell us the truth about what happened between you.” I directed my magick as I said the last and pointed at Ginny accusingly, channeling the intent that she be unable to lie for the next hour.
Usually, I tried not to use my magick for mundane matters but from the sounds of it Ginny and her friends had driven Michelle to the point of trying to kill herself, and no matter how this had started that wasn’t right and they should be held accountable. At the moment I was more inclined to believe Michelle since Ginny and her friends’ behavior proved that, at the very least, they were all assholes. Michelle also seemed to be genuinely terrified of them.
“I was never interested in her, as a friend or anything else. I hung out with her because she was pretty and popular, so I could get an in with her friends. She was always going to be more popular than me because she was so nice to everyone, so I needed to take her out of the running. I made up some shit about practicing our kissing figuring that I could say she kissed me and she was a lesbian. When I saw that she was enjoying I pretended to enjoy it too, said some shit about being bi and in the closet, and then I managed to record her little confession on my phone. By Monday I managed to out her to most of the school.” Ginny looked so pleased with herself until she realized what she had just said.
“And then you and your friends all went out of your way to make her life a living hell,” I said bitterly as I gave them a disgusted look.
“Fucking queers shouldn’t be allowed to go to school with the rest of us, or use the same bathrooms and change rooms so you can fucking perv on us!” Ginny’s boyfriend shouted.
A familiar voice spoke from behind him, hidden from my sight by the sheer bulk of him and his buddy that was still standing. “Hey, you got a problem with gay people?”
As he swung around to confront the new arrival I saw a flash of pink. “This is none of your business! Get lost, dyke, before I… ooof!”
“Dale!” Ginny looked around in fear as she found herself outnumbered with Beth still holding one of Dale’s buddies on the ground and her boyfriend hunched over in agony from the solid kick that had been delivered between his legs.
The owner of that familiar voice, and the foot that did the kicking, waved from over Dale’s bent-over and wheezing body. She looked quite a bit different than when we’d seen her the day before. Her long blonde hair had been cut short and spiky and was dyed a bright pink and she wore a leather jacket over a simple turquoise crop top and tight black jeans. It was so vastly different from her usual preppy look that I could only stare for a moment before sputtering, “Lisa?!”
That was when four mall cops decided to show up and the one in charge asked, “What’s going on here?” Then he cast a confused look toward Beth, who was still holding her captive in place. “Umm… Miss… I’m going to have to ask you to let him go.” Beth quickly complied and returned to my side to put an arm around me.
“Sir, if you’ll look at the security footage you’ll see that these guys were following me and my friends and trying to mess with Michelle here,” I quickly explained. “We didn’t do anything except in self-defense, well technically Beth was defending me, but she’s my fiancée and sort of my bodyguard.”
“Yeah, and I saw these guys were being assholes and really loud about their bigoted opinions and took offense and asked him if he had a problem with gay people. He threatened me, so I defended myself. Half the mall could hear him ranting about gay people,” Lisa added.
Ginny and the jocks were trying to make like they were the victims, but to their horror when Ginny was asked she said, “We saw them in the mall and decided to follow them and fuck with them. Since they were with Michelle and those two were holding hands we figured that they were all lesbos and we could have a bit of fun.” I’m not sure who was more surprised and horrified, Ginny or the guys she was with.
Twenty minutes later the four of us were making our way to the food court with Lisa while Sgt. Williams and her partner were in the security office interviewing Ginny, Dale, and his friends. She was also going to go over the security footage and gave Michelle her number so she could call her to arrange a time to hand over her old cell phone with whatever messages might be on it for evidence. She had also cautioned Michelle not to touch anything if anything else was left in her locker or on if there was any further vandalism, but to call her immediately so she could come and deal with it.
At first Sgt. Williams had thought Lisa was part of the problem since she was in the security office with us but we explained what happened and that Lisa had already apologized for her actions and taken steps to make amends. Lisa even apologized to Sgt. Williams and her partner for the trouble she caused and admitted to feeling terrible that they had gotten hurt chasing her, even though none of them remembered what happened when the pair of officers were knocked out and Lisa was abducted. It was nice to see that she was taking responsibility for her actions and trying to be a better person. So, in the spirit of friendship, we had asked if she wanted to come to have dinner with us.
We managed to get our meals and find a table big enough for all of us, and now that we didn’t have security breathing down our necks I smiled at Lisa. “That’s a good look for you, you look hot. I thought that you were grounded though.” We had introduced her and Michelle briefly, but we hadn’t really had a lot of time to talk while in the security office.
Lisa smiled back and nodded. “I was, but I told Mom about what happened with you yesterday and I kind of had a horrible day at school today so she took pity on me and let me borrow her car. She still wants to meet you though, all of you. So, since I was free I decided to come to the mall and change my look a bit and get some new clothes.”
“What happened at school?” Beth asked in concern.
“No worse than I was expecting,” Lisa replied with a despondent shrug. “Gossip is flying all over school about me being a lesbian, my former teammates are spreading most of the rumors and they’re pretty bad. The coaches and principal are pissed that I quit and are pressuring me to stay on the teams, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to show my back so my former teammates can put another knife in it. A lot of the people that I was a bitch to are getting their payback too, but I probably deserve that. It was a really shitty day, but I guess that’s part of the reason that Mom wants to meet you. She’s thinking of having me change schools and wants to know about St. Catherine’s.”
Ellie, Beth, and I told Lisa all about St. Catherine’s as we ate and Michelle watched the conversation thoughtfully. Finally, Michelle asked uncertainly, “Why did you all stand up for me? You could have just bailed on me and those jerks would have probably left you alone.”
“Because friends stand beside one another when there’s trouble, they don’t run off or stab you in the back, Michelle. That’s why we want you to talk to Sgt. Williams. She can help put an end to all of this bullying you’ve been going through and nail the people responsible. You don’t deserve to be treated that way, nobody does,” I told her carefully before turning my gaze to Lisa to let her know that that applied to her as well.
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I stepped in,” Lisa admitted. I didn’t see any of you well but I saw that bitch and those big assholes being all bigoted and heard him bitching about ‘queers’. I figured that they were making someone miserable so I thought that I should see if you needed any help. It kind of reminded me of how I was acting with Shannon before I came to my senses and I’m never going to let anyone treat someone else that way again if I can help it.”
“I… well… thanks,” Michelle replied with a blush. “I’m not used to having people come to my defense. How the hell did you take Tony down though, Beth? That was fucking amazing.”
“Aikido, you know, using his momentum and size against him,” Beth smoothly lied. “I’m Shannon’s personal assistant as well as her main squeeze and sometimes I need to play bodyguard so Shannon’s sister’s girlfriend has been teaching us a few things.”
“Yeah, Annie is awesome with martial arts and she used to be a cop,” Ellie added.
“I wonder why Ginny told the truth though. She’s a lying backstabbing bitch and I never thought that I would ever see her admit to something like that,” Michelle said with an awed shake of her head.
“Well we did have her and those jerks with her on camera so maybe when I mentioned the security footage she got scared and figured it would be in her best interests to cooperate,” I suggested, hoping to get her off the topic. I didn’t like lying, but neither Michelle nor Lisa knew about the existence of magick and I couldn’t risk revealing it to either of them unless we absolutely had to.
“Yeah, I guess that could be it, she’s always looking out for number one, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she turned on them when it looked like they might all be in trouble,” Michelle spat bitterly.
Lisa reached across the table to squeeze Michelle’s hand reassuringly. “People like that are always looking out for themselves. Real friends look out for one another. I thought that I maybe had some real friends, but today showed me that I really didn’t. Shannon, Beth, and Ellie were willing to give me a chance and show me what real friends are like even though I don’t really deserve it. They’re good people, and I think they’ll be good friends too if we let them. I’d like to be your friend too if you’ll have me, if nothing else at least we’ll both have someone to talk to about how much school sucks.”
“I… yeah, that could be nice,” Michelle admitted.
We hung out at the mall for another hour before finally saying our goodbyes to Lisa and taking Michelle home. We had managed to convince both of them to go to the support group meeting on Sunday though and promised to be there as well to support them both. Michelle seemed less guarded with us when we dropped her off at home, but we all knew that it was going to be a while before she could fully trust anyone again. Still, it was a good day and I was feeling pretty good about the way that things were going with both Lisa and Michelle when Beth dropped me and Ellie off at home.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 16 Rolling Along Amethyst |
The next day things were pretty normal, for my life anyway. School on that Friday passed without incident and then after volleyball practice, we dropped Ellie off at the mall so she could work the closing shift at Fantasy Jewelry with her mom. Then Beth dropped me off at home so we could both prepare for date night.
We were bringing our Hunting gear just in case we sensed any demonic activity while we were out, but we planned to make a fun night of it. The plan was to go to a location that we normally wouldn’t and scan for Demons along the way and while on our date. Sarah and Annie and Jennifer and Mason would be doing the same in other distant parts of the city and I think that we were all a bit torn about our hopes for the evening. As much as we all wanted to enjoy ourselves and have nice normal dates, it would be just as nice to find some way to track down Khinara and put an end to her for good.
Sarah and Annie had already left for their date, so I was alone in the house while I waited for Beth to come and pick me up and prepared for a night out. It felt a little strange being alone in the house, it seemed like it was always full of friends and family these days. Before my birthday a little over two months ago I had been used to being alone there, with Sarah often gone for days at a time on one modeling gig or another, and I sort of liked being independent. But with Talisha, Ellie, and Annie all moving in, they brought along a sense of family that I hadn’t really felt since Mom and Dad died. Now, with the house empty like this, I didn’t feel independent, just alone.
“It’s funny how things can change,” I thought to myself as I looked for something to wear. “I was independent then, but I was so lonely and miserable. My life may be kind of crazy now since I changed and got my magic, but everything is so much better too. Sarah and I are closer than ever, I have friends and all of my new Faery family, I’m doing things that I never thought possible, I feel better about myself, I’m starting a great career that I actually enjoy, and I have an amazing girlfriend that I’m going to marry one day. Is it weird that I want to have her babies? Who would have thought that I would be thinking something like that when this all started?”
I smiled and let a soft sigh slip from between my lips as I looked down at the promise ring I wore and my heart fluttered. Then I sternly reminded myself that I had a date to prepare for. Beth and I had both already showered after volleyball practice so all that either of us really needed to worry about was finding something to wear and putting on any makeup if we wanted to. I quickly set my attention back to the task at hand, finding something to wear.
Beth hadn’t told me what she had planned for our date but she had told me to dress comfortably, relaxed, and prepared for fun. I also wanted to be sexy for her though and it was a little difficult finding the right balance. After looking through several outfits that just didn’t feel right, I finally found something that I thought would work. It was one of the edgier outfits that I had recently modeled for Giselle Collette’s new clothing line. Most of the outfits for that line kind of skirted the line between wholesome girl-next-door and punk and this was one of the edgier ones, more solidly in the punk category, maybe even leaning a bit in the Goth direction.
First, there was the dress, a black crushed velvet number with spaghetti straps and a modest circular neckline that only showed off a little cleavage. It had a built-in bodice with cotton candy pink lacing that showed off my curves but wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, and the skirt was about mid-thigh length with braided pink and black ribbons with silver balls at the end of each spaced only millimeters apart hanging from the hem and forming a fringe around it, starting at about three inches long in the front and a foot long at the back. This made the skirt look almost knee length in the front gradually lengthening to around mid-calf in the back with the shifting curtain of weighted braids giving teasing glances of the skin of my legs underneath but still being somewhat modest.
With the dress on I added the cozy black and pink striped socks that came up to just above my knees with an inch wide trim of black lace at the top. Then I added the near shoulder-length black fingerless arm warmers which matched the dress, had the same pink lacing as the bodice from just below my elbows to my wrists, and bore three layers of ruffled black lace at the wrists that partially covered my hands. Last, but not least, was the choker; a simple pink satin ribbon trimmed with ruffled black lace and bearing a tiny silver bell on the front. I even had a nice pair of black leather ankle boots that would go with the outfit.
Once I was finished dressing I started on my makeup, going with an evening look that was a little darker than I usually went with, but I thought would go well with the outfit. I spritzed myself with a floral-scented perfume, decided to just leave my hair loose for a more dramatic look, and quickly painted my nails, trying something different by alternating the colors of my nails between black and pink. With Sarah’s help, I had gotten a lot better with makeup over the last few weeks and I was pretty happy as I looked in the mirror and waited for my nails to dry. It was a different look for me, not one I would go for often, but it was kind of hot, and changing things up a bit was nice.
Beth’s eyes almost popped out of her head when I answered the door. “You like?” I asked playfully, giving a twirl. Of course, I knew damn well from the feelings I got from our link during the Giselle Collette photoshoot that this had been her favorite outfit from that shoot.
“Umm… yeah. That’s a good look for you. It’s cute and badass at the same time,” Beth replied. I could feel the pleasure and desire through our link as her eyes lingered and I took my time reaching for my coat and putting it on.
We made our way outside and into the car in a hurry since it was a bit cold and I quickly put my bag of Hunting gear in the back seat alongside Beth’s. She still wouldn’t tell me where we were going so we just talked about everyday things as she drove and I kept my magick sense scanning for any sign of demonic auras. It took almost forty minutes to get to where we were going and we had passed from Toronto into Mississauga, but I hadn’t detected any Demons by the time we pulled into a parking lot attached to a large building with neon roller-skates on the roof and a bright yellow and black sign saying Scooter's Roller Palace .
For a moment I looked at Beth in confusion and she quickly grinned. “It’s a roller rink. They have roller skating, a snack bar, a video arcade, and pool tables. They even have inline skates if you prefer them. Dad took me and Jason here a few times just after we moved to Toronto and I thought it might be fun.”
I looked at the building warily. “I’ve never been roller skating before, I haven’t even been ice skating since I was ten.”
“I’ll be there to hold your hand, Sweetheart,” she offered with a smile as she took my hand in her own. “Don’t worry, this will be fun.”
Once Beth had paid our admission and we had rented the roller skates we took off our coats and shoes and put them in one of the lockers, which only cost a quarter to use. Beneath her heavy winter coat, Beth was wearing a tight pair of black low-rise jeans and a forest green crop top that showed off her trim tummy and awesome abs. She was actually wearing makeup too, or at least her glamour made it look like she was, and that was something Beth didn’t usually do. I appreciated that she had thought to add that to her glamour for our date, and I could feel my pulse quicken.
Once we had both put our skates on and had them tied I took a good look around. The inside of the place was like something from the seventies and though it looked like there should be disco playing over the sound system the music was surprisingly modern. It was pretty busy too with people of all ages and a surprisingly large amount of teenagers.
I could barely stand on the skates, though Ziralin had no trouble whatsoever. She had done this before after all, and she had the balance and heightened physical attributes of being a Faery going in her favor. She helped keep me steady, not to mention on my feet, as we made a few circles around the rink, she gave me a skating lesson, and I tried to get used to staying balanced on them. We were on our third lap and I was feeling a bit braver when I completely lost my balance and fell on my rear, bringing her down with me.
For a moment I just laid there with her on top of me looking into my eyes as she made sure that I was okay. She was so close and as she kissed me my breath quickened and my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest. I responded, in more ways than one. As I kissed her back, cupping her face in my hands, I could feel the heat of desire building up between my legs and making its way to my belly. I was worried that my panties might be a little damp and my nipples were definitely hard, almost painfully so. I could feel myself flushing, but whether out of desire or embarrassment I couldn’t be sure.
My breath caught in my throat as we finally broke off the kiss. “You’re okay?” she asked with a smile that made me melt inside. She might not have been showing it on the outside, but I could feel from our link that she was definitely just as turned on as I was.
I nodded at first, and once I was able to speak again I replied breathily, “I’m fine. We should… umm… cool off… I mean, wow it’s hot in here… maybe we should...”
Words might have failed me, but our mental link did not. Beth got to her feet with an understanding smile and I could feel her adoration in my mind like a warm hug as she took my hand in her own, helped me get to my feet as I tried to do so without flashing my panties to anyone, and finished my thought as she suggested, “Maybe we should get a cold drink? We haven’t eaten since lunch either and it’s almost seven o’clock, so let’s break for dinner and we can continue this after.”
“Goddess, do I love you,” I whispered as she helped guide me around the rink to the snack bar, keeping her arm securely around my waist.
Soon we were sitting at one of the tables, watching each other across it and smiling as we ate. The pizza was actually pretty good and we each had a slice of that, a diet soda, and a shared order of nachos. We were about half finished our meal when a pair of guys approached our table. They were a bit geeky but kind of cute and extremely nervous-looking, and I sort of figured what was coming because they both has this look on their faces like they were about to talk to someone who they knew was way out of their league and were prepared to be epically shot down.
“Uhh… hey. I’ve never seen you girls here before, are you new in town? I’m… umm… Matt, and this is Joe.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I offered politely. These guys were pretty brave trying to talk to us with how nervous they looked and I wasn’t going to humiliate them when they were putting themselves out there and actually being polite about it. Besides, I knew what it felt like to be in their place. “I’m Shannon and this is Beth, we live in Toronto, but we came here for a date.”
When the two boys started to look around frantically, but not seeing any jocks approaching to do who-knows-what to them caused a dejected expression to cover both of their faces. “Yeah, sure. I got it.” Joe said, looking like someone had just killed his puppy.
“Look, guys, I know that you probably think that we’re trying to brush you off because we think we’re too good for you or something, but believe me when I say, it’s not you, it’s us. We came here on a date, together .” I reached over and took Beth’s hand so that they could see our matching rings as I stressed that last word.
Their eyes widened and Matt said in an uncertain tone, “Oh, I get it. You’re not into guys at all. I guess that’s cool, but… uhh… which one of you is the girl in the relationship? Or do you take turns or something?”
Joe face-palmed in embarrassment and I let out a sigh as I told Matt, “That’s actually kind of a rude question. It would be like me asking, ‘Which of you is the guy in your friendship.’ You’re both guys, just like Beth and I are both girls. We’re both girls, and attracted to girls, so that makes us both the girls in our relationship. Can’t we be in a relationship without people trying to apply gender roles or labels to us? Can’t we just love one another for the people we are inside? No offense, but it’s kinda shallow to think that love depends on perceived gender roles.”
“Shannon is right, she’s definitely the more classically feminine one of us, but we both identify as female,” Beth added. “Not all girls are into dresses and makeup, just like not all boys are into cars and sports. Interests and behavior don’t define one’s gender any more than birth sex does, only the person in question can do that. Defined gender roles are so last millennium and people should be free to be whatever kind of guy or girl that they want to be, or anything between.”
Both boys looked like they were actually thinking about what we said and a moment later Joe smiled uncertainly at us. “We’ll leave you to your date, sorry for interrupting, and thanks for being cool about it.” Then he turned around and walked off with Matt right on his heels.
I had just gone back to eating my meal, washing down a few bites of pizza with a sip of my soda when Beth grinned, leaned toward me, and whispered, “Though, if one of us had to be the girl, it would definitely be you.”
I nearly snorted diet cola through my nose as I started giggling since I had been thinking the same thing. When I could finally breathe again I grinned right back and agreed, “Absolutely. I mean, just look at me. Besides, you totally wear the pants in our relationship, both literally and figuratively.” I leaned over and peered at her tight jeans under the table and added with a wink, “And what very nice pants they are.”
Once we had finished our dinner we made our way back to the skating area and Beth held my hand as I tried to skate without relying on her too much. I did fall several more times but the only thing bruised was my pride, and maybe my bottom. She kept a slow pace while I got used to it and after a while I was able to skate without having to have her hold onto me, but that didn’t stop us from holding hands anyway. Soon she was able to pick up the pace and before I knew it I was actually enjoying myself.
I was having so much fun that I was a bit surprised when she pulled us off toward the side where the skate rentals and lockers were. She leaned in close and spoke in my ear, “It’s ten-thirty, and the place closes at midnight. I know that you like video games, and you haven’t been able to play any lately as busy as we’ve been, so I thought that you might want to try out the arcade before we go. You deserve it for putting up with skating for so long.”
I was a little stunned that three hours had passed so quickly, we hadn’t even talked much, just held hands, and enjoyed the feeling of being close to one another as we skated. The whole time I could feel how relaxed Beth was and how much fun she was having, how much she enjoyed just holding my hand as much as I did holding hers. I was getting a bit tired though since we had been at it for so long and I didn’t have her Faery stamina, and it was so sweet of her to set aside time to do something I enjoyed that she didn’t care much for. She was into RPGs, not video games. “That sounds awesome, my love. I was having fun there once I stopped falling so much but I’m getting kinda tired. Maybe we can do this again sometime.”
“I’d like that,” she agreed, her happiness flooding my mind. “Now let’s go turn in these skates and get some quarters for the arcade.”
Word became deed and after we had retrieved our boots and turned in our skates we made our way to the arcade, armed with a couple of rolls of quarters. Most of the games were pretty old but it was still fun and cool, in a retro kind of way. I even managed to get a few high scores.
I’m not going to lie, we got hit on a lot but it’s kind of to be expected when guys see a pretty girl playing video games. It’s like all their gamer girl fantasies are right at the tip of their fingers. If they were polite, and most of them were, we let them down gently. One guy was kind of a jerk and being really insistent with me but Beth had been playing a game beside me and stopped playing to come over and kiss me passionately before telling the guy in no uncertain terms, “Back off, she’s mine.”
I just giggled and let out a happy sigh before kissing her back just as passionately. I loved it when she took charge and claimed me like that. I knew that she didn’t mean that I was her property or anything like that, but that I was her love and her soul mate. In that way, I kind of do belong to her, just like she belongs to me. I don’t know if it’s a girl thing, if it just validates our relationship for me, or if maybe I’m a bit of a submissive and like her taking charge, but her saying that made me feel giddy and really turned me on.
Soon though, it was time to go, so we retrieved our coats and made our way back to my car to head home. We got back to my place at about half past midnight, but I didn’t get inside until one o’clock as we sat there in the driveway getting hot and heavy and fogging up the windows. Our make-out session was mostly just kissing and a little bit of groping since neither of us was really ready for more than that yet but we did thoroughly enjoy ourselves until we reluctantly broke apart to say our goodnights.
I felt like I was walking on a cloud as I stepped inside and removed my jacket and boots. Sarah and Annie weren’t home yet but Talisha and Elsaishe were watching The Lord of the Rings in the living room. Under any other circumstances I might have giggled at that but I just sighed contentedly as I curled up on the couch alongside Ellie and snuggled in to share their popcorn, watch the movie with them, and tell them all about my wonderful night.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 17 Relationships Amethyst |
I didn’t have any modeling gigs that weekend but because I was out all night on Friday I dedicated most of Saturday morning and early afternoon to doing my homework. Over breakfast, Sarah and Annie had confirmed that neither they nor Mason and Jennifer had found any Demon activity the night before either. In fact, things seemed to have been eerily quiet on the Demon front since the night at the sorority. It made me concerned about what Khinara might be up to, especially since she had said she wanted to make a game of hunting me and my friends down.
Once my homework was done I had magic practice with Sarah. I wasn’t the only one with magic lessons that afternoon either since Talisha and Elsaishe, who had the day off, went over to Ziralin/Beth’s house so that Talisha could continue both of her apprentices’ training and give Ziralin’s mother, Meredith, further training with her new Faery abilities. Meredith had gotten a good grasp on casting glamours and a few other things after having her Faery blood awakened but she still had a lot to learn and Ziralin didn’t feel confident enough in her own abilities yet to teach her.
Sarah also gave me another driving lesson late in the afternoon to try and get me used to driving in winter conditions. We had to use her car since mine was at Beth’s, but once we were done she seemed pretty pleased and figured that I could probably go for my license in the next few weeks. Annie couldn’t really come with us since I could only have one person in the car with me while learning, but that didn’t stop her from doing her job and watching over us. She followed us by air in her Celestial form, hidden from mortal sight and keeping her eyes out for danger. She did try to give us our privacy during the lesson, and afterward when Sarah had me drive us to a nearby flower shop to address an important and personal matter.
At the flower shop, we bought two bouquets, one a mixed bouquet and the other a dozen pink tiger lilies. Pink tiger lilies had always been our mother’s favorite flowers and it was as we bought the flowers that I realized just what day it was. It was the third anniversary of our parents’ deaths and I felt immediately guilty for forgetting. Sure, life had been crazy with all the Demon stuff, learning magic, and modeling but I hadn’t really thought of our parents in months unless something came up to remind me. I was deeply conflicted about that because while it was nice not having that constant hurt inside me it also felt like I should keep that pain, that it was wrong of me to be happy without them in my life.
As we drove to the cemetery Sarah realized what was bothering me. “You’re not disrespecting their memory by having a good life, Shannon. They would want us to be happy and I think they would be as proud of you as I am. They would be happy that we’ve found new family and friends and I think Mom would be proud of the work we’re doing together. She always told me that, while we couldn’t let the existence of magick become common knowledge, it was our responsibility to help others where we could.”
I was quiet and deep in thought for the rest of the drive to the cemetery. When we finally approached the tombstones my chest tightened and I could feel the tears coming as Sarah and I placed the flowers on our parents’ graves. It was cold and the tears seemed to freeze upon my cheeks, but I didn’t care as Sarah and I held one another, both too choked up to say anything for a time.
Finally, Sarah was able to speak. “Mom, Dad, sorry we haven’t come to visit you more often but it’s been a crazy few months. I think you’d be proud of us though, especially Shannon. She’s been through so much but she still works hard, tries to help others, and every day she makes me proud to be her sister. I’m seeing someone now, her name is Annie. She used to be a cop and she’s keeping me and Shannon safe. I care for her a lot. She’s beautiful, tough, smart, and she’s watching over us even now, but she’s trying to let us have our privacy today.”
“M… mom, Dad,” I managed to blubber out between sniffles before collecting myself somewhat. “I know that for the past few years I’ve been having trouble letting go and I’ve been miserable and weak and that’s probably made you worry. You don’t need to worry about us anymore though. Sarah has been taking good care of me, I couldn’t ask for a better sister. I’m following in her footsteps, and yours too, Mom. We’ve found out a lot about the family history and you wouldn’t believe some of the things we’ve seen and done. We have Faery cousins and two of them are living with us, I think you would have liked Talisha and Elsaishe, Ellie is like a little sister to me. I’ve got friends, a good life, and I’m sort of engaged now to a girl that I’m totally in love with. It may have taken becoming a girl and a Witch to get here, but I’m finally happy.”
After a few moments of silence, we said our farewells and left the cemetery, wiping at our teary eyes as we made our way back to Sarah’s car. Then Sarah drove us to Tim Horton’s for hot cocoa and a boston cream donut. It was something that our parents used to do with us when we were kids after a really important day and it had become a tradition for us on the anniversary of their deaths. We talked about a few of our really good memories of Mom and Dad as we sat there until we were finished our hot chocolates and then we headed home.
Sunday afternoon saw Beth, Ellie, and me driving to Michelle’s place to pick her up for the Rainbow Group meeting. Since Michelle, Ellie, and Lisa were all going to be there for the first time Beth and I had decided to go to the meeting as well to support them. I was a little leery about spending another whole meeting with Rebecca alternating between ignoring and glaring at me but I reasoned that this wasn’t about me, my friends needed my support. I knew all too well how nerve-wracking it was to go to a support group meeting for the first time.
Michelle seemed to be in slightly better spirits than on Thursday and as we drove from her house to the restaurant for the meeting she let us in on what had been happening with her. On Friday she had arrived at school in the morning to find anti-gay slurs on her locker again and hadn’t even bothered opening it before calling Sgt. Williams from the school office. She was still getting dirty looks from the popular crowd as she went to her first two classes of the day but people were strangely giving her a wide berth rather than the shoving and ‘accidental’ bumps and stuff she usually got. Between second and third period she had found out why.
She had been about to leave the special needs washroom, the only place she felt safe enough to go to the bathroom without being jumped or something since it was for a single occupant and had a locking door. That was when she overheard Ginny and her boyfriend Dale telling some of their friends that Michelle and a gang of ‘bull-dyke bikers’ had jumped them and his two buddies. Apparently, there were close to a dozen of us and Beth was now some sort of six-foot-five amazon in leather with tattoos all over her. She had been hoping that those jerks would have all learned their lesson after our encounter in the mall, but now they were all trying to save face and look like the victims.
Halfway through the third period, she had been called to the office, where Sgt. Williams and her partner were waiting for her with someone else in regular clothes who was carrying a large briefcase. Michelle showed them to her locker and told them the combination so Sgt. Williams could open it with gloved hands. Once again it had been filled with hateful messages, graphic photos, and the like. The other two officers had put on latex gloves as well and they all put all of the offensive materials in evidence bags. Once they were done gathering evidence the plain-clothes officer started checking for fingerprints or possible DNA evidence, both on the outside and inside of her locker. Sgt. Williams and her partner had then given Michelle a ride home where she turned over her phone so they could see the text messages and hear the voicemail messages that were on it.
After that, they had helped Michelle talk to her mother about what had been happening at school. Her parents had been furious, especially her dad when he was informed later that evening, and they were now working on getting her into a new school and planned on suing both the school and the district for gross negligence. They would also be taking legal action against any of the students who could be positively connected to her bullying through the voicemails, texts, and any fingerprints found on the notes and photos left in her locker.
“Mom and Dad kind of want me to see a therapist about all of this too, but I don’t know if I can do that. It was hard enough talking to them about it, even with the police backing me up. Sgt. Williams is nice though, thanks for getting her involved,” Michelle said as she finished her story.
“Markus can probably help you find a good one,” Beth offered as she stopped at a red light. “He runs the Rainbow Group and he’s got a lot of contacts for people like that. You really should think about it, it would be good for you to have someone non-judgmental to talk to about what you’ve been through and the cutting and stuff.”
I turned to see Michelle blushing in the back seat. She quickly looked away and muttered, “I’m okay now. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Of course we do,” Ellie quickly countered. “We’re your friends, it’s kinda part of the job description.”
“I… thanks, I guess I’m just not used to having friends who actually give a shit,” Michelle replied awkwardly.
“They weren’t friends then,” I said, trying to give her an encouraging smile. “We may have pretty busy lives with work and sports and all that but we will do our best to try and be there when you need us because real friends care and make time for one another.”
The first half of the support group meeting went mostly like I had thought it would. Markus explained how the group worked for those who were new and then we all introduced ourselves in turn and explained what had brought us there. Elsaishe, Lisa, and Michelle each had their turns of course and both Michelle and Lisa were pretty open and frank about things. Michelle talked about her suicide attempt and her cutting that had resulted from the bullying, and Lisa talked about what led up to her coming out and changing her life, even the whole stalking me thing and then waking in the hospital with a day missing from her memory.
Once we had ordered our dinners during the break I took the opportunity to go and use the ladies' room. I really needed a break from Rebecca, who had been glaring at me most of the time except when I looked directly at her, then she would look away and completely ignore me. When I returned I found that Rebecca was talking with Michelle while Ellie, Lisa, and Beth talked amongst themselves. I was actually relieved to see Rebecca talking to someone close to her own age and it wasn’t too surprising given how much she and Michelle had in common with both the terrible bullying by the popular kids in their schools and each had a failed suicide attempt because of it.
I was actually pretty happy with that turn of events. Michelle and Rebecca both needed friends who could understand them and if Rebecca wouldn’t let me help her, maybe she’d let Michelle. The pair talked until their meals arrived and then Rebecca jotted something down on a piece of paper and handed it to Michelle before giving me a hateful glare and returning to her seat to eat her meal. I just sighed, tried not to take it personally, and started eating my dinner.
It was after the meeting as Michelle, Ellie, Beth, and I climbed into my car that Michelle looked at me cautiously and spoke uncertainly. “So, that Rebecca girl gave me her phone number in case I want to hang out and talk about things. I dunno if I want to do that though. I mean, I haven’t known the three of you and Lisa for long, but you’re kind of my friends. She doesn’t trust any of you and she really hates you, Shannon. What the hell did you do to her? She’s convinced that you’re some kind of evil bitch and that you, Beth, Lisa, and Ellie are just toying with me and will turn on me eventually.”
“I did the same thing that I did with you and Lisa, I tried to be supportive and offered to be a friend,” I said with a sigh as we all got settled in the car and Beth started the engine to let it warm up a bit. Then I gave Michelle a weak smile and added, “I’m not going to tell you who you can or can’t hang out with, Michelle, friends don’t do that to one another. For what it’s worth though, I think that you should try hanging out with her. It could help you both to have a friend who understands some of what you’re going through. You both have trust issues but she reached out to you. I don’t care if it’s because she hates me so much, she has reached out to somebody and maybe you can help her where I can’t.”
“But she’s wrong, you’re not like that. You could have bailed on me or turned on me at the mall but none of you did. I can totally get being cautious and suspicious, I was the same way with all of you at first, and I still am a little. Maybe I can convince her that you’re not as bad as she thinks,” Michelle replied after a moment.
“You could try,” Beth agreed,” but if her mind is really set on thinking of Shannon that way then you may just make her believe it more. She may just think that we’re trying to manipulate both of you, so don’t be surprised if that happens.”
I nodded and turned again to give Michelle a shrug and the best smile that I could manage. “Look, I don’t really care what she thinks of me so long as she has a friend and the support that she needs. I’m willing to take one for the team, even if Rebecca doesn’t realize that it’s her team. If it took her believing that I’m the wicked witch of the east to reach out and get that friendship and support, well, then I have a very nice pair of striped socks and some red shoes that I’m perfectly willing to wear while she tries to land a house on me. Just don’t be surprised if she doesn’t believe you, and try to be the friend she needs because I think that it will help you both.”
“But I couldn’t let her talk about you that way,” Michelle argued.
“Don’t talk about me at all then, I shouldn’t be the focus of your friendship with her. Talk about the things you have in common and be there for one another through the hard times. And we’ll still be here to talk and hang around with too when we’re not busy with work and stuff. We’re not going to stop being your friend because you’re her friend too, true friendship doesn’t work that way. You don’t need to choose one friend over another, and maybe in time she’ll trust you enough to believe you when you tell her that we’re not so bad.”
Beth put the car in gear and there wasn’t much conversation as we drove Michelle home. She was doing a lot of thinking and I don’t think that any of us wanted to pressure her one way or another. As we watched her open the door to her house and step inside though I hoped that she would reach out to Rebecca, for both of their sakes.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 18 Fame Amethyst |
The next week was mostly quiet and almost normal if you didn’t count the daily magick lessons or the fact that I had Faeries living in my house. Despite Sarah and Annie doing occasional patrols for Demon activity, they hadn’t found any and we were beginning to suspect that Khinara was holding back any further Demon forces until she could finish her game with us. It was also possible that she was doing it just to screw with us and keep us off balance.
We just tried to enjoy the break while it lasted, especially since late the next week Sarah and I would be busy shooting more materials for the campaign ads and making public appearances around Toronto. In my free time when we weren’t at school or volleyball practice, doing homework, magick lessons, or our self-defense lessons with Annie, I was able to hang out with my friends and be a normal teenage girl. Jen and I played video games, Beth and I went on a few dates, and Ellie and I spent some quality time together.
Talisha did have to leave town for a few days to finalize the sale on their house in Edmonton and she, Sarah, and Annie were all busy that week with the negotiations and little details involved in buying the house that they had decided on. It was a hectic time for the adults in our house, but that just gave me and Ellie more time to relax. Ellie, Beth, Jen, and I even managed to hang out with Michelle and Lisa a couple of times that week.
Michelle and Lisa were both becoming more comfortable with our group on the pair of shopping excursions we had gone on. They also seemed comfortable with one another and I had to wonder if they were into one another, they certainly had some things in common. When they let their guard down they were both fun to be with and Lisa was fiercely protective of us all, which I had to admit was kind of weird for me given our history.
Another weird thing, they had both been pulled from their old schools by their respective mothers and were starting at St. Catherine’s. Mother Josephine had given them both the lecture on keeping a lid on their orientation at school as much as possible and she had assigned Lisa to shadow Beth for the week while Michelle was to stick with Ellie as they got used to being at a Catholic private school. So the result was that we got to hang out with them at lunch too.
That first day at lunch had been a little tense at first. Despite Lisa’s long blonde hair being cut short and wild and dyed pink the members of our volleyball team recognized her when she sat down beside Michelle. They had known all too well what she had been doing to me and they were understandably a bit hostile and defensive at first. She apologized to all of them for her behavior the day of our first volleyball game of the season and once Beth and I had given them the mundane explanation for Lisa’s turnaround and what had happened since they let the hostility drop and welcomed her to St. Catherine’s. They didn’t really trust her yet, and there were still some hard feelings, but they were willing to give her a chance for the sake of Beth, Ellie, and me.
Lisa had made a bit of a reputation for herself since starting at St. Catherine’s that first day at lunch. While she tried to be polite and friendly for the most part, her short punked out pink hair had made her look like a tough girl and a rebel, and some of those girls that had outed Beth and made school miserable for her last year had tried to bring Lisa into their fold at lunch on her first day. It had been an unmitigated disaster, for them.
After everything that had been happening at her last school and her so-called friends turning on her, Lisa hadn’t been interested in being part of some shallow angsty clique and had told them all exactly where to shove their invitation. That was when she came right to our table to sit down beside Michelle and apologize to the girls from the volleyball team for her previous behavior. I guess that the girls she had refused didn’t like her response because a couple of them tried to jump her after school when she was heading to the bus stop to go pick up her car from the shop.
Lisa was very athletic, the assistant captain of both her basketball and volleyball teams before quitting sports and changing schools. She may not have started the fight but she sure finished it. She took a couple of hits but she also took both girls down, hard. One of them had ended up with a black eye and split lip and the other’s arm would be in a cast for a couple of months. They had all been brought before Mother Josephine for fighting but the two who had jumped her had a history as trouble makers. Since it was Lisa’s first day and the fight had been two on one, Lisa had gotten off with a warning while her attackers were given two weeks suspension and threatened with expulsion if it happened again.
After that, their entire group avoided Lisa as much as possible. Between that and her tendency for being very in-your-face direct when she didn’t like the way someone was being treated, nobody was willing to mess with her or anyone she was close to. It wasn’t that she got rough or rude with people, she was very calm and polite, it was just that she got this intimidating aura about her when she wasn’t happy with someone. She was kind of a badass and was developing a reputation as a defender of the weak.
Lisa had gotten her car back from the shop on Monday evening and had offered to pick up Michelle for school in the mornings and to take her home after school since Michelle was still too young to drive. This again made me wonder if she and Michelle might become more than friends since Michelle’s house was a good twenty to thirty minutes out of Lisa’s way. Still, I was happy that they were getting along so well and that they were meshing so well with me and my other friends. On Tuesday and Thursday, we had all even gone to the mall together after school to hang out before Jen, Beth, Ellie, and I had to head back to my place for our lessons with Annie and Talisha.
Michelle had also informed us on one of our outings to the mall that she had gotten a new phone and gave all of us her new number. She had also called Rebecca and they were going to hang out together. It seemed that Rebecca was still trying to warn her away from us, and me particularly, but Michelle was taking my advice and trying to steer their conversations toward things that they had in common and trying to be supportive of Rebecca’s transition.
Beth, Ellie, and I didn’t attend that week’s support meeting, Lisa had already had plans with her mom that Sunday anyway and Michelle’s Mom was going to give her a ride to the meeting and back home. I felt that we would just piss Rebecca off by being there and I wanted to give her and Michelle some space to build a friendship without us getting in the way. If I was there Rebecca would just spend her time glaring at me and I really didn’t feel like being the target of her hostility again.
I woke on Monday, December second after another night of strange dreams involving Faeries, Demons, Celestials, and other strange creatures. I was kind of getting used to that though since I had been having weird dreams like that practically the whole time since I’d been transformed into a girl. Some of them were weird, some frightening, and some peaceful and comforting.
As crazy as my life had become it was actually fairly understandable that I was trying to process it all while I slept, I certainly hadn’t had much time to do it while I was awake. Even though the past week had been peaceful and somewhat slow the dreams had still come, but I figured that it might have been because everything was so quiet and almost normal. I was worried the whole time about just what the hell Khinara was up to now and when she would make her move.
I tried to put those thoughts and dreams out of my mind while I went through my morning routine and prepared for school. By the time I had finished my shower and surrendered the bathroom to Ellie I felt much better. I quickly dressed in my school uniform, grabbed my backpack and gym bag for volleyball, and went down to the kitchen where Annie and Sarah were already eating.
It was only once I was sitting at the table with my yogurt, a bagel smothered in strawberry jam, and a glass of orange juice that I noticed the magazine sitting on the table. It was the December issue of Teen Queen , and there on the cover was a picture of me in my rainbow skirt and white ‘love has no gender’ shirt with one hand on my hip and the other pointing at the camera, looking really cute and sassy. The headline said, Divine Inspiration: Getting to know Shannon O’Reilly .
“Oh Goddess, that came out today? And my name is right there on the cover?!” I muttered tiredly before letting out a long sigh as I thought about how many autographs I was probably going to have to give at school.
“Yesterday actually,” Sarah corrected with a slight smile. “So I would imagine that most of your classmates have seen it by now. Congratulations, Sis, you’re going to be famous, this is huge publicity for you and Divine Cosmetics.”
“But I don’t wanna be famous,” I griped.
“Too late now, Kiddo,” Annie pointed out with a chuckle. “If you didn’t want to be famous you should have stopped before the billboards and magazine ads.”
“But it’s been so good for Sarah’s career, and I do like modeling,” I said with another sigh. “I guess I’m just worried about getting the wrong kind of attention… and the hand cramps I’m gonna have from giving so many autographs at school today.”
“You’ll be fine, Shannon. That article is really well written and pretty flattering of you, Angela really showed the kind of person you are. She gave me a short interview too, asking a bit more about you and our relationship, and the article shows both of us and Divine Cosmetics in a really good light. As for the wrong type of attention, well, that’s why Annie and Beth go everywhere with us.”
I gave in and looked over the article as I ate my breakfast and was almost finished both when Ellie came downstairs freshly showered and in her school uniform. Sarah was right, it was a good article and I had a new respect for Angela Zubreck by the time I had finished reading. It contained the entire interview with me of course, but she had also interviewed Sarah and Jen’s parents. It was mostly about me and my ‘Cinderella story’ but it also went quite a bit into Divine Cosmetics and how the small family company was quickly becoming a major player in the cosmetics industry because of their high-quality products and fair prices and how Sarah and I were the new faces of that company.
School was crazy that day, especially at lunch. I spent almost my entire lunch hour signing copies of Teen Queen for my fellow students. I had optimistically hoped that only girls from the volleyball team, or who occasionally sat for lunch with us would be asking, but I was pretty sure that half the girls in the school had gotten an autograph by the end of lunch, even Jen, Lisa, and Michelle were in on it. At least Beth had made sure they let me finish eating first.
The girls who hadn’t asked for autographs were those that generally gave Beth a wide berth, and me as well by association. Some of them had been pretty hard on her when she had been forced to come out of the closet. Now they didn’t reserve their glares for just Beth, they were glaring at me too. I tried to just smile at them anyway as I wondered if it had been a good idea to brazenly proclaim my sexual orientation on the cover of a major magazine. At least smiling at them made them look away, as did Lisa’s glares.
As I was signing yet more magazine copies Michelle also cast a dirty look in the direction of the haters and muttered under her breath, “Those fuckers remind me of Ginny and the assholes she hangs around with. They really don’t like Beth and Shannon.”
“They’re just jealous. Been there, done that,” Lisa said, shooting them another glare and making them look anywhere else but at our table. “They won’t mess with Shannon and Beth, not if they know what’s good for them.”
“Lisa, you do realize that you’re absolutely terrifying at times, right?” Lily commented, giving the tall pink-haired girl a cautious look.
Lisa laughed and grinned at her, replying, “It’s all part of my charm.”
“At least she’s on our side now,” Kelly pointed out with a laugh, “though I’m still a little weirded out by that.”
“Shannon is a good person, and she cares about everyone. She gave me a chance when I really didn’t deserve it and now all of you are doing the same. I’ve done some shitty things and I have a lot to do to make up for them but now that I have real friends, who care for me for who I am and not what I can do for them, I’m not going to let anyone screw with them.” The look of intense determination that was on her face had all of the girls at the table smiling and nodding in agreement.
Halfway through the final period, all students were called to the gymnasium for an assembly where Mother Josephine cautioned us all that there were photographers and possibly members of the media waiting outside the main gate and the parking lot access gate. Apparently, while they weren’t allowed on the school grounds because it was private property, that didn’t stop them from waiting around outside school grounds. We were all told to be on our best behavior and not to answer any questions or do anything that could hurt the school’s reputation. She never said why they were hanging around but it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots with all the magazines I had signed at lunch.
With all of the attention that I was getting, I glad when the final bell rang and it was time for volleyball practice. It was a welcome chance to blow off some steam. It was over far too quickly though and soon we had all hit the showers. I stayed under the stream of hot water for a little longer than usual, just letting it wash the stress of the day away and when I was done the only people still around were Beth and Ellie.
We gathered our things from our lockers and were heading toward the parking lot when we saw the crowd outside the parking lot entrance. It wasn’t a huge amount of people, just over a dozen or so, but most of them had cameras. “Reporters,” I said with a sigh,” I knew that interview was a bad idea.”
“I don’t think that they’re all reporters, at least not the reputable kind,” Ellie put in with a scowl.
“Yeah, Annie says there are some at your house too,” Beth muttered as she glared at her phone. “She’s pissed and getting the police involved. They already got photos of Sarah opening the curtains and if you look, some of those guys are using telephoto lenses and probably have pictures of us leaving the school. You’re a minor and they don’t have consent to use your image or Sarah’s. This is harassment, stalking, and invasion of privacy. Jen’s parents are going to release a statement asking the media to leave you and Sarah alone and that if they want interviews to approach the company, not you.”
“Well, this sucks,” I grumbled as we got into my car for the drive home. Beth let me and Ellie sit in the car while it warmed up and she cleared snow off the windows, her face mostly covered with her scarf since it was both cold out and she didn’t want her picture taken. It didn’t take her long and soon we were on our way.
I tried to ignore the cameras all around the car as we left the school parking lot. I figured that not all of them were even photographers, some were probably just pervs since not all of the cameras were close to professional quality. I welcomed the distraction as my phone rang. I was almost afraid to answer until I realized that it was Michelle’s ring tone. “Hey, Michelle.”
“Shannon! Thank God you answered! I don’t know what to do!” Michelle’s voice burst out in panic.
“Whoa, calm down and tell me what’s wrong, Michelle,” I replied as calmly as I could manage.
“It’s Lisa, we were hanging out at her place. Her Mom is at work and we were… getting to know one another a bit better when she suddenly started screaming in pain and holding her head. She started yelling things like, ‘who the fuck are you?!’ and ‘get out of my head!’ and then she passed out.
“Shit!” I mentally cursed, “I have stalkers with cameras and Khinara chooses now to contact Lisa.” I did not doubt that that was what had happened and that we needed to deal with this quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Beth asked in a hushed tone as she managed to ease the car through the jerks with the cameras and onto the street.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can, Michelle. Stay calm, try to keep her comfortable, and don’t talk to anyone else until we get there,” I told Michelle before hanging up and turning toward my girlfriend in the driver’s seat. “We need to get to Lisa’s place, fast.”
Beth nodded grimly but let out a sigh as she looked in the rearview mirror. “We’re being followed,” she stated with a frown.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 19 Oops Amethyst |
I quickly cast a spell, closing my eyes to focus better on the car, or rather cars, following us. There were three of them and they were driving recklessly, despite the four inches of snow that had fallen while we were in school, trying to keep my car in sight. We did have some distance on them though so I had Beth turn onto a side street and an unoccupied driveway. The moment our car stopped I cast another quick spell.
Illusions are usually pretty difficult to cast but I was casting it over the car and not us, and the care was perfectly still, making it a lot easier. The illusion wasn’t too complex anyway, I had just made it look like the car was covered in several inches of snow. As the cars following us tore around the corner and down the street, one nearly crashing into a parked car, Beth got a good look at the drivers and their license plate numbers.
“Yeah, those were some of those guys with the cameras outside of our school,” she muttered as I dropped the illusion and she pulled back onto the street to resume our trip to Lisa’s house.
“Crazy assholes,” Ellie put in. “They were going at least sixty in a school zone during terrible driving conditions.”
“They were probably pissed because they couldn’t get any decent pictures of our faces,” I said with a shrug. At the look of confusion on both of their faces I clarified. “We knew about those jerks waiting outside the school since the assembly, so I prepared. As soon as I got out of the shower after practice I cast a spell to mess with light for about ten feet in all directions around me. It should last for an hour and it’s kind of the opposite of the light diffuser that André uses to minimize shadows and soften the light for his shoots, and much more powerful.”
“Do you want to explain that in English?’ Ellie asked with a frown.
“The human eye can’t really tell the difference unless they’re really staring but it’ll mess with cameras, especially flash photography, to drastically increase shadows and the glare of reflections,” I explained carefully. “It was already dark out when we got out of practice, we were keeping our heads down for the most part, and the falling snow within my spell range was reflecting any light that hit it at about a thousand times normal reflection. Between that and all those flashes constantly going off to make the effect even worse, I doubt that any of them got anything more than distorted shadowy images spotted with lens flares and massive light reflections off the car windows.”
Beth laughed. “I was worried there for a bit, I thought that you were casting that spell that you use to dry your hair after your shower.”
“Nah, I used my shower cap today,” I told her with a grin. “My image is my livelihood and nobody is using it without my consent if I can help it. If those vultures want my picture they’ll have to go through Divine Cosmetics and my agent, and pay me for it, just like everyone else. We can’t keep relying on magick though. This time people may just think the lighting sucked, but more than that and people would start thinking something is up. It’s winter, so at least we’ll have an excuse to keep our faces and stuff covered until this blows over.”
As soon as we arrived at Lisa’s house I got a very bad feeling. I wasn’t alone either since Beth looked at me with a look of concern and asked, “Do you feel that?”
“Magick,” I said with a grim nod. It wasn’t Demon magick though and that confused the hell out of me.
We practically ran to the front door and the very second after we rang the doorbell the front door opened, revealing a very upset Michelle. She had bruises all over her face and arms, she was clearly freaked out, and she was squinting at all of us like there was something wrong with her vision. “I don’t know what to do, Shannon! I couldn’t do anything for her! She hasn’t woken up yet!” As injured as she appeared to be, her concern at the moment was clearly for Lisa and not herself.
Ellie frowned as she looked at the bruises and the way that Michelle was squinting. “Michelle, you’re not looking so great, are you okay?”
“Something weird happened and I got thrown against the wall and I hit my head so I’m kinda seeing stuff, but I’m worried about Lisa right now. I can’t get her to wake up!” She said nothing more and hurriedly turned to lead us toward Lisa.
“Shit!” I cursed as we followed her inside toward Lisa’s bedroom and the feeling of magick got stronger. Michelle had been at ground zero at some kind of major magical event, I could feel the magick all over her. Worse yet, I had the feeling that that magical event had happened in Lisa’s bedroom. That feeling was confirmed as Michelle opened the bedroom door to reveal that the room was a disaster area and rife with slowly fading magick energy.
The source of that magick energy seemed to be Lisa, who was sprawled out on the floor. It looked like everything in the room had been hurled toward the walls; teddy bears, destroyed knick-knacks, make-up, clothes, and everything else that had been loose in the room. Her vanity mirror had been shattered, the delicate chair in front of it broken, and there were cracks in some of the other furniture. The only thing that seemed relatively unscathed was her metal-framed bed and the mattress atop it.
I immediately took charge of the situation. “Michelle, I need you to tell us exactly what happened in here while I start placing wards around this room. We don’t want anything that can detect magick knowing who, what, or where Lisa is. Ellie, call Sarah please, and let her know what’s going on here. Ziralin, my love, you might want to change forms and be ready for anything that did detect this event. No sense hiding things now, after whatever happened here I don’t think Michelle is going to have much trouble believing in magick.”
Ellie closed the curtains and then she and Ziralin both let their glamours drop before my Familiar changed to her Celestial form. Then Ziralin said, “I’ll shield myself from mortal sight and head up to the roof to keep an eye out for trouble while you handle things here, Honey.” She quickly kissed me and then left the room to do just that.
Michelle’s jaw had dropped when the glamours were dropped, and she looked stupefied as Ziralin’s angel wings emerged. “Wha…”
Ellie was off in one corner having a hushed conversation on her phone and I was already starting to gather magick for casting the wards. Michelle was still staring at Ellie by the time I had finished my casting and I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’ll explain when we wake up Lisa, okay? I don’t want to give the whole story twice. And I need to know what happened here to make sure that Lisa is okay and you’re both safe.”
Reluctantly, Michelle relayed the story of what had happened. She and Lisa had been having a major make-out session on Lisa’s bed when Lisa had suddenly stood up, holding her head in agony. I assumed that Khinara had been contacting her with the Demon Brand since I couldn’t remove it, only seal her sorcery powers, and Lisa had freaked out from having the Demon’s voice in her head. After what looked to Michelle like screaming at the voices in her head Lisa had screamed one last time and passed out as what I figured was probably some sort of concussive blast hit Michelle and threw her into the wall along with everything else.
I had a really bad feeling about this, but I nodded as she finished her story and Ellie approached. “Sarah and Annie are at the police station trying to get something done about those assholes on our front lawn and in front of the school,” my cousin said with a frown. She thought that she felt something magical happening in the area but she and Annie haven’t been able to get away to check it out with people following them and filing complaints at the station, there were just too many witnesses. If we really need her send up a magical flare and they’ll get here as soon as they can.”
I nodded since I had been half-expecting something like that. I quickly knelt beside Lisa and scanned her with my magick and what I found made me nearly jump in surprise. She had definitely used some sort of spell, but it wasn’t from the Sorceress power she had gained from her Demon Brand. In fact, I couldn’t sense those sealed powers or the Brand itself at all, they were gone.
When Beth had first become my Familiar Sarah had explained that being exposed to large amounts of magick could awaken Witch powers in normal people and it was even more likely if the situation felt dangerous to the person. In the past couple of weeks, Lisa had been at ground zero of a major spell when Khinara had kidnapped her, she had been fed on and given a Demon Brand, and I had used some major magick on her to seal her sorcery powers and then put her to sleep. After all of that, Sarah had used an even more powerful spell to remove the chemical imbalance in her brain and remove her memories of what Khinara had put her through.
Lisa had been exposed to a lot of magick and I figured that her freaking out about Khinara’s voice in her head had pushed her to awaken and protect herself from perceived danger. She had lashed out with that concussive spell but, to protect her from Khinara, her new magick had removed the Brand that Khinara was using to try to influence her. Lisa was now a Witch.
She wasn’t anywhere in my league power-wise, or even Sarah’s when she still had her magick, but she was powerful enough that she could do a lot of damage unintentionally if left untrained. That concussive spell that she had used proved that. Between that and removing the Brand she had used a lot of power at once for a newbie Witch, it was no wonder she had passed out. I was surprised that she hadn’t burnt out as well.
“Lisa’s awoken,” I told Ellie grimly. “She somehow managed to remove her Brand though, so that’s a plus.”
I thought I heard Ellie curse under her breath and I agreed since none of us had wanted to drag Michelle or Lisa into all of this magick business if it could be helped. We were fine with endangering ourselves but they were our friends, and they were normal, so we had hoped to protect them from all of that. Michelle looked over at Lisa in confusion at my announcement and said, “No, she’s still out cold. Is she gonna be okay?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I meant that she’s awoken with magick, Michelle. Lisa is a Witch now. That voice that she was screaming at is a powerful Demon and she was instinctively trying to protect herself so she awoke in herself the means to do so. I know because I’m a Witch. She used too much power at once and passed out, she’s just really tired, so I think I can wake her. I need to try something first though. I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, Michelle, I’d just like to try to heal those bruises of yours, okay?”
‘I’d think you’re completely insane but, after what I’ve seen so far, either you’re telling the truth or I’m the one who’s fucking nuts,” Michelle muttered. “Fine, do whatever you want, Shannon.”
I was worried that the magick wasn’t seeming to fade from Michelle like it was from the room and I had a sinking suspicion why. The best way to test my theory was to try and use magick on her and since she had all of those bruises, that was the obvious place to start. I gathered ambient magical energy and directed it toward Michelle, intent on healing her bruises, and said, “Heal.” Nothing happened, well nothing that I was hoping for anyway, as the magick just slid off her like I had done nothing at all. “Shit, it’s Beth all over again.”
I had taken several minutes to trade texts with Sarah regarding what happened and my suspicions and my sister had come to a decision. Since she had lost her magick and gotten her Celestial mark she had been teaching me more Celestial spells. For basic witchcraft though, I had been seeing to a lot of my own studies using Mom’s Book of Shadows and only getting her help when I needed things clarified. I had also become a lot better at multitasking and using my magick creatively than when I had started and all I really needed now was research and practice, both of which I could do on my own.
