Shatter Magic

Quick Note: I was fiddling with supernatural concepts and how Vampires first came into being, but I have no clue as to the correctness of my theory revolving around Vaughn so if I’m wrong, please be nice about correcting me. I’m not really into Vampires as much as Shape shifters.

Summary: Hunters seek to destroy them, Human fear them, and all they want is to live in peace. The Shatters are a family of the most powerful of these otherworldly creatures, but they have one weakness. A human girl born into their family. When she vanishes one day, they’ll have to overcome their pride and acknowledge the flaws in themselves to save the girl they realize means everything to them.

Chapter One: A Girl called Strategist

The dieing light of the day attempted unsuccessfully illuminate the room beyond the window. I could only help but sigh at the futility of it, and though I was sad to see it go, I did not see the point of sunlight clinging to an Earth which must for a predetermined period of time be engulfed in night, and handed over to the creatures that inhabit the night.

How strange I must seem, to watch the ending day and feel sad. How many times I have stood before the glass with the heavy dark curtains pulled apart as I could only do at dawn and dusk, watching the day go by but each time the pain in my heart had never lessened.

Nor had it grown.

I sighed softly, for there were presences that could hear even the smallest utterance when listening, but he had just awakened and would more than likely not be concerned with my every action (he couldn’t exactly multitask, despite being powerful, that skill was just a little beyond him). With the curtain again drawn shut, my room, in all its frivolities and colors, could not shine in the absence that told me I was alone.

It was never a terrifying thought, to be a defenseless human, a young girl no less, in the midst of so many powerful creatures that many never believed existed. No one ever touched a Shatter, not supernatural or human, for the Shatters were guardians, and they had too much to lose should they anger a guardian. Even a Shatter with no magic.

After all, would you mess with someone who could mix an odorless, colorless poison and slip it into your system? Even if you didn’t die, herbs are only one of my mortal talents. Though it was more the rumor that kept others from ever harming me, the heavy aura of a vampire that warned other humans away, and the Shatter respect for all things created in the dream of peace that kept them from killing me now or at my birth.

His presence filtered into the room in silence, there, but at the same time, not there. His cold embrace found its way around my waist, as he nestled his face in my long dirty blonde hair. The one who could sense my thoughts and every action.

“You plan to hunt.” I could sense his thoughts too, but my skill came from practice, and patience. As a strategist, I made it my point to know the thoughts of those I protected.

“Yes.” His purr was soft, young though he was, power radiated in his form, a power that could only be gifted by those born as he had. The birth of a creature such as he was so rare, even more rare the probability of a human born to a supernatural family, that they were considered blessed, a good omen, and were endowed with awesome strength.

I nodded, feeling him, draw back from me. “Don’t hunt in the southern region of the city. As good a ground it is, Hunters are expecting a Shatter.”

“I will take your word. Though I do not see why you insist on avoidance, when in the end it may sacrifice more lives.”

The same thing, night after night, and by day with the rest of my family. “Please don’t berate me Vaughn; I know what I am doing. I would never risk the lives of your people needlessly, but I also have a duty to my people. The Hunters would kill an innocent person who stood in their way. They would slaughter millions if only for one, single, child of this family.”

He reacted by turning away from me, his back to my back and the window with its black curtains drawn. “I wonder, strategist, if you do not favor the humans over us.” He vanished, his presence leaking away from the room. “Will you let us die, for the sake of a single human?”

To that, I had no answer. Not then, as I readied for bed, his words lingering in my mind. Finally, I decided, ‘I could give the order, but you would never obey.’

Morning came, I watched the sun rise as I did every morning, then dressed and descended the stairs where only my mother, Azura, was awake. She was making, odd as it may seem to some, coffee. “Hello, Azura, I trust Vaughn came home safely this morning.”

“Of course. He even followed you advice, strategist, now I suppose you want some tea.” She smiled, as she did with all her children, and set a kettle of water to boil on the stove, the coffee already finished. She poured herself a cup and we both took seats in the adjoining dining room. “What do you plan to do today?”

