Author's Note: So I just started this recently. Not sure if I'm going to continue - I just had this idea and thought I'd give it a shot. Let me know what you think! - Kali
Her destination tonight was a small bar in the middle of nowhere. Only demons could find it; demons and those smart enough to know where to look. She stopped in the dusty parking lot, her long black hair blowing back from her face. The night was cold, but her bare arms were not chilled in the slightest. She was wearing a low-cut, dark green tank-top and tight black pants and a threatening look on her face. After a few seconds, that threatening look turned to a small smile and she walked towards the entrance, a determined bounce in her step.
She pushed both doors open, making her grand entrance. Her eyes scanned the bar, not seeing the person she was meeting. She walked down the steps and stopped at the counter. She set the bartender with a feigned seductive stare, until he felt her eyes and turned.
"What do you want?" he snapped, yellow teeth shining through his gray beard.
"I don't think that's any way to talk to one of the most powerful witches in the world," she responded.
He looked her up and down. "I don't smell witch. I smell demon."
She shrugged one shoulder, leaning forward on the counter. "Witches and demons aren't all that different. They both fight, just for different reasons."
The bartender ignored her perceptive comment so she continued, "I'm looking for Zexlo," she said.
"You have eyes. Do you see him?"
She straightened and held her hand out, allowing a fireball to form above her palm. "And you have balls. Care to change your tone?"
"My, my, what a tongue that is," a new voice put in from behind her. "Didn't think you had it in you, Graceful."
She allowed the fireball to extinguish and turned to face him. He was much taller than her and stared down with deep set brown eyes, his short black hair almost disappearing in the darkness. "It's Grace," she corrected. "You're late."
"As are you."
"I don't like waiting," Grace said. "I have other demons to see so let's get this started." She walked passed him to a nearby table, and he followed with a coy smile on his face. As he slid into the seat across from her, he spoke.
"So you've created quite a buzz in the Underworld. I hear you've got eighteen now."
"Twenty-three," she said. "And that's twenty-three in seven weeks. At this rate, I'll reach a hundred in less than a year."
"Demons are going to be less cooperative when the novelty of a demonic attorney wears off. Not to mention, I've already helped you and here you are asking for my help again. Apparently, you're out of demons."
"No one is helping anyone, Zexlo. This is a business transaction, plain and simple. And I came back to you because things went smoothly with you last time."
"I see," he nodded, not seeming convinced at all.
"Now, I have three very unique powers in my possession. I say that's worth two souls."
"Two?" Zexlo raised an eyebrow. "You're moving fast now, aren't you?"
"Hey," she said sternly. "Stop with the chitchat. Do we have a deal or not? Three powers for the souls of Dawson and Derwin."
"Well, I must say, your methods have certainly changed in seven weeks. But at least you're still asking to free specific souls."
"How will I know if you actually free them unless I know who they are? Now answer me, deal or no deal?"
"You expect me to decide when you haven't told me what these 'unique' powers you speak of even are?"
"The power of deflection, optical thermal dynamics, and cloning. Deal?"
He paused for a thoughtful moment. "Deal."
"Perfection. Free the first soul, I'll give you one power. Free the other, and I'll give you the other two powers." She stood up. "This was a pleasure."
"Hold it," he said.
Grace crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow, asking him to continue.
"There's a power I want more than anything. If you get it for me, I'll give you ten souls."
"Invincibility is not a power, Zexlo. You should know that."
"I don't need invincibility. I make deals with innocents; I don't encounter many threats."
"What is it you want then?"
Zexlo stared at her for a moment, and then glanced around the bar at all the demons present. As if he didn't want their prying ears to hear, he grabbed a cocktail napkin and conjured a pen in his right hand. He then slid it across the table towards her.
With a curious look in her eyes, she picked the napkin up and read the words printed there. She tossed it back on the table and said, "I'll think about it."
"What's to think about? Ten souls. That's five times what you made in this deal here."
