Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 6, 2011 21:06:02 GMT -5
Chapter Thirteen – Worry and a Witness
Chris sat on the couch stunned. How could this happen? How could his powers just stop working? He’d tried using his telekinesis, but nothing had moved, not even an inch. The same thing happened when he tried to orb something to him. Nothing.
“Definitely coming from your bathroom,” Mr. Logan informed Chris from the doorway. “I’m going to the call the plumbers, but I thought you were going somewhere.”
Chris nodded. “I need to grab my keys.” It seemed quite a dumb thing to say to someone who was as old as Mr. Logan. He probably couldn’t drive anymore.
“Are you all right?”
No. Chris hesitated just long enough to bring a frown to Mr. Logan’s wrinkled face. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Which means do worry,” Mr. Logan commented. “Christopher, if you’re sick, you should see a doctor.”
“I’m not sick,” Chris assured him. I just can’t seem to use magic.
Mr. Logan looked him over. “Are you sure? You look pale, Christopher.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, I’m definitely not sick. Thanks for the concern though.”
“My cousins, Leonard and Irena, are retired doctors and there’s several in their family, if it would help,” Mr. Logan offered.
“Really, Mr. Logan,” Chris insisted. He paused and instead of finishing he asked, “Do I look that bad?”
Mr. Logan nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Chris chuckled. “Look, I’m going to head over to my parents house and my dad has medical training, so if he thinks something wrong, I’ll be in good hands. Will that be satisfactory?”
Mr. Logan eyed him. “Just be careful.”
A knock on the door startled them. Chris shrugged and headed toward the door, pulling it open without waiting to find out who was there. He stared with surprise at the face of Brianna standing there with her hand ready to knock. “What are you doing here?”
“After last night I . . .”
Chris covered her mouth with his hand. “Shh. My landlord’s here.”
“Then, why ask?” she asked giving him an odd look.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Chris admitted.
“Clearly,” she agreed easily. “We need to talk.”
“If this is about last night . . .” Chris began.
“The plumber is on his way,” Mr. Logan announced from the hall behind them. “Make sure you talk to your dad.”
“Sure, Mr. Logan,” Chris agreed quickly. He watched as Mr. Logan left the apartment and started down the hall before he slumped against the wall and groaned. “I can’t believe this.”
“What was that about?” Brianna asked curiously as she entered the apartment.
“He was worried about me,” Chris informed her as he closed the door behind her. “My powers don’t appear to be working and I guess he noticed the panic on me.”
“Oh.” She looked at him for several seconds, before asking, “Not working? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Chris admitted. “I’ve tested my powers and nothing seems to work.”
“Have you cast any spells?” She asked as she went into the living room and sat down.
“No,” he admitted as he followed her, “but I only figured this out a few minutes ago and my landlord was here. Any spell I could think of would have been noticed by my landlord.”
She nodded absently. “That would have problematic, though I think he knows you’re a witch.”
Chris stared at her. “What? How could he know?”
She shrugged. “No idea. I’m an empath, not a telepath. If you want me to call . . . but never mind that. He’s busy anyway. Not to mention he has problems. They all have problems.”
“What?” Chris looked at her confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s not why I’m here, anyway. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but I’m frustrated, so I apologize.”
“I see,” Chris replied, only partially getting what she was trying to say. “In that case, why are you here?”
“I checked the isolation chamber,” she announced.
Chris frowned as he looked at her, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Then, remember Seth’s comments the night before he nodded for her to continue. When she didn’t he attempted to prod her. “You checked the isolation chamber. What were you looking for? We already know the demons are there.”
She shook her head. “Wrong. I checked it out and there is a demon in there and it is one of the demons from the restaurant. Problem is, there’s only one.”
“Why come to me?” Chris asked confused. “Why not go to your friends?”
“I told you they have problems to deal with,” she reminded him.
“But what’s the matter with them?” Chris pressed.
“Can we just say they are preoccupied and leave it at that?” Brianna requested.
“For now,” Chris relented. “Did you find anything about the other two?”
“I’ll get back to them,” she assured him. “The demon in the isolation chamber is only there for a short time. The talk is that he got too close to a cursed gem and he’s extremely suicidal as a result.”
Chris felt a sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach. This sounded too much like the Aphrodite Crystal to him, which meant this demon had somehow been responsible for its arrival at the museum.
“If he can survive the next week or so,” Brianna continued, taking note of the look on his face and temporarily ignoring it, “he’ll be past the worst of it. Thing is, he’ll never be past the depression and sometimes he’ll get suicidal, again.”
“Never?” Chris queried. Everett Lawson’s writing had implied that there was some sort of cure. “No cure?”
“There’s a cure,” she admitted, “but it’s almost impossible to get.”
“Well, we have to find it,” Chris informed her.
“Do you have any idea how difficult that is?” Brianna asked.
“My brother’s infected,” Chris sighed, “and at least two innocents.”
Brianna gulped. “Oh.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then, we’d better get started,” she decided. “This isn’t going to be easy.”