Familiar!

I had the power, of that I had no doubt. I also had the seed she could use to become a true Mage, a sorceress with more powers than her mother and elder sister had. I could change her destiny.

It was a difficult decision. One I had to make on my own because I could not rely on anyone else being impartial. Other than my own thoughts, and even those were suspect, there was no one to help me make this decision. Yet, maybe I could make it easier to decide.

"Katrina Black. Come to me." The words rolled and swelled, an undeniable command inherent in them.

"Daniel! NO!" Kathleen yanked her palm from mine.

I held up my hand. "I'm not going to hurt her. I promise."

A small black cat raced into the house before Kathleen could reply. I gestured at Kathleen. "By your sister. As your other self."

The cat sat at Kathleen's feet then vanished as her younger sister appeared in its place. They reached toward each other simultaneously. Kathleen raised her free hand and I could see her prepare to shield them both. From me.

"Please don't. I just need the answer to a question."

"What question?" Kathleen paused.

"One only she has the answer to." I looked down at Katrina. "Would you, given a choice, choose to be more than you are? To be more than your mother or your older sister? Or would you prefer to stay just like you and your younger sister are right now, normal and nearly human?"

Katrina looked confused and glanced at her sister. Kathleen squatted and put both her palms along Katrina's cheeks, holding her face steady.

"Would you like to be like me or mom. A Witch like us. Would you like that? Or would you rather stay like you are?"

"I'm afraid." Katrina's voice was tiny.

"Of what?" I asked gently.

"You."

"So be it." I reached toward the spark which was Katrina, unlocking her magic potential and depositing the mage seed deep inside. Carefully I nestled it among the shining strands which comprised the spark. The strands which, possibly, were Katrina's soul. Gently I closed the strands around the seed, bidding them to take it up, to nourish it, to make it one with them. I watched as the spark obeyed and closed over the new potential I'd given it.

I was not done. I could not risk Katrina with an onslaught of powers she'd never had before and did not know how to control. So, as I bound the seed and spark together, I limited the spark and confined the seed until Katrina reached adulthood. And then further restricted the seed to slow its opening until she reached her full potential. She would mature first then grow into her new powers. She would never have to be afraid of someone like me again.

"Finished."

"What did you do?"

"Your sister is now a true Mage. Or, she will be once she grows up."

Kathleen stared at me then turned to her sister, running her eyes up and down the younger girl's body. Giving Katrina a hug, she turned her around and gave her a little push.

"Go show mom."

Katrina vanished and the skinny black cat raced away. With the last of the power I snuffed the remnants of flames charring the walls of my house. I could see red lights flashing outside and there were people lining the sidewalks while firemen in yellow jackets pulled hoses from the back of their fire trucks, hooking them to the hydrant on the sidewalk. I looked around the house wondering what was going to happen next.

"What do we tell them?" I indicated the stranger on the floor. "What do we do about him?"

Chapter 8

It was hours before all the firemen, police and neighbors tramping through my house finally left. Kathleen, at first, sticking right next to me before she stiffened and stepped away from my side. It was as if she'd suddenly realized she was holding my hand and didn't like it. The magic she'd had swirling around her disappeared and she gave me a strange look. Concerned, I moved toward her but she backed away, putting the charred couch between us while her face blanched. All I could think was that it was another one of her mercurial mood swings.

The police had taken the stranger away after we'd told them he'd tried to burn the house down and attacked me. They listened and asked endless questions while the stranger muttered threats he'd return and take everything from me; my friends, my family, my Familiar, and even the Kitties he'd sensed upon his arrival. Everything.

We shook our heads at his ravings as if he was crazy and needed medical supervision. He was shouting at us that we'd be sorry as they put him into a police car and drove away.

Kathleen wasn't happy with my decision to let him go. She wanted me to just burn him to ashes and bury the residue somewhere far away. I could understand her feelings, cats were very efficient predators and they didn't tolerate things they didn't like in their territory. But I wasn't a cat.

What I was, I didn't really know. I felt like I'd always felt, yet there was a new part of me now too. A part which was remote. Different. Uncaring in some aspects and deeply caring in others.

