Oha, so a bit more is explained why Steve is after the boys. If he succeeds, we may see.
That you will see, but Steve is definitely going to take his time before he makes his move.
Side note, the "rogue Phoenix" who is mentioned in the last chapter to have killed Kayla, is Bianca.
Chapter Twelve – Truth Be Told
“Chris planned on bringing drinks earlier,” Wyatt informed everyone as he entered the room. “I thought while we waited for him to return I’d bring them. It’s just water. I hope that’s all right.”
“Perfectly all right,” Seth agreed taking one of the glasses out of Wyatt’s arms. “Be careful with those.”
“Chris already broke one,” Wyatt commented. “He was startled by Melinda’s response to you.”
Seth glanced at her. “He’s not the only one. Not really the response I normally get.”
“What response is that?” Emily asked as she took one of the glasses. She watched Wyatt juggle the two remaining glasses. “A good waiter you would not make.”
Wyatt shrugged as he handed one of the glasses to Melinda and took a sip of the last one. “I’m not concerned. I don’t pass the minimum cooking requirement to work at The Manor and I’d never work for Mom’s competition. Besides,” he added with a shrug, “I like my job.”
“That’s always good.” She stopped and looked as Chris entered the room with a notepad. “Did you get what you needed?”
He nodded. “Yes. I think I reworded this to work.” He looked at her. “This is going to allow you to ask me anything and get the truth, so I’m going to ask you to please not abuse it. There are some things I’d rather no one asked, but if you do try asking them for some reason, just don’t ask them around others. There are some things I’m just not ready to talk about.”
She considered this. “Well, if I ask them, you could always ask me about my magic.”
“You are not magical,” Chris informed her.
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll decide that when I learn your definition of magical, but I definitely have magic.”
Chris shook his head, not amused and held out his hand. “Take my hand, please. The way I worded this, it’s probably best.”
She took his hand and waited. “Okay. Now what?”
With his free hand Chris held up the paper in his hand, ignoring his siblings and friend. “For those who want the truth revealed, opened hearts and secrets unsealed. From now until it’s now again, after which the memory could end. The one who stands within my reach, will give the truth with her speech. In return the truth I will tell, with her doest work this spell.”
When Chris stopped talking, Emily let go of his hand and looked at him curiously. “Is that is?”
“Yes,” Chris informed her. “I sure hope you aren’t going to waste this spell on questions like that.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Melinda shook her head at him. “This spell has a way of backfiring on people.”
Emily glanced back at Melinda curiously. “You know I never asked you your name.” She turned back to Chris and asked, “Who is she?”
“Melinda, my sister,” Chris informed her.
She blinked at him surprised. “I didn’t realize you had a sister.”
“Well, I do.”
“Then, why do patrons of your mom’s restaurant know that she has two sons, but not that she has a daughter?”
“She’s from an alternate reality.” Chris glared at her. “Enough of that. I cast this spell to learn if I could trust you, so it’s my turn to ask questions. What do you know of magic?”
“Plenty,” she retorted. “I’m a magician’s sister.” Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth. “Oh! No, that’s bad.”
Seth chuckled at that. “She thinks being a magician’s sister is bad? She’s is so in for a shock.”
“Keep quiet, Seth.”
Emily turned her eyes to Seth. “And what about him?” she asked without turning around. “Who is he?”
“That’s Seth, Wyatt’s best friend.”
“You really want to test this?” Seth asked and flicked out his tongue.
Emily gasped and walked over to him. “Do that again.”
Seth looked at her surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“That was so weird.”
“I am not an exhibit in a museum.”
“You’re the one who stuck your tongue into this,” Wyatt reminded him. “Chris, end this.”
“I can’t,” Chris informed him. “The spell lasts twenty-four hours.”
“Then, ask what you want and send her on her way.”
Emily turned around and looked at Wyatt. “What’s his problem anyway?”
