As it drew near to five o'clock, Buck started tidying up his things in Mr. Anderson's office, preparing to go home. He'd just have to phone Rebecca and tell her they'd have to postpone their date for another night - he felt too tired for dating tonight.
Mr. Anderson left the office early, trusting Buck to lock up. He'd told Buck that a family emergency had come up and he had to go and sort that out.
Just as Anderson walked to the elevator, a man not much older than Buck, with blond hair walked out of Ezra's office and surveyed the hall. After seeing there was no-one around, as Anderson had just left in the elevator, he walked toward Anderson's office and knocked on the door. It was answered almost straight away by Buck. Chris had met Buck before - that was when he'd received the premonition of the brunet being killed.
"Can I help you?" asked Buck politely, wondering what the man who looked about his age wanted. Buck didn't recognize Chris as being the man he'd bumped into previously.
"Are you Buck?" asked the blond. "I have to warn you about something."
"Warn me?" asked Buck in surprise. "Is this some kind of religious thing? You selling bibles?" It wasn't normal for someone to approach Buck and warn him about anything.
"No. I know how your father died. The same thing could happen to you unless you avoid it."
"I don't understand," said Buck in a shaky voice. This man was starting to scare him and Buck didn't believe that he was in danger, or that this guy could possibly know how his dad died.
The man stepped forward quickly and put his hand on Buck's arm. Then the man's eyes closed and it seemed like he was in a trance.
"Are you all right?" asked Buck, concerned about the man's condition.
"Oh no," the man said in an upset voice, "they're going to kill a woman with long, brown hair related to you."
Buck tore himself away from the blond and said in a loud, angry voice, "Leave me alone, you...you...psycho." Buck didn't believe a word of what the blond had said - it was just a coincidence that his mom had long, brown hair, Buck told himself. He'd heard of these weird people who believed they could see into the future - it was just a con to get money from anyone who believed in all that mumbo-jumbo.
"This isn't a joke - your father was killed by someone who isn't human and he's going to come after you," explained Chris sternly. After a heated discussion with Ezra about how slowly things were going, he'd decided to come and warn Buck. If things continued to move along slowly, Buck would be dead before he knew he was in danger. He felt bad enough that he'd been unable to save Buck's father, but if Buck died the same way, he'd never be able to forgive himself.
"Is there a problem?" asked a familiar voice in the doorway, receiving a sigh of relief from Buck.
"The problem here is that he's going to die before he knows the truth about what happened to his dad, and that the same could happen to him," answered Chris angrily.
"Chris, rushing into telling our innocents the truth isn't the answer - I was doing a good job of gaining his trust before you decided to interfere," said Ezra angrily. He'd think up an explanation for Buck for why he'd said that to Chris later. He wasn't able to use his telepathy power to communicate with Chris inside his head, because none of Ezra's mind-powers worked on him.
"What? You're in this psycho-stuff together?" asked Buck in surprise. He thought Eddie was his friend. "I was starting to trust you, Eddie." He didn't believe Chris about non-human beings murdering his father and now it seemed like Eddie was involved with this deluded mad-man.
"Eddie?" asked Chris in amazement. "You didn't even tell HIM your real name?"
"We're leaving right now, Chris - before he gets angry and we find ourselves flying out that window and falling to our bloody deaths on the ground far below." Ezra grabbed Chris roughly and pushed the man toward the door.
"We have to save him though!" objected Chris, standing his ground and not caring how unbelievable the truth would seem to Buck. Ezra simply pushed Chris hard so he fell to the floor in the hall.
Buck watched the two men in amusement; he was starting to find the whole incident funny. Maybe this was how they welcomed new guys to the company.
"I'm really sorry, Buck. Chris is one of my older brothers and has mental problems which he's taking medication for. Unfortunately, he sometimes gets lax and doesn't bother to take his pills - I have to humor him in his delusions, I'm afraid," explained Ezra, formulating an explanation on the spot. "My name really is Eddie. I have to go now, so I'll see you tomorrow." Ezra would have to just take the blow from his new friend when Buck was told that he had lied about his name.
"Thanks for the explanation, Eddie. For a moment there, I thought you were both trying to scare me into quitting," said Buck with a smile. He believed Eddie's explanation - it was much more believable than what Chris had said.
"By way of an apology, I'd like to invite you over for dinner tomorrow night. Then you can see Chris after he's taken his medication - he's a decent guy then, I promise." Then Ezra planted acceptance of the invitation into Buck's head. Somehow, the brothers would tell Buck the truth that evening - they had to, before it was too late.
"I'd love to Eddie, but I've got a date then. How about Wednesday?"
Ezra cursed inside - his mind-control had worked on Buck earlier - why not now? He tried again on Buck. "Are you sure you can't come for dinner tomorrow night?"
Something weird was happening inside Buck's head - he could feel it. Why was Eddie being so persistent - didn't he want Buck to go on a date with a beautiful woman? Maybe he was...no, he couldn't be homosexual; Buck thought he could spot that type of man a mile away. "I guess I could cancel my date with Julie - she is a bit vain at times and I was having second thoughts about dating someone who's pretty but vain." Buck somehow felt he should say yes to the dinner invitation, although he'd rather say no.
