“Where is my son? Where is he?!” Frantic screams were accompanied by rattling chains and the sounds of heavy blows landing against the stout, iron bars that separated the specially prepared cell from the rest of the circular room.

Marcus of Hafren watched the struggles within the cell with a pained look upon his age worn countenance. Once he had been handsome and young and had a bright destiny. But the last decade had ground away not only his fortune, but his aspirations and hope for better days. All to come to this moment – for the piteous creature contained in the iron cage.

Even wrapped in the specially treated cold iron chains, standing in a circle of runes blessed by one of the few remaining druids and behind bars of yet more cold iron; the being in the cage was still intimidating, almost feral. But in Marcus, she inspired sadness and regret.

“When I find him, he will slaughter you all and drink your blood!” She screamed, straining at the chains. Tiny blue sparks crackled along them, but the bars held against whatever magic she was plying against them.

“I hope Drennl isn’t taking his time on this.” The other man in the room said. Tall and slender as a sapling, he was the druid who had constructed the cold iron prison. “She’s too strong. The shackles will break and we’ll never get this chance again. Even if she does let us live.”

Marcus shook his head sadly. “I never meant for this to happen. Geoffrey never meant for this to happen either. We just thought it a story. We thought we could make our place in history by telling a tale of the bear-man – making an old hero into a legend. I… didn’t think it was real.”

“The story isn’t real.” The druid, who had yet to give Marcus his name, even after years of working with him, replied. “At least not anywhere but her mind.” More blue sparks flew from the cold iron chains as the woman inside redoubled her efforts against her imprisonment. “But the magic IS real. You were ignorant of that. You saw no danger in filling her head with it.”

“Her mother tried to stop me…” Marcus shuddered.

“And it earned her an early grave.”

The door to the circular room flew open, carrying the hot wind of midday with it. Drennl, the courier hastened inside, carrying a large, rectangular shape under one arm. “I’m sorry; we had to let it dry.” He explained as Marcus and the druid set to work erecting a stand in front of the cell door.

“Careful with that,” Marcus said as they put the object in its place. “The wealth of twenty families, and the blood of many, many others paid for this. We cannot risk damaging it.”

“Not to mention the combined might of magicians from across the realm.” The druid added.

“Are you sure this will work?” Drennl eyed the struggling woman warily. “That it will stop her forever.”

“Nothing is forever.” The druid said. His frustration with the foolish notions of the other men was clear in his tone. “But it will keep her at bay until such time as our knowledge of the things she has tapped has progressed enough to allow future generations to stop her.”

Marcus shook his head sadly. “We’ve paid enough—had enough rumors spread—that this will be the most valuable object in the know world for generations. No one will break the seal placed here.”

Blue sparks crackled again, accompanied by the sound of groaning metal.

“Do it now, Marcus.” The druid commanded.

Taking a deep breath, Marcus caught the woman’s eyes. “Please, Elise… please, just once more – for the sake of God and our land… look upon me… and recognize me.”

Through sweaty locks of hair, the feral woman gazed up, her eyes embers of hatred and defiance. “Y…you don’t know anything. You… you think you do, but you’re wrong. I’m not who you—who you think I am. I am Morganna le Fay.”

That was all Marcus needed; eye contact. His hand moved quickly to rip the oilcloth from the object stood before the cell door. Confused, Elise—Morganna—shifted her gaze toward the image on the canvas there. It was a single moment; one in which she saw herself portrayed in the most intimate detail of any painting she had ever seen.

A moment was all it took and that moment stretched on into infinity. Elise slumped in her chains; her body, bereft of its motivating force simply lay down and died.

Marcus bit his lip to hold back the tears and bid farewell to Elise, his little girl. His beloved daughter.

Mayfield, Virginia, 2074 A.D.

Warrick watched the cue ball ricochet its way around the pool table. In route, it sent the five, three and two balls into three separate pockets. The tentacles raised their cue in victory.

“Big deal,” He said with a grimace, “You still had to team up to beat me.” The tentacles made a gesture that while totally alien to any human physiology, was clearly rude. “Oh, real mature guys.” Warrick rolled his eyes.

The door opened and Ian entered from outside, closing his umbrella and placing it in the stand next to the door as he did. As testament to the effectiveness of the umbrella, he was soaked to the bone. “I see one of us had the basic common sense to stay inside today.” He noted.

“Melissa had some too. She’s upstairs talking with Kareem.” Warrick shot Ian a glance as he started racking the balls up again. “Up for a game?”

Ian noticed the look and nodded. “Another chance for you to make yourself feel better after getting your ass handed to you by your tin friends here? Sure.” The tentacles made the same rude gesture at him as they had made at Warrick earlier. Warrick snickered. “What?” Ian blinked.

“They’re aluminum, not tin.” Warrick said, with a smirk. “They’re not happy being called tin.”

“I know Cyn tells you this on a daily basis,” Ian said, “But your powers are weird.” Unlike Alexis, he didn’t try to ignore the fact and unlike Laurel, he didn’t try to sugar coat it. The younger psionic seemed to appreciate that about him.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Ian pretended that he hadn’t noticed Warrick’s nervous, shifty glances leading up to this. Just because he seemed honest to them, didn’t mean that he didn’t know when to lie to make them more comfortable. “You wanted to talk to me?” He casually took a pool cue off the stand against the wall. “Okay, what’s up?” Just as casually, he positioned the cue ball to break.

In reply, a smooth piece of pinkish material, about the size of a person’s thumb landed on the table in front of the cue ball.

Laying the cue stick aside, Ian picked up the substance. Aside from its odd hue – a cross between light pink and mother of pearl, it was rather unremarkable. “What’s this?”

“You probably heard about the whole thing at the craft expo a couple days ago?” Warrick began.

“Yeah, when you and the girls told us you three went to the Lexington Gallery and the mall at the Gates Center?” Ian didn’t even bat an eye at the fact that the youngsters had been somewhere other than where they had told him. The prolonged existence of Life Savers, Inc depended on such minor deceptions.

Warrick nodded.

“So what does this have to do with you two – excuse me – three stopping some crazy psionic from running amok?”

“Well, he was using these super hot fire blasts against us.” The young man began. “So I made us a shield out of copper to protect us. That… was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, copper’s as good at conducting heat as it as at conducting electricity. That’s elementary chemistry.” Ian shrugged, turning the chunk of pink stuff over in his hands thoughtfully. He gave Warrick a rueful look for the disbelieving look on the younger man’s face. “I do have a Bachelors of Applied Engineering, I’m allowed to know some chemistry.”

“That sort of thing didn’t really go through my mind at the time; what with the deadly fireballs and everything.” Warrick said with such a straight face that Ian wondered if he was being sarcastic or not. “Anyway, things started to heat up and I finally felt the heat moving through the copper in my metal sense. So I tried using my power to strengthen the copper against the heat…” He trailed off.

“How does that even work?” Ian asked, knowing full well the answer was ‘psionics’ followed by a shrug. At least that’s the answer he always got when he asked how his own powers worked. The actual mechanics of many psionic powers had spawned entire new branches of biology, all of which were new, exciting and largely inconclusive.

“It didn’t.” Warrick frowned. “At least not the way I expected. I pushed everything I had into the copper and it kind of, uh… broke.” He said the last word as if he didn’t know if it was the right word.

“Broke apart?” Ian asked.

“No, I mean it broke—like on the molecular level – sub-molecular, actually. It broke apart and came back together into a disc of that stuff you’re holding right now.”

Ian eyed the material nervously, as if it would bite him if he took his eyes off it. “What is this, Warrick?”

“I didn’t know at first.” The young psionic admitted. “My metal sense picked it up, but I couldn’t identify it like I do iron or tin or something.” He crossed the room to one of the couches and sat down on the back of it. “So yesterday, I went down to the science museum and took a look at their periodic table sample exhibit. Its bismuth, a metal I’ve never even heard of. But get this; it has one of the lowest heat conductions of any elemental metal.”

