Hey guys. I'm sorry. I know it's been such a long time. I think this was ready about five or six days ago, maybe a week, and was down, or my uploading capabilities were down, or something vaguely like that, so I couldn't post it and then didn't have time to upload it. But now I do! Chapter! Voila!
Chris paced the apartment, checking his watch and chewing on his fingernails. Where was Wyatt? He was supposed to be here by now. Angrily, the witch-whitelighter spun round and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, stalking across the apartment again. Wyatt had promised that he would be here on his lunch hour. Wyatt had promised that they would have enough time to investigate this thing in his lunch hour. It was beginning to look like they wouldn't. He wanted desperately to orb and do his own investigating, but he knew that Wyatt wouldn't like it. Wyatt had promised that he'd be here and Chris had promised that he wouldn't go orbing off to Canada. Although, Wyatt hadn't honoured his side of the agreement… Chris paused, considering that thought, but then suddenly seeing orbing lights appearing in the middle of the apartment.
"It's about time," the brunette snapped harshly, folding his arms as his brother formed fully. "What happened to 'We'll have enough time on my lunch hour'?"
Wyatt pulled a face and said bitterly, "There was a problem with the copier. They thought I could fix it and then it would save them the expense of calling an engineer." He spread his hands, revealing palms smeared with toner. "You know, I swear that fixing office equipment was not part of my contract. You'd think I'd want to be a mechanic and not a journalist, huh?"
"I have bad news," Chris informed his brother, brushing away Wyatt's complaints.
Wyatt's face fell and he groaned, running a hand over his eyes. "What are you recently, the Bad News Fairy? Don't you ever have anything good to tell me?"
"Hm…" Chris narrowed his eyes, contemplating Wyatt and pretending to think. "Well, I guess I could tell you that you don't look anywhere near as much of a pretentious jerk as I thought you would dressed up in your 'My First Day at the Office' clothes. Would that be classed as good news?"
Wyatt looked down at himself, and then back up at Chris. He straightened his jacket defensively. "Just tell me the bad news," he demanded tiredly. "I'll probably like it more after that."
"Our friends have already killed one witch, possibly even two. Meaning that they're moving faster than we thought they would and that we need to vanquish them pretty soon before they try again."
Wyatt didn't say anything, just looked past Chris at the wall behind his brother despairingly as he took it all in. Eventually, he said, "You know, I knew moving into the middle of a big city would mean a lot more hustle and bustle, but this is ridiculous. You're right; we've got to stop them." He paused. "Wow. Why has no one told me how lame that sounds before?"
Chris shrugged. "I guess there were so many other lame aspects about you they just never got round to mentioning that particular one," he deadpanned, nodding sympathetically.
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. "You're such a smart ass. You know what? I'm not gonna let these slide anymore." He stepped towards Chris.
The brunette smirked, his eyes glittering mischievously. "Canada, anyone?" he asked, jumping backwards as Wyatt lunged at him and then orbing out.
Wyatt stuck his tongue in his cheek in annoyance and, plotting all of the revenges he intended to inflict on his brother, hastily followed the brunette before Chris managed to employ his usual talent of getting into trouble.
Out On Our Own Now
When he reappeared, he was immediately aware of a cold damp seeping into his shoes. Looking down, he realised that he'd reappeared in a deep, mud-filled pothole. He screwed up his face into a pained expression and stepped out of the hole, shaking his feet to try and dislodge some of the water and mud. He looked up and discovered that they were on a long, poorly-maintained dirt road that extended behind him further than it was possible to determine because of a bend in the track. The road ended at the huge, double, wrought-iron gates in front of him, which dwarfed him despite his more-than-six-feet frame. They were set in a grey stone wall that ran in both directions as far as he could see.
"I guess we try the intercom?" Chris suggested uncertainly, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking around at the gloomy atmosphere. He nodded towards the speaker system on one of the gates' pillars. He walked up to it and pressed it with his thumb. Nothing happened. He looked over his shoulder at Wyatt and shrugged, leaning on the buzzer again. "So… I guess no one's home?"
"Who's there?" a sharp, female voice demanded from the speaker, making both of the brothers jump.