With that in mind, Sarah had decided to start teaching me more advanced Celestial magick and helping me to refine my skills with more complicated things like mind magick, but she would leave the rest of my Witch training, and Lisa’s, in my hands. The apprentice was now to become the master. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for that but Sarah had confidence in me and I tried to keep that in mind as I used my magick to wake Lisa.
“Ow my head, I…” Lisa started to say with a wince of pain. Then she looked up at Michelle, who was leaning over her in concern. “Kitten! Your face, what happened? Are you okay?!” She quickly sat up but clutched her head at the pain that seemed to cause.
“I’m okay, Lissy. Please, don’t worry about me. I’ve been so fucking worried about you. I... I kinda freaked out a bit and called Shannon.”
Aww, they had pet names, how cute. Still, I needed to know if she was mentally okay and if she had gotten any information from her unintended conversation with Khinara that we could use. Ellie was staying out of sight outside the bedroom door until I had a chance to explain things so I leaned over to give Lisa a weak smile. “Try not to move for a while, Lisa, you kinda overdid it so you’re going to feel weak for a little while. The headache should go away soon though. Do you remember what happened?”
Lisa frowned, looking confused for a moment before her eyes lit up in recognition. “There was this voice in my head, she told me that it was time to bring her the meal I owed her and to prove myself useful. She said something about planning something big and bringing a ‘witchling’ to her to kill it. I guess she didn’t like the fact that I had no fucking clue what she was talking about so she started threatening me. So I kinda started freaking out and I think I passed out.”
A frown passed over my face as I asked, “How did she threaten you, Lisa?”
Lisa winced and frowned as well. “She said that if I didn’t show up at the place where we met, ready to make myself useful, by midnight that she would use the mark she had given me to hunt me down and feed on everyone I care about until there was nothing left of them. Th…things like this don’t happen in real life, it was some kind of nightmare right?”
I now knew where Khinara was going to be and when. Oh, I was going to come to her alright, but she was going to be the one going down. With that, I called Ellie and Ziralin to come back into the room, and then we told Michelle and Lisa everything, from my birthday until I had woken Lisa up. The only thing we left out was that I had been a guy before my birthday. Neither wanted to believe us at first but we were able to offer some pretty convincing evidence. Lisa was a bit pissed about the wiping of her memories and stuff though.
“Lisa, those memories were extremely traumatic for you, they were already twisting your personality to something really dark. You would have been scarred for life, probably ended up in prison or a psych ward, and had no chance at a normal life if Sarah didn’t do something. We didn’t want you dragged into all of this against your will,” I told her. “We wanted you to be able to live a normal life and keep Khinara from ever bothering you again, especially after you apologized and we started hanging out. We do this because we’re the only ones who can, we don’t want our friends getting caught in the crossfire, and we’re truly sorry that that meant keeping things from you.”
Lisa sighed and nodded. “I guess I can understand that reasoning, and I think what Sarah did somehow got rid of my OCD. I’ve never felt this free, and I should thank her for that. No more keeping secrets from us though, got it?” she added with a stern look. “We’re friends so we damn well stick together and protect one another, especially if I have magick now like you said.”
“You’ll need to be trained, Lisa,” I warned her. “Magick is as much about controlling your impulses as manipulating the world around you. I don’t want you risking yourself until you’ve learned to control your magick, someone could get hurt. Sarah thinks that I’m ready for an apprentice so I’ll be teaching you. Most of the teaching will be at my house but since your mom works late and I’ve already set up wards over your room, we can get started here tonight. I’d rather avoid those people camped out on our front lawn anyway. Hopefully I can help you get the basics down before Michelle has to head home for the night and we have to get ready to kick Khinara’s ass.”
“Why do I need to be here for that? It’s not like I’m a Witch and I hurt all over,” Michelle complained tiredly.
“No, you’re not a Witch, Michelle. I’m pretty sure that you’re Lisa’s Familiar,” I told her seriously. At her look of disbelief, I said, “Please, Michelle, humor me for a moment. I want you to think really hard about protecting Lisa. There is a Demon after her after all, and you may need to keep her safe.”
Michelle rolled her eyes and muttered, “Fine, but this is fucking stupid.” A look of concentration passed over her features as she closed her eyes, and then she started to change. Her ears seemed to melt into her head and a pair of black catlike ears grew from the long black hair on top of her head as her slight frame grew more toned and athletic and her fingernails lengthened into razor-sharp claws.
She rose so that she was standing on the balls of her feet and a long black tail swished behind her as she opened her eyes, eyes that were now golden with slit pupils and wide open with surprise. When her transformation was complete she even had an adorable kitty-nose and slightly feline muzzle and she looked confused as she ran her long tongue over the fangs in her mouth. “Thith ith tho weird,” she said, her eyes narrowing in annoyance as she couldn’t get the words sounding just right.
We all stared at her in silence for a moment until Lisa sputtered, “K… Kitten?”
Beside me, Ziralin just groaned and said, “Well, I guess that's confirmed. Welcome to the club, Michelle. I guess I have an apprentice too.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 20 Preparations Amethyst |
We ordered pizzas for dinner since we were all getting hungry and I wanted Lisa to rest a bit and then eat something to get her energy back after her awakening. While we waited for dinner to arrive Ziralin and I explained the connection that Lisa and Michelle now shared as Witch and Familiar, how it would bring them closer, and their responsibilities to one another from having such a pact. I also tried to give Lisa a general rundown of how magick works.
Needless to say, they both had some reservations about their new situation, especially being in one another’s heads all of the time. They were only slightly mollified when we explained that it was just a strong empathic connection and that their real thoughts would remain private. That probably wouldn’t be easy for Michelle in particular, since she always seemed so guarded, but I figured that they would both adapt and it would bring them close together, just like what had happened with Beth and me.
By the time we had finished eating Lisa was looking a lot better and so was Michelle. Michelle’s bruises had completely healed as we ate, making me believe that one of her abilities in that for was a form of accelerated healing. She had also gotten accustomed enough to her empowered cat-girl form that she was able to speak without the lisp, though she had bitten her tongue a few times while eating.
With dinner finished, I stood up and began casting a gate Once the gate was open I gestured to the shimmering portal and said, “Let’s go everyone, we should have about ten to twelve hours to get a good start on your training and you’re going to be working hard.”
“But it’s after seven, Lisa is going to have to take me home around ten o’clock if I’m going to be home before eleven, and we still haven’t done our homework yet,” Michelle protested.
“Bring your homework along,” I replied, “we’ll be doing the same. We’re going to another plane of existence, the world where Ellie’s people come from. Time passes differently there and about three hours here is around twelve or so there. The extra time will allow us to make sure that Lisa can get all the basics down before school tomorrow so there won’t be any accidents at school, and Ziralin will have plenty of space to find out what your empowered form is capable of. My sister promised to come and retrieve us just before ten o’clock local time.”
It was before dawn in Tír na nÓg when we arrived and very few of our troupe were awake yet. With that in mind, I led everyone to the guest hut that had been constructed for our visits, where Ellie cast some ghost lights and we started on our homework to get it out of the way. I didn’t want our training to wake anyone or bother the other members of the troupe.
By the time that we had finished our homework, dawn had lit the horizon and the troupe was preparing their morning meal. We took the opportunity to say hello to Yanisse and the others and to introduce them to our new apprentices but since we had eaten not too long ago we didn’t share their morning meal and went straight to training. Lisa and I worked in the guest hut while Ellie got in some sword practice with some of the troupe and Ziralin took Michelle into the woods to see what she had to work with.
I started Lisa off much as Sarah had with me, teaching her how to sense magick energy, gather it, and stop herself from gathering it. When she couldn’t gather any more magick energy I would have her direct it while focusing on changing her hair color repetitively until she was drained and could start gathering again. By the time we joined the troupe to share their midday meal, Lisa was tired, hungry, and a bit frustrated but she had the sensing and gathering part down. She and Michelle both were fascinated by a village full of Faerie and wanted to learn more about them but we didn’t take much time to eat before saying our thankyous to our hosts and putting our apprentices back to work.
“So? What now Shannon?” Lisa asked tiredly as we returned to the lotus position on the ground in the guest hut and she played with her currently neon blue hair. “Are we going to keep gathering magick and changing my hair? That’s pretty cool and it will save me a ton on hair dyes, but I was hoping to learn something I can use in a fight.”
I shook my head as I thought about how to explain my teaching process to Lisa. “I know that you want to learn the cool stuff and be able to protect Michelle and the rest of us but I need to make sure that you have the fundamentals down first, for everyone’s sake. If you were teaching someone to play basketball would you just throw them into a team practice or the big game right away? No, you would make sure that they know how to handle the ball and that they’re familiar with the rules first. That’s what I’m teaching you.”
After a moment Lisa nodded. “Okay, I can see that, so up until now you’ve been teaching me how to do the basics so it comes naturally when I do need to use magick?”
“Yes,” I agreed with a smile, “and now that you know how to handle the ball fairly well, we’re going to go on to the rules. Basically, we don’t harm others except in defense of ourselves or others and try to help people where we can, but not in ways that can’t be readily explained. The biggest rule though is to control your urges and thoughts and only use magick when you intend to. For Witches like us, magick can be easy to use by accident since we just need to have magick energy gathered and direct our will. A stray thought or impulse could be dangerous to everyone around you, like that concussive spell that you hit Michelle with when you awakened.”
“I feel horrible about that,” Lisa admitted self-consciously.
“Don’t, Lisa. Sarah told me that awakenings like yours can be unpredictable, you were running completely on instinct. Michelle doesn’t blame you, so you shouldn’t either. She was far more worried about you than herself. It does support my point though, that’s the kind of thing that can happen if we don’t control our urges, desires, and thoughts. You were lucky that it happened in the privacy of your room. You do not want to accidentally cast a spell in public and have someone witness it. The existence of magick cannot become public knowledge, it would be dangerous for everyone,” I told her as seriously as I could.
With that in mind, I started to work with Lisa on mental exercises that would help keep her thoughts organized. I was hoping that it would help her concentrate, prevent her from acting impulsively or without thinking, and help her multitasking ability once I did start teaching her actual magick. They had been helping me after all. We continued those exercises until Sarah showed up to let us know that it was time to return to our own world.
Annie ended up giving Michelle a ride home while Sarah drove us home in my car. They didn’t want any of us driving since it was snowing heavily again and with the time we had spent in Tír na nÓg with Lisa and Michelle none of us had slept in over twenty-four hours. Still, I felt confident that Lisa wouldn’t have any accidents in school the next day and she had promised to continue the mental exercises in her free time as she cleaned up her room.
Ziralin had gotten a good start with getting Michelle adjusted to her new empowered form and its abilities as well. Michelle showed no aptitude for magic except for the magick sense and magick resistance that all Familiars get, but she had some impressive physical abilities. My Familiar said that her sense of balance was amazing in that form and that she could nearly match a Faery in stamina, agility, reflexes, and speed. She was only a little stronger than a regular human in that form, but Ziralin figured that her claws, night vision, accelerated healing, and physical gifts would make up for that.
The street was as clear of traffic as normal and there was nobody camped out on our lawn when we returned home. Apparently, the police had chased them off since they were trespassing on private property and invading our privacy. We might still have to deal with some hanging around outside the school on the sidewalks and stuff but Annie had a number for us to call if they were doing anything blatantly illegal, harassed us too much, or if they came to the house again.
Once we got inside the house and comfortable in the living room with Talisha, we began to discuss the plan for taking on Khinara. Jennifer and Mason were probably going to have issues since they both had an eleven o’clock curfew and Khinara had ordered Lisa to show up at midnight. When we called them, neither was sure they would be able to get away so late at short notice. Sure they could hide from human sight using their Celestial forms but they would have to wait to sneak out until after their respective parents were in bed to be sure they wouldn’t be missed.
Sarah told them that we would try to handle it ourselves, though she was reluctant to let me and Ellie come along since the lights and security cameras in that parking lot had been fixed and we didn’t have Celestial forms to keep our presence hidden. She also didn’t want to take vehicles in case someone was still watching the house. She planned on gating there to avoid that problem and to get Khinara’s immediate attention but she was worried that one of the cameras might catch me and Ellie appearing from thin air. She wasn’t worried about our identities being revealed since Ellie would be without glamour and I would be in my Hunting outfit, but rather about having something unexplainable recorded on camera.
“We really should try to handle this with just the three of us, Shannon,” my sister said with a sigh after explaining her reasoning.
“But Lisa probably isn’t the only minion that Khinara has called if she is setting up a trap, and she’s powerful, Sarah. You haven’t felt it but I have, we’re going to need everything we have against her. Besides, I’m the one she really wants,” I argued. “She might just take off again if I don’t show up.”
Sarah sighed again and looked away. “That’s just another reason for you to stay, Sis. If you come she’ll go right after you and, if she’s as powerful as you say, we might not be able to stop her.”
“Khinara wants to keep the existence of magick a secret as much as we do though. She might just hit the lot with the same spell that she used before,” Ziralin put in.
“Well, she did choose a time when there won’t be many people around,” Sarah said pensively. “I would think she would avoid using the same tactic twice in the same place though, once could be a freak accident or something, but twice? You’re probably right though, I doubt that this Demon would show herself or her followers unless they had a plan to keep their presence hidden.”
“Ellie, sweetie, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be going anyway,” Talisha told her daughter with a worried expression.
“I can handle myself, Mom. And Ziralin, Shannon, and I make a good team. I’m through running from Demons, somebody has to take a stand if they’re ever going to be stopped,” Elsaishe insisted with a look of determination on her face.
Talisha looked just as determined as she stated. “Well, then I guess I’ll be going with you. I will not allow my daughter to do something that I am not willing to do myself. Your father and I fought our share of Demons before fleeing to this world but we got complacent after living safely among humans for a few decades and being blessed with you. Ziralin, could I borrow your old bow?”
My girlfriend’s eyes widened a bit in surprise but she nodded. “Yeah, I haven’t really used it since gaining my Celestial abilities. I was going to teach Shannon and Ellie how to shoot but we just haven’t had time. I didn’t know you could use a bow.”
“I was the best archer in my troupe before the Demons showed up, dear. That’s part of the reason that I, Ellie’s father, and the group that we fled Tír na nÓg with were able to make it to this world in the first place,” the Faery replied.
With it decided that we were all going we began to discuss tactics and changed into our Hunting clothes so Sarah could start a load of laundry, including Beth’s school uniform, so she didn’t have to go home for a spare one if she ended up spending the night. She called her parents to let them know what was going on and they agreed to her spending the night after we finished with our task. Annie got home from taking Michelle home just before eleven-thirty and it was as we were going over the plan with her that the lights went out.
Annie hurried outside and came back several minutes later frowning as she reported, “It’s not just our neighborhood. I changed forms and got some altitude and it looks like half the city is blacked out.”
I sighed as we all sat in the darkness and Sarah muttered, “Well, that explains how they planned on keeping their presence hidden. Everyone get ready, we have work to do.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 21 Welcome to the Jungle Amethyst |
At five minutes to midnight, we stepped through the gate that Sarah had cast from our living room and into the darkened snow-covered parking lot, each of us dressed in our Demon hunting gear with the sole exception of Talisha. Our elder Faery cousin had removed her glamour and wore some exercise gear meant to allow her the use of her wings and that Sarah had enchanted to keep her comfortable even in the cold and falling snow. Sarah, Ziralin, and Annie were the only of us with Celestial forms at the moment so they had stepped through first to cover the rest of us, just in case Khinara and her minions were already there waiting.
As soon as we were through the gate and it had dissipated behind us, I began casting my first two spells. I had already prepared by gathering and purifying as much magic energy as I could while we had been waiting for the upcoming battle. With the amount of magick that those gates give off when used, I didn’t think it would be long before Khinara showed up and I wanted to be ready. I was right, we didn’t have to wait for long.
Less than two minutes after we had arrived I could feel another gate forming, the energy dark and malevolent. Khinara was the first to step out of the gaping black tear in space-time, I could feel her familiar and disturbing presence, and I wasted no time whatsoever in unleashing my attack. At my command, a dozen balls of holy magick flew from my outstretched hand to pepper the Skarik as soon as she was out of the portal. I blame Ziralin, Jen, and Ellie and their talks about D&D, I thought a holy version of magic missiles would be pretty cool.
It was cool, up until the point that the magick projectiles hit whatever shield spell she had up and harmlessly dissipated. Then she used a concussive spell to send us all flying. Damn, she was powerful. Whatever that shield spell was it was tough, and it was going to take a lot of magick to crack it. This was not starting well at all.
To add insult to injury, or in this case lack-of-injury, Khinara laughed as we started to pick ourselves up off the ground. Let me tell you, Skariks are damn creepy at the best of times, and laughing only makes them more so. Picture, if you will, a really sexy woman’s torso and legs with dark purple skin, six arms all ending in long thin fingers with nasty-looking claws, and to top it off, a big head like the creatures in those Aliens movies. Only Skariks’ heads are more wedge-shaped, coming to a point at the back, with all these bone ridges along the top, blood-red eyes, and a mouth full of shark-like teeth. Oh, and let’s not forget the three-foot-long needle-tipped tongue for feeding on your brain juice.
So yeah, just picture that laughing and then turning to grin at me as she spoke in my mind. ~Oh, how wonderfully dishonorable, a sneak attack. You might have even succeeded if I hadn’t detected the portal you used to get here and came prepared. This is going to be so much fun! I was hoping that you got my invitation when my Brand on the girl was removed, I must know how you managed that.~
“Learn to live with disappointment,” I grumbled. My own shielding spell had taken a beating but managed to protect me from most of the concussive force of the blast and I quickly cast another more powerful one, along with two other spells. She managed to shield her eyes against the flash of light in time but I had time to throw the holy hand grenade of Cailleach dearg before she recovered. Her shield was still up but that had at least given the others time to get to their feet and for Sarah to hit her with a holy spell of her own.
I could feel her shield spell weakening slightly but while we had been trying to gain the advantage she had just let the spells hit her and kept the gate open long enough for another twenty Demons to emerge. They were all wearing some kind of black armor that covered their entire bodies and heads and it was just brimming with dark magick. Ziralin and Annie were both peppering them with holy projectiles, Ziralin from her bow and Annie from the hidden launchers in her bracers but they seemed to be just bouncing right off.
“Shit, that armor is tough,” Annie cursed. “Try to go for the eyeholes or find other gaps or weak spots.”
Ellie had barely managed to avoid one of the approaching Demons’ blows with a huge mace, they were strong and fast, even in that armor. I was about to cast a spell to give her some support when a loud ringing sound reverberated through the clearing. And there was Mason in his armored Celestial form, his massive shield in place to intercept the blow. “That’s not armor, this is armor. I had a feeling that you ladies could use our help.”
“We’re so getting grounded if our parents find out we’re out this late though,” Jennifer said as the snow and ice in the parking lot moved at her command to freeze in place an armored Demon going after Talisha.
The Faery wasted no time in nocking a silver-tipped arrow and letting it fly toward her pursuer’s eye socket. The armor clattered to the ground as the Demon inside turned to ash. The others quickly pressed the attack; Ziralin picking her shots whenever she had the opportunity to target a weak spot, Ellie drawing her silver-coated sword, and Annie getting up close and personal and resorting to the pair of foot-long silver claws that had emerged from the slots to either side of the hidden launchers in each of her bracers. That left Sarah and I relatively free to deal with Khinara.
My sister and I were pounding the Skarik with every spell we could think of and I could feel her shield weakening slightly with each attack. She was hitting us with attacks of her own though and we were spending as much time casting defensive spells as we were offensive spells. Between the wind and falling snow making visibility suck and the battle royal currently going on, I barely noticed a figure sneaking behind Khinara until I heard three gunshots over the roaring wind and Khinara stumbled forward, hissing in pain before turning toward her attacker.
“You wanted a meal, Bitch? Eat lead,” Lisa said before emptying the rest of the handgun’s clip into the Skarik.
“Wait, those bullets got through her shield! Could it be that she only shielded herself against direct magick attacks? Also, what the hell is Lisa doing?!” I thought as I ran toward my new apprentice, putting more magick into my shield as I slid past Khinara and knocked Lisa out of the way of the Skarik’s rage-fueled counter-attack. “Lisa! I specifically told you not to try to come here and get involved in this fight!” I hissed as I turned to let loose another holy missiles attack and place a shield spell on my apprentice while Sarah attacked Khinara from behind with another round of spells of her own.
“No, you specifically forbade me to use magick before I was properly trained. You didn’t say anything about offing that demonic bitch with my dad’s old gun,” Lisa clarified as she shoved the gun back in the holster belt she was wearing.
“Well, all you succeeded in doing was pissing her off,” I retorted as I stripped off my gloves, revealing my platinum hand flowers. I was just in time to grab Khinara’s needle-tipped tongue, as it darted toward Lisa and bounced off my shield spell, the platinum causing the appendage to sizzle and burn. “Nuh-uh Khinara. No tongue, she’s not that kind of girl!”
Khinara screamed as her mental voice battered my brain. ~I will kill you both for this! You will suffer untold torments until I tire of you! You’ll beg for me to kill you!~
I winced at the pain that both were causing in my head as I squeezed and yanked as hard as I could, ripping off the end of her tongue. As it turned to ash in my hand I shot back, “I suppose you’ll want to wait for that to grow back first. Your first lesson in fighting Demons, Lisa. They heal fast and you can only really hurt or kill them with holy magick or weapons made from silver or platinum, like these.”
Khinara reached for me, damn she was fast. She probably would have grabbed me if Ziralin hadn’t swooped in to grab me and Lisa and pull us to a safer distance. Then, as she reformed her bow and rained holy arrows upon the Skarik, she said pointedly, “Lesson two: Unlike your Familiars, you Witches are squishy and don’t have the physical attributes to fight most Demons up close and personal. I’ll cover you while the others finish the armor-plated goons.”
My fiancée’s message was received loud and clear and I began casting another volley of spells at Khinara to keep her too busy to get that close again. She was shaking off everything that Sarah, Ziralin, and I were throwing at her and although I could sense that her shield spell was closer to failing, she was working on a really big spell and I had a horrible feeling that I knew exactly who the targets were. There was something familiar feeling about the spell and the taste of the magick. It was similar to the spell that had brought her to… Oh shit!
I had barely made that realization when I felt the world lurch, it was like my stomach had been turned inside out for a moment before suddenly returning to its proper configuration. Gone were the snow and wind and, as I took in the jungle around us, I could hear the sound of vomiting nearby. I couldn’t really blame Lisa since I had nearly emptied the contents of my stomach as well.
I had no idea where we were but from the very strong pull of my connection to Ziralin somewhere far to the north of us I was going to guess that we were somewhere in Central or South America. It was going to take a few minutes to cast a gate back to the others or to purify enough magick energy to pound her with enough holy spells to take that shield spell down but I had a sinking suspicion that Khinara wasn’t going to allow us that time. I could feel her aura nearby, and getting closer with every second. Sometimes I hate being right.
~Two little Witchlings lost in the trees. I can’t wait to hear their pleas. I’ll hunt them slowly to stoke their fears. Until their screams are music to my ears,~ Khinara’s mental voice taunted.
If I hadn’t felt her demonic aura approaching, I never would have moved in time to avoid her as she lunged at me from the bushes. I rolled aside shouting to Lisa, “Get up and move!” I had barely gotten to my feet when I grabbed Lisa’s hand and half dragged her along with me through the trees.
This was exactly what Khinara wanted, us running through the jungle with no time to cast a spell to get us out of here. She was a predator and she probably wasn’t the only deadly creature in whatever jungle we were in. Our only real advantages were that I could cast a lot of spells on the fly and I could sense her presence so she wouldn’t be so much stalking us as trying to wear us down. All I could do was try to keep us alive until Sarah could figure out where we’d been transported to or until I could manage to kill Khinara somehow, and as we were running for our lives neither seemed very hopeful.
I needed to find something useful to fight Khinara off with and that wasn’t going to be easy while trying to keep us both at a safe distance and keeping an eye out for any other dangers as I was. I needed something to take her out before she wore us down or stopped toying with us. As we passed through a small clearing about twenty feet in diameter I found what I was looking for, a massive tree with a low hanging branch. The moment we were past the clearing and the tree I hissed quietly to Lisa, “Get on all fours… and pretend to be… out of breath.”
“I am… out of breath,” Lisa wheezed as she fell to her knees and tried to get her breathing back under control.
I quickly began weaving my spells, though pulling that large branch so far and keeping it there was taking a lot more of my focus than I would have liked. ~Get up! Run! It’s no fun if it’s over so soon!~ Khinara’s mind voice hissed in glee as she ran through the clearing and pounced at us.
“You want fun, try this,” I muttered as I let go of my hold on the massive branch. It whipped toward her, catching her in the chest and sending her flying back a good ten feet and, as she flew, I activated my other spells. Vines from the trees above reached out to entangle her as wooden spikes shot at her from the trees surrounding the clearing, bombarding her from all sides. The wounds from those spikes would likely only piss her off further, and I was under no delusions that the vines could contain a creature of her strength for long, so as soon as she was wrapped up tight and impaled with the worst wood slivers ever I let her drop to the floor of the clearing which had now become a pit of quicksand.
Lisa stared at me in shock. “Damn, that was awesome.”
“I’m a little busy here, Lisa,” I said as I gathered and purified magick energy so I could finish the Demoness off before she could break free and counter-attack. I could keep hitting her with physical spells like those all day long but, while they could get past her shield, they weren’t going to take her or that shielding spell of hers down. I was almost ready when Khinara broke free of the vines and sent me and Lisa both flying into a tree with another concussive spell.
The spell hit hard and shattered my shielding spells and Lisa and I both fell to the ground in a heap. While I didn’t think anything was broken, I was going to feel that in the morning, if I managed to live that long. I was so sore and tired that I could barely move but I fought through the pain and tried to help Lisa to her feet so we could get moving again. We were both too slow.
Khinara freed herself from the pit and leaped at us, battered and furious but already healing as she knocked us to the ground and I hit my head on the tree, making me see stars. She stood over me with that horrifying grin on what passed for her face and reached to pull down my face shield. ~I want to see your face before I kill you, Witchling. My my, aren’t you the pretty one. Haven’t I seen your face somewhere before? No matter, I’m going to kill you slowly so I can see that pretty face contorted in fear and agony. Or maybe I should kill the other one first and let you watch her die, knowing that there is nothing that you can do to prevent it.~
She turned to Lisa and raised one of her six fists to deliver a blow that would in all likelihood have caved Lisa’s head in, had a bundle of fur, teeth, and claws not suddenly pounced upon the Skarik from the branch above us. The black-furred beast raked its claws across Khinara’s eyes, causing her to scream as what appeared to be Michelle continued to rain blows upon the blinded Demon as she screamed, “Leave them the hell alone!”
I didn’t look the gift cat-girl in the mouth, instead, I took advantage of the distraction by pummeling Khinara’s weakened shield spell with another volley of holy missiles. “Yes! Her shield is down!” I thought in a mix of relief and euphoria as I formed a holy spear with the last of my purified magick energy and threw it at the Demoness.
It might have been because I was currently seeing three of her but my attack only landed a glancing blow, eviscerating her two lower right arms and turning them to dust. It wasn’t close enough to her head or body to kill her though, and I wasn’t sure that I had enough left in the tank for another attempt as she screamed again in agony.
As luck would have it, that was when I sensed a gate forming. Khinara might not have been able to see at the moment, but she could sense the magic of the forming gate as well as I could. I could feel her forming a gate of her own and even as the gate appeared and Sarah and the others stepped through, Khinara dove through her own gate. Before that gate closed I heard in my mind, ~I will recover and find you again and, when I do, there will be no more games. You and your friends will all die.~
As Sarah made sure that Lisa and I hadn’t suffered any major injures and cast healing spells to take care of the injuries we did have, Annie explained that they had finished taking down the Demons and getting rid of any evidence of the fight while Sarah had tried to locate me and Lisa. I had explained what happened since Lisa and I had been snatched away and nobody was very happy that the Demoness had gotten a look at my face. It was Elsaishe who addressed the elephant in the room, or rather the cat-girl in the black sleep shirt, once the explanations were done. “How the hell did you get here, Michelle?”
“I dunno,” Michelle replied, looking very confused about it herself. “I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep when I had this really strong pulling feeling and I knew that Lisa needed me. I was trying to figure out how to get to her when that pulling sensation sort of felt like it snapped and then I was on the branch above her and Shannon and saw that freaky Demon about to bash Lisa’s head in.”
“We can figure that out later,” Jennifer said with a frown. “Right now I think we all need to get to our homes, some of us before our parents realize we’re gone. And Shannon and Lisa should be getting some rest before school in the morning.”
Lisa and I tried to get to our feet as Sarah cast the gate back home but our Familiars weren’t having it. “You need to rest,” Ziralin told me sternly as she picked me up in her arms and Michelle did the same for Lisa. I wasn’t going to complain or resist, as tired as I was. My last conscious thoughts were of my fiancée carrying me through the gate and up to my bedroom, placing me in my bed, and kissing me goodnight.
With Sarah’s help, Mason, Jennifer, and Michelle all managed to get back home and in bed before their respective parents realized that they were missing. Annie had driven Lisa’s car home from where she had left it at the edge of the parking lot before Lisa’s mom got home from her shift at the hospital. While Annie had been doing that, Lisa had returned both her father’s gun and holster belt to the keepsake box with his military dress uniform, medals, and other paraphernalia from his time in the service before his untimely demise. She even finished cleaning the worst of the damage in her room before getting to sleep.
It was two days before power was fully restored. Between that and the heavy snow, most of the schools in the city were closed those two days, including St. Catherine’s. At least that gave me some time away from the jerks with the cameras, though that didn’t mean that we were taking it easy. Ziralin and I used those two days to train our new apprentices as hard as we could and to continue to refine our own skills. Lisa and Michelle had even joined our Tuesday martial arts lesson with Annie.
We all needed to train as hard as we could to prepare for what might lay ahead. We still had one more Sentinel to find after all, and Xuriel was expecting us to meet her in Heil to take the battle to the Demons. Most importantly though, Khinara was still out there licking her wounds. She had seen my face and next time she would strike without warning. After our recent battle with her, I wasn’t sure that we could take her when she wasn’t playing her games, not without improving our abilities, increasing our power, and working together.
© 2013-2021 Amethyst GibbsAll Rights Reserved
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Amethyst |
Shannon has gotten used to being a girl and a powerful Witch, but between school, modeling and hunting Demons she is keeping far busier than a teenage girl should. It's time for a vacation but things don't go quite as planned when the Demoness Khinara attacks. Now Shannon is stranded on a distant plane of existence, her family and friends are scattered and distant, her only company is someone who hates her, and worst of all, there is no magick to draw on. Can Shannon survive, unite with her family and friends, locate the shade of Jalael the Serene, and find a way home?
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 1 Flight Amethyst |
“Umm… excuse me, are you Shannon O’Reilly?” a voice asked tremulously from behind me.
“Yes, that’s me,” I replied as I turned around, model smile firmly in place, and saw a girl standing there. She was about thirteen or fourteen with long black hair and deep brown eyes, and she looked a bit nervous as she clutched a copy of Teen Queen in her hands. She wasn’t really dressed for a Toronto winter, and neither were the pair of adults that I assumed were her parents standing and watching us from not too far away so I figured that she was waiting for a connecting flight.
“Omigod! This is so cool! I can’t believe I’m meeting you! Umm… do you think that you could…” she gushed before seeming to get nervous again and trailing off.
“Sign your magazine?” I finished for her with a more genuine smile. “Sure, who should I make it out to?”
“Ellie,” the girl supplied uncertainly as she offered me the magazine and a pen. “I mean, my name is Eleanor, but nobody ever really calls me that .”
“My cousin is called Ellie too, she lives with us and she’s like a little sister to me,” I told her warmly as I signed the cover of the magazine, "To my good friend Ellie, Shannon O’Reilly.”
“Thank you sooo much! I gotta get going, Mom and Dad are waiting for me.” With that, she was running off excitedly to the pair of adults who had been watching us and I gave a little wave before turning back to Beth.
“That was sweet of you, Babe, she looked so nervous,” my intended said as she leaned forward to kiss me tenderly.
“It was no big deal, I’m getting used to signing those things all the time and talking with strangers. It couldn’t have been easy for her to approach me like that, as nervous as she was, so why make it harder for her? If taking a minute to sign a magazine and talk to her made her happy, then it was worth it. We should go catch up to the others though,” I said, grabbing onto my pair of travel cases as we hurried to catch up with my sister and the rest of our crew.
It had been almost three weeks since our battle with Khinara and her minions, it was now less than a week until Christmas, and I was looking forward to our trip. We had been so busy since that battle with everything that was going on in our lives and I was starting to feel burned out. It would be nice to get away for a bit, even if it was sort of a working holiday.
School had been one of our biggest time commitments, especially with volleyball. Our team was one of the best in the region and we had placed second overall at a tournament last Saturday. Schoolwork also took up a lot of time and so did dodging the ‘press’. At least we could come and go without people with cameras following our every move and trying to get pictures of me now that school was out for Christmas since they wouldn’t come near the house with the threat of legal action.
Sarah and I had also been very busy with work, so Beth and Annie were kept busy as well. Between shooting materials for phase two of the ad campaign for Divine Cosmetics, doing public appearances, and shooting our first few commercials, most of our weekends had been booked solid. We also had some other unrelated modeling work that our agent Peter and Jen’s parents had approved.
Then there was our other, more clandestine work. There hadn’t been much Demon activity since our battle with Khinara but what there was had been disorganized and it almost felt like there was a power vacuum here among the Demons in Toronto and they were all jockeying for position. Maybe I had hurt Khinara worse than I thought.
That didn’t mean that we weren’t working though since I was refining my skills and learning new Celestial spells with Sarah and Ziralin and I both had apprentices to train. Both Lisa and Michelle were coming along well, but they both had a stubborn streak that seemed to help with that. I didn’t think that Lisa had the power for Celestial magick but she was proving very good at multi-tasking and I had taught her how to purify magick energy and basic shielding and attack spells in case she had to tangle with any Demons.
As for Michelle, she had been working hard learning physical combat from Ziralin and that was what would serve her best since most of her Familiar abilities seemed to be passive with the accelerated healing, enhanced physical attributes, and her ability to teleport to Lisa when needed. Ziralin had been hoping to have that last ability herself, but it seemed that it was something unique to Michelle. Like Ellie was always saying, ‘Magick has a will of its own,’ and apparently a sense of the dramatic and an odd sense of humor as well.
Anyway, with everything that we had going on, it would be nice for all of us to take a break over Christmas while Talisha finalized buying the new house and getting us moved in before the new year. Jen’s parents had managed to rent us a big place for the next two weeks in Banff National park so that we and our assistants and friends could get in a little rest and relaxation. They thought that a little skiing and being in the great outdoors would help us to recharge our batteries before we had to return for school and more work on the ad campaign. Michelle had even suggested someone who flew a chartered plane to get us there and back.
While we did intend on enjoying the vacation, we also had work to do. While we were there we would also be traveling to Nhekar, the Plane where the knowledge that Torphael had given Ziralin indicated that the final Sentinel, Jalael the Serene, could be found. None of those among us who had gotten Celestial marks had much knowledge of Nhekar though, much less where to find Jalael’s remains.
At least while searching for the other Sentinels we had some coordinates to add to the gate spells so we ended up somewhere close to the Sentinels’ locations but this time we had nothing to go by. We could appear anywhere on that Plane without specific coordinates so it seemed that we were going to have to search a whole world randomly and hope to find what we were looking for. Worse yet, we didn’t even have any recent information to help us.
Apparently, Nhekar was one of the far outer Planes that the Celestials weren’t very familiar with because it’s so far out of the way and it takes a lot of power to cast a gate there. The information that Ziralin had inherited from Torphael was limited at best and thousands of years out of date by our terms but to make that even worse, one day on our Plane is months on Nhekar so the information was likely actually hundreds of thousands of years out of date so far as Nhekar was concerned. We had no idea what we would be walking into but at least we would have months to a couple of years to search before we had to be back on our own Plane in two weeks’ time. Maybe we’d finish up early and could get some skiing in.
As I thought about the trip ahead and we hurried to catch up with the others I looked around carefully. I had the feeling that I was being watched and it wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks. I couldn’t sense any demonic aura or a Demon Brand though so it was probably either my imagination or one of those photographers following me around again. I tried to put it out of my mind as Beth and I joined the others at the gate that would take us to the runway where our plane awaited.
The plane was bigger and a bit fancier than I was expecting for a prop plane and could seat up to fourteen passengers with a decent amount of legroom and space in the cabin. I wasn’t much of a plane girl but Michelle mentioned that it was a Cessna Caravan as we were securing our luggage. Soon we had taken off and it was a short time later as I was just settling in for a relaxing flight when I heard a familiar voice calling out clearly from near the cockpit. “Hello, everyone. We have reached our cruising altitude so you may all unfasten your seatbelts and feel free to roam around the cabin. My name is Rebecca and if you need anything to make your flight more comfortable, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
My eyes went wide with surprise as I unfastened my seatbelt and stood up to look at the source of the voice, not sure if I could believe my ears. As soon as I was standing and we both got a good look at one another, Rebecca and I said in stereo, “What is she doing here?!”
Michelle was quick to get to her feet and place herself between us. “Okay, girls, just calm the fuck down. Rebecca is here because her mom is our pilot and she sometimes helps out on the flights. Shannon is here because she and her sister are your mom’s clients. And I needed a way to get you two somewhere where you can bury whatever hatchet is between you.”
Rebecca glared at Michelle in fury and snapped, “I thought you were my friend!” Then she turned around in a huff and stomped back toward the pilot’s compartment.
“I am… I… fuck,” Michelle stammered as she sank into her seat with a sigh.
I let out a sigh of my own and took the seat across from Michelle and Lisa. “I know what you were trying to do here, Michelle, but this was a bad idea. If she and her mom are our ride back and spending their vacation in the same place she was going to want to hang out with you. How were you planning to explain the fact that we might not be around for most of our ‘vacation’?”
Michelle sank guiltily into her seat. “Well, she and her mom are staying at a different place and I figured that if I couldn’t get you two talking she’d do her best to avoid you anyway. I just wanted her to stop hating on you for no good reason, if you just got together and talked it out I think…”
Whatever she had been about to say was cut off by a loud bang as the plane seemed to lurch and Rebecca screamed. “I really hope that was turbulence,” I heard Elsaishe say, though I was pretty sure she believed it about as little as I did. We had all felt that sickening feeling of a Demon gate being opened and a very familiar aura and were scrambling toward the cockpit.
Rebecca was sitting on the floor gaping in horror and screaming at the scene inside the cockpit. Her mother was slumped forward lifelessly in the pilot’s seat, there was blood and entrails everywhere, and standing there in the center of it all was Khinara half covered in blood and a translucent black figure with glowing red eyes. Just great, it was a Wraith.
Wraiths aren’t like regular ghosts and spirits, and yes, ghosts do exist. Wraiths are the disembodied spirits of Demons whose hatred for something or someone is strong enough to keep their souls from going to wherever Demons go when they die. Because they are incorporeal beings and can’t interact with the physical world they don’t give off a strong demonic aura and, unless they choose to show themselves, even a sensitive Witch like me would never know they were there unless we were specifically looking for one.
Now that it was visible, I could see the bindings on the Wraith. Khinara must have had that thing following me for a while, waiting for an opportunity, but Wraiths are usually laser-focused on the object of their hatred and getting vengeance so they wouldn’t serve another unless it would lead to it getting that vengeance. That meant that this Wraith had a beef with one of us. Then I recognized that almost undetectable demonic aura and muttered, “Of course it would be Aarianna.” It made sense since she blamed me for her being turned into a girl and then a Succubus, and probably held a grudge against Ziralin and me both for killing her.
~I see that you recognize my new pet, Shannon,~ Khinara said with a creepy smile, seeming to take great pleasure in using my name. ~The things that she wants to do to you and the silver-haired Fae.~
She wasn’t going to get the chance since I had been gathering and purifying magick energy since I sensed the gate and Khinara. I hit the Wraith with a purification spell and peppered Khinara with holy missiles. Aarianna was out of the game now but Khinara’s shield spell was still standing as I sensed her casting another gate spell.
There was something seriously wrong here, and not just the fact that the cabin of the plane was too cramped for a full-out magick battle or for Mason, Jennifer, Annie, Ziralin, and Sarah to effectively use their Celestial forms without their wings making it really crowded. We couldn’t even use physical spells or bullets unless we wanted to risk bringing the plane down, if we weren’t going down already. Khinara was also in the cockpit and with me and Rebecca effectively blocking the door at the moment, so only I had a line of sight to attack her anyway.
Sure, Khinara’s shield spell seemed less powerful than the one that she used in our last encounter and her missing arms hadn’t regenerated yet, but she had the advantage here so why gate away? Was she maybe bringing in reinforcements to finish us off? She did say that she wasn’t going to play games this time.
I was pounding her with another trio of spells when everything seemed to lurch. It was as I started to draw in magick energy for another round of spells that I figured out what was wrong. The feel of the energy was sickening and tainted, it felt different than any that I had ever gathered before. Khinara hadn’t brought reinforcements to the plane, she’d brought the plane to Heil.
“Shit,” I heard Sarah curse behind me as she probably realized the same thing that I had. She might not be able to draw on magick energy in her human form anymore but she could still sense both it and demonic auras. There were Demons everywhere; on the ground below us, in the air around the plane, and the plane was shaking from blows as the Demons outside tried to stoke our fears.
It was working and the only positive thing about this situation was that Khinara seemed severely weakened after using that spell, well for the brief instant before the second portal appeared and she made good her escape. She didn’t need to stick around, she had all the Demons in Heil to finish us off now. We needed to get out of there, fast.
Lisa and I could draw on the magick energy here and only feel a bit nauseous, the abilities of our Familiars were mostly inherent magical abilities, and Ziralin and Ellie could use their Faery abilities but anyone who tried using Celestial abilities would be screwed when they had to start drawing in magick energy. Changing to their Celestial forms didn’t require using any, but their Celestial special abilities and even their ability to fly required drawing on magick energy once they used up what they had stored. Unless they took the time and concentration required to purify that energy first, this stuff would be like poison to them, as deadly as purified magick energy was to Demons.
Sarah took charge. “Everyone gather your things; we need to gate out of here! We are not ready to fight here yet!”
I was about to do as she said when I noticed that the ground seemed to be coming up fast. None of us knew how to fly a plane and Rebecca seemed to be in shock, not that I could blame her after what she just saw and with her mother’s entrails all over the cockpit. I knelt down in front of her and shook her, and when that didn’t work I slapped her. “Rebecca! We don’t have time for this right now! Can you keep this plane in the air for a few more minutes?!”
For a second all I got was an empty stare, but then she seemed to snap out of it and her brief glare quickly gave way to a slight nod. She was scared to death, but she knew more about this plane than any of us. As she raced to get to the co-pilot’s stick I ran to gather my purse and shoved it in my emergency backpack. The others already had their backpacks shouldered and Sarah was in her Celestial form casting the gate. The amount of power it was taking was straining her and she was only able to hold it open for a few seconds, enough time for Lisa and Michelle to make it through.
This was not unexpected. We had thought to do some scouting on Nhekar but had discovered that, for some reason, our gates didn’t want to stay open to that location for more than a few seconds. So we had prepared by drawing a gate for that Plane in permanent marker on an old bedsheet. We could use it as many times as we needed to just by feeding magick into the sigils. It would take less time to do that several times than to draw out and form an entirely new gate to a specific location on Earth for all of us.
That was why we had the emergency backpacks. Since we had no specific coordinates to work with on the gate, it was likely that we were going to be separated when we arrived a few at a time. Those packs contained everything that we might need to survive on our own for a while in a strange and potentially hostile Plane.
Sarah had only managed one more casting before she was too drained of magick energy to do another, sending Jennifer and Mason through. It looked like it was up to me now. I drew in as much magical energy as I could and formed the gate again twice more, sending through Sarah and Annie, followed by Ziralin and Ellie. I really didn’t want to be separated from my sister, Familiar, or my cousin, but I was a realist. I was needed to form the gates and Rebecca was needed to keep the plane in the air while I did that.
That left me and Rebecca to go last, a situation that I figured that neither of us was going to be too thrilled with once the shock wore off. “Rebecca! We’re bailing out!” I called out once I had gathered more magick energy and was ready to cast the gate.
“Parachutes are in the back!” our temporary pilot shouted as she ran into the main cabin, and I used that as my cue to shove almost all of the magick energy that I had into the gate. “What the?” Rebecca sputtered, staring at the glowing circle in the air. We didn’t have time for this so I shoved her through, hit the corner of the gate sheet with a quick fire spell so we couldn’t be followed, and dove in after her.
It was cold and dark on the other side. Two moons hung above us in the sky and I stood in a seemingly endless expanse of black sand dunes. I was going to need my Demon-hunting gear to stay comfortable in this weather and I would probably need to enchant Rebecca’s clothes for her. She was currently slumped down in the sand with a stunned and confused expression on her face and I figured that I should get to work before she came back to her senses and started either ignoring me or screaming at me.
Ziralin was very far away, I could feel the powerful pull of my connection with her and had to try to ignore that pull as I reached out with my magick sense, closed my eyes, and felt around me for magick energy to draw on. It was as I sensed nothing that I suddenly realized why a gate wouldn’t stay open to this Plane for very long and required so much power to cast. I fell to the sand beside Rebecca as I whispered in stunned disbelief, “There’s no magick.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 2 Fireworks Amethyst |
It was the screaming that snapped me out of my dazed state. It appeared that Rebecca had fallen asleep at some point and was having one hell of a nightmare, not that I could blame her after opening the cockpit to find something like Khinara and the Wraith of Aarianna standing by her mother’s dead body and her entrails all over the cockpit. I felt a sudden stab of guilt for making her go into that cockpit to keep us flying, who knew how that was going to affect her already delicate psyche.
I crawled over to where she was sprawled in the sand, shifting and whimpering in her sleep, and sat her up to put my arms around her. “Shh, everything is going to be okay,” I whispered as I held her tight. I wasn’t sure how though since we were stuck on a distant plane of existence, my friends were scattered to the four winds, I was alone with someone who hated my guts, and to top it off, I had no magick to draw on.
“No, this doesn’t change anything,” I told myself sternly. “We knew coming in that we’d probably be separated for a while once we got here and we still need to find one another and wherever Jalael the Serene is entombed. Okay, so there’s no ambient magick energy to draw on, and that definitely sucks, but the rules for magick are different on every Plane. Maybe here there’s a different way to gather and use magick energy, and I’m damn well going to find it.”
It was still dark, though the pair of moons were further along the night sky than before when Rebecca started to stir in my arms. It seemed that her nightmare had ended, or perhaps wasn’t as bad and she snuggled into my arms, and whispered, “M… Mom?”
I sighed and took a deep breath before saying as gently as I could, “I’m afraid not.”
Rebecca jerked away from me as if she’d been burned. “What the hell were you doing?!” she snapped.
“You were having a nightmare, I was trying to help,” I explained. I should have known she’d react like that.
“I don’t need your fucking help!” she screamed, turning away to look around us and once her eyes saw those twin moons she once again collapsed to the ground. “It… wasn’t a dream. Oh God, Mom…” She couldn’t seem to finish that sentence as I heard her sniffle and her shoulders started to shake as she cried.
I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder but stopped myself as I said, “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to see that and then keep the plane in the air but I know…”
She swiveled around to give me a red-faced glare of pure rage and loathing as she shoved me away. “You don’t know anything! You’re pretty and popular and perfect! I’ve seen the billboards, you’re Miss Divine, with the perfect fucking life! How could you possibly know what it’s like to lose your mother, to be in a trapped in a body that feels wrong, or to be treated like shit and bullied every fucking day for being different!”
I pushed her right back. “I have had it with your jealousy! I’ve tried being nice, I wanted to help you, but you see someone pretty or athletic and you automatically think they’re out to get you! You don’t know one single thing about me! I know what it feels like to lose a parent, both of mine died in a car accident three years ago! Three months ago, before I turned sixteen, I was a scrawny boy , bullied by the jocks, and the only person who gave a shit about me was my sister!”
“Bullshit! There’s no way that someone who looks like you were a boy three months ago! Hormones don’t act that fast, Miss Fashion Model!” Rebecca snarled.
“Magick, moron!” I snapped back in anger at being called a liar. “Think about what happened on the plane and take a good look at where we are and tell me that you can’t believe in it! On my birthday my sister gave me a magick candle and I wished to be like her so it turned me into a younger version of her and I’ve been stuck this way since! I never wanted to be a girl, and sure, the wish has helped me adapt and feel more comfortable but it felt like I was in hell at first! Every time someone told me how much I looked like Sarah it was like a knife twisting in my soul! And the only reason that I’m a model now was so I could help my sister’s career!”
Rebecca feigned wiping tears away, though I could tell that there were real ones there as she taunted. “Oh boo-hoo! Look at me, I’m just so hard done by. I make so much money just sitting in front of a camera and looking pretty, it’s so much work and I’ve had everything handed to me and I don’t have to lift a finger to help people who are really hurting.”
“Fuck you! Are you ever not a bitch?!” I shouted, barely resisting the powerful urge to slap her. “Modeling is hard work and I’ve been working my ass off! Not only do I have a job to do and school but I spend nearly every minute that I’m not doing those or training my magick hunting down Demons, trying to keep people safe, and prevent an invasion! I want to be able to help everyone but I can’t!”
“If you’re so fucking sympathetic and have magic then why the fuck didn’t you help me or those like me at the meetings!” she screamed.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself enough to explain. “Magick can’t become common knowledge among humankind, it would lead to disaster. Even if I knew enough to do a transformation like what you want without possibly harming you in the process, or could create an artifact like the one that changed me, I couldn’t change all of your records or the memories of everyone that you ever met and you’d have no legal identity. We had enough trouble changing my records and stuff and my name was gender neutral leaning toward feminine when I was born. And how would you explain waking up a girl one morning, cooties? I wanted to help you, but what help I was trying to offer you threw in my face so how could I expect you to accept my help for anything even if you did believe in magick?”
“So, change me now then, whip up one of those candle artifact thingies and let’s do this. Mom’s fucking dead, probably because those things on the plane were after you, so I think you owe me.”
Her accusation hurt, probably because it was true. Rebecca’s mother would still be alive if Khinara hadn’t come after us. I should have been more careful; I should have realized that I was being watched or at the very least thought to take measures to keep anyone else on the plane safe. We had thought that we’d be safe in the air, that a portal would be difficult to target on a moving airplane but it seemed that Aarianna’s Wraith wasn’t only watching me but had also signaled to Khinara the best time to attack and acted as an anchor for her portal.
“Do you see anything nearby that I could use to make a candle?” I asked pointedly, gesturing broadly at the expanse of black sand around us. “Even if there was and I didn’t have to worry what to do about your sudden gender reversal with your family when we get back to Earth… I can’t.”
“I won’t tell anybody about your precious magic,” she said in a singsong tone before an expression of pain and uncertainty washed over her, quickly replaced by her usual disdain for me. “And I don’t have any family now, Mom was it. She and my asshole father got divorced because of my transition and I’m dead to him and his family. I got nothing to lose and everything to gain, so hit me.”
“I can’t,” I repeated. “I used up all of the magick energy that I had stored to get us here and make sure we weren’t followed. I haven’t been able to gather any since we got here. There’s none here to draw on and I need it to cast spells, like to find the others or get us home.”
“You mean that we’re stuck here?!” Rebecca yelled as she shot to her feet and glowered down at me. “Why the hell would you bring us to somewhere that has no magic if you need it to get us home?!”
“I’ll find some! The rules are just different here! We didn’t have much choice, unless you would have preferred staying in actual Hell and being tormented and killed by Demons!” I snapped back, getting to my feet to glare right back at her. “We didn’t know what this Plane was like, but we were prepared to come here! We had a gate prepared since we knew it couldn’t stay open long and we’d have to use it several times and it took less time to charge that one five times than it would have taken to draw an entirely new gate with specific coordinates on Earth!”
“You’ll find some?! I feel better already! It sounds so much better than, ‘I fucked up and we’re stranded!’ Where the hell do you expect to find some?! You just said that there’s none here!”
I was getting sick and tired of Rebecca’s attitude. “I said that the rules are different here! Magick doesn’t work the same way everywhere, there are differences! It’s been slightly different on every Plane that I’ve been to and I’m sure that it’s different here too. We just need to find out how! There is magick out there somewhere, I know it!”
“You know it?! That’s just so fucking reassuring! And how do you plan on finding it if ‘the rules are different’?” she shot back.
“Well we’re not going to find it by standing here yelling at one another,” I groused as I tried to calm myself down again. Rebecca was so damn infuriating. I had never met someone so negative in my life. I was trying hard to remain positive for both our sakes but she wasn’t making it easy. “We need to get moving if we plan on finding a source of magick, my friends, or what we came here to look for in the first place. If I’m right, we’re in some sort of desert and we’ll need to get under cover once it starts getting too hot to travel.”
“Assuming that there even is a sun here,” I heard my reluctant companion grumble before she snapped, “Fine, whatever,” and started walking away.
“We’re going this way,” I told her pointing in the near opposite direction.
“What?! Why the hell do you get to decide where we’re going? You’re as lost as I am! Who died and made you leader? Oh wait, my mom did!” she shouted in anger, though I could see that she was trying to act tough and hold back tears. It seemed like that was her answer to everything and I was pretty sure that it was only her anger and dislike of me that was keeping her from curling up in a ball and crying right then.
I tried to keep control of myself as I replied, “Yeah, I have no idea where we are, but I do know that Beth is in that direction. I can feel her.”
“Oh, you can feel her. Isn’t that so fucking sweet? The power of love is going to lead us to your jock girlfriend,” Rebecca retorted with a roll of her eyes and a snarky tone.
“She’s my fiancée,” I corrected as calmly as I could. “But she’s also my Familiar, which means that we can sense one another, no matter where we are. It’s a Witch thing.”
“More like a bitch thing,” I barely heard her grumble under her breath.
“Wow, and I thought that we left Hell to get here, maybe I was wrong. I’d rather go back there and face the Demons,” I muttered as I turned away and started walking.
We had been walking for a while with Rebecca keeping a good distance behind me. As much as she apparently loathed me, she still had the sense to realize that I was her only chance at surviving on an alien world and getting home. So she kept close enough not to lose me but far away enough to make conversation impossible. Still, she was close enough for me to hear her crying in the silence of the desert night as we walked.
As much as her attitude and blind hatred toward me infuriated me, I wished that she would let me in to help comfort her. We were the only company that each other had for now and it would get pretty lonely if we continued to ignore one another. She had just lost her mother, her only family, in a very traumatic way and the last thing she needed right now was to be alone.
I felt responsible for her, but then from what everyone who knows me says, I feel responsible for everyone. In this case though, I really was responsible for her. It was my fault that her mother died and that she was going through this right now. She had nobody else, she was only fourteen, she wasn’t used to magick or travelling to different worlds, and right now it was just me and her so I was going to have to take responsibility for that.
Dawn was starting to paint the sky in bright warm colors so I was able to deduce that we were heading northeast. By the light of twilight, I was also able to get a better look at the black sands around us. It stretched off in all directions as far as I could see and I saw something that made me halt my progress. There were tracks of some sort in the dark sand crossing my path, something small and something much, much larger. If Ziralin were with me she probably could have told me how old the tracks were, and anything else I wanted to know, but I didn’t share her skillset.
Rebecca and I needed to stick closer together or we’d be easy pickings for any predators out there. I was also going to need a few things. I waited for my caustic companion to catch up and said, “Rebecca, we need to stick together, maybe we should stop for a bit to rest and eat something, I need some things from my pack anyway.”
“Not hungry,” she said morosely, not even glancing in my direction as she walked past and continued walking in the direction that I had set us out on. Her eyes were red and puffy and it seemed that she didn’t even have the mental energy to scream at me or say something snarky. She did stop to sit in the sand though once she had put enough distance between us to make conversation impossible.
I sighed and turned around, watching her for a couple of minutes. I was about to go to catch up to try to talk to her when I heard a familiar voice say, “The two of you are going to have to learn to get along and work together if we are going to get through this.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 3 Light and Shadow Amethyst |
I turned to gape wide-eyed at the hooded and masked figured who stood watching me. “Xuriel!” I gasped in one-part confusion and two-parts relief. Maybe she could help us out of this jam. “What are you doing here? I thought that you didn’t want to reveal yourself to the Demons yet.”