I shrugged, “The garden needs weeding, and then I’ll probably spend the rest of the day in the library, until Risi returns from school.” To the outside world, Azura and her husband, my father, had only one child, a girl by the name of Risinia Shatter. Risi was barely twelve, but she was a powerful shape shifter. The most common of the supernatural people were shape shifters and were beasts. Normal shape shifters gained a third or fourth form at her age, but already she had gained the form of almost ten different creatures, from a common house cat to a noble lioness. It was beyond her ability to take the form of creatures other than felines. “What are you doing today?”

Azura had a thing for sugar. She would poor sugar into everything, even already sweetened foods and things like meat, she became fascinated with pouring the sweetener into her coffee as she replied, “Manage the shop all afternoon, though it’d be nice if you could take care of it this morning, I need to go to Risi’s school for a conference with one of her teachers.”

“I will.” I promised, checking on the kettle and pulling teas from the cupboard beside the stove.

“While you’re in the store, would you mind filling the orders. I know you hate vanity products but it will help pass the time.” Which pretty much translated into ‘You better fill that order or I’ll be really mad at you.’ But Azura had more tact than that, and she wouldn’t actually get upset. Oh, sure she would steam a bit, but no one else in our happy little family would know she was mad.

I wasn’t being sarcastic.

Sometimes, it really was a pain being a strategist. “I don’t see why, I mean, we have perfectly good substitutes in the back and no one would ever know they were switched."

“If I bribe you will you mix it?” Now she was teasing me. I got allowance, because both Risi and Vaughn could make money off of bounty hunting, and I couldn’t exactly take up that profession.

“I’ll make it for you. Jeez, you sound like my mother.”

“I should hope so, young lady. Did you remember to draw your curtains?” Grating on my nerves. Like a little brother would, but Azura had a playful personality, coming from a clan of very harmless fortunetellers and whatnot. She excelled prophesizing, being able to fake it for customers (but tell enough of the truth they think she’s the real… well, fake), but also being able to interpret fragmented visions to assist in the midst of a battle.

“Yes Azura. I’ve only lived in this house six years after all, and I only need to be reminded everyday.” I bantered back, toasting bread and smothering it in cinnamon and sugar. I was, after all, Azura’s eldest daughter, and I did inherit some quirks from her.

About that time, Risinia stumbled into the kitchen, only half awake and still in her night clothes (a t-shirt three sizes to large and old sweat pants). Her ginger-red hair was in such disarray I thought for certain she’d been in a fight. “Risinia?” Tentatively, I grabbed her arm and lifted her face so I could inspect it, realizing, suddenly, how tall she was getting (or how short I was, one of the two). There was a streak of red down her right cheek, leading from her temple to her lower jaw bone. It looked recent. “When did this happen?”

“Four days ago.” She said, pushing away from me and stealing a slice of toast off my plate. I was too worried about her to be mad, she was obviously lying.

“Bull, that’s recent and it hasn’t healed, so spill.” Risi had a bad habit of underestimating things like unhealed wounds, since more often than not they were caused by silver poisoning. Silver poisoning was the main reason any shape shifter died.

“Fine, I got in a fight with some hunters yesterday afternoon.” That explained why I hadn’t spoken with her before I retired.

“You WHAT?!”

She turned away, and I followed her into the dining room where Azura just watched with detached interest. “Cool it, strategist. I couldn’t run away, and they were hell bent on killing me. I got rid of all but one, he ran off.”

“How many did you face?” Skeptic? Yes, Risi liked fighting, it was in her nature.

“Six or seven. Not all were killed but I got at least three.” Even Azura looked impressed at that. “It’s a silver blade but it was only a graze.”

Only a graze? Had she not been my sister I would have murdered her then and there. It’s the cocky ones that made my life difficult, but passive ‘I’m stronger than that.’ people were the bane of my existence. “Risinia Mae Shatter, do you know what silver will do if too much enters your blood stream?”

“It could kill me. Yes, I know this strategist, next time make a recording, and it’ll save you breath.” She stomped off. “I’m going to change.”

