[Week 2.??]

Frankie ran a hand over her cuff and adjusted her slacks. The firm oval leaves of the shrub she crouched behind were soft to the touch, but she still kept a good foot between her and the bush. The bark of these California shrubs was rough and inflexible, and she didn’t want to rip anything.

One of the first lessons of “creeping in the bushes” was that hiding behind the bushes was just as effective.

She was suffering from not enough sleep, not enough caffein, not enough cuddle time with her pet. But the kits needed to be watched and so duty called.

The kits in question sat in the cafeteria 30 feet away, eating lunch and chattering about freshman things, unaware of the wider world around them. Ignorant of the very thing that was even now beginning to flow through them.

This was always the time they were most vulnerable. When they were close enough to be seen, but not close enough to see. Close enough to be attacked, but not close enough to defend themselves. Like blind little kittens tapping around in the dark, dependent on their mother for protection.

Frankie saw herself as more of tom cat, but she would be their protector all the same.

Keeping them in a separate house helped, but not as much as people often thought. After all, the the Northside house had it’s own resonating ritual in the basement. All it achieved was changing them more slowly, to allow their bodies and spirits to keep up better, and to ensure that any danger came from their own development, not from whatever was going down at the DS house that week.

It meant none of them were likely to get picked off by a stick walker, but she’d eat a hat if they didn’t deal with at least one or two lesser threats before initiation.

Frankie snuck another bite of her sandwich, then brushed the crumbs off her leather jacket. A quick sweep of her blue ringed eyes told her nothing noteworthy was within 500 feet of them, and she went back to watching the kits. They were still sitting in the cafeteria–and thank god they’d managed to schedule the whole lot into the same lunch slot this year.

Luna, in particular, was already subtly glowing. Enough that Frankie found it concerning. Persephone and Diana had a little hue as well. Anything at all this soon was extremely promising, but she’d need to keep an extra eye on them. Even with accelerated growth, it would take weeks before she could sense them the same way she could the rest of the sisterhood.

It was a sacred duty. All seven of them held so much potential.

Across the lawn and inside the cafeteria her enhanced eyes she could see Arie making a joke. Becca did that shy little giggle, the one that almost seemed to shrink her into herself. Persephone laughed, and Diana smiled at her. Claire seemed enraptured by Arie’s presence, and even Luna poked out of her shell a little. Riga glared, maybe the joke was about her?

Hmmm, Claire, arguably their most difficult case, had been leaning into Arie the entire lunch. And it looked like Arie was reciprocating as well. Mousy Becca and Persephone had both grown closer to Diana. Riga and Luna had a good chat earlier.

On the whole Miriam had nailed it–the batch was meshing well.

Mandy would have to deflate her ego again soon.

Frankie finished her sandwich just as lunch ended. The group broke up as everyone headed to their next activities. Frankie sent a quick text to Sarah before digging her backpack out of the mulch and following her assignments for the rest of the day. Claire and Diana were headed to a study group for their introduction to computer science class. Luna was going to be studying next door and Persephone’s engineering lecture that was close enough to be safely within Franke’s coverage. Sarah would cover the rest, likely with assistance from Elya.

Not a small commitment of manpower.

Every year it was tempting to leave one or two people uncovered for just that brief, hour long window they spent in a lecture on the wrong corner of campus. Every year the next generation collectively put on their big girl pants and decided not to be lazy. The threats to their community did not care about convenience.

And the clusterfuck at the house last weekend had demonstrated that those threats were growing, and that even the main house wasn’t as protected as they wanted to think.

So they’d spend the next few weeks bored but alert. At least the walk between the cafeteria and the engineering buildings was a particularly nice one. They passed by DeLarverie Hall, through the smooth hill of Johnson Library Glade, and headed uphill to the northern edge of campus.

Frankie had just entered the engineering quad when she sensed the presence. A resonance, but not resonating with her. It could be a coincidence. In her gut she knew it wasn’t. It could be an accident. In her gut she knew it wasn’t. It could be peaceful. Frankie started walking faster.

This was either deliberate encroachment, meant to prove a point, or it was hostile activity, and the perpetrator didn’t care if they were seen. Either demanded a swift response.

