Chapter Four

Adding to the family annuals

What I can recall of my dreams that night were chaotic flashes, scenes frozen in time and motion-blurred clips, like really bad cinematography. You know, the kind that makes you sick watching it.

I woke up on Thanksgiving Day with a horrible headache and a terribly queasy tummy. I barely made it to the bathroom before choking up stomach acid. I hung out there for a while, I'm not sure how long, but I was dry heaving so badly that I started spitting out blood with the acid and then my magic kicked in.

I wasn't thinking, just feeling that I wanted the choking nausea gone and the pain in my head and from where my stomach acid ate sores in my throat to go away. The magic took over, spilling me on the floor in a hard and fast series of convulsions. Everything went white and then black and then I was looking down at my still-twitching body. Nothing hurt, but this wasn't right. My spirit-self started screaming for Grandmamma.

Damien came running, followed by a woman who could only be his sister. She was much paler, her skin almost as milky-white as a moon stone and her dark auburn hair hung down her back in a tight, thick braid that ended between mid thigh and knee. She wore an oversized sweater and tight leather pants with knee high boots over the legs. While Damien went to my body, she looked straight at my spirit-self.

"Shit!" she hissed. Damien didn't pay her any attention. He started CPR on my body. She didn't take her eyes off me as she said, "She's Walking, Daimie! Don't let her body cool, but CPR isn't going to help!"

She went to the bath and started running water. When she was satisfied with the temperature, she ran out. I looked down at my father, watching as the tears streamed down his face and I reached out to him.

"Damien? Daddy? Don't cry! I didn't mean to do this, I swear! I just don't know how to fix it!"

Aunt Antoinette came back with the cordless phone pressed to her ear. "Mom, come on, pick up!" she was whispering, her eyes wide as she looked at my spirit-self.

Damien flinched when my spirit fingers wiped the tears from his face. He looked up then and he saw me. A look of utter horror crossed his face, paled his skin, and he shuddered. "No!" hissed out of his lips, like the last air leaking from a deflated tire.

"Don't cry, Daddy. I just need to figure out what I did and undo it."

"Mom! Rhiannon's Walking and we don't know how to get her back in her body!" my aunt half yelled into the phone. Damien just sat there, looking at my spirit self with this broken look.

"Ok, ok. Into the water! Damien! Put her body in the water! I'm going for the salt! Damien?!" He didn't react to Antoinette. With a muttered, "Shit!" again, she set the phone on the counter and reached past him, picked my body up off the floor and dumped it in the bath water, clothes and all. She turned off the tap, grabbed Damien and forced him to hold my head above the water. I thought I caught a bit of a muttered prayer before she took off at a dead run again, returning moments later with a box of Kosher rock salt. She dumped the entire box in with my body and turned the hot water back on.

Faster than I could follow, she pulled a decent sized knife from somewhere on her body, slit her forearm and bleed into the water. She grabbed Damien's limp arm and repeated the blood letting. He finally reacted when she reached for my arm. He grabbed her by the wrist and turned his head to her face. His eyes were black, without whites showing. Antoinette froze for a moment and then took a deep breath.

Antoinette's voice was very calm, the kind of voice you use on dangerously crazy people. "She needs water, warmth, salt, and blood to remember her body. Mom said it will help to call her back."

He looked at her for a moment more before releasing her hand. He took the blade from her, washed it in the tub's water, and made a shallow slice across my left index finger. As the first drop of my blood hit the water, I started to see webs of silver trailing through and around and connecting everything. By the third drop, a strand of the web seemed to glow brighter and brighter to my eyes. By the fifth, I saw that it lead from my spirit-self to my body. When the seventh drop splashed into the salted water, the world went black and then white and I awoke wet, crying, and coughing up more blood. The pain was worse for the temporary respite, but I was terrified from standing outside of my mortal shell and the pain was by far the better choice of the two.