Ian hadn’t been prepared for this. He took a few moments to decide what to ask. “You’re telling me that your powers let you take matter apart and put it back together into a form that could protect you – on instinct?”

Warrick nodded, slowly. The room was quiet for a few minutes as both tried to decide what to say and do with this information.

Across town, Lisa Ortega smiled as her aunt finished recounting the tale of a road trip her mother and two other aunts had taken to the Grand Canyon.

“You make it sound so awesome, Aunt Tay,” Lisa said, using the nickname for the older woman her mother always used. “I can’t believe mom stole a burro, that’s so unlike her.”

Lisa’s aunt, Tatiana Farnsworth smiled at her. “Well, she wasn’t always the stuffed shirt researcher over at ConquesTech, Lisa. She was a girl your age once and she did just as many crazy things as you’ve probably done.” She was an elegant woman with dark hair and eyes to match. Her jewelry told of a vast amount of wealth when her modest apartment didn’t.

“You know, you love to embarrass mom, but you never tell me anything about the kind of trouble I’m sure you used to get into.” Lisa said conspiratorially. Her visits with her aunt only came once a month, but she was grateful for every moment she got with the person who seemed to be the only proof that being boring wasn’t simply part of her genetic makeup.

Tatiana laughed. “I was mom’s good girl back then, believe it or not. School reporter, honor roll, perfect attendance – I wanted to be the perfect student and daughter. My idea of an accomplishment back then was measured in how many entries I got in the yearbook.”

Lisa glanced over at the multitude of trophies and pictures that adorned the walls of her Aunt Tay’s dining/living room. For lack of a better word, her aunt was an adventurer. She had climbed Kilimanjaro, had kayaked half the suitable waterways in the United States, and had done at least two walkabouts in the Australian Outback. It was hard to believe that the woman before her had ever been what her grandmother would have called a ‘good girl’.

The phone in Tatiana’s office rang. “Hold that thought, Lisa.” She said, a barely hidden satisfaction playing on her face. “I’ve got to take this.” She swiftly moved back to the office and closed the door before picking up the phone. “Nightshade.” She said into the receiver.

“Good evening’, Lady Nightshade.” The twang of Vincent Liedecker’s voice came through. “So sorry it took so long to get a hold of ya. We’ve had some work going on, over here that needed my close attention.”

“I thought the painting was important to you.” Tatiana said, unafraid of the crime lord.

“Not as much as the fifty million it was insured for, no.” Liedecker said, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice picture – pretty lady on it and all – but it’s definitely not the Jewel of the Known World it used to be called.”

“I’m actually curious as to how you came to be in possession of this jewel.” Tatiana said conversationally. “It may not be worth much anymore, but the legends behind it would probably have landed it a comfy place in a museum somewhere.”

“I don’t see what business it is of yours, but I don’t see no harm telling you.” The phrase came with a verbal shrug. “Back in my globetrotting days, I found a vault in the basement of a mosque in what was left of Baghdad. Don’t know how it got there – probably loot taken back from crusaders – but that little beauty was part and parcel.”

“So you looted a holy site for a treasure of the ancient world.” Tatiana said, “And then used that treasure as part of an insurance scam?” She could barely contain the disgust she felt for such acts, or for her part played in it.

“That’s correct, Lady.” Liedecker seemed too proud of his ingenuity to notice Tatiana’s disgust. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to drop that treasure off at Tenth Street Shipping, you can get your payday and we can conclude our business.”

“What’s going to happen to the painting?” she asked for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of. “You can’t exactly show it off now that it’s ‘stolen’”.

“You’re asking a lot of questions that ain’t really your business, Lady.” The arms dealer drawled. “If you must know, it’s going to stay at the warehouse.”

For some reason, the thought of the Portrait of Morganna le Fay lying in a dark warehouse filled Tatiana with something close to dread. She shook herself and gave Liedecker a look through the phone. She wasn’t an art lover, but this painting was… something special. “You can’t do that.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was a palpable thing; a coiling serpent, ready to strike. Finally, Liedecker spoke. “I don’t think you meant to say that, Lady Nightshade. No. Body. tells me what I can’t and can’t do – not even my mama. You will have that painting at Tenth Street Shipping by midnight tonight – or bad things are gonna happen.”

Her mouth went dry. What had she done? Why had she done that? It didn’t matter; Liedecker only knew her through Brother Wright and with him missing, he had no way of knowing who she was, or even how to contact her unless she contacted him first. She was totally safe.

“By your silence, Nightshade, you think maybe you’re immune to me. Maybe you think you don’t need to apologize and beg for forgiveness?” He chuckled. “Or maybe you don’t care what happens to you – you seem the type. But don’t make the mistake of crossing me. Have that painting at TSS tonight or else – Tatiana Farnsworth.” The line went dead.

Suddenly, she realized everything that was wrong with the conversation – Liedecker wasn’t even supposed to know the number to her office phone – and yet he did. Tatiana slammed the phone down into its cradle. She was marked for death. What was going to happen now?

“Aunt Tay?” Lisa opened the door to the office. “Is everything okay? I heard you yell.”

Schooling her face, Tatiana smiled at her niece. “Sorry, Lisa… I… thought I saw a spider.”

“Ew.” Lisa said, glancing around the room. Even if being boring wasn’t genetic, she imagined that arachnophobia was.

“Don’t worry, I was mistaken.” Tatiana said quickly. “Uh, listen, I’ve got to run an errand for a friend. I’m really sorry to cut our visit short, but it’s really important.” Her gaze traveled to the painting. She couldn’t let it stay in a warehouse after all that time in a vault. For some reason, the thought wrenched her heart.

“Its okay, Aunt Tay.” Said Lisa, always an understanding girl. “I’ll call you next week? Maybe we can do lunch.”

“Yeah…” Tatiana said. Of course, all that hinged on her being alive next week. “Oh, before you go, I have a present for you.”

“Really?” Lisa asked. It was a ritual between them. Every time the two would visit, her aunt would give her a last minute present, purchased from a curio shop during her frequent outings. Unbeknownst to Lisa, some of these presents had previously been part of museum collections or in the private vaults of the wealthy.

This day’s present was forgotten though. Tatiana took the wrapped painting from what it stood and offered it to her niece who accepted it with a huge smile on her face. “Don’t open it until you get home, okay?” she asked, trying to sound like herself.

Lisa nodded and tucked the package under an arm before giving her aunt a hug. “Thanks Aunt Tay.” She said, before Tatiana walked her out of the apartment.

Alone in the room, Tatiana’s head cleared. She had just killed herself. Not with her own hand, but it was close enough – deliberate enough. And she had not idea why. Regarding the room full of her accomplishments, she made a fist with her right hand. She didn’t want to die. She wouldn’t die – but she would have to disappear…

-- • --

The lead pipe laid before Warrick deformed wildly, like some living thing struggling against unseen forces as blue sparks danced over it. Flecks of black material shed from the surface, leaving gleaming gold beneath. In a matter of seconds, a six inch length of lead piping had become a palm size irregular chunk of gold.

“I guess all that glitters can be gold.” Laurel said, trying to hide her awe. She, along with Cyn and Juniper were sitting cross legged on the grass a few feet from where the Freeland House property terminated at the shores of the ill named Lake Standish, which was simply a very large manmade pond separating the Freeland House property from its neighbors.

Cyn leaned over the newly transmuted chunk of precious metal. “Okay, the tentacles are one thing, but the new ‘philosopher’s stone’ capability pings you ten for ten on the weird-o-meter.” The tentacles were too concerned with prodding the end result of Warrick’s newly discovered powers to take offense.

Warrick himself shrugged. “Just when you thought I couldn’t get any weirder, eh?” the last few days had given him time to come to terms with this bizarre new facet of his powers much like he had come to terms with the sapient tentacles. He picked up the piece of gold and used a more familiar aspect to pull a piece off as if it was putty. A few seconds of concentration transformed the piece he had taken into a simple gold band. “Any more Middle Earth jokes, Ms. Brant?”

