Myka's Tail Ch. 06

"You are welcome, Millicent," dad replied with a nod of his head. "All you have to do is ask, and any one of us are willing to help where we can."

"It pleases me to know that Daniel, though I must again express my concern about you, Steve and Avery, and your wives being here tonight. After everything your daughters have been through, if we could accomplish this ritual without their assistance, I would not even have them here. Are you sure that you want to be here, knowing all that will probably happen. I think it would be best if your families, other than Myka and Kelli, who are crucial tonight, were elsewhere and protected by friends that I know."

"With all due respect, ma'am, we have all talked about the risks, and we trust that you will be able to get our wives away should anything bad happen. Truth be told, I don't think I could have convinced them to stay home or elsewhere tonight. They both want to see for themselves what it is that has so changed our daughters, certainly for the better. Just know that we all stand with them, Myka and Kelli, and because you are all their friends, we stand with you too."

Kelli and I were both shocked at the tone that my dad had taken with Millicent, and that our moms had insisted on being here too. I was sure that the only reason that they had also insisted on coming was because of our dads' insistence to help, and to make sure they didn't get in any trouble. I could feel Kelli agreeing with me over our bond as I was thinking to myself, over and over, that we needed to talk to our parents, and show them some of the things that we could do. It seemed necessary to keep them from worrying that we were lacking in any sort of protection at all, which would hopefully prevent them from choosing to put themselves in danger as well.

"Then let it be as you all have decided," Millicent sighed, her eyes closed and her hand placed on the side of my dad's face. "Aliara has been vocal of late, insisting that we witches need to come out of the shadows that we have hidden in for so long, and once again embrace our path as guardians of human kind. If only a fraction of normal mortals were like you and your family, embracing this openness would be much easier. Thank you Daniel for your unwavering support."

She then turned to me with another sigh, as if the weight of a mountain had been placed on her shoulders, and I shuddered at the thought of the many burdens that Millicent carried. She pulled a small silver knife with some arcane etchings on it from the folds of her clothing, and placed it in my hands as she gripped them.

"In just a short time, child, I am going to tell you when to begin," she whispered to me, and I could hear the tremor she now had in her voice. "You will need to make a small cut in your palm, and like you did for the ritual in Scotland you will blood each marker stone in a counter clockwise circuit. Begin with the head marker there behind the altar, and after you finish we will begin."

I gave Millicent a nod to let her know that I understood her instructions, and before I could take my place at the head marker, she pulled me into a tight hug. I began to worry as she held me there in her arms, because it was as if she was telling me good bye. I looked up as she kissed me on the forehead just before releasing me from her embrace, and I could see an almost endless sadness in her eyes.

"No matter what happens tonight, child, the Circle will stand with you and help you bear the burden of your destiny. I am old, and I will certainly not be here for you forever, but know that in all the ways that matter, I will never stray from your side."

"Nana, what is wrong," I cried out to her in a low voice for her ears alone, tears threatening to fall from my eyes. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Some burdens are mine alone to bear, young Neko," she replied, her hand on my cheek. "Now go, and begin your journey as custodian and mother for this world little one."

Millicent had no further words for me, and with a gesture in the direction of the altar, she let me know that it was now time to begin. My mind was filled with a hurricane of thoughts, and I was beginning to suspect that she did not anticipate making it out of the clearing alive. She had seen something with her vision, and had accepted that tonight would be the end of her time on the Earth. However, I was now resolved to do whatever I could to prevent what she had seen come to pass.

I took my place behind the altar, and then looked to the rest of the group to make sure we were ready. The bright white outline of the magic circles that Kelli and Millicent would stand in while they were casting matched the color of the circles that had been drawn around each ring of stone. It was these arcane constructs, which Kelli, dad, and the rest of the Circle had spent weeks coming up with, that would shape the power that would flow through what we had built. As near as I could tell, everyone and everything was in its proper place.

After that final check, I looked once more to Millicent, waiting for her signal to begin my part in the creation ritual. I watched as she glanced up at the sky, reading the position of the moon as it was passing over our heads, and then she pulled in one last deep breath and let it out with a sigh. She fixed me with a steely gaze that held me so tight that even an explosion right next to me would not have dragged my eyes from hers, and then gave me a nod.

I gave her a slight nod back, and then put the edge of the glinting silver blade against my palm. The runes and arcane symbols etched into the metal seemed to catch the silvery moonlight, and for a moment I almost thought they were actually glowing. My hiss of pain as I laid open a cut across my hand floated across the air that had suddenly become silent, and I felt the keening anticipation of the very earth below my feet.

Once it had been used to begin the ritual, I had the feeling that the place for the blade to lie was on the altar. I laid it in the center of the stone table with the point facing the center of the circle, and then turned to the head marker stone. The moment that I placed my bleeding palm against the rough surface, the magic designs that had been carved into its surface burst with a glowing orange and purple light. I remarked to myself that the warm and inviting look which this stone gave off was nothing like the sickly green that had been a part of the stones in Scotland. I wasn't sure if it was a difference in the stones themselves, or in who was channeling the magic.