I glanced at Azura for some support but she just shrugged. Sighing, I returned to breakfast, it was all just a normal morning in one of the Shatter houses.

There was a reason I hated keeping shop. It always evaded me, but I knew it, and it never changed. I hated the boring days while no one stopped by. Most our customers were wannabe Goths who thought we actually sold magic charms. Sure we placed small spells on certain items and the herbs we used could be described as ‘magical’ (though I doubted this since they were mostly all grown in my garden), but there were no hexes or spells here. Just some spell books that never gave me any results, so it wouldn’t work for them either.

At least when these ‘Goths’ came in, I had something to do with my time, rather than listen to the soft music wafting from the radio by the register and think. It was still only noon, Azura had gone to Risi’s school and I had filled the orders and was just waiting for them to be picked up. Still three more hours before anyone my age came by, not that they knew it. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, I was Azura’s part time store worker getting money for college.

At fourteen, but like I said, no one knew.

Finally, bored of doing nothing, I stood and organized the incense behind me. Out of boredom, I even organized them by the color spectrum, reds down at the left end and violets at the right, creating a little rainbow. As I finished that up, the door bell rang softly, alerting me that someone had come in.

I turned around to face the man, dressed fairly normally in casual jeans and a shirt, light jacket over the top, nothing remarkably special about him. He looked to be in his mid twenties, sandy blonde hair catching the sunlight in the well lit store and making his dark brown eyes almost sparkle. To say it shortly, he was good looking.

“Hello, how can I help you?” I asked, smiling cheerfully and switching from bored amusement to attentive interest.

He smiled back, softly but it was there. “Ah, yes, I’m looking for the owner, Azura Shatter, are you her?”

A hereditary quirk. I looked almost like Azura did as a teenager; Vaughn looked like our father, Laen, and Risinia just looked like them both, like their child and not their clones. “Oh, no. I’m Karan Willis, Azura’s assistant. She had to go to her daughter’s school but she should be back in an hour or so.” I lied smoothly. The first thing a Shatter ever learns is how to lie.

“Perhaps you can help me.” Leaning against the counter, he held up a pack of tarot cards beside the register. “Can you tell me if these actually work? I was wondering if you needed some sort of gift for them to actually read the future.”

Honestly? Yes, one needed two things. The first condition was that tarot cards are a gift, it doesn’t work if you get them for yourself. The second was a gift for magic. Albeit one so small some humans could get fairly accurate readings from them. Which was further proof I had no magic, because I had two packs of tarot cards. One from Azura, one from my grandfather and I never got an accurate reading from either set.

So instead I said, “It really depends. I can’t get them to work, but I know several people who can. The trick is to give them to someone, not to buy them for you.”

He bought the cards and left, pausing at the door to add. “So the magic doesn’t run through your veins, Miss Willis?”

Then he was gone. Reminding me of my brother in the darkness. Without a trace, as they had for thousands of years. How else could they have survived so long?

Ending Comments

Ugh, I’m glad that’s over. In case you’re curious, the strategist has a name, you probably won’t learn it until the end of the story unless you go live journal digging, since I use her name in the live journal.

The original concept for this story was to take Vampires, Shape Shifters, Were creatures, and other dark fantasy creatures and turn a typical tale on its head. It’s a typical teen’s life exaggerated beyond recognition. (Reread it and you'll see how)

Anyway, as far as story and plot goes, not much is revealed so far. More like an introduction to the strategist’s life that explains almost nothing. Hold on, it gets better, as we discover the relationship between the Shatters.

At this point I should say that the Shatters are an extended family, this story just revolves around the strategist’s immediate family and a few other relatives. They reach all over the world but everywhere they are, their mission is the same: protect humans and the supernatural from the hunters.

Next Time: When I was born, there was quite a stir. It was the first time a human had ever been born into the Shatter family. I was one of two children, twins, the oldest. The second born was Vaughn, who created an even larger stir. For a vampire child to be born without harming the mother or the other child in the womb was so unheard of, no one believed he could be a vampire. After that we were separated, I never met him and I learned all my life he was the older one. Until the fateful day he told me the truth…