CHAPTER 2

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Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Thing One and Thing Two.

Frick and Frack.

'Yeah,' thought Becca, trying to steady her heartbeat. 'I like Frick and Frack.'

In the alley Becca watched the men walk in. Frick was her height, about five-six, with long blonde hair in a ponytail down his back. His brown trench coat should have been a black leather jacket. Frack was much taller, easily six-three, and where his companion had an abundance of hair Frack's bald head shone in the sunlight. Had she not seen them on the sidewalk together, staring at her in that way only demons could, she never would have spared either a second glance. Up close, she could see two similarities they shared- rough hands and dead eyes.

Becca straightened her shoulders and took a few deep breaths. She might be out-numbered, but she knew they wouldn't hurt her. That didn't mean she wanted them to see her knees shaking.

"You're to come with us," growled Frack and Becca nearly jumped, but made her voice steady almost bored, when she replied.

"Why, do you have candy? Otherwise, I'm not really interested."

"Your father demands a meeting with you. Now," Frack barked even louder taking a few steps towards her.

Could demons sense erratic heartbeats? Could they see her heart jumping out of her chest?

"My father can make all the demands he wants, but I will not attend any meetings with him and I'm not going anywhere with you," she raised her voice to a shout in the hopes of scaring him a fraction of how much he'd scared her.

Apparently, loud noises don't scare off demons.

"Now, you can go and tell my father to stop sending his goons after me. It didn't frighten me when I was a kid and it doesn't frighten me now!" Becca silently consented that this was the biggest lie she had ever told.

"Listen, you spoiled brat," Frack snarled and Becca forgot her fear long enough to scoff, "we're taking you to the Underworld whether you go willingly or fight every step of the way. Personally, I hope you try to fight us."

Becca was listening to Frack but she was watching Frick. Since entering this dead end he hadn't said a word. He hadn't advanced on Becca and taken her by force. She quickly recognized she was more afraid of this wannabe biker than of the ungentle giant who had been making continuous demands of her.

'Maybe he can't talk,' Becca silently considered, 'or maybe it's just his job to stand there and look menacing.'

Becca thought he deserved a raise.

Enough was enough. She was having a perfectly wretched day before these two had shown up, and if she wanted to get out of the alley she knew she had to end their little discussion. Reasoning with them wouldn't help, and falling to her knees and begging for her life just wasn't an option. Not only would it simply not work but Becca had decided long ago that she wanted to meet death standing.

Becca mentally shook herself. She was not going to die. Frick and Frack were certainly not going to be the ones to kill her. Demons may think little of human lives but they put a great deal of value on their own. All she had to do was stick to the plan- make enough threats that these bottom-feeders would allow her to walk away.

"What are gonna do to me, huh? Hit me with a fireball?" her eyes glistened with challenge, 'oh, but you can't, can you? You two are just lower level demons. My father's lackeys," she made a taunting laugh, "his little pets, and he keep you on a pretty short leash, doesn't he?"

Frack was visibly shaking with anger, but it was Frick's reaction- a swift tightening of his right hand into a fist and releasing it- that gave Becca the courage to keep going. Her father wouldn't have sent just any demon- oh no, he needed a lackey with self-control. Without it anything could happen to his little girl. More importantly, his plans could be jeopardized.

Becca could tell that the demons in front of her had already been told what would happen to them if they deviated from the boss' orders. They would do as they were told, like a well-trained golden retriever.

She started to smile an arrogant smile that the car thief she had been would have recognized. She was going to get away. They couldn't risk losing their tempers and harming her. She shifted her attention to the voice entering the alley, and felt all her courage drain into a puddle at her feet.

"Don't mean to interrupt, but I'm talking my friend here home."

Not Henry. Anyone but Henry.

Becca wanted to close her eyes and count to ten- a sure way to dispel any nightmare. But this wasn't a nightmare, and she knew Henry wouldn't leave her. She had to make him leave that godforsaken alley.

"Listen buddy, I'm not your friend. Now if you'll excuse us, my associates and I are in the middle of a business transaction, so get the hell outta here!" She made her voice defiant and heated.

Let him think she was back into drugs. She had experimented when she was much younger, but had gotten clean months before she was even arrested for that ill-fated car boost. Henry knew all this, but after the last twenty-four hours it wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities that she'd want something to take the edge off. Not probable, but not impossible. Becca now regretted telling Henry the truth about getting clean. About ten minutes after she hit puberty she woke up after a hard night of partying that she didn't remember and had nearly tripped over her friend's brother's cold dead body. She had never needed twelve steps to kick her habit.

