CHRISTOPHER CHANCE, JULIA THE WITCH, AND THE GUNFIGHT AT O.K. CORRAL

Author's note: In this story you will find references to two previous stories, "A Question of Tomorrow" in which Christopher Chance has an out-of-body experience that sends him to the 1920's, and "Broomtail" wherein Julia, the woman Chance mentions in "Lockdown" (Season 1, episode 6) but we never see, delivers a Halloween treat Chance will never forget. If you haven't read these stories, those references may be somewhat confusing.

CHAPTER ONE
San Francisco, California
2011

Chance stared gloomily at the monitor, waiting for Guerrero to return with take-out. They were between cases, it was raining cats and dogs, and he was bored out of his skull.

Rainwater sheeted from overflowing eaves filled with leaves blown in by nasty off-shore gusts, drenching the cracked sidewalk. It had been a bad year weather- and tectonic activity-wise. Tornadoes touched down in areas never before endangered, ferocious thunderstorms knocked out communications and flooded barren deserts. Earthquakes in greater number than anything recorded in the past decade set the earth trembling. Volcanoes erupted where no known volcanic activity existed. Rumor had it Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park now erupted from twenty to thirty minutes later or early. Sometimes not at all.

Rain San Franciscans could deal with, but earthquakes worried everyone. While mostly minor, they happened daily, sometimes several times in a single day. He could hear the low murmur of Ilsa on the phone, looking into having their aging warehouse home base retrofitted to withstand the all-too-frequent shocks. Then Julia Hastings' curvy form appeared in the security camera's monitor.

The last thing Chance needed was her popping back into his life.

He would never forget the night Julia took him flying. Not in a plane. It was Halloween eve - almost midnight. They collected her 'broom', Cedric she called it, at a mysterious stable somewhere in Golden Gate Park. Her broom looked like any average, ill-tempered dapple gray horse. They mounted up, riding double. Just as he was starting to enjoy himself, the damned horse launched itself into the sky and turned into…a flying broom.

She nearly gave him a heart attack with her wild practice flight over what she claimed was an obstacle course. Then she landed at the edge of a tangle-filled forest near the buffalo pasture and invited him into her family home to help hand out Halloween treats.

After that, things got a little hazy. He'd called Winston to come rescue him and was told to fuck off and go back to sleep. Maybe he had gone back to sleep. Or, maybe Julia led him down a twisting, curving jack-o-lantern lined path to, well, it looked like a gingerbread house, except it was the size of a condominium. Delicious aromas wafted from open windows made of spun sugar and licorice. The front door was a giant graham cracker. When someone opened it, he saw a huge black cauldron bubbling on the hearth and several black-clad women gathered at a table filling treat bags.

He recalled accepting a cup of mulled apple cider from someone. The next thing he remembered with any clarity was the sun peeping over the horizon. He was beside his car, kissing Julia goodbye, and trying to coax her up to his loft in the warehouse.

"Someday," she promised him. "I'll be in touch."

He hadn't seen her since then, almost a year ago. Following their…adventure in Golden Gate Park, she seemed to drop off the face of the earth.

He had already endured the frustration of unanswered phone calls and unreturned e-mails trying to contact her. He didn't intend to suffer through that again. When he couldn't locate the cottage where - he thought for certain - her family lived, nor the stable where she boarded her horse, her 'broom', ha ha, he decided he was better off letting this particular relationship die on the vine.

After all, it wasn't as if she really were the nice, normal, bookish girl he believed she was when they met. Granted she hadn't been kidnapped, he didn't have to pull her from a burning building nor dodge knives or bullets she was aiming at him, but this nice, normal, bookish girl suffered from the delusion that she was a witch. And whatever was in the mulled cider he shared with her and her aunts and her sisters had almost convinced him she indeed was one. What besides witchcraft turned a cranky dapple gray stallion into a flying broom?

A woman who made a man believe that could happen was just too dangerous.

He was about to jump on the elevator, meet her at the door, and send her on her merry way when the security camera showed Guerrero arriving, half buried under the bags and boxes he was balancing. As he freed one finger to punch in the lock-release code, the parcels leaped like startled cats from his grasp and scattered in every direction.

