Acceptance of the Self

Book 1: Attunement of the Hearts

Chapter 36.e - Reintroductions

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Ellie

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[ - Sunday, September 15, 2019 - 6:14pm - Anderson Family Kitchen - ]

 

[ -- DRAFT.txt -- ]

 

Title: Missing Persons in Chicagoland Area

Content: People are being taken off the streets by blue and white trucks labeled 'BPI'. If you or anyone you know has any information on the following people or on ‘BPI’ as a whole please reach out to this account, we'll be checking it as often as we can.

Missing Persons: 

Charlotte Sundur - gone since 03/12/18 - [GPS Coordinates] Illarion Sorokin - gone since 06/17/18 - [GPS Coordinates] Eezkias Eba Ephraim - gone since 02/19/19 - [GPS Coordinates] Kalala Bodika - gone since 05/07/19 - [GPS Coordinates] Moonannie Yano - gone since 07/20/19 - [GPS Coordinates] Samantha Aran Star - gone since 08/13/19 - [GPS Coordinates] Xia Ai - gone since 10/12/19 - [GPS Coordinates]

 

[ -- end DRAFT.txt -- ]

 

The file DRAFT.txt is on Sky’s desktop computer. It doesn’t exactly tell us anything new, but it definitely confirms that whatever they were meeting ‘Drew’ for had to do with these BPI kidnappings. Dawn and I just found the file a few minutes ago, and now we’re printing it out and planning to take it downstairs to show everyone else. 

 

I have to believe they used a throwaway account to post this and then only checked it from public locations or something, Maddie says, pacing back and forth in front of the viewing screen. 

 

It’s gotta be something like that, we know they’re not stupid when it comes to tech, I reply.

 

It’s been three hours since we got home from our parking lot rendezvous with the Sombersets and Maurice, and Dawn, Maddie and I had decided to go upstairs and rifle through Sky’s files more thoroughly. It took us an hour or so of clicking on random files and folders before we finally found ‘DRAFT.txt’ deep within Sky’s ‘Personal’ folder, but it was worth it.

 

Claire and Audre had been discussing various ways of divining Sky and Eve’s location last we saw them, and Aiden and Jay had been researching on their phones and laptops. Deirdre had been hanging out in the kitchen with the rest of the adults, observing, and Maurice never came into the house. 

 

I’d finally remembered to ask about Maurice’s pronouns at least, and he’d gruffly informed me he used he/him. He parked on the driveway but remained outside to ‘keep an eye on things’ while the rest of us all did what we needed to do. Apparently he felt like we were being watched, and last I’d seen him he was walking around the block scoping the place out.

 

We’d had a conversation about Maddie, Anne and I as soon as we all got settled around the kitchen table, and Audre and Deirdre had shown some interest, but it had been clear their main focus was on finding Eve. Audre had also revealed herself to be a practicing witch, with access to a lot of the magic that Claire was familiar with.

 

Cutie pie, I think Dawn wants your attention, Maddie says with a hint of a smile in their thoughts.

 

I blink back to the present, and find Dawn looking at me with a quizzical expression. 

 

“Everything okay in there, loves?” she asks kindly.

 

“Yep!” I say quickly, “Just thinking about what all this means I guess. What did you say?”

 

“I was just saying I think we should take this downstairs now. We’ll finish searching the rest of their PC later,” she replies, wiggling the sheet of white paper with the DRAFT.txt file printed on it in black ink.

 

“Absolutely,” I say, relieved I hadn’t missed much in my reminiscing. “Let’s go!”

 

We leave Sky’s room and march downstairs. When I reach the bottom of the stairs I find the far side of the kitchen table covered in papers with sketches of strange sigils drawn all over them: the remains of Claire’s sigil magick no doubt. There are also some books on scrying from Jay’s little paranormal library open and spread about the table. 

 

Jay and Aiden sit along the north side of the table with their laptops open while Deirdre and Audre sit across from them and Claire sits at the west head of the table. Everyone except Claire turns to look at us as Dawn reaches the bottom of the stairs behind me, and I give an awkward little wave.