Let him think he walked in on a drug deal. She would rather lose his faith in her than keep him in her personal hell one moment longer.

'Let me fool him,' she prayed, 'let me fool him just this once.'

Her old warden's face stayed impassive.

"Let's go Rebecca."

The young woman silently let out a slew of swear words that would have made a sailor faint. Of course, he wouldn't leave her there. No matter how she had played it Henry would try to save her. It had nothing to do with his job, but with who he was- he simply couldn't walk away. Out of nowhere one of the few memories of her mother floated to the surface. She had told a story that had reminded Becca of Henry. The memories were always faded and the story itself was cloudy. Something about angels without wings who did nothing but save people from evil. People who had something to do with light. Henry would be good at that.

Their earlier conversation pushed thoughts of her mother out of her head. Henry was a husband and father. His son was going to play football in southern California. Henry would want to drive down to watch a couple games. He'd want to be there to cheer on his oldest child. What about the twins? Didn't Henry strike Becca as the kind of dad to wait up for all his children to get home from their dates? Of course, he did. Becca could imagine Henry grilling his middle child, his little punk rocker, about 'the guy on the motorcycle'. What would happen to his kids if they lost him? Becca forgot about putting on a brave front and began to shake. Those kids needed their father. They deserved to have him in their lives. Tears formed in the conflicted woman's eyes. How could she tell Paige that she was the reason Henry was dead? What plausible story could she concoct to explain away what really happened? The truth was out of the question, it would only put her and her family in danger. That's why Becca had never confessed the sins of her father to Henry.

She had to get him out of that alley, but before she could Frack spoke up.

"You heard her. We have business, so walk away before we make you crawl away," his body language reinforcing the threat.

"I don't want any trouble. I'll leave right now," he said easily, putting his hands up, "but my friend's coming with me."

The dawning realization was easy to see on Frick's face. The blonde biker could see the distance between his objective and the intruder. Becca had no psychic abilities, but she knew what he was thinking- Becca had immunity that Henry did not.

Sure enough, Frick created a fireball in his hand and Becca could see the surprise register on Henry's face. As the demon launched his weapon Becca made the unconscious decision to react.

Everything went black.

Henry couldn't have known what was coming when he entered that alley. Later his family would use this as a mantra, saying it over and over again, with the wish that he'd feel better. One day, he might forgive himself, but when he saw that fireball it wasn't just surprise he felt but recognition. Feeling like an imbecile he spared a single glance around the blind alley to locate cover for himself and his young friend. He would always regret that single glance. Had he kept his eyes on what he now knew were demons he would have seen the fireball being blasted his way.

Incredibly, impossibly, he wasn't hit. Before his brain could process this information he realized Becca was falling right in front of him.

Henry forgot the demons. It didn't occur to him what his magical family would say to ignoring fireball-wielding fiends. Becca had been hit with the fireball that was aimed at him. He couldn't understand how she had been injured being so far away just moments ago. His brain refused to make the connection. His attention was on the unconscious bleeding woman in his arms, so he missed the demons' exit. He still wouldn't have realized the significance of their departure.

Anyone else would have called an ambulance, but Henry called out for his wife.

Blue lights suddenly materialized, and there stood the love of his life. Her dark hair was lightly peppered with gray, although less than Henry's own hair was, and the laugh lines around her eyes had deepen through the years, but she was still his Paige. And right now, he needed her.

"Henry, what-"

"Paige, you have to heal her. Please," desperation made his voice shake, "there were demons and they attacked with a fireball and she got hit…"

Paige looked into her husband's face. She wasn't empathic like her sister and niece but after so many years of marriage she could nearly feel her husband's pain. His agony was over-whelming.

"Henry, I can heal her, but I need to know what happened. Do you know her name?"

"Rebecca Sawyer. Paige, its Becca."

Of course, Paige knew the name. Henry always talked about his work with his wife. The long hours and mind-numbing paperwork. The laughter and the tears. The failures and the successes. This fragile-looking woman, bleeding away her life force among the vermin and the garbage, was Henry's greatest success. The unhappy child who had transformed herself into a confident woman. Henry had seen pain before, but his suffering was now understood.

