Forging Family

by Bob Dattolo

  Lovely. You’d think I’d have a huge problem with that, but it’s not as bad as you’d think. I’d love to stay out of everyone’s view, but that’s not going to happen.

  “Okay.”

  He grins at my short answer, “We have assigned seats in the class, so let me check the list…” he flips pages in his book and looks over it, erasing a name for someone that I’m guessing left the class entirely. “You have a choice. Either the front seat closest to the door, the second seat back in the third row, or the third seat back in the last row.”

  “It doesn’t matter where I sit?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Ceri. I look forward to getting to know you.” He goes back to his book as I look over the seats, finally settling on the third back in the last row, farthest from the door. I didn’t have any particular attraction to the seat, it’s just the closest. He scribbles on the seating chart as I sit down, and I know this is my spot going forward.

  I proclaim this land in the name of Ceri!

  Maybe I should draw a flag on it or something? Maybe get a sticker for it? If I could put a spell on it, I would. Maybe something stupid and small? I probably shouldn’t even try. Who knows if it’ll strain things.

  God, I wish I had my magical multiplier rings still. My original was at 10,000 times and allowed you to cast a spell at one percent of what it would normally take. I created ten masterwork versions of it in desperation right before everything happened. It’s the only reason I was able to bring Mom back to life.

  Honestly, even though the rings were worth billions apiece, it was worth it. Frankly, I’d slaughter everyone in this school with a pen knife to bring her back to life. I wouldn’t even think twice about it.

  So the rings? If I ever get my power back to full, I can create them again with a bit of effort. Even if I just had the original non-masterwork version. That took me like three hours to create all-told, which is nearly impossible.

  Creating a magical item is…painful. Not in a real pain sort of way, but in a damn, it takes a long time to do sort of way. If you dedicate five minutes to it, you’re lucky if you hit one percent of whatever the spell is. If you dedicate another hour, you may still be at the one percent. Or you may have doubled it. Probably not, though. It takes days and weeks and months to create very powerful magical items, which is why it’s a seller’s market. Especially since you can’t ever create something more powerful than you can create. It’s limiting that way.

  I just found a loophole because the magical multipliers allow you to cast something stronger than you should be able to.

  Then I did it again and again and again until I had ridiculously powerful rings.

  Wait!

  Oh holy crap!

  I nearly burst out laughing when I realized that I have to have more rings in my safe. I have to. I had a ton of them at varying levels from 100 percent up to the 10k level. I took empty rings to create the ones I needed. And yeah, sure, I had some of the others on as well, but there’s no way I put every one on. I wouldn’t have had room to fit them.

  Sticking my hand under the desk, I struggled to get the safe to open. It doesn’t take that much power to do it, but it takes enough. Over about a minute, I got it to open enough to stick my hand in and call for magical multiplier rings.

  I got one. One ring.

  Freaking hell.

  Sliding it on made me feel better, and I closed the safe. The ring was hidden when I pulled my hand out, and a sly look around told me that no one noticed the little bit of weirdness. Not that you have to hide being a supernatural these days. Then again, they do have a policy of no magic in school. I’m just thinking it’s not a hard and fast thing like no weapons.

  If only they knew how many thousands and thousands of weapons that I have in my safe. Granted, all old-school swords and maces and things. No guns. Then again, there are some sweet magical bows in there that can probably shoot lengthwise through a horse. Too bad it would take something like an orc or a powerful vampire to draw it. Or, I might be able to do it. I’ve never tested my new strength, so I can’t even guess.

  Mom could draw it. It’s sort of her thing and goes along with the whole goddess of battle idea.

  Trying to test the ring to see how powerful it is was far easier than my prior attempt at something like this. In the end, I was pleased to find out that it’s just over 500 percent. This reduces my expenditure quite a bit and allows me to cast a spell with about 20 percent of what it would normally take. That’s crazy huge and would more than likely be worth like a billion bucks. If not more.

