Fallen Age: Golden Age, Book I, Chapter 3

"Claire?" Michael asked. "What am I…"

"You came in," Claire said. "You were sick. Didn't you…"

"No, I got bit by a rat… I was thinking of getting a rabies shot but then I…" He blinked. "What is on your face?"

Claire looked over at the mirror, and shook her head. The glowing stylized twilight symbol ws fading, but it was still there.

How do I know it's a twilight symbol… But there was a resonance to it. A power.

"When I was trying to cure you, none of the rituals worked so I… something happened." She said.

"Rituals. Really?"

"Are we doing this? Seriously, you just came in and were about to die, and now you aren't and you're doing the skeptic thing!"

"You do little stuff, I mean, that trick with the fire is cute, but seriously, Claire, magic? Rituals?"

"Stacy's charm!"

"A tool to give her self-confidence, because you know Greg's always been into her!"

"And your sickness?"

"I dunno, you just… gave me…" Michael flapped his hands.

"And my fire is not cute!" Claire said, making the gesture…

And a roaring column of fire obliterated the trash basket, setting fire to the wall behind it.

"SHIT!" Michael shouted, and grabbed the fire extinguisher, he was unsteady but, he managed to play it over the wall, killing the fire.

"Um…" Claire stared at her hand. That's impossible. You have to gather your power… how did I…

But she could feel it. A singing reservoir of power. The same thing that had let her understand the rituals, that had…

"I'm gonna call Grandma." Please let her be done…

She grabbed her phone and called, pick up, pick up, please…

"Claire?"

"Grandma, can you come to the shop, right now?"

"Claire, what's wrong."

"I… I have to show you. It's nothing I can tell you over the phone." Because you'll think I'm crazy.

"Fine. I'll tell your mother I'm picking you up, but you'd better explain this."

"I will."

*****

When Grandma got in, she stared at the burned basket and wall. "What…What happened and why is Michael here."

"That was me—I used the fire spell."

"Claire, you can't…" Grandma paused. "Explain, everything."

Claire and Michael did, leading Grandma into the back room and showing the circle.

"How… Some of these symbols…"Grandma shook her head. "Claire. Did you make a deal?"

"I'm not dumb," Claire said, offended. "I didn't offer anything and nothing asked me. It was when Michael was… I got desperate, and the power came."

Grandma closed her eyes. "Claire. Power never just comes. Can you show me?"

Claire nodded. There was a ritual, one that supposedly would make light glow. Grandma had been able to make it happen, but she warned Goria that it almost never did when nonbelievers were around. Claire had a harder time with it than she did with fire but…

She looked down, and it just clicked. She murmured the words, because the power, the mana, just answered to her. Moments later a little glowing ball was floating.

"That's… even the head of our coven couldn't do that, not so casually… he only gained the power when he…" She shook her head. "Claire. Nothing offered you power. Nothing spoke to you."

"No." And Claire felt an odd sense of revulsion at the very idea that she would be reduced to begging for power.

"Claire… Go home. If anything else happens, call me. I'll have to read some books.

"What about me?"

Grandma spent some time looking at Michael, then staring at him through the glass crystal she used.

"Nothing. Whatever was there is gone. You go home, I'll give you my phone number of you feel anything, if anyone mentions this to you… Call me."

Of course it is. Claire felt offended. She would have seen it if there was something there.

"Right." Michael nodded.

"Grandma, what are you worried about?" Claire finally asked. "I cured it."

"Yes. But it sounded like a curse. And curses don't just spring up…" Grandma shook her head. "I… I need to study. I'll take both of you home, but stay out of trouble.":

Humph, I wasn't try to get into trouble.

*****

That night, Claire couldn't sleep. Every time she dozed off she remembered.


Battling a mighty behemoth before the gates of Gem… 

A vast inland sea where the dreaming princes used sorcery to mold their slaves into pleasing forms, while they battled the children of ten fathers…

An army of the dead, erupting from the shadowlands, marching on life itself…


Grandma had told her about dreamwalking, seeing the past, but… few could do it. Did it feel this real? How many lives had there been?

Claire grabbed her teddy bear, which she totally just kept because it was a present, and held it as she tried to get to sleep.

Tomorrow would be better.