Paige remembered the night her husband had come to her asking her about adoption. Their son had just started middle school and the girls had ended an unusual vicious fight with each other by declaring as a united front that they no longer wanted to be twins. She knew the look she sent her husband wasn't encouraging, but he forged ahead claiming it would only be for a few months. That was the night she learned about Rebecca Sawyer. She had heard the name dozens of times and heard even more stories involving the teenager. Rumor had it, that the young woman's foster parents were thinking of moving out of state. He was afraid if the young girl on the cusp of womanhood was forced into another home she didn't want she'd choose to live on the street. He informed Paige that Becca had already made that choice once, and he feared all the progress the child had made to grow up would be tossed away. It had broken Paige's heart to remind him of the dangers in their lives. Their children had grown up with the dangers, so they knew the drills and the contingency plans, but young Rebecca wouldn't. If the point was to keep her safe could they bring her into their lives when she knew only of good versus evil from movies and books? Henry couldn't guarantee that Becca would understand their lives. After hours of discussion they decided that they wouldn't make any life-changing decisions until Henry had spoken to the foster parents. The foster couple did indeed plan to move away, but since they had four other foster children in their care, all of whom were still in school, they were putting the house on the market as soon as possible, but not moving until the children were out of school, which would be months after Becca's eighteenth birthday.

Paige looked at the young woman's pale face, who had circumstances been different, could have been her daughter.

"Henry, tell me everything that happened. Start at the beginning. Did she ask you to meet her here?"

"No," he stated, his eyes transfixed on Paige's hands as they rested on Becca shoulder, where the most damage had been inflicted. The well-known light of healing had Henry audibly release the breath he hadn't known he had been holding.

This had to work.

"Were you two meeting at the bakery?" prompted Paige. She had been healing for so long that she could concentrate on both the innocent and her husband. Besides, she knew her husband well enough to know he had to keep talking to handle the pain.

It may have been Becca hemorrhaging on the asphalt, but that didn't mean Henry wasn't bleeding. Paige loved him and knew he could handle the emotional anguish if he had something else to focus his energy on.

"I saw her walking down the street. She looked so lost…" he began to replay the last few hours, but after a few moments of healing and story-telling Paige opened her eyes with confusion.

"Did it work?"

Paige didn't know what to say. It hadn't worked, and she had a sinking suspicion that she knew why.

"What were the demons doing? Were they attacking her?"

"No, Paige why isn't she healed?" Henry could see the wound as big as his fist had stopped bleeding but hadn't closed, and Becca wasn't waking up.

"Were they threatening her? Was she afraid or trying to run away when they hit her?"

"No, damn it; tell me what's going on!" Henry rarely yelled at anyone, especially his wife.

"I can't heal her completely," she replied, simply, not knowing how she would answer the questions already forming on his lips.

"What does that means? Why not? Are you all right? Are your powers acting up?" His questions were being shot out faster than bullets.

"My powers are fine. It's not that-"

"Paige, you can't give up on her," the fight had left him, and his anguish cut Paige like a knife.

"You know me, Henry I 'm not giving up. I've stopped the hemorrhaging and stabilized her, but I can't close the wound. Before you ask me why, I think it has something to do with why she was in this alley. What can you tell me about the demons?" she asked, gently.

"Just that the one with the ponytail threw a fireball at me and Becca jumped in the way."

Paige's jaw dropped.

"She intentionally pushed you out of the way?" she questioned dubiously.

"Is that what I said," Henry snapped, his patience with wife at an end, "she was standing a few feet in front of the dumpster," he gestured about twelve feet away, "and the next thing I know she was falling covered in blood," his voice steadier, but still pained.

Paige digested the information. She only knew of one explanation, and it simply didn't add up. She thought about the endless stories she had heard over the years about young Becca and Henry's delight in her accomplishments. This innocent may not be an innocent after all, but that didn't change the fact that Henry was unharmed. Becca must have known the cost of saving her mentor.

Paige made a judgment call.

"We'll have to take her to the manor, and hope Wyatt can do more than I could. You and I can talk more then."

Henry saw the worry and uncertainty, and couldn't comprehend his wife's reluctance. It had been years since he'd felt left out of her life, being mortal and unable to magically save the day, but he knew his wife was keeping something from him. Once Becca was on the mend, fully and completely, Henry would demand the answers he was entitled to. He took his wife's hand, and they both held on to Becca as the familiar blue orbs floated around them and carried them away.