Author's note: Here be the rise of the pixies, true masters of the world!
Nah, seriously, just a spot a bit squeamish-y that I will try (operative word here) to hide behind a spoiler tag. Just an explanation of how some stuff work, really, rest of the story can be read without.
Have a good chapter!
P-S: go pixies!
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Arachnids, be they spiders or scorpions, are quite the little wonders of nature. They are patient hunters, designed to resist things that could kill a grown man (some spider webs were found in radioactive waste dump sites), are hard workers in the case of spiders, or can boast some of the most potent venoms for the scorpions, and are graced with many, many hairy legs, bug eyes, and…*splat*…enough, where were we in the lesson?
Biology teacher while wiping spider guts off her manual
Once Uriel and I lent a hand with the clam gathering, the bucket contents rose rapidly. Both him and Storm were certainly not beginners at scrounging food out of the seashore, whereas Kate was more hindrance than help, pulling Storm’s hand every two minutes to show him another fascinating example of marine wildlife, thus ensuring Uriel’s clam hunting supremacy in the following contest.
I snorted, poking my father’s shoulder.
“What did you promise her as a bribe?”
“You wound my heart, thinking I would stoop so low. Never would I lead a child astray to protect my pride!”
“She hates urchins.”
“Sea urchins are interesting beasties, you know, and very useful.”
“It’s the fourth one she’s showing to Storm. I must admit, he’s got the patience of a saint. Now spill.”
“I’ll help her build the potato launcher 2.0.”
“Very well. You’ll be the one paying for any broken stuff.”
“That’s all? No snide comments on my childish side? No chiding me for bribing a kid?”
I smiled beatifically.
“Nope, the potato launcher will punish you for me.”
A glimmer of doubt appeared in his eyes.
“It can’t be that bad…right?”
I schooled my face, just looking at him with a pitying expression, before digging the ground on a promising spot. A slightly panicky expression surfaced on his features, followed by a dejected sigh.
“I’ve been had, haven’t I?”
“Why do you think we confiscated the launcher in the first place, old man?”
We soon had enough seashells for our midday meal, thus we decided to move to the barn since it was close by. Mom grilled them to perfection, adding lemon juice, thyme and rosemary. It simply was perfect with the salad she took out of the cooler.
Our afternoon was spent at the barn, inventorying it for when it would be ours. It was bigger than what I thought first, just so cluttered it was impossible to really appreciate the size. We might want to call in some help to remove all the stuff inside, although the imp was having the time of her life scurrying around in search of treasures. Even otherwise mature kids will turn back their own age in front of a pile of mysterious items I guess.
It was already sunset when we finally decided to head back, so it was decided we would head home directly and get our ice cream another day. Time always goes by way too fast when one’s having fun, compared to when one’s doing boring stuff like paperwork.
I didn’t get us home by the quickest road, choosing instead to follow the coast as long as possible. Early autumn sunsets on the sea are a view that shouldn’t be missed when the occasion arises, thus I wanted to share it with my family, both old and new. Everybody was quiet in the car, with the sea induced comfortable drowsiness typical of a day well spent at the seashore.
My mood started changing as we approached the neighborhood. The closer we came, the more irritable I felt. I might not be the most patient woman on earth, but I couldn’t understand for the life of me why I was getting pissed. I snorted. Now I was pissed off by the fact I was irritated. How ridiculous could I get?
I couldn’t shake the ominous feelings of something just…not right…when I parked the car. It was our house, everything exactly the same as when we left, and yet there was a subtle current of wrongness surrounding it.
As mom and Kate climbed the stairs to store Kate’s treasures, I motioned to Uriel and Storm to follow me. Maybe one of them would have a clue about that latest oddity of mine. I think I was in dire need of a “let’s not panic when your newfound powers run amok 101” lesson again.
Uriel left an eyebrow, though thankfully following without comments.
I led them to the garden, hoping the lilac tree and its pixie ballet would help soothe my runaway mood, but no dice. It was even worse if possible, now I even felt slightly nauseated. What the hell was wrong with me?