“The situation has changed,” the Celestial responded carefully. “I did not anticipate the possibility of you having no magick to work with while searching for Jalael’s power. If you are to live through this, then I must reveal myself now and ensure that you have the abilities to survive this world without magick.”
“What do you mean?” I asked uncertainly. “Didn’t you come to help us?”
“Yes, I did, but I cannot use magick any more than you can at the moment, Shannon. As I said, I am here to reveal myself.” Xuriel pulled back her hood and removed her mask and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there. I was expecting the face of a Celestial with one of those unusual eye colors and matching head feathers, but that was not what I saw. I nearly fainted, and did fall to my knees as I recognized her face. I should have since I saw it every day, in the mirror.
“You’re… me? What… I…” I couldn’t seem to form the questions that assaulted my mind on my lips.
“It would be more accurate to say that you are me, at least in part,” my doppelganger replied calmly. “You have been since you made that wish. Please, allow me to tell you a story before I show you what you need to know and consign myself to oblivion.”
I was a child when the Demons first attacked Haven and our war with them began. My father was a farmer and my mother an artist of some renown. They were poorly suited to fight Demons, but they held them off long enough for my brother to get us to safety. By the time I reached maturity and was prepared to enter the Navaris Field to receive my mark and gain the power which slept within me, we had already had many warriors to fight the war but we were still losing. I was one of seven who would change the course of that war.
Even without my ability to passively gather and purify nearly limitless amounts of magick energy from the world around me I was an accomplished user of holy magick. With it, I was the most powerful of the Seven Sentinels. Despite our power and determination, the war dragged on and the Demons began to invade other Planes as well, so I came up with a plan.
The key to taking down the Demons was to deal them a blow that would leave them in chaos, fighting among one another rather than with us. We needed to kill the Demon King. I told the others of my plan and both Anjurael and Torphael agreed with my assessment. Jalael, Lunael, and Lunariel felt that we should focus on a stronger defense. Ysuriel was the deciding vote and she felt that it was reckless and foolhardy to try to attack the Demon King in Heil where he would have a distinct advantage, even if we all attacked him at once.
When the others decided to move on to defending our territories more vigorously, I went after him myself. I was a proud and somewhat arrogant man, so certain that I was right, and I was confident that I had the power to destroy him, even if I had to do it by myself. In a fair fight I probably would have been right, but Demons do not fight fair.
I had him weakened, I had him on his knees, and as I began to cast a spell that would finish him off I was felled by an attack from behind. A Succubus names Izhara cursed me, placing a Demon Brand over my Mark to take away my empowered form and its abilities and leave me trapped in the mortal form of a primitive creature that she discovered on another Plane. That was when something entirely unexpected happened, my Mark and the Demon Brand merged.
I was left a mere human, barely more than a child and unable to change forms, with the uncontrollable power of both Celestial and Demon barely contained in a mortal body. My arrogance and short-sightedness did not only cost me. Instead of defeating the Demon King and ending the war, the war raged on for two more years with the battle ground spreading to other Planes and displacing the Faery from their home.
I fled Heil, and they let me so that I could live in torment and remember my failure, and the Demon King named Izhara and six other Demons his generals and gave them the task of destroying the Sentinels so that he could not be attacked like that again. I was not prepared to give up and die though. I was determined to fight and defeat the Demons, and I discovered that I still had ways of doing so.
While I could no longer seem to change to my empowered form, I had not lost my ability to gather magick energy and manipulate it as Izhara had likely intended. I had new abilities as well, or perhaps it was that the merging of my Mark and the Brand had changed the abilities that I had already. While I found that I had to work harder to purify magick energy I also seemed to have the ability to taint it as a Demon would for their magick. I could cast curses as they did too, and I found that I could take on the physical attributes of a Demon as well.
This was the true curse which Izhara had bestowed upon me. To be a mere mortal girl in form, unable to ever take my empowered form again, but to still have power at my fingertips, her powers, the power of a Succubus. I had their strength, their speed, and I could change my body entirely to one of her kind or take on individual attributes such as wings or eyes to use their abilities, not as an empowered form but as an inherent ability akin to Succubus shapeshifting.
For a time, I had lost myself in shame to the freakish creature that I had become; half-Celestial half-Demon but truly neither, instead something neutral in a primitive adolescent and female mortal form. It was when I was lost in my own misery that I discovered that even that dark cloud had a silver lining. While I had to work harder at purifying magick energy to use in Celestial spells, I was no longer limited by casting those ritualistic spells. My mere thoughts and desires could reshape the world around me if I was not careful to control my magick.
And so I used my new abilities to help bring the first war to a conclusion. I used their own abilities and tactics and attacked from the shadows. I gave off no aura, neither demonic nor that of a Celestial in their empowered form and I while I could attain the strengths of a Demon I did not share their weaknesses. They couldn’t see me coming, I had a greater power than ever before, and I slew Izhara with my own hands, but this did not relieve me of my curse.
Unable as I was to return to my former body, I kept out of the public eye unless necessary among other Celestials, and even then I kept my true appearance hidden beneath a mask and hooded robe and remained cloaked in shadow and mystery. I kept my distance, even from the other Sentinels, and while I convinced them that I had been cursed and had my gender changed I kept the extent of that curse and my new abilities to myself. This, my penchant for working alone, and my ability to take the Demons by surprise where others could not, earned me the name Xuriel the Shadow.
My people managed to win the war, but it was not a clear victory, and both sides retreated to lick their wounds and rebuild their forces. Ysuriel knew that it was not truly over and that the Demons would come back some day so she came up with the plan to leave their power behind for others to use when the need arose. That was something that I could not do. I could not curse another as I had been so I fled to the Plane of Earth, where I attempted to make a life among the people whose form I now wore. I took the name Brighid and found a village that accepted me, until I lost control of my magick.
My magick had become more and more difficult to control each day, light and darkness battling inside me as my power grew ever stronger, already far too much for an adolescent mortal to contain without eventually killing me. It was as I fled the wrath of those who had taken me in that I met the Faery, who tried to help me to control my great power. They felt a kinship to me and they made me feel like I belonged for the first time since I was cursed.
It was the blood oath and Faery blood flowing through my veins that stabilized me. It created a balance of the light and darkness and allowed me to master my powers and separate the Celestial and Demonic aspects. The immortality granted me by their blood and magick allowed me to contain my power, even if I could only use a fraction of it and my empowered form was still lost to me. In time though, I found that I wanted a family and so I returned to the humans for a time to conceive a child.
When my first daughter had her sixteenth birthday she took on a similar appearance to me and seemingly inherited my ability to gather and manipulate magick energy and to use it to effect the world around her. She did not receive my curse or the abilities that came with it, merely the last vestiges of what was once the unique power of my Celestial Mark. It was then that I came up with my plan and sealed my overwhelming power, my knowledge, my memories, and my cursed mark, hiding them and a shred of my consciousness away, just as Ysuriel and the others had before me. Rather than hiding them away in a set place like others had done though, I hid them within myself and the bloodline that would follow.
I planned to wait for a magical prodigy who could contain and control my full power and then I would bestow that power upon her and awaken the other members of the Seven to guide that prodigy and take her to Heil to finish the task that I came so close to completing so long ago. Since then I have watched myself and my descendants grow and live their lives, a spirit of sorts watching the living and waiting to fulfill my purpose. I watched descendants live and die, none of them the prodigy that I required and then even my original self died as well, in a fire after completing your mother’s training.
I began to lose hope of ever finding the prodigy to inherit my power. Your sister was close, certainly gifted and very clever and, other than you, she was the last of the lineage. I very nearly chose her but then something amazing happened, you made your birthday wish on that candle. So I took the opportunity that that wish presented to remake you into the prodigy that I sought, a girl of my bloodline infused with great potential for magick and a natural ability to use it. Then to ensure that you remained that way I exercised enough control over your body and magick to light the candle.
“It’s your fault that I’m stuck like this?!” I practically snarled as I clenched my fists at my side once her story was finished.
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “Though I did everything that I could to help you to adjust and feel better about the situation. Is your life not better now than it was before?”
“That’s not the point!” I snapped, even though I knew she was right. I loved my life now, I loved my job, my friends, my fiancée, and especially the relationship that I had with my sister. Sure, our current situation sucked and there had been a lot of bumps along the way, but I was happy and everything was better.
“I have been watching you, Shannon, I have been watching your life through your own eyes since you made your wish. You have adapted quickly and done something that I was never able to truly do in my life, you have become genuinely comfortable and happy with being female, it is who you are ,” Xuriel told me gently. “I did not grant you that, nor did the wish that I guided. We could help you adjust and adapt and give you the necessary tools, but that happiness, comfort, and sense of self cannot be granted from a wish or anything that I could impart, it is part of who you are inside. The wish making you more like Sarah could have had some part in contributing to you getting to this point sooner, but it was only uncovering what was in you all along.”
“So, what? You’re just in my head and now you’re going to give me your mark and disappear?” I asked, trying to ignore the implication that I probably had repressed gender issues before being changed. I didn’t want to think about that and I had so many other things to occupy my mind right then. So much made sense now, like how Xuriel was able to watch me all of the time, why she only ever spoke or showed herself to me, and why the others couldn’t sense her appearances.
“You have had my Mark all along, Shannon. I have merely kept it under a seal so powerful and subtle that not even an accomplished Celestial magick user such as Ysuriel could detect it, and out of sight until you were ready to fight the Demon King. I have been slowly giving you my memories and knowledge as you sleep so you would not be overwhelmed when the time came. Most of it is behind a barrier in the deepest recesses of your mind but I have released some of it as you had need of it,” she conceded.
“The dreams I’ve been having!” I sputtered in realization.
My head nodded atop her shoulders. “Yes, and you very nearly stumbled upon the truth the night when I attempted to warn you about Demon Brands, test you, and prepare you for the realities and temptations of bearing my Mark.”
“But you destroyed the records at my old school, made up new ones for homeschooling online, changed the old transcripts at St. Catherine’s for the new ones, and you altered the memories of my agent, Jen’s parents, and Mother Josephine to believe that it was all real,” I argued in disbelief.
“Technically, you did those things,” Xuriel countered, “the night before your volleyball tryouts, and your first date with Bethany that led up to the battle with Varas and Aarianna. As you and your sister slept I fed my memories and knowledge into your dreams, kept you asleep, and took control of your body to do what was required. I used my experience and your practical knowledge, combined with a bit of creative magick use, and I briefly unsealed the mark to give me the power to do so without detection.”
I felt kind of violated after that revelation, as much as when she had admitted to being behind my transformation, and she knew that, being in my head and all. She looked away, and said with a sigh, “I did only what was required to ensure your safety and that magick remain a secret, and you were still adjusting to your new form and magick. I could not reveal myself to you then, you were not ready. I am uncertain that you are ready now, but you will need the full scope of your abilities to survive here.”
“If I’m understanding you, I’ll be more powerful and able to gather more magick when the seal is removed but that won’t help me at all if there’s no magick energy to draw on. I would only have the abilities of your curse to work with and… those are Demon abilities.” I really didn’t feel comfortable with that.
“No, Shannon,” Xuriel said with a shake of her head. “They are your abilities. You are a Witch descended from a Celestial of great power, but in essence you are and always will be human. You do not have a Demon’s dark soul nor their aura, just as you do not have the aura and soul of a Celestial. I lived with this curse for many years and in doing that and in watching my lineage for all of this time I have learned one very important thing, no power is truly good or evil in and of itself. This power will not define you. What will define you is how you use it and why, and I know you well enough to be certain that you will always try to do the right thing for the right reasons.”
“So, what do we need to do then? Am I gonna pass out after this like Sarah and the others?” I asked after taking a deep breath and a moment to think.
“No, your mind already contains enough of my memories and knowledge that I can safely remove the barrier keeping it from your conscious mind and give you the rest along with it, though it will take some time to process all of the information. It should all come to you as you require it though. Once both that and your Mark are unsealed I will bother you no longer,” she told me with a sad smile.
“You’re going to leave us alone here?” I asked, feeling a surge of panic.
“It is long past time that I rest, Shannon. You have my knowledge and memories and the power to help you survive. Before I go though, I would ask that you share your curse with Rebecca.”
“You want me to curse her?! How?! Why?! Wouldn’t that make her no better than my slave?!” I sputtered, in shock and disbelief.
“Curses are granted by feeding on a person’s negative emotions, drinking in those emotions will connect you to her and allow you to imbue a mark upon her. You should have much to work with, she is in a dark place right now. Yes, some Demons make those that they curse no better than slaves with their Brand, especially weaker ones, it gives them a sense of control. As I said though, you do not have their dark soul or aura and no power is good or evil on its own, it is intent that matters,” she told me seriously.
Then she gave me a weak smile as she turned her gaze toward where Rebecca was sitting carefully looking away from me and said, “My curse was to be bound in the body of a human female, unable to ever take my empowered form again, my only ability to change that to take on the powers and appearance of a Succubus. Had the Brand not merged with my Mark and altered my ability to gather and use magick energy, then it may have very well been the torture that she had intended for me rather than just a severe discomfort. There are some though, I think, who may not see such a thing as a curse.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. It would give Rebecca what she desperately wanted and increase our chances of being able to survive on this Plane. Not only was it the sensible thing to do, it was the right thing to do. We would deal with figuring out a new identity for her if and when the time came. “I’ll do it, but I’m not calling it a curse,” I muttered as I looked toward Rebecca.
“Call it what it is,” Xuriel said with a smile, “call it a blessing. I will release the seal and the barrier over your unconscious mind now, but I will leave the protections upon your mind in place, you may yet need them, Shannon. I know that you will do me proud and fulfill your destiny.” With that I fell to my knees, a searing pain in my lower back and my mind assaulted with new memories and knowledge as I felt Xuriel’s presence fade from my mind with one final, “Good bye.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 4 Changes Amethyst |
I knelt in the black sand for a moment trying to catch my breath as the pain faded from my head and lower back. Once my head had cleared, it didn’t take much thinking to realize what the pain in my lower back had been, it was my cursed mark. My face flushed at the thought that I now had a supernatural tramp stamp, even if only those sensitive to magick could see it. I even knew what it looked like; a silvery blue heart bound in black chains with black bat-like wings stretching out to my sides.
I staggered to my feet and tried to put it out of my mind as I turned back toward Rebecca, whose head swiftly snapped around from where she had been staring to look in the opposite direction again. I could see her more clearly now that twilight was fading and the sun was visible on the horizon. Something about the sun didn’t seem right but I couldn’t figure out what it was at the moment and just filed the thought away for later as I approached my reluctant traveling companion.
“You done talking to yourself?” Rebecca jabbed. I could practically hear the sneer in her voice.
How was I going to explain this? Because yeah, saying, “I was talking to the spirit of my ancient ancestor who was a Celestial cursed by a Demon and has been haunting our family for thousands of years to give me her power,” was going to sound just so mentally stable. I settled with telling her, “I wasn’t talking to myself but I’ll explain what that was about later. The… ahh… being that I was talking to offered a solution to a couple of our problems.” I could have said that she awakened my true power but talking with Rebecca was like navigating a verbal minefield and I didn’t want to sound like some sort of cliché manga protagonist or something.
“Which problems?” she asked with a sniff. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was just being dismissive or she was still crying and trying to hide the fact. It was probably both since she followed up with, “We have plenty of problems, but unless this imaginary ‘being’ of yours can change the fact that I’m stuck alone on an alien world with you, I’m not really interested.”
“This isn’t exactly my dream vacation either,” I snapped back.
“Well, unless your little hallucination gave you a tutorial on how ‘magic works differently’ here then I don’t see how you’re going to be useful for anything, little miss model. We wouldn’t want you to break a nail or something. Oh wait, you can lead us to your jock girlfriend. Won’t that be great, then I can be stuck here alone with two people that I hate,” she spat at me angrily.
I stomped irately toward her, quickly closing the distance between us until I was standing over her glaring. “Whatever your problem with me and my friends is, you need to get the fuck over it! I’ve never done anything to you except try to be nice and offer to be a friend, and right now I’m the only person who can help you! Now, do you want to be a fucking girl or not?!”
She was staring up at me in confusion and terror and it took me a moment to realize why. I was looming over her in full Succubus mode; horns, claws, wings, long spaded tail, and the whole shebang. “Okay, yeah, I’m going to have to learn to control this when I get upset or magical accidents will be the least of my problems,” I thought to myself bitterly. I quickly looked away and sighed before attempting to speak calmly. “Look, I’m sorry. I literally just got this ability like five minutes ago, and I have a jumble of another person’s memories in my head only giving me a vague idea of how to control it.”
“You’re so beautiful,” she said, sighing as she gazed up at me adoringly.
“Annnnd cue the super pheromones and mental whammy, because of course Rebecca would be into girls and I would have those too. Geeze, I hope that I don’t need to live on male tantric energy,” I grumbled to myself. New old memories came to the fore of my mind and I was relieved to find out that since I wasn’t a real Succubus, just a convincing copy with the same abilities, I could survive on normal food. I could of course absorb the tantric energy of men and convert it to magick energy but I didn’t need it to live like a real Succubus would.
Well, that would give me a way to get some magick on this world, if it came to that. Not that I had any intention of doing so. The idea totally squicked me out for one thing. For another, I couldn’t even be sure that there were men on this planet aside from Mason, and having sex with my best friend’s boyfriend would be all kinds of wrong, no matter what the reason. Yeah, I was not going there, I would find out how magick worked on this world and use it that way, hopefully before we found the others.
I cleared my head and looked back at Rebecca, who was still gazing dreamily at me. Wow, she was so much more cooperative like this but it kinda creeped me out. I wasn’t really sure if this was an improvement over her being perpetually pissed at me or not. Best to get this over with though, since I suspected that I needed to be in my full Succubus form to place a curse. With that in mind, I asked Rebecca, “Do you truly wish to have a female body?”
“More than anything,” she replied nodding eagerly, not taking her eyes off of me. Then she suddenly looked uncertain as she timidly asked, “Do you like girls?”
Wow, she was seriously under the influence if she didn’t remember that I had a girlfriend, she was hating on both of us enough. I put those slightly bitter thoughts aside though and pushed onward. “Rebecca, I can give you a… blessing. It will give you the body that you wish to have but I will need to place a mark on your body somewhere, like a tattoo. Where would you like it?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca replied uncertainly before adding almost flirtatiously, “where would you like to see it on me?”
Nope, this wasn’t getting awkward at all. I needed to get this over with, for both our sakes. “This may hurt a little bit, Rebecca,” I told her as I closed my eyes and felt for the negativity inside her as I would look for magick energy to gather. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out the trick to it, with a bit of help from Xuriel’s memories, but soon I was able to sense what I was looking for.
Beneath the surface of Rebecca’s mind that was so focused on her blind lust and desire for me at the moment, there was so much pain, anger, loneliness, and raw grief that it threatened to overwhelm me. I began to draw it into myself, equal parts of each, hoping to lighten her emotional burden and gathering that energy in the palm of my hand. As I did so I could feel a stronger connection form between us and once I felt that I could hold no more of that emotional darkness in my hand I gently placed that hand upon her shoulder, focusing on the mark that I had in mind and imparting the same curse that I had upon her.
For a time Rebecca’s screams rang out across the desert sands as the ‘blessing’ altered her body. The change was agonizingly slow and with each scream I felt a new stab of guilt until at last she had screamed herself hoarse and fell to the ground in a heap, breathing raggedly and whimpering as she lost consciousness. The transformation had put a lot of strain on her body and she was going to need rest, food, and water if she was going to recover.
With Rebecca in that state, I didn’t think that we were going to get anymore traveling done that day so I would need to set up camp and get her out of the open before the sun got too high. I went to retrieve my backpack from where it had fallen from my back when I had gone all Succubus and my wings had emerged. Thankfully, only the straps were damaged and I thought that I could fix them enough to make the pack usable again.
Too bad the same couldn’t be said for my hoodie and bra. The back of both of them had ripped apart under the strain of my wings popping out, but at least I was still covered in the front. The only thing that had saved my jeans was that they were low-rise jeans and my tail had emerged above the waistline of them.
I briefly considered trying to shift back to my normal form but it wasn’t like anyone was here to see me except Rebecca and she already seemed to believe that I was some sort of Demon, judging from the way she had acted toward me since we had first met. My new additional appendages felt strange though, having a tail and wings is a bit weird. A look behind me showed that both were a striking red-gold color, while my inch-long claws were a startling black. My compact, fished from my purse inside the backpack, showed that other than those features and the most adorable little golden devil horns emerging from just above my hairline, I still looked like myself in this form at least.
I returned the compact to my purse and the purse to my backpack as I started to check the other contents. That was when I heard something, and it wasn’t coming from Rebecca. I quickly turned to get a look at the source and immediately cursed. “Shit!”
In the light of dawn, there was a huge creature approaching. It was dark and scaly with an almost feline shape to it, except that the tail was more like a lizard’s than a cat’s. It was easily twelve feet long, not counting the tail, and had powerful-looking jaws filled with oversized razor-sharp teeth and a pair of nearly two-foot-long tusks. Its nostrils were little more than slits on the end of its muzzle and its ears were either very small or non-existent. It moved low to the ground, and probably would have blended in with the black sand if it hadn’t been for the stark white of those tusks, the curved horn jutting from its forehead, and the small plates of bone, cartilage, or something similar that covered most of its upper face and head and protected its eyes.
That thing was a predator, there was no doubt in my mind, and it was heading right for Rebecca. I immediately reached for my magick, only to be disappointed as I barely had enough stored to light a candle and there was nothing here to draw on. All that I had right now was my new abilities and I had no idea how to fight something like that.
I charged the creature, counting on the speed and strength that I knew Succubae possessed and tried to hit it as hard as I could. I closed the gap in an instant, my fist connecting with one of the plates on the side of its head with enough force to crack it, and sent the thing rolling away from the force of the impact with a startled high-pitched yelp. Okay, strength and speed confirmed.
The creature, I think I’m going to call it a tuskreaper, was back on its feet quickly, regarding me cautiously and beginning to circle as it looked for an opening or weakness. I kept myself between it and Rebecca as I tried to figure out what else I might have to work with. “Okay, so what abilities do Succubae have? I doubt that I’m going to be able to charm it and even with my new strength and speed in this form I’m not sure that I want to go toe-to-toe with that thing. There’s regeneration but I’d rather avoid having to use that particular ability. I’m probably agile and can fly but even if I can figure out how to do that, the minute that I leave the ground it’ll go after Rebecca.”
“I can’t feel any negativity coming off that thing, it’s just a big bundle of instincts and hunger, so curses are probably out too. I need to find a weak spot,” I concluded. I carefully looked over the tuskreaper and how it moved. I had surprised it when I first hit it, but how? “The way that it’s watching me I’m pretty sure that its vision is fairly sharp, but maybe those plates around the eyes limit its peripheral vision while protecting its eyes. Maybe it can’t hear well, or at all, and it relies mostly on sight and smell, or some other sense that I’m not aware of.”
“Screw it, the eyes have it,” I decided. I rushed toward the tuskreaper, startling it a bit since it was supposed to be the predator in this situation. It probably wasn’t familiar with anything like me though so it gave me a bit of an advantage. At the moment I was ready to take any advantage that I could get.
I leaped into the air as I closed the distance getting some good air and feeling my wings extend to catch the air. That was a really strange feeling but I didn’t have much time to think about it right then as my glide put me on top of the creature’s back. I had wanted to go for the eyes but hadn’t expected to get so much air so now I had to make due. So I did the only thing that made sense, I held on tight and started using my claws.
To a creature as big as a tuskreaper my claws were probably an annoyance at best. I certainly couldn’t cut deep enough to do any real damage, especially with the way it was bucking trying to get me off of it. This was why I liked magick, I could fight things from a safe distance and I didn’t need to worry about being eaten, impaled, or getting thrown off a creature’s back like a novice bull rider.
On a positive note, the longer that I was staying on its back the more pissed the tuskreaper was getting. Pissed is a negative emotion and I could use that. The angrier it got the more negativity that I had to work with, so I dug my claws in deep and held on for dear life. We were both starting to tire when I felt the connection click into place.
“Thank Goddess,” I muttered as I slammed the dark energy home. “Just die already!”
Perhaps I should have been more specific but I wasn’t really thinking much about being able to get off before I threw up or it threw me. So I totally wasn’t expecting to be sent flying when the tuskreaper exploded. I must have flown a good forty feet, not using my new wings, before crashing into the ground and bouncing through the sand another twenty feet.
The wing on my right side hurt and I was fairly sure that it was broken somewhere but I could already feel it starting to heal, so that was pretty cool. What wasn’t cool was that I was covered from head to toe in tuskreaper guts and sand. The smell and taste made me lose my lunch. “This sucks,” I grumbled as I finally got shakily to my feet and walked back to check on Rebecca, who of course was still fresh as a daisy.
I took a moment to scowl at the tuskreaper’s fully intact head roughly ten feet away and then removed the pair of collapsible tent poles from my backpack. After driving each of them deep into the sand, roughly three feet apart, I then pulled out the only other contents of the pack besides my purse. The three-by-five-foot piece of simple grey canvas material had attached nylon laces that would allow me to secure it tightly between the two poles.
It wasn’t a lean-to or anything like that, nope it was sort of a portable doorway. Sarah had used some sort of Celestial spacial magick to imbue a small pocket dimension into these pieces of canvas and we each had one in case we were separated. The space wasn’t much bigger than mine and Ellie’s bedroom and looked fairly drab on the inside but it was shelter from the elements and there was plenty of food, water, and other supplies to last a person several months. There were also a few weapons, my Hunting outfit, several changes of clothes, and a large foam camping mattress with bedding.
My first goal was a bottle of water and after a nice long sip to get the taste of guts and vomit out of my mouth I went back outside and stripped off all of my clothes, using them and the remainder of the water to clean the gore and sand off of me as best I could. Damn, I was glad that I’d been wearing a hoodie, even if it had been backless, it had prevented the gore and sand from getting in my hair and it and the jeans had protected most of my body as well.
What gore and sand there was on my body did feel really gross but at least I was able to clean it off without too much trouble. Though I did have to wash my face very well. That thing’s innards tasted worse than they smelled and I may have lost my lunch earlier but it had been worth it to get that taste out of my mouth and I didn’t want to risk tasting it again. Sadly, my clothes, except for maybe my panties, were all a lost cause. Even if my hoodie hadn’t been shredded in the back, all that blood was never going to come out.
Since my wing still felt like it was healing and I needed the strength boost to carry Rebecca into the shelter, I decided to stay in my new Succubus form for the moment. I would have to be making physical contact with Rebecca anyway to take her inside and I didn’t think that she would be too keen on that if she were conscious. Sarah had made it so that only we or something that we were touching could enter the pocket rooms that she had created, to anything else the doorway would act like regular, if very sturdy, canvas so that people or wild animals couldn’t wander in and surprise us in the middle of the night.
As I carried Rebecca to the doorway and then inside I gave her a good once over. Shit, those clothes were going to have to come off. She had grown both up and out quite a bit and her clothes were tight enough in some places that they were starting to cut off her circulation. It was basically the same thing that had happened to me when I first changed and Sarah had had to destroy my clothes. I should have checked earlier, but I was busy with the tuskreaper.
She had been wearing jeans and a hoodie like I was, that was all I had ever seen her wear really. The jeans were several sizes too small with her new curves, but the hoodie had a zipper and was oversized so it would still be wearable if a bit tight in the chest. I carefully removed that and her still usable shoes and socks first after placing her on the foam mattress. Then, using my claws, I quickly cut off her jeans and the way too tight t-shirt and bra that she had been wearing under the hoodie, being careful not to cut her skin in the process. Her underwear had ripped at the seams from her expanding hips so I tried to ignore them as I rubbed some circulation back into her legs.
She had turned out fairly well, very sexy with a typical succubus body even in her human form, not that I could throw stones about that since I was in the same boat. My clothes hadn’t felt uncomfortable at all since I changed except for the wings having to burst through the back of them. She looked closer to fifteen than fourteen and had long wavy auburn hair, a very pretty face that only remotely resembled her old one, and a flawless peaches and cream complexion. She was nearly as tall, curvy, and endowed as I was now too, so I was hoping that she might be able to wear some of my spare clothes.
It was as I was considering that possibility and massaging her legs that Rebecca woke up and jerked away from me. “What the fuck are you doing?!” And then she noticed my wings and horns and backed away further in fear, so scared that she didn’t seem to notice when her own Succubus features emerged. Well, damn, maybe I should have taken the time to get dressed.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 5 Seeing the Light Amethyst |
Rebecca’s dark blue, nearly violet eyes were wide in fear as she backed away from me. Her spaded tail and large bat-like wings were the same color as her eyes and the little horns poking out from her auburn hair were as black as her claws. She didn’t seem to notice her Succubus features or her newly feminine body but somehow she seemed to have enough presence of mind to realize that she wasn’t wearing clothes and she instinctively scrambled to cover herself as best she could with her arms and hands. “Who a-are you?! What are you? Why are you naked?! Why am I naked?!” The questions burst out of her mouth in a frantic torrent.
I raised my hands to show that I wasn’t going to hurt her. I thought that my wing felt fully healed and briefly considered changing back to a human if I could even figure out how, but if I did that and Rebecca freaked out while in Succubus mode then I could get really hurt. Instead, I opted for talking very calmly and slowly. “Rebecca, it’s me, Shannon. You need to calm down and let me explain the situation. First, I want you to look down at yourself.”
It took a moment for my actions and words to penetrate her mind. Her breathing and heart rate didn’t slow, I could still hear them from where I knelt several feet away, but she did look down. I tried not to think about how cool enhanced senses were as I focused on the task at hand, which was making sure I was ready in case Rebecca completely freaked out.
She just stared downward in stunned silence for what seemed like ages before her hands tentatively touched her breasts. She gasped and then her hand shot downward and I quickly turned away to give her what privacy I could at the moment. To make her a bit more comfortable I went to go look through the spare clothes that I had packed and searched for something that we could both wear.
As I did so I tried to calmly explain the situation. “Okay, Rebecca, technically I’m not naked, I’m wearing panties still. I’m not dressed because I just got through fighting a monster to protect you while you were out cold and all of my clothes were half-destroyed and covered with blood and guts. You’re naked because, when I brought you into the porta-bunker for safety, I realized that your clothes were meant for someone smaller and were cutting off your circulation in your new body. That’s why I was massaging your legs, to get the blood circulating again.”
That was when I heard her start to sniffle and I turned to see her staring at me with tears running down her cheeks. “You… How did you… I thought you said there was no magick here.” Her tone was tinged with uncertainty and a bit of suspicion.
“There isn’t, I didn’t lie to you or anything, Rebecca,” I told her carefully. “When you thought I was talking to myself… well, it’s a very long story but Xuriel, the person I was talking to, was the one responsible for me being a girl now and she kinda unlocked some abilities that were hidden from me until now. One of those abilities allowed me to turn you into a girl and give you similar abilities to help us survive here. That’s why you’ve got wings and stuff too, but we should be able to turn back to our human forms and you’ll still be female. Are you okay? I thought that you wanted this.”
“I do; this is my dream come true! I’m just… why?” she stammered, looking at the floor of the bunker.
“Because I’m not the bitch that you seem to think I am, none of my friends are either. It hurt me so goddamn much that I couldn’t help you or the others in the support group, but I’ve seen what happens when the wrong people learn about the existence of real magick. It can’t become common knowledge. We need to survive here though, and we both need every edge that we can get for that until I can find out how magick works here and we can join the others.”
I had tried not to let any of my bitterness show but I was a little more direct with her than I had wanted to be as I focused on finding something backless and lightweight in the small collection of tops that I had stored in my bunker. “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked hesitantly from behind me.
“I’m looking for clothes for us to wear,” I answered with a sigh. “I’m a model and I’m used to spending time with the Faery so I’m comfortable seeing other people naked or in various stages of undress, and being seen that way myself. I’m pretty sure that you’re not though. I need to find something backless or something that we can alter to allow for our wings though.”
“I… look… I guess that Michelle was right about you. I was going on and on about what a bitch you were and how you couldn’t be trusted to see past your own ego but I guess that I was the one who was really acting like that. It’s just, I’ve gotten so used to…”
I sighed and cut her off as I threw her a pair of panties, some sandals, and a backless white sundress with blue floral patterns from the warm weather clothes box. “You don’t need to explain, Rebecca. I’ve been there. You get so used to being treated like shit by all of the popular kids that you think they’re all alike. You can’t defend yourself from the beatings or the humiliations so you try to avoid them altogether; you withdraw, try to think of yourself as independent rather than alone, and wrap yourself in a cloak of apathy while wishing for some way to pay them back for what they’ve done to grind you down.”
Rebecca gaped at me, barely managing to catch the clothing. “You… you really do know.”
“Yeah, but I also know that those assholes aren’t worth it,” I told her candidly while extracting an emerald halter top and cutoff denim shorts for myself. “Revenge doesn’t help anyone and they want attention, so don’t give them what they want. I’m confident now and I’ll stand up to anyone who messes with me but what’s the use in hating and wanting to make others suffer? It just turns you into the same type of person as those you hate. I’ll point out their stupidity and hope they learn a lesson but anything after that is up to them. I’m too busy living my own life to hold grudges for people being stupid.
My fellow pseudo-Succubus winced, her eyes downcast and her large wings drooping in a way that was sort of cute. “I… thank you… y’know, for doing whatever it was that you did to change me. I’m sorry, I was a bitch to you and there’s no real good excuse for that, Michelle and my Mom both tried to tell me but…Mom...”
As Rebecca broke down and cried I took a pair of comforters from atop the camping mattress and wrapped one around each of us as best I could with our wings in the way. Then I held her as she let out all of the raw fresh grief from the loss of the only family that she had. “We’re going to get out of this place, Rebecca. We’ll find a way and then we’re going to kill the Demon King and all of his generals, including the one who killed your mother. I know that I said that revenge doesn’t help anyone but she has a lot to answer for and your mom deserves to be avenged.”
For the next several hours I let her cry it all out, she needed to get it out of her system. As she did I told her about everything that had happened since my birthday, including the things that I had found out from Xuriel’s perspective. There was a lot for both of us to process as I let the words fill the silence of the bunker. I told her about the Celestials, the Demons, the war between them, the Faery, and then I finally told her Xuriel’s story and how it applied to us.
Rebecca’s tears had run dry some time ago. And then she finally spoke she was staring at her hands, or more specifically her claws. “What are we? I mean, I’m grateful for this curse, or blessing, or whatever you want to call it but are we even human anymore?”
“We’re not Demons,” I told her sternly. “Xuriel was clear about that and I agree since I don’t feel a demonic aura from you. We just have the ability to become convincing replicas of Succubae and copy their abilities. It’s not the power you have, it’s how you choose to use it and that applies to all creatures, not just humans. Maybe good and evil aren’t inherent, I’ve met at least one Celestial who was a total dick. He purposely screwed my fiancée over for something he thought was for the greater good. Maybe some Demons just want to live in peace too. But as for me and you, this doesn’t change who we are inside, we’re under a curse but we’re both still human, or well, a Witch in my case.”
I could almost see the weight being lifted from her shoulders. “Do you think that I can use magick too? I want to help take that Demon bitch down.”
I shook my head. “No, the Witch thing seems to be genetic for our family and separate from the curse, passed down from Xuriel’s mutated Celestial ability. I mean, you could probably learn to use magick, but to have the juice to use it you’d have to gather tantric energy from men like a real Succubus does, through sex.”
Rebecca looked about as thrilled as I was with that option, which was not at all. “Uh… yeah…that’s not gonna happen any time soon, even if I did like the idea.”
“We do have other abilities to use though, and we’re going to need to learn fast so let’s eat something, get dressed, and then get to work,” I told her as I got up to grab us each a water bottle, energy bar, and some dried fruit.
It was sometime later that we started practicing what was probably our most important ability, returning to our human forms. We needed to be able to do that to get dressed since wings make putting on tops super awkward, even backless ones. We managed to get the trick to it though, if we just relaxed enough and concentrated on our marks then we could feel a sort of mental switch that we could flip.
My mark was of course a stupid tramp stamp but Rebecca seemed happy with the pale blue and black butterfly mark that I had placed on her right shoulder. She seemed even happier with the reflection in the mirror I loaned her, even going so far as to hug me in her excitement. That got awkward fast though since we were both trying to figure out where we stood with one another and set any boundaries that we might need.
Soon we were both properly dressed once again, though since we needed to get used to our new abilities we opted for the clothes that I had found earlier. We had to go braless though since I didn’t have any what would allow for our wings. At least the sundress that Rebecca was wearing had a bit of built-in support. I managed to get around that issue somewhat with the navy blue one-piece backless bathing suit that I had put in with the summer clothes. Wearing it instead of panties under my clothes wasn’t super comfortable but at least kept me from jiggling around too much.
As soon as we were both dressed I gave Rebecca a rundown on the abilities that we would have in our Succubae forms. Most of those abilities were inherent ones that we wouldn’t need to think of to use, like the increased physical attributes, claws, and regeneration. The pheromones and mental whammy were another inherent thing and seemingly interconnected, and it kind of sucked that we couldn’t control those because I figured that it might make things awkward when we found the others. Things like casting curses, shapeshifting, and flying were going to take practice though, not that either of us was too keen on using the curse ability.
I was lucky to have Xuriel’s memories to work from, even if they were still a bit jumbled. I was able to ‘remember’ how she used those abilities and I would be able to use those memories to figure things out and help teach Rebecca. One thing that those memories told me was that Xuriel had learned how to do only partial shifts from her human form taking on only the wings, eyes, or claws. That would be useful but we had a long way to go before we would be ready for that.
As cool as shapeshifting might be, I decided to start us off by getting us accustomed to controlling our new appendages. Succubus tails are long, flexible, and dexterous enough to be used as an extra limb but they’re also strong and the spaded tips are razor sharp and able to be used as a weapon if needed. We needed to get used to our wings too since they could be used to shield us from attacks or to fly, and flying would let us travel faster since, unlike Celestials, Succubae relied on the powerful muscles in their wings rather than magick energy to keep them aloft. Celestials could glide well but to get any real lift they needed to use magick energy to reinforce and empower their wings.
With that in mind, we had to go outside. I wasn’t planning on having us trying to travel any further today but we needed space to get used to what our new bodies could do. As soon as we stepped outside I could feel the nearly oppressive heat and the bright light had a reddish orange tint that hurt my eyes at first. “Oh my God! The smell! And there’s like blood and guts everywhere,” Rebecca complained, looking like she was about to lose her recently devoured lunch. It seemed that she managed to hold it in though, not that I was looking at her by that point.
Now that I was able to see without squinting it wasn’t the gore of the tuskreaper’s remains that had my attention. Although the sun seemed high in the sky the portions of the vast expanse above us that weren’t covered in clouds were a lavender color rather than the blue that I was accustomed to. It wasn’t even that alien sky that had my attention though, it was the sun. It seemed larger in the sky than I was used to and shone crimson with over a dozen strange black threads like faint shadows seemingly wrapped around it like a net.
Rebecca caught the direction of my gaze and I could hear her mutter in wonder and confusion, “What… the… fuck?”
She took the words right out of my mouth as I ran some quick calculations in my mind. “That’s impossible.”
“Duh, this whole situation is impossible,” Rebecca grumbled.
“No, I mean sure magick and other planes of existence may seem that way at first but they’re part of the way the universe works, but this… I don’t know what’s going on here.”
“What do you mean?” my companion asked. “We’re on an alien world so shouldn’t we expect it to be different?”
“Different Planes are essentially different universes or alternate realities,” I tried to explain. “When we travel between them we have to be specific or we could end up anywhere; inside a star, out in deep space with no breathable air, inside a solid object, or on the other side of the universe. That’s why we need to use specific sigils when forming a gate. If we know specific coordinates that are safe to appear at we use those, if not then we use a bunch of safety sigils that will take us somewhere random but on ground level in an open space, which was what we used to end up here. The most important sigils though are the one for the specific Plane we’re aiming for and the one for our general area of space, or rather Earth.”
“Wait so this is some sort of alternate Earth?”
“Yeah, but I just ran some calculations and with time passing roughly sixty times faster on this Plane that would mean that the sun here would be nearly three hundred billion years old and while magick may work differently on different Planes, usually physics and the other basic laws of the universe are the same,” I told her as patiently as I could manage.
Rebecca sighed and rolled her eyes at me as she mumbled, “We’re not all nerds here you know.”
I groaned and tried to figure out how to best explain my thinking before speaking again. “Almost all of the Planes that we’ve visited are similar in that Earth has the same type of sun. A sun of that mass wouldn’t still be around though, it would have gone on to a red giant, and after this long, it would have become a white dwarf or maybe a black dwarf. In either case, Earth wouldn’t still be habitable. If the sun somehow started as a red dwarf in this reality, instead of a G-type main-sequence star, it could still be around but Earth would be tidally locked, which means a nightside and a dayside like the moon.”
I could see the realization hit her as she looked at me and then up at the strange red sun. “Okay, so what the fuck is up with that then?”
“I have no clue, it shouldn’t be possible if the laws of physics are the same here, and last I checked we still had gravity and stuff. It looks weird too, do you see those faint shadowy lines?” When she nodded I looked up to try to make sense of them again myself. “I’m grateful that this planet can still sustain life, if not we’d be in deep shit, but something weird is going on here. We need to find the others, Jalael’s remains, and a way off this rock soon. I have a bad feeling about this place.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 6 Whispered Words and Worries Amethyst |
Rebecca and I spent several hours attempting to get used to our new forms and controlling the additional body parts that came with them. We also tried to get a good start on learning to shapeshift and fly. Our first attempts at the latter were less than spectacular unless of course, you have a taste for slapstick comedy.
Several times over the course of our impromptu training session, I caught Rebecca looking down at herself, or just touching her body in disbelief and then smiling as if she were still not sure that this was really happening. I guess that I couldn’t blame her since she had been wanting this for a long time and had paid her dues for it through the beatings, shaming, and everything else that she had gone through for daring to admit to the world who she was inside.
It made me realize how lucky I had been with Xuriel manipulating the wish the way that she did. I just got what Rebecca had been fighting so hard for served up to me on a silver platter without having to pay those dues, or even consciously realizing that I had a problem. Looking back now I could see it. I had always idolized my sister, I wanted to be just like her, and I hated my body. It felt wrong to me but I could never tell why because I didn’t know what it was like to feel right .
I had thought that puberty was going to solve that problem but it never really happened, I was a late bloomer and that had led to the bullying. Looking back, I had never really put up more than the token protests to being called a girl, but that made sense now. It wasn’t that part that bothered me and drove me to nights of crying alone in my bed while Sarah was gone for modeling gigs. What made me miserable was the bullying itself; being shoved in lockers, having my books shoved out of my hands, and being beaten up, pushed around, and humiliated at every opportunity.
After I had changed on my birthday I hadn’t really made more than the token protests either, maybe because it felt like I should hate it. Really though, I was just scared about how everything was changing so fast and how I was having to learn to be this new person. When Sarah had said that the wish had probably made me more comfortable with my body I had latched onto it, just let myself roll with things, and convinced myself that the happiness that I felt from being closer to Sarah and making friends was helping me to be happier about my situation.
I shook my head to clear it and attempted another lift-off by working my wings. I couldn’t afford to get caught up thinking about this right now, it wasn’t nearly as important as some of the other problems that we were facing at the moment. We had enough problems to worry about already, things that could affect us in the here and now.
First, we needed to find out how magick worked here. Sure, Rebecca and I could protect ourselves better than normal humans now but we might need magick to track down some of the others and we were certainly going to need it to get home. I was so used to there being ambient magick energy to draw on but I just couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t any here. Even if the rules were different on how magick could be used on various Planes, ambient magick energy had become a staple that we were used to from one Plane to the next even if the individual flavors of it had differed.
Then there was the strangeness of this place compared to other Planes, like the two moons and that strange sun. Okay, having two moons wasn’t all that shocking, Tír na nÓg has two moons but one is significantly smaller than the other and barely visible due to its small size, and the fact that it’s on the opposite side of the planet as the other and can only be seen during the day. Here though, the moons were nearly the same size and not that far apart at least from our perspective on the planet. While that, and the pink and violet shades of the two moons might be a little strange to get used to, I could at least think of scientific reasons for both their color and existence.
The sun was giving off light mostly in the infrared spectrum rather than the white light of our own sun. With that in mind and the possibility of different surface conditions reflecting that red light in different ways, the colors were explainable. As for the second moon’s existence, this was an alternate reality, and mass, elements, and various gasses were possibly distributed differently during the birth of our solar system.
Hell, the planets’ orbits might even be different here and we could be on Venus, Mars, or some planet that doesn’t even exist in our universe but happens to be in the same general location that the Celestials searched when first exploring various Planes nearly ten thousand years ago. We were using their spells and sigils when we used Gate magick and up until now, I hadn’t really cared about the details, other than that the planets we appeared on supported life. Call me crazy, but that’s kind of a dealbreaker for me when exploring other worlds via magick portals.
That red sun was a concern though. I just couldn’t think of any plausible reason for it that made sense if the laws of the universe were the same as in every other reality we had been to thus far. Those shadowy lines weirded me out too, what was up with that? I was half worried that the sun would explode or something before we could get off this Plane.
Ugh, I really needed to stop thinking about things I couldn’t do anything about and start focusing on what I could. With that in mind, I tried digging through Xuriel’s memories to see if I could ‘remember’ how to fly. We needed to learn so we could make better time searching for the others and avoid any other tuskreapers or other dangerous desert creatures.
Eventually, I was able to access Xuriel’s memories on how to fly and use my wings and tail in general. From there, I was able to give Rebecca pointers so that she could learn as well. It took a couple of hours but finally, we both had the hang of it sometime in the mid-afternoon, judging by the position of the sun. With that achievement completed, I decided that we should return to the porta-bunker and get some sleep.
Since it was too damn hot outside during the day with the heat of that oppressive sun being absorbed by the black sands of the desert, I thought that it would be best if we traveled by night and slept during the day. I managed to get to sleep fairly easily, I fact, I drifted off almost as soon as I had returned to my human form and put my head on my pillow. That wasn’t too terribly surprising though since I had had a pretty eventful day, what with everything that had happened since we had arrived in Nhekar.
I awoke to the sound of crying. Rebecca was trying to be quiet about it and I barely heard the sniffles and heart-rending sobs as she attempted to muffle the sounds with her pillow. Her shoulders shook as the sobs ripped through her and I wasn’t sure if it was the faint sounds or the slight jostling of the camping mattress that had woken me.
Rebecca had more than enough reasons to cry. Her mother had been brutally murdered by a Demon practically right in front of her, she was in a strange world and it looked like getting home wasn’t going to be easy, and frankly, this world was a bit terrifying. I really should have tried to make sure she didn’t see the remains of the tuskreaper.
She had been trying to keep up appearances with her tough, snarky, and distant exterior all day but it hadn’t been difficult to see the cracks forming in her emotional armor. I couldn’t blame her for trying to hide her feelings to protect herself and attempting to keep me at a distance with her little verbal barbs, it was what she knew after all. It might not be emotionally healthy but it was what she was familiar with and, in our current situation, grabbing on to what was familiar and holding on for dear life was completely understandable.
I propped myself up into a sitting position and asked as gently as I could, “Bad dream?” Rebecca just buried herself further into the pillow as her sniffling and crying seemed to intensify, her staggered breathing reaching my ears as muffled hiccoughs. A sigh slipped out from between my lips as I considered how to handle this.
“Rebecca, you’re allowed to show your emotions, that’s one of the best things about being a girl. It’s not frowned upon, it’s expected,” I offered after a moment. “We may not be friends yet, we may never be, but right now we’re all that each other has. We need to be able to work together, count on one another, and know that we have each other’s backs. That includes being there for one another when we need it.”
My companion remained silent except for the sound of her emotional upheaval so I decided to just keep talking since she was a relatively captive audience and hadn’t actually objected yet. “I know that I’m not your favorite person and that we both have to build up some trust but I’m here, and I’m willing to listen or be a shoulder to cry on if you need it. It’s okay to be upset, it has been a really overwhelming day for me and I’m sorta used to this kind of stuff. It’s got to be like a hundred times worse for you. I… I know what it’s like to have your whole life turn upside down. It happened to me the day my parents died, on my birthday, and again today.”
Rebecca lifted her head ever so slightly from the pillow and while she still wasn’t facing me she said, “I thought *sniffle* that you said you were used to this stuff.” Her voice was tremulous and a little hoarse from crying so hard but I had gotten her to talk at least.
“Well, I have been getting a lot of experience over the past few months but this is a harder situation than normal. I’m separated from everyone I care about and worried sick about them, I can’t use magick to get us out of this situation, this whole place is just scary and weird so far, and Xuriel’s dramatic reveal… well, it’s been a lot to take in and I’ve been barely keeping myself from totally freaking out about things,” I admitted. “I can’t magick this kind of stuff away.”
“You seem fine to me… I mean, you’re not crying into your pillow,” Rebecca said uncertainly with another sniffle as she got into a sitting position. She didn’t relinquish her hold on the pillow though, keeping it held tightly against her newly feminine chest.
I gave her a long thoughtful look and then let out another sigh as I confessed, “I’m keeping it together because we both need me to but I’ve been worrying about shit pretty much since we got here. As long as I keep it together then we have a chance of finding the others and a way out of this mess. If I break down, then I can’t help either of us and we’re both screwed. It’s funny, I’ve fought Sorcerers, Demons, monsters, and shit without thinking twice about it but I don’t think I’m as brave as you are.”
“W…what do you mean?” she asked before burying her face back into the pillow with a sniffle.
“You’ve fought tooth and nail to be seen and treated as the girl that you felt that you were inside. Sure, you may be a snarky bitch half the time and withdrawn the rest, but from what I’ve seen at the meetings you’ve never given up. Being that way is understandable with the way you’ve been treated. You’ve had assholes terrorize, humiliate, and beat you but you’ve never given in or stopped pushing forward with your transition. You fought the everyday monsters and never backed down. Me, I couldn’t even admit to myself who I was inside until the voice in my head pointed it out today,” I said with a despondent shake of my head.
Rebecca lifted her head from the pillow as she listened to me, her eyes seeming to widen further with each word. Then her expression turned incredulous just before she rolled her eyes. “That’s bullshit, and you’re a fucking idiot.”
I frantically went over my words, looking for what I might have said that could have offended her. “I’m… it’s not… that’s what I really think of you,” I said, bumbling over the words.
“I was talking about what you said about yourself, Stupid,” she snapped. “I’ve seen that cover of Teen Queen ; you brazenly announced your sexuality on the cover of a major magazine even though it could have hurt your career. You’ve been confident about who you are since the day we met at that first meeting. I was angry and jealous of you because I saw a genetic girl who was confident, comfortable in her own skin, and happy with who she was, and it fucking hurt because I knew that could never be me.”
“I thought that it was the wish that was making me that way but Xuriel said that it was who I was, that neither she nor the magick of the wish could make me comfortable with being a girl, only make it easier. Xuriel lived a long time and she never felt truly comfortable with it. I’ve been thinking a lot about it today and the signs were there, I just never saw them, or maybe I just never had the courage to face it like you before I got changed,” I pointed out sadly.
“So what if you didn’t realize that part about yourself until now? It’s in the past and doesn’t change fuck all about who you are now. All that fucking matters is that you’re happy with who you are now. And except for this little pity party that you’re throwing right now, I think that you’re the most sickeningly sweet and happy person that I’ve ever met,” Rebecca grumped. “Seriously, you and your girlfriend are fucking cavity-inducing.”
She could have slapped me with a fish I was so stunned. It wasn’t her aggressive and acerbic way of speaking; I was starting to get used to that. No, it was the fact that she was actually right. Why was I letting myself freak out about something that was in the past, I couldn’t change, and wasn’t really a problem anyway? I had more than enough to freak out about right now without adding things like that.
“You’re right,’ I admitted with a blush after a moment of letting that roll around in my thoughts. “Well, about that stuff not really mattering. Sorry, I was trying to make you feel better and things kinda got turned around. Is there anything that you need to talk about?”
“I… just had a nightmare, about Mom,” she reluctantly admitted, clenching her pillow tightly. “We’re gonna kill that thing that killed her right?”
“Yeah, you’re not the only one who wants to take her down. Lisa probably wants to kill her as much as you do and she’s been trying to kill me or make me suffer for a while now. You… were right. Khinara came after me and your mom paid the price, just like Lisa did,” I told her morosely, my breath catching in my throat and my heart tightening as I looked away.
Rebecca wiped away the last of her tears, her fists clenched and her voice steely with determination and tightly controlled rage as she insisted, “You didn’t kill her, that Demon did. I saw it. I saw her do it and I was too frozen with fear to do anything about it. I… that was what I was dreaming about. Just promise me that we’re going to get out of here and kill her. I don’t give a shit what happens after that, I just want to make that hideous bitch watch while I disembowel her and rip her heart out with my own hands, just like she did to my mom. You made my dream come true and gave me the power to avenge my mom, so… uhh… thanks for that.”
“I promise, I’ll find the others and a way out of this place, and then we’ll take down Khinara and the other generals,” I vowed, carefully placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Just, don’t do anything reckless. I think that your mom probably wanted you to be able to live as the girl you are inside and you’ve got that now, don’t throw it away for revenge. We’ll take her down together and when we’re done, I’ll see that you get the life that she’d want for you.”
Rebecca shrugged my hand off, turned away, and wiped her sleeve across her cheek before standing up. “Yeah, well, thanks for the offer or whatever. We’ve got shit to do before we walk off into the sunset or some shit like that, so we should probably get to that now that it’s dark outside.”
I nodded and let her think that she had gotten the last word as I got up and began to put a meal together with some of the few perishable supplies that I had and the camp stove. We would need our energy if we were going to be flying. Once I had the stew going I started gathering things that we might need to have with us outside of the bunker for our journey to find the others.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 7 Onward Amethyst |
“Rebecca, do you know how to use a gun?” I asked as I tried to decide what we might need for our travels and looked over the holdout weapons that Annie had insisted each of us keep inside our porta-bunkers. They were for emergencies where we couldn’t use magick and I was pretty sure that the current situation qualified. It would be nice to have some sort of ranged option for self-defense since most of our abilities at the moment required us to get up close and personal in a fight.
“Only from what I’ve seen on T.V. I never wanted to hurt people that bad,” I heard her mumble behind me as she approached. From the corner of my eye, I could see Rebecca’s eyes widen as she took in the Remington pump-action shotgun and the Desert Eagle Mark XIX. “Holy shit, where the fuck did you get those? Are you some kind of secret gun nut?”
I shook my head and sighed. “Nope, but my sister’s Personal Assistant slash bodyguard is an ex-cop and a huge gun enthusiast. She thought that if we were all going to an unfamiliar Plane that we should have holdout weapons just in case something went pear-shaped. She made sure that we all knew proper gun safety and maintenance and had us all practice a bit with the weapons she picked for us during some of our trips to Tír na nÓg to sneak in some extra hours of training for Lisa and Michelle.”
“Tír na nÓg?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she turned her gaze from the guns to look at me.
“It’s the Plane where the Faery live, though there aren’t many of them left. My cousin and her Mom are both Faery and so are Beth and her Mom, but they started out as human as you did. Beth became one when I accidentally made her my Familiar and her Mom had her dormant Faery blood awakened on purpose about a month ago. Sarah and I have some Faery blood too, though we don’t look like it. Anyway, time passes just over four times faster there than on our own world so a six-hour trip there let us get like a full day of training and a little downtime,” I explained.
Rebecca gave me an exasperated look. “Your life sounds fucking crazy; Faery relatives, fighting Demons, learning magick, visiting other worlds, and a modeling career on top of school and the other stuff, how the fuck do you manage to stay sane?”
“Well, I’ve kinda gotten used to things since my birthday, when all of this started. Family and friends help though, and being able to use magick and help keep people safe is cool. I don’t have magick right now though and the only way that we can protect ourselves is up close and personal. I’d really rather not have to fight another tuskreaper or something similar that way again though, so we might need these guns,” I admitted.
“I dunno,” she said uncertainly. “I’ve never used one before and I don’t want to risk doing something stupid and hurting one of us.”
“I’ll give you a quick lesson on gun safety and let you get some practice in before we pack up camp and get moving,” I promised before getting back to figuring out what we might need to have on hand for our trip.
There wasn’t really much that we needed to keep on us except for the weapons and with my backpack needing to be repaired, I couldn’t have carried much anyway. As long as I kept the extendable tent poles near the entrance of the bunker for easy reach, I figured that I could probably get away with just keeping the canvas cloth for the entrance of the bunker and a few other small items on me. If we needed food or drinks or anything else one of us could just hold the entrance up while the other went through to get them.
