The rain was coming down much faster now. Fast enough that Seluna couldn't really see her house through the drops, and her tears even as she clopped down the puddle filled street towards it. She wished her parents were home, but they were meeting with a friend in the otherworld. Seluna bit her lip, she didn't even remember which otherworld.
Even through the pattering of the rain she could still clearly hear four large owls hooting around them, calling to each other as they passed.
“Vampires,” Seluna realized her heart racing wildly about as vomit clawed its way into her throat.
Despite what Hollywood loved to depict, vampires almost never took bat form, preferring to appear as wolves or owls. Worse, Hollywood had made vampires so popular that when the hidden world was revealed the vampire’s ranks had swelled. With so many newly minted childish vampires most vampire clans had become fraternities acting as small mercenary bands. Fairies hated vampires so if the Queen of the Fairies was willing to hire one of these she had to be really, really ticked.
Seluna shoved Kevin into her house ahead of her, then slammed the door behind them.
“It's clean, right?” She asked frantically as she looked around, checking to make certain that the large basin of clean water near the door was filled and still pure. Vampires suffered pain if they tried to enter a clean house with clean water. Seeing the large basin of water, however, didn't give her much relief. She dragged Kevin up to her room, then into her parents, room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, checking to make certain each was clean.
“My house, it looks clean right?” Seluna asked again, her breath coming in long loud gulps.
“Calm down .,” Kevin told her, though his own voice sounded nearly as panicked as her’s
“Your house is spotless,” she felt him put a hand on her sopping wet shoulder.
He’s trying to comfort me, she realized. He doesn’t quite yet understand the danger I’ve put him in.
“Oh, Kevin,” she sobbed again as she threw her arms around him. “I'm so very, very sorry. I should never have. But I'll make it right, I'll fix it, I promise.”
“I'm still not entirely clear what happened,” Kevin told her.
“Kith,” she called in her panicked voice. “Kith, I need to talk to you,” She called again, but her request was met by silence.”
“Kith,” she called again. “Please, he knows. He insulted the queen of the fairies. Told her she needed acne cream.”
Laughter echoed, no, not echoed, moved erratically around the room Kevin realized. He looked around anxiously trying to pinpoint the source of the deep, rolling chuckle. Then all at once the source of the laughter appeared. The creature looked like a cat with three faces on a single head. That of a bearded old man in front, and a pair of wild looking creatures on the right and left sides of that.
Seluna saw Kevin start to panic when Kith appeared, as the reality that he’d now been sucked into the hidden world that played across the news every night sunk in. She supposed it was hard to grasp how real the unreal was until you are so directly confronted by it.
“That's hilarious,” Kith laughed again.
“No, no it's not,” Seluna scowled furiously. “She's pissed. There are four vampires right outside our door. Circling the house, looking for a way in.”
“It's fine, it's fine,” the three faced cat walked through the air, rubbing against Seluna's shoulder to calm her. “We'll figure something out,” Kith purred.
****** ******* ******
What about our lord? Seluna asked Kith as she paced nervously around the room.
Kith, like all familiar spirits worked for one of the many fairy lords, acting as a go between for them and the witch who they’d chosen to be their servant. More specifically he, and by extension Seluna, worked for a fairy king named Katu Walo.
His relationship with the toad isn’t good enough to calm her down when she’s this angry. He could take the boy into his court, but he’d never be able to return home again, Kith told her.
Seluna frowned as she pondered this option, “No that won’t work.”
She glanced over at Kevin. Who was sitting silently on the couch, nervously rubbing his left arm. She hated to admit it, but her parents had been right, she couldn’t date an ordinary person without it leading to some sort of trouble.
One of the owls hooted from the rooftop, and another answered from the windowsill.
First things first, I suppose I need to take care of the vampires, Seluna sighed.
They aren’t very old, Kith told her. Probably just a few thugs with delusions of grandeur.
That’s what I’m hoping for, Seluna said.
She pulled off her dark blue dress, revealing her iridescent mask dress underneath. Another of the many secrets she’d kept from her parents, was that she was the only witch who’d chosen to become a mask. People with powers who semi- publically protected the world or who used their powers to try to gain wealth and power.
Are you sure it’s a good idea to reveal your mask identity in front of him? Kith asked.
I’m a tall witch, he’s not an idiot, Seluna told Kith. He would have figured it out sooner or later anyways.
You’re parents haven’t, Kith told her.
My parents don’t want to think it’s me, Seluna smiled. It’s amazing what they can overlook when they want to, I think most of the other witches, have, they’re just too polite to say anything.
Glimmer Witch? Kevin asked a look of shock on his face.
Seluna felt torn between the sort of high she got from the adulation of her fans, and the realization that their relationship would never be the same now. Keven, may as well have discovered he was dating an actress, Seluna was the first and only witch who’d become a mask, and with only a little more than four hundred masks in the United States, they’d all become celebrities, even the villains to a certain extent. It made Seluna little uncomfortable, she’d always hated standing out, but at the same she was lonely so the attention gave her a bit of a high. Now, however, she worried that Kevin would never be able to treat her the same again.
Yeah, Seluna confirmed her identity as she used an illusion to make aqua colored paint appear on her face and change her hair blue to conceal her identity.
It goes without saying that you can’t tell anyone, or else you put us both in danger. If my enemies find out about us...” Seluna paused for a moment as the worst case scenarios began playing through her head.
“Oh god! If Twisted ever found out about you, Seluna bit her lip.
She’d been really, really stupid. Twisted was an awakened villain who could control electronics, and she hated Glimmer Witch with a passion. Worse she had a messed up sense of humor. Visions of mentally controlled F16’s firing missiles around Kevin started dancing in her head.
I’m so sorry, Seluna began, but she didn’t get to finish her apology before Keven pulled her into a hug.
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