Waited. That's what I mostly did for the next several hours. I made sure to keep the lights off, to give the impression of a house, where everyone was sleeping. Finally, after what seemed like a long time I heard the doorbell. Quickly, I messed up my hair and ruffled the pjs I had put on a while before. I, by sheer will, let it ring for a while. Sleeping people tend not to open the door right away. I should know, as I used to be the one to ring their doorbell with bad news. That's one of the few things about the job that I didn't miss.

Then, I finally allowed myself to open it.

"Rick?Huh?" I asked in my best groggy voice as I put on my 'why the hell did you wake me?' face.

Opening the door showed me that things didn't go as planned. While Elizabeth was with Charlie aka Rick, so was Antha, and Trixie, with bags.

"They're in danger, Don!" Charlie told me in the panicky voice he had used during rehearsal.

"Danger?Wha...?" I went with the flow. Looks like they were there with Elizabeth, and Charlie improvised. Things had gotten complicated.

"I saw them all..Don...being zipped up in body bags! Side by side!" he tapped the ground with his cane

"The timing of Rick's warning gave us cause for concern" Antha said.

"Oh.." I made a point of rubbing my eyes. "How?"

"We have reason to believe that evil forces are about, and that we needed to be careful." Antha told me. Her dyed black hair was in pigtails.

"I definitely sensed them in my dream!" Charlie remarked.

"What can I do? I'm no longer an FBI agent" I said with a tone of chagrin.

"Rick had another vision that involved you protecting us" Antha said. "So we came here."

"...we get vibes of strength from you" Trixie said. "And it made sense. You're an ex FBI agent. That fact that you joined us a short time before this happened, in this light, could not be a coincidence."

"Thanks for ..the uh….faith...but uh...they don't really teach you much about 'evil forces' at Quantico" I told them, wanting to act the skeptic.

Charlie or uh..Rick and I argued for bit, and then he asked me to have faith in him. With some 'reluctance' I agreed and let them in.

"My Dad's away on a business trip, and my brother's at his office pulling an all nighter." I told them as they made themselves at home.

"This is a very nice house!" Trixie remarked. "I can see why you haven't gotten your own place"

"Anyway...uh...so did your dreams suggest a hiding place?" I asked.

"Rick suggested that this would be the last place they would look. He got a sense of that." Antha explained.

Trixie took out some cookies and offered them to us "Want some?"

"Cookies..uh..interfere with my visions" Charlie politly refused.

"I won't be of much help if I'm high" I told them.

"This place needs a protective spell" Antha observaed

"Protective spell?" Charlie repeated with doubt.

"Sure..go ahead..." Like my brother and father said, we were scaring them. Besides, I'm supposed to have an interest in this stuff. "I'll help you."

"Don't you believe in spells?" Antha asked Charlie.

"My experiance in magic is rather passive..." he said quickly.

Soon, they took out some herbs from a bag, not to mention Dad's various pots and pans. I could see Charlie frowning. Seems like most mathematicians didn't like having their houses spelled.

"I hope we don't have to eat anything" my brother whispered in my ear as I boiled some foul smelling plant in a pot filled with water. After it was done, I was told to chop it up.

After much prep involving plants, herbs, blood from a pricked finger, the three woman started to set things up in the living room by lighting candles, moving around the furniture, putting a large poster of some strange geometrical shape on the floor, and other weird things. Charlie, of course, had to study it .

"You're supposed to be a blind psychic" I reminded him by whispering in his ear.

"Oh….sorry" he whispered back with chagrin, but did it again a few seconds later.

"You can sense it's power can't you?" Antha asked Charlie. Guess she saw him.

"He sure can!" I said when my brother didn't answer. "It seems to have a hold on him"

Charlie was probably making all kinds of calculations in his head, good thing I had an out. I got his attention again, and reminded him to stay in character. Soon, we noticed that they were putting candles around the geometrical shape.

"If there's an earthquake right now..." he began with worry.

"Don't worry buddy" I assured him, but he was right. There were too many candles.

"We need one more thing" Elizabeth said.

"What?" I asked.

the young woman told us seriously "A live animal to sacrifice, perferably a goat."

TBC