Faeophobia: Magic's Hour Ch. 01

He'd come from nothing himself, and while he wasn't as wealthy as some of the blue-bloods his daughter went to school with at TCC, James made sure that the cobbled-together family never lacked for luxuries. His job as director of combat operations for Magic-Corp Industries did have its advantages: seven-figure salary, four weeks paid vacation time a year, and best of all, none of the bureaucratic bullshit he had to deal with he was enlisted in the Forces.

James pulled the Land Rover up beside the secured wrought-iron entrance and let the girls out. "Have a good day girls! Act like your mom's watching you because, let's be honest, she probably is."

The girls rolled their eyes. "Bye, dad," they both responded unenthusiastically. Preeti's father had been killed before she was born, so James was the only father figure she'd ever known. It still embarrassed him a little when she called him "dad", like there was some moral choice he'd missed somewhere. Sharifa called Shanthi "mom" though for the same reason Preeti called him "dad", so he figured it all balanced somewhere and let it go.

He organized his day on the drive over to the Magi-Corp training facility. Workout at the company gym, teleconference on potential hot-zone ops in Florida, followed by pencil pushing on potential hot-zone ops in Florida, maybe get some subcontracting deals in if he had the time, pick up the girls from school, drop them off at home, weekly dinner and sex with his assistant Youko, head home, TV, bed. Perfect.

The girls were quite a bit less enthusiastic about their day, but a teenage girl who likes her life is one who hasn't been to high school in the United States. This was doubly true for those who have the bad luck to be visibly different. Sharifa and Preeti would have stood out as oddities in a public school; in a mostly white, conservative private Christian school, they might as well have been a freak show.

Sharifa at least possessed a talent for fashion that gave her a niche in the school's ecosystem as a go-to girl for all things clothing related. She was Somalian by birth; her dad had told her she'd been adopted while he was on assignment in Mogadishu. She'd had the sense to recognize early on that there was more to it than that, but she was also smart enough to not ask too many questions. Her high cheekbones and flawless ebony skin were a gift of her Somalian heritage, but despite her beauty she was unhappy with appearance. Her cheeks were still puffy with baby fat that wouldn't go away, and having studied the photoshopped perfection of fashion models every day for five years had made her feel self-conscious about the perceived flaw. She did her best to distract from her cheeks with a set of squarish cappuccino glasses and extravagant weekly hairstyle changes.

Her best friend Preeti was Sharifa's opposite in many ways. A trim and athletic Tamil girl with hennaed black hair and dusky skin the color of sand at night, she only knew a few outfits: school-wear, floral print dress for non-athletic stuff, soccer gear for athletic stuff. Her appearance was plain and unremarkable, with skin blemishes that might have been acne or freckles depending on who was asked. The way she looked sent the message that being pretty wasn't her concern, and it wasn't. Preeti was an athlete, and she was a good one. Despite her inherent ability to work in a team though, she was shy when separated from Sharifa. As a demure, darkly-complected Hindu girl, she fit in at TCC like an albino at the Apollo.

The girls climbed the Soviet-style concrete steps to the entrance and were greeted by the first layer of security: uniform inspection. Administered by the Vice and Virtue program, a group of teachers who volunteered their time, they never failed to single Sharifa out among the throng of students entering the school. The V&V were, in her estimation, the worst group of neo-fascists to ever strip a girl of accessories.

The woman who currently ran the program was the bible-toting Biology teacher, Ms. Byrne. She was pointing at the small pink scarf Sharifa had around her neck.

"Is this some sort of gang-wear?"

"It's an ascot, not a do-rag," Ignorant bitch, she thought.

"A mascot for what, black culture? No, this isn't allowed at all. You'll get it back at the end of the day. And what about your rings, it's far too vain to wear so much jewelry at one time. Take them off."

"We go through this every day Ms. Byrne, these rings belonged to my mother. They're not coming off."

The teacher, withered before her time by religious zealotry, studied the girl carefully. Although she didn't like black people as a rule, she also didn't want to be accused of being racist. "Fine, keep the rings. Come back at the end of the day for your mascot."

