Raven Demarco grew up living a sheltered life. When she starts University to get away from that she is caught up in the world of the paranormal. Secret organizations, magic, creatures from myth and legend, and worst of all her own legacy and the demons who want her blood.

Thanks to my readers for reading my work and patiently waiting for new chapters and to the Big Closet team who give so much of themselves to keep this site going

We had just gotten inside the house, when Alice handed both me and Erin a small envelope. ~These contain your PDA registration cards, you should keep them in your purses with your Driver’s License and other identification so that you always have them on hand.~

I opened my envelope as Erin was doing the same to find a laminated business card that said, Werehouse Imports and Exports: Customer Loyalty Card. It also had my name, photo, and a customer number, which I assumed must be the registration number used to identify me. Erin laughed as she looked at hers. “Very low profile, does this mean we get a discount?”

Alice nodded as she answered, ~Yes. Registered Paranormals get to buy anything in the warehouse at just a little bit above cost.~

“Really?” Erin asked, her eyebrows rising in interest. “That’s pretty cool.” She placed her card in her purse and I followed suit.

“Why did we have to register as Paranormals anyway? Are these cards used to track us or something?” I asked suspiciously. “You know in case we go bad, or do something illegal?”

The tinkling of bells in my mind signaled the Mermaid’s giggling. ~Don’t be silly, the registration cards just help us keep track of the number, and various types, of local Paranormals who want to blend in to human society and live normal lives. It lets us better serve their needs by knowing what services may be needed here. We hardly ever have to go after a registered Paranormal for anything more than a slap on the wrist offense. It’s the non-registered ones like your Demon friends that we need to watch out for, since generally they don’t want to blend in or they have something to hide. Those are the ones we seal or Hunt.~

I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t considered dangerous or something. “What does the PDA do with the bad ones? Are there some sort of Paranormal prisons out there?”

~For minor offenses on less powerful Paranormals we use a minor seal, it’s kind of like a minimum security prison sentence since they’re stuck as regular humans,~ Alice explained. ~Full seals are much harder to do, and generally require having something important to the one being sealed. You can never know what that something is though, so we can’t use those often in the field. I’m guessing it only worked on your grandfather because his son’s blood was used, and your mother sacrificed her life to use enough power to do it.~

I nodded as I followed what she was saying. “So what do you do with the bad ones that you can’t use a seal on then?”

The Mermaid shrugged her shoulders. ~ A minor seal can be used on them if they willingly submit to it. That’s what the Hunter teams are for. They are trained in detective work and usually each team member has a different specialty. They track down the offender and ask them to come peacefully and submit to a minor seal. Ninety five percent of the time they don’t.~

“And when they don’t? What happens then?” Erin asked.

~Then the Hunt is on, and the team takes them down by whatever means are necessary,~ she replied sadly. ~In the case of murderers or extremely violent offenders they don’t bother with asking nicely they just Hunt them.~

“And you want to do that for a living?!” I asked incredulously.

~Think about all those humans out there, blissfully unaware of our existence just like you were yesterday,~ she pointed out. ~They are better off if they don’t know about us, and we’re better off that way too. Many of them would think us monsters if they knew about us, even those of us who just want to live a normal life. The ones the PDA Hunt are the real monsters, those who prey on humans or who would reveal us to the world for their own ends. We have to Hunt the predators to keep their prey safe. Sure it’s not a very nice job, but if somebody doesn’t do it the world will fall into chaos, and in chaos everybody gets hurt.~

“Wow, you’re really serious about this aren’t you?” Erin said in awe.

The Mermaid’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. ~Sorry, I didn’t mean to get so preachy, but yes, I am really serious. I’ve been learning about guns from my Dad and working hard on getting better with Water magic. The PDA has a training program for those interested in joining them and I’m hoping to be assigned to the crime lab to learn forensics.~

“Maybe Raven should join you, with her strength and new abilities she’d make one hell of a monster hunter,” Erin said with a laugh.

“Yeah right,” I scoffed, “how is that living a normal life? I can just see myself on dates. ‘So what do you do for a living?’ ‘Oh nothing special, I hunt monsters for a covert government agency, it’s not near as interesting as accounting.’ What do Hunters tell people anyway?”

~Mostly they say they work in the import and export business, it saves us having to print different business cards,~ Alice retorted with a musical giggle.

“Of course, how silly of me,” I said with a groan. The sound of footsteps racing down the stairs stopped me from saying anything more until a six year old girl barreled into me for a hug and I let out an, “Oooomph.”