Thanks to months partnered with Samie and Kevin. Frankie knew she had a few advantages. One was an unusually high detection range. In all likelihood she’d noticed them first, so getting a long distance visual was now a priority.

She eyed the facade of the East Asian Library. It had the height, and the decorative concrete facade should be climbable enough. She touched her cuff, then spent a moment reflecting–on her devotion to her sisters and their house, on Samie’s unquestionable devotion to her, on the devotion and control she gave back in return. She reflected on how they shared her will, then cast it into the universe.

Unseen; Unnoticed; Ignored.

A shiver passed through her as the universe responded. Frankie set her sights on the building. She’d already used magic for visibility, so the climb would need to be all skill. Fortunate then that Frankie had a lot of practice getting places she shouldn’t. She walked until she found an inside corner connecting an elevator shaft to the main building. Three steps, bounce off one wall, up the other, and a quick grab. One pull-up later, a foot jammed into some concrete, and she was spider climbing up facade.

There was a slight lip between the top of the facade and the roof, so Frankie got a good grip on the edge and swung a leg up. The rest was easy. Once she was up, she allowed herself a satisfied glance down. Easily three and a half stories. Enough to hurt herself if she’d fucked up, but also enough to get a visual advantage on whatever moron was infringing on her turf.

She grabbed a pair of the binoculous out of the patrol backpack and walked to the other side of the roof. There were still a few tall trees, but if she got her distance and heading right, her target should walk through her sightline in one of the downhill glades at any moment…

There. Man, mid-to-late 30s, trying for unassuming clothing. Unadorned baseball cap–a poor choice on a campus where no student would ever wear one. He wore a casual dress shirt, buttoned up all the way. The button up though… Frankie looked for the telltale golden talisma–

Fuck. Her hunch on encroachment was right. Someone from the Redemption Church. They definitely knew who this area belonged to. And while Delta Sigma wasn’t carrying out operations against them, “infidel fuckpuddle of kinky sorority sisters” definitely did not make their acceptable people list. This could only be trouble.

A quick picture on her phone and a message to the rest of the sorority. They’d sense if Frankie was in danger, but the details were standard operating protocol. Even as she put her phone away, she already felt a few distant souls change course towards her.

Prudent of them. This could escalate.

Even just being here the believer was already disrupting their resonance, their space, and Frankie did not want to find out what he would do if he reached his destination. It was high time to go say hello.

She climbed back down the facade, this time on the southern side of the building, and approached her target. They weren’t exactly close to either Delta Sigma house, but they were certainly closer than any of the church’s outposts, so she could expect an advantage from their resonance as well.

She slinked her way closer. She should have easily another 100 ft before he sensed her.

It took another minute, then Frankie felt a slight immaterial ding. He’d finally noticed. Surprisingly, he didn’t speed up or turn around. Instead he turned directly towards here. It almost looked like he wanted to go on the offense, except this far into Delta Sigma turf, alone? It was suicide.

She had about 250 feet left to figure things out, then he’d be on top of her. Or hopefully she’d be on top of him.

Still, as she passed downhill towards the Chancellor’s office, she couldn’t stop wondering. Why approach on her home turf?

It was hard to directly attack another practitioner by yourself, especially outside a locus of power. The void responded to shared will, to unity. A single person could not muster that, could not raise their voice above the din of all the humanity around them. At best, one could do minor magics like blessings and enchantments.

That’s why Frankie volunteered for these sorts of assignments; because where she was from, you learned other methods of direct engagement. Had the Church sent some kind of ex-military?

He chose a slight diagonal, and Frankie took a left into one of the larger campus glades to intercept. Two minutes later and they made eye contact in a small glade. Trees shielded them from most passing traffic. They were alone–good for more complex magic. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

She touched her cuff again, then paused for a moment to reflect–on her unending love for Samie, on her love and loyalty to her fellow sisters, on their shared purpose protecting this institution and creating a more tolerant world. This person in front of her opposed that shared purpose. Let him try to oppose her will. She shouted her defiance into the great void, and shaped her request. Swiftness, luck, and lethality, for whatever might happen next.

The steps came easier as forces from beyond this world assisted her.

She palmed her knife as they approached each other. A quick flick, a twist of the wrist, and the blade was hidden but ready. No reason to be threatening if this didn't need to escalate.

She stopped fifteen feet away. “Hello! You wouldn’t happen to have a class here today, would you?”

