Chapter Six

"Nixa!" Chris twisted himself free of Josh's grasp, practically falling down the last few stairs. He couldn't right himself and fell with his foot jammed underneath a step, wrenching something in his ankle before pulling it free and tumbling head over heels to the cold concrete of the basement floor. Grunting, the witch-whitelighter hissed in pain, clutching at his ankle.

"Do we need to have a tutorial on how to use stairs, Halliwell?" Josh asked laughingly, finishing hauling Ben down the steps and letting go of him.

Immediately, the witch hurried to Nixa's side as Chris tried to stand. His ankle buckled underneath him and spots of pain danced across his line of vision, momentarily blinding him. He shuffled backwards to one of the support pillars and pulled himself up using it, leaning against it and his good foot to stay vertical. He glared at Josh, seething, and tossed out a freeze at the baseball player, stopping him in his tracks.

"Well, this sucks," Chris muttered darkly, grimacing as he tried to curl up his toes. "I think I've sprained something…"

"Oh, great, my rescue party crippled half of itself. I have so much confidence in my continued safety," Nixa bit out sarcastically. She turned to Ben, stamping her foot and shaking her chains. "Why are you standing there? Get these off me!"

"Hey, Wyatt?" Chris called to the ceiling, turning slightly and seeing Ben looking over at him with a cocked, questioning eyebrow. "Backup never hurts," he explained with a shrug. "Especially backup that can heal. It's just so he's on standby, okay?" He took Ben's shrug as a sign to continue. "Wyatt, I'm at Josh Muse's place. There might be some trouble going on here. I don't know. Just… be alert, got it?"

Nixa had raised a foot and was poking Ben impatiently in the shoulder, gesturing violently to her manacles. Rolling his eyes, Ben pressed a finger to the lock on the left manacle, filling the cavity with ice. The excess pressure burst the contraption open, freeing one of Nixa's arms. The blonde immediately reached up for the other chain, yanking on it with both hands and pulling it from the ceiling with a screech.

The heavy metal links flicked out violently, slicing a gash above Chris's right eye. The witch-whitelighter crumpled sideways, blood trickling from the head wound. Nixa gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth in shock as Josh, now out of Chris's spell, unfroze.

"You can ignore the comments I made earlier about how lame my rescue party was," Nixa said in a small voice to Ben.

Ben gave her a wry smile. "Would you like cream with your humble pie, madam?"

Nixa frowned, affronted. "What? No. No dairy for two weeks, remember?"

Ben sighed, rolling his eyes as Josh caught up with the situation. Nixa walked over to Chris, dragging the chain that had rendered him unconscious behind her. Frowning, she looked at the gash on her friend's forehead and winced sympathetically, wringing her hands momentarily as she looked around the room for the cloth that Josh had been using earlier.

"How… What…?" the baseball player stuttered, looking around the room at the unconscious Chris and at Nixa and Ben, who were not in the same places that they'd been before he'd been frozen. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "You know, my dad told me about witches. And that's what I thought that you might be when I heard you had all of those liquids, but… I don't know. I didn't really believe it until now. Witches… And you're guys? That's… just weird. Shouldn't you be warlocks or something? Witches… It's so sissy." Josh broke off thoughtfully, shrugging. "But then again, so are you. I guess it all fits."

"Hey, yeah, will you please hurry up and threaten my life already so I don't feel bad about hurting you? This chitchat is a little dull. Thanks."

"Oh, you're gonna hurt me? I'm surprised your face has stopped hurting already from when I sent you flying upstairs. What are you, Olsen? Stupid?"

Nixa shot a withering glance over her shoulder at him. "Witches, Josh. You just said that you knew that they were witches. I wouldn't piss him off," she advised sternly, not breaking eye contact with him. "Now, I need to try and stop this bleeding. Where's your cloth?"

Josh looked her up and down for a while, his fists balling at his sides, and seemed to make a hard decision, looking pained at the thought of it. He looked down at Nixa, tending to Chris and swallowed, his face tightening before he came down the stairs and went into the laundry niche. "So if you're witches… What exactly is it that you can do?" he asked over his shoulder, sneaking a look at Nixa and Chris out of the corner of his eye. "Are you like... special or something? Do you have a special soul, or did you learn how to be witches?"