I was a bit worried about the cold though since the night before had been pretty chilly and we were going to be flying. So, after a dinner of some nice hot stew and some crackers and a can of Diet Coke each, I worked on trying to figure out what we could wear. My White Witch outfit would keep me comfortable in just about any weather but my wings would pose a problem with that. I would have to cut slits for them into the back of the dress and the cloak and corset could both be particularly problematic. I also might need the disguise later so I felt it better not to try to mess with it.
I started by keeping my navy bathing suit on. It was one of Giselle’s designs and the whole reason I was wearing it was that it was backless and tight enough up top would keep my chest from jiggling too much. It tied in place behind my neck and hugged my chest like a second skin until it connected to the bottom half with a two-inch gold metallic ring over my belly. The nice part though was that the bottom half had a snap so it could be disconnected from the ring which made it a lot easier to go to the bathroom. I guess that technically made it a two-piece bathing suit, but I didn’t care what it was called since it suited my purposes at the moment.
I put on some warm black fleece leggings, a pair of warm socks and my sneakers, and another one of Giselle’s designs that actually went with the leggings. It was a warm black fleece zip-up hoodie with hot pink accents and kitty ears on the top of the hood, It hugged my body almost all the way down to my thighs and had an adjustable mask inside the hood to cover the mouth and nose when it got cold that had a design of a kitty nose, whiskers, and mouth on it. The sleeves ended with built-in fingerless gloves and had these flip-up ‘paw’ covers that could be pulled over the gloves to make them into mittens. It even had a fuzzy tail attached to the back, just above my butt.
That outfit was so warm and cozy and I felt instantly horrible about cutting a pair of slits in the back where I guessed my wings would emerge before putting it on. I was totally going to buy another one when I got home. I also almost accidentally removed the kitty tail when I went into Succubus mode and my own tail punched a small hole in the back of both the leggings and hoodie. I guess I was right about where to put the wing slits though since there was no pain or ripping when those emerged.
Now that I was changed and knew that I wasn’t going to have to replace any clothes. I quickly added the holster belt for the Desert Eagle, placed the gun in the holster, and a bunch of those huge bullets in the ammo pouch before putting on one last thing. It was a simple-looking quartz pendant on black twine which I secured around my neck and slipped beneath all of my layers so that it was resting against my skin. I sighed in relief as I felt it’s magick, but I hoped that we wouldn’t need it.
For Rebecca, I found a pair of thick pale blue leggings to go with the dress, socks, and sneakers she was already wearing as well as a pair of gloves and a scarf in case she got cold up there. We added her hoodie after making sure to cut some slits in the back. She would also have the bandolier of shotgun shells and the shotgun after I gave her a basic firearms lesson.
“If you get cold up there, let me know and I’ll see if I can find some stuff for extra layers,” I told her once we were both dressed. Figuring that she might be uncomfortable being seen naked, or seeing me that way, I had allowed her to change in the privacy of the bunker while I did so outside.
She took one look at me and started laughing her ass off. I sighed and rolled my eyes as she giggled away and when she finally managed to speak it was interspersed with laughter. “Pfft! Omigod, Nerd-girl, you look like the fucking cat in the hat, all you need is that fucking striped hat!
“I thought I was Jockette ,” I grumbled. I should have just worn the White Witch outfit.
“Nope, with all that fucking science stuff earlier and wearing that ridiculous outfit you are definitely a nerd, or maybe a geek.” Rebecca paused for a moment in thought before nodding. “Yup, definitely a geek, Geek-girl.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know this is really warm and comfortable! It’s cute too, I modeled this for Giselle Collette’s winter line,” I snapped.
“You actually let someone take pictures of you wearing that?!”
“You’re just jealous,” I muttered as I turned away and headed back outside. Oh well, at least it put a smile on her face.
“Nope. I’ll give you credit for guts though. That’s not an outfit I would wear, I would not wear it anywhere. I would not wear it in this lair. I would not, could not ever dare,” she managed to get out behind me between giggles.
Once we left the bunker and Rebecca had stopped laughing, I carefully untied the entrance cloth from the tent poles and placed them just inside the entrance before carefully folding up the cloth and putting it inside one of my hoodie’s inside zippered pockets. Then I taught Rebecca everything that Annie had drilled into our heads about gun safety and usage. Only when she had all of that down did I let her take a few practice shots to get used to firing a shotgun, the kick, and proper breathing when firing.
We used the tuskreaper’s head as a target and she managed to do okay with the five shots I let her fire. It took her a few shots to get used to the kick but once we were finished I was fairly sure that she wouldn’t shoot either of us by accident. I would have let her practice her aim more but I didn’t want us to risk using too much ammo that we might need later. Aiming wasn’t as big a deal for her as with the gun I would be using since she was using buckshot and she really just needed to keep the weapon pointed in the right general area.
After Rebecca managed to settle the bandolier and shotgun strap in place so that neither would interfere with her wings in flight, we took off in the direction where I sensed Ziralin. We needed to get some traveling done before the sun rose and I wanted to get away from there in case anything like a tuskreaper decided to investigate the sound of Rebecca’s target practice. Shotguns tend to make a lot of noise.
With the light of the two moons to guide us and our wings to carry us, we quickly ate up the miles, the black dunes passing beneath us in a blur. We stopped once during the night to give our wings a bit of a rest and to make a quick meal, but as soon as we felt ready we were on our way once again. We managed to get some good altitude and caught a wind current that was going in our general direction and rode that for a while to not strain our wings too much.
As we flew, we tried to keep our eyes open for anything unusual, dangerous, or possibly useful on the ground below. Personally, I thought that anything other than barren desert would have been wonderful. It was almost dawn when we saw something just ahead, there was some sort of light down there.
Rebecca was the first to see it and maneuvered closer to get my attention. ‘Hey! Shannon!”
Once I turned my head toward her she pointed downward in the direction and when I saw what she pointed at I could feel my eyes widening. “Let’s check it out!”
As we circled our way downward my heart was beating a mile a minute, especially when we got close enough to figure out that it was a campfire. There were also a pair of smaller lights that I thought might be lanterns. Could it be Sarah and Annie, or some of the others? I counted what looked like maybe four figures but it was hard to tell since I was using night vision at the moment and looking too hard at the lights as we got closer was killing my eyes. I pointed to a spot a good distance away from the apparent campsite and went in for a landing with Rebecca following behind.
We really needed to work on those landings. Okay, sure, we didn’t crash and we managed to stay on our feet but I wouldn’t exactly call us stumbling along the ground graceful, or any other remotely complimentary adjective. “That looked like some sort of a campsite,” Rebecca said, echoing my thoughts.
“Yeah, I thought I saw four shadows that could be living things, maybe even people, but they weren’t moving and that light made it difficult to see. I didn’t want to risk coming down too close in case they’re not friendly. We’ll sneak a bit closer and find a spot where we can watch long enough for our vision to adjust,” I replied.
Rebecca nodded in agreement as she muttered softly, “Night vision is awesome, but it takes way too long to adjust to normal or bright lighting again.”
We made our way carefully toward the light in the distance, our senses keyed to any sign of danger. I was nervous as hell and so was Rebecca so we kept conversation to a minimum. Finally, we crept to the top of a large dune overlooking the campsite and laid on our bellies to get a closer look. Once our eyes adjusted to the light enough to see details rather than blurry shadows Rebecca hissed, “That is not anyone that either of us knows. You’re the great magical extra-planar explorer, Geek-girl. So, what the fuck are those things?”
I shook my head in confusion. On all the other Planes I had been to or Demons I had fought I had never seen anything quite like what I was looking at right then. “I think they must be the locals.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 8 Prime Directive Amethyst |
I was extremely grateful for the long-range vision of Succubae once my eyes had adjusted to the light and I could get a better look at our quarry. Two of the people around the fire were wearing some sort of dull grey-colored robes with short hems and large hoods that appeared to be more for utility than for comfort or fashion with all their pockets and pouches. The other four, including the one keeping watch, were wearing some sort of chest armor of overlapping metal plates, though they too sported large hoods. The ones in the armor also had some sort of long and curved metal implements that I thought might be bladed weapons within reach.
None of the six were moving much, it appeared that the moving shadows I had seen had come from some sort of beasts of burden, like a cross between a camel, rhinoceros, and mountain goat. The large beasts were harnessed to roughly-made wooden carts loaded up with various crates, barrels, and sacks. These people were probably some sort of trader caravan with early dark ages technology, even the lanterns that I had noticed were only some sort of rough oil lamps, though their light did let me see the people around the fire in more detail now that I wasn’t half-blinded.
They looked to have been descended from some type of snakes from the long serpentine lower bodies that I saw in place of legs beneath the hems of their robes and armor. Their upper torsos were vaguely humanoid with long muscular arms and hands with opposable thumbs and three somewhat long and spindly fingers. Set above their wide chests and shoulders were slightly large reptilian heads with slits for nostrils and powerful-looking jaws. I would have expected slit pupil eyes like a snake’s but theirs were more like an amphibian’s, large and bulbous atop their heads.
After a few moments of carefully watching them, I gently tapped Rebecca on the shoulder and motioned that we should back away to a safer distance. Once I figured that we were far enough that we wouldn’t be heard, I said, “Let’s go find a quiet place to set up the portal cloth so we can get some rest before it gets too hot.”
‘What?! We’re not going to go at least try to talk to them?! They might be able to help us! What kind of extra-planar explorer are you?!” she hissed back at me.
“The cautious kind,” I replied with a sigh. “They might think we’re a threat and attack us and I seriously doubt that they can help us. I didn’t see anything that indicated they can use magick and their technology is, at best, equal to the middle ages on Earth. Even with the Rosetta stone that I’m wearing to help, it would take several days of listening to conversations for me to learn even the basics of whatever language they use so one of us could talk to them. And who knows how meeting us with our guns, and talking to them about magick and stuff, could affect their culture. We need to follow the prime directive, Rebecca.”
“Star Trek?! Really?! You are such a geek! Just because they don’t use magick doesn’t mean they don’t know about it! They could have legends that could lead us to whatever you came here looking for, or someone who does know about magick!” Rebecca snapped.
“Okay, I’ll admit that you have a point, but we know nothing about this world, its people, or their values. We can’t just walk right up to them like we belong here, they could think that we’re Demons or food,” I countered as calmly as I could. “Maybe we can find a village or town where we can try to get more information but we’ll need time to work on our shapeshifting and for one or both of us to hear enough of the language while wearing my Rosetta stone to be able to blend in and to talk to them.”
“How do you know that they even have towns?” my argumentative companion asked with a frown. “You just said that we know nothing about them.”
“Well, those carts looked like they were carrying goods and, given the way they were dressed, those guys looked like caravan traders and guards, so they might not even be heading in the same direction as us anyway. But trade caravans usually mean places to trade at, and given their tech level and the fact that they’re traveling in a group, I’m willing to bet that they are fairly social, at least with one another,” I explained. “We also learned that this whole planet probably isn’t completely covered in desert.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and groaned before asking in a tone heavily laden with sarcasm, “And how do we know that, Professor?”
I ignored the sarcasm and name-calling once again as I looked toward the horizon. Snark, sarcasm, and attitude were a defense mechanism for Rebecca and probably the only means that she had had of fighting back against her tormentors. It was how she faced the world when scared, uncomfortable, or backed into a corner. Right now she was way out of her element, scared, stressed, grieving, and probably feeling alone since she only had me at the moment and we weren’t exactly best friends.
Sure, she had admitted to herself and me why she distrusted and disliked me but I couldn’t expect her to just get over those feelings instantly, it would take time for both of us. I knew that she was trying; she had been grateful for what I had done for her, she didn’t blame me for her mother’s death even when she probably had every right to, and she had even tried to be supportive in her own way. I just needed to be patient and help guide her when I could.
I took a deep breath and then answered her question. “Those camnocergoats looked like herbivores; I think that the locals were using their dried droppings as fuel for the fire, and those carts were made from wood. That means that there are trees and other forms of vegetation growing somewhere. Now let’s get going, the sun is starting to rise and I’d rather not be standing out here in the open when it’s light out.”
We had found a decent spot among a group of large stones to place our portal for the day and after a good solid sleep, we had a meal and spent the rest of the daylight hours practicing with our pseudo-Succubus skills, or rather those that we could consciously control and didn’t need a target for. Then, after another quick meal at dusk, we once again took to the skies and headed northeast toward Ziralin.
The two moons were high overhead and we were going to stop for a break and a small meal when I noticed the black sands below starting to give way to grasslands. I could see what looked like woodlands in the distance and my heart skipped a beat in my excitement. I turned to see Rebecca looking at me and actually smiling, she had noticed it too. So, instead of landing for our meal, we pressed onward, catching a nice tailwind until the forest and a small river were beneath us.
After circling to decrease our altitude, and to ensure that there were no locals to see us, we landed near the riverbank. I secured the portal cloth against the trunk of a large deciduous tree with pink birch-like bark that was out of the direct view of any traffic that might make its way along the river. The night sounds of the forest were a little alien, but also comforting, there was life here and I had so many scents assailing my nose and sounds teasing my ears from the various animals that I had to switch back to my familiar and comfortable human form to keep from being overloaded by the input.
“Do you think that’s safe? And I thought you’d want to just eat something and keep pressing on until dawn,” Rebecca asked with an uncertain look in my direction.
“I’d like to feel like myself for a bit and I’d really like a bath while we have water available,” then I sighed as I thought of the possibility of some unknown predators attacking us in the water. If something attacked we might need some of our Succubus abilities, like regeneration. “You’re probably right, we don’t know what’s out there. I’ll change back after I undress but I’m having a damn bath. We haven’t had a chance at more than a sponge bath since getting here and I feel super gross. I figure that now that we’re out of the desert we can probably travel by day and see what we can find that’s edible. My supplies were meant for one person, not two, and we don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here.”
“A bath does sound good,” Rebecca admitted wistfully.
“Maybe we should do it one at a time while the other stands watch,” I said thoughtfully. “I’ll grab my bath stuff and a towel and you can go first if you want.”
Rebecca seemed a bit self-conscious as she considered it. “I… umm… thanks. That would be great.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to watch you or anything,” I promised her. “I’ll use the camp stove to make us some soup while I keep watch. It seems a bit colder here than it was in the desert at night and we don’t want to catch a cold or something.”
I got my basket with shampoo, conditioner, body wash, a loofah, body lotion, and added one of the only two clean towels that we had, and handed them off to her so she could get started. After retrieving the camp stove, some of our water, a pot, a kettle, and some ingredients I temporarily returned to my Succubus form to be alert for danger while I prepared a quick meal. I listened to the unfamiliar night noises of the alien forest and Rebecca splashing about as she got herself clean as made our meal.
I chopped up a couple of carrots and potatoes and added them to the pot of water with a packet of chicken noodle soup mix, a can of flaked chicken, and some spices. It wasn’t anything special, but I had to work with mostly non-perishables and it would warm us up and fill our bellies when paired with some soda crackers. Once I had that on the heat to boil I poured a can of condensed milk and some water in the kettle with a pair of mint leaves to heat up as well, but at a lower heat since there wasn’t as much liquid and no solids to cook.
By the time that I had the soup and the kettle going Rebecca was finished her bath and it was my turn. “That water is f-f-freezing,” she complained as she quickly dried off and practically leaped back into her clothes.
“It’ll be nice to get clean though,” I replied as I snatched up a roll of biodegradable bathroom tissue and dashed to the nearest bushes to relieve myself before getting clean. With that task completed I grabbed my towel and the basket she had put aside and assured her, “I won’t be long; the soup probably won’t even be done before me.”
Rebecca was right, that water was freezing. Still, it was really nice to feel clean once I was done and back in my clothes. I had bathed in my Succubus form just in case of predators in the water but I didn’t have any problems. Well, not from predators. Washing my tail and wings was a really weird feeling and I had almost forgotten about my horns until I washed and conditioned my hair. Still, soon I was out of the water and drying off as fast as Rebecca had before switching back to my more comfortable and normal human form and getting dressed again in my warm clothes.
One thing that I hadn’t thought of was how we were going to dry our hair without magic or a blow-dryer. I just did as Rebecca had and did the best that I could with a towel and then wrapped it turban-style until we could deal with it in the bunker after eating. It was so cold that I didn’t even bother with my skin lotion, instead vowing to do it before bed when I dealt with my hair.
The soup was starting to simmer, but it would be a little while still before the carrots and potatoes in it were properly cooked so I went to the food stores in the bunker and snatched up a pair of stainless steel travel mugs, a wooden spoon, and a couple of large Ziploc bags. “W-w-what? Are you making c-c-coffee?” Rebecca inquired, still shivering from the cold air after the freezing water.
“N-nope, m-much better than that.,” I told her with a grin as I tried not to give in to the cold as well. I put the mugs and the sealed bag of mini marshmallows on a large stone that I had used for dicing the veggies earlier and took the other baggie and the spoon to dole out some of the powder mixture into the bubbling and steaming milk. It was my own hot chocolate mix; baking cocoa mixed with a blend of white and brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
I resealed the bag and carefully stirred the hot beverage, and then lowered the flame beneath the kettle to let it simmer on its own for a couple of minutes. I had time to quickly put everything but the marshmallows, mugs, and the actual cooking stuff away in the bunker before returning to pour us both a mug and add some of the marshmallows. Rebecca took a cautious sip before her eyes went wide. “Omigod! That’s amazing!”
“It would be better with real milk instead of the condensed stuff, but yeah. Between this and being clean, I almost feel human again. Well, actually being human for a change probably helps too,” I admitted with a tired giggle “I was experimenting and made some last week and my sister loved it, so she had me make a big batch of the mix and store some of it, the mint leaves, and other stuff for our bunkers.”
“Yeah, it’s really good. Mom used to make hot cocoa like this when I had a bad day but she never had this earthy, minty, sweet taste to it. It kinda tastes like home though. It’s almost like we’re just camping instead of trapped on some other world.” Rebecca said with a sigh before casting an uncertain look my way. “You’re… uhh… I’m… sorry. I know that I’ve been freaking out a lot since we got here and I’m probably not easy to deal with but thanks for… being you. I was wrong about you and I don’t know how I’d get through this without you… Shannon.”
For a moment I wasn’t sure if I heard her right. No Jockette, no Geek-girl, she actually used my name and didn’t choke on it. Maybe I was making progress with her. I found myself smiling as we sat there drinking our sweet, minty, chocolatey bit of heaven in silence until the soup was ready and we ate.
Rebecca was full of surprises. After we finished our soup she offered to help me clean the dishes in the river and put everything away in the bunker. We were going to do our laundry as well while we had the water available but we decided to wait on that until the afternoon when we planned to wake up and eat around midday. The plan was that we could hang the clothes to dry in the sun and do some foraging and maybe hunting in the hopes of finding stuff that woudn’t be toxic to us to augment the food supplies.
It was almost dawn by the time we managed to mostly dry our hair and get ready for bed. Rebecca still wasn’t used to her hair being quite that long but she tried not to complain and I offered to brush it out and braid it for her so it wouldn’t get tangled while she slept. Once I was done with her hair, I was about to get to work on mine when she offered to return the favor. She had done it for her mom a few times when they had girl nights and she wouldn’t admit it, but I heard her start sniffling behind me about halfway through and I was pretty sure that she had started crying.
I tried to let her think I didn’t notice. Her grief over her mother was still raw and I kind of felt bad that doing that for me and the hot chocolate had brought up such strong memories of her. She had managed to collect herself by the time she was done and we settled onto the foam mattress and under the comforters for a bit of sleep. I was just starting to drift off when I heard her sniffling into her pillow though.
“Rough few days, huh?” I said tentatively to the back of her head. “I’m sorry if I did anything to make things worse.”
“Y…you didn’t. I just miss Mom so fucking much, and… you were right. What will I do when… if we get home? The only friend I have is Michelle and I probably got her pissed at me. I have nobody else there who gives a fuck about me even if they did recognize me, no place to go, no identity, no family… I…”
I wrapped my arm around her in an awkward hug, afraid that she would pull away, surprised when she didn’t. “Michelle cares about you, she wouldn’t give up on you because you said something to hurt her. No offense but it was kind of your thing. You can be prickly and untrusting and she knew that going in. My family and I won’t let you down either. No matter what happens, in whatever world, we’ll all get through it together. I only had my sister for a long time, but family isn’t just about whose blood you have in your veins. It’s about who’s willing to shed blood, sweat, and tears for you, it’s about who’s there to help you pick up the pieces when your world shatters. You can choose family and they can choose you. You’ve got me, Becca, and I’ve got your back.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 9 Stuck Amethyst |
We awoke and made our breakfast, or more likely brunch, around what I guessed was noon based on the position of that strange sun overhead. After eating some simple oatmeal with a bit of brown sugar and some dried fruit we stripped off our clothes and started to wash our laundry in the river as best we could since it was a pleasantly warm day. We did that in our Succubus forms so that we could be ready if any of the local predators or any other dangers decided to show up while we were occupied. I felt that our heightened senses in those forms would allow us to detect anything coming toward us before it became a danger.
While our clothes were hanging and drying we explored the forest around us to get the lay of the land and see what we could find that was edible. We found some nuts and berries that seemed ripe and didn’t taste bitter or cause a reaction when held against our lips or tongues. There were small animals around the woods too but they were mostly avoiding us, I think that they realized that we’re predators.
Not that either of us wanted to go around killing cute little woodland creatures, but we are omnivores and we needed to eat so we would have to start taking opportunities to get whatever we could that was edible. For now, it was far more convenient for us to fish while we had the river available though. Our very flexible and dexterous tails with their razor-sharp spaded tips certainly proved handy for spearfishing, and it gave us a chance to get used to using them as a weapon of sorts in case we needed to do so in a fight later.
I was extremely grateful for the lessons on foraging and hunting that the Faery of our troupe had insisted on giving us when we told them about this trip into the great unknown. It was as I finished cleaning the fish and placed them over the fire on skewers to cook that Rebecca asked, “Where’d you learn to do that? I never pegged you for the outdoorsy type. It’s kinda part of the reason that I was so jealous of you, you come across as so femme and I wanted to be like that.”
“Yeah, I grew up a total city girl,” I agreed with a laugh. “We were spending a lot of time with the Faery of our troupe though while getting in shooting practice and teaching Lisa to use her magick. They taught us to survive off the land; how to tell if something is poisonous, and how to fish and hunt and then prepare whatever we caught. They were worried about us coming here and possibly being stuck here for a while. I guess they were right.”
“Your troupe sounds nice,” she said with a sigh.
I nodded and let out a sigh of my own. I missed them, and I missed Ziralin, Ellie, Sarah, and the others too. “They’re amazing people once you get over the culture shock and their casualness about sex and nudity. I’m proud that they accepted us and made us a part of the troupe. They didn’t really trust me at first, they don’t trust most humans. You know, they could be your troupe too, Rebecca. Then, even if we can’t figure out something for you in our world, you would still have a place in Tír na nÓg.”
“You said that they don’t trust Humans though and you’ve mentioned before that Demons nearly wiped them out of existence. How could they possibly trust me? Especially with this whole Succubus thing? I know that we’re not real Demons but…” my traveling companion trailed off, looking at the ground.
“I can talk to them,” I quietly assured her while I kept an eye on our cooking meal. “We don’t have a Demonic Aura and they’ll be able to sense that. I changed you, so you’re my responsibility now, Rebecca. That kind of makes you part of the troupe already, it would just need to be made official. Lisa is my apprentice so it’s almost the same thing, and they brought both her and Michelle into the troupe before we left. They’re a very supportive and caring family group once they get to know and trust a person. There aren’t many of them left though, less than a hundred, and only a few of them are male, even after they awoke Beth’s brother’s dormant Faery-ness.”
When she spoke again it was tentative and she didn’t take her eyes off the ground. “I… they sound nice. It’s just… I don’t want to be stranded on another unfamiliar world. Maybe later once I knew them, but I want to go home, to our Earth and the familiar things that I miss, even if I don’t have anybody there.”
“Rebecca, look at me,” I told her gently. When she didn’t comply I cupped her chin in my hand and tilted her head up so that we were looking eye-to-eye. “I am not going to strand you or abandon you, on this world or any other. I promise that I’ll do everything that I can for you, I can remember what Xuriel did to change my records so I may be able to come up with an identity for you. If not we’ll figure something else out. I meant what I said last night, you’re family now and I take care of my family.”
“Wh… why don’t you hate me? The way I’ve treated you… I’ve given you every reason…” She trailed off again, her eyes teary and confused as she looked into my own.
I kept my eyes on hers, my expression and tone as serious as I could make them. “I’ll admit, you’ve made me angry and you’ve hurt my feelings a bunch of times. You probably will in the future too but what good would hating you do? We need one another and you don’t have anyone else. That’s my fault and I turned you into what you are now so I feel responsible for you. Family doesn’t always get along, Becca, but if someone values that bond the way that they should then they will always be there for you when the chips are down. Just like I will.”
For nine days we flew as far and fast as we could toward where I was sensing the pull of Ziralin from our bond. The strength of the pull was lessening by the day, even during those brief periods when Rebecca and I stopped to forage, hunt, eat, and rest so I figured that Elsaishe and Ziralin were trying to get to us as well. It was likely draining her, but I had the feeling that my fiancée was using her Celestial form and carrying Ellie.
Being one of the Faery, Ziralin could produce magick energy as part of her metabolism and use that to allow her to put that energy into using her Celestial abilities. She couldn’t store a lot though and it took time to build up in her system. So, since there was no ambient magick energy for her to draw on while in her Celestial form she was probably having to resort to quick bursts of flight whenever she had enough magick energy built up in her system to make it worth it.
Rebecca and I currently had a dilemma though, one that we were having a problem with solving. There was a colossal mountain range between us and Ziralin. The mountains were high and covered in snow and the range stretched as far as we could see in either direction. Going around would take forever but we wouldn’t be able to fly through without clothes a lot warmer than we currently had available.
My White Witch outfit would keep me comfortable in that kind of weather but it was completely impractical if I was going to use my wings. Rebecca had nothing at all that she could use. If only I had a little bit of magick energy. Even just enough to cast a warmth enchantment on our clothes would be a boon.
For the moment we were hiding in a village at the foot of the mountains as we considered our options and tried to gather information. Like what we had seen thus far from the inhabitants of this Plane, the village was, at best, stuck in the middle ages technology-wise. The streets were dirt, it smelled like raw sewage most of the time, and the buildings were either stone or wood and thatch.
We had been there for a week now after coming under the cover of night. We had the portable bunker set up on top of the tallest building in the village; a two-story-tall stone tower in the center of the village square that had no windows or doors. It was basically a tall pillar, roughly 12 feet in diameter. I suspected that it was just a big sundial of some sort since it was in the center of the open square and conversations I had heard from below us seemed to support that theory.
Regardless, since nobody was looking up we were well out of sight for our stay, eating food from my supplies, and taking turns with one of us sleeping while the other kept watch and wore the Rosetta Stone pendant to learn the locals’ language, in case we needed to try and join a caravan through those mountains. What little useful information that we had learned so far only made it that much more crucial that we get across those mountains. The locals spoke of a great city on the other side where people who they called the Makers lived.
These Makers occasionally raided smaller towns and villages like this one for slave labor to work in some sort of mines and supposedly they were capable of using the ‘earth power’ and that sounded an awful lot like magick to me. But then, to these villagers, our guns would probably be thought to be magick too. Still, I felt that this city might be worth checking out since we were heading in that general direction anyway.
In preparation for that possibility, now that we had learned enough of the language to converse if we needed to, we were practicing with our shapeshifting and trying to make ourselves look like one of the locals while the villagers below were turning in for the night. Their species seemed to be more active during the day and slept during the cooler hours of the night. “This isn’t working, Shannon,” Rebecca half-growled in frustration at another failed attempt.
She wasn’t the only one who was frustrated. We had both been trying for the past two days to make ourselves look like one of the locals so that we could blend in and get some actual information rather than listening to random conversations drifting upward from below. We had been able to change our appearances to look like other humans, Faery, and even some of the different types of Demons that I had encountered but we just couldn’t make ourselves look like the locals.
Finally, I sighed and shook my head. “Don’t waste any more energy. We’re not going to be able to get it to work, Becca, and I think I know why.”
She raised an auburn eyebrow and her near-violet eyes regarded me for a moment before she simply nodded. Since that first day in the forest she had become more comfortable deferring to my experience and letting me take the lead in things. So it was no surprise that she asked, “Why not?”
“Our curse makes us only able to take on female forms,” I replied simply.
Rebecca’s brow furrowed in confusion as she asked, “Are you telling me that their whole species is male?”
“No,” I clarified after a long sigh. “If they were male then I would be able to sense even small amounts of male tantric energy from them. Xuriel could sense it from men of all species when in full succubus form. It’s how Succubae track their prey; all men display small amounts all of the time but the more a man has built up the better the meal he’ll provide. I don’t think their species has two genders or physical sexes, They’re probably asexual, so they don’t have a template that’s compatible for us. And Succubae shapeshift by using a generic template of species that they have seen before and then just altering it within the bounds of the species to suit their needs. I can only turn into a Faery or the others species that we’ve been experimenting with because I’m familiar with them and you can because you’ve seen me do it.”
“Well, fuck. There goes blending in so we can join a caravan.”
“Yeah, and I was really hoping that…” I trailed off as I felt something familiar tickling the edges of my senses. Someone was using magick west of the village. More than one someone by the feel of the rapid-fire pulses of magick energy that I was feeling. I quickly snatched up the portal sheet and stuffed it into one of my zippered pockets as I explained, “There’s magick out there, Becca!”
I didn’t have to say anything more than that. Rebecca knew as well as I did that this could be our ticket to finding the others and getting home. The second that I had pointed out the direction she launched herself into the air and I followed as soon as the portable bunker was safely tucked away and the pocket zipped.
We soon found the cause of the magick I had been sensing. Four locals were running, or rather slithering, through the forest as fast as they could in the direction of the village that we had been holed up in, chasing something that blended into the night’s shadows. They weren’t dressed like the villagers in rough robes, but rather in shiny armor that reeked of magick and they were firing red beams at whatever they were chasing. I had a feeling that these were some of those Makers, or at least their goons.
As we circled downward to get a closer look Rebecca groaned. “I thought you said these people didn’t have modern tech, so why the hell do they have phasers?”
“They’re some sort of artefacts,” I replied, feeling sick to my stomach. “Items imbued with spells and powered by magick energy stored somewhere. The magick smells and tastes nasty. I think the light beams are for show but the spell is meant to stun and cause a lot of pain to the target. It’s a weapon to hurt and intimidate, and let the victim know exactly who is in charge.”
“So, bad guys?” Rebecca asked, her tone turning deadly serious.
“Yeah, bad guys,” I agreed. We already knew that these Makers took slaves and that and their choice of weapons didn’t exactly make them come across as the sensitive and caring type.
We were close enough now to make out what they were saying and a shrill voice called out. “Just shoot it, you hatuks! Do not let it escape as the other creature did! Sah Lortae wants this one as a pet!”
“We are trying! Lortae’s Light does not affect it!” one of the others snapped back.
Oh, that was interesting. And since I only knew of two beings that direct attack spells like that wouldn’t affect and knew for sure that one of them was across the mountains, that only left me with one other possibility. “Beks! They’re chasing Michelle! I’ll take care of these guys!”
“On it!” Rebecca replied before turning in pursuit of what I really hoped was our mutual friend.
While she was doing that I reached out for the enchantments on the weapons and armor of the bad guys and whatever was powering them, drawing all of that magick energy into myself. The feel and taste of it were awful but I’d absorbed much worse during our brief stint in Heil. There was a decent amount but not near as much as I would need to cast a portal spell to get to Ziralin, Sarah, or one of the others. Transport spells, in general, tend to use a lot of juice.
Still, it felt good to have a little in reserve, and now that their armor was little more than decorative and they didn’t have those nasty weapons, I could try to scare them off. I did the superhero landing, dropping down in front of the group. It’s a good thing I have that super regeneration thing going on because that’s really hard on the knees. They stared at me in shock and horror for a moment before trying to use their now useless weapons. “I’m afraid that I ate all of the earth power in those,” I told them with a grin and licking my lips. “You’re next.”
They looked uncertainly to their leader, but he wasn’t willing to back off, instead, he pulled a bladed weapon that had been hanging at his side, spurring the others to do the same. I knew that with my strength, speed, and other demonic attributes that I could probably take all of them, but I didn’t want to kill anyone unless I had to and I really wanted to catch up with who they were pursuing, especially if it was Michelle. So I decided not to waste time and, using as little magick energy as I could possibly put into the spell as I directed my will and said, “Sleep.”
A moment later they were all out for the count and I was running through the forest in the direction that Rebecca had flown off in, back toward the village. That was when I heard a familiar voice shout, “Demon!” It was quickly followed by a gunshot. As I crashed through the tree line and into the open I saw Rebecca falling from the sky, her right wing shredded by buckshot. She hit the ground hard but it looked like she was still moving.
Michelle and Lisa were standing well away from her and I could hear the latter say as I ran toward them, “Damn, that was a good shot, if I had silver or some of Shannon’s special shot I probably could have killed her but at least I clipped her wings. No time to switch loads but a shot to the head should do the trick.” Then she pointed the shotgun back at Rebecca and announced, “I’m Lisa, this is Michelle, and this is my boom stick. Any last words, Demon?”
I allowed my body to change back to my comfortable human form so they would recognize me and I wouldn’t accidentally whammy one or both of them as I shouted, “Lisa, stop!”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 10 Catching Up Amethyst |
Michelle and Rebecca were standing far enough away from Rebecca that she couldn’t whammy them with Succubus super pheromones, a wise move, especially if they had been dealing with a real Succubus. They were both wearing swimsuits of all things, rather than the outfits that Sarah had enchanted for them for Demon hunting and Lisa was ready to pull the trigger when I called out. At the sound of my voice though both of their heads turned toward me so fast that I thought they might get whiplash.
Although their swimsuits looked dirty and a little worse-for-wear, the girls looked the same as when we had been separated, though Michelle was in her cute and fuzzy cat-girl form. Lisa’s hair was even still the same electric blue that she had magically changed it to before we left Toronto for our ill-fated plane trip. It was so good to see those familiar and friendly faces that I could feel tears coming to my eyes but I knew that I needed to calm them both down and get their attention off of Rebecca and on me.
For a few long seconds, they just stared at me in a mix of disbelief and uncertainty. Lisa still had her shotgun trained on Rebecca though as she asked in a mix of happiness and confusion, “Shannon? Is that really you?”
“It’s me,” I told them with my best model smile as I walked slowly toward them. “You can put down the gun, Lisa. That’s not a Demon. Think about it, use your senses. Does she have a demonic aura like Khinara or any of the other Demons that we’ve encountered since your magick awoke?”
Lisa looked uncertainly from me to Rebecca, her face scrunching up in focus even as she said, “But it…”
“She’s right, there’s no aura. We should hear her out, Lissy,” Michelle interrupted, gently pushing down the barrel of Lisa’s gun so it was pointed at the ground.
I was almost to the pair by that point, trying to keep my walk casual and non-threatening. “Look, I know that she looks like a Succubus but she isn’t really. A lot has happened since we got separated and I’ll be happy to explain to you both once Rebecca has regenerated and can change back to her human form,” I told them calmly. Then I called out, “Hey, Beks! Are you okay over there?!”
Michelle’s eyes went wide and she gasped out, “That’s Becca? But that’s not…”
Thankfully Rebecca was moving and I could almost hear her groan before she snapped back at me, “Of course, I’m not fucking okay! Michelle’s fucking girlfriend fucking shot me! I must have fallen forty fucking feet! God fucking dammit!”
At the sound of Rebecca’s profanity-laden angry response, Michelle’s cute little kitty nose scrunched up as she let out a groan and shook her head. “Okay, yeah, that’s totally Becca. I’d recognize those F-bombs anywhere.”
“Stop whining! You’re still alive and you’ll be all healed up in no time!” I shot back to my fellow pseudo Succubus, trying to keep my tone light and teasing despite the extra volume.
Lisa couldn’t decide who to focus on, her stunned and confused expression kept switching from me to Michelle and Rebecca. Finally, she shouldered her gun and sighed. “Well, damn. I’m not sure what to find more disturbing about this situation; that that seems to be Rebecca, that I shot her, or that the two of you seem to be getting along.”
“As I said, a lot has happened since we got here,” I told them carefully. “I’ll tell you both the whole story once we’re safely away from here. Those goons that were chasing you should be out for a while but I’d rather put some distance between us.”
It took Rebecca over fifteen minutes to heal from her fall and the damage to her wing so she could revert to human form. I supposed that we could try shifting when injured but I wasn’t sure what kind of effect that might have on us so we had both decided to play it safe and heal completely after injuries before becoming human again. She also kept her distance during that time so she wouldn’t accidentally hit Lisa or Michelle with the pheromones or mental whammy and turn them into lust zombies.
From what I had learned from Xuriel’s memories, she had never learned how to turn those particular features off while in Succubus mode. The best that she could do was to focus on a single person to just affect them instead of an entire group, much as the three Succubae that Ziralin, Ellie, and I had encountered at the Alpha Kappa Phi sorority house had with the three of us. She had suspected that real Succubae could turn the ability off and that having it always on while using her Succubus abilities was a part of the curse, a little extra twist of the knife, courtesy of Izhara.
That wouldn’t have surprised me at all since Demons love that kind of shit, at least the ones that I’d encountered. Also, Aarianna had never used the ability during our battle, even though it would have given her an edge. It was probably because she was so pissed off. After all, she had certainly been feeding, and leaving a trail of mutilated male corpses in her wake while doing it. She had likely used the pheromones and mental whammy to help her with that.
Whenever Xuriel had to meet with the other Sentinels she had done so in human mode, keeping her features well hidden, though she had been tempted to whammy Torphael occasionally. Frankly, I couldn’t blame Xuriel for that since from her own memories of him and what he’d done to Ziralin when he granted her his power, it was pretty obvious that the guy was an arrogant ass. Still, not being able to turn these abilities completely off could make things awkward if we had to use these forms around the others often, or during a fight. The only one in our group who wasn’t attracted to women was Jennifer.
Once Rebecca was done healing she returned to human form. As we walked, Michelle and Lisa just stared at the gorgeous auburn-haired girl who looked practically nothing like her old self. I knew that they had a ton of questions but I managed to convince them to wait until we were somewhere a good distance away, where we could safely set up the entrance for one of the portable bunkers.
Soon we were settled into my bunker and eating a light meal of granola bars and some fruit and berries that Rebecca and I had picked a couple of nights ago while leaving our hiding place in the village to get a little exercise. Then I said, “Okay, this is a long story so I’m gonna have to start at the beginning…”
The words had barely started to leave my mouth when Lisa blurted out, “Okay, how the hell did Rebecca turn into a Succubus? I thought you said she was going to turn back to her human form but she’s still Gorgeous McHottie.” She turned to see Michelle giving her a hard look and her face flushed. “What?! C’mon, Kitten, we’ve both got eyes. She’s as hot as Shannon is now!”
“Lissy, if that really is Rebecca, then there’s only one way she could have become like that since coming here. Shannon used magick to do it,” Michelle said with a frown.
“Nope. Shannon hasn’t had any magick since we got here. I was cursed by a demonic witch,” Rebecca taunted me playfully while sticking out her tongue. She had come a long way in the past couple of weeks and we were to the point where we could do some friendly teasing with one another now. The fact that she was telling the complete truth while purposely making sure to make it sound like a joke at my expense, which it was, only made the other girls cast dubious glances my way though.
“I thought we were calling it a blessing, Beks” I complained. I really didn’t like thinking of her change as a curse.
“Okay, just sayin’, but the two of you getting along is kinda freaking me out. And this is coming from the person who was trying to make it happen in the fucking first place,” Michelle griped. “Why’d you change her, Shannon? I thought that you were against using magick like that. You weren’t even sure if you could do it and you said that it could cause more problems for her than it would fix.”
I let out a long sigh and gave Rebecca a dirty look for stirring shit up before I spoke. “Becca was telling the truth. Until we ran into those goons chasing you I haven’t had any magick energy to work with since we arrived on this Plane. I used up everything I had stored getting us here and there’s no ambient magick energy here. I have no idea how those people had magick artefacts but I drained every last drop of magick energy that I could from them, not that it was much.”
“Yeah, I haven’t sensed any either since we got here, not until those guys jumped us last week,” Lisa agreed. “And I had to use most of mine in a fight the moment that we got here. So if you didn’t magick her then how...”
“I am responsible for Becca’s new body but I didn’t use the type of magick that we’ve used before to do it. I did it because we had no magick to defend ourselves, we both needed to survive, and because it could give Becca the body that she wanted.” I turned to Rebecca with a sigh and said, “Show them, Beks.”
Rebecca nodded and rolled up her right sleeve to reveal the blue and black butterfly mark on her shoulder. The other girls let out a collective gasp as their eyes went wide. “Is that a… it looks like a Demon Brand. I can feel it with my magick sense, but there’s no demonic energy at all,” Lisa said in a hushed and almost frightened tone. Given her personal experiences with Demons and their Brands, I couldn’t really blame her.
“That’s because I’m the one who branded her,” I told them solemnly. “I shared my own curse with her. Xuriel thought that it would be a kindness.”
“Wait! You’ve been cursed?! And Xuriel is here?! Shit, why isn’t she helping us?!” Michelle blurted in a panic.
“Okay, see, this is why I wanted to start at the beginning,” I practically groaned as I rubbed at the headache that was forming. “Please, I’ll tell you everything. Just let me start from when we got here so you can follow everything, and don’t interrupt.”
It took a while but I managed to tell the whole story without interruption. Michelle seemed glad that I had used my new abilities to help Rebecca while Lisa was fascinated with the idea of us being able to mimic Succubae, not that she wanted the ability for herself. She never wanted a curse of any kind embedded into her flesh again, even if it was me giving it. She was mostly just relieved at Xuriel’s assurance that the curse didn’t make us Demons, that we were just convincing copies. Of course, that also got them both wanting to see my merged Celestial Mark/Demon Brand.
“She’s not gonna show you guys,” Rebecca warned. “She’s all self-conscious about it.”
I appreciated Rebecca trying to get them off the topic but that only seemed to encourage Michelle further. “What? Is it, like really bad? It can’t be that bad. I mean, only people with magick can see it, right? And we know that they don’t show up on camera so it won’t affect your career. It’s not somewhere really personal, is it? We won’t laugh or anything, Shannon, I promise.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, my face bright red as I turned around, lowered my leggings, and raised my shirt just enough to expose the area of my lower back just above my butt.
“Okay, yeah, totally not where I would get ink if I had the choice,” Lisa offered sympathetically. “It actually looks pretty cool though. It makes you look like a bit of a badass.”
I readjusted my clothes and sat back down, my face still as red as my hair. “It’s your turn for storytime now,” I told them.
With that, Lisa and Michelle began trading off telling us what had happened with them since they had arrived. They had problems right out of the gate. They had appeared on a remote stretch of beach along the ocean, practically right on top of the nest of some sort of giant sea serpent/armadillo type thing. Lisa had used up all of her magick just fending the irate mother off as they ran for their lives.
Until just over a week ago they had been wandering along the shoreline avoiding other nests and searching for some signs of the rest of us, or at the very least intelligent life. The Makers’ goon patrol had found them while they were swimming near the shore, trying to get somewhat clean until they could get a proper bath or shower. They hadn’t expected to be very long and had left everything in Lisa’s porta-bunker except for their towels and the swimsuits and Rosetta Stone pendants that they were wearing.
The goons had used those stun blaster things on them and when Lisa had fallen down screaming Michelle had gone straight into her cat-girl mode to try to protect her. There were too many of them though and Michelle was knocked out by more conventional means in the fight that followed. When she woke up they were in a cage and being treated like wild animals. The damn goons even treated the slaves better than them, none of the goons would get very close to their cage and they were only fed scraps once a day.
For the next eight days, they listened and learned. The picture was pretty bleak; the goons were returning to Kavarik, which I assumed was the city over the mountains, raiding villages and collecting slaves as they went for their boss, Sah Lortae. He was one of the Makers, the rare people of this world who could use the ‘earth power’, and just like in the middle ages on Earth, those select few who had power did whatever they wanted to the majority who didn’t.
The slaves would be used to mine okka, something that they heard the slaves talk about a lot. Lisa suspected that it was some sort of crystal on this Plane that formed from ambient magick energy drifting upward from the planet’s core. Apparently, the Makers were the only ones in this world who could draw on that magick energy and manipulate it to create magical items.
Earlier that night, one of the goons had come close enough to their cage for Lisa to act. They had been talking to their boss over some sort of enchanted mirror that let them hear and see one another. Sah Lortae had wanted to see the two ‘rare and unusual animals’ and when the goon came close enough to give their boss a good view of the girls Lisa had sucked the magick energy from his weapon, armor, and the communication artefact.
While the goon had run off in a panic to report what had happened to their compatriots Lisa had used the stolen magick energy to summon her porta-bunker entrance from where it had been left at the beach. She stepped inside, Michelle held it on the outside of the bars so it was facing outward, and then Lisa just walked right out. After that Michelle just had to teleport to her.
Since Michelle was immune to their weapons and would be fine as long as she could keep her distance she had Lisa step back inside the bunker while she ran for her life, clutching the cloth that it was imbued into. And while she was doing that Lisa got some weapons of their own in case they needed to stop and make a stand. Michelle planned to do that once she emerged out of the woods but when Lisa emerged from the cloth portal she saw Rebecca flying toward them and reacted.
“And that’s when you fucking shot me,” Rebecca grumbled.
It wasn’t long after that when we decided to sleep for the night. I wanted to get up early and enchant some clothes to keep me and Rebecca warm when we crossed through those mountains. Not only was Ziralin on the other side but Lisa and I would be able to refuel there if we could find enough of those okka things or assholes to de-magick. This could be our ticket to finding the others and getting out of here.
I was a bit worried about Michelle and Lisa though. They were both exhausted and hadn’t had near enough to eat or drink for over a week and they were a bit shaken from their ordeal. Instead of going to sleep in their own bunkers, they brought their bedding into mine. It was a bit crowded but we made it work.
After what they had gone through for the last week though, I couldn’t blame them for not wanting to be alone and it was good to have them with us. They both had trouble falling asleep though, and I had woken up a couple of times when one of them cried out in their sleep. Both times, my eyes met Rebecca’s. She was worried too; I could see it as she watched over Michelle.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 11 Travel Plans Amethyst |
I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was worried about Lisa and Michelle and angry at the way that they had been treated. The Makers, and those who worked for them, were the worst kind of people and I felt the need to do something about them. Not just because they would be heading to the mountain pass too and I didn’t want them coming after us, but because it was the right thing to do.
I quickly got dressed and was about to slip toward the bunker exit when Rebecca asked in a whispered hiss, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to make sure those assholes who were chasing Michelle and Lisa can’t follow us,” I whispered back.
“Not alone you aren’t,” she replied as quietly as she could with a frown and a shake of her head.
I shook my head right back at her. “I need you to stay here in case they wake up, Beks. I know that you want some payback for what they did to Michelle, but she and Lisa shouldn’t be alone after what they’ve been through and I’m counting on you to look after them. I won’t be long and it’s still dark, so it’s the best time for me to go, their species seems to be fairly lethargic when the sun isn’t up.”
She seemed reluctant but after a look at the two moving around in their sleep in the throes of nightmares she muttered. “Fine. Just promise me that you’ll make sure that those fuckers get what they deserve, Shannon.”
“I’ll make sure that they’re properly punished,” I promised with a nod before leaving the bunker. The two moons were still out and judging from their positions I still had a few hours before dawn. I changed into my Succubus form and took to the sky, heading in the direction that we had encountered Sah Lortae’s goons earlier.
They weren’t where I had left them so I assumed that they were either searching for us or had given up for the night after waking up. I kept flying in the general westerly direction that they had come from, keeping my eyes out below me but I didn’t see any slithering figures below, at least not until their camp was in sight. Even in the camp there was not much movement, only four guards awake and patrolling.
I circled above for a few minutes to get the lay of the land. I could feel some magick energy down there and since my goal was to be quick I used most of my gathered magick energy to cast a sleep spell over the entire camp before touching down in the center of the camp. Following the pull of magick, I found anyone with magick armor or weapons and sucked them dry, but not before studying one of the weapons a bit closer.
The weapons housed a small purple crystal inside them and the enchantment on the weapon itself seemed to draw on the magick energy stored within the crystal when used. I figured that the rest of their artefacts must work similarly. I also found a small satchel of those crystals, I assumed that they were replacements since all but a few of them had been drained. I drained those that hadn’t been already and left the satchel where I had found it before focusing on my main goal.
The wagons were large and shoddy-looking with bars and some form of thick locks on their doors. There were six of them in total and I figured that the only empty one was the one that my friends had occupied earlier. The other ones held Nhekarites that were packed in like sardines and many of them didn’t look very healthy.
I could have looked for the keys but instead, I released the intended slaves from my sleep spell, using as little magick energy as I could to wake them. Some stirred faster than others and looked around in confusion and that was when I used my Succubus strength to tear off the poorly-made iron-barred door of the first wagon cage and toss it casually aside. Once I had their undivided attention I told them, “I have stripped your captors of their earth power and they will sleep until well past dawn. Take their remaining weapons and do with them what you will. I don’t care what you do to punish them, it’s not my place to tell you what to do, you’re free now.”
Without another word, I tore the doors off of the other cages and then took to the sky once again as the freed slaves watched me warily. They were leaving their cages as I circled to gain altitude and it looked like they outnumbered Sah Lortae’s snoozing goons by at least four to one. I had a feeling that they would be showing their captors the error of their ways very soon. With my work done, I headed back to join my friends.
Despite my late-night activities, I was the first of us to wake up. So, while the others slept, I placed some enchantments on clothes for me and Rebecca. All three of them were enchantments that Sarah had used on our Hunting outfits. The first of the enchantments was the one to keep us comfortable in any weather so we wouldn’t freeze while going through the mountains, or bake if we encountered another desert. Another enchantment was to make the clothes more resistant to damage and offer slightly more protection. The third and final one was to make them relatively self-cleaning by expelling dirt, grime, sweat, and such.
For me, I chose what Rebecca teasingly referred to as my ‘Cat without hat’ outfit. It was my warm and cozy outfit from Giselle’s winter line with the warm black fleece leggings and matching zip-up hoodie with hot pink accents, kitty ears on the top of the hood, and a fuzzy tail just above my butt. It hugged my whole body and had an adjustable kitty mask inside the hood and built-in fingerless gloves with flip-up ‘paw’ covers that could be pulled over the gloves to make them into mittens if it got too cold. All that I really needed to add the enchantment to other than those two pieces was my sneakers and a pair of socks, and I was set
For Rebecca, I chose some of my leggings, her sneakers and socks, the pair of gloves and the scarf that I had given her, and her hoodie that we had cut slits into the back of. Our wings and tails wouldn’t be protected but I couldn’t really remember them getting cold during the cold nights flying through the desert. It would have to be enough since I used up nearly all of the magick energy that I had appropriated the night before.
The last of that magick energy was used to add Rebecca to the ‘recognized users’ for my portable bunker. Having to remain in physical contact with her every time that she needed to go inside was getting slightly annoying for both of us and there might be emergencies where we wouldn’t have that luxury. I had just finished my work when the others began to wake up.
After I made my way to a nearby stream for some water to boil, we put together a quick breakfast of oatmeal with dried fruits and berries. Lisa and Michelle were both looking better after a night’s sleep in relative safety but I was still worried by how skittish they both seemed. Still, if they wanted to talk about what was bothering them then they would and they probably just needed time to feel safe, process things, and put them in perspective.
As we ate we discussed our plans. “I’d like to get past those mountains as soon as possible,” I told the others. “Ziralin is on the other side, and probably Ellie too. And if that city and those ‘Makers’ are there too, it’s a chance for us to recharge our magical batteries as well. I was thinking of Becca and I taking shifts flying and carrying the portal entrance while the other takes a break in here with the two of you but I can’t be sure how long the air in here would last with the portal folded up.”
“You’re probably not strong enough to carry one of us, huh?” Michelle asked as she considered the problem.
I shook my head. “No, that’s not the problem, we’re pretty strong in our Succubus forms. We could manage it with enough breaks. The problem is that it would be awkward… for all of us.”
“As in, we can’t control the whole pheromones and mental roofie thing,” Rebecca pointed out with an audible groan. “The best we can do is aim it at one person each. And since you’re both attracted to girls… instant lust zombies.”
“Which would make things awkward for you afterward and for us, both afterward and pretty much the whole time that we’re carrying you. You’re my friends, and Lisa is my apprentice so I’d rather not do that, especially with how Lisa used to feel about me,” I said, looking away.
“And, Michelle, you’re my best friend, I don’t want to make things weird between us,” Rebecca admitted. “Well, at least not any weirder than our lives already are at the moment. And I’m pretty fucking sure that zombifying you or your girlfriend would do that.”
Lisa looked toward her Familiar/girlfriend for a moment and they shared a long look before Lisa looked sternly toward me. “Shannon, listen. Yeah, I used to have those feelings for you but I know who your heart and soul belong to, and mine as well. You’re my friend and my mentor, and I think that I’ve gotten to know you pretty well so I know and trust you well enough to realize that you would never abuse such a situation. You would never let yourself even consider it.”
“Yeah, and if I can’t trust my best friend to behave and make sure I don’t do something stupid while under the influence, who can I trust, Becca? It’s not all that much different than if we were drunk or stoned,” Michelle pointed out. “Sure we could do something stupid while fawning all over you but friends see each other do stupid shit all of the time. Good friends don’t take advantage of you, they support you, even when things aren’t ideal. You showed me that, Shannon.”
I cast an uncertain glance toward Rebecca and was about to speak up when Lisa frowned at me. “No, Shannon. I realize that you’re worried about our mental states right now, and I appreciate that you both care that much about us, but you don’t need to treat us with kid gloves. Sure, we’re not at our best right now but I think that’s understandable after what’s happened since we got here.”
“If you’re really that concerned about this whole lust thing, then you can put that magical genius brain of yours to thinking up some sort of anti-Succubus charm while we’re traveling,” Michelle added.
“Kitten is right,” Lisa said with a nod and a smile to Michelle as she held her girlfriend close. “The two of you won’t be able to fight at full strength around any of us if you’re constantly worried about using the lust thing on one of us. Put your mind to a solution instead of just focusing on the problem itself. If anyone can come up with something, it’s you. Until we cross the mountains, the two of us will place our trust in you both. I don’t know about any of you, but I am sooo ready to find the others, get what we came for, and get the hell out of this place.”
They were right, rather than focusing on the problems that our abilities could cause between us and the others, I needed to look for ways to counteract those abilities. An anti-succubus charm would have been nice to have a few months back. Maybe I could look at the protections that Xuriel had placed on my mind and combine them with some sort of altered anti-toxin spell targeting Succubus pheromones? I would definitely need something with a dual-layer of protection to address both the mental and physical aspects.
“Great, now you two have put her into nerd–mode. You do realize that this means we’ll eventually have to listen to some long and insanely technical explanation of how the whole thing works when she does come up with something, right? I swear, she lives for this sort of shit,” Rebecca said with a roll of her eyes. Her tone was teasing and she was smiling though. “If you’re willing to trust us though, I’m all for getting out of here as soon as fucking possible. The sooner we do, the sooner that I can rip out the heart of that hideous bitch who killed my mom.”
Rebecca’s expression turned cold as ice as she spoke those last words, the raw pain and anger still seething in her tone and her eyes. Lisa nodded in grim agreement. “I’ll hold her down while you do it. I have my own score to settle with her.”
Michelle sighed, looking from her best friend to her girlfriend in concern. “Do I really have to be the voice of reason here? Usually, I’m the one with the horrible and impulsive ideas. I would happily help you both kill her if I thought we had a chance but Khinara is one of the strongest Demons there is. You and Shannon barely survived when she transported you to that jungle, Lissy,” she pointed out sadly. Of course, she left out that part of the reason that we did survive was that she had appeared and distracted Khinara at the critical moment.
I looked up at the trio and shook my head. “Actually, I don’t think Khinara’s strength is going to be a problem for long. She was significantly weaker on the plane and she’s only going to continue getting weaker. Casting those portals drained her, it’s probably why she was content to let other Demons finish us off. I mean sure, she made one big enough for a small plane to pass through but other than the portals and a shield she didn’t use any other magick. When we tangled with her before those kinds of spells would have been nothing to her.”