 

“Um, we found the reddit post, sort of,” I say, as Dawn steps forward and places the sheet of printer paper down on the table facing the adults. 

 

“It’s a draft of it that was hidden on Sky’s computer,” Dawn explains.

 

Deirdre, who’s closest to us, picks up the paper and scans through it quickly. Her eyes flick back to mine then Dawn’s, then she wordlessly passes the paper to Audre. 

 

“Oh crap,” Audre says as she reads through it, “no wonder they were taken. BPI has got to be monitoring the internet for things like this.”

 

She passes the paper to Aiden, and he and Jay read through it together.

 

“And someone actually responded to this post?” Deirdre says.

 

“Yeah, according to Eve and Sky’s chat a person named Drew contacted them and... wait!” Jay slaps a hand to his forehead and looks at Dawn. “Is there anyone named Drew in Sky’s contacts?”

 

Dawn’s already fishing Sky’s phone out of her blue jean’s pocket. She taps away at it for a few moments, then sighs. 

 

“No mention of Drew anywhere except in those texts with Eve. Eve was probably the one who set up the meeting,” she says dejectedly.

 

“Do we want to talk to the person who may have helped abduct the kids?” I ask hesitantly.

 

“We’d want to contact them from a burner phone that we can throw out immediately afterwards,” Claire says without looking up from the paper she’s writing on. “Or lock them in a room and do it in person. I think we do want to try and contact them, secretly. They may be able to tell us a great deal with the right motivation.”

 

I frown slightly, not entirely sure what ‘the right motivation’ might be and afraid to find out. 

 

“That sounds like a good idea,” Jay says. 

 

Aiden looks up from the table and over to Claire. “Could you try scrying for this ‘Drew’?” he asks curiously.

 

Claire stops writing and stares down at the sigils in front of her, processing that. “Aiden that’s a brilliant idea, thank you!” she says after a moment, “I can do that right now!”

 

She rummages under the table and retrieves her black pentacled ‘spell stuff’ bag. She leaves the atlas and pendulum and instead takes out a hand-sized oval mirror made of obsidian or something, it’s completely black, reflective, and slightly concave.

 

“Alright, same deal as before,” Claire says, her red eyes sweeping across the room before zeroing in on Aiden, “we’ll use your office to scry, Audre and I will do our thing for the next thirty minutes or so, and hopefully we’ll get some inkling of who Drew is, why Sky and Eve met with them, and where they are now.”

 

“Thirty minutes?” Ellie asks, “That seems a lot more involved than the pendulum method.”

 

This time it’s Audre who speaks up. 

 

“This method of divining can give you a lot of insight that you can’t get with the yes/no pendulum questions,” Audre explains, “This is a free-form answer that comes from letting our mind relax and connect to the collective unconscious that permeates our world. We get images, impressions, and ideas from scrying like this. It’s a lot less exact than the pendulum method, but I think we need to know more about who this person is before we try contacting them in any mundane form.”

 

“The collective unconscious? Like from Carl Jung?” Dawn asks curiously.

 

Claire and Audre share a glance, and Claire jumps in. 

 

“Yes and no,” she explains, “Some people think that every thought, action, and event the world over is recorded somehow, possibly into the collective unconscious if such a thing exists, and that scrying is one way to access that information. Whether or not that’s true, scrying definitely taps into something to allow us to learn things we shouldn’t be able to know normally about the past, present, and future. And the important thing is we’ve got a shot at getting some answers if Drew isn’t behind the same anti-scrying field that Eve and Sky are.”

 

“Ah, gotcha,” Dawn says with a nod.

 

“If we’re done with the lesson, let’s do this,” Audre says, getting up from her seat and pushing her chair in.

 

“Lead the way hot stuff,” Claire says with a grin.

 

“Keep your mitts off my wife,” Deirdre says with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

 

“Ladies please, there’s plenty of me to go around,” Audre says with a dignified air.

 

Deirdre scoffs, but doesn't reply. 

 

Claire and Audre both retreat down the front hall and disappear into Aiden’s sci-fi themed den.

 

The rest of us regard each other for a few moments, before Deirdre asks, “So how did you and Anne come to meet?”