*****

Tomorrow was horrible. Maybe she hadn't been paying attention, but on the way… She could see. Not just the shadows that only let her see those infested by the worst spirits, but everything. Looking at the school… there were bright parts of it, but it was… Darkened. Despair and fear lingering, and she saw tiny spirits, chittering things, lapping up the banquet. Janice was crying, after some of the other girls had mocked her for her weight and a group of spirits surrounded her, while others whispered eagerly into the ears of the girls.

But those weren't the worst. Claire saw Tommy, the quarterback that her mother had warned her about, walking along with a group of girls trailing behind him as he smiled with that gleaming smile…but look further, and there was a hideous creature all mocking smiles and fangs that had merged into him, until it was hard to tell where Tommy stopped an the spirit began.

And worse… The girls, the ones who were closest to him, who fawned on hin and gossiped and back bit each other to get closer…

There were spiritual collars around their necks, twisted, rusted iron sinking into their skin, weeping sores covering the spiritual skin, and deformed hands springing from Tommy's back lightly tugged their leashes, a chorus of chittering cries of pleasure emerging when Shiela and Carrie got into a shoving match.

How could I not see this? How could Grandma not see this? She knew the school was… well it had always been off, and it had been getting sort of worse, but this? Granted, she knew that seeing into the spirit world was, according to Grandma, as much about perception, but whatever had its claws into the people around here was…

Not good.

And even less good was the urge she had. To purge the school with gold and fire, to crush those spirits.

How? No. Watch first. Then talk to Grandma.

But it was hard. Some of the teachers, even some of the ones Claire liked were… Twisted. Other's were normal, but she could see spirits whispering into their ears, and if she couldn't hear the full message it was enough to understand what they were doing.

Useless, while try…

She could also hear and see better, how, Claire wasn't entirely certain. She'd never heard of anything like this.

But seeing and hearing better didn't help always. A group of teens were talking, looking around so nobody saw and they were talking over video.

"C'mon man, she's saying no, but everyone knows that means yes! I'm telling you, Jane is just like that. She likes to hang around you 'cause you're on the team, but if she isn't putting you, you need to show her…"

Claire moved a little faster, even as her hand twitched.

Then, as she passed the girls' bathroom, on the second floor, someone reached out and pulled her in. Claire spun, somehow her hands coming up in a defensive posture she'd never had before, her feet moving into a posture that she'd held… Fighting the Behemoth at Gem…

What the fuck?

"Whoa, since when did you become Ninja Chick!" Kyoko said. "Something's off with you," the girl said. "What's wrong?"

Claire stared at her, then blinked. Kyoko didn't have any spirits on her. She didn't even feel like she did. "Kyoko. You need to leave this school. Now. Don't come back."

"And get arrested by the truant officer?" Kyoko said. "Why are you so worried?" She started pacing around Claire, smiling as Claire turned to face her. "And how did you become so good at fighting."

"Kyoko, you know I work at my Grandma's store and learn magic."

"Yes…" Kyoko said. "But no spell can do this.

Wait, how did Kyoko—"It doesn't matter. I can see things now. There are spirits here. Terrible spirits."

"Terrible spirits?" Kyoko tilted her head, and suddenly didn't seem at all like the gossipy girl who had transferred in that year. "Really. Doing what?"

"I—" Claire shook her head. "Tommy. There's something so merged with him that he seems…"

"He's a Fomori." Kyoko looked at Claire and then smirked. "And you don't know that name! What a strange thing. You see them now, but you've never seen them before. You don't know that they are…"

"They're wrong."

"Oh, yes, that is true. More wrong than you know." Kyoko leaned over to Claire. "And if I could notice, others might as well. Be careful." The bell rang. "Time to go. I'll visit you and your boyfriend! Maybe we can have some fun—but remember what I said."

"Wait!" Claire said. "You don't have a spirit, you don't look—how do you know this?"

Kyoko smiled. "How indeed!" and then her body seemed to shift and she was…

"You're an anime fox person?" Claire asked.

"Not quite," She turned and headed for the door. "Remember. Don't be obvious," as two fluffy fox tails emerged from under her skirt as she headed to the door, turning normal before she got to it.

"What. The. Hell."