Message-ID: <16406eli$9810141952@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: tigger@alices.com (Tigger) Subject: RP TG: A Change of Direction (21/22) (Magic, TG) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Reply-To: tigger@alices.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <36257d4f.1228682@news.erols.com> A Change of Direction Part 21 by Tigger Copyright 1997, all rights reserved. Archiving/publication of this author's work on any system that requires payment in any form is prohibited by the author and is in violation of my copyright to Chapters 7 and beyond. No archiving or redistribution of this work is permitted without this copyright attribution included, intact and complete, in the posting/archiving. A Change of Direction Chapter 27 Bronwyn and the other members of the Sisterhood gathered around the distraught Laurie. Funneling their combined power through one or two Sisters with "finder" talents, the Sisters had spent the better part of the evening and night searching for the mental touch of Laurie's daughter, but to no avail. "I can't sense her, Bronwyn. I know she is still alive because I would know if her life-strength died, but I cannot sense her well enough to help the Sisters of the Finder craft locate her. Somehow, she is using her own powers and she is blocking me. Dammit, why did she have to be so powerful?" "It is why we Transformed her, Laurel, because she could be so powerful. Now, we must assume she is being noble, and trying to protect us so that we will be strong when the time to confront the Brotherhood arises." "We cannot let her do that, Bronwyn." Laurie whispered desperately. "She is my baby. We have to get her back." Bronwyn nodded solemnly. "Indeed we must, Laurel, but not for that reason alone. Remember, she carries an un-Transformed daughter of the Sisterhood in her womb, and we cannot let the Brotherhood have that child. Especially since we have not taught Jacqui the Birth Rites that would protect the still- male child from the Dark Power." Laurie's eyes lit up. "The child! I have touched her child already. I know his aura!" She sent her senses outward once again and almost immediately touched and found, "The child! Bronwyn! I know where he is. She forgot to shield him from me. I have found her!" A short cheer went up from the assembly of witches, only to be cut short by the realization they would now be facing the Brotherhood directly. For the first time since the ancient times, the forces of the Goddess and the Dark One would openly confront one another. The days of the Sisterhood manipulating men of power from behind the scene were over. By kidnaping Laurie's unborn grandchild, still in his Mother's womb, this new High Leader of the Brotherhood had gone too far. Lancaster had returned to Jacqui's cell, and was seated across the room from her, watching Jacqui with eyes heated by madness. His followers were outside, standing guard around the perimeter of the factory complex. She felt so bloody helpless. What was the point of having magic powers if you could not *do* anything with them?? Nothing Jacqui had been taught to date by Laurel or by Bronwyn was adequate to the task of protecting herself or her child, not against a madman with the destructive power Lancaster seemed to possess. She hoped that her spell of concealment had prevented her Mother from finding her. She did not want her impulsive Mother getting herself killed running to her rescue. What could she do, anyway? Hell, What could Jacqui do? The only positive thing in this mess was that Lancaster wanted to make her conceive a child. Since she was already pregnant, that gave her at least a month to come up with some way of escaping, while Lancaster awaited a menses that was not going to happen. Or at least, coming up with some way of preventing Lancaster from hurting her child. "Your child will be great, woman, because he will be my son, and because I, Lancaster, High Leader of the Brotherhood, will make him so. I will teach him the power of the Dark One. He will take my place at the head of the Brotherhood, and he will destroy your precious Sisterhood once and for all. It is too bad we did not know of you. You have great reserves of power in you, but now, it is a pale, weak and useless thing. It cannot no longer destroy. They took that from you when they Transformed you, and more. They took from you your will to be great, your will to conquer, your will to dominate." His words began to run together, to slur, as his tirade grew. "Through your son, I will rule the world." At the very instant of that arrogant claim, the heavy door exploded inward and first Bronwyn, then Laurie rushed in followed by four other members of the Sisterhood. Bronwyn gestured at Jacqui, and the glowing bands that had been holding her immobile disappeared. Recovering quickly, Lancaster struck out, sending globules of black light flying at the six women. Bronwyn, Laurie and two of the women managed to shield themselves in bubbles of incandescently bright white light. The globules hissed and sputtered and then disappeared against the shining globes. The other two women did not shield