Wyatt nodded frantically, gesturing towards the intercom. Chris spread his hands wide and reached out, dragging his brother towards it and stabbing at it with his finger. Wyatt shook his head vigorously, shoving Chris's shoulder so that the brunette stumbled backwards.
"Hello?" the intercom demanded snippily.
Chris shoved Wyatt towards the intercom again, flicking his head frantically at it. Wyatt shook his head, setting his jaw. The blond flicked a wrist, telekinetically twisting Chris's arm up behind his back. Chris grimaced, crying out with silent pain and angrily using his free hand to employ some telekinesis of his own and yank at Wyatt's ear, dragging the blond towards the intercom by his earlobe. Wyatt caved first and released Chris's arm. Chris rubbed at it reproachfully, waiting a few extra, vengeful seconds before dropping his own hold on Wyatt.
"H-Hello?" Wyatt finally stuttered into the intercom. A woman's face suddenly appeared on the screen next to it. Iron grey hair was scraped back from her face and the head and shoulders that were visible on the screen appeared to be dressed in black, trimmed with black velvet.
"The reading of Mr. Hubert's will was last week," she informed them shortly, "and he didn't leave any money to stray vagabonds, rest assured. I suggest you leave before I call security."
Wyatt swallowed his anger and tried his best not to look affronted. He put on as calm a face as he could and said, as politely as he could muster, "We're journalists interested in doing a piece on Mr. Hubert for the Rochester—"
"I was Mr. Hubert's housekeeper for thirty-five years. He had no one else. He was a good, decent, kind man and would hate to be hounded at his gates by two teenagers eagerly awaiting their high school graduation. Now, there's a realtor coming soon. I'd appreciate it if you left before he arrives and starts deducting thousands from the property value at the sight of you." The screen went blank and the intercom went silent.
Chris cried out in pain as Wyatt punched his shoulder. Rubbing it angrily, he glared at his brother. "What was that for?" he demanded.
"For making me talk to her," Wyatt replied. "You know you can do the puppy dog thing and get anything you want out of a bitter, withered, 107-year-olds."
"Hey, you started it," Chris pointed out petulantly. "You twisted my arm first. You're just lucky I only grabbed your earlobe," he finished pointedly, narrowing his eyes at his brother. "It's also not my fault that you have a pain threshold a three-year-old girl would laugh at. Now, we didn't manage the honest route. Let's do some magical breaking and entering before I kill you." He dissolved into a cloud of orbs again, with Wyatt not far behind.
Out On Our Own Now
"Where are we?" Wyatt asked, peering through the semi-darkness. There were large, floor-to-ceiling windows at either end of the room but they were covered with heavy wooden shutters and only the smallest amount of light could peek through the chinks.
"Drawing room?" Chris tried uncertainly. "Rich people always have a drawing room, right?" He looked around at anonymous white mounds that had been furniture before dust sheets had been thrown on them. Silence hung oppressively around the room, and dust motes danced in the rare beams of light. A huge portrait dominated the area above the mantelpiece and Chris walked over and stared up at a man in a tall top hat and dressed with a Victorian manner.
"I don't think there's anything here that will be of any use…" Wyatt noted, peeking underneath a dustsheet at an ornate, wooden-frame, over-stuffed couch and then letting the sheet hide it again. "What's next door?" He jerked his head over to a polished, wooden-panelled door with a carved, brass doorknob. He crossed the room and peeked out, then started backwards, alarmed, slamming the door behind him. "Orb, orb, orb!" he hissed urgently, and both siblings broke into a million shimmering blue and white lights just as the door was wrenched open and the housekeeper looked inside intently.
Out On Our Own Now
"Should have gone with Door Number Two," Wyatt muttered to himself, shaking his head and trying to get his heart to slow down. He'd opened the door and found the housekeeper walking right towards him. She'd probably heard his and Chris's voices and gone to investigate.
Speaking of Chris… Wyatt looked behind him and found no trace of his brother. Cursing, the blond ran a hand through his hair and surveyed the room he was in. It was a bedroom. The shutters were closed in here, too, and he could just about make out a dominating, four-posted bed that would probably take up about half of his and Chris's apartment, let alone his bedroom. Garish orange phials of pills were set out in regimental rows on the nightstand and two empty glasses and an empty pitcher stood on a silver tray on an end table near the bed.
