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A summoner who takes the time to reach out and connect with an Esper can find herself with a powerful ally in times of need...
...if she is willing to pay the price.
A Seed of Truth
Mankind may have invented some fables to help explain why the sun rises or why the elephant has a long nose, but they didn’t fabricate every legend and myth.
Our Earth, just like all other realms, has its fair share of mighty beings who have struggled and clawed their way out of obscurity and mortality to gain power, infamy, and eternal life.
These beings, who one way or another transcend humanity, are the Espers of Earth.
Lupercalia Pack
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Profane Occultists Made Immortal
A Woman's Wrath
Toxie scrubbed the blood from her hands, noting idly that she had nailed the color when choosing her crimson fingernail polish. In the far corner of the abandoned warehouse, a half dozen corpses, all still bound hand and foot, lay in a heap as testament to her night’s labors. Her final victim lay sprawled on the concrete floor behind her, still breathing shallowly through his broken, twisted mouth. She hadn’t actually been planning to pull out his teeth when she started questioning him, but then Luperci and Tixie had radioed in that they cleared the enemy’s hideout, and that Mena was one of the captives they had freed. Threatening the Faun was one thing; dragging an innocent child into it was something else altogether.
Toxie dried her hands gingerly, then turned around to consider her captive. He was definitely dying; even if someone found him now, there weren’t enough surgeons or drugs on Earth to save him. But Toxie had to meet up with her pack to run down the last of the heathens who had escaped with the Faun, and she didn’t like leaving jobs unfinished.
She hunkered down next to him and saw with satisfaction that his eyes were still open, though only just through the swollen wreckage of his face. She blew him a kiss.
“You get a little mercy now,” she crooned as she gently stroked a blood-free patch of skin on his forehead. “I’m late for an orgy, so I can’t really wait around for you to die. You know how it is. . .”
She hunkered down next to him and saw with satisfaction that his eyes were still open, though only just through the swollen wreckage of his face. She blew him a kiss.
She turned to her gear bag and considered her options. She wanted to use her favorite, but, of course, it had to be the messiest of the lot and she had just finished cleaning up. Eh, what the hell, she thought. Grinning, Toxie grabbed the pink handle and turned back to finish the job
Outside the warehouse, an early morning train rumbled past, just loud enough to mask the roar of a chainsaw.
The Judge's Daughter
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A Cruel Fate
I have to warn Father. She ran, lungs burning. I have to save him.
In her mind, she could see Valentinus bowing low before shadowy figures that swirled just beyond sight in the dark cave. They had spoken in voices like the ripping of a saw on wood, voices that chilled her blood. Valentinus had told them terrible things, about Asterius, about her family, about her.
The judge’s daughter bit back a sob. She was the cause of all of this. If it weren’t for that cursed miracle, Valentinus would never have ensnared her father, making him forsake everything he knew. He would not have alienated his friends nor lost the respect of the town. If it weren’t for her, Valentinus would never have even come to their town. He was after her, specifically. She knew that now. Asterius had just been in the way. It was all her fault. But she would fix it.
Just beyond the gates, she stopped dead. Asterius was standing on the porch, addressing a mass of people, a mob, she realized. They muttered and gripped their clubs and torches, but they seemed to be listening. Then someone shouted and the mob rushed forward as one body. She saw blows raining down on her father and heard her mother screaming. The mob streamed into the house.
Instinct spurred her into the shadows before anyone spotted her. Her thoughts buzzed. There had to be some way to save her family. They were Roman citizens! Moving softly, she darted through the shadows to her father’s study, searching for anything that would remind the mob who they were trying to destroy. But on her father’s writing table was one letter. It had her name on it.
My dearest one,
Surely you now realize that you and I are linked by forces beyond mortal ken. My masters long ago told me of you, the sanctified child, and I have been searching for you since. But I was not prepared to find you.
I feel no shame in admitting that I nearly forsook my masters’ plans to take you away and make you my eternal own. My masters nearly ended me for daring to love you more than I fear them. But my duty is clear, and I must now destroy something precious to my very soul. Perhaps my masters will allow you to be mine in eternity once I finish my tasks in this life. But now, I must take back my gift to you, purest delight of my heart, that you may meet your fate.
From your Valentine
In horror, she dropped the letter which burst into brilliant light that stung her eyes. As the light in her vision faded to unbroken black, she shivered in cold dread. Her scream rent the air, mingling with the sounds of the riot advancing through the house.
She was blind again.
Blind and helpless in hell.
Psyche, Aphorism of Love
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Pyche and Captured Aphrodite
The Enslavement of Love
Psyche woke to the sound of sobbing. She sat up and from her bedside table, donned a loose robe, and stepped through the breezy curtains of her sleeping quarters. The pitiful sounds were coming from the far end of the marble atrium, where a nearly-naked woman in chains lay at the foot of a marble column, her shoulders shaking from her sobs.