With a groan, Sharifa followed Preeti through the magic detector and around the corner to their lockers. Preeti never had these kind of problems. True, the only accessories she owned were a small necklace and a hair clip, but still. V&V had given her trouble once, over a red string she'd gotten from temple as a protective ward. Preeti, unsure and unaccustomed to the grilling she got from Ms. Byrne, had started crying uncontrollably. If it had been Sharifa in her place, they probably would have tried to drown her as a witch.

"Ugh, I hate this place so much. I can't wait to go to Paris next year." Sharifa said.

Preeti smiled. "If you get in. You still don't know whether Esmod accepted your portfolio or not – and you still have to convince your dad to let you go. And to pay for everything"

Sharifa laughed. "Come on, when has my Dad ever been able to say no to me? Remember fashion week in New York?"

"Standing in the heat for theatre tickets while you and dad were at the park... mom was ready to kill him. That was a terrible birthday. Anyway, this'd be different! You'd be on your own, in a foreign country, and you don't even speak French."

"I'll learn – it can't be that hard! I bet everyone speaks English there anyway. And with all that crap going down in Florida, it's probably safer than staying here." Sharifa pulled out a small sample portfolio to show her friend. It was full of every-day wear designs, but the women in the pictures all had enormous breasts. Preeti's eyes lingered perhaps a little longer than they should have.

"You'll see. I'm gonna be the Coco Chanel of our generation. Think about it – all these women getting hit with breast growth spells, no one's making clothes for them yet! I'm gonna make a mint! I'll take you on a tour of the Mediterranean in my yacht after I get rich. I might even let you have a model or two," she said with a wink.

Preeti gave in to nervous giggles. "Eww, Shar, gross! Okay, when that happens, you get the yacht, I'll bring the champagne. You'd better not bring any boys, though!"

"Why no boys??" the school's sole Fae, a half-pixie friend of theirs named Tenanye, bounced up to their lockers. Tired of having her name mispronounced, she insisted everyone call her Ten. Like most Fae, she was improbably good looking, earning her the nickname "Perfect Ten" at TCC. While always popular among the boys, as a non-white, non-Christian, unrepentant boyfriend-stealer, she was just as much a pariah as Preeti among the school's girls. Together with a few others, they were the misfit clique at Trinity.

"Boys are so much fun! Right Shar? Heard you hooked up with Gavin at Christina's party last Friday. Nice. You know Heather's gonna be super pissed when she finds out."

Preeti looked at her friend, aghast. "I thought you were helping Bernadette with her math homework on Friday!" she smacked Sharifa on the arm.

"Ow! Okay, fine, yes, I wanted to go to a party that wasn't at the Aquarium. Mom would have lost her shit if I told her where I was actually going. It's cool though, Bernadette covered for me. She's such a sweetheart."

"I know." A girl carted herself up to the gaggle of teenage girls on steel crutches that were worn with use. Bernadette had been born with cerebral palsy, which even in the days of magic and miracles had left her dependent on braces to walk. She was lucky, though: her parents, though devout Christians, had allowed a limited amount of mystical intervention. With medical attention alone, by this point in her life she might have been dead.

"How was the party?"

"Didn't you hear?" Ten was far too excited about this. Her purple irises practically sparkled, and her crystalline wings tittered behind her. "Her and Gavin are going now. You're so lucky Shar, Gav's like, the best running back in school history! Football players are so hot." The pixie side of Ten did show itself from time to time.

"Yeah, he's okay-" she was interrupted by Ms. Byrne wheeling around the corner.

"Tain-an-yaw Jacobsen," she shouted, butchering the girl's name. "You tuck those wings into your uniform this instant!!!"

The hyperactive pixie pretended to look at a watch. "Well hey! Would ya look at my wrist. Gotta run! See you at lunch?" Without waiting for an answer, Ten rushed off to her class, the overbearing Ms. Byrne hot on her trail.

The three girls could hear them down the hall. "Those things are the work of Satan himself, I am going to have you expelled for this, Tain-an-yaw..."

Sharifa and Preeti closed their lockers and headed for first period. "See you at lunch, Bernadette."

The crippled girl was left alone, a sadly often occurrence. She'd been born to a nice, Christian family, her parents were good people, why was she meant to suffer this way? She was older than the other girls in their group, she should be living life by now. Surely the Lord wasn't so cruel as to want to keep her like this forever?

