“Kyle,” Tess yelled as she saw the boy coming out of the Deluca shop with a disgusted look on his face. “What in the world is wrong?” She asked him as he jogged over to where she stood with Isabel and Maria. She was relieved to have finally found him. The three of them had been all over the place looking for him, always ending up one step behind. “Don’t go in there Maria,” Kyle said seriously, “whatever you do, don’t go in there.” The frightened look in his eyes made all three girls start moving toward the shop. “Jesus I’m telling you that…” “Oh my God…oh my God…” Maria started to hyperventilate. “That’s just…ewe…that’s disgusting. And you were in there with that?” She turned to Kyle with an identical disgusted look on her face. “I think I may be scarred for life.” “Me too,” Kyle said as he sat heavily on a bench. Isabel and Tess watched in amusement as Maria sat down beside the boy. For the first moment since the meeting at the beach two and a half hours earlier the three girls weren’t think about the dreams and their mission. “I told you not to go there,” he added to Maria glumly. “Yeah well,” Maria said in her own defense. “I wasn’t expecting that at all. My mom…your dad…they…ewe.” Maria was past the point of forming coherent sentences. “Will you two just get over it already,” Isabel said with a roll of her eyes. “They’re just kissing. I mean if you really want disgusting you should have seen them early last week when they were staring at each other.” “I don’t know,” Tess said with a wicked grin. “You weren’t at the diner Thursday night when the two of them came in for ice cream together. They shared a bowl and everything.” “Shut up,” both Kyle and Maria said at the same time. Both Isabel and Tess began to laugh at them openly. “How would you like to walk in on something like that?” Maria asked Isabel pointedly. “Uh…” Isabel raised one perfect eyebrow. “Your talking to a Guerin remember? Mom and Dad are waiting for yet another installment of the Guerin mega-bunch. Do you think we go pick them out of the cabbage patch?” “Good one Izzy,” Tess said as she exchanged hi-fives with the girl. “Come on guys,” she told them as she sat down between the two. “It’s not like it’s that bad anyway. I mean Kyle your dad could have been making out with someone a lot worse than Aunt Amy. Have you noticed the single women in this town in his age group? Not a pretty sight. And Maria, Kyle’s dad’s nice at least. I mean, he caught the twins playing mailbox-baseball late Friday night and all he did was take the bat away from them.” “It’s not that,” both Kyle and Maria said in unison again. Maria motioned for Kyle to continue. “It’s not that I am disgusted by Maria’s mom or she by my dad,” Kyle sighed. “But who really wants to see their middle aged parent hooking up? It’s nasty…pure and simple.” “Thank you Kyle,” Maria said with a nod of her head. Then she seemed to remember something and her gaze became more serious. “Um…we were actually looking for you earlier. Before I saw something that I was never meant to be witness to.” “What?” Kyle asked as he noticed the change in atmosphere. All of them were more serious now. Tess, beside him, had visibly tensed up. He took her hand in his and squeezed in it comfortingly. “Well,” Isabel said as she cleared her throat. “We…um…Tess why don’t you do it?” “Well,” Tess said as she licked her lips nervously. “We are having a little get together tonight on the beach and we thought that you might want to come. All of us will be there, and we want you there too, with us.” “OK,” Kyle said with a careless shrug. Was that it? The three of them were acting like it had been a life or death situation to ask him to a simple party. “I guess I’ll meet you guys there then.” Isabel and Maria smiled in obvious relief and Tess made a move to stand. “Um Tess?” Kyle asked her as he kept her seated in the bench. “Since my dad is obviously occupied for dinner, and your dad is out of town again, would you like to have dinner with me?” “Yes,” Tess smiled warmly at him. “I’d really love that Kyle. Izzy, Maria,” she turned to her friends. “Kyle and I will meet you guys later ok.” “OK,” Isabel said with a grin at the two of them. She never thought that she would be happy to see the day when one of them fell for an outsider, but she was. “Come on Maria,” she said as she began to walk away from the couple on the bench. “The two of them need some alone time,” Maria whispered a minute later when they were out of earshot. “Who knows when Tess is going to get it again after we tell him everything tonight?” “That’s for sure,” Isabel said with a grimace. Sweetie or not, Kyle wasn’t going to take the news that well…no one ever did. “Why don’t we go try to find Michael and Alex? By now they have probably gone after Max and Liz on their own and you know what that means.” “Oh Goddess,” Maria said with a quick intake of breath. “They’re going to kill them. We’d better hurry. I don’t have the time or the money or really the patience to go bail them out of jail, and something tells me that Sheriff Valenti won’t be so understanding this time around.” Isabel nodded, and the two girls headed off in the direction of the one apartment complex that two high school kids would be able to afford. ******************* “Why are we just sitting here?” Jessie asked as she paced around the Guerin basement. “Since when do you two pay attention to anything an Elder says?” “Since you two are with us,” Trent said coolly as he glared at Jessie. “Will you sit down? Damn you’re making me dizzy with all the pacing. We aren’t leaving you two to go run around town, and