All three of my companions looked at me in sudden wide-eyed interest and Lisa asked, “What do you mean, Shannon?”
“She had trouble just forming that portal and, thanks to Xuriel’s memories, I have a pretty good idea why,” I began to explain. “Besides Becca, I was the only one to get a good look at her. The tip of her tongue and the two arms that I blew off during our last fight haven’t regenerated, and they won’t. If they had been injuries from more mundane attacks, she would have been fully regenerated in a week at the most. I was wearing platinum on my hand when I ripped off her tongue though and it was holy magick that took her arms. She can eat normal food to stay alive but it won’t do much for her. She needs to feed on emotions or she’ll just keep getting weaker and she can’t do that without sucking on brain juice using the needle-like organ that used to be on the tip of her tongue.”
“See! Nerd-mode!” Rebecca exclaimed, pointing at me animatedly. Then she turned a malicious grin toward Michelle and Lisa. “We are going to rip that bitch to shreds.”
It was a short time later that we decided to get underway and got properly dressed for our flight. While I appreciated the trust that Michelle and Lisa were placing in me and Rebecca, the look of pure bliss and devotion that Lisa was giving me as I carried her and we flew through the mountain pass made me feel sick to my stomach. I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
With that in mind, I pushed us hard. We only landed for breaks when it was absolutely necessary for us to rest or when I started getting hungry around lunch and dinnertime. Rebecca didn’t complain and, from the look on her face, she looked no happier about the situation than I was.
We had just finished dinner and Rebecca and I both felt energetic enough to get underway again so we stepped outside to fold up the portal and change into our Succubus forms so we could get moving again. “Okay, let’s get this train wreck back underway, I want to…” Words abandoned me as I realized that something was suddenly very wrong. A feeling of emptiness hit me like a kick to the chest and I fell to my knees in the snow, suddenly unable to breathe.
“Shannon? What’s wrong? Goddammit, answer me, Shannon!” I barely heard Rebecca’s words. Even the sensation of her shaking me was muted as my heart tightened in fear and loss.
The impact and heat of Lisa’s hand slapping my cheek brought my attention somewhat back to the others. I was only vaguely aware of the tears streaming down my cheeks and the choked whisper from my suddenly too-tight throat. “I can’t feel her.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 12 Frantic Amethyst |
Each second that passed without me able to feel Ziralin’s presence in my mind I grew more panicked. This had never happened before, we had been a constant presence at the back of one another’s minds since I had accidentally turned her into my Familiar. It was a constant tugging at my mind that lessened as she grew closer. Since we had gotten stranded on this Plane that tugging had been my lifeline, it meant that the girl I loved was still alive out there somewhere.
Another slap brought me out of those dismal thoughts and I realized that Rebecca was shaking me. “Shannon, stop freaking out and think,” she told me firmly but gently. “You’re the smart one here. Just because you can’t feel her doesn’t mean that she’s dead. Could she just be sleeping in her bunker? They’re separate dimensions right?”
I shook my head and couldn’t speak at first because of the tightness in my throat. I sniffled, wiped freezing tears from my cheeks, and tried again. “Not unless she’s inside with the portal folded up and put away but she wouldn’t be able to get out that way unless she had someone she trusted to open it again. She might trust Ellie with that but she wouldn’t let her face things outside alone unless something really bad happened, Ziralin is much better suited for survival in a place like this. As long as the portal is open we’re not completely cut off from this Plane and can still get a faint sense of one another. She just vanished.”
“This whole world is just weird in general so there could be all kinds of explanations, right?” Lisa encouraged.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. They were right, it could be anything preventing me from sensing her, and if Ziralin was feeling that too then she still wouldn’t stop until she found me. I needed to pull myself together and consider the problem. Finally, I nodded. “You’re right, it’s not like Nhekar has been playing by a rulebook that I’m even remotely familiar with so far, so it could be anything. The last sense I got of her was that she was just beyond these mountains, in that direction,” I said hoarsely, pointing in the direction where I had last felt Ziralin’s presence.
“Good, so we just need to find the general area that you last sensed her in and I can try to pick up her scent or any magic that she or Ellie might have used to track them down. It’s something that Ziralin was pushing while training me and I know her scent pretty damn well. We need to move fast though, so less talking and more flying,” Michelle insisted.
Rebecca and I pushed on through the evening with a new sense of urgency, flying without breaks. The twin moons were well on their way toward the horizon and my arms and wings were aching from flying and carrying Lisa for so long but we were rewarded for our tenacity when we could see the final mountains of the pass parting to reveal what appeared to be farmlands of some sort, vast fields dotted with the occasional homes.
We cleared the mountains and that was when we saw the city beneath us, built along the lower slope of the mountain to our left as if to watch over the farmlands below. Or to look down upon them. It was a city of mostly dull stone and very large compared to what we had seen so far in this world. Some form of magical illumination lit the streets in the center and I could feel magick energy everywhere there. That city was where Ziralin had been when she vanished, I was certain of it.
We found a quiet place to land and once we had returned to human form and Lisa and Michelle had shaken off the effects of our Succubus mojo, Michelle switched to her cat-girl form to try to pick up a trail. We moved as quietly as we could and fortunately, most of the city seemed to be in bed. We only had to avoid a few figures with basic weapons and armor that I thought might be city guards. That was easily done since Michelle’s sharp senses were better than even those of a Succubus, and she picked them up before they got too close and gave us ample time to hide.
It was easy to see the disparity between the Makers and those who were not. The area we had landed in had been run down, the buildings had little more than cloth curtains in bare windows and doorframes to keep out the night’s chill. The roads were roughly hewn from the mountainside, vermin skittered away at our approach and into the shadows, and there was the constant reek of refuse, urine, and shit that made me want to gag.
And then we got to the wall. It was smooth, pristine white, easily thirty feet high, and ran for as far as I could see in each direction and there were regularly spaced large violet okka crystals along the top that could be seen even from ground level. The Makers weren’t subtle, that was for sure, this was a physical and magical barrier to keep out the ‘undesirables’ and keep them from getting any ideas. It was near the gates built into this massive wall that Michelle picked up Ziralin’s and Ellie’s scents. The scents were faint and among many others but there. There were also signs that there had been a fight and afterward the trail led right through those gates.
The massive gates were made of what looked like gold with intricate carvings, dotted with over two dozen fist-sized okka crystals, and were barred for the night with guards standing to either side. Well, they had been standing. Now they were slumbering thanks to a quick sleep spell.
“Well, how do you want to get inside? Should we just fly over?” Rebecca asked as we all considered the wall and gates.
There was a lot of magick energy running through both those gates and the wall. I turned to Lisa and grinned. “You know; I don’t know what my new limits for storing magick energy are. I think that I should find out. Would you like to join me for a recharge, apprentice-mine?”
Lisa grinned right back. “Oh, I don’t mind if I do, oh wise and powerful Master.”
I let Lisa get her fill first and then I sucked every drop of magick energy out of those gates and then started on the wall. I hadn’t taken quite everything in the wall but it was now effectively useless as a magical barrier. I only took that much because I wanted to use that magick energy while it was available and had needed to top myself up a couple of times while I took care of some important precautions before we moved on.
First, I had to cast the anti-Succubus spell that I had come up with on Lisa and explain it so she could use it. It was a combination of the mental protections that Xuriel had cast on me and a spell designed to ward against and filter out harmful gasses and toxins but also targeted toward Succubus pheromones, which I had Rebecca pump out. Much to my surprise, the spell seemed to work and my apprentice prepared to cast it herself.
It took everything that Lisa had to be able to cast it on Michelle. It also required a lot of focus on her part and it wasn’t quite as powerful as I could make it, but we had little choice since only Lisa could cast spells directly on her Familiar. She needed to recharge again afterward but there was plenty more magick energy for her in that wall and I had my second chore to see to while she did that.
Rebecca and I changed into our Succubus forms to rip every one of those fist-sized okka crystals from the door so that I could stuff them with as much magick energy as I could before topping myself up again from the wall. Those crystals could store a lot of magick energy for their size and I wanted to have some batteries available in case we ever ran dry again. Once they were filled and stored in the bunker, Rebecca and I worked together to rip those doors off their hinges as dawn began to break.
“Is this a good idea?” Rebecca asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes once we had finished our task. “The sun is rising and we’re going to risk being seen and having to fight our way to your cousin and fiancée. What about the prime directive and all that?”
“Fuck the prime directive, Beks,” I told her seriously. “They already know about people like us. They captured Lisa and Michelle and held them in a goddamn cage for over a week and it looks like they kidnapped Ziralin and Ellie now. I’m done with subtle. If these people have harmed one hair on either of their heads, then I will bring their precious city down around them. Besides, I think that it’s high time that people on both sides of this wall see how the other half lives. Vive la révolution.”
Rebecca nodded and smiled. “Good. I’m always up for sticking it to the rich and popular. I just wanted to make sure that you’re thinking straight and know what we’re probably in for. I’m a bitch, but you’re not that type of person and you’re kinda growing on me, sort of like fungus. I don’t want you to do anything you might regret later, Shannon.”
“Thanks, Beks, you’re growing on me too. Honestly, I’m okay. I’ve seen enough to know that these people hoard and abuse their power for their own sakes. We won’t kill anyone if we can avoid it, only in self-defense if there is no other way. We’re just making their lives a bit uncomfortable and giving those poor people on the outside a chance to fight back if they want to.”
Where the slums that we had landed in had been destitute and decrepit, the Makers’ area of the city was opulent and ostentatious. The streets were paved with smooth white cobblestones and the buildings were large and elaborate in their designs. Luxuries and magical conveniences, from street lights to self-propelled carriages, were everywhere that we looked. There were also a lot of Nhekarites with fancy magical armor and weapons, though those varied in appearance and abilities. Most likely by whatever Maker that they served.
The only thing they had in common was that they tried to get in our way. So we took them down and then refueled any magick energy that we had spent with their little toys. I would have thought that our actions would have raised some sort of general alarm but that didn’t seem to be the case. From what we overheard, they were all so sure of their power over those outside the wall and of the wall itself as a defense, that such a thing didn’t exist.
They didn’t work particularly well together either. In fact, some groups ended up fighting one another in hopes of being the ones to capture us for whatever ‘Sah’ that they happened to be working for. Sah seemed to be a title given to the Makers, and three of them attempted to catch us ‘interesting creatures’ themselves after their subordinates had failed. They weren’t Sahs any longer though because I sealed their ability to use magick once we had incapacitated them.
Michelle’s sharp senses led us to a large building guarded by yet more magically equipped goons. As soon as they saw us they began to talk excitedly about, “More new specimens for Sah Mharis.” Instead of reaching for the more obvious magical weapons that they wore they tossed some red spheres at us while we were still approaching.
“Move!” I called out as I used my wings to get a bit of air. Lisa and Michelle tried to get behind cover as the spheres shattered on the ground, releasing some sort of thick red gas. Rebecca wasn’t quite quick enough to get into the air with me though and passed out. I quickly cast a spell to summon a wind strong enough to blow it back in our attackers’ faces. They only had a few seconds to realize what was happening and panic about it before the gas hit them and they collapsed.
I landed by Michelle and Lisa while we waited for the red mist to clear. “You girls okay,” I asked. Lisa looked okay but Michelle was looking toward Rebecca’s prone form in concern.
Lisa nodded and while Michelle was still looking at Rebecca she mumbled, “Holy crap, whatever that shit is it's fucking strong. I got a little whiff of it but other than a moment of drowsiness, I’m fine.”
“You also have a much more powerful sense of smell than me and weren’t able to get clear as quick as Shannon,” Lisa pointed out, looking over her Familiar in concern. “It’s probably some kind of potent sedative. You would have probably been in dreamland too if you hadn’t had the protection from gasses and airborne contaminants portion of the anti-Succubus spell that I cast on you. Just sit still for a minute, Kitten.”
“Yeah, really potent. Rebecca was out, like instantly, but Succubae have a pretty powerful sense of smell and she didn’t have your magical protection. Still, it affected those jerks almost as quickly,” I said with a glance toward our most recent attackers. “At least now we know how they managed to capture Ziralin and Ellie. I’m going to cast a purification spell on Becca, wake her up, and then drain their weapons to top up my magical fuel tank.”
By the time Rebecca was awake and the goons’ magical equipment was drained Lisa was convinced that Michelle was fine. “Beks, would you mind knocking?” I asked, gesturing to the overly ostentatiously carved wooden door to the building.”
“It would be my pleasure ,” the other pseudo-Succubus replied with a grin before punching it hard enough to send splinters of wood flying everywhere and leaving a gaping hole in the door. Then she just grabbed what was left and tore it from the doorframe to toss it casually aside. “Oh look, they left it open. I say we should accept their gracious invitation.”
Michelle quietly chortled beside me as both Lisa and I had trouble keeping smiles off our faces. “You could have just opened it, Becca. Was the gratuitous violence really necessary?” Lisa commented dryly.
Rebecca shrugs and shifted her wings. “They gassed me, tried to capture us for Goddess knows what, they’re probably holding your friends captive, they take slaves, and they’re kinda abusive assholes in general. At times like these, gratuitous violence is always necessary. Not to mention oh-so-satisfying.”
We stepped into the room beyond the front entrance but, besides the Nhekar version of the trappings of wealth, there wasn’t really much to see. The place was huge though. there were ramps leading up to a second floor and hallways branching off in several directions. “Can you sense her yet, Shannon?” Michelle asked in concern.
I shook my head. I couldn’t sense anything yet and as much as I was trying to remain calm and not worry the others, it was starting to really worry me. “Nothing yet. It looks like we’ll have to treat this like a Sorcerer hunt.”
“A Sorcerer hunt?” Rebecca asked in confusion.
“It was one of the first lessons not directly related to magick that Shannon taught me,” Lisa explained. “It kind of works for Demons too. The general rule of thumb is to never look for the victims or possible victims. Unless you know them personally, you won’t get anywhere. Always look for the asshole with the magick. Usually, the victims won’t be far away.”
“Yeah, we just had to narrow down the area first this time to get a better idea of which particular asshole we were looking for,” I added as I reached out with my magick sense. “I sense four potential assholes. One is off by itself and doesn’t feel as powerful as the others. Feels like somewhere up those stairs. The other three are together and somewhere down that hallway. I’m betting that that is where we’ll find Ziralin and Ellie.” I tried to ignore the, “or what’s left of them,” that my fear-addled brain was attempting to add to that and led the way down the hallway in question.
There were several doors down the hallway but none of them were of interest to me. That is until I found one that opened to a spiral ramp going downward. Michelle groaned as she saw where I had stopped us. “Why is it always the basement? Talk about cliché. Can’t people on any Plane of existence do their shady business deals and experiments in a nice sunroom or garden?” I couldn’t respond, my heart was beating too quickly and I was having trouble breathing as I led the way down.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 13 What Happens in Nhekar... Amethyst |
The ramp spiraled downward, lit by the occasional stone in the wall that had been enchanted to provide illumination. We seemed to be near the bottom when I started hearing voices and motioned for the others to stop. “…are indeed fascinating creatures, Mharis. I am waiting for my supplicants to deliver specimens from a similar species that they found by the ocean. They said that one of them changed its form right before their eyes. Have these creatures displayed any similar abilities? Wherever did you find them?”
“Would you believe that they were right here in the city? We would likely not have discovered them at all if they had not been so determined to prevent my supplicants from gathering test subjects from the urchins outside of the wall,” a second voice that I figured must be Sah Mharis responded. “I have not seen them display such abilities but my supplicants told me that they looked like one of us at first. They reverted to these forms not long after my sedative rendered them unconscious. Perhaps we can run some tests once they have awoken? They walk on their hind legs, they spoke, and they wore clothing and carried devices that I have never seen before.”
A dismissive snort heralded the emergence of a third voice. “You are attributing intelligence to lower lifeforms, Mharis. They are mammals . They cannot even reproduce without a second of their species. I can see why Lortae is here, they are our foremost expert on animals, but why did you call me here before the sun was even up? My area of expertise is earth power theory, not beasts.”
“They carried items with them that I could not identify that were overflowing with earth power, Gerta. But that is not the most fascinating thing about them. They radiate earth power themselves. There was not much at first but it has been steadily increasing since they were brought to me, almost as if their bodies produce it naturally. I cannot use okka crystals to draw the earth power from either them or the items that they carried. That is why I summoned you.”
“You are certain about this?” the one called Gerta asked in sudden interest. “The Council says that the okka mine is running dry and no new veins have been found yet. If the rumors about the power vanishing from the crystal mountain are true as well, these creatures could make us the three most powerful Makers in Kavarik. I will need to study them to discover whether we can safely extract the earth power from them somehow. Two will not be enough for our needs though, can you breed more of them, Lortae?”
“They are both birthers, Gerta, note the lactation glands and the genital configuration. That could be better for our purposes though since two birthers will allow us to increase their numbers twice as quickly. Fortunately, I do not require a breeder to impregnate them. I know that it’s in here somewhere… ah here! You see, this artefact is one of my own creations, I have used it before to impregnate infertile birthers among my various specimens. While they are still asleep we can just touch one with the wand to extract a sample of their life code while securing the pad over the womb of the other. It will infuse one of their eggs with the life code gathered from the other specimen.”
“Will it work with two birthers?” Mharis asked.
“Yes, yes,” Lortae answered impatiently. “I have used it with pairs of birthers before, though it only resulted in other birthers being conceived. That would be better for our purposes anyway. Lower your barrier so I can do this while they are still asleep.”
For a second, I was too frozen by what I was hearing to move but then I felt Ziralin’s presence return to my mind. “Oh, hell no. There is no way I’m letting those assholes do that,” I snarled as my wings and tail twitched in anger. That artefact could very well be the solution to the Faery population issue but I was not about to let them knock up my cousin or my fiancée without their consent, like some sort of barnyard animals.
My intent was focused and the spell waited upon my lips even as I turned that corner to see one of the three of the snake-people in the large and dreary dungeon approaching a very naked Ziralin and Ellie. “Don’t move!” I shouted as I released the spell.
With the three of them frozen in place, I quickly set about sealing their ability to use magick. As much as I wanted very much to wake Ziralin and Ellie up and to show my fiancée in particular just how much I had missed her, I knew that it would be best to make sure that their captors weren’t a danger to any of us first. Once that was done, I relieved the one that had been moving toward the pair of Fae of the weird-looking artefact in his hands.
The artefact was literally just a wooden wand tipped with one of those okka crystals connected to a six-inch square silver ‘pad’ by an eight-foot length of braided silver wire. The pad had two long leather straps (which I assumed were to secure it on the specimen on the receiving end) connected to the rear side, to either side of where the braided wire was attached in the center. Magick was definitely weird in this world but I thought that I had an idea of how it worked now.
These people were almost like me. They could just focus on what they wanted to have happen and make it work through willpower, but instead of affecting the world directly, they put that intent and will into artefacts using okka crystals. Then the artefact drew the magick energy necessary for the enchantments to work from the crystals placed inside or attached to the artefact. The Makers didn’t seem to gather and hold magick energy internally like me, Sarah, and Lisa, they just sort of shifted it from the crystals to the objects they were using as artefact.
We didn’t have to play by those rules and these assholes could see it. If they could sense the magick energy that Ziralin and Ellie were producing, then they could probably see how much I was currently holding. The fear in their eyes told me that my suspicions were correct. “What are you? What have you done to us?” one of them asked. I think it was Mharis.
I could have made the spell shut them up as well as freeze them in place but I figured that we might need some questions answered. After a glance at my still slumbering fiancée and cousin, I leveled a glacier cold glare at them. “I’m Shannon. I cast a spell to keep you from going anywhere but don’t worry, it should wear off some time tomorrow. I also took away your ability to use the earth power. You don’t deserve it. Such power could be used to make the world a better place for everyone but you have only been using it for your own self-interest and have caused suffering for those under your power.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not alone. She’s done the same to anyone who was stupid enough to get in our way,” Rebecca added. “We’ve also torn the gates off of that wall that you’re all so proud of and drained it of its power as well. So those people who you’ve been mistreating on the outside should be visiting all of you real soon.”
I turned to my apprentice and her Familiar and finger-flicked the one who had been holding the artifact in the forehead. “Guess what, girls. This is Lortae, wasn’t this the one whose goons held you in a cage for over a week and treated you like animals?”
“Yes. Yes, it was,” Michelle said, her feline face twisting in a mix of negative emotions as she snarled.
Lisa snorted disdainfully. “It’s a shame that they’re all frozen and can’t defend themselves. I’ve been aching to teach this jerk a lesson since I woke up behind bars.”
“Just playing bitch’s advocate here but we could give them a taste of their own medicine,” Rebecca suggested with a grin. “There’s enough fear and hate in these jokers right now to curse them five times over. I don’t really like to think about cursing people but these jerks do deserve some sort of punishment. I’m thinking catgirls since they were so interested in Michelle and they think mammals are inferior.”
Lisa shook her head and sighed as she switched to English so the Makers couldn’t follow our conversation. “They’re just bullies, Becca. They’re not worth the effort and I don’t want to sink to their level.”
Oh, I wasn’t going to do it, I just wanted to see the looks on their faces. Totally worth it by the way,” Becca replied, still grinning like a madwoman. "Besides, I think they’ll get their just desserts when the people outside the wall are inside the walls and start looking for anyone in those fancy robes that they’re all wearing.”
“That’s enough,” I said with a groan. “I want to be done with the place and find the others. I’m to cast the anti-succubus spell on Ziralin and Ellie and then try to wake them up. We should probably return to our human forms first though, Beks.” The other pseudo-Succubus nodded and we both shifted away our Demonic features to become human again, or at least to look like we were.
“Do you need us to do anything while you’re going that, Shannon?” Michelle asked, still looking a bit on edge. “I need something to focus on so I don’t decide to use that jerk as a scratching post.”
“Could the three of you gather anything magical down here? I want these guys to watch me and Lisa drain it all. Except for this thing, the Faery could find it very useful,” I said after thinking for a moment and handing Michelle the weird fertility artefact. “Oh, and question Lortae about how it works exactly and see if you can find Ziralin and Ellie’s clothes and other stuff. Maybe if these jerks are helpful, we won’t leave them in full view of the public until they’re mobile again.”
“Sure,” the catgirl Familiar agreed as she took the device. As I made my way over toward the two Fae I could hear her switch back to the Nhekarian language. “Okay, Assholes, I’m only going to say this once. The two of us would really like to hurt you in indescribable ways. You’d be surprised just how much damage and pain a mortal body can take without dying. As for the Demon here, she wants to do even worse things to you. If you’re really good and answer all of our questions, we might be convinced to not do either of those things.”
“If you don’t want to cooperate that’s cool too. We’ll get to demonstrate on one of you what the others are in for, and I’m sure the others will be super helpful after that. Fun fact: in our language the first five letters of the word ‘demonstrate’ spell ‘Demon’, so guess which option we’d be choosing,” Rebecca’s voice added enthusiastically. She was enjoying this way too much.
I tried to tune out the background noise as I knelt between Ziralin and Ellie and cast the anti-Succubus spell on both of them in turn. I would have rather asked them first but I knew that we might have to fight in a hurry if anyone else came down here and I would rather we didn’t have any issues if I had to change forms suddenly before they were safe from my Succubus charms. Once they were both safe from my supernatural sex appeal I cast a purification spell on them and spoke as reassuringly as I could, “Ellie? Ziralin, my love? Wake up.”
Elsaishe was the first to wake up, her eyes fluttering open only to then stare at me in confusion. “Cuz? Is that really you? I’m not dreaming am I?”
“Nope, it’s really me, Cuz. I figured that you two needed me so we came as fast as we could. Rebecca, Lisa, and Michelle are with me too,” I assured her, squeezing her hand gently.
She was still looking pretty damn confused. “How did you…? There’s no magick here, at least we couldn’t detect any until we found Jalael, and then this city.”
“Rebecca and I had to rely on other skills until we ran into Michelle and Lisa, I’ll explain later. Wait, you foun…mmmmph.” My words were cut off as Ziralin wasted no time in wrapping me up in her arms and laying a kiss on me to show me how very much she had missed me. Her lips claimed mine and the contact was like a shot of adrenaline to my soul. I felt alive again while feeling her lips pressing against mine, her arm around me, and her free hand gently caressing my cheek. This was how things should be. This was where I belonged, in her arms.
I didn’t realize just how much I had missed her, how much I needed her by my side until then. I had to focus on surviving but now I just wanted to focus on her. I eagerly returned her kiss and it was taking every bit of self-control that I had to keep my wings and other Succubus features from popping out in my love and lust for her as I passionately pulled her closer and returned her display of love with my own.
We finally broke our amorous contact, both of us breathing heavily and gasping for air as we stared into one another’s eyes. “Babe, are you okay?”
Of course, I was okay, I had my soulmate back. It wasn’t until she had asked that I realized that tears were streaming down my face. “I… I couldn’t feel you. I was afraid that I’d lost you. Don’t scare me like that again.”
“I was worried sick about you this whole time, Babe,” she replied, wrapping me up in her arms again. “There was no magick and you were so far away. The pull was so strong that I couldn’t sense your emotions or anything. How did you…? Holy shit… just how much magick energy do you have stored right now? That’s a lot more than you can usually contain.” Her eyes went wide as she pulled away to give me a worried look.
“It’s a bit of a long story,” I said, not really eager to tell it. So I changed the subject. “You two first; Beks, Michelle, and Lisa are dealing with the jerks who were imprisoning you and going to experiment on you, and trying to find your clothes and stuff. So, you found Jalael?”
“We didn’t just find Jalael,” Ellie said with a grin as a pair of white wings appeared from her back. “Everything was kind of boring for us when we first got here, the lack of magick and that sun were pretty weird but we were able to blend in with a caravan of locals with glamours until we learned the language. It turns out they were taking supplies to a fort near this huge mountain of purple crystal with a magic barrier keeping the locals out. The people that the locals call the Makers have been trying to get past that barrier for a long time.”
“Yeah,” Ziralin said with a laugh, “They took us exactly where we needed to go within like, four days of getting here. The Makers are assholes, by the way, they hurt some people for no good reason, and Ellie and I tried to protect them. I chased them off while Ellie used one of our first aid kits to patch up the injured.”
“It turns out that Jalael was expecting whoever got Torphael’s powers and memories to bring some candidates here when the time came that their powers were needed but he was waiting a looong time,” Ellie added. “Like, way before the disaster that made magick here go all wonky and wiped out the previous species of intelligent life on this plane.”
“After Ellie got her wings we started making our way toward you, flying as fast and for as long as we could. We found this city and since there was so much magick around I thought it might be a good place for you to refuel if you needed to so we decided to wait. We wanted to try to get inside the walled area to check it out but the goons of one of those Makers were trying to snatch kids off the streets and we got in a fight. Next thing I know; you’re waking us up,” Ziralin finished with a shrug.
“That fight would have turned out differently if we hadn’t drained our magick reserves by flying here and then casting glamours to blend in,” Ellie grouched. “I could have used my new Celestial powers, though I’m not sure how good they’ll be fighting anything besides Demons, they’re actually mostly for support. It turned out that Jalael was looking for someone who was compassionate and had a desire to help and protect others. I guess that I fit the bill, but I wish you’d been with us, Cuz. I think that you would have been a better candidate.”
I shook my head. “No, Ellie, he made the right choice. I wouldn’t have been able to receive his power and memories anyway. I already have Xuriel’s, I have since my birthday, they were just sealed until we got here and I needed skills other than magick to survive. It’s a really long story and I’d rather wait until we’re somewhere safe before I tell it.”
“You’re hiding something, Shannon,” Ziralin said, taking my hand in hers and squeezing it. “What are you worried about?”
“Come on, Cuz, you can tell us. I showed you my wings, I wanna see yours too,” Ellie pleaded.
“It’s… complicated. As I said, it’s a long story and some parts might bother you both,” I said with a sigh. “Like the wings, the tail, and the horns to name a few, given the history that the three of us have with Succubae. I just have to keep them from seeing anything that might freak them out or make them ask questions until I can break it to them gently first,” I thought nervously.
Of course, that was when Rebecca came over and deposited the pile of their stuff on the floor beside me and the two Fae. “Hey, Jockettes, ‘sup? Michelle said that should be all of your stuff. For some reason those jerks are being very cooperative,” she said with a grin. “She and Lisa are gathering up the magical stuff now so we should be able to get the hell outta here as soon as they’re done and you two are… dressed.” That was about when she realized that they were both naked and turned quickly around, her cheeks bright crimson.
“Great timing, Beks,” I thought bitterly. Maybe they wouldn’t notice that she looked like a completely different person. Of course not, how could I even entertain that thought?
It was made quickly obvious that they did indeed not recognize her. Though the way that she had greeted them had probably been intended to let them know it was her, just in case I had actually been smart enough to explain things. That only seemed to leave them more confused and Ellie was gaping at the auburn-haired beauty with such interest that I had to double-check that Becca’s more demonic features weren’t on display. “Whoa, who is that?” my cousin asked in a stunned whisper.
Ziralin turned to give me an uncertain and suspicious look, those feelings were echoed in her mind as well, mixed in with a lot of worries, worry for me. Of course, she knew that I wasn’t telling her everything, and the way that she was sniffing the air had me worried too. “This could be very bad if she’s smelling what I hope she isn’t smelling.”
The love of my life calmly raised a single silver eyebrow and said, “Who is that and why do you both smell like Succubus pheromones? It’s very faint, but after that incident at the sorority house, I’d recognize that scent anywhere. You’re not really acting like yourself either, you’re really nervous, Shannon. I think you have some ‘splainin’ to do.” Then she turned toward Becca and her gaze immediately turned into a baleful glower. “As for you, if you’ve been fucking with Shannon’s head, then there will be nowhere on any plane of existence where you will be safe from my wrath.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 14 Revealed Amethyst |
Rebecca bristled at the threat and looked like she was going to snark something right back at my fiancée but I gave her a warning look and she held her tongue. She had every right to defend her honor but if this devolved into a shouting match then things would only get worse. I tried to quell the suspicious looks in Ellie’s and Ziralin’s eyes by taking one of each of their hands in mine.
“Ellie, Ziralin…I’m not asking either of you to trust her yet,” I said, giving them both an imploring look. “I’m asking you to trust me and just wait until we’re through a portal and meeting up with some of the others. I promise to explain everything then but this is a long story and I’d rather not go through it more times than I have to. Haven’t I earned that type of trust? I’m not being coerced and if she really meant you harm and was controlling me, she could have just killed you while you were still unconscious.”
Ziralin looked into my eyes, sighed, and then after a moment, she nodded. “You have. I… just… I’ve been worried sick about you this whole time and now there are those pheromones and you’re acting like you’re scared of us.”
I leaned over to kiss her, putting all the love that I had for her into both the action and my thoughts before pulling away. “It’s not either of you, I promise. There’s an issue with the Mark that I got from Xuriel and I’m just worried that it will make you see me differently. Can you please get dressed? I’d like to leave soon so we can get this talk over with.”
With that, I turned around and headed toward where Michelle and Lisa were waiting with our three frozen captives. To my surprise, Rebecca placed a hand tenderly on my shoulder as we made our way over and whispered, “You need to chill about this Shannon. I know that I’m probably not the best to give this kind of advice, but my mom used to tell me, ‘If people truly care about you for who you are inside, the outside won’t matter.’ I think I can see what she meant now because of you.”
“Thanks, Beks, you’re right,” I whispered back gratefully. Right then, that was exactly what I needed to hear. The upcoming explanation was still going to be awkward as hell, but I needed to have a little more trust in the people that I loved. As long as I could show them that I was still the same person inside, their feelings for me wouldn’t change, we were all better than that.
Michelle and Lisa had gathered up all of the magical artefacts and, after slipping the one that I wanted for the Faery into my portable bunker, Lisa and I drained the rest of them of magick energy in front of the former Markers, including the cage that had held Ellie and Ziralin. Lisa hadn’t used much magick since she last topped up so most of them were drained by me. It wasn’t quite enough to fill me to my new limit, but considering how much magick energy I already had stored, I was hoping that it would be enough to find the others and leave this plane of existence.
“So, what do we do with these assholes?” Michelle asked once we were done and a fully clothed Ziralin and Ellie had joined us.
I shrugged and decided to leave it up to the others. “Well, I’m inclined to just leave them here now that their ability to use magick has been sealed, but I’m not really the victim in this. You, Lisa, Ziralin, and Ellie were the ones who were caged with the intent to breed you, experiment on you, and/or keep you as pets. If there’s something else you’d like to see done as an appropriate punishment, then I’ll help. But no magical punishments.”
“I think that sealing their ability to use magick was appropriate, Shannon. I say that we just leave them outside this big house where people can easily find them before your spell wears off. Let their own people decide their punishment. They’ve suffered far more than we have,” Lisa suggested.
“I… You’re right Lissy,” Michelle agreed, letting out a small sigh. “As much as I would love to punish them personally, this isn’t our world so it’s not our place to say how they’re dealt with.”
“Yeah, I can get behind that, they’ve hurt those people outside the walls a lot worse than they did us. The bastards take slaves and use orphans as test subjects. We should just stick them somewhere they can be easily found,” Ziralin said with a shrug. “Not like we suffered much, we were asleep the whole time.”
“Well, we did wake up naked, not that that really bothers either of us,” Ellie pointed out. “But I guess that I agree with the others, we should just take the trash outside and then get out of here so Shannon can tell us what’s going on, who the hottie is, and what happened to Rebecca.”
Rebecca didn’t have an opinion one way or the other it seemed. She did blush a bit at Ellie calling her a hottie, but sighed and muttered, “I am Rebecca.”
My cousin and fiancée both gave me a long hard look at that. “Long story, and it’s all tangled up in the stuff with Xuriel and how we survived to get here. If you want to hear it, let’s drop these jerks outside and get out of here,” I told them.
Ellie, Ziralin, and Michelle hauled the Nhekarites upstairs physically to preserve the magick energy that Lisa had stored, with Michelle leading the way. It made sense since Lisa’s Familiar and the two Fae were the strongest of us. Well, Rebecca and I were probably stronger than all of them but to use that strength we would have needed to reveal our Succubus forms.
While we waited for them to return, I cast a locator spell to track down my sister and Jennifer. I figured that they would either still be with the partner that they entered this Plane with or at least somewhere nearby. Sarah’s signal was really far away, I thought they might actually be on the other side of the planet. Jennifer seemed somewhat closer, but still far away. At least being able to track them confirmed that the two of them were still alive.
It didn’t really matter which group we traveled to first, they were both probably in the same general situation with no magick energy to draw on so they could use their Celestial forms. I figured that if we got delayed with the first group though that Sarah and Annie were more suited to survive in the long term. Mason might be psychic, but his gift wasn’t always completely reliable and while he and Jen were both still teenagers, my sister and Annie were adults and genuine badasses.
As soon as the other three returned, I cast a portal to Jennifer’s location. I had never had a chance to use the spell myself but Sarah had used it several times since the first time that she used it to get us to Ziralin’s bedroom when she had accidentally let her mom see her without a glamour and outed herself to her family. I had plenty of secondhand experience with it too since my ‘Xuriel’ memories indicated that she had used this spell often.
I stepped through to hold the portal open while the others followed and the moment that I was on the other side Jen’s familiar voice squealed, “Shannon! I missed you so much!” I was tackle-hugged before I could even get a look at my new surroundings but at least everyone else got the same treatment when they came through. Except for Rebecca, of course.
“See, I told you they were coming,” Mason teased his girlfriend once we were all through and I had closed the portal. “It’s good to see you guys again. I guess that we just need to find Sarah and Annie now.”
“Yep, and I can cast another portal right now so we can do that,” I confirmed, eager to see my sister again as well.
“No! Wait! Not Yet! You have got to see something first,” my best friend insisted excitedly as she half-dragged me along behind her. We were in a small chamber of some sort and the walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of some kind of metal that I couldn’t identify. The only things of interest were the pale blue lights embedded in the ceiling, the entrance to one of their portable bunkers along one wall, and what looked like two metal doorways on opposite sides of the room.
“Jen, stop!” Ziralin called out. “Shannon promised me and Ellie an explanation when we got here and I want to hear it.”
“But this is huge, and it might help us find Jalael!” Jen quickly protested.
My fiancée quickly countered, “There’s no need to find Jalael, Ellie and I already did and she’s got her wings.”
“What?! Congrats, Ellie! Omigod, we have all six Sentinels now. If Xuriel’s ready to help us, we can take down the Demon King and his Generals! You still have to see this though!” My best friend was as excited as I had ever seen her while Mason just watched her with a patient smile, probably waiting for his girlfriend to get it all out of her system.
“Actually, we have all seven Sentinels,” I corrected with a sigh.
Ziralin gave me another long appraising look and I sighed again as she said, “Jen, no. I can appreciate that you’re excited about this, I’ve known you longer than anyone here, but whatever this groundbreaking discovery is, it can wait. I’ve been worried sick about Shannon since I arrived on this rock and frankly, everything I’ve seen and heard since she found us hasn’t made me any less worried now. Explanations now, Shannon. Please.”
Well, this was awkward. Lisa, Michelle, and Rebecca were all looking away, either feeling guilty for not letting Ziralin and Ellie in on the secret yet, or unsure of what to say to make this any less tense. Ellie and Ziralin were looking at me and Rebecca with a mixture of concern, uncertainty, and possibly even suspicion. Jennifer looked downright confused, and Mason didn’t look much better off as he looked like he was trying to solve some sort of complex mental puzzle.
“I did promise,” I agreed as I walked over to Mason. “I need to cast a spell on Mason first though. Then we can have ‘show and tell’ safely.”
Mason’s eyes widened and I could tell that he had figured out the puzzle with his intuition, or at least part of it. “Um… yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he quickly agreed.
I quickly cast the anti-succubus spell on our resident psychic and then I stood where he, Jennifer, Ziralin, and Ellie could all see me and I could see them, so I could monitor their body language and facial expressions. Then I swallowed the lump in my throat and began to speak. “When we arrived on Nhekar, I noticed pretty quickly that there was no ambient magick energy to draw on. I had used everything that I had to open the portal one last time for me and Rebecca and then to make sure we couldn’t be followed. Things weren’t looking that great for us.”
“Ya think?” Rebecca snarked.
I tried not to get too upset with her for responding, this situation was tense and snark was her defense mechanism. “Anyway, we were in the middle of a huge desert with some pretty damn terrifying predators, I had no magick, and when Rebecca wasn’t withdrawn and depressed from losing her mother, we were constantly fighting. Our chances of survival were pretty slim. That’s when Xuriel appeared.”
“What, so she gave you her Mark?” Jen asked in confusion.
“No, I’ve had it all along, ever since my birthday wish,” I explained with a shake of my head. Then I began to relate Xuriel’s story, making sure not to leave anything important out. Finally, I sighed and said, “So you see, she wasn’t bound to a place, she was bound to our bloodline and she used my birthday wish to make me into the magical prodigy that she had waited thousands of years for.”
“Holy shit, I can’t believe that Xuriel was the first Cailleach Dearg ,” Elsaishe said in a hushed tone. Then her brow furrowed in anger. “And she was inside you all that time, she could have unsealed the mark at any time and helped us when we needed it.”
“She didn’t want to reveal that I had her Mark so she sealed it and slowly fed me memories or skills in my dreams or as I needed them and kept anything I didn’t need behind a mental barrier until I was ready to fight the Demon King. She did help us though. She was the one who put the protections on my mind, clued me in about the Demon Brands, and snapped me out of that Succubitch’s control at the sorority house. She had to act subtly. When we got here though, she had no way to help me and Rebeca survive except to come clean with me and unseal my Mark,” I explained.
Everyone seemed to be quietly taking it in so I took a deep breath and continued. “The problem is that her Mark was changed, it merged with the Demon Brand. So I didn’t get a Celestial form, I got her curse and my ability to gather and manipulate magick energy became way more powerful. I had to use the abilities that came with the curse to survive and to share my curse with Rebecca. This is why I didn’t want to show you or Ellie, my love, I was afraid of how you might react.”
With that, I took one more deep breath and then shifted into my Succubus form. “Before he was cursed, Xuriel was prideful. He was proud of being a man, overconfident in his power as a Celestial, and he hated Demons with a passion. Izhara wanted him to suffer so she cursed him into the body of a young human girl, a mortal with the only option for power or a change in form to be those of a Succubus. It was only some weird twist of fate that the Mark and the Brand merged and she retained a mutated and more powerful version of her original Celestial ability.”
Before anyone else could say anything Rebecca had changed form as well, placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and stated clearly, “And before any of you start thinking of giving Shannon shit for cursing me, I don’t see this as a curse. I asked for this. She gave me what I always wanted and a way to survive in this world and it wasn’t an easy choice for her to make. She did this for me, and I’m grateful.”
“They may look it, but they’re not real Demons. They don’t have a Demonic aura because they’re still the same people on the inside. They’re still human, just cursed. They can just look like Succubae and use similar abilities,” Lisa pointed out as the others squinted their eyes as if looking for an aura.
“That’s how Xuriel managed to get the drop on Demons and turn her curse into a good thing, she had no aura, Demon or Celestial. She used that to strike from the shadows and take Demons by surprise, it’s how she got her title,” I added. “She was like this for most of her time as a Sentinel but she hid from even her friends. I don’t want to do that.”
“Shannon has all of Xuriel’s knowledge and abilities when she sealed her powers, it’s really not all that different than a Celestial mark. She’s had the Mark all along too so she’s still the same person that we’ve known all this time,” Lisa insisted.
I could have sworn that I saw Ziralin and Ellie both breathe a sigh of relief as I tried a smile. “Ummm… yeah, we’re still us, just with some new abilities, and I have some new memories, just like you when you got your Marks.”
“This is going to take some getting used to, Cuz. I can understand why you were worried about telling us but I know it’s still you in here. You’re unique, and I’d know you anywhere. I can sense the Faery blood, the power of the Cailleach Dearg, and the flavor of your magick. You’re still the same person who brought me into your family and held me when I cried myself to sleep,” Ellie said as she nearly crushed me in a hug. Once she had let me go she pointed at Rebecca, “Just sayin’, she doesn’t look anything like Rebecca though, she’s really hot now.”
“And one hundred percent female too,” Rebecca shot back with a grin. “Shannon thinks that the curse is meant to keep our human bodies looking like our Succubus forms, sorta as a reminder.”
Ziralin crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me passionately until we both needed to come up for air. I was still feeling giddy from the kiss when we could breathe again and she spoke. “You should have trusted us, Babe, but I can understand why you were so tense now. I should have trusted you more too but I was worried that you were under her spell once I smelled those pheromones. This changes nothing, you’re still the girl that I want to spend eternity with. Out of curiosity though, why am I not wrapped around your little finger right now?”
“With her and Becca both being the way they are now, Shannon came up with an anti-Succubus spell to protect us all from the effects of the pheromones and the mental whammy. That’s what she cast on Mason, so one of them doesn’t turn him into a drooling idiot under their complete control. It makes things awkward afterward, trust me,” Michelle explained. Then she turned to look at the two Fae. “She cast the same spell on you two while you were still asleep to protect you because she didn’t want one of them to accidentally whammy you after your experience at the sorority house.”
Jennifer awkwardly raised her hand as if we were in class and then blushed as she realized what she was doing and just spoke. “It would be nice to know what you’re both capable of other than Shannon’s magick. It would improve our teamwork and Mason and I have never fought a Succubus. So what abilities do Succubae have exactly, other than turning men’s minds to mush?”
“We can fly and regenerate really fast from injuries. I lost half of my wing when Lisa shot me but it grew back within ten minutes,” Rebecca said, teasing the Witch with the electric blue hair.
“I said I was sorry! We didn’t know it was you and we were already being chased by people wanting to put us back in a cage,” Lisa grumped.
“Other than that we’re really strong, fast, and fairly agile, but only in our Succubus forms. Our tails and claws can be used as weapons when fighting close up and we can use negative feelings to place curses on other living beings, though we’re not really comfortable using that, and the more specific a curse the better,” I explained, shuddering as I recalled my explosive curse on the Tuskreaper. “We can also shapeshift to change our appearances but we're limited to female forms. We’ve been working on partial shifts from our human forms too, like staying human but only gaining the eyes, tail, wings, or something from our Succubus forms.”
“Is there anything that we should watch out for? Your promise ring is platinum, is it going to kill you if you try to put it on? And don’t Succubae have a very specific diet?” Ziralin asked in concern as she held me.
“If we had to drain men to live, this planet would have killed us already,” Rebecca pointed out with a laugh.
“We don’t really have any of the negatives of being a Succubus unless you count not being able to control the pheromones and mental allure, but I think that was part of the curse. The best that we can do is sort of direct it at a single target. We don’t need to feed on male tantric energy to live and silver, platinum, and holy magick won’t cause us any problems either,” I told my beautiful Fae Familiar and fiancée before kissing her tenderly and wrapping my tail around her thigh, causing her eyes to widen as my tongue probed her lips and gained entry to dance eagerly with her own until we were once again forced to come up for air.
“I… uhh… see,” she gasped out. “So, all of the…benefits without much of a downside. I gotta say though, the horns are adorable, and your ears are pointed in this form too. I’ll need to be careful of those fangs though, I nearly cut my tongue while we were kissing just now.”
“TMI! Geez, get a room, you two,” Rebecca teased.
“Beks, I’ll have you know that the Faery have no problems being intimate with others in public. Succubae shouldn’t either, even fake ones,” I teased back, causing the other pseudo-Succubus to turn red.
“Is it weird that I think the strangest thing about this whole situation is those two getting along?” Ellie asked, eyes darting between me and Rebecca.
“No,” Ziralin, Michelle, and Lisa all replied in unison.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 15 Memorial Amethyst |
With the situation now decidedly less tense, everyone seemed to relax, at least until Ziralin’s stomach growled loudly. We couldn’t be sure when the last time that Ellie and Ziralin had eaten was and it had definitely been a while for me, Rebecca, Lisa, and Michelle. That meal had been followed by me and Rebecca flying through the mountains as fast as we could while carrying Michelle and Lisa. We hadn’t stopped for breaks and then after that, we had made our way through the city as Michelle tracked Ellie and Ziralin by scent, and there had been a lot of fights and spells cast on the way.
As a result, it seemed that we were all very hungry. So we grabbed some supplies out of what turned out to be Jennifer’s portable bunker and we took the time to make a meal and eat it together. It wasn’t anything special, just some veggies and pasta with some sort of meat that Mason had determined was safe and had dried and salted to keep longer, all made up into a thick and filling stew. He had also made a bunch of jerky from the meat, which wasn’t half bad. Along with some sodas and some crackers, it was a pretty good meal, especially the company after being away from my friends for so long. As we ate, Jen and Mason told us what had happened to them since arriving on Nhekar.
They had arrived in what seemed to be a desert, much like Rebecca and I had. It wasn’t made of black sand like the one we were in but desolate red dirt and stone canyons for as far as the eye could see. Jen said it kind of reminded her of pictures that she had seen of Arizona or Mars. They also realized early on that there was no magick energy for them to draw on in their Celestial forms. They had been hoping to just fly over the desert while they searched for the rest of us but seeing that they were effectively grounded and couldn’t use their Celestial abilities, they were forced to just pick a direction and walk.
Mason was sure of their direction from the start, he had a very strong sense that there was something important in the direction that they were traveling and that we would find them there. So they followed his instincts and his psychic gift helped them to avoid danger, for the most part. There wasn’t much alive, at least that they saw, and what there was avoided them at first as they followed the trail that Mason had chosen. Their luck ran out six days ago.
“So, we were making our way through this really narrow canyon,” Jennifer explained as we all listened intently, “when BAM! This pack of freaking velociraptors come running out of a cave straight at us.”
Rebecca looked at me as if to say, “And this is your best friend?” before turning to Jen and interrupting her. “You can’t be serious. I mean sure, I know there are some nasty predators out there, I saw the corpse of the Tuskreaper that Shannon killed. Okay maybe not the whole thing, but its guts were all over the place and its head was whole. That thing was scary enough without being attached to a body. We saw some big bear-like things in the forest too, but velociraptors?”
“I’m totally serious here!” Jen vowed, crossing her heart.
“She is,” Mason interjected. “They probably weren’t exactly like the velociraptors from our world millions of years ago but they looked pretty damn close, not to mention scary as hell coming at you in a pack. We had to say to hell with it and change to our Celestial forms, planning to use what little magick energy that we did have stored to fly up to the top of the canyon and get away from them.”
“But the leading one grabbed on to Mason’s leg when we did that. It was a good thing that his Celestial form comes with that shield and head-to-toe armor or that thing would have taken part of his leg off. You should see the bruises, they’re still fading,” Jennifer said as she snuggled closer to her boyfriend and softly caressed his right leg.
“That damn thing held on, all the way to the top of the canyon wall, and I had to beat it to death with my shield before I could get it to let go. And I figured that turnabout was fair play, so now we’re eating it,” Mason said with a grin.
“You mean… this is…?” Ellie asked as she looked dubiously at her stew.
“Yup, waste not, want not,” Mason said, still grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s actually not that bad,” Rebecca said with a shrug as she continued eating her jerky.
I took a bite of the jerky and Rebecca was right, it wasn’t all that bad. I had certainly eaten worse things. It was while I was pondering that Jen continued the story. “Anyway, after Mason pried that thing off his leg, we saw this place way off in the distance. As soon as we saw it, Mason knew that this was the place that we needed to go to. It turns out that it’s a huge monument to the people who lived here before a disaster wiped them all out. I think that they knew that they were going extinct, so they built this place to let people who came to this planet know who they were.”
Once we were finished eating I was anxious to find Sarah and Annie but Jen insisted that we take a look at her discovery first. “C’mon, guys, this is epic!” she enthused as she half dragged me and Ziralin to one of the doors. Apparently, this was some sort of antechamber and the door that we were heading to was where the main event was. The door on the other side of the room led outside.
I had to admit that I was curious as she dragged us along and the others followed behind, so I figured that we would humor her and look at whatever statue with alien writing was inside the room that we were heading toward. Even if we couldn’t read it, we might learn something interesting and it wouldn’t hurt to pay our respects since we were here anyway. Only what we found wasn’t just some statue with alien writing.
The room was smaller than I expected, much smaller than the antechamber, maybe ten by ten feet square. The only thing in the room was a black pedestal that was roughly a foot square and four feet in height. The top surface seemed to emit a glow similar to the strange pale blue lights in the ceiling, only the glow was gold instead of blue. There were also these two odd tentacle-looking things emerging from the sides of the pedestal that looked to be made of the same black metal.
“One of you put your hands on the top,” Jen encouraged. “Only one person can use it at a time but there is so much information in there and the rest of us can at least watch. I’ve been using it off and on since we got here three days ago to try to learn as much about them as I can.”
Since I seemed to be the closest and nobody else was volunteering, I gently placed my hands on the glowing gold surface. I almost yanked them right off again once those two tentacle things started to move and lit up. In an instant they were moving up and down my body, the ‘heads’ hovering mere millimeters away and making humming sounds as the lights bathed my skin.
Finally, the two tentacles reached up to touch either side of my head and I heard that slight humming increase for a moment before a translucent image of what I assumed was one of the planet’s former residents appeared before my eyes. She was naked and very obviously female, and their species didn’t look too much different from humans.
If she was anything to go by, they were bipedal with light purple skin and had opposable thumbs and three long fingers on each hand. Her limbs were long and slender and her face a little flat with an almost feline nose and small round ears on the sides of her head that were higher than on a human’s head, almost on top. She had large dark eyes that had no whites, or even irises from the look of it, and her dark purple hair seemed to cover not only the top of her head but also around her neck like a lion’s mane.
Once the humming ceased I heard and saw the image say, -= Scan complete. Mental interface achieved. Welcome traveler, and thank you for visiting the Sanori Memorial. This planet was once home to the Sanori people and this archive contains all that is known of our culture, history, biology, and technology. This unit will respond to your thoughts and engage with you in your own language so that you may learn about our people. =-
“Damn. If this one device is any indication, these people were a lot more advanced than on my Earth. I wonder how they got wiped out,” I thought as I stared at the hologram.
-= Our sun was reaching the end of its natural life, at least in a state that the people on our planet could survive, =- the image responded to my errant thought. -= Desperate to save our home and our people from this disaster, we designed a technology to preserve it in its red giant stage. It required the use of a type of energy that we had only recently discovered and barely understood. In using it we saved our sun and doomed ourselves. =-
“What kind of technology could possibly prevent the death of a star?” I wondered aloud in awe.
The image before me changed to show a view of a red star encircled by a massive structure, almost like an orb-shaped web. -= The Nisadri Web was designed to use the Sun’s own energy to power a system that would create helium and hydrogen and inject them directly into the Sun’s core. It was the single greatest technological achievement in our history. =-
“That’s no moon,” I heard Rebecca say in awe behind me. Jeez, all the teasing she had given me about being a geek and she lets out a Star Wars reference? I was so going to rib her about that later.
“Holy crap!” I sputtered as I stared at the image and processed what the hologram had said. “That thing is kinda like a reverse Dyson Sphere! How the hell could they just ‘produce’ helium and hydrogen though? Let alone inject it into the Sun’s core?”
-= Devices interfacing with large korab crystals were included in the Nisadri Web to produce the necessary elements and transport them into the core. It was determined that the korab crystals would absorb ambient universal essence emitted by the Sun, allowing these devices to work indefinitely without being replaced, =- the now disembodied voice replied.
“Korab crystals? She’s probably talking about those okka crystals,” I told the others thoughtfully.
The image changed again to a familiar-looking purple crystal. -= Korab crystals were discovered by Ogan Korab. They are a rare type of crystal that we discovered absorbs and stores a type of energy that we had never known of previously. This energy was named universal essence. It was named this because once we learned to identify it, we were able to detect it everywhere; in the earth, the air, and even being emitted by the Sun itself. As we searched for ways to utilize this power we discovered that rare individuals could, when in direct contact with a korab crystal, utilize that power and create devices that could do things previously undreamed of by our people. =-
Since the voice had just confirmed my suspicion, I had a very bad feeling about where this was going. They used a power that they couldn’t possibly fully understand yet and I had a sinking suspicion that it bit them in the collective ass. This was exactly why Sarah had taught me that we couldn’t let the general population learn about magick. “Let me guess, there was a problem with either the korab crystals or the universal essence when the Nisadri Web went active.”
-= Correct, =- the hologram agreed as it returned to the appearance of the lavender-skinned woman. -= As the Nisadri web was activated there was an unexpected chain reaction after a solar flare erupted, causing a solar storm of unprecedented strength. The devastating storm rendered much of our technology useless, killed off nearly all life, and likely permanently damaged the flow of universal essence on our planet. Those few of the Sanori to survive lived long enough to build this monument before succumbing to radiation sickness. =-
I took a step back my guts twisted in knots. As soon as my hands left the top of the pedestal the tentacles lowered back to the sides and the small room fell into a deathly silence. We were all barely able to breathe, let alone figure out what to say. This place wasn’t just an archive and a monument, it was a cautionary tale too. “You know, if Sarah were here, she would be saying that this is exactly why the existence of magick can’t become common knowledge,” Ziralin pointed out, breaking the silence as she wrapped me up in her arms.
“Yeah, this is why my mom says that magick is a responsibility and privilege, not a right,” Ellie agreed.
“Fuck, Shannon, even after you changed me I thought that you were being a bit extreme about how magick becoming common knowledge would be a bad thing. I thought, ‘What’s the worst that could happen? I guess you were right,” Rebecca said, shaking her head with a stunned look on her face.
“This, right here. This is the worst that could happen,” Lisa muttered grimly as she held Michelle close.
Michelle leaned into her girlfriend’s embrace turning her head away from the pedestal. “As interesting as learning about the Sanori might be, I really want to get the fuck out of here now. This isn’t a memorial, it’s a fucking tomb. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of the biggest mass grave in history.”
“Me too,” Jennifer agreed in a hushed tone, “this isn’t so epic anymore.”
“Let’s go pack up our stuff, Jen,” Mason said, pulling her along toward the door. “The sooner that we can get out of here, the better. We learned exactly what we needed to.”
The others quickly followed and Ziralin and I were the last to leave the room. “It’s sad really, they used a power that they didn’t comprehend to prevent their sun from being destroyed and save their people. In doing it, they saved the sun but caused their own destruction. Now there’s nobody left to learn their lesson or remember them,” I said with a sad shake of my head.
“There’s us, Babe,” my Familiar/Fiancée said so softly that it barely reached my ears, even as close as she was holding me. “I don’t think that I’ll ever forget the Sanori or what we learned here today as long as I live. I don’t think that any of us will.”