"I'm sure you can find someone more worthy of your affections in time," said Ezra reassuringly, glad that the mind-control had finally worked on Buck - he didn't want to ruin Buck's lovelife though.
"I don't have trouble finding anyone; just that I don't know how often I'll have enough energy left after working here in the day - it's a very busy place." Now Ezra was trying to suggest that he - Buck Wilmington - couldn't get dates very easily!
"A regular Casanova aren't we?"
"You got it. You got any sisters?" asked Buck. It would be great if he got to his friend's house the following night and met a pretty sister.
"Sorry, only brothers. I'll see you tomorrow, I told my other brothers I'd go see a movie with them tonight and they'll be waiting for me," explained Ezra as he turned to leave the office.
"I look forward to meeting the rest of your family tomorrow night. I'll see you in the morning," said Buck, before Ezra left the office.
CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7
While Ezra liked office work, his younger adopted brother Vin preferred dirtier work. His job during the week was being a mechanic at a local garage. He'd been working there ever since he'd graduated high school; he'd already learnt quite a lot by then from his adopted dad who'd also been a mechanic there. He'd had on-the-job training so he hadn't needed to go to college to learn further mechanics' skills.
"Vin? You nearly finished on that? It's gone five," said Vin's boss Mr. Simmonds, walking over to his employee who was looking inside the open hood of the car there.
"Yeah, I'll just make a note of the parts I need to order tomorrow," replied Vin, glad it was finally home-time - the day had dragged and he was getting tired. He wondered how Ezra had got on at his new job and if he'd spoken to Buck, the brothers' innocent they had to protect.
"Okay if I leave you to lock up?" asked Thomas Simmonds. "I'm already in the doghouse for being late all last week." His wife wasn't happy when he worked late and missed family meal-times.
"Sure, see you tomorrow, Tommy." Vin and Thomas had agreed on Vin's first day there to call each other by their first names. Thomas preferred to be called Tommy, so Vin had been calling him that all the time he'd been there.
Vin watched Tommy pick up his bag and car keys before going to his car parked outside the garage. Then the man unlocked the driver's door and was soon driving away, leaving Vin alone.
Vin closed the hood of the car he was working on, then went and locked the garage doors - the half-Whitelighter could orb out of the garage so didn't need to lock up from the outside. After that he went over to note down the parts he needed to order. Thankfully none of the parts needed would take long to arrive, so the customer would be happy about that and would hopefully use their garage again if he had any future problems.
Just as Vin finished his short list of required parts, Nathan orbed into the garage, making Vin jump. "Sorry Vin - I didn't mean to startle you. JD's in trouble outside his college and he's surrounded by lower-level demons." Lower-level demons were low-ranking demons who were very easy to kill, but could be dangerous if they had someone outnumbered. Nathan was very over-protective of all the brothers and hated the thought of any of them getting hurt. Of course if they did get hurt he could use his Whitelighter healing power to heal them, but he preferred to stop them getting hurt to start with.
"I promised Ez we'd go to the movies this evening - I hope this won't take long," complained Vin. Emergencies always happened when Vin had social plans. His social life since he had become a teenager had been almost non-existent because of all the demons that had disrupted it.
"Okay, we'll just leave your brother to get killed then, shall we?" snarled Nathan, irritated by Vin's bad prioritizing. They were meant to fight demons - they were witches and that's what witches did - even if it meant disrupting their lives in the process.
"No! I'm sorry, Nate. Let's go," urged Vin, feeling guilty as he took hold of Nathan's hand. Vin didn't want his younger brother to get killed - he could never live with himself if he allowed him to die. Although Vin's father had been a Whitelighter meaning Vin could orb, Nathan sometimes came by after work to orb home with Vin. The Whitelighter and half-Whitelighter both knew that evil supernatural beings could detect anyone with Whitelighter powers when they orbed and might come after them, intent on murder. Also, there was the danger of Darklighters: evil supernaturals with crossbows that fired poison arrows - those were deadly to Whitelighters. Although being orbed home by a Whitelighter should be seen as personal gain, it wasn't in Vin's case as it was for protection reasons.
Then the two men orbed to JD's college to rescue Vin's younger brother.
CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7 - CH7
"Leave me alone!" shouted JD, surrounded by demons with various colored skins and horns on their heads. They knew that JD was a witch, so had come after him, intent on reducing the amount of witches in the world. Witches protected the demons' victims as well as rescuing any captured ones and killing demons - all of this upset demons' work a lot.
A red and black demon threw a big sharp knife at JD, but the boy was ready for it and the knife froze in mid-air. Then he froze all the demons; but it wouldn't hold them for long. Freezing power wasn't always as effective on demons as it was on non-magical beings.
Nathan and Vin orbed in, then JD quickly squeezed through the demons and grabbed Vin's hand. Vin was JD's two-years-older half-brother since they shared the same deceased mother and JD always felt safer with him around. Then they orbed just before the demons unfroze to find that JD had gone.
To be continued...