A Second Life
Chapter 6; Phoenix in Flight
San Francisco
As it was impossible to travel out of 'Olympus' without orbing and Harry couldn't risk appearing on Earth in his human form Joel had to orb him and that was why Joel appeared in a bedroom in San Francisco in a cloud of glowing orbs with a foot tall black bird on his shoulder. He was in his full Dark Phoenix form which to the untrained eye looked almost identical to his publicly known form of a Raven. The only main difference was the magical look he took on when in his Phoenix form. His Raven was the same shade of black but with its slight green tint whereas his Phoenix form had silver linings to his feathers and streaks of silver feathers under his wings so he could fly during the day and only people who knew what a Dark Phoenix looked like could possible realise what he truly was.
Joel spoke quietly bringing Harry out of his musings and onto the middle aged man on the bed across the room. "That is Damien. I'm going to leave you with him now; it's almost eight in the morning so he should be up soon. If you need anything or need to go up call my name in your mind. If that doesn't work try calling for Luke, he has spent enough time near you to be able to hear you in an emergency. See you soon and remember, you're just a cute and fluffy Phoenix." Joel said with a laugh with ended abruptly as Harry launched off of his shoulder making sure to grip painfully tight with his talons and then whacking the younger man over the head with his left wing as he took off.
Harry settled smoothly onto the window seat and turned to look at Joel who was raking his hand through his hair struggling to dislodge the ice now coating a patch just above his ear. "That's really cold you know." He spluttered as he tried in vain to get rid of it.
Harry just sent him a smug look and concentrated briefly to speak to the Elder. 'I might be cute, but fluffy! Be glad I didn't zap you instead.' Harry told him and then laughed. 'That's not normal ice Joel, it's magical. It'll melt on his own and only then.'
"How long will that take?" Joel asked resignedly as he dropped his hand in defeat.
'About six hours or so.' Harry laughed at his shocked face and sent him a mental image of ice cold water dripping slowly down his back. 'He's waking up, you better go, have fun.' Harry's voice was laughing and he watched as Joel glared at him lightly before the man disappeared in a spiral of orbs.
Just as the room darkened again the man woke up and struggled to swing his legs over the side of the bed. As the cover fell down to his waist Harry took in the blood soaked bandage covering his upper torso and also the smaller but still bloodied bandage on his lower left arm. Before Harry could stop himself he had squawked. Well not squawked as such since Phoenixes didn't do anything as mundane as twirping, chirping and especially squawking. Instead the sound that came out was one of pity. Slightly harsher then the sounds Harry used to hear from Fawkes as his songs were designed to rally fighters and increase fortitude rather then calm and increase courage like his 'cousin' Fawkes' songs were for.
Squawk or pity filled song didn't matter though really as either would have got the man's attention just as well.
The man's first thought was that he had left the window open over the night and that a crow or raven had flown into his room and in his slightly sleepy and painful state that's what he thought it was.
"What's a raven like you doing in here?" He asked calmly like he was talking to a stray not realising that he was offending the bird. Harry sung a song that distinctly made the man feel that he was being told off. Harry shook out his wings and flapped once to get off the window seat and glided lightly across the room with only one more brush of his wings but the huge wingspan lined with sliver streaks and rapidly closing form across the bedroom was enough for the man to put the clues together.
As Harry landed on the duvet over the man's lap the man managed to stutter out the truth. "A Dark Phoenix? How is this possible?"
Harry folded his wings slowly and the man reached up a hand to stroke his wing tip as it passed his uninjured side but drew his fingers back with a gasp as he touched them. "You're so cold! Do you want me to turn up the heating or something?" He had never met a Dark Phoenix before and had no clue as to what they were like.
Even though Harry's Phoenix's kind rarely used calming songs that didn't mean they couldn't. His song instantly calmed the man and allowed Harry to look him over. Harry had to wait for the man to think about using his own magic before he would be able to talk to him. Even Harry Potter wasn't powerful enough to read minds on a whim and communicate mentally. He could talk to Jason before of their bond and he could talk to Joel in the same way that Whitelighter's talked to Elders. Other than that he couldn't talk to anyone whilst he had Phoenix vocal chords.
He peered at the man carefully smelling the strong smell of burnt flesh that he couldn't believe he had missed originally. He gave a concerned trill before reaching down to grip the top of Damien's arm bandage between his upper and lower beak and tugging it slightly.
The top split under his sharp beak but the bandage didn't come completely loss. The man looked at him curiously and Harry could almost see the man thinking over the books he must have read but Harry waited in vain.
If Harry could he would have rolled his eyes, instead he darted up and jabbed the man none too gently on the side of the head with his beak making sure not to cut him.
"Oh my God," Damien laughed, "I've only been doing it for my whole life. Wait a sec!" Harry felt magic wash over him and his Whitelighter bond with this Damien strengthen. "That'll let me understand you if you direct words at me."
Harry decided if he was going to be a Phoenix he had to act like one. 'As I am to understand young witch.' He had to catch himself from calling the man a wizard and reminded himself to be more careful about calling the males here witches too.