Ben hesitated. "Um… Well, we're, we're born with it," he said finally, something feeling not entirely right about the entire situation. "So… special souls. I guess… Lucky us?"

Josh reached into the junk drawer in the counter and began shoving things around in there. Random tools, nuts and bolts, screws and nails, a bunch of keys that they had no idea what they were for, instruction booklets for appliances they'd long since thrown away and… That. What he was looking for.

"Why do you want to know?" Ben asked, narrowing his eyes. He heard a drawer slam shut and cocked his head, stepping closer to the niche slowly, trying not to make a sound. He raised his hands defensively, ready to attack the baseball player should he try anything.

"Curiosity," Josh said simply, coming out of the niche suddenly, startling Ben so much that the witch nearly unleashed one of his powers at him. "What's the matter? Were you spying on me?"

"Curiosity," Ben mimicked stonily, looking into Josh's eyes. He saw something flicker in there, behind the perfect blue irises, but couldn't be sure what it was. He frowned, trying to discern it, but it had already gone, the normal Josh Muse façade having slid up like a tinted electric window.

"Killed the cat, Olsen," Josh said, disappointed. "Killed the cat." He turned his back on Ben for a second before turning around, lunging at the witch who jumped backwards. The point of an athame nicked at his soaked shirt, fraying the cotton.

"What are you doing!" he demanded. "What is wrong with you!"

"Oh, come on. I wasn't going to hurt you… badly. I need you alive. After all, you've got a… 'special' soul, right?"

"You want take my soul? Huh… Let's see… No?" Ben's head dropped suddenly and he reappeared behind Josh. The witch kicked him in the back, sending the baseball player tripping forward onto the floor. However, Josh managed to keep possession of the knife, something that Ben had been hoping to dislodge. "Dammit," the witch hissed as Josh rolled over, groaning, and touched his bloody chin gingerly.

"Alright, who—" He spotted Ben behind him, his fists raised in a fighting stance and did a double take, looking behind him at the unconscious version of his adversary before looking back at the astral form. "What the hell is going on?"

Ben huffed an exaggerated, impatient sigh. "Let's go over this one more time. Witches. Special. Got that? It was like five minutes ago. You know, before you pulled a dagger and tried to gut me?"

"This… this can't be real. No, this isn't real. There's no way that you have the power to be there and… there. Crazy. This is crazy."

"Well, believe it. We also have the power to vanquish you as well, so—"

"Ben… No. Josh isn't the demon," Nixa said quietly. "He's just—"

"—feeding a Talbard demon. Okay… That wasn't what we came here to deal with, but—"

"Ben!"

Josh pounced on him from behind, grabbing him around the neck and pressing the athame to his throat. "Just behave. Seriously, please, just behave. Just cooperate for once in your miserable life, Olsen. Accept what's coming as your fate. Destiny. Whatever. Just stop fighting it. Please. This has to happen, whether we like it or not. It has to happen."

"Why?" Ben asked. "Why have you got to feed me to a demon? Why is that my fate? How is it fair that you get to decide whether I live or not?"

"BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T DIE, MY MOTHER DOES!" Josh yelled, tears drifting in front of his vision again. He was shaking Ben as he shouted. "You've got to die to save her. If you don't then… She's gonna be gone. So that's why I get to decide. I don't like doing this. I hate doing this, but it's what I have to do. She's dying. She has cancer. She's… she needs this. Got it?" Sobs took over his words as Ben's body flared red and disappeared, nearly sending Josh sprawling to the floor again.

"That's why you're doing it?" Ben asked from the other side of the room. "Not for power, or money, but so your mother won't die?"

"You think I'd do this for power and money? You think I'd kill for those things? Who do you think I am?"