The blond casually strolled towards the side of the bed and picked up the pill bottles, examining the labels. A few were painkillers that he recognised, the rest were mostly undecipherable to anyone who wasn't a med school graduate. He walked around the bed and began opening the drawers in the nightstand aimlessly. The top two drawers had nothing in them that he wouldn't expect an old man to keep in his drawers, but the third one contained an enormous pile of papers that filled the entire drawer.
He frowned and reached down to fish a wad from the top of the pile out. He flicked through them quickly, holding various items of interest up to what little light there was. Most of them were medical and doctors' bills, all on headed hospital paper. Various treatments and courses leapt out at him, but they appeared before his eyes in the same jumbled string of letters as the names on the pill bottles.
He sighed, reflecting on what the last months of this man's life must have been like, being shunted from doctor to doctor, clinic to clinic, treatment to treatment… He stacked the papers as neatly as he could manage using his lap and put them back in the bottom drawer, sliding it closed and sitting down on the bed behind him. The mattress squeaked.
Under the bedside cabinet, he spotted the corner of what looked like a magazine poking out. Frowning, he leant down and dragged it out onto the carpet, his face clearing and then registering mild surprise when he discovered that it was the latest swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. Flipping quickly through the magazine he cracked a wide grin and nodded in approval. Suddenly catching a glimpse of his watch, he leapt up from the bed in a panic. He gave a quick salute of thanks with the folded magazine, shoved it in his back pocket, locked onto Chris and orbed.
Out On Our Own Now
"When I said 'Orb' I meant follow my lead," Wyatt said grumpily as he reappeared. "I didn't mean, 'Run off to another part of the house without me and get lost'. Just so you know in the future."
Chris rolled his eyes, not looking up from the old, thick tome that was open in front of him. He was surrounded in a pool of dim light thrown from a brass desk lamp with a translucent green shade and was studying the book intently. "My random orbing turned up something useful. What did yours turn up?" he asked.
Wyatt reached behind his back and pulled out the magazine proudly. "I found out that this old dude still had it in him, which…" He pulled a face, looking down at the magazine. "Is actually kind of creepy, now I think about it," he admitted.
Chris looked up from the book for the first time to take in the magazine. "You stole a dead guy's copy of Sports Illustrated?" he asked in disbelief. "Wow. I think we've just found a new moral low ground," the brunette ended dryly.
Wyatt pouted and shoved the magazine back into his pocket. "It's the swimsuit edition," he informed Chris defensively, sniffing and straightening his jacket. "So, my trusty sidekick," he finally said. "What have you got there?"
"A book," Chris replied vaguely, back to concentrating intently.
"Well, yeah," Wyatt duhed, looking around at the towering, dark wood shelves and the rolling ladder set up to run all of the way around the room. Marble busts took up some of the shelf space and the long work desk that Chris was sitting at took up the centre of the room. "It is a library." He sat down on an overstuffed armchair, releasing a cloud of dust into the dingy air. "Wow. She wasn't much of a housekeeper if this was the state in which she kept the house…" the blond noted distastefully, clearing his throat as the motes of dust tickled the back of his throat.
"It was right here on the table, though," Chris persisted, turning the page and frowning thoughtfully. "Not on the shelf. It's like someone's used it recently." He glanced up at Wyatt, then rolled his eyes to see his brother picking a clock made of a gold metal and glass and tipping it upside down to look at the bottom. "Are you going to put that in your pocket, too?" the brunette asked pointedly, evidently channelling his mother to such an extent that Wyatt physically jumped and nearly dropped the clock.
"I'm just looking. Jeez, Chris. No need to give me the third degree and slash or a coronary." He set the clock back down on the mantelpiece and then caught a look at the time on the face. "Crap!" he hissed, frantically ripping up his sleeve so he could check the time on his watch. "Crap!" he cursed again. "Oh my God. Lunch is done with. I've gotta get back."