“He’s my big brother,” Chris retorted. “He thinks it’s his job to protect me.”
“And he thinks I’m a danger to you.”
“Yes, for now.”
“How do I prove that I’m not?”
“By answering my questions in the way he wants them answered.”
She glanced around and shrugged. “I agreed to this and it’s not like I have a choice at this point.”
“There’s always a choice. You can walk away and avoid me.”
“And forget this ever happened, right?”
“Perhaps,” Chris admitted.
“You said you aren’t a warlock. You sounded rather insulted about it. Why was that?”
“Because warlocks are evil, no longer even human.”
“So what are you then?”
“I’m half witch, half elder.”
“Half what?” she asked confused.
“Elder.”
“What’s that?”
“They are the leaders of the whitelighters. Are you planning on telling anyone?”
“No. What’s a whitelighter?” Emily looked like she was beginning to enjoy this.
“Sort of like a guardian angel. They guide witches down their paths as well as guide and protect future whitelighters. Will you tell anyone?”
“I don’t know, but probably. I don’t keep secrets from my brothers. How does someone qualify as a future whitelighter?”
“They are people who do a lot to help people in life. Some are doctors,” he glanced at his older brother who just glared. “Some are teachers. Some are juvenile delinquents,” he added with a laugh.
She looked at him with narrow eyes. “How does that qualify them?”
“It doesn’t, but we’ve known some that were. Did you tell Drinka why you wanted to leave The Manor?”
“No,” Emily replied instantly. “Are you kidding me? Wouldn’t she freak out if she learned you moved me across the room without touching me?”
“No, I’m not kidding you and no, Drinka wouldn’t freak out if she learned that. I already told her.”
“Does that mean Drinka is a witch, too?”
“Nope.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“So why does she know?”
“Because our mom and her sisters helped saved her gypsy tribe years ago.”
Emily’s mouth dropped. “I thought she just liked to dress like that.”
“You should see Kali,” Wyatt retorted.
Emily looked between the two brothers. “Kali? Who’s that?”
“A very good friend,” Chris replied. “She’s related to Drinka. Where did you learn to do magic tricks?”
“From my brother,” she replied wincing as she did. “He’s going to kill me. You can’t tell.”
“What can’t I tell?”
“That Matt’s the Mysterious Magician,” she replied, her eyes widening. “Oh, I don’t like this.” She stared at Chris for several seconds. “How do you have a sister from an alternate reality?”
Chris shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. You’d have to ask Melinda. She did it, not me.”
“How can someone make themselves exist?”
“Well, you could go back in time and break up your parents and then have to get them back together so that you are conceived.”
“That’s very weird,” she commented as she looked at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I did that.”
Emily just stared at him. She walked over to the unbroken chair next to where Seth stood and sat down on it. She looked up at Chris and asked. “A few weeks ago, you told me that your brother was in bad shape. I don’t think you expected him to live.”
“I did.”
“Then, what were you worried about?”
“I didn’t think he’d ever walk again,” Chris admitted.
“Why? He seems perfectly fine now.”
“Because his spinal cord was almost completely severed and everyone knows nerves don’t grow back. Healing him would have caused too many questions and yet, somehow he did heal.”
“Aren’t you glad?”
“Of course I am!” Chris glared at her. “How could you ask such a thing?”
“Because you sounded so clinical describing it,” she informed him. “You shouldn’t sound that way when describing your brother.”
“Look, he knows I would have been fine,” Wyatt informed her, getting annoyed with the conversation. “Neither of us is sure when, but we both know eventually a certain someone would have lifted her ban on healing me and done so. She just thought I should rest a little before she did so. And then they found out I was worse than everyone thought and she couldn’t figure out how to do it without causing suspicion, but she would have.”
“You couldn’t walk?” Melinda asked, looking at her two brothers, slightly annoyed. “I know I haven’t exactly been the best at keeping in touch, but I would have thought something like
that would have been mentioned when I did call.”