"Shit," Ben murmured, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling. "Shit…" He wasn't just killing a demon anymore. He was killing a demon and signing the death warrant for another human being. Before, everything had always been so black and white. Kill the demon. Save the innocents. Warm glowing glow, everything went back to normal. But now… "Shit," he repeated, temporarily stunned. This wasn't what he had expected. He had expected that Josh had been feeding the demon lives to become the baseball player that he was, or to make his dad successful in his business so that they had the money to buy a place like this and have whatever they wanted. Never, never, had he dreamed that Josh would have been doing this for such a complex and selfless reason.

Or was it? Okay, so doing this for his mother's life was pretty selfless, but taking away other people's lives, and taking away other people from their families to do so, that was selfish. You couldn't sacrifice many people for one person, no matter how much you loved them. And so, he had to vanquish the demon, screw the costs. It sucked, but that was what he had to do. That was it. Decision final. Josh's mom had to die. And yet, when you put it like that… He growled, burying his face in his hands. Moral dilemmas had no right to be so complicated.

"Put the knife down," Nixa said, rising slowly to her feet. "Look, if it helps you can try to feed me to the demon. It totally won't get past the entrée, but you can try. If it will make you feel better, then—"

"Wait, what? You're going to kill it? You can't do that. Please, you can't, my mom—"

"Will die," Nixa finished quietly, nodding. "And I'm not pretending that that won't suck, Josh. Because it will. And then it will suck some more. But… you told Ben all about destiny. Your mom got cancer. It's mortal. It's a horrible disease but people get it and people die from it. You can't change that by killing people to keep her alive. It's not right and it's not fair."

"You don't know anything about fairness! YOUR mom isn't dying, is she? You're not going to be left motherless, are you? NO! So SHUT UP about things you don't understand!"

"You've got to see that this can't go on. You said that you hate it. Then help us put a stop to it, Josh." Nixa moved forward and touched his shoulder gently, feeling him flinch beneath her fingers. "Give me the knife."

With shaking hands, he held the knife out to her, blade first. She was about to take it when he suddenly slashed violently with it, slicing her arm open. She hissed, clapping her hand over the wound and stumbling backwards, narrowly missing falling over Chris. She had barely righted herself when Josh grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him roughly, pressing the blade to her neck this time. She was about to bend at the waist to flip him off her when he jabbed her right in the centre of where her collarbones met, drawing blood.

"I'm serious. I don't need you, Nixa. I don't want to have to hurt you, but they, apparently, have 'special' souls. They could cure Mom instead of just stopping her dying. Them, I won't risk hurting. You… If you annoy me, then I'll have to do it. Okay?" He received only a mutinous glare from Nixa, and took it as a yes. "Olsen. Cupboard under the sink. Some chains. Get them."

Ben his nails into his palms to stop himself saying or doing something that he would regret. Turning on his heel smartly, he disappeared into the laundry niche and opened the cupboard under the sink. Hoping for a weapon of some kind, he was deeply disappointed when all he discovered was four sets of handcuffs hanging on nails on the back of the cupboard and three sets of the manacles that Nixa had been in all led out on paper, newly oiled.

"Manacles for the lady. Handcuffs for you. Hurry up."

Snatching the requested items from the cupboard, Ben banged the door and shoved them at Josh wordlessly, wondering if there was something he could do to free Nixa without getting her throat cut. Blood was winding its way into her shirt from the wound that Josh has given her earlier so he decided that, for now, the answer was no.

"Does it look like I've got the ability to do anything with these? Cuff yourself to the pillar."

"There is no way—"

Josh traced the athame along Nixa's collarbone, drawing a thin, gleaming, bloody line. "Do it. Please just do it."

Ben accidentally bit through his cheek, tasting warm copper in his mouth. He dumped the manacles on the floor at Josh's feet and, swallowing the blood, the witch set his jaw and fastened one cuff around his wrist before walking over to the pillar and sitting down on the opposite side to Chris. Still glaring at Josh, he awkwardly bent his hands around behind his back and clicked the second cuff into place, tugging on his restraints as proof.

"Thank you," Josh murmured. "Thank you for not making this hard."