"What? You can't bail now!" Chris yelled accusingly, getting to his feet. "This could be important! Could stop some major magical murders, you know? I'm gonna need more time to read this thing, but it's kind of like a family history book. Kind of. With magical references. I think this guy may have been a witch. Which explains why he was killed, right? They're going on a murderous rampage after male witches?"
Wyatt shook his head. "No. The guy was sick, Chris. I mean really, really sick. I ended up in his bedroom when I orbed. A million phials of pills, medical bills… Something killed him, but it wasn't this cult. Just a bunch of diseases and being old, I guess."
Something sparked behind Chris's eyes and the brunette snapped his fingers, pointing at Wyatt seemingly without realising that he was doing it. "So… he dies, the athame is released from his care, ends up in the museum, gets stolen and is used to kill people, right?" he summarised quickly, his words tumbling out of his mouth. "All within a week of his death. It sounds to me like your basic bloodline binding ritual to me. The athame had to have been safe all of these years, or it would have been stolen before now and used for murders, right? He didn't leave a direct heir, so there was no one in the bloodline to protect the athame anymore. That's how they stole it back."
"So they need their athame to do the killings… Does that mean if we find the athame, the killings will stop?" Wyatt asked.
Chris nodded, flipping over a page. "I think so, I mean— Oh." He paused, gnawing on his bottom lip as his eyes scanned the pages. "Yeah," he said quietly, his voice slightly shaky. "We need to find the athame. And quickly."
"What's the rush?" Wyatt asked concernedly, the change in Chris's demeanour worrying him. "What's going on?"
Chris moistened his lips with his tongue before speaking, then stared at his brother with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. Eventually, he swallowed and said, "We need to find the athame because, if they're doing what I think they're doing, then sticking the athame into the Twice Blessed witch is pretty high on their list of priorities. These murders? You're next."
Wyatt blinked, his mouth opening slightly in shock. He blew air out through his lips and ran a hand through his hair, his brain desperately trying to process the information that, at any second, he could be subject to kidnap which would probably lead to his murder.
Out On Our Own Now
"Okay, I'll see you at five," Wyatt told Chris as they appeared in their apartment, checking his watch frantically. "Well, five-ish. It depends if they find something else that they want me to fix," he added darkly, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
"What, you're going to work?!" Chris yelped in disbelief. "After I just predicted your murder sometime in the near future, you're going back to the office?"
"Chris, if eating is important to you then I've got to go back there. They pay me, remember? Besides, if any of these demons turn up, I'll blast them," he said nonchalantly, shrugging. "Okay? I'll be fine. Sit tight, quit channelling Mom, and when I get back we'll sort this. I promise." He clapped a hand onto Chris's shoulder, stared his baby brother in the eyes and then orbed out.
"Hey, wait!" Chris yelled to the departing orbs, but to no avail. He sighed in annoyance and looked down at the huge book he'd taken from the guy's house, which was still clutched in his arms. He figured that the guy wasn't going to need it anymore, and there was no way he was going to get time to read it with the housekeeper prowling around and poking her nose in everywhere, so he'd taken it with them. There had been useful stuff in there about this whole messy situation in it and all he had had time to do was take a quick glance through it, which wasn't going to help them solve it. Reading it in depth was.
After glaring once more at the space his departed brother had occupied, he sat down on the couch reluctantly and flipped open the book, flicking past pages so rapidly that they were a blur to try and find the place he'd been at just before they'd orbed out of the mansion. Suddenly, the pages turned unevenly and the brunette frowned, slowly turning back to the irregularity and finding a slip of paper torn from a notebook in there. Pulling it out, he looked it over and grinned, setting the book down on the coffee table and crossing to the kitchen, where he put their heaviest potion pot on the stove.
Out On Our Own Now
The explosion blinded him. A combination of the bright flash and the seemingly-noxious smoke blasting into his face rendered him temporarily sightless and he stepped backwards quickly, his eyes running, fanning at the air and choking.
"Hey. Wow. You know, when it smells like that, I think it's a sign you've cooked it too much," a wry voice said from the door, making Chris jump.
