November, 2019
The wind was the worst, he thought. It whipped in their faces with a crack like a whip, leaving their cheeks stained deep red and chapped like the meat of an apple after a bruise. The snow deserved its fair share of blame, too; swirling in eddies around them, it seemed designed with the specific purpose of sticking to every inch of exposed skin they had. He wondered what it did when there wasn't someone there for it to torment. It probably just lay around then, floated lazily to the ground like big, feathery rip-offs of a Hallmark commercial.
"This is why we live in California," he said out loud, shouting to be heard over the roaring wind.
Wyatt yelled something back; he could tell, because he could see his brother's head turn back to speak to him. The words were lost to the snow, though. Knowing Wyatt, that was probably for the best; his brother had the unfortunate habit of trying to beat him in the sarcasm department – like that would ever happen. If he wasn't so cold, he would have snorted at the thought.
Chris shivered and wished he dared use his powers. If they did not find the cave soon, he was going to say screw it all and just light up already, mountain climbers be damned. Of course, he would not really do that; it was too risky, with the group camped out on the ridge just below them, but it was such a tempting idea. Besides, they had not had to use the memory dust on anyone in months.
Wyatt turned around again and motioned with his hand. Chris shook his head, yelling no as loud as he could. They were going the wrong way – he remembered memorizing the location on the map.
Chris shook his head again and jerked a thumb over his left shoulder.
"Follow me," he called.
Wyatt nodded to show he had heard. Chris trudged through the snow in the opposite direction, checking behind every once in a while to make sure that his brother was still with him. He kept his eyes open, looking for any sign of –
Wait. There, just ahead, cut into the mountain. Was that a cave? He could not be certain, of course, but it looked like one. Most of the entrance was blocked with snow, but just at the top there was a hole, and if he strained his eyes he thought he could see a glimmer of darkness behind it.
"I found it!" he yelled, his voice hoarse from overuse. "Over here!"
Wyatt let loose a shout of triumph, his voice so loud that Chris was sure his ears would still be ringing next week. It didn't matter; they had found the cave.
The drift of snow that buried the entrance posed a problem. The brothers had agreed to not use magic so close to the campers, but…
Chris flicked his hands outward, watching the snow blast out of the way with satisfaction. He so loved having this power; even though he'd only had it for a few months, it was quickly becoming his favorite.
Wyatt shot him an annoyed glare and he shrugged.
"Did you want to dig through it?" he snapped, forgetting his brother couldn't hear him.
Wyatt must have gotten the gist of it though, because he quirked his eyebrow ruefully. Fine, it seemed to say. But I'm still not admitting my little brother is right.
Chris rolled his eyes. One of these days, Wyatt was going to realize that it wouldn't kill him to admit that his – only by a little bit – younger brother was right. No one else had a problem with it. Well, all right, maybe his cousins, but that was because they were brats. And sometimes his aunts, but that was because they hated being told that their children were brats – which they were, even though Chris did love them and would have killed anyone else for saying it. Hadn't Mom always told them to tell the truth?
Chris kicked the last few clumps of snow out of the way and entered the cave. It was mercifully dry inside, and he could already feel his cheeks thanking him for getting them away from the wind. He didn't even want to know what his parents would say when the two of them returned home looking like they'd been kidnapped by clowns and forced to join their troop. He had to remember to fix that before they left.
"Whew," Wyatt said, rubbing his arms. "This is much better."
"Duh," Chris said. "It's a cave. That was a mountaintop. Have all those tackles permanently rotted your brain cells?"
Wyatt shot him a dirty look.
"Must have been sharing a room with you for fourteen years," he shot back.
"But that would have made you smarter," Chris said, feigning confusion. "I guess you were just born clueless."
"Funny, Chris," Wyatt said. "But wait – I wasn't the one who didn't have powers from the womb, now was I?"
"Do you have to keep rubbing that in? We all know you're a freak of nature, you don't need to keep reminding us."
Wyatt rolled his eyes but let it slide. Truthfully, he knew it shouldn't matter – Chris had started developing powers from birth, but it was one of the many petty rivalries between them. He had been seriously put out when his younger brother had gained their mother's powers over the summer. It had narrowed the margin between them considerably.
"Come on," Wyatt said, beckoning the teenager forward. "We have to hurry."
Chris turned serious immediately, scanning the cave so intently Wyatt was half-afraid he might burn a hole in one of the walls, solid stone though they were.
"What time is it?" Chris asked, moving away from the entrance to search in the back.
"Uh, hold on," his brother responded, staring at his wrist. "Damn, I knew I should have bought a new watch."
"What, and give up Daddy's precious ancient one?" Chris asked, his voice falling into a mocking tone. Wyatt could practically see his brother's smirk.
Wyatt didn't respond. Their wasn't much favoritism between the parents – almost none at all – but it was plain to see that each of the brothers gravitated to one parent or the other, in yet another difference between them. Chris had teased his brother to no end about wearing their father's old army watch, outdated as it was, but Wyatt stubbornly clung to it.
Chris huffed. "Just call up an orb," he said.
"I was just about to do that."
"Sure."
The cave lit up briefly as Wyatt called up an orb to see the watch with.
"We've got half an hour," he reported.
"I hope that's enough time," was the only response he received.
Chris and his pessimism. He was far too much like Aunt Paige in that respect.
They searched in silence for several minutes, each of them intent on their task. At last, Wyatt spotted it.
There was a small depression along the bottom of the cave wall, of a size and shape he was familiar with. It was the sort of hole that formed when someone hurled energy balls at one spot for a few minutes. Someone like his father, perhaps.
Wyatt squatted and reached his hands into the hole. He fumbled around for a few moments, beginning to panic. What if he was wrong? What if it wasn't there? What if someone else had found it first?
His heart raced as he felt something. The hard edge of a book, apparent to his seeking fingers even through the gloves that covered them.
"Yes!" he hissed, excitement coursing through him.
"Did you find it?" Chris asked, rushing over.
Moments later, Chris was on the floor beside him, legs sprawled casually, uncaring of the water and dirt and who knew what else that was staining his clothes. Wyatt shook his head. Mom was going to kill him.
"Yeah," he told his brother. "I think. Conjure another orb."
Wyatt pulled the book free of its shadowy hiding place while his brother conjured and orb, filling the cavern with light for the second time that night. Bouncing the orb in his hand, Chris brought it closer to the rag-wrapped bundle in Wyatt's arms, eyes wide with apprehension as he watched the blonde uncover the book.
Light fell on the cover, illuminating a cracked surface and words in a writing they could not understand. They both knew what it meant, though; they had studied pictures of it often enough at Magic School.
"We found it," Chris breathed. "The Grimoire."
Fin.
a/n: So there it is. One-shot, but part of a series. And for all of you Stealth, OUAP, or Set the Fire...readers out there, don't worry. I'm hard at work on all of them, especially Stealth. This is just something I got done on my iPhone (btw, if you haven't got one already GET ONE - best phone I've ever had) this morning. School's just really busy right now. I promise the updates will be rolling as soon as Homecoming is over.