This story is one of the first ones that I have published in many years, I apologize to anyone that followed and has been disappointed in a lack of content recently. I hope that I am a better writer now than I was and that all of you enjoy this entry.
If any of you have read the Drake sisters novels and the Sisters of the Heart books by Christine Feehan the story takes the characters of the Drake sisters' children and has them come into contact with Chris and Melinda Halliwell. Its AU in that it's the future after Chris fixed the past, but not necessarily a much better place other than Wyatt being inherently good rather than inherently evil.
If you have questions about the new characters please ask! I would much rather answer than leave people frustrated and confused.
Melinda pulled up behind the club and killed the engine. Today was the day, the soft opening had gone really well and now she just needed the grand opening to go even better. She needed the club packed with people; people who would be drinking, dancing and having the best night of their lives. People who would spend money and help get her well-meaning cousins off her back.
Mel knew that she had taken a huge risk in moving to Sea Haven and opening her own club. P3 was still doing really well and she could have continued to manage it, continued to follow an easy path. But, San Francisco hadn't felt like home since Piper had died and P3 was more a monument to her in Melinda's mind than a business. She needed something new and fresh to take her mind off the bad luck, sorrow, and pain that seemed to follow her everywhere. She had left P3 in the very capable hands of her cousin Primrose and traveled north. There had been several properties that she had looked at but, this old club and town had pulled at her the most. Added to it that there were already dominant families meant that she could for once fade into the background where she wanted to be.
Melinda opened the back door and stepped into her club. Speakeasy to Me was both a salute to the speakeasy the family had run in the 1920s and to Sea Haven's once dubious past as a smuggling route. Melinda left the door open for Camille when she came in later and walked through making sure everything was in place, the bar was fully stocked, the kitchen had everything it needed for the small dishes she offered and the band area had all the equipment for the band that night. The brass features sparkled, the glass behind the bar shone, and the leather seats of the booths and stools was freshly polished. She had gone for a 1920s vibe, which at nearly a 100 years old was coming back into style.
She was on the phone and doubling checking with the band that they would be there by 5 to set up and run a sound check when Cami came in. Camille Drake was the 3rd of the 7 daughters of Elle and Jackson Drake, and Melinda couldn't quite put her finger on what bothered her about Camille, but she was a damn good cook. Melinda knew that there was a great deal more to the whole family than people let on, but no one was ready to open up to her just yet.
Cami had her blonde hair bundled up in a knot, her chocolate colored eyes taking in the club as she scanned for Melinda. Spotting her, Camille smiled and walked over and Melinda hung up.
"The band on their way?" she asked.
"Yeah, they have all the people and all their instruments, a set list, and are ready to rock. We shouldn't have any issues where they are concerned. I'm a little worried that we will run out of vodka though, do you think I should run to the store, maybe grab some more?" Melinda pushed a hand through her long brown hair, the brow above her green eyes deeply etched in stress and worry.
"Mellie, sit," Camille gently guided her to a stool and pushed her into it. "Take a deep breath, we know that we have plenty of everything. Everyone in town is very excited that you took this old place and made it new and better."
Melinda laughed, "Not all of them. Some were hoping the big city girl would fall flat on her face and give up." She sighed and looked around, "They don't understand that I refuse to give up. I'm going to make my mark as more than Piper's daughter and Wyatt's little sister."
Melinda popped up again and was about to launch into some new task when her phone beeped.
Chris had sent her a brief message:
Jumping a fire north of you, send blessings she's a big dragon. Love ya Pig.
Melinda quickly switched on the TV set behind the bar and went to the news.
"Did Chris get a fire?" Camille asked.
"Yeah, he's being sent here to California so it must be a bad one. The Zulies will jump in other states, but this season has kept him in Montana mostly." Melinda scanned the news looking for something about a wildfire in a California national park. "Chris mentioned that he can't remember a season that's already been this busy. I hope he doesn't get tired and do something stupid." Melinda glanced at the pictures that hung behind the bar, there was one of Piper behind the bar at P3, Melinda, Piper, Chris and Wyatt at home, and finally Melinda, Chris, and Wyatt behind the bar at P3.
Melinda tucked her hair back and deliberately turned off the news, Chris would text her when he was home safe and could be out there multiple days. Getting worked up about it was not going to help either of them.
"What made your brother want to jump out of a plane into wildfires anyway?" Camille started back to the kitchen and began prep for service as Melinda sat at a nearby counter and worked on paperwork.
"He's always wanted to fight fire, to help the forests and wildlife. This is the top of the game, and that's where he wanted to be. He started as a firefighter, moved to hotshot and now a smoke jumper. Makes me nervous all summer, and I wait for him to tell me he's alright after every jump but this is what makes Chris, well Chris. He wouldn't be the same if he did something else." Melinda again mentally wished him well, it was more than just dangerous that he was jumping out of planes; since Piper had died anything they did were they could get hurt was potentially life-threatening. Melinda mentally cursed herself for allowing even a glimmer of thought about her father to darken her big day, she resolutely put him out of her mind.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of setting up, welcoming the band and getting the staff ready. Soon after opening Melinda didn't have time to worry about Chris and the fire as she was running everywhere to make sure there were no problems here.