Laurel picked up the ring and gave it a once over. Sure enough, perpetual geek he was, Warrick had etched a rough estimation of a familiar line of script into the bauble. She couldn’t help but laugh. “Do not meddle in the affairs of metal controllers, for they are clever and quick to sight gags.” She tossed the ring back to him. “I think you’ve won this round, Warrick.”

“So… what do I do about this?” Warrick asked, shaping the remaining gold into a perfect sphere and tossing it up and down in his hand.

Laurel shrugged. “It’s up to you. It seems to be totally under control… except you’re tending to tarnish odd coins and such when you do it; and all my analysis say that the black material created as a by-product is inert; so I don’t see any problem leaving things up to you.”

“Are you kidding?!” Cyn burst out. “You can turn lead into gold and god knows what other crap metals out there into other kinds of liquid cash! There’s only one thing you can do with it!” In one of her trademark lapses in subtlety, she darkened a spot on her forehead to resemble a dollar sign. Everyone smirked at that, but Warrick shook his head.

“Nah, Cyn. That’s not only really unfair, but what happens when my cans-to-gold scam floods the gold market – gold’s valuable for a reason, right?”

“Then you make platinum!” Cyn almost shrieked in her excitement. Her best friend was a literal goldmine. It was almost more than a girl could handle.

“I think this is why Ms. Brant said she trusted Warrick with deciding what to do with it – because, you know, he won’t… well… destroy civilization with his powers.” Juniper spoke for the first time since the impromptu demonstration.

Cyn gave her a dirty look. The feud was over (before Juniper knew it had begun), but on occasion the brunette would say something Cyn was sure was meant to raise her hackles. “That’s not it.” She sniffed, “I mean my plan wouldn’t destroy civilization…” The others gave her amused but pointed glances. “.. per se…”

Laurel chuckled. “I have no doubt that you’d stop short of that, Cyn – but even with the sizable allowance we give you kids, you seem to go through it faster than anyone else.” She patted the pouting girl on the head. “Besides, this isn’t your responsibility; it’s Warrick’s.”

“So what do you plan on doing with it?” Juniper asked Warrick.

The young man shrugged. “Well, I think I finally know why I was in all those chemistry classes at the Academy – too bad I never paid attention. At the very least, I should know what I’m capable of, so I guess it’s time to hit the books.”

“I don’t agree with this plan.” Cyn said, “Isn’t there a happy medium between ‘live like a golden god (literally)’ and ‘boring chemistry lesson’?”

Juniper laughed. “How about this; we help Warrick pick up some useful books… and in return he orders AND pays for some complicated coffee orders you like ordering at the?”

Cyn grinned. Sometimes, Juniper did prove her worth. “Deal.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Warrick asked. “I mean I don’t actually need you two to help me get books on chemistry.”

“Nope.” Cyn said. “You’re out voted.”

Warrick pretended to be crestfallen, despite not really minding. “This is going to happen all the time now, I can tell.” He smirked as an amusing thought came to mind; with the recent addition of Juniper, there were four girls in their little circle of friends (discounting the shrinking violet, Melissa). “Nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the coven.”

At one time, the Dungeon had been a night club. Before that, it had been an antique store and when the block had been converted from an apartment complex to a commercial center, it had been an arcade. In each incarnation, its various owners saw fit to keep the original name and fit their establishments’ theme to it.

As a café (which it had remained for the last six years), the Dungeon took on a hybrid theme of medieval setting and cyber-café. The effect was an interesting study in mixed genres, with computers arranged on stout tables of simulated oak, illuminated by faux torchlight. Combined with reasonable prices and live music on the weekends, these features made the Dungeon a popular hangout for the high school crowd.

Kay and JC were sitting at a table littered with open magazines when Warrick, Cyn and Juniper entered.

“Well, I don’t believe it, JC,” Kay said melodramatically upon spotting the trio. “Cyn and Kaine are still alive – looks like I owe you at flavor shot.” Her hair was its natural black, save for vivid green highlights where it was cut off at her chin level.

JC, as Warrick and Cyn had learned by this point, had a knack for dressing in a matter counter to any concept of appropriateness for the environment. This day he wore a sweatshirt stamped with the seal of Dayspring College and cargo shorts. His hair was covered by a black and yellow bandana. “Sweet.” He grinned. “You guys just saved me a whole dollar. Glad you’re alive.”

“I’m glad our life is worth a dollar.” Cyn said dryly.

“Hey, is this the new girl over at the boarding house you told me about on the phone, man?” JC asked, ignoring Cyn’s bating. Early on, Cyn and Warrick had fabricated the story that Freeland House was a boarding house for teens. They left the details intentionally vague and luckily, no one asked many questions.

“Yup.” Cyn said, jerking a thumb at Juniper. “Juniper, these are JC and Kay the friends were we talking about.”

“Pleased to finally meet you.” Juniper said as the others moved to take seats at the table.

Warrick picked up one of the magazines on the table and flipped through it. “Car mags” he noted. “which of you is getting a car?”

“Me.” Kay said proudly. “After a year of having my license, my dad’s finally caving.”

“Somehow, I doubt he’s going to cave to the tune of a three hundred thousand dollar sports car.” Warrick said, noting a few images in some of the other magazines Kay had been perusing.

“A girl can dream, can’t she?” Kay said wistfully. “besides, I need something to reflect my rock and roll lifestyle.”

“Kay, hon?” Cyn raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have a rock and roll lifestyle. I mean you don’t even have a band yet; Snackrifice is basically you on keyboards and lyrics and Lisa on bass. You’re missing like half a band.”

“Details.” Kay scoffed. “Hey, Juniper, right?” she had the predatory look in her eye that Juniper had associated with Cyn. Hesitantly, the brunette nodded. “You play an instrument?”

“Not a note.” Juniper said. “But I can sing.” The moment she said it, Juniper wondered if she was making a mistake getting involved in whatever Kay was doing. She wanted to make friends, yes, but she had only met Kay moments before.

“Excellent.” Kay steepled her fingers in an intentionally evil looking manner. “Just wait until I tell Lisa we’ve got a lead vocalist!” She wallowed in her own self satisfaction for a moment, and then realized something. “Hey, where’s Lisa anyway?”

JC shrugged. “No idea, but she didn’t seem like she felt very good last night when she called me.”

“Poor kid.” Cyn frowned. “We should probably go see how she’s doing later today.”

After returning home from her visit with her aunt Tay, Lisa had decided to hide the painting under her bed. Somehow, she felt that her parents would object from such an opulent gift from her aunt. In point of fact, she hadn’t even looked at it.

So for three nights, the painting was under Lisa’s bed as she slept. On the day following the third night, she slept late – until noon. And when the sun had reached its zenith, it wasn’t Lisa who awoke.

Morganna. That was the name that presented itself in her mind. She remembered being called by another name, but that was unimportant. She was Morganna le Fay; a dazzling beauty, a mind whose genius was unmatched and one of the most powerful beings in the 12th century AD.

Of course, this wasn’t the 12th century. A few cursory moments rifling through her new body’s memories told her that the year was recorded as 2074. She had spent over nine hundred years suspended in the web of soul trapping spells the ‘unknown’ artist had woven over the surface of her image. Her thoughts had ceased the moment she had seen her own face on the vellum.

The next thing she recalled was the moment that someone had disrupted the magic. The idea of cleaning paintings other than cursory dusting had been unheard of in her time. But someone had used some mixture—a chemical, her new body’s old mind supplied the word, to remove the filth of centuries in a vault somewhere. And with it, the magics had dissipated, allowing her to touch the world and influence minds in the most subtle ways.

First was the man, Liedecker. He was rich and grasping and it took almost no effort to convince him to make an easy profit. That was all it took to find her way out of his private art collection where she could never find a new body.

Then the thief. Her given name was Farnsworth, but she was one of those who knew their own true-name; Nightshade. Her nature was bombastic, fearless; making her a bit more reckless was also no effort for the powers of Morganna. That had led to her feeling fear, a fear Morganna used in conjunction with her fondness for her kin to find her way into the hands of the young woman – Morganna’s new body.

