Awakened Read online

  Jacob said, “I think we should head over to the gym, give you a small idea of what your capable of, and some minimal control over your power.”

  “Minimal?”

  Jacob shrugged, “It takes practice and study to learn to shift to animals, and partially shift. I understand you did it last night, you built a claw, but that was subconscious desperation under threat of death, not control.”

  Allison cleared her throat, and said rather tentatively, “Perhaps teaching her witch magic control first would be better? Basic shields, and conscious control of what she’s doing right now is more important to her safety, isn’t it? Shouldn’t she learn how not to expose herself, before she learns how to fight?”

  She could tell Allison was shy, and a little nervous about disagreeing with Jacob. Was she picking that up with her magic? Which one? Either way, she thought the witch was making sense. What good was it knowing how to fight if she was a danger to herself? Did she even want to learn how to fight?

  Jacob frowned, “Alright. See what you can teach her until lunch. Meri, go with.”

  Allison gave her a shy smile, and then gestured as she and Meri stood up.

  Carl said, “Good luck.”

  Jace gave her a rather boyish grin.

  The three of them left the room and started down the hall.

  “Not that I mind, but why are you coming along?”

  Meri shrugged, “Magic is dangerous. I’ll make sure neither of you get hurt too badly if something goes wrong.”

  They followed the hall back toward the front of the mansion, and they led her into a den or lounge of sorts. There were two leather couches, a book shelf on one wall, a bar on the other, and large bay windows to let in some light.

  “You said Jacob was the oldest?”

  Meri looked confused for a moment, and then chuckled, “Carl?”

  She nodded.

  Meri shrugged, “Shifters are the longest living race, at least naturally since the leeches can technically live forever by feeding on life force. We live ten times longer, eight to ten centuries. However, we’re shifters, we can look whatever age we want to until we meet death. We can’t take on other human forms, just animal forms, but we can control our own human form to a certain extent.”

  Meri looked her over, “I imagine that’s why your body is in perfect proportion right now, you must be doing it subconsciously already as you recover. When you put on more weight you’ll have a perfect body, though we tend to fall in the curvy and athletic body types, there are exceptions.”

  She started to feel a bit nervous, and waved her hands, “What exactly do you guys do, and who pays for all this? Have you always been in Chicago?”

  Allison frowned, “Are you okay?”

  She wasn’t sure, not really. She’d thought she was so accepting of all of this because it seemed familiar to her deep down, even if she couldn’t remember it. That may have been partially true, but she’d also been in shock from the attack, her own crazy return attack and what she’d done, then being shot up with drugs and tied down. It had all had a surreal feeling to it she couldn’t deny.

  The large breakfast however, seemed to be waking her up from that shock, and her heart had picked up. She felt safe there with them for some reason, but she also felt scared. This was all just a little too crazy. She took a deep breath.

  “I will be, I think? This is all catching up to me I think.”

  Meri answered my questions bluntly, “Old money. The races are long lived, and there aren’t all that many of us. The shifters, we protect humanity from demonic predators. We kill them. Some few shifters go rogue, or simply don’t hunt humanity’s enemy and go their own way, but those are very rare. Some witches help us, they can generally feel the life-web over a whole city, which means they can let us know if evil predatory soul eaters enter our city. They help us track them, and if we screw up in this age of technology, they help us cover things up by modifying memories. Unfortunately, a lot fewer witches feel the calling, and we’re very grateful to the ones that do. The rest of them form covens, and we let them be. Some even less few, are seduced by evil and work for the enemy, those need to be put down. It’s why we’re having a hard time nailing down that ancient, Emil, because he has a witch blocking ours.”

  Allison answered the last question, “We’ve been here a few months. Generally, we jump home cities every five or ten years, and refresh our IDs. I’m still young, so this was my first move since joining Jacob’s team. We do go to other cities at times, there aren’t enough of us to put a team in every city on Earth, but we’ll always come back to Chicago as our home until the next move comes along.”

  Allison waved, “Sit. Unlike television, witches don’t call upon goddesses, or stir cauldrons. We don’t use candles, except perhaps as an aid to meditation. Our powers are both shockingly direct, and they can be incredibly subtle. I won’t be teaching you much today, except to find your connection to the web, the part of the web that connects your life force to all others, and how to shield your mind from it.”

  She sat down slowly, but felt fidgety, she had far more energy than she ever had before since she’d woken up. Probably thanks to her stealing the soul eater’s life force, and the extra-large breakfast she’d just eaten. Not to mention the coffee and orange juice giving her a sugar and caffeine rush.

  “That will keep me safe?”

  Allison replied, “It will keep you safe from other witches attacking you or tracking you across the city, and it will keep your energies confined so you’re not constantly throwing them out there, and waving a sign that says here I am.”

  She frowned, “How do I read or find someone if I’m not on the web so to speak.”