Julia, laughing, helped pick everything up, piled the parcels in Guerrero's arms, and followed him into the building. Moments later the elevator door slid open.

"Someone to see you, Dude," Guerrero said. He headed for the kitchen, dripping water with every stride.

Chance waited, spine rigid, arms locked behind him. Julia pushed back the hood of her leopard-print cape, letting her glorious mane of frizzy red hair spill free. She looked like Bette Midler, made up for "Gypsy". He'd always had a thing for Bette Midler.

She crossed the reception area to greet him. "Christopher! It's so wonderful to see you again!" She stood on tiptoe to deliver a peck on the cheek.

"Seems like forever," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "What's it been, a year?"

"Not quite. Did you miss me?"

"How's Cedric?"

"Oh, he's doing splendidly. I took him with me, of course, and we had any number of wonderful rides. I won three more races with him." She paused and took a step back. "You look upset. You did get my message, didn't you? That I was returning to school and would be away for a time? I'm an adept now. Full fledged."

There she went with that damned witch nonsense again. He'd received a card from her, well, he supposed it was from her, a week or so after their 'date'. He'd thrown it away, unopened.

"No," Chance said. "I'm not upset."

"Good. Because I need to hire you. I have a mission to undertake and I'll need a bodyguard and - "

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry. I can't help you, Julia. We don't have anyone free to take your case. I can call a colleague who might be available-"

"Oh, but I can't use your colleague. It has to be you." She studied him with a questioning tilt to her head. "Maybe, since this will be somewhat beyond the ordinary get-me-there, get-me-home-safe assignment a bodyguard usually undertakes, my…sorority can pay a little more than your customary fee, if that's what the problem is."

"Sorority."

"Yes. Coven if you prefer the more archaic term."

He didn't.

He had forgotten just how much he liked Julia. That he more than liked her. She had no idea how sexy she was, how good she smelled. How delicious she tasted when he kissed her. With her so close, his recollection was returning full force. And it only spelled trouble - to borrow a witchcraft term. He reminded himself he'd made up his mind to sweep her - and her broom - out of his life.

When he didn't reply, Julia looked down at the floor where, oddly, no rainwater had dripped of her cape and made puddles. She plucked at one gold button.

"You haven't even listened to what I need you to do. At least you could hear me out."

The gold button twinkled. Then, despite commanding his tongue and lips to freeze in place, Chance heard himself say, "C'mon in the conference room."

He drew out a chair and watched Julia settle into it, graceful as a well-fed tabby claiming a silken pillow. He dragged out a second chair, spun it around, and straddled it.

Arms folded atop the backrest, he said, "Okay, tell me what's so special about this particular job and why it has to be me."

"We'll be going back to 1881."

When he finished laughing, Chance said, "That's ridiculous. No one can travel through time."

"No?"

"No."

"So when you met Nikola Tesla, that was something your imagination manufactured?"

Chance stared at her. Thinking he'd dreamed it all was easier than accepting what the evidence - a hand-written note and a jar filled with coins dating 1925 or earlier - indicated was true. He rarely spoke about the incident that seemed to have thrown his consciousness back to the 1920s. Who'd believe it?

"How did you know - I never told you about that."

"We witches have our ways."

He raked his fingers through his hair. This was just too weird. "Why do you need a bodyguard? Can't you sort of…woo woo," he made circling motions with his fingers, "and…hex anyone threatening you?"

Julia glared. "I ought to 'woo woo' you, Christopher Chance. Let me remind you, we are speaking of the 1880s. A mere hundred and ninety years after the Salem witchcraft trials. What good does it do to hex someone only to have superstitious townsfolk burn you at the stake? Besides, hexes take too long to work. And in 1881, ladies did not travel the countryside or even around town without an escort."

A mere hundred and ninety years. As if she were saying a hundred and ninety days. Just how old was she, Chance suddenly wondered.

Knowing he probably wouldn't like the answer, he asked, "And why is 1881 our target date?"

"Because that was the year Wyatt Earp was shot to death in the gunfight at O.K. Corral."