She shook her head. No, she'd keep the faith, and she'd be rewarded. Eventually. Try as she might to put it out of her mind, that nagging feeling that she'd been handed the wrong life was never far.

It wasn't meant to be like this. She wasn't meant to be like this. She loved her friends, but they weren't good people. They were pagans and abominations. And worst, they were so judgemental about the Christian girls at the school. It wasn't those girls' fault they despised her! The affliction she suffered was clearly punishment from the Lord for some sin her parents had committed. None of the Christian bitches at this school would piss to save you if you burst into flame, Shar had said, admonishing her for defending them. Bernadette looked down at her broken body.

Who could blame them for thinking I'm cursed?

It caught her attention that she could hear something... was it... singing? It was so faint, she could just barely make it out... it wasn't words that were being sung, exactly, but she could make out an ethereal feeling, something from a higher plane... angels, maybe? Somewhere in a cave perhaps, far beyond our mortal world... The song was mellifluous and slow, pouring into her brain its hypnotic charm. Can anyone else hear this? She looked around lazily. It seemed she was alone in the school hallway.

"Bernadette," came a soft, high tone. The nameless tune carried on around the voice.

The broken brunette girl struggle on her crutches to turn towards the sound. It was directional, but at the same time sounded like it was whispered in her ear.

Again it came, the ethereal song never stopping nor losing its entrancing effect. "Bernadette,"

The sound was coming from the admin office down the hall. Somehow she knew.

"Bernadette... come here, Bernadette..."

It was a woman's voice, a dolce alto that emanated from the door and swam in her head. It was so soothing, so calming... Bernadette hobbled on her braces towards the sound. The heavy iron door just a crack, enough that she didn't have much of a problem pushing it open with her crutch. The air that escaped as the door inched open was damp and humid, like some bayou miasma that had made its way north.

"Hello...?" She called out.

The administration offices seemed empty of their normal people, but they looked... overgrown, for lack of a better word. Motes of light sparkled throughout the room. The song, that lost angel's song, grew louder and more hypnotizing. It seemed as though she was approaching the cave she imaged, the cave where some lost angel sung a song of being lost, of remembering half a dream...

Roots sprouted through the floor and cracked the tiles as they grew like veins throughout the room. A few of the roots grew thick tendrils that travelled up the secretaries desk like reaching arms trying to pull it into the ground. Bernadette stepped over them as if it was a dream, not noticing as the door closed shut behind her.

"That's it Bernadette, a little closer now... everything will be made right..."

The roots avoided the iron doors and chair legs, but the crippled girl didn't notice. Between the voice and the song, she was thoroughly hypnotized. Moving without a thought towards... something. She knew that she was meant to enter the principal's office, but in her hypnagogic state she didn't question where that knowledge came from. The voice beckoned, and she followed. Passing the crumbling secretary's desk to the heavy iron door of the principal's office, Bernadette listened again for that sweet voice. The door opened slowly as she approached, as if by magic.

"Come in." The voice was real this time! Not in her head! Hearing actual sound floated Bernadette's mind to reality like bubbles to the surface of water. Shaking her head, she began to regain her senses. The song faded away.

"What... what's happening? Where am I?" Now awake and a little scared, she scanned her surroundings.

The office was destroyed, made all the more severe by the sudden silence. Her head lolled as she took in the biggest mess she had ever seen in one place. Papers were scattered, shelves overturned, roots took hold every nook and cranny like the office was an abandoned ruin. At the centre of the room was a gigantic hole where the principal's desk should have been. Out of the hole sprouted an intimidatingly huge flower bud, with broad, purple petals that were bigger than a grown man.

In the far corner of the room, the principal and several administrative attendants were pinned down by an intricate series of roots. "Help... us..." the principal managed to wheeze. The trapped people looked terrified! Bernadette, now fully aware, tried to hobble over to help them. As she got closer, she could see that a veined membrane emanated from the roots and grew over the captives. Wait was it... it was still spreading! It was going to cover them whole!

"Hold on, Principal Schneider! I'll get you out!"

