At First Sight (Persephonii Waters Book 1)

by Melanie Brown

  The Reveers: The Paranormal version of the special forces. This body monitors and responds to high level Paranormal Threats. As their numbers are limited, so too is their ability to respond to multiple threats happening simultaneously.

  Comprised of Para and human alike, the Teams, of which there are three, are specially trained to intercede when Para and Human conflicts occur. They are a reasonable and independent entity outside of the government or House Council and are known for both their fairness and swiftness in handling incidents.

  Much like the Vampire Investigator, they do not appear unless the threat level is deemed critical.

  Team 1 handles the American continents. Teams 2 and 3 are larger and handle; the European, African, Asian, and Australian continents. Teams will band together if the situation calls for it.

  Their current head is Lykos Waters. One of Persephonii's older brothers.

  Hunters: Compared to the Reveer teams, Hunters are usually lone gunman, almost mercenaries. Though the government hires and holds individuals deemed 'Hunters' on retainer. The majority of them are Human bounty hunters looking to get paid. Their skills in comparison to the Reveers are limited, and often looked upon by the Para as nothing more than hired guns.

  Now read a section of the Novella:

  Tunnel Vision

  A Persephonii Waters Case

  Southern End of the Sobeak Mountain Range, RedactedArea, Asia. 11:59PM PST.

  Ankle deep in bat guano was not how Persephonii Waters had thought her night would progress. Originally, her plans had been well thought out and provided a comfortable level of facts versus unknowns. Now she was heading into a field of uncertainties, using her knowledge of speleology, the local geography and a small pre-teen guide to maneuver the back end of a large cave system. Her plans had been waylaid by Captain Daniels, the man in charge of the regiment assigned to hunt down the whereabouts of the recently missing men and her well meaning but misguided partner and former F.B.I. handler Chase Argent. From the accounts around the local base, the first man had disappeared a little over a month ago. The M.I.A. soldier had been labeled a runaway, some story about falling in love with a local's visiting cousin and following her back to the deeper parts of the country. It wasn't until the next man, then the next disappeared that the base caught on that it might be something more serious than love struck young men. Someone had finally checked with the local villagers to find that a total of twenty men and nine children had been taken. The men, seven from the base and the rest from the surrounding villages, ranged from the ages of eighteen to thirty-five, the children, three to ten.

  A small group of investigators from the U.S.A.C.I.D.[1] Department had been sent over from Wheeler Army Air Field in Hawaii, to investigate the disappearances when the base thought it had an increase in desertions. Luckily one of them had been though some Paranormal Investigation course, concluding that the disappearances where more Para related than human. After sharing the evidence, she went on to suggest the Argent Waters team, whom she had worked with a few years ago.

  Saying it was a difficult case was a bit of an understatement. However, this difficulty resided solely with the government side of things. The villagers were happy to get help from someone who knew the supernatural better than they did. Superstitions aside, the fact that a foreign body of villagers where easier to deal with than the very people who had asked for their help, left Persephonii muttering to herself. She was trying to keep it to a minimum, but looks from her young guide, a brother to one of the missing teens, made her deduce she was doing a poor job of it. It didn't help that the cave system was imbued with enough wild magic that she was having trouble pin pointing the creatures whereabouts. It was like following an oil slick down a river, the strange green-grey energy mixed too well with the surrounding magic, so much so that Persephonii had put back on her glasses, blocking out the swirling colors of magic and energy. Strapping on a head lamp made from glow-stones, they would go faster relying more on her guide than her sight, at the moment time was of the essence. Thinking back to the beginning of the week she had expected this case to go by quickly, but should have known when Chase mentioned splitting up to investigate both sides of the story, that it was going to go downhill from there.

  After viewing the footage from the abductions, or rather lack their of, she had surmised that the creature in question was old, and rather magical. Electricity and magic ran on similar frequencies, so much so that they often crossed when close by and not in a good way. Digital devices, especially advanced or unprotected devices, such as the cameras the base had placed around the village to 'look after' its men, tended not to last long. It was amazing that the cameras still worked, let alone showed the events of the night leading up to the disappearances. Persephonii owed it to the fact that the cameras where old and not the sophisticated machines that were closer to the base proper. The cameras in the vicinity of the abductions had gone dark right before the attacks, anything digital had been nearly fried and even the simple lights along the village borders had nearly gone out from close proximity to it. That meant power, power meant age, age meant it had learned to survive and would hardly be scared by men and guns, especially if the creature in question was what she was beginning to believe it was. Guns would have little effect on something whose skin was said to be similar to dragon-hide, which meant more than likely bullet proof. The evidence was piling up, looking less and less like the smooth case, Chase had thought it was upon agreeing to take it on.

  Some of the men told of an enchanting beauty that had been showing up around the village after sundown enticing the young male populace. The women told of a creature that lured young children to her, stealing them in the night. Sure that the two accounts where of the same woman, she had tracked down the locals to find out more about this creature and the legends surrounding the villages. It had taken the better part of a day to talk with the local Lore Keeper, a wizened old woman whose tales had little to do with the case, but shed some light on the history of the village.

  Similar incidents seemed to have occurred around a few decades ago and indicated that the creature had been in the area for a while. Whatever had limited its attacks to only a handful of men, from the surrounding villages ever decade or so was a mystery. But left the villagers still wary of walking alone after dark. Chase had stayed close to the base talking to soldiers and running interference so that 'Percy' as he liked to call her, could do her work. She now thought that leaving him alone with so much impulsive testosterone had been a bad idea.

  The edge of the main village tended to be populated with huts, whose inhabitants were tucked into bed before sundown. From more recent accounts it appeared that she could not enter the huts without invitation, leaving the easy prey safe inside their homes. This would force the creature to move inward, towards the more populated areas. The night life centered on a small stretch of town, just off the main road leading to the base, not so far a distance that the service men couldn't walk to it on their days off, money in hand.

  Closer to the base were the more respectable establishments, but farther down the road closer to the edge of town were the less presentable places to find entertainment on a dark night. Energy swirled around the area, mixing with a few of the low level wards the villagers had erected. Persephonii had tracked down a strange dark green-grey, sort of graphite colored energy, too far away from the jungle and too close to town to be a large animal, she had been sure that the energy trail belonged to the mystery creature. Skirting the town’s edge, she followed the trail, freshest at the most recent point of attack, back to the wilderness' edge, where it mixed in with the surrounding hues of a thriving jungle. Heading back to the village, she started searching for more information from the villagers while she pondered over the recent facts and compiled a list of possible creatures that fit the emerging traits.

  The poorer locals kept inside, but those brave enough, or foolish enough ventured out to spend their money. It was from here that the latest abductions had
occurred, and here where the most damage was done. The lights of the building, a bar that was little more than a shack, though cheap, where now dark, the electrical system a jumble of shoddy work held together by wire and luck had failed against a high influx of power, blowing the circuits and closing the place until its owners could afford new lines.

  Examining the most recent scene, lead Persephonii to believe it was something along the lines of a Lamia, one of the Lesser Kindred, whose appearance was close to the Naga more well known in this part of Asia. Possessing a snake like body with the upper torso of a beautiful woman, the creature, who had the ability to briefly walk on two legs, tended to lure men to its lair to be devoured, occasionally abducting children until it could create a Knot of its own. Unlike the Naga whose numbers have both male and female members, Lamia were female seeking human male partners. The last Lamia had been reported somewhere around Laos back in the 1920's.

  The Naga population had suffered the same fate as the majority of the wild life coming into contact with industrialized humanity, extinction. It would not be a far stretch to surmise that the Naga's habitats would be the perfect lair for the Lamia who would be more likely to survive due to their ability to mask their lower snake half, better camouflaged amongst humans. From what she could find in the Lore Coda, she was compiling from the leading Lore sources, the Lamia’s reproduction cycle started around 75-100 years old. Mating and nesting occurred every two to three decades after that. If the Lamia was just coming into her first Mating, the urge to create her own Knot would drive her to abduct more men, for both reproductive purposes and food. Instinct would cause her to choose a variety of men, laying a few different batches of eggs, allowing for greater genetic diversity and a wider chance of her offspring surviving.

  Feeling certain she was on the right track, Persephonii turned her mind to pondering the captain’s push to move forward with the operation despite the fact that no one had verified her conclusion. She was sure it was a Lamia, but waiting to verify the evidence with a small team would have meant going in with a better idea of what they faced. But taking extra time also meant that those already taken would be more likely to be killed by the Lamia as her mating instincts turned to nesting instincts, a deadly distinction for those still alive.

  Adjusting her glasses for the ump-tenth time, Persephonii was less than thrilled to be relying on the young hopeful boy in front of her. Blue-white light from her head lamp illuminated the back of a figure that was tall for his age but thin enough that his clothes, obvious hand-me-downs from his older brother, hung off of him. She hadn't the heart to tell him that the likely hood that his brother had survived his almost week long stay with the Lamia was very unlikely. Given the increased frequency of the abductions, it was likely that the Lamia was now closer to Nesting, having used the men as more than just food. Which meant that she had shifted from Mating into gathering up a larger food supply for herself and her offspring once they hatched. This might have extended the men's survival time by a day or so, but the evidence and Lore suggested that the men would be quickly devoured once they had served their purpose.

  Born from eggs like their distant snake relatives a group of newly hatched Lamia would decimate the local village population. Their growth rate was unknown and the few accounts recorded suggested that the growing Lamias would need large amounts of food. The villagers would be closest to the caves and easier targets, but the Lamia’s appetite would lead them onward, working their way closer to the base, needing even more food as they grew. Their hunger would eventually slow and they would go their separate ways. The only good things about the young offspring was that their hide would be softer and susceptible to bullets, where the locals would have a greater chance at fending them off. Lamia's for all their snake like characteristics tended to be very territorial, raising their young in peace as far as puberty and then becoming near enemies once the young 'women' could hunt on their own.

