Chapter Nine

Can't we all just get along?

I was pleasantly surprised every school day of that first month when I made it through the day without revisiting the scene outside of the church in Burlingame. While quite a few of my fellow students didn't seem to know how to react to me, I made a few tentative friendships. Lupe and Brian were interested in my magic, but after the first rush of knowing a mage passed they were comfortable to be around.

I learned the shy girl was named Dallas York. The rumor mill didn't quite know what to make of her, only able to supply that she was a seventh-grader who was never really an outgoing person and that she moved to the area a couple years ago. I found out where her locker was and made a point to walk that way whenever possible.

Near the end of that month, as Lupe and I sat outside eating lunch with a small group of girls, the same therians showed up who had appeared on the first day of school. They were dressed again in neat jeans and T-shirts, though this time the Japanese shifter wore a light windbreaker. Mr. Murphy and the same gentleman were again standing near the temporary buildings by where we sat and the two groups were staring at each other again. Their auras seemed to show more frustration and anger on both sides than on the first day of school.

One of the things that my grandmothers couldn't lock away was the gift they called far seeing. It isn't really, though – far seeing, that is. My eyes, without aide, are no better than any mundane's. I have no strong gift in scrying. I think of it more as magically aided intuition. Sometimes the answer pops full-blown into my brain and sometimes, like this, I only have the instinctive need to do something.

I got up with a, "Back in a sec" tossed over my shoulder and walked to the fence. When I got close enough to scent the group of shifters before me reacted with various signs of surprise. For the most part, the followers stepped behind their leader. Among most therian tribes, the move is a sign of solidarity and deference. Their reaction reminded me that I never did learn how to turn off my mimicry of Ascender stink. I gave a fleeting thought to the strange looks that Mr. Murphy kept giving me, but decided that, right now, the group in front of me was the more important matter.

"It's not polite to stare," I called out as I approached. I had learned better with Paul, but I held the gaze of the middle therian, the one the others unconsciously deferred to. As I got closer, I saw that all the shirts they wore bore the No Fear logo.

"Little girls aren't supposed to talk to strangers," the leader called back. His eyes flickered from me to something behind me and back again.

"He's got a point, Rhiannon," Mr. Murphy said, his voice coming from the direction the leader's eyes had flashed towards.

I didn't take my attention off the therians before me. By their auras none were Ascended, but the leader was close. However, like the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Statistics show that the longer it takes shifters to Ascend the less likely a shifter will ever get there, no matter how close they get. Paul thinks that it has something to do with mindset – either you desire to be the master or you desire to be mastered, no matter how well you learn to play at Lord of All you Survey.

I felt the insistence of my magic roll through me, begging to make a slight change that pitched my voice beyond human hearing, but not beyond most therians'. Reacting to that insistence, I yielded and let the peace of my magic fill my eyes while I said, "You need to move on. You're in pissing distance of breaking the Peace. If there's an issue, you need to take it up away from the mundane's kids. If you piss on Paul's treaty here, you're not just going to be dealing with Paul."

The shifter's eyes widened and I could almost feel the startlement rise off Mr. Murphy and his companion. Though unnerved, the leader had a backbone. "Are you threatening me?" He growled softly, his voice too soft to reach the ears of the kids trailing me.

"My last name is Pierce. Do you want to rile up the adults in my family?" I cocked my head to the side after delivering that little news flash and paused before going on. "Listen, you've got guts. That's respectable. All therians have the right to resolve their issues, but the Peace of Sacramento strictly forbids spooking on school grounds. Being legal now doesn't change the terms of the Peace."

The leader studied me with neutral eyes, obviously thinking. "They hide on school grounds and refuse their Bonxech's call."

"Grant isn't our Bonxech. Just because we allowed him to move into our territory without a fight doesn't make him our lord and master. We may be the same family, but we're not the same species, not even the same genus. Even if he was of the same species, we are Free Roamers, not Tribesmen. We know no Bonxech. This is the Law, Witnessed and Affirmed and made the Peace of Sacramento at Summer Moon 1956," Mr. Murphy growled.

"You must speak those words to the Bonxech," the tribesman stated.