Monsters of the Deep End

Bridget sat in her mother's car listening to the screeches and laughs of her peers wafting from the backyard of Josh's house. So what if she only had her temp license? She was almost sixteen and she didn't run stop signs. Mostly. Besides, if you could floor it and make it across, then why stop? Unless you were a wuss. Anyway, the point was that no one would know.

She tugged on the strap of her lilac top and looked at herself in the mirror once more. Stupid bubbly look. Her big sunglasses and hair pulled up. She pulled her mouth into a wide smile and tilted her head. There. SoCal bimbette to the max. Goddamit, this was one hell of a facial workout… She looked back in the mirror one last time. She'd fit in….

Right?

"Come on, Vance. If Nixa can slay demons in stilettos, you can in a bikini." But there was nowhere comfortable for one to hide a nice shiny sword and her denim shorts could hold nothing but a wallet and a couple of ninja stars and she didn't feel like having a sharp piece of metal stab her in the ass. "Alright, just do it. Ben and Chris are probably in trouble and Nixa… well who cares." She got out, locked the doors to the Mustang and made her way up the winding, car filled driveway, pulling down her dark glasses as she passed giggling cheerleaders and a couple of rowdy basketball players and—

Wyatt.

Damn.

Ugh. Why didn't these sunglasses come with an invisibility button? She held her breath as she walked past him, cringing inwardly, but he didn't notice her as he walked past her towards the party. She started to breathe again, then suddenly wasn't sure if she should be offended or grateful at his lack of acknowledgement. Whatever. It didn't matter. She had to go save her friends.

And maybe Nixa too.

It wasn't too difficult to get inside the house. People were coming out or stumbling in and she just slid past a sopping wet and groping couple in the back hallway and casually walked into the kitchen, skirting treacherous puddles on the tiles. Either no one recognized her or they did and were just ignoring her. Either way she was totally thankful. Now then:


If I were two idiot witches and some prissy little Hunter, where would I be?

Basement or attic. Or a bedroom. She'd work her way up. That involved finding the basement… and she couldn't find that.

Dammit. Who the hell doesn't put the steps to the basement in the kitchen? It was like some unwritten law or something. But then again, the Muse house (their really big house) was fancy and the steps were probably in a laundry room or something. Unless the laundry room was in the basement, then Bridget was even more screwed.

Dammit.

She revolved slowly, looking around the kitchen. There! Small, discreet door. Grinning, she lunged towards it, turning the handle and flinging it open, expecting to see the basement steps, but it was just an overly large broom closet. She scowled at its dim interior and slammed the door.

The loud call of a wet T-shirt contest startled her and sent everyone running outside suddenly. She yelled as she nearly got knocked into the kitchen chairs by some jerk running past her, but he paid no attention and soon she was left in the empty kitchen. She was glad that she had gone against her instincts to cover herself up with a T-shirt, or she'd probably have been dragged out there too, and the thought of all of those guys leering at her made her skin crawl.

"Nice way to get a house nice and empty," she murmured. Okay, no entrance to the basement in the kitchen. Move on to… somewhere else that would have basement access. Where? Think…

Weapons were needed first but, luckily, the kitchen looked as if it had been purposely built to house some kind of culinary show, and there was a nice array of sharp, pointy knives to play with. She grabbed a butcher's knife from the block and tested its balance before reopening the closet door and grabbing the crowbar she'd seen there, spinning it like a baton twirler.

"Hot chick in a bikini with sharp weapons. Be still my heart."

Fuck.

The crowbar slipped from her grasp to the floor with a loud metal clanging that reminded her of an alarm. She plastered a sweet smile of the 'Imma stab you' kind onto her face and turned to the twice-blessed bastard. Swim trunks, sleeveless white shirt and sunglasses propped on his head, he was the definition of a normal high schooler. So she felt a teensy, tiny, molecule sized bit bad for him but he annoyed her and therefore she didn't care. "So what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked amiably, bending to pick up the crowbar and adjusting her grip in case knocking him over the head was required.

