Only Human (Kirsten O'Shea Book 1)

by Blevins, Candace

  “The people in the past who have had this ability, were they human?”

  He cut his eyes to Abbott before looking back at me. “No. I’m aware of a few with a small percentage of human blood in them, but they were still mostly supernatural. However, the ones who most successfully used such weapons were not even a tiny bit human.”

  Mordecai’s glance at Abbott made me uneasy, as if the vampire would understand something about his statement that I wouldn’t. It was also possible Mordecai wasn’t sure how much to say in front of Abbott, but my understanding was that with me under Abbott’s protection, it would only help to have him know what was going on so he’d best know how to protect me.

  “There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?” I asked Mordecai.

  “I’ve never heard of a female having the ability.”

  “Abbott,” I said, turning my head to him, “anything you’d like to add to the conversation? What were the men who had this ability?”

  “Mordecai is the expert on this, he’s the one to answer your questions.”

  I had the feeling Abbott was carefully choosing his words, which annoyed me, and some of my irritation came through in my tone as I said, “But Mordecai is being evasive.”

  Mordecai sighed and said, “It’s not so much avoiding your questions as working up to the fact there’s more than one answer. As I said, you’re the first female in both my memory and written legend. It’s a lost art, an old religion, for lack of a better term, and is long lost to history. I don’t know if women couldn’t do it because they weren’t taught, or because they didn’t have the innate ability. From what I remember of the religion, I’d be more inclined to think it’s the latter.”

  Mordecai looked at Abbott and back to me. “It wasn’t about race, but about those with the hint of an ability — enough the sect believed the person could be trained. I remember Elves and Berserkers in the sect specifically, as well as a few long lived shapeshifters. I’ve also found a legend saying some of the Fae Royalty could do it, and they didn’t join the sect to learn. There were also gods of old who used such weapons, and it wasn’t always a sword. Once it was a hammer.”

  Thoughts swirled through my mind, but I didn’t have time to let them form completely before he kept going. “I have people looking into your family tree to see if we can find an other-than-human race somewhere, but my instincts tell me you’re all human, and your studies and meditation practice have shown you how to do this. To my knowledge, no one has learned to wield such a weapon in several millennia. There are some who still know how to do it, but there have been no individuals added to the very small pool.”

  My mind dove back into mythology and I blurted, “A hammer? Thor’s hammer? And that must mean that Surtr’s sword was… You’re telling me I have an ability that....” Oh. Fuck. This was too much, and it reminded me of something else. “I’ve used the energy to make things before, just not swords or hammers. Once I made it into bowling balls and rolled them into the little squat green things that shoot poison. I never considered making it into something I held onto so I wouldn’t have to keep pulling more energy in.”

  “We’ll work on playing with it this evening. Aaron’s men have taught you skills with knives, yes?”

  I nodded, and he said, “Then we’ll start out by making it into a knife.”

  “I’m really good with a quarterstaff, I can even hold my own with most of the bad-asses Aaron throws at me, if they give me my weapon of choice, which they rarely do anymore.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Aaron would not have taught you skills with a quarterstaff. Who did?”

  I couldn’t answer him, as I needed to protect the monks who taught me. I was trying to think of the best way to answer without answering when he asked, “When you learned, what did your teacher call the weapon, it wasn’t called a quarterstaff, was it?”

  If I answered his question he’d have an idea of what kind of skills I had, but without knowing who had taught me. That seemed safe enough, but should I answer with an English pronunciation of the word, or should I say it in accurate Mandarin? Saying it accurately felt right, so I did.

  “It was called nángùn, or sometimes just gùn.”

  Gùn isn’t pronounced like a gun you shoot bullets out of, it’s pronounced more like goon, but in the fourth tone, which means one must say it as if they are royally pissed. I saw Abbott tense as I said it, but was it because of the harsh vocalic sounds of gùn in the fourth Mandarin tone, or because of what I called it? Had I given away too much by pronouncing it accurately, as one would if they’d learned in southern China?

  Mordecai asked, casually, as if he didn’t want me to know this was an important question, “And did this teacher know about your metaphysical weapons?”

  “I didn’t know about my metaphysical weapons at the time, so I doubt it.” My teacher taught me to levitate, but the weapons didn’t come into play until later.

  “What else did you learn from this teacher?”

  “I learned other martial arts skills, of course, and I learned to pull energy into myself, as all students of the martial arts are taught. I learned better meditation practices. I gained a much better understanding of who I am — not the human me, but the source of me, my soul energy, the being I am without a body.”

  “Is this where you learned to levitate?”

  He was figuring too much out, which worried me. “It’s possible I’ve already said too much.”

  His eyes narrowed again. “I see. Well then, perhaps we’ll work on a metaphysical nángùn later, but we will begin with knives tonight.”

  His Mandarin pronunciation of nángùn was perfect, but my mind jumped ten steps ahead and I froze as everything fell into place. “Someone is using one of those swords to kill the people in Fort Oglethorpe, aren’t they?”

  He sighed. “Abbott, I’d like to clue you in on this so you can help protect Kirsten, but it’s important you not share this information with anyone. Not even your second.”