 

I move to sit in the vacated seat at the west head of the table and Dawn sits beside me where Audre had been. 

 

We spend the next ten or so minutes talking about my and Maddie’s experiences connecting with Anne. Deirdre is polite and interested, though a bit distracted sometimes. 

 

Then, just as I’m getting to Anne's expedition into unknown territory, the doorbell rings. Everyone gets quiet. 

 

Deirdre turns around in her chair and raises an eyebrow. Dawn half gets out of her chair before turning to her dads with a questioning glance.

 

Jay and Aiden both get up out of their seats, and Jay motions Dawn to stay where she is. I stay put as well, watching it all unfold. 

 

The Anderdads cautiously approach the door, Aiden in the lead with Jay right behind him.

 

“Might be Maurice?” Jay whispers cautiously.

 

“With how tonight’s going? Who knows,” Aiden replies quietly.

 

They reach the door and Aiden peers through the peep hole. His shoulders relax slightly. “What the heck?” he says at normal volume, before unbolting and unlocking the door.

 

I have a clear line of sight to the front door from the open door to the living room, and I have to blink a couple times to make sure I’m not hallucinating more than normal. Standing there in the faint evening light is none other than our resident dungeon master: Trevor Lernie, looking stressed and scared. 

 

Trevor’s about six feet tall and has a curly brown mop of hair on his head, with a clean shaven, soft face and a muscular but fairly slim body. He’s wearing what looks like some sort of cosplay outfit of a secret agent or something, with a black turtleneck shirt, black pants and belt, and what looks like a model of a gun attached at his hip under his black jacket.

 

“Trevor!” Aiden says, obviously recognizing our DM from the times Dawn’s hosted game night at her place. “What are you doing here? And what’s with the get up?” 

 

“Sorry sirs,” Trevor says, addressing Jay and Aiden, “but I need to speak to Audre and Deirdre. Maurice caught me snooping around following y’all, and told me to come reintroduce myself.”

 

Deirdre gets up out of her chair, and Dawn and I follow suit.

 

“How do you know Deirdre and Audre? And wait, re-introduce?” Jay says, as Deirdre hurries over from the kitchen to the front door with Dawn and I hot on her heels. Jay glances back at her with a frown then turns back to Trevor. “What’s going on?”

 

“Trevor what the hell are you doing here?” Deirdre demands, causing the Andersons to look at her in surprise.

 

“I came because I’m not about to sit back and watch as you all get yourselves killed trying to rescue Eve and Sky, I’ve been following Maurice since he left home,” Trevor says to Deirdre with frustration evident in his voice. Then he sighs and looks down at the ground. “He said you and Audre get to decide what to do with me,” he mumbles.

 

Deirdre puts both hands in front of her as if in prayer, and takes a deep breath. “You are one of the most vexing wards I’ve ever had,” she says to Trevor.

 

“Care to fill us in on what’s happening?” Aiden asks pointedly, raising an eyebrow at first Deirdre, then Trevor.

 

“I’m a vampire,” Trevor says firmly, before Deirdre can speak, “I was turned about a year ago, and Eve has been central to me retaining my sanity during both that process and the months thereafter. I need to help get her and Sky back, she'd do the same for me.”

 

The DM’s a vampire? Maddie asks. I did not see that one coming.

 

“Seriously!?” Dawn says from beside me at the back of the crowd, her eyes bright, “That’s incredible!”

 

“I dunno if ‘incredible’ is the right word, but being turned sure was something,” Trevor replies with a lopsided smile.

 

“Does that mean you’re technically dead?” I ask, unable to help myself.

 

Maddie laughs from their position seated in front of the viewing screen. That's your first question? they ask.

 

"I'm not alive in the traditional sense, my heart's not beating anymore except for when I, uh, feed," Trevor says. 

 

Deirdre rubs the bridge of her nose in consternation.

 

“Why don’t we move this conversation to the kitchen?” Jay suggests. “Claire and Audre are scrying, and I’m sure all this talk right outside the office isn’t helping.”

 

“Of course,” Trevor says quietly.