When the coughing calmed down enough that I could move again, I reached for Damien, half crawling out of the tub to try to sit in his lap. Tears streamed down my face and I was trying not to sob for the pain in my raw throat. I could feel something that wasn't me, wasn't my magic, running through me, but it felt somewhat like Damien and comforted me as he did. His hands stroked up and down my back and the touch was enough to calm my headache to the point where I didn't quite feel like bashing my head into the wall.

"What the fuck where you thinking, girl?" Antoinette snapped at me when the coughing died down. Damien growled at her and it was not a human sound. The power of it echoed in the bathroom, shattering all the glass (including the mirror) and cracking the marble countertops.

"Shit! What's happening to you, Daimie? You're not a cur; don't try pulling the sonic crap on me!"

A new voice came from behind Damien, a man's voice. "Antoinette, do not bait your brother when he has suffered such a terror. You will only antagonize him."

"This is family business, Marco!" she snapped back.

"Antoinette, as you love our liege, leave your brother to his child and come with me, now." This Marco's voice sounded strained with the effort to stay calm.

"Honestly, you can be such a pain, Marco!" Despite her protest, I felt more than saw Antoinette rise and step past us. I heard her small gasp, but her Marco must have pulled her from the room, because her presence faded.

I snuggled deeper into my father's arms, feeling much safer now that it was just he and I. Damien might not be able to keep the pain at bay, but he could hold me and he could love me and more than anything right then, that was what I needed.

After a while, the scent of cinnamon and sandalwood and something else, something warm yet with that dry, reptilian essence, teased my senses. I rubbed my cheek against my father's chest and the shirt he wore caught on something other than skin. I opened my eyes and looked up.

Damien was still mostly human shaped, but he was covered in iridescent black scales. His ears arched up and over the back of his newly bald head, ending in points, and his eyes were almost indistinguishable from the rest of his face. His nose had sunk down and out, leaving two slits for nostrils at the end of an almost delicate muzzle. Two fangs curled down from his upper jaw like miniature tusks.

He reached up a hand to stroke the hair from my face. He still had five digits, but they were longer and the ends seemed to be solid, sharpened bone and not just talons. A dew claw protruded halfway down his forearm. He looked at his hand funny as it rested on my temple.

"Wah n da whirl?" he asked, the tusks getting in the way of his enunciation. I didn't think he was asking me and I had no answer to give, so I stayed silent. The weight of his hand seemed to suck the pain right from my brain and I leaned into it, closing my eyes again. He rubbed his thumb across my temple and I felt that almost-Damien magic sink in. My own magic rose to meet it and together they seeped like hot molasses through my body. Everywhere the magic ran, the pain faded and disappeared, leaving a strange contentment, an utter relaxation, behind. Damien seemed to be going with the flow, too. There was almost a surrealistic feeling in the room. The magic was rolling down my thighs by the time anyone dared to check the bathroom again.

"Mother's Blessings! That's enough power to drink a drunk dry!" Grandmamma gagged from the doorway. Then I guess she got a look at us and gasped, "Daimie, is that you?" It was an effort to open my eyes and so I felt Damien turn to her and give a slight nod of his head before I saw Grandmamma stagger over to the toilet. She closed the cover and sat down. For a moment, she just stared at the two of us like she had no clue what to do next. Then she saw the phone.

"I'm calling Grand-mère after I check out Rhi ... If I may?" she asked, cautiously extending a hand towards us. Damien tilted his head Golden flecks began to dance in his eyes and then coalesced into golden pupils. Reluctantly, he drew his hand from my head and we turned me so that I sat in his lap with my back to his chest.

Grandmamma slid off the toilet to sit cross-legged before us. She placed a hand on each of my knees and, for lack of a better description, breathed her magic into me. Damien gave an all-over shudder and quickly set his hands on the floor. He dug in and shredded the linoleum, shattering the wood underneath. We ignored him. For my part, Grandmamma's eyes were utterly fascinating. I could not look away. The pleasantly blank look rode her features.