Storm’s warm voice pulled me back to the here and now.
“What’s wrong? You’ve been fidgeting since we entered Montpellier.”
Since he couldn’t use sign language yet I reverted to my notepad.
“I don’t know! I feel sick and angry for no reason at all, and it seems to be only here!”
Uriel softly whistled.
“Take a deep breath and calm down. Use the exercises I taught you for meditation. Try to focus inside.”
Breathing exercises, I can do. I focused on my diaphragm, controlling the air coming in and out. Even if I was still feeling bad, it became more bearable.
“Good. Now try to touch one of those emotions. Get a feel for them, but don’t let them influence you.”
Easier said than done. As soon as I let myself open to the emotions again, the nausea hit me like a sledgehammer. Heaving, I firmly suppressed my rebelling stomach, trying to recall the happy feelings of the afternoon to balance the anger.
I had this image of a wall, the happiness pushing inside, the anger outside, and my mind reinforcing the wall. I stopped paying attention to the men’s talk outside, recalling my father’s assessment of my abilities. I hadn’t paid attention at the time, blinded by the more glamorous flame, but he had called me an empath.
This was the key.
If the anger was outside, then it wasn’t mine. If it wasn’t mine, if wanted it to stop I needed to find where it came from. And for the last “if”, if I could feel it, there was a good chance I could backtrack to the source.
It was a sneaky little thing, this song I made. A tiny, irregular beat like the scampering of small feet, soft fluid notes of water following a treaded path, and a single quiet earthy note to hook the melody of anger.
As I let my mind song free, I felt it hesitate on the path to take, like a dog confused by too many scents. I only had time to think a well-deserved “oh crap” before a strong arm brushed my face, stopping the nightmarish thing aiming for my throat.
A concert of high pitched hisses surrounded the garden as more and more pixies streamed out of the portal, their usually pretty faces distorted in a feral expression, lips stretched over small, but dagger sharp teeth, diminutive weapons drawn to confront the invaders.
They converged on the hapless bug Storm had slapped to the ground like a school of piranhas, tearing it to shreds in a split second, not leaving a piece bigger than a fingernail. Never again would I think them cute and harmless little things.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The pixie swarm split in two, half entering the house and half hovering near the ground as the earth started to split apart to let out dozens more of the things. We slowly retreated to the house steps, Uriel and me setting as many as we could on fire while Storm had grabbed a gardening trowel he was using to finish them off.
“Careful not to touch them directly, they’re poisonous!”
Once we reached the steps, the fighting turned into a very dangerous, nightmare inducing game of whack-a-mole, since the bugs couldn’t come from under us anymore. The pixies swiped through the rest of the garden like a hurricane, raining bite-sized pieces of bug all over the place while we got rid of the ones near the house.
At last the place fell silent, the last bug splattered under the trowel.
Mom and Kate met us in the garden, under the watchful eyes of their tiny escort.
“Of all things, it had to be bugs! It couldn’t have been freaking unicorns, or your good old neighborhood thug instead? Noooo, of course it’d be giant bugs!”
Uriel flicked my forehead, obviously peeved.
“The next time you want to try something new, ask me beforehand! Without Storm’s quick reaction you’d be in a bad shape, possibly dead! Do you have any idea what you did with your antics? You became the primary assassination target of the whole pack, that’s what you did!”
I shivered in disgust and fear. I can deal with pretty much anything, as long as it is not bug shaped. Drop a spider on me and all bets are off.
“There are more of these?”
His voice took a very sarcastic tone:
“Not anymore, since they all rushed here to kill you. There is such a thing as choosing your time and place to fight. Had we lured them in a remote place, I could have annihilated them in one go, instead of a dogfight here, where I had to divide my attention between the fight, and erecting a sound barrier, without blowing up the house.”
“I’m sorry, I screwed up I suppose. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.”
“Let’s clean up. Did anybody get injured?”
“Storm when he blocked the first one with his arm, I think.”
“It’s only a scratch, this kind of poison has no effect on me.”
