The day after the all those… revelations was Saturday. Which was good, because I really couldn’t deal with more classes right then. There was no way that actual school could help to hold a candle to everything we’d learned from Bastet, Sonoma, and especially Grandfather. If I’d had to sit in class, nothing would have penetrated the dense fog of wild thoughts that had filled my brain every waking hour.
Aylen’s grandfather was a Fomorian. An incredibly nice and goofy one who seemed to be the complete opposite of most of his people, but still. That made it even more to digest. So we were waiting before finding out even more. Most of us, anyway. Sariel and Apollo were there now, going through the spell they’d created that had ended up creating copies of our entire wo–
Nope, couldn’t think about that. It was too much. Too overwhelming. Later, once… all of that had had time to settle, we would visit Grandfather again to learn more. He didn’t seem to mind the delay. Then again, I had a feeling that waiting weeks between having these kind of discussions was more like a few minutes to people like him, or even people like Sariel or Dare.
Would such long time spans ever seem short to me? Because from where I was sitting, the previous year hadn’t seemed any shorter even if I knew it would eventually be little more than a blip of my life (assuming I survived). If anything, it felt like it had taken several years to get through that single one, especially considering everything that had happened.
The point was, it was a lot to think about, and I couldn’t focus on anything else. Well, almost anything. There was something else that took up my thoughts. Another new revelation, this one coming from my own father. Apparently, he was something known as a Chimera-blood, meaning any attempt to perform a Heretic bond on him didn’t stick. He could temporarily bond, but it would fade over time. Which was just… it was… really? How on Earth did my mother manage to accidentally trip into marrying a Chimera-blood, when they were apparently indescribably rare?
Regardless, something else had popped up over the previous weekend beyond all the new revelations. Something that not only landed on our plates, but immediately shot to the top of them.
“I’m sorry.” That was Shiori, and it wasn’t the first time she’d said it in the past hour, let alone the past week. “I know there’s already a lot to deal with, with… with October coming up really fast. But now we’re dumping this on you and—”
Quickly, I interrupted, putting both hands on the other girl’s shoulders. “Shy, stop. It’s okay. Of course we’re going to help with this. You found a way to maybe track down Asenath’s father. Come on, you know how much she’s already done for me. If she needs help finding her dad, I’m completely there. End of story. So no more apologizing. It’s not like there’s anything else I could really do right now anyway.”
The other girl slowly nodded, and the two of us stood there with our hands on each other‘s shoulders for a silent moment before I looked around a bit self-consciously. We weren’t exactly alone. Shiori and I were in one of the transport rooms along with Columbus, Vanessa, Tristan, Miranda, and Jason. Yeah, Jason was there. He had volunteered to come once he’d heard the basic situation. Apparently he had some experience in the place we needed to go.
Las Vegas. That was where we were going. Not because Asenath’s father was there, but because a guy who claimed he had information about where Tiras actually was wouldn’t give us that information until he got some help tracking down a missing Vestil-Akharu hybrid grandchild who was like a princess in their alliance or something.
Yup, it was time for a field trip to Vegas so we could start trying to find a missing princess in order to earn information that would hopefully lead us to Asenath’s father, who had been missing for a couple centuries.
I wondered what other people were doing with their weekend. Going to see a movie? Having a picnic? Getting some extra studying in?
Okay, that wasn’t really fair. I already knew what Avalon was doing, at least. And it definitely wasn’t a picnic. She was helping Dries and Wyatt run last minute checks and tests on the possession protection spell, which would apparently be going live very soon. But they needed her blood to keep running tests on. Which meant she had to stay with them rather than go with us. Obviously, she wasn’t too happy about that, but I promised to bring her back a few Vegas souvenirs. Somehow, that didn’t seem to make her feel better, though she knew why we couldn’t wait. Not only was finding Tiras important, but there was also the missing little girl to think about.
Oh, and as far as the Grandfather thing went, we hadn’t told anyone except a few people, because it was a lot to take in. Eventually, more people would have to know the truth, but we were waiting for a bit. So far, Avalon and I had told Shiori. Vanessa and Tristan had apparently helped their mother tell their father. And Koren and I had also told Abigail and Athena.
Again, we would definitely explain all of this to the others eventually. We just wanted a little more time to digest it ourselves. It was a pretty huge bombshell to drop on people. Especially people like Sarah and Sands, whose lives had been shaped so fully by an evil Fomorian. We had to find the best way and time to explain it, which really made me sympathize with the way Aylen had been acting right before she told us the truth.
In any case, right now there was this to deal with instead. So I forced my focus onto the actual current situation just as Columbus stepped over to join Shiori and me. His new porcupine/armadillo cyberform, Amethyst, was trotting along by his feet. The little thing was really shy and kept hiding behind her creator’s legs whenever anyone else looked at her. It was kind of adorable, and made me want to pick her up and hug her, dangerous metal quills be damned.