Flexing Lisa’s hands experimentally, Morganna rose and crossed the room to the dresser. Rifling through the young woman’s memory told her some suitable clothes could be found there. She dressed quickly in a powder blue sundress with a leather belt wrapped thrice around her waist. Scowling at her lack of head accessories, Morganna made note to find one of those… stores? Yes, that was the word, and procure a proper head covering.

Thus prepared, Morganna left the tall domicile her body remembered was called an ‘apartment’ and struck out into the overgrown forest of similar stone towers called Mayfield. Along the way, she pillaged more of her body’s memories.

‘Magic’ as this time knew it was… tricks. Not even tricks, it was the kind of slight of hand and legerdemain practiced by cutpurses and charlatans. The body ‘knew’ that magic wasn’t real and regarded anyone who believed otherwise as unstable or misguided.

“Then… then… tell me what I was… held by for nine hundred years.” Morganna mumbled as she walked. The world had changed greatly in her time imprisoned; alchemical concoctions based on the essence of creatures dead for millennia or the harnessed power of lightning (or a facsimile ‘generated’ by burning other dead things, or leashing other natural phenomena) provided mankind with the key to wonders that even magic hadn’t imagined.

“But without magic it is… nothing. Meaningless.” Morganna muttered, stopping at a ‘Don’t Walk’ sign as her body’s instincts demanded. Machines powered by alchemy and lightning rumbled past her. Supposedly, they had been created to allow men to travel faster, but in this setting, it seemed that a horse at a trot could outpace them. ‘Traffic’; when too many of the modern machines clogged the designated pathways they were allowed to travel.

Rules. Without magic, things had to follow rules. And because of those ‘rules’, such as those governing where a vehicle could travel, this ‘traffic’ thing happened. Morganna crossed the street with the light and noticed one of the machines had been abandoned in front of a store. “But… if… if someone were to use magic in conjunction with one of these machines…” she wondered aloud as she slowly circled the thing her body told her was a ‘motorcycle’. “Then she could… the rules wouldn’t mean… anything to her and she… would get the maximum convenience from the machine.”

Sitting astride the machine, she quashed down the protests of her instincts. Taking this thing was wrong, but that was a rule. Morganna was beyond rules. Uttering a few words, she delved her mind into the machine, finding its mechanisms and forcing them into her control. “Live” she verbally commanded the device and it roared for its new mistress.

Yes, these machines were delightful. There had been no resistance as there would be with a human or creature of Faerie. There was no chance that it would shrug off her control – no chance for it to break free. This ‘technology’ was at her whim.

“This is… is… is…” She searched for the word as she often found she had to. “Perfect.” Focusing, she forced her new body as well as the machine into the astral plane. Bystanders stopped and gaped as the girl and motorcycle both became translucent, then faded from being.

Once in the rose tinted environs of the Astral, Morganna smiled. As she suspected, the vehicles and therefore the traffic didn’t make an impression on the Astral plane. She could travel the streets at maximum speed here, without need to care about ‘traffic’ or the local laws her body had tried to make her fret about.

Now she could get down to business. She needed reagents for more complex, longer lasting spells; snake venom, the skins of frogs of newts, and the soft organs of vermin, for starters. Her new body told her that such things were conveniently gathered together for her in one place in this city of towers.

Commanding the motorcycle to roar once more, Morganna set off toward her destination; the G. M. Logan Zoological Park.

-- • --

“It’s a… it’s a… menagerie.” Morganna mumbled to herself as she wandered goggle-eyed along the brick pathways of the G.M. Logan Zoological Park, located on Mayfield’s south end. She had dredged up memories of this place and the unusual creatures contained within, but seeing it on her own was an entirely different experience. She had still been expecting a small gathering of useful animals before she had stepped through the gates and received her first glimpse of the lank, yellow and brown monstrosities she identified as ‘giraffes’.

Things hadn’t become any better in the hour since. Grey skinned behemoths with serpentine appendages; bears in a great variety – albino, black and white, and a colossal variant called a ‘Kodiak’; huge, bipedal rats that moved in a bounding gait and stored their young in gashes in their bellies… it was too much to take in. Trying to recall her body’s memories on these matters only made things worse. The flood of new terms and concepts would need hours to assimilate.

But while the menagerie’s monsters were confounding, the people were the ones that posed a problem. There were hundreds there; men, women and children, milling about, observing the curiosities. They even took meals here! That many watchers would surely stop her from gathering the necessary regents.

Though she had killed to add to her own power, Morganna didn’t fancy herself cold blooded. She wouldn’t slaughter hapless dolts who were wholly ignorant of magic – it wasn’t sporting and it served no real purpose. She would simply have to wait until this place was less crowded to gather the things she needed. Memory told her it closed to the public at night.

There was a high, tinny warbling sound that made her jump. The sound came again and she realized it was coming from her waist. Glancing down, she noticed a machine her body had clipped to her belt out of habit. Right now habit demanded she open it and place it to her ear – which she did.

“Uh… Lisa?” a male voice came from the device. Morganna blinked, Lisa was the name her body was called by, and it reacted to it. How had the device known her name? A few memories laughed at her and she slowly became aware that the device itself didn’t speak; it allowed communication over distance. “Hello?” The voice came again as she was absorbing this new data.

“Yes…” she began tentatively. She remembered the voice. Her new memory brought with it emotions attached to it; attraction, frustration, and a fond, warm happiness. Perhaps this voice belonged to her betrothed?

“Oh good, I thought I’d been cut off.” The voice on the other end used some vernacular it took her a moment to understand. “Anyway, Warrick, Kay and Cyn are here, asking about you. If you’re feeling alright, they wanted you to meet the new girl at Freeland House.”

“I’m… I’m fine.” Morganna was struck by the need to assure him of her health. “In fact, I feel… better than I’ve ever felt.”

“Great!” He sounded genuinely relieved. “How about we head over to your place. Want me to bring anything?”

Morganna blinked. What luck; her betrothed would have more experience navigating the shops in this area than she could without taking some serious time sifting through memories. “Oh sure…” she searched for an appropriate sobriquet. “…honey.” something in the back of her head was mortified that she had called him that. “Could you bring me something sweet… sugar… something like that? Oh! And… and meat! Something exotic… something… do you think you can get me some frog’s legs, sweetheart?” That thing in the back of her mind curled up and whimpered.

“O-okay…” the voice said. Morganna could almost see him blinking his confusion. “We’ll be at your place in about an hour then. See you in a bit. Bye.”

Morganna closed the device – phone; she corrected herself sharply. If she was going to function in this time period, she would have to learn. Time… she thought… her betrothed said he and those other people would be back at her body’s family’s home in an hour. That was troublesome. She had abandoned the motorcycle machine in the Astral plane when she arrived rather than expend the energy to drag it out again.

Looking around, she found a woman with silver hoop earrings. At least she hoped they were silver; her memory told her that false precious metals and gems were fairly common. But she had to take that chance.

With no hesitation, she walked over to the woman and grabbed the earring in her left lobe. “Need this.” She stated as she ripped it out. The woman shrieked and the man that had been walking with her exclaimed in anger.

Morganna didn’t notice or really care. The woman had the silver circle she needed for her spell – it was common sense that she take it as needed. It wasn’t as if that woman could do magic. Walking away from the stunned couple, oblivious of the zoo security officers advancing on her, she began chanting her spell.

One of the security officers almost reached her when a pool of rosy light flared into being at her feet. Watching the shocked sexurity guards with open curiosity, she sank into the pool of light and was gone..

JC slowly lowered his cell phone from his ear, a puzzled look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Juniper asked; empathetic as always.

“Well, apparently Lisa and I are dating again.” JC blinked. “She called me ‘sweetheart’.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Kay asked with a shrug. “I mean you’re not the one who keeps breaking it off.” She rolled her eyes “Then again, this is what – your fifth time back up to bat?”

