K and K 10

"I'm Katherine, honest. My given name is Katherine Houghton Beckett, so I'm not lying," Kate said insisted as she told him the truth. Rick, however, continued to glare at her not looking convinced at all. "So if I'm not Katherine who am I?" Kate decided to challenge him.

"If you're Katherine, how old are you?" Rick asked her. His question had her opening her mouth only to close it just as quickly. She was 37 but was she really? She had noticed that she didn't have the same strength or stamina that she used to have. Combat with the wererat man had shown her that. "Never ask a woman how old she is Rick. It brings bad luck," she countered and turned away from his blue eyes with great difficultly. "And you're avoiding the question," he pointed out.

"Well, if I'm not Katherine, who do you think I am? Maybe I'm a wererat and should drink from the chalice," Kate snapped still avoiding his question. "So answer me a question. When you look at me, what do you see?" Rick decided to test her. She turned her head quickly to look at him. The problem was all she saw was his blue eyes. "I see...I see blue. Blue as wide as the biggest lake there is." Kate bit her lip and cursed her lack of control. What was it about this man?

"What's the name of your animal companion?" Rick questioned her while she was still staring at his blue eyes. 'Animal Companion? What was an animal companion? He means the dog doesn't he?' She looked down at the dog that was still, after all this time, right by her side. He was unquestioningly loyal, trotting along right next to her.

She had spent years alone with no real friends. Taking jobs that caused her to kill people and she didn't have a problem with that. She had money and toys galore, everything she ever wanted. Three homes, the only Porsche 918 Spyder in all of Kansas City. "Which is actually a weakness," Kate whispered. All anyone had to do to find her was find her car. "Shit!" She snapped her head to look at Rick again who was staring at her like she had lost her mind. "I was...I was..." She had to get off this topic fast!

She did the only thing she could think of since they were walking their horses, she grabbed him and kissed him then pressed her tongue into his mouth and searched it. Kate lost track of all time and space. All there was was his lips and his taste. She broke from the kiss because she needed air and opened her eyes only to see blue, which had her kissing him again, forcing her lips all over his. She pressed her lips into the kiss, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight to her. However she kept moving her arms in an attempt to feel more of him. She wanted to kiss him and feel him kiss her. It was her first real kiss in years. It even had her blood going south as she felt heat building up for him.

Kate broke from the kiss again. "And my name is Kate just so you know." She turned to watch where they were going and lifted her head. But Rick was barely walking as he stared at her. He swallowed hard which only slightly helped clear his head.

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Katherine had managed to cook her chicken breasts even though they were a little dry and she might have burnt one side maybe just a bit. "It's magic, why won't it cook right?" She dropped it and gave up eating. "I'm going to starve to death at this rate."

There had to be something. She went back to the pantry looking at everything in it. She pulled out something that looked like and said 'Green Beans.' Now she just had to figure out how to get into the damn thing.

She was ruining the knife she just knew it, but she almost had the can open enough to pour out the contents. It took a while but she poured the contents out into a pot, placed it on the shiny black rectangle, and watched it light up and heat up.

She placed the knife on the countertop, tossed the can into the sink, and waited. When she saw the water bubbling she picked the pot up and set it on the counter until she heard something bad. She lifted it back up again and saw a mark on the wood. "DAMN!"

Now she was spinning in place looking for something until she saw something then placed it on the counter and put the pan on it. She waited a minute and reached in to take out a single green bean. "OW! HOT, HOT, HOT!" And she stuck her fingers in her mouth. Then she had an idea and took one of the weird looking forks from one of the open drawers, stabbed several, and tried eating that way.

It only took her a minute to empty the pot; she felt a whole lot better. Then she stared at all the cans in the pantry and opened the freezer again. "There has to be a better way. Where's Rick when you need him?" She just knew he could tell her how these magical devices worked.

"Wait! I know I saw something. But where?" Katherine started searching all of the cabinets again until she found it. What to Cook and How to Cook It. Kate took her book into the living room, threw a piece of wood on the fire, and sat down to read. The book was eye opening as she read it. It talked and had pictures of how to do everything. Once she was done she went back into the kitchen and searched for everything the book talked about.

She found spices in little jars, measuring cups, measuring spoons, and a whole stack of bowls. She even found the hand mixer but it didn't work when she pressed the button. So she placed the book on the counter and looked at the picture where she saw the cord from the mixer going into the wall. She looked at her wall till she saw that the prongs fit into the holes perfectly. Pressing the button this time had the thing spinning and making noise while she stared at it like it was possessed. It had to be magic, just no magic like she had ever heard about.

Still hungry, she pulled something marked 'Thighs' out of the freezer and while holding the book up placed it in the microwave and pressed the buttons it talked about. A light came on and made a noise until it finished then went DING. 'Food is ready' read the box.

There were two of them; they were now both soft and somewhat soggy instead of as hard as a rock. Thirty minutes later she had the chicken along with slices of an onion and pieces of a tomato that she got out of a can (after she found the handheld can opener like shown in the book), followed by sprinkling something called 'Rosemary' on it. She placed it in a pan that had oil in it and watched it cook.

