And now, a word for the reviewers…

chyp: Hooray, indeed. You wanted it, you got it. That's how far I go to please the people who bother to read my stories. But don't push it, dude.

Quillsandbolts: I'm glad you enjoyed this chapter. I get the feeling that you're a little hard to please…I must work harder, then…

Raya: Cheers for the crumbs, lady. For now, just keep trying to put the John/Wesley pieces together. I'm sure you'll get it eventually, like after it all comes out in print…

Wesley was just admiring the ground when he noticed a white glow from the corner of his eye. He looked around frantically to see if Bryan, Rich, or Mike had noticed as well, but fortunately for him, they were still counting money. He turned back to the white light, which formed into James. Wesley was tempted to make a noise, but James whispered to him to be quiet.

"Jimmy," Wesley whispered, "what the hell are you doing here? How are you here?"

"No time to explain," James said. "Where are you?"

"That auto garage that's down the street from the school," Wesley said quietly. "They work here or something. They snatched me from the school and they've been making me help them rob banks for the past two days. Y'all have to get me out of here."

"Don't worry," James said. "Matt's getting his coat now. We're on our way."

"No!" Wesley whispered loudly, quickly turning to see if he had been heard. He hadn't. "They put a bomb in our room. If I leave here, or if y'all come looking, they're gonna blow it up, along with the rest of the building. I would've been out of here a long time ago if it wasn't for that."

"I hope the college doesn't expect us to pay for that," James said. "We'll take care of the bomb. Yes, Matt, a bomb. Somewhere in here."

"Who are you talking to?" Wesley asked.

"Hey!" Rich called from the other room. "What's the noise in there?"

"Just me talking to myself!" Wesley yelled back. "I'm lonely in here! Jimmy, get out of here!"

"Well, shut up!" Rich ordered.

"Yes, master," Wesley replied as James disappeared from the room.

"I'm exhausted," James said, "and my vision's really messed up right now. You can't imagine what it feels like to see you and Wesley in two different places at the same time."

"Try getting a premonition once," Matthew said.

"I did, remember?" James replied. "I've done it all. I'm gonna go back to my room and rest up. You look for the bomb. It's apparently in here somewhere."

"Here?" Matthew asked. "How am I gonna find a bomb?"

"I don't know," James said. "Make up a spell or something. I'm wiped. Wake me up when you find it."

The next day, the three criminals, with Wesley's help, robbed twenty-two more banks in Atlanta and the surrounding areas. With Wesley's power to stop time, the only thing that took time was traveling from bank to bank. The news about the mysterious bank robberies had begun to spread through the media like a forest fire and they were quickly dubbed the Houdini Mysteries, because money kept disappearing and no one could figure out how it was being done. Even with increased security, nothing seemed to be able to prevent the money from vanishing.

After a long day of work, Bryan drove his two friends and Wesley back to the garage, where they secured Wesley in the back room as usual.

"You're doing good," Bryan said, patting Wesley on the head. "We have one more job for you, though."

"Listen," Wesley said, "I know that this is entertaining to y'all, but I can't keep using my powers like this all willy-nilly. It's making me extremely tired. Plus, I don't even know if I can keep everything frozen long enough for y'all to get in and out anymore. Plus, I'm missing my classes and they only give me three unexcused absences!"

"Cry me a river," Rich said, grabbing Wesley's cheeks and squeezing them roughly. "Besides, after we've hit Knox we'll think about letting you go."

"Knox?" Wesley asked, confused before guessing the worst. "Fort Knox!? Isn't that in Kentucky or somewhere that's not Atlanta?"

"Yes," Bryan said. "We're taking our act on the road…tonight. We just came back here to grab some extra bags."

"This is crazy," Wesley said. "Even with my powers at full strength, I can't help y'all with that."

"Then pay the price," Rich said, moving his finger around his remote detonation device. "My trigger finger's itchy. Try me."

"He does look a little worn out," Mike pointed out, speaking just before Wesley was about to make a sarcastic comment. "Maybe we should let him rest and hit Knox tomorrow. We'll just leave early."

"You getting soft on us now?" Bryan asked.

"I guess you're on his side, now," Rich added.

"No," Mike said, defending himself. "I'm just saying that he looks worn out and maybe he needs to recharge his powers or something. We can't risk getting found out at Knox. We'd be back in prison before we could say a word."

"Fine," Bryan said after a short silence. "We'll hold off until tomorrow, but if anything happens, we're setting off that bomb."

Matthew searched his dorm room carefully, wondering how a bomb could possibly be hidden in such a small place. He, of course, never suspected that it was hiding above him, inside a hanging plant. Giving up, he produced the Book of Light, his family's centuries old spell book, from under his desk. It was an enormous tome, passed down through each generation, that contained countless spells, incantations, and valuable demonologies.

He flipped through the Book, coming across various spells, but none of them were of any interest to him at the time. Sometimes he got angry at his ancestors for not including a table of contents. Finally, after half an hour of page flipping, he noticed a spell that could potentially help him. It was a Lost and Found spell, but he figured that it would help anyway. The bomb was lost in his room, after all.

"What once was lost shall now be found,
In plain sight and gathered 'round.
To restore my peace of mind,
Lead me to what I cannot find."

A white light appeared from nowhere and settled in the middle of the room. A light gust of wind accompanied it and blew through the room, messing up Matthew's hair. The light expanded as the wind grew stronger, creating a storm of papers and other light things. Then, the light exploded and the wind died into nothing. Everything looked just as it had before, except for all the papers that had been blown to the floor. As Matthew closed the Book, disappointed at the mess and the fact that the spell hadn't worked, the hanging plant fell and hit Matthew right on top of his head. It fell to the floor and the pot shattered, throwing dirt in all directions. There, right next to the small plant, was the bomb Rich had planted. He picked it up and checked it. There was a detonation device inside, operated by a remote. It was a pretty primitive design and he was easily able to dismantle it.

"What was that noise?" James asked, walking into the room and noticing the mess. "You got junk all over Wes' side of the room. He'll kill you, you know?"

"Tomorrow's problem," Matthew replied, showing James the bomb. "I found the bomb. It was in the plant. Don't ask; it's a long story."

"Is it?" James asked.

"No," Matthew said. "I just don't wanna talk about it. Can you contact homeboy?"

James sat on Matthew's bed and concentrated again, focusing on sending himself to Wesley. After a short while, he felt the same feeling as before: the sensation of being pulled apart and through a vortex. When he opened his eyes, he saw Wesley in the same spot, superimposed onto the scene of Matthew's dorm room. Perhaps one day, he thought, he would become able to get past the double vision problem.

Yeah, work on that, Jimmy… And did y'all hear? Fort Knox? That's crazy, but then again, that's life for these three man witches…