“Third.” JC said. He wasn’t really bothered by the ebb and flow of his relationship with Lisa. “But that’s not the thing that’s got me squicked. She was talking really weird – kind of like that old movie; Rain Man or something.” He screwed up his nose. “And she asked me to bring her some frog’s legs.”

“Ew.” Warrick and Juniper echoed.

“Philistines!” Cyn made a face at them. “They’re good – like escargot.”

“I’m not up on taking dining tips from the girl with the iron stomach.” Kay pointed out. “I mean I’ve seen you drink soy sauce when the food is taking too long. Besides;” she said thoughtfully. “Lisa’s a really picky eater, I’m pretty sure she’d have been part of the ‘ew’ chorus on this one.”

“People change.” Cyn shrugged. “Anyway, we’ll ask her about it when we get there – come on, I know this cool Creole place that does frog legs.”

The quintet of teens set off to complete their absent friend’s strange errand.

Zack Ortega lay on the couch in his family’s living room, watching television when an explosion of sound and air came from behind him, tossing his hair into his face and unsettling the knickknacks arrayed on the nearby mantle. Sitting bolt upright, he found his sister emerging from a pool of pinkish light in the epicenter of the now settling gale.

At least the person resembled his sister. She had the same six foot, lithe frame, the same light brown hair that fell to her waist, the same tan complexion. However, the siblings were also twins, so some variance was instantly recognizable in his eyes. Where Lisa stood tall and proud, this person hunched, reducing the overall effect of her height. The hair that was normally gathered into a thick braid down her back was loose and blowing in the remnants of the phantom wind. And her face… her eyes were off focus, half scrutinizing everything in sight, half ignoring it all.

“Lisa?” He asked, his voice still not rising above his normal, shy whisper. “Are you okay?”

Morganna didn’t notice him at first. She was staring at the earring in her hand. It was glowing as if with some intense heat, but it didn’t harm the hand that held it. “It wasn’t… wasn’t pure.” She muttered, “Barely got me back here.” She dropped the thing on the floor where it scorched the carpet. Only then did she notice Zack.

“What are you talking about, Lisa?” Zack blinked, leaning over the sofa to watch the earring smolder on the floor. “What’s that?”

She tilted her head slightly in a sudden, jerky motion, almost like a nervous tic. “Nothing of your concern, dear brother.” She gave his mind a little push. He was a naturally compliant person, used to obeying his sister in the first place and having little in the way of willpower in any event. It took no effort for Morganna to touch his mind and shut it down.

Zack slumped, asleep for at least the next three hours without intervention. With such favorable circumstances, she could have done anything she wanted – but right now all she wanted was not to have to explain herself. She needed some peace and quiet to sit and sift through her memories. Shoving Zack off the sofa and onto the floor, she took his place.

“Sugar cookies and frog’s legs.” Warrick pondered. “Could Lisa have asked for any weirder combination?”

“She didn’t ask for the cookies specifically, only something sweet.” JC shrugged. The whole group was walking up the hall from the elevator toward Lisa’s family’s apartment.

“I just hope she appreciates it.” Kay said. “Jeez, twenty-eight dollars for the legs? How much does a whole frog cost?”

“I once bought one at the pet shop for three dollars.” Juniper offered. “Granted, it wasn’t fried and smothered in savory Cajun spices…” She blinked as a new thought hit her. “What exactly do they do with the rest of the frog?”

Cyn snorted. “Gumbo.”

“You can’t be serious.” Juniper asked.

“You don’t know, do you?” Cyn said with a wink. “Maybe they make it into sausage, or hot dogs, or some other unrecognizable meat.”

“Potted meat.” Warrick said, “You ever read those cans? They have to print ‘Food Product’ on the side just to reassure you.” That drew a chorus of laughter from the others. By that time, they had reached the Ortegas’ door and JC held up a fist to knock.

The door flew open and there stood Lisa, looking disheveled and feverish. “You made… good time.” She murmured and waved them inside. She gave JC and odd look and added “Sweetheart.” The four others outside the door exchanged glances.

JC looked back at the others and started inside. The door led into a small hallway with the kitchen off to the left, and the living room straight ahead. Lisa led them to the kitchen. “Yeah…” JC started “about that… Are we back together again?”

“Back…together?” Lisa blinked, as she swept her gaze over the group. She also surveyed them in other, arcane senses. Something about a few of them was off. “Oh yes! I… broke up with you because…” she paused and looked of into the distance, forming the words. “I don’t have any control over my temper. I…I get angry at you too easily and… do things I regret soon after.” Morganna felt a part of her mind flush with embarrassment.

“Wait… did you just admit that?” Kay asked. “I mean we all knew that—but damn.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Lisa said quickly. “Did you bring the things I asked for? The… the… frog’s legs and sugar?” She seemed totally oblivious to the surprise registering on Kay and Cyn’s faces.

“Yeah.” JC said slowly. He was happy to be dating Lisa again, but increasingly apprehensive about her odd behavior. Forcing a warm smile, he handed her the bag containing the wrapped cookies and foam take out container with the frog’s legs.

Lisa took it greedily with a small squeal of excitement that triggered another round of nervous glances. Without further preamble, she tore into the cookies first and spent an uncomfortably long moment regarding them before cramming one entire cookie into her mouth. As she chewed, she muttered something no one there could understand.

Morganna’s senses sharpened. As the attunement spell that had required plant sugars took effect, she could hear the heartbeats of those assembled, smell the scent of their nervousness as well as JC’s tentative happiness. And she could feel the power locked inside the ones she had seen as strange earlier. “This… this is wrong. Very wrong.” She muttered, spitting crumbs as she did. “No one else has magic. This… doesn’t feel like magic. It feels like… Faerie?” She shook her head. It felt like the innate power of the fey race, but it was something else entirely – something new and alien to her.

“Fairies?” Cyn questioned. “What the hell are you talking about Lisa?”

She was ignored as Lisa tore open the container with the frog’s legs. The former amphibian appendages had been breaded and fried then covered in thick, brown gravy. Lisa whimpered, her jaw dropping. Then she rounded on her friends, eyes blazing.

“They’re cooked!” She shrieked, “Burned! You… you… you burned them with fire and mingled them with grains and herbs! Almost useless!” The last part was a wail as she tried desperately to wipe the batter and gravy off a leg joint.

“You wanted them raw?” Cyn asked, disapprovingly. “Even I wouldn’t eat them raw.”

“That’s how it works.” Lisa mumbled peeling a bit of burnt skin off and setting it carefully aside. “If you burn it… cook a thing, you change it, make it something else. You… you take its meaning and make it less powerful.” She was working faster now, amassing a small pile of frog skin. “You… your stupid world without magic. You don’t… don’t know anything. You don’t comprehend!”

“Lisa, calm down.” Kay put a hand on Lisa’s arm with concern in her eyes. “I think you may be sick or some—“

Lisa’s hand moved like a snake, jerking Kay’s arm aside and twisting it painfully. “You.” She declared. “You aren’t natural. A thing that changes the Rules without touching the power. What are you?”

Warrick stepped into the fray quickly seizing the arm that held Kay and trying to pull it free. “Whoa, Lisa. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not Lisa.” Morganna snarled, fixing her eyes on an old iron skillet hung over the range as a decoration. “I took her. Pressed her down. She’s still here, but she can’t do anything. I’m here now too. I’m… I’m in charge now.”

“And just who the hell are you then?” Cyn came over to help pry the two girls apart.

Morganna pushed herself away and grabbed the skillet off the wall and chanted something strange. Headless of the consequences of Lisa, Kay and JC learning his secret, Warrick reached out with his power to wrench the makeshift weapon away from her, but was shocked when his powers were repelled by it. The cooking utensil flared with a pale blue light and then transformed. The handle was the same, but the skillet itself elongated and flattened, becoming a thin, oddly elegant blade.

“I am magic. I have struck fear in the circles of wizards and faerie courts. I have made power mine with spell and blade and a cunning mind. I am Morganna le Fay.” Morganna intoned as she lunged at them with the enchanted blade.