The witch-whitelighter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to calm his heartbeat down. When his vision cleared, he saw Parker standing at the doorway, grimacing at the fumes in the room. "Parker. What are you doing here?"
"Oh," he began, stuttering slightly at Chris's demanding question. He looked uncomfortable. "The door was unlocked. Um, me? What am I doing here? Nothing. Not really. I can go, if that's what you want." He jerked his thumb backwards towards the door and turned to leave.
"Oh, God, no," Chris insisted, walking over to him. "Sorry. I was a little bit… distracted. As you can probably see. By my, uh, cooking disaster. I'll go and turn that off before the whole building goes up and be right with you."
"What were you trying to make?" Parker inquired interestedly, following Chris into the kitchen and peering into the pot with distaste. "Wow. Primordial ooze?" he asked incredulously, stirring the potion with the spoon Chris had left in there. "If you weren't aiming for it, you got it. That's fairly impressive."
"Oh, no, it was, uh, soup," Chris lied quickly. "Or, you know, supposed to be." He spotted the open book which he'd taken from the old man's house and surreptitiously slipped around the counter into the living area to slide the book onto the floor and underneath the couch.
"Oh!" Parker exclaimed suddenly, turning to Chris, still holding the dripping potion spoon in his hand. "Jeez. Sorry. I meant to tell you this. I was taking a look around after you'd gone and it turns out the both murders were committed with that same knife. The one that was stolen from the museum. They just uploaded the coroners' report that said the stab wound on both of the guys matched the imprint exactly that the museum took when they first got the knife in. I guess whoever this is has killed twice now."
"Twice?" Chris asked faintly, the words ringing in his ears. He slid the book back out from under the couch and leafed through it so frantically that he tore one of the delicate parchment pages. Eventually, he came to the part he had been reading in the house and stopped. It described the ritual the demons needed to perform in order to come back to their full strength. They had to kill three witches and then the Twice Blessed witch — Wyatt.
It was like having curtains ripped away from a window when it was as bright as noon outside. Suddenly, blindingly, glaringly, it was obvious what they were planning to do. It had been happening his whole life. A demon would want to get to Wyatt and would see that the best way to do that would be through him, Chris. They needed three dead witches and then a dead Wyatt. If they needed to go after Wyatt, then why not kill two birds with one stone and kill the remaining witch, him, and then Wyatt?
"You've got to get out of here," the witch-whitelighter said suddenly, jumping up from the couch. "Sorry, Parker. You've gotta go now. It's not safe."
Parker was still examining the contents of the potion, using the spoon to dig out various ingredients that had remained solid, like the sliced ginger root and the delicate, purple petals of monkshood that were floating on top. "What the hell kind of soup was this?" he asked jokingly. "I think there are flowers in here. No wonder it didn't go so well."
"Look, Parker, I'm sorry. Something's come up. Something is going to happen and— Crap." Inwardly, Chris cursed. Why hadn't he figured this out sooner? Why had he invited Parker in when he was in the middle of making a potion in the first place? Now a demon had turned up and Parker was right there in front of them, ready to get hurt and learn their secret.
The blonde demon made a lunge for Parker, who gave a startled yelp and dropped the spoon, managing to neatly sidestep the attack and cross the kitchen in the same move so that he was standing where the demon had appeared and the demon was standing at the stove. "Where the hell did you come from?" he asked, backing up against the counter. He began fumbling down the neck of his shirt, but the demon lunged at him again. He transferred his weight to his hands, which were leaning on the counter, and used this leverage to lift his legs from the ground and snap a powerful, two-footed kick at the demons chest. She was knocked clean off her feet and came crashing down in the living area on top of a pile of boxes.
"Parker—" Chris began, looking over at the other man with a million words buzzing through his head, trying desperately to string them together in the form of an explanation.
"Don't," Parker snarled, his eyes seething with hatred. "Don't. Don't try to explain yourself." He produced a small black device with a red button on it from inside his shirt. It was hanging on a cord around his neck. "I actually thought we were friends, you know that? Guess not. What, you pretended to like me so you could lure me into your apartment and ambush me? I can't believe I've been so stupid…"
"Parker, I don't know what you're talking about," Chris said truthfully, taken aback by his new friend's sudden anger and animosity towards him. "I don't know who she is, or how she got here. I swear." Okay, so the second part was a lie. But that didn't make him a bad person, right?
