by Bob Dattolo
My delight in seeing her in her natural form filled the air around me with more tendrils, and I put them to work as I mounted Sumi and we dove through the lines into the heart of our enemies. Every enemy down joined us. Every fey that fell came back. Except they came back with their souls intact. They lived again. I felt their connection as they came back and the little bit of tingle from them as they sent thanks my way made me believe a little stronger. A little harder. Watching Mom work her magic, so to speak, made me believe it that much more.
As I reached the bottom of the wall beneath her, she leapt out, landing at my side with a deep sounding thud as I engulfed her in a tight embrace, tendrils keeping our attackers at bay. For now.
“Daughter-mine, you’re here!”
I hugged her again and stepped back, “Mother. Mom. Goddess? Seriously? You couldn’t have given me a hint about that?”
She laughed and touched my cheek, “Oh Ceri…but I did!”
She laughed harder at my look, and then it stilled as I held up the five rings for her. “These are for you. We have enemies to destroy.”
The golden light around her flared brighter as she slid each of the five rings onto her hand. The battle stuttered to a stop at the influx of blinding light, and then our attackers were scattered back in a tumble as my new mother became a woman possessed. That’s okay, I followed suit.
I got to see her at work, doing what she does best. I finally understood some of the things people have said about her. Seeing her do her thing is something else. I can really see why she’s the goddess of battle. Her control of the forces on our side was amazing. Just…she became an untouchable force of good as she carved a bloody swath through them. That’s okay though, since I was there every step of the way, and where we walked, the ground trembled as our enemies fought and died by the tens, hundreds, then thousands. Then again, the force against us is far larger than I thought. I didn’t realize that until we were fighting for more than two hours. It was at that point that I looked back and saw the army of undead behind me. It set me laughing and laughing, only to find Mom next to me. “You are what you were meant to be.”
I hugged her tight, “Thank you. For everything.”
She swatted my butt, “Now, more troops! We have more enemies to remove from the between lands.”
Everything came together in a swelling of power as we moved, and I cried tears of joy at being with her. It didn’t hurt that I was able to really let go without worrying about anything. Every raised soldier added a tiny spark of power to me that I reveled in, which was just about as awesome as I could imagine.
It took most of a day and more injuries than I ever thought I could survive, but we beat them. We beat them and hunted down every hiding member that tried to get away from us. I took down smotherer after smotherer as well as stronger monsters that I never even got names of, and I loved it. In the end, we ended up on a veritable mountain of bodies, laughing as we took care of one final hider that nearly got away with it.
I spent the rest of the weekend with her, and I loved every minute of our time together. It was honestly the best weekend I’ve ever had in my life, and I can’t wait to do it again. With the destruction of the army, I was able to get my portals to work again, so we didn’t need to run down the street freaking out the norms.
As I readied myself to pass across to my dorm room, Mom pulled me into a tight hug, crying with me. “Daughter-mine, there is no reason to cry.”
Sniffling, I laughed and pulled away a little, “Right, you’re crying too.”
She laughed with me, “I am, but I have reason to. So many centuries waiting for you have passed and we’re together. Mother and daughter. Battle and death.”
“Seriously, goddesses? That doesn’t seem odd to you?”
More bell-filled laughter, “I’ve been what I am for a long time.”
“Fine. Fine. True. But still! As far as I knew I was human, but now I’m this.”
She touched my nose, “True, but then again you’ve always been what you are, you just didn’t know it.”
“But how can I be anything other than human? My parents were human!”
She nodded and patted my shoulder, “They were. They are. The last of the necromancer families to the best of my knowledge. The goddess of death has always had a close tie to necromancers. When she died so long ago, they became weaker and weaker. It has taken this long for another to be born, and you are she.”
“Yeah, but…seriously?”
“Seriously.” She patted me again, “Now, what do you intend to do with Sumi?”
The huge cat rubbed up against me, nearly knocking me over.
“Well, with the invaders back in the ground and our dead buried again, I hoped to take her back to school with me?”
She laughed as the purring started, “That might not be a great idea. She can stay with me, though? If you wouldn’t mind?”
Sumi looked up, I stay?
“You’d like to stay?”
She nodded. Love you. Love Mom.