I nodded as we walked, silently agreeing with her since I couldn’t think of anything else that could be said about the topic. Instead, I took a deep breath as we walked into the antechamber where Jen and Mason were hurriedly packing things back in Jen’s portable bunker. Then I said, “Let’s go find Annie and my sister so we can get the hell off of this cursed rock.”
There was no disagreement as everyone helped Jen and Mason finish putting things away as quickly as possible. I think that we all just wanted to leave Nhekar before something else terrible could happen. Jen had barely finished putting her portal cloth in her backpack with its collapsible poles before I focused on my sister and cast the portal that would reunite us all.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 16 Hatching Plans Amethyst |
Wherever the portal had brought us, it was dark and the air smelled of salt water. “Sarah?” I called out uncertainly as Elsaishe cast some ghost lights to provide illumination. We were on a beach somewhere with what looked like a jungle in front of us.
Lisa and Michelle were instantly alert as my apprentice muttered, “I don’t like this, this place reminds me way too much of when Michelle and I arrived on this world. Keep an eye out for sea monsters, everyone.”
“Wasn’t your portal supposed to take us right to Sarah and Annie?” Jen asked as we all looked around carefully.
“Yeah, but in cases where there’s not enough open space around, usually around four feet square, the portal will appear in the nearest open space that’s on solid ground. It wouldn’t do us any good if it opened with no space for us to make our way out of the portal,” I explained. “That jungle looks pretty dense so they’re probably in there somewhere.”
We made our way cautiously into the jungle, keeping our eyes peeled for any signs of predators and using Ellie’s ghost lights to guide us. The night sounds around us seemed to fade as the thundering sound of crashing water began to drown them out. It didn’t drown out the scream though.
That was Sarah’s voice, I was sure of it. Without a word, I ran toward the sound as well as the dense vegetation would allow with the others right behind me. As I ran, I debated whether or not to switch to my Succubus form. She could be in danger but it would also be really awkward if she happened to see me that way before I could explain everything. No, I had plenty of magick energy stored up, I could just throw a quick spell out if the situation was dangerous, and I had everyone else to back me up.
Mason shouted some sort of warning but I didn’t hear him until it was too late. I burst out from the tree line and into the pool of water at the base of the waterfall where my sister and Annie were locked in a very intimate and very naked embrace. My splashing had caught their attention though and I quickly turned away, my face as red as my hair.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t what they were doing that embarrassed me. I knew that they were lovers and I had gotten used to seeing plenty of that kind of thing while spending time around the Faery. I just felt kind of stupid for worrying about my very capable sister and her bodyguard/girlfriend and rushing in without thinking. Especially since we had a psychic, a cat girl, and two Faery who would have been able to sense any danger, even with me and Rebecca currently limited to our normal human senses.
Thankfully, I wasn’t alone in my embarrassment since both Jen and Rebecca had gotten a good look as well and both of them looked as embarrassed as I felt, but probably because they weren’t used to seeing that kind of thing unfolding in front of them. I kind of felt terrible for interrupting too. This was not the reunion that I had been expecting.
“Well… this is… umm… awkward. Sorry, we’ll… uhh… come back later,” Rebecca said as she quickly turned around to go and join the others back amongst the trees. I felt bad for my fellow pseudo-Succubus since she had gone out of her way to make this reunion less awkward by shifting into a form that resembled her former self as closely as she could manage until we could explain things. And then this happened.
I could hear splashing behind me as Jen and I went to join them as well and my BFF muttered, “I feel like Sarah should have sensed us coming, with Shannon having a full tank of magick again.”
“She was a little preoccupied, in case you didn’t notice,” Ziralin pointed out playfully.
“Oh, I noticed, and now I can’t un-notice,” Jen shot back, her gaze carefully on the others as we returned to the trees that we had emerged from.
It was several minutes later when Annie called out, “You can all stop hiding and join us in Sarah’s bunker now!”
Once we were all settled down with some local fruit and bottles of water inside Sarah’s porta-bunker that had been hanging from a tree on the shore my sister said somewhat sheepishly, "Sorry guys, but you can't believe how bored we've been. We didn’t think we’d be seeing any of you for months since there doesn’t seem to be any ambient magick energy on this plane. This is a desert island, with no other land in sight and with no magick energy to draw on, we were stranded here. There was nothing else to do so we decided to just enjoy ourselves until one of you could find us."
“We explored the whole island during our first few days here; nothing but jungle, this nice little grotto, and sandy beaches,” Annie said with a shrug.
Michelle leaned against Lisa and pouted. “So… let me get this straight, this whole time that we've been going through hell, you two have been having a vacation on a tropical island? That is so not fair!”
“It’s not like we could do anything to help, even if we had managed to build a raft we would have had no idea what direction to go in and it could have taken months to reach land that way. And with us on the ocean, casting a portal to us probably wouldn’t have worked since you need solid ground to anchor it,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Is this world really that bad?”
“I don’t even know where to start, Sis. The sooner we get out of here the better,” I told her candidly.
Sarah wrapped me up in a hug and damn it felt good to see my sister again, to have her hug me again. It seemed that she felt the same way as she said, “I missed you, Shannon. We missed all of you. Whatever you’ve all been through, I’m proud of you for managing to get through it and find us.”
“Yeah, we may have been trying to enjoy ourselves while we were stuck here but we needed the relaxation just to counter the stress of being worried about you kids,” Annie quickly added. “Once we figured out that there was no ambient magick energy here and that we were stuck on this island, we were worried sick about the rest of you. It’s good to see you all in one piece.”
“Speaking of, where did you and Lisa get all that magick energy that you’re hoarding? I tried everything that I could think of to find some but came up empty. And did any of you find Jalael, or do we need to set off in search of his spirit now?” my sister pressed.
“Actually, Ziralin and I found Jalael,” Ellie offered, summoning her Celestial form and showing off her wings.
Both Annie and Sarah grinned at that as Annie said with a look of relief, “Great! So as soon as you get us up to date on what we missed since coming here, we’ll figure out a plan for what comes next and get out of here. Unless you all want to enjoy the beach for a few days? This is supposed to be a vacation, and we haven’t even been gone a full day yet by Earth time.”
“Actually, I think we’d all like to get to any other Plane right now,” Lisa said with a shake of her head. “I’d take Heil over Nhekar right now. And before we go home we have to figure out how we’re going to explain our airplane vanishing, our pilot being gone, and Rebecca’s… umm… situation.”
At Sarah’s questioning look I sighed and shrugged. “A lot happened, Sis. The biggest thing is that Xuriel showed up… well, she was always with me really, ever since my birthday…”
After I explained everything that had happened to us, having Xuriel’s mark, the curse that came with it, and who and what Xuriel was to us, Sarah was quietly thoughtful. She and Annie took it surprisingly well when Rebecca and I showed them our Succubus forms. “Those skills helped you both to survive, and I’m grateful for that, Shannon. You’re my sister and nothing will ever change that. These are just new abilities, no different than when I got Ysuriel’s mark, and you know as well as I do that abilities aren’t good or evil, it’s all in how you choose to use them.”
After another big hug, the others went on to tell the pair what had happened with them, and then we told them all of the fate of the Sanori, and why there was no ambient magick energy around. Once we were done, I frowned and said, “The Sanori played with forces that they couldn’t understand and sure, they were able to extend the life of their sun by injecting more fuel into its core but it cost them their entire species.”
I took a deep breath and added, “That’s why we need to get out of here. The Nisadri Web has been adding all of that mass without removing any for who knows how long now. With all that extra mass, especially the heavier elements building up, I’m pretty sure that that sun is a ticking time bomb. It’s already well past its natural life and it’s going to keep getting bigger until it pops and then, goodbye Nhekar. It could be a thousand years from now or it could be a few minutes, I don’t want to wait around to find out.”
Suddenly, everyone was in a bit of a hurry to get off this screwed-up plane of existence and somewhere relatively safe. I had to agree with Lisa, I would take Heil over this place at the moment. So, as Sarah and Annie packed up their stuff for travel we all discussed what our next step was going to be.
Since we had been gone for less than a day by Earth time, Sarah thought that we could probably manage to figure out where search parties might be looking for our vanished plane, or rather its survivors, once we got back. She was also pretty sure that we were over one of the Great Lakes when we were attacked.
With that in mind, we could arrange to be found near the search area and say that the plane went down after engine troubles. Finding the remains of a small plane not equipped for water landings in one of those massive bodies of water in the middle of winter would have been damn near impossible. Our problem would be explaining the lack of our pilot and her daughter, not to mention how we got safely to the ground.
There was also the problem of how we got ourselves an extra Rebecca that looked nothing like the one we’d left with. She and her mom were well known by the airport staff. She could stay shapeshifted but that got uncomfortable after a while and we were going to need to come up with a new female identity for her later anyway, if possible. Her father still technically had partial custody of her and she was afraid of being sent to live with him and being forced to be a boy if she pretended to be her old self.
“It’s probably best to just say that both Rebecca and her mother went down with the plane,” Annie said with a sigh. “We can always arrange to ‘meet’ this Rebecca officially later and hide her in Tír na nÓg with the Faery or keep her at home until we figure out what to do about her identity.”
“I might be able to figure out the identity thing, I have Xuriel’s memories. All she did was mess with my school records though, she didn’t create anything big like a birth certificate or anything,” I offered uncertainly.
“I think that it would be easier to get her admitted to the hospital as a Jane Doe with no memory,” Annie countered. “If we do that and her prints don’t come up in a search and she doesn’t match the identity of any missing kids, she’d be able to establish a new identity, so long as someone is willing to take custody of her. Sarah, Talisha, or I could be the one who ‘discovers’ her and offer that. You’d have to be convincing though, Rebecca. Have you ever been fingerprinted?”
“I was told that I might have to be to get my name legally changed but Mom and I were having trouble doing that because my sperm-donor was being a dick and not giving his consent. So, legally, I still had to use my dead name. So, I haven’t been printed but I’m not sure if I could make it convincing,” Rebecca reluctantly admitted as she looked into the jungle.
Sarah frowned in thought before suggesting, “I could always use a spell to temporarily block access to your memories, but that could be a problem if your Succubus abilities surface while you’re in that state.”
“Ugh, yeah, I don’t even want to think about all of the ways that could go horribly wrong,” Michelle muttered as she rolled her eyes.
“We’ve got time to figure out Rebecca’s situation later if she’s not going back to her old identity,” Sarah said. “I’m more worried about how we’re going to tell people that we escaped the crash when Rebecca and her mother didn’t.”
Rebecca let out a despondent sigh. “I guess that we could have both been killed instantly when the plane hit the water if we were in the cockpit. Or you could have lost track of us when you parachuted to safety. But if you wanted to sell the story, the life raft and ‘chutes are all still in the plane.”
I placed a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, “You okay, Beks?” I had the feeling all of the talk about her mother’s death was hitting her hard.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, Shannon,” she replied, giving me an unconvincing smile. “I say we just go back to hell, kick whoever’s ass that we need to kick, kill that bitch Khinara, and then we can grab the ‘chutes or the raft from the plane.”
“And what if the fire that I set to cover our escape damaged them? I don’t even know where your mom’s plane is well enough to make a portal there,” I pointed out. “I want to go finish things too, Beks, but we need to be prepared. Rushing in will just get us killed.”
“I agree,” Mason said with a nod. Those of us who are Celestials will need to fill up on magick energy somewhere because we should keep those crystals that Shannon charged in reserve. Trying to purify the magick energy in Heil in the middle of a fight will leave us vulnerable.”
Sarah looked pensive as she listened to what everyone had to say and then she sighed. “As much as I might hate it, we may have to mess with people’s minds a bit. Nothing too extreme, just altering perception a bit to make the rescuers believe that there is a damaged life raft with us when they find us.”
“If they’re guys, Beks and I might be able to convince them without having to do any serious mind magick,” I suggested. “I’ll need to cast the anti-Succubus spell on you and Annie though.”
Sarah nodded. Neither of us liked the idea but it seemed the only way to deal with the problem. With that decided my sister said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Shannon will cast a portal to Tír na nÓg and then once she casts her protection spell on me and Annie, the two of us will go home and talk to Talisha to find out the status of any search for us. If she doesn’t know then we’ll just keep hidden from mortal sight and find out more directly. Once we know the search area we’ll look for a place for the rescuers to find us and I’ll cast a portal back to the Faery village so the rest of you can join us.”
“What about dealing with the Demons?” Rebecca pressed.
“Well, after how well the last flight went I think people would understand if none of us want to go on a plane again for a while,” Jennifer said thoughtfully. “I would rather not risk it until Khinara is dealt with anyway. Of course, we’ll still want to get away and de-stress though, even more than before, so I’ll ask my parents if we can just use the family cabin again. We can drive out there and be secluded for the rest of our vacation.”
“And while we’re there, we can make some preparations and then go to Heil to finish things once and for all,” Lisa added grimly.
“You really think that we can make it through the backroads of northern Ontario to get to the cabin in the middle of winter with our tiny cars?” my fiancée/Familiar asked dubiously.
“We don’t need to,” Annie pointed out. “We all just make sure we all meet at our new house and park the cars in the garage. Shannon and Sarah know the cabin well enough to cast a portal there, and that way we can be sure that no paparazzi follow us there.”
With our plan fully fleshed out and Annie and Sarah packed and ready to go, I cast a portal that would take us to our Faery troupe in Tír na nÓg. So long Nhekar, and good riddance. I wish that I could say that it was fun while it lasted, but it really wasn’t.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 17 Rest Stop Amethyst |
Despite how eager we all were to leave Nhekar, I was a little bit nervous about seeing our troupe again. Don’t get me wrong, I had missed them a lot and I was looking forward to seeing them again but there were a few things that had me a bit nervous. First, I was really hoping that the fertility artefact would still work as advertised on a different Plane from Nhekar so those Faery who wanted children could have them. I didn’t see why it wouldn’t since it was an artefact but I didn’t want to get their hopes up only for it to not work.
Secondly, I was a bit worried about how the troupe would react to Rebecca and our pseudo Succubus situation. I knew that they all trusted and cared for me and that I had earned that, but all of the Faery in our troupe had some form of trauma involving Demons and I didn’t want to make any of them uncomfortable or inadvertently trigger someone. I was also worried that while they knew me well enough that they might accept this part of me, they might just reject Rebecca outright.
It was mid-morning in Tír na nÓg when we stepped through the gate into the small village square. Most everyone in the troupe was going about their daily business and they were used to our comings and goings by now, so we made our way to the Chieftain’s hut to find Yanisse. I could feel her familiar magick as we approached her hut, so I wasn’t surprised to find the strawberry blonde Faery fashioning something out of metal.
Since we didn’t want to distract her we decided to wait until she was finished before stepping inside her hut. Rebecca had been looking around in rapt fascination as we made our way through the village. She pointed at one of the huts and asked, “There are no walls, is that normal here?”
The hut in question was normal, for the Faery at least. A metal frame had been grown from the earth with magick and thick vines with large leaves grew up along the supports to completely cover the roof and keep the rain out. Ziralin answered Rebecca with a smile, obviously glad to be back in Tír na nÓg, or away from Nhekar. “Yup, we’re in a tropical area and shelters are only to keep one dry when it rains. The Faery don’t really care about privacy and modesty anyway though. Nudity and sex aren’t something that should be ashamed of or hidden from those that care about you. There is only one hut in the village that has walls but Jaenara is a special case.”
“Yeah, Shannon told me about that,” Rebecca replied with a blush, “I just wasn’t expecting to see it. Why is this Jaenara person a special case?”
“She’s a spirit healer,” Sarah explained. “She’s strongly empathic and sometimes the feelings that she picks up from looking at other people can be overwhelming so her mind needs a break sometimes. She’s also sort of like a psychic counselor, she uses her abilities to help people who have suffered trauma to distance themselves from it and put it in perspective. Because of that, those who need her help sometimes don’t feel comfortable discussing their trauma where others might see, even other Faery.”
“She’s good at what she does too,” I added. “Annie, Ziralin, Ellie, and I have all seen her and she helped us a lot. I think you should probably talk to her, Beks. She doesn’t speak English well but we can try to find a way to make it work if you were to trust me to translate.”
“I don’t know… I…” Rebecca stumbled hesitantly over her words.
“Beks, I’m saying this as a friend,” I said, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. “You had issues from the bullying and stuff even before we all got on your mom’s plane. Since then you’ve witnessed your mother being violently murdered by a Demon, not to mention all of the other crap that we went through in Nhekar. And you weren’t used to this kind of stuff like the rest of us. Please, just think about it, Beks.”
“I’ll… think about it,” she reluctantly conceded as she looked away.
Things were quiet then for a few minutes until Yanisse finished the silver and gold bracelet that she was working on. It was gorgeous, Yanisse was truly a master of her craft. She looked up from her finished work and turned her golden eyes and her smile toward us. “Thank you for not interrupting, it is good to see you all again. We weren’t expecting to see you all again so soon.”
“We had to leave for Nhekar earlier than we thought and things didn’t take as long there as we thought either,” Sarah offered.
“Thank the Goddess for that,” Michelle muttered, “it was still too long though.”
“You found Jalael’s spirit then?”
“Ziralin and I found Jalael like four days after we got there,” Ellie said, changing to her Celestial form to display her new wings. “I haven’t had much chance to use my abilities much yet but I guess that I use some sort of holy magick to heal people. I’m hoping that since it’s holy magick it will hurt Demons too.”
Yanisse’s smile brightened and her eyebrows rose in interest. “Congratulations, Elsaishe. Having a healer available for the troupe would be wonderful.”
“So, yeah, we probably would have been back a bit sooner but there were some problems and magick energy wasn’t readily available so we were stuck there for almost a month,” Annie explained.
“Says the one who was vacationing with Sarah on a tropical island the entire time,” Lisa grumbled. “You didn’t have to deal with sea monsters, people kidnapping you, and all the other stuff we went through before getting to you.”
“That’s why all of you get to take a break now while Annie and I go home and try to figure out if people are searching for us yet, and where, so we can arrange to be found,” Sarah offered apologetically. “I’ve filled up on magick energy so we should be good to go. You girls and Mason can relax a bit and introduce Rebecca around.”
“But, Sarah, I need to… umm…” I started to mumble while sending her an imploring look.
Sarah reached out to hug me and whispered in my ear, “Introduce Rebecca to Yanisse? Yes, you do, and you have other things to show her too. I love you, Sis, and I will always support you but I have never babied you. You don’t need me to hold your hand, you haven’t for a while now, and you proved that on Nhekar. So woman up and just tell them. They’re our troupe and they aren’t going to hate you for something beyond your control.”
Yanisse’s gaze was focused on Rebecca as Sarah released me. “Rebecca is it?”
With the attention on Rebecca now, Sarah dragged Annie off so that she could cast a gate to Earth and they could get to work. That left me to make a somewhat awkward introduction. “Rebecca, this is our troupe’s Chieftain, Yanisse. Yanisse, this is Rebecca. She lost her only family, and it’s kinda our fault. She was traveling with me in Nhekar and… well, there’s something about her… both of us that you should know.”
The strawberry blonde Faery looked at me and Rebecca in interest, as if trying to figure out what secrets we held. “It is nice to meet you, Rebecca, welcome to our humble village. Shannon, please calm down and tell me whatever it is that you need to.”
It took a while, and I was nervous as hell the entire time, but I told Yanisse everything. I started by telling her about Xuriel, her story, how the Sentinel was actually the first Cailleach Dearg , and how she had given me her Mark and hidden it away on my birthday. That was a bit of a shock for her but not as much as when I went on to tell her about the curse in more detail and now I had shared it with Rebecca so we could both survive.
When I was finally done, Rebecca and I nervously switched to our Succubus forms, though only briefly. We also made sure to get to keep our distance from Yanisse when we did it so she wouldn’t turn into a lust zombie since most Fae are pansexual or bisexual to some degree. “So, you… uhh... see. We’re not really Succubae, we can just kinda copy their forms and abilities,” I finished while wringing my hands nervously once we had changed back into our human forms.
Yanisse’s shocked expression faded as a thoughtful one took its place. “Shannon, calm yourself. You have no demonic aura and, as I understand it, you had this mark even before you, Elsaishe, and Ziralin saved our people. You are the same kind and caring person, just with a new ability. It will take us a while to get used to this but you are still one of us, even more so than before now that we know that you are truly a descendant of the Cailleach Dearg and that she has entrusted you with her powers. Our people knew Brighid for a long time and she was no Demon either, she was a scared young woman when our people found her and she became family, just as you have.”
“But I used a curse on Rebecca,” I pointed out.
“To make her dream come true, give her a body that she is comfortable with, and help her to survive in a hostile world. You showed mercy and compassion by doing something that you weren’t comfortable with for her sake, even though the two of you didn’t get along,” the Chieftain countered before turning to Rebecca. “You truly have nobody to turn to, child?”
I let out a sigh of relief as Ziralin took my hand in hers and squeezed it. Rebecca seemed to shrink a bit as Yanisse’s gaze fell upon her. She gritted her teeth, a pained expression on her face as she replied, “Only my ‘father’ but he’s an abusive dick who wants to force me to be a boy. I… can’t go back to that.”
“She has me,” I quickly interjected. “Her mom died because Khinara was after me and that makes her my responsibility.”
“She is not an orphaned animal, Shannon, she is a child, despite her mature appearance, and you are not much older than she is. You are too hard on yourself. I will not send her back to an abusive parent but I cannot be sure if she will be a good fit for our troupe until we have gotten to know her better, just as we did the others who you, Ziralin, and Elsaishe have brought into the troupe,” Yanisse said with a sigh.
“Technically, she’s already a part of the troupe,” Ellie pointed out.
“How so, Elsaishe?” Yanisse asked, tilting her head like a curious kitten.
“Well, Shannon turned her into a Succubus and helped her to learn to control her abilities. Even if they aren’t real Succubae, that makes her Rebecca’s Succubus-mama. And if she’s Shannon’s Succubus-baby, then she should be a member of the troupe by default,” my cousin pointed out with a playful grin.
Rebecca was gaping at Ellie and then looked at me briefly before suddenly finding her feet much less awkward to stare at. Her face was bright red but I could completely understand since I was flabbergasted by Ellie’s logic too. I knew that as much as she was trying to help, my cousin had pointed that out to make us both squirm as well. What was worse was that the others all seemed to find it as funny as Ellie did.
Well, Yanisse didn’t find it funny, or maybe she did since she was trying to cover a smile after seeing the looks on our faces. She did relent though. “Alright, Rebecca is technically a member of the troupe but we will only induct her officially once we have gotten to know her better. As her ‘mother’ she will be your responsibility, Shannon, just as your apprentice has been.”
As grateful as I was to my cousin for easing things somewhat, I also resolved to get her back for this later. Maybe I would get Rebecca to help me, she looked perfectly willing. If Ellie complained, then we would just rub it in her pretty elven face by saying that it was a mother-daughter bonding activity.
By the time we finished talking with Yanisse, it was already time for the midday meal. As we were all eating, Yanisse brought attention to our return and our tentative new member of the troupe. She told everyone that we had gotten the last Sentinel and that once we were ready we would be leaving for Heil to take the fight to the Demons. She also had me address everyone to tell them everything that I had told her earlier and to introduce Rebecca.
I was a bit nervous about coming out as a pseudo Succubus to the whole troupe at once but Ziralin stood up with me for support and held my hand the entire time. The Faery of the troupe were uncertain at first, especially once Rebecca and I changed forms and accidentally zombified the Faery sitting close to us. They mostly settled down and seemed to somewhat accept the situation once Yanisse pointed out that neither of us had a demonic aura, we were fighting against the Demons, and that I was not only a descendant of the Cailleach Dearg but that Brighid had entrusted me with her powers.
Once things had settled down, I decided to bring up something that I had forgotten to mention to Yanisse earlier. “Rebecca and I will try not to use our abilities in the village for now, at least until I can give you some immunity to them. We can’t really control the charm aspect of our Succubus forms but I’ve created a spell that will help people resist it. It may be a while before Sarah, Lisa, and I can cast it on everyone in the troupe though.”
“The spell works really well,” Michelle added. “None of us have had any problems being around them when they’re doing the Succubus thing since she cast it on us.”
There was some obvious relief at Michelle’s assurance that the spell worked. The lust thing wouldn’t bother any of the Faery much but I doubted that anyone was comfortable with the thought of mind control, even if they could be sure that we wouldn’t abuse the ability. I couldn’t really blame them for that since I had been on the receiving end of a Succubus whammy and would feel the same in their place.
Jennifer managed to guide everyone’s thoughts away from that kind of thing though as she exclaimed, “Oh! Tell them about the thing you got from the magical mad scientist!” I silently thanked my BFF for providing a distraction in that awkward moment and reminding me of another thing that I had forgotten in my nervousness.
“We came across a magical device that some jerk was going to use on Elsaishe and Ziralin,” I explained to stave off the widespread confusion at Jen’s exclamation. “He wanted to breed them like farm animals and I guess this device is supposed to allow the user to… uhh… impregnate a female by taking genetic information from someone else. It doesn’t matter if the person donating the DNA is male or female. We haven’t tested it ourselves, of course, and we can’t be absolutely sure that it will work but if it does this could allow those of you who want children to have them.”
A hush fell over the Faery gathered as they all gaped at me. Finally, Yanisse spoke for everyone. “You are certain about this, Shannon?”
I felt bad that we were getting their hopes up for something that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure was going to work so I shook my head. “As I said, I can’t be absolutely certain. It might not even work here, though there is plenty of ambient mana to keep the okka crystal fully charged. We’ll have to get some volunteers to test it though, I guess.”
“The asshole that we got it from said that they had successfully used it on a variety of creatures, they even managed it with two females when there were no males available. Those ones only had female children though,” Lisa contributed. “It’s a hell of a lot better chance to have kids than you had before though.”
“I have a very strong feeling that it will work,” Mason offered. From the look on his face, he wasn’t just trying to offer them false hope and I breathed a sigh of relief. When Mason had strong feelings about something he was usually right. This could very well save the Faery from extinction.
We had no problem finding volunteers, there were so many in fact that Yanisse had to organize a lottery since she had decided to limit the test phase to three for now. If it ended up working, then the whole village would have a chance at a child if they wanted one. Since Rebecca was the most unbiased person there, not knowing any of the Faery very well and not having any magick to affect the results, she was the one who drew the lots.
To everyone’s surprise and delight, Yanisse was one of the three lucky winners. Despite her happiness at the turn of events, the Chieftain had tried to refuse and give someone else the chance but her fellow Faery insisted that she deserved a chance at a child as much as everyone else. I immediately retrieved the magical device from my portable bunker and once Lisa and Michelle had explained how it worked, they used the device on the three volunteers and their chosen partners.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 18 Homecoming Amethyst |
It was late the next afternoon by the time that Sarah and Annie returned to Tír na nÓg. It had taken them a while to find out how the search for us was going after reassuring Talisha that we were all fine. When they had gotten there, a little less than half a day had passed since we were shwooped away and the search for us hadn’t really gotten underway yet. The sun had set by the time it was being organized and due to that and a severe snowstorm, the search wouldn’t be starting until the morning arrived there.
They did know where the search would be picking up in the morning though and had already found a good spot for us to appear. The plan was to spend another day in the village relaxing and then just after dinner we would cast a gate to the right area. Annie and Sarah felt that would get us there a few hours before dawn so we could get things set up and look like we had been surviving out there somehow for a day or so.
We settled in and other than relaxing, we tried to get Rebecca used to life in a Faery village. The troupe seemed to take to her well, though that could have been due largely in part to her being so entertaining to them. Not that she was trying to be. Poor Beks was having trouble adjusting to the openness of the Faery and the troupe found it hilarious that a Succubus (even if she wasn’t a real one) would get nervous, turn bright red, and run off whenever she saw someone naked or having sex.
I think that she was even more awkward about it than I was at first and even I was finding it entertaining. She would get used to it in time, as the rest of us did. She wasn’t happy with the thought of staying in the village while the rest of us went back to our world to get rescued though. It was closing in on dinner time when Rebecca and I flew to a cozy little grotto near the canyon that the village was in so I could talk to her about it privately.
It had felt good to stretch my wings after keeping them mostly under wraps by staying in human form since we had arrived at the village. I sat down on a rock near the pool of water, gave my companion a serious look, and asked, “What’s wrong, Beks?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Shannon,” she snarked. “Could it be that you’re leaving me here in a strange world with a bunch of exhibitionists?”
“We agreed that it was better for you to wait and establish a new identity when things are more stable,” I insisted. “You know that nothing good would happen if you went back with us and tried to pretend to be your old self, Beks.”
“I… know that,” she agreed with a sigh. From the dark look in her eyes, she was probably imagining being sent to live with her father, or something equally terrible. “I just…”
“The Faery are good people and you’ll only adjust to the culture shock by being exposed to it,” I told her plainly while trying to ignore her little snort of amusement when I said ‘exposed’. Maybe she had been spending too much time with Ellie.
Rebecca and Elsaishe had spent most of the day together while my cousin tried to introduce her to the finer aspects of Faery life and culture, and I was afraid that her odd sense of humor might be rubbing off. Ellie had claimed that it was so I could spend some much-needed quality time with Ziralin after our long separation but I could tell that she was attracted to Rebecca’s new form. Ellie wasn’t exactly subtle. Impulsive was a much better word to describe my Faery cousin.
“What if you don’t come back?” Rebecca’s question was barely audible and delivered with an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability.
“Beks, I already promised that I won’t abandon you, here or on any other plane of existence. This is temporary, just until we can be found and then disappear from the public eye for a while. We’ve gone over that enough. Or are you afraid that we’ll leave for Heil without you and deny you your chance at revenge for your mom?” I pressed.
From the way that she turned away from me, I figured that I had hit the nail on the head. It was a moment before she replied through tears and sniffles. “I need this, Shannon. Don’t… take this away from me. I still see… the inside of that cockpit… every time I sleep. I have to… be the one who kills her. For Mom.”
I stood up and walked over, wrapping her up in my arms while she cried out her pain and loss. “Beks, I promise that we’ll come here to get you before going to Heil. You know that I don’t like revenge but I promised you that we’d avenge your mom together, and I keep my promises. You deserve a chance to go as much as any of us. I’m worried though. This isn’t just a jaunt to another plane, this will be war and we could lose people. I think that you’re the one that I’m least worried about.”
Rebecca returned the hug, sniffling into my shoulder for a moment before replying. “I guess you haven’t broken a promise to me yet,” she admitted. “Maybe you’re just less afraid of losing me because we haven’t really known each other that long, and I was kinda a mega-bitch to you at first. I mean, I’m not even sure what this thing between us is now that we’re not focused on surviving; are we friends, frenemies, or something else? I don’t want to lose it though, so don’t go dying on me when we get to Heil. I can’t… lose someone else that I… care about.”
For a moment I was too shocked to speak. Even while we had traveled together it was rare to hear Rebecca talking about her feelings. I just hugged her tighter and said, “Yeah, let’s both try not to die. You’ve kind of become like an annoying kid sister over the past couple of months and I don’t want to lose you either. That’s not why I’m least worried about you though.”
She pulled away to look up at me with confused tear-filled eyes, “Why then? They all have those Celestial forms and cool magical abilities. I just have my Succubus abilities, and I can’t even use magick unless I were to…” A disgusted look settled on her face as she trailed off, unwilling to finish that sentence.
“Your Succubus form should make you able to survive there better than anyone with a Celestial Mark, Beks. You can blend in when needed and you have the physical strengths of a Demoness. If Sarah and the others run out of those okka stones that I charged, they’ll have to draw on the local magick energy to keep using their abilities and that stuff is toxic to Celestials. It could kill them, either through taking the time to purify it in the middle of a pitched battle or by using it without purifying it,” I explained.
I must have let my concern show on my face because Rebecca looked worried now too. “I guess we’ll need to come up with a plan then,” she muttered.
“Yeah, I’ve got some ideas but we’ll discuss it as a group once we come back here to get you and prepare,” I told her as I unfurled my wings. “Now let’s go and get some dinner, I want to eat before I go back to Earth. Who knows how long we’ll have to sit in the cold before the search parties find us.”
It wasn’t until well into the afternoon that a search and rescue helicopter got to us. It had been still snowing heavily when we had appeared on the small island near Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron and it continued through the morning, making searching for us difficult. That water was damn cold too, though not cold enough to freeze yet so the rescuers would be looking for us by search planes, rescue helicopters, and boats.
We had prepared as much as we could by wearing the warmest clothes from our bunkers but it was still freezing. Since we needed to look like we’d been waiting in the cold for rescue for a while, we couldn’t use magick to make ourselves any warmer either. We also gathered what wood we could find and built a fire to gather around while we waited and discussed our next steps.
I didn’t have it quite as bad as the others since I was in my Succubus form with my demonic features all shifted out of sight to make me appear like my human self, and I didn’t seem to get cold quite as badly that way. Still, there were enough fallen trees and branches on the island to keep the fire going throughout the morning and afternoon and the fire and the warm clothes kept us all from completely freezing. To sate our hunger and thirst, we had some granola bars and bottles of water from our backpacks.
It was the smoke from the fire that got the attention of one of the search planes when the sky began to clear. As soon as the helicopter came into sight, I created an illusion of a life raft on the shore that I had practiced and perfected the day before with Rebecca since she knew what the raft on her mother’s plane should look like. At least it wasn’t something that needed to move, and that made the illusion easier to keep up.
The island wasn’t large and there wasn’t any level ground where the helicopter could land so we were brought up one at a time in a harness after extinguishing the fire. Thankfully, they were more concerned with getting us all aboard the helicopter and getting us warm with blankets and thermoses filled with hot soup than they were with retrieving the illusory life raft. I didn’t even have to whammy anyone, which came as a great relief since the person who came down with the harness was female and not effected by my Succubus mojo.
I made sure that I was the last to come up so I could keep the illusion in place until she followed me up. Apparently, the raft and anything else left behind could be retrieved later, their priority was getting us somewhere warm where doctors could look us over to make sure we were alright. It wasn’t until I was wrapped in a blanket and enjoying some chicken soup that I allowed myself to shift back to human form. My Succubus form had made things a little awkward with the guy who had helped me out of the harness at first.
With nine of us being rescued, it was feeling a little cramped in the helicopter so I snuggled up against Ziralin, who was now back in her Beth glamour, as best I could to share warmth and comfort. As we flew to the coast guard base in Parry Sound where the search was being coordinated, Sarah and Annie told them our story of woe. How the plane had shuddered and then started to go down, and how we had had to use a life raft after the plane hit the water and started to sink. We had tried to check on the pilot and her daughter but we weren’t able to get into the cockpit.
Sarah did have to use a bit of mind magick, just enough to make our rescuers, including the paramedics who looked us over, think that we had all suffered some bruises and a bit of whiplash from the rough landing and were badly shaken up from the experience. They didn’t seem to want to traumatize us further and once we had been deemed to have no serious injuries we were allowed to go to see our families, who had all rushed there from Toronto to wait for news on the rescue efforts.
I was a bit worried about Lisa’s mom being a doctor and not in on our secret, but Lisa had managed to convince her that she was okay except for some bruises. Still, she and the other sets of parents had all been hovering since we’d gotten the okay to be released, especially Michelle’s and Jen’s parents. Mason’s mom was being pretty clingy too. Talisha made it clear that she had been worried but she wasn’t hovering that much since she knew what had really happened.
The worst of the experience was the media circus outside the Parry Sound Medical Center when we were finally allowed to leave. We had all been given strict orders to take it easy for a few days and go to the hospital if we felt any unusual pains or discomfort. By that time, we were all tired, uncomfortable with all of the attention, and Sarah wasn’t too happy about having had to use mind magick on the paramedics and the particularly insistent pair of doctors at the clinic.
So we weren’t thrilled to see reporters and cameras everywhere when we stepped outside. The camera flashes were blinding me and I could hardly hear anything but the questions being rapidly fired at us. Sarah and I both knew that we weren’t going to run that gauntlet unscathed so we decided to give a statement so the others could slip through while their attention was on us.
Still, they were crowding Sarah and me, and I wanted them back off a bit. I had to focus to keep my Succubus form from activating while I thought about what to say. My control over the shift while in highly emotional states was still a work in progress and after the long day, most of it out in the cold, I was tired, hungry, and just didn’t have the energy to deal with the media hounds.
“We’re all a little shaken up and a bit bruised, but we’re fine. We just need a bit of quiet time to reflect on what happened, and… I don’t think I’m going to be flying again for a while,” I said simply while giving an obviously forced smile. It played well on television that night though, people thought that I was trying to put on a brave face after my traumatic experience.
“Search efforts are still underway for our pilot, Lauren Kline, and her daughter, Rebecca,” Sarah added sadly as she put an arm around my shoulders. “We ask that you keep them and their family in your thoughts and prayers. After what happened we’ll be going home to spend a quiet Christmas as a family and count our blessings.”
Annie had hovered, watching the crowd around us in bodyguard mode as we gave our brief statements. Now that we had finished, she led the way through the crowd to where Talisha’s minivan was parked on the side of the road. She and Elsaishe were already inside and the engine was running. As soon as the three of us were buckled in, Talisha put the van in gear and took off.
“Are you okay, Sis?” Sara asked as Talisha pointed us toward the highway.
“Yeah, just tired and hungry, and Rebecca and I are still trying to master not changing forms when we’re really upset,” I replied as I looked out the window. “We haven’t had as much time to practice controlling that kind of stuff since we got enough magick energy to track the rest of you down. Xuriel’s memories help a bit but practical experience is better.”
“You’ll get it, Sis. Look how well you took to magick,” she assured me while reaching out to take my hand in hers. “We haven’t had much time to really talk since you guys found us but we’re proud of all of you. You put aside your differences with Rebecca to help her and the two of you survived together and mastered those abilities well enough to help the others and find us. When I realized that there was no magick energy there, I was a little worried that you two might end up killing one another, if something else didn’t kill you first.”
“It was close at first,” I admitted. “She turned around once I ‘blessed’ her and she started to realize that I wasn’t the bitch she thought I was. I thought she was going to be a terror when her first period hit a week or so after I changed her but she was actually happy about it. I think she was even starting to get a bit of a crush on me before Ellie derailed it with the Succubus-mama comment.”
Ellie giggled in the front seat. “All part of the plan, Cuz.”
I tried not to think about what she might be up to and thankfully, Annie interjected. “Speaking of plans, we’ll need one soon. We can’t afford to wait long before going to Heil. Khinara knows who Shannon and Lisa are and if she’s figured out that we managed to escape her little ambush she’ll come after them first.”
We discussed it as we drove but other than the wards that were already in place on both ours and Lisa’s house, and keeping our senses peeled for trouble, there wasn’t much we could do. Talisha had finalized the purchase of our new house yesterday but the trouble would be getting movers before New Year’s with Christmas only three days away. The new place was much more secure against more mundane intruders like nosy reporters though since it had a high fence and a security gate. As for supernatural problems, I would be helping Sarah with the wards to make sure that those wouldn’t trouble us either.
By the time we stopped in Barrie for something to eat, we had decided to rent a moving van the next day and keep up appearances by moving things ourselves without any noticeable magick. I would have liked to do it the easy way, but with reporters still watching our old place we couldn’t afford to. They might get suspicious if the place went from fully furnished to empty overnight without any obvious signs. After the move, we would play it by ear but leave for Heil on the 26th at the latest.
I retrieved my phone from my purse and turned it on to text the others and let them know the plan. For the moment, I tried to ignore the massive amount of texts and missed calls from our agent, friends at school, and numbers that I didn’t recognize. People would understand me not being in any condition to talk after a seemingly near-death experience. Once I had let the others know what we had decided I tried to just relax and ended up drifting off to sleep until we arrived home sometime after midnight.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 19 Family Amethyst |
The next morning we were up early and Annie and Talisha left the house after breakfast so our Fae cousin could drop Annie off to rent a moving truck. Almost everything was already packed since we had expected Talisha to handle the move while we were on vacation, so there wasn’t much packing left to do other than in the kitchen and bathrooms. Thankfully, that was mostly sorted out by the time Annie got back with the moving truck. We only really needed to worry about loading the boxes and furniture in the truck and then driving to the new place.
It was a good thing that my car was still at Beth’s place for now, or we would have had to make a trip back for one of the vehicles. As it was, with Annie driving the truck, I was going to have to drive her car to the new house. With Talisha, Sarah, Annie, and me all having our own vehicles we were going to need the four-car garage at the new place.
I had gotten my driver’s license just before our trip but I was still letting Beth use my Beetle and having her drive me around as my assistant until she could get a new vehicle of her own. She could afford it with the job, and her parents had promised to help with it, but she wanted to get a motorcycle instead of a car. We thought that it would be best for her to wait until spring to get a motorbike and I enjoyed having her to myself in the car when she drove me around.
Unfortunately, Beth and the others couldn’t come to help us. I had texted with my friends over breakfast but after our disastrous plane trip everyone’s parents were feeling a little bit clingy, even Beth’s folks, and they knew about the whole magick and Demon hunting business. With that going on, we all decided that it would be best to let them get it out of their systems and act like normal teens until Christmas, It would make them more likely to approve a relatively harmless car trip to Jennifer’s family’s cottage.
It took us until mid-afternoon to get everything loaded and double-check to ensure that we hadn’t missed anything. Doing everything the mundane way without magick was tiring, boring, and gave me far too much time to think. Ellie was as bored as me, and it seemed that she was just as worried about Rebecca. She didn’t bring it up until we were in Annie’s car and headed to the new place.
Once we were buckled in, I decided to see what was bothering her. “So… why did you want to come with me, Cuz? I’m like, the least experienced driver and I’m not exactly used to Annie’s car either.” I didn’t mention that I was also the one that Khinara was most likely to attack if she was looking into our escape from Heil.
“Aren’t you worried about Rebecca? You two were pretty chummy when you found us…” she started uncertainly.
“Of course, I’m worried about her. There’s nothing going on between the two of us though, we’ve just developed a weird kind of friendship. You know that Ziralin is my soulmate. Beks is like you, a sometimes annoying little sister,” I poked back, uncomfortable with the thought that she might think that there was something more between me and my fellow faux-Succubus.
Ellie’s face turned bright red. “I didn’t mean it like that, Cuz. I just… I know that the troupe is our family and that we know and trust them but from her perspective, we left her over four days ago with a bunch of strangers in another world with no timeline on when we’d be coming back for her. She hasn’t been in the best mental state and she’s lost so much already. You and Michelle are the two people that she trusts and cares about the most now. Don’t you think that she’d rather spend the holidays with the two of you than with a troupe of Faery that she barely knows?”
I sighed and focused my attention on the road. “I get what you’re saying, Cuz, and I agree with you. We need to establish a whole new identity for her though and what Xuriel did for me didn’t even come close to that. I’m not sure where to start for something that big. It would be better to just make it look like she’s an amnesic runaway like Annie suggested but Beks doesn’t think she can act that well and with her powers, temporarily cutting off access to her memories would be risky. We tend to change when we get agitated and not having any memory of who she is would probably be stressful enough to trigger it even under good circumstances.”
“She doesn’t need to act. You’re a shapeshifter, Miss I belong in front of the cameras,” Ellie said with an exasperated tone. I was pretty sure that she was rolling her eyes too but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the snowy road to check. “You could copy her base human form and then just do the acting for her.”
“I’ve only done a few commercials,” I countered with a long sigh. “That barely counts as acting experience. There are so many things that could go wrong with that plan, Ellie. I have no idea if things like my fingerprints change when I shift and that’s not even taking into account what weirdness that any medical or blood tests might pick up while I’m using my Succubus abilities.”
“But…”
“No, Ellie, no half-baked plans. We need to do it right,” I insisted as I cut off whatever protests she had been about to make. “We will bring her here from Tír na nÓg once we get to the new place so she can spend the next few days with us until we’re ready to go to Heil though. That should be fine so long as she doesn’t leave the house in a form that can be identified later when we do figure out the identity stuff.”
“I… fine,” my Fae cousin conceded.
For the rest of the drive, we were both quiet as I focused on the road, the moving truck in front of us, and trying to sort through Xuriel’s memories for some idea of how to create a new identity for Rebecca. I did discover something that might help but I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea. It would have to be Rebecca’s decision, and it was too risky to do right away.
Our new home was a five-bedroom and two-and-a-half bath home on a large fenced property with a hot tub on the back deck. Since Annie and Sarah were sharing a room, that left enough bedrooms left that Ellie, Talisha, and I could all have our own, and still leave the last for Rebecca to use. The unfinished basement was huge and Annie and Sarah planned to build a training room down there for Annie to give our martial arts lessons and a magick library and workroom where I could practice my magick and give Lisa lessons as well. It was also conveniently located close to our school and just down the street from Beth’s place.
Fortunately, Sarah, Annie, and Talisha agreed with Elsaishe and me about Rebecca needing to be around people that she cared about and trusted for Christmas, especially with everything that she had lost. The poor girl had nothing but the clothes on her back now, and most of those clothes were technically mine. So, while the others began unloading the truck, Ellie and I made a brief trip to Tír na nÓg to bring Rebecca home for the holidays.
This place is huge… and empty,” Rebecca commented as we stepped through the gate back into the foyer of the new house.
“Yeah, well, almost everything is outside in the truck,” I replied with a shrug. “We kind of had to move up moving day to make it harder for Khinara to find me if she comes looking for us here on Earth. I’ll need to start on the wards soon too and that’ll take a while with a house this big. The good thing is that we have enough bedrooms that you don’t have to bunk with me or Ellie. You may need to use the camp mattress from my bunker until we can get a bed and stuff in there for you though.”
Sarah came through carrying a box bound for the kitchen but stopped once she saw that we were back. “We can handle things here. You two should take Rebecca to get some clothes and other necessities if she’ll be staying here for a while. Just be careful that she’s disguised so nobody sees her with you before we officially ‘accidentally discover’ her,” my sister suggested.
“I… don’t have any money,” Rebecca said with a despondent shake of her head. “I’ll probably get a lot of attention if I use my shapeshifting too, and leave a trail of lust-zombies behind me. I don’t want guys leering at me.”
I put an arm around my prickly friend and pulled her into a side hug. “Don’t worry about it, Beks. The least I can do is make sure that you have a few new outfits for Christmas. I’m the reason that you need them after all. And there are other ways of disguising you than shapeshifting, you know.”
It took over an hour to find the boxes that I wanted and place them in my bedroom to look through. I didn’t have any furniture set up yet but once I had Rebecca dressed in a slightly oversized blue sweater dress and some black leggings, I worked on her makeup to make her look a little bit older and a bit different while Ellie put her hair in a French braid. I wasn’t as into makeup as Jennifer but you learn things when you’re the face of a company that produces it. Being friendly with the makeup artists at my photo and commercial shoots had helped me learn a lot too.
Ellie and I were easier to take care of; my cousin just cast glamours on the both of us so we (or more specifically I) wouldn’t be recognized. After borrowing my sister’s car and checking to make sure that nobody was watching the house or the security gate, we were on our way to the mall. We wouldn’t have much time for shopping, especially since we were all hungry and wanted to stop by the food court first, but we would likely have enough time to pick out a few outfits and get some important things like a nightshirt and a toothbrush for Rebecca before the store closed.
I was worried about Rebecca as we shopped though, and I was sure that Ellie was too. She seemed more withdrawn than usual and I had noticed over the weeks we had spent together that Rebecca being sullen and withdrawn rather than surly and sarcastic was a sign that she was thinking about her mom. I had hoped that being back in familiar territory back on Earth might help but then, was this familiar territory for her?
Before Michelle started hanging out with her, Becca didn’t have any friends. She was bullied by most of the kids she knew and like Michelle, she had learned to avoid the places where kids her age gathered, for her own safety. I was willing to bet that on those few occasions that she did frequent the mall, she had been with her mom for safety. And her mom wasn’t here now, and never would be again.
So, as we bought her some clothes, and anything else that we thought she might need, she was largely quiet and didn’t offer much input. She swayed between distracted and depressed and I felt bad for convincing her that this was a good idea, because it obviously was not. We made quick work of finishing our shopping and as we drove home I apologized.
“I’m sorry, Beks. We were hoping that this would help but I think it did the opposite. Were you thinking about…” I trailed off, uncertain if I wanted to open that can of worms if I was wrong.
“My mom?” Rebecca asked, looking down at her hands as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Yeah, I… some days it felt like she was the only one in the world on my side. She… kept me going, helped me focus on the life and body that I wanted to have someday rather than… She kept me sane and stopped me from just giving up and… I’m still alive because of her, and now… she’s not. Christmas is about family but… my only family is gone.”
I clenched the steering wheel tightly as I disagreed. “No, Beks. You’ve got us and we’re going to take care of you and help you avenge your mom. I promised that I wouldn’t abandon you and I won’t. We can’t replace your mom, nobody can, but we can be there for you like she was and try to give you the kind of life she’d want for you.”
“You know,” Ellie said quietly from the back seat. “My dad was killed by a Demon too, and it was my fault. I got careless and because of it we lost him and Mom and I had to run, leaving everything important to us behind to make sure that the Demon didn’t find us and kill us too. I didn’t have any friends because I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. Then Mom and I met Shannon, Ziralin, and Sarah and suddenly I wasn’t alone anymore. It was hard to get used to at first, having someone besides my mom who cared enough to make a place in their life for me, to treat me as if I mattered… to hold me while I cried myself to sleep. Shannon did that for me, and she’s been trying to do it for you too. I’d like to help too, I’d like to get to know you and be there for you if you’ll let me.”
“You’re both sappy as fuck, you know that?” Becca wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and sniffled before adding, “Umm… thanks, Shannon… for everything you’ve done and wanting to be there, even when I push you away. I think Mom would have liked you… and your family.”
“Our family, Beks,” I told her.
“Yeah, you’ll be staying with us for now, and it’ll be permanent as soon as Shannon can figure out a way to get you a new identity,” Ellie promised.
“Actually, I have an idea how to do that now, but it will have to wait until after we take care of things in Heil. I don’t want to risk leaving Becca helpless if Khinara or one of the other generals tries to make a move on us,” I told them candidly as I stopped for a red light.
“But earlier you said…”
“That I needed time to figure something out,’ I interrupted my cousin’s protest. “I have an idea but I’ll need to sort through some more of Xuriel’s memories to make sure it’s going to work. I won’t risk it until after we’ve dealt with our Demon issues though.”
Becca wiped at her tears again, her expression hardening. “Well, I’m ready to take care of that whenever you are.”
I nodded as the light changed to green and I put the car back in gear. “We’ll have the next two days to prepare so as soon as we get home I’ll cast those wards on the house. Then we can finish unpacking and start planning.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 20 The Night Before Christmas Amethyst |
Jen, Beth, and the others spent most of the time over the next couple of days with their families while Rebecca got settled in with us. It was for the best since we were going into what was essentially Hell itself to fight the most powerful Demons in existence. I think that we all realized that some of us might not come back from this.
I was tempted to try to order my apprentice and her Familiar to stay behind, but I couldn’t for two reasons. First, like Rebecca, Lisa was just too determined to go and get revenge against Khinara. The second reason was that she was a Witch like me, and while she might not be near as powerful, she didn’t need to purify the magick energy there before using it, like those with Celestial powers would. And where Lisa went, Michelle would follow.
It was Christmas Eve, and last night I had put the strongest wards that I could imagine on the new house as soon as Rebecca, Ellie, and I had returned from our shopping trip. Sarah had cheated and used magick while in her Celestial form to unload the truck and put most of our stuff away while we were gone, after making sure that nobody was watching the house through the gates or something. She and Annie had also decided this morning that before returning the moving truck, they would use it to go get some bedroom furniture and stuff for what would be Rebecca’s room.
Now it was after lunch and Annie was on her way to return the truck while the rest of us were unpacking our bedrooms and trying to get organized. I took one out of Sarah’s book and cheated by using magick. I finished quickly that way and once I was done, I started helping Rebecca with her room. She didn’t have much stuff so it was basically just putting together her bed, vanity, and other bedroom furniture.
It was as we were working on her bed that my cell phone rang. It was Beth! I motioned to Rebecca that I was going to take the call and stepped out into the hall as she rolled her eyes and smirked at me. I had barely hit the icon to accept the call when Ziralin’s melodic voice said, “Hey, Babe, what are you up to?”
“I’m just helping Becca put her bed together,” I replied, smiling at the sound of her voice.
“Do you think you’ll have time to go out for a bit?” she asked hopefully. “Dad’s family is visiting tomorrow so I probably won’t see you until we leave for the cabin, but it’s Christmas Eve and I want to spend some quality time with my girlfriend. It feels like it’s been months since we did anything, just the two of us, and I’ve missed you.”
“It has been months, or close enough while we were in Nhekar,” I replied as my heart fluttered at the thought of us being alone together. “We didn’t really get much of a chance to be alone together during our brief stay with our troupe or while waiting to be ‘rescued’ either. I’ve missed you too. Can you come to pick me up?”
“Sure, I’ll be there soon, you live a lot closer than you used to. See you in a bit, Babe.” With that, she cheerfully disconnected the call and I turned to look back into Rebecca’s room to find her smirking at me.
“I… Beth wants to…” I started to explain.
Rebecca rolled her eyes as she cut me off. “Geez, just go get ready for your date, you big sap. You were whining about being apart and missing her the whole time we were in that shitty excuse for a fantasy world.”
“You’re going to be okay on your own?” I asked in concern. I felt kind of guilty about bailing in her and not thinking about her when I agreed to go out.
“This isn’t that hard to put together, Shannon, and it’s not like I’m alone here. Your sister, her girlfriend, and your cousins are all here too. Just go already,” she insisted.
“Okay, I’ll see you later then, Beks.” I gave her a hug, which she of course tried to squirm out of, and then I ran toward my room to get ready before Beth showed up.
I snuggled up next to Beth, enjoying both the heat of her body and the hot cocoa in my hands. We had come to Nathan Phillips Square to do some shopping, take in the big Christmas tree, and just relax for the first time in months. We just finished ice skating for over an hour and now we were sitting down for a well-earned rest and something hot to drink.
“This is nice,” I murmured contentedly into her shoulder as I snuggled closer. We were getting the occasional dirty looks for our public same-sex PDAs but I didn’t care. It was their problem, not ours, and if they didn’t like seeing us showing our love for one another then maybe they should stop staring.
There were other more friendly looks as well and at least nobody recognized us. Beth had placed glamours over both of us before leaving the house so we would be free to enjoy our date without being hounded by the press or people with cameras while in public. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t recognizable as a celebrity, some people seemed more inclined to give us hateful looks or hurl insults and slurs at us for our public shows of affection.
It was Christmas Eve; surely, these people had more important things to worry about than two girls kissing one another. I tried to put it out of my mind and just enjoy my time with my girlfriend. I guess that it was bothering her though too since she replied, “Yeah, I missed you so much while we were in Nhekar; it’s nice to have you to myself again. I could do without the audience though.”
Same here,” I admitted before finishing my hot cocoa as silence fell over us. The silence had stretched several minutes before I finally broke it again. “The shopping and skating were fun, my love, but maybe we should do something else. I’m getting cold anyway.”
“Sure, it’s almost dinner time anyway, Babe. Let’s go get something to eat.” With that decided, Beth stood up and extended a hand to help me to my feet. We both knew that it wasn’t necessary, but it was one of those casual considerate gestures that were just part of who Beth was, and that was something that I had missed.
We disposed of our cardboard cups in a recycling bin that already had several others inside and made our way toward my car to drive to a place that Beth had been wanting to try since before we left for Nhekar. It was an old-fashioned pizza parlor that she had heard good things about and thought might make an interesting place to have a date.
It looked to be quiet too, at least tonight. There were hardly any cars outside, so I dropped the glamour that my fiancée had placed on me and she changed to her Beth glamour so we could both be ourselves again, or at least as close as could be allowed while around non-magical people. Then we stepped out of the car and walked into the pizza parlor while holding hands.
The place had a family atmosphere and it was almost like stepping back in time. It was all wood flooring and brick walls with Italian-themed décor and photos on the walls, cozy booths along the outside, and some larger tables in the center for parties or big families. There was a window into the kitchen where you could watch the cooks tossing pizza dough and near the bathrooms was an old pinball machine and a couple of old arcade games like Pacman.
We headed toward a corner booth that would offer some privacy and since it was Christmas Eve and the place wasn’t very busy, a waitress was there almost immediately to drop off menus and take our drink orders. The waitress, a pretty woman in her late teens or early twenties, was wearing a nametag that identified her as Maria. She looked to be of Italian descent and despite having to work on Christmas Eve, her smile seemed genuine.
We both ordered a Coke and then looked over the menu. There wasn’t too much variety there, but then Beth said that this place was mostly known for its pizza and wings. They may not have much variety, but what they did serve, was supposed to be delicious. Half of the menu consisted of various types of pizzas, some that I had never heard of before. It also showed a wide variety of chicken wing flavors that could come with fries, onion rings, or their signature potato wedges and ranch dressing or other dipping sauces.
