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 1 Promises By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 2 Stuck In The Middle By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 3 Cat and Mouse By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 4 Viral By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 5 The Hunt is On By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 6 Higher Education By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 7 Interview With A Succubus By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 8 Lisa By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 9 River of Emotions By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 10 Wounded Spirits By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 11 Healing By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 12 Troupe By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 13 Obsession By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 14 Broken By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 15 Confrontation By 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 girlfriend?” 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 16 Rolling Along By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 17 Relationships By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 18 Fame By 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.     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.”

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 20 Preparations By 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.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 21 Welcome to the Jungle By 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.