The man shook his head.

“Your people were in our territory last week,” he shouted, “they crossed south of 51st street. I have been sent to deliver a warning.”

Something about this felt off, and Frankie felt her tension surge. “I certainly don’t recall anyone in your territory in the last few days.” She took a step back. “and a warning could have come over text message, no?”

He didn’t respond, but reached into his backpack for–fuck–for a stone tablet. Frankie let the fight or flight wash over her. Her sisters would feel it. Samie would know something was wrong.

Then it was time to control the adrenaline, to put those hard earned survival skills to the test.

She didn’t know what the Church had inscribed onto the tablet, but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that it was something pleasant. The stone was thick–likely a complicated ritual then. Lots of effort.

Disaster? Reduction of influence? Without know why the church had suddenly decided to launch a direct strike–no to start a war, because they would respond and the Church had to know that–it was impossible to know what the strike would be.

Annihilation? Resonance disruption? A widespread disaster?

The believer chucked the tablet on the ground, and Frankie felt time slow to a crawl.

A piercing wail erupted from the shards of the tablet, and it clicked–this was a simple screamer, meant to shout into the void and draw as much as possible back towards it. It was simple—which meant with so much energy put into the tablet it was going to be extremely loud. And the way her ears were hurting–fuck this could actually draw a stick walker. She did not need a giant six legged lovecraftian spider monster with street signs for legs in her life right now.

The lonely location had been a trap.

They frequently debated on how much of magic’s function was intelligent and how much was guided by natural laws, but either way magic abhorred visibility to humans who didn’t already have rimmed eyes. To people who were normal, magic acted subtly and indirectly. A normal person stabbed by the long thin spear of a stick walker’s leg might get sick later that evening, might die in a car accident, might lose years of their life to a chronic illness. A practitioner stabbed by a stick walker leg would bleed to death from a giant fucking puncture wound right in their gut.

This applied to indirect evidence too: a stick walker in a crowd would walk carefully, leaving surfaces and buildings intact to avoid secondary evidence of its presence. A stick walker in an empty grove with two practitioners? It would go on a rampage. Humans would find some other explanation for the damage later.

For a second Frankie considered drawing whatever the screamer brought out to a crowded place. But that would limit her own flexibility as well, and it’s not like the innocent bystanders were safe. She didn’t want more blood on her hands.

If she was lucky it would be just a skitterer, but then when was the last time she’d been lucky?

The back of her mind screamed, as two entities came from the god-knows-where of the void and appeared on top of the stone. A skitterer and a stick walker.

Yep. Extremely unlucky.

Whatever newbie idiot the church sent hadn’t considered that whatever he summoned would not care for friend or foe, and so in the 10 seconds since the tablet had broken he’d only taken half a dozen steps back. Unfortunately, half a dozen human steps was just about the stride length of a stick walker, and stride the stick walker did, right through his torso.

It was surprisingly clean, the scream surprisingly short as the diaphragm got pierced, the blood and guts parting for the spiked otherworldly leg. For a single timeless moment the believer tried, briefly, futily, to pull the ten feet of black chromatic skewer out of his guts, and end his life as something other than a human shish kebab.

Then he died.

This now upped Frankie’s “fatalities witnessed” count to three, and meant another long conversation with Jacqueline to check on her mental health. Being annoyed about that was a great distraction from the horror of what she’d just seen. Frankie intended to be irreverent and sarcastic at least long enough to survive this, or to escape Delta Sigma’s mental health practitioner into the afterlife.

Fortunately Frankie had been a little smarter than the nitwit-on-a-stick and used the time after the tablet shattered to grab her nightstick from her backpack. Now she thought about how much she cared about this campus and the people on it and how really it was an extension of herself, which meant she really deserved the strength to protect it and wouldn’t the universe just listen?!

The universe did, and the nightstick became the void magic equivalent of a broadsword wielded on hallowed ground. She spun it once, and it sliced through the air with grace, guided by her hand and ethereal instinct.

In any other situation it would have made her feel strong. But in this metaphor the skitterer was a hell-sent pickup truck with jaws, and the stick walker something straight out of War of the Worlds.

