Over the past few days my body has been stabilizing, with the help of Faith. Athena has been researching anything she can find on ascending to godhood, as well as going over the vampire records again. We figured out who our now dead goddess is, Hel. She’s apparently some sort of underworld ruler in norse mythology, but we haven’t really spent that much time on her after knowing her domain, which has caused me to wonder what my domain will be? How are divine beings even assigned domains? I’ll have to ask Athena later, but for now, I’m still getting back on my feet and looking into whatever I can find.

We have come across an interesting text. I don’t really know how records are stored in the divine realm, but there is a cosmic force called Life, much the same as cosmos. It’s a superior being, above the gods and one of the primordial forces, before the gods were born or created. There isn’t much written about it, but we found the name in a record of the vampire’s history that Athena managed to exchange with another god. Divine bargaining, great.

Life isn’t well known, and none of the current gods have met or spoken to it. Apparently Zeus might know something, but well, he’s sort of incapacitated at the moment, after Athena did, whatever she did to him.

I don’t know if we’re going to find any more in the divine realm, but I’ve set up a search function on my computer, running with a few keywords and saving the results. It’s basically looking through every indexed webpage on the internet, so it’s going to take a while. Hopefully it will give us something more to go on.

“Nia. We’ve found her, or atleast a connection.”

Her? OH! Finally, Helena hasn’t been seen since she attacked Faith that night. I almost started doubting my own intuition, and believing the shapeshifter theory.

“So, where is she?”

“That’s the funny thing. She’s in a hotel room. Just a few blocks from here.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

Faith is looking at me, like she doesn’t believe what I’m saying. I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Are you sure you should be moving? I mean yes you’re in goddess form, not, well, the literal sense but you know what I mean. Are you sure you’re stable enough to battle?”

“Mmm. Maybe? I mean I don’t think I will die, even if I, well, die. My body is mostly reconstructed and I think my vampirism should be able to convert the rest of the god essence. I’m still not really sure where the rest goes, I can feel some of it feeding the seed, but the rest just sort of, converts and joins with me? Anyways yes, I should be fine, as long as I don’t need a descent.”

“Okay so, what’s the plan?”

“What do you think we should do? Don’t forget our little night dates out and about in the city before we started dating.” 

I give Faith a smug grin as I remember the times where I let out my playful side and teased her for hours each time she was out hunting for me.

“So we’re, maybe catching her off guard, it’s a semi-narrow space, being a single room. So she’s either in the room or the bathroom. We should have a few seconds where she’s surprised, so I’d assume we either try to shackle her down with my ice, or you make like, glowy golden divine chains of blood or something?”

“Sure, let’s go with that. It’s less, permanent than what I’d like to do.”

Faith gives me a look before she realizes what I was suggesting. Yeah, I just wanted to go in guns blazing and make sure she’s dead. I know I promised Faith we’d try to take her alive, but I’m not keen on having a murderous super powerful changed running around. Jealousy? Nah. Probably not, I think.

We make our way to the room she was seen entering, and we both manifest our own restraining constructs. Listening close for movement, I give Faith a nod and she quietly freezes the hinges, before giving the door a horse kick.

On the bed sits an Angelic looking humanoid, and I notice the horns and the tail, I guess that’s what she meant by Angelic Succubus, kinda weird, also kinda hot. Oh, woops, no time to focus on how hot my girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend is. 

We simultaneously launch our chains and shackles at the angel girl, and she’s chained into the wall in less than a second. Faith is about to move forward but I stop her with my arm. Conjuring a small needle of blood, attacking a small string of blood that connects to my body, I launch it at her stomach.

The needle lands, and I pull it back, before both me and Athena notices something. It’s too late however, as Helena, assuming that is who she is, breaks free from the restraints and throws herself out of the window, disappearing at a rapid speed. Neither me nor Faith can fly, hmm, maybe I can? Blood wings? Anyways at the moment neither of us can follow her, so there’s not a lot we can do.

“I guess that was sort of a success, at least we got her blood.”

“Um, Faith. About that.”

We’re back in my office at the HDA, and Ingrid is with us. We’re sitting in my little tea section, while I’m pretending to drink normal tea, and ignoring the cupcakes and cookies on the table, that Faith is happily munching on.

“Say that again, she’s a what?”

“A lich. An undead. I honestly have no clue how or why, well, it’s obviously some sort of necromancy, but the body is so intact, and the features don't make any sense. I have heard the descriptions of people raised from the dead before the severing, but only a very, very, very small percentile of undead can become a lich, and I’ve never heard of any lich looking like that, or being that strong. I'm not exactly sure what her phylactery  is, as far as I know they have a certain radius they have be within. I'm not even sure if she's normal, as the two sightings we've had of her has been almost on different ends of the city.”

Faith has been in a bad mood since I told her that my tracking ability doesn’t work on her. There was something on the needle, but it was neither blood nor life force, so there was nothing I could do about it. Neither of us were expecting her to be an undead, but it does strengthen my theory about this having something to do with her parents, and that it is in fact Helena.

“So what do we do now? Wait for her to surface again, if she does? Do we still know nothing about her goals?”

