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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 7, 2017 12:42:26 GMT -5
So now all and everyone are checked by a call, now back to the normal business. lol If only ...  Well, Chris in on to his next stop and this one is even more unusual for him since he knew the people involved in the other time line. And speaking of the other time line, you'll get a little glimpse into it here, too.
Chapter Eleven – Parasite? Chris stood on the doorstep and hesitated. He’d only rarely met Everett Lawson in the other time line and never in this one. He hadn’t a clue how the man would react to what he had to say. “Are you planning on just staring at that door?” a voice behind him asked. “I was thinking about it,” Chris replied absently. As realization sank in, Chris turned around startled to look at Miles Lawson standing there regarding him. “Oh!” Miles smirked. “Yeah, oh. It’s not polite to just stare at someone’s front porch. Who are you?” Instead of answering, Chris grinned. “You must be Miles.” Of course he must. He was. Miles frowned. “How did you . . ?” “I really appreciated the use of your phone when my brother was hurt,” Chris added, confusing the young man even more. “I did that?” “What?” Chris looked at him surprised. “Oh! No, your sister did, but she said you made it and it was able to get through the interference, so I really appreciate that.” That his sister hadn’t to Chris memory actually mentioned her brother’s name wasn’t entirely relevant. Besides Chris hadn’t said that was how he knew Miles’ name. Miles frowned, thinking. Finally, he said, “You’re that guy that worked with Brian for Uncle Reggie.” It was Chris’ turn to be surprised. “You know Brian?” Miles snorted. “I make it a point to know any guy my sister dates.” “They’re dating?!” Chris exclaimed in surprise. “Yeah,” Miles nodded. “Can you tell me anything about him?” “Not really,” Chris admitted. He didn’t know this Brian all that well. “Actually, I’m here to see your dad. Is he home?” Miles frowned. “I didn’t know that you knew my dead.” “I doubt you know much of anything about me,” Chris retorted. “However, you are correct. I don’t know him. It is about something concerning Mr. Hollis.” Miles frowned and then shrugged. “Then, why are you standing on the porch? Come on in.” Surprised, Chris followed him into the house. Inside was much the same as the house had been in the other time line, except this one was still standing.
Kali Nicolae grabbed Chris arm and pulled him away from the demolished building. “Chris, it’s no use. The building is gone.”
“I’ll kill him,” Chris growled.
Kali rolled her eyes. “A little dramatic don’t you think?”
“How?” he demanded. “He’s killing people for their powers, which is bad enough, but now he’s attacking civilians because . . .”
“Because they side with the resistance,” she finished.
“But that’s only Gen,” he protested, staring angrily at the burnt building. “Her father and brother have nothing to do with us.”
“Miles provides us with some pretty cool gadgets that allow the nonmagical among us an advantage,” Kali reminded him. “And their father’s allowed us to camp out at the house on more than one occasion, so I doubt he considers them ‘civilians’.”
Chris sighed.
“No one was in there,” she informed him. “Be thankful for that at least.”
“Sure I’m glad he didn’t kill anyone . . . this time, but I doubt he would have cared if they were in there.”
“Perhaps not,” she admitted with a sigh. “But he’s your brother, Chris. That has to count for something.”
Chris stared at the charred remains of the house. “Not enough if he keeps killing people.”
Miles led Chris into a poorly illuminated room. The lights were out and despite persisting daylight the heavy curtains kept most of the light out. Miles walked up to the desk at the center of the opposite way and laid his hand on the shoulder of a person Chris hadn’t noticed upon entering. “Dad, there’s someone here to see you.” There was a complete silence as Ev decided how to respond and then the sound of squeaking wheels as he pushed his chain back and stood up. He walked over to Chris and held out his hand. “I’m Everett Lawson. How may I help you?” “May I speak to you alone?” Chris requested, glancing back at Miles. The fewer people he had to explain this to the better. And he didn’t know if Miles or Gen even knew about the curse. Ev considered him in silence before he nodded. “Miles, would you mind telling your sister that I will be joining you for dinner tonight?” If Chris hadn’t looked, he wouldn’t have caught the look of pure astonishment that crossed Miles’ face. When Miles had left, Ev spoke in a grave tone, “I rarely join my children for meals, almost never while my wife is away on a trip as she is now. I ask, again. How may I help you?” “Actually, I am hoping that I can help you,” Chris informed him. Ev looked at him somewhat curious. He waited in silence wanting to know, but not willing to ask. “Would you mind if I sat down?” Chris asked, indicating the couch to his right. Ev nodded and sat down on the couch. “I got a strange call this morning,” Chris informed him as he sat down. “It was from my brother and ended rather ominously.” “I am sorry to hear that,” Ev commented, not sounding sorry, the monotone letting through no emotion. “The message asked me to find out everything I could about something called the Aphrodite Crystal.” Ev sucked in a deep breath. “You should avoid it at all cost.” “I have spent the entire day nearly working with others to deal with the events that prompted my brother to make that call,” Chris informed him. “The gem itself has been dealt with, but since people had already been affected by it, we had to figure out the cure for it.” “I’ve tried to find a cure for over twenty-five years,” Ev informed him. “I’m sorry, but you are unlikely to do so” “You wrote a blog entry some time earlier this year stating you would do almost anything to rid yourself of its effects,” Chris reminded him. “I’m not rolling my eyes. I saw my brother trying to kill a young woman earlier today because he thought she was out to get him. . . which she was. My brother told me that someone else tried to kill his best friend for a similar reason. I’ve got a cure.” Ev gulped. “I’ve already been over to Centennial and given a dose to Mr. Hollis,” Chris informed him. “Feel free to call him and he will confirm what I have said.” Ev frowned at him. “Who are you?” “My name is Chris Halliwell. I used to work at Centennial.” “Jarod,” Ev whispered. “I intend to get a dose to him next,” Chris informed him. “Your friend, Nick, has agreed to help one of us get in to see him.” Instead of responding, Ev closed his eyes, a look of pain on his face. The look quickly changed to one of anger, the first emotion Chris had seen Ev show without reserve. Focusing on Ev, Chris could feel a second presence within Ev. Did the curse create some sort of parasite? Was that where the voice in the heads of those who were cursed come from? Wyatt had told him that the voice had been his own, but what was to stop a parasite from borrowing the victim’s voice?” When Chris looked up Ev was staring at him. “Interesting,” Ev commented. “I haven’t had this great of an urge to hurt someone in almost twenty-five years.” Chris frowned and involuntarily scooted closer to the edge of the couch. Ev chuckled, a sad hollow sound. “I’ve had twenty-five years to learn to resist these urges. I just find it interesting. It’s as if something inside me is afraid you really will be able to cure me. And I suppose it could be some form of reverse psychology, but thing is, you’re right. I will do almost anything.” “You’ll take the antidote?” Chris asked a bit surprised at the relative ease of the conversation. Ev nodded. “I will.” Chris reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle with a dose of the potion. “It smells awful and I’m told it tastes as bad as it smells.” Ev took the bottle from him and unscrewed the lid. He took a big whiff and shrugged. “I’ve smelled worse.” And then without so much as a show of distaste he swallowed down the potion. He wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. As it had with the others before, green bubbles began at his head, traveling down his body until they dissipated at his feet in green smoke. Ev watched its progress as it went down his body. A slight chuckle escaped his lips. “I actually feel better about this than anything else I’ve tried.” “Because of the bubbles?” Chris looked at him speculatively. Ev chuckled. “No, because those bubbles are green.” He glanced at Chris. “You never saw anyone get infected did you?” Chris shook his head. “Nope.” “Well, it’s a very green look,” Ev informed him. “It’s rather eerie, but nothing compared to what comes next, it’s rather tame.” He sighed. “That does feel better.” He smiled. “Much better actually. It’s as if I had a giant headache that I didn’t notice because I had it so long and now it’s gone.” Chris grinned. “I’m glad.” “I’d ask you to stay for dinner, but you already said you plan on getting a dose of this to Jarod, and I know he will be very glad to have it.” Chris grinned bigger. “I’m sure he will. I’ll get the antidote to him, but you’re going to have to help him convince the people at wherever he is that he’s ready to leave. And he might need help getting there.” Ev nodded. “I know, but Jarod’s not as far gone as people tend to think. He’s been learning to handle the voice, again . . . as long as he doesn’t mention that he’s hearing one to anyone at that psych ward.” Chris chuckled. “Yeah, I imagine telling someone at a psychiatric hospital that you were hearing voices would not improve your chances of getting out.” Ev gave out a little snort. “Best of luck, getting a drink into that building is going to be exceptionally difficult.” Chris shrugged. “I’ve got my ways.”
It's back to Max and Brianna and there is a big surprise waiting for Brianna when she wakes up. For Max on the other hand things are bad. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 8, 2017 8:38:08 GMT -5
So Chris could help another person from the other reality, and still has to do. Everything and everyone has changed for him, so to speak. Must be really weird.
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 8, 2017 11:35:53 GMT -5
So Chris could help another person from the other reality, and still has to do. Everything and everyone has changed for him, so to speak. Must be really weird. It most certainly is weird for him. Someday I may actually get somewhere with writing that series, but in the mean time, you will get glimpses of it from time to time.