I did not hurry like I had that fateful night so long ago, but walked stone to stone with my back straight and head held high, swallowed up in the purpose of what we were trying to accomplish. Each marker activated at my touch with the same burst of light, and each time I offered the circle my blood I could feel the earth groan in both absolute delight and unbearable sorrow. It was a paradox that nearly drove me to my knees each time it occurred, but my determination and will power were strong enough to allow me to continue to move around the circuit.

Just as all the others had done, the last stone flared orange and purple at my touch, and I could feel something settle into place in my mind and in the clearing. As I walked over to where I would stand to defend my bond mate, Kelli, I drew a little on the power of the earth and water around me to heal my palm of the necessary cut, and by the time I was there, not even a scar remained. And then at some unspoken signal, Millicent and Kelli began to chant.

The words that they were using felt so ancient, and I would not have been surprised if someone had told me that the first time they had been uttered was during the birth of the universe. From the moment that they had begun, the pulsing energy that was usually in the back of my mind was almost pounding in my ears, matching the rhythm of their voices. And the synchronized way in which Kelli and Millicent were speaking and moving, letting the arcane energies that they were wielding flow through them and into the new circle, had a hypnotic quality that held my attention in an iron grip.

Standing there, watching and listening to this ritual, was like being surrounded by a concert choir. Kelli and Millicent's voices wove together in a melodic manner, much like a soprano and a seasoned alto. The deep thrum of power that was pulsing through the stones was the rumbling bass of the very earth itself, and the lesser flows of the other four elements provided the counterpoints that transformed what I was hearing and feeling into the very harmony of creation.

As they continued their steady channeling of the magic energies into the constructs we had designed and built, I could feel my connection to the earth and the water reaching out to latch on to the stones, the inscriptions, and the circles that were becoming something more than the sum of its parts. I realized in that moment that I would now be tied to this place for as long as I existed. I had a brief glimpse in a short span of seconds of what, as Millicent said, being custodian of the world really meant, and immediately following that realization was the moment when all hell broke loose and everything that I had feared would come, began to happen.

Almost immediately I felt an itch that started in the back of my head and within an instant had raced down my spine with an arctic chill. I could feel the tingle in my body that let me know my primal side had come forward, and I knew that the mask that Penelope had seen within me those years ago was now showing on my face. The fact that my dad jumped to his feet from the log he had been sitting on told me that he had seen the change in my face, and when I looked over to Kelli's dad, he was alert and weapons out, looking for danger faster than a blink.

The fact that our moms only had a small amount of protection was in the front of my mind, and I used precious seconds to command the earth to rise up in a mound around them so that they would not just be in the open. That small amount of time was almost enough to distract me from the wave of shadowy smoke that began to boil from out of the tree line like a rushing wave. It was on us before we really had any time to prepare, and as it surrounded us I felt a cold pulse of despair wash over me.

That intense feeling was nearly enough to make me curl up into a ball and weep for help that would never come, but the warmth of the earth and the calm of the water gave me strength that I did not know I had. My head was clear, but I could see that the others, including our parents, were holding their heads as if they were in pain. I was at a loss on what to do, and then I saw Ali standing tall, her lips moving as she muttered some spell after which she knelt and struck the ground with the palm of her hand, releasing a brilliant pulse of golden white light that bathed the entire clearing.

The moment the light touched me, I felt as if I were surrounded by a blanket of pure joy, and all of the negative feelings that I was barely able to withstand vanished as if they had never happened. I risked a quick look, and from what I could see, everyone else had been freed from the effect as well. Then, as the thick cloud of smoke spread out until it was nothing more than a strange misty ground cover, a horde of inky black creatures rushed in to attack. They looked as if they were made from pieces of darkness, cut straight from the cloth of a starless midnight sky, and they went straight for the witches and the stones.

"Minor shadows," Ali yelled out to everyone as glowing ropes of shimmering golden light appeared in her hands. "They can't hurt you if you have not been touched by magic, and if you have not you cannot hurt them either. Watch for the people controlling them."

And with that command, Ali went to work. I had never seen anything like it before, and with her every movement I could see that she had become a lethal dervish. The glowing ropes that she had summoned turned out to be whips, and as she spun and danced in what looked like a pattern-less chaos, they struck out like lightning and caused the shadow creatures to explode in puffs of dust. She reminded me of the pinwheel and flower blossom fireworks that I lit off as a kid, and part of me wanted to just watch her spin like that for hours. I had my own shadows to fight, however.

I wrapped my fists in gloves of earth, and let my primal side come forward a little bit more. While not as elegant and flashy as Ali was, I moved in the patterns of my own dance of death. My reflexes and skills, honed from hours and hours of training and practice, let me move over what had become a magical battlefield. Like Ali's whips, my earth shrouded hands proved lethal to the shadows, and soon enough I was creating almost as many puffs of dust as she was.

Mary was using some sort of defensive magic to keep the shadow creatures away from both Kelli and Millicent, and I could tell that she was close to being overwhelmed. Gina was also in trouble, and she was finding it difficult to just defend our moms, much less cast the magic that would transport them away. We were holding the tide back, but only just. In the next moment, however, my rage burned hot and I almost lost complete control of myself.