we…” “Sure as hell aren’t taking you with us,” Ryan finished with his own Guerin-glare for Leigha. The girl that he was having huge happy feelings for had been oddly quiet and contemplative since the meeting. “What are you devising in that head of yours Leigha?” He growled at her. For once he sounded just like his eldest brother. “Nothing yet Ryan,” Leigha told him softly as she looked him in the eye firmly. “But I’ll let you know when I do. But, if we’re just going to sit here, then you all are going to explain some things to me. What is everyone specialty here?” “Oh yeah,” Jessie said as she stopped pacing and sat on the loveseat beside Trent. “I keep forgetting that you’re new too, that you don’t already know. Do you guys want me to give her the 411?” Both Trent and Ryan shrugged indifferently. “Alright,” Jessie said rubbing her hands together in glee. “It’s like this. Alex is the eldest, then Michael, then Isabel, then Tess and then Maria. All of them were born within a month of each other, Maria on Halloween. All our parents are well aware of our heritage, but it seems with the Elders, and to a certain extent with us, the powers began to manifest at a really early age.” “Alex did it first,” Jessie said with a proud grin for her brother. “He’s more of a connector and empath like Isabel, but all of them have certain areas of the elements that they can call on better than others. Alex was five the first time he called on water. He still swears that all he wanted was some water, and the next thing he knew, every faucet on the street turned on. Our parents really freaked out because they’d never seen anything like that before. When he got older it turned out that he’s a powerful telekinetic too.” “Then it was Isabel’s turn,” Trent broke in. He decided not to let Jessie have all the fun. “It was only a couple of days after Alex’s little explosion. She was outside playing and mom was calling her in the house, saying that it was too cold to stay out by herself. Isabel evidently had other ideas cause mom still says to this day that seconds after calling Izzy in, the yard was on fire. Isabel says that she was just trying to make it warmer so that she could stay outside. When she got older her talent other than calling on fire turned out to be dreams…she can walk in on them.” “Tess called on Air about a week after the fire episode,” Ryan said softly. “There was a storm, and Tess is scared of them. So she hid herself in a closet and just kept saying over and over again that if only the wind would stop howling…and it did. It just stopped. There wasn’t a breeze around here for a week after that. And since then she’s developed psychic ability.” “So which element did Maria call on? Or Michael? Which one of them called on Earth?” Leigha asked with wide eyes. She’d never heard of any witches with powers like that at that early an age. Her own powers had manifested early on, but only when she was around ten…unlike many witches who didn’t show any talent until around puberty. “Neither of them just called on Earth,” Jessie said, her voice hardened and she shuddered softly. “They were fighting, like always,” she explained to Leigha. “They were seven, so it had been years since the others had called on the elements and all the parents thought that Michael and Maria were just normal. But that was before they did it.” “We were four,” Trent said, his voice far away in a memory that on he, Ryan and Jessie could see. “But we still remember it. We were at the beach and the two of them were yelling about a sandcastle. Maria wanted it built one way and Michael the other. Michael finally got so mad that he stomped through it. There wasn’t anyone on the beach except us Founders, so Maria glared at him and waved her hand over it and the thing appeared just like it had never been touched. Michael responded by waving his own hand and destroying it again.” “And during their little castle war,” Ryan said with in tense tone. “It happened. A Hunter saw them and decided that little witches were just as bad as bigger ones. There were two of them and they both ran, grabbing Michael and Maria right where they stood, before anyone could react to stop them. They were standing there holding Michael and Maria with knives to their throats.” “Oh my God,” Leigh whispered. “What happened? How did they get away?” “That’s when it got really scary,” Jessie whispered. “Maria evidently didn’t like that Michael was being taken away so she just attacked the guy holding him. One minute the guy was standing there and the next he wasn’t. And then Michael must have decided that one good turn deserved another and he used his powers on the guy that was still holding Maria.” “Our parents all ran up to them but Michael and Maria got to each other first. Maria promptly slapped Michael on the head and told him to fix her castle back or she would turn him too. Michael just pushed her and told her that he’d turn her first.” Ryan paused to look at Jessie, “No one knew what the hell they were talking about until we all looked back where the Hunters had been again. They hadn’t just made them disappear…they’d changed them. They’d turned to humans into a snail…that was Michael’s handiwork…and a beetle…that was Maria’s. Two little seven year-old kids had transfigured two humans with thought only.” “But that’s impossible,” Leigha said in awe. “No one has that kind of power at that age, and only the Council Elders can do it without a spell,” she added, speaking of the leaders of the Witch community that presided over everything on the Council. “Yeah well Michael and Maria have it,” Trent said dryly. “Neither of them uses it a lot, hardly ever actually. Maria sticks to spells, she likes those best. I guess it goes with her artistic/poetic side. And Michael really steers pretty clear of the whole thing usually. He prefers normal scare tactics to magical ones anyway. But both of them can do it all…the full spectrum of powers and elements, and as far as anyone knows, they’re both completely equal in their power…equal to each other anyway, no one else has been able to touch them.” “Goddess above,” Leigha whispered as she looked at them. “Are you all like that too?” “Hardly,” Jessie snorted. “I’m passing fair at air, but my real specialty is water like Alex. But my powers didn’t rear their head until I was around ten or so.” “We’re good at fire and earth,” Ryan answered for him and Trent. “Both of us showed ability with both elements early on. We were around ten too. None of us have developed are real talents yet…we can just call on the elements and do little elementary spells and stuff.” “Me too,” Leigha said with a sigh. “I was ten the first time I called on Earth, but I can do air too. My parents thought that I might end up to be a healer like Aunt Amy, but it’s still too soon to tell that yet.” “Well,” Jessie said with a half-grin, “at least we know that if we need to, the four of us can call on all the elements. That counts for something. Now, since we’re stuck here…anyone want to sneak in Michael’s room and play his PlayStation2?” The others nodded and giggled their way up stairs to Michael’s hidden sanctum. *************** “What the hell happened here?” Maria asked as she entered the apartment complex with Isabel right behind her. They had found out from the front desk at the main office that this was the apartment that Max and Liz were sharing. They had made their way to the building only to find the door busted in. “Oh god,” Isabel said as she followed Maria in the trashed apartment. “We really are going to have to bail Alex and Michael…” “Bail Alex and Michael out of what?” Michael’s voice growled out from behind them. Both Maria and Isabel whipped around at the sound and sighed in audible relief at seeing the two of them healthy in front of them. Before Michael could say anything else, he found himself occupied with an armful of Maria. “Thank god your ok,” Isabel whispered as she moved herself into Alex’s embrace. “We didn’t know what happened when we got here and saw this place like this.” “We just got here,” Michael said from around Maria, who was wrapped tightly around him still. “Maria,” he told her softly, “I can’t breathe. Can you loosen your hold just a little?” “No,” Maria said simply as she hugged him tighter. Then she moved away from him far enough to look at him closely. “You just got here too?” “Yeah,” Alex said from where he stood with Izzy. “We went to the school first to look up information on them. Which we have now, and then we headed over hear to see what they had to say before we killed them. Looks like someone beat us to it though.” “I’ll say,” Isabel remarked dryly. Her eyes scanned the area quickly. “What’s that?” She moved away from Alex and walked over to the couch where a bright piece of medal had caught her eye. She picked up the gold locket and turned to Maria. “Recognize this? Maria…get off Michael and come look at this.” “No,” Maria said, still not removing herself from Michael. She knew him, if she moved then he was going to start touching things and then she was going to have to go behind him and make sure that he didn’t leave any traces. “If you want me to see it bring it over here,” she added, moving away just a few inches from the crook of Michael’s neck. “And do you think you could not touch anything else. We don’t want our prints here.” “This Maria,” Isabel said as she dangled the locket in front of Maria’s vision. “Recognize this?” “How the hell did Courtney’s locket get here?” Maria asked as she let go of Michael long enough to grab the locket. Courtney had gotten the thing for her sixteenth birthday and had driven every single girl at Willow Oaks crazy with it. The girl never went anywhere without it…it really was her most prized possession. “Why don’t we get out of here,” Alex said as he started to pull them all out of the apartment. “I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. If we don’t get out of here soon I have a feeling that whatever did this will be back. Somehow I think that whoever went after them didn’t do it as a favor for us.” The others nodded and on the way out Michael turned quickly and darted back inside. “Alex,” he called out, but it was Maria that ended up at his side. “Blood,” he said as he touched the small splattering that had caught his eye in the split second before Maria had literally flown at him. “Let’s get out of here. I think Max and Liz might have been taken care of for us in a permanent sense.” “Let’s get back to the house,” Isabel said as they all piled into Michael’s Jeep. “I suddenly have this huge urge to be near our own kind, surrounded by them.” “Stop at my house first,” Maria said, looking at the locket with narrowed eyes. “I have some things to pick up first. It seems that I have some business with Miss Boyd to deal with before the meeting tonight.” Michael nodded as he started the car. In the back seat Alex slid over and made room for Isabel, who promptly moved herself right into his side like she was a living part of him. In the front Michael reached across and grabbed Maria’s hand, the one that wasn’t holding the locket. He squeezed it and placed it, still interlocked with his own, on his thigh. TBC

Part 18