“I think you didn’t call while he was in danger,” Chris commented. “And after that everyone wanted to forget it happened.”
“But it did happen and clearly you have a problem or did you dust everyone who came in contact with Wyatt’s medical file?”
Chris frowned and looked at Wyatt. Wyatt shrugged and looked at Melinda. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Look,” she said looking at them worried. “I don’t know about you guys, but Mom once told me a story about a doctor. He was on Mom’s case when she was sick was a deadly decease. I forget what. The point is that this doctor saw Mom miraculously recover because Dad healed her and he got obsessed with finding out what cured her. He ended up going crazy because he got injected with her blood along with Aunt Prue’s and Aunt Phoebe’s. He got their powers and he ended up killing people, because his mind got messed up. He saved lives by murdering people. I won’t say they were innocent. They weren’t, but they didn’t deserve that. And when Mom and her sisters tried to fix it by separating the powers from him, he tried to kill them, too. In the end they had no choice but to kill him and it about broke Mom’s heart, because all he wanted to do was help people.”
“I guess that’s why Mom insisted that Dr. Darrin give her any and all blood samples he took from me,” Wyatt commented.
“And how did Dr. Darrin respond to your recovery?” she asked.
The door opened and Wyatt blinked open his eyes. He looked straight at the chair where Chris was curled up apparently having managed to fall asleep. Wyatt rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up against the headboard.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Dr. Darrin asked as he looked at Wyatt’s chart.
“Much better,” Wyatt informed him. “Thanks.”
“We still don’t know what is causing your recovery,” the doctor commented. “You must have a remarkable immune system.”
“Some job it does waiting five days,” Wyatt teased.
Dr. Darrin smiled. “Well, most people in your condition would still be in the same condition fifty years later if they even made it that far.”
Wyatt nodded. “I know. There’s a lady in ICU right now that has been paralyzed from the waist down for almost fifteen years.”
The doctor looked at him surprised. “How do you know that? You’ve been in here for almost a week and she’s only been here . . .”
“Two days,” Wyatt finished. “Yeah, I know. I heard someone mention her name when the door was opened and I recognized it from some of her previous visits here. I volunteer here and she’s a dear lady.”
“You work here?” Dr. Darrin looked at him in surprise. “I haven’t seen you.”
“I volunteer, but usually on a different floor. I imagine our paths just don’t cross that much.”
“Fair enough. Have any theories on your recovery?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Not a one and believe me I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with an explanation, medical or otherwise. I even played with the theory that someone knocked me out and went in and glued me together,” he admitted with a laugh, “but none of it seems to make any sense, so I gave up.”
“Then, you won’t mind if I get some blood work done on you and see if I can find an answer to our mystery.”
Wyatt froze. He remembered how adamant his mom had been about no blood work done and several other things. He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t about to argue. “Actually, I do mind. I don’t know why I healed, but I do know that whatever it was won’t help you with anyone else. It’s not me and much as I appreciate your help, I can’t allow you to draw any more blood than you already have and I can’t allow you to do any more testing on it.”
Dr. Darrin stared at him stunned. “You can’t mean that. People just don’t heal the way you did.”
Wyatt nodded. “I know and I’m sorry, but I know the answers not in my blood.” He sighed. “Look, I can introduce you to a guy I work with when I’m here. He’s been working on trying to find a way to get nerves to recover. I know that you are more likely to find the answers you want talking to him than you are testing my body. I don’t have some magical antibody. It’s just one of those things you can’t explain. I’m sorry, but I won’t give you permission. And don’t go behind my back, because if you do, I will . . .” Wyatt stopped short of the threat he was about to make. He didn’t want to make that threat. “Just don’t. It can’t help you.”
“He did relent,” Wyatt informed them, “but I know he doesn’t want to. I’m at the hospital tomorrow morning, so I’ll see what I can do about making sure there is nothing left to test.”
