I nodded and turned to Reginald thoughtfully, Mina still held close to me.  “If she survives… how are you helping her do that again?  My brother Zoth Ommog and I, well, we feel rather disrespected by her clothing choice.  Not a wise move.”

                He gaped at me as Mina shook and cried in my embrace.  I was about to push further when a voice rang out.

                “Please don’t hurt my brother,” Kore called past Michelle.  She slipped past our assistant to walk through a crowd that parted before her.  “Mina’s a bitch and Dad’s a tool, nothing new there, but please, don’t hurt the baby.  He’s innocent.”

                “It’s a fetus at this point,” I reminded her as Mina whimpered in my grasp, staring at the burn on her forearm.  “Tell me Mina, do you want it to live?  Because if I remember correctly, women and children are a fine sacrifice to appease an angry goddess.”

                “Yes,” she whispered when I removed the tendril from her face and using her hair as leverage, I pulled her head back sharply so she could see my expression. 

                “What did you say?  I could melt him from your womb just as easily as I can melt the flesh from your bones, you brazen bitch.”

                “Please, S-s-sacred One, spare my baby,” she wailed.

                I released her and stepped back as she fell toward her husband.  I slammed a tendril into the floor as I glared at them.  With a gasp, the bleach blonde fell to the floor, kneeling as she hid her teary face from me against the scorch marked marble.  I turned my gaze to the rest of the room.  “And the rest of you?”

                I could see it galled some of them to sink to their knees, awkwardly in formal dresses and tuxedos, but one and all the Deep Ones knelt.  Soon only Luna and Zothie remained on their feet in the vast ballroom.  I nodded my approval and called Dani down from the rafters above us.  She took her true form and glided down to me, her dainty hooves striking sparks on the marble as she trotted to my side.  “Very good, we can learn.  Let me be very, very clear for the future.  My origins are humble, true.  My father remains who he is though, and I am his daughter in ways you cannot imagine.  And unlike him, I am here now.

                “Yes, I heard that thought- you’re not necessarily screwed, Mike in marketing.  As I’m sure Michelle and Luna can tell you, I much prefer the carrot over the stick.  I would rather we be at least polite and helpful to one another.  But make no mistake,” I growled, foot striking the floor to send ripples through the room.  “I am not to be fucked around with.”

                Zothie did something to the lights again so they cut out, leaving me to shine in the power lighting my tendrils as they flared around me, a single glowing spotlight on me.  When had we hired in lighting people?   Shrugging away that thought, I walked through the room, the light following me.  My heels left scorch marks on the marble as I made my way to cluster of high-ranking family members.  They were all kneeling, but most were studying me instead of looking down.

                So, I studied them back, answering unspoken questions.  “No, Tony, I will not wrap myself around you like that.  Yes, Anthony, your wife is goddamn idiot.  Yes, Gran-gran, I did eat dinner tonight- thank you for caring, that’s touching.  No, fucking Federico, you don’t get to touch me.  You don’t get to fuck anyone for a while now.”

                A yelp from the last as his hands went to his obviously disappointing pants.   I grinned viciously before laughing.  Apparently Zothie sent him a mental image offering his own attentions.  Federico’s eyes became glued to the floor, his mind mumbling rosaries after that. 

                “Dirty pool, old man,” I called to my brother.  “Do come out and say hello, dear brother.”

                Gasps ran through the room as Zothie floated into the air above me, new spotlights turning on to focus on him.  “See me and know fear!”

                Between one heartbeat and the next Zothie slipped his human form, taking a smaller version of his true form.  Admittedly, smaller was about 50 feet long, plus more for his own tendrils, but still, not full size.  Not that seem to make any difference.

                Screams and the wet sliding slip of skin echoed in the room and I saw many of the Deep Ones lose control of their physical form.  Skin thickened and grew moist, eye sockets shifted to accommodate larger orbs.  Some even grew tails like something out of a kid’s movie.  At least they were already on the floor. 

                “I see you as you are before me,” Zothie’s voice howled through the minds of those assembled. “And I am not impressed!  You would call my blood names like the basest slattern?  You dare to try to outshine one marked to be her priestess, a psychic herself?  FOOLS!”

                Dani scooped me onto her back before I could protest and leapt over the crowd, landing next to Luna.  My mostly human friend was struggling to keep her on her feet at the sight of my brothers true (mini) form, fingers blanched white as she held the arm of my throne. “Help her, my Psyche!”

                I laid my hands on Luna’s shoulders, using my mind to protect hers, forming a wall of stone between her and Zoth Ommog’s ranting.  I pulled her closer while Dani curled around us, wings flaring to shield us both. 

                “Luna!” I asked out loud. 

                She startled and grabbed onto me, eyes wild.  “Was that- how did he?  What is he?”

                “He’s an alien,” I informed her nonchalantly.  The drab tone seemed to get through her questions. 

                “Huh?”

                “You’ve known he’s the son of Cthulhu, that’s how he was born,” I told her softly, pulling her close enough to whisper in her ear.  “These fools, they didn’t believe, not truly.  But now they do, and woe to those that deny him ever again.”

                Or you, Zothie’s voice whispered across my mind as he railed against the gathered Deep Ones.  As he gave the first of his proclamation for the new era.  I tuned him out to tend to Luna.

                “And he’s establishing you as my priestess, which he thinks elevates you over almost anyone else here,” I told Luna.  “Still, I didn’t think he’d go full Monty up there and didn’t think to guard you fast enough.  I’m sorry, Needles.”

                “Yeah, that first sight is a Lu-lu,” she muttered, make some kind of old cartoon reference normally reserved for steps.  “Do you look like that?”

                “Nah,” I said honestly.  “I was born humanoid with extra parts.”

                “Were they molten hot then?”

                “Nah,” I said with a grin.  I shot a look at my tendrils which has returned to their normal ebony hue, no sign of the molten heat I’d called up earlier.  “Or at least I don’t think so.  I’da burned my way out of the prison I grew up in a lot sooner if I’d been able to melt rock like I can now.”   

                “That makes sense,” Luna said to me as Dani’s wings folded to her back again.  I looked over them, wondering where Michelle had gotten to.

                “We are so not getting our deposit back,” I heard her grumble from about twenty feet away. 

                “Michelle, my priestess, come to me,” I called out when Zothie paused in his tirade against the Deep Ones.  Our assistant rose to her feet gracefully, having retained her fully human form.  She walked to us, knowing many in the room were watching her come to my side.  I reached my left hand out to here while Luna held my right.  “Deep Ones, know my people who are with me.  Others that serve me directly are at home on maternity leave, but they too bear a ruby given by my brother and I.  Them, I individually care for and value.  The lot of you, not so much.  Keep that in your fucking minds.  The next on to start shit with me dies and takes their kin with them.”

                “Tactful,” Michelle whispered, though she kept her chin up. 

                “Fuckers needed reminding,” Luna whispered back.  

                “I’ll be speaking with some of you in your dreams,” Zoth Ommog stated, mantle rippling above the room.  “It may be, shall we say, unpleasant for a few of you.  Until them, my servants.”

                Using something different than the gates Celestine had taught me, Zothie disappeared in a flare of light.  I turned to Michelle and asked loudly enough to carry, “Think the after party will be better?”

                Oddly, no one answered.