"Twenty."
"Ten."
"Seventeen."
"Ten. I'm not negotiating with you, Graceful. You get me this power, and I'll free ten souls."
"We'll see. I have to get going."
"The only reason you're not agreeing is because you have no faith in yourself to secure the power. You don't want to agree and fail."
"I'm not agreeing because I think it's worth far more than ten souls. But I don't have time to barter with you right now." She turned her back on him, attempting to leave again, but he just wouldn't let her go.
"I'm surprised you're still doing this."
Grace turned. "I finish what I start."
"When you started, you were still that timid little witch. That grief stricken witch that spent hours negotiating with power brokers and demons because no one was scared of you. That was seven weeks ago. As I said, you're moving awful fast now."
"What's your point?"
Zexlo shrugged. "I don't care what your end game is. Act like a demon, then baby you'll be a demon."
"And I don't care what happens to me. I'm doing this for my family."
He laughed. "You really are a Warren witch then, aren't you?"
Grace set him with a smug look. "You bet your ass I am." She then turned and shimmered from the bar, before he could say another word.
It was four AM, and an empty subway car moved through the underground tunnels of San Francisco. Empty save for two passengers. One of them was stretched across a bench seat in the rear of the car. His eyes were trained on the young girl several seats away, who had her head facing the window, watching the concrete walls zooming by.
"Stop staring at me," she spoke, not taking her eyes away from the window.
He cleared his throat, straightening to put his feet on the floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't think of any words. And while he tried not to stare, he couldn't help it. Her brown hair was tied back loosely, several strands snaking across her cheeks. Her eyes were sad, though not the least bit scared, which he found so admirable.
She turned her head, and he quickly looked away. But he'd been caught. She said, "If you insist on looking at me, then I'm going to the next car." She uncrossed her legs and stood up. He quickly got to his feet, catching up with her.
"No, you can't. I'm supposed to protect you, remember? That means I can't leave your side."
"You're not. I'm leaving yours." She started to move again, and he grabbed her wrist to stop her. She glared. "Wyatt," she warned, her voice threateningly deep. He abruptly let go and took a few steps back, mumbling an apology as he scratched the back of his neck.
"This is ridiculous," she said. "Am I allowed to request a new whitelighter?"
"Carmen," he started.
"Let's go back to not talking." She turned her back on him, walking to the opposite end of the car. Wyatt sighed, approaching her once again, but refraining from touching her in any way.
"Okay, but we need to talk. Strictly business, I swear," he promised, holding his hands up in defense. She crossed her arms over her chest, and while her mouth was tense, Wyatt could picture her tongue moving around inside it, like it was trying to escape being bitten, so it could say what it really wanted to say.
"So you'll tell me where we're going now," Carmen replied.
"Yes."
"And why we couldn't orb?"
"Because the demon is probably tracking my orbs. And we're going somewhere where you'll be safe. It's surrounded by crystals and charmed with every bit of protective magic my family knows."
"Crystals? Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Carmen asked. Wyatt shook his head minutely. Sometimes he got ahead of myself. Carmen had only found out she was a witch less than twenty-four hours ago. Because her power was clairvoyance, she'd written off any odd behavior as mere intuition, or ESP, or coincidence. Anytime she'd fallen into a prophetic trance, she'd assumed she was overworked, fatigued, or stressed.
And then enter Wyatt, and her whole world had changed. Now she was on the run from demons, though Wyatt couldn't convince her that it wasn't his fault they were after her. She insisted that his meddling in her life had drawn them to her. It didn't help that she was so mad at him for lying.
Like many whitelighters, Wyatt sometimes struggled to get his charges to trust him at first. Especially when the idea of magic was nothing but make-believe to them. Carmen was no different. He'd hung around her college campus for several days, watching her to learn her schedule and routine, and then he'd casually "bumped into her" on her way to Early American History class. With the charm he'd inherited from his father, he'd gotten a coffee date with her for later that afternoon. Within a few days, they'd become good friends. And by the end of the week
"Wyatt," she said, and his thoughts were completely broken. He shook his head to clear his mind, and tried to get back on track.