Melinda relaxed and went back over to the couch. “All right. Thank you. I’m kind of surprised you never heard that story.”
“I think Mom started to tell me once,” Chris told her, “because parts of that sound familiar. I think the doctor you are talking about is this one’s uncle.”
Melinda gulped and nodded. “I see.”
“Chris,” Emily drew his attention back to her as she asked, “what happened a few weeks ago, when Ty said you were attacked?”
“An assassin tried to kill me. She stabbed me pretty deep and I don’t know how well I would have done if I hadn’t gotten Ty out so I could call Mikelle.”
“Mikelle?”
“A whitelighter this family knows.” Chris leveled a look at her. “Now, sit down please. I do have some questions that I’d like to ask you. I worded the spell the way I did to give you some measure of security and to let you ask some questions of your own, so you know I’m not trying to hurt you or trick you.”
Emily looked at him for several seconds and nodded. “I know you won’t hurt me. You saved my life or at last saved me from serious injury. Whether you will try and trick me is another matter, since you clearly tried to hide things from me before.” She gave him a slight smile. “Not that I blame you for not wanting to tell me about this since it’s kind of . . . unbelievable.”
“I guess for someone who didn’t grow up with it, it is rather tough to believe,” Chris admitted.
“You think?” Emily looked at him amused. “You know I was kidding about the whole witch thing, right? I never expected that you really were a witch. Those things just aren’t real. Or at least I didn’t think they were.”
“Well, they are,” Seth informed her, “and these witches have work to do.”
Emily focused her attention back at him. “What is the deal with your tongue anyway?”
Seth shrugged. “My mother wasn’t human.”
Emily’s eyes widened and so did her smile. “She was an alien?”
Seth chuckled as he shook his head. “Not even close. She was a manticore and thankfully she is long dead.”
“How can say that about your mom?” Emily asked mystified. “And what’s a manticore?”
“I can say that because she was a killer,” he declared, “and would have turned me into one given the chance. I guess I do wonder why she didn’t kill my dad though. I’m grateful, but . . .” He shrugged.
“If you’d met him back then, you wouldn’t,” Chris retorted.
Seth raised twin eyebrows and looked at him.
Wyatt chuckled. “I told you about his memory.”
Emily frowned and turned to Chris. “What does he mean?”
“I have the memories of two lives lived in two realities,” Chris informed her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what do you remember from this other time line?”
Wyatt’s eyes shot to his brother as Chris’ eyes filled with shock.
“I remember always loosing people, usually to death, frequently to my brother.”
Wyatt sucked in a breath.
Seth’s mouth formed an “O” as he looked at his best friend.
Melinda’s eyes switched between her two brothers as she watched in silence from the couch.
Emily looked at Wyatt in surprise, but didn’t say anything. She let him keep speaking.
“I remember magic being well known. Some believed it to be a source of amusement. Others thought it a source of great fear. None thought it a good thing except perhaps a few of those with good magic. Even most of those would have preferred magic gone. For me it was the means by which I survived and the means by which I could just as easily die. Damocles’ sword in a way.
“I remember Aunt Phoebe hatching a plan to change things and being killed so it all seemed to fall on me. And I was angry and afraid and sometimes I just hated. And . . .”
“Okay, okay,” she interrupted. “I get it.”
“Not even close,” he informed her. “Believe me,” you don’t want to.”
Emily considered the look in his eyes, finally nodding. “Another day perhaps.”
I hope that day never comes, Chris thought though he made no audible reply.
“Chris, you have your answers. Right?”
Chris looked at Seth and nodded.
“Can you, please, go see if your parents know anything?”
“If there was nothing in the book,” Wyatt reasoned, “why would they?”
“Well, Dad knows a ton of stuff that not in the book,” Melinda piped up, “so much as I hate to agree with the
demon . . . he’s got a point.”
“My name,” Seth glared at her, “is Seth, not ‘the demon’. I would appreciate it if you would use it when you refer to me.”