Chapter Twelve – A Whitelighter for Once Brianna moaned and blinked open her eyes. A golden glow greeted her. She brought up a hand to shield her eyes and the glow stopped. “Good, you’re awake,” the voice of a young man greeted her. She blinked again and saw a lanky young man with medium brown hair slicked back and James Dean-esque facial structure stooped down over her. He stood and looked down at her. “How are you feeling?” “A little sore,” she admitted as she sat up. Her head began ringing. “Oh, my head hurts.” “That’s understandable,” he informed her. “You had quite the head injury there. If I hadn’t gotten here when I did, you might well have died. You’ve got to be careful. You’re only human after all.” She pushed herself up against the wall. She grimaced at the sight of blood, her blood, dripping down the wall where she had hit it. Her eyes widened as she was able to focus across the room. “Max!” She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain ringing through her head and ran across the room. The young man orbed across the room and stopped her a few feet from Max. “You can’t touch him. He’s alive, but . . .” “Why can’t you heal him?” she screamed. “You healed me. Heal Max.” “I can’t,” he informed her. “He’s a demon.” He shook his head. “There’s not a drop of human blood in him. His injuries are severe, but for now he’s alive.” “Then, heal him,” she demanded. “I can’t,” he repeated. “I already tried. It just won’t work. I’m sorry I don’t think he’ll make it.” “The Synergists?” He looked at her confused. “Is that why you were here?” She nodded. “I didn’t see anyone else here when I arrived.” “Why did you arrive?” she asked confused. “I don’t have a whitelighter. I can’t possibly have a whitelighter. The elders refused to let my dad have one when he married my mom.” “I’m not your whitelighter,” he admitted. “But you do have one.” “Impossible,” she declared. She stared down at Max, tears filling her eyes. “There has to be some other option. There has to be some way to heal Max.” He shook his head. “I’ve considered every possibility that I could think of. There isn’t a whitelighter out there capable of healing your friend. Demonic healers won’t. And human doctors probably couldn’t heal the damage. And even if they could, his demonic blood would ring all sorts of bells. He’d be exposed and probably die anyway.” “Leo Wyatt,” she gasped desperately. “What?” he looked at her confused. “. . . and Paige Matthews,” she continued, “healed Cole Turner.” “Cole Turner was half human and they could only heal his human half,” he reminded her. “You’re friend’s not human.” “I know,” she admitted, “but it does mean they would be willing to heal a demon if they could.” “Which they can’t,” he pressed. “Not magically,” she agreed, “but Leo Wyatt was a doctor. He might be able to save Max.” “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he hedged. “It’s the best I’ve got,” she informed him. “Besides, we know he won’t expose Max as a demon. And his kids can vouch for us, if need be.” She looked at him. “And so can you. A whitelighter who wants to heal a demon. That’ll count for something in their minds.” “It’s forbidden.” “What?!” she stared at him stunned. “How can it be forbidden? Or do you mean to heal Max at all?” He shook his head. “I can’t be seen by people I knew in life no matter how briefly.” She gaped at him. “His life is at stake here.” “And I can’t orb him,” he continued. “Unless you are going to claim he has had massive exposure to orbing, he won’t be able to handle it. The experience is unsettling until you get used to it.” “Yeah, I know,” she informed him. “After all, it’s the only form of transportation he or I have known for most of the last twenty years. Or is dark orbing so different from white orbing?” He shook his head. “No, not so different. He shouldn’t be affected by that, but I still can’t be seen by the Halliwells.” “Then, don’t be,” she directed him. “Just get him there alive.” The whitelighter closed his eyes. Brianna watched him for several seconds, before interrupting. “What are you doing?” “Trying to figure out where he is,” he informed her. “He doesn’t exactly have a whitelighter watching him.” He sighed and pulled out a cell phone. She looked at him startled. “You can’t get reception here.” “It’s a magical phone,” he informed her slightly annoyed as he punched in numbers. “Communicating with other whitelighters or even the elders is almost impossible down here. This phone will let me . . .” “Make phone calls,” she interrupted, impatiently. “Not exactly the elders.” He chuckled as he finished dialing in the phone number. “You don’t know this elder.” He held the phone up to his ear. “Hi, it’s JD. I need to find Leo Wyatt. It’s a matter of life or death.”
Do you know who the whitelighter is? His name is there, but do you recognize him? And why do you think he's calling? |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 9, 2017 6:37:56 GMT -5
A wild guess? Maybe Sam Wilder who was JD's whitelighter before. Hehe, nice to know that Brianna has a whitelighter but it's not JD, and now both want to save Max. Hopefully, they'll make it.
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 9, 2017 7:49:17 GMT -5
A wild guess? Maybe Sam Wilder who was JD's whitelighter before. Hehe, nice to know that Brianna has a whitelighter but it's not JD, and now both want to save Max. Hopefully, they'll make it. Good guess, but I didn't promote anyone from whitelighter to elder, so this elder was an elder on the show. JD is still in contact with Sam though. Brianna's whitelighter, on the other hand, has been briefly mentioned, but is not someone from the show. They'll be more on that later. Both Brianna's whitelighter and the elder JD is calling will be showing up in this episode soon and JD will be in more of the episode. This is the first episode where I really started playing with the structure of Up There and big things are coming down the road as a result. The first one is a huge side story that happens in congruence with the next episode. If I remember correctly the next episode has three side stories, because so much is going on that it's impossible to keep it all to one story. For now, though Chris has to stop by Nick's so that he can get help accessing the third of Nick's friends. Too many cameras where he has to go next.
Chapter Thirteen – Two Down . . . Chris walked around the house and was relieved to see Seth’s car parked out front. He walked to the front door and knocked on the door. Nick opened the door and looked him over. “Who are you?” “This is my friend, Chris,” Seth said from behind Nick. “He’s the one I told you was coming over to help.” Nick pulled the door open wider and stepped out of Chris way. “Nick Martinez. Reggie called to say you helped him out.” “I’m just glad it worked,” Chris told him as he entered the building. “My brother and his co-workers had only been affected since this morning, your friends a lot longer than that.” “Believe me, I know just how long that’s been,” Nick informed him as he shut the door behind Chris. “I’ve just come from the Lawson house,” Chris informed him. “Your friend Ev is kind of creepy, almost devoid of emotions.” “It’s how he copes,” Nick informed him. “Does that mean Ev is cured, too?” Chris nodded. Nick considered him for a moment. He walked across the room and grabbed up the phone. Chris raised an eyebrow at Seth. Seth shrugged. In a low voice he whispered, “He’s kind of paranoid or maybe he just doesn’t want to be over optimistic.” “His friends are healed,” Chris assured Seth in a low voice. “At least those two are. I still need to get in to see Jody’s dad.” “The guy’s waited this long, he can wait longer,” Seth assured him. “Except I think if we wait much longer, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” “You can orb in,” Seth retorted in a whisper. “Yeah,” Chris agreed, “and I can turn invisible to avoid sensors, but I can’t force the potion down this guy’s throat. I’ll need to talk to Jarod Powell and if I do that, it better not show up on their security cameras as suspicious. I want to be done with this.” “I understand,” Seth told him. “No, I don’t think you do,” Chris argued. In a whispered voice he added, “I still haven’t dealt with the gem itself and until it’s gone for good, I’m going to be very apprehensive.” Seth grimaced. “Let’s get going,” Nick said from behind them. “We don’t have a lot of time before visitor hours are over.” “Let’s go then,” Chris agreed as he headed toward the door. “Wait,” Peter protested, up until then silent. Chris looked at him, surprised. “Is something wrong, Peter?” Peter nodded. “I’ve heard Seth say things about magic has to be kept secret.” Chris groaned. Nick looked at Chris, Seth, and Peter uncertain. He sighed. “Curses, magic. Same difference.” Not really. It was all Chris could do to keep a straight face. There’s a lot more to magic than curses.“Let’s just go get my friend uncursed,” Nick urged. “That video you showed us earlier,” Peter pressed. “We need that.” Nick shook his head. “It’s not a video. It’s a website.” “Then, you need to take it down.” Chris glanced at Seth. Peter was right. That was something they needed to deal with. “It will automatically write over in a week,” Nick informed them. “And no one else has access to this website.” “You never can be too sure,” Seth informed him. “We need to go, now,” Nick urged Chris. “I can deal with it, if you’ll let me,” Seth informed him. “I’m decent with computers.” Chris rolled his eyes. “He means,” Peter interrupted. “He’ll stand behind me issuing orders which I will ignore if anything is going to get done.” Chris snorted. “Sounds about right.” Seth gave his little brother a look. Nick looked at them worried. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” “Give me five minutes,” Peter requested. “I can get it off.” Nick sighed. “Fine,” he decided as he headed over to his computer. “Five minutes and then everyone is out of here, no arguments.” “None,” Peter agreed quickly. “We’ll be on our way,” Chris put in. “Thank you,” Seth added. Nick gave him a funny look as he looked up from the key board. “You’re thanking me? I should thank you.” “And you’re welcome,” Seth informed him, “but it goes both ways. You may think we’re being silly, but this is important.” Nick nodded, clearly not understanding why this was so important to them, but seeing that it was indeed important to them. He typed in some pass codes and brought up the web site’s admin section. He got out of the chair and turned to Peter. “Have at. Be careful not to mess up anything else though.” Peter grinned as he slid into the chair. “No problem. All I’m going to do is get rid of all evidence of what happened when the gem was stolen out of the cave.” That said, he turned to the computer screen and got to work.
I don't always remember to deal with evidence of magic, but there you go. Now Leo's about to get a shock. And yes, there are reasons why Brianna knows so much about Leo, Piper, and the rest of the family, more so than Addison at the moment. Probably more than Addison will ever know, because some of the stuff Brianna (and Max and the rest of their little group) knows is pretty obscure. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 13, 2017 13:08:03 GMT -5
Hehe, at least all could be solved and there's no evidence of magic left behind. The Halliwells already had enough trouble with that. Hopefully, they get all done.
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 13, 2017 13:27:32 GMT -5
Hehe, at least all could be solved and there's no evidence of magic left behind. The Halliwells already had enough trouble with that. Hopefully, they get all done. Yes, that problem is at least solved. I had fun with the next one, partially because I like the characters involved, partially because I like that it is helping Leo on his path to finally being a doctor.
Chapter Fourteen – To Heal a Demon Leo Wyatt was pulling into the parking lot of a hardware store when the air in the passenger seat distorted and Brianna was sitting next to him. Through the rearview mirror he saw orbs materialize someone in the back seat of the minivan. He stepped on the break as the orbs appeared again and dematerialized someone out of his back seat. Leo put the van into park in the middle of the parking lot and reached for the door handle. “Oh, come on,” Brianna groaned. “I’m not here to hurt you. I need your help.” Leo looked at her worried. He left his hand on the door handle. “Who are you?” “My name is Brianna McInnis,” she informed him. “I’m a witch.” “You just blinked in here,” Leo protested. “That’s a . . .” “I am so tired of everyone thinking that just because I have a natural ability to blink, that is makes me a warlock.” She scowled at him. “I’m a witch, but I don’t have time to prove it. Call your sons if you need to . . . call your wife for that matter; she saw that the power doesn’t affect me. But do it quick. I need your help to save the life of someone very important to me.” “Call your whitelighter,” Leo suggested. Behind them a car honked its horn. “Until today, I thought I didn’t have one,” she informed him. “But no whitelighter can help me, or so I was informed by the one that saved my life earlier.” Leo looked at her concerned. “I beg you, help me.” Leo sighed and took his hand off the door handle. “Why can’t whitelighters help you?” “He’s a demon,” she said in a whispered voice, “but he’s good. I swear, he’s good. There are demonic healers out there, but the whitelighter was right that they’d refuse to help Max. They’d kill him given the chance. And because he’s a demon I can’t even take him to a normal doctor. Please, help me.” Another horn honked behind them. Leo pulled the van out of park and pulled into a parking spot. “What happened to him?” he asked as he climbed out of the van and hurried around to the passenger side. When he got there Brianna had climbed around to back. She threw him a blanket. “Spread it out on the ground. There’s no way you can work on him in here.” “No way I can work on him in this parking lot at all,” Leo informed her. “Too much chance of exposure, not just for magic, but also for him. This is a completely unsterile environment. Can you blink us both to my home?” She nodded. “Get in. Close the door.” Leo did as she directed and climbed in next to her, the blanket in hand. Once he had shut the door he climbed in as close as he could to her. Brianna knelt down so she was close to Max. Then, she reached up her arm and wrapped it up around Leo’s waist. She blinked and they were gone.