"There will be other witches there. Just like you. And once we've tracked down the demon that's doing this, it'll be safe for you to go home."
"How long do you think that will be?" she asked. Her tone was sincere this time, not bitter or angry. It told Wyatt that she understood the seriousness of the situation, no matter how catty she acted towards him.
"We don't have any leads." He couldn't lie to her. Not anymore. "So I don't know. Could be weeks. Months."
"Months?" She echoed. "What about school? What about my friends? My...my dad. Where will everyone think I am?"
"Missing. Most likely."
"Can I at least call my dad? And tell him I'm alright?"
Wyatt sighed. "He'll want to know more. He'll ask you questions. Will you be able to lie?"
Carmen immediately turned smug. "Why do I have to lie? Must we all be like you?"
"He won't believe you if you don't," Wyatt insisted. "He'll think you've gone insane."
"That's better than him thinking I'm missing." She walked towards one of the bench seats, and sat down slowly. She slumped forward, and let out a soft mutter, "This sucks."
"I know." Wyatt cautiously moved to sit next to her. He was surprised when she didn't move away. "I want to make this as easy as possible on you. I don't want to see you suffer." He reached his hand out and rested it on top of hers. She tensed, but she allowed it.
It was only a week after he met her that Wyatt started having weird feelings every time he saw her. Every moment of every day actually. He sensed her at least fifty times a day, picturing her sitting in class, taking attentive notes, talking to her friends. He imagined her at home with her father. He hadn't met the man, and knew little of their relationship. But she was the type of girl that grew up attached to her father's leg, peeking around it at strangers she felt threatened by. She'd look up at him with her big blue eyes, asking him if it was okay to trust them.
At times, Wyatt felt like a stalker. He had stalked her at first. For two weeks, while he learned enough about her to be her whitelighter. But once he'd met her, he not only felt compelled to protect her as a whitelighter, but as a friend as well. There were times with other charges he'd had, where he'd pretended to be into their interests in order to build a foundation of trust. But with Carmen, he hadn't pretended at all. Being with her felt comfortable. He felt like a normal twenty-three year old. Not a witch. Not a whitelighter.
With all Wyatt had seen over the years, he didn't think magic could impress him anymore. But how fast he'd fallen for her...it was like magic. Disbelieving, unfathomable, inconceivable magic. The first time they'd kissed, she had responded with the simplest of smiles, expressing her contentment. A smile that said, 'This is where we belong.'
He loved seeing that smile. It was so much better than her laughing smile, or her ecstatic smile. It was the smile that told him everything was as expected. He was making her happy, just as he should.
Looking at her now, where her eyes were drawn to the floor, her mouth a deep frown. Wyatt wanted to see that smile again. He needed to.
Abruptly, he jumped up and headed to the nearest door. They'd just announced the next stop.
"We're here?" she asked.
"No." Wyatt was almost breathless. He couldn't believe what he was about to do. "We're going back."
"Back?"
"So you can see your dad. And tell him everything."
Carmen's mouth dropped in absolute disbelief. "But you just said-"
"We'll be fine. And...if you want your dad to know the truth, then he deserves to know." The doors opened and he reached out his hand. "C'mon."
And there it was. Her radiant smile. She took one step and slid her hand in his, and they walked off the train together. The subway station was almost completely empty, even as night became morning. "We'll need to take the Fremont," she spoke quickly, pulling him along as she headed for the right platform.
Within minutes, they were on a new train, heading in the opposite direction of their destination. Wyatt couldn't stop thinking how his mother and father would kill him if they knew, but he shoved it aside. This is what she wanted, and he would make it happen. She'd been given no time to prepare for any of this. She deserved a chance to explain things to her father.
