Why….Why would they kill her. Why would they do this to me!! Anger, rage, and hatred that’s all I could feel. That’s all I needed to feel. How dare they come into my home and kill what I love. I know Elloren and witch or not, she would never harm me. Not like this.

Control I need to control myself. I could feel a surge of something more powerful knocking at my soul. Something darker. Something terrifyingly delicious. Something that I thought was lost the first time I went through my painful growth spurt.

But this feeling is not like that time. No, this is the return of something. Something I can control now, something that has been waiting for me to open the door to let it in. To let it come home.

I can control it now, or rather we have found a unison after all this time. We are in step. Its not attempting to outpower me and I have grown enough to know that true power is never on display all the time. True power is silent until it needs to speak.

And right now, I need to speak.

So, I opened the door to my soul and let whatever it is, come inside.

“Welcome home.”

If Godric still held onto my arm. I would shatter it. If Abegal attacked me. I would remove her tail. If Ires wielded her black flame sword against me. I would catch it and rip her heart out. A heart for a heart.

Opening my eyes with all three victories planned out. The world around me was sharper now. I can see the slow heartbeat of Elloren’s heart in Ires small hands. I can see the black vapor of magic slowly leaving that heart through the puncture wound. Once the magic is gone, I lose Elloren forever. Diverting my new gaze upon Ires. I can see the source magic she spoke about earlier. Her entire body vibrated with it. The magic stable but packed inside her. Able to replenish itself.

I could see the second soul she acquired. “When someone acquires a soul it’s theirs. It becomes a part of that person as if it was born there.” You will be proud to know I can see it all Elloren.

Ires’s second soul blended with the rest of her, but the system is off. I can see it beating slower than the rest of her. I can see it holding less magic than the rest of her. It is mines. Moving towards her I felt a force trying to warn me, not stop me.

Finding the source without removing my gaze from Ires, I knocked the hand off my arm. The arm did not return. However, I can feel Abegal ready to attack, ready to defend her master.

You will die Abegal if you choose that route. I could see her death clearly as if it has happened already. But I knew that not to be true. Fée blood stained the air. Floated around poisoning all that inhales it.

In the faint distance I heard someone calling my name. No, not the faint distance someone beside me. No, not beside me. Someone inside of me. Godric. Godric is calling upon me. Memories of him refusing to move replayed in my mind. That’s right I could have saved Elloren if Godric moved out of my way. Locating his face, I could see his true form. His God form. He held back during my feeding. This version of him is where his true power hid. I can feel it, see it. Reaching out I slipped my hand into his now free hair.

Hair that flowed freely, never ending almost. It feels like ash blonde strings. Strings that I will use to choke him. As I thought it, Godric’s hair began to move and circle his neck. Placing his hand on my cheek, he mouthed. “Stop.” I wanted to ask him why? Why should I stop? He did not stop Ires from murdering Elloren. Instead, he stopped me.

More rage. I could feel it, emptying out whatever vessel inside me that kept my emotions neatly packaged. From a different view point I could see Abegal altering her form, readying herself to attack. I can feel her getting ready to shift through the dimension to reach me faster.

Smiling at her, I abandoned my mission to choke Godric. Reappearing in front of Abegal faster than she could transform, I snapped her neck. Fée blood in my mother’s favorite garden would surlily get me killed.

From behind me. I could feel someone, no.. not someone. Godric, coming towards me. I could sense no ill intent. That did not matter. Locating Ires I was surprised to find her sitting down. Elloren’s heart in her hands. She was chanting. I did not know the spell, but I knew it was a healing one. Reappearing with a gold serpent staff at Ires throat. She did not break the cycle of her chant.

“If you kill her, you kill Elloren.”

The voice belonged to Godric. He still could move through my senses. But I no longer felt like I reacted in the past when he did so. Sliding my eyes towards him was a trigger for my serpent staff to awaken its own mind. I can feel it moving underneath my hands. It feels like me, my energy, my power. Only different. Its own entity. My child? No, my wrath, my protector, my servant, my familiar.

Without words escaping my lips. Godric answered the question I thought.

“Ires is withdrawing the spell the witches who seek their freedom placed inside Elloren. Elloren is not dead. The removal will take a while. Let me guide you. I am sure you can feel it. The new vision, the new power, the return of your familiar.”

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I can feel it. But nothing felt new. It just feels returned. Lowering my staff, the serpent slithered up my arm, finding a resting place around my neck. His head on my collarbone. It felt heavy and light all at the same time. A weight I felt before.

Turning away from Godric I sat opposite of Ires. I would sit here until she returned Elloren the way she has always been. Alive. If she failed, I would kill her where she fails.

Eventually Elloren’s heart stopped leaking magic and began transforming. I always assumed her heart was supposed to be black. She is a Blackgate after all. Instead, it was turning into a color not recognizable in a heart. Solid glass. I always knew Elloren was remarkable.

As the blackness left Elloren’s heart, Ires’s chanting began to change. With her eyes closed yet wondering I knew something was wrong.

Opening her eyes, she spoke in French. “She doesn’t want to come back.”