  I know, that’s a stupid thought. Speaking of, I need to hit up Mom about the rings I gave my classmates. They owe me money for them, and the going price is about a hundred million apiece. My mage friends got a ring like mine at 100 percent, while the shifters got rings to make them uber strong alphas. Rachel got one that makes her about four times stronger than she would normally be. That means that by the time she’s 1,000 years old, she’ll be ruling the country. Or close enough.

  Yay! Back to my ring. I feel so much better now that I have a stronger ability to do magic. I’ll have to test it later. Maybe I can build back up to my 10k rings. I probably can’t make them masterwork without access to my full strength, but it will still help.

  Kids began filing into the room, many of them talking to others as they came in. I didn’t bother trying to catch anyone’s attention. It’s not worth having them react to my eyes. The hair is enough. Granted, I did overhear more than a few conversations about me. Most were about my hair, but at least a quarter of the rest were about me being hot or some variation of that.

  I don’t feel that I am, but I appreciate the sentiment. Most supernaturals are rather fit, and I take it to an extreme, with visible muscles that my parents would have hated. I’m not body builder big, but big enough.

  The kid from the hallway started coming into the room but was hit into the doorway and tripped as the four buttheads pushed past him, laughing to each other as they moved to their seats. Thankfully, only one is near me, sitting in the next row over and one back.

  The kid at the door struggled with his books and papers again, finally grabbing them up and heading towards his seat. He’s behind me, so he passed by, not even noticing that I was there.

  Dang, he smells familiar.

  A suitable distraction pulled me away from my nose as three more people entered. The first is a positively huge guy with dark Hispanic looks. The second is a much shorter girl that looks crack-whore thin. They both move like shifters, and I get a nose full of rhino and elephant. I have no idea which is which.

  But I know the one behind them is a vampire.

  He’s a good-looking guy that’s maybe six inches taller than I am. He has a Japanese look, but like he’s mixed with something. He’s also smooth as hell and looks like he’s in total command of himself.

  How did I know he’s a vampire?

  I can feel him.

  He practically stumbles as he enters the room, and I can feel that he feels me, finally. That’s something I wasn’t prepared for. I knew I could feel the dead and vampires, but I didn’t think they’d be able to feel me. Rachel said it’s like feeling a source of heat that you just want to cuddle up to. It makes me wonder what he thinks of me.

  As you can imagine, he knows it’s me that he’s feeling. He didn’t seem to catch me immediately, but once the feeling hit, his eyes rocketed to me and stuck there.

  The two shifters stopped when they realized he didn’t answer them, and the girl moved back and hit his shoulder, “Nathan? What’s wrong?”

  The huge guy moved to him and waved his hand in front of his face, “Dude, you’re freaking me out. You hungry or something?”

  One of the mage guys snorted, “We’re not juice boxes.”

  The girl spun on him and squinted, “Shut it, Mark.”

  So that’s Mark. I’m not liking him right now.

  He sits
up straighter, and I can pick up magic forming around him, “You want a piece of me, Dumbo?”

  She’s the elephant? Holy cow, I never would have guessed that by looking at her.

  The huge guy stares at the mage, “Leave Destanee alone.”

  Two more of the guys pull magic, “You getting into this, Rhett?” The largest mage says. He’s the one sitting in the next row over and is the biggest of the mages.

  Mr. Crosland stands up, “That’s enough out of all of you. If you want a pissing match, do that on your own time and off school grounds. You know as well as I do that they don’t care about the rules around duels and fighting. Do it here, and you can be expelled.”

  The magic sucked back inward, but the guys didn’t back down. Honestly, from what I’ve seen, unless they’re willing to bring the pain quickly, a rhino and an elephant would ruin the rest of their lives.

  Mr. Crosland touches Nathan’s shoulder, “Nathan, are you all right?” He leans in a little, staring into his eyes, “I don’t get it. I don’t think he’s hungry.”