“Raven I’m so happy you’re back!” Lydia exclaimed as she let go of me to give me a stern look and waggle her finger at me. “Never worry me like that again young lady.” Her look had changed slightly from when we had left in the morning. Her hair was a slightly lighter shade of blonde and her romper was now rose colored instead of denim, but it still had the prominently displayed middle finger. Her appearance, combined with the stern look and the chastisement, sent us all into a fit of giggles.

“Thanks Lydia, I needed a good laugh,” I said once I could speak again, “and I am sorry for worrying you.”

The Imp grinned at me, “I had considered saying ‘Mommy, why did you leave me all alone?’ just for the shock value, but I’ll save that for when you have company that doesn’t know me.” Then she gestured to the room around us. “Anyway, Alice has only seen the living room and the foyer here, and I think Erin hasn’t gone much further than her bedroom, so how about a tour of your new home girls? I just finished preparing your rooms.”

“You actually do housework in that form?” Erin asked in disbelief.

“Oh sure,” Lydia replied as she led us up the stairs. “It takes a bit longer to do certain things, but I‘m more comfortable this way.”

“Yeah I can see how it would make things take longer; shorter reach, less strength and shorter legs, just to name a few things,” Erin replied.

“That and I can’t resist jumping on the beds after I make them when I’m like this, so I end up having to make them again.” I wasn’t quite sure if she was joking or not, but I tried not to pay it much mind as she began the tour. “The first door on the right is the master bedroom which is of course Raven’s. It has its own en suite bathroom, so she doesn’t have to fight with the two of you for the other bathroom on this floor, which is the second door on the right. Beyond that is my room. The first door on the left will be Erin’s room.”

She opened the door to display that the former guest room now displayed some of Erin’s pictures from her dorm room on the earth toned walls. Her clothes hung in the closet, and her books and school supplies were on the desk. Her grandfather’s chest was at the foot of her bed, which had the quilt her mother had made for her on top. “Thanks Lydia, it looks great,” Erin said with a smile as she looked over her room. “Now that I have my grandfather’s chest, I can do some reading before I sleep tonight.”

Lydia moved us on to the next room, opening the door to what I had always referred to as the ‘blue room’. “This will be Alice’s room. I took the bed out and moved it into the storage room, which is the last door on the left.” The powder blue walls were still bare, but there were clothes in the closet and the bed had been removed and replaced with a large wooden framed pool four feet high and the size of a queen sized bed. The water inside was clear and still. “I had the agents assemble your bed Alice; I didn’t want to make any mistakes with it, and I’ll let you decorate as you see fit.”

“That’s a bed?” Erin asked uncertainly.

~Yes it is.~ Alice replied with a slight mental giggle. ~Merfolk need to sleep under water since we revert to our true forms when we sleep, not that we sleep for long.~ She must have sensed what we were going to ask next because she went on to say, ~We only need about one or two hours sleep per night to be fully rested.~

“Lucky,” I said, “that gives you more time for studying or hobbies.”

She nodded in reply. ~True, and since most of us Manifest between twelve and fourteen we usually do well in school, or anything that requires a lot of practice. On the other hand we also get bored very easily.~

Lydia moved us along downstairs, and through the living room, to continue the tour. She showed our new roommates the den, dining room, and downstairs bathroom before we finally ended up in the kitchen. “I usually prepare all the meals, but feel free to use the kitchen yourselves if you like. Back there is the laundry room and out in the back yard there’s the hot tub and the beach. There’s a basement as well, but only Siv ever went down there. I think she had a ward which prevented anyone but her from going down. Raven went down there once when she was little and I had to wait for her to come back up, so I’ve kept it locked since.”

“I think I remember that, it was dark and I couldn’t see much so everything looked really scary. It took me forever to find the stairs again, and when I did get back upstairs I was so scared that I never wanted to go down there again.” I shivered at the memory.

”Creepy basement that only one person could get into? I smell a mystery,” Erin said with a frown. “We may have to go down there and explore or at the very least send Raven down with a flashlight this time. I’ve been wondering how your parents could have afforded such a nice home in one of the wealthiest areas of the city, not to mention the huge trust fund you haven’t even put a dent into yet. I hate to say it, but it sounds fishy.”

Lydia shook her head. “You’re free to explore, but I don’t think it was anything criminal. Siv might have been very private about her background, but she had very strong morals. She usually went downstairs when she was upset or deep in thought. I think it was her private place, everyone needs one sometimes. It may have some more information on who she was though.”