Bernadette's attention was suddenly redirected to the huge flower by the petals, which unfurled like a lazy merry-go-round. When they finished opening, a nude elf was revealed at the centre of the flower, quite unlike any Fae the crippled girl had ever seen. Not that she'd seen many in her life, but this... The elf's fiery red hair had an inner glow like molten rock, and her skin seemed made of soft light. Her curves were perfect – even by the ridiculous feminine standards of the Fae races.

The bottom petal bowed in obeisance and let the elf Caecyliiyanali, Cecilia to the humans, gently to the floor. Like an old testament angel, her feet seemed to hover an inch above the base Earth. To Bernadette the world seemed filmed through a soft lens; time moved slowly and dream-like.

"I sung for you the song of the faeries, my sweet Bernadette. Be grateful! Few humans ever hear our hearts' true song," Cecilia said slowly, in a voice that seemed as soft as the flower petals she emerged from. Every sound still seemed sharp to Bernadette though, in the absence of the haunting song that had lured her.

Appraising the girl, Cecilia noted her features. "Bowl-cut brown hair, unflattering features, twisted limbs," the words cut at Bernadette, making her feel naked before her captor.

"You poor, broken, child. Your gods have been cruel, to shape you this way." She languidly stepped towards her prey on the balls of her toes, her hair blowing in some unseen breeze. She stared into Bernadette's eyes and did not let go of the gaze.

"When I first arrived to this world, I tried to understand your religions with their repressive ways. I could never grasp why humans make themselves suffer so. You yearn like we do for the joys of the flesh – I have felt it! When a man slides his hand up my thigh, when a woman kneads the flesh of my bosom, I feel your yearning, and it is kin to mine."

The Fae had a look in her eye when she spoke, like a wolf that had found a lost lamb. "But you fight that which comes naturally in the name of cold and distant gods, and hate yourselves when you cannot win." She walked around the entranced girl in a theatrical manner, trailing a finger along her shoulder. It was the nature of Fae to be a little on the melodramatic side.

"You can give up that hypocrisy, Bernadette. You can become what you were meant to be, body and mind. All you have to do, is ask."

Bernadette knew this was a test. Jesus had been tested like this; Satan tempted him with worldly power and wealth, but he had refused. Now Satan was taking the form of a beautiful woman, what she herself had always wanted to be, to show her what she could have. I can be strong, she thought to herself. If the Lord had made her this way, He had a purpose for it.

"Get thee gone, devil! In the name of the Lord, I command you to let these people go!" Bernadette said emphatically, pointing to the captured school administrators.

Cecilia looked at the tiny, broken girl, so small but so defiant. Bemused, Cecilia threw back her head and laughed in a high-pitched voice that was soft, but still somehow menacing.

"You know, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to hear a human say 'no'. Thank you for that," she said, smiling.

Cecilia was so close that Bernadette could finally see her skin under the radiance. It was beautiful, like polished alabaster. The elf seemed to float to within an inch of her face, after which she took a hold of the girl. "LUST" she whispered in her ear.

Bernadette's poor mind cracked like an egg shell. Her faith that her god would protect her was so strong, she didn't anticipate the Hunger. It was like her pussy was all that existed. She could feel every inch of her womanly sanctum, every cell that screamed as if it were on fire. Images flashed through her mind; her friend Joey, with his cool demeanor and awkwardness around girls. She would feel him inside her! Sharifa's boyfriend Gavin, with his muscular build and Teutonic features. He would be her husband, if only for a few minutes. Mr. Johnson, the portly Religion teacher she had a crush on. In her mind he was naked underneath her pregnant body, shooting delicious seed into her fertile depths to father yet more children upon her.

Where... where were these thoughts coming from? Her feet went amok and she fell to her knees, scattering her crutches. God, help me! she prayed. She shook her head, Get it together, Bernadette... you... can... hold...on!

"You are strong to have held on this far!" It was the goddess-elf in front of her, observing the crippled girl in wonder. "I can see why I was commanded to take you first."

Bernadette had no comebacks, no quips, all her focus was on fighting the Need. The need to be roughly taken by groups of men, by her teachers, by her friends, by complete strangers... she saw herself wearing a wedding dress in a church, surrounded by Parishioners, being sexed in the centre aisle by a dozen naked men while the Minister gave a fire-and-brimstone speech about hell-bound unbelievers, climaxing as the Minister smashed his fist on the daïs.