"Bull," Parker snapped. "What, you think I don't know an abduction attempt when I see one? Trust me," he added darkly, his voice tinged with regret. "This isn't my first time."
The blonde demon rolled over and fell off the boxes. Her body thudding to the floor was accompanied by the shifting of what sounded like broken crockery inside the box. Chris glanced down at her nervously, not sure how long she'd stay down.
"Honest to God, Parker, I have no idea what you mean," Chris said tersely as the blonde began to get up. "I am as lost here as you are. Maybe you should get out of here?"
Parker blinked, the anger almost immediately sliding off his face. "What?" he asked, completely floored and obviously now as confused as Chris had been earlier. "You mean… leave?"
"Go!" Chris yelled as the blonde got to her feet at last. "Get the hell out of here!" He charged at the demon, pumping his arms at his sides. He crossed the small distance between them in a flash, leaping the last foot with his arms out to tackle her to the ground but she was ready and grabbed him by the shirt mid flight, ripping the fabric and popping some of the buttons off. She lifted him so he was suspended in midair and, with an amused quirk of her eyebrow at his stunned expression, she tossed him backwards into the wall.
"Oh my God," Parker breathed, his eyes widening as they took in the dent Chris's body had made in the drywall and the crumpled witch-whitelighter, who was lying in a groaning heap on the carpet.
The demon's head whipped around and she smirked at Parker. "Right. Now that little distraction is out of the way…" she tilted her head coyly. "It's your turn. I must say, that kick hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, so I don't know how gentle I'm gonna be with you, sadly. Although, I expected more from a Halliwell, so I know that you let me off lightly." She advanced towards him.
"Whoa. Whoa, whoa. Slow down there," Parker commanded, pointing at her and flashing a nervous smile. "One: Not a Halliwell." He picked up the device around his neck and gestured to it. "Two: This is a panic button. If I press it, five armed men are paid to come running. Still a good idea to attack me?"
The blonde laughed. "Oh, funny. One: If you're not a Halliwell, what are you doing standing at the stove mixing a potion to kill me?" she asked, tilting her head and puckering her lips slightly. "That's not very friendly, is it? It's also not very sensible to deny you're a filthy witch when, with my own eyes, I saw what you were doing. And Two: Even if that is a panic button, bring the men on. I like armed men." She crinkled her nose. "They think they're invincible." She crossed the rest of the space between them and Parker shifted his thumb so that it hovered above the red button. "It makes it that much better when I tear them apart with my bare hands, just to hear them scream," she whispered sensually in his ear, backing off slightly and smiling at him. "I've had enough of this now. I'm sick of all of this playing around. All we want is for you to yell nice and loud for your brother, and then die quickly. Think you can manage that?"
"'We'?" Parker echoed confusedly, searching her face.
"Yes. We," two voices informed him in unison. The other two demons appeared on either side of him.
"Let's play," the brunette said coyly, alluringly withdrawing the largest knife from a knife block in a box at her feet. She smiled and gently dragged the point across Parker's throat. "But we'll use my toys, not yours. Drop it," she ended on a snarl.
Parker let the panic button fall to his chest, and then closed his eyes and gave a sharp intake of breath as she made a violent slashing motion to the side. He opened his eyes as a small, plastic clatter sounded and looked down to find that she'd merely sliced the panic button from his neck and not through his jugular as he had expected.
"We'll use my toys, though," the brunette continued, smashing the button with her heel. "Not yours. Does that work for you?"
"Who are you?" Parker asked, his dry mouth barely able to force words out.
The raven-haired demon smiled, speaking for the first time. She tilted her head. "Probably the last pretty face you'll ever see," she said sweetly, smiling serenely as she backhanded Parker to the floor. "So make the most of it," she commanded severely, the change in the tone of her voice making her sound extra menacing. She and her sisters crossed the room, leaving Parker to gingerly nurse a bloody cheek and nose on the cold kitchen tiles with the back of his hand, watching their retreating backs with wide, fearful eyes.