“I thought it sent the right message. That united, both sides could come together in agreement. Not be torn apart by old prejudices and hatred.”
Alicia sighed again. “So naïve. What you saw was a spark—a glimmer of a past that was once true—so many centuries ago. But now lost to the ravages of time.”
Tillie wasn’t about to accept that narrative from her mother hands down.
“Mom…the riots proved that magical familiars like us and humans have a common enemy. And when pushed, we choose to band together and stand united against the forces of darkness which are trying to tear us down.
“Or do you want what happened to dad happen to everyone else who decided to die for a cause but instead die in vain because nobody else was brave enough to pick up the baton and keep going?”
Alicia hesitated for a second—the stinging truth of her daughter’s words hitting too close to home.
“You believe your father died for something important then?”
Tillie nodded. “With all my heart.”
The other woman nodded silently. Then she turned and embraced her only child.
“Then hold onto that precious moment and use it as a rallying cry for others to follow you in the days ahead.” She said with some motherly encouragement.
“Gods know that I can’t stop you once you’ve made up your mind…”
Tillie laughed despite the tender moment between them.
“I think I picked that up from you, mom.”
“Really? How so?”
“You’re just as driven as me when it comes to matters of swift urgency. And those of the state. I’ve seen you in action more times than I can count. I know how you act and react.”
“I remember you teamed up with me last year over a sensitive issue that required some finesse.”
Tillie nodded. “I wasn’t about to let you have all the fun and claim all the glory.” She said knowingly.
“Despite the dangers it posed?” Her mother teased openly.
“Mom…” The teen stressed with annoyance. “I’m a grown up now—remember? You even said so yourself back in the conference room.”
Alicia nodded humbly. “So I did.”
At that point, her friend appeared at the top of the staircase and asked them what the hold up was.
“Just having a mother-daughter moment, Sarah. That’s all.” She said in a loud enough voice.
“Well, save the waterworks for later. Felix is getting antsy.” The woman called down.
“Better get a move on. We can all talk shop later.”
Tillie separated from her mom in that space of a moment, taking in everything that she had held true these past six years and realizing that she was indeed a spitting image of her in every way—right down to the birthmark on her butt.
“I won’t fail you mom. I’ll make you proud of me. Just like I always have when dad was around.”
Alicia chuckled mostly to herself. “Honey…you have always made me proud of you because you were never known to give up or quit. Even in the toughest of fights. You are a true warrior in the sense of the word and a pure witch to boot. I couldn’t be any more happier than I am right now.” She leaned over to kiss her child on the forehead lightly.
“Now let’s go see what the old man wants to ask you in his questionnaire.”
Tillie wore a momentary look of surprise on her face.
“You looked?”
“I asked. He showed me. Don’t worry. It’s nothing embarrassing—save a couple questions. But I’ll leave those up to you—whether or not you want to answer them in truth.”
“Maybe during the questioning, I’ll get a lifeline?” The girl joked lightly.
Alicia shook her head in quiet amusement.
“Your father was right: Those old reality TV shows will only rot your brain.” She said before turning and going up the stairs.
Tillie glanced up at her mother’s retreating back.
“But I like those shows! It’s the only chance I’ll get to see humans in their natural environment…!” She protested, taking her mother’s lead and climbing up herself.
CHAPTER NINE
Breath of Fire
Kara Plummer remembered the terror she felt when her aunt pulled her aside in the space of a moment because she did something she wasn’t supposed to do—as a half-ling—and she got her ass beat because of it.
The stinging pain she experienced on her backside was nothing compared to the deep humiliation she felt because of an innocent moment of play with one of her friends became a most awkward display which her aunt spied at the last moment which earned her a belt across the ass.
And Kara could still remember crying and screaming during the whole ordeal—promising to be good; promising not to do it again…promising so much because she wanted the fear deep inside her heart to go away.
So that she could be a normal little human girl again—instead of a half-ling—born into a family that was more mixed than naught because someone down the line made the mistake of falling in love at the wrong moment.
Kara felt humiliated at having to pay that terrible price once more—more so than her brothers or sisters who didn’t carry the curse that now permeated every fiber of her being.
And yet…she still cried even afterwards—wishing a terrible vengeance upon the world, wishing that those who sought only to torment or make fun of her would perish in the most horrible ways—even after her friend came back to her.
To help her through that pain. To console her. To offer strength in a moment of madness.
It always ended in the same way. In the same fashion: She got old really quick. Not human old in the conventional sense. But her burning rage and anger fueled her growth and potential and she became a monster upon which to enact a fearsome vengeance.
Those that she called friends in the past—her human allies—were the first to die. The enemies of her tortured soul were captured and interrogated. Killed in the most brutal fashion imaginable—because that’s all her fevered mind could ever think about.