The witch killings were happening more frequently now. It'd started as one or two every couple weeks, and now it'd escalated to at least three every few days. With as many witches as there were in the world, the Elders couldn't be sure of who the next victims might be. All they could do was protect as many as possible. And that was when Wyatt had been forced to take her under their protection. And he'd been instructed to do this yesterday.
She'd known something was wrong. Even after only a couple weeks of dating, she could sense that he was bothered by something. And eventually she'd pulled it out of him.
"You're a witch," he'd blurted, without any preface or warning.
She'd taken it as an insult, but he'd quickly explained what he'd really meant. And that he was a witch too. And then Wyatt had explained how he wasn't just a witch, but a whitelighter as well. And after explaining what a whitelighter actually was, he told her that he was hers, and that he was assigned to protect her. And that was when their trust had crumbled like a brick wall.
That trust had been gone for the last thirty hours. But now, here they were on the subway, and she hadn't let go of his hand since he'd asked her to take it on the other train. She was listening to each stop carefully, waiting for the right one to be called, her fingers entwined in his.
The train slowed to a stop, and she stood. This is where they got off. They walked hand in hand off the platform and up to the street. As they walked, she glanced at him. "So tell me more about being a witch."
"What is it you want to know?"
"What's good about it?"
"What's good about it?" Wyatt echoed her question in disbelief. "You have magical powers. You can cast spells. Isn't that enough?"
"Yeah, but anything fun about those things is forbidden. Personal gain, you called it? If I can't cast spells to make life easier, then why else do you do it?"
"To help people," Wyatt suggested.
"So being a witch is about a charity?"
"No," he said. "It's about doing the right thing. Evil tries to take over this world at least a million times a day. About ninety-nine point nine percent of those attempts fail because...well, because the demon is stupid or because their plan is stupid. But the smart ones - the demons that actually make a reasonable show at it, well those ones need to be stopped. So it's people like us that do the stopping."
"And what if we don't want to?" she asked curiously. The look in her eyes told Wyatt she was merely challenging him, to see how he would respond to a question like that. But there was no big explanation, no big excuse. The answer was simple.
"Then you don't do it. You learn to control your power and you live with it like it didn't exist. Or, if you don't even want to do that, you can bind your powers, or even have them stripped. Being a witch is not about losing your free will." He then muttered, "Unless of course you're a Charmed One."
"What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
There was a short moment of silence before she asked another question. "How do you become a witch? Is it hereditary?"
"Most of the time. A witch might be born to two mortals, but that doesn't mean that the wicca gene doesn't exist somewhere in their ancestry."
"So someone in my family was a witch too?"
Wyatt nodded, giving her a small smile. She then asked, "Is everyone in your family a witch?"
"Pretty much," he said. "My dad's not, but he used to be a whitelighter, which is why I'm one too. I had an uncle that was mortal."
"What happened to him?"
Wyatt looked down at the sidewalk. "He died a couple months ago."
Carmen tightened her hold on his hand and rubbed his shoulder with her other hand as they walked. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "You must miss him."
There were many other reasons that his uncle Henry's death made him so sad. Aunt Paige hadn't left her house in weeks. And her children weren't doing much better. One of them had taken off shortly after it had happened. They hadn't seen her since. She was only eighteen.
"My mom died when I was little," Carmen said. "I was four. She was hit by a car."
Wyatt didn't know what to say. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. She continued to speak, "I don't remember much about her. I went poking through her jewelry box when I was twelve. My dad had never moved it from their dresser." She paused, reaching down to her neck and holding up the necklace she was wearing. "And I found this. Anytime I touch it, I get goosebumps thinking about her." She dropped the necklace back to her chest and took Wyatt's hand again. "My dad doesn't like to talk about her. Right after it happened, I remember him yelling anytime I asked. I know better now. It's too painful for him."
Wyatt nodded. "My aunt barely speak to anyone."
"It'll get better," she assured him. "She'll be all right."
