“Boon,” Sara said, louder this time.
Jumping at her name, Boon stiffly swung her head to face Sara. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No, but you look like you’re going to pop a blood vessel. Relax. What’s got you so tight?”
With a sigh, she said in a loud whisper, “I’ve never been this naked in front of strangers. It’s freaking me out.”
Sara sighed. I should have guessed. They had one-piece suits, why didn't I just grab one of those?
Clearing her throat and giving Boon a bright smile, she said, “Listen, if you’re that uncomfortable, just put your shirt back on. But just so you know, you don't have anything to be embarrassed about. You’re in the military, and we tend to be in pretty good shape. You look good. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, cover up. Just understand that no one is judging you.”
Boon gave her a smile, “Thanks, Captain.”
“None of that ‘captain’ shit. We’re on leave, remember? It’s just ‘Sara’,” she said, leaning back again. She noticed Boon slip the tee back on over the blood red bikini before she closed her eyes.
Sara felt the presence of a hulking figure behind her, felt the power emanating from it. Even through the protective plating of her Aetheric armor, she could feel its heat, like standing too close to a campfire. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck inside the suit, making her itch.
She turned around, bringing her hands up in a defensive posture, ready to face her enemy. She was a War Mage, and this creature stood no chance against her might.
She froze when she saw what she faced. Or rather, who she faced.
Standing three meters away was Cora, surrounded by swirling flames. Her eyes glowed a molten red as power surged through her. She opened her mouth, and flames poured out, rippling up her face to dance atop her head like a crown of flames. There was joy in her expression, as if she were reveling in the uncontrollable, evil power that rolled off her in waves.
Sara knew she needed to stop her sister before she could hurt anyone. She mustered her will to snuff out the thing Cora had become, but no spellform came to her. She looked around her feet for Alister's ever-present form, but he was nowhere to be seen. She tried to make the spellform in her own mind, but like always, it wouldn't form properly. She was powerless.
She took a step back, trying to gauge the situation better, and noticed a small cat jump onto the flaming figure’s shoulder. It was Alister; he, too, was wreathed in flame, his normally yellow eyes a deep crimson as they regarded her with hate.
Sara took another step back, realization hitting her like a blaster to the stomach.
That’s not Cora. That’s me.
The burning Alister leapt forward from the shoulder of the twisted version of herself, and landed on her chest, the heat of his flames scorching her face. She was frozen with fear as he stared into her soul.
He reached up a paw and smacked her face—not hard, but firmly. He did it again. And again. Then he bit her nose.
Sara shot up from her lounging position, her sudden movement throwing Alister to the sand from where he had been perched on her chest. Her heart was racing, and she couldn't seem to be able to catch her breath. She put a hand to her chest and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to will her beating heart to calm.
Alister hopped up onto the chair beside her, shaking the sand off and looking at her in concern, but he seemed distracted. He kept glancing over his shoulder.
They were still on the beach.
I must have fallen asleep. She looked down at Alister. “Sorry, I didn't mean to toss you like that. I was having a nightmare,” she explained as way of apology.
Alister didn't seem to care, as he began smacking her leg and looking in Boon’s direction.
Her heart slowing to a manageable level, Sara turned to see the girl kneeling in the sand, her eyes wide open, and tears streaming down her cheeks. She seemed to be frozen in place, as if she were being electrocuted.
“What’s happening?” Sara asked, rolling off the chair to kneel in front of Boon. “Can you hear me? What did you do?” She reached out to shake Boon’s shoulders and received a nasty shock of Aether for her trouble.
A flash of movement caught Sara's attention, and she saw Boon’s tablet half-buried in the sand beside her, with the image of the spellforms for the Familiar spell rotating on the screen.
“Oh, my god. Alister, did she cast this?” she asked the near-panicking cat.
“Merp!” he said, scrambling to her side and looking up at her with concerned eyes.
“Shit,” she swore, looking around the crowded beach. So far, no one had seemed to notice anything was happening, but Sara knew that would not last. She leaned in close to the girl and said, “Boon, can you hear me? Alicia? If you’ve begun casting the Familiar spell, I need to know you can hear me.”
Boon’s eyes flicked to hers, making brief contact before glazing over again.
Sara gave a half-smile. “Okay, good. Now, this is going to be the hard part. The spell is going to want to take every last bit of your Aether; I know they teach you not to use it all, but this time I need you to let it go. All of it. In fact, push it out. The spell won’t work unless you make a full connection.” She bit her lip, hoping Boon had understood.
Sara could remember when she had cast the spell, and how frightened she had been. She didn't know if her previous magical training had helped her or hindered her. If she were less practiced back then, she may not have been able to stop the last little bit of Aether from flowing out. However, now that she had completed the spell, she knew she had gone through an ordeal she hadn’t needed to. The spell had to be completed with intention as much as action.
“You need to give up that last bit willingly, or it won’t work. Trust that everything will be fine. It will, I promise,” Sara said, her eyes welling with tears as she watched Boon suffer.
Then a change came over Boon’s face. She went from tight-jawed and struggling to serene in the blink of an eye. Her features softened, and her shoulders sagged in relaxation. Boon closed her eyes and rolled sideways to the sand, her body sending up a small puff of dust.
Sara sat in stunned silence, not sure if she should touch her. She pushed the fear of being shocked to the back of her mind and felt for a pulse. She found none.
“Oh, fuck,” she said in panic, rolling Boon onto her back to begin CPR.
Before she could begin compressions, Boon’s skin began to glow slightly with Aether, the blue light difficult to see in the midday sun. Sara leaned back, not sure what to do. The light was getting brighter, and a static charge was building in the area. The hairs on Sara's arms stood up, and she could feel little zaps on her head as her hair built up a charge. A small radio a few meters away cut to static, making its owner pick it up and start fiddling with it in confusion.
The light of Alicia’s skin quickly built in intensity, soon overpowering the glow of the sun on her skin, and gaining the attention of a few passersby. Sara had to shield her eyes from the light, and she scooted back a meter or so.
As the light became brighter and brighter, Boon’s body slowly lifted into the air until it hovered half a meter off the ground. Then it began to pulse with light—slowly at first, but increasing in frequency with each blip until they were right on top of each other.
A crowd was now gathering to watch the odd light show. They were keeping their distance, but Sara could see several tablets held up as people thought to record the event.
The pulses were flashing so fast they became one, continuous, bright light, too harsh to look at directly. Then in one final pulse, the light exploded out from Boon’s body and through the crowd, causing everyone to duck and a few to scream. Sara could see the wave of light dimming as it traveled out in a sphere, racing across water and land, passing through objects as if they were not there.
Boon landed on the sand with a thump, her power spent. Sara reached over and found a pulse, to her great relief.
The gathe
red crowd made her nervous; she needed to get Boon out of there. With a thought to Alister, he provided her a shield spell to power. It was a sphere that encircled her and Boon and a considerable chunk of sand, along with all of their belongings. Alister provided a second spell, and the sphere rocketed up off the beach and quickly shot into town.
Sara was sure to move fast and stay low, keeping them from being seen, only popping up to arc over the rail of their balcony. She dropped the shield, spilling sand all over the deck boards. She didn’t care about the mess in the least, but she wondered what the cleaning staff would make of it.
She scooped Boon up and carried her to her bed, laying the unconscious girl down. Then she pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning close to watch over her.
Alister climbed onto the bed and, pressing himself up against Boon’s leg, laid down.
“That could have gone better,” Sara admitted, resting her chin in her hands.
“Merp,” Alister agreed.
10
The rest of the day, Sara alternated between pacing and sitting in the chair beside Boon. She ordered some room service, but had no appetite when it arrived. Alister made quick work of a piece of succulent pork before returning to Boon’s side. He gave Sara a nod of reassurance, and then closed his eyes to nap again.
By midnight, Sara was sitting in the chair, her head slowly sinking to her chest as sleep began creeping its way in. She was nearly gone, her head bouncing a few times as she tried in vain to fight off the warm embrace, when Alister sat up, startling her back to wakefulness.
“What? What happened?” Sara asked, leaning in to check on Boon. She was sleeping comfortably, but unchanged.
Alister however was not looking at Boon. He was staring over his shoulder, toward the front door. He swung his head around, his yellow eyes wide with excitement. “Merp!” he said, with a flick of his ear.
He jumped to the floor and raced out into the main room, disappearing around the corner, meowing and chirping the whole way.
Sara jumped up and chased after him. He was sitting at the door, looking up at the handle and then back to her. Sara reached out and opened the door, expecting to see an animal waiting, like when she had first summoned Alister, but there was nothing there.
“What the hell, Alister?” she asked, looking down, but he was gone. She stuck her head out the door and looked down the hall just in time to see him turn and head down the steps at the end of the passageway.
Fuck, he’s fast, she thought. She stepped out into the hall, but went back for her room key. It wouldn't do to get locked out when my roommate is passed out.
She rushed out onto the balcony and sifted through the pile of sand, finally finding the card key. A few seconds later, she was running down the hall after Alister. She took the stairs two at a time and was in the lobby of the small hotel a minute later.
She looked around the empty, marble-floored lobby, but didn't see the little stinker anywhere. There was a young man at the front desk, reading a tablet and not paying attention to anything. She ran to the desk, her bare feet not making a sound, and slapped her hand to the marble counter right in front of the guy. He jumped and tossed the tablet in the air, fumbling it between his hands a few times before finally catching it.
“Have you seen my cat? He came down here a second ago,” Sara said, her intensity making the poor guy cringe away from her.
“Uh, um, what? W-where did you come from? Were you at the beach? It’s closed at night, you can't go down there,” he blurted, confused and frightened at her sudden appearance.
“The beach? What the fuck are you talking about? I’m looking for my cat,” she repeated, trying to understand his rambling.
He waved a hand at her chest. “You have a bathing suit on, I just assumed…”
Sara looked down, noticing she was still wearing the white bikini. She’d been so intent on watching over Boon that she hadn’t bothered to change. She shook her head in irritation, and turned away, scanning the lobby again.
“Alister? Alister, where are you?” she shouted to the empty area.
