Chapter 1: Bang The Bass, Turn Up The Treble

Pretty high school girls are the bomb! They can also be the greatest source of frustration for a sixteen-year-old boy. I'm not talking about sexual frustration either. Barbie and her crew were following me! They didn't have good spy skills, so I caught them plenty of times during the next two weeks. They appeared to grow more frustrated and puzzled as the days progressed. A Coven is generally a stable entity, but Magic and frustration don't mix well.

Julia Ann's boyfriend was also waging a more obvious war on his boundaries. He must have figured out that Julia Ann only cared about her two limits. Since he didn't give a shit about money or me, he was having himself a ball. I tried to stay out of the house as much as possible, which gave the girls plenty of opportunities to stalk me.

I was about to report their behavior to the school administrators when the girls decided on a more direct approach.

"Michael!" someone yelled. I turned around and almost ran for it. The girls must have thought about the possibility because they came at me in a spread formation.

"We want to talk to you," Barbie said.

"You have me surrounded," I said, looking from girl to girl. "Do you I have a choice?"

"Be nice," Persephone said to the girls. "You get more with honey."

I raised an eyebrow at her. Persephone had red hair and vibrant green eyes, a deadly combo to the male thought process. Gianna straightened her back and pushed her boobs at me. Her very big and round boobs were a deadlier combo against me thinking straight!

"Come with us," Gianna told me. "Please!"

I wanted to not look, but as I had previously stated--ALL intends teenage boys to stare. They were a gorgeous pair of tits and no bra could help that much!

"Five pretty girls," Jenaveve said to me. "You should be jumping for joy that we want to get you alone."

"A baby Coven!" I replied. "I don't need those thirty-five minutes in any heaven."

CJ stepped in front of me. She stared up at me with her dark brown eyes! Smiling, she put her hands on my chest, stood up on her tiptoes, and kissed me.

I followed her when she walked away.

"Get out!" Barbie said to the man in the living room. He was the one who accompanied Barbie on her first day at our school. I watched him walk out of the room.

"I thought he was your dad," I told Barbie.

"He is," she replied. The other four girls shook their heads at me. I nodded slowly and kept my mouth shut.

BUT ... I couldn't!

"I've never seen someone treat their father like a servant," I told Barbie as I looked around the large room. She didn't respond. I turned towards her; she was staring daggers at me.

"You told us that we need him, Barbie," Persephone said softly.

"Do you hate him because he named you Barbie?" I asked seriously. "I'd be pretty pissed if my parents named me after a toy, unless it was Tonka. That would be fucking cool!"

"Would kissing you again shut you up?" CJ asked. She lounged on the sofa and smiled at me. The girls sat down around the room; Barbie stayed on her feet.

"I'd be quiet during the kissing," I told CJ. "It is weird to eject your dad from the house."

"Maybe it's her money," Jenaveve told me.

"Is it?" I asked Barbie. "So your mom was the rich one?"

The blonde's eyes hardened. I would have sworn the room temperature dropped ten degrees.

"My father owes me," Barbie said. "For a number of things!"

Considering my lack of a relationship with Julia Ann, I could understand feeling like a parental unit owed you.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked the girls.

"You can see through a very powerful Illusion Spell," Barbie told me. She reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled a necklace off. She held it out so I could look at the sapphire pendant.

"I don't understand," I said with a frown.

"When Barbie has the pendant on, everybody sees a Goth brunette with a lot of pimples," Jenaveve said. "A really ugly chick!"

I didn't like the way the girls stared at me. A little hungry!

"Okay..." I twisted my lips. "Seriously?"

"Very!" Gianna replied. "Barbie's father is a Wizard. His White Grimoire isn't very big, but it has the details for making a few items like Illusion Pendants."

"Maybe it isn't a good Forging Spell," I suggested.

"It doesn't work like that, Michael," Gianna replied. "He showed us his White Grimoire when we told him about you seeing through the Illusion. Every Spell is high quality!"

"So you do NOT have a Grimoire?" Barbie asked me in a strong tone of voice.

"Girl!" I said with some exasperation. "Not a black one, a white one, or even a pink one!"

"There's Pink Grimoires?" Jenaveve asked.