  “You know my second has to know everything. He’s the failsafe, in case something happens to me. Without knowing what I know, he’d never be able to run the territory.”

  “Your second cannot know of this, nor can any of your other people. Your choice is for you to know and not him, or for neither of you to know.”

  Abbott looked at Mordecai a dozen seconds and finally sighed and ran his hands through his hair again, just above his ear. I’d seen him do it a couple of times, and was beginning to think it was a signal something was making him uncomfortable.

  “Okay,” Abbott told Mordecai. “You have my word, unless there’s an emergency where it becomes necessary to tell him.”

  “Make sure I will agree to your definition of emergency.” He faced me again. “There have been more murders than the two in Fort Oglethorpe. I’ve discovered several in Tennessee and at least one in Alabama. The ones in Tennessee are under the jurisdictions of different police departments, and so far the various agencies and departments haven’t shared information with each other. Once someone realizes the murders match, your federal government will get involved.”

  “Let me guess, all the murder victims have Irish last names?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “What does this have to do with Kirsten?” Abbott asked. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

  Mordecai caught Abbott up on the two I already knew about, and then told us what he knew of the other murders. All were men with Irish last names and a variety of occupations. Some were cut up into a dozen or more pieces, some were decapitated and their heart removed with no other wound. None of the men were currently married. All were killed at night in their home.

  “Do we know the names of the abducted women? Do they have Irish last names?”

  Mordecai nodded and said, “Yes, to both questions. They are all single, as well. Most have never married, but a few are divorced. None have biological kids, one has adopted kids.”

  “What is b
eing done to make sure Kirsten is safe?” Abbott asked.

  “Aaron will be having a discussion with her this evening about it. Honestly, there aren’t many who’ll be able to fight whoever this is much better than Kirsten. However, Aaron tells me she isn’t always aware of her surroundings when in familiar territory. He’s going to want to have someone around her at all times to alert her to danger as well as help her fight.”

  “I’ll just take Smokey with me to work.” I told them. “He’s a trained therapy dog, and I already have permission to take him to the hospital, so taking him to my office shouldn’t be a problem. He’s very attuned to anything that means me harm, and lets me know pretty quickly.”

  Mordecai raised an eyebrow. “What is a trained therapy dog?”

  “A dog who’s gone through training and testing so he can be certified to be safe to take into hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and libraries with no fear he’ll bite or hurt anyone. He stays calm even in chaos, and is never threatening to humans. Lauren and I take Smokey to the hospital about once a month, and during the summer we take him to the library as part of their program to read to dogs, which makes kids feel more confident about reading aloud. Studies show that touch makes people heal better, and having therapy dogs go into the hospital raises the morale of the patients, which theoretically helps them with the healing process.”

  He shook his head. “Therapy dogs... That’s just, too much.”

  He looked at Abbott with an unspoken question, and Abbott told him, “Indigo aura leaning into white, which is rare for a dog, but he appears to be all dog and nothing else as far as I can tell. He wasn’t happy with my smell, but no orange or red appeared, he just took it in and then got between us, shielding her with his body without being an open threat to me.”

  I’d seen his aura, too, but was surprised Abbott had taken a look. I wasn’t in the habit of looking at the energy signature of people’s pets. Also, it had never occurred to me to suspect a pet of being a shapeshifter. I had a lot to learn, which I already knew, but once again it was the stuff-you-don’t-know-that-you-don’t-know catching me off guard.

  Mordecai looked to me and asked, “Did you know he was an enlightened being when you chose him?”

  “I’m not sure what I knew, except it was love at first sight. His original family decided he was too big when he was only a few months old, and a Newf rescue organization got him from the animal shelter he was taken to. I got word of him, went to see him, and fell in love. I didn’t look at his aura until several days after I got him home, but his eyes spoke to me and I knew he was special.” I paused, wondering if I should explain why I got him, and decided I should. “The first year home with Lauren was tough. She wanted to be adopted, wanted a mom, but there was so much change all at once, coming to a new country and learning to live as a family — and she rebelled like you wouldn’t believe. I knew we needed someone else in the house, a buffer between us. Someone she could hold and gain comfort from while she was pushing me away.”

  He mumbled, “A trained therapy dog,” while staring into the distance, as if it was so ludicrous one shouldn’t even try to wrap their mind around it. His eyes once again focused on me as he asked, “You expect a dog who’s been bred to be gentle, certified to not be a threat, to protect you? Once you’ve bred and trained the aggressiveness out of a dog, you can’t use it as a guard dog.”

  I chuckled. “You haven’t met Smokey. He’ll tell me when someone means me harm, and then I can protect myself. He can also block pretty good — he’s huge, and uses his bulk to keep those who mean me harm from actually getting to me. He’s protective over Lauren, too, and stands between us when she’s in trouble. I have to put him outside in order to give her a decent lecture. I can’t stand the way he looks at me when I’m fussing at her.”

  Shaking his head again, he said, “I’ll assume Aaron is familiar with your dog and will know whether having him with you will be sufficient. My opinion is you need a professional bodyguard, preferably one of the veteran shifters on Aaron’s payroll.”