-- • --

Warrick wrenched Kay sideways, out of the path of the flashing blade. At the same time, he tried again to attack the weapon with his powers. Once again, he failed. Morganna swung again, forcing him to stumble back with Kay still clutched near him.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?!” Cyn demanded. She grabbed Morganna’s wrists and tried to hold her back. “Have you completely flipped?”

Juniper grabbed Kay from Warrick’s grasp and put her free hand on JC’s shoulder. “We need to get out of here. We need to call the police.” Seeing ‘Lisa’ struggle violently with Cyn was all the convincing the two needed and they allowed Juniper to coax them toward the door.

“What about Warrick and Cyn?” Kay asked as they exited.

“They’ll be right behind us.” Juniper assured.

Back in the kitchen, Morganna felt her grip on the ensorcelled weapon slipping. The girl, Cyn was strong – far stronger than a natural human her size would be. “What are you?” She grunted. “You are no mundane being… no human… but you are not Faerie… a fey either.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Cyn demanded. She had reached the end of her patience with Lisa’s new strangeness. To be truthful, she was a bit unnerved that Lisa suddenly knew she was a psionic but she was most disturbed at being called inhuman. “If you can turn frying pans into swords – guess what? You’re psionic too!” With that, she flattened her hands to paper thinness and forced them under Morganna’s grip, seizing the weapon away.

Pushing away from Cyn, Morganna stared at her as if studying her under glass. She searched her new memories and dug up knowledge on people with superhuman abilities. Those people were capable of a range of things that albeit specialized, was capable of breaking the same basic rules magic was capable of. They were usurpers, pale reflections of the true variety and greatness of magic.

Morganna’s eyes flashed. “Abomination!” she howled. Her summoned sword was gone, magic leaking from it like a sieve, and she had no other handy reagents or foci to work with. That left only vulgar magic as an option.

Vulgar magic was the crudest, easiest form of magic. It relied purely on pouring the right amount of energy into something in the right pattern to create an effect. It was short lived, unreliable, and often had damaging or even explosive results. It was the magical equivalent of grasping the reigns of reality with one’s bare hands and twisting it into the basic shape one wanted. And that is exactly what Morganna did.

Red light formed in her hand and before Cyn could react, Morganna thrust it into her midsection. Raw lines of force shot out in a cone from Morganna’s outstretched hand, accompanied by a sound like thunder. Cyn was lifted bodily and thrown into the kitchen wall, smashing through the drywall and landing in the front hall.

“I am magic… power overwhelming! You are wrong. Anathema. I will—“Morganna’s tirade was cut off by a metal tentacle wrapping swiftly around her midsection, forcing the air from her lungs in a loud ‘whuff’.

“Lisa, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Warrick said, directing the other tentacle to bind her thrashing legs. “But this isn’t you. We’re your friends. Kay’s your best friend. You don’t want to hurt us and we don’t want to hurt you. Just calm down.”

Morganna wasn’t listening. Her mind was on the presences she was now aware of. Moments ago the tentacles had been bands wrapped around the ‘psionic’s’ arms; inert and inanimate. Now they were alive. Not just animated, but alive. In her mage’s senses, she could feel their living, thinking minds even as they tried to hold her immobile. This was something that magic couldn’t do; something nothing of Faerie was capable of. It was unique and something she would need to learn more about.

She began to giggle. It wasn’t Lisa’s amused chuckle, no; it was a mad, low titter that had her shaking in her aluminum bonds. “Something new… something I can work with in this… barren world.” She muttered and began to outright laugh uncontrollably.

Cyn glared at the hysterical woman as she got off the floor. Her irritation at the situation was quickly catching up to her concern for her friend. “Lisa.” She said through clenched teeth, “Stop it.”

“No.” Morganna said, suddenly cutting her own laughter off. “You… you don’t understand. You won’t understand until… until it’s too late.” Vulgar magic didn’t need the fancy hand gestures that higher magics required. It only needed knowledge and will, which Morganna had in spades.

Blue sparks raced up her body, dancing briefly over the tentacles before racing down their length into Warrick who screamed and fell to the ground, convulsing. The tentacles let out a similarly pained sound and dropped Morganna as if burned.

“Warrick!” Cyn exclaimed, rushing to her fallen friend. He was shivering, seemingly knocked senseless, but aside from painful looking burns where the tentacles attached to his arms, he was still whole. She glared up at Morganna who was just regaining her feet. “I don’t care what powers you’ve got, Lisa. You’ve got to be stopped. So you don’t hurt anyone else and for your own good.” With that, she leapt at her.

Morganna flattened to the ground, allowing Cyn to pass harmlessly over her. “Oh, but I do… care about your powers.” She hissed, dashing past Warrick and into the hall. “But I can’t… don’t have time to see to them now. I have to find regents… get foci… magic is complicated – everything I’ve shown you are just… tricks.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Cyn said, rounding on her and preparing to charge again. “Psionic powers aren’t magic. There’s not such thing.” She ran headlong into Morganna seeking to knock her out.

Letting the blow come, Morganna girded herself in magic, forcing it into taunt lines around her upper torso and arms. “This. Is. Magic!” She lifted Cyn bodily off the floor. With the last remnant of her hasty spell, she threw Cyn down the hall into the living room. The young shapeshifter smashed into a bookcase, which let out a groan as it fell on her.

With an almost casual grace, Morganna strolled into the room and looked at Cyn struggling to get the sturdy piece of furniture off of her. “You… should have let me go in the first place.” She said with a shrug.

From where Cyn lay, she could see Zack prone beside the sofa. His eyes were wide and vacant, but he was still breathing. “Oh my god…” she murmured. “Lisa, what did you do to Zack? He’s you’re brother, damnit!”

“He’s this body’s brother.” Morganna shrugged. “I… respected that, I think. He’s only… out for the next… hour? Two hours?”

Flattening herself further than humanly possible, Cyn started sliding out from under the bookcase. “Why are you doing this, Lisa? What the hell is going on?”

Strange, mad eyes met Cyn’s gaze and she instantly felt fear well up inside her. A bit of power washed over her was Morganna used the eye contact as an impromptu focus for a spell whose description roughly translated to truth speaking. “Hear me… psionic. I am… not the one whose face you see. I am… inhabiting her. Riding her skin. I am… exactly as told you – Morganna le Fay Wielder of the knowledge that grants power—Magic… in its true form.”

She finished with a sharp kick that pressed the bookcase down harder on top of Cyn and walked over to the picture window that looked out over East 79th street from ten stories up. “This world has… forgotten everything. I will have to… rectify that.” She opened the window and looked back at Cyn. “You will tell them… let them know who I am… and what I can do.” With that, she threw her power into the wind and stepped out into empty space.

Inside the apartment, Cyn screamed in frustration and rage, but mostly concern for her former friend.

Everything in the universe operates according to certain rules; certainties that allow existence to happen. As far back as the pharaohs of Egypt, knowledge of the most basic of these was held by the most learned of men. Those same men suppressed this knowledge. They didn’t do so to oppress anyone or for profit; not out of elitism or religious fervor. They did what they did because they were mages and the mere knowledge of things such as gravity made magic harder to perform.

The human brain rejects magic, especially magic that violates rules it knows to be true. For example, a brain that has been schooled in the law of gravity knows that it is wrong not to fall in the direction of the strongest gravitational force and subconsciously sabotages any spell to the contrary.

Through rigorous meditation and other mental conditioning, a spellcaster can train their brain to ignore this wrongness, allowing them to freely use physics defying spells at their whim. The problem Morganna was suddenly aware of as she stepped out of the Ortega’s tenth story window was thus; such mental conditioning is part of the mind, not the soul. The mind is a physical thing, ingrained in the topography of the living brain. And the brain Morganna was now using was not her own, highly conditioned brain.

And so she plummeted.