  Allison sighed, “You want to know everything now, that’s not going to work. Suffice it to say, the web itself is constantly sending out information from the life forms around you. There are direct and indirect ways to read others, and only when it’s worth the risk of revealing yourself should you use the direct method. Think of it as the difference between inactive and active sensors. If you shield, you can inactively pick up stuff, but as soon as you go active and search the web with your mind, you’ll find stuff better but every other witch in range will also sense you. If one of those is your enemies, they can hurt you badly from a distance.”

  “But all the other races are constantly open?”

  Allison nodded, “Unless shielded by a witch. Shifters can resist by shifting themselves, it won’t hide them, but it makes it harder for a witch to get a grip and change anything. A soul eater’s defense against a witch is offense, if a witch purposefully connects to its life energy with his or her own, it can feed even over a distance. The difference is you’re a target for our enemies, you have to learn how to let information in, but shield your own mind and life energy from the net. When you have more control over all your powers, you can afford to take more risks. Enough questions.”

  That wasn’t scary at all, or so she told herself.

  Allison sat across from her in a chair, and she seemed to gather her thoughts.

  “Alright, I’ve shielded you from everything except for Meri and me. You now have access to the life-web only in this room. I want you to close your eyes and ignore your five senses the best you can. Push it out of your head. Then try to concentrate on the vague feelings you have for us. In the beginning it helps to visualize a bright green web of light connecting us. That’s just the first step, before you can learn to block yourself, you need to find it and get a feeling for it.”

  She frowned, “You don’t sound so sure.”

  Allison tilted her head, “You aren’t a witch. It’s how I was taught, but you can also feel us emphatically through your soul eater powers, which is separate from the web and a witch’s power. Sorry, let’s not borrow trouble.”

  That was a good point, if she had four separate powers inside of her, she could accidentally pick the wrong one. Or, it was possible the four powers were combined in some way, which meant it might not
work the same for her at all as it worked for everyone else. Still, she had to try. She imagined Meri would Taser her ass again if she did anything stupid. She very much got that Jacob sent Meri to protect Allison.

  She closed her eyes and pushed off the negative thoughts. Allison was right, there was no point in borrowing trouble. It would either work out, or they’d have to figure out another way.

  She immediately felt stupid. Despite last night, and all she’d been told, it didn’t seem at all real yet. She was embarrassed by the idea she might have powerful magic, even as she tried to push the sensation of the couch, the feminine scents of her two new very strange but hopefully friends, out of her head. She tried to push the noises of the house, and the bright light of the sun hitting her eyelids out of her head.

  Then she totally panicked, as it all simply went away. She couldn’t even feel herself breathing, was she breathing, or had she stopped? She wasn’t ignoring those things in some meditation, apparently, she’d just turned off four of her five senses, using her shifter abilities. All she could do was taste coffee, orange juice, and the slight tastes of the rest of breakfast. No sight, hearing, touch, or scents at all.

  It all flooded back, and she gasped in panic as her eyes snapped open.

  Allison asked, “What happened?”

  She felt foolish, “Nothing, give me a minute.”

  Meri snickered, “You shifted your senses away, didn’t you?”

  She glared at Meri, which was answer enough. How the hell was she supposed to push them away, without shifting away her senses?

  Meri said, “That’s why shifters don’t meditate. We learn by drowning ourselves in the sensations of our senses, of evoking them.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” she accused bitterly, but there was also some self-mocking in there as well.

  Meri just grinned.

  It was hard for her to be mad at Meri, she just felt like a friend, even if she was a bit mischievously evil.

  She closed her eyes again, and simply skipped the first step. She pushed out all the distracting thoughts, but she didn’t try to ignore her senses. That simply wouldn’t work, not for her. Instead, she went straight to concentrating on the sense of good vibes she’d gotten from both of them, and the idea she was safe, all while imagining them connected by a triangle of bright green light. She pushed out the idea she was open to things.

  At first, nothing at all happened. She kind of believed it, but there was also an air of silliness about it, and disbelief. She mocked herself, she’d lost all her life’s memories, what made her believe she’d learned everything about the world in the last six months? Plus, it all sounded like the truth to her. She felt conflicted, truthfully. She believed it, enough to feel safe and on the edge of panic as the shock wore off, but at the same time it was hard to believe she was special at all.

  The last six months had been hard. Very hard. Her body had been atrophied, malnourished, and ridiculously thin. It had taken a lot of hard work, eating right, and intense painful exercising before she’d even been able to walk. It’d taken almost five months, before she’d been able to get a job. All while she’d been learning English, and technology.

  Her dreams freaked her out the most, because they were all in Latin, and they were all of the far past. If this was all true, it wasn’t a gift, it was a nightmare. A nightmare her mind had rejected, along with her memories. Her old life.

  She also got the idea if her memories came back, so would her control over all her abilities. But who was Lily, who would she be then? Certainly not the innocent and hopeful young woman she felt like in that moment. It was all terrifying, but at the same time she was excited. She wanted to go home to her normal life, but there was also a part of her that never wanted to leave. This was where she belonged, among her own kind, not among normal humans.