  The skinny guy behind me doesn’t say anything to anyone and pretty much avoids everything as much as possible. I’m not even sure he knows this conversation is going on.

  Destanee finally follows Nathan’s eyes and sees that he’s staring at me. That makes her blink a few times before turning back to him, “Nathan? Nathan!” Another hit to his shoulder that does nothing. “Come on, man, we have to get in our seats! Why are you staring at her?”

  Rhett continues to stare at me, then looks around the room. “I don’t get it. New girl? Did you do something to Nathan?” His voice is impressively deep, and he sounds like a lovable giant. Even though he’d kill just about anything he had to. Most shifters are like that.

  Mr. Crosland speaks up before I can answer, “Yes, Ceri? Did you do anything to Nathan?”

  “Umm, no? I was just sitting here. I saw them walk in, but that’s it.”

  One of the guys mutters, “I’d like her to do something to me!” The kids closest to him laugh, while Rhett and Destanee shake their head at him. I don’t think anyone else in the room heard him.

  What the heck do I do about Nathan? I don’t even know why he’s frozen right now. Yeah, I feel the connection, but even Rachel didn’t freeze like this. This is…abnormal, I guess. I’ve run into more than a few vampires, although most were from before my full powers came in. Maybe the average one would do this? I should try to check that out.

  Instead, I tried to flare a little power at Nathan. Not sending a shaft of golden light at him, just a nudge with some power.

  His reaction is far stronger than I anticipated, as he sucked in a deep breath and jerks backward, ending up near the door in a spasm of movement.

  That gets most of the kids in the class to scream or make some sort of noise. It probably looked instant to most of the people here. To all of them except me and the shifters, actually.

  Nathan ends up near the door, leaning against the wall, still staring at me as he pants.

  Rhett moves up slowly, holding his hands out, “Man, you okay? Do you need to go to the nurse or something? You can’t get sick, right?”

  When he speaks, I realize that his voice is smooth and melodic. Not quite what I expected from him. “No. I can’t get sick. Any more than you can. I’m…I’m fine.”

  Mr. Crosland steps in front of him again, “Are you sure you’re all right? You can go to the nurse if you need to?”

  He centers himself with a deep breath, nods, and straightens up, “No. I’m sorry. I just had a weird shock there. I’ll just head to my desk.”

  Destanee and Rhett stay right next to him, and everyone watches him head to his seat.

  In my row.

  In the seat directly in front of me.

  Destanee ends up in the seat next to mine, while Rhett is in the seat in front of her.

  Well, isn’t this a nice cozy little setup we have here?

  Chapter 3

  My new vampire classmate immediately cranks around to stare at me, but he’s cut short as Mr. Crosland raises his voice. “All right, everyone. Let’s pay attention now!” A bell rings and he smiles, “As you heard, that’s the bell and now you’re on my time!” He smiles at that, so I’m guessing it’s something he always says? “As usual, let’s start with announcements…and there are no announcements today!” That gets laughter from everyone, including me. I just wasn’t expecting it.

  Then he points at me using his entire hand, “As you’ve all seen, we have a new student in our midst. New student? Please stand and introduce yourself? Name. Age. Any hobbies. Where you came from. If you have any brothers or sisters. That sort of thing.”

  Uhhh…oookay. I’m not quite nervous about talking in front of people, but I’ve never done this, so it’s more about it being an unknown.

  As you’d expect, everyone stares at me as I stand. You can easily pick up when the kids catch my eyes by their reaction.

  “Hey everyone. My name’s Ceri. Ceri…Pennaeth. I’m 17. I can’t say that I have any hobbies at the moment. I haven’t had much time to find one. I came from…Pennsylvania, I guess? I was living at a boarding school the past month or so. They had to close the school due to issues, so now I’m with my new mom a few miles away. I have…or had 14 brothers and sisters. They’re all dead, so it’s just me now.”

  I can’t help wringing my hands together, but I tried to keep it low-key.