The new part of me wasn't the least bit fazed I could do things with the golden power Kathleen tapped into. Nor did it care how I was able to do it. My head just accepted that I could, and ignored the reality which said I couldn't because it was impossible and magic didn't exist.

That new way of thinking also didn't care if Kathleen, and the rest of her family, could change form between a cat and human being. It just dismissed the weirdness as if it were commonplace and not worth spending any time worrying about.

And the part that cared deeply? I didn't know what to do with it. I tried not to pay any attention to it but it lingered on the edges of my awareness, coming sharply into focus every time Kathleen moved or spoke. If I gave in and didn't try to push the awareness away, Kathleen would glance up at me as if she could feel me looking at her. So I tried not to think about her because she'd move even further from me whenever I did.

What was weird was that in my head I was convinced all of it was more of the false reality the doctors said I might experience. It would explain everything, despite how I was feeling about all of it now. Almost as if I was two people living in my head at the same time. Which meant all of this had to be one of the fantasies they'd said I could be having. There was no other rational explanation. Except there were police and firemen in my house and I could see the traces of fire everywhere. No matter how I tried to explain it to myself, I couldn't rationalize that.

Eventually it was over and everyone finally left. I closed the door to find Kathleen still there, sorting through the mess by scraping things aside with her foot. As I turned around, she bent and picked up one of the scattered cat toys, lifting it close to her nose and inhaling. I stood and watched the incongruity of a young black-haired woman sniffing a slightly singed toy mouse with suddenly dreamy eyes.

"What?" The challenge in her voice wasn't hard to miss even though the word was gently spoken.

"Nothing." I waved my hands. "What now?"

She turned and dropped the fuzzy mouse into her pocket. "We clean up."

"And then?"

"We fix your house."

I sighed. "I was fired because no one told my boss what happened to me. Now I have no money, no job, and no savings. I can't even pay my bills let alone rebuild half my house and buy new furniture. What do you expect me to do?"

Grumbling to herself that someone should have shown me something before now, she beckoned me toward the dining room table, pointing at a place there for me to sit. I righted one of the overturned chairs and sat where she pointed.

"Watch." Kathleen placed a tiny lump of burnt house on the table and cupped her hand over it. I could feel her gathering the golden power and somehow pushing it through her hand and into the lump of charcoal she was focused on.

A moment later she released the power and lifted her hand. On the table was a tiny diamond.

"It's just alchemy."

"Alchemy?"

"Transmutation. Changing one thing into another as long as it's closely related. Carbon is carbon. It doesn't matter if it's a bar-be-cue briquette or a charred table leg, it's carbon. Diamonds are pure carbon."

"Oh." I carefully picked up the diamond. It was polished and faceted and flashed in the light.

"I used enough power to polish it rather than leave it rough. Cut stones are worth more."

"Worth more?" Somehow what she said sounded odd after the demonstration.

"We can sell it, and other things too. The money can be used to rebuild the house." She nodded toward the mess. "Or some of it. We can do the rest the really old fashioned way, with magic."

I rolled the diamond around between my fingers, watching as it flickered and flashed different colors. It wasn't very big, but several of them would be worth more than just the one. With enough of them I could fix the house and pay my bills.

"We can't just sell diamonds though. Someone will notice and wonder where we're getting all of them."

My thoughts of financial independence came crashing down around my ears. Kathleen laughed at the expression which much have crossed my face.

"We can do other things. Gold is easier to sell without anyone asking any questions. Or not too many anyway, so we still have to be careful. Gold flakes and nuggets are better than bars or coins when you try to sell them because everyone thinks you're a gold prospector instead of a thief."

Kathleen put another blackened chunk of my house on the table. "Watch what I do. Then you can try it."

I tried to watch but her hand was in the way. I could feel she was doing something, though what exactly she was doing I didn't know. Pushing her hand out of the way so I could see better, the golden power cupped underneath suddenly started raging and burning.

"Daniel!" Kathleen jerked her hand away from the fiery orb.

"Hmmm?" I reached out and snuffed it before it got out of control, I didn't need any more of my house charred or destroyed. The orb was interesting though. Sort of squishy like a rubber ball or one of those toys people with high stress jobs squeeze when they need relief.

Musingly, almost casually, I called the orb back. It was very malleable, almost as if it was alive and wanted me to play with it, seeming almost eager to please. I poked at it with a finger trying to see exactly what it was made of. My questing finger sent the orb spinning and moving away from where it was hanging in mid-air in front of me.

"Don't!" Kathleen yanked my hand away as I reached out to cup the orb and bring it back.

Instead of fighting I let her pull me back, twining my fingers with hers while keeping an eye on the moving orb. Crooking my other fingers at the glowing ball, I called it closer.

<Daniel.> Kathleen squeezed my fingers lightly.

<Yes?>

<That's very dangerous to play with.>

<No, it isn't.> I snapped the orb out of existence with a thought. <See?>

Kathleen turned my head toward her by cupping my chin.

"Yes, it is. That's raw power. Magic. It can do anything, be anything. If you let it get out of control like that, there's no telling what can happen. There's enough power there to kill everyone in the city. Think nuclear explosion if it gets away from you."

"It's what?" I spun to face the table and cupped my hands to call the orb back. It sprang into being in mid-air again.

"Daniel!"

"It's ok." I tried to explain. "It's binary, on or off."

"What?"

"On." I gestured to the glowing orb.

"Off." The orb disappeared.

"On." It reappeared again.

"Off!" Kathleen tapped me on the top of my head with a fingertip. "And, it needs to stay off. I'm not sure my shield could contain it if it got away from you."

I examined Kathleen with my eyes then watched the orb for a few minutes. I nodded my head after a bit.

"You could if you had to. Your shield is unbreakable even for this kind of power. It'd be better if you funneled the energy up and away rather than trying to keep it contained, but you could. It would burn a long time though."

"How . . . long?" Kathleen's voice stumbled over what I'd said about her shield. Nothing could break it and hurt her. Nothing.

I looked at the orb some more. "I don't know. A long time."

"An hour? A day?"

Shaking my head no, I tried to visualize like she'd shown me that one time. "Longer. But you could hang onto it until it burned out if you wanted to."

Black dust rained out of the orb as I tried to press it into the image I'd created. Dimming as the dust poured in a vertical stream from the orb onto the table top, the glowing ball eventually flickered and disappeared completely.

"This was supposed to be gold." I frowned and stuck a finger into the dust, swirling it around until it resembled a spiraling miniature galaxy. Carefully I adjusted the arms so it resembled a galaxy I'd visited only a few hours ago. The thought should have bothered me but it didn't.

"Daniel," Kathleen tapped my head with her finger to get my attention again. "How long?"

I called up another orb to study it so I could answer her question.

"Daniel, no!"

With a sigh, I cancelled the orb.

"A hundred. Maybe one fifty. It might depend on how tightly you compressed it while you were holding on to it. I don't know why you'd want to though."

"Want to what?"

"Stick around all those years just to baby sit. Think of the fun things you could be doing instead."

"Wait, one hundred and fifty years? Not days, years?"

I shrugged slightly. "Give or take a few decades. Each orb is slightly different so I can't say exactly."

"Daniel, I won't live that long. No one does."

I looked up at her. "You could."

"Daniel . . . do you know . . .?" The shock in her voice was easy to hear. "Can you tell the future?"

Shaking my head I returned to facing the table, calling up another orb so I could try it again. "No. All I can see is your potential. It's just code. Sometimes the code is really stable looking. Sometimes it isn't so it doesn't last very long before the stack fails."

I tried to explain it in terms I thought she'd understand. Most people understood about computer code even if they didn't know how to write it. From the look she gave me, she was one of those who didn't. She remained silent as more of the black dust rained from the orb. I sighed and nudged the orb in her direction.

"You try it. Tell me what I'm doing wrong."

"I can't touch that!" Kathleen jerked away from the orb. "Not now."

"Why not?" I caught the shining ball before it could float away. "It's just energy."

"It's not. It's . . ."

"It's what?" I tumbled the orb watching it change density and intensity as it tried to right itself. It was acting almost as if it was alive and aware somehow.

"It's magic, but not something I can touch." Kathleen indicated the orb by pointing her chin at it

I cancelled the magic so I could turn and talk to her. "Why not? It's the same thing you used when you made the diamond, so why can't you use this?"

Kathleen studied my face before she righted and sat in a second chair and put her elbows on the table. She used her finger to draw a wavy line on the surface.

"Think of magic as a river or a torrent. It rages and it's dangerous to play with. You definitely don't go swimming in it. Sometimes, if someone is strong enough, they can dip a toe in but mostly you leave it alone. Okay?"

I nodded. I could visualize her river of magic.

"The river has layers and currents. The deep parts are the fastest and have the most hidden dangers from snags and rocks and things."

I nodded again. The Kern River up by Bakersfield and the Colorado River in Arizona were both places I'd visited. I knew how powerful rivers could be even though they looked placid and calm on the surface.

"I'm not a very strong Witch so I can barely touch the eddies in the magic stream. If I'm careful and concentrate, I can take a sip or a thimbleful from the very edge to use myself. As a Familiar I can divert a tiny bit and send it to you for you to use. That's all I can do. That's all anyone can do."

"And?"

"That ball of energy? Your binary thing? It's from the deepest part of the river, the center of magic. It's raw power. Really, really raw power. If I tried to use it, it'd incinerate me in an instant. I'd look like your dust there." Kathleen nodded to the small pile on the table.

"This doesn't make sense. You said Mages can't tap directly into the magic. That's why Mages need Familiars, to direct the magic to someone like me."

"Not exactly. What I said was Mages have power. Some power. But, with a Familiar, they have access to greater power."

"Oh. So how much power does a Mage have? That much?" I twitched my chin to where a new orb was hanging over the table just out of her reach.

Kathleen jerked backward in her chair to put as much distance as she could between herself and the magic ball.

"That's . . . really scary when you do that. Can you put it away? Please?"

Immediately I blanked the ball.

"It's just energy. I can see the various elements of it. It's like random lines of software code. It's not that complicated to make it do what I want, I just tell it what I want and the code organizes itself and changes so it can do what I need it to do." I tried to explain what I meant. "Isn't that how it works?"

"Yes, it is. I mean, it does, but it doesn't. It's not like that for me, but everyone is different." She flipped her hands outward in frustration. "This totally breaks the rules. As a Mage, you aren't supposed to be able to touch it. Especially not like that. Everything I've seen, and have been taught, says what you just did is impossible. But you did it. Several times. You don't need a Familiar, what you just did proves it. The question is, why not?"

"Don't you mean how?"

She shook her head no. "The way we use magic is different for everyone. We all think differently so we work magic differently. The basics stay the same though, you have to visualize what you're trying to do and then use the magic to make it happen. Some people are better at it than others. Like artists, some can paint and some can't. Others are more mechanically inclined so they build stronger or more powerful constructs.

"Working with magic is the same thing, some are better than others because they visualize or create better. But, the basics stay the same; just like an artist has to have a brush in order to paint, Mages have to have a Familiar to have access to power. Except you don't. Why?"

"You don't need a Familiar." I pointed out the obvious.

"I'm part Witch, part Familiar. I have to use the Familiar part to gather the power I need to work magic and store it internally until I use it. My mom is the same way, power first, store it, then use it. It takes more concentration and time for me to do things because I have to do both things separately. And I only have the power I've already stored to use. When that's gone, I can't do any more magic until I get more and store it."

"Oh." I clicked an orb into existence and really looked at it. There was a lot of power in it. Raw pulsing power which could do anything, be anything, create anything. I just had to want it and the orb would make it happen. It was a magic genie without the three-wish limitation.

I looked at Kathleen out of the corner of my eye. Could she draw and store the same amount of power that was inside the orb?

"Not even close." She shook her head as if she knew what I was thinking. "I can't hold that much power and I don't even want to touch it. Like I said, it'd burn me to a cinder in a flash if I even tried. I can't even imagine how you're doing it."