Before I leave for vacation, I have another chapter ready. I hope you will enjoy it.
Thanks to Chris' Adorer for her help :)
Chapter 49
Chris opened the front door to the Manor, and suddenly he sensed the presence of people in his house. Two people, he knew.
He followed the vibes into the living room.
Patty and Trevor were there sitting on the sofa. Kissing!
Not only a bit. No, intensely, with tongues and hands; totally oblivious to anything or anyone around them.
Fantastic, just as Chris had expected. Apart from them doing it in the Manor. That will be fun, when Aunt Phoebe finds out, he thought.
What was going on with his cousins?
Junior skipped school and hid in P3 more than once; Haley quit her job without telling her parents; Prue preferred a snobbish jerk to her family; and now Patty made out with his step brother.
Why couldn't everyone keep their business to themselves like he did?
"May I interrupt?" he asked, making Patty and Trevor jerk away from each other. The boy jumped up to his feet – bright red in his face.
"It is not what you think," he quickly assured.
Patty only looked at her cousin surprised, but not nervous or the slightest ashamed. Well, she was not the one with the hickey on her neck.
"No?" Chris looked from one to the other. "It looks, like you sneaked into my house, while I wasn't here to make out on the sofa."
"Um..." Trevor turned to Patty for help.
"Yes," the teenager girl replied. "That is exactly what it is."
"Patty!" the boy exclaimed. "Why did you tell him that?"
"Why not?" Chris asked. "Do you think, I would do something to you? Are you scared of me?"
"Yes and yes. As you know," Trevor admitted.
"More than of her parents?"
"Much more, yes."
"Then why for God's sake are you here?"
"It was her idea," the 17 year old pointed at the girl.
Patty glared at him, but only shrugged at her cousin. "Come on, why are you freaking out?"
"Because you are making my aunt's grandchild on my sofa!"
"You always have to exaggerate," Patty disagreed. "No one becomes pregnant through kissing."
"Everything is possible in this house. Moreover, what can kissing lead to? What would have happened, if I had come home later?"
"You would not have seen us?" Patty suggested. She straightened her shirt, suddenly her eyes grew large. "Hey, did you come home, because you sensed us here?"
"No. If I had sensed you here, I had called you parents to stop this. Now, I am stopping it."
"What?" The girl stood up. "As if you hadn't done the same things when you were our age."
"Surprise: no. I have not hidden in someone else's house to hook up with my step cousin."
"Step cousin? There is no such family relation. Moreover, Leo and Trevor's mum aren't even married, so even if there was such a thing as 'step cousin', he still wouldn't be."
"Just crazy," Trevor muttered.
"What was that?" Chris asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Chris," Patty pulled him down on the sofa next to her. "I am the smart cousin, remember? I don't do stupid things."
"Even the smartest cousin has hormones."
"Okay. I don't deny we cuddled."
"Cuddled? Do you cuddle like this with your mommy?"
"All I'm saying is, there is nothing wrong with this. However, I am sorry to put you in an awkward situation, but it is perfectly normal for teenagers to explore those things. There is nothing to be worried about," she said. "Just, don't tell my mum," she added.
"If everything is so perfectly normal, and you are so responsible, why can't your mum know?"
"Good point," Trevor murmured.
"Be quiet," Patty whispered in his direction. "Chris, you know my mum. She would want to know everything. She'd make sounds like 'ooohh' and 'uuhh'. She would talk endlessly about her experiences when she was my age."
"Yeah, there are some anecdotes, I'm sure."
"She wouldn't leave us alone. She would invite Trevor for dinner and ask all sorts of embarrassing questions. She would talk to his mum and then talk to me about sex and she would probably write a column about it."
"She already did that, when Prue had her first boyfriend."
"See, she is crazy like that."
Chris sighed. Yes, he knew his aunt well enough. "Okay, I can't say you are wrong. But why here? I don't want to lie to Aunt Phoebe and his mum and, coming to think of it, my dad is involved, too."
