I just realized that I hadn't updated last week, so two chapters this week! Happy Holidays if you are celebrating!
This story has one of my favorite characters of all time in it. If you look at the first word in the chapter you'll know who, I always wanted a way to incorporate him into the changed future.

Chapter 5: Nine Years Ago…

Cole Turner was disappointed when he found out that he was once again alive. He had been stuck in a place between life and death and hadn't been able to do anything but watch. After some time he realized that he would miss months and sometimes years between times he was aware. When he returned to the realm of the living he realized that several years had passed since the last time he had been aware, the love of his life was married and with children and he very quickly decided that he wasn't going to waste his time trying to win her over or try to become the source like the little seer who had brought him back wanted.

So he had gotten rid of the seer and all her demons and had found himself a little corner of the underworld which he called home. The caverns and the corridors added up nicely making the space a huge place. If he was above ground he thought the amount of place he had would probably equal to about ten thousand square meters.

He chose a nice corner of it to call home and made it quite homey looking with a bedroom, study, a mega size library, living room, fully functional bathroom and a kitchen. He ignored the voice in his head that told him it looked like a human dwelling. Who cared, he was after all half human.

He moved walls and created a very complicated labyrinth with a single entrance to his lair that even the most dedicated tracker would find themselves lost. He cloaked the whole area with spells after spells and wards after wards. So even if the charmed ones came they would not be getting out of his labyrinth. He placed a number of nasty creatures in the corridors and before he knew it ten years had passed. His place over time became an area that young demons wondered in to try their luck to see if they could get through the mad hermits traps.

He had to agree that he liked his new position in life as the mad hermit. He never saw anyone and when he went out for a walk he could walk different routes without setting a foot of his property and never set foot on the same place again for weeks.

He assumed himself by watching the young idiots who tried to get through his labyrinth. None to date had yet to get through and every demon who had tried had managed to get themselves vanquished at some part of the labyrinth.

The only time he left his comfy home was when he needed supplies which he did once a month and always to different parts of the world to very busy cities to big shopping malls so he wouldn't be tracked. He would shimmer to an alley near a huge convenient store and as he walked through the supermarket whatever he needed he would shimmer off directly from their store room down to his lair. It was a win win situation. The huge chain stores would not notice a few things that disappeared from their stock rooms and he had yet to visit the same store twice and never had he visited a store in America.

The fact that he had chosen a place to live near San Francisco did not escape his notice but he shrugged off the thought.

He was content.

He was out walking one morning when he felt the breach in his wards. Some young idiot was trying out their luck once again.

He quietly disappeared and appeared above on a ledge that the young idiot was making his way down. He noted that this time the idiot looked younger than usual and human of some sort, half and half maybe?

If you could find your way in the labyrinth then the first thing that you came across was a giant spider who had fed on more than its share of demons. He watched the human (the kid?) as he got a look at him, doge the spider by orbing away. A whitelighter! Not quite possible… then half whitelighter and half something else then, probably human.

Cole could not help but be impressed that the boy got the spider confused enough that he slipped by carefully and quickly.

Then came the man eating maggot, Cole was not sure what power was used on it but the boy made it past his second pet without harming it. Cole was once again impressed. He hated hunting for a new maggot or spider to replace the one he had lost just because the demon that wanted to get through killed off the creature. Not a nice way to get into his good graces if he had any.

Then there was the magical assault, the ground and the walls heated up and you had to walk slowly to avoid magical booby traps and at one point you had to crawl and then slide on your belly so you felt the full impact of the heat. Usually if one made it through this round everyone was crying. Cole by now was intrigued, no one had ever made it down the corridor without bursting into tears before.

After that came the mental challenges. The puzzle was easily solved as the boy read the riddle and stuck his hand in the hole that would open the way. The other holes all held poisonous plants of some sort that would kill right away and the skeletons and the decaying bodies that were in the chamber didn't seemed to deter this child.

Next was the reading which the child once again speed through. Cole had placed parts of various writings from the Art of War on the floor and you had to step up to the right one and the boy walked through the corridor as he was walking in the park.

The last mental challenge that no one before had gotten to was mathematical. Even the few that had gotten through the riddle all had fallen to their deaths when they had stepped onto the wrong place on the floor to be plummeted down into the lava below without their transportation skills which the wards had taken care of.

He watched the child read the mathematical equation and frown. You needed college level advance geometry to solve this one and the boy who looked about twelve would not be getting through. He watched with approval as the boy did not try to solve it but seemed to think.

After about an hour of just standing there he saw the boy look at a pitiful watch and frown. The boy threw one more look at the puzzle and turned around and carefully made his way out going through the same route.

Cole was intrigued indeed.