"Then Grant may make arrangements to use the neutral ground that the Ascended offers. As long as it does not interfere with the school we will be amiable, but we will not answer a will-he-nill-he calling. We are not Tribe; we are not bound." The other man spoke up.

The tribesman took a deep breath, nodded to me and then to his tribe and walked away. I watched them walk off and let the magic run out, discovering that flesh crafting was a lot – and I mean a lot – less painful than bone crafting.

Mr. Murphy put a hand on my shoulder, saying, "Rhiannon, let's go grab your things." He and his companion walked with me back to Lupe and the girls.

Lupe gave me worried eyes. "What's going on?" she asked.

"It's nothing much. The guys on the other side of the fence, they've been a nuisance and Mr. Murphy wants to talk with me about it," I said, wincing a little on the inside at the way I was misleading my friend. At the same time, if I said it was shifter politics, the news would be all over the school and Paul would be on my ass for breaking his Peace. I didn't want Paul pissed at me.

I only had my little blue lunch box to collect since I had gotten into the habit of shoving my school books in my locker while at lunch. The two adults escorted me into the main building.

I looked at the man I didn't know and offered, "Hi, I'm Rhiannon Pierce."

"Pete Donovan, your Vice Principal," he replied, shooting me an edgy glance out of the corner of his eye.

"I take it I'm gonna be late to my next class, aren't I?"

"It looks that way," Mr. Murphy answered.

I thought for a moment and then asked, "Is this going to have to involve my dad?"

Mr. Donovan asked, "Does he know?"

"Hmm, it looks like this is going to be one of those closed door talks," I dodged.

Some tensions eased from Mr. Donovan's stance. "I think you may be right."

Mistaken species

Pete Donovan closed the door to his office after us. He moved around to the seat behind his desk and gestured Mr. Murphy and me into the chairs set before it. The two men openly studied me for a moment while I returned the VP's regard with a pleasantly blank expression. Their auras were a mass of conflicting emotions, making it difficult to figure out what was going on in their heads.

Mr. Donovan finally took a deep breath and asked me, "How did it happen?"

I felt my eyebrows rise and tipped my head to the side, still with a pleasant face, and said, "I'm not sure what you're asking about. If you're talking about today, I saw the therians and walked over to give them a word to the wise. That's it."

Mr. Donovan gave me a very good principal face, his chin dipping just a bit so he could look at me from the tops of his eyes. "You know what I mean," he intoned.

"Not if you're not talking about the visitors today," I answered back, uncertain of where this was going and focusing on making my tone non-confrontational.

Streaks of impatience skittered across his aura as the VP said, "The bite. How did it happen to you?"

I blinked, confused for a moment before it suddenly hit me. He thought I was a therian, too. "It didn't," I answered.

Smiling to take the edge off his words and to make it seem that he was a nice person, Mr. Donovan advised, "Don't try to hogwash me, Rhiann – you're a stronger shifter than most tribal enforcers. It's okay to be honest here. Neither Harry nor I will hold it against you."

"I am being honest. I'm not a therian. I've never been Bitten like that. I'm a Red mage and a Draken kailen. If you don't believe me we can call my dad and he'll tell you what's up."

Mr. Murphy shifted nervously in his seat, cleared his throat, and asked, "Do you know why it's so hard to believe you?"

I looked over at him and said, "The first therian I met that I knew was a shifter was Paul Schultz. The kids at school call me an 'early bloomer' when they're being nice about it, but I didn't like reacting like I did to him so my magic kicked in and it copied the stink and it made it mine. I still haven't figured out how to undo it, but that's why I smell like I do."

"It isn't only the 'stink', as you call it; it's that you did a partial shift on the first day of school and just now at the fence. I've never heard of anyone born human who could do that without being a therian."

"I'm a Red mage," I repeated, thinking that that explained it all. As the words left my mouth I had the thought that maybe they were rootless, therians who were not brought into the established tribal cultures. The rootless therians lacked mentors and answers and the strength of traditions to help them adapt to turning furry at least once a month. Rooted tribes were aware of the preternatural community at large while it was much more hit or miss with the rootless. I threw in a quick explanation.

