“Just a lot,” she answered, sitting far more gracefully.  But then she was wearing a skirt, have to be more careful in them.  “Were you moving the crowd?”

                “Only with my tendrils,” I said, shifting my focus to Needles.

                She was standing next to where I’d sat down, “Yeah, the hands-free stuff was me.  Well, what did you call them- tendrils?  Tendril-free parts, I guess.”

                “What are you,” Michelle asked, eyes narrow.  She was relaxed in the chair, legs crossed and showing off the skulls on her boots.  “I could feel someone moving the crowd.”

                “How,” Needles asked, arms wrapped around her.  “Stop that, I don’t like it.”

                “Stop what,” I asked before glancing at Michelle’s mind.  “Oh, that- give her a break.”

                “We didn’t have any reports of other families in the city,” my assistant said suspiciously. 

                “There’s plenty of families in the city, just none of them are mine,” Needles said resentfully.   “Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

                “You’re an orphan?”

                “Was in the system from four till I graduated high school,” Needles confirmed.  In the soft light from the fake torches around the rooftop, I could see she was as pale as Michelle though her features were a mix of origins.  “My parents were in a car crash and no one could find my next of kin.”

                “I’m sorry for your losses,” Michelle told her.  “But you’re no more human than I am, not with the ability to move things.”

                “Then what are you?  Both of you.”

                “That’s complicated,” I said with a shrug that brought some of my tendrils up with the gesture.  I let out a deep breath.  “Michelle, can you get us something to eat and drink?”

                “Sure,” she said and made some serious eye contact with me, thinking loudly.  Don’t trust her, we don’t know her.

                “I’ll take a coke and I’ll be fine,” I said, waving off her concern.  “I think I’m a better judge of character than anyone except my big brother.”

                “I’ll be right back,” Michelle grumbled and headed off to the bar. 

                I turned to Needles.  “You can sit down, I won’t hurt you.”

                “You may not,” she muttered, leaving it obvious she didn’t trust Michelle.

                “Michelle works for me, she’s supposed to be suspicious,” I countered. 

                “Works for you?  I thought you were cousins.”

                “That’s part of the complicated,” I hedged, looking into Needle’s thoughts.

                She let out a loud sneeze.  “Stop that, it tickles my brain.”

                “That’s a new reaction,” I said, sounding more clinical than I guess a normal person would. 

                “Do you make a habit of invading people’s minds,” Needles asked, sitting on an ottoman that matched the couch.

                “I can’t really help it most of the time,” I admitted.  “Shoot a year ago I didn’t even know I could stop hearing everyone around me.  Just nonstop blathering from every mind around me.”

                “That sounds exhausting,” Needles said, eyes concerned.  “Were you around a lot of people as a kid?”

                “I’m not sure if I’d call the doctors and their guards ‘people’ or sentient asshats,” I answered.  “But there were a lot of them where I grew up.”

                “Did you have cancer or something?”

                “Less cancer and more being a genetically modified human-god hybrid,” I said with a false cheer.  “Cause, ya know, oops?”

                “You’re a wha now?”

                “So, ya see there’s this ice flow in the arctic,” I started grudgingly.  At Needle’s look I went on.  “And they pulled a core sample that had tissue from a being far older than humanity and he’s kind of a bfd.  So, in true human ‘fuck around and find out’ fashion, they used DNA from the tissue sample to create eggs and put those in human women and here I am.”

                “I think you left out a fucking lot there,” Needles told me.

                “Oh look, there’s Michelle with drinks,” I said gratefully, standing to take the… what the hell?

                “They’re out of normal glasses,” Michelle told me with a rueful grin.  “I promise it’s coke in the pineapple and not some rum concoction.”

                “Good, alcohol does not sit well with me,” I said before taking a drink. Cool, crisp, fizzy and dark without any of the bitter tang of intoxicants.  Perfect.  Even if the plastic pineapple the size of my head did look ridiculous. 

                “You’re a goddess that can’t drink,” Needles noted with a giggle.  At my raised eyebrow she laughed out loud. 

                “I never said I was a goddess,” I pointed out.

                “Only one source gets you tendrils and telepathy,” the seamstress told me.   

                “And how would you know that,” Michelle asked suspiciously.

                “Dark web data hauling,” Needles admitted with a shrug. 

                “You’re a hacker?”