They continued to walk, a companionable silence between them. And it wasn't until they'd gotten that silence that Wyatt began to sense something peculiar. He heard something...something behind them.
"Wait." He stopped, not releasing her hand. He turned, closing his eyes, trying to inhale the air around him. He could usually sense when evil was near. And right now the air wreaked of it.
"What is it?" she asked.
Wyatt's eyes were moving in all directions, trying to hunt out the source. And then he came face to face with an angry demon. Wyatt squinted an evil glare, preparing to vanquish the demon on the stop, but the demon shoved an athame into his side, knocking the wind out of him. His face pinched in pain, and he heard Carmen cry out.
He was then blown back off his feet by an energy ball, and hit the side of a brick building down in the alley. Wyatt lifted his head, found the demon with his eyes and squinted. The demon burst into flames, screaming in horror. And then he was gone.
"Wyatt," Carmen shouted, racing to him. She knelt down beside him. He looked down to see how bad the damage was. The athame was still stuck in his side. He grasped the handle, but she put her hands on top of his. "You can't pull it out. You'll bleed to death."
"Okay, good point." He hadn't want to yank it out anyway. It would have hurt like hell. He let out a shaky breath. "Okay, we need to go. Back to my parents' house," he grimaced, "so I can get patched up."
"Are you strong enough to orb?" Wyatt wasn't sure, but he'd have to try. His brother could come get him, but Chris was meant to be taking a witch to the hideout tonight too, and Wyatt knew if he called, Chris would come, possibly bringing the witch he was supposed to protect with him, effectively endangering her. And no one else in his family that could orb could hear his calls. Except for Paige, but...he shook his head.
"I'll make it."
There were tears on Carmen's face. Suddenly her lips were on his, and her hands tenderly touched his sweaty cheeks.
"Oh, isn't this touching?"
Their lips snapped apart. Wyatt looked up. There were more demons. Not just one, but five. Wyatt put his hand against the brick wall he was leaning against and shakily got to his feet Carmen helping him.
"You dare take me on?" Wyatt asked, his voice shaking.
The demon in front laughed. "Yes, because you seem so threatening right now." He stepped forward and gave Wyatt's shoulder a push. He lost his balance and tumbled back to the ground, jarring the athame still in his side. He cried out in pain.
"Twice blessed has been twice wounded," the demon said, still laughing. "This should be easy."
Wyatt looked up and squinted, willing his power to vanquish them all, but he only managed to vanquish one of them, and that small gesture had felt like it'd zapped all the energy he had left.
Her heard Carmen scream. Blearily he lifted his head and that cackling demon that had pushed him was holding her against his chest. "No," he whispered, his voice breaking. He got his arm underneath him. He was on his knees when it happened.
The demon took an athame and plunged it straight into her heart. She choked, her eyes wide in pain and fear. Adrenaline surged through Wyatt and he flew to his feet then. Rage swam in his veins and he squinted once more, all the demons bursting into flame at once as they disappeared from the world forever.
Wyatt ran forward, catching Carmen as she fell to the ground. Her body landed against the athame in his stomach, but he didn't feel the pain. "Carmen," he whispered. He grasped the handle of the athame in her chest and pulled it out without hesitation. She didn't even make a sound. He placed his hands over the wound, waiting for them to light up so she would heal.
"Wh...why?" He shook his hands, trying again. "No," he whispered, and then more audibly, "No, no! NO!" He kept trying, but nothing was happening.
Panting, Wyatt looked at her face. Her eyes were clouded, half open yet seeing nothing. He put a bloody hand to her face. His owns tears dropped onto her cheeks, making them look like hers, and he lost it, shaking uncontrollably.
His wrist rubbed up against something on her neck. The chain of her necklace. He wrapped his fingers around it and yanked, breaking the clasp. He held it in his fist, placing it against his chest. And he cried.
He cried until the adrenaline had left him, and the pain of his wounds returned. He slipped into the dirt as he lost consciousness, still holding her in his arms.