Helen shooed the cat away. The damn thing. She would put it back outside but it always found a way in. No matter, a little water would send it running. Ian, her husband sat on the couch watching the latest installment of dessertwars. That repugnant "sport" over in the middle east. She bit her lip eyeing him. It was almost 11 O'clock. "Can you at least put on your pants?"
Ian shifted and let out an exasperated gasp. "I don't see why we have to keep inviting these bloody mages into our house. Angie isn't awakened! We have already had 3 organizations declare it." He looked up from his game at Helen with furstration in his eyes, "and now you are letting some quack mage 'assense' her? How much more of my money is this gonna cost?"
"I'm trying to help our daughter succeed. My cousin's little boy awakened and got a free ride on Evo-tech to the best privet school in Seattle and he's already guaranteed into MIT." Helen tapped her foot, and Ian rolled his eyes. Ofcourse they had been over this one thousand times before. Everyone said Angie was a 'mundane' a 'sleeper,' but Helen knew what she had seen. So many strange things had happened over the last few years with Angie. So many freak ocurances, it had to be magic. There was no way pure dumb luck could account for that bull dog being hit by a stray car, or when that burglar tried to break in through her window, he fell to his death. The Knight Errant even said that there was some odd asteral disturbances around where he fell from.
There were other things too. Smaller things, but nothing convinced Helen more than when she saw Angie fall from the balcony. Helen's heart had stopped and she couldn't move. She could still feel the mute horror of watching her precious baby, her only daughter fall to her death. But thats when it happened. The wind it's self seemed to form benith the little girl and she slowed down, and her fall became a gentle glide until she paused a mere two feet from the cement. And holding her was the likeness of a man made of smoke, with glowing blue eyes. Helen had read about these things before. She knew it had to be a spirit and her little girl had summoned it to protect herself.
Ian made one more sound of protest and pulled himself off his lazy-boy supper recliner. Helen smiled to her self in victory noticing Kit was sitting at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway. He was 12, a full 4 years older than Angie. He had taken her awakening hard. Helen thought it was a cross between jealousy and concern. He often talked of how school kids would awaken and never be heard from again. Helen walked over to her son and ran her fingers through the top of his hair. She didn't need to use the sharp end of her tongue to deal with this one. "Please behave while our guest is here. No more gadgets, I promise I'll look at them after dinner tonight."
Kit nodded absently petting the cat at as it rubbed against his leg. "Ronny is wants to know if I can come over to help him with his calc home work. I know I'm grounded but I really want to help him out."
Helen smiled at her son. He still thought he could pull one over on her. She had no doubt that Kit could help with calc home work, but she knew that Ronny had just got the latest game of mirical sniper or whatever it was called. "Oh hon, You should have Ronny come over here after our guest leaves. Then your father can help both of you."
The boy was about to protest when the door bell rang. "Go on up stairs. HELEN! HURRY UP AND GET DOWN HERE!" The two passed eachother on the stairs sharing a look of hate that only a brother and sister could have. "Lets take a look at you, You want Mr. Glowing Moon to think that you are a quality student." She straitened the girl's dress. Her hair was already begining to come undone. The door bell rang again impatiently.
Ian came out of the bedroom in blue jeans and a button up shirt and answered the door. Glowing Moon was a tall lanky man with the dark hair and skin of the natives. He regarded Ian and spoke in a hushed voice. Helen introduced herself and presented the child. He knelt by her and grabbed her chin inspecting her face and turning her head. "Intresting..." He looked at her for a long time, Helen held her breath. "She could be of use to me... but."
"She's awakened right? The others have all been wrong! I know she is!" Glowing Moon stood shaking his head.
"You have another child? I must see him too." Helen flushed and showed her guest to the kitchen and went upstairs to see get Kit. She hadn't even considered that he might be a magician too. Her brilliant Kit a magician. She smiled to her self. When she and the boy entered the kitchen the Indian stood at the counter opposite of Ian, and Angie sat at the table holding that damn cat. She would get hair everywhere.
Glowing moon knelt by kit inspecting him the same way frowning. "There is something odd about both of their auras," he said standing, "They could be awakened. Its odd, I guess there is only one way to find out." He extended his hand at Ian, and fire flew from his fingers. Helen's husband fell to the floor screaming and flailing, knocking over his food and drink as he burned. A heartbeat latter Glowing Moon staggered as if he was punched in the face.
