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In a quiet little white van parked just outside the Lair house, a bored technician yawned. This was, he thought to himself, arguably the most boring detail available to any technician on the system. Although not the worst, (there were several open hell-pits that were more unpleasant) it was probably one of the most boring for one simple reason.
Nothing happened.
Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year and the most exciting thing that happened was seeing the Lair family put up their Christmas decorations. He looked over to his partner, a dour man with sombre blond hair and long narrow face. Apparently he was happy to have a dull assignment. Probably gave him an excuse to sleep through the night and claim he was working at the same time. Or maybe it was just a strong desire to avoid having to actually do anything. It was probably the same thing out here.
Slowly, but surely, he began to doze. His eyelids grew heavy and his concentration drifted away.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Several monitors flashed on at once and with a start, the young technician suddenly jumped up, his heart beating very, very fast.
"What the hell was that!?" he asked as the monitors went silent and his partner gave him a long look.
"It was a very sharp spike in magical activity," he replied dryly. "It seems like someone has just had magical powers woken up."
"Powers woken up!?" the young technician exclaimed in shock. "B-b-but that can only mean demon magic right? I mean, there's nothing else that's magical in this house, is there?"
"We'll see," his partner said dryly and the younger man stared at him in disbelief.
"B-b-b-"
"But nothing," the older man said forcefully. "We don't rush in and make a big deal of this."
"There could be a demon in there!" the younger man exclaimed and the older man rolled his eyes.
"Even if there was, there's nothing of interest for it in there. It's not worth kicking off until it has something to kick off about. Understand?"
"B-"
"Kid, just send the damn report," the older man said wearily.
Grumbling under his breath about stuffy old men, the younger man sent the report and turned to face the older man.
"So now what?" he asked and the older man smirked.
"Now, we wait," he said dryly and the younger man rolled his eyes.
W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H.
"Typical," Ralulash grumbled as he slowly edged inside the Lair household. "Absolutely typical." He gave a quick glance at the two other members of his team. In theory they would prevent him being damaged by any unfortunate demon outburst. In theory. In practise…he had his doubts.
It wasn't that Chadra and her wolf friend had ever let him down before (the most he had come to any harm on a mission with them was when he stubbed his toe on a lamp) but like all Djinn, he liked to think the worse. Especially when he thought about the Fixed as the Djinn liked to refer to any species that couldn't shape-shift.
Fortunately for him, he was currently in the shape of a spider and was effectively invisible against the dark night time walls. True, the eight legs were a bit of a handful and the urge to start spinning a web in a corner was annoying, but it worked.
Ralulash crept upstairs as quickly as his small body would let him, crawling up the walls with practised ease, grumbling all the way of course. Fortunately for him, spiders talk in ways that are all but unreadable to humans and certainly no ordinary person would look twice at.
When he reached the ceiling, he began spinning a web in a corner. Spin, weave, and spin. Under normal circumstances, he'd actually be embarrassed by his actions. Losing control of yourself when in a different form showed a lack of self control as far as most Djinn were concerned, rather equivalent to wetting yourself. He continued like this for some time until suddenly he was bathed in light and suddenly became aware of what he was doing. If spiders could blush, Ralulash would have. Instead, he settled for an embarrassed fume as he watched a sleepy human adult stumble out to the toilet. Now he was more alert, he could see the faint trails of magic lining the house.
"What happened there Ralulash?" he suddenly heard over the telepathic link between him and his team. He quickly pulled his mind back on track.
"I walked into some pretty powerful magic," he replied, keeping his voice cold and level. "There's some serious redirection magic in this house."
"How serious?" he heard one of them ask and he sent them a telepathic shrug.
"Serious enough to give me a little bother. It's not lethal though," he replied nonchantly.
"How bad is it?" he heard one of them ask and not for the first time he wished that telepathic connections came with actual voices and not bland thoughts. At least with voices he could blast the unfortunate recipient with a suitably angry reply. Instead, all he could do was give a sarcastic retort and hope that they would actually get it. In the end, he settled for kicking the wall. Anything else would have meant giving away what happened and embarrassing himself.
"It's a high level distraction field," he said after a long pause. "It looks like…" he squinted at the magical trails. "It looks Candracarian in origin."
"Can you repeat that? Did you say…Candracarian?" a voice asked and if he could roll his eight compound eyes, Ralulash would have. As it was, he settled for sarcasm.
"No, I said bloody pink fairies," he said, regretting even harder that telepathic conversations only had bland tones. "Yes, definitely Candracarian. It's far too subtle to be demon-based and it's entirely none-lethal. Who else do you know has that kind of subtlety and operates on Earth?"
"Understood," a voice replied and Ralulash mentally smirked. He could almost hear the embarrassment. Well, not exactly hear, but he could guess at any rate. He continued walking along the ceiling and closed in on the active power source they had detected. He climbed into the room and looked down at the sleeping human beneath him. Spider eyes lacked the level of focus really needed to observe the differences between humans, but fortunately for him, they certainly could spot the different types of magic And this human positively glowed with it.
"I have located the source of that magical outburst," he said telepathically. "This appears to be the home of a newly activated Guardian. Specifically the latest Water Guardian. She probably doesn't even know about it yet," he paused and chuckled to himself. "Hope it works out better for her than it did for the last person to hold the post," he added to himself.
As he crawled back to the two other members of his team, he amused himself with the number of curses they must be saying at this news. The Agency had experience with Candracar and it's Guardians, but the two seldom became involved with one another. But if there was one thing that DID get in the way of the Agency's monitoring abilities, it was the presence of extremely powerful magical individuals living in the same building as their observed people. It really made a mess of their observations and equipment. Fortunately it wasn't really his problem.