"Let's try the scrying thing," James suggested to Matthew, producing a large map from an old dusty trunk. "You look in the Book for any clues."
"I'm on it," Matthew said, taking the Book of Light and sitting in an antique chair. "Hopefully we can find something and get this over with before it's too late."
"I'll tell you what," James said, spreading the map out neatly on the floor and reaching back inside for the crystal. "If I get my hands on this demon it's gonna be hell to pay."
"Right…" Matthew said hesitantly as he rolled his eyes and continued to flip the pages. He stopped at a particular page of interest. "Didn't Kim say something about them possibly being in another dimension?"
"I think so," James said. "Why? What'd you find?"
"There's a page here that talks about planes of existence," Matthew said. "Basically everything is here, but kind of divided into eleven planes. We exist on one plane, but according to this, there's a ghostly plane, an astral plane, it's a whole plane thing."
"What does that mean?" James asked. He held the black string over the map so that the crystal began to dangle from it. "Can we find him?"
"I don't know," Matthew said as he continued to read. He stopped as he came to information of particular interest. "There's a spell to summon someone here from any plane, but it's a Complete spell."
"Of course," James said, allowing the crystal to swing freely over the map. "So that's out. What else?"
"Actually," Matthew announced, stopping at another page, "I think I found who we're looking for. There's a page about Bokor here. He is a demon who…drives witches insane by messing with their heads by any means necessary. He uses something called astral echo to get into his victims' heads."
"Astral what?" James asked.
"It's right here," Matthew said as he explained to James. "'The power to project one's presence into the mind of another, persuading that person to bend to one's voice.'"
"In English?" James insisted.
"Basically," Matthew thought for a moment, trying to find a way to explain things on James' level, "I would say it's a weird form of mind control. There's a spell here to vanquish him, but he has to be here for it to work."
"This sucks," James sighed.
"So you understand now the severity of the situation," Chyp confirmed with Sam. "We can say that we 'lucked out' that one time, but we all know the unpredictability of magic. There's no telling how things would turn out if it were to happen again."
"Oh my God," Sam sighed, putting her hands on top of her head in frustration. "It's like you're not listening to a word I'm saying. Of course I understand the situation, and its severity. What you're not understanding is that I'm…in love…with James."
"You're in…love?" Chyp asked, his gray eyes widening. This was something that was unprecedented in the world of Guardians. Love was an emotion that was understood, but never allowed to be embraced because of its unpredictability. "You are daring to have history repeat itself?"
"No," Sam said flatly. "I don't wanna repeat any history. I'm only saying that I should be allowed to have a chance to see things through, to see how everything is going to work out."
"Sam," Chyp explained, "we have already seen what would come of you 'seeing things through.' The Complete was vanquished."
"And we're back to square one," Sam said. "Don't you understand that any alternate future is just one of literally infinite possible futures? Just because we saw that particular one instance doesn't mean that that is what's going to definitely happen. It was basically a dice roll that just happened to be snake eyes. What are the chances that it could happen that way again?"
"We can't take that chance, no matter how infinitesimal," Chyp countered. "I wish you could think about this from a logical standpoint instead of an emotional one. All Guardians are taught not to be governed by their emotions. You're going about this the wrong way."
Sam sighed at Chyp's words. She was not going to get anywhere with him this way. No matter what she said, he would counter with a response that brought them right back to the beginning. Her whole intention was to try and convince him that the Superiors should reinstate her to the Complete, reuniting her with James. Chyp remained attached to the way he had been taught: the traditional rules. To him, rules were the most important and should always be followed. According to him, as long as one abided by the rules, all would be well.
"Please try to put yourself in my position," Sam pleaded. "I love Jimmy, okay? I love him. I know we're not supposed to, but it happened. At the risk of repeating myself again…a Guardian has fallen in love with a witch once before, and as a result one of the most powerful forces of good is walking around on Earth. I'm not saying that that will happen again, but I just don't think that two forces of good falling in love with each other isn't a recipe for disaster. I know how you feel about it, and I know how important the rules are to you, but I was hoping for the support of someone who has also gotten to know the brothers. I guess I'm not going to get that support from you…am I?"