Maria returned fairly quickly with a tray bearing our drinks and I was a bit surprised when she deposited an empty chilled glass in front of each of us and a small pitcher filled with Coke and a little ice between us. There wasn’t enough ice to water the drink down, just enough to keep it cold. Once the pitcher and glasses were placed on the table, our server smiled at us and asked, “So, what can I get for you girls tonight?”
We had already decided on sharing and trying to get a good taste of what the place had to offer. “We’ve never been here before, so we’d like to try a few things,” Beth replied as she returned the smile. “Could we get a small deep-dish Classic, and an order of a dozen hot wings with potato wedges?”
“Good choice,” Maria offered with a grin. “Some of the fancier pies are nice once in a while, but nothing beats a classic pepperoni. How hot do you want your wings? We have mild, spicy, and five-alarm. I can always have them put the sauce on the side if you’re not sure if you can handle the heat. And did you want any dipping sauce?”
“Could we get the five-alarm sauce on the side for me and some ranch dressing for her?” I inquired. I knew that Beth didn’t like things too spicy but I wanted to feel the heat.
“Not a problem. I’m a spice girl myself, but not everyone can handle it, it’s nice of you to consider your girlfriend like that. You make a cute couple by the way. Is there anything else I can get you?”
I guess that she recognized me after all, but I appreciated her not making a big deal about it. Beth and I looked at one another for a moment before both shaking our heads, “I think that’ll be enough. Thanks, Maria,” Beth said after a moment.
“It’s my pleasure, it’s been quiet tonight and I needed something to do,” Maria replied with a laugh. “Dad says it keeps me out of trouble. It should be about fifteen minutes, but if you need anything else while you’re waiting, just holler.”
With that, Maria gave a little finger wave and headed back in the direction of the kitchen. Once she was out of hearing range I said, “We are giving her such a big tip. She seems so nice and it’s gotta be rough working on Christmas Eve when you should be with family.”
“Actually, I think this place is family-owned and operated,” Beth offered. “That’s part of the charm; there aren’t many places like that anymore.”
“Well if the food tastes as good as it smells, then I can see why they’re becoming so popular. It’s a nice place, I wouldn’t mind us all coming here together if…” I trailed off, not really sure how to finish that sentence, or if I wanted to.
Beth reached across the table to take my hand in hers. “Shannon, what’s wrong? You’ve been quiet for most of the night and I can feel in the back of my mind that you’re worried about something.”
I looked away and poured some Coke from the pitcher into my glass with my free hand as I mumbled, “I’m trying to enjoy our time together. I’ve missed you and if… what if this is our last date?”
“Shannon, I love you more than anything, we’re going to be together for a long time if I have any say about it.”
My voice was barely loud enough to carry across the table to her as I choked out my next words and tried to hold back my tears. “We’re going to Heil, Beth, and if these other Demon Generals are anywhere near as powerful as Khinara was when we first met, some of us might not be coming back. We barely came back from Nhekar. I thought you died when I couldn’t feel you anymore, and I couldn’t bear it. I… don’t think that I can handle losing you again. I don’t want to lose any of you.”
Beth squeezed my hand hard enough to be uncomfortable, and when I looked up at her, she shook her head. “Stop that, Shannon. We can’t afford to be second-guessing or doubting ourselves, we need to work together, use our heads, and be confident…”
“I’m being a realist,” I interrupted as I wiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie. “These are powerful Demons and everyone who uses Celestial forms to fight is going to be at a serious disadvantage there. But you can’t afford not to because that’s the only power that will let you have any chance against them. The rest of us won’t have that disadvantage, but Rebecca, Lisa, and Michelle aren’t powerful enough to stand toe to toe with something like that.”
“Yeah, we have a disadvantage there, and the Demons will know that,” she admitted quietly while still gripping my hand in hers. “It will make them overconfident though, and we’ll have those okka crystals that you filled with purified magick energy too. That gives us an ace in the hole that they won’t know about. And didn’t Sarah mention that she was making some sort of emergency escape artifacts for all of us in case things go bad? None of us wants to die, and if things get too hot we’ll run away to fight another day.”
“I know that, I just…”
“You have to believe in and trust us, Shannon. Just like we do you. We’re family and friends, that’s what we’re supposed to do when things are rough,” she insisted.
“I do trust you, and I know that you can handle yourselves in most situations, but this isn’t most situations. Unexpected things could happen. I almost lost Sarah once, and I thought I lost you. Promise me, my love, promise me that if something happens that you can’t handle, that you’ll use your escape artifact, even if you have to leave me behind,” I pleaded silently as I looked into her eyes.
“No.” The reply was simple and left no room for misunderstanding. “I’m your Familiar, Shannon, your partner, and someday I’m going to be your wife. No Demon is going to stand between me and that, I don’t care how strong he is. My place is at your side, it always has been and it always will be. We’re going to face and beat all of this shit together, side by side, because that’s what partners do.”
“I…” the words lodged in my throat and I found myself having to wipe at my eyes and take a sip of my drink to steady myself. She was being foolish, but loyal, and it was one of the most romantic things that she had ever said to me. I shouldn’t have expected anything else from my soulmate, and while it worried me it made me happy in a way as well. Still, I had to try one more time. “Xuriel believed that it’s my destiny to face the Demon King alone.”
Beth still wasn’t having it. “To Hell with that, Shannon. We make our own destinies, and mine is at your side, where I belong.”
I knew that I could have gone to Heil alone and nobody could have stopped me, but I also knew deep down that as much as I wanted to leave them at home where they would be safe, I needed Ziralin, Sarah, and the others with me. Xuriel had failed because she had tried to go alone, without people that she trusted to fight alongside her and I couldn’t repeat her mistake. This was their decision to make too, and I couldn’t take that away from them.
“I guess I’ll have to keep you safe then,” I said with a sigh.
“We’ll keep each other safe, isn’t that part of the whole Witch/Familiar package?” Beth replied with a weak smile and a squeeze of my hand.
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed.
We were quiet for several minutes after that, just holding hands across the table and occasionally sipping at our drinks until Maria arrived with our food. The pizza was very good; not too greasy, wonderfully cheesy with a thick soft crust, and they weren’t stingy with the pepperoni. The sauce had a slightly tangy and spicy taste that I really liked too. The potato wedges and wings were both lightly breaded and crisp on the outside but tender and cooked to perfection inside, and the breading was just spicy enough to add a hint of flavor without taking away from the chicken or potatoes they were coating.
I dipped both my wings and wedges in the five-alarm sauce but after I gave Beth a brief taste with a kiss, she stuck to her ranch dressing. It was too spicy for her. It was almost too spicy for me, and I loved it. I really wanted to come back here with the others when we got back from Heil to celebrate. Beth was right, I had to believe we were going to beat the Demon King and his Generals, all of us together, and that nothing was going to stand in our way.
All too soon, it was time to go home and I left Maria a fifty-dollar tip when we left for the great service and as a bit of a Christmas gift. Then Beth drove me home, where we fogged the windows for a while with our enthusiastic kissing before finally parting. When I finally stepped back into the house after a final kiss and parting declarations of our love, everyone else had seemingly gone to bed early after a long day. Everyone except Sarah, who called me into the kitchen.
“Hey, Sis, how was the date? You look a little less tense,” she casually commented as she poured a mug of mint tea and motioned for me to join her.
“It was good. Is it really that surprising that I’ve been tense after what we’re going through, and what we’re preparing for?” I pointed out defensively.
“No, it’s not,” Sarah agreed, “but you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. I know that you want to, Shannon, but not even you can protect everyone all of the time. You’ve been watching everyone in the house like you’re memorizing our faces the past few days, and then there’s Rebecca.”
“What about Beks? Is she okay?” I asked in concern.
“That, right there,” my sister replied with a sigh. “You’re hovering around Rebecca whenever you’re at home. I know that you feel responsible for her situation and want to take care of her, but part of being a big sister is knowing when to give them some space and let them make their own mistakes.”
I stayed quiet for a couple of minutes, staring at my tea. “What if those mistakes can get them hurt, or killed?”
“Then you make sure you’re ready if they need you and trust in them to ask for help if they get in too deep. See how it plays out and trust them to take care of it themselves, and if they can’t then you can jump in and protect them. Like I did the night that we fought Vargas.”
“Sarah, you damn near died trying to sacrifice yourself,” I pointed out.
“And I would do it again if I had to, but living to see the woman you’re growing into would be much better. I’m proud of you when I think of how far you’ve come and what you’ve handled, but I’ve been mostly watching you handle these things on your own, and you’ve done admirably,” Sarah told me gently.
I sipped at my tea and stared at the table. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ here.”
She nodded and placed her hand on mine. “When you need me, I’m there for you, but I give you the space you need too. How would you feel if I was always hovering and trying to intervene at the slightest hint of danger? I know that you want to keep everyone safe, but you have to accept that sometimes, that means giving them the tools to do it for themselves and taking a step back until you truly are needed. You’ve given Rebecca those tools, and the rest of us have our own toolboxes. Count on us to use them the best way that we can. If we need you, then we know you’ll be ready to jump in and protect us. Constantly focusing on protecting us when we may not need it is a distraction, and that will only place you in danger. None of us wants that any more than you want it for us.”
I let out a long sigh. She was right, just like Beth had been right about facing things together and protecting each other. “I guess I have a lot to learn about being a big sister… I’ll try to trust you all more too. Just… don’t die on me again.”
“I’ll do my best, Sis,” she promised before leaning over to muss my hair. You’re still pretty new at the big sister role, but I think you’re doing a pretty good job with both Elsaishe and Rebecca.”
“Only because I have the best teacher,” I replied as I forgot my tea for the moment and stood up to go wrap Sarah in a hug.
We stayed there in one another’s embrace for a few minutes before Sarah gave me a quick kiss on the forehead. “I should get some sleep, Shannon. Sweet dreams and don’t stay up too late.”
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 21 Go to Hell Amethyst |
We spent Christmas at home as a family. Jennifer’s parents had invited us to join them for Christmas dinner as we had for Thanksgiving, but Sarah told them maybe next year. She said that she didn’t want to intrude since it wouldn’t just be her and me this time now that Annie and our cousins were living with us, and that we wanted to spend the holiday getting settled into the new house.
The reason that she didn’t mention was, of course, Rebecca. We didn’t want to leave her in the big new house alone for the holiday and we didn’t want to risk having anyone see her with us until we could ‘find’ her after getting back from Heil and officially bring her into our home. The whole reason that we had brought her here from Tír na nÓg was so that she wouldn’t have to spend the holidays alone or with people that she barely knew.
We spent most of the morning just spending time together and hanging out, and Elsaishe had a strange request for me and Rebecca that took up part of the morning as well. My Fae cousin wanted us to change to our Succubus forms so she could make molds of our tails. Not the whole tails, just the spaded tips and a little bit of the tail beyond them. We went along with it and just chilled and talked as the molds set before reverting back to our normal forms.
That evening, Sarah and I made a nice Christmas dinner for all of us, and to my surprise; Rebecca offered to help as well. I guess that it was something that she used to help her mother with, which made her fairly emotional during the whole process, but she didn’t once consider leaving the kitchen to do something else. She was actually pretty good in the kitchen and it was nice to see her trying to be part of the family like that. Sarah was right; I worried too much about her.
We didn’t exchange gifts yet since the plan was for everybody to do that at the cabin before we left for Heil. Instead, we just spent time together after dinner, playing board games and talking about the hypothetical future where we all survived Heil and Rebecca would be living with us. It didn’t escape my attention how interested Elsaishe seemed to be in my fellow pseudo-Succubus; how she would get tongue-tied sometimes, or look away while blushing after saying something a bit too eagerly.
I hoped that they both survived and could explore their feelings for one another because as they got to know one another over the past few days, I could see Rebecca becoming smitten as well. Not that she was sure what to do about it. She had never really had anyone interested in her that way, but with her new body and being back on our version of Earth, she was probably going to have to get used to it.
The brief oasis of quiet and happiness passed as we slept and the next day everyone was tense and nervous as the others arrived at the house after lunch and we prepared to teleport to the cabin. Talisha looked like she hadn’t slept at all the night before when we were all gathered in the living room and ready to go. “I should come with all of you. I can use Ziralin’s old bow,” she said nervously as she looked over our grim faces.
Sarah shook her head and gave our Faery cousin a look of sympathy. “Tali, we talked about this. Someone needs to stay here in case something happens, and you’re the logical candidate. You can’t leave your store for a week while we deal with this, and if we don’t come back, then we’ll need you to warn the Faery in Tír na nÓg that we weren’t able to stop the Demons. Besides, if Annie and I don’t come back then Shannon, Ellie, and Rebecca are going to need you. I trust you to take care of all of them, just like you would Ellie.”
Talisha sighed, and there were tears in her eyes, but she nodded. “Come back. All of you,” she said simply, her voice hitching.
After some emotional goodbyes and promises to do our best to do that, Sarah cast the spell that would transport all of us, and our belongings to the cabin. The cabin was cold when we appeared in the living room and Jennifer immediately set about starting a fire to warm it up a bit, as we all got comfortable and gathered our gifts to exchange. She used her elemental control in her Celestial form to save time, but none of us were going to complain about that.
As the cabin warmed up, we all sat down to exchange gifts. It was mostly little personal trinkets, some clothes (especially in Rebecca’s case), and the occasional joke gift that lightened the mood. The most notable gifts that I had gotten were a blank Book of Shadows from Sarah since I had never gotten around to getting one for myself yet, a silver pendant that Ziralin made with two entwined hearts, and Jennifer got me a big white stereotypical witch’s hat with a pale blue ribbon around the base as a joke gift.
Elsaishe had made everyone but me and Rebecca a silver ring with a small spike that could be used to scratch or puncture any Demons that got too close for comfort. That was when Becca and I found out what my cousin had needed molds of our tails for. For a moment, Becca and I both stared at what looked like spearheads in confusion. They were made of silver, hollow, and had a lethally sharp edge to them from her ability to manipulate metal.
Seeing our confusion, Ellie offered, “You said that your tails are really flexible and can be used for weapons, so I… uhh… thought that we could weaponize them further against Demons since you’re not hurt by silver and they are. See the springy bits inside? You can just slip your tail inside when you need it and then the springs will lock it in place. They should just come right off when you return to human forms and your tails shrink and retract.”
Annie grinned at the young Fae across the table. “That’s nasty, I like it.”
“Yeah, that’s brilliant, and it’ll give Shannon and Rebecca an edge in a fight,” Lisa added with a sage nod.
We all groaned at the pun, but Rebecca and I did change forms briefly to test our new weapons. They worked exactly as Ellie had hoped and when we shifted back to human forms they just fell right off. Once I picked mine up off the floor and placed it back on the table, I wrapped Ellie up in a hug. “Thanks, Cuz, these should be a big help. Hopefully, nobody decides to try to cut off our tails, but they would regenerate and they’re flexible enough that we might be able to use the blades to deflect attacks as well.”
I sat back down beside Ziralin and snuggled close as Sarah cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “I guess that we should discuss our plan of action then. I’m going to suggest that we wait to leave until tomorrow morning. Tonight we can all get a good night’s sleep and have an early breakfast so we can be at our best when we leave. Sadly, I think most of the information that we have on Heil, the Demon King, and his Generals is thousands of years out of date, except for what little we know about Khinara.”
“Khinara has probably been getting weaker every day since I removed her tongue,” I pointed out. “Xuriel said that since I was wearing platinum on my hand when I yanked it off, it won’t grow back. Neither will the arms I blew off with holy magick. She can’t feed without her tongue to suck on people’s brain juice. She was strained when she used magick to take our plane to Heil. She’s likely gone from the strongest of the Generals to one of the weakest, if some other Demon hasn’t already killed her and taken that position by now.”
“I have a feeling that she’s still alive and waiting for us,” Mason interjected with a frown.
“The element of surprise could mean a lot against these generals, the quicker that we can take each of them down, the better,” Jennifer said thoughtfully. “I don’t like us not having any information to go on though.”
“Shannon and I could do some scouting as Succubae,” Becca suggested.
It was pretty obvious that nobody around the table liked that idea. It was Michelle who turned it down though. “Khinara might still be able to sense Shannon, which would take away the element of surprise when we do hit them. And we are not sending you on your own; I don’t want my best friend going alone into the depths of Hell.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Annie announced after a few minutes of silence. As soon as we arrive, we’ll all hide in one of our bunkers and Rebecca and Shannon can quickly get the lay of the land and bring back a weak Demon to interrogate. The problem is that most Demons probably won’t buckle under torture, they’d keep quiet just to spite us.”
“Uh… who needs torture?” Becca asked, looking genuinely confused. “We just need to make sure that it’s a male Demon. With Shannon and me asking the questions in our Succubus forms we’d have him wrapped around our little fingers.”
We all stared at our newest addition for a moment in shocked realization. “That… could probably work,” Ziralin said pensively beside me. “It gives me the willies thinking about it, but it could work.”
“Desperate times, desperate measures,” I said with a groan and shuddering at the thought of debasing myself like that. “It sounds like a plan.”
With that decided, we made dinner and then started preparing our gear for the next morning. We all had our portable bunkers stocked with food and supplies, just in case, and the sheets that served as their entrances tucked safely inside one of the pockets of our Demon hunting clothes. Sarah had made one for Rebecca as well, in case she got separated from us for some reason.
The Celestials among us were each given a share of the okka crystals that I had filled with magick energy in Nhekar. They would need them if they were going to be fighting in Heil for long. Other than that, everyone had a gun that we were comfortable with as a holdout weapon, a pouch filled with my special anti-Demon ammunition, and what Sarah called our bug-out bracelets.
The bracelets were simple silver affairs made by Talisha, with a small shard of okka crystal embedded, and engraved with the Celestial spell runes for a spell that would take us back to the coordinates for our new home in Toronto if the wearer spoke the trigger word. Basically, it was a concentrated single-person planar translocation spell and Sarah had infused each bracelet with not only the spell itself, but enough magick energy to fuel it by having Talisha embed the okka crystal shards. The best part was that they would be reusable since the okka shards would start passively absorbing magick energy again until full once drained by the spell.
The others would be wearing their Demon hunting outfits that had been enchanted with protection spells and to keep them comfortable in any weather, of course, but Rebecca and I couldn’t. Becca didn’t have anything like that since she was new to the group, and I couldn’t use mine if I wanted to be able to use my Succubus form since the corset dress wouldn’t be able to accommodate my wings, and my cloak would have gotten in the way. With that in mind, we had to improvise and I placed the same spells on our clothes as were on my former Demon hunting outfit.
I kept to my White Witch theme, though my new look was, by necessity, fairly revealing. White yoga pants that barely covered my butt, and would allow my tail to come free without damaging anything, were paired with a form-fitting white sleeveless halter top that would do the same for my wings. I wore similarly suitable undergarments underneath and added the boots and face shield from my original White Witch outfit.
Instead of the gloves that I would normally wear on our world to keep from leaving any fingerprints; I wore the platinum handflowers that Yanisse had made for me for a bit of extra punch against Demons. I also had a belt with some pouches on it containing magick bullets, my new tail blade, my bunker entrance, and the holstered Desert Eagle Mark XIX that I had used in Nhekar for my holdout weapon. I topped the whole thing off with my new large-brimmed white witch’s hat, which could be tied securely under my chin with attached ribbons.
For Rebecca, we used yoga pants like mine, but in a solid grey, and a grey hoodie with slits cut in the back for her wings, over top similar undergarments as mine. We had a spare face shield that I used magick to turn grey for her to match her other clothes, as well as a pair of sneakers and fingerless gloves that wouldn’t get damaged when her claws emerged. She also had the shotgun that she had used in Nhekar and a belt similar to mine with pouches for her tail blade, bunker entrance, and ammunition for the shotgun.
With preparations made for the next morning, we all tried to go to sleep early, knowing that we should rest while we could with what lay ahead of us. I was worried that Sarah, Lisa, and I would have to break out the sleep spells, but most of us seemed to fall asleep without too much trouble. Most of us were awake on our own before dawn, and after a quick and hearty breakfast of oatmeal, we were ready to leave.
Well, most of us were ready. Rebecca looked like she hadn’t slept very well after all and had a serious case of bedhead as she finished her breakfast. “You know, Beks,” I casually taunted, “Succubus powers or no, you might want to brush your hair if you want to seduce a Demon today.”
She responded by quickly patting down her hair into something less, ‘just woke up’ and sticking out her tongue at me before adding for good measure, “Go to Hell, Succu-bitch.” Yeah, she was tired and snarky, but the barest smirk on her face told me that it was just our usual taunt-jousting.
“That’s the plan,” I retorted with far more cheer than I actually felt. The truth was that I was nervous as hell, and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t alone in that. A few moments later, Sarah called us all outside to let us know that the gate spell was ready and we were on our way.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 22 Welcome to Hell Amethyst |
I could only think that it was little wonder that the Demons were looking to gain access to new worlds through conquest as Rebecca and I flew in search of a Demon to interrogate. Much of the terrain that we had seen thus far had been inhospitable at best. It was a literal hellscape, barren cracked earth where most living things had been either burned away by lava or suffocated by ash-laden air that was torture to breathe. I hoped that their entire world wasn’t like this.
We might have ended up in the middle of nowhere since we hadn’t specified any specific coordinates. It was a risk that Sarah and I had privately decided was for the best though. We hadn’t dared tried to transport back to our downed plane for several reasons after all.
The first of those was that doing so would have probably led us straight into a trap. I had little doubt that Khinara would have people scouring that area for any sign of where we had disappeared to, or of a possible return. She had used up a lot of magick energy to bring us here to destroy us, so I imagined that she wasn’t too happy when we slipped through her fingers.
The second reason was the sheer multitude of Demons that had been waiting for our arrival there the first time. I doubted very much that it was a coincidence, or that Khinara had happened to assemble an army’s worth of Demons to that spot just to kill me. It was far more likely that she had brought us to an area where Demons already congregated.
The most important reason for not taking us to the ruined remains of her mother’s plane was, of course, Rebecca. Seeing what remained of it and knowing that her mother’s mutilated remains were probably still inside would have been dangerous to her mental state. Sure, she probably needed closure, but I was hoping that she could get that by facing her literal Demons. There was no need to traumatize her all over again, and I didn’t want to see her have to go through that.
Sarah and I were familiar enough with Khinara that we probably could have used a spell to take us right to her and possibly catch her by surprise, but the flip side of that would have been that we would have no idea where she would be or who would be with her. It could end up even worse than going to wherever the plane had crashed. So, for now, it was safer for all of us if Rebecca and I could just find a solitary male Demon or a small group of them to talk to.
We seemed to have appeared on a large volcanic island, which wasn’t all that surprising given the ash clouds that we were flying under, the volcano, and the lava. I could see a large expanse of ocean ahead of us now though, and in the distance, there was a chain of small islands that looked slightly more hospitable than this one. Since Rebecca was gesturing wildly in that direction, she probably saw it too, so I nodded and we veered off in the direction of the one that seemed closest.
It took much longer than I would have liked to get clear of the ash cloud that covered the island and a good distance around it. The regeneration that we possessed in our Succubus forms kept us from being too bothered by the ash that was thick in the air, but it was still a welcome relief to be free of it. The others who were currently kept hidden in my folded-up bunker wouldn’t have been so lucky and we would need to stop soon to get some relatively fresh air in there for them. Sarah could do that with magick, but I didn’t want her wasting magick energy for that when she might need it in the battles to come.
The first couple of islands were still in the shadow of the ash cloud and pretty much barren, so we kept flying. The third island was small, but there were some signs of life there at least, with some patches of vegetation and some desiccated trees that looked more dead than alive. I thought it might be a good spot for the others to come out and get some air though, while Rebecca and I went on to check the other islands for inhabitants.
I removed the bunker entrance from its large pouch, unfolded it, and then pinned it to one of the trees so the others could leave the bunker. As they all stepped out to get some air and stretch their legs, Ziralin wrapped me in a hug and kissed me. Once she had released me from her amorous embrace, she looked around and shrugged. “It's not that bad.”
Michelle gave my fiancée an incredulous look. “I’d hate to see your idea of bad then.”
Ziralin raised her hands in defense. “Well, I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer home here, but the trees are actually quite lovely."
Lisa turned to shake her head at the silver-haired Fae, but I could see the crack of a smile. “Really? You’re quoting the Princess Bride?”
She just grinned and shrugged as she countered, “It’s a good movie. And honestly, I was expecting way worse when we appeared so close to a volcano.”
“Well, just be glad you didn’t have to fly through that shit,” Rebecca grouched as she tried to dust herself off. “We’re all covered in ash. Shannon really shouldn’t have worn white.”
“But she’s been ‘White Witch’ ever since this whole dealing with the supernatural thing started, it’s kinda her thing. She can’t just change to some Succubus theme now, how would we introduce her?” Jennifer pointed out, though I was pretty sure she was mostly teasing. “Plus she’s rocking that hat I got her.”
I focused on using a little of my, quite frankly massive, store of magick energy to pull all of the ash, dirt, and grime from my hair, skin, and clothes and then followed up by doing the same for Rebecca. “Is that better, Beks?”
“Much better, thanks, Shannon,” she replied with a relieved smile.
“Okay, we should be good to continue on our way then. I would rather we find someone to interrogate as soon as possible so we can get on with this. Would you all rather wait here while we scout out those other islands, or go back in the bunker?”
“We should probably stay here for now,” Sarah replied thoughtfully. “If you don’t find anyone or any other signs of life then we may just have to try casting a portal to another location anyway. If you do find any Demons, then you can bring one back here for a private conversation.”
It wasn’t until the second to last island in the chain that we found something promising. It looked almost like an eighteenth-century village; roughly made stone homes with dirt walkways. On the outer edges, large oxen-like animals with thick wool grazed in pastures, and it looked like there were a couple of farms as well. There was also a large square that looked like a market of some sort by the shoreline.
As we got closer, I could see Imps, Gorgons, Djinns, centaur-like Demons, and some that looked almost human except for their horns and bright red skin. They were all just going about their daily business; working, buying things from the market, or having what looked like casual conversations. There were even Merrow set up to sell fish and other seafood on the waterside of the market.
This was not what I had been expecting. Given the wars against the Celestials, the conquest of Tír na nÓg, and their current attempts to infiltrate our world, I had expected to see something more along the lines of a military camp, if and when we found any sort of organized groups. That or Demons jockeying for position over one another, as we had seen in Toronto since Khinara had vanished.
Still, as idyllic as the village looked from our current vantage point far above, I felt it best to be cautious. We started to wing our way downward and as we descended, I tried to spot any lone male Demons to talk to. We weren’t cautious enough, it was the middle of the afternoon and we were spotted long before we could touch down on the ground. Demons of all types were looking up at us and pointing as their conversations became more animated.
With a sigh and a bad feeling in my gut, I motioned to Rebecca for us to land. The crowd followed our motion and since there was no avoiding them, I just landed in the square with Rebecca joining me a moment later. I was greeted by the tip of a spear at my throat, held by a very muscular red-skinned woman with black hair, crimson eyes, and a pair of black horns atop her head. Maybe these people weren’t as friendly and peaceful as they had looked.
“Best you go back to where you came from, Succubus. We’re not interested in fighting in your thrice-damned war. If you even look at any of our men to try to tempt them otherwise, I’ll separate your head from your body and send you back to your precious Demon King in pieces. We’ll see if you can regenerate from that.” She was speaking Demon so poor Rebecca, who had found herself in a similar position, had no idea what was going on.
Xuriel and the other Sentinels had managed to get a working knowledge of the language during the first war by using Rosetta Stones while interrogating Demon captives, so I could understand her, but dredging up Xuriel’s knowledge of the language to speak it myself took a moment. A moment where I was very careful not to move. I tried my best to keep my expression neutral as I said, “We’re not Succubae, we’re just under a curse to resemble them and can copy their abilities. If you don’t believe me, have someone look at my lower back or my companion’s right shoulder.”
“Don’t move,” the Demoness warned before turning to a female Imp and adding, “Etlik, check her back.”
The Demons surrounding us were all female; they really didn’t trust Succubae, not that I could blame them. I carried hard feelings toward the real thing as well. I felt a fingertip carefully prod my back and then the Imp behind me said, “Huh, that’s a Brand curse, she’ll be stuck with that forever. Someone really doesn’t like this girl, Kisha. There’s something strange about it though. It’s fused with another mark of some kind.”
“Yeah, that would be a Celestial mark,” I said with a grimace. That spear was still uncomfortably close to my throat and I was worried that if I moved so much as the tip of my tail that she would use it.
There were several gasps at that confession, including one from the woman holding the spear. “Who would do such a thing? Demon King Baal forbid using Brands on Celestials, lest another Shadow appears. Are you truly a Celestial? Have you come to try to kill Baal?” The spear lowered slightly as she stared at me with a conflicted look on her face.
“Shadow? Do you mean Xuriel?” Kisha’s eyes widened as I spoke the name. Given her reactions to our arrival and to what I had said so far, I decided to take a risk. If it didn’t work out, I could probably subdue the people surrounding us with a spell, now that the spearhead wasn’t uncomfortably close to my throat. “No, I’m not a Celestial, but my ancestor, Xuriel, was. I’m the one that she chose to inherit her mark, her memories, and her power. I haven’t come to try to kill Baal though, I will kill him.”
It turned out that the village of Mynsk was one of many communities that had banded together to try and eke out a decent life far away from the Rings, where most of the Demons serving under Demon King Baal lived. Kisha had once been a member of his armies until she realized that the war that Baal was intent on waging was not for lands where the denizens of Heil might find a better life than on their own mostly barren world. It was for the sole purpose of conquest.
They had practically conquered Tír na nÓg and displaced the Faery, but despite the lush lands there, no colonists were being sent. In fact, it would have been dangerous for most Demons to live their long term with the purity of the magick energy there. The same was true for Haven but he still sent offensives there. He wanted to beat the Celestials, as he had the Faery, to prove his superiority.
The target that would have made the most sense for them to take was Earth, but he had not bothered claiming it in the last war when the population was small and uneducated. He was making a move now, but our population was huge and we have created powerful weapons, and he was still focused on Haven as well. Kisha believed that he feared the power of the Sentinels and Xuriel in particular; it was why he had appointed seven generals. It was why he had his underlings try to claim their marks.
Many Demons didn’t care about the war, they were just too terrified of Baal to go against him. Some, like the people of Mynsk placed themselves far out of his influence, but they still had to repel the occasional ‘recruiters’ for his army. They had made a decent life for themselves in Mynsk and were mostly happy, but the recruiters had been coming more and more often lately as Baal tried to build up his army for a major offensive.
We needed to stop him, to take him and his generals down for good, and Kisha and the people of Mynsk were willing to help. They couldn’t fight at our side, of them all, only Kisha had any real fighting experience. She knew all too well that she was no match for any of the generals though. Instead, once we had taken her to meet the others, she offered us what knowledge she had of each of the generals and of the Rings, the largest city in their world, and the seat of Baal’s power.
Now, two days later, the ten of us stood atop a cliff overlooking the massive city below. The Rings. Nine concentric circular walls and each had a gate. The first gate would be easy enough, the first ring only contained farms and those who tended them to feed the armies of Heil. Each gate after that had a guardhouse though where the generals lived and the rings were filled with the Demons under their command and those who served them. Within the center ring, was Baal’s palace.
I turned to the others and asked my sister, “So, what do we do?”
Sarah sighed as she cast an uncertain glance at the city below us. “There’s got to be at least a hundred thousand Demons in that city, we can’t possibly fend off that many and try to take down the most powerful of them all at the same time.”
Annie nodded in agreement. “I’m always up for a good fight, but just attacking head-on might be suicide. Mason, what do you think?”
We all turned to our resident psychic. He hadn’t steered us wrong yet and his gut feelings were usually right on the money. He seemed reluctant to share his feelings though. Finally, he frowned and looked each of us over. “I know that the plan was to all fight as a team, but Sarah is right, most of us will die if we do it that way, and we won’t win. We need to attack each of the generals and Baal directly, all at the same time so they can’t reinforce one another.”
“But that’s crazy! You want us all to take on one of the eight most powerful Demons in Heil by ourselves? Can we even do that? They have the advantage here,” Ziralin pointed out with an uncertain look in my direction.
“Shannon can teleport each of us right to those gatehouses, and they are all there right now, or soon will be. I’m certain of it. If we hit them hard and fast we can take them by surprise and we’re no slouches power-wise either,” Mason insisted with a shake of his head. “My gut says this is our best chance. Shannon is the only one who can take on Baal, and each of us has advantages that will help us against one of the generals. Rebecca, Lisa, and Michelle, you’ll take the first gatehouse. Jen will take the second, I’ll take the third, Annie the fourth, Ellie the fifth, Ziralin the sixth, and Sarah will take the final gatehouse.”
We debated it for a while and nobody was happy, but Mason had a point. If we wanted to win, we couldn’t let them reinforce one another or Baal. We had to take them all down at the same time. So, in the end, I focused on the gatehouses of the city below with my enhanced Succubus vision and on each of my friends and family members with my mind. Then, as I was teleporting them to their locations, I prayed to the Goddess that I wasn’t sending them to their deaths.
I couldn’t teleport Michelle, since she was Lisa’s Familiar, but that wasn’t a problem as she used her own teleport ability to join her Witch’s side. Still, that many teleport spells at the same time while eyeballing the locations from such a distance took a bit of effort and was a little tiring, but I was already starting to gather more magick energy as I readied a final teleport spell to take me to my own destination. It was time for the final battle to begin.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 23 Khinara Amethyst |
I appeared on a small rooftop, some sort of pagoda or something that I figured was probably the gatehouse that Shannon had been aiming for. I might still taunt or mess with her occasionally, but one thing that I had learned while traveling through that godforsaken hellhole that we had been trapped in after Mom’s plane went down, was that she’s very good at this magick stuff. She’s way more imaginative and focused than I will ever be, for sure, and I guess that’s important with that kind of shit.
I would never admit it, of course, but it was because of her that we survived and got out of there alive. She’s smart, she never gives up, and she genuinely cares about what happens to other people… what happens to me, and probably far more than I deserve. She and Beth aren’t what I originally thought them to be, as hard as it is to accept sometimes, their sickening sweetness is genuine.
It might be having an effect on me too. I think that I might have been actually crushing on Shannon there for a while until Elsaishe made it awkward. Now, Shannon is like the big sister that I always wanted but never had. She’s a bit overprotective, but she cares and she and Sarah are both wise in the way of girl-fu. It’s hard to believe that she was like me once. Hell, sometimes it’s hard to believe that I was like me once.
I think Mom would have liked them, she probably would have liked this whole crazy group once she got past the ‘magic is real’ thing. I’m still trying to get used to that myself, but I guess it helps hanging out with witches, psychics, angels, faery, and Succubae. Being one of those Succubae helps too, even if I’m not a real one. I have the abilities and I’m hot as hell now, which is great, but now I was going to need to use those abilities.
“Focus Beks. Shannon isn’t going to be here to cover your ass this time,” I told myself sternly. I was in the middle of Hell itself and I was going to be attacking one of the most powerful Demons in existence with an ex-jock Witch and a Catgirl. Wow, my life is seriously fucked up these days, but even I have to admit that it’s exciting sometimes. It’ll be even more exciting if I can find the bitch who murdered my mom and rip her fucking heart out.
I could do it, I would do it. My… friends would help me, and Lisa had a score to settle with the bitch too. Speaking of Lisa, she had appeared nearby and a moment later Michelle was by her side. My best friend was smitten with the woman who had become her Witch, and even I had to admit that they made a good couple. For a former jock, Lisa had some qualities that I admired, like her refusal to take shit from absolutely anyone, even Demons.
Oh yeah, we were going to get some payback today. The thought of it made me smile as I shifted to my full-on Succubus form and used my sharp senses to get a read on the area. I didn’t put on the new toy that Elsaishe had made me yet, it was safely in its pouch, waiting for just the right moment. Even I knew that fighting a Demon wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, and I decided that I should keep the pretty Faery’s gift in reserve as my ace in the hole.
It was a thoughtful gift, and I could feel a warmth building up in my cheeks, and other places, as it brought my thoughts to Elsaishe. For some reason that didn’t make a lick of fucking sense, she liked me. I had tried pushing her away at first, but she was like Shannon and just wouldn’t give up on me, and as we were getting to know one another, I found myself starting to like her too.
“Keep your head in the game, Beks,” I reminded myself as I listened carefully and scented the air. There was something moving far below us in the Gatehouse, but looking around I could see that the large courtyard around the gatehouse was clear of any Demons. Whoever this Demon General was, they obviously valued their privacy. Well, at least it would make our job easier.
I looked at Michelle, pointed down, and held up one finger. The catgirl nodded, but there was a dark expression on her face and even from fifteen feet away, I could tell that she was on edge. Her body language was stiff and rigid, her ears were back flat against her head, and her tail was bristling. She gave Lisa a meaningful look and the Witch tensed up, clenching and unclenching her fists.
Screw this. We were supposed to hit hard and fast so none of these fuckers could come to each other’s aid. Lisa was a Witch so she needed to have some space to throw spells, or bullets if all else failed. Out of all of us, I was the best built for a physical one-on-one fight to keep the Demon’s attention off her while she did her thing. Michelle was fast enough and had those claws and regeneration, but I was stronger and faster, and my regen was better too.
Shannon would probably tell me to try to figure out what I was dealing with before throwing myself into a fight, but this was the best choice. I needed to do this. Besides, I already knew what was down there. Michelle had recognized the scent and her and Lisa’s reactions had told me everything that I needed to know.
“This is for you, Mom,” I told myself as I flew off the roof and glided toward the sounds and scent I had detected. The gatehouse wasn’t really a gatehouse after all, just an open courtyard built between the outer ring and the next with a large gate to restrict traffic on each side. The pagoda at the center was real fancy and all, but I didn’t give a shit as I burst through the nearest wall on the top floor toward the breathing I heard on the other side.
I wasn’t able to get my hands on her before some magical energy blast threw me back through the hole I had just made and sent me crashing to the ground and skidding across the courtyard. I got to my feet and could already feel the damaged bones in my left wing resetting and my various bruises and scrapes healing. Good thing I was durable, and at least I got her attention.
The hideous freak who had killed my mother jumped out of the pagoda and walked toward me, giving me a dismissive look as she spoke in that guttural Demon language that I couldn’t understand a word of. She probably thought I was some other Demon trying to take her place in the hierarchy and was telling me that I’d never be good enough. I didn’t need a common language to understand that bitch. She might be ugly as fuck and have scary Demon powers, but I’d seen tons of people with that same superior sneer and that body language that says, “I’m better than you and always will be.” Fuck, Demons are so high school.
I dusted myself off and just gave her my best “I’m gonna fuck you up” smile. And that was when Lisa hit her in the back with a barrage of what Shannon called holy missiles, Michelle emptied a clip of Shannon’s special bullets, and whatever magick shield Khinara had protecting her flared with the impacts. She quickly chanted something in Demon and raised another shield as Lisa followed up with a spear of light, and Michelle leaped her way down the balconies of the building and rushed the Demon.
“Pour it on!” my best friend said as we both attacked with a mix of punches and slashes to keep her occupied while Lisa readied another round of spells. “She’s protected herself against physical attacks too this time, but her shield is a lot weaker!”
I guess Shannon was right, Khinara was weak and getting even weaker every day that she couldn’t feed. We could take her; Mason said that we had an advantage. I might not believe one hundred percent in his psychic powers or his sense of the future, but I was ready to make my own future. I was going to fucking kill the bitch who took my mom from me.
“You two,” Khinara spat, glaring at the black-furred catgirl and the Witch bombarding her from the roof of the pagoda in turn. “You escaped after all and somehow managed to turn a Succubus against me. Did you offer her my place? She’s too weak to keep it.”
“I’m not a Succubus, bitch!” I snapped, causing her eyes to widen momentarily.
She glared at me as if she was trying to burn a hole through me with willpower alone, that or she was constipated. Whatever it was, it only resulted in a headache, for her. “You… those protections on your minds…”
“Shannon says hi,” Michelle said with a savage smile as her claws raked across Khinara’s energy shield.
“No, Michelle, get it right,” I countered. “She said ‘die’.” I swung out my shotgun to hit the Demoness full in the face with a load of magical buckshot, causing her shield to flare again. She landed a savage kick in return though, sending me flying and my shotgun skittering across the flagstones.
“Fuck, I think she broke some ribs there,” I muttered as I clutched my side and got to my feet. Lisa managed to get a shot in with a holy spell while her shield was down, disintegrating one of the three arms on her left side. Two more like that and one on the right and she’d have to start biting to fight back. This might take a while.
Taking that hit might have been worth it though; something had caught my attention as she kicked me away. When something hit her shield, it would flare with the impact, only when the shield faded there was a very faint popping sound that accompanied the flare and it took her several seconds to recast the shield. In fact, she was getting weaker the longer that this fight went on, and it took longer to re-cast the shield that time than it had after Lisa and Michelle had ambushed her.
Ignoring my ribs since they were already beginning to heal, I threw myself back into the fight. Khinara let loose the same spell that had sent me flying and hurled it at the only one that she considered a threat, Lisa. The blast blew the top of the pagoda off and Lisa lost her footing trying to avoid it. Shit, that pagoda was probably at least fifty feet high and she was too far away to catch on to any of the balconies.
Michelle vanished and I dove in to get the Demoness’s attention back on me as the catgirl reappeared in midair to catch her girlfriend in what would have been a fatal fall for her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them hit the ground, Michelle cushioning the landing of her Witch, but landing with a painful-sounding crack as she tried to stick the landing. Oh fuck, her leg wasn’t at a good angle, even with her regeneration that was going to take time to heal.
Lisa got right to her feet, standing protectively in front of Michelle as she recharged and threw another battery of spells at Khinara and I beat on the Demoness with every ounce of strength that I possessed. The shield popped again and I managed to rake my claws against her back, causing a hiss of pain that sounded vaguely like a can of soda that had been punctured. Khinara turned toward me snarling, “I don’t know who, or what, you are, but this is where you die. I will gut you and feast on your entrails.”
She re-cast her shield spell and then she was suddenly on top of me, raining down a flurry of blows. The pain of bones breaking and starting to heal was only a dim discomfort in the back of my mind. For some reason, all that I could think of was the day my mother had died, walking into the cockpit and seeing her standing over my mother’s desecrated body, guts strewn all over the cockpit. A fury built up in me as she grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air to sneer at me.
Behind her, I could see Lisa prepping another round of spells. On the ground beside her, Michelle had her gun reloaded and was aiming carefully as her face scrunched up in pain. I needed to hold on, I wasn’t going to let them die too, and I couldn’t afford to die either. I had a promise to keep. I slipped my tail carefully into the pouch that held my tail blade and felt it click into place securely on the spaded tip.
Khinara held me high in front of her, mercilessly pounding on my ribs and stomach, and I wheezed as I spit a bloody gob in her face. I ignored the pain, ignored the arrogant sneer on her face, and waited for my moment. Lisa unleashed another rain of holy missiles and Michelle emptied her clip into the Demon’s back, and as I heard the faint popping sound, I lashed out with my tail, burying the silver blade at its tip into her chest. “That… was… for Mom… bitch.”
For a moment, Khinara’s eyes were wide with surprise and realization before she turned to ash and I fell to the stone-covered ground. I didn’t stay down. I’ve taken enough beatings to last a lifetime, and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you never give them the satisfaction of staying down. Even in death, I wasn’t going to let that hideous bitch have that power over me. We’d won, at least for the moment, and I needed to check on Michelle and Lisa.
Staggering to my feet, I walked toward them, my head held high. “Thanks… for the opening. How’s the leg, Michelle?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” Lisa’s Familiar admitted with a grimace. “Even with my regeneration and some hefty healing spells, this is probably gonna take a few days to heal once we set it. Elsaishe could heal it a lot quicker, but she’s got her own fight to handle. Fuck. I guess we’re done here.”
“We did our job,” Lisa replied with shrug. “That’s one less Demon that can go after Shannon or the others. Nice job, Becca. I’m glad you were able to avenge your mom.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you two,” I admitted while looking anywhere at them. “Um… thanks. You two should use your bug-out bracelets to head home, so you can work on healing Michelle’s leg.”
“What about you? You just took a beating too,” Michelle protested.
“Yeah, but my regeneration works a lot faster than yours, and I can still fly and not get too much attention. I… need to go. I know that I avenged my mom, but there are people that I want to protect too. I’ll meet you at home.”
I waited until they had both vanished before retrieving my shotgun and taking to the air. I still hurt like hell, but I could regenerate on the way. As I got some altitude, I could see and hear the battles going on below me. The entire second ring was in chaos and looking into the distance, it looked like the same might hold true for the third ring as well.
It looked like Kisha had done her part and contacted her friends in the resistance after all. Hopefully, the chaos would help turn things in our favor. I didn’t give a fuck what happened to the Demons in this shithole, but I needed to hurry. I had someone to protect.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 24 Mistress of the Elements Amethyst |
I crouched down where I appeared and took a moment to look around and get the lay of the land. It looked like I had appeared on top of a wall, roughly thirty feet high and overlooking a large cobblestone courtyard, and a tower that stood at the center of it. The tower was on a tiny island that was surrounded by an actual moat and had large bonfires burning at each corner.
The building itself appeared to be made mostly of stone and vaguely resembled a pagoda that I saw on my trip to Japan with Mom and Dad a couple of years ago. Back then, I had thought that visiting another country was cool. After the things I had seen and done recently though, it was hard to believe that I was the same person as back then.
My life certainly had changed since meeting Shannon and sure, a lot of this was crazy and scary, but it was also so damn exciting. I fought Demons and went to other worlds; it was like a gamer’s dream come true. Mom and Dad would totally freak out if they knew that we were doing this stuff, but we were the only ones who could. We had earned the power to do it.
Yeah, it’s a comic book saying, but with great power comes great responsibility. We have a duty to protect the people in our world who can’t protect themselves from the Demons, whether through powerlessness or ignorance. I take my responsibilities very seriously.
Sometimes I felt like I was in over my head though and this was one of those times. I mean, Shannon was a powerhouse, even before she had Xuriel’s mark unsealed, and Sarah was too, and Sarah had experience and some real wisdom going for her too. Annie was a total badass even without her Celestial powers, Mason had his psychic power, and both Ellie and Ziralin were freaking Fae before getting their wings. It was kind of hard to see Ziralin as my friend Beth sometimes, even with the glamour, because she had grown so far beyond the person she once was.
Even Lisa, Michelle, and Rebecca had something going for them. Lisa was a Witch and probably one of the bravest people I knew. Michelle was like a catgirl version of Ziralin before she got her mark; strong, fast, she healed fast, and magic just slid right off her. Rebecca had the whole pseudo-succubus thing going for her now, and I was sure that she could probably take on a Demon on her own if she tried.
Then there was me; plain, ordinary, and practically fading into the background. The rich girl riding on her best friend’s coattails. There was no doubt in my mind that I was probably the weakest of all of us who had earned or inherited a Celestial’s mark, and usually, I was okay with that. I contributed how I could and got to do things most humans could never even dream of, but sometimes, I just wanted to stand out on my own just once.
I guess this was my chance to do that, to prove myself by taking on one of the Demon King’s generals. By myself. “Fuck, I am so screwed,” I thought to myself as I looked around and tried to form some sort of plan. We were supposed to hit them hard and fast and not let them help one another, and here I was wasting time.
At least with those fires and the moat, I would have all four elements available to me, but this wasn’t my usual kind of fight. I liked to know something about the Demons I was facing before the fight, to take time to observe them and get a feel for who they were and how they reacted, and then come up with a plan to take them down. The one thing that I had going for me was that I’m smart, and I liked to use that. This cowboy stuff wasn’t me.
As quietly as I could, I unslung the rifle from my shoulder and got into the sniper position that Annie had taught me. Then I brought the rifle to my shoulder and looked down the scope to scout out the tower and the demonic aura that I could feel coming from within. Whatever it was, it was strong, terrifyingly so if I could sense it while not in my Celestial form.
I didn’t dare transform yet either. If I did, I would be wasting magic energy, and as soon as I did, that Demon would probably detect my aura. Maybe with one well-placed magic bullet, I could avoid a fight. At the very least, I could try to get a read on my opponent.
He, or maybe she, was sitting in a meditative stance on the bottom floor of the tower. They looked sort of like a black-furred werewolf, but their clothes and body type made it hard to determine their gender, if they had a gender, as I knew it at all. Not that their gender, or possible lack thereof, mattered. They were a Demon general, and not to be taken lightly.
I had them in my sights and carefully controlled my breathing as I lined up my shot when the Demon turned and looked right at me. They knew I was here. I reacted instantly, jumping from the top of the wall and changing to my Celestial form as a rock spike erupted from the spot where I had been laying a moment earlier and my rifle clattered to the ground.
My opponent stepped calmly from the tower, their voice carrying to me on the wind. “Hmmm… A Celestial, and using a human weapon. Did you truly think that you could kill Falora, Mistress of the Elements, with such an attack? I felt you the moment that you appeared in my domain, all that you see here is mine to command. I am intimately familiar with every grain of sand, every drop of water…”
“What is it with Demons talking themselves up like some monologuing comic book villain?” I wondered bitterly as I tried to take in my opponent. If she could command the elements like me then this could be a tough fight. It might come down to who was more creative which would be bad because she probably had a lot more experience than I did. I needed to buy time and think of a plan, so I interrupted her to ask, “Should I know you? I can’t say that I’m familiar with the name.”
Maybe that wasn’t the best idea because her reply was an angry roar as she gathered fire from the closest of the bonfires and launched it at me. “Okay, Jen, mental note. If you’re going to interrupt the Demon’s monologue, do it with an attack,” I mentally grumbled as I intercepted the fire with a shield of water from the moat.
The meeting of the two caused a sizzling sound, but it was the water that held. Most of it was evaporated, and honestly, I think it was the element of surprise that really saved me there as she stared at me wide-eyed. I couldn’t afford to let up though, so I directed my mind to the air around me as I reached into my ammunition pouch for a handful of Shannon’s magicked bullets and launched them at Falora with a hurricane-force wind.
The bullets struck a hastily formed stone barrier and detonated their divine magic. Her barrier exploded, sending rock flying everywhere as I winged backward to avoid the shrapnel. What was left of the barrier collapsed, showing Falora unharmed and I mentally cursed at the glare she gave me. “Shit, that was my best chance to finish this quickly. She’s going to be taking me seriously now and I can’t keep this up for long.”
Not for the first time, I wished that I had another power from my Celestial mark. Sarah had told me that the mark, and the powers they granted the bearer, were something uniquely suited to them. The others all had some sort of divine energy as part of their Celestial abilities. I, on the other hand, had control of the four basic elements and while that is awesome, it makes killing Demons a pain in the ass sometimes.
It takes finesse, concentration, and a lot of mental and magick energy to manipulate the elements and make them do exactly what I want them to do. That shield and the wind had taken a lot of juice, and since it looked like I was going to have to stay in the air to give myself time to counter her attacks, devoting energy to that was going to drain my reserves too. I was already draining the first okka crystal in my pouch dry to keep from poisoning myself on Heil’s tainted magick energy.
Falora had similar powers to my own, so I needed to figure out a weakness to exploit, fast. This was going to be a battle of attrition otherwise and once I ran out of okka crystals; I would lose. I also needed to keep my mind on the battle, because if she slipped up, she could regenerate and keep the fight going, but I couldn’t afford to slip up even once.
I barely avoided a barrage of stone shingles from the roof of the pagoda by erecting a stone barrier from the ground, but Falora countered the retaliatory spikes that I launched from it with a wall of her own. I followed up with a powerful burst of wind from her right, but she just shifted her barrier to block that too. Then she got serious.
The water in the moat gathered at Falora’s command, turning into a massive waterspout. It was huge and she sent it right at me, so fast that there was no time to move out of its path. Draining the second of the crystals, I raised a stone barrier at record speed, formed a second barrier of hardened air between me and the first, and braced myself with a counterwind.
The water twister punched right through my first barrier and the second slowed it, but I was still sent flying into the wall encircling the courtyard. The counterwind I had summoned had barely served to slow me and take the brunt of the damage as I slammed into the wall in a symphony of pain that forced the air out of my lungs as I fell to the ground below. I could barely move and hissed from the white-hot pain that engulfed the left side of my body as I tried to get up and get back in the air.
This was bad; I used so much magick energy trying to counter that waterspout that I had to drain the third of the okka crystals. I had one crystal left and my left wing and probably a few ribs were broken. I was fairly sure that I had dislocated my left shoulder too. Dammit, I was going to lose like this.
Falora had said it herself, this was her domain, and she knew it intimately. She could sense every attack that I threw at her. I had only gotten lucky at first because I surprised her by having the same power and then with those bullets. I needed something she couldn’t sense and counter before it got to her. Something like the bullets.
I had a few more in my pouch, but my gun was a dozen feet away and there was no way I could reach it before she could finish me off. I doubted that I would fool her again with using the wind to launch the bullets either. All I had besides the bullets were my bracelet, my portable bunker, that stupid joke gift that my boyfriend got me for Christmas, and the okka… I had to fight not to smile as a plan came to me.
I couldn’t get up, I was going to need all of the energy that I could summon to pull this off, and moving hurt too much right now anyway. I turned my head to look at my rifle, my left arm in agony as I reached toward it. Meanwhile, my right hand was removing my gift from its holster slowly and carefully as Falora stalked toward me with a lupine grin that said that she had won, and she knew it.
She stood several steps away, looking down on me with that grin, and started to monologue as she saw where my gaze and outstretched left arm were directed. “Foolish girl, did you really think yourself a match for the Mistress of Elements? While in my own domain? You are beaten, even if you could reach that pathetic human weapon…”
This time I interrupted the Demon’s monologue with an attack. I pulled the trigger and waited until the flare hit her in the chest before replying, “I wasn’t reaching for that weapon, I was reaching for this one. Hurts, doesn’t it, you bitch? Magnesium burns hot . Oh, and water is not going to put that out.”
I couldn’t believe that worked. When Mason had given the flare gun to me as a sort of joke Christmas gift, he said I might need it. He had said it jokingly as he quoted, “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” Still, even I thought that it might be useful in case there was no fire for me to manipulate nearby in a fight. I can manipulate the elements, not create them, after all. I was never going to doubt his hunches again.
Falora was screaming as she frantically tried to put out the fire that was rapidly consuming her clothes and fur, but I wasn’t done yet. I dropped the flare gun and reached in my pouch for the last of the okka crystals, the one still brimming with divine magick energy. I focused my concentration on it and let it fall from my hand to roll toward the still screaming and burning Demon.
One thing about crystals is that they’re a mineral and I can control those. They can also be grown, so I used my power to make this one grow. At my urging, and with a lot of energy, that little violet crystal sphere grew into a massive spike that impaled Falora through the chest and there was enough holy magick permeating the crystal, even at its larger size, that Falora’s still-screaming body turned to dust. I laughed, which was pure agony, and muttered, “Who’s the Mistress of the Elements now, Bitch?”
It took forever, and a lot of pain to get to my feet. I was running low on magick energy after that stunt, and I was in bad shape, but I limped over to retrieve my rifle. The flare gun was already holstered, and I just needed to get rid of the okka crystal formation that I had made before I could go home and rest. I sucked all the magick energy that remained from it and then used my powers to turn the whole formation into dust. I didn’t want to risk any enemy Demons finding it and putting it to use, and I could always grow more later if we needed it.
With that done, I touched my bug-out bracelet and painfully hissed, “911” to go home. As much as I wanted to find Mason, Shannon, and the others, I knew that I was in no shape to do so. I was in agony, my vision was getting blurry, and could barely stand right now. Besides, I believed in them. They would find a way to win, even if it seemed impossible. Because that’s what we do.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 25 Sihaal the Unseen Amethyst |
Have you ever met a person who, by their mere existence, turns your life completely on its head in the most unexpected ways? For me, that person was Shannon O’Reilly. Shannon is that rare kind of person who draws other people to them and changes their lives as a result. Unlike most people like that, she usually changes the lives of those who become close to her in weird and supernatural ways, but more often than not, those changes are for the better too.
The day that we met at that café and I asked her out, I had been following one of my hunches but I never really expected that one action to change my life the way that it had. Before that day I had been focused on my dream of becoming a movie star, and the rest of my life suffered as a result. I was so focused on getting modeling jobs, auditions, reading lines, and especially acting lessons that I hardly spent any time with my old friends anymore. Despite my hunches, I missed seeing something important. My mom and some of my friends got sick and probably could have died because of the Demons that were feeding on their life energy.