Then following the book she put water into a pan and watched it boil then put the spaghetti into the boiling water and waited. She found the strainer for the spaghetti and put the pan in the sink. She placed her cooked chicken with tomatoes and onion on top and ate it while standing in the kitchen.

Now that she was feeling adventurous she picked up the other book where she found this one, 'Weight Watcher's One Pot Cook Book.' What was written inside gave her all kinds of ideas. She smiled. This was so much better. Now full, she filled another glass with more wine, placed the empty bottle into the sink, started walking around the house looking everywhere this time, and opened everything she found.

That was how she found some heavy coats. So she put one on and went out the wooden door closing it behind her then started walking around. It wasn't until her feet were freezing that she went back inside and hung up the coat where she found it. She sat on the floor and thawed her frozen feet in front of the fire. As she sat on there, she looked at all the books on the shelves on either side of the fireplace. Piers Anthony had a lot of books as did someone called Isaac Asimov. As soon as her feet were warm she pulled down one of the Piers Anthony books and looked at the cover.

A Spell for Chameleon. The book's young hero, Bink, is without magical powers in a world ruled entirely by magic. Worse still, if he doesn't discover his own magical talent soon, he will be forever banished from his homeland.

The words on the back cover had Katherine smiling since she just knew this place had to have magic and someone had even written about it! It wasn't until she could barely keep her eyes open that she put her book down after saving her place. She went upstairs,stripped, and got into the biggest bed she could find. Seconds later she was asleep.

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The group set up camp and lit a fire, enjoying the quiet time. "So Kate Houghton Beckett, who are you and how did you get here?" Rick had left her alone for the rest of the day, plus it took him some time to recover from that kiss. "Why do you need to know so badly? Can't you just accept me?" Kate questioned knowing that it was likely important to them. "Because when, and not if, we get into another combat situation we need to know what you're capable of. These three have already seen you in combat and based on what they've told me, you're different. The fight in the cheese factory showed us that," Rick told her while the other three simply switched between looking at the two of them.

"Promise you won't just leave me behind and dump me?" Suddenly Kate had the need to not be alone anymore. She didn't know when that had happened but it had. She actually liked these four and was still coming to terms to being with these people.

"My given name is Katherine Houghton Beckett; it truly is. I was born in 1979 and I'm 37 years old. My parents were Jim and Johanna Beckett and I was born in New York City in the State of New York located in the United States of America," Kate said, giving them everything at once.

"Girl, there's no way you're 37 years old," Lanie told her and handed her the tiny mirror that she had. Lanie let pass the rest of what she said for the moment. Kate looked at herself and knew that her mouth fell open, especially since she could see it. She could see her hair was shorter normal was plus it was reddish in color. She hadn't looked like this in years.

"What's New York?" Javi asked since he had never heard of the place. "And where is this United whatever you said?"

Kate, however, was still looking at her face. She was young again, somewhere around 12 to 15 years younger. "I don't…I don't understand. I know who I am, I just don't understand where I am."

"So you're not a Druid, but you were a Druid?" Kevin was trying to make sense of this.

"Druids, wizards, and clerics are all just fantasy characters in my world and real magic does NOT exist. There are illusionists, sure...people who can pull coins out of kids ears kind of illusions, not real magic like Rick did."

"In my world I'm what you would call a thief/assassin. People contact me to steal things and sell it to them or I'm hired to kill someone in exchange for money. It's made me rich where I'm from," Kate explained. "And you're from where?" Rick inquired not knowing anything about the place she had talked about. She got down on the ground, grabbed a stick, and started drawing.

"This is the United States of America and New York City, where I was born, is located here." And she put her stick about where it was located. "However, at the moment I live in Kansas City which is located here." Kate moved her stick.

"I hate to break it to you, whomever you are, but our world doesn't look like that," Javi pointed out as he scrubbed her world away and drew roughly what he knew leaving a large section that he didn't know about. "We're about here, just the other side of this mountain range," Javi said as he poked his stick in the ground.

"I don't understand any of this. You people are capable of doing things, really doing things I've only ever read in my fantasy books at home," Kate admitted. Telling them any of this felt weird to her since she didn't work with or trust anyone.

"What do you remember?" Rick asked because he was interested.

"I had moved to one of my vacation homes located in Canada which is a country to the north of the States. It was almost winter at the time and the snow had just started falling. It's very isolated and there isn't anyone within miles. You can only get there by sea plane," Kate began explaining. "Sea plane?" Kevin didn't understand the term getting the others to nod in agreement. "A sea plane is a plane that can take off and land on the water," Kate tried explaining simply and saw 4 blank faces. Trying again she said, "A plane is a man-made device that flies and can carry either a few people or over a hundred people depending on the size of the plane."