"They're lesbian-only," Persephone deadpanned. It took a few seconds for Jenaveve to realize the redhead was joking.

"He can't be a Warlock," CJ told the girls. "You always know when a guy has that kind of power."

Whether they are male or females, the possession of a Grimoire earns a person the title of Wizard. All other not Demon-bound or Young God affiliated Magic using males are called Warlocks; females get the Witch tag.

Barbie nodded, looking me up and down. "Yes! He'd make himself the King of the School if he had any kind of power. The cheerleading team would be lining up to suck his dick."

I shrugged at their accusatory looks. Sometimes, you get blamed for things other guys have done, although blowjobs from all the cheerleaders would be on my menu if I had the juice to pull it off.

"I've always been partial to Emperor rather than King," I told them.

"No jewelry," Gianna told Barbie. "He definitely doesn't have an Artifact or we'd be able to trace it."

"The Immunity is the key," Barbie replied.

Gianna nodded. "I agree--the indirect spells failed! There's nothing about that in anything I read."

"Are you ladies going to talk amongst yourselves?" I asked. "I could use a soda, so I'll come back when you're ready to say some shit that makes sense to me."

"I didn't stop the Fireball," Barbie told me. "The one I threw at you in the cafeteria."

"Yeah! I remember!" I took a step back.

"It wasn't an Illusion either," she continued.

"It had to be," I replied. "I didn't get burned!"

"And I've spent the last two weeks in the town library and Magic Shop trying to figure out how you could manage it without being a Magic user yourself," Gianna groused.

"We did more to you, Michael," CJ said. "A lot more and none of it worked! Barbie's dad tried a couple of things from his Grimoire too."

"Shit!" I took another step away from them.

"We got bupkis!" Persephone said from behind me. I spun around; the redhead was blocking the doorway.

"The indirect spells failed completely," Gianna told me. "And take my word, it should be impossible!"

"Indirect Spells are things like collapsing the building you're in rather than targeting you," CJ said with a very wide smile on her face. "Gravity and a few hundred tons of building material kills you instead of the Magic doing it."

"You..."

"We didn't try to drop a building on you," Persephone said. Her hand traced a line from my left shoulder to my right. "Barbie likes fire, so we used it to see what would happen."

"Bupkis!" CJ's eyes were devouring me.

"I might have believed you could see through an Illusion. I might have even believed you could turn the Spells of a 'baby' Coven," Barbie said to me. "But you shut down my dad's Spells when you could not have known he was casting them!"

"Are you the child of a Young God?" Gianna asked. "I don't think so, since we've been following you for two weeks and you never went into a church."

"Gods have children?" I asked in surprise.

"The Sapphic priestess pop them out left and right," Gianna told me. "Immaculate Conceptions! The kids are humans who don't use Magic unless they join their mommy's Church."

"I think being the son of a God would be something that my stepmother should have mentioned by now," I told her. "Especially if I have an inside line to being a Servant."

"A Demon Bond," Gianna said to Barbie. "It's really the most likely!"

Barbie shook her head hard.

"She's right, Gianna," Persephone said. "Demons and the Young Gods protect their own in very obvious ways. If Michael had sold himself to a Demon, the fire would have burned down his home and left him alive."

"The what?" I took a step toward Barbie. "You tried to set my house on fire! You could have killed Julia Ann!"

CJ and Persephone grimaced--the other three girls gave varying degrees of shrugs.

"ALL's Blessings!" I screamed. "What the fuck?!?"

"You're a WellSpring," Barbie told me. "It's the only explanation!"

"We don't know that," Gianna said. "We don't know everything! There's a host of things it could be. His stepmom could be a Witch for all we know. She'd have to be a major power, but it's possible."

Barbie tapped her foot and stared at Gianna. The tall brunette held the stare for a few seconds before sighing.

"I've..." I took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. "I've heard the term."

"The Emperor of China," CJ told me. "The Emperor of Japan. They're part of WellSpring bloodlines."

I nodded. "Something about Australia?"

"The aborigines," Gianna said. "That WellSpring line is why no foreigners are allowed more than one mile in from the coast."

I stared at the girls.

"No," I said. "I can't light a candle with Magic! Those guys are the most powerful Magic users in the world."