I hugged her tight. “All right. You stay here with Mom? Or in Mom’s place? Here, I made this for you?” I was glad that I thought about doing it before as I showed her a thin leather band. She held up her paw as I wrapped it around her arm. As soon as the last tie was in place, the band faded from view and she shuddered before shifting suddenly, growing smaller and smaller, leaving us with a slightly larger than normal housecat.
What did you do to me?
One that now has a higher level of intelligence.
What can I say, she’s my friend, and I want her protected.
My mom laughed, “Daughter-mine, you never cease to surprise me. You have created something I never thought possible.”
We hugged longer at that point, and she set me straight on a few things along with giving me more information than I had before. Much more. Then again, it’s not enough and never will be. I have 7,000 years of her life to learn about, and I can’t wait to learn more.
Sumi enjoyed her new state tremendously, and I couldn’t get enough of her rumbling purr. I let her know that I’d open portals for her to come join me in my room whenever either of us want to see each other. Then again, I’d be seeing Mom quite a bit.
Chapter 27
Stepping across into my room, my new senses picked up something different. My room smelled like fear and anger. A little flare of magic kicked in as a spell triggered, just before voices filled the hallway and my door crashed open, revealing the faces of my teachers and the headmaster, with my friends behind them.
Headmaster Burnes was awash in power as he glared at me, “There you are! Monster!”
I pulled back a little from where I’d started towards them, “I’m sorry? What?”
His power crackled, “Monster! We kill your kind!” Power rolled out of him and crashed into me, pushing me back until I growled and sucked at it, draining it into my wells of power. I let the magic infuse me as the black tendrils flowed out.
“Touch me, and I will tear you to pieces and feast on the remains.”
He fell back at seeing something in my face. “How dare you use your evil powers here!”
I began to laugh, pulling in the black tendrils. “You think I’m a necromancer? Is that it?”
He pointed at me, “You are a necromancer!”
I laughed again, filling the space with the bell-like sound of laughter that’s rather a give-away that someone is of fey ancestry. Too bad I’m not just that. I learned that I have parts of every type of being in me. Every being dies, and that means I have a part of them inside of me. “I’m not a necromancer. I’m not even human.”
My mother stepped through the portal behind me, laughing uproariously. “Oh my, you think to stop the naughty necromancer in your midst? I think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. I’ll just sit here and watch this.”
Sumi walked through and sat next to her, shifting to her full-size form and snickering. I have to see this.
Headmaster Burnes p
ulled back, unaware that he has virtually zero magic left to touch me with. “Not human? Preposterous! You’re human!”
“Are you sure? My mother is Rasphael. Do you think she’d adopt just anyone? Besides, at one point necromancers weren’t considered to be evil. Now they are because other magic users got their panties in a bunch. Well guess what? I’m here and I plan on staying.”
Steph and Rachel stared at me from the other side of the teachers before nodding slowly and pushing their way forward to stand in between me and the angry adults.
“We stand as well,” Rachel said.
Steph nodded and let her power radiate out. Huh, she really is powerful as hell. “Touch her, and we’ll see how much it takes to kill us and two of the most powerful people I’ve ever even heard of.”
Behind us, Mom laughed as her magic flared out a little, shaking the walls of the building.
One by one, the teachers and adults let their power roll back until they were bare of power. Ms. Darvel was the first to step forward, “I’m done. Attack them if you want to, but Ceri doesn’t deserve it. Given everything I’ve seen so far, she deserves it less than most students here.” She joined us, actually petting Sumi as she joined us. Dang, that’s adorable. For a massive death-kitten, she’s positively adorable and loves being petted.
Ten minutes later, they were gone.
They were gone, leaving my friends in the room with me. Mom and Sumi left just after the adults, leaving me with hugs to tide me over as my friends stared at me from various places around the room.
I collapsed into my seat and let the silence grow.
What do you say to your friends when something like this happens? Seriously, what do you say? I’m not human, I’m actually a goddess? How messed up is that? I’m not even sure what to start to tell them.
You’d think that just having my adoptive mom be who she is would be enough to steal my voice, but that’s just a tiny facet of what’s going through my head.
I’m totally at a loss.
When my barriers collapsed fully as my birthday hit, I moved into what I should have become. What my twisted genealogy and family history set me up to be. And now I’m in an iffy position here at school. I’m a representation of a group of magic users that the supernatural world has feared for millennia. While the teachers left me alone, it was easy to see that some of them weren’t feeling great about that. I have a feeling word of what I am, at least as a necromancer, is being spread around. I doubt that anyone believed that I’m not human. Ms. Darvel seemed to. As well as Mr. Reynolds. I’m thinking no one knows that he’s a necromancer, and I’m not about to share that with the others.