in time and the globules struck them full in their chests. They screamed, hideously, and then simply dissolved into foul smelling puddles on the floor. Jacqui tried to move to the four remaining women, but Lancaster cut her off, grabbing her with a choke hold about her throat. "We seem to have a standoff, High Priestess. And I sense that you are the High Priestess. My men have been dealt with, I assume?" "Neutralized, High Leader. Unharmed, but the stench of the Dark One has been forever washed out of their souls." "Leaving them without power or the will to use it properly if they still had it. And your Goddess," the word was hissing curse, "Considers that to be nondestructive, to brutally rip from a man the very characteristics that first gave him dominion over this planet. You cannot do that to me - my power is too great. And you cannot destroy me - your Goddess forbids it. Sadly, it appears I cannot destroy you either while you hide behind your cowardly shields. It seems my best course of action, then, is to take my leave and face you again some other day." He started to drag Jacqui toward the back door. "We will not let you leave here with her, Lancaster. We can stop you." He stopped and regarded Bronwyn. The red haze of madness had receded from his dark eyes, replaced by animal cunning. "I suppose you can at that. I don't know how, but your words have the ring of truth." He shook his head sadly and turned his head to Jacqui. "This one held the key to our ancient struggle. Obviously, I will not be the one to use her to unlock that final victory." The madness burned brightly again and his right hand rose high above Jacqui. "But NEITHER will YOU, High BITCH!" The raised hand turned black and began to shimmer and pulse with a strange glow that heralded the total absence of light instead of its presence. The glow coalesced into a writhing mass above the pair and then it began to beam down onto Jacqui, who was still struggling to free herself. The instant the light grazed her, she screamed in utter agony. "NOOOOOO!!!!" Laurie's scream answered her daughter's and she reacted without thinking, forging a healing link with her child and the child in her womb. Her power, backed by Bronwyn's own, flowed into Jacqui, deflecting the soul- consuming black light and healing the damage already done. Lancaster tried to increase the power of his spell, but the combined power of the Sisterhood and Laurie first deflected his thrust and then reflected it back into him. The force of his destructive burst backfired on him, and blew him bodily away from the reeling Jacqui. Jacqui regained her senses to see Bronwyn and the Sisterhood and her Mother. She took a tentative step toward them when her Mother collapsed to the floor. Instantly, Jacqui tried to forge her own link with her Mother, but failed. Her Mother resisted her, and what Jacqui saw in the instant she was in touch with her chilled her soul. Laurie had not guarded herself in the link with her daughter. Jacqui should have died and Laurie had taken the damage done to her child into herself. Now, her Mother was dying. Lancaster struggled to his feet. Jacqui saw him gathering himself, felt the power growing in him again, and wanted to strike out at him, to turn him into puddles of sewage as he had just done to her Mother's friends. Her Mother's hand gripped hers and she knew she could not. She had to do something. He had to be stopped. What had he said? "You take from men the power of the Dark One."? The followers of the Goddess were weak because they lacked that power? Her soul in torment, Jacqui tapped the full resources of power she had been told time and again were hers. The most powerful magic she knew was the one enchantment she still could not control well enough to use safely on herself, but she could still use it . . . other ways. Bronwyn was the first to sense the change in Jacqui, and fearing Jacqui was retaliating in kind, called out to her to stop. Jacqui heard nothing save her Mother's scream, and saw nothing save the man whose lust for power had fatally injured the woman who had twice given birth to her. The air about Jacqui literally began to seethe with visible power and she quietly intoned the words she had been taught . . . . . The world exploded in a cold flash of pure blinding white light, with her at its fiery center. In the core of the swirling maelstrom of power, Jacqui sang the song her Mother and Bronwyn had taught her and bent the fabric of life to her will. When the storm faded, the power of the Dark One had been banished from that room. Moments later, she was kneeling beside her Mother, crying. "Mother," she begged. "Let me in. Please, let me try to help you. I love you. Don't leave me." "No, my love. You cannot help me. There is not enough life- power in you to heal me without the cost of your own life." "Bronwyn, help me." Jacqui cried. "Make her let me in. Help me help her." "I don't think we can, my love." Bronwyn said sadly. "Certainly not if she resists us." "And I will resist, Bronwyn, for even with the combined power of the Sisterhood, it may not be enough. Bronwyn, remember my Death Wish?" Shocked, Bronwyn