New Beginnings, page 18
part #2 of Barriers Series
“Good. I’ll test, but keep monitoring him.”
“I will. I like him.”
“As do I. Very much.”
“Just a note? If you have sex with him? The virility spell on that thing should make it possible for him to get it up and possibly keep it up even through dying.”
Her smile grew sly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Why do I think my mom is going to have sex with my teacher? Considering that I think she hooked up with Ms. Darvel, I’m not sure it matters. Not that that matters, either. Especially considering the things she’s seen me doing.
A slight noise from the side has me whirling, magic flaring.
Mom moved to my side, magic joining mine, “What did I miss?”
The side of the room we’re facing has that old 1970’s wood paneling on it, but nothing else.
“I thought I heard movement.”
She moved forward a few steps, reaching out with her magic, “I feel…there’s a door.” She pointed slightly to the right of the center of the wall, “There.”
My magic picked it up, “Oookay. There we go.” I didn’t think about it, but the bulk of my magic is locked up in the room with us. Or, not locked, but here with us. I’m not letting it out beyond the walls. “Hold on, let me feel…”
My magic rolled out, spreading out in all directions. Behind us didn’t turn up anything. To the sides of where we’re facing didn’t turn up anything. Ahead? “There are bodies up ahead. Dead bodies. Just…not entirely dead.”
“Are they…like Sumi?” She shook her head, not thinking that’d be the answer.
“No. They’re moving, but sort of locked in place. Let’s go see what we see.”
It took a second to figure out the opening for the door. The lines were within the cracks of the paneling.
When it opened, my mind faded, hazing to white as I looked into…into…
Chapter 10
Bright eyes were the first thing I could see. They forced their way through the fog in my brain as something nudged me inside. Latching onto both the feeling and the eyes helped me pull myself out of the…the horror.
Mom’s voice finally reached my ears, “Daughter-mine, Ceri, please…please talk to me.”
Movement behind her had me catching glimpses of the agents as they stared at…at…a charred and destroyed something or other.
“What happened?”
She touched both cheeks, “Are you here? Are you back with me?”
At my nod, she pulled me into a tight hug. The feeling of immense relief flooded me from her, making me wonder just what in the hell happened. And why the barn we had once been under is now a blackened crater.
I let the hug continue as I stared at the destruction, wondering at the mirrored burning feeling inside of me. “What happened? Why are we out here? Why is the barn…”
She pulled back, but didn’t let go of me, “You…you happened.”
“I happened? What do you mean?”
She touched my cheeks again, “You saw the bodies, the people in the room…then…” she glanced back over her shoulder, “I barely made it out. The agents barely made it out. You came floating out of the column of destruction and landed here nearly an hour ago.”
Oh…so yeah, my boobs are out again. Faaantastic.
Something wiggled in my brain, “Wait, there were people there?”
She nodded, eyes filling with fear.
“People? They were dead. Dead but moving.” I felt that before opening the door. Did I see them, though? Did I see…
I saw them.
I saw them. I did.
I saw them and I recognized them.
She caught me as I collapsed. Physically. Mentally? Mentally…I just fell.
The people? The bodies that I felt on the other side of the closed door? The ones that were moving, but felt like they were locked in one place?
They were…that’s what I saw first. I saw eight people, all…trapped. Sort of.
I may be new to the outside world, but my sexual world has grown quite a bit. I’ve seen a ton of porn that the others have shown me. I’m not entirely unfamiliar with bondage equipment. I may never have seen it in person, but it’s not a total mystery. The zombies were strapped down in various places. Assorted convoluted and painful looking positions.
That hit me first.
The second thing that hit me was the huge variety of things on the walls. Dildoes. Vibrators. Clamps. Whips. Gags with huge dildoes on the inside. Things that are designed to just bring pain.
The countertops have lube of different types.
I originally thought that, hey, it’s a kinky zombie sex dungeon.
Until I saw it. Until I saw him.
My…my brother.
I knew from the scarring.
I was 11 when it happened. We were called into a huge family meeting and my parents went off about the sins of the flesh and the rampaging footsteps of the devil…and then I realized one of us wasn’t there. I’d spent most of the time wondering what I could have done wrong…and then I realized my brother was missing.
They caught him masturbating.
Then…they punished him. After hours of destroying him verbally, tearing him to pieces, they forced him to tear everything off. By hand. A testicle at a time. Then his penis.
Then he was forced to eat his testicles.
And cut his penis into pieces and force us to eat the pieces.
And then cauterize the wounds so that he didn’t die.
I saw him first. Or his scars. He’s on his back, legs spread wide, everything wide open, with a huge jar of lube next to him, with his butt at crotch height.
The second person I recognized was my sister, the one that we accidentally saw in a bra that they forced her to seal her vagina shut with a white-hot cattle prod.
She was there as well, right next to him. More lube there. Bigger toys.
It wasn’t until she looked up with her dead eyes and smiled and said, “Please fist me Mommy,” that everything shattered.
All of my brothers and sisters are there. The ones that left before me? Eight of them. They murdered eight of their children and then raised their zombies and used them as torture and sex toys. My magic ramped into them immediately and I felt that they were…incomplete. They’re not really there. It’s a meat shell with a parody of them in place that follows commands that my parents already set into them.
They’re not there because my parents consumed them. Power and soul…gone, to fuel their insatiable appetite for more. Always more.
The fire started inside of them. My older brothers and sisters…the ones that took care of me growing up. As much as we were allowed. They were slaughtered and then my parents kept them to continue the torture. To continue the fucking even beyond their deaths.
And I wanted no part of it. The fire flared up fast, burning black and horrid looking, and then…nothing. Nothing until Mom’s eyes pulled me out of it.
I didn’t realize I had been talking until Mom’s tears hit me. “How could they do that to their own children? How is that possible?”
She sniffled, wiping at her face, “I don’t know. I have seen things…things that make this look good and right. And I’ve never understood it. I was literally your age when I learned that I would never have my own children but that I would have you. Since then I’ve killed thousands upon thousands of people, and I’ve never understood it. The indiscriminate slaughter. Part of that is because I have had to change things in order to have you in my life. A big part of me can understand it for a purpose. Emptying a city of enemies? I can see it. I won’t do it, but I can see it. That? Killing your own children? Hurting them like that? I think what you said before is a big possibility. What little I know about your parents and have heard tells me that they more than likely did tell your brothers and sisters what was going to happen to them. I firmly believe they enjoyed the experience, seeing their children realize the horror of what they grew up with. And I think keeping them on afterwards…was right up their alley.”
“Why, though?”
“To bring it down to the very basics, your parents are evil. Pure, unsullied evil. Through and through. Beyond that, they didn’t look at you as children. Not even their children, but children at all. You were batteries. A means to an end. They wanted to get so powerful that no one could touch them, and they figured out a way to do it. We’ve run the calculations, 15 children split between the two of them, with the death of innocents and you being their own children driving up the power gathered? They would have been nearly god and goddess levels of power. A power to be reckoned with.”
She let me push myself away a little, “I know I knew this, but they really did this for power? Their love of power drove them to murder their own children?”
“I have seen it countless times before.”
“So help me God…if I ever, ever, start to go down that path, I want you to kill me. I don’t care what my reasons are. I don’t care when it happens. If I’m ever heading to kill innocents to gain power, destroy me before I continue something like this…Knowing that they had them down there for years and…Please. Promise me. Kill me. Even if I beg and cry. Please promise me.”
She studied my face for an endless minute before giving me a short nod, “I promise. Just as I want you to promise to destroy me if I ever start down that path as well.”
Shared love with the promise of killing each other? It may not be traditional, but I’ll take it. “I promise.”
She hugged me again and I squeezed her, then eeped as I caught sight of something on my wrist. No, not a bug.
“What the hell is this?” She let me pull back again. “Where did I get this?” On my wrist is a metal cuff about two inches wide, with a stylized deaths head on it. It’s…it’s oddly beautiful.
She blinked a few times, “I’m sorry? What are you talking about? Your hand? I’m pretty sure you got it at conception?”
“Uhh…what? No, the wrist cuff?”
She blinked again and looked between my face and my wrist, “Daughter-mine, there is nothing there?”
“Fuck.” My magic dove into the cuff and I very nearly recoiled from it as my mouth fell open. “What the hell is this? Why…how…”
More memories came back to me. As my power ran roughshod over the room, spreading from my brothers and sisters, I let it all out, sending every bit of my power into the space. It burned around me like a nuclear fire, but I wasn’t harmed as I passed through the now missing wall of the room towards the altar.
The skulls and fetishes around the room were already black and were breaking down from the intense heat, and the huge skull in the center of the table collapsed, most of it rolling sideways to fall to the ground. Most of it didn’t even reach the burning floor as the flames chewed through it.
There, beneath where the huge thing had been originally, rested the cuff. Now I distinctly remember touching it and sliding it on as I purred.
Purred and then used my power to fly up and out of the burning hellscape I had created. It’s probably good that I landed before the flight stopped working. They’re notorious for stopping at random.
“You don’t see it?”
“I don’t see anything?”
There it is…there’s the spell. Or part of it. I adjusted it, allowing Mom to see it, and she dropped me, shoving herself away across the ground and coming to a crouched position, massive glowing sword held high and magic pouring out of her, “What…where…where did you get that!”
The mages gathered power but didn’t approach. I’m not sure they’re stupid enough to get in her way.
Her reaction had me holding oh so still. I may be good with a sword now, but she’s the goddess of battle. I’d have a better chance killing her in a game of checkers than in a fight. Unless I cheated and brought in an army of my own. “I’m sorry…what did I do wrong?”
She pointed at the cuff with her sword, “Nothing…you did nothing wrong. Where did you get that?!”
“It was under that huge skull on the table? When everything was burning, the bones were burning away, and I saw it beneath where it had been? I put it on and flew out. Please…please tell me what it is? What did I do? Should I destroy it?”
She stood up straight in a rush of speed, sword disappearing as she held out her hands, “No! Don’t do that…I’m sorry…I just…do you know what that is?”
The deaths head stared up at me, “I don’t have a clue.”
She moved closer slowly, probing with her magic, “That cuff? That was Cerwon’s. It was a repository of some of her power. It housed her key to her taiscedeadan. She lent it to a follower. It was supposed to be returned in 24 hours…and she died. Attacked and killed by the magic families.”
Oooookay. “Umm, what? Why…I don’t even know where to start. It held her power? A key to her taiscedeadan? Why would a follower borrow it? Was it done on purpose so that she’d be killed?”
She moved even closer until she was right in front of me, lightly touching the skull, “She connected her safe to it long, long ago. Far before I was born. I never learned why. She never shared with me why some of her power was in it, either. I never understood it, but she was more powerful with it. Not that she took it off often, but it did happen. As for the attack? I’m not sure we’ll ever know. Your parents had an altar to her down there, so I doubt they were involved. Not that they were old enough for that either, but I doubt anyone in your family was involved, although maybe. It happened thousands of years ago, so your great grandparents could have been involved or even your grandparents, depending on how old they were.”
The skull was cold yet warm under my fingers. “If her safe is connected to it, do you think I can open it?”
She shrugged, “I am not sure. Your power seems to work differently, so even though I’ve always been told it’s impossible…maybe? After all, yours allows access for both of us. That’s one thing that’s always been said to be impossible.”
More movement back at the burned-out site had me gathering myself again. “So…now what?”
She blinked a few times, “For now? How about dinner? And clothes for you? If you’d like, we can go back to my…our house?”
Our house…tears streamed down my face, “I’d like that.”
The mages stayed behind, all giving me levels of looks that I couldn’t bother reading into. Mainly because they were mostly levels of fear. Since I can sort of understand that, it didn’t seem worthwhile digging into.
Mom held my hand as we headed towards the front of the property and the destroyed gates. Thank God I left my keys and cell phone with the car, otherwise I’d be screwed. I need to come up with a spell and put it onto things that I don’t want to get destroyed, otherwise I’m going to be going through phones and driver’s licenses like there’s no tomorrow.
Various agents watched us walk, but none of them interrupted us or even gave us odd looks. Not that it made me feel any better about being naked. Granted, I’m sort of okay with it, but sometimes when the fear starts, it’s hard to stop it. And I’m decidedly off-base right now. My insides burn horrifically, and my memories of my parents and my upbringing are rather forefront in my head right now.
Chapter 11
She smirked as I had to adjust myself in the car before starting it up. I’ve never driven naked, so feeling the leather is kind of weird. “Oh would you stop. I’m trying.”
She patted my leg, “I know you are. I’m proud of you. One day in the between lands I’ll teach you to ride horses and we’ll ride my estate as I did when I was young.”
Uhh… “How would that be?”
She glanced down, “As you are now. Back when the world was wilder, it wasn’t as much a concern. Feeling the wind across your body as you ride on the hunt…it was invigorating.”
“Umm…I’ll have to take your word for it. We never had horses, so I don’t have a clue how to ride one.”
“I’ll teach you. You’ll be fine.”
Great…great. Do I want to ride a horse buck naked?
Umm, yeah, actually I do. It’s kind of an exciting thought.
Just backed up by the idea that the devil is roosting in my soul because someone can see my jiggly bits.
The portal to the FBI building opened with a grunt from me as my magic strained to do it. It took Mom 15 minutes to get what she needed and meet me back in the parking lot at her car. I very nearly screamed at what it took to open the portal to the house and for both cars to get through. She immediately picked up on the pain when I slid out of the car.
“Are you all right?”
“Umm, I may have overdone it today? I feel…burning, I guess. Inside?”
She frowned, “You definitely overdid it. You should wear more rings for now. Make sure they’re hidden.” She smiled at my look, “The FBI cannot listen in right now. I’m blocking everything at the moment.”
“Okay. Let me get some on?” I ended up with a fistful of them, and the pressure inside diminished drastically, but didn’t go away. “Uhh, good idea. That feels better.”
“Now…before I open the monitoring again, can you tell me about how you got through the barriers? I’ve never seen anything like what you did. Meaning…I saw nothing. How did you do it?”
“Well, have you ever…” I went into a description of my approach and she moved from a frown to an excited smile when I was done.
“Can we test this?”
“Sure? Do you have a barrier that I can show you on?”
“I do. Come.” She brought me to the backyard and a small gazebo that had a shield spell on it. “Try it on this. There’s nothing deadly here, but it’s designed to keep people out and stop eavesdroppers. No one should be able to cross it without triggering it.”
“All right, here’s what I did.” She felt along with me as I created the piercing element, then gasped as I rammed it through without triggering the spell.
“That’s amazing! There’s nothing…the spell doesn’t trigger at all!”
“Do you want to try it?”
