I paced back and forth in the living area while I waited for David to show up. I had called him as soon as we were attacked. I didn't know who else I could call, it wasn't like Seth would have just dropped everything and come home immediately, and David was the only friend I really had.

     "Do you perhaps have any friends we could call?" I asked Zoe, who was sitting on the couch, her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. She was likely getting irritated with my pacing.

     She looked at me and rolled her eyes. "You were reading my mind again? That's really unfair!" she said angrily. Okay, David might have been right about that one. "For your information, I do have some friends, but I really don't want to talk to them right now, especially not over something like this. Now mind your own business and stay out of my head!"

     I sighed. "No problem. Your head is no fun to be in, anyway. I don't know how you can stand it yourself!"

     She stood and came right up to me, her nose inches from mine. "What was that? Do you want to say that to me again?"

     "Threatening me now, that's really great," I said, rolling my eyes. Her threats meant nothing to me since she never did anything, anyway. She was usually all bark and no bite. At least with me. With others, that was a different story.

     Before she could respond, just then, there came a knock on the door. Saved by the bell, I thought, as I stepped back away from my pissy sister and walked over to the door. As I opened it, suddenly David burst into the room. "Where's it at?!" he said, fire and storm spells charged in each hand.

     I laughed as I set my hand on his shoulder. "It's not here anymore," I said. "Though I appreciate your bluster."

     He turned back to me. "Alright," he said as he dismissed his spells. "I'm staying with you tonight, though. If that thing comes back, it'll be sorry."

     I nodded toward Zoe, who was getting irritated with his presence already. She fought me on whether to call him at all. She didn't think I should, and I got the sense she didn't want him here. But I did, if I was being honest. As much as I trusted her to protect us both, I felt safer with him around. I didn't quite know why, he just made me feel safe.

     "Still don't know why you had to go and call him. . ." she said, rolling her eyes as she walked out of the room. To be honest, coming from her, that was high praise. Take what you can get. That she would walk away and not start a fight with him was certainly saying something. Perhaps she was growing. Then again, maybe not.

     David turned to me. "Do you have any idea what it was?" he asked, with concern mixed with confusion. I had described it to him the best I could, but to be honest, I was still trying to wrap my mind around what we saw.

     I shook my head. "I've never seen anything like it. I was honestly hoping you knew," I said as I stepped away and walked over to the couch, slumping down onto the cushions. "It was just like some sort of black mass, wispy and hazy. No eyes, no mouth, none that I could see. Zoe's magic did nothing to it, just went right through it. Only my psi powers seemed to have any effect on it. That's the part I'm struggling to figure out."

     He followed me to the couch. "So it's immune to magic, but susceptible to your powers? Is that what you're saying?"

     I only nodded, looking at him. I didn't know what else needed to be said. Millions of possibilities ran through my mind over and over, but none of them seemed to fit. The only thing that I could think of but didn't quite seem right was the first thing I dismissed. "There's only one thing that I could think of that it might have been, but I highly doubt that's what it was. It just couldn't be. . ."

     "What's that?"

     "Elemental spirits. . ." I said, looking at him. Elemental spirits were like the spirits of nature, spiritual guardians of Terr'ahna. The ones I had met were kind and protected me. But they were both immune to Mystia Casting and susceptible to my powers. It was the only thing that fit the logic of what we saw, but didn't fit them. They would have never done anything like this. I knew that as a fact.

     David pondered it as he sat down next to me. "Is it possible that one of them could have gone bad?" he said.

     I looked at him with shock on my face. Did I think it was possible? Maybe. But how could I be certain? Other than to call on them.

     I sighed as I stood and walked away. Then, closing my eyes, I reached out to my spiritual guides. "Aquarius, please hear me. I need you."

     A moment later, there came the sound of trickling water echoing throughout the apartment, before turning into a full-on gush as a geyser erupted from the floor before me before coalescing into the form of a blue man with a fishlike face and a fish tail hovering there. "What is it you need, milady?"

     I took a deep breath before explaining to him exactly everything that had happened, all that we had seen. All the while, I could see the expression on his face darken and turn into a scowl as he turned away. He knew something, I knew instantly. Something that he wasn't telling me.

     "Tell me, Aquarius, what is it? What aren't you telling me? You know something, I can tell."

     Aquarius turned to me with a dark look in his eyes. "I can only tell you that as your powers grow, you will attract things of all kinds to you. It is simply the nature of what you are," he said. But he had told me the same thing once before, and I wasn't buying it. There was something he wasn't telling me.

     "Aquarius, if you know what attacked us, you need to tell us. Now. We have a right to know!"

     He sighed as he turned away. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you. All I can say is that you need to stop using your powers. Using them will only attract them. I must go now and confer with the others."

     And before I could respond, he vanished in a splash of water.

     "Well, he was helpful as always. . ." said David, standing and coming over to me.