"No, they're not," Gianna said.

"You can't use Magic?" Barbie asked me seriously.

"I haven't tried a Grimoire. You can't exactly buy them in a bookstore," I replied. "I've tried items that people said were Magical, but I got..."

"Bupkis!" Persephone finished for me. The girls leaned towards me.

"Do it," Gianna told Barbie.

Barbie walked to a bookcase and pulled down a small grinding cup. She handed it to me. I stared at it and looked at her.

"Stand it up on your palm," Barbie instructed. I balanced the cup on my hand. Barbie pressed her palm down on the cup and closed her eyes. After a minute, she opened her eyes. Blinking tears away, she stepped back.

"Nothing," Barbie said triumphantly. CJ clapped; Jenaveve squeaked happily. Behind me, Persephone sighed. Gianna rocked back and forth. Barbie took the cup from me. Bouncing it a couple of times in her hand, she smiled at Gianna. "Works again!"

"ALL fuck me!" Gianna whispered. "It could be true."

"It could be?" Barbie asked before putting the cup back in its place.

"Okay," I said. "Can we go back to--what the fuck is going on here?"

"I'm pretty sure you're a WellSpring, Michael," Barbie said.

"But I don't do Magic," I replied.

"A WellSpring isn't a Magic user," Gianna said. "He is a Source, like a Grimoire or an Artifact. I don't know how it works because there's no literature about it from countries that have active WellSpring bloodlines."

"Huh?" I said, raising my palms upward and shrugging.

"Africa and England had WellSpring bloodlines in ancient times," Gianna said. "There might have been an Incan bloodline if you take some liberties in the interpretation of their creation myths."

"Maybe you should get to the part of ... yeah, so?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

"I had to read some pretty old texts, even doing some of the translation myself," Gianna told me. "Those texts and some stories written during the time of an active WellSpring bloodline were the only way for us to figure out if you might be one."

"Stories?"

"Morgana guiding King Arthur to the throne," Gianna said. "In some of the versions, Merlin doesn't jive as being JUST Morgana's teacher!"

"If I'm one of these WellSprings, how come I can't throw fireballs like Barbie?" I asked.

"Because you're a Source not a Magic user, Michael!" Barbie exclaimed loudly.

Gianna waved at Barbie to calm down. The tall brunette put her hands on her hips and turned to me. "We don't know, Michael! If you read between the lines of the original texts, it becomes pretty clear a WellSpring doesn't use Magic. Merlin uses Magic in American versions of the stories! In the old English texts, Merlin is always behind the scenes."

I stared at her.

"Like I told you, I had to translate some of the stuff myself," Gianna continued. "Things didn't fit properly! I think it's because the people translating the texts didn't have any experience with a WellSpring so they fit the words to their knowledge of the world. The interesting thing is that Japanese and Chinese translations of those texts agree with my readings."

Gianna tapped her toe on the ground. "If I had to guess, I would say you couldn't use Magic because of the First Rule."

"Magic costs," I said.

The girls nodded.

"If you're a Source of Magic and could use that Magic, you'd be a violation of the First Rule," Gianna said. "The First Rule applies to everyone, except maybe the Young Gods and Demons. Magical creatures like elves, dwarves, and fairies pay a price too."

"So I'm like a Storing Artifact, but I can't use it," I said. "Just my luck!"

"You're more like a walking Waypoint," Persephone told me. "You know about Waypoints, right?"

"Ley lines. Intersections of Ley Lines. Waypoints. Major Waypoints," I said. "Julia Ann signed me up for the Magic Class at school."

"I'm a Fountain of Magic," I said with some snark. "Awesome! And let me guess--you want a drink."

Four of the girls looked at each other uncomfortably; Barbie's gaze never faltered from me.

"Magic costs, Michael," Barbie said. "Even Magic Storing items! People become addicted to them."

"Barbie's cup is pretty bad," Gianna said looking at the bookcase. "I can't imagine a Storing Artifact."

Persephone walked around me and sat next to CJ. "A Magic user has to decide what price they're willing to pay."

I narrowed my eyes at her.

She nodded. "Some people turn away, Michael. Some choose a righteous path, like being a Servant to a Young God."