  “Or a vampire bodyguard,” Abbott said. “I could stay with her at night.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” I practically snapped. I realized how it sounded and immediately calmed my voice to add, “I’m setting a good example for my daughter, and I don’t have gentlemen stay with me overnight when she’s home.”

  “Then I could send Fawne to stay with you at night.”

  Mordecai spoke again. “As I said, Aaron will be in charge of her protection detail. If you intend to volunteer bodyguards then I’ll let the two of you work it out between yourselves.”

  “Don’t forget about me,” I told them. “I get a say in this as well.”

  Their looks told me they weren’t of the opinion I’d have a voice in the final decision, and knowing how past arguments about this had gone with Aaron, they were probably right.

  Mordecai broke the tension. “You said you’ve made bowling balls before, can you make one and hold onto it, please?”

  “Now?”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible for someone who used to be a god to give a, “Well, duh,” look, but he managed. Somehow, this made me feel a little more at ease around him, though I don’t think it was his intention. I had the feeling he enjoyed making people feel as if he should be worshipped. Perhaps enjoy wasn’t the right word… expected it, perhaps? At any rate, his human expression made me see him as someone I could relate to a teeny bit. I was still in awe of him, but perhaps two or three percent less so.

  I filled myself with energy, moved my hands in front of me as if I was holding a large ball, and visualized a bowling ball until one began to grow. I moved one hand under it to hold it as I watched it form, and then considered how it would feel after a kiln fired it into a solid piece. Within a few seconds I was holding a nice heavy bowling ball, and it looked more like a glowing solid object than a ball of light. It wasn’t the usual red or blue of my laser, but closer to a white light, with a hint of orange or purple, depending on how you looked at it.

  I looked up at Mordecai as if to say ‘There’.

  “Now absorb the energy back into yourself. Don’t just let it dissipate.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “I am sure you can. It was made of your energy, and is still your energy. Accept it back into yourself. Do not think about it too much, just do it.”

  I tried to let the energy sink back into my hand, but it didn’t work. Since I do with my right and take in with my left, I moved it to my left hand and tried again. Still nothing. I reversed the kiln process in my head and tried again, and it sunk into my hand — and hurt. Not agonizing pain, but certainly a few notches above uncomfortable, and my eyes watered as I rubbed and then shook my hand.

  “Ouch, is it supposed to hurt?” I asked Mordecai.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I’ve known those who could do it, but they weren’t the type to talk about whether something hurt or not.”

  Right, I guessed Thor wouldn’t complain about that little bit of pain, which made me think, “Do you still have contact with those who could do it? The ones still alive?”

  “Not the kind of contact that would allow me to ask for help.”

  “Way to answer a question without really telling me anything.” I grumbled. “This particular pain question isn’t that big of a deal, but if we had something we needed help with, could you call one of them and get an answer?”

  “At this time I think it prudent to notify as few supernaturals as possible to the fact a human has these abilities. Aaron is an ally of mine from old, and you’re special to him so I will do what I can to help keep you alive. Alerting the others of your abilities would be counterproductive to this goal.”

  “But, someone figured it out, right? That’s why you think they’re here and killing people? Some kind of a message to me that they know who I am and what I’m doing?”

  “
I didn’t think Aaron planned to talk to you about our main theory.”

  That pissed me off, and Aaron and I would be talking about it later. “Oh, he hasn’t talked to me about it. I may be merely human, but my brain works just fine and I figured it out. All. By. My. Self.”

  He looked a touch uncomfortable. Good. I was still ticked at him for sending men to take me whether I wanted to come or not, and forcing me to kill them in an effort to keep myself safe. But, I knew I’d have to let it go. He lost people he was apparently close to and had forgiven me. It had to be a two way street. Besides, I had more questions.

  “Assuming they’re here because of me, what specifically drew them here? How do they know what I’m doing?”

  “The demons have talked of you a great deal amongst themselves, at all levels. If someone were to have spies in the other realm, or informants from there, we’d expect them to be curious and come check you out. It’s also possible someone sensed what you were doing.”

  “What, like in Star Wars, someone sensed a disturbance in the force?”

  He actually laughed, and I was filled with such joy at his laughter I wanted to… I don’t know what I wanted to do. I can only say his laughter made me happy, and while he was laughing it seemed the most important thing in the world, and I would’ve done almost anything to keep him happy. I knew I’d need to meditate on this later, try to figure it out, but for now I tried to mentally step back and watch my reactions, so I wouldn’t get caught up in them.

  “Yes,” he answered, still smiling. “Something like that. You have no idea how close they were to reality.”

  I didn’t think we had time to go off on a side conversation about Star Wars now, so I pulled us back to the subject. “Is there any way to track them down? A way to sense the disturbance in the force they’re creating? Some way to keep them from killing anyone else?”

  He again raised an eyebrow at me. “I have been unable to do so.”

  I looked at Abbott. “What I saw the other night, with Piers, can you explain what you did? I think I know, I mean, I kind of felt what you were doing, but I’d like validation before I go on with my thoughts.”