"Any way I was in the dining room looking at all of the things I had recently…acquired and was examining them. One was a really old gun..." Kate stopped when the word "gun" got her more blank faces. "A gun is a man-made device that fires a projectile at tremendous speed. It's used to kill people or animals. Handheld guns or longer rifles if you want to shoot at long distance," Kate explained.

"There were also some really old Indian gold coins as well as a paper that was a deed to something located in Italy. Italy is another country like the United States but much smaller. Anyway, it was really old and was deteriorating. There was also one other item. Then the sun hit the lake, I was blinded and I was here," she said simply.

"Rick?" Lanie turned to him as did the other two. He blinked while he tried to think this through. "You recognize yourself but as a younger you?" he asked and watched Kate nod. "You can't do magic but you can handle yourself in combat," Again Kate nodded.

"I'm an expert in two different types of hand-to-hand combat except my younger self, this body, isn't in the same fighting readiness that I'm used to. That one little combat actually got me a little tired," Kate admitted. She knew that that little combat shouldn't have any more difficult than walking down the block on a sidewalk.

"You were looking at something and then found yourself here. What else were you doing? Or maybe not doing, but thinking?" Rick knew a lot of magical devices worked off of what you said or what you were thinking at the time.

"I was just standing at the table looking everything over," Kate commented. Rick shook his head. "What else? What were you thinking at the time, what was happening in your life? Were you stressed or surprised over anything?" Rick fired question after question at her. She started to shake her head when she stopped. She thought of something. The problem was Rick had spotted it. "What was it?" he asked her. "It's nothing," she remarked trying to keep it secret.

"Magic works with command words or actions or even thoughts. You've seen me cast a spell. It takes words and certain actions to make it work. Why are the leaves you're wearing equal to Lanie's plate? Why is your backpack bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? That ring you found kept those dolls pressing cheese from attacking. So tell us," Rick demanded.

"We're not the enemy here, honey. You fought with us and took risks with us," Lanie pointed out. Kate sighed heavily. What they were asking was very personal.

"I had taken a job to steal a vase that was worth $20,000,000. I got it while killing everyone in the house doing it. I've killed before but it hadn't affected me the way killing these people did. It was giving me nightmares," Kate admitted and bit her lower lip wondering what these people would think of murder.

Except none of them blinked an eye. "Have you had nightmares before?" Rick finally asked. "When I was younger, but not for years," Kate replied. "Did you have all those items already before you killed them?" Rick questioned her. His inquiry had Kate thinking. She had stolen the items on her dining room table while she got the address for the vase. "Yes, why? Is it important?" she wondered.

Rick was silent while he thought about it and tried to remember everything he had ever read. "What are you thinking?" Lanie asked him. He drew in a breath and let it out. "I'm thinking one of those items is magical, maybe an artifact. From what I've read some artifacts have an intelligence in them. A life trapped within the item itself. It didn't like killing so it made you pay for your actions by giving you nightmares," Rick explained.

"We had a Katherine already," Lanie pointed out. "A 37-year-old Katherine and a 20 something Katherine. For a reason I don't understand, I'm thinking you two exchanged places, or more accurately exchanged bodies." Rick was guessing since he was missing some key piece of information to help explain it.

"So I'm here and your Kate is where I was? …Oh, boy. She might be in trouble. My world is so very different than this world. I have electricity, glass walls, snow everywhere. I was all alone and planned to be alone for at least another 3 or maybe 4 months," Kate said, suddenly worried for her. Going back in time was easy for her but taking someone from here hundreds of years into the future?

It was really weird to be thinking about herself as being someone else in her home in Canada who knew nothing about living a modern life. And just when did she start caring for people?

"What?" Rick asked as he saw something on her face. Kate shook her head. "Just a stray thought is all," she lied.

"So now what?" Lanie questioned. "We've got two Katherines, one who's a Druid and one who's more Monk by the sounds of it. I don't know much about Monks but I don't think they wear armor or use swords."

"It does feel restrictive and tight," Kate was forced to admit. "And I have no idea what to do with this weapon." She pulled it out and looked at it. She had to admit that it was a beautiful weapon but she just didn't know what to do with it. Certainly not like Javi used his.

"For now I would suggest that you take the armor off and store it in your backpack. As for the sword, just carry it with you and we'll think of something at the first town or city we reach, find you something you can use. Can you fight with an item and not just fight with your hands and feet?" Rick inquired and watched Kate nod. She knew that she could use a number of items including throwing items.

"Don't take this wrong, but what about the other Katherine? Is she stuck there and this Katherine here?" Kevin questioned. That had Kate wondering if she would suddenly find herself back home.

"If it's a magical item like I'm thinking and this Kate had it at home, that means our Katherine now has it. If she finds it and finds a way to activate it..." Rick trailed off since they could trade places again instantly.

Kate suddenly felt a chill come over her. She was learning to like it here. It was a life that she didn't have. She had friends here who didn't bat an eye and throw her out after they found out about her. And as much as she hated to admit it, she didn't want to lose Rick.