She started building distance as she considered her plan. A stickwalker and a skitterer–unlikely to actually collaborate, but they wouldn’t fight each other. She wasn’t carrying any additional artifacts–fancy wards or extra power from the house. All she had were the wards inscribed in her cuff and a pendant Samie had made her that Kevin had put some kind of unclear blessings on. Magic wise she’d already casted three time–her endurance and the broad sword were all she was going to get.

She wouldn’t stand a chance in a direct fight.

The skiterrer finally got it’s bearings, searching now that it understood the tablet wasn’t actually a juicy meal. Frankie though? Fleshy and magic, delicious. It turned to face her just as the stick walker finished shaking the dead believer off its leg.

Frankie had been taking steady steps backwards, but the time for subtlety was over. She dropped her backpack and ran into the trees.

They’d barely slow the creatures down, but Frankie needed every advantage.

She ducked and weaved. If she made it three more minutes she’d probably have reinforcements. A crash behind her told her that the skitterer had reached the treeline. She made good tempo, the blessings from earlier still carrying her feet. She kept one eye behind her for the right time to use the nightstick.

Two more crashes and Frankie sensed proximity. A quick swing back, aiming for a weak point in the leg. A soft squish confirmed she’d been close.

No time to pause, another stride over the fallen log, another dash around the next tree.

She ducked through some dense bushes and cut a sharp right. The heavier skitterer slid past her. She sliced at it, drawing more black ooze out of a second cut in its leg. Not enough to stop it, but maybe a weak spot. She reached out her other sense. Good news: two sisters 250 feet out, among them Samie, though at this point it was probably Kevin. Bad news: the stick walker was using the path cleared by the skitterer, and was just a few strides behind her.

Worse news: the skitterer had cut off her path towards denser brush.

Frankie skirted as close as she dared. It snapped its oversized jaw at her and she hit it with the nightstick. It jerked away, but no visible damage.

If she could get it far enough from the stick walker she could try to fight it. Up and to the right there was particularly large oak tree. The skitterer would have room to maneuver in the clear ground below it, but it also wouldn’t clear the path in doing so, and the stick walker’s crappy leverage might struggle in the branches.

It was worth a shot.

She made the desperate sprint and reached the trunk. It would make at least a useful obstacle. The skitterer flew at her, and she sidestepped while swinging the stick. Only a glancing blow, and it had avoided the oak tree. Frankie faked a leap across the front of the tree, and this time the skitterer overcommitted. It struck the oak tree with a thump, and Frankie connected a clean hit on its front right leg. Already weakened, the hallowed sword broke through. With five working legs it would limp only a little, but if Frankie took out the. middle leg as well she could effectively disable it.

She gambled a swing at its middle leg while it was still stunned, but that was a mistake. It recovered too quickly, and pain flared through her left shoulder as the skitterer’s jaw cut into her muscle. The pendant around her neck disintegrated, and her entire body flared blue, explosive flames. The skitterer’s jaw couldn’t hold against the force of the blast, and it slid an arm’s length backwards. The leaves around her caught fire, and Frankie danced back herself escape the circle of flames.

She took the moment to check on the stick walker. The oak’s outer crown had slowed it, but it was within the canopy now. It stood on the other side of the trunk, only two, maybe three strides away.

Even slowed by the branches that wouldn’t be long.

Her shoulder throbbed. The skiterrer had torn muscle, even more when it’s jaw got brutally ripped off. She wouldn’t be able to keep wielding the night stick, and she was hemoraging blood. She took the momentary space the pendant had given her and started to run again.

Her pace was slowing. The blessinsg from earlier were wearing off, and she was losing too much blood on her shoulder.

Without the blessing she wasn’t going to be fast enough to dodge, lucky enough to hit a weak point, or lethal enough to do damage.

Without the blood wasn’t going to stay conscious.

She tried to scramble. More blood streaming out of her shoulder. Only a few more seconds and her backup would be here, at least one of them among the coven’s heaviest combat hitters. But staying awake was getting harder. Just a little more…

The stick walker’s leg came up just short, and Frankie tripped as she dodged. She barely felt the ground when she hit it.

Her vision was growing hazy, but then she felt the calming blue glow of prox i mi ty.

A backward’s ba s eball cap, an inh u m a n smil e.

Kevin was he r e. She c ou l d let herself f a d e out…

He’d take care of t h e…