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Tamasine jumped on the counter cautiously watching the shaman as Ian burned on the ground. "So finaly the culprit has reviled himself," he laughed struggling to his feet. "To think that a cat was the cause of all the fuss." Tamasine struck out with his magic at the mage once again, but this time better able to prepare himself glowing moon easily dissipated the mana flow. The Shaman laughed and suddenly a plant and a beast spirit matirialized from the metaplanes.
In his cat form, Tamasine hissed at the shaman and turned to try to keep all three assaliants in view at once. "Kill them all." and with that the spirits went to seperate sides of the kitchen. The beast went after dear sweet Helen who always fussed over the tiniest details. The plant spirit reached its vines at Kit. On instinct Tamasine jumped in the way, but was unable to prevent the boy from being engulfed, in fact all that Tamasine managed to do was entangle himself. He could see Glowing moon taking a step towards Angie. Angie who found him, who shared his secrete. Angie who was so trusting and had befriended him first.
All Tamasine could do was reach deep down and twist the shaman's luck. Something, anything to delay him. It was like something akin to a prayer, a power that the spirit didn't fully understand himself. But it must of worked because Glowing moon slipped on Ian's tea and fell next to the burning corpse catching his sleeve on fire. By this time Helen's screams had stopped. Tamasine could feel the wolfhound stalking Angie now.
He became desperate. These spirits were powerful. Tamasine failed at using pure brute force. This wasn't a foe he could out run, or decive. He couldn't run anyways. There was too much at stake here. Pulling on his inner most reserves, Tamasine reached out once more with his mana, and channeled it through the plant spirit, scorching and burning it from the inside. It screamed, and the vines weakened, until it disappeared. Tamasine fell to the floor. His entire being ached and burned from the channeling of such a raw amount of mana. He tried to shake it off. He stood on all four legs looking the shaman in the eyes.
Then it hit him.
A burning. An electrocution. A sonic boom. The sensation of drowning, and being crushed all at once. As though some one reached in and pulled his last breath out of his chest, and given it to the beast. Angie! I've failed! Tamasine rolled on the floor in pain beyond what any mortal could understand. No... He felt a tugging on his very being. The beast stood with blood of both the mother and the daughter on it's jaws. He then turned it's gaze to Kit who was backing into a cabinet eyes wide in terror. The beast stalked. The shaman did something to hold Tamasine where he was. Binding? a spell? He couldn't allow another to die. The beast growled baring it's teeth. This one was stronger. Tamasine knew with the shaman pushing on him he would be unable to defeat it.
So Tamasine reached deep down and this time tried something that he was better at. The shaman saw his arm catch back on fire, spredding quickly all over his body. The illusion set in and Tamasine acted fast. As soon as the shaman's pressure was realised he changed forms to the only thing he could think of. Angie, his confident, his friend. In the little girl's body, he grabbed a butcher's knife from the holder next to the stove. It only took a second to open the shaman's throat as he flailed about thinking he was on fire. Then the beast hit tamasine, pinning him to the ground. It snarled one last time before it's master died, and it disappeared into the astral.
Tamasine stood and looked over the room. Four bodies littered the floor. Ian, Helen, Angie... He had grown to know them so well over the last two years. Only Angie and Kit had shared his secrete. He knelt by Kit, the poor boy seemed catatonic, starring at the burning body of his father. "We have to go brother." The spirit said in Angie's voice. He nodded and stood being led by his little sister. The fire was spreading.
They ran, and ran and ran. Kit said nothing. The stress must of been harder on him than Tamasine could imagine. Again the spirit changed forums. This time choosing a fireman. He knelt down and put his hand on Kit's head. "I am sorry to do this, but it is a mercy." Tamasine couldn't bring back Kit's family, no matter how hard he tried. But he could ease the boy's pain. and with that he dug his mana deep into the boy's brain and changed his memories. It didn't have to be a shaman. Kit didn't have to remember the horror. It was a fire. Nobody's fault. It was tragic, and painful still. The boy would recover though. He would make it. Now he just needed a new home.