Kelli had seen, just as I had, a smirking Mathias walking out of the trees with what looked to be four men dressed in fatigues and masks. I was wondering why they weren't shooting at us already, because they did have guns, but I noticed that their eyes were blank, and void of anything resembling intelligence. I also noticed that while Mathias was looking at all of us with disdain, his face betrayed a significant amount of strain that he was currently under, and it hit me that he was barely keeping it together controlling the shadow creatures and the humans that he had pulled together to do his dirty work.

The primal side of me wanted nothing more than to get to Mathias as fast as I possibly could, and tear him apart. Because I was connected to the earth, and because I knew that I was Kelli's only defense if Mary's shield was breached or she was taken out of the fight, my more logical self kept me where I was, and I dusted as many shadow creatures as I could.

Something about how Mathias' forces were fighting, however, seemed off. When I looked, I realized that the shadows weren't really trying to get at Millicent and Kelli. It appeared as if they were making what looked like a concerted effort to swarm the two of them, but I could see only the occasional flash as one of the shadows contacted the magical barriers that Mary had erected. The human mercs weren't really trying to stop what was happening either. It was almost like they wanted us to finish.

With their will gone, and with Mathias' concentration in several places at once, they weren't very good fighters, but I gasped as I figured out that they didn't have to be. From talking to Kelli and the other members of the Circle, I knew that we had reached a point in the spell that was being cast where there was no way for them to stop on their own. The magic had them in its grip, and they would keep going with the ritual until it was finished, or until someone who wasn't casting broke one of the circles drawn in the earth. We were being stalled for time, and there was little that we could do about it.

Still crushing shadow creatures as I moved, I made my way as quickly as I could to where my dad was wrestling with one of the mercs. He knew some self-defense, but even mind controlled, the seasoned warrior was more than a match for him. I also heard the sharp report of gunfire as Kelli's dad and Avery dealt with their own mercs, so I knew there would be no help from that quarter. My mind seemed to be counting each precious second as I got closer to dad, and while it seemed like time was moving at a snail's crawl, only a few short moments had actually passed. Once I entered the fight the merc didn't stand a chance. I had been too well trained, and it only took a few well-placed strikes to take him out of action.

"Here dad," I gasped from the exertion as I helped him up from where he had stumbled. "Take these and protect Kelli. I am going to try and stop what Mathias is doing."

Dad only nodded to me as I handed him what looked like a pair of stone knives that I had formed from the earth. I was reasonably certain that they would be effective against the shadow creatures, but I was not very certain about how long they would last when out of my hands. When it came down to it, though, we really didn't have much choice. Dad would probably be able to keep the worst of the shadow attacks from Kelli, but he would never be able to stand against Mathias one on one. That left us with one option, and I felt a surge of pride fill my heart as I watched him go to town on the shadows that got near my bond mate. My dad wasn't a graceful fighter by any means, but what he lacked in skill he made up for with boundless determination.

I allowed just a little more of my primal self to come forward as I moved at a steady pace towards Mathias, my ultimate goal. More and more shadow creatures started seeing me as a threat, and I was sure that it was because he had seen the feral glint in my eyes. They couldn't stop me, however, and I was dusting them by the handful with every stride, and each stride brought me closer and closer to the man that was hell bent on ruining my life. He had probably realized that there was not much that was going to stop me, and I saw him hesitate in concentration for a brief moment.

Because things were so chaotic at that moment, the six new mercs that came running out of the tree line and straight at me were almost a surprise. Almost was the operative word, however, and I met them head on, calling on all of my skill and training as they and the shadows attacked me in earnest. That redoubled assault halted my advance towards Mathias, and I was starting to see that my skills were being pushed to their limits. I was still dusting the attacking shadows, and I was also keeping the serious strikes from the mercs at bay, while landing a few hits myself. The problem was that I had been stalled and I couldn't move forward.

I let myself waste a precious second or two with a glance at Mathias, and I felt bile begin to rise in my throat. While I and the other members of the Circle were occupied by the endless waves of attackers, he had found the time and extra concentration needed to begin drawing his own magical circle near the altar. Mathias was going to attempt to hijack our ritual while we were fully occupied with the shadows and mercenaries. It really wasn't a bad plan, and if I didn't hate him so much I might have admired the cunning of it.

"If he finishes what he's doing then he can take control of this, can't he," I heard my dad ask, and I risked a glance in his direction and saw Kelli nod to him even though she was still working the magic of the spell. "Then I will break the large circle so that it all collapses like you said. We may not succeed tonight, but it will be worse if he does."

And then my dad turned towards the large circle that had been drawn around the two inner ranks of stones, running as fast as he could towards the now glowing lines of power, ready to erase them and keep Mathias from stealing the circle out from under us. He was fast, but Mathias was just a bit faster.

"Oh I don't think so, you ignorant fuck," Mathias hissed as he pounced on my dad from the side. "You don't get to stop us like that."

Then the two of them were fighting like their lives depended on it. While Mathias had the experience and the training, he also had the burden of keeping control of his little army, and that evened the odds somewhat. Dad was not a great fighter, but that iron determination that he had found served him better than any training.