Cursing her fate, Morganna could only think how strange it was that her new mind fixated on the oddest of details as it fell; the color of the cars below, how cold the air felt, how the unusual weight on her hand where she had placed the silver ring from Mrs. Ortega’s jewelry box was—

She suddenly felt very foolish. She laughed manically as the ground rushed up to dash her into itself – and missed.

Warrick groaned as he woke up. His arms ached as if he’d done a thousand push-ups and the familiar weight of the tentacles’ bracers was missing. He opened his eyes, only to have them assaulted by the intense brightness of the room he was in. He swiftly closed them again.

“Laurel, he’s awake.” He heard Cyn say.

“Warrick?” Laurel’s voice said. “You’re going to be okay. The paramedics got to you before we could, so you’re in the hospital.”

“Did what I think happened just happen?” Warrick asked. “And where are the boys? They were out when…”

“They curled up and unsummoned by the time I got to you.” Cyn said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got their arm thingies right here.” Warrick heard the sound of metal ringing against metal as Cyn apparently held them up.

“And the first question?” Warrick asked with a half smile. He was able to squint through the brightness now.

Cyn sighed. “Yeah, it happened.”

“Where’s Lisa?” He asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Cyn grimaced. “She threw me under a bookcase and jumped out the window. The bright side is, she definitely didn’t go splat.”

Warrick sat up, blinking away the last of the brightness. “She’s gone? We have to find her. She’s dangerous like this!”

“Which is why you shouldn’t be going after her.” Laurel said. “From what Cyn’s told me, Lisa’s got some very complex mojo going on and it’s not your average, run of the mill psionic power.” She shrugged, “If she even is a psionic.”

“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Warrick asked.

“Have you ever heard of someone that can make swords, shoot lightning, throw people and render people unconscious?” Cyn asked. “Lisa did all of that. Well, at least whatever’s in Lisa’s head did.” She bit her lip. “Warrick, that wasn’t even Lisa back there. It’s like some alien thing in her head – it said it was skin-riding her.”

“Like the episode of Malady Place where the demon got inside Winter and made her hit on—“

“Pretty much.” Cyn said.

“So we’re dealing with a demon? Demons are real?”

“We don’t know anything for sure.” Laurel said, “There has got to be some explanation for this—probably involving a new kind of psionic power. The point is there isn’t a lot you can do for her right now – not without first finding out what we’re getting into.”

“She’s our friend, Ms. Brant!” Warrick said, “There has to be something we can do.”

“On top of that, she’s going to come back after us.” Cyn shivered, “She acted surprised as hell when she figured out what psionics are and after she noticed the tentacles, she looked at us like we were in a Petri dish.”

“I know you two want to help her and I know you two think you can handle it.” Laurel sighed. “Look, I know about Lifesavers, Inc, okay?” She didn’t pause for the surprised stares. “I’ve spent a lot of time crawling the web for psionic activity and you three were hard to miss. The fact is, I’m very proud of you for all the good you’ve managed to do.”

“Then why can’t—“Warrick started.

“Because whatever’s going on with Lisa isn’t as simple as a house fire, or a runaway car, nor is she going to be as easy for your guys to deal with as a gang banger or even a rogue psionic – she’s your friend and I know you all don’t want to hurt her.”

“If we’re not going to be able to help her, who will?” Cyn demanded.

Laurel gave her a thoughtful look. “Let me take care of convincing them, okay? Right now, you two should take care of your other friends – Kay is especially shaken up by this. I’ll send her, Juniper and JC in.” She stood, smoothing her skirt out and headed toward the door.

“Convincing them?” Warrick wondered aloud, “You mean…”

Laurel nodded and smiled slightly. “Back when we were in school, they called themselves Chaos and Darkness – those sound like prefect names for prelates, no?”

-- • --

Traditionally, the ‘courtesy room’ was used as a place for family to be alone to discuss medical situations in private. A bit of fast talk from Laurel had relaxed the rules a bit and allowed everyone affected by the comparatively non-serious incident at the Ortega home to use it.

Kay, JC and Juniper sat at one end of the room, quiet, confused, and visibly shaken by what had happened with Lisa. Alexis and Ian sat at the other end, nearest the door, sitting close and talking softly.

“I was always worried about the threats we knew were out there.” Alexis clenched her fists. “I was so focused on keeping everything normal for them – to let them have normal lives, that I didn’t see it coming.” She leaned on Ian who put an arm around her.

“There’s not a lot you could have done, Alexis. We’ve met Lisa. She seemed like a good kid; may still be a good kid under all the crazy that’s going on.” He rubbed her back as she shuttered with a long, unhappy sigh. “It’s not like we could keep the kids from having friends – and Warrick’s not even that hurt. You heard the doc, its superficial burns. Once we get home, I’m sure Melissa…” He remembered they weren’t alone in the room, “Knows some first aid that’ll help.”

Alexis nodded. “I know all that, Ian, but I still feel like we should have done something…”

“We can.” No one in the room had heard Laurel enter, but she suddenly made her presence known, standing in the doorway with her usual air of confidence and compassion. She gave her friends a smile before directing her attention to the youngsters.

“Warrick’s awake now.” She said, “Doctor Munroe wants to keep him overnight for observation, but I think he’ll feel much better after he sees his friends.” The three smiled at her and got up to go.

“I knew he’d be okay.” Kay said, putting on a strong front. “He’s a good guy; good guys always pull through.”

“I won’t argue with that.” Juniper said, “After all, he saved your life.”

“What about Zack?” JC asked.

“Still asleep, I’m afraid – the doctors still don’t know why. His mother’s with him now though.”

JC nodded gravely and exited with the girls.

Laurel closed the door behind them and sat down across from Alexis and Ian. For a few moments, she just surveyed them with a warm smile.

“Doctor Monroe said he just had minor electrical burns.” Alexis said, worriedly. “Why does she want to keep him overnight now?”

“Because someone filled her head with all sorts of unrelated statistics about loss of consciousness and possible brain damage.” Laurel admitted. “I figured that giving him a night of being waited on hand and foot by nurses would keep him occupied so he wouldn’t go looking for this Morganna person before I get a chance to investigate.”

“You mean Lisa.” Ian said, “Morganna’s just something she made up. I guess she thinks she’s a twisted version of a prelate or something now that she’s got powers.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Laurel said, running a hand through her hair.

“What do you mean? Not sure of what?” Alexis asked. Knowing Laurel, she knew better than to ignore the genius level psionic’s hunches.

“All of it.” Laurel said. “You both heard what Cyn said; this Morganna person was extremely out of character for Lisa even before she went spare. And I’m not even sure we’re dealing with a psionic either, to be truthful.”

“What else could she be but a psionic?” Alexis asked, “She’s clearly got powers.”

“Oh, she definitely has powers.” Laurel nodded, “more powers than any psionic I’ve ever heard of.” She counted on her fingers. “She can either change her shape or possess people; she emits energy blasts; she can transform one object into another; she’s super strong; and she has some ability that lets her survive a ten story fall. That’s a tall order for anyone. Even Cyn only really has one power; she’s just really creative with it.”

“Couldn’t this person also be really creative?” Ian pointed out, “Maybe she’s a top tier psionic like we used to hear rumors about – probability manipulators, temporal adepts – that kind of thing.”

“I can’t rule that out either.” Laurel admitted. “but we can’t rule out that she may be something else entirely. Either way, as unstable as she is – especially if this really is Lisa thinking she’s someone else, she’s dangerous and it falls to us to stop her. We’re the only ones who can.”

Alexis shook her head, “No, we’re not prelates – we can’t risk drawing attention to us and the kids.”

“If we don’t, the kids will.” Ian said with certainty in his voice. “Plus, we’ve already done it a couple times before.”

“That was different.” Alexis said slowly, “The kids were in trouble…”

“So were the Kin.” Ian pointed out.

“So was Juniper.” Laurel added, “And now so is Lisa. If she goes nuts with her powers in public, you better believe the Academy will send their thugs to Mayfield and how long do you think it’ll take them to discover our kids once they do?”

Frowning, Alexis lowered her head. “You’ve made your point. We can’t let this girl stay out there alone and out of control. How do we start?”