Wrong words there buddy. You just set yourself as steamroller-mom’s target. She stormed in his face, poking his chest:
“You’re coming with me to treat that arm. Unless you’re also immune to infections, bleeding, scarring, and torn muscles?”
Kate pushed him towards the kitchen. I could hear her whispering.
“You’d better do like she wants, it’ll be faster. If you argue she’ll pester you until you let her do what she wants anyway.”
Uriel and I put on thick gardening gloves just in case before retrieving all the bug parts scattered in the garden. Not a single one was intact, the less damaged one I could find had been gutted from the jaws to the base of the tail. I put that one apart for further examination, opting to complete the clean-up first.
An hour and a bug burial pyre later, everyone reconvened in the kitchen to examine the body I had found. It had been the less damaged of the lot, Uriel’s best one being in three parts.
It was an ugly, blood red thing the size of a small cat that could have had a place of honor in any bad horror flick. It was covered in a thick segmented shell protecting the back and flanks, but getting thinner through the abdomen.
The general form of the little horror was a cross between a spider and a scorpion, with a head part distinct from the bulbous body, but a tail complete with poisonous stinger attached at the rear end.
Mandibles strong enough to bite through skin and muscles were surmounted by three pairs of black faceted eyes, now dimmed in death. It could be resumed in one word.
“Yuck.”
Uriel cast an amused glance in my direction.
“Yuck indeed. This is a blood spider, a golem created by a warlock, and it shouldn’t be here.”
Kate prodded it with a stick.
“Well, duh. Of course it shouldn’t even exist with that anatomy.”
“That’s not what I meant. With how low the magic in the world has been, even warlocks had their powers muted, though less than other beings.”
“Why less?”
It was Storm who chose to answer in his low voice, his face a mask of disgust.
“Blood magic is an abomination, a perversion of the natural order. With it, even a worthless mage can become powerful has long as he has a trace of talent.
It feeds on broken bonds, dark emotions, and possibilities, trading power with the sacrificing mage in exchange for the sacrifice’s life and emotions.”
Mom raised a hand, asking for an interruption:
“Kate, you’re intelligent enough to make your choice. You can stay here with us to hear the rest, or go upstairs while we talk.
If you stay, you will hear things you don’t want to know, and we will treat you like an adult.
If you want to stay our kid for a bit longer, you can go to your room, and we’ll continue to protect you like we did so far.
We won’t judge you, whatever choice you make, you’ll always be my lovable imp.”
She lowered her gaze, chewing on her lips. Her voice was almost inaudible when she answered.
“I think I want to be a kid a bit longer. But I’m scared to stay alone…”
“Then why don’t you go near the pixie portal? It’s probably the safest place of the house, and we can see each other from there.”
I mussed up her hair when she walked past me, eliciting a wan smile. With a mournful sigh, I turned back to the men, raising an eyebrow.
Uriel continued where Storm had stopped.
Spoiler :
“There are three main factors to the amount of power that can be raised from a blood ritual.
First is the bonds. The closer the victim, the more power the warlock will get. Sacrificing a family member for example will raise a huge amount, versus nabbing a stranger in the street.
Second is the emotions. Feelings fuel magic, so stronger feelings will get stronger magic, and of course both physical and mental anguish are strong mediums. I think everyone gets the drift on that part.
Third, and trickiest, is the possibilities. This is why most warlocks blather about young virgin girls. The virgin part is irrelevant really, what’s important is the age and gender in that case. A teenager enters the adult life, with all paths opened before them, and can you see a bigger possibility than the gift of life?”
“That’s repulsive. Is that why they want Kate?”
“If the victim’s got power of their own it also adds a whole new level to the possibilities. The two of you could have
Storm growled.
“We will protect them.”
“Yes we will. And obliterate any warlock foolish enough to come here.”
What is it with men and the damsel-in-distress syndrome? I gave them my sweetest smile, then waited for hell to break loose.
“I’m all for the obliteration part, but only as long as I’m participating.”