Pain of my pain…
Suffering upon suffering…
A million souls torn asunder…
Just to get at the very moment burned into her heart when that belt made contact with her tortured flesh. But for some reason, it would always evade her—even now.
In her dreams…
In her nightmares…
Salvation was one step too far away for her to grasp. Always so close, yet so very far.
And Kara would be sitting there on that broken tree stump surrounded by the graves of those that she helped kill in the name of justice—because living like she had was hell enough and she wanted to find any way to end it.
By ending what she was. What she had become.
And all she could do was sit there and weep inconsolably.
Then…
And then…
And then…
The sound of an alarm going off would wake up her up and she would always find out that she had been crying—the pillows of her bed wet with a puddle of tears.
And that’s how it had been going for her—ever since that day.
***
Kara Plummer stumbled into the bathroom and palmed the light switch on the fly as she stood there in a terrible state—her mind a jumbled mess and the dreams of last night a fucked up collage of things, people, and events she’d rather not think about right now.
Not when her face was sticky and dried from all the tears she had been crying from the night before and the fact that her mascara chose to run at that point—rather than stay in place.
“Cheap dollar store pieces of shit…” she growled with supreme unhappiness—wondering what possessed her to stop by the Dollar Value store last week and pick up a few spare compacts for her to try out.
But the name brands were expensive as hell—along with everything else—and so she had to be a bit frugal even though she commanded a decent government salary as a captain in the Regency Council’s
Third Watch armies.
But such funds could only go so far in this day and age. It wasn’t like this at the beginning of the new century where a salary like hers could go farther and afford a few more desired luxuries in life.
But her government house in South Hampton was nothing to sneeze at. It was a perk—a step up—from the run down apartment she shared with some old roommates prior to joining the military at seventeen in Queens.
Hard to believe that she was a New Yorker in spirit as well. It made her job all that much more easier in the interim. Especially after last night and into the early morning hours—after two a.m.—when she finally got off from mop up duty.
But the rest of the evening was uneventful to say the least and she was allowed to go home on the ferry connecting this part of South Fork to the rest of Long Island—where she stripped out of her wet suit attire, took a much needed shower, and settled down for a few minutes—before going to bed.
Kara sighed for a moment to collect herself—knowing that her fifth night in a row of reoccurring nightmares had been triggered by the events of the past couple of weeks concerning the Bellshire Riots. Oddly enough, she did not have a dream about the magical familiar she personally killed last night and maybe in that moment—she felt—it was that much needed step for salvation and resolution.
To address the grievances of the past. Of a childhood destroyed through prejudice and fear.
But in that instant, the woman started coughing uncontrollably for the next minute—before she realized that she was experiencing another spasm in her right fire lung.
She tried to quell the overpowering sensation of nausea and queasiness in her stomach as well, but nothing was killing that feeling of—
The woman turned her head quickly and let out an earth-shaking belch to beat the band and a blowtorch of flame erupted from her mouth along with a cloud of smoke to go with it.
Then hiccupped afterwards—feeling the sensation go away on its own for a spell.
“Gah…” she groaned—tasting brimstone and sulfur. Not the type of thing that she wanted to experience after a two month drought. Especially as a half-ling—a powerful Serbian Dragon from her father’s side of the family.
Grabbing the toothbrush from the open faced cup holder next to the sink, Kara tried to brush her teeth—her hands shaking from nerves and exhaustion from too many night patrols, caffeine pills and stimulants, and a shot or two of Vicodin-4—which the latter just made her more relaxed than anything in the world and caused her to prematurely “shift” into her humanoid dragon form.
But the toothpaste went on the brush and so she spent the next five minutes brushing her teeth and feeling a bit better after spitting brownish mucus-y saliva into the sink.
Don’t tell me I was chewing on something again before I started crying! The woman thought with bland embarrassment, feeling something sharp and ticklish in the back of her throat.
Reaching into her mouth, she pulled whatever it was out and discovered it was a slime coated piece of banister wood from the side of her headboard—a sliver of it anyways.
She coughed again in reflex, but nothing else was coming out.
“Damn it…” she breathed in heavy annoyance. “Can I have one perfect night where I’m not chewing pieces of my headboard out like a fucking termite?”
But the woman couldn’t help herself. Serbian dragons loved chewing on wood as a favorite past-time—between feedings—and so that genetic knowledge was passed down through her father’s side of the family until he was unlucky enough to meet her mother in the first of many fiery exchanges over things like a spilled drink.
Or a broken vase full of violet roses.
Kara remembered that episode like it was yesterday that had her parents fighting first with wits, then words, and finally—?
Things got a little too physical for her tastes as it went from a spat to a full on nuclear war in a heart beat.
The woman literally had to go and hide when her mother brought out the heavy armament against her father and only the young girl screaming at the both of them—at the top of her lungs—put a stopper in the upcoming battle.