Warrick used the bed’s controls to manipulate it into a sitting position as the rest of his friends entered. “Hey guys.” He said as if nothing had happened.

“Glad you’re alright, man.” JC nodded to him. “I don’t even know what to say. I didn’t see it coming.”

“No worries,” Warrick shook his head. “None of us did. I’m just glad no one was hurt.” He touched his bandaged arm and winced, “…much.”

“I’m sorry about all of that, Kaine.” Kay said, moving over beside the bed, “This is sort of my fault. She freaked out because of me.”

“What’s that mean?” Cyn asked from across the bed. “She was pretty much freaking out at everything back there.”

“No,” Kay shook her head, “It was me.” She heaved a long sigh. “Okay, none of this leaves this room, understand?” The others nodded and she continued, “Somehow, she could tell—I mean, she knew I was…” Another sigh.

“Now you’re talking like she was.” Cyn said to lighten the mood. No one laughed.

“I’m a psionic.” Kay finally said. None looked more surprised than Warrick and Cyn. “That’s what she freaked out over.”

“Wait… what?” Warrick tilted his head as if that would help him see Kay’s psionic nature more clearly.

“How did we not know this?!” Cyn exclaimed. There was more meaning in what she said than Kay knew.

“Really? That’s awesome!” JC said, oblivious.

Juniper took note of the surprised response and cocked her head inquisitively, “How come you didn’t tell your friends?” she asked, “It’s not like there’s much widespread hate for u—psionics these days.”

“That’s not the point.” Kay said, looking around at her friends. “Look, if they found out, my parents would send me off to the Academy and I’d end up training for a boring desk job or something for the rest of my life and I’m not exactly thrilled about that.”

Juniper shivered at the mention of the Academy and touched her scars under her sleeve.

“Exactly.” Kay said, assuming the shiver was in response to the prospect of taking a desk job.

“So… what do you do?” JC asked, unknowingly provoking Cyn to roll her eyes.

Kay smiled sheepishly. “You know how I play keyboards, right?” She asked. He nodded, “Ever notice that you’ve never seen me put batteries in?” He blinked and she snickered. “I can pretty much copy any sound I’ve heard. Voices, music, background noise – check it out, JC, remember that concert you me and Lisa went to in January?” She started moving her mouth, but she wasn’t speaking. Instead, the strains of Burning Down the Garden by Our Ladies of Armageddon emerged, with complete vocals and instrumentals. Listening carefully, the others could also hear slight crowd noise.

“Sweet!” Warrick said, “You’re a human recorder.”

“Human mixing board, actually.” She smiled at him. To prove it, she produced a few strains of violin accompanied by piano.

The group talked for about twenty minutes before Alexis, looking a bit pale even for her, arrived to tell JC and Kay that their parents had arrived to take them home. That left Warrick, Cyn and Juniper alone in the room.

“So Kay’s like us.” Juniper sighed, “But we can’t tell her. What a situation.”

“It’s worse than that.” Cyn said, “Lisa or Morganna or whoever is squicked by psionics and can detect them. I mean she went off on Kay and her powers are totally non-offensive. That means she’s not just after us but every psionic in the city!”

In his hospital bed, Zack looked comfortable; almost as if he was simply dozing. But nothing the paramedics or doctors had tried could wake him up. His mother, Antonia sat by his bedside, holding his hand and speaking a quiet prayer in between quiet sobs.

“Will he be alright?”

Antonia looked up to see her older sister, Tatiana standing by the now open window. “Tay?” She asked hoarsely. “When did you get in?”

“Just now.” Tatiana said, crossing the room with a fluid grace. “I was on my way out of town and decided to stop by to say goodbye to my niece and nephew – but the place was swarming with cops.” She put a hand on her nephew’s forehead. “Is he going to be alright, Toni?”

The younger sister shrugged. “They don’t even know what’s wrong with him. He’s just… asleep.”

“How’s Lisa? Was she hurt too?” Antonia shuddered in response, causing Tatiana to lean closer to her. “Oh my god, what happened?”

“She…” Antonia sobbed, “We talked about this before… with daddy’s empathy and your… powers… We knew that the twins might have powers too, but I thought they were too old now. And I didn’t expect anything like this—“

“Toni, tell me, please. They’re my niece and nephew, I need to know.”

“Lisa is the one that did this.” Antonia was weeping openly now. “She attacked her friends. They said she wasn’t herself. She was talking about magic and calling herself ‘Morganna’ and… and… they found Zack like this afterward.” She let her sister hug her as she broke down completely.

Morganna. Tatiana’s mind raced. She had given Lisa Unknown’s Portrait of Morganna le Fay only three days ago. And suddenly she was acting strangely—just as she had when she had been on the phone with Liedecker. A hiss of mixed anger and fear escaped her lips. Something bad was happening and she was the cause.

Pushing her sister gently back, Tatiana looked her in the eye. “Where is Lisa now?” she implored.

“We couldn’t find her.” Antonia sobbed. “The kids said she jumped out the window, but she didn’t hit the ground. Oh god, my baby…” She shook uncontrollably as Tatiana stood up. “What are you doing, Tay?” she sniffed, watching her sister move to the door.

“I don’t have time to explain, Toni.” Tatiana said softly. “But I’m going to stop whatever’s going on. I don’t care who or what is behind this, going after me is one thing. But not my family.” And with that, she was gone.

The sun was setting, causing strange shadows to stretch their fingers over the G.M. Logan Zoo. Morganna brushed past patrons on their way toward the gates on her way back to the hiding place she had spied earlier.

When she had teleported using the ring (thankfully, it was pure silver), she only had two choices of where to arrive; her body’s home, or the zoo. The limitation on minor teleportation spells like that was that they required casual familiarity; something she hadn’t had enough time to establish with many locations as of yet. Had it been in range of the spell, she supposed she could have returned to the mosque vault in Persia—Iraq she mentally corrected herself.

So she had returned to the zoo and spent her time familiarizing herself with the creatures it contained and scavenging possible reagents from trashcans and the gift shop. Shoplifting, as her new memory recalled it, was very easy when one simply pushed items into the Astral Plain and collected them later at one’s leisure.

Mostly, she had thought about the creatures called psionics. As far as she could tell, they were humans; or at least born from humans. Each had a few extraordinary abilities that were akin to vulgar magic, but with more control behind it. They needed no foci, no words of power or patterns of sound; in fact, they didn’t seem to require much conditioning or training to keep rudimentary control.

From a magical standpoint, they were an anomaly; the variety of unskilled hedge wizards, combined with the power of a fey and in many cases, the skill of an archmage. And yet, at least one was able to do something mages could not; he could call forth life.

Constructs, homunculi, and even conjured beasts weren’t really alive; they were mystic simulacra made from inanimate matter and given a programmed semblance of life. Anything intimated about binding spirits and such were lies plain and simple. And yet Morganna had felt those metal bonds living and thinking. It warranted more study.

The trouble was that the psionics seemed resistant to all but the most minor mind control. She had tried to turn them against each other when she had fought them, but nothing had happened – it was as if the lines of force she rode to command minds were muted or even absent in them. She would only be able to control them if one allowed her to.

She slipped into the ape house, aware of the dozens of eyes watching her. Instinct told the orangutans and gorillas and chimpanzees that she wasn’t a normal human. They could feel her power and they were afraid. Sneering at them, she made her way to the recessed cabinet in one wall where a trashcan was situated and casually forced the can into the Astral to make room for herself.

Hunkering down, she considered her position. Psionics were powerful and even if they were no match for her individually, she was still only one person. She would need allies in this world if she was going to play the part of mythic Prometheus, bringing the flame of magic back to the poor, stupid masses. But no one believed in magic any longer. They would not understand the gift of it unless forced or bargained into it.

She needed an ally who already understood and would aid her unquestioningly. As the lights in the ape house went down, an idea suddenly clicked in her head. Stifling a rueful laugh, she waited patiently for the staff to leave and her plan to commence.

End Issue #5