I was not doing well with tracking time that morning. It seemed like only seconds passed, but somehow I missed seeing Damien shed his scales and retract his claws. He sagged against the bathroom wall, still holding me in his lap, and Grandmamma was reaching for me with a towel in hand.

"Sweetie, what happened? What started everything?" she asked.

I thought about it for a moment. "I had bad dreams last night and they hurt when I woke up. I couldn't stop throwing up and my head hurt real bad. I think I remember thinking I just wanted to stop hurting and then I started shaking and everything went all funky and I was standing over me." I pulled Damien's arms a bit closer around me at that thought before continuing. "Damien came through the door and he started trying to wake up my body and Aunt Antoinette looked at me and the rest they probably know better than me."

"Were you bleeding? When you woke up, were you bleeding?" she asked, her eyes intent on me.

"No, but I threw up blood before the shakes took me."

Though her eyes stayed on me, they lost focus. I don't think she realized she was talking out loud when she said, "And you were Spirit Walking, too. That explains it. That makes a lot of sense now."

"What does?" I asked.

"Hmm? Oh! Well, no need to worry over it now, sweetie. You just stay here with your father. Grand-mère will be here by nightfall." Damien tensed under me.

"I grow scales and suddenly we're worth a visit?" he growled. A surge of something, power, rippled through him.

"Grand-mère is not asking now. Her words were, 'If André wants a war over my invasion so be it: war he will have. Warn your Ascended that I bring a bonded guard with me.'"

Damien stilled. His voice was very quiet when he finally asked, "André has denied Grand-mère visitation?"

"He has denied her the right to her guardians while within his territory and refuses to provide for her protection. Grand-père was so thoroughly pissed that he almost called blood war then and there."

"Over a bodyguard?"

"Damien, I wonder at you sometimes! You have spent almost a century straddling the silver line and still you know so little of the veiled world! The refusal of protection is not just an insult, it is a threat that if anything occurs within André's fife which he deems excuse enough that he will try to kill her himself. Above that, though, Grand-père and Grand-mère have enemies who would leap at the chance to destroy them both by attacking when she is without escort. In such a way might they escape detection for so heinous a crime as the murder of a móndav. Think, child! You are Draken Guerre, you can no longer afford to be so blind!"

"What's a Draken Guerre?" I piped in. Sometimes questions can cut tension. Ignorance answered is bliss and all that.

"Draken Guerre is a myth. They died out centuries ago, long before Momma was born." Damien growled.

"And yet here you sit, able to call upon fang and tooth, scale and claw. Do you know why? Because you drank the spirit-striped blood of a Draken kailen! That kailen sits in your lap right now! Your daughter cannot afford this deliberate ignorance! Damien, the umbreans hunt Drakens!"

"Why? What did I do? What's going on?" I cried out.

Damien's energy surged and churned around me. "That's a very good question. Why?"

Grandmamma looked us both over, but her eyes lingered longest against the weight of Damien's gaze. She sighed and rolled back on her heels, scooting to sit with her back against the sink cabinets, facing us.

"Grand-mère used to warn that our blood carries Draken taint and that it was only by the grace of our Mother that the Draken grew weak within us. The Draken is a creature of pure Chaos and the world we dwell upon is far too rigid to survive its incursion unscarred.

"When Seth sought to swallow the Great San, the spirit of all knowledge, he drew upon his cohorts in Abyssal and they helped him capture the Draken Narrisium. He thought to set the Draken Narrisium upon his brothers so they would not be able to stop him, but without the Abyssal host to aid Seth, the Draken broke free of him and it did horrific things, things that appalled even Seth. It did wonderful things, too, that but for the Chaos of its nature would have delighted an Elysian. And it left its seeds scattered throughout the world.

"It took the entire Elysian host to cast out the Draken Narrisium again, but try as they did, they did not get all of its seeds before the nature of our world drove them back. Some of the seeds were beasts and the umbreans overlooked the Draken within the beast's nature. Some were plants and each of those appeared to have a medicinal use, so the umbreans allowed them to continue. Some were people and those the umbreans watched and hunted.