 

Deirdre, Dawn and I troop back to the kitchen table as Trevor is ushered inside by Jay and Aiden.

 

Soon enough we’re all seated at the table, Trevor and Deirdre along the south side, myself and Aiden along the north, Dawn at the west head, and Jay at the east.

 

“So, how do you two know each other?” Aiden asks Deirdre and Trevor.

 

Deirdre takes a deep breath, then begins. “Like he said, Trevor was turned into a vampire. This happened after he was severely injured and nearly lost his life to a shoot-out between rogue vampires and the clan last year,” she explains. “Maurice was first on the scene, he and Trevor already had a bond from working at the same auto repair shop, and Maurice decided to turn Trevor in order to save his life. Audre and I are friends with Maurice, so we're helping him raise his first turned ward.”

 

Damn, I knew he was vague about that accident last year, but this? Maddie says incredulously.

 

Yeah, I reply, I had no clue he was living such a double life.

 

“Maurice took me in, became my sire, and he’s helped me every step of the way. I know he wants me to stay out of this, but I can’t,” Trevor says passionately. 

 

Then he waves a hand towards Dawn and I. “Plus I don’t see why they get to help and I don’t,” he finishes, crossing his arms.

 

“Hmmm,” Deirdre says, “I suppose you can stay and help, if you agree to listen to Maurice, Audre and I.”

 

“Cross my heart,” Trevor replies happily, “I’ll be as useful as possible.”

 

Everyone gets quiet after that, and I take the opportunity to ask Trevor, “What’s it like, being a vampire?” 

 

Trevor looks to Deirdre questioningly, and she sighs and waves a hand at him. “Go on, " she says. 

 

Trevor nods. “It’s got its ups and downs. My body’s hyper sensitive to the sun now unless I use the charm Audre made for me. I don’t age anymore, I’m effectively immortal albeit very vulnerable to being murdered by another vampire or other supernatural. I have to drink human or animal blood to survive. And on top of it all I didn’t die horribly last year when I accidentally walked into a shoot out at a Barnes & Noble. So on the whole, it was a sweet deal.”

 

“Holy shit, that all sounds really intense,” Dawn says quietly. “I remember you being in the hospital and having to miss a few game nights last year. How have you been dealing with all this?”

 

Trevor wiggles a hand back and forth. “I’m dealing. Like I said, Eve, Maurice, Deirdre and Audre have been incredibly helpful in keeping me sane. Especially right after I was turned, that was... horrible.”

 

I glance at Dawn to find her looking at me. We both turn back to Trevor. “Do you want to talk about it sometime? Doesn’t have to be right now,” I say gently.

 

Trevor looks up at me with caution on his face. “Maybe later. I'm curious why you're so interested? And also I’m sorry that I had to lie to you about what happened to me last year."

 

"Don't worry about it," Dawn says, "obviously you had a lot going on."

 

"Yeah, and we're interested because we're your friends dude," I say with a small smile. “Being undead doesn’t change that.”

 

Trevor looks a little awkward at being called ‘undead’, but he doesn’t comment on it. “I suppose I should’ve known the magic of friendship would keep us together,” he says with a smile of his own.

 

Jay laughs lightly, and Deirdre looks like she’s ready to punch Trevor in the shoulder. I just take it in stride, grinning at my apparently-vampiric friend. 

 

Trevor, Dawn and I spend the next few minutes catching up on what Trevor’s been up to since he was turned last July. It turns out he’s been spending most of his time at Maurice’s place, learning how to protect, feed and care for himself, with frequent visits to his parents’ place. Apparently they know all about his new vampiric nature and are supportive of it.

 

Soon enough the door to Aiden’s office creaks open, and Claire strides out followed closely by Audre.

 

“We’ve got good news, and we’ve got bad news,” Claire says as she walks into the kitchen with Audre right behind her. “Oh and hi Trevor, I’m Claire. We heard you come in.” She gives him a little wave.

 

“Do tell,” Jay says anxiously. He and Aiden are listening with rapt attention, while Deirdre gets out of her chair and offers it to Audre, and Dawn does the same for Claire.

 

“The good news,” Audre says, moving to sit in Deirdre’s chair, “is that we’re pretty sure Drew is nearby in the town of Lisle.”