paled, then nodded. Laurie turned back to Jacqui. "You can be Jack again. The High Leader's attack has all but stripped me of my life-power. The enchantment that I put upon you, the magic that forces you to do the Transformation yourself will die with me. The power is in you, daughter, and the Sisterhood can help you. You may never be this powerful again. Don't let me destroy your dreams." Bronwyn sighed. "It may not work, Laurel. She has killed with the power of the Goddess. She won't have the power to complete the spell with us." "I did not kill him." Jacqui snarled. "I Transformed him. See for yourself." One of the Sisters, a woman Jacqui recognized as her high school vice principal, ran over to where Lancaster had fallen under Jacqui's onslaught. She made a cry of wonder and returned, carrying a newborn baby in her arms. "The child is female, High Priestess." Thea said in hushed awe. "She can't wield the Dark One's power, and she can be raised again, this time without the Dark Power's taint. I don't have the control Mother had. I could not focus the spell on just him. So, I attacked any "Y" chromosome I touched with my spell. I don't know what the range of the enchantment was, but whatever it is, there is not a male creature inside of that perimeter." Jacqui whispered, still trying to focus her power to pierce her Mother's defenses. Bronwyn nodded and knelt down beside Mother and daughter. She rested a hand on each of them. "Then what your Mother said is true, Jacqui. Her spell dies with her. Given what I have just witnessed, your power is now so great, that with all of us acting together, we could reverse your mother's spell together." she paused, her voice catching, "once your Mother crosses over, but you will leave here as Jack once more." That was what she wanted, wasn't it? "But what about Mum? What about..." She choked back a sob. "What about my baby?" Tears flowed down Jacqui's cheeks, cutting tracks in the sooty aftermath of Lancaster's magical attack. "Your mother wants you to have your dream." Bronwyn said gently. "She will resist healing if it costs you your dream. We can do nothing for her without her help. We do not have the power to overcome the greatest healer of our age. As for your child, he is the product of your lover's sperm and your Transformed egg. Two sperm cannot make a child, Jacqui, and that is precisely what they will become once you Transform back. Your baby will simply revert into two separate sperm cells. One which came from the father, and one which used to be your egg. Now come, the time is short. The optimal time for the spell is just as your Mother's spell is broken." Jacqui knew that was a euphemism for "just as your Mother dies." Jacqui bent over her mother, crying on her shoulder. "Do it, Jack." Laurie's voice was only a weak, thready whisper as she called him by a name he had not heard on her lips in over a year and a half. The end had to be near. "Take this chance to be your dream again. Let the last sight I see in this life be the power of the Goddess encircling you. Let me pass over knowing that the wrong I committed against you will be corrected in that next instant." Bronwyn took Jacqui's hand. "One more thing you must know. A man cannot wield the power of the Goddess, Jacqueline. When you do this, you do so understanding that you will lose your powers forever. The Gift of the Goddess is given only once. I will still love you and watch over you, but you will be as you were before - a normal human man." Jacqui did not really have time to consider what to do. It was all happening so fast, and everyone was doing their part to help her return to "normal". She watched as the combined power of the Sisterhood began to light the room above each of the surviving sisters. Their individual lights then merged, and continued to grow until their power became a visible, living thing enfolding the group circled about Laurie's body on the floor. Finally, the light seemed to move from the group, to coalesce into a shimmering halo above and about the High Priestess and Jacqueline. Jacqui reeled momentarily as she fought to contain and control the power given her by the other Sisters. "You must say the incantation, Jacqueline. You must complete the rite to change yourself back. I give you the power of your Sisters. I give you my power. Make it one with yours and Make your dreams come true." Once again, Jacqui murmured words of power, and sang a song of love. The power seemed to implode into her, filling her soul, where it resided for long eternities encompassing infinitesimal fractions of a second. The incredible totality of the merged power threatened to explode from her, flying out uncontrolled, in all directions, but Jacqui fought against that explosion, fought to bend the seething light to her will. Fought, and won. With the last vestige of her mental strength, she completed the incantation and focused the combined power of the Sisterhood. And the world went black. End Part 21 - Continued and Concluded in Part 22 -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | | | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | ----