15

Alex was found!

When Jerry and Theresa heard the story Justin told from Boston, Theresa screamed ecstatically and hugged Jerry and her son. Harper cheered too, punching the air around her with her fist. Max on the other hand didn't get it until Justin explained it to him. They had her new name, her new address and the details on her new identity. The only recourse now was what to do next with the info they now had. Monica was not going to come willingly to be pulled out of Alex plus the time restraints on the typical spell for exorcising a spirit from the corporeal body was over. By now, Monica would have absorbed Alex's memories and personality. They would be too immersed in each other's personalities to just be pulled apart. Jerry and Justin would have to plan the assault. They had to peruse the family spell book for the right spell to freeze Alex and get her to Wiz-Tech for Professor Victorious Crumbs to separate them, but that was just the last part. As Monica Frost, Alex was quite powerful as a sorceress. She would have to be faced with an even amount of magic power, and as much as Jerry had his reservations, he hoped both Justin and Max together had enough power between them to surprise and take down their sister.

"You know the spell?" Jerry asked his boys. They were back at the Hotel Tipton and heading up to the seventh floor.

"Somnus Transcendentum…" Justin rolled his wand around his fingers. "Got it…"

"What Justin said…" Max was scratching his head with his wand. "So… Alex is rich now?" He was dreaming of all the things he wanted. "Can I ask her for a car?"

"No…." Jerry rolled his eyes and made a noise of frustration as the elevator stopped at the seventh floor. "Look, don't try talking to her… just freeze her and then we'll do what we can about getting Monica's spirit out of your sister." He checked the room numbers and started counting them down before turning around and following them to the right suite.

"I think she likes to be called Nikki." Max remarked. "I hope she lets me call her, Nikki," His father shot a look at him.

"I still think we should have asked Professor Danvers to come." Justin mumbled out loud. "If Alex is a powerful as we think she is, we're going to need as much power we need on our side."

"Professor Danvers is a very busy man…" He counted down from Room 710 to 715 at the end of the hall. "We can do some things on our own." He paused outside the suite. "Now, look, we do this fast and furious… no hesitating. Hit her with the spell as fast as we can get her to open the door."

"Dad…" Max's mind still had to ask about the money Alex had offered to be left alone. "How about a chocolate-filled swimming pool? I've already got the canoe!"

"Max!" Jerry yelled at him under his voice. Justin swatted his brother up side the head for being stupid. Huddling at the doors to the suite, Jerry worked up his nerve, raised his clenched fingers and knocked at the door just under the brass number plate.

"Room service…" His voice stammered as he mustered up his nerve and lied. He heard movement inside. Max looked to Justin with his wand ready; Justin clenched his wand tightly and determinedly. There were a few other sounds then the sound of light treading and a long dress gliding over a carpet. The lock clicked, a latch was moved aside and Alex opened up the door only a mere foot before recognizing her father and brothers and hurriedly trying to close it again, but something was in the way. It was Jerry's foot to stop her from closing the door. He and his sons stormed the room.

"Somnus…" Justin cried out and stopped waving his wand forward. Max posed with his wand thrust forward as Alex spun around and waved her arms before her face. Everything stopped as Jerry waited for Justin to finish the spell. Did he forget the rest of it?

"Transcendentum…" He reminded him. "Justin, Somnus…" He looked again. Justin was frozen in place where he stood. So was Max. They never had a chance. They had become living statues. Jerry waved his hand before his eldest son's face trying to get a reaction then turned to snap his fingers before Max to try and wake him. They were still breathing, and they were still warm, but all their autonomic and conscious will had been locked up. Jerry groaned under his breath and looked to his daughter. She was dressed in a slinky light blue dress with her right arm resting over her huge crystal ball on the table behind the sofa like a little girl playing dress-up. Her head slightly tilted to one side, she was grinning a bit proud of herself.

"Oh, crap…" He was now the only non-magical person in the room.

"Hello, father…" Alex spoke as if she were herself. "I didn't think you'd find me until after Christmas. This is a wonderful surprise." She glided elegantly to her liquor cabinet. "Would you like a nice drink? I bet you'd like a nice Scotch."

"Actually, I'm more of a whiskey guy…" Jerry recaught himself. "Wait a second! What did you do to my sons?!"

"They'll be okay…" Alex poured herself and her father some sherry from a decanter left out. "They'll just come out of feeling really well rested." She handed him his drink.

"Thank you…" Jerry took it and barely sipped it before coughing it up. "You're drinking?!"

"Only an occasional sherry and some wine with my dinner…" Alex acted as a gracious hostess. She glided over to her big chair under her family portrait and lightly lowered herself into it with one leg draped over her other leg and her hand with her sherry regally tipping her drink to her lips. "So…" She looked at him as an outsider. "This one wizard per family thing? Whose idiot idea was that?"

"We still do it…" Jerry stammered. "We're not the only Wizard family that still does it." He looked back to Justin and Max frozen in place. He looked back to Alex. "Who are you?"

"Monica Elizabeth Frost…" Alex claimed. "But my friends call me Nikki…"

"No…" Jerry stood over her. "I contacted the spirit of Madelyne Frost; she promised me none of her children were involved."

"She was right." Alex set her drink aside and lifted her head up. "Madelyne Frost was my step-mother…"

Looking briefly to the portrait with the Frosts and the six children, Jerry dropped stunned into the sofa. He was right the whole time, and so was Danvers. How could he have missed this, but then, how could he have known?

"My father had a brief fling with my mother during the French Revolution…" Alex described Monica's memories. "He was a very charitable man, but he was also quite a charmer. My real mother was a rather powerful sorceress in the court of King Louis the XVIII, but she fled before the Revolution and came to America. She died of tuberculosis shortly thereafter, and Madelyne adopted me afterward to raise as her own, but… despite the love I felt in that house, I just never really felt accepted."

"Is that why you didn't pass over?"

"I don't know…" Alex reacted plaintively. She sipped her sherry. "Do you know what happened the night I died?" She looked back to Jerry. "The night of the fire, I had snuck out to see a boy. His name was Joshua Prince… his family lived down the lane on a small horse farm. We were so in love despite his family being non-magic. Anyway, I was sneaking back home after midnight when I saw our house in flames through the woods. It was horrible. It lit up the night to dark red, turned the trees into huge torches and incinerated the ground around it. Despite the great heat, I pushed myself forward to save my father and family, but I never made it…." Her eyes became emotional as she recalled the events. "I made it inside, made my way up the back stairs and then felt everything coming down on top of me. I felt my hair on fire, my skin boiling and my eyes exploding within my face… I was powerless to stop it. It was all too much for me…

"I woke a few days later in the basement." She continued. "The house was charred to the timbers. Everything was gone. My home was gone. My family was gone. I was invisible and unseen to all who passed by it to see the damage. I watched neighbors and strangers carry the remains of my family out in tiny wrapped packages to be buried. I watched as the house collapsed on itself, and as civilization claimed the area. The orchard was destroyed for progress; the trees were cleared and hauled away. I watched as horseless carriages filled the roads, electricity powered homes and as men came and built the school on the grounds of the property. I saw fashions come and go, I became familiar with the slang and words of each generation because… I knew eventually I'd be strong enough to come back. I'd find someone worthy of me, and I made it with the help of other earthbound spirits and I promised them, if I made it that I'd make sure no earthbound soul would ever be lost again."

"I want my daughter back."

"I'm right here…" She leaned toward him in her revealing dress. "Give me a few months… I'll tell the public I briefly lived with you as my foster family and that you raised me. I can be both Alex and…"

"No…" Jerry shook his head frustratedly. "I want my daughter, Alex, I want her back."

"I can invest in the shop…" Alex was trying to dissuade him. "I'll get a nice place for all of us on Staten Island, give you stocks, bonds and financial security; you as my foster family and…"

"I'd give it all up just to get Alex back…" Jerry pleaded for her and held her hands in his own just to touch her again. "Please…. I know Alex is selfish, lazy and difficult, but…. She's my only daughter. Please let me have her back."

Alex tugged her hands back, rose from the chair and turned away aggravatedly.

"You give money to charity, you help people raise themselves from nothing…" Jerry tried appealing to her conscience. "You invest in all these things and yet… you can't give me my daughter back."

"I can't go back to what I was…." Alex also recalled Monica's memories as a spirit. "I feel for you, Mr. Russo, but… I can do so much more alive than as a spirit." She gestured toward Max and Justin and caught their wands jumping from their hands toward her after disarming them. Regaining their mobility, the two brothers straightened up and looked around trying to realize what had happened to them. Justin groaned and looked around once, but upon seeing his sister in that long revealing dress shaping her figure, he suddenly made a gagging noise and averted his eyes away from her. He turned to the bar, grabbed a bottle of water and started drinking it down to deal with his stomach tying in knots. He was not used to see her in such shapely apparel. Max looked around checking the place over.

"Yeah, this is exactly the kind of place I'm getting if I ever move out…" He looked the suite over from the fireplace to the big television. "Hey, dad, can I stay the weekend with Alex here at her new place?" He switched on her television.

"No!"

"Dad…" Justin rushed around his sister to get to his father. "What happened? What's going on?"

"We're going…." Jerry sounded broken-hearted and grief-stricken. "Max!" He took their wands back from Alex.

"Dad, she gets the channels we don't get!"

Jerry took the remote from him and tossed it to the sofa. Grabbing Max by his sleeve, he escorted him toward the door with Justin rushing to catch up. Skirting around Alex and whoever she was now, the elder Russo son suddenly found himself genuinely afraid of his sister. Distantly watching him from afar, Alex complacently watched and exchanged awkward silences with this family of which she was so briefly a part.

"I'll be expecting my daughter home by Monday for school…" Jerry looked to her. "After that, I'll be going straight to the Wizard's Council…" He headed out...

Alex stood behind and watched as he closed the doors.

"You do that…" She answered.