They reappeared in one of the guest rooms in the manor. Max was on the bed. Brianna let go of Leo and got out of the way. Leo dropped the blanket at the foot of the bed and started carefully removing Max’s clothes to get a closer look at his wounds. “All right, start talking. What happened to him?” She nodded. “Yesterday, we were at your wife’s restaurant . . .” “What happened today?” Leo requested as he focused on his patient. “It’s related.” He sighed. “Continue then.” She nodded. “Yesterday, we were at your wife’s restaurant when one of my friends saw some demons. We didn’t know then what they were up to, but ended up enlisting the help of your sons when your son became suspicious of us and separated one of my friends from the rest of us. It turned out the demons were trying to spy on your son or something like that. I’m still not sure.” Leo tried not to worry about his sons too much. It was getting harder with every word she spoke, but he had a patient to see to. “I won’t go into all the details,” she informed him, “but Max and I were going to confront two of the demons when Max got cold feet. At least it seemed that way. It’s hard to tell with him. The demons were the same kind of demons as his mother. I don’t know much about them, but they are called Synergists. Apparently they can make electricity and so can Max. He used that against them and caused an explosion. I was blown into one of the cave walls which knocked me out. I woke up to a whitelighter healing my wounds. He said he couldn’t heal Max, but I convinced him that you could help Max.” “What makes you so sure I can,” Leo asked. “I’m going to need a lot of medical supplies I don’t have from the looks of this and I have never dealt with demon anatomy.” “Not even with Cole Turner?” Leo looked at her surprised. It had been a long time since he had heard that name. “What do you know about that? I don’t even think you were born when he was vanquished.” She shrugged. “I may be a witch, but most of my friends are demons and I’ve spent time in the underworld. Balthazar is a curse word down there and he’s so poorly thought of that his mother, who is still alive and causing trouble for good, doesn’t bother using her married name.” Leo looked at her in concern. The idea that Cole’s mother was still out there was unsettling, but not something he had time to worry about. He turned his attention back to his patient. The door to the room opened and Leo’s wife entered with two of her sister. “I heard voices down here, but I didn’t hear you arrive.” Piper stopped and took in the scene in front of her. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “I’ll explain,” Brianna offered. “It’s all right,” Leo put her off. “She asked for my help, Piper,” Leo informed his wife before turning back to his patient. Paige walked over to the bed and looked down at Max. “What happened to him?” “We tried to fight some demons, the ones Toby told you about yesterday,” Brianna announced, looking straight at Piper. “They’re gone, but now Max is dying and there’s nothing I can do.” Paige held out her hands over Max attempting to heal him. When it didn’t work, she frowned. “He’s alive, isn’t he?” Leo nodded. “He’s a demon.” Paige gulped and looked at Brianna. “And you are?” “A witch,” Brianna informed her, quite firmly. “That’s my . . . boyfriend . . .” “Not true,” a raspy voice said from the bed. All eyes turned to look at Max who was struggling to open his eyes. It seemed to be a loosing battle. “You’re awake!” Brianna exclaimed, running to his side. “I wish I weren’t,” he rasped. “It hurts. I should be dead. Why am I still alive? Didn’t I vanquish the Synergists?” “Vanquishing Synergists doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll die,” Prue pointed out from the door way. “It does if you’re a Synergist,” Max informed her in a raspy whisper before losing consciousness, again. “Yes, it usually does,” Prue admitted. “Piper, I’m going to see if they’re in the Book of Shadows. I know a little about Synergists, but the Book had more info. Presumably the info is still there.” With a glance at the unconscious young man on the bed, she left the room for the attic. “Will be live?” Brianna asked Leo. “I don’t know,” Leo repeated his earlier response. “I just don’t know enough about his anatomy.” “He’s only half Synergist. I don’t know if that helps.” “Only if the other half is human,” Leo said, much to her disappointment. She shook her head. “No, Snake Demon.” Leo frowned, but didn’t comment. He turned to look at his wife. “Piper, do you know when Ava get’s home?” Piper shook her head. “I can call over there. I’m sure the kids are home by now. They should know.” She started out and turned around. “Why do you need Ava?” “Ava’s a surgeon,” Leo reminded her. “I haven’t performed surgery in over eighty years. That makes me more than little rusty.” “Surgery!” Brianna gulped. Piper left the room in search of a phone. Leo nodded. “It’s probable. He’s in bad shape.” “But he woke up,” Brianna protested. “Surely that counts for something.” “It’s a good sign,” Leo admitted, “but doesn’t guarantee that he’ll be all right. Ava’s a highly qualified surgeon.” “And what’s she going to say when she learns that her patient is a demon?” Brianna wanted to know. “She’ll have questions,” Leo admitted, “but she trusts us.” Brianna sighed as she looked down at Max. “If she can help him, then get her here. I can’t lose him.” Tears dripped down her face. “The idiot thinks he’s invincible.” “Actually, I think he knew exactly what he was doing,” Prue commented as she reentered the room. “You heard him. He expected to die. Was retreat an option?” “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Once they started attacking me, I didn’t think about that. I was so focused on getting rid of them.” She sobbed. “This is all my fault, isn’t it?” “It doesn’t sound like you knew how this could affect him,” Prue commented. “Why’s that?” “He didn’t want to talk about that part of him,” she told her. “We only talked about his other half, because of his brothers.” “Brothers?” Brianna nodded. “Snake Demons tend to have extremely large families, sometimes dozens in a nest if they are full blood. It tends to draw them together.” “The fact that they’re related?” Prue gave her a look of disbelief. “That doesn’t sound like demons.” “There’s a lot of variety in demons,” Brianna informed her. “You just see the ones that attack directly. Some attack behind the scenes, getting others to do their dirty work. Others don’t attack, preferring their solitude. Some prefer to work along, trusting no one. And there are some who find strength in numbers. With Snake Demons they have found that if they do not form allegiances, they will be overwhelmed in a power struggle.” “Doesn’t sound much like a snake,” Prue commented as she put the Book of Shadows down on a desk in the room. “It has more to do with their demonic form and their reproductive ability than anything else,” Brianna enlightened her. “Does it say anything about Synergists?” Prue nodded. She pointed to a page that has the headline, “Synergist”. “Demons who work together
With other Synergists to
Create deadly electric fields
When they fight each other
It is usually deadly
For all combatants
Death of one Synergist
Vanquishes all Synergists
Within a large area
Believed to have
Extra limbs which
Cannot be seen
Immune to water damage
Only known vanquish is
An electrical overload” Brianna glanced over at the bed. “Why didn’t he tell me?” Prue looked at her, but didn’t say anything. She just let Brianna speak. “CT and he followed them around forever,” Brianna commented. “He had to know that they were Synergist ahead of time,” she concluded, “so why didn’t he tell me?” “Perhaps he didn’t want to worry you before it was absolutely necessary,” Prue suggested. “What I want to know is, why we should trust you?” Brianna reached out her hand and touched the book. “I couldn’t touch that if I was evil.” “There are ways around that,” Prue informed her, unconvinced. “Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Brianna retorted. “We dealt with the demon. Ask your nephews. They were over at my house yesterday.” She looked across the room where Leo was still examining Max. He’d removed Max shirt completely and what was left of Max’s jeans had been disposed over. She looked away as she realized that Max wore only his underwear. Piper entered the room and walked over to the bed. “Ava’s on her way over here. She agreed to help out, but she needs to get some things first. She did want to know if there was any chance of bringing him into the hospital. She thinks she could arrange to keep nonmagicals from finding out.” Leo looked over at Brianna. She shook her head. “Bring him in without ID and without medical coverage and it would cause an investigation.” “It might save his life,” Leo reminded her. “No ID at all?” “Somewhere,” she admitted. “He did attend school through college, but there is definitely no medical coverage and he has no driver’s license. Out of my friends, I’m the only one that can drive. And only Toby has a nondriver’s license.” “Birth certificate?” She nodded. “Registered in Concord.” “That will work,” Leo informed her. “We’ll need some more info, but this is probably his best chance.” She stared down at Max laying unconscious on the bed. “What about the medical coverage?” “We’ll figure it out,” Leo assured her. He looked up at his wife. “Can you call back Ava? We need to get going as fast as we can. If Paige is will, we should be able to get him to the hospital by the same method he was brought to me.” Paige looked at him curiously. “Oh, how’s that?” “Being orbed into the back of a vehicle,” Leo informed her. “Will you?” Paige nodded. The very fact that he’d been orbed somewhere earlier relieving some of her concerns. “I’ll go call Ava back,” Piper assured him as she headed back into the hall. Leo looked at Brianna. “Now I’ve got a tricky question for you. If we need it, can you find a blood donor? He doesn’t exactly have normal blood.” “That won’t be a problem,” Brianna assured him. “He’s one of sixty-four. At least a few of those like him enough to donate blood.”
Concord is across the hill from my hometown (which I sadly no longer live in) of Pittsburg, California. It is also where my younger sister was born. The next chapter follows both Chris and JD as they end up in the same place. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 17, 2017 12:23:24 GMT -5
Oh my, Leo would have had a great responsibility there since he's out of shape here, so to speak. At least, there's some hope coming and maybe all will be good finally. |
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 17, 2017 12:56:23 GMT -5
Oh my, Leo would have had a great responsibility there since he's out of shape here, so to speak. At least, there's some hope coming and maybe all will be good finally. Leo's definitely not ready to perform surgery on anyone at this point, maybe in a few years, but definitely not now.
Chapter Fifteen – Catching Attention As Nick pulled his car into a parking spot in front of the psychiatric hospital Chris waited to get out. “Will they let me in?” Nick glanced at him as he turned off the car. “Now you ask?” Chris shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it before now.” “It shouldn’t be a problem as long as Jarod’s wife isn’t in one of her moods,” Nick informed him as he got out of the car. “Does that happen often?” Chris asked, concerned. Nick shook his head with a laugh as he locked the doors to his car. “Not really. His daughter, rebellious teen that she was at the time, used to run away to try and live here with her father, so she would order us to all be locked out. It hasn’t really happened since Jody, his daughter, got out of high school.” “It’s kind of easy to imagine her as rebellious,” Chris said with a laugh. “I always got the idea that Jody didn’t approve of rules or how things were done.” Nick laughed back as they headed toward the building. “I’d forgotten that you’d worked for Reggie, so of course you would know Jody.” Chris nodded. “I worked there for over a year until I quit a couple of months ago.” The spent the rest of the short walk talking about insignificant details about Centennial and what Chris had thought of Reggie and Jody when working there. Nick found it amusing that Chris refused to call Reggie anything except Mr. Hollis. Once inside, Nick went to talk to the receptionist, while Chris took a seat. He had the eerie feeling of being in a doctor’s office waiting room, something he definitely didn’t like. While Nick was busy with the receptionist and Chris was just waiting, the door to the main part of the building entered and a young man entered. This would have been unremarkable, but it was the same young man that Brianna had seen standing over her earlier with glowing hands. He headed toward the entrance and froze half way there. His eyes focused on Chris and widened quickly. When the whitelighter resumed moving he had changed course. He walked over to the wall and leaned against it. Emotions warred on his face as he stared intently at Chris. Chris didn’t notice. He squirmed as a man dressed in a nurse’ garb exited the main area into the waiting room and talked to someone before reentering with that someone. The door was just closing when Nick returned to him. “Let’s go,” he said as he reached him. “I’ve got permission for both of us to go in.” Chris fingered the bottle in his pocket. Getting it in would be a little bit of a challenge, but he figured he shouldn’t have too much trouble if he made the bottle invisible. Nothing like practicing a new way to use your powers when you really needed to make sure it didn’t fail. As they walked toward the door, the whitelighter watched them. Emotions continued to bounce around on his face until just before they left the room a smile tilted on his lips. He moved away from the wall and walked over to the receptionist. He grinned at her, an easy grin with clear affection. “I know I was just in there, but do you mind if I head back in. I just thought of something I need to tell Cassia. You don’t mind, do you?” The receptionist gave him a look. “Really, JD, you are so see through. She’s lucky to have a boyfriend like you.” He frowned. “How many times do I have to tell you, Cass and I are just friends? Just real quick. I’ll be out in less than half an hour, I promise.” The receptionist laughed. “I’m not going to put any extra time limits on it. You are certainly on the list of approved visitors for her. “On the list?” JD Williams replied, sounding a little insulted. “I am the list.” She shrugged. “That’s confidential information, JD. Now, just make sure you’re out before visiting hours are over. You know the drill.” JD frowned, he headed over toward the entrance. As he did, he mumbled, “Must get a look at that list.”
