“Hi Sam, I’m going out clubbing with Grace and some guy whose got the hots for Grace. I think his name is Jeff. I wanted to know if you want to come?”

I’d feel more comfortable if she had said it was some guy Grace had the hots for. I had been planning on testing out the new spell I learned, but I can tell this is important to her. “Sure, I’d love to. In fact, I’ll take care of the transportation to the club. Let’s meet at Bishop’s Corpse for some food and drinks, then head to the club.”

“Great! Oh, I’ve got that file you wanted. I couldn’t find any record of John having a twin brother named Sam or otherwise. Why is that? It couldn’t have all been erased”

I can hear the hint of suspicion in her voice.

“I had hoped you would have discovered the truth of that yourself, but from this file it would seem a section of John’s life and death are missing. I don’t have all the answers, but those that I do have I’ll tell you tonight.”

“Fine, but you are telling me tonight. This whole mysterious past thing might impress Grace, but it is starting to wear a little thin.”

“Sure, see you later.”

Looking over the file in more detail it contained plenty of new information, but what was perhaps most interesting was what it didn’t contain.

Time for a call to Earl Saenz, the owner of Bishop’s Corpse, and propose a “charitable donation” for access to his roof. Everyone in the Puyallup knows of Earl Saenz. He owns Bishop’s Corpse and runs a soup kitchen here in the Puyallup.

I pull up to Bishop’s Corpse in my Dodge Scoot. Grace’s face just falls.

“That’s the ride you said he was taking care of!?!” I can see the questioning look in Clarisse’s eyes and smirk on Jeff’s face after Grace’s little outburst.

“Hi Grace, the double sidecar for the scooter should arrive by the time dinner is over.” I catch Clarisse’s eye and give her a slight shake of my head, letting her know I’ve got something else planned. I set the autopilot to drive itself back home five minutes from now.

After a pleasant dinner and drinks, I give Earl Saenz his “charitable donation” to gain access to the roof of his restaurant. I chose Bishop’s Corpse for two reasons; First because the owner Earl Saenz does a lot of good for the community, and secondly because it has easy access to the roof.

“Our transportation to the club awaits us on the roof.” Confusion is evident on their faces, but they follow me up the stairs to the roof. Waiting on the roof is a materialized air elemental carrying four bags.

“Tonight we are flying to the club.”

“You don’t expect us to fit into those bags do you?” Jeff asks skeptically.

“No, not quite. Tonight I’m shape changing all of you into eagles and we are flying to the club. The bags are for your clothes. Invisibility spells for when you transform back and put your clothes on. Or at least that’s the plan, reality may vary. I’m still working out the kinks in the spell. So who’s first?”

Surprisingly no one jumps forward to be the first to have their body remade into a critter of my choosing.

“Fine, since you all seem to hold my skill in magic in such high regard, I’ll go first and transform into an eagle.”

I kneel down and concentrate, my body starts to shimmer and change shape into a large anaconda. I’d found that it was easier on the clothes changing to a snake first before changing to an eagle. The high pitched screams from Grace make my think that perhaps I should have mentioned that to them. Once out of the clothes I will myself into the form of an eagle and take to the air. The air elemental gathers my belongings placing them into a bag. I circle around once and land next to Clarisse.

Everyone jumps a little when the air elemental asks “Who is next?”

Everyone is having a blast flying, nobody really wants to head to the club. It’s only the when we’ve started to feel a little tired and hungry from all the flying that we head in.

A couple of invisibility spells before unsustaining the shapechanging spells allows everyone to change back into their clothes in privacy. The cheap maglock on the roof door is quickly picked and we walked into the club invisible. My astral sight able to pick out the their auras bright as day.

So far so good, the evening was going well. At least, until I dropped the invisibility spell and saw the look of absolute adoration in Grace’s eyes.

“Aw Crap!” I say under my breath. I look at Jeff and think ,This is not going to go well for you tonight buddy.

“OMG! That was amazing!” Grace squeals as she rushes to hug me. Using reflexes honed from numerous shadowruns I maneuver myself into cover between Clarisse’s arms.

The next hour in the club was worst that any battle I’d been in yet. Grace’s chatter came at me like a LMG on full auto, while her hands tried to breach my ‘wards’ anytime Clarisse’s attention was turned elsewhere. Questions about the Orgasm spell and whether I could shapechange certain body parts arose. Even the combined attempts of Clarisse and Jeff did nothing to redirect Grace’s attention for more than a second.

The only thing that seems to works is: “Grace how about leave here and get back to flying? You can show me some of your moves.”

Later after flying again, it’s REALLY hard to get rid of Grace, and Jeff mopes off on his own rather than continuing to be a hanger-on. K-Bunny finally suggests another invisibility spell to ditch the blonde so we can spend some time talking. Something I quickly put into motion and the two of us run off, ducking into a quiet diner for a snack.

“Clarrise, I think I might have to shapechange Grace into a cat and bring her to the vet to get fixed.”, I joke.

“Go for it, she’s got it coming after tonight”, she laughs.

I become serious and say, “You wanted to know the truth about me, and I’ve wanted to tell you. It just sounds more like fiction than the truth, which is why I asked you to look up the information on John Rollins. I had hoped you come across enough of the pieces yourself that it wouldn’t seem like I am just making up some story. It is also why I’ve been a little cool regarding us, I wanted you to know who and what I am before we got too close. But at the same time I needed for us to be close enough that I could feel that I could trust you with my secrets. So here’s the truth……”

After I finish giving her the whole story (at least as much of it as I understand), I sit back to see what she has to say.

The stunning silence stretches on for a long time as Clarisse looks thoughtful, then confused, and then thoughtful again. I’m just starting to feel like I need to say something, when she looks up, a few tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

“I need some time to think about this. It’s too much. I…. I gotta go.”

She stands up and almost flees from the restaurant, not even looking back.

The waiter arrives with pie we ordered and stares out the door after her.

“Dude, is your daughter going to be OK?”