She spotted the rest of Camille's sisters sitting at one table and some of their many cousins floating through the crowd. Melinda couldn't recall another family she knew that had so many children. Camille was one of 7 girls and had an aunt that had 7 boys, and another aunt with 6 children. The Halliwells had always considered 3 each to be big.
Kyle the bartender was quickly filling a large order, Melinda swung up to the bar to grab it. She didn't trust her waitress, Nicole, to not drop it.
"Who's all this for?" She asked as she reached for the full tray.
"The Prakenskii boys, they all came in en masse after the Drake sisters. I'm lucky Nicole was smart enough to not take 14 orders at once and left it at 5. Even with two of the boys out of town this is going to be a bitch for her to lift." Kyle doubled checked the drinks and nodded to himself.
"Which is why I'm taking it, she'll just drop it and I'll have to start taking it out of her paycheck. I think at this point she owes me money for broken glassware and liquor."
"Be careful, those brothers run in a pack and are liable to get rowdy. Doesn't help their dad and most of their uncles are cops, they never get in real trouble."
Melinda smiled and hefted the tray, "Don't worry about me. I can handle anything those boys decide to dish out."
She worked her way through the crowd mentally checking that the tables were clean and people were enjoying themselves.
The Prakenskii brothers had gathered in a corner, the Drake sisters and the Harrington kids, who were also their cousins were all sitting nearby. Melinda scooted between tables and handed drinks to the right brothers as she called them out. Glancing around their little corner it seemed that they were all having a good time, ragging on each other and in the boys' case daring them to talk to various women in the room.
Melinda spoke to the oldest of the brothers Alexi, "You know I'm starting to think this whole town is pranking me that there are 7 of you since I've only ever seen you 5."
Alexi smiled and took his drink, "No worries Melinda, Brody and Gavin will be back from their assignment with the county soon enough. You'll probably be wishing that they had stayed away."
One of the Drake girls, Bethany if she remembered correctly, called out to her.
"Melinda, sit down for a minute. You must be running yourself ragged right now. Everything is going great and you deserve a quick break."
"Thanks, but I need to check on everyone, and make sure the band has water and stuff." Melinda smiled at them all and was turning to leave when Bethany stood up.
"Can you get us a round then? Nicole was too busy staring deeply into Nicolas's eyes to notice that she only got the boys' drinks." Bethany gave a quick shrug and smiled. "I didn't want to interrupt since Nicolas was having such a good time."
The remark brought a quick round of laughter and Nicolas threw his napkin at her.
"Sure, what do you guys want?" Melinda quickly took the orders, ignored two more attempts to get her to sit down and hurried back to the bar.
The rest of the night progressed in much the same way. Melinda kept drinks flowing, the band was hot, and the dance floor packed. Various Drakes tried to get her to take a break, but she mostly ignored them and plowed through the nerves and exhaustion and allowed the joy that was breaking through to power her.
Melinda found herself around 4am sitting on a barstool and drinking water with Camille and as the last of the staff left after setting the club mostly to rights.
"Be proud," Camille advised as she rubbed her feet and drank her own water. "4am for Sea Haven is basically unheard of. This is a small town in Northern California and I feel like I lived in LA for a night."
"Haha, LA is still partying believe me. But this was really good, I am both incredibly happy and tired that we managed to pull this off. Even with your sisters trying to get me to sit down every 10 minutes."
Camille smiled, "They worry about you working too much, and I think they wouldn't as much if you didn't live here by yourself. If it makes you feel better they totally came into the kitchen to see if I needed a break too."
Melinda turned as the door opened, but relaxed when she saw it was just Andrei Prakenskii the second oldest of the brothers in his deputy's uniform.
"Hey Cami," he walked over to them and sat next to Camille. "Your mom asked me to come by after you had closed and see if you wanted a ride home instead of driving."
"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Camille asked.
"Yeah, but part of being a sheriff's deputy is making sure all the businesses are good and locked up." Andrei smiled at her, his blue eyes twinkling as Camille rolled hers. "You know your mom is worried about you managing the switchbacks over the coast after working so late."
"Fine," Camille grabbed her bag and stood up. "It's going to be easier for me to agree and go with you rather than fight my mom on this. Bye, Melinda, have a good rest of the night."
"A wise move," Andrei said as he stood as well. "Melinda, I can give you a ride too, it's not out of the way."
"But, then I would not have a ride back to my car. It's just easier to drive myself. If I get too tired I'll call my cousin she'll be getting ready to close her club right now too." Melinda waved at both of them and packed up her purse.
As she locked the back door and headed to her car and shiver went down her spine. Melinda quickly shoved her keys into her back pocket to keep her hands free and focused her senses. She hadn't been bothered by demons since she moved, but that by no means meant that they would be leaving her alone.
After a few moments of listening, and watching the shadows Melinda headed to her car. She rolled her shoulders and tried to relax as she drove home, but couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
She didn't look up as she walked inside the house, and missed the dense fog almost like smoke that covered the moon, blocking its light.