I don't think Toby's been in My Curse On You, but he'll be in the next chapter, checking on Brianna (in order to check on Max) and something else. He doesn't think they are done with those demons. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 21, 2017 12:02:54 GMT -5
Strange that Chris didn't notice JD or better could have sensed him. At least, they're getting something done here and all will be good in the end. Hopefully. For all of them.
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 21, 2017 12:28:53 GMT -5
Strange that Chris didn't notice JD or better could have sensed him. At least, they're getting something done here and all will be good in the end. Hopefully. For all of them. To be fair, Chris hasn't seen JD since he was a toddler and I don't think a whitelighter is gone to set off any alarms and thus won't be formost in his mind. He's unlikely to be paying attention to his sensing ability unless something starts setting off alarms in his head. This trip is going to severely complicate things for someone, well, not directly, but it will lead to Chris becoming involved in those complications.
Chapter Sixteen – Worrying About Friends Brianna sat in the waiting room at San Francisco Memorial very impatient. It had been over an hour since Paige had orbed Max into the back seat of Ava’s car. Ava was up there somewhere working on him with a handful of nurses she had pulled from all over the hospital in order to keep her promise about keeping magic from being exposed. Right now, she didn’t care too much about that. She just wanted him alive and unharmed. So focused was she on her thoughts of Max, that she didn’t notice anyone approaching her until Toby Edmunds had plopped into the seat next to her. “How’s Max doing?” She sighed. “I don’t know. They’ve been up there for more than an hour. How’d you know? I’m the empath.” Toby frowned. “What do you mean they’ve been up there for more than an hour? We’re in a hospital. Max can’t be in a hospital.” “You think I don’t know that,” Brianna shot back, her voice in a low whisper. “It pretty much came down to this or watch him die. I’m not prepared to do that.” Toby sighed and nodded. “Can they even help him?” “I don’t know,” she admitted. “How can I know? He’s never been this badly injured before. I think this is one of the reasons we avoid fights when possible.” “We avoid fights when possible, because it is best for those we help that we avoid attention when possible,” Toby corrected her. “And then there’s the power factor.” “As if I could forget,” she retorted. “What happened, Brianna?” Toby asked, looking at the main area of the hospital with a worried frown. “Max isn’t someone who goes down easily.” “What do you know about Synergists?” she asked softly. “Not much and we aren’t discussing this here,” he informed her as he stood up. He then turned and pulled her up from her chair. “Let’s go talk outside.” She allowed him to help her up and then followed him outside. A warm spring wind whipped at her long auburn hair as they exited through the emergency room entrance. “You said you don’t know much. What do you know?” “I know Max’s mother was one,” he informed her. “Come on, I probably know less than you. Why do you ask?” “Because the demons we were after, two of them were Synergists,” she informed him. Toby stared at her. “Okay, so that means he knows their weaknesses.” “Yeah,” she shot back annoyed. “It also means if he’s anywhere near when one is vanquished, it could kill him.” Toby’s eyes widened. “You mean a sympathetic vanquish?” “Something like that,” she scowled. “I didn’t know or I would have done this myself or with one of you guys . . . assuming I could even find you. You really need a cell phone.” He wrinkled his nose. “Actually, I have one of those.” She shot a startled look at him. “Since when?” “My father was feeling paternal,” Toby informed her with a shrug. “I hadn’t seen him for over a decade and suddenly there he was in front of me, He handed me a phone and informed me that his number was programmed in and to call.” Brianna stared at him for several seconds, wondering if he was pulling her leg. “Seriously?” He nodded. “It was rather strange,” he admitted. “I’m not about to forget a thing like that.” “And have you talked to him?” “He’s called me,” he told her, “so yes, I’ve talked to him. We have nothing in common, but that doesn’t really surprise me. His goal is still evil. And mine is still good. Those two things aren’t compatible.” “But you want to know if you can change him, right?” she asked skeptically, even if she wondered the same thing about her uncle at times, even if she tried to direct her cousin along the right path. They all had their weak spots when it came to family . . . well not Aka and she’d thought not Toby. He shook his head. “I can’t change him. I know that. I’m just not sure how to extract myself from this. I can’t say I’m all that eager to vanquish him, but I could if it came to it.” And that was something she couldn’t say for her Uncle Steve. She couldn’t vanquish him. She only hoped that if it came to it, she could do what she had to. Toby shook his head, trying to clear it. “Look, we can exchange numbers later. You said two of the demons were Synergists. What about the third?” “Still in the isolation chamber,” she informed him with a shrug. “I suspect that is where he will stay for the next week or so. When you don’t have to feed your ‘patients’ and you are evil to start with, you tend to make it so no one can get in until you are ready to let them out.” “No way of opening it early?” Toby found that a little hard to believe. There was always a back up plan. She shrugged, again. “Right now, I’m more interested in Max. And Ben,” she added remembering their friend’s collapsed the day before. “Did you find out what was wrong with him?” “As far as the world, under and above, is concerned, CT Bennett is just fine,” Toby informed her. “And as far as his friends are concerned?” she pressed. “Indigestion,” he reported cryptically. “Indigestion,” she repeated in disbelief. “What kind of indigestion lasts four months?” “The kind that is caused by demon possession,” he informed her. Brianna had met CT, Toby, and Aka long after magic had stopped and thus she had never seen CT while the demon was actively trying to control him. Without magic, the demon had little ability to do much of anything to fight against the growing personality of the little boy he’d thought so easy to control. Aka had shared stories of the boys when she’d first met them, an astounding thought when one considered Aka’s age at the time had been less than a week. Still demons were a funny thing and Aka suspected most of those memories were fabricated from things the two boys had said and not actual memories. “Why now?” Toby sighed. “I suspect with magic back, Ben’s not the only one now able to control the demons powers and he’s got some pretty big guns in that arsenal to pick from. I mean mental manipulation is nothing to sneeze at.” “Wasn’t that one of the witch powers the demon stole?” Toby rolled his eyes. “You pay way to much attention to those stories.” “Wasn’t it?” “I think so, but it doesn’t really matter now does it?” he pointed out. “The demon has it now and he’s been trying to use it and other things on Ben. He’s fighting a difficult battle, but it is one that he will win. By possessing him but failing to control him after all these years, the demon has put himself at a severe disadvantage, but he’s stuck. He hasn’t the power to leave either unless he can control Ben.” “And why would he leave if he succeeded,” she finished. “I know. But you don’t think this will kill him.” “I think that I cannot honestly say that it definitely won’t,” Toby admitted, “but I suspect that underworld is going to have caused to hate CT Bennett for a very long time to come. Besides, Ben’s got the home field advantage so to speak and he’s got us. That alone gives him a huge advantage. The demon does not, cannot, understand the value and the strength of friendship. In the end I think it will give him the edge he needs to win this battle . . . unless of course you’ve figured out a workable spell.” “Not a chance,” she returned with a sigh. “I don’t have the strength to fight that demon. In thousands of years the only one who ever did was cursed to being forever possessed by him, so no, I sincerely doubt I can do it. If we could convince the Charmed Ones to . . .” “That is not possible,” Toby interrupted. “You know that.” She sighed and nodded. “I do know that, but I think it’s foolish. It’s possible that maybe they would be able to vanquish The Psycho without killing Ben, too.” “No,” he shook his head. “Even if Ben agreed, I won’t allow you to risk that with my best friend.” “Ben can’t do this on his own,” she informed him, “and neither can we.” “Regardless, you won’t do it,” he said with finality in his voice. There was a pause as a frown grew on his face. “What did you call the demon?” She shrugged. “I gave up trying to pronounce his name a long time ago, so I decided to just call him, The Psycho.” “His name is Schemamnastic,” Toby informed her. “Now who’s been listening to the stories too much?” she asked, tongue in cheek. “Aka,” he shot back. “Well, I’m not going to try that mouthful,” she informed him, “so The Psycho will have to work.” He chuckled. “I guess that is a pretty good description of him. What kind of idiot demon really wants to be stuck in the body of twenty-four-year-old witch/demon hybrid whose got the support system that he’s got and the dad he’s got. I’d be scared away just by Ben’s dad if I was . . . The Psycho.” Brianna giggled. “He is pretty scary when he wants to be and when it comes to Ben . . . I’d be downright terrified to get in his way.” “Well, why don’t we go check with the nurses’ station and see if they have any info for us on Max and then I’m going to need your help. We need to deal with that third demon before he has a chance to get out of that chamber.” “He’s not going anywhere, Toby,” Brianna protested, instantly sobering. “Let’s at least wait until Max is out of surgery.” Toby stared at her, suddenly understanding the gravity of the situation. “Surgery? Great just great.” He kicked at the air and lifted a despairing look upward. “Fine, we’ll wait. Or at least you can. I can’t rest well until this demon is dealt with, so I’m going to go see if I can find out what we’re up against. Ben’s in no condition to fight anything right now except maybe a cold. And even that’s kind of iffy, but he’s got his dad with him, so I’m sure he’ll be fine.” “He’s worse than he looked, isn’t he?” Toby sighed. “He said he has good days and bad ones and today’s just a really bad one. It will get better.” “He needs us.” “Brianna, if we don’t take care of that last demon, we will feel the full wrath of CT Bennett upon us,” Toby informed her. “And because . . . The Psycho would love to get rid of us, he won’t protest.” “’Cause he’s such a big danger to you,” she snorted. “Toby, you’re a Scabber. They require a Power of Three spell. I’m not even sure that’s accessible right now and we sure aren’t going up against the Charmed Ones.” He gave her a look. “Let’s get a few things straight. As you said, I’m a Scabber demon. However, a Power of Three spell is not the only way to vanquish us. If you want more info on that, look it up. Your dad has a Book of Shadows and I know for a fact that Scabber demons are discussed in length in that thing. I give him all the info I had on them. Second, I’m also a darklighter. There are several ways to vanquish us. And because I was born a darklighter, it clouds the waters even more. Among other things the combination actually makes me mortal which makes me susceptible to all sorts of additional things . . . like starving to death. Aka and I have also provided your dad with as much info on that as we could.” “That’s why he didn’t die,” Brianna commented, looking back at the hospital. Toby frowned. “What?” “Max,” she elaborated. “Your mixed biology makes you more susceptible to all sorts of things. Max’s gives him a fighting chance at survival. Had he been a full Synergist, everyone seems to agree that he would have died, even Max, but because he wasn’t, he didn’t die instantly. Hopefully they will be able to save him.” She closed her eyes and leaned against the hospital’s outer wall “He’d better make it.” Toby put a hand on her shoulder. “Max isn’t someone to go down without a fight. If he’s made it this far, he’ll make it.”