“Who’s Alister?” the clerk asked.
“My cat!” she shouted in exasperation. “Have you seen him?”
“A cat?”
She growled in frustration and ran for the front door, bursting out into the lit alley. She looked left, then right, spotting Alister's tail whipping around the corner onto a side street. She took off, calling his name, her bare feet smarting when she stepped on the occasional pebble. She rounded the corner and hopped to a stop, almost trampling Alister, who was sitting on the empty sidewalk.
He looked up at her, his eyes bright and glowing in the streetlights. “Merow,” he said excitedly.
Sara put her hands on her knees, inhaling deeply to catch her breath from the intense run and fighting off the panic she had felt at losing him.
“What the fuck, man? Where are you going?” she panted.
He looked down the street, causing her to look as well. At first she didn't see anything. Then there was a flash of white fur, darting between doorways. She squatted down behind Alister, her anger and fear dissipating in a breath.
“Is that him?”
“Mrow,” he said, furrowing his brow.
Sara's eyes widened a little. “Sorry. Her. Is that her?”
He gave a short nod, rising from his haunches as the white animal darted to a closer shadow. Sara couldn't make out what it was, but it was too low to the ground to be a cat, and it moved more like a rat. She didn't think it was a rat, but she’d only gotten a quick look before it disappeared from her view. She could see two eyes regarding them from the shadows.
Sara stuck out her hand, looked to make sure the street was clear, then whisper shouted, “Were you summoned?”
The creature didn't move.
She tried again. “This is Alister, and I’m Sara. He’s my familiar.” She checked to be sure they were still alone and then added, “My pixie,” she added, surprised she could say the word after all the times it hadn’t come out.
The eyes rose, as if the creature were standing higher at that statement. Then, in a sudden movement, it darted out from cover and ran at full speed, right toward her and Alister. It was moving so fast she couldn't make it out. Then it tackled Alister, and they rolled past Sara's feet.
“Oh, shit! Are you all right?” she asked, dancing back from the rolling ball of white and black fur.
The two separated and faced each other, Alister’s face bright and excited, putting Sara at ease.
It was just a greeting, like a hug or something, she realized with relief.
The creature had finally stopped moving enough for Sara to get a good look at it. It was a stark white ferret. Not an albino—it had a black nose and black eyes—but it was snow white. The ferret stood on its back legs and gave Sara a pretty good approximation of a bow while emitting a chirping grunt.
“Oh, my,” Sara said, blushing at the gesture for some odd reason before returning the bow. “It’s a pleasure. Would you like to meet your mage, and get off the street?”
The ferret began her low chirping again and shot off down the alley, toward the hotel.
Sara and Alister looked at each other, and Alister shrugged before taking off after the little white streak. Sara gave a laugh and began jogging after them.
They were waiting for her at the door to the hotel, leaning against each other and chattering. Sara opened the door, and they both darted in, scooting across the lobby floor toward the steps at a dead run. The clerk behind the desk gave a yelp and pulled his legs up, as if they were going to run over and bite his toes.
“I found him,” Sara called out, waving to the guy, who waved back slowly with wide eyes.
Sara followed them up the stairs and, after following the two excited animals as they pounced on one another the entire way down the hall, slid her key into the slot and opened the door. Alister and the ferret got stuck in the barely opened door as they both tried to be the first through.
Sara opened the door further, and they spilled inside, Alister leading the ferret into Boon’s bedroom.
I don't think I’ve ever seen Alister this excited.
She came around the corner to see both Alister and the ferret on the bed. Alister had taken his spot against Boon’s leg, and the ferret was curled in the nook between Boon’s head and shoulder. Somehow, in the time it had taken Sara to walk from the door to the bedroom, both familiars had calmed down and settled in for the night.
She just shook her head in amazement. “So we’re staying in here tonight?” she asked Alister. He flicked an ear, keeping his eyes closed. Sara rolled her eyes.
She went and changed from her bathing suit into a tee shirt and panties, and tossed the knit hat onto her bed, combing out her red hair with her fingers. Crossing the living room, she nearly stubbed her toe on a chair in the dark. She threw a curse at the offending furniture before crawling into the bed beside Boon. Curling up on her side, she watched the sleeping woman until her eyes became heavy again, and she finally let sleep take her.
11
Sara opened her eyes to the soft, all-encompassing, white light of the Aether. She closed them again and took a breath.
“Are you here?” she asked.
Alister cleared his throat. “I am. How do you feel?”
“Naked,” she said, sitting up to a cross-legged position.
Taking another deep breath, she opened her eyes again and saw Alister sitting in a high-backed, brown leather, Victorian style chair. He was wearing a pair of dress trousers, and a white shirt beneath a royal blue vest with gold buttons. He looked like a tiny lord from a steampunk novel. There was a small side table, with a brandy snifter a quarter of the way full of brown liquid. He was holding a small book with his thumb between two halves, marking his page.
“What the fuck?” she asked, looking down at her own naked body. “How do you have clothes on?”
Alister took a swig of the brown stuff and smacked his lips in satisfaction before answering. “This is the Aether,” he said, as if that explained everything.
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