"Leo is not my father," Trevor said. "I mean, he can't tell me anything."
"Lucky you."
"You are not lying; you are keeping something secret. You can do that."
"Of course, I can. It's not a question of ability, but of willingness. I mean, why does it have to be a secret that he is your boyfriend?"
"Because, he is not."
"No? Then what is this? A test drive?"
"I thought…." Trevor began before he was hushed again.
"Alright," Chris said before he would also become part of a discussion of who is or is not whose boyfriend or girlfriend. "Fine. The thing is, you are probably doing what you want anyway. I guess it's better here than in some creepy place. I tell you something: I won't tell Aunt Phoebe, that you are together with Trevor - or not. I have never seen your tongue in his mouth, or in any other place. You can even stay here for as long as you want."
"Thank you, Chris. That is rather cool of you," Patty replied relieved.
"Just please no body fluid, other than blood caused by a demon attack, on this sofa. Wyatt paid a damn lot of money for that and in the end, will blame me for it."
The two teenagers nodded.
"Now that was so much less embarrassing than our mums could have been," Trevor said, dropping back on the sofa next to Patty, when Chris had left.
Patty shrugged. "I still prefer it to whatever my mum would say or do."
Chris returned with his laptop. "Well, as this is settled, I'll leave you. I'll be in the conservatory."
"He can watch us from there through the break-through," Trevor told the girl, who rolled her eyes.
"That's exactly, why I am going to be there." Chris called from the sofa in the other room, from where he had a good view at the two teenagers.
"Oh."
"Yep, oh." Patty tilted her head back on the sofa rest. "Why can't I have normal family members? Just one or two, that's all I ask for."
"It was your idea to come her," Trevor replied. "I told you, my mum would leave for work around noon and Leo was in Magic School. We would have been on our own until dinner time at my place."
Chris shook his head overhearing what Trevor had said.
Teenagers! All they thought of was a place to make out.
He sure hadn't been like that with 17.
Because he hadn't invited girls – Wyatt did.
Because Wyatt had girls running after him; Chris hadn't.
Some things never changed.
"He was at the other end of the city when I scried for him," he heard Patty say. "I thought, he'd be gone for a while. However, I forgot that he is a hermit."
"I'm not!" Chris called starting the laptop. 'Software update'. Again. Twenty minutes of downloading some new version of whatever with no visible upgrade.
The cat came from wherever she had spent the morning asking for attention and with that for food.
Like Snoopy. Suppertime, 24 hours a day.
He frowned, thinking. Maybe he finally had a name for the cat.
"You can't call a cat, just cat," Haley had said and was not convinced, when he told her it was short for Cathryn.
"Hey, Snoopy, how do you like that?"
The cat didn't look up from her feeding bowl.
"Hm, I see. Works as good as 'cat' – or any other name. So, Snoopy. I can't wait to hear, who will be first to say 'Chris, you can't give a cat a dog's name'. And I will say 'Yeah, well, some give their sons the last name of their father. Ha! Who is crazy now?"
He threw the can of cat food in the trash. "Probably me, because I keep talking to myself."
The cat jerked her head around and hissed before abandoning her food and running off.
Before Chris could even begin to wonder, he heard Patty cry and smashed glass and things tumbling over.
He ran into the living room. He saw Trevor lying in the broken pieces of the display cabinet. He couldn't see Patty from where he was standing, but felt her in the room. The demon had his back towards Chris.
Good position to vanquish him.
However, the demon turned around, when Chris made a step into the room.
He conjured a fire ball. He held it in his hand for a moment, then threw it at an armchair in the corner.
Patty had hidden behind it, but jumped behind one of the sofas instead, just in time before the armchair caught fire.
From her spot behind the sofa, she saw Chris standing in the doorframe; she wondered, why he was just standing there.
The demon must have done something to him, she conducted.