Wyatt shrugged. "The call of a wet T-shirt contest is in my blood. Instinct. I'm guessing you're looking to kill some big bad demon?"

"No. I just like walking around with weapons and stabbing random people who damage my calm," she said deliberately, waving the butchers' knife in his general direction before turning into the back hallway where the steps upstairs were. The basement must be here somewhere…

"You know, demon hunting by yourself could be dangerous. Especially since Chris and the idiot and Nixa are all captured."

Ugh. He was still behind her? She turned on her heel and opened her mouth to say something but a large gaggle of giggling girls were headed in their direction and she dropped the weapons behind a potted plant and pushed Wyatt into the small closet under the stairs.

"Wow. In a closet with Bridget Vance. An honour to have made the list. So do we make out with the lights on or off?"

"Think with your upstairs brain for once, moron. What the hell are you doing here?"

Wyatt shrugged. "Same reason you are. Chris called. Told me what was up. And if he dies and I don't save him, I'll be grounded for the rest of my natural life so…"

"Called you— oh, right. Whitelighter thing." Bridget pressed her ear to the door. The giggling girls were still there. "Look," she turned back to him. "There's really no point in you helping me. All you're going to do is get in my way and stand there and look pretty and I don't have time for that so—"

"You think I'm pretty, huh?" Wyatt dodged her smack. "Well I would go for devilishly handsome but—"

"Oh, you're such a badass, aren't you?" she sniped. "With your stupid orbs and orbing ball things. Amateur." The girls had left and she opened the door. "And hey, gimme some space. I don't need you right on top of me."

"So you like being on top— Ow!"

Monsters of the Deep End

She was twirling the crowbar again as she slunk through the house, the faint screams and yells of the cheerleaders having the hosepipe turned on them irking her. "Okay, Halliwell. Where's the basement?"

"Why are you asking me?"

It had to be around here somewhere. They were in some kind of… dead-end corridor, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to have doors built into it and display a million pictures of Josh's stupid grinning face. It was a stupidly designed house, and one day she was going to have to introduce the architect to her Samurai sword.

"You're the witch, right? Sense it or something. I'm just here to kill things." She spotted another door and wrenched it open. Coat and shoe closet. Growling, she kicked it closed. How much freaking storage space did the rich need, anyway? Four doors to go. One of them had to be the basement. They couldn't all be places to cram their materialistic tat.

Wyatt rolled his eyes, grinning at her. "Girl with many talents."

Thwack

"Hey!" Wyatt yelled, rubbing his upper arm. "I'm on your team!"

"Then go sit on the bench," Bridget said coldly, spinning on her heel and trying another door. Expecting it to be another closet, the comparative vastness of the space before her gave her slight vertigo. They were looking into what appeared to be the den. Bridget did the customary sweep of the room, but found no doors leaving off of it.

Suddenly, there were footsteps behind them, and Wyatt shoved her in the small of her back. She tumbled forward, tripped over the Turkish rug and landed hard on the parquet beneath it.

"You pushed me!"

"I did not," he scowled, putting his ear to the door. He heard vague footsteps on the staircase through the wood and relaxed again, opening the door. "That was a nudge. It's not my fault you fell on your face."

Bridget snatched up the crowbar and exited the room, slamming the door behind her. Her face was hot and prickly and she knew that she was blushing.

"This is a push." He pushed her away from him, motioning exaggeratedly to demonstrate his point. "See?"

The Hunter raised the crowbar threateningly. "What are you? Twelve?" she pushed him back and snorted as he fell into an end table, upsetting a pot plant atop it. He snatched it out of the air and put it back on the table.

"There! That was also a push. You're getting it now. Let me show you one more time." He shoved her once more and she made an exasperated noise and shoved him back, throwing him into a door that was ajar. It banged open and he went tumbling backwards into the unknown darkness beyond.

And grabbed her arm in the process.

Dun! Well... You know, kind of. Thank you for all of your kind reviews and I'm so sorry for not posting. It just... Busy. So very, very, very busy. Nightmare. Anyhoo, I have now. Hope it was enjoyed.