"There is a reason that Grand-mère is the first of her line to live over forty years. Umbreans hunted the rest of her ancestors, waiting for them to show the seeds of the Draken before they pronounced the Nois upon them."

"Nois is only pronounced upon preternatural soul eaters and kin slayers."

"I understand you've been through a bit, but, Damien, you're not usually this dense. To awaken the Draken, the Guardian of a Draken kailen has to drink the kailen's blood after it is stripped of Spirit essence. What's the most common way to strip the Spirit from the blood?"

Damien squeezed me convulsively. I could feel the horror breaking over him. "Shit!" he hissed.

"But what does being a kailen mean?" I asked. I had a really bad feeling that I so did not want to find out whatever it was that made Damien react with that much revulsion.

"Kailen is a really old way of referring to a mage who can draw protectors to her: familiars, spirit guides, and guardians. Draken kailen are the strongest of mages. Mages all operate more on innate understanding than practiced formula, but the Draken blooded are closer to the Divine Chaos. It may just be a matter of perception, but regardless, the weakest of Draken blooded can and have destroyed the strongest of mages who lack the Blood."

"What's that mean for Damien?"

"He now bears the mark of the Draken Guerre. He'll have to stay alive long enough to convince the umbreans that he did not sacrifice you, sell your soul to the Abyssals, and drink your blood."

"Oh." I shut up. I was right; I really didn't want to know that answer.

"Pass me the phone, please, Momma," Damien asked. His voice kept going from his normal depth to a rumbling base.

Grandmamma handed Damien the phone off the bathroom counter. "Who are you calling?"

"Paul. He's Ascended, so I figure he's got a much better chance to know how to bring in an umbrean."

Shocked disbelief bugged out Grandmamma's eyes. "After what I just told you, you're going to call in the hunters??"

Damien answered while punching in numbers, "I like my skin attached to my body, but I love my daughter more. I've worked with umbreans before. I won't say as how I trust their sense of humor, but I do know that if I make the call, they will honor my purpose to the best of their ability.

"I hunt the rogues, Momma; I will not become what I hunt." Their eyes held and tears trailed down Grandmamma's cheeks.

"I don't know if I'm more proud of you or pissed at you right now, son," she breathed out.

"Feel any damned way you want to, Momma, just promise me that Rhiannon will be taken care of if I can't." Damien gave me a small squeeze and talked into the phone. I was close enough to hear both sides of the conversation.

"Hello, Paul, I need some help."

Paul has a fast, southern accent and a heavy tenor voice. "What, you got shifter problems?"

"Kinda, but not really. Do you know how to get in touch with the umbreans?"

"This something I should know about? I mean, you don't call if you can't handle it."

"Yeah, you could say it's more than I can handle."

"What's so tough the two of us can't take it down? Or are you trying to keep me out of it?"

"It wouldn't be the two of us. If it came down to that call, you'd be on your own. See, the problem is me. I found out I've got a bit more funk in my genetics than just Daddy's side of the family tree."

"You want the umbreans to come in after you? And you're not asking me in?"

"Nah, it's not like that. I think having you come on over would be a good thing, but call in the umbrean first."

"What should I tell them?"

"… Tell them you're calling about a Draken Guerre. … You still there, man? … Paul?"

"How bad is the body count and who died first?" The accent disappeared and the voice that was Paul came out clipped and terse.

"At this point, no one and I'd rather keep it that way."

"You're telling me you're Draken Guerre and no one died to bring on the Change? That's not Draken Guerre, Damien. I don't know what it is, but that's a whole n'other kettle of fish. I want you to go stand outside and start looking around you. I'll be over in five and you're going to tell me what you see." Paul's voice picked the unnaturally quick drawl back up. "I can hear two other people breathing in the background. Is one your mother?"

"Yeah."

"Hand her the phone and go stand outside." Damien handed Grandmamma the phone and helped me to stand.