"Chris, do something!" she called realizing the demon was closing in on Trevor who lay motionless in the broken furniture. However, her cousin was like paralyzed and did not react to her call at all.
Suddenly, she remembered something. Her handbag! Of course. Where was it?
She saw it underneath the small table with the lamp, she had always found very ugly.
"Hey!" she called out to the demon, who had grabbed a still unconscious Trevor by the front of his shirt.
She threw a pillow at the demon and hit him in the face (why didn't she throw the ugly lamp?). He let Trevor fall back on the ground. It made a mean thud, when his head hit the floor board.
At least, it made Chris come out of his trance-like state.
The demon dove to the girl's direction, and she quickly ran around him, snatching her bag off the floor before hiding again behind the wall to the other room. She wasn't quick enough, though, the fireball scratched her arm leaving a burn mark. She ignored it and turned her bag upside down. Every item fell out on the fluffy carpet.
She heard the noise from the other room only damped, while she was frantically searching through her things. So, many things! Why was she carrying around so much stuff? She couldn't find it. But she knew, it had to be here. She took the bag again. Sure, there was a small pocket on the inside. Finally, she had the zipper open. She stood up, ran forward and threw the vial against the demons back. It burned though the fabric of his black coat and into his flesh. It wasn't the strongest potion; nevertheless it did its job and vanquished the demon, slowly burning him to ashes.
The 16 year old dropped on her knees next to Trevor, although, she cut her leg on a piece of wood.
"Chris, you have to heal Trevor. Come quick." She held the boy's hand. There were smears of blood on his arms and torso; moreover, there was this large bruise on his forehead. She looked up again. "Hello? Snap out of it and come here. Right now!" she demanded.
Trevor had protected her. When the demon appeared, he had pulled her behind the sofa and stoop up against the demon – and now he was hurt. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, but shook them away. She couldn't get emotional now.
Chris came to her side and kneed down as well.
When nothing happened, she glanced at her cousin again. "What are you waiting for? Heal him!" She tugged his arm, placing his hand above Trevor's head; still, nothing happened. "What's going on?" she asked.
The only reason why people couldn't be healed was, they were dead. However, Trevor was obviously not dead. Patty could see his chest rising.
"I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't? Of course, you can. You can heal. So go ahead and do it," she urged him. "What is wrong with you?" she asked finally looking at him. She wasn't too worried about the bruise on his cheek, but his expression was odd. "I don't understand," she said frustrated. The teenager made a decision. It didn't matter now, who would find out about her friendship with Trevor. He needed healing.
It only took seconds for the jingling sound of orbs to be heard, after Patty's call for her aunt.
"I'd ask what happened, but it is more than obvious," Paige Matthews crouched down and held her healing hands above the boy. The wounds stopped bleeding and the bruise faded quickly. He opened his eyes.
He looked like nothing had ever happened. Patty helped him standing up.
"Are you okay?" She hold his hands in hers.
"Yes. I'm alright. But you are bleeding."
"It's not so bad."
"Auntie Paige can heal 'not so bad' ouchies, too." Paige took care of her niece as well. "Everything alright with you two?"
"Yes, thanks, Aunt Paige. I had an emergency potion from mum."
"Emergency potion? Rather clever of my sister."
"Well, she is my mum, of course she is clever."
"Of course. You don't have to tell her, I acted so surprised."
"No problem. And you don't have to tell her about this. She will only worry, you know."
"Hm, I don't think, I can do that."
"Come on, Nothing happened, Aunt Paige. No need to worry her. At least, she does not have to know every detail, does she?"
Paige thought about it. "Details? Like why are the two of you here? Together."
"Right. Details like that. You are the best. And we are going to go now. I only grab my stuff." Patty suddenly realized one person was missing. "Where is Chris?"
"He can't be far away," Paige replied.
"Okay." Patty stuffed all the items back in her handbag. "Maybe you could check on him? He was acting weird."
"What's new?"
"No, I mean, like the demon did something to him, so he wouldn't be able to help us."