  If the Lamia was laying eggs then the children whom Persephonii was certain were still alive would be in even more danger. Their innocence kept them safe from the Lamia's instincts, that was until she had children of her own, then the human children would become expendable, turning from loved ones into food for her young. The first child had been take almost two months ago, well before the first man went missing. She hoped the nesting instinct which caused them to seek out children was as fierce as the books stated, in that she would hunt and care for the children, supporting Persephonii’s certainty that all of them were likely to be alive. For how much longer she could not say.

  Holding in another sigh, she looked down to the screen strapped to her left wrist. They had traveled only a half mile or so into the cave system, and her readings were still useless as they had not yet reached the main parts of the caves where the satellite mapping had focused its search. Tracking the energy signature back through the forest had taken nearly two days, leading to the mouth of the cave system they where currently trying to navigate. Having discovered the entrance to the lair, the base had tasked their teams with obtaining detailed schematics of the large cave network. Percy had them focus on an area that showed signs of activity and likely housed the Lamia's lair. It would take another hour or so to make it to the edge of her map.

  Yeong, her guide was indeed brave as his name suggested and had boldly told the aggravated paranormal consultant that he would take her into the caves by a seldom used back way. Well, she could now see why it was unused. Located at the far end of the mountains at whose foot the village and further out the military base sat, the cave entrance was large, wide open compared to the tall but thin 'main' entrance. High over head the cave interior, full of a cloud of bats who had obviously lived there undisturbed for a decade or more, had left the cave floor covered in nearly six inches of droppings. The cave though large was nothing to look at and seemed to abruptly end, a hundred or so feet past the opening, in the back. They had followed the wall to an over grown section in the far right corner, where vegetation hid a small entrance. At five-four she almost had to stoop to walk, her helmet scrapped along the sharper edges of the tunnel's ceiling. Which caused her to keep pulling at the edges of her knitted hat acting as extra padding, despite the helmet and head light strapped tightly in place.

  The ten year old in front of her walked calmly into the darkness, his borrowed light shining against the dry cave walls. He had refused what protective clothing she could find, but she had talked him into taking the helmet and gloves along with an extra bag she had packed with caving supplies, to which he had added a few of his own items into the mix. The corridor seemed to be leading down and right, from her glance at the base’s more complete map of the cave system, not all of which had been explored yet, they would more than likely arrive at the back left section of the main caves. They were making good time despite the seemingly short distance they had traversed, due in no small part to Yeong's sharp memory and self devised system that the brothers had used to mark their way through the caves. Persephonii's superior night vision was having trouble adjusting to the dancing between black cave interior and blinding white light of the glow-stones, but the boy needed to see and she needed his knowledge of the cave system.

  Over head the ground seemed to vibrate as another blast sounded in the distance. It was the third in an hour and nearly brought their good pace to a standstill. Yeong looked back over his shoulder, as if to ask if there would be a cave left to make it to. His face clearly showed the worry for his brother and fellow children. Again, Persephonii started mumbling to herself, rehashing the argument with the captain, and his insistence that the team use the main entrance, in full sight of God and country, marching into the lair, guns ready and explosives primed. No argument Persephonii made would change his mind, he dealt mainly with Chase who had been, somehow, convinced that the team's new weapons could overcome the creature. If the last twelve years had taught her anything it was that guns rarely worked against Paras and that intelligence and preparation tended to win over shows of ag
gression. Which was exactly what Captain Daniel's plan was all about, showing strength and power and then blowing up the cave around the Lamia. She prayed Chase was alright and that the explosives, obviously not as magic proof as the Captain had claimed, where going off far from the men whom she had last seen walking boldly into the cave entrance.

  The original plan had been to go into the cave with a small group, during the day when the Lamia would most likely be asleep. From all accounts and Lore, fire seemed to be the best way to destroy the Knot and the Mother. Persephonii always carried a few cartridges of compressed dragon fire with her, as it tended to dispatch the majority of lesser Kindred. Setting the charge and quietly rescuing the survivors, who were Percy's main priority, before letting the fire consume the Knot. It had seemed like a reasonable plan. One that Captain Daniels had out right refused. There was something going on there that she couldn't quite but her foot on, but if the dear captain made it out of the cave alive she was determined to give him a piece of her mind.

  Instead he had waited until an hour or so after night fall to enter the caves, thinking the Lamia would be out hunting. He had assigned a group to the village's edge who would engage the creature and kill her. The group composed of military and S.A.R teams would go in, save those left alive, find the eggs if they did exist and destroy them. As they left they would set charges that would destroy the caves never to be used as a lair by anything ever again. It had sounded good to Persephonii too, until additional details had yet to emerge. The backup plan was to radio for help and Chase decided that he would tag along, ex-F.B.I and all that. Persephonii had felt like they were walking into a magical minefield of unknowns and had promptly begun planning her own venture into the caves, 'official' training or no.