“I could use some answers about my mom, especially if I’m going to figure out what this mysterious Divine ability Peter detected is,” I thought aloud. “I’ll have to go down there and see what’s there.”

Despite my resolve, it was another three weeks before I decided to investigate the basement and its mysteries. As tempting as it was, there were more important things to learn at the moment. I spent most of my time with Alice, learning how to pull my claws and wings inside me and keep them there. I was slowly making progress, but it took a lot of concentration to maintain and was extremely uncomfortable. Alice assured me that I was doing very well and that with time it would get easier and less uncomfortable to maintain. I was also using that time to get a better sense of my own strength and was doing well on that front as well, having not destroyed anything unintentionally in over a week.

While I was doing that, Erin was reading her grandfather’s journals and practicing the meditation techniques contained within, to not only better control what power she had, but also to increase her power. She had also discovered in those books that she could gain more power, and possibly new abilities, by binding spirits to her. The journals contained the rituals needed, but they wouldn’t be of any use to her until she was strong enough on her own to see and interact with spirits. When she wasn’t reading she was practicing with the rattles and other shaman tools her grandfather had left for her in the chest.

Whenever we weren’t studying or practicing, we were learning everything about the Paranormal that Alice and Lydia could teach us. This was what eventually caused me to search the basement. Alice was telling us about the various types of Paranormals that she knew of locally, and what was known of them. When I asked what was known about Valkyries Alice frowned and shook her head. ~The PDA has very little information about your mother’s people. All they know is that Valks are strong, durable, can fly, and that they come from some sort of warrior culture. They figured at first that information about them was so rare because your mom was the only one they had any long term contact with, so they tried contacting the different agencies in Scandinavia where Valkyrie myths originated.~

“What did they find out?” I asked.

~That they don’t have much more information than we do,~ she replied with a silent sigh. ~Mom and Dad tried the agencies in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and even Iceland. None had any information outside old myths, sightings, and records of a few mercenaries claiming to be Valkyries fighting for Norway during the Napoleonic Wars and World War Two. The Norwegians are really interested in you by the way. Norway had the most sightings, and they believe your people may have been native to the mountains there. ~

I wasn’t sure that I liked how she ended that response. “May have been?”

~Either they’re really reclusive, even to other Paranormals, or there aren’t many left. There haven’t been sightings, or anyone claiming to be one, in decades.~ She sighed once more and looked at me sadly. ~I’m sorry Raven, I wish I had more for you.~

I shook my head and offered a weak smile to try and reassure the Mermaid that all was fine. “It’s not your fault Alice, your parents tried. If I want to find anything more out, I guess I’ll have to go check in the basement.” I stood up from the sofa and stretched my wings to get rid of the tightness between my shoulders. Learning to hide them was giving me a better sense of them and although I was no closer to flying than before, at least I had some degree of control over them now. Once the tightness was gone I pulled them closer toward my body, so I wouldn’t bang them on any door frames as I went to the kitchen for a flashlight.

“Are you sure you want to go down there alone?” Erin asked as she and Alice stood up to follow me. Both of my new roommates had tried going down there once, only to find that some invisible force prevented them. Alice figured that the same Divine spell that had kept Lydia and my father out was probably meant to keep out anyone except my mother and I.

“It’s not like I have a choice. I need answers and nobody, except me, can get past that door. I’ll try sending my thoughts to Alice once I’m inside. If that works, then at least I can remain in contact while I’m down there.” I took the flashlight from the emergency supplies drawer and switched it on to make sure the batteries were good. Once I determined that they were, I headed to the door under the stairs and unlocked and opened it. With one more weak smile to my roommates I said, “Here goes nothing,” and headed down the dark stairs.

The small beam of light failed to illuminate much so I kept it focused on the stairs in front of me so I wouldn’t misstep. ~Alice, can you hear me?~ I sent to the Mermaid.

~Loud and clear.~ she replied. The musical sound of her mental voice reassured me greatly.

I took each step carefully, not wanting to fall, and when I finally reached the bottom I swung the flashlight around in an arc. The damn thing just wasn’t powerful enough though, and I couldn’t make out much of anything. “Dammit!” I cursed aloud. “This would be a lot easier if I had some lights on.”