"I think you better get changed, baby, get out of the wet," he said. I turned around and got a good look at my father. His clothes were stretched and torn in places and blood seeped from small lacerations on his fingers. His hair was thick with sweat and what might have been clear, thicker liquids. His eyes were on the green side of hazel and unnaturally well dilated, but at least he had whites in them again. Purple marks the color of bruises shifted along his bare arms and up his neck.

"Damien, your hands are bleeding. Maybe we should see to that first."

He looked down at his hands and said, "Ok, I'll take care of my hands while you go get changed and we'll meet out on the front porch."

I blinked at Damien and then glanced at Grandmamma, but I didn't wait for her "go on now" nod to leave. Watching my step around the broken glass, I grabbed a towel from the rack and went to clean up and get dressed.

Waiting

When I walked out, the household was on the porch, including my aunt and her escort. The escort, Marco, was a medium sized man with nondescript features, but energy pulsed off him in waves. His eyes hardly ever left Damien and the coldness in his gaze was discomforting, to say the least. His hands hovered near his waist, never quite resting on his hips. Antoinette acted almost as if she wasn't aware of him, but small movements, like a quick, almost casual glance in the man's direction belied her oblivion.

I had slipped on a peasant skirt and loose blouse, but left off my shoes. Damien had yet to change, but Grandmamma knelt in front of him, wrapping his hands in gauze, as he sat on the porch swing. The conversation stopped when I exited the house and all the adults but Marco turned to look at me like I was something strange and different.

I looked up at my aunt and said, "We had a rather interesting meeting before, but I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced. Aunt Antoinette, I'm your niece, Rhiannon Marie. Or would you rather I call you Aunt Pierce?"

Damien snorted, trying to hide a laugh, Grandmamma gave me the Look, and Aunt Annie looked at me like I was a proper heathen. She held out her hand and I shook it, which only seemed to puzzle her more. "Rhiannon, what were you doing Spirit Walking?" she finally asked, but her voice was much calmer than when we were in the bathroom.

"I dunno," I said, shrugging. I really wanted to be a pain, but I bit down on the impulse. My parents did teach me better than to bombard new acquaintances with prying questions like, What's it feel like to be bonded to the undead? and Doesn't it hurt when they bite you? or better yet, Why are you shacking up with a guy who won't even let your Great Grandmother visit you? Instead, I turned to Marco. "The sun is up so I'm pretty sure you're not André."

He briefly flicked eyes towards me that could have been any color from a pale shade of brown to gray. "I am a loyal retainer of our Master."

"You're not human."

He gave me a sharper look. "That's a dangerous thing to say, piccola."

"I'm not a piccola. And it's only dangerous if you're lying to yourself. You like being other. You like the edge it gives you. You like contesting the Beast; you like the challenge of it. You don't like people, though. A person here and there, an individual, yeah, you can respect an individual, but you don't have respect for the crowds. You smell of claw and fang and feline. Are you cougar? You don't feel like a leopard or a tiger or a lion. Yeah, you feel like a cougar."

I had all the adults looking serious with my little speech. Marco stared hard at Damien and Grandmamma and he looked upset. "Which one of you told her that?"

I stepped closer to the hired muscle. "You did. Your energy is spiking all over the place and Grandmamma hasn't taught me how to tune it out yet. Damien is not the danger here, hot shot – I am. I am the one running around with my magic going through a growth spurt and slipping out of my control. You keep thinking about shooting my dad and I can't guarantee that you won't be wearing your fur in a permanent way. Back down so I can back off. There's enough power here to swim in and I don't know how long I can keep from trying. You don't want to be thinking violent thoughts when I stop being able to hold everything in."

"Rein it in, Marco, or walk it off. If you can't smell the truth, you're not the cat I thought you were," Antoinette's voice was soft steel.

I have to give Marco his due; he choked back almost his entire spillage. There was still that otherness dancing over my skin, but it was much easier to take than his hyper-alertness.

"Thank you," I said, giving him one of my innocent smiles. I hit it just right and got him to smile back. See? No harm, no foul, boss. He still kept a wary eye on Damien, but the hostility level dropped. There are times being a cute little thing is an advantage.

