Story Synopsis
This story is geared toward an adult audience. While this is a spoiler-free as possible, it is a work in progress, and as the story makes its way toward completion, I will update it accordingly.
After the Calling revolves around a group of psychics struggling to cope after the collapse of the psychic organization The Calling, a worldwide juggernaut of unity left in shambles by its own leader, the murderous Rowanne Kelley. Rowanne, dead set on the destruction of psychics afflicted with vampirism, a need to consume vital force energy from others in order to survive, has made it her mission to hunt down and annihilate any psychic who does not fit her particular mold of perfection. With her own vampirism clouding her sanity but also spurring her rage, she barrels through the psychic world without remorse or care for the future of the psychic community.
Garcia Hazard, the leader of the upper echelons of Rowanne’s minionhood, attempts to follow her orders while also involving himself in an external plot to topple her regime. However, as he gets closer to breaking Rowanne’s powerful stranglehold on the psychic world, he finds himself losing the ability to evade her suspicions. He risks being found out and losing his life at her hand as a traitor. All the while, he tries to reconcile his involvement in an evil that has become modernized version of that which Rowanne has created.
Aeryn Faye a weakly psychic, former Calling enthusiast is searching for her brother, Hadrian Faye, who has disappeared after his burgeoning vampirism placed him on the wrong end of Rowanne’s attentions. Unbeknownst to Aeryn, while running from Rowanne and everyone he’s ever known and loved, Hadrian was picked off the streets by the charming, although merciless siren, Mercer Rye. Mercer refuses to give Aeryn any clues as to where her brother is, but instead sends her in the direction of a group of Calling dissenters, led by cognitive Ryan Lee and her protector, the pyrokinetic Layne Veris. The group adopts her and her reluctant fiancé Tobias Cole, agreeing to help her find Hadrian. But as time passes, it seems less likely that Aeryn will ever see her brother again.
While Aeryn is trying to regain some semblance of a life, her friend and mentor Salem Beckett, a latent with minimal psychic abilities, is simply trying to stay beneath the radar. She has been on the run from Rowanne and her cronies for the past 10 years, after rescuing a child psychic marked for death as a pre-vampiric and stealing away into the night. Roux, the child that Salem saved, is now 16 and developing psychic abilities far beyond anything anyone has ever encountered. With her pre-vampirism threatening to bud into full blown vampirism and her powers becoming increasing vast, Salem is beginning to struggle to keep them hidden from Rowanne’s wrath.
In an attempt to reconnect with Aeryn, Salem and Roux join up with a jaded telepath, Troy, and set off to find her. They manage to locate Aeryn and her new associates, but before they can reunite, they are caught in the crosshairs of a firefight between Rowanne’s followers and an unknown group of psychics with unconfirmed ties to Mercer, the architect behind Aeryn’s current location. Salem is killed and Roux has been plucked into Mercer’s custody in the same suspicious manner that has left Hadrian untraceable.
Shaken by the proximity of the firefight and fearing another attack Ryan Lee forces her group to disband. Ryan and her sons flee to the safety of a cognitive sanctuary, Layne takes the stragglers to a forest safe house for psychics on the run, and Aeryn is inadvertently shipped off with the group’s healer, Mickey Ford, to the out-posted residence of Chauncey Bouchard, an aerokinetic suffering from a severe case of psychic vampirism. Isolating himself from society, Chauncey tries to survive on his own wares, while Mickey, his lover, attempts to nourish him with her abilities despite his protests.
When little comes in the way of information to their secluded location, Mickey convinces them to consult with Chauncey’s very vampiric parents Jax and Chloe, powerful clairvoyants of air and water who have embraced a lifestyle allowing them to feed on vital force of others without consequence, preferring the potency of blood energy, or purana. Taking advantage of the addictive nature of puranic energy exchange, the collect human livestock to feed their insatiable need.
After being introduced to them, Aeryn finds herself in the line of sight and obsession of Chauncey’s father, Jax Bouchard. When Layne calls Chauncey away in hopes to find a solution to their current state, Jax jumps at the opportunity to sink his fangs into Aeryn, leaving her with passions and desires that she has never encountered before.
Dun dun DUUUUHHHHNNNN!