"When you guys Ascend you get a taste of what we are, but most of it goes to making you immune to magic." I would say that their reaction was more felt than seen as the two of them sank into that calm and deadly stillness so reminiscent of Marco and Aunt Ann, but my first clue was the instant solidification of their auras. The deep indigo of focus swallowed up all the muddied streaks. My magic gave no hint of physical danger, yet the snap-to of awareness told me I might – just maybe a lot – have touched a sensitive spot. It took a moment to realize that they might be concerned about their livelihoods.

I hurried to add, "The only person I've told is my dad and he said more power to you. Since he's been enforcing the Peace right along with Paul straight from the beginning I don't think you've got a lot to worry about there."

It was illegal to discriminate, but people did it all the time. Starting the school year, I was terrified of being snubbed and treated like the lowest sort of scum simply because my magic made me that much different. I was a mage and, while there were the so-called fundamentalist who seemed to revel in calling all of us born with magic "Satan's get", for the most part we were accepted by the mundane population. Therians, despite all of the politically correct clap-trap mouthed around the capital, were not. Not in America, the Russian Republics, and most parts of Europe, at least. At the time the Do Butsu Shimiru Kaotsuki[1] were just a rumor considered by most of the preternatural population to be something similar to a Shangri-la pipe dream.

After a momentary pause, Mr. Donovan asked, his words very precise, "How long have you known?"

"Since first sight. It's in your auras, like a color without a name."

"Our auras. Right. And you're not a shifter. Uh huh. Riiight," Mr. Donovan gave me a patently false smile. The look on his face screamed his disbelief.

I bit back the urge to smart off and settled for giving him a flat look, similar to his own principal face. "Shifting started from a Red curse, you do know that much, right?"

"I've heard the rumor that it was blood magic," Mr. Murphy conceded.

"Blood magic is part of Red magic and some people switch 'em like they're the same thing. They aren't, really. They're more like Catholicism and Christianity." I waved my hand, waving away the side track and went back to my point.

"Thing is, the way it works is – and I don't know the details about it, just the shape of it – but making the shifter viruses was a screw up, at least that's what Grandmamma said. She said the mage lore has it that there was this guy, way-way-way back, and he wanted his sons to be mages, too, but they weren't born that way. There are ways that mages can make a person have magic, but if you're not Healer Called the magic you use to open it gets all involved and leaves its mark on the channel.

"Well, this guy was an Animal Caller and there was some kind of commotion while he was opening up his sons. The magic hit them and it made 'em shifters and that was the only way they could tap the magic – shifting into all sorts of different animals. The guy, he kept meddling, trying to fix the mess he made of it and it just made things worse and it got his sons moon-tied.

"One of the sons sat down and figured out how to come to terms with the magic and he was the first Ascender. The other son said, 'screw this' and took off, going all wild and being ridden by the magic and biting people, and sometimes the magic took and sometimes it didn't, but when it did it made more shifters."

"That doesn't sound much like a curse to me; more like a mistake," Mr. Murphy commented.

I shrugged. "Curses are the effect, not the intent. Grandmamma hasn't shown me how to use my magic on anything yet, just shields and stuff, 'cause she's working on the ground rules first. Rule one, she says, is every blessing carries it's curse and every curse it's blessing. You're – therians are moon-tied and that's kind of a bummer, but the closer a therian is to the moon phase he got bitten in, the stronger he gets and the faster he heals. Blessing in a curse."

I fell silent, letting them digest what I had said and waiting to see where we went from there.

"That doesn't explain why there are distinct strains," Mr. Donovan challenged.

I really tried not to, but I gave him the flat face again. He was the adult and the teacher so why didn't he get these simple things? "Magic is natural and everything natural adapts or it dies off. I bet ants didn't start out with queens and workers and stuff. I bet that they started off with boys and girls and then some of them weren't either and they got more of the work done in the colonies so the colonies that had them survived better and soon you had boys and girls and workers. That's the second and the third rules Grandmamma's teaching me: 'Everything changes' and 'the present builds on the past'."