“Flick’s right,” Columbus agreed. “We’re here because we want to be. Whatever happens, we’re gonna help you find that girl and your… uhhh… I guess… stepdad, sorta? I’m not sure what the right term is considering you’ve got a different dad, but your mom is still in love with both of them and…” Stopping, Columbus looked back and forth between Shiori and me in mounting realization. “You know what? You two actually have even more in common than I thought. It’s kinda weird.”
Tabbris, having just recalled to me, popped out at that point with a quick nod. “I know, right?” With that, she went down to both knees and held her arms out. Immediately, Amethyst made a soft squeaking sound before coming out from behind Columbus’s leg and going to her. Because, for whatever reason, Tabbris was the main exception to the cyberform’s shyness. She loved attention from my little sister, who seemed to be the only one besides Columbus and, to a lesser extent, Shiori, that Amethyst was comfortable with.
Smiling down at the sight of Tabbris carefully but enthusiastically hugging the metal porcupine, I then looked up as the door across the room opened. Jason, Vanessa, and Tristan stepped out of the way as two figures arrived. One was Asenath. The other was Bobbi Camren. The girl had apparently insisted on being a part of this. Which was fair, considering how much she’d been involved with Asenath the year before. She’d spent more time with the vampire than I had. Besides, young as she was, the girl was powerful. She’d already proven very useful during the big attack on the Crossroads prison months earlier.
“Everyone ready?” Asenath asked after looking around to make sure we were all there. This would be our group heading down there. Shiori, Jason, Columbus, Tristan, Vanessa, Asenath, Bobbi, Tabbris, Miranda, and me. We would probably split up down there, and also meet up with Twister, Haiden, and Jiao, who had been working the case since yesterday.
Bobbi was already nodding rapidly. The biracial girl bounced on her heels a little while blurting, “Are you kidding? Some of us have been dying to do something useful for weeks now. Missing princess from once mortal enemies, who could tear their entire alliance apart if we don’t find her? Bring it on!”
Speaking dryly, Asenath reminded her, “Just remember you still have homework to do in between all the exciting stuff. Don’t make me regret letting you come. Because if your grades start slipping, you know Principal Fellows is going to come after both of us.”
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Jason spoke up. “You guys are ready for this whole Vegas thing, right? Cuz I gotta tell ya, saying they don’t like Bosch Heretics around is kind of an understatement. It’s dangerous for people like you. They get pretty nuts about it.”
Asenath nodded. “He’s right, they do. There is a reason Vegas has managed to stay free from Crossroads and Eden’s Garden, and it’s not because they hesitate when it comes to dealing with intruders.
Tristan shrugged. “Good thing we’re not intruders then, isn’t it? We’ve got this Bol guy giving introductions. Plus, Mom and Dad still have contacts from when they were living there. They already made some calls and gave us some people to talk to. And Dad’ll probably have even more lined up by the time we get down there.”
With a nod, Asenath produced a wooden box. “And you’ll all have these.” She began to pass out little necklaces from the box to everyone except Jason. They had been enchanted by Sariel to hide the fact that we were Bosch Heretics, and would apparently last for a few days. I already had that ability that stopped me from pinging as one until I used any active powers, but still. It was probably a good idea to layer that kind of protection.
“You know,” Tristan piped up after putting his own necklace on right alongside the one that was actually Bobbi-Bobbi (having her around with the actual human Bobbi was bound to get confusing very soon), “speaking of the whole Heretic sense thing, they really need to do something about that. Up here, I mean. It gives up alerting us about Alters after that first burst every morning, but every time we’re not around them for a little while, it starts up again. It’s probably the same for them. And when you’re trying to get along in a school that’s already this tense, having something like that blaring off in your head repeatedly every day doesn’t help.”
Jason agreed immediately, reminding me of the fairly unique position he and the other Natural Heretics occupied in not being like us Boshers, but not being Alters either by announcing, “Yeah, trust me, the Alters here are kind of put off by it too. They’re pretty sure you guys aren’t going to attack them by this point, for the most part anyway, but still. It’s easy to get pretty jumpy, and with everyone still trying to figure out how to get along… It’s really something that should be dealt with.”
“It’s part of the anti-possession spell, actually,” I put in. “It’s supposed to make it so that anyone under the spell doesn’t trigger the alerts for each other.”
Tabbris piped up, “Which should also make it easier to notice shapeshifters and people with disguise spells, you know? Cuz they could still set off the alert.”
Asenath nodded. “Hopefully, they’ll have that done soon. But in the meantime, we’ve got this to deal with.” She sounded more anxious about all of this than I had ever really heard from her, which made sense considering how much was at stake. This was her chance to find the father she had been missing for literally hundreds of years. No wonder she was tense. How on edge would I be when… when the time came to finally go after my mother? And she’d only been missing for like a decade.
Vanessa stepped forward to join the rest of us. “Don’t worry,” she assured the vampire, “we’re going to find the girl and get the information about your dad. Ours is already down there with your mom, and he’s really good at finding things.”
“She’s right,” I agreed. “Don’t forget about the part where he tracked down a bunch of broken orb pieces across basically a whole galaxy full of hostile enemies who all wanted to kill or enslave him. He did pretty great there, and Vegas is a place he actually knows. He’s got this. We all do.”