The room was suddenly clearly visible, as white light banished the darkness that had previously cloaked everything. The light came from evenly spaced white globes of light hovering in the air above me all around the large room, revealing seventeen years of dust and cobwebs coating the floor, and everything else in the room. A large portion of the room was taken up by what appeared to be practice mats for fighting and some sort of practice dummies. At the back of the room there were weapons of all types displayed on shelves and racks.

Shields, swords, spears, war hammers, bows, and various other weapons from ages past shared space with early firearms and other more modern weapons. It was like some kind of museum of warfare through the ages, and at the center of if all, resting upon a mannequin, was a suit of armor like that pictured on the mythical Valkyries in my textbook. I stared in amazement at everything until Alice broke into my thoughts. ~Are you okay down there Raven?~
~I’m fine,~ I replied. ~I got some sort of lights to work. I think it was some sort of Divine magic my mother left in place. You should see this place, it’s amazing, like some sort of museum.~

~No, there’s no switch that I know of,~ I responded. ~I’m pretty sure my mom left a spell in place. These lights just turned on when I complained about there being no lights on.~
~The spell that your mother created to make the lights may be voice activated,~ she agreed. ~Probably to make it more convenient for her. So what’s all down there?~

~It looks like a practice area and there’s a bunch of different weapons, some of these must be ancient. I wonder how she got all of these. Was she some sort of collector?~ I turned around to see an open doorway leading to another room and stepped through to see a large antique desk with a padded stool rather than a chair. ~Hold on there’s more in this other room.~

As I stepped inside I noted that the shelves which lined the walls of the room were full of leather bound books, scrolls, and strange looking trinkets. Behind the desk was a large painted portrait of my mother wearing the armor I had seen in the other room, or at least it looked like her, and a brief search produced some photo albums of what I assumed to be my family’s history. Most of the photos were old, and the older ones featured five light haired women, usually armed. One looked a lot like my mother, and another was similar enough to be her sister. I assumed the similar pair in the later photos was their descendants, because the resemblance was uncanny.

The more recent photos were of my mother and father with a pair of men that I figured were probably their teammates when they were with the PDA. One of the men had pointed ears, while the other appeared to be a werewolf. There was also a picture of them holding me when I was born. It must have been taken before I was sealed, because I could make out stubby little black wings on my back. Those photos showed my mother with her wings, and they were such a pristine white that they seemed to glow.

A quick look at one of the leather bound books and some of the opened scrolls showed them to be written in some form of runes. ~This is odd, these all seem to be written in some old language. I recognize some of the runes from my Scandinavian Mythology class but I have no idea what they say.~ Since I couldn’t find anything that I could understand in the shelves, I decided to check the desk next.

The top of the desk was clear of anything but years of dust and a single envelope. Once I had brushed the dust off, I found that the envelope had my name written on it. ~I found an envelope addressed to me. I’m going to bring it and a few other things upstairs for us to look at.~ I gathered the photo albums, one of the books, and the envelope and headed up the steps. Once I was at the top I said aloud, “Lights off.” To my pleasure the lights vanished, and I shut the door behind me as I left to join Erin and Alice in the living room.

I placed the items I had brought up onto the coffee table and got comfortable on the couch once again. Alice sat beside me as I began to open the envelope. “Lydia went out to get some shopping done while you were down there,” Erin stated as she picked up one of the photo books to look through it. “She said dinner might be late unless you want to order in.”

~Chinese sounds good to me if we’re going to be spending the evening poring over books and old photos,~ Alice put in.

Erin nodded and headed into the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll order while you two get started then.” I barely heard her as I focused on opening the envelope and reading the letter within.

Dearest Raven,

Your loving mother, Siv Demarco

I could feel tears stinging my eyes as I finished reading the letter, and a few drops dampened the aged paper in my hands. I felt arms being wrapped around me and when I looked up, through eyes half blind with tears, I saw that both Alice and Erin had me wrapped in their arms. Their hold on me tightened as I began to sob, the letter gripped tightly in my hands.

When I finally managed to regain control of myself, I hugged my two friends in return and placed the letter on the table. Then I took the photograph from the envelope to examine it. She looked like the second woman in the more recent photos, though her hair was much shorter. “Well at least I know what I need to do now. I need to master hiding my wings, and I need to find this Lin Hansdotter.”

~We’ll help however we can Raven,~ Alice offered. ~If she’s your mother’s sister she may show up somewhere in the PDA database, or one of the other agencies databases. If she was in Vancouver then she might still be here, or we can find out where she went. It’s possible some of the local Paranormals may know her face, if not her name. We can show the picture to my parents and see what they can come up with. We will find her.~

“Thanks Alice, I hope you’re right.” I stared at the picture, trying to burn the face into my memory.