What does that leave for me?
It’s been about a month since I learned my parents meant to murder me and siphon my unknown power away. And now I’m this new thing. I like what I am and where things have gone, but it leaves me in an odd position. It really does.
I have friends now. After 17 years, I have friends. They may be somewhat weirded out about things, but at least they’re here with me. That’s big.
Does that mean that I can stay and really try to become a normal person? Well, a normal supernatural? I’m hoping.
Seeing the looks on my friend’s faces around me makes me nod. This might work. My birth parents are out there hiding from the FBI, but I’m here at school with a new mom. She’s filing the paperwork for me and I’ll be hers tomorrow. She’s even getting me my license. No idea how she did that since I didn’t do the test, but she put something in motion, and I’ll get it at the same time I’m officially hers in the eyes of the government.
After 7000 years of waiting, she gets her dream fulfilled. I’ve only been here for 17 years, so my wait doesn’t compare to hers in the slightest. But I feel it anyway. I can feel her desire and longing, and it combines with mine and creates a perfect storm of wanting to be hers. Wanting us to be family.
With my barriers gone, I’m finally what I should have been and where I should have always been. Or, actually, where I always wanted to be. With a mom that loves me and friends that are by my side.
As the wave of warmth from my friends engulfs me, I’m glad I wasn’t able to kill myself. This, right here, makes my life worthwhile to this point. I have a home. A family. Money. Friends. I even have a car coming my way to go with my license.
Could a newborn goddess of death ask for anything more?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
For my mother, who believed in me until the end.
For my father, who taught me to love reading from an early age.
To authors that have given up their time to speak to a hesitant author and provide guidance: Christine Dougherty, P.S. Power, R.J. Ross, and Alison L. Perry - thank you all for the many hours of fun and entertainment and for your words of wisdom.
Last but not least - Thank you to my wonderful family for your support and allowing me to squirrel myself away in my office for hour after hour. Christine, Ross, Dominic, Bennet, Bella, Tino, and Leo – without you all, this wouldn’t even be worth it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Dattolo is a husband, father, and part-time author that dedicates his free time to family, reading, and writing paranormal/urban fantasy. He is new to self-publishing, but has been writing for years and is working on sharing his ebook babies with the world.
Reach out to him at: [email protected]
Visit him at www.bobdattolo.com
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Book two in the Barriers series, currently titled NEW BEGINNINGS, will be available soon. Description below:
Ceri struggles with her new position as the goddess of death. Being raised to believe that supernaturals are evil and will taint your soul and send them to hell doesn’t help. Her time at Lledreth Academy gets more difficult as her friends learn of her expanded power. While she’s finding it difficult to work through the changes in herself, her friends find it even harder.
Her connection with her friends frays nearly to the breaking point, leaving her lost and alone at the exact time she needs them most. Rasphael, her new mother, is there to help guide her, but sometimes even the best relationships aren’t destined to last forever.
When Ceri is confronted by a powerful group backed by someone with even more power, what will she do to survive? What will she put on the line to save her mother? Sometimes, the only way to live is to risk death. And can the new goddess of death do anything less?
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Hate what you read? Reach out to him at [email protected] and let him know your thoughts.
Other books by Bob Dattolo
Barriers Series
Breaking Barriers
New Beginnings – Coming Soon
Forging Family– Coming Soon
Coming Home– Coming Soon
BACK PAGE SUMMARY
Ceri was raised believing that the supernaturals of the world would taint her soul and take her to hell. She believed that until the day she learned her own parents planned to murder her on her 17th birthday. The same way they murdered her eight older brothers and sisters.
Running from her parents, she stumbles into the truth; she’s not human. She’s a supernatural. The very thing she was brought up to believe was the heart of evil.
Forced to face this new version of herself she was taught to hate, she joins a school full of shifters, mages, and a young vampire. Her 17th birthday looms closer; her power growing by the minute. Questions arise and she finds herself facing an ancient fey who has known about her arrival for centuries. With her life ever-evolving and the truth constantly shifting before her eyes, only one question remains; will she lose her soul in the process…or will she find the family she never had with this
mysterious fey?