Mr. Donovan looked like he seriously doubted the place of magic within the Natural Order. I thought maybe he was one of the growing number of Rational Christians, the ones who discount the miraculous as if they believe their God takes no direct action within their lives. I didn't consider that he might have been an atheist or agnostic despite my own agnostic leanings. At that point in my life I had only been exposed to Christians and to Damien's side of the family, of whom all are distinctly comfortable with magic. In my young mind, Christianity was linked with the rejection of innate mystical ability as natural and neutral in the manner of hair color or skin tone. Laura had yet to introduce me to the facts of the charismata[2].

As an aside, I had a roommate in college who was a Rational Christian and a telepath. Her description of God reminded me of nothing so much as the architect of a large and intricate domino run who simply flicked over the first one and is now sitting back, watching the pretty picture of His design unfold. Shortly before getting a room transfer, I advised her to talk to her priest about the gift of Knowledge and to seek help in coming to terms with herself. Her dreams kept hammering on my wards. I didn't mind when it was nightmares that woke me, but her erotic dreaming drove me up the wall, mainly because we had much, much different tastes in men. But I digress.

Rational Christians usually have a very hard time dealing with being Bitten, whether by Night Stalkers or Moon Children. They reject the preternatural community at large in an attempt to deny that they have been changed, transformed – for good or ill – into something that is not purely Homo sapiens. Most go through a rather difficult time whether they accept the help offered or reject it, a time popularly called a Dark Night of the Soul. Most who do manage to come to terms with the changes in their lives end up rejecting Rational Christianity in favor of a more traditionally miraculous view of their faith.

Regardless of Mr. Donovan's personal beliefs, he chose to let my statement go unchallenged. Though he was obviously not convinced of my lack of therian blood, his next words indicated that he was willing to let the subject drop – for now. "If ever you find you need to talk, my door's open."

He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. He gave me an intent look, his aura shading back from indigo towards a layer of canary and one of violet. The canary was his base tone, indicating that he had a genuine enjoyment of others and was a social creature. Violet in an aura generally signified a keen academic interest. The more rational and intellectual a person feels, the deeper the violet hue in their aura. Mr. Donovan's was middling so far it went. Several of Damien's colleagues at USCS had auras that looked very close to black while engaged in their studies[3].

"Why did you confront the enforcers?" he finally asked.

I paused to marshal my thoughts before I said, "I can't tell you. I don't really know. My magic, it – it felt like the right thing to do, that if I didn't, something bad would happen. I don't know what 'cause my magic isn't always great about giving me clear pictures." I shrugged my shoulders and turned up my palms. What more could I say?

"So you instinctively challenged them?" Mr. Donovan asked.

I shrugged. "I wasn't challenging them, I was telling them to move on before they broke the Peace. Paul'd kick my butt if I didn't and since he watches me when Damien's running late and stuff I really don't want Paul mad at me. He's really good at finding out the things you hate and using that against you when he wants to."

"And if they were bent on breaking the Peace you'd've been right in the middle of it," Mr. Murphy pointed out. His voice was calm, but his aura cracked with a visceral rage/fear.

I turned to Mr. Murphy and met him stare for stare. Anger, a dancing crimson, emerged from the scarlet of his rage, but the fear remained, reminding me of a coffee stain sunk into his base of spring green. Romantics rarely find the Alpha within and Mr. Murphy was no exception. As the silence dragged on, the crimson faded, giving way to a nervous mud color. I waited until the puzzlement reflected from his eyes before saying, "I trust that Paul has put the fear of him into the therians, but sometimes that fear needs a reminder. Besides, I'm much more deadly than a therian."

I watched the confusion flare in both their auras, waiting for them to question.

"Really?" Mr. Donovan asked.

"Really," I answered. It was not the right question. No matter how much I was sweating inside, I had the mask of confidence firmly seated. It only took a little leak of power to keep my heart beat steady and my breathing regular and to still the fear-stink in my sweat.

"You're not a vampire so how can you think you're more dangerous than a shifter?" he asked.

That was the question. "Therians may be partially immune to direct magic, but that doesn't make them indirectly immune. A ward to stay warm can easily be amped up. You can slow cook a therian at three hundred degrees or you can flash fry 'em at a thousand. Against a mundane that'd probably earn a Warrant of Execution, but a vamp or a therian? There are still too many people who think it'd be a public service, especially if you got a pack of them coming onto school grounds and threatening the kids."