Emily’s eyes widened as she turned to look at the two of them. Her mouth gaped and her eyes darted back and forth between Seth and Melinda for several seconds and then she walked over to Seth. She stopped less than a foot from him, stood on tip toe and tried to see over the top of his head.
“What are you doing?” Seth asked trying to back into the wall.
“I’m looking for horns.”
“No horns,” he informed her, flicking out his tongue very deliberately, “just the tongue. My dad is entirely, one hundred percent human.”
“How does a demon have a kid with a human?” She asked him. “And why would they anyway?”
Seth gulped. “I prefer not to discuss this line of questioning.”
“But why?”
“Because you are entirely too close.”
“Oh!” Emily looked at him surprised as she backed away to a more comfortable distance. “Sorry about that.”
Chris chuckled. “Do you have a comfort zone, Emily?”
“Yes, absolutely,” she assured him as she turned to face him. “I think it’s smaller than his though.”
“I’ll say,” Seth retorted. “If you have a comfort zone than it’s only a few inches in diameter.” With narrow eyes he started walking toward her. “How do you like it if get too close?”
Chris looked across the room at his brother who was trying hard not to laugh as they both watched Emily back away from Seth.
“I said I was sorry,” Emily reminded him as she backed into the hall.
“And you won’t do that again?”
“Why should I?” she retorted as she hit Wyatt’s bedroom door. “I’m unlikely to see you again after today. Chris and his brother are the only things we have in common.”
“His name is Wyatt,” Seth informed her. “And he’s been my best friend since before either of us turned a year old. He’s a good person and a great friend and he deserves to be called by his name.”
“Boy, are you touchy,” she glared at him. She pressed against the door and stood up on her tiptoes. “I’m sorry that I didn’t call him by his name, but I’ve only met him once before and I was serving his dinner, so excuse me if I didn’t recall it.”
Seth frowned and turned around. He looked at Wyatt and Chris. “Exactly who is this girl anyway?”
“She works with me at The Manor,” Chris informed him, “as a waitress.”
“Tell him I’ve only met Wyatt once before,” Emily requested.
“I can’t,” Chris admitted.
“But it’s the truth.” She looked at him confused. “I thought this was supposed to keep us from lying to each other, so why can’t you tell him that?”
“Because it’s not true.”
Wyatt looked at his brother curious and then his eyes realized what Chris was thinking of. “No, no, no. Absolutely no!”
Melinda and Seth looked at him amused, neither knowing why he was protesting. Emily eyed him with interest.
“I think Wyatt would rather you didn’t ask that question,” Chris retorted.
“But that makes it all the more interesting.”
“Honestly, it would be kind of cruel,” he informed her.
“Oh?”
“He’d probably get a ribbing out of it,” Chris said with a glance at Seth.
“More and more interesting,” she commented as she looked at Wyatt.
Wyatt eyed her and scowled. “Chris, let’s go.”
“Go?” Chris looked at him surprised. “Go where?”
“Home. Seth suggested talking to Dad and Mom, so let’s go.”
“And leave them here?” Chris asked looking at their three guests in turn.
Wyatt nodded. “They won’t hurt each other. Seth’s the only one with powers and he knows better. Melinda . . .” he looked at her, “
won’t be throwing anything else at him. And I don’t think Emily even understands what’s going on yet. For her sake, I hope she never does.”
“Hey!”
Wyatt shook his head and looked at Chris. “So let’s go.”
Chris sighed and nodded. “I’ll meet you there,” Chris offered just before he orbed out of the room.
Emily watched amazed at his orbs disappeared and then Wyatt followed him. Then, she turned to the remaining two. Hoping Seth was distracted from the earlier conversation, she offered them both a smile. “Who wants to see some more magic tricks?”
And despite both being around real magic all the time, they both did.
Having a little fun with the truth spell and Emily's "magical" background. The next chapter follows the brothers.
