Chapter Eight

Leo pushed open Andy's apartment door for Nick since he carried Andy across his shoulders.

"Duck," he told Nick.

But Nick was already stooping, looking at the doorframe distrustfully. "I always do with these modern doors. It's a shame they can't accommodate a man over seven feet tall anymore."

Leo glanced around Andy's apartment: chrome and black leather furniture; shelves loaded with stereo equipment with so many blinking lights and levers and knobs that it made his head spin. To the right of the shelves, several photos sat on a chrome and glass table. He picked up a particular one, smiling. It was Prue and Andy as kids, around seven or eight years old. Piper sat on the floor in front of them, frowning up at the camera; a cherubic toddler sat in her lap, grinning. Even at that tender age, it was unmistakably Phoebe. The photo was shot at the Halliwell manor; the old peach Victorian wallpaper was still up on the walls.

"Nice pad," Nick said, looking at the black and white prints hanging on the walls. "I get tired of the same 'ole fluffy white clouds in my room."

Leo smiled and shook his head at Nick's comment as he put the photo back on the table. The rest of the photos were of Andy and Prue in more present times: a trip to the Zoo, holding hands, smiling at one another. There was something unspoken between them, something caught by the camera lens that had its own magnetic force. Leo felt another twinge of guilt—he was looking in on Andy's life, intruding on his apartment and home, while he hung across Nick's shoulders unconscious.

He turned. Nick was waiting patiently behind him.

"Let's put him to bed and get out of here," Leo said.

"Yeah. Which way?"

Leo looked around. The kitchen was off to the right, but that still left three doors off the living room, any of which could be the bedroom. He tried the door closest to where he stood. A closet.

"Try that one," he pointed to the door closest to Nick. But just as he said those words, the pendant around his neck began to pulsate. "Oh no, they're leaving!"

Nick turned around and lumbered toward Andy.

"No, Nick! Put him down!" Leo shouted. But it was too late. Nick, along with Andy, was starting to grow fuzzy and move in slow motion. They were teleporting and there was no turning back.

xXx

It was as though they were spinning down through the earth. A kaleidoscope of colors swirled overhead as Leo's stomach lurched with the sensation of falling from a great distance.

And just when he thought it would never end…they landed.

It was both a soft and hard landing. He laid there for a moment with his eyes closed; the landing had knocked the wind from his lungs. And something, he realized suddenly, was scratching at his face and arms. He wiped at his face so that he could open his eyes, and when he got a good look at where he was, he roared with laughter.

They'd landed in a haystack; in what could only be some sort of livestock stable.

"Nick?" he called. There was movement underneath the straw a few feet from him. Still laughing, he crawled over and began to part the straw.

"Hey, man, I'm over here."

Leo turned to see Nick sitting up, one hand clutching the front of Andy's shirt, the other brushing the hay from his long blond hair. "What a rush!" Nick bellowed, shaking his hair free. "We've got to do this more often."

Leo's mouth dropped open, "Then who—?"

He turned back to the moving lump underneath the hay, watching with fascination as a dark head emerged from the straw and sputtered. She blinked and wiped at her eyes as though she were seeing a mirage.

"Leo?"

xXx