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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 19 Oops By 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.”