Chris chugged water from his bottle as he squinted into the smoke that surrounded him. Normally, he enjoyed himself as he fought fire and could see that they were coming out on top. But all season there had been one big fire after another and the team had dealt with serious problems nearly every jump.
Equipment malfunctioning, or not working at all, people getting sick or hurt, fire seeming to snap back to life after being put down. Chris used his bandana to wipe more sweat from his face and prayed that this one would be done soon.
"Hey Surfer," the job boss called his nickname over the sound of men working and fire roaring in the background. "Come here, we need to think of a new plan of attack."
Chris trudged over to Mike and waited to be told what the new plan was.
"Ok Surfer, you and Zane are going to walk the line and put out anything that she decided to spit out in front and to the sides. Make sure you stamp out every little ember, we need to be putting her down and out. Once you walk it out, meet up with the pump line and soak everything in front of us, hopefully we can take a quick break." Chris nodded as Mike talked and looked on the map following the line and where the pump would be. The two men shook hands and broke apart, there was still quite a lot of work to do.
Chris grabbed his pike and shovel and motioned to Zane to follow him.
"We're walking the line and putting out all the embers, make sure we get everything," Chris spoke quickly and was already walking as Zane grabbed his gear and followed him.
Chris and Zane worked for a while before Chris realized what the itch down his back was from. It was quiet, too quiet. He had jumped fire with Zane for 3 years now, the man literally whistled as he worked, the men had nicknamed him Happy the previous years. But this season, and particularly today there wasn't a sound to be heard from him.
Chris straightened from where he had been examining a small spot that he has stamped out and studied Zane from a distance. The man had been off all season and hadn't been talking to anyone like he normally did.
"Hey," Chris called out, waiting until Zane had turned and was looking at him. "How's your girl doing? I haven't heard you bring her up all season."
"Girl?" Zane questioned. Chris noticed that he didn't sound right, and tensed as Zane started walking toward him.
"Yeah, Sarah. You mentioned last summer that you were thinking of proposing, did you?" Chris shifted his stance just enough that he could block a hit if Zane struck out at him. He was frantically trying to think of what Zane was reminding him of. Or who.
"Oh, Halliwell. That girl is long gone, mortals can be so tiring don't you think." Zane continued to walk closer, a strange and sinister smile stretching over his face.
"What are you talking about Zane?" Chris looked for something, anything to hit him with. He didn't want to use his powers with all the others so close, he didn't want the Cleaners to get involved. It suddenly came to him what Zane had been reminding him of, only demons ever said Halliwell with that combination of fear and loathing.
"What? How? You're human, I know you are!" Chris started walking backward much faster.
Zane hefted his pike and threw it with an accuracy and force that could not be attained by a mortal, it struck Chris high in his left shoulder and took him to the ground. Swearing heavily, Chris tried to pull it free but it was lodged too deeply and the angle wasn't good. Zane stepped over him and easily reached down and pulled the pike up.
"I've waited quite a long time to kill another Halliwell, somehow having to make your mother's death look like a mortal burglar did it took some of the fun out of it. This time I'll have to claim it as my own work." Zane swung down and hit Chris over his right knee laughing as Chris screamed in pain. Chris attempted to roll away, to roll anywhere away from the laughing madman that he was trapped with in a burning wilderness. He couldn't even call out to his family because if they landed wrong they could be burned in the fire.
"You couldn't have killed my mom, you're younger than me." Chris made it to a halfway sitting position and stared down his attacker.
"Do you really think this is the real Zane? I needed to get close to you, all the Underworld knows that Halliwells have some sort of trigger for danger coming at them. Here you would think it was anything but your friend, you wouldn't think to be watching your own back." The man allowed his eyes to turn black, showing his true self. A possessor demon, something that could take over the body of almost anyone.
"You see I'm going to be the demon that takes out all of you new little demon fighters, did you think that you could really beat us? The Charmed Ones couldn't defeat us so how could Piper's second son that everyone knows is weaker than Wyatt? You should have put up more of a fight really, oh well." The demon hefted the pike again, and Chris used that moment where the demon was distracted to fling his arm out, throwing the body of his friend, and hopefully the spirit of the demon into the fire.
"And you should've have known it wasn't going to actually be that easy" Chris panted from his prone position. The effort of using his telekinesis combined with the blood loss almost made him pass out, he forced himself to stay aware. The fire was still burning, he could not afford to lose consciousness and be hurt even worse. He also needed to stay alive to warn his family, there was no guarantee that he had killed the demon.
He shut his eyes as the screams started and prayed that Zane was unaware of all that had happened. Chris wiped the tears and sweat from his face and forced himself to crawl/ drag himself to where his pack had fallen. He managed not to cry more as he pulled the radio out using his good arm, and ignoring the blood that pooled around him radioed Mike for help.
He had one last thought as he was strapped into the lift for the helicopter, Melinda was going to be pissed at him for getting this seriously injured.
I will try and update as soon as possible, but with the best writing I can manage as well.