Mysterious Midnight - Update is relatively soon, for me anyway. As always, TFR!
lillynilly - Nicki's innately both good and evil, so it's like an inner struggle going on. Which, by the way, you will be seeing more of. TFR!
Susan - You must be prophetic or something, because I have plans to include one of the things you mentioned. I'm not telling you which though, so you have to keep reading to find out! TFR!
PrueTrudeau - There is something going on with those daggers, but it'll be a little while before you find out what, sorry! TFR!
Brooklyn Halliwell - Thanks, kind words indeed! Flattery will get you everywhere! TFR!
.milla-kohana. - I haven't seen Eurotrip, is it good? And I'm sorry you're sick, I am too at the moment, I have no idea where you are, but I think it's going around! TFR!
maxfran510 - I'm glad you love my story, it makes me really happy! Yey! TFR!
AmyH. - Yep, the shimmering will take a while. Look for some interesting deals with that in a while. TFR!
Chapter Eighteen
Nicki grabbed the athletic tape off of the shelf in the basement and sat down heavily on the floor. She took off her shoe and sock and began taping up her ankle again. It must be really bad if they don't want me to see. I wonder what's happening. Deciding that she'd probably be told if she needed to know, Nicki put the subject out of her mind and stood up, pulling her shoe back on. She quickly taped up her wrists, and turned to face the punching bag.
Her head was still slightly groggy, from both the ritual in the attic and the shimmering, so Nicki expected to have to go slowly. She stretched some of her major muscles, slightly surprised to find that she could stretch further than she'd been able to before. Nicki was getting a little confused. She couldn't manage to get a decent amount of tension in any of her muscles; it was like she could just keep on going. Curious, she tried a hamstring stretch, and found herself falling down into the splits. She tried it the other way, with the same results.
Nicki was now getting slightly afraid, and she decided to try the punch bag. She hit the bag with a tentative right cross, and was visibly stunned when it swayed dangerously. She tried a roundhouse kick, with a little more force, and the bolt holding the bag to the ceiling shook, dust falling down from the concrete.
Wow. Maybe I'd better stick to doing some katas.
The noise made when Nicki hit the bag reverberated throughout the house, and made Piper smile. She leant back in her chair. 'We're going to have to tell her at some point,' she said, closing her eyes and sighing gently.
'How do you break news like that to a child?' Paige asked, although she was unsure whether she was talking to the others or to herself. Judging by the atmosphere in the room, nobody was going to answer her. Paige looked up, meeting Phoebe's helpless look, and turned to Piper and Leo for answers.
'I don't know,' Piper said quietly. 'But if Deimos's followers are really still around, she's going to need to know.' Piper turned the page of the Book, as if hoping that there was more information on the next page that they hadn't noticed yet. She sighed gently as she read the title 'Furies'.
'Can we at least leave it until tonight?' Phoebe asked, frustration evident in her voice. I can't believe that they're going to land this on her as well.
'Are you okay sweetie?' Paige asked worriedly, looking up from the Book. 'What's the matter?'
Phoebe got up from the couch and walked over to the window. 'I just hate it that this is happening,' Phoebe said angrily, her voice rising. She moved the net curtains slightly with her hand, looking enviously at the people walking up and down the street completely oblivious to the world that she and her family lived in. Lucky them. 'Why does she have to go through all this?' She turned around and looked accusingly at the others in the room. Her eyes were alive, frightened and furious. 'How can all this happen to one person, one little girl?'
Paige got up and went to Phoebe's side. 'I don't know honey,' she said, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder, 'but we will help her through this. All of us, together.' Paige's eyes were pleading with her, trying to get her to calm down. 'She's going to need all of us, if she's going to be able to deal with this.'
The anger left Phoebe quickly, and she just sighed, her eyes sinking to the floor. 'Okay,' she said, submissively, taking Paige's hand from her shoulder and giving it a small squeeze before dropping it. 'I'm going to go work off some frustration and do some training with Nicki,' she said, heading to the stairs. 'Whatever happens, count me with the majority.'
'Sure,' Piper said, dully, but so quietly that Phoebe couldn't even hear her from the landing.
Phoebe walked into her room, and closed the door, resting her back against it. Her eyes fell on her bed, on all Nicki's new clothes neatly folded beside it, and her old backpack, leaning forlornly against the leg of the bed. Phoebe's eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away angrily. She walked to her chest-of-drawers and pulled out a sports top, some thick socks and some tracksuit trousers. When she turned around again she was determined not to get emotional, and her eyes were hard as she quickly changed, tossing her old clothes into the washing hamper at the end of the bed and grabbing her trainers from next to the door.
Phoebe tied her hair into a ponytail, pulling a hair tie from her wrist as she walked quickly down the stairs. Piper, Paige and Leo looked up as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and Phoebe smiled at them shakily. 'I'll see you guys later,' she said, quietly.
'Okay then honey,' Paige said with concern.
Phoebe looked at her shoes, as if working up the courage to say something, but she decided against it and just looked longingly at her sisters before heading into the kitchen.
'Do you think she's okay?' Paige asked Piper, as Phoebe left. Paige knew the answer, but wanted a little reassurance from her older sister.
'I hope so,' Piper said, shrugging her shoulders and letting out a breath she'd been holding. 'She just needs a little time, and being with Nicki will help her right now. Don't worry about her honey, not yet; we need to focus this at the moment.' She gestured to the Book, which was still open at the 'Daggers of Deimos' page.
'Right,' Paige said, flicking through until she found the page on Deimos himself. 'Maybe this'll help,' she said, hopefully.
'Maybe,' Piper said, distractedly. She was still looking after Phoebe, although her hand was resting on the open pages of the Book of Shadows.
The baby monitor on the table lit up, Wyatt's cries emitting from it, interspersed with a little static. Piper turned towards the table, finally dragging her eyes away from the door to the kitchen. She picked the baby monitor off the table and turned it over in her hands, staring at it absentmindedly as it wailed at her.
'Do you want me to go?' Leo asked, jogging Piper out of her daze.
'No thanks,' she said, getting up and brushing herself down. 'Can you two keep working on the Book, find out all you can about these daggers?'
'Sure,' Paige said, and Leo smiled at his wife before bending his head back down to study the Book with his sister-in-law.
Phoebe heard the baby monitor from the kitchen, where she'd been sitting at the table. She didn't know why she couldn't bring herself to go down with her niece, but it was as if an invisible barrier in her head just wouldn't let her. She held her head in her hands, kneading her temple to try and relieve the ache in her head, the thoughts rushing around it. It felt as though her head was going to explode, there was too much going on and she couldn't sort out the mess into coherent theories and ideas, it was giving her a mammoth headache.
Phoebe lifted her head from her hand and took a deep breath. Come on now girl, pull yourself together. She walked over to the medicine cabinet and took out a couple of aspirin, and then a bottle of water from the fridge. Phoebe quickly took the pills, then looked at the water in her hand. She grinned slightly, grabbed another fresh bottle from the fridge, and headed down towards the basement.
End of Chapter Eighteen
For the uninitiated, katas are like routines in karate, you learn them and then they practice all the moves that you use.