Then she shifted into her dragon form which surprised both her parents in a heartbeat because neither one expected their beautiful child to become a literal monster out of some fairy tale book come to life.
But she was this six hundred pound dragon with gorgeous lavender and blue scales and a nice sheen to her velvet skin—even as her spiky tail lashed out and nearly took their heads off in mild discontent.
Then she growled and hissed and let out an earth-shattering roar that could be heard for miles and both her mom and dad realized that something else was happening and they needed to put a cork in it.
Kara’s memory of that day was pretty damned strong because she viewed both her parents as a threat to her and she responded in kind by defending herself.
The entire backyard of their house had become a fucking war zone in a few short hours as she lashed out at both her parents in unbridled rage and it quickly became a contest of wills and who would be the first to wear her out and wear her down.
Enough so that she would be triggered again back into her human form.
And that didn’t happen until about ten that evening when her mother hit her with an incantation spell that knocked her out for a few seconds—which allowed the reversion process to take hold.
Her father was descended from the same dynasty her unlucky daughter was and he didn’t have to shift period. He already had natural born dragon strength and he could breathe fire in his human form, but he decided it was best that brute force was better than having to deal with two dragons—instead of just the one.
So he fought her on a physical level, but he pulled his punches because…well, she was his blood born daughter. So he only did what he could to tire her out along with his wife of twelve years.
And after they accomplished the impossible, both made sure she couldn’t do it again. So they had an amulet made out of the rarest metal and gem stones and infused it with a permanent lock incantation spell that would keep her from becoming a dragon ever again.
But wiping her memory of that night proved to be problematic at best, so both her parents decided to instill her with a trust incantation that would keep her grounded and noble from that point on.
But neither of them could foresee what happened in the latter years when she joined the armies of the Third Watch and became their worst possible nightmare—despite the amulet.
Rather than face a protected battle with her own parents, Kara tried to get them imprisoned. But three days before a strike force swept through her old childhood town of Brook Haven, Indiana—to take them into custody—her parents had disappeared.
And no amount of searching could produce any hint of their immediate whereabouts.
But that didn’t spare the rest of her former friends, accomplices, school yard bullies, personal tormentors, and the like from her righteous wrath.
Especially since some of them committed the cardinal sin by intermarrying with other magical kinsfolk—or having a relationship with them.
In the spirit of Lewis Carrolle’s Alice in Wonderland, she came through like an avenging angel and screamed: “Off with their heads!”
No body bothered to argue the point. The deed would be done.
Kara finished spitting out the rest of her mouth wash into the sink—her mind coming back into focus after reflecting on so much of her past life and all the way up to the present.
But she had no regrets. The Regency Council’s will would be carried out. The Gosling Doctrine—championed by the Supreme Chancellor during the primaries and leading up to the elections—would be carried out.
Humanity would prevail at long last. No more struggles. No more suffering. No more stupid wars that would end up costing the lives of millions of pure humans—it would just be her and them.
The sprawling populations of magical kinsfolk and familiars would be dealt with swiftly and
terribly. They would have no more jurisdiction or granted rights under past laws brought down by the old federal government in decades past.
It would be just her and the rest of humanity. She would be their sword and shield. Their Spear of Destiny towards the end.
And she didn’t care how much she had to kill or imprison until the job was done.
“Unius Potestate,” she muttered under her breath. “Unius Potestate…”
Kara kept chanting this phrase over and over—causing the amulet around her neck to ring with worry.
Then she changed it to, “Ipsum divína virtus,”—which made things even worse.
Because somewhere down the line, Kara had been experimenting with the spell books left behind by her mother after her disappearance—the ones of ancient Latin origin and mixing with the Old Norse language—and every day of her experiments, of her own incantations, the woman was one step closer to breaking the hold the amulet her parents gave her at the age of eight.
And in the dim light of her bathroom, her eyes started to glow a bit as an another unfortunate truth befall the casual observer: Kara Plummer was the byproduct of two worlds. One of magic. The other of dragons.
And it wouldn’t be long before she discovered which side would win in the end…
CHAPTER TEN
Work Detail
The questioning came to an end for Tillie Gunderson and Felix thanked everyone for their time and patience and allowing the Underground and Resistance a seldom offered chance to converse at length with magical familiars.
The girl got the sense that most of the people they rescued were magical kinsfolk and not pure witches like herself, or her mother, or her friend—Sarah Winters.
But for now, the need to eat something became more paramount due in part to the teen’s growling stomach.
The old man smiled for a moment and said: “There’s a pizza parlor six blocks from here that can offer you something to eat. It also includes an ice cream shop for the children. You’re more than welcome to stop in for a bite to eat.”
Generation Witch Year One Page 8