Back to Chris and those with him in the next chapter. And introducing Jarod Powell. The chapter after that introduces those complications I mentioned. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 22, 2017 10:26:06 GMT -5
I'm already getting a headache again with all those people around. lol Never mind, a mix of genes can save lives. Now that's cool  . Still, hoping for the best. |
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 22, 2017 11:54:23 GMT -5
I'm already getting a headache again with all those people around. lol Never mind, a mix of genes can save lives. Now that's cool . Still, hoping for the best. Sorry for the confusion. I know those characters so well, it's kind of hard to remember that this is really the first storyline they've been in (little bits here and there earlier, but nothing like this). Let's go back to at least one character you know, Chris.
Chapter Seventeen – A Cure at Last “Jarod is usually quite easy to get along with,” the nurse leading them informed Nick and Chris as he lead them through the corridors toward a door to the outdoors, “so we allow him more privileges than some of the others. He likes to spend his time outside, so that’s where we should find him.” Chris and Nick followed him through the doors and into an inner courtyard of sorts. On one side were a garden and a picnic area. On another side was a basketball court. There were several people throughout, some clearly patients, others nurses, and a few appeared to be guests. The nurse lead them to a picnic table where a man sat looking up at the sky. Nick grinned and quickened his pace. “Hey, Jarod, how have you been?” The nurse looked at Chris. “I’ll let you guys talk.” Chris nodded at him. “Thanks.” As the nurse walked away Chris walked over to join Nick and Jarod. “Jarod,” Nick said as Chris reached them, “I’d like to introduce you to someone.” Jarod looked over at Chris expectedly. “Let me guess,” he said in a teasing tone. “This is your son whom you’ve only just discovered you have.” Nick gave him a look and then with a straight face he said, “You know I only have daughters.” Jarod chuckled. “Since when?” When Nick didn’t immediately respond he frowned. “Wait. You actually have daughters? When did that happen?” “No,” Nick replied finally. “I don’t have any daughters, no children at all.” “Nick, when?” All evidence of laughter had left Jarod’s face. For someone who was so cursed he was sent to a mental hospital to deal with it, he seemed to have kept a generally merry personality, but right now he wasn’t interested in any of that. His focus was fully on his friend. Nick sighed. “High school. Long before I met you three idiots. They died and so did their mother.” “They?” “Twin girls,” Nick mumbled. “Rosabelle and Alyssa. I was seventeen. It was a very long time ago. This is about now or at least more recent than that.” “This is more interesting,” Jarod decided. “It’s about the crystal.” Jarod’s reaction was immediate and violent. He backed himself right into the picnic table and fell into a sitting position. “Not interested.” “You will be,” Nick assured him. “It’s about a cure.” “There is no cure,” Jarod informed Nick in no uncertain terms. “And don’t go quoting that stupid book of yours. That’s just a fairy tale.” “How about I quote Reggie then,” Nick suggested. “I could tell you what he said when he called me this afternoon. This guy,” he said, indicating Chris, “works for him.” “Worked,” Chris corrected. “I worked for Mr. Hollis at Centennial.” “Mr. Hollis?” Jarod repeated questioningly. He turned to Nick. “Is he serious? He calls Reggie Mr. Hollis?” Nick nodded. “Be glad he doesn’t call you Mr. Powell. He works . . . worked . . . with your daughter.” Jarod grinned. “She’s a good girl. Did you get along?” Chris shrugged. “We worked well enough together.” “What do you have to do with Nick’s outrageous claim?” Jarod asked. “If you know anything about that crystal, you know to avoid it at all costs.” “From what I saw today, I certainly agree with you,” Chris informed him, “but avoiding the crystal wasn’t an option. My brother was infected along with three of his co-workers.” “I’m sorry for you, but that doesn’t make you an expert,” Jarod argued. “I’m not an expert,” Chris admitted, “but I do have a cure that works.” Jarod looked at Nick. “This is why you are here?” Nick nodded. “Why should I trust him?” Jarod demanded. “Just working with Reggie and Jody doesn’t make him trustworthy. “ “Reggie called me,” Nick told him in an almost gleeful tone. “This guy gave him the cure and it worked.” Jarod stared at him. “Reggie’s cured?” Nick nodded. “Ev, too. He called while we were driving here, wanted to let me know that Chris had been over there and given him the cure. That just leaves you.” “Chris?” Jarod looked at Chris. “That’s you?” Chris nodded. “Chris Halliwell. I’m only here to help. What can I do to convince you of that?” Jarod shook his head. “I don’t know. I gave him up the idea of a cure a long time ago. Now, you tell me that there is one and that you’ve already tested it on my friends.” “And my brother,” Chris reminded him. There was no reason to bring up Wyatt’s co-worker, again. Jarod eyed Nick and Chris, again. After a moment he shrugged and laughed nervously. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t get it in here.” “I’ve got it with me,” Chris assured him. Jarod frowned. He sighed and looked at his friend. “This is real?” “I believe so,” Nick assured him. “I know it’s your choice and I know I’m the least affected, but I want this to be over. I want all of you to be as close to back to normal as possible.” “No more voices, clamoring with hate,” Jarod considered. “Just yours,” Chris assured him. “All right,” Jarod said finally. “You’ve sold me on it. Where is it?” “In my pocket,” Chris informed him, fingering the potion in question, “but we need to go somewhere less visible. Is there some place we can go that’s the cameras can’t see and the staff won’t be looking?” Jarod considered this. “That depends on how much time you need?” “I guess that depends on how fast you can drink something that smells and tastes bad,” Chris returned with. “I’ve got practice,” Jarod informed them. “You haven’t tried some of the medicine they give us here.” Chris bit back a laugh. “You laugh now,” Jarod noticed, “but you wouldn’t if you’d tried it.” “Probably not,” Chris replied, not planning to ever try it. “I suppose if you have no trouble getting it down, then less than a minute.” “I can give you maybe thirty or forty seconds,” Jarod informed him, “and we’d need to be heading back by the time they found us. Can this happen in that amount of time?” “Thirty or forty seconds,” Chris repeated. “They look that fast?” Jarod nodded. “They don’t like us off their radar. There are some rooms that don’t have cameras, but you can’t get in those without permission or looking awfully suspicious and even then, I doubt you’d reach them.” “Point taken,” Chris agreed. “In that case we’ll need to talk here. There is a bottle in my pocket with a screw on lid. It smells bad and everyone seems to agree it tastes bad, too, but it works.” “You’ve already convinced me,” Jarod informed him. “You don’t need to go through the spiel.” “Right,” Chris nodded a little chagrin. “Once you’ve drank it, there’s going to be green bubbles coming out of your head.” Jarod and Nick looked at each other. “Sounds about right,” Jarod mumbled to himself. “Yeah,” Chris commented. “That’s about the same as what your friend Ev said.” Jarod chuckled. “He would.” “The bubbles go down your body until they disappear in smoke from your feet,” Chris continued, “so you’re going to need enough time for that to happen.” Jarod nodded. “Noted. Anything else I need to know?” Chris considered this and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Lead the way.” Jarod grinned as he began to walk toward the garden. “In that case I’ll give you a tour of the grounds. I’ll tell you when you can give me your cure. We’ll keep walking and leave the area as soon as possible. Hopefully they won’t question it, but I’ve been here long enough. If this will get me out, I can deal with a little bit longer of a delay.” “No voices telling you to stay away from me?” Chris asked as he and Nick followed Jarod. “Plenty,” Jarod admitted, “but today I don’t care.” Nick laughed. “Glad to hear you aren’t letting this get to your head.” Jarod shrugged. “Letting it get to my head is the only way I am controlling the voices in my head, thank you very much.” Chris fingered the bottle in his pocket. They walked behind a trio of trees and Jarod stopped. “Now.” Chris pulled out the bottle and handed it to Jarod. Jarod took it and unscrewed the lid. He wrinkled his nose as he lifted it to his lips and drank it down. Once he had finished he handed it back to Chris. “Nick, would you mind grabbing some apples off one of the trees.” Chris took the bottle and screwed the lid back on. He stuffed it in his pocket and watched as the green bubbles appeared right on schedule. Nick watched the bubbles for a second before looking up in the tree. “Jarod, I don’t see any apples?” Jarod frowned and looked up. He snorted. “Apparently, we must have had an issue with apples. There were apples here a few days ago.” He shrugged. “Oh, well, just tell them I brought you here to pick apples and then we found none.” The bubbles ran down his legs and disappeared in a puff of smoke at his feet. His eyes widened and he looked at Chris. “That really did work. Wow.” He heaved in a deep breath of air and smiled. “Is that it?” Chris nodded as the crunch of footsteps on the ground was heard coming toward them. “Then, let’s get going,” Jarod directed them as he headed back into the cameras’ line of sight. He stopped at a rose bush and leaned down to smell it. “You should always stop to smell the rose,” he informed Nick with a wink. Nick grinned back. “Always.” “He never does,” Jarod informed Chris. “Is everything all right here,” a second nurse asked as she approached them. Nick looked at her surprised. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” “Patients are supposed to stay in sight at all times,” she informed them. Nick gave her an apologetic shrug. “He said there were apples over there and he wanted to show us.” Chris fingered the empty bottle in his pocket. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. “There weren’t any apples,” he informed her. “Of course not,” she returned. “Those are maple trees. The apple trees are over there,” she pointed toward a fenced off area. Jarod frowned. “Are you sure?” She nodded. “Of course I’m sure.” He looked up into the branches of the trees. He walked around them and did a little arm pump. “Come here,” he directed them. The weary nurse walked over to him followed closely by Chris and Nick. Jarod pointed up into one of the trees, a different one than the one Nick had looked up into. “What’s that?” The nurse looked up and her eyes widened. “That’s an apple.” Jarod nodded. “I thought so. Apple tree.” Nick snorted. Chris chuckled. “I’ve got to get going. I work for my mom, which means I’d better not be late for work.” And since his mom had altered his hours for the day already he now had two hours to get there. “Won’t your mom understand?” Nick asked, looking at him surprised. “Yeah,” Chris nodded. “Callie, however, will not.” Nick considered this and decided not to ask. “Thanks, then.” The nurse looked at them confused. Chris nodded his head with a grin. “Glad to help. Nice to meet you, Jarod. Your daughter’s a good person.” Jarod smiled at that. “I think so, too.” “I’ll help you out,” the nurse offered. “I can find my own way,” Chris told her. “We have rules,” she told him. “You’ll need to come with me.” Chris shrugged. “If you say so.” With a last look at the two friends, he smiled and headed back to the door inside. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 23, 2017 6:51:49 GMT -5
So, another person cured and maybe this Jarod can now leave the psych ward here. Always be careful with magic exposure here. And now Chris has to hurry to work for his Mum. lol
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 23, 2017 7:34:17 GMT -5
So, another person cured and maybe this Jarod can now leave the psych ward here. Always be careful with magic exposure here. And now Chris has to hurry to work for his Mum. lol Jarod will be able to find a way out of there in time. Leaving won't be quite so easy for Chris. (Well, not quite as easy as it should be, but he'll be out long before Jarod.)