“The bad news is they most likely betrayed Sky and Eve to BPI,” Claire adds, moving to sit in Dawn’s vacated seat. “I got the impression that money changed hands between Drew and some real shady-looking people, and that Drew never showed up to the meeting.”

 

“The weird thing is we can’t agree on what Drew looks like,” Audre continues, “we saw multiple different people all seeming to be the same Drew. Most likely they’ve put some sort of protective spell around themselves so diviners can’t see their true appearance.”

 

“Though why they would go to the trouble of doing that instead of hiding themselves completely is beyond me,” Claire remarks.

 

“Damn, so we know where they are but not what they look like,” Aiden says, rubbing his cyan goatee in thought. 

 

“Any chance you vamps and witches think you can take this Drew in a fight?” Jay asks.

 

Audre and Deirdre share a glance, while Claire looks uncertain. 

 

“Maybe,” the human witch says, “but we really don’t know enough to say for sure. They could easily be some kind of powerful supernatural working for the enemy.”

 

“Could we go over what kinds of ‘powerful supernaturals’ exist before we go poking around one’s lair?” Dawn asks trepidatiously.

 

“I mean sure, though I doubt I can list them all off the top of my head,” Claire says, “and I haven’t encountered most of the powerful ones before, so this is just from what I’ve read.”

 

“We’re listening,” Deirdre says, much to my surprise.

 

“I figured you’d be bored of a lesson like this,” Claire remarks.

 

“You’d be surprised how little information gets out about what’s real and what’s not out there. I’d love to hear your take on what lives around here,” Audre says.

 

Claire takes a deep breath, then dives in. “So there’s not really any set in stone list of supernaturals. They’re as varied as the natural world. But there are some broad categories that can be helpful to know about. First you’ve got your deities: gods, goddesses, and godbies, they’re near the top of the ladder in terms of raw power and ability to seriously fuck shit up if they get mad. Then you’ve got immortals like demons, angels, kitsune, kappa, fae, etcetera. They’re generally slightly less powerful than the godbies but have enhanced physical abilities, powerful magic, and generally live amongst humans in disguise. Most of those beings also give rise to half-human half-whatever hybrids when they mate with humans, so there’s a fair amount of those running around.”

 

Claire pauses to take a breath, and I can tell everyone is listening with rapt attention because it’s dead silent for a few moments before she continues.

 

“Then there’s the spiritual side of things, where we’ve got ancestral human and natural nonhuman spirits, things like ghosts, shadow people, sprites and pixies. After that there’s the broad category of humans who become supernatural beings somehow, so people like were-folk, vampires, some fairies and dryads, the occasional mermaid, you name it, it probably exists somewhere.”

 

Claire takes a pause, and Audre speaks up.

 

“The ‘power levels’ Claire is describing are very relative and unique to the individual being,” Audre explains, “Some ancient vampires may be able to take on a kitsune or kappa level person for instance, as our magic generally grows stronger with experience and age. It’s also true that some gods are rather weak while others are ludicrously strong from their diet of the faith of most of the entire world.”

 

“I’d also like to point out that there’s no guide for what type of morality each supernatural might have either,” Deirdre adds. “We’re all mostly disconnected from the main human societies, so we generally do what we want.” 

 

“I can respect that,” Jay says, “being marginalized by society for something you can’t control is pretty shitty. I learned that from twenty three years of trying to live as a woman when in my heart I’m anything but.”

 

“Is that why you’re so chill about us being vampires? Because you’re all some flavor of queer?” Trevor asks curiously.

 

Aiden and Jay laugh. “That and I’ve been studying esoterica and the occult all my life,” Jay replies amicably. “Plus we’ve been having some magical events happen around here lately.” He gives me a wink when Trevor’s not looking.

 

“Speaking of, would you mind sharing your story with Trevor? He’ll need all the facts if he’s going to be helpful,” Deirdre says, looking right at me. 

 

I take a deep breath. “Yeah,” I say with a sigh, “Let me go over it from the top one more time...”

End of 

Chapter 36.e - Reintroductions