"I see. I'll take care of it."
"I know, Aunt Paige. Thanks again."
Paige winked at the teenagers knowing the thankfulness was not only for the healing. She waited for them to leave the house. Through the window in the living room, she saw them walking away, holding hands. She sighed smiling to herself.
She found Chris in the laundry room. The cat was sitting on the broken dryer.
"Hi. What are you doing?" she asked.
"Seeking wisdom in dirty underwear." Chris replied.
"Right." She picked a light blue shirt out of a basket with black cloths and threw in into another one with grey and green colors. "Everything okay? Do you need healing?"
"No."
"Exorcism?"
"What?" Chris turned around, looking confused.
"Patty thought, you had been like paralyzed. She worried the demon had done something to you."
"No, he hadn't."
It bugged Paige that she did not receive a decent answer. "And you couldn't heal them?"
"Yeah, remember, I am the student-lighter. Healing is big."
"It is. However, you are no student-lighter and you can heal for years by now."
"Not today."
"Apparently."
Frustrated he kicked a laundry basked making it topple over.
"I couldn't protect Patty and Trevor, either. I couldn't vanquish the demon. I couldn't do anything. Again. They were both hurt. They could have been killed."
"But they weren't. They are both witches, they know what to do in case of an emergency like this. So, don't make it worse than it is. Just tell me what was going on."
"And then? That won't change a thing."
"It won't change what happened today, but it can change what will happen in the future, if we figure out, what is going on with you. That should be worth a try."
Chris leant against the washing machine. "Fine. I tell you what happened, I came into the room, Patty was scared and hurt and Trevor was lying on the ground unconscious."
"That is scary, I know. How often did I come into this house and my sisters were lying on the floor and I didn't know, if they were dead or alive. Or my nephews. But that cannot freeze you. You have to act, calmly and determined."
"Thank you. That is the solution." He turned around again, his back towards her.
The cat jumped off the dryer and bumped her head against his leg, purring. He bent down and scratched her head. "It's not like I don't know that, Aunt Paige. I did try to attack the demon. But nothing happened."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. It was like I had no powers at all."
Paige's eyes grew wide. "Oh-oh."
"Right. The thing is, if Patty hadn't reacted the way she did, we'd all be hurt, probably dead."
"Now, there is no need to be so dramatic. You still could have called for help."
"I cannot call for the cavalry every time I come across a demon."
"Ehm, yes, you can. You have to even." Paige paced the room. "Actually, I think, you shouldn't be here by yourself for the time being. Until you have your powers back in control." She stopped. "Wyatt should come home."
"No, he shouldn't. He will stay where he is. I don't need a bodyguard. I will figure out what is going on."
Paige was doubtful. "Do your powers work now?"
To prove, Chris hold out his hand and a clothes hanger flew in his palm. "Sure," he replied bitterly. "There is no demon around."
The female witch suddenly looked up. "Exactly!" she exclaimed. "There is no demon. The demons must cause your problems."
"No shit? That's the first time a demon ever caused me trouble. Thanks, Aunt Paige. I would have never come up with that idea."
"What I mean is, the demons kind of block your powers."
"All demons? Always? And how, are they doing that?"
"That's the question." Paige clapped her hands together. "I'll go upstairs and check the book."
She turned around. She expected her nephew to follow her. However, he stayed back sitting down on the floor petting the cat.
"It's a waste of time, Aunt Paige. I checked the book so often, there is nothing in it, I don't know. Moreover, I think, you better don't stay here. I don't want you to get hurt, too."
Paige took a deep breath. She went back to him and crouched down. She touched his cheek. "I don't want you getting hurt either," she said. "Maybe you forgot, but I won't ever – we have already lost you once." She hugged him and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "As long as I am around, it won't happen again." She stood up. "Let me take care of it, okay?"
"You know, I won't."
Paige smiled a little. "You are just as stubborn as your mother. Luckily, I never listened to her either."