  I’m pretty sure that I broke their collective minds based on the looks on their faces.

  Mr. Crosland clears his throat, “Ceri…I’m pretty sure almost everyone has questions. Can I ask a few? You don’t have to answer, but you’ve…I’m pretty sure we’re all confused at least a little.”

  “Uhh, sure? I mean, I may not be able to answer them, but sure.”

  He nods at my response, “All right. You sort of paused at your name, as if it’s not familiar to you? Can you explain that?”

  “I can? I was adopted recently and my name was changed this past week. I’m still not used to it.”

  Some kids twitched or jerked away a little at that news. As if they’re so shocked by it. Maybe because I was honest?

  One of the kids farther away that I think is a norm raises his hand, getting a nod from the teacher, “What happened to your family?”

  “My parents killed my brothers and sisters. The government has a kill-on-sight order for them, and they’re on the run.”

  A quiet, “Oh my fucking God,” reached me, but no one else reacted to it.

  “What…what school did you go to before this?” A tall girl a few rows over asked.

  “Lledrith Academy.”

  The mages, Destanee, and Rhett all jerked their heads around, looking at the others.

  “That…that place is like a million bucks a year! What were you doing there?!” Rhett asked the question the others probably wanted to ask.

  “I was a ward of the FBI, and they didn’t have a home for me to go to, so they sent me there. Home and schooling in one.”

  Nathan sniffs and leans towards me, “What are you?”

  Destanee nods, “Yeah, you smell funny. What are you?”

  Mom and I talked about this and what to say. I so desperately wanted to not be found out, but I knew it was only a matter of time. And not that much time, either. I just can’t pass once you see my eyes and can smell me.

  “I’m a mage.”

  Warren shakes his head, “With eyes like that? No human has eyes like that. Even Nathan only does that when he’s angry or hungry.”

  He froze when I smiled at him, letting a little of me creep to the surface, “I never said I was human.”

  Another bell rings, breaking the silence in the room.

  “Uhh…thank you all.” Mr. Crosland rallies, dragging attention back to him, “That’s our bell. No pushing. No running in the halls. Have a great day!”

  Kids begin streaming out, most of them staring over their shoulders at me. Nearly every one of them is talking abou
t me to the person next to them.

  The mages gather up and head out. They don’t take their eyes off of me either.

  Behind me, the skinny kid slides by, and I so badly want to talk to him. I have to figure out what that smell is!

  Nathan, Destanee, and Rhett are standing, with Nathan holding out his hand, “I’m Nathan.”

  “Hi, Nathan. I’m Ceri.” His hand is bigger than mine, and touching him sends a spark through both of us that I manage to hide. He does not, although he doesn’t do more than make a squeak sound and tighten his muscles. Had I been human, he would have shattered my hand. As it is, he jerked away when he realized what he did, then stared at my unbroken hand in complete shock.

  “Hey. I’m Rhett.”

  “Nice to meet you, Rhett.” The rhino’s hand is colossal compared to mine, and he shakes as if he thinks he’s holding $5,000 per place-setting china.

  “Destanee.” She squints a little as she starts to apply pressure on my hand. Normally, girls don’t shake hands, so I’m pretty sure she did this just to test me.

  As she applies more and more pressure, I start to feel it…but it doesn’t go into pain territory for me.

  She runs out of steam and is left staring at my hand in hers before she lets go.

  “Sorry guys, I need to get to class. I’m not entirely sure where everything is just yet, even though I have a map.”

  Nathan smiles, “Maybe I can help you?” He looks at my schedule, “Oh, nice. Calculus? That’s my class as well. I can walk you?”

  “That’s be awesome. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Behind us, Rhett asks, “Des…you okay?”

  “She…I just used all of my strength and she didn’t even react. What the hell is she?”

  “What? There’s no way…”

  “All of it, Rhett. All of it. Even you react to my shake!”

  Their voices disappeared into the babble of the hallway as we moved through the crowds.