Moving my hand to Elloren’s still warm face that laid flat against the glass of the marble table, devoid of any animation. I whispered, “Dying will not solve the problem Elloren. None of this is your fault. They used you always. They will also find a way to use you in death. At least here you have a chance to fight back.”

Ires nodded her head at me as if saying she will deliver the message. But she didn’t need to. The dimension Elloren was in I could access, easily. My dear friend is in hell at the gate of entry. I have never been able to see the gate of entry before. Not on my own at least.

One thing is certain Godric has a point. These returned powers, I need to know what they are. If I think it, it seems to happen. However, everything that I have thought are in the scope of my powers. What is outside of that scope? Reaching my hand up to stroke the golden scales of my familiar. This motion seemed natural like second nature. It calmed me. Soothed all the emotions I am feeling. I wanted to rage to kill. But logic, my familiar soaked some of that energy up. Transforming it into something else. However, the question remains.

Since when do I have a familiar?

“What is your name?” I asked.

Somehow knowing that no spoken words are required between it and I.

“Before you have known me as Ethan. Now you will remember me as Sebastian.”

“Ethan, you have a lot of explaining to do.” I answered happy to not have lost him. Happy that he is here. Some how it makes sense that Ethan is my familiar. I always felt like me around him.

“Of course. Once Elloren has returned and you have rested I will do as you ask.”

"I know you will."

The serpent sounded like Ethan but also like someone else. Someone who sounds as if their name is Sebastian. Gone was Ethan’s American voice with a hint of French. I missed it.

It took all of the daylight to bring Elloren back. Night began to creep in by the time her heart was replaced and her head lifted off the table. Red tears displayed the joy I felt inside. She was back. Back.. but different. I could see it. Hell altered her, or maybe it was the removal of the witch’s curse.

Either way, when Elloren’s green eyes met mines gone was the friend I have known all my life. Maybe she never existed in the first place. After all it was a curse that brought her to me and the shared blood of my father that bonded us.

Standing from her seat, Elloren stretched up to the sky. Her blue hair pale against the dull light of the newborn moon.

“I need to rest. Where can I?” Ires asked. While her magic still strong, her body is not. I could see her fighting a losing battle against sleep. Her eyes heavy from success and all-day spell casting.

“Come with me.” My mother answered from the entryway of the garden house. Her black silk pajamas swaying slightly in the chill of the early night. Pushing her chair from the marbled table. Ires stood but soon collapsed into the arms of Godric. Who watched me the entire time I watched Ires.

Just as Godric reached my mother, she reached out patting his face she said.

“Fée are not welcomed on my grounds, but she was lovely.”

Locating Abegal, still lifeless on the ground. I assumed she would come back. I guess not. At least my father would not be angry with me for allowing a fairy on our grounds.

In Godric’s arms I could hear Ires stirring to consciousness. Reappearing beside Godric, I required an answer from her. Gliding her hand from Godric’s face to my hair, I could feel my mother’s proudness pouring to into me. Proud that I killed the fée. Proud that for no matter how many house rules I may have broken, I am nothing if not my father’s daughter. “Fée are not welcomed on our grounds, no exceptions. Ever. I did not break that tradition for Godric. In a way I passed a test.

A test of course it was. Someone like Godric must have known the history between fée and vampires. Earlier he only pretended like he did not. That makes the slap even better. Asshole.

“Abegal was a test. You led her to her death?” I said to Godric. My question to Ires would need to wait. Exhaustion had taken her.

“Her purpose here was served St. Vincent. She served me until she could no longer.”

“What was her pur…” Just then I felt a presence leave us. Looking back. Elloren was gone.

Noone took her, she left on her own. But how. Did she also acquire new skills in the short time she visited hell?

Before I could use “Devil’s Search” to locate her, a scent I did not know I needed until now crashed into me.

From behind my mother, my father stood. His hair falling in soft waves around his unchanging face. Before I could think too hard, I was wrapped up in his arms. He smelled of sun and sand. Also, of a woman. An old woman, an old woman who loved him like a son. Because to her, she was his son.

I could see visions of her floating around in my father’s mind. Small framed, but not fragile. Skin as dark as the night. Hair as black as the sea. Eyes that are a reflection of the Milky Way.

“What is her name papa?”

“I know her as mama. To others she answers to Saturn Mother of time.”

Hugging my father harder. I did not want to let him go. So much has transpired in his absence. So much I needed him for. Red tears filled my vision again. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, I felt at ease. Replenishment finally. My father is home, am going to sit by the fireplace and tell him everything. I will tell him how I fed from Godric, how there is a dead fée in the garden house because of me. I will tell him how Godric’s sister is The Angel of Death.

I will tell him how Ires killed Elloren then brought her back all because of his past. I will tell him how mom is pissed that I almost died by black flame poison because I killed a shadow. I will tell him all. And he would listen without judgment. And as I tell him he will stroke the flames of my red hair. Building me back up because he is not just my father, he is my creator, and somethings can only be healed by him.

“I have missed you too. Lelieth.” My father said. Inhaling my scent.

Slowly pulling away from my father, searching his black eyes underneath the new darken sky. I asked.

“Who the fuck is Lelieth?”