“I don’t know. Last time she appeared and tried to kill Faith, this time she simply fled after breaking free. There’s no pattern, there’s no obvious goal. We haven’t heard or seen anything about her until tonight, which in itself is weird, like somebody wanted us there. I don’t know if I’m just overthinking.”

My communicator ring lights up, and I withdraw the communicator to see an incoming call from the lobby. 

“Miss, there’s someone here who says he wants to meet with you. Something about undead. He won’t give me all the details.”

I look at Ingrid and Faith, they both give me an equally suspicious look as they don their disguises. This timing is honestly uncanny, and way too suspicious.

“Let him up.”

A few minutes later, and a very very nervous young boy is standing in front of us. I assume he’s around 14 or 15 years old. He has short orange hair, golden eyes and a very slim, almost scrawny build.

“So, who are you?”

I look towards Mystica as she gives me a nod. Good, she’s using her ability on his answers.

“My name is Kyle Claymore. I’m fourteen years old and from New York. I was a normal human being before the shift, but I became a phoenix-kin.”

Phoenix kin? Now those are very rare. I take out my communicator and look through the database. Finding his name. Let’s see. Name and age is what he says. Neither parents are changed, oh but his mother works for the HDA as an information analyst, father owns a small grocery store in Brooklyn. Normal hobbies, normal grades, normal friends. Seems our knowledge about the family of HDA employees has improved. Good.

“Hello Kyle. I assume you know who we are, but if not. This purple lady over here is Mystica Parallax, the founder of the HDA. Besides me is our resident snow fox, Devotion. And I am Ethenia.”

Both Mystica and Devotion give me a glare at their introduction. I wanted to try to coax the boy into thinking we were nice and friendly. He looks so scared he might need a change of pants soon. I’d rather not have a mess in my office.

“No need to be so nervous Kyle. Sit down and have a cup of tea to calm yourself, then tell us why you’re here.”

He does as I say, and we continue a bit of small talk until I can see he’s visibly calmed down. Devotion almost wraps a tail around me a few times but I summoned a small flyswatter behind my back and swatted her tails away. Her tails obviously have a mind of their own, but it’s not good to cuddle and possibly give away anything when we have others in the room. Mystica knows, but everyone at university knows I’m dating Faith, not Devotion.

“So, Kyle. Would you mind telling us why you’re here? The lady you spoke to earlier mentioned something about undead?”

I can see his expression changing, as he tries to focus and be serious. It’s almost cute how he’s trying so hard.

“Yes, so um, as you probably know my mother works for the HDA in the information department. Most of what she does is confidential, so I don’t really know what her job entails, but I picked up on the fact that you were looking for an, Angelic Succubus?”

He sounds uncertain at that description, I mean who wouldn’t. I give him a smile and a nod, telling him to go on.

“So I thought, maybe I could help out. I grew up reading comics about heroes, and I thought, maybe this is something I can do. So I heard around the city, and I stumbled upon a certain cult. I focused a bit more on this cult, before I heard something that made me think of the girl you’re looking for. There was a man talking to what I assume were a couple, and he said something like “if you give us the body, god will give her his blessing, and raise her as his messenger, a divine angel.”. He also said something about all these false self-proclaimed gods popping up after the shift, but I sort of got stuck on what he said earlier, about raising the dead into an angel.”

That indeed sounds like the problem we have at our hands. It still doesn’t entirely explain the other features, but it sounds like a start. Now there’s one thing I’ve been wondering about throughout his story.

“Kyle, how exactly, did you get this information? I mean the method. How did you not get discovered?”

Kyle looks at me for a second before he realizes what I said, and rummages around his bag for something. What he takes out is a small mouse, but there’s something familiar with it. It smells like someone I just recently met. Death.

“Kyle, is that what I think it is?”

“It’s my, servant? Familiar? I don’t really know what to call them, but yes, it’s an undead. I’m a necromancer.”

“Okay Kyle, before we go any further, I am going to have to ask you a few questions, okay?”

Kyle gives me a nod, and I look towards Mystica to see her repeat the action, before she concentrates on Kyle.

“Kyle. Do you have any knowledge, affiliation, direct or indirect with said cult?”

“No.”

“Do you have any other knowledge, affiliation, direct or indirect with said Angelic Succubus, besides what you’ve mentioned in your story?”

“No.”

“What is your true objective in telling us? What is your intention? Your goal?”

“I just want to help the HDA, because I admire and want to be a hero.”

Mystica gives me a nod, he hasn’t spoken any lies.

“Perfect. Thank you Kyle. Now, you’re free to go if you want, as we’re going to have to discuss what we’re going to do about this. I will give you my number, as I would very, very much like to talk to you about your ability, and possibly offer you a job. We might also need your help in this matter, if you and your parents are okay with it. Okay?”

His face brightens as he gives me a very enthusiastic nod, eliciting a giggle out of me and Devotion.

Melimelidh

So I accidentally gave a phoenix-kin necromancy powers? I'd planned out the necromancy part, but the phoenix part was just a small joke/epiphany. I mean, who better to be a necromancer than someone descendant of the ultimate conqueror of life/death?