The discovery of the letter, and the possibility that my estranged aunt might still be alive, gave me good reason to work even harder at learning to hide my wings and keep them hidden. If I was going to go out to search for her I would need to be able to blend in with the regular humans for long periods of time. With that in mind, I doubled my efforts over the next weeks. I pushed myself to near exhaustion, until I managed to hide my wings completely and was able to keep them hidden for several hours at a time.

During those two weeks, any time I wasn’t training with Alice was spent searching the internet for any clues about my aunt, or in the basement. It seemed wrong to leave my mother’s sanctuary covered in dust, so I set to work cleaning it and then I began to study the scrolls and books. I wish I could say that they provided some of the information that I needed, but sadly all that I had looked at so far were written in runes, and while I might recognize one or two I was far from having any true comprehension of the language. Some of those scrolls and books seemed to be ancient and I considered trying to find a linguist to translate them, but then I would have to explain how I came across them. Besides, who knew what secrets they contained that weren’t meant for humans, or even other Paranormals.

Alice’s parents had looked through the PDA database and while they did find an entry for Lin Hansdotter, it was over twenty years old and the address listed was in an apartment complex that had been demolished three years ago. To be thorough they tried showing her picture around the neighborhood, but nobody had seen her. They weren’t even sure if they could find her using the picture because it was over twenty years out of date. Her appearance had probably changed with age, since she looked about my age in the photograph, and now she would probably be in her forties.

It wasn’t until mid-December that we finally got a lead on her. By then I was able to hide my more non-human features for most of the day if I had to. It wasn’t easy, and required enough focus to leave me somewhat distracted in public, but it could be done. So as a reward and a trial by fire Alice decided we needed to go shopping. She felt that both Erin and I needed a break, and to get out amongst people for a bit. It was weird being out in public again for two reasons.

The first was being cooped up so long, without much of anyone around but each other and Lydia. The second reason was Alice herself. Whenever she wanted to speak with a salesperson, or someone spoke to us and she answered, she would go through the motions of using sign language and tell us what she was saying telepathically so we could translate for the person. We were sitting in the food court of the City Centre mall eating lunch when a guy approached us. He was tall, kind of cute, and looked to be in good shape with dark purple hair and several piercings.

He and Alice began speaking in sign language and she quickly sent to us in that melodic mental voice of hers, ~This is Dennis, he’s a friend of mine from down below. Dennis, this is Raven and Erin. I’ve been living with them and teaching Raven how to pass as human.~

“It’s nice to meet you Dennis. Alice has been a big help to me and any friend of hers is a friend of mine.” I gave him a smile and extended my hand to shake his.

Erin quickly followed suit. “It’s nice to meet you Dennis. Would you like to join us?”

The Merman smiled, shaking both our hands in turn and signing to us, while his voice hummed in our minds like a bass guitar. ~The pleasure is all mine ladies. I would love to stay but I’m supposed to be meeting some friends soon. I just saw Alice and thought I’d say hi.~

I nodded. “Hopefully we’ll see you again some time.” Then, just as I had been doing for most of the day when we got into a conversation with someone, I reached into my purse and took out my aunt’s photo. “Before you go Dennis, could you tell me if you’ve seen anyone who looks like this? She may look a bit older now though.”

Dennis took the photo and looked it over, appearing lost in thought for a moment, before finally replying. ~I remember this girl.~

“You’ve seen her?!” I nearly shouted in my excitement.

~I don’t think I’ll forget that night anytime soon,~ he answered with a smile. ~It was a couple Fridays ago. Some friends and I went to the Ninth Ring on a dare.~

“The Ninth Ring?” Erin asked before I could.

~It’s a bar for Paranormals on the East Side. A lot of nasty characters hang out there,~ he clarified. ~That girl in the photo was there. She stood out because most Paranormals go there in their true form, and she had wings. I thought she might be an Angel or something until that Troll tried to proposition her. She spat in his face and then, when he took a swing at her, she caught his hand and took a swing of her own. She knocked him out in one punch.~

“That sounds like it could be her, or a close relation. If she hangs out at that bar then I know where I’m going Friday night.” I put the photo away and gave Dennis a grin, “Thanks Dennis, you’ve been a huge help.”

~You’re welcome,~ he replied. ~One bit of advice though, if you’re going to go to the Ninth Ring then you had better take some protection. It’s a dangerous place.~