Author's Note: Sorry about the delay. Physics is brutal and annoying and headache inducing. But I take my final soon and summer school will be over. For a month until the fall semester starts again and I have Chemistry 2, Calculus 2, an anthropology class and a geology class. And since I got so many good reviews last chapter, I'll keep this up. I love reading reviews from people. It's the reason why I write these stories; otherwise they just bounce around in my head. It makes me smile whenever I see a new review, so please keep them up!

Chapter 54: Old West Show

Mike waited anxiously backstage for their turn to perform. He had never been nervous before doing a performance, but listening to all the drunk and borderline riotous men outside changed that. Davy was pacing nervously and Micky and Peter kept checking through the curtains and counting the number of guns in the room just beyond them. Piper just sat on a nearby chair with her eyes closed. Mike had no idea what she was doing, but she appeared to be almost meditating. None of that was really doing anything to help Mike's nerves any.

"Guys, will you cut that out please?" Mike finally said to Micky and Peter as they started counting the guns for the 7th time.

"Hey!" Peter exclaimed a little loudly causing Micky to pull Peter out of the way before someone saw them. "I saw her! The girl who told us to come here! She just walked in!"

"Wonder what she's doing here?" Davy asked stopping.

"No clue," Micky said. "Probably sizing us up."

"Why don't you and Davy go try and get close to her," Mike said. "Without being noticed. See if you can glean some information about what she's up to."

"Got it," Micky said.

"How exactly are we going to do that without being noticed?" Davy said.

"Be very sneaky," Mike said. "You guys are good at sneaky. I don't trust her and we need to figure out why. There's no way I'm letting something happen to one of you again."

"Come on, Davy," Micky said with that smile he got when he had a devious plan up his sleeve. Davy shook his head a little knowing what was probably in store for them and the two walked off stage.

"Are you sure you're up for this, Pete?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," Peter answered. "You?"

"I think so," Mike said. "Piper, you doing ok? We're about to go on."

"Yeah, I was just trying to get a premonition of some sort," Piper answered opening her eyes and standing up.

"And?" Mike asked.

"And nothing," Piper sighed. "Something's blocking me."

"Something or someone?" Peter asked glancing in the direction of where the woman would be sitting.

"I have no idea," Piper admitted. "Could be her or it could be the fact that I usually see the future and we're in the past. There's no way for me to tell right now."

"Ok, well in the meantime, we just keep clear of her," Mike said. "And as long as you can still stop time in case someone decides to take a shot at us."

"Yeah, I definitely can," Piper said. "Just relax, guys. Nervousness will translate into a bad performance anyway, right? I'm sure you'll do fine and if not, I'll make sure you stay safe."

"Just stay in the wings," Mike said as the man Mike had spoken to earlier about performing came to speak with them.

"You boys ready?" he asked chipperly. "Weren't there four of you?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "But it's just me and Peter singing. They went to sit and watch."

"Alright," he answered. "Normally I give an audition, but since I was crunched for time...let's just say I really hope you're as good as you say you are."

"Me too," Mike whispered. The performer who'd been on stage left leaving the stage open for Mike and Peter. They walked over onto the stage and were met with various stares from the audience; some were curious, others already looked angry. Mike took a deep breath and nodded to Peter to begin playing.

"Oh, my, my, my," Mike started the song and scanned the audience looking both for Davy and Micky as well as the reactions of the audience members. "In a dusty caravan was a girl with a golden tan and she asked me if I was headed to the east. I politely stepped aside and said I did not need a ride; that I'd rather take my chances with the heat." He didn't see Micky and Davy right away, but he did notice the woman who'd told them about this gig in the audience. She was staring rather oddly at Mike as he sang. She smiled a bit, but it didn't seem to be a smile of pleasure. It was more of a smug, self-satisfied smile that sent chills down Mike's spine.

"Well, when she turned and walked away, I saw my big mistake," Mike continued looking for Micky and Davy and noticed the audience started to relax a little like they were enjoying it. "There were jewels on her body oh-so-rare. Had it been another day I just might have rode away with that woman riding off to God-knows-where." Finally Mike spotted Davy and Micky coming out of a side room and he nearly lost it and started laughing on stage. Davy was dressed as a woman once again with a fan in front of his face and Micky was wearing a very large cowboy hat with a bandana covering his face.

"So the years they came and went and found me living in a tent far above a little marble stream," Mike sang while watching Micky pull out a chair near the woman for Davy like he was trying to be a gentleman. "And it may have been the light that shone out through the night that attracted the hand scratching on my screen. When I cautiously looked out through the night there was no doubt that the owner of that hand was that girl." Mike watched as Micky scooted closer to the woman. The woman wasn't speaking at all or even sitting with anyone, so Mike was a little worried about how Micky was going to find any information. But he soon realized Micky was trying to get close enough to the woman to reach her purse without being noticed.

"So I bid her do come in and I'll open up a tin if you'll tell me 'bout your trip around the world," Mike continued moving around the stage to try and keep the woman's attention on him to make it easier for Micky. "Well, she said, "If you think back to the first time that we passed, I'm sure you'll picture me in all my jewels. It was shortly after then that I ran into another man and I asked him the same question I asked you. But now he, he didn't refuse and he took off both his shoes and climbed aboard my eastbound caravan." Mike watched as the crowd seemed to start getting into the song and really enjoy it, which was good for them; it meant their chances of being shot at were diminishing. It also meant no one was paying attention to Micky and Davy. Micky was finally able to reach the purse and slide it off the woman's chair without her noticing. So Mike continued and started moving to the other end of the stage to keep her attention away while Micky went through her purse.