"I'm sorry I didn't do that before but I was too shocked at seeing a Dark Phoenix in my room. Why are you here if you don't mind me asking?" Damien asked. Harry couldn't help but think that he was very modest.
Harry decided to go out on a limb thinking that there was no way that the man could have been injured this bad by accident. 'I saw you being attacked and thought you might need some protection for a while.' Seeing that he had been right in his leap of faith he continued, 'Now lie back down and take off your bandages so that I can heal you. Tell me what you know about those that did this to you young speaker.' He remembered the snakes used to call him that so thought it would suit in this case too.
The man didn't know much except that it was a higher level demon that wanted his powers to control the magical birds. As Damien spoke Harry allowed three tears to fall on his torso and one to land on his arm and watched in satisfaction as the wounds closed without a mark to show they were ever there.
'You have still lost a lot of blood and I can't replenish that. You must rest, I will guard you. I know that help is on the way.'
Halliwell Manor; The second morning after Harry's Death.
The normally lively Halliwell house was rather subdued. Paige, Piper and Phoebe were down about Harry's death and Leo was subdued because of their moods. Even the two boys were upset over everything, especially Chris who had taken a liking to Jason even if Jason had been very upset for the day he had stayed at the Manor.
Jason had stayed for a day after they had verified Harry's death. He had spent the day in pain and had described it to the Sisters as if his magic was trying to take him over. He had left earlier than they would have liked to search for the book that Harry had told him about and also to make sure that Harry got the credit that he deserved. Also his friends would all start to think him dead in the original explosion and he didn't want his pub to be taken over.
This morning however was to an early start however. Phoebe had gotten a premonition early that morning that had woken her up from an otherwise uneventful sleep.
"What happened again Phoebe?" Leo asked her for the second time.
Phoebe gave him an exasperated look but described it again trying to think of anything that she had missed that would tell of the exact location of the event.
"I saw a burning house; a single house like it had exploded from the inside. There was already fire trucks fighting it and it looked almost out. There was a news truck there so it must have been burning for a good half and hour. Then I saw a glimpse of two demons talking in the crowd before the scene disappeared." Phoebe broke off thinking before continuing to the second part of the dream. "It continued in a park, there was a small lake. A man was stood at the edge looking really nervous before the two demons shimmered in front of him. He dodged a fireball but then a great black bird swooped from the sky towards him and that was it."
"What exactly did the bird look like?" Leo asked.
"I'm not sure," Phoebe thought a bit, "It was defiantly bigger than normal, it was night time so I couldn't really see for sure. I saw its talons, very sharp talons and they were reached towards the man for sure and it came from behind the Demons without touching them so it can't have been attacking for the man against the Demons."
"I've never seen something like that before, if it's a magical bird we should be worried for the man. There aren't many magical birds but they are all creatures to be wary of." Leo advised.
"What about the lake?" Paige asked suddenly, "Was there anything odd about it?"
"Actually," Phoebe said after a while, "There was a structure in the middle of it. Like a pavilion, but no way onto the island."
"Was it red brick?" she asked again.
"I could've been, I only remember a shadow, but I can remember the design." Phoebe answered apologetically.
"Hang on, I think I know where you mean, I'll try and find a picture of it on your internet." Everyone was quiet as they waited for the page to come up.
"That's it, I'm sure of it, he was standing just there." Phoebe said when a picture came up on the screen. Piper nodded at Paige with gratitude.
"I visited it as a kid, it's a big mansion about thirty miles out of town, and it's got a big lake and everything." Paige explained.
"Good, so we've got the location but what about the time?" Piper put in.
Leo thought a while before working it out. "What about the news vans, as long as someone keeps an eye on the news channels we should have enough warning for Paige to orb us to the lake."
It was Piper that came up with the plan of attack. "So we orb there and wait for the Demons to appear, blow them up and grab the man and orb back here?"
"What about the bird?" Leo asked. "We don't know what it is, we shouldn't just assume we can freeze it and we don't want to go around just trying to blow up an unknown magical bird."
"We only need to freeze it long enough to blow up the demons and orb out." Piper argued.
Damien's House; That evening
Damien had woken from his rest just after six in the evening and for the last two hours he had been taking non-stop to Harry, or Aberro as Harry had asked him to call him. He didn't think that the Sisters knew Jason's full name but even if they did The Wandering One wasn't exactly a far fetched name for a Bird after all.
'Aberro' and Damien had been discussing the bird lover's books for the last two hours, especially those on Phoenixes and with Aberro's help had made some edits to them where they were wrong.
However the whole time they had talked Aberro's senses had been on high alert. He was searching for any magical activity in the area which was why when a rat scurried across the room he only just noticed it. He did however quickly note the magic surge from it as it vanished in a small red light.
'We're leaving Damien, we're under attack.' Aberro wasn't an expert on Demons but he knew attack methods, if you were going to blow something up to kill someone you had to make sure they were there. Before the human could even object Aberro's claws were around his arm and they disappeared in a storm of lightning and a cloud of ice crystals that in Aberro's haste shattered a mirror as they spiralled out.