Chapter Eighteen – Whitelighters Jarod didn’t know every hiding spot in the psychiatric hospital. JD and his friend, Cassia Reynolds, knew most of them. Of course they both had a couple of extra ways to get into places. He sat on a bench in the employees’ lounge with Cassia, a young woman in her mid to late teens with dirty blonde hair past her shoulders. “Are you sure it was him?” Cassia asked, a look of concerned look on her face. “Do I look like I was born yesterday?” he shot back. “Of course it’s him. He’s getting too close. We have to get you out of here and soon.” She sighed. “It would be so easy to just let him see me. What do you think my chances are of getting away with that?” He shook his head. “Pretty low. And how do you think he’s going to take it when he sees you?” “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she replied, sounding pretty disappointed about it. “Come on, Cass, he hasn’t seen you since he was still in high school,” JD reminded her. “Seeing you now, looking like this.” “You don’t have to remind me, JD,” she shot out. “I know. A girl can wish, can’t she?” “Yeah, I guess.” She sighed. “And what about Chris? You saw him, too?” JD nodded. “No doubt on that one either, but I doubt he’s looking for you.” “Of course he’s not,” she laughed. “He doesn’t even know he’s met me.” “All those years . . .” “The price we pay for what that stupid demon did,” she shrugged. “At least they fixed it before they vanquished him. I rather like having my body back.” He chuckled. “Same here.” She snorted. “’Cause you had such a problem. All you had to do was glamour back into yourself. I didn’t have that option.” “You could have,” he pointed out. “It’s bad enough that my body was susceptible to darklighters without my being able to protect myself,” she pointed out. “I didn’t need to put Jen’s body at risk. My charges were unlikely to need me to use my powers while demons and warlocks couldn’t use their powers.” “Half of your charges are future whitelighters,” JD pointed out. “And darklighters were still a threat.” “I understood the risk,” she informed him, “to me, to my charges, and to Jen. I made the best decision I could and I stick by that decision.” JD sighed. “I know and your charges all turned out fine, but it could have ended differently.” “Which brings us back to what to do now,” she sighed. “I have to get out of here and it can’t look suspicious. And every plan you’ve come up with . . . I end up on the wrong end of a manhunt.” “I wonder if there is a way to use Chris’ presence to our advantage,” he considered as he looked in the general direction of the garden. “I don’t see how,” she replied. “Besides, you’re one to talk. You run and hide when a Halliwell shows up. I doubt you’d be able to put that aside long enough to ask him for help.” “I do not,” JD protested quickly. “Uh, huh,” Cassia shook her head with a laugh. “And that’s why you dropped my charges off in the back seat of Leo Wyatt’s van and didn’t stick around to explain the situation.” “It’s Piper’s van,” he corrected weakly. She rolled her eyes. “That makes it sooo much better. And that’s completely not the point.” “What was I supposed to say?” he demanded. “’Hi, Leo. Remember me? I was Sam’s charge. You know, the one who went a little crazy when he found out he’d been stuck in a picture for fifty years.’ That’d go over real well, I’m sure.” “A lot’s happened since then,” she reminded him as she stood up and began to pace. “I still don’t think it would be a good idea.” “For him to know that something good became of that whole bad situation?” she quarried as she paced the room. She stopped and looked at him. “It doesn’t matter right now, because you are going to meet his son, so let’s get going before he leaves the building.” “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he hedged, “not with . . .” “My risk,” she interrupted. “Let’s go.” Before he could make any more protests, she orbed out. JD sighed and followed suit. He had a feeling this was going to end badly.
Chris followed the nurse down the hall. If he’d had his way, he would have just orbed out, but that really wasn’t an option, not with so many people knowing he was here. “Christopher Halliwell, is that you?” an unfamiliar female voice asked him from behind. Chris froze for second and turned around. Behind him were two people. The young woman was clearly a patient, but she looked perfectly sane. She also looked like a complete stranger. Chris sighed and focused on her, trying to sense something that would somehow explain why this stranger knew his name. What he found stunned him. Instead of just a general sense that she was there and that she was alive and well, he got more. To start with, she wasn’t alive and well. And neither was the young man next to her. They were some weird mixture of dead and alive that he didn’t understand at first. When he took the needed moments to process what he was sensing, he come to the conclusion that both of them were whitelighters. And he’d never tried to sense a whitelighter before, so it had never occurred to him that they would be so different. “Do you know her?” the nurse asked, looking down the hall at the approaching duo. Chris frowned, but was saved from answering when the female whitelighter did. “Of course he probably doesn’t remember me,” she informed the nurse. “I worked for his mom at The Manor, but he was there so rarely and almost never during my shift.” A whitelighter worked at his mom’s restaurant? That was news to him. The nurse sighed. “Cassia, you were not a maid. I’ve seen your room, remember.” Cassia? Now he was sure he didn’t recognize her. Still she knew the restaurant’s name. “Actually, my mom runs a restaurant called The Manor.” The nurse looked at him surprised. “So you do know her?” “Do you mind if I talk with her for a few minutes?” he asked. He didn’t know what a whitelighter was doing in a mental hospital, but he did know that she had singled him out for a reason. The nurse sighed. “I suppose so. It’s still visiting hours for a little bit longer. Don’t talk too long.” Chris grinned at her. “Thanks. Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk?” The nurse walked a few doors down and opened the door to a room. She indicated for them to enter. “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes. If she starts sounding depressed, come get us. She’s not violent, so you should be safe, but . . .” “Suicidal?” Chris asked, looking straight at Cassia. Cassia rolled her eyes and shook her head. She headed into the room and sat down on one of the arm chairs inside. The other whitelighter followed her in and Chris felt the need to follow suit. “She’s been doing well the last couple of months, haven’t you, Cassia,” the nurse sounded a little patronizing. Cassia gave her an annoyed look. “I’m not going to try and kill myself. You never have to worry about that ever, again.” “I hope that’s right,” the nurse told her. “I’ll be just down the hall if you need me.” Chris nodded. “Sure. Thanks.” He sat down on a second chair. The other whitelighter leaned against the wall. “Is it safe in this room, Cass?” Cassia nodded. “No recording devices here.” She turned to Chris with a sweet smile. “Hi, I’m Cassia Reynolds. Do not repeat that to them. They don’t know my last name.” “JD Williams,” the other whitelighter added. “Since I’m only a visitor they don’t feel the need to look too deeply into my background.” “Chris Halliwell, but you clearly know that.” Cassia nodded. “I wasn’t kidding about The Manor. I worked there for nearly two decades.” Chris snorted. “Yeah, right. I’d have noticed that. And so would everyone else. Whitelighters don’t exactly age.” “You figured out I was a whitelighter?” she asked surprised. “Both of you actually,” he admitted. “How did I not know a whitelighter was working for my mom all that time?” “Well, how about that?” she offered to him. “There’s no way I would have gone to work there looking like myself.” Chris gave her a disbelieving looking. “Why not? It’s not like any of us would have realized it.” She sighed. “I grew up in San Francisco, in the seventies and eighties . . . nineteen seventies and eighties,” she clarified when he gave her a “so-what” look. “As in with your mom and her sisters.” Chris’ eyes widened. “I went to high school with them,” she informed him, “so yeah, your mom, and probably a lot of her customers would notice if Cassia Reynolds worked for her.” “So you lied?” Chris accused. Cassia shook her head. “No, I didn’t lie. A demon, Sjelmikser, switched around the bodies and powers of five of us. I ended up in the body of a teenage girl a little younger than I was when I died without any powers. I used her name, Jennifer Kingsley, when I applied to work for your mom, just as Jen used Alexis Porter’s name when she applied to work at Centennial.” Chris eyes had begun to grow wide at the mention of Sjelmikser, and they just got bigger at the name of the chef who had quit The Manor just before Christmas the previous year, and when it came to the name of the assistant manager he had replaced at Centennial, whose job David now held. Had it only been this morning that David had called him to tell him his plans to marry Rose? “There was a man in my body and after twenty years he really does appear to have gone insane,” Cassia informed him. “Two months ago as soon as JD realized he was back in his own body instead of that man’s, he found him and had him committed for real. We can only hope that the return to his real body will help calm him down. Jen and Alex fared much better.” “Wait! Wait!” Chris protested as something occurred to him. “Alex is married. Are you trying to tell me that Jen’s the one who actually married him, but . . .” “Let’s not go into that now,” JD interrupted. “I’m sure you’d love to figure all of that out, but right now we don’t have time. All you really need to know right now is that the real Alex has met Josh Owens once, two months ago, and was more than willing to leave him to Jen and that Jennifer Kingsley is the one who married Josh, not Alexis Porter. If you want more details about that, ask me later. We don’t have a lot of time before visitor’s hours are over and then we will both be kicked out of here.” Chris eyed them wearily. “All right, why did you want my attention? It’s clearly not to reminisce on some odd point of my childhood that you were privy to.” Cassia bit back a laugh. “That’s true.” “So what is it?” he repeated. “And why can’t it wait until tomorrow when there is more time?” “I was prepared to wait until they realized that I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t going to try and kill myself,” Cassia informed him. “Even though two months of rational behavior hasn’t done that, eventually they would have realized that. It was only a matter of time.” “What changed?” Chris asked, hearing the past tense in all of her statements. “Why were you prepared to wait, but no longer?” “My brother is here,” Cassia informed him. “And as much as I would love almost nothing more than to see him, to hug him close and never let go, we all know that it is forbidden.” Chris nodded. He understood. Of course being the result of what normally was an extremely forbidden relationship, an elder and a witch, he had somewhat less respect for what the elders forbid. Still, for all that he knew nothing about his dad’s family except that he was named for his dad’s father. He didn’t even know what his grandmother’s name was. “If he sees me, then, I’m in trouble,” Cassia added. “Why didn’t the elders get you out of here?” Chris asked, not getting the point. “Why didn’t they deal with the guy in your body on their own? Surely they could have done that much.” The two whitelighters looked at each other. Cassia sighed. “They could have,” she agreed, “but they won’t. I got on their bad side when I refused to allow them to turn Jen into a whitelighter while I was in her body. Now, they have told me that I have to get out of this situation on my own . . . or at least without their help.” “You do know that I’m half elder, right?” Chris asked, wanting to make sure that didn’t matter. JD chuckled. “We know.” “That won’t matter,” she assured him. “Besides, whitelighter powers don’t seem to hold the answer and waiting won’t work anymore.” “Maybe your brother’s presence is just a coincidence,” Chris suggested. Cassia shook her head. “I’ve been dodging him for two hours. He specifically looking for someone who looks like me and he’s using my name, my full name. There’s no coincidence. If I’m not out of here tonight, I will have to decide which problem is smaller.” Chris sighed. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. I think it would get me into trouble if I cast a spell on him. And the memory dust is dangerous, because you don’t know what you are erasing . . . not to mention you don’t know how long he’s been looking. I can’t glamour, and I’m not sure what that would accomplish anyway.” “What about a spell that would make her brother see someone else when he looks at Cassia?” JD suggested. “The problem with a glamour is that everyone would see the wrong person, but a spell where just he sees her differently would at least convince him that this wasn’t the place he wanted to look.” Chris looked at them for several second, considering this. “If it fails, we’ll know instantly. And if it fails, we will have a lot of clean up to do. As . . .” Chris tried and failed to remember JD’s name, so he just said, “he pointed out, we don’t have much time here.” “Unless you’ve got another idea, it’s the best we’ve got,” Cassia pointed out. How did I get pulled into this mess? Chris sighed. “Since you know my family, you should have contacted us sooner.” “I didn’t want to contact you at all,” she admitted. “But I need your help. Please.” He considered them for a moment more and then nodded. “Someone have some paper? I’ve got a spell to write.” |
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Post by Chrisaholic on Apr 27, 2017 11:21:39 GMT -5
Oha, Chris is another difficult situation but he still helps at least, though it gets confusing with all these people he could remember or not. Well, let's see if he can solve all. |
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Post by StoryGirl83 on Apr 27, 2017 16:16:19 GMT -5
Oha, Chris is another difficult situation but he still helps at least, though it gets confusing with all these people he could remember or not. Well, let's see if he can solve all. Chris is a bit confused, too, so you're in good company.