“Exactly,” Shiori quickly put in while stepping over to embrace her half-sister. “They’re right, Senny, we’ll find this girl. Even if we have to traipse all over Vegas and turn over every stone to do it.
Exhaling, Asenath gave a brief nod, and gave all of us a brief, grateful look while taking Shiori’s hand. “Thanks. I know, you’re right. I just… This is important, so we need to get down there. We have to find this girl, and I have the feeling that I am going to need all of your help to do it. At least, if we’re going to find her in time to matter.”
“Then let’s find her,” I announced. “Everyone’s here, right? We’re just waiting for someone to make the portal. Which… who was supposed to do that, again?”
The door opened once more, in what I thought at first was an answer to my question. But the person who came through was not someone who would be teleporting us. It was Abigail, and as far as I knew, she wasn’t suddenly a master with transportation spells.
“Hey, guys,” my much older half-sister (Holy shit, that was another thing I had in common with Shiori, wasn’t it?) greeted us. “Glad you’re still here, cuz… I have some more help for you.”
As she said that, Athena stepped through the doorway to join her. Seeing her, Tristan pointed. “Are you the ‘more help?’ Cuz if you are, I feel like she should’ve said a lot more. Maybe with all capital letters.”
With a small chuckle, Athena shook her head. “While I would love to be involved, there are other matters dragging my attention elsewhere. But I trust that you will be fine. I am simply here to vouch that your actual new assistants are… on the level, as they say.”
Blinking uncertainly back to the others for a moment, I shrugged while asking, “What new—”
Aaaand I was suddenly interrupted by a blurred form of speed that suddenly flew through the doorway and rocketed to a stop right in front of us, words flying out of the new arrival’s mouth like water from a firehose.
“HitheytoldustowaitinthehallbutIgetreallyboredsowe’reherehi!”
Rocking backwards reflexively on my heels, I blinked at what turned out to be a young girl around Tabbris’s age. She had dark hair and wore a light hoodie that was too large for her, as well as urban camo pants. Oh, and a smile. She was grinning so wide I thought her face might break.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Abigail wince while Athena opened her mouth to say something. But another voice spoke up first, one from the doorway, as a red-haired girl who appeared to be a year or two younger than us stepped in. “Sorry, kid’s got a mind of her own sometimes. Especially when it comes to meeting new people. She doesn’t get to do that very often. Not directly, anyway.”
Tabbris, who had put herself right in front of me facing the fast-talking young girl, blurted, “Youtalkreallyfastyouknow?” She was boosting herself.
The other girl’s smile just got wider. “IliketalkingfastitletsmeputalotmorewordsintolesssecondssoIdon’twastetimeyouknow?”
Lifting her chin, Tabbris nodded. “Yeahbutsometimesit’shardforotherpeopletounderstandisn’tit? Andiftheydon’tunderstandyouwastemoretimerepeatingit.”
I boosted myself partway through that, just enough to follow what they were saying more easily. Hearing the words, the new girl tilted her head thoughtfully before nodding. “I’m…. December.” She was clearly making a physical effort to slow her words down, counting in her head and patiently while rocking back-and-forth for a second or two before saying the name.
“Hi, December,” the other girl greeted her. “I’m Tabbris.”
“Wait, I know who you guys are,” I suddenly blurted. “Theia mentioned you awhile ago. You’re the uhhh SPS Seosten who work for Cahethal.” I used the term that Miranda had invented (Sticky-Possession Syndrome), rather than the horrible ‘Lies’ their own people preferred.
The red-haired girl stepped closer. “We don’t know what that means. I’m April. December and I are part of the Calendar. And yes, we work for Cahethal. But December and I, along with May, were sent to see this school for ourselves as part of the truce. And in the spirit of full cooperation, we offered to help with this.”
Abigail spoke up. “And by offered, she means December blurted out that they know Vegas very well and that we should let them go with you if we don’t want you to die.”
“See?” December herself put in, still grinning, “we’retotallybeinghelpful… cuzmakingsureyoudon’tdie… seemsprettyhelpfultome!”
“Cahethal told us to make ourselves useful,” April announced. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’ll go down there with you and help find this missing girl. We can get into places you can’t, and we’re very good at getting information we’re not supposed to have.”
Columbus, who had stood up with Amethyst hanging off his shoulder, peeking over it at the new arrivals, spoke up. “Are you bragging or threatening?”
Carefully holding both hands up placatingly, April replied, “As I said, Cahethal sent us here under the truce. We won’t do anything to jeopardize that. We didn’t infiltrate this place. We came here openly from the very start. Right now, we just want to help.”
Athena nodded. “We’ve put them through a lot of testing. As far as we can tell, they’re being truthful about why they’re here. And now they want to help you find the missing girl. I wouldn’t throw an offer like that away just because it’s hard to trust our people.”
Before anyone else can say anything to that, Asenath interrupted. “She’s right. They’re in. Whatever it takes to find the girl and get my father back.”
Gesturing that way, I drawled, “Well, you heard the lady, and this is all her show.” With that, I clapped my hands together once. “So,
“Let’s all go to Vegas!”