At that point my words were more bluff and braggadocio than truth, but not because I didn't understand the mechanics necessary to engineer such an offense. I simply hadn't the power then to supercharge the air and definitely not the practice to do so in the infinitesimal amount of time I might have had if the therians had attacked. The truth was that I had been running on instinct with no thought to defending myself. The therianthropic viruses channel all that magic potential into their host bodies, ramping up reactions speeds, strength, and physical comprehension. They started enhanced and I, well, any mage has to think to enhance.

My summation of the consequences was proved true several years later. An L.A. mage going through a nasty divorce from his therian wife – a were-badger – argued successfully that he was innocent of magical malfeasance in her death. For one, as soon as she became infected with a therianthropic disease she ceased to be legally human and became human-kin ergo, two, she received none of the protections against over zealous magical self-defense as it was legally permitted to fight magic with magic. All human-kin were considered to be magic of some sort or another. After that, all he had to do was prove that he had reason to fear for his life, which wasn't that difficult considering that several of their friends witnessed her partial change to attack him.

The bell rang in the silence that fell between us. Mr. Murphy swung his gaze over to Mr. Donovan, an expectant expression on his face. Mr. Donovan cleared his throat and said, "I think, perhaps, you should go to your next class, Miss Pierce."

I rose, thanked them for the dismissal, and trooped on out.

I managed to reassure Lupe that nothing was all that wrong and I down played the significance of the fence encounter when the rumors reached my ears. There wasn't much more I could do. Except tell Damien and Paul, which I did. If this Bonxech dude was going to be calling on Paul any how, I figured it was in my best interests to speak first.

Both Damien and Grandmamma reamed me up one side and down the other for my "cooking" statement. We had a looong lecture series about the benefits of appearing benign, inconspicuous, and – most important of all – non-threatening. It only got longer the more I protested that I didn't want to look weak and invite trouble that way. The worst of it was the palpable air of disappointment both carried with them during the lectures. It was worse than having to hide my muck up from Mom and Poppa. The both of them would have freaked.

Paul, on the other hand, gave me a rather serious look with narrowed eyes and twitching nose. He didn't say a word about the bluff. On the other hand, he did start teaching me "harmless" self-defense with Tygone. Did I mention I love onion bombs? Once I got up to speed on releasing the bombs I was able to get an immobilizing ward on Tygone before he tackled me four times out of five. The fifth times were when his magic ate mine.

Mr. Murphy and Mr. Donovan kept a close eye on me at school. I wasn't sure if they had caught on to my bluff or if they still thought I was a therian in denial. Either way, the close attention was noted and commented on, just adding more fuel to the rumor machine.

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[1] Literally translated "beast permeates human face". Do Butsu Shimiru Kaotsuki is the name the Japanese gave therians in the years directly after World War II. One of the Japanese' most closely guarded war secrets turned out to be the use of therian shock troops, nicknamed Kaotsuki, during their invasion of the then-Chinese mainland. Thanks in large part to a last minute change of allegiance Japan got to keep all the territory it carved out of China. If they had waited even two days later then the bomb might have been dropped on Nagasaki instead of Bīrjand in Iran. In many ways, allowing the Japanese to hold on to the land they took was perhaps one of the most effective means of arresting the incipient imperialism that fueled their alignment with Hitler's German Reich.

[2] "Charismata" is a Greek word which refers to "special and extraordinary powers vouchsafed by God only to a few, and primarily for the spiritual good of others rather than of the recipient." (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10350a.htm) They are, as iterated in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, the Message of Wisdom, Knowledge by means of the Spirit, Faith, Healing, Miraculous Powers, Prophecy, Distinguishing between spirits, and Speaking in different tongues. And, no, I didn't remember that. I had to look it up. Took me forever, too, because I kept looking for a chapter called Epistles.

[3] Despite such fictitious characters as Hannibal Lector, socio- & psycho-paths are not rational beings, no matter how cold and empathically crippled they may be. Their auras either burn, blazing with self absorption, or reveal leprous gapes and malignant cancers.