  Had she been a good woman in the past, as she hoped, or… had she been evil. One thing was clear, no matter the answer to that question, she’d obviously fed on the life force of others, or she’d be dead right now. No one lived forever after all. She was getting the idea, beginning to believe, that she was ancient.

  Which was strange, she felt like a twenty-four-year-old woman. Had a job, and the hopes to catch a good man. It was all just an illusion though, wasn’t it? She was something else, someone else, and that scared her more than everything else put together.

  She pushed all that out of her head and got back to concentrating on her hopefully new friends, and the green triangle of light. She wasn’t sure how long that went on, when eight new green lines appeared out of nowhere, and things were actually looking like a web a bit more. It was confusing for a moment, until she realized there was a fichus tree in the corner, and a large plant in the bay window. Two more life forms had joined the web in the room, and her mind had added those lines.

  “I think I see it, the fichus and plant,” she said in a quiet voice, not wanting to lose it.

  It felt kind of wonderful actually, addicting. She was tempted to reach out, but she held herself back afraid she’d do something bad. The feeling of safety and the potential of new friends was even stronger now. She had no doubt they were both good people, she just wasn’t sure she was worthy of them, whoever she was. She pushed away those thoughts and doubts, before she lost the connection.

  Allison said calmly, “Good,” in a pleased voice that told Lily that Allison had been waiting for that. Allison had hidden that part of things, as a test.

  Proof that she’d actually found the web, instead of just imagined she had. It made sense to her, imagination was a powerful thing. More than that, it made her believe it more as well. She’d have doubted she truly had connected, and wondered if she was imagining it, if it wasn’t for the plant and tree.

  Allison instructed, “Feel the point of connections, in your life force. Where the four of us connect to you directly. You don’t want to fully block it, you still want to feel the web and the life around you inactively. Don’t try yet, do you feel your own life force, leaking into the web?”

  She frowned, “It feels more like reaching out, I’m not losing the energy, just extending it.”

  Allison replied, “Good, now pull that back to the point of connection for all the life in the room.”

  She did that, though it did take a few minutes to figure out how to consciously control it. In the end, she’d been trying too hard. It was simply a matter of wanting it to happen. She’d been trying to reach out to her own life force to control it, which was silly, she was already controlling it, it was hers.

  “Alright.”

  Allison replied, “So now, instead of stomping up and down the street touching everything and waving your hands around, you’re merely looking out your window so to speak. That in itself will make you harder to find, although by itself it doesn’t do much to protect yourself. I want you to imagine your life force hardening on that connection point. It no longer flows, but it’s a steel ball instead. It will be able to feel the flow of life energy and pick up things passively from the life-web, but at the same time any kind of attack or invasion will merely be repulsed by its hardened surface.”

  It was a little eerie, but she felt like Allison was explaining something she already knew, as if merely reminding her of how to do something, even if she’d never before heard of it.

  “Okay?”

  Allison smiled, or at least Lily heard one in her voice, since her eyes were still closed.

  “Hold onto that thought, I’m going to attack you. Don’t panic, if I get through all you’ll do is laugh uncontrollably.”

  That didn’t sound so bad, but she was determined to allow no such thing.

  The green string of light connecting them seemed to pulse with energy, and it bounced off her hardened life energy at the connection point. Three more successive pulses shot down their connected line, each one more powerful than the last, but her shield held.

  Allison sighed, “Great, that was fast. Well, it took you a while to find the web, but not l
ong for the other parts.”

  She asked, “It did?”

  Meri laughed, “It’s almost lunchtime.”

  Oh.

  “How do I hold this shield thing though, when I open my eyes, won’t I lose it all?”

  Allison said, “You’ll have to concentrate on it, eventually your subconscious mind will take over. Like muscle memory or driving a car. I’m not really sure though, you picked it up quickly, which tells me you might have lost your conscious memory, but the rest of your mind remembers. So maybe it will come easier for you the second time.”

  “We’re done?” she asked. She was a little shocked that she’d sounded disappointed. There was too much to learn or relearn as the case may be. Although, technically now that she was shielded, they’d let her leave. The idea was tempting, but less so than earlier.

  Allison explained, “For now, we have to be. You need to have the shields down cold, so you don’t even have to think about them, before we do anything else. Otherwise things will get confused. One step at a time, each lesson and discipline built upon the last. I’ll be testing you throughout the day. I’ll teach you communication next.”

  She nodded, “Alright. I’m not complaining, and I’m grateful, but why are you all helping me. After shooting me and kidnapping me I mean.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at both the women waiting for a reply. They seemed to trust her, almost like she was already welcome and a part of the team, when she hadn’t made that decision yet.

  Meri replied, “Jacob trusts you, and he wants you on the team. What do you think of us?”

  She stood up and stretched, she’d been sitting way too long.

  “I get good vibes from you both, I feel safe here, even if the rest of it is kind of freaking me out. I can just tell you’re the type of people I’d be proud to be friends with.”