"You are not a natural child," he said, his voice pleasant and slightly approving.

"Thank you. Grandmamma says I'm kailen, if that helps you understand. It hasn't quite helped me yet," I responded, going over to see how Damien was doing.

"Kailen? Is that right, Momma?" Antoinette asked, her voice filled with intrigue.

"Yes, she is and, no, she's not going anywhere near André until she's stable." Grandmamma spoke sharply, her eyes filled with reproach.

Antoinette affected a hurt concern. "Momma! What are you thinking? You act as if my amerte would harm the Blood of my Blood, the flesh of my flesh!"

"I know why you came to see Damien today, Annie, so don't you try to pull a fast one on me! Rhiannon is my apprentice and I tell you now, móndav bond or not, flesh of my flesh or not, anyone who tries to enslave her Will answers to me. Do I make myself clear?" Grandmamma stopped administering to Damien long enough to catch her daughter with a wicked pissed glare.

Antoinette flushed with rage. Her voice dropped down to a little over a whisper. "Take it back, Momma! Take that ugliness back right now! Rhiannon is my brother's only child! Do you really think I would allow anything that horrible to happen to her?? Do you??"

"I was duenna to this city for over a century, child. Retirement has only made me easier to approach. You may not think that that's where André is leading, but he's wanted a pet mage for quite some time. You know what a vampire's idea of a pet is. He'll offer to leech her, 'to lend her some control', and a slave is what he'll have. Nothing doing!"

I Looked at Grandmamma and I blurted out, "Oh, my God!" I saw in that moment the reason why she was so sure that André never would have betrayed my grandfather. Kyle and he were lovers and had managed to hide their affair from just about everyone, including Grandmamma, up until André realized he also loved his lover's daughter. The revelation was distressing to Grandmamma, to say the least. I was stunned for a moment by the rush of emotions within the glimpse I Saw. I had to know, so I Looked at my aunt and I saw the knowledge of the affair within her. When I Looked at Damien, I saw blissful ignorance. I went over and crawled up next to my father.

"What is it, baby-doll?" he asked, hugging me with one arm.

"Right now, I'm really glad I never had to meet Grandpa Kyle. I don't want to meet André, either," I said, and I knew my voice had gone soft and pouty. I snuggled into my father's hug and I clung a little bit. Grandmamma had had half a century to grow used to the weight of her lover's betrayal, but her emotions were the emotions of a mature adult. I was feeling overwhelmed with the depths and nuances that had grown within Grandmamma's hurt and the surges of my own pain that echoed hers.

Children can be passionate. Their utter abandon often mimics the weight of emotion that maturity brings, but that self-same abandon does not allow for the fullness of time to ripen their passions. I did not wholly grasp the carnal nature of my grandfather's betrayal; it only mattered to me that he lied and violated my grandmother's trust. That André, whether out of genuine emotion or calculation, then betrayed my grandfather just made him the more loathsome in my eyes. Aunt Antoinette was not coming out smelling like roses, either.

Grandmamma and Antoinette looked hard at me, but they both wore masks of blanked features.

Damien seemed at first as if he would pursue my discomfort, but instead he turned toward the drive with an alertness that made Marco follow his example. Marco turned back to Damien after a moment, but Damien either ignored him or was oblivious to him. I smelled the cinnamon and reptilian scent rise from my father's skin and suddenly I could hear the sound of a motor purring towards us and this strange rushing sound, like wind through trees.

"What?" Antoinette asked. Her voice was strangely distorted and slightly louder than the motor sound.

Without realizing it, I had turned my head as Damien did. When I turned to look at my aunt, my hearing returned to normal. "There's a car coming down the drive. I don't know how far off. Everything sounded strange and weird."

I felt sleepy, tired in body and mind, and Damien's heart beat under my ear. The warm of my father comforted me and there was so much I didn't want to deal with just then. I stopped paying attention to everyone else and just concentrated on the sound of Damien's heartbeat.