She was right in one way. My need to see her and the rest of the coven destroyed is what led me to join the BHL in the first place. But if by destroying them, I could help the SPA find a way to fix my own magickal DNA, then the mandatory six years of service was a small price to pay.
"Izzie," my mother whispered her pet name for me, so low that I almost didn't catch it. "You can still change all of this. It's not too late. Let me go. Come with me. We can rebuild the coven in your image." The tone of her voice was soothing, a sound I hadn't heard since I was very young. It tore at the walls that my fear and hatred had built.
It almost worked. "No mother, you won't get out of this that easily. The little girl who might have responded to that is gone. She is dead and buried under everything that you and the coven put me through before Aunt Gene took me away from you." The mention of Aunt Gene's name brought my mother's head back up, her eyes blazing hatred.
"Don't you dare bring that traitorous bitch's name up to me. I have no sisters other than my coven sisters." The rage poured off of her in waves. I guess I'd struck a nerve. Good.
"I am done with this conversation mother, and I'm done with you. Goodbye mother. Enjoy your eternity looking at the inside of a lab through the suspension unit glass." I pushed my chair back from the edge of the circle and stood up.
As I turned to leave, something made me look back over my shoulder at the woman who bore me. For a split second, there was such a look of sadness in her big dark eyes. It was a tiny glimmer of the woman she used to be. Then just as suddenly it was gone. It was replaced by the twisted, hateful face of the Vampire Priestess she had become. Her eyes glowed with dark intensity and were rimmed with blood red tears.
"You should have taken my offer, daughter dear." The air around her seemed to buzz, it made the hair on the back of my arms stand up. I took a step towards the circle but was stopped by an invisible wall of pure energy. How was that possible? She had been stripped of her powers and talismans and my circle should have bound any other latent talents she might have.
The voice that issued from my mother's throat didn't sound like her own, "Did you really think your blood circle could hold ME? Your blood is my blood, you silly child. I brought you into this world, I gave you the chance to be the most powerful witch ever born, but you threw it away to be a puppet."
The buzzing grew louder, like a hundred thousand bees. The air began to vibrate in visible waves from the center of the circle. My mother threw back her head and howled pure rage. The sheer force of the magick sent me to my knees, my vision blurry. How? How was this even possible? What had I missed? The last thing I saw was a blinding wave of light followed by the mingled sound of iron shattering and hellish laughter. Then everything went dark.
*****
The ringing in my ears was still a subcutaneous buzz when I woke up in the med bay. There were med techs in blue uniforms and priests in white robes running in every direction. It made it hard to focus my eyes. My training took over as I did a mental check of my body parts while trying to remember what happened.
I seemed to be all in one piece. My left shoulder was sore, I might have hit the door jam on the way down. And my back felt sunburnt. I could only assume it was a flash burn from the heat of my mother burning the magic circle to smithereens. What in creation had happened?!
One of the priests approached my bed. "Good, you're awake. How are you feeling captain?"
The priest's bionic eyes blinked with a faint clicking sound. He must be a high ranking priest to have tech eyes. That kind of tech was hard to come by and expensive to implant with no outward scarring. It kind of gave him a lizard-like stare. It creeped the hell out of me. His voice was also augmented. There was a faint echo that told me he was linked to someone else. Probably recording whatever my first words were. I thought about them carefully before speaking. I had no way of knowing who or what was on the other end of that neurolink.
Before I could form a thought coherent enough to answer him he blinked again. He must have gotten some kind of command through the neurolink because he didn't even wait for my answer before turning and abruptly walking away.
I was still trying to shake the cobwebs from my head when a woman in full dress uniform stepped into the infirmary. All of the priests were quick to come to full attention. The scarlet red jacket and cut of her black cape proclaimed her as a third-year Priestess. She was just one step from the highest rank, that of Priestess General. Whatever was going on had the highest office in what was left of the Americas on high alert. And she was staring straight at me.
I tried to at least sit up as I counted the clicks of her dress boots on the plasticrete floor. I was not ready to be interrogated. My head spun from the pressure change of being semi-upright. Yep, definitely a concussion along with the torn shoulder and burns. Dammit, I didn't have time to be injured. I needed to go after my mother. My POD should've been ready to move out as soon as possible. But they couldn't leave without me.
"Captain Sloan." Her dark blond braid swung against her hip as she nodded at me. Priestesses were not allowed to cut their hair. It was a show of power that predated the first World War. Maybe even farther back than that. So much of the past had gone up in smoke centuries ago. Maybe they were making it all up. No one would ever know outside of the clergy elite. No one was ever going to be brave enough to question them either, not if they wanted to live.
"Ma'am." I tried a salute but had to bite back the pain in my shoulder so it looked more like swatting at a fly. She smiled and made a small wave as if to say it was inconsequential. I took the opportunity to gingerly lean against the bed rail on my right arm. "I'm ready to report." I wasn't even close but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing it.
She smiled again, this time it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Captain, I am well aware of your injuries and I honestly wouldn't accept a report from you right now." She pulled a chair from the wall between the beds and sat down, crossing her ankles and tucking them back under her chair. She had a poise that spoke volumes beyond normal Priestess training. She was city-born. She had to be. But what on Hel's broken earth would make her leave such privilege to go through the most grueling training in the world? I'd heard that nearly two-thirds of all candidates never made it past First Degree. Many who attempted the final Trails didn't come back. Those who did were broken, mentally and physically. The few who passed were looked at with almost Goddess-like worship by the lower ranks.
Those of us who had been through BHL training could at least grasp some of what the priesthood candidates went through on a physical level. We were taught to harness our own abilities, but the Priesthood taught you how to use technology to augment it. They could do things that were nightmare fuel for the general population. Even the covens feared them for the most part. With the exception of my mother and her fledglings of course. I had a healthy respect for my BHL COs, but I was more than a little intimidated by her.
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