Chapter Nineteen – Oh, Brother! Daniel Reynolds looked at the file the doctor had handed him. A smile grew on his face as he looked up and nodded. “Yes, this is her. This is my sister.” He closed the folder and handed it back to the doctor. “When can I see her? My family would like to get her home as soon as possible.” “You have to understand that when a patient does an abrupt about face like Cassia did two months ago, their motives are rather questionable,” the doctor informed Daniel. “What I understand,” Daniel replied without showing a drop of emotion, “is that I have been looking for my sister for a long time and that I have papers sighed by the Lieutenant Governor of the state of California which give me the right to get her out of this facility at once if I should find her here.” Sometimes it was rather useful that Belle’s husband was in politics. The look Daniel leveled the doctor with put fear into even the most dauntless of his competitors in the boardroom. This was one battle he wasn’t about to lose. “Cassia requires constant attention until we have determined that she is no longer a threat to herself,” the doctor tried reasoning with him. “The Chief Physician at Angel of Mercy Hospital in Sacramento has agreed to provide whatever medical aid is needed,” Daniel’s voice brooked no argument. He was loving throwing around the names of his older sisters and their spouses. Ash would be annoyed at him, but she would go along with it. Besides, she had agreed. The doctor sighed. “Why don’t we go find her? Perhaps when you meet her, you will conclude that she’s not actually the person you are looking for. After all, she’s . . . a lot younger than you.” Ironic really, that his older sister looked like she was younger than his daughters, but it didn’t matter. There was, however, no doubt in his mind that this patient was his older sister. Of course, he couldn’t tell the doctor that. All it would take was one word from him that their teenage patient was older than the over-the-hill business man in the head doctor’s office and they would lock Daniel up right along with her.
Chris sighed as he looked at Cassia. “I don’t know what to say. I think it worked, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Only your brother can tell us.” Cassia offered him a week smile. “Thanks for trying.” “I’d still try to avoid him,” he suggested. “It might not be an option,” JD commented from the doorway. “He’s headed this way with one of the doctors.” Cassia exhaled slowly. “All right. Thank you.” “You’d better get going,” JD suggested. “Me, too. Good luck, Cass. Let me know if it works.” Cassia nodded. “I will.” She watched as the two young men left and then she went the opposite direction. If her brother ran into the nurse that had directed them into that room, then she didn’t want it to be easy for them. Since the hallways had security cameras, Cassia couldn’t just orb out, so when she heard someone behind her mention her name, she just walked faster. She opened the door to the outdoors and looked up. Come on, we both know you can fix this.There was no response to her silent plea. She wasn’t all that surprised, since he had been ignoring her much of the time in the past couple of months. It seemed he was willing to go along with what the other elders had decided. It didn’t really surprise her, but it did annoy her. Cassia felt a hand on her shoulder. Terrified that Chris’ spell wouldn’t hold, she turned around, a smile on her face. “Hello, Deary,” she said as she looked her little brother in the face. “May I help you?” Daniel’s face fell at the sight of her. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.” “Oh, dear,” she replied, trying to sound disappointed when in reality she was thrilled to be this close to her brother. “Someone nice I hope.” The doctor exited the building and approached them. “Someone very nice,” Daniel said with a confused nod. “I see you’ve met Cassia,” the doctor commented as he reached them. Daniel tried to hide his confusion, before he turned to look at the doctor. “Would you mind if I talked to her?” He must have succeeded, because the doctor didn’t appear to sense anything was amiss. “Do I have a choice in the matter?” Daniel smiled at him. “I was trying to be polite.” The doctor scowled at him. As soon as the doctor was out of hearing range, Daniel turned back to look at her. “You look nothing like the young woman in the picture.” Cassia saw the sadness in her brother’s eyes and she wanted so much to hug him, assure him that everything would be all right. “You’re disappointed.” He offered her a weak smile. “I’ve been looking for so long.” “Perhaps she doesn’t want to be found,” Cassia suggested, feeling terrible for saying it. He sighed. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “It might be time to end your search, Deary.” “But Cassia . . .” “Is that who you are looking for?” He nodded. “My sister.” He sighed. “It’s been almost . . .” He stopped and looked at her, a glimmer of a tear in his eye. He rubbed it away. Cassia took him by the hand and led him over to a bench. “Tell me about it. Perhaps it will help.” It felt weird trying to comfort him about her death. Daniel sat down on the bench next to her. “My sister, Cassia, was in a horrible accident just before she would have started college many years ago. My other sisters, my parents; they moved on, but I couldn’t not entirely. I married, had kids. I thought I had moved on, but then I saw this picture.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Cassia watched for glimpses of family pictures. She recognized her oldest sister, Ashley, in one picture, but all the other pictures flipped by too fast. He pulled out a folded newspaper article. He handed it to her. Cassia took it and unfolded it. She found herself looking at a picture. It took a moment, but she found what had caught her brother’s attention. Standing partially hidden behind the person the picture was focused on she saw a person with her face, her body. She looked up at him. Daniel pointed to that person in the picture. “That’s Cassia, my sister. This picture was taken fifteen years ago. Someone who’s dead for twenty-four years can’t appear in a picture.” “No offence,” she said in a whispered voice, “but the person in the picture isn’t twenty-four-years-old and certainly not old enough to have graduated twenty-four years prior.” “I know,” he agreed, but there was something in his voice that told her there was more to it than he was saying. “I thought about that, too. At first I thought she might be a distant relative, but when I looked into it, nothing seemed to add up. Six years ago I found this picture.” He pulled out a photograph. It was plainly a picture of Cassia despite hair that had been cropped off and clothes she would never wear. Apparently Ron had tried to deal with being in her body by making her body look masculine. “Nine years later,” he reminded her. “Same person, same age. That’s not normal, but if she didn’t age in nine years, what’s another twenty-four?” “It seems a little,” she paused before finishing with, “unrealistic.” She knew she had to end his search, but she didn’t want to. Besides, there was something about this whole conversation that was beginning to sound suspicious. He shrugged, clearly unconcerned. “I can’t explain everything that I’ve learned over the last six years, but I’ve no doubt that it’s my sister in both pictures. I’ve no doubt that she died. She’s not a ghost. And I’m not crazy.” There is definitely something up with this conversation. Cassia stared at him. She wasn’t sure what her little brother had found, but he seemed awfully sure of himself. And the way he worded it, it almost sounded like he really did know what he was talking about. It sounded like he knew about witches, warlocks, whitelighters, and magic, but how was that possible. She had tried to avoid checking up on her family, but she knew Ash, perfect Ashley Nicole, was both a doctor and mother of ten, only one of who was a daughter. She knew that daughter, seventeen-year-old Kelsey Kinsey, because yes her sister did chose a first name for her daughter that was so close to her last name, was quite spoiled by her six older brothers, and adored by her three younger ones. She knew that Belle’s son, Aaron Quinn, would soon be graduating college, and that Belle’s daughter, Linda Shay Norton, wanted to her follow her dad, Lieutenant Governor Anthony Quinn, into politics. Her election into the Sacramento city government the previous November was just a stepping stone for her. She also knew that Danny’s oldest daughter, named Cassia for her, had died before his second daughter, Sophia, had been born. She knew that her sister-in-law didn’t care one whit about the money Danny made in the boardroom, but that she was most likely drinking herself into an early grave. It was to the point where Cassia had requisition some of her fellow whitelighters to try and help Eileen. “Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked looking at her. “It’s an interesting theory,” she hedged. “A theory,” he repeated. “Is that what it is?” “What else could it be?” she asked. “You’re trying to tell me that your dead sister isn’t dead.” “I said she died,” he informed her. “I didn’t say she stayed that way.” Cassia gulped. “Like I said, an interesting theory.” He scowled. “Ash says I’m a fool to pursue this, but I never thought you could look me in the face and say you weren’t my sister.” She looked away. “Visiting hours are almost over and I should go.” He took her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you aren’t my sister.” She stared at him, motionless. “Do that and I will walk away,” he informed her. “Otherwise I’m going to just keep coming back.” “You can’t do that,” she told him. “It’s not right.” “Cass, they brought you back,” he pleaded with her. “They brought you back and didn’t let you tell us. Please, I don’t care what your elders say. “ Did he just . . ? How . . ? Cassia stared at him stunned. How am I supposed to respond to that?