Damien's street
It was early in the evening so most people were either about to go out or were still thinking about it so when an explosion rocked the street followed first by the shattering of dozens of front windows and then by a wave of heat people were rushing out of their houses thinking first that it was an Earthquake and then as the confusion cleared some were running back inside their houses to call 911. They weren't far from the busier commercial parts of the City of San Francisco so it wasn't long that the people had to stare at the inferno before they were being pushed back by police as fire trucks began to arrive. Ambulance's soon arrived and the paramedics started looking at the worst of the glass caused cuts whilst they kept a keen eye on the fire fighters in case they got somebody out.
People knew Damien well; he was a man that didn't work apart from some consultancy work about his beloved birds but no one could say for sure that he was in the house at the time, nor could any one say that he was defiantly out for the evening.
Nobody noticed the two strangers lurking in the shadows of a house just down the street. Nor could anyone hear them talking, "I can't sense him nor could I just before the explosion. You said you saw him." One said calmly.
"I promise, I did see him, he was in the bedroom, he was talking to some bird, and it kept looking at me." The second man then went on in a stream of insults against the bird population.
"Silence you rat. What was the bird?" He asked sharply, cutting off the tirade.
"I don't know; just a dumb bird, black, maybe a Raven. He was talking to it, called it Aberro I think."
"You foolish rodent! A Witch doesn't give a bird a Latin name unless it is a Magical bird!" The first said in anger. "Now shut up while I search him out!"
Whilst he had been talking a camera crew rushed past them and he dimly heard them reporting on a possible terrorist strike to follow the ones in England. It didn't matter really, they would find it had been a gas leak eventually and the news would forget it ever happened.
Halliwell Manor; Immediately after
"Piper!" Leo yelled from the sofa, "It's happening, a building just exploded near the bay. They think it was a terrorist strike."
Phoebe ran into the room and took one look at the screen before declaring it as the exact house from her premonition.
"Leo, stay here with the kids, Billie's coming with us." Paige declared and with nothing else said they all orbed out.
The Lake; Shortly before
Aberro and Damien had reappeared shortly after they had left the house. And at once Aberro had to speak to Damien to quiet him down after the new experience of elemental teleporting. 'Quiet for a second Damien. Ok, we're alone but I don't know how long that will last. Your house exploded shortly after we left, I felt the heat behind us.'
"My house?" Damien whispered. "Gone?"
'I'm sorry Damien, but at least you are alive still.' Aberro flapped once to get up onto the man's shoulder and lightly nipped on the man's ear to show his sympathy at his loss.
"Thanks to you." He said quietly. "I have a summer cabin on the outskirts of the city I can move into."
Aberro gave the man another nip. 'I need to get some altitude to check everything out. Stay here and try not to make too much noise.'
With that Aberro shoved off and flapped quickly to gain altitude. He started to hover at about thirty feet. It was a cloudy night so he was semi-confident that he wouldn't be spotted that easily against the night sky.
That was where he stayed for almost ten minutes using the dying heat waves to keep him up as much as possible and flying in circles to stay near Damien. He decided in that time to watch from here for about twenty more minutes then he would take Damien to his cabin for the night.
He was just glancing down for the hundredth time to check that his charge was where he should be when two figures appeared about twenty feet from Damien and incidentally between himself and his charge. He instantly tilted his wings to swoop over their heads when he saw four more figures break from the cover and start towards them, he felt that they were powerful, more so then the two between him and Damien so he decided to scare them off long enough to get to Damien and teleport out.
He charged up his wings and instantly lit the area with silver light as he collapsed his right wing to quickly turn towards the four people and sent three slashes of lightning at them. He was dimly surprised when a wave of magic spread from one of the newcomers. One of his bolts froze but the other two merely slowed before crashing into where the group had been standing just as they jumped getting a little shocked as they did. A different one of the four muttered something and the lightning that had frozen in place shot back at Aberro only to encircle him. This all happened in just two seconds and Aberro suddenly realised that in the commotion he had forgotten about the two Demons between him and Damien.
He flung the returned lightning bolt at the two and watched as they were electrocuted before they both burst into flames with a cry of pain.
Aberro turned in the air to look for the four figures to see that they were almost on top of Damien and with a trill of annoyance Aberro collapsed both his wings and shot down to them but was too late. Damien yelled out as he was grabbed by four sets of hands and Aberro could only watch as the group of five disappeared from view in a cloud of orbs.
Then Aberro realised. Orbs meant Whitelighters or Paige and those four defiantly were not Whitelighters so that left only the sisters. Aberro's wizard side was fine with that, he knew that Damien was supposed to go with them, but that didn't please his Phoenix side which couldn't allow his charge to be taken from him without permission.
In that instant Aberro made his decision and burst into lightning and teleporting at the same speed as the orbs, tracking them to the Halliwell Manor.
A/N; See quick update. I'm going to start to refer to Harry only as Aberro whenever he is in his Phoenix form.
Rkhiara; I didn't have Jason Lewis in mind when I wrote the description. You are welcome to think of him though… the main difference I can see is that my Jason's hair is darker.
Thanks to my other reviewers. Next chapters done, just waiting for a bit for some more reviews.