                “My bestie is and she hacked a certain business up the coast that has been doing questionable creating for the last thirty years,” Needles said.  “Don’t lie to me.  I know what Cassandra is- and nice play on the name, by the way.”

                “Play?”  Michelle sounded confused.

                I sighed, brushing my hair behind my shoulders.  “Zothie’s got jokes, he named me after one of the Oracles in Ancient Greece.”

                “They belonged to Apollo though, totally different pantheon,” Needles said, rolling her eyes. 

                “My big brother’s got jokes,” I said with a shrug, which made Needles stare at me.

                “HE is here in the city?  For real?”

                “Yup, Zoth Ommog himself is here,” I answered.

                “He could drive the entire bay area mad,” she whispered.  “We are so screwed.”

                “He’s mellowed,” I protested.  “And I don’t think he wants to drive the whole area insane.  Just the bad cops and officials that support their shit.  Think of it as vigilante madness.”

                “Was that you at that press conference?”  Needles looked paler by the dim light of the table lamps.  “Brit said she though the old gods were on the move from the chatter she was picking up but I didn’t think it was true.”

                “We’re approaching what our seers are calling a ‘final count down,’” Michelle informed her.  “Thankfully, Zoth Ommog will follow the Psyche and she’ll support her sister from the same place as she was made.”

                “If Gwen deems humanity unworthy of saving, then I’ll join her in tearing them into madness,” I acknowledged, my grin flashing more teeth than perhaps were necessary.  “But I rather think she’ll want to save you all.  Though you’re no more human than Michelle is, are you?”  

                Needles looked up to the sky, the stars dimmed by the city lights as I nudged her mentally to open up a bit.  “I don’t know, like I said, I’m an orphan.  But I can move things and people with my mind, been able to do it since I was tiny.  Having an extra hand or two helps with my sewing.”

                “Interesting application,” I noted.  “So, are we friends?”

                The non sequitur made both of my companions stare at me.  Michelle recovered first and asked, “You do know that was a huge jump, right?”

                “I prefer to be direct,” I said, already reading the answer off Needles’ mind but I let her answer for herself.

                “I’d much rather be your friend than your enemy,” she told me.  “I like dancing with you.  And with those tentacles-“

                “Tendrils.”

                “-those tendrils, you probably need custom clothing work done,” she finished around my interruption.  “I’ve got customer service and fashion design and assembly background.   I do need to make enough to renew my lease though.  Otherwise, I have to look at moving further inland.”

                “We’ve got space in our building,” I told her.  “We’ll iron out the details later, I want to go dance some more.”

                “Are you proposing adopting her into the family,” Michelle asked.  At the look on my face, she held up her hands.  “I’m not saying you can’t do it, Psy, but normally we bring people in through marriage.  Which, for the record, Needles- Luna, rather, here is a prime candidate for entry.  Unlike some of the other families, ours brings in all talented humans we can find.  It’s just genetically smarter.”

                “What do you mean ‘family?’  Are you guys like the mob?”

                “Not quite,” Michelle said with a laugh.  She gave Needles some serious eye contact and slowly blinked her second set of eyelids, letting them slide across her eyes before blinking normally.  “We’re not quite human ourselves.  Our families were initially modded by the Great Old Ones, the Elder Ones, whoever, millennia ago and the Dunamis specifically is Zoth Ommog’s.  We have our own Seers, ‘paths and a couple of ‘ports plus the standard water form of all the Deep One families.  There are others in Zoth Ommog’s service, but we don’t talk to them much.  They’re zealots on a whole ‘nother level.”           

                “Gods save me from having to talk to those Yug-heads ever again,” I moaned, looking up to the stars.  “They’re so tedious.  All ‘yes, Goddess, no Goddess, what’s your name Goddess?’  Gag me with a spork.”

                “You are less managerial than some of you kin,” Michelle pointed out.  “Not that it’s a bad thing, but you do know you can just put your foot down and we’ll make it happen.”

                “More flies with honey than vinegar,” I quipped as I felt a tickle in the back of my mind.  “What the- oh no, not now, teach.  I wanna dance.”

                Did he listen- nope. 

                Could I hear Michelle and Needles quietly freak out as my eyes lit up again, the color flowing into my tendrils.  The stars swallowed up my mind and left my body behind.  Guess it was time for another lesson with my teacher out in the cosmos but it would be a fucking delight if he gave me advance warning before stealing me away.