"And in the twinkling of the night he had knocked me off the side and left me there for dead upon the sand," he continued with everyone continuing to watch him and ignore Micky. "And I thought that I was done lying naked in the sun, when much to my surprise, who should pass but this old friend of yours. He said he knew you from the wars and I told him that I thought you'd headed west. Well, he said he should have known, 'cause you like to be alone and that's the time I knew you were my one. So I asked him for a ride just to get here by your side and stay here above this stream out of the sun." Micky pulled things out of her purse carefully and looked at each item in turn.

"Well, we sat quite for a while and I began to smile," Mike sang wrapping up the song as Micky pulled a small folded up piece of paper out of her purse at the bottom and opened it up. His face lit up in surprise and shock when he read it. "And I said "Well it's strange but I don't care." And some nights when I'm at rest I wonder if I'd said, "yes" would she have come to me from God knows where. Or would I have been the one to leave her lying in the sun and then ended up with only precious stones or would the woman in my arms be giving me her charms if the answer that I gave her wasn't "no"." Mike finished the song and the members of the audience hooted and hollered their approval. Micky quickly stuffed everything back in her purse except the paper and put it back before anyone noticed. Mike and Peter bowed and made their way off stage with Piper as the audience continued to hoot and holler for their performance. When they gathered backstage Peter pulled Mike off to the side.

"Did he find anything?" Peter asked. "I glanced over once and saw him take her purse."

"Looked like he found a piece of paper," Mike answered. "He looked a little startled when he saw it. Let's go get our money and find him." They made their way over to the man who hired them and he handed them the money for a good performance.

"If you would like to perform again, you can always come back tomorrow night," he told them.

"Well we really only needed the money for a hotel room for a few nights until we get things in order and head on the road again," Mike answered.

"Well, that will get you enough for at least two nights at the Occidental hotel, if you don't buy food," the man said.

"I don't know if I know another song for..." Mike started.

"We'll think about it and get back to you," Piper said pushing Mike towards the door a little. Mike just smiled and walked toward where Peter was pushing him. He saw Micky and Davy coming out the back way back in the clothes they'd been wearing before. Micky ran toward them looking excited and nervous all at the same time.

"Not right now," Mike said as Micky opened his mouth to start telling them what he'd found. "Wait until we get somewhere private." Micky nodded and they headed off down the street back towards the hotel. Mike walked back up to the man at the counter and paid for a large room for all of them. Finally when they'd made their way up to their room on the second the five of them sat down and Micky pulled the paper out of his pocket.

"You made a gorgeous woman, Davy," Piper said with a laugh.

"Haha," Davy said rolling his eyes. "Those were the only two spare outfits that we could find that covered our faces. Still don't understand why Micky got to be the cowboy."

"Cause you're too short for it," Micky said with a slightly sinister smile. "The outfit never would have fit you. You're built more like a petite woman than I am."

"Watch it, Micky!" Davy warned.

"That doesn't really matter right now," Mike said trying to get to the important matters. "Let me see what you found."

"I found that in her purse," Micky said handing it to Mike. "Buried at the bottom. Everything else was normal stuff you'd find in a chick's purse."

"You went through her purse?" Piper admonished. "You really shouldn't have done that, Micky"

"What!?" Micky defended. "We have to find out what she's up to somehow and I'd say that's pretty good proof she's up to no good!"

"I meant that was really risky," Piper said. "What if she'd caught you? I wasn't paying attention to what you were doing because I was too concerned with watching for guns."

"Well, she didn't, so we're fine," Micky said.

"Piper, I think you should look at this," Mike said trying to stop any further argument. He handed her the paper with a shiver. All five of their names were written on it complete with a description and very crude drawing of each of them.

"That is not good," Davy said looking at it over her shoulder.

"You think the Devil gave that to her?" Peter asked peering at it as well.

"I don't know," Piper said. "There are some scribbles in the corner here. Looks like they're runes."

"Runes?" Davy asked.

"They're like letters of an magical alphabet," Piper answered. "You can cast runes in doing a fortune. All that means is that you throw stones or something with a rune etched into it and whatever arrangement they make on the ground is how the fortune is read. She probably wrote them down on this paper after casting so she'd remember them."

"What do these ones say?" Mike asked.

"Unfortunately, I don't know," Piper said. "I am not that well versed in runes. And I can't research it because I don't have my books."

"But Micky's right," Davy said. "She is clearly up to no good."

"Not necessarily," Piper said. "It's possible she just had a premonition about us or something and sketched these then cast runes in order to try and find more information about us."

"So we basically learned nothing from this," Davy sighed.

"Not necessarily," Mike said. "We confirmed that she is magical. We just need to keep lying low. We don't know if she's going to try and attack us."

"I don't know," Peter said. "I think that maybe she really is trying to help us. Why would she try and help us get that gig if she were trying to hurt us?"

"Peter does make a good point," Micky agreed. "I didn't see anything else in her purse. I'm inclined to go with Piper on this and say she just drew those after getting a premonition or something."

"Be that as it may, we still should still steer clear of her and lay low," Mike said. "We don't know anything for sure."