I like Cassia's brother. Daniel is very, no way am I letting any one take advantage of me and Cassia was always his favorite sister. Also, he's very stubborn and had they not moved to Sacramento he would have graduated high school with Piper. And Chris's spell did work. In case it wasn't obvious. Daniel is looking straight at Cassia and he is not seeing who he thinks he should be seeing. The next chapter is a backstory on one of Wyatt's co-workers, Andrew, the one who knew about magic. It's fun because I don't usually do flashbacks to season two of Charmed. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on May 4, 2017 10:00:34 GMT -5
So, Daniel seems to know about magic and all other things, yet thanks to Chris' spell, he doesn't see what he wants to see. Oh joy! Complicated families all the way and it will never be easy. |
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Post by StoryGirl83 on May 4, 2017 12:12:58 GMT -5
So, Daniel seems to know about magic and all other things, yet thanks to Chris' spell, he doesn't see what he wants to see. Oh joy! Complicated families all the way and it will never be easy. He's had a while to think about it and research it and as a result, he's learned a lot, so yes, he definitely knows about magic. His other sisters don't quite believe in it (and she be quite glad of that due to something that almost happened to one of his nephews that definitely would have had them believing), but they trust him enough to give him reign here.
Chapter Twenty – What’s In a Name Wyatt nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s all I can tell you. I saw no intruders. I did try both the door and the phone and could not use them. I’m glad to see that they are usable now. I’m not sure what else you think I can tell you.” “Are you sure there is nothing else?” Hal Brookes looked at him speculatively. “Surely there is something else?” “Nothing else that I can say,” Wyatt repeated. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be much help in catching whoever did this.” Hal sighed. “Fine. I’m sure that the police are going to want to talk to you anyway.” “They already did,” Wyatt informed him with a sigh. “It was a very long and unproductive conversation. There is nothing I can do to help the police. I don’t know who did this!” he added in exasperation. Hal nodded. “One more question?” Wyatt sighed. “Fine. What is it?” “Why didn’t your cell phone work?” Wyatt groaned. “My cell phone was decimated when something crushed it.” Nathan’s foot, he thought, but he wasn’t going to say that aloud. Hal scowled. “I hope you don’t intend for us to replace it.” Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t expect you to replace it, Hal.” I don’t expect anything of you. As if dealing with curses didn’t make a bad enough day, it appeared that the situation had put his boss in a bad mood and all he wanted to do was get Hal out of there. Thankfully, that is what Hal did next. As soon as he was out of the room, Wyatt turned back to his computer. Ever since he had gotten here, he had been looking through ever database he could and there wasn’t a word about the Aphrodite Crystal. Of course Chris had mentioned that the three demons neither of them had seen the day before had stolen it from some cave somewhere, but they had gone to the trouble of the changing the physical manifest, why not the technological one? He sighed. It probably didn’t matter, but there was no way demons who didn’t bother doing that were smart enough to be behind the attacks over the last few months, and someone was definitely behind them. “Are you busy in here?” Wyatt looked up to see Andrew standing in the doorway. He shook his head. “Not really, I guess. Come in.” Andrew entered the room, shutting the door behind him, and stood in front of Wyatt’s desk. “Do you have time to talk?” “I think I just implied that I did,” Wyatt informed him, amused. “Want to have a seat?” Andrew shook his head. “Not really.” I think it’s best if I don’t.” Wyatt shrugged. “Have it your way. What brings you here?” “Twenty-eight years ago a demon tried to kill my mom,” Andrew announced without preamble. “She doesn’t remember that. Pretty much no one involved does.” “How old are you?” Wyatt asked, giving him a strange look. “Almost twenty-eight,” Andrew informed him. “Why?” “Just trying to figure out if you were relating something you experienced or something someone told you.” Andrew snorted. “My mom was pregnant with me at the time. I don’t know a lot of the details except that I was the target, not my mom and that your family saved her life and mine. I don’t know why I was the target, but is there any possibility that I was the target this time?” Wyatt frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but is there anything else you know about the people who attacked you.” “Not people,” Andrew informed him, annoyed. “Demon, warlock. I don’t know. They have been silent for years. No attack has been made since then, but why would someone target someone who hadn’t even been born yet.” “Prophecies are the most popular reason,” Wyatt retorted. “I can look into it and I’ll ask my mom and her sisters what they remember about you.” “Her name’s Tanya, Tanya Parker,” Andrew informed him. “I doubt they’d know my name. She worked with your Aunt Prue before she died.” Wyatt frowned. “Um.” Andrew looked at him curiously. “What does “um” mean?” “Aunt Prue’s not dead,” Wyatt mumbled. No time like the present to start letting that get into the general public. Andrew stared at him blankly. “I was at her funeral,” he protested. “You remember that?” Wyatt asked skeptically. Andrew shook his head. “No, but Mom has mentioned it.” “Well, she’s not dead,” Wyatt repeated. “She lives in Boston with her family.” Andrew’s eyes widened. “Really?” Wyatt nodded. “Mom would probably like to look her up,” Andrew commented. “They weren’t close by any means, but Mom looked up to her.” “Well, if she’d like her number, let me know and I’ll talk to Aunt Prue,” Wyatt offered. Andrew grinned. “I’ll let her know.” “I guess that explain how you know about magic,” Wyatt commented, “but what about whitelighters? How’d you know I could heal Nathan?” Andrew chuckled. “Your dad had a charge who lived next door to me. I was pretty young when he lost his magic, so I don’t remember that. I guess something happened to his replacement, so I found out when he was introducing them to their new whitelighter.” “I can’t imagine they just informed you that my dad used to be a whitelighter, that the person with him was still one,” Wyatt retorted. Andrew laughed. “Not at all. They didn’t inform their charge either, said something about him being a future whitelighter, whatever that means. I was hiding.” Wyatt looked at him amused. “What?” Andrew replied defensively. “I was seven. When we are doing what we shouldn’t, we hide.” Wyatt burst out laughing. “I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for kids when I use magic.” “I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” Andrew commented. “I think it’s me. I seem to be a magnet for magic.” Wyatt looked at him curiously. “How so?” “My mom doesn’t remember what happened when she was first pregnant with me, but she does remember something that happened several months later.”
The parking lot for the supermarket was filled with cars. Tanya Parker was pushing a cart towards her car filled with groceries. She was visibly pregnant. The sound of arguing caused her to look up. A man and a woman were yelling at each other. Tanya shook her head and sighed. She pushed her cart in next to her car and started searching her purse for her keys.
“Hey, lady, out of my way!” a young man’s voice called out to her seconds before he rammed into her and knocked her to the ground.
Tanya slammed to the ground, landing on her stomach. Trying to ignore the pain she started to get up. The pain in her belly forced her back down and she hit her head against the edge of the car, knocking her out.
When she came to she heard a man ask, “Is she going to be all right?”
“They’re both going to be all right,” another man answered. “When she comes to, she’s going to remember being knocked down. She’ll want to see a doctor to make sure her baby is all right. I’ll need you to deal with that.”
“Her baby is all right, isn’t it?” the first man asked.
Tanya kept her eyes closed. She had a feeling this conversation would end if they realized she was listening and she wanted to know what was going on.
“The baby is just fine,” the second man assured him. “I need you to either call 9-1-1 or bring her to the hospital to be checked.”
“9-1-1? Isn’t that a bit extreme, Andy?” the first man asked.
“She might not think so,” “Andy” informed him. “We both saw that boy run into her. She might want to prosecute.”
“I don’t think I could ID the kid if he stared me in the face,” the first man retorted. “And since both she and the baby are . . .”
“Just call them, Sean,” Andy ordered him. “I’ll be gone when you arrive. Don’t mention my presence, especially if Darryl is there. He’s smart. He’d realize something was up.”
“I know that,” “Sean” threw back. “I’ve been listening. I’ll see you later, okay.”
Andy shook his head. “Sorry, Sean. They’ve reassigned me. I’ve come too close to getting caught one too many times. They want me away from San Francisco. I’ll be back long enough to introduce you to Natalie, my replacement, but after that . . . I have to go. Sorry.”
Sean sighed. “Figures. I feel like they’ve been playing musical whitelighters with me these last few years and I finally get a whitelighter I like and they reassign you. Would it do any good if I moved?”
Andy burst out laughing. “I doubt it, but I appreciate the thought.” His face turned serious as he added, “Keep an eye on Prue for me, will you.”
Sean nodded. “I will. Be careful.”
Andy sighed. “I will.”
“Get going before she wakes up and sees you,” Sean urged him. “I guarantee she won’t keep your secret.”
From behind her barely opened lids, Tanya fought a smile. If you only knew. And then it was all she could do to keep shock from showing off her face as Andy vanished in swirls of lights and bubbles.
“You saw that, did you?” Sean commented, proving she had failed to keep her expression blank.
“He had to make a decision there,” Andrew commented. “He decided to start by introducing himself. His name was Sean McInnis.” He didn’t notice the startled look on Wyatt’s face as Wyatt recognized the name of his host the day before. “He convinced her to keep what she heard quiet . . . at least from the police. He did end up calling the police for her, mostly because she didn’t want someone else to get hurt. She told me once that it would have been unremarkable, especially after what had happened before, except that when one of the detectives introduced himself as Inspector Darryl Morris, Sean reacted a bit oddly and she suspected this was the Darryl Andy had mentioned. It was only later that she really began to put the pieces together,” Andrew informed Wyatt. “On her last day of work before maternity leave she was in Prue’s office delivering a sandwich to her when she noticed a picture on Prue’s desk. It was a picture of Prue with Andy. Combined with Andy’s mention of Prue, she was convinced that this was the man she had seen, until she asked Prue about him.” Wyatt grimaced. “I can imagine how that conversation went.” Andrew laughed. “Yeah, Mom was a bit startled when she was informed that Andy had been dead for several weeks.” Andrew looked at Wyatt. “He healed Mom, didn’t he? And me? She might have miscarried there and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Mom’s always thought that, but Sean refused to answer that question.” “It’s possible,” Wyatt admitted. “You’d have to ask Uncle Andy about that one.” Andrew looked at him startled. “Uncle Andy?” Wyatt nodded. “He’s married to Aunt Prue.” “But she thought he was dead,” Andrew protested. “And he sure seemed certain he wouldn’t see her, again, at least according to my mom.” Wyatt nodded. “They met, again, ten years later. I don’t know the details, but they are both alive and well, living in Boston with their two daughters.” Andrew smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I was named after him you know.” Wyatt didn’t say anything, just looked at him surprised. Andrew laughed. “To this day Mom’s convinced that Andy did something and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. She would love to thank him for that.” “I’ll let him know,” Wyatt assured him. With that Andrew left, leaving Wyatt with a lot to think about. He walked over to the wall and picked up the phone. He punched in the number for his aunt and uncle in Boston. It appeared to be a good idea for him to let them both know about his conversation with Andrew. He had a feeling they would have a much better idea of what was going on than either he or Andrew did. |
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Post by Chrisaholic on May 5, 2017 12:10:17 GMT -5
Oho, that explains a lot, I think, when Andy is involved here, and yes, I remember this episode. Cool, that Andrew is a reminder of the past - for Prue and Andy.
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. Still, hoping for the best. 
and two nurses
and Hal