As Psyche stepped into the room, the captive looked up. Her eyes and the tip of her nose were reddened, but her beauty was untouched by her tears. Her grief merely added a tragic luster to her flawless features.
"Goddesses don’t ugly cry." Psyche said calmly.
Fury flashed in the captive’s face, burning away the sadness. Her stormy grey-green eyes shone with angry silver light and her hair flared back as if tossed by the wind. “You murdering, scheming whore,” she growled, rising to her feet. She raised her arm as if to hurl something at Psyche but before she could complete the movement, the golden collar around her throat flashed and she fell to the floor with an agonized shriek.
The soft smile never left Psyche’s lips. She glided forward across the marble. “A whore? Are you not the Goddess of prostitutes?” She circled her captive. “And even after you reinvented your image with the mortals, you still couldn’t help your horny self.” Psyche paused dramatically. “Do you even know who actually fathered Cupid?”
The bound woman glared up, eyes full of hate. “Don't even dare say his name! You didn’t deserve him. If not for your conniving seduction, my son would still be alive, you evil, fu-”
Psyche slapped the words out of Aphrodite's mouth with enough power to send her to the marble floor once again.
“Your son, Cupid, was cruel and controlling,” Psyche hissed, her placid smirk replaced with a ferocious snarl.
“Mother!” A young woman with wide eyes and soft features was standing just inside the atrium, watching with open conflict on her face. “Mother, please. Let’s just go.” She stepped forward and held out a hand to Psyche.
The anger melted out of Psyche’s face as she met her daughter’s gaze. She quickly crossed the room and took Voluptas’ hand, following her to the sitting room they shared. Voluptas led Psyche to a divan then sat next beside her, nestling herself into her mother’s shoulder. Psyche ran her fingers through Voluptas’ curls and tried to calm herself before speaking.
“Darling, I know this is hard for you. This whole ordeal with your father and grandmother, it’s just. . .” she faltered. “Well, you lived through that hell too. But now, we have an eternity of freedom ahead of us. Cupid can’t hurt us anymore and Venus will receive her due.”
Voluptas turned her head, looking at a shelf bearing a golden apple and a cylindrical ivory box carved with intricate designs. Her words were hesitant. “What if we used the pyxis? She could sleep until we are sure she is no longer a danger, then let her go someday.”
Psyche sighed. “Darling, your tender heart is one of my favorite things about you, but it makes you too merciful, too vulnerable. Venus has hated me for centuries. A nap isn’t going to change that. The best lesson for her is a millennia experiencing for herself how her victims suffered. And all the while, you and I will be able to do as we please, make our own decisions, forge our own fates.”
“Get away from all of this...” Voluptas added thoughtfully. She snuggled closer, then after a while, she spoke. “When can we visit Paris again, Mother?”
Psyche kissed the top of her head. “Whenever you like, darling. We are free now.”
Faunus
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The Great God Pan is Dead
I want it on record that I am not a villain. I admit, I am a scoundrel sometimes. A layabout. A letch, even. These days, I’m a drunkard too, though I’m told alcoholism is a disease not a personality flaw.
But I am not a villain.
Do not mistake me. I am not a good creature either. Syrinx tells me that the first two or three centuries of our relationship were “toxic and abusive” according to today’s terminology. I’ve never been faithful to a single partner, and not all of my conquests have been moral. I don’t know what people expect though. I’m god of the wilds. Show me an animal that isn’t driven to mate and I’ll show you a forgotten species.
For all my failings though, I do have some principles. I show up for the people I care about. I was there for my foster brother at the beginning. And I was there for the love of my life at the end.
Had someone told me a mortal woman would tame me, change me like she has, I would have forced them to join my eternal festivities.
It’s funny to think about, but I never murdered anyone in my wilder days. Too busy playing music and chasing tail, I suppose. I had so much less to worry about before I met Psyche, and yet, life before her feels flat to think about now.
Even that first time I saw Psyche, as she was blubbering over that prick Cupid, she just seemed like some lost, lovesick mortal who couldn’t even manage to kill herself properly. What possessed me to tell her to go after him, I’ll never know. If I hadn’t encouraged her, I probably would never have met her again, and I would still be alive.
But no, she had to go and follow my advice, and became a goddess. And once she was there on Mount Olympus, in all her tragic beauty and lingering mortal naivete, it was inevitable. I fell for her hard, harder than anyone should. And somehow, she fell for me too. Voluptas still doesn’t know that Cupid is not her father, and a part of me hopes she never finds out.
Somehow, I would rather she forever know me as her father’s murderer then have her find out the truth while still believing me dead. But I guess Psyche will decide if and when that secret gets revealed. And I will go along with it like the smitten, sodding idiot I am because I can’t very well come back from the dead to attend a family reunion.
Really, that is how I know for sure that I am not a villain. Because a villain does not give up an eternal life of power and plenty for love of someone else.