     I sighed as I looked at him. He wasn't wrong, of course. I had hoped Aquarius would give me more to go on than that. But once again, he was vague. As usual. As I had come to expect from my spirit guides. They never liked to give me any answers and made me search for them myself. Though I knew. . . There was something about this one that worried him. But I also sensed. . . fear. Aquarius was afraid? I had never known him to be afraid of anything. That seemed impossible to me.

     "Don't you love how all the mysteries just seem to fall into your lap?" said David, shaking me from my trance.

     I smirked. "Yeah, they certainly seem to find me, with or without the help of the Maji Guard." I sighed. "But I can't shake the feeling that somehow all of this is connected."

     "How do you mean? How would this be connected to that book and the 'Ancient Ones' thing that you were investigating?"

     "Honestly, I don't know myself. Not yet anyway. I just don't know where to go from here."

     David pondered that. "Maybe more research in the library? Shadowy black masses and the Ancient Ones, maybe that will narrow things down."

     I shook my head. I didn't know how that would help. I hadn't been able to find anything there on the Ancient Ones, but of course, maybe I was looking in the wrong place. . . David might have had a point. "We were looking into ancient mythology before. But maybe we should be widening the search to other subjects. . ."

     "Maybe the occult?" he said suddenly.

     I jerked my head toward him, my mouth hung open. "You may be onto something. What was it Aquarius said? As my powers grow, there are things that will be attracted to me. It's not mythology where we should be looking. We should be looking into the occult." I swung around, grabbing my jacket from the hook and stepping toward the door.

     "What now?" David protested.

     "I've done it before. But you're right, you shouldn't join me for this one. Instead, you should stay here and keep a lookout. Just try to stay out of my sister's way, if you'll please."

     David moved to try to stop me, but I was already out the door before he could say anything, as I whispered a blessing under my breath, tracing symbols along the wall next to the door. Then I opened my eyes and looked forward. I had a plan, and even Pax wasn't going to stop me.

     I made my way into the library. The school was quiet and still. All the students and staff were probably in bed at this hour, like I should have been probably. But after all that had happened, I couldn't sleep. There was no way I could get to sleep now. The lights were dim and soft. Somewhere in the massive place, I could hear the soft fluttering wings of Pax, probably putting books away. He, I knew, almost never slept. Pixins only slept for a few hours, they didn't need nearly as much sleep as humans like myself did. Sometimes I wished I were a Pixin. Then I could spend all of my waking hours reading. But then again, I didn't want to be as high strung as Pax was.

     I strolled through the aisles of books, as I scanned the aisle markers until I found what I was looking for: a golden plaque that read, 'Occult'. I snapped my fingers as I instantly beeline down that aisle. There were books on witchcraft, the pagan practices of the Sabertooth, I'd read that book and it felt like it made a lot of false assumptions about the Sabertooth culture. Granted, I had never met one personally, but I really wondered if the writer of that book had even visited a tribe at all, or if they just wrote from stereotypes?

     There was another book on spiritual practices of the Native Atlantean people, which was another one that I felt mis-characterised the people in question, as it painted them as savages. I felt this was not just wrong, it was blatant racism. I sighed heavily. Some people never learned.

     Finally, I found something. Spirits and demons, read the title. I snagged the book off the shelf and started thumbing through the pages, scanning carefully for anything about shadowy masses, anything similar to what we had seen.

     My mouth dropped as the book fell from my hands as I took a step back. Right there on the page was a painted depiction of literally the exact thing we had seen. It was so close it was terrifying. I shook off the shock as I leaned over to pick it up. Just then my eyes fell upon the words. Necro Spirits, it read. Necro Spirits? I read on. And what I read made my blood run cold.

     It described them as the antithesis to elemental spirits. They were their polar opposites in every way. They were known to be malevolent spirits that preyed upon the suffering of people. The whole time I read this, the same question ran through my mind. Why hadn't Aquarius told me about them? I felt like this was the sort of thing he should have been telling me, that this could have very well been what attacked us. Why didn't he say anything? 

     "What are you doing to my books?!" screamed Pax from just inches from my ear, giving me a start as I just about jumped out of my skin. "Oh. . . You're that girl. Another late night?"

     I took a deep breath. "Yeah. There was something that attacked my sister and I tonight, and I came down here to see if I could figure out what it was," I said. "I'll be sure to put it back, and it will be like I was never here."

     Pax snorted. "You do that. But you're good to my books. Unlike those other nitwits."

     I smiled. I did try to take care of the books I perused. I understood his feelings about it. "Thank you. I do try. You have a good night, Pax."

     Pax said nothing as he fluttered away, leaving me to take a deep breath and relax my pounding heart. I looked back down at the page before me. That was when I read something that made my heart stop cold, as I quickly closed the book and put it back on the shelf where I had found it. Then I quickly walked away, charged through the doors, and made my way out of the school. I wanted to get back home as quickly as possible. I needed to get back as soon I could.

Thank you for reading! If you would like to learn more about the world,  click here!