I was so focused on what I wanted from life that I ignored the feeling that what I had was in danger until it was almost too late. When I finally did give in to that feeling I had been surprised to see an actual Demon. However, I was even more surprised to see that same, sweet, redheaded girl that my hunch had pushed me to meet earlier in the day use magick to destroy the creature. She probably saved my ass too.
Shannon, Sarah, and Ziralin saved my mother’s life, and the lives of a few friends who had been ‘sick’ as well. They also invited me to join them, to use my gift to help other people the same way that they did. Shannon pulled me into her gravity and now my life was weirder, but so much better than before.
Sure, I still wanted to be a movie star someday, but I was also doing something amazing. I was helping people, protecting them, even if they didn’t realize it most of the time. My hunches were becoming more reliable and happening more often too since I had joined Sarah’s and Shannon’s team of Demon hunters. The biggest thing that meeting Shannon had brought into my life would also be the most innocuous to other people though. It was because of her that I met Jennifer.
That first night, when Jen had given me a ride home from Shannon’s house, the two of us just clicked. She was smart, fun to be with, and a lot prettier than she would ever give herself credit for. We had been going steady for two months now, longer if you counted our time in Nhekar together, and I had fallen for her hard. Now, I couldn’t image my life without her in it.
I hoped that she would be okay. I know that splitting up and taking on all of the Generals at once had been my idea, but I was certain that it was the only way that we would all live through this. That is if I had chosen the right targets for us. This was literal Hell though, and I was well aware that worse things than death could happen to us here if we failed.
We couldn’t allow ourselves to fail here, we all knew that going in. I had to believe in my hunches, and believe in the others. “Don’t doubt yourself now, Mason, and have faith in your friends. We can do this,” I mentally scolded myself. Still, that didn’t stop me from worrying about my friends, and especially Jen, as I appeared in a large cobblestone courtyard with a sixty-foot tall tower in the center.
I couldn’t sense any Demons in the tower, or the courtyard at all. Beyond the walls I could hear fighting though, it sounded intense. Kisha must have managed to convince the resistance force of Demons against the war to rise up after all. It sounded like chaos out there, I only hoped that the distraction would work to our advantage.
I had a feeling that the Demon general that held this gatehouse was out there, trying to stop the apparent insurrection, and that gave me two options. The first was subtlety. I could try to get a good vantage point, hope that my psychic ability could help me pick them out of a crowd, and try to take them down with my shotgun. The second option was to get their attention and make them come to me, hopefully without reinforcements and before the news started to travel about the other Generals and the Demon King being attacked.
Forget it, subtlety was out. That was more Jen’s kind of thing than mine and even if I could pick out the General in a crowd of fighting Demons, long-range accuracy was also something that Jen would be better at, it was why I used a shotgun instead of a rifle. My Celestial ability was also far more suited to defense, and protecting others, than to attacking.
The armor and shield that manifested on me when I changed to my Celestial form contained powerful holy defensive enchantments, so I figured that the moment that I changed form I would light up like a flare to any Demons nearby, even without my Celestial aura. If anything would bring my opponent to me, it would probably be a Celestial in their gatehouse. It was time to wake up the neighbors.
I concentrated on the shield-shaped mark on my chest and changed forms, feeling my wings emerge behind me and the familiar weight of my armor and shield settle upon me. Now I could sense the seething mass of demonic auras in the ring beyond this courtyard and, almost immediately, the most powerful aura I had ever felt separated from the fray and moved straight to my position. Whatever it was, it was fast . I only barely reacted in time to my hunch to raise a defensive dome before the courtyard around me erupted in flames.
My armor and shield only protected me from physical attacks. As far as I knew, the armor was damn near impenetrable, except for a few weak spots, and any Demons who so much as touched it or the shield would be burned by the protective magicks. For magical attacks, and things like this fire, I needed to use my actual Celestial ability and not its physical representation though.
I quickly drained one of the okka crystals in my pouch as the flames faded and I allowed the silvery dome of protection to vanish. I had been hoping not to have to use it so soon since it was a power hog of an ability and I only had four crystals to work with. Well, three crystals now.
My opponent regarded me from atop the courtyard wall with wide reptilian eyes once the smoke cleared since half the courtyard was blackened and cracked from the heat of the flames, except for a ten-foot-in-diameter circle around me. The Demon was covered in black and blood-red scales, was roughly eight feet tall as it stood on its hind legs, and had a long sinewy body and tail with black spikes emerging from its spine, and a wedge-shaped head. It had short forelegs with talon-like hands tipped with nasty-looking claws that were easily six inches long.
It was a Salamander, I recognized its kind from Lunael’s memories, smaller distant relatives of Dragons. How the hell did this one get so fast though? It hissed, flicking its lizard-like tongue at me from between rows of teeth designed to rend flesh. Then its mouth erupted in flames again and I barely reacted in time to the glow in its mouth to raise another shield.
“Damn. Two crystals down and two to go,” I thought bitterly as the flames started to clear and I fired a round from my shotgun, one that the Salamander deftly avoided in a blur of motion. I needed to bring this thing in close to fight in a way I was better suited for and hope that my psychic instincts could help to counteract its raw speed.
I had an idea as I quickly fired off a round toward where my instincts were telling me that he would appear next. There was a hiss of pain as it again deftly avoided the shot, but it sounded as if I had grazed him with some of Shannon’s special buckshot at least. As he moved again I tried to get into the role I had in mind and casually called out, “You know, I came here to fight a General in honorable combat, not some lizard with bad breath. Feel free to keep trying though, I don’t need to draw on the toxic magick energy here to keep this up. I can keep canceling out your little flames all day long.”
I was ready this time as another gout of flames erupted around my hastily erected dome. “Shit. Three crystals down, I really hope he doesn’t decide to call my bluff.”
When the flames cleared and I turned to their source, the Salamander was watching me warily. “You do not draw upon the essssence,” it hissed. I tried not to breathe an audible sigh of relief. From what I knew, Salamanders were mostly physical combatants and couldn’t sense magick very well. It could probably sense if someone was drawing on the ‘essence’ around it but I had been hoping that it wouldn’t sense me drawing on the magick stored in the okka crystals since they were so close to my body and the powerful enchantments in my armor and shield.
“Nope, I do not,” I cheerfully agreed. “So I can do this all day unless a General decides to face me in honorable combat. No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone. What do you say? You stop wasting both our time trying to barbeque me, and I’ll put away my boomstick, and we’ll try to kill each other like civilized people.”
“Sssselessstials and your honor,” the Salamander hissed in distaste. “Very well, I will give you credit for courage, at leassst, to challenge Ssssihaal the Unsssseen.”
“What can I say? I like a challenge,” I replied as if I actually had any idea who he was. I am Mason, the… uhh… thespian.” I needed to keep playing along so I could get him in close and hope that the crazy plan that I had just come up with would work. So, I carefully shouldered my shotgun. If I tried to aim it at him, he would probably have moved before I could even pull the trigger.
As soon as I had shouldered the weapon, Sihaal made his move. I didn’t even see it, one minute he was standing there watching me, and an instant later I was reacting so a very powerful hunch and moving my head to the right as quickly as I could with my enhanced Celestial speed and reflexes. The bastard had gone straight for the eye slits in my helm with those long claws of his and I had barely managed to move aside in time.
The fight carried on like that for a while as Sihaal moved too fast for me to see and tried to land killing blows while my hunches were barely keeping me alive and in one piece. Then I got a hunch that wasn’t related to my current fight, one that tugged at my heart as well as my mind. Jen was hurt, and probably in trouble, but if I took my mind off this fight for even an instant, I would be dead within that same moment. I had to trust in my girlfriend, she could win as long as she used her head.
Still, I wanted to go to her side so I needed to finish this up quickly. He was coming for me again, on my right side, where I didn’t have the shield to intercept him. I swiftly pivoted and at the last second, I summoned a protective dome as I slammed my shield into where I thought he was going to be. I was rewarded with an impact on my shield and a hiss of pain from my opponent as the divine energies in my silver shield made contact with his scales.
When he tried to retreat and put some distance between us, he was in for an unpleasant surprise and another hiss of pain, more intense this time, rang out to my left, followed by a curse in the demonic language. I turned, slamming my shield into him again while he was still stunned and pinning him between it and my barrier. “Did you just realize now that you’re trapped in here with me?” I asked, not caring if I got an answer. “My protective domes don’t just keep things from getting in, they keep things from getting out too, and the barrier is made of pure holy magick.”
“You sssaid no trickssss!!!” he screamed as he was burned from both sides.
“I was acting, Asshole.” I gave a push with all the strength that I had as I drained the last okka crystal to keep the dome up a little bit longer. Sihaal’s screams and the smell of burning flesh permeated the courtyard for another couple of minutes before they suddenly stopped, and I felt no more resistance to my pushing as he turned to ash.
I let my dome fade as my exhaustion from the fight set in. What about Jen? Was she okay? She had to be, if she had died, I would have felt it, I would know. No, I had a strong feeling that she was hurt, but that she had won and had used her bugout bracelet. Should I stay and help the others?
It didn’t take me long to decide against it. I would have to fly to get to any of them in time, and I had just used every bit of magick energy that I had to kill Sihaal. It would take me too long to purify enough to safely make the trip to even the next gatehouse.
No, the others could handle their fights. I had faith in them. I needed to go home and check on the girl that I loved. I dismissed my Celestial form and reached for my bugout bracelet and as I spoke the emergency number that would take me home, I thought that I saw a lone Succubus flying overhead, toward the center of the city. There was no aura, and she was moving with a purpose, so it seemed that Lisa, Michelle, and Rebecca had won the battle at the first gate as well. “Good luck, Becca,” I thought as the courtyard disappeared from my sight and I returned home.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 26 The Puppet Master Amethyst |
I looked cautiously around the cobblestone courtyard from the spot atop one of the walls where I had appeared. The courtyard below was filled with statues of various Demons; there were at least a hundred of them, probably a lot more. Some looked to be kneeling, begging for forgiveness, or perhaps their lives. Others were recoiling, expressions of horror etched into their faces. It was creepy and they made me nervous, a feeling of tightness in my gut that I couldn’t explain.
I couldn’t sense anything else, but that wasn’t surprising since I was still in my regular human form and I could only sense demonic auras in my Celestial form. I didn’t want to use that form quite yet though. For one thing, if the Demon General whom I was to face was close by, they would likely sense my aura in that form as well as I could sense theirs. I didn’t want to give away my presence until I had some idea of what I was dealing with.
I could hear fighting in the distance, so it seemed that Kisha was able to get the resistance to stage their rebellion as planned. I just wished that she had been able to give us more information to work with. She only had reliable information on three of the Generals, and one of those was Khinara, whom we were already far too familiar with. The other two were a Succubus named Larezza who was nearly as powerful with magick as Khinara and a Gharl named Kreiber.
Those three were the strongest of the Generals and had held their positions for decades or longer. The other four General positions were held by considerably weaker Demons and were constantly being challenged, and often replaced, by up-and-coming Demons. It was like a revolving door from what Kisha had told us, and I couldn’t be sure what any of us might be facing with those four since Kisha had left the Rings some time ago and possessed very little up-to-date information.
I didn’t want to go into this unprepared, but I also knew that I needed to hit hard and fast, and I needed to do it soon. The others were counting on me. Sarah was counting on me, and I wanted to finish this as soon as possible and get to her side, where I belonged.
Sarah was more than just some woman that I was being paid to protect, and so was Shannon and the rest of this crazy group of ours. Those kids were all like family and Sarah… well, I was in love with her, and I think that I had been since not long after we met. She was beautiful, smart, and had the kind of confidence that only those who have been through hell and survived could possess.
From that first time that I had seen her naked in the woods, I had been smitten, though, for Shannon and Beth’s sakes, I had tried to stay professional. It wasn’t just her body, though that had made my heart race. She had sacrificed herself for her sister, and for Beth and me as well, facing almost certain death with a courage that I had never seen outside of the movies.
I wanted to know her better after that, even as traumatized as I was by what had nearly happened. Then she offered me a job as her bodyguard and personal assistant. It wasn’t just a job offer though, she stepped up for a person she barely knew and helped give me the courage to stand up to my captain for everything that he and those two fat assholes had put me through, to hand in my badge and give them hell.
When she surprised me and everyone else with that first kiss, I went from smitten to half in love on the spot. Since then, things have been crazy, but my life has been so much better too, and all because Sarah was a part of it. I would do anything for her. Right now, that meant going into the unknown and crushing whatever Demon that I had to so I could get back to her side.
I hopped down from the wall, landing in a crouch as I surveyed the courtyard again from ground level and approached the tower at the center. Something about this place had me wound tighter than a spring and I suddenly stopped as I caught the barest motion from the corner of my eye. I was not alone in the courtyard.
There it was again, more movement, barely noticeable. I could have sworn that one of the statues had turned its head toward me slightly. I had a bad feeling about this. I carefully controlled my breathing and in the silence, I heard stone scraping on stone behind me.
“Screw it, no sense hiding now, whoever is in charge of this gatehouse already knows that I’m here,” I thought bitterly as I focused on my mark and changed to my Celestial form. I took to the air with powerful beats of my wings and barely avoided the lunge of some large lizard-man Demon, or rather the statue of one. A burst of concentrated holy magick energy from my bracers reduced the statue to rubble, but the other statues were moving as well, coming at me now with no effort to hide their movement.
The statues gave off very faint demonic auras, either from whatever was controlling them or as some remnant of the Demons that they once were. There was a much larger aura coming from the tower though. I didn’t have time to think about it though as the statue of some massive goliath threw one of its fellows at me. I barely avoided it by dropping to the ground, where I immediately had to duck a swing from another statue and countered with a kick to try to give myself some breathing room.
Fuck did that hurt, and the statue was barely chipped, even with my Celestial-enhanced strength. I released the pairs of claws from each bracer and slashed at the demonic figures closing in on me, but even the holy magick-infused silver weapons didn’t do much more than leave gouges in the stone. I cursed as I realized that I had no choice but to fire more bursts from the barrels between the claws.
Stone figures exploded, battering me with shrapnel as I peppered those closest to me, trying to give myself some space. Wincing from the damage that I was inadvertently causing myself, I drained the magick energy from one of the okka crystals I carried to recharge and put some distance between the horde of stone Demons and myself. They were slow and their movements were jerky but I couldn’t risk trying to fight them up close, especially the larger ones.
As soon as I had some space, I took to the air again, and once again, the Goliath threw one of its companions at me. I jinked to the side and, as the statue sailed past me to crash into the courtyard wall, I unloaded on the giant with a barrage of purified magick bolts from my bracers. Right now, he was the biggest threat, both figuratively and literally. Its face and body were no longer identifiable but it was still standing and reaching down to throw another statue at me.
I let him have it again, and by the time he collapsed into a massive pile of rubble, I had to drain another crystal. Dammit, I did not want to be on the back foot like this. At least my biggest problem so far was taken care of, so quickly I moved toward the source of the large demonic aura. Large, but nowhere near as large as the aura that Khinara had possessed.
She was human-shaped, at least above her waist, but below that, she was like a snake and she was covered from head to tail in iridescent green scales. Her face was a hideous caricature of a woman under those scales, with small tusks protruding from her upper jaw, snake-like eyes, and some sort of tentacles in place of hair. Anjurael’s memories flashed through my mind and suddenly, I knew what I was facing.
It was a Gorgal, a type of Demon that the ancient Greek myths of Medusa and other gorgons had probably been based on. For a brief instant, I was afraid that I was going to have to fight her blind, but I hadn’t been turned to stone yet. Anjurael’s memories told me that the Greeks were wrong about being turned to stone by just looking upon them; they actually turned their prey to stone through a curse unique to their species and once they had, they could control them like puppets on strings of demonic magick.
I was probably safe from the curse since it was placed when they used those tentacles to drain a creature’s life energy. Feeding on the life energy of a Celestial would be like trying to eat holy magick; it would hurt her and then kill her long before she could finish feeding on me. I would have to get in close and fight her, hoping that I could take her down hard and fast. Even without their puppets, Gorgals are dangerous; they are strong, and fast, and those thick scales make them very durable.
Considering the problem, I fired a burst of holy magick projectiles as I approached but she managed to dodge and I found my path blocked as a quartet of huge gargoyles dropped from the tower to intercept me. I reduced them to rubble before they could get close enough to attack, but I was again showered with shrapnel and had to drain my third okka crystal. I only had one left; I was going to have to finish this fast if I was going to conserve enough energy to join Sarah after this.
With my claw blades extended, I turned back toward the Gorgal’s demonic aura. Shit. She was quick, and she had slithered right into a large group of statues. I pulled my Glock and started firing Shannon’s special rounds into the crowd. Unlike the usual rounds, which were only set to release their purified magick energy if they hit a Demon, the ones that we had brought to Heil had been enchanted to release that energy no matter what they hit. The energy release wouldn’t hurt any of us, but the hordes of Demons that we had come expecting to fight were a different story.
There was a scream amid the group of statues, one that abruptly cut off as first the Gorgal, and then the statues, turned to ash. For a moment, I thought that I was done, that I had beaten the General who held this gatehouse. I retracted the claws back into my bracers and was about to go find Sarah. That moment was all too brief before I felt the sickening sensation of a Demon’s portal spell being activated behind me and something stepped through.
Whoever, or whatever, it was they were much stronger than the Demon that I had just faced. If I had to guess, they were nearly as strong as Khinara was when we last encountered her, and even weakened by hunger she was no slouch in the power department. A masculine laugh rang out behind me and I turned to see an Incubus standing at the entrance to the tower, looking at me in keen interest.
“A Celestial? No, a Human, playing at being one, but here, in Heil of all places? And strong enough to defeat my little puppet, Tria?” He smiled as he approached me, sauntering as if he had nothing to fear. “I am Dallin, one of the Demon King’s seven Generals, and I would very much like to get to know you better.”
Fuck. I thought that Gorgal bitch was the puppeteer, but she was as much a puppet as those statues of hers. I ejected the clip from my weapon and slapped another home as I glowered at the approaching Incubus. “Not gonna happen, Asshole. I’m not attracted to guys, so your whammy isn’t going to work on me.” I saw no sense in mentioning that my mind was also shielded by Shannon’s anti-Succubus spell regardless.
His face briefly showed disappointment before I emptied the newly loaded clip at him. I like to imagine that it turned to shock, and maybe disbelief, as he was hit with over a dozen explosions of holy magick. Shit. He had a shielding spell, like that bastard Varas did when he fought Sarah to a standstill on the night we met.
He tossed a smoking amulet to the ground and I considered how best to go about this. If he was a mage like Varas and Khinara, he could probably shield himself again and I had just used all my ammo to take that damn amulet out of play. I had more ammo in my pouches, of course, but I would need to reload both clips and I honestly didn’t think that he was going to give me the chance to do that. I needed a plan here, I needed it fast, and I only had one okka crystal left.
I needed to get in close, but I needed to make sure that he didn’t have any protections first, and maybe I could lull him into thinking that I was a long-distance combatant. I experimentally fired a burst from my bracers and they harmlessly impacted against another shield spell, because of course, he could use magick, he did come here through a portal after all. He sneered at me, seemingly confident in his defenses, and decided to go on the offense.
A barrage of hellfire blasted toward me and I had to take wing to avoid it, firing a few more bursts in an attempt to whittle down his shield, only to have to dodge a ball of purple flame that exploded when it hit the ground where I had briefly touched down. Back into the air to avoid a second and third of those purple balls of exploding flame and I hit him with yet another burst from my bracers.
Three more bursts and a half dozen dodges later, I was draining the last of my okka crystals when he sneered at me once again and snorted in distaste as he said, “Such a weak and predictable little holy mage thinks that she can best me? A General of Heil? Your arrogance will be your death.”
“Wait, he thinks I’m some kind of spell caster?” I guess that the bursts of holy magick that my bracers fired could be considered spells since they were magick-based, and the bullets I had fired had definitely been enchanted, just not by me. Could it be that he thought that I was some sort of one-trick pony? It was as I was considering this and dodging another of those annoying purple fireballs and getting showered with shrapnel that I noticed something important. He was getting hit with shrapnel too.
No way. He couldn’t seriously be making the same mistake that Khinara did during our big fight with her, could he? The shield in the ruined amulet had blocked the enspelled bullets, but that was an emergency protection embedded into the amulet and he could never know what he might need protection against. Right now though, he thought that I was a spell-caster, so he was only protecting himself against magick.
I dodged another hastily woven spell, this time a black beam of some sort crackling with energy that I was sure that I didn’t want to touch me. Then I jinked to the side, got in close, and took his legs out from under him with a leg sweep before he even realized what was happening. Dallin’s eyes were still wide with surprise when I pounced on top of him, ejected my claws, and thrust them into his chest.
I waited just a moment, crouching above his ashes to be certain that no other puppet masters were going to appear, and then I went to retrieve the discarded clip for my Glock. It took longer to find it than I would have liked, and then more time to reload both clips but I wanted to be ready in case Sarah or the others needed backup and I had precious little magick energy left to work with. I would probably have enough to fly to Sarah though, and I could still be effective between my claws and my Glock.
I hoped the others were managing their battles as well. I mean, yeah, I was bruised all over from being showered with shrapnel, but I was alive and ready for round two. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need my backup at all. I could only pray that was the case as I took flight and made my way toward the innermost circles of the Rings. Ahead of me, I could see a single Succubus-like figure doing the same, and she was moving fast.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 27 Courage Amethyst |
I didn’t think that I would ever get used to the sensation of being teleported. There’s this sudden lurching in that instant when you leave one place and reappear in another. It’s disorienting, and when you add in the feeling that your insides are briefly outside, and vice versa, it isn’t a pleasant sensation. I had only gone through it a few times, but every single time I felt like hurling immediately afterward. This time was no exception.
I was vaguely aware that I had appeared atop the wall of a large courtyard, as large as a football field, with a black tower standing in the center. I quickly dropped to the ground and retreated through wildly growing brush into a nearby dark corner to empty my stomach. I hoped that the others were having better luck than I was. I was worried about all of them, especially Rebecca and Shannon.
I was sure that Shannon could probably handle most Demons, my cousin was just that powerful and talented and I often found myself in awe of her. She was planning to fight the strongest Demon in Heil though, one that had ruled with an iron fist for millennia. How could anyone, even Shannon with her powers unsealed, hope to defeat something like that?
That was just the kind of person my cousin was though, doing whatever she felt that she had to do so she could keep other people safe and happy. That first night that we met, she had barely known me, but she let me sleep with her in her bed and held me through my tears and nightmares. She and her friends helped me to find my courage, and stop hating myself for my father’s death, and they even reunited my mother and me with our people. Every day, I counted myself lucky that Shannon and Sarah had taken us in, and I was proud to be a part of their family.
I was worried about Rebecca because, unlike the rest of us, she had no experience at all fighting Demons and was being thrown right into a fight with one of their Generals. Sure, she had the Succubus powers and could probably fight a regular demon on her own if she had to, but against something like this? I wasn’t sure that whatever she and Shannon had gone through on Nhekar could prepare her for this, and she was so focused on revenge for her mother’s death.
At least Michelle and Lisa both had experience fighting a Demon and one of the Generals at that. Neither of them was very powerful, but they were smart and resilient, and Shannon and Ziralin had been training them both. I could only hope that they would all keep one another safe and that my gift would give Rebecca an edge in their fight. “Please, Becca, come back alive,” I thought as I finished emptying my stomach and got to my feet.
Sure, Rebecca could be abrasive at first, and she was even pricklier than Michelle, but she had changed since traveling with Shannon in that alien world, and not just the whole Succubus thing. She seemed more comfortable in her own skin, she was making an effort to try to be nicer, and oh Goddess, I was so attracted to her, even with the anti-Succubus spell on me. I wanted to find the courage to make a move on her, but that wouldn’t happen if I lost her here.
I attempted to calm the fluttering in my chest and took in my surroundings. I was hidden inside the thick brush that grew along the walls and well into the courtyard itself, thinning out only a mere ten feet away from the tower in the center. “Maybe those butterflies in my chest weren’t from thinking about Rebecca,” I realized with a frown. Something was very wrong here.
The plants here, and this prickly brush, were familiar; I recognized much of it from the area around our troupe’s village. They were among the hardier plants, able to grow in even harsher climates. How did plant life native to Tír na nÓg end up here, of all places?
I found an answer, sort of. The desiccated corpse of a Faery lay amidst the brush, his eyes and mouth wide in a scream of abject horror. The life had been sucked out of him, and two others that I found in various stages of decomposition as I made my way toward the central tower, and each had been armed with roughly made weapons. I knew the signs well enough to know what I was dealing with here; I should since my father had looked much the same when he had died. It was a Hradok.
Terror surged in my chest with each body I discovered, my hands trembled, and my knees threatened to buckle. They couldn’t even flee properly because their wings had been ripped off. By the time I found the fourth body, images flashed through my mind of my father trying to fight off one of the blue-skinned Demons to protect my mother and me. It just had to be the Demon that I feared the most, the ones that hunted my people to near extinction, just as whoever held this tower seemed to be making a sport of hunting Faery before gorging itself on their life force. I wanted to throw up again. I wanted to run away.
No. Shannon wouldn’t do that, and I wouldn’t either. I came here to kill a Demon General and this didn’t change anything. If anything, it made it even more important. I needed to face my fear, and not just for my own sake. That first body had been killed recently, within the last day or so. This Hradok may be keeping others of my kind captive, and I would not rest until they were freed. Nobody else was going to die like that on my watch.
If I got close, that Hradok was going to smell my life force if it hadn’t already. I couldn’t hide it from one of their kind. I was willing to bet that it wasn’t around at the moment if it hadn’t already sensed me. If it had, it would have roared to stoke my fear.
I needed to think. I had three okka crystals, but I would rather not waste them if I didn’t have to. If there really were other Faery being held somewhere, then they might need my healing powers.
What would Shannon do? She would probably overwhelm it with sheer power, but I didn’t have that option. I only had my Celestial healing powers, my Faery abilities, my gun, and enough silver to improvise some weapons if I needed to. I wasn’t nearly as talented with weapons as Ziralin was though.
“Think, Ellie, think. Mason said that we each had something that was needed to defeat our opponents, so what do I have that nobody else does? I’m impulsive and reckless, and I guess I know Hradoks pretty well. I was obsessed with learning how to protect myself from one after Dad died, not that I found anything. They’re strong, fast, and the only time they’ll get close to their victims is when they’re about to suck them…” That was when I came up with a brilliant plan.
Five minutes later, I heard an all too familiar spine-chilling howl as I made my way to the tower at the center of the overgrown courtyard. I was hoping to ambush the Hradok with some well-placed gunfire when it arrived, but unfortunately, it had stepped outside the tower when I was halfway there and immediately caught my scent. The howl was immediately followed by a male voice calling out, “Don’t you smell delicious, little Faery? So much essence. How did you find your way into the very depths of Heil? You are not one of those from the pantry, I don’t recognize that scent.”
“I came to kill you,” I called back brazenly. He would expect me to flee, to give him some sport, but he was going to be disappointed.
I could see him now, a large man in what looked like leather armor. He would have looked like a large and muscular human if it wasn’t for the azure skin, the lack of any hair, and the huge crown of bony horns atop his head. The bastard was laughing. “The prey would kill the hunter? Your kin have tried before you, and failed, little Faery.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not them,” I said as I pulled my gun free of its holster and fired a couple of shots. “I came prepared. These are Demon-slayer rounds.”
The hunter heard my shots and ran wide to keep its distance. Damn, Hradoks had senses as good as a Faery’s but they’re much faster. He managed to avoid the shots and the small explosions of holy magick energy that followed. I kept firing, trying to shoot where I thought he was going to be in the hopes of getting a lucky shot and finishing this off quickly. I wasn’t really comfortable with what I might have to do if this fight dragged on for a while, better to finish it fast.
Unfortunately, none of my shots landed and as I was ejecting the magazine to reload, he came in close and knocked me flying with a tackle. My gun went sailing from my hand and I couldn’t reach my sword as he pinned me to the ground, making a show of taking in my scent. I shuddered in fear for an instant, once again a scared girl watching her father’s life drained before her eyes.
No. I gritted my teeth and enacted my plan. If he thought I was going to lay down and just let him eat me or try to get some more sport out of me by stoking my fears, he was in for a surprise. Probably more than one.
Yup, he was definitely surprised when I manipulated the silver sword and jewelry that I was wearing, forming multiple blades and stabbing at his arms, causing him to scream in agony. The moment that he reared back to try and push himself away on mutilated arms and put some distance between us again, I wrapped my arms and legs around him and refused to let go. Then his eyes went wide as I called upon my Celestial form and my wings burst forth from my back in all of their glory. “A Cel…”
I didn’t give him a chance to even finish the word. I just kept attacking with silver, hacking at his legs and arms until I had to drain one of the okka crystals. I didn’t attack anywhere vital, I still needed him to answer a question, but he wouldn’t need those arms and legs for that, and letting him keep them would only be dangerous for me. I shifted the silver once again, forming a blade at his throat and his flesh sizzled at the touch. “Where are you keeping my kin? Speak. If I even think that you’re going to try to bite me, I’ll finish you off and find them on my own.”
He spoke, and once he had told me what I wanted to know, I finished him off. Only once the ash was settled did I allow myself to collapse. I had been lucky, he was one of the newer and weaker Generals, and I had silver available when his other prey had to work with rocks or sharpened sticks, which wouldn’t do shit against a Demon. I was still sitting there, though I had managed to get control of my breathing and stop trembling when I heard a familiar voice say in a relieved voice. “You’re safe, thank goodness.”
I looked up into Becca’s eyes and forced a smile. “Yeah, I… I’m good. I’m glad to see you are too. This guy was used to chasing Faery that weren’t able to defend themselves.”
“Your gift helped,” the faux-succubus said with a bittersweet smile, as she pulled me to my feet. “Thanks. I was able to kill the bitch that killed my mom. Michelle got hurt though so she and Lisa headed home, she might need your healing magick. We need to go help Shannon though.”
I shook my head and told her. “Shannon will be fine, if anyone can handle that fight it’s my cousin. We would only get in the way. I need your help here, there are Faery being held in that tower, that pile of ash there was keeping them here as future meals. I can sense Demons inside, but their auras are weak so we should be able to handle them. We’ll probably have to get Shannon or Sarah to help us get them home once the fighting is over.”
“I guess you’re right,” Becca replied, letting out a long sigh as I went to retrieve my gun and then led her toward the tower. “Shannon would want us to help those people anyway; being a fucking goody-two-shoes is her thing.”
Becca cracked a smile at that and I wondered if maybe she was still crushing on Shannon. Was there any hope for me at all? I stopped us before the tower doors and leaned up to impulsively plant a kiss on her. I would never know unless I tried. “For… ummm… luck,” I offered lamely, my face bright red.
She hadn’t broken away, her lips might have even lingered a bit. I smiled at the thought as she blushed and stammered something unintelligible. Maybe I had a chance after all. I felt like I could do anything after today.
As we searched for the Faery in the tower, I learned that Becca could be downright vicious in a fight. She took out most of the dozen or so Demons that we encountered, and damn was it hot. The eight Faery that we found alive were in rough shape; half starved, weak, and suffering from various injuries from when Demons roughed them up. Fortunately, their wings hadn’t been torn off like the bodies I had found in the courtyard, I guess he did that to hobble them for his hunts so they wouldn’t try to fly off.
It was heartbreaking to find so few alive and in such a condition. I used up the last two okka crystals I had healing them all, but I figured that I would still have enough magick energy to get me to Ziralin or Sarah, and I could always recharge by resting. Still, they were alive and would soon be safe with our troupe if I had any say in the matter, and sharing food from our packs seemed to improve their moods somewhat.
Becca made them a bit nervous, but that was to be expected after what Demons had put them through. I managed to convince them that she wasn’t really a Demon, just under a curse, with the help of the mark on her shoulder and the fact that she had no demonic aura. Hopefully, Jaenara would be able to help with their trauma once we got them back to the troupe.
For now, we had done all that we could for them and the adult Faery would be able to fly and help carry the two young Fae. I had just finished telling the Faery where, and to whom, we were going when Becca gave me a strange, almost concerned look and said, “Lose the wings.” Apparently, she figured out how abrasive that must have sounded because she stammered, “I… um… mean that you’re tired, and you might… uhh… need to save your energy. I could carry you, I don’t need to worry about that magick shit and I… umm…”
I tried not to giggle and showed mercy by changing out of my Celestial form. Rebecca picked me up in a princess carry and it was my turn to blush as I felt the eyes of the other Faery upon us. I was still bright red and nuzzling against her as she leaped into the air with the Faery following as we made our way toward the others. I just hoped that they were all okay.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 28 Krieber Amethyst |
The moment that the lurching sensation from the teleportation began to recede, something big and hard slammed into me and sent me flying. What the fuck? I didn’t even have a few seconds to get my bearings before I was sent rolling across the ground like a person-shaped bowling ball to crash into a wall.
It was only my speed, reflexes, and big pointy ears that allowed me to somewhat roll with the blow and avoid the follow up attack, as whatever had hit me smashed into the wall and sent debris flying everywhere. Stone shrapnel pounded me as I got to my feet and tried to take stock of my injuries while putting some much-needed space between myself and whatever had hit me. This wasn’t good, the fight had barely started, and I was already on the back foot, and I didn’t even know if I was facing the actual General of this gatehouse yet.
From the aches starting to form all over my body, I figured that I was likely bruised all over, but I probably got off lucky since only a few ribs were causing me serious pain. They didn’t feel broken at least, probably just cracked. It wasn’t as serious as I feared while getting to my feet, but it still made moving and even breathing painful.
Flying was going to be rough, but I focused on the twin swords mark below my navel and changed to my angelic form before quickly taking to the air. I was right; the movement of my winds seemed to jar my ribs with every beat, but I needed to put a bit of distance between myself and whatever had attacked me. Not only would it, hopefully, give me an aerial advantage and more space to react to attacks, but I needed to at least get a look at whatever I was dealing with.
Whatever it was, it recovered as quickly as I had from its crash into the stone wall and I could see it moving before the dust even settled. It was a tall and lanky male humanoid, almost eight feet tall, with sickly-looking swamp-green skin. His head was disturbingly large compared to his lanky body, especially the area of the brain, and was protected by a set of four massive black horns that curled up over it. Even with his imposing height, he looked ridiculously top-heavy and his little beady eyes looked tiny in his bestial boar-like face. He even had the tusks.
He wasn’t wearing any sort of armor, but then, he wouldn’t really need it. Instead, he wore a simple black toga and sandals and several steel bands around his upper arms and lower legs. His hideous green skin was half-covered in some sort of tribal tattoos.
Unfortunately, Torphael’s memories were able to give me a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with. It was a Gharl. Out of all seven Generals, why the hell did I have to get Krieber? On the upside, he was one of the few Demon Generals that we had been able to get any information on, but he was also probably the worst of the seven for me to face.
Gharls can’t use magick and their bodies are surprisingly frail if you can hit them without protection, but they make up for it with their psychic abilities. From what Kisha was able to tell us, Krieber was the most powerful and versatile Gharl that Heil had ever spawned. He was able to use his psychic abilities to sense the area around him without using his physical senses, boost his strength and speed, and maintain a constant psychic barrier around himself that would make my swords and holy arrows effectively useless.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it as a barrage of debris from the damaged wall of the large courtyard flew toward me, forcing me to allow myself to drop a good ten feet to avoid it. “Dammit, I need to go on the offensive here. I can’t let him keep controlling the flow of battle,” I thought to myself bitterly.
Barely dodging a large stone that hurtled through the air toward me, I linked my swords together at the pommels to form my holy bow and rained arrows of light and purified magick energy upon my opponent, hoping that I could wear him out by having to defend himself from so many deadly projectiles at once. His damned shield held as I had to drain one of my trio of okka crystals.
The bastard laughed off my attack, even as I bombarded him with even more arrows, and the holy magick they contained dissipated before they could reach him. That shield was so fucking unfair and annoying. I couldn’t even sense any fluctuations or weak spots in the shield and between all of those arrows I was firing and trying to stay in the air to keep some distance between us, I was going to need to drain another okka crystal soon.
Maybe I should try to make him wear himself out, if I couldn’t overpower his shield. He wasn’t drawing on magick energy to fuel his abilities, so they probably used up physical energy. If I made him continuously keep his shield up, moved around a lot so he had to keep that psychic sense of his on me, and goaded him into senseless attacks fueled by his psychic powers, then maybe I could tire him out enough to get a decent hit in. It was a better plan than trying to overpower him, which clearly wasn’t working.
I forced a laugh and somehow managed not to hiss at the pain it caused in my ribs. “Seriously, Krieber?! Is this all you got?! I came here expecting to fight a General, a warrior , not some asshole who bumbles around and hurls things like a toddler throwing a tantrum!”
As he roared in fury, I touched down on the ground, firing a single arrow from his left side before powerful beats of my wings took me back in the air as he rushed at me, narrowly avoiding me. Damn, he was fast, almost as fast as I was. I shot another arrow at his back as he managed to stop his forward momentum, just short of the tower at the center of the open courtyard. I dashed around like that for a while, managing to avoid his rage-fueled attacks and taking shots of opportunity.
I drained another okka crystal along the way, leaving me with only one remaining, but this was working. He was tiring, his attacks were slower and he was taking longer to pinpoint my location during my counterattacks. I probably should have realized that he was up to something when he stopped to glare at me maliciously.
A barrage of stone debris from one of his many collisions with the courtyard walls during our battle hammered me from behind, knocking me to the ground and causing searing pain in my ribs. The bastard targeted my injuries from before with a telekinetic attack. I was still trying to get to my feet when he collided with me and knocked me back down to the ground and before I knew what was happening, I was pinned beneath his massive foot.
I was nearly blinded by the pain in my ribs when a new source of pain assaulted me, like someone was digging into my brain with an icepick. ~ Pathetic Celestial scum. You thought that you could overcome me, a General of Heil? I have crushed the life from those who have attempted to usurp my position for centuries, just as I shall with you. I will break your bones, one by one, until you beg me for the release of death. I may even grant that wish. ~
The pain rushing through me increased tenfold as one of the major bones in my right wing seemingly snapped of its own accord and I screamed. I had barely stopped screaming when he snapped the same bone in my other wing. All that I could feel was the agony of broken bones and the pulling sensation of my bond with Shannon. “Focus dammit!” I scolded myself through the pain. “Shannon might need you and if you die here she would be devastated, it would probably cause a big enough distraction for her to lose her battle too. This is too important. Shannon is too important for you to let something like a little pain stop you from killing this lanky piece of shit!”
Shannon. It hadn’t quite been love at first sight when we met during her first day at St. Catherine’s, but I was definitely attracted to her and I had this strange feeling that just knowing her would change my life for the better. She was also the most beautiful girl that I had ever met and while she seemed friendly and confident, there was also this vulnerability to her because she was dealing with a new life and issues that I didn’t know about and probably couldn’t have even comprehended at the time. Later that afternoon I learned in the worst way that magick was real.
All through that ordeal, I just wanted to protect Shannon, the girl that I was quickly falling for and so very attracted to. In the chaos that followed, I became her Familiar. Our minds and hearts were suddenly connected, and it was impossible not to fall head over heels for her after she had saved us both and with the feelings that I sensed from her.
By the time we had our first real date, I was well and truly smitten. That was the same night that Sarah, Annie, and the two of us were all dragged into this war with the Demons. Coming here, taking on the most powerful Demons in Heil on their own turf seemed like fate now, just like my bond with Shannon. Even through our battles with Demons and Sorcerers, the loss of my humanity, and the things that Shannon had revealed in Nhekar, our bond, and our love had endured, and become stronger still. I had come to love her more than anything or anyone.
What wasn’t there to love? Sure, she was beautiful and had that mix of confidence and vulnerability that I loved, but she was also possibly the most powerful person on Earth, but she never let that power corrupt her. Sure, she kicked Demon ass when needed, but Shannon was gentle, kind to a fault, and would even help her worst enemy if they needed it. She always wanted to be a better person, and she made me want to be a better person too.
These thoughts of Shannon tightened my focus, during the brief instant that they flew through my mind and drowned out my screams. She was my Witch, my love, and my north star and I would do anything for her. I would even find a way to kill this bastard.
I made myself focus on Shannon, and the pull of our bond, brutally shoving the pain in my wings and ribs to the back of my mind. I was pinned, and my bow was out of reach, so how could I take Krieber down or, at the very least, give myself some breathing room? Another pull besides my link to Shannon teased at my mind, not as strong, but perhaps useful in my current situation.
Precious metal, the sense and manipulation of it was something that Talisha had drilled into me relentlessly since I had become her apprentice. Faery can all sense and manipulate them; even the earliest games of young Fae involve that sense and ability. It is as inherent to Faery as our ability to use glamours.
Krieber was wearing metal, and I could use that. If I couldn’t overwhelm or wear down his defenses, maybe I could get inside of them. The steel bands that he wore on his arms and legs were useless though; iron is the one metal that Faery can’t manipulate, and that steel had a very high iron content. What was the metal that I was sensing then?
Pushing through the pain and doing my best to ignore Krieber’s laughter and taunts about which bone he should break next assaulting my mind, I focused on the pull of metal and followed it. A gaudy chain hung from his neck, bearing the massive claw of some beast as a centerpiece, likely a trophy of some sort. I probably hadn’t noticed it before because of his massive head, but now as he leaned over me it swung within my sight, taunting me.
I forced myself to speak, my throat raw from screaming, and I had to grit my teeth against the pain in my wings and ribs as he pressed his foot down harder on the latter. “H…hey, ass…hole, how do you breathe… with that thing on?”
His momentary confusion was enough to allow me to focus on my task and push away the pain that I couldn’t allow to distract me. The chain was brass, with trace amounts of gold, and for a moment, I narrowed my focus on it alone. Everything else was unimportant. Under my guidance, the links of the chain liquefied, turning into a vaguely gold-hued blob, which rose to encircle Krieber’s neck as the claw that had been attached hit the ground beside my head.
I allowed the metal to solidify once more, a choker with no release or latch around the Gharl’s neck, and then I tightened it, the metal becoming gradually thicker as it tightened further and cut off his air. Krieber’s eyes were wide as he clutched at the metal, struggling to breathe and too desperate to remove it to find more of my bones to break. The weight of his foot on me lessened and I dismissed my angelic form, the pain from my wings vanishing along with both them and my bow as I gave a shove with all of my strength that caused my injured ribs to shoot fiery pain through me in protest.
That top-heavy asshole fell to the ground like the tipped-over bobble-headed motherfucker that he was as he vainly tried to remove my little gift and I rolled out of the way. As Krieber struggled on the ground and his face began to lose its color due to lack of air, I considered just watching him asphyxiate. No. We were better than that; Shannon would want us to be better than that. Instead, I drew the 44 Magnum from its holster on my belt and put a demon-slayer round into his head.
A moment later, there was only a pile of ash, the steel bands, his clothes, and the choker lying on the ground to mark Krieber’s passing. I was in agony and bruised all over, but I could deal with that. The fight was over and I won. I briefly changed back to my angelic form, but the pain that assaulted me from my wings when they reappeared showed that they were still broken. I would have to get Ellie to heal them later, along with the rest of me.
“I guess I’ll be going by foot then,” I muttered as I changed back to normal and basked in the lack of agony coming from my wings. I opened my portable bunker just long enough to use the bandages in the first aid kit to bind my ribs, swallow some aspirin for the pain, and wash the pills down with a bottle of water. I wasn’t willing to waste time on anything else, not when Shannon might need me.
I was her Familiar, her girlfriend, her bodyguard, and a whole lot more. My place was at Shannon’s side, keeping the love of my life safe. I would get there to protect her even if I had to fight my way through every inch of this city that stood between us. Any Demons stupid enough to get in my way would just be more ash on the ground because nothing was going to stop me from getting to the girl I love.
Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.
Chapter 29 Larezza the Lustful Amethyst |
Even before Shannon could teleport me to my destination, I summoned my Celestial form. If I didn’t want to be detected by the general of this gatehouse I could have still sensed any nearby demonic auras without changing. I still had my magick sense even if I couldn’t use magick in my human form anymore, but I wanted them to sense my Celestial aura. It probably wasn’t the wisest move that I made in my life, but if my opponent came to me then I would have to waste less time searching for them.
I didn’t feel like waiting so I was announcing myself. As far as I was concerned, the sooner I could finish this fight and go help my sister, the better. When Mom and Dad died, I promised that I would look out for Shannon, protect him, and give him a good life. He may be a she now and may have gone through a lot of changes, but I still intended to keep my promise. She was my little sister, and I needed to keep her safe.
That made a lot more sense before her birthday and her changes. She had changed so much in the past few months that it was hard to recognize her sometimes, and not just physically. She was still the same kind, gentle, and caring person at her core, but now she was coming out of her shell to be more confident, less afraid to show her softer side, and she was quite likely the most powerful magick user that I had ever seen.
Her power dwarfed my own, and Mom always said that I was a prodigy. Shannon though was learning so quickly that I wasn’t able to keep up, but I assumed that Xuriel had something to do with that. Shannon had the power and the knowledge, and I had tried my best to teach her to use it wisely and responsibly, but no matter how powerful she was, I still worried about her. She was my kid sister, my apprentice, and the closest person in the world to me, so how could I not?
I was worried about the others too, of course, but Shannon was on my mind the most. I love my girlfriend, but she’s a certified badass and I was pretty sure that she and the others could take care of themselves and come through their battles alive. I had faith in their ability to persevere. I had faith in Shannon too, but she would be fighting the Demon King, a Demon that made even his Generals look weak by comparison, and she would be doing it alone.
So, here I was, brazenly announcing myself so I could get this battle over with and go fight by my sister’s side in case she needed me. I needed to win this, no matter what I had to do, and hopefully, this time I wouldn’t have to sacrifice myself to do it. There would be no third chances at life, and I had too much to live for to die trying or take my opponent down with me in some pyrrhic victory like I had tried with that damn Incubus. I had my sister, a badass girlfriend that I was head over heels for, and the rest of this family that we had built around ourselves. I would win because they were counting on me to come through this alive as much as I was counting on them to do the same.
I didn’t have to wait for long before my opponent sauntered out of the tower at the center of the courtyard. A tall and buxom blonde Succubus walked toward me with a smile that displayed her confidence. Her aura was strong, not as powerful as Khinara’s had been when we first fought her, but still far above the power exuded by lesser Demons. That confidence, the power, and the looks meant that this could be only one Demon, it was Larezza the Lustful.
On the positive side, she was one of the few Generals that Kisha had been able to give us any information about. That information complicated things though. She was a magick user, like me, and Kisha said she had a reputation for two particular things.
The first was that she was even more sexually voracious than others of her kind. The other was that she enjoyed fighting and defeating Celestial magick users… and then screwing them to death. Just great, this could end up being a firefight and her spells would be hard to predict if she was anything like Khinara, while my magick energy was limited to what I could pull from the four okka crystals I had with me. It would be better if I could end this quickly, now that she’d shown herself.
I was already forming a series of spells in my mind to do so as the Succubus sashayed toward me with that confident smile. “Well, well, well, a Celestial came all this way to visit me?” she purred. Then her eyes narrowed. “No, not truly a Celestial, just a human with a shard of their power, how interesting. I do hope that you’ll make this fight entertaining.”
Even as I focused my intent and let loose my first barrage of spells, I snapped back, “I came here to kill you, not entertain you, Larezza. I have other things to do, so let’s get this over with.”
The Succubus deftly sidestepped the stone spikes that erupted from the ground where she had been standing a moment before and a quickly raised shielding spell blocked the follow-up Holy Lance that I fired at her. Another damn silent caster. That was going to make things difficult.
Some sort of tar shot up from the gaps between the courtyard flagstones but my own shielding spell kept it at bay and I quickly worked my wings to get some distance between me and the ground. I quickly cast another spell to freeze the tendrils of tar and launch it back at her as a barrage of icicles. Larezza’s eyebrows raised slightly as she reassessed me. “You do not cast using those silly rituals and incantations that the Celestials are so fond of. Perhaps you will be entertaining after all.”
“As you pointed out, I’m not a true Celestial, I was born human,” I replied as a blaze of flames materialized in front of her to melt the ice, sparing her shield as she sent balls of the now-flaming tar toward me. Usually, I wouldn’t waste time talking during a fight like this, but it would hopefully keep her attention on me instead of my spells.
I dodged the flaming projectiles as she rose ten feet into the air to match my altitude and a barrage of flagstones flew at me from behind my right shoulder, shattering against my shield spell. Dammit, I needed to channel more magick energy into the spell to reinforce it and was already being forced to use the first of my okka crystals.
“True, and you are very good at hiding your spells,” she admitted with a smile as she dodged a barrage of iron spikes from the guardhouse gates to her right. Somehow, she managed to do it so that she was away from the flash of light that I had intended to blind her with, instead of toward it like I had planned.
I silently cursed and prepared another round of spells as I asked, “Why are you smiling then?” That smile bothered me; she had something up her sleeve.
“I have fought many Celestial spell weavers since our war with them resumed, and you fight nothing like them. Though you are deliciously devious and hide your spells well, I am familiar enough with Celestial auras and the feel of their magick to sense when you are casting a spell, and where it will appear. You cannot keep going for long before you will need to risk drawing on the essence of Heil. This is a battle that you cannot win, but fight on pretty little spell weaver, I look forward to celebrating my victory with you.”
A chill slithered up my spine. Was she just messing with me? No, I didn’t think so, She seemed to know exactly when I was firing my spells and where to avoid them, and I had the distinct feeling that she could at least guess at a spell’s power and nature as well. She was only casting counterspells to keep this fight interesting and feel out my responses. She had also summoned a shielding spell to block the one spell I had cast that could have probably killed her rather than just harry her.
Okay, if she liked devious, I’d give her devious. I just needed to get her in the right spot first. So much for dealing with this quickly, but the others were counting on me to take this bitch down, including my sister. I couldn’t afford to fail. I had to have faith that Shannon could hold her own until I could finish this fight and go help her.
By the time I managed to herd Larezza into position with every minor spell that I could think to throw at her to conserve my magick energy, I had burned through two more okka crystals and would need to use the last one to pull off my plan. She had been deftly avoiding or directly countering everything that I threw at her with frustrating accuracy, and I had even tried physical attacks until I found out painfully that her shield protected against those as well, unlike when we first fought Khinara. I was getting tired and ready to end this. I quickly drained the final okka crystal and prepared my spells.
I had tried to get Shannon as proficient as I was with multi-tasking and casting multiple spells at once, but not even I had attempted five spells at once before. This was going to take some precision as well since I would need to make three of those spells as powerful as I could while conserving enough magick energy to deliver the coup de grâce, in case this didn’t manage to kill her. I dedicated all of my focus and intent to the spells and let them fly.
Three of the spells were the biggest and most destructive beams of holy magick that I could summon, one to her right, another to her left, and a third between and just above the other two. I’d noticed that she preferred to dodge using her maneuverability in the air, if possible, and I hadn’t seen her use anything akin to a teleportation spell yet to try to avoid attacks. These beams were each potent enough to be a real threat to her shield and they would only allow her one direction to physically dodge, down. The other spells were a self-teleportation spell and a simple light flare, cast right in front of me in hopes that it would obscure the teleportation spell from her detection ability.
I had just enough time to see the Succubus’s eyes go wide as she dropped to the ground at the base of the tower to avoid my holy attacks before I reappeared one hundred and fifty feet above my previous position. All three beams hit the side of the massive tower an instant later, causing it to collapse on top of Larezza. “Damn,” I cursed. I hoped that dropping a building on her might finish the job, but her aura was still there so I started to work on my next spell.
I didn’t have time to finish it before a furious and bloodied Succubus exploded out from the rubble and launched toward me like a very angry homing missile, her fists covered in a dark energy that I did not like the looks of at all. I quickly abandoned my spell to pour my remaining magick energy into my shielding spell seconds before she hit me. I managed to take the hit, and the second blow that sent me crashing back to the ground, but surviving hitting the ground took the last bit of energy that my shield had and the pain shooting through my left wing told me that I hadn’t come through the crash completely unscathed.
Reflexively I started to draw in more magick energy, but quickly stopped myself when it felt like swallowing napalm might feel. Shit. I was out of magick, couldn’t fly and now I had an angry and battered Succubus who was quickly healing hovering over me. Maybe if I could get a surprise shot off with my gun…
It was my best bet, and I dismissed my Celestial form so I wouldn’t be distracted by the pain in my wing. I reached for my gun as Larezza landed and looked down at me. My gun was gone; did I somehow lose it when I crashed to the ground? I couldn’t see it anywhere nearby either, just the Succubus standing over me.
Shit. I was beaten. “ No ,” I told myself firmly. I promised Shannon that I wouldn’t die on her again. As long as I still had breath in my body, I would do everything I could to beat this bitch that was looking down on me. I needed a plan, I still had my silver ring, maybe if… Larezza was reaching out for me and once again, I tried to draw on the magick energy around me out of reflex to protect myself.
“Human, you have lost, but you managed to wound me. Before I kill you, I will bring you to pleasures such as you have never known in life as…”
“Heh… Hahahahahaha!” My sudden laughter interrupted her, and I had to wipe tears from my eyes. It fucking worked. The texture and taste of the magick energy made me feel like throwing up, but it worked. “Magic’s will,” I managed to get out between fits of laughter.
“Are you… laughing at me? Larezza asked in confusion before catching my words and looking at me as if I was crazy. “What are you on about? Without your Celestial ability to use magick, you are a mere mortal. I have beaten you and I will take my prize, this act of yours will change nothing.”
“You know,” I stated conversationally to buy time as I drew in the foul magick energy, “my cousins keep telling my sister and me that magick has a will of its own. I actually agree with them, it has a will, and maybe even an agenda, putting people in the right place at the right time, that’s how I got my Celestial abilities.”
The Succubus knelt down on top of me, pinning me to the ground as she reached for my top while muttering, “I fail to see how that is funny, but if reminiscing makes your last moments…”
I tried not to smile as I felt the warmth of her flesh. Her shield had been depleted when the tower collapsed on top of her, and she was so confident that I was a helpless human now that she hadn’t even bothered recasting it. I made an effort to push her off and fight against her superior strength as I finished drawing in enough magick energy to fuel one last, desperate spell before she could figure out what was going on. A little more time.
I interrupted again as I focused part of my mind on my spell. “Did you know that I was a Witch before I got those Celestial abilities? I lost my magick while protecting my sister from one of your male counterparts. Now, here I am, at your mercy with no way to fight back, no way to use my Celestial abilities, and desperate to kill you to protect my world and others. Well, I’ve also learned that magick has a flair for the dramatic, it loves that shit. So, when do you think would be a really good time for me to get my magick back?”
I didn’t give her time to think about it. My hand was now on her chest and feebly pushing against her in token resistance against her unwanted attention. She never saw the Holy Lance coming before it burned through her chest and she was reduced to ash. She might have been able to read Celestial auras, but at the moment I didn’t have one.
Revulsion threatening to make me throw up, I hurriedly got to my feet, brushed the ashes off my clothes, and fixed my blouse, trying not to think about how close she had come to… “No, you have things to do, Sarah,” I told myself firmly, fists clenched at my sides.
I won and stopped her before she could do anything, and now she was ash. I might need to see Jaenara about this later but right now; I couldn’t afford to let my thoughts drift to could-have-beens. For now, I was safe and alive, that was what mattered. Now I just needed to find my sister and make sure that she stayed that way too.
Shannon's adventures continue:
Being sixteen is a big deal for a teenager, it's an even bigger deal when you've transformed yourself into a girl using powers you didn't even know you had.
Coping with a new body is one thing, learning to harness your new abilities is something else, then add a fledgling career as a model on top. It's fortunate Shannon has her friends at her side as she follows in her sister's footsteps.
It's bad enough having classroom politics, now you have to worry about celestials and demons and the fate of your world and several others... and it's not even Wednesday.
Spell Check by Amethyst
One candle, one wish. Someone should have warned Shannon to be careful.
As a troubled teen Shannon thought that being more like his sister would solve most of his problems, but when he made it his birthday wish he wasn't expecting anything like this.
Now Shannon has to learn lots of new things -- including a secret the women of his family have been keeping for years.
If you read and enjoy any DopplerPress book, please leave a review on Amazon.
Shannon may now be a magical being but she still has to deal with the more mundane aspects of life such as settling in at school and working as a model! But danger is still out there, whether it is high school drama queens, disgraced ex-cops or malevolent supernatural forces. Shannon has to deal--but she does have her sister to help!
First two books! Buy on Kindle.