Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 9, 2011 14:35:47 GMT -5
Chapter Six – Chain of Command
Flashback
with Beono and Lisa
A snake had wound its way around Max Keegan’s body. Instead of looking scared or even concerned, he looked annoyed. He swayed back and forth until both he and the snake went tumbling over.
The snake’s hold loosened just enough to allow Max to slam an elbow into the snake’s coiled body. The snake let out a rather unsnakelike squeal.
The air around Max shimmered and he vanished from the snake’s coil. He reappeared several feet away grinning. “Nice try, River.” He waved his hand in a circle and the snake transformed into a muscular, dark haired man. “You almost had me.”
“But I didn’t have you,” River Snow complained. “How am I supposed to gain any respect if I can’t ever beat you?”
“Taking those defeats with grace might be a good start,” Max suggested, ignoring the fact that he reacted with annoyance and ill temper wherever one of his friends beat him.
“I’m a demon, not a dancer,” River scowled at him, flicking out his forked tongue.
“What did Irixi tell you about sticking out your tongue?” Max scolded.
“You mean before father had her vanquished for only bearing daughters?” River shot back.
Personally, Max though there was a bit more to it than Irixi’s small nest of four daughters. He thought her plot to have all of her husband’s older children killed and then being caught in the attempt, mostly the being caught part, had more to do with it. River knew nothing about it, because she’d been caught before she’d had a chance to attack him. That Irixi’s attacks had successfully killed several of the Snake Lord’s children hadn’t registered with the bored, occasionally psychotic or just plain moronic, teen. He’d had other things on his mind.
Max would have been rather enjoyed testing his skills against Irixi, but it had all been just after they’d gotten back powers and so Ben had just sent her on her way. You didn’t want to mess with CT Bennett when he sent you away.
River took Max’s silence as unvoiced disagreement. “So you don’t. How long’s this last any way?” He asked referring to the magic Max had used to returned River to his human form.
“An hour unless I change you back,” Max informed him.
“I’ll pass,” River announced looking at something over Max’s shoulder. “Tell your witch girlfriend it’s nothing personal,” he added before he shimmered away.
Max turned around to find Brianna standing in the shadows watching him. “Your timing stinks.”
Brianna walked out of the shadows and over to him. “Was it River?”
Max shook his head. “No, it wasn’t River.”
“You’re sure?”
“He hasn’t made his first kill yet,” Max informed her, “so yes, I’m sure.”
She nodded. “I’m glad. You seem to have a greater fondness for him then some of the others.”
“When sixty-three siblings you get, you try keeping track of all of them,” he retorted, seventeen of which were dead, six in the last few months. “Still they are all my brothers and sisters,” he reminded her.
“Yes,” she agreed, “but when was the last time you thought Beono and Naidran could be saved?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Seeing as Naidran was in prison for murder until magic came back and he could shimmer out, it’s been a long time since I thought that for him. But there still is hope for Beono.”
“How?” she stared at him. “And don’t you dare say he hasn’t made his first kill. I know better.”
“There’s a girl,” he stated.
“And you know his mind,” she retorted. “She might be a target.”
“I don’t,” he admitted, “but Pricilla Halliwell sure seemed to.”
Brianna frowned. “What were you doing using a Halliwell with her knowledge?”
“Pure coincidence, actually,” he informed her with a laugh. “I was sent to fetch Beono. He’s been attending college along with maybe three dozen of my other brothers and sisters, mostly to learn to blend in, most of whom are likely beyond saving.” Two of whom were now dead.
“How does Pricilla fit into this?” Brianna asked impatiently.
“Right,” he said, pulling himself back on topic. “She’s doing a project with the girl and she was looking for her while I was looking for Beono. We found them at the same time and bumped into each other. I knocked her down.”
Max looked down at the young woman he’d knocked to the ground. His eyes widened in surprise as he recognized her as Pricilla Halliwell, middle daughter of Phoebe Halliwell. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled. “I was focused on my brother. I didn’t see you.”
She gave him a rather odd look. “Beono Keegan is your brother?”
Max nodded. “I’m Max Keegan.”
“Cilly Halliwell,” she informed him. She gestured toward Beono and Lisa Anatole. “I’m in drama with Beono and the girl with him, Lisa.”
“Drama?” Max chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds like Beono.”
She frowned. She ran her fingers through her long dark hair and nibbled on her lip. She looked up at him with a troubled frown. She scrunched up her nose and wiped the look off her face. “Have you met Lisa before? He’s real sweet on her.”
Max looked at her in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound like my brother.” And it wasn’t just that brother that it didn’t sound like. None of his brothers or his few adult sisters could be considered sweet on any one. It wasn’t exactly an encouraged emotion.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, he is. I have a . . . good sense for this kind of thing.”
“Which of course she does,” Max concluded, “if the rumors in the magical community are in any way true.”
“Which we both know they are,” Brianna reminded him with a roll of her eyes. “I need your help.”
Max frowned. “Well, get someone else. I have to go after River.”
“You’re brother’s not going anywhere, Max,” she informed him. “I’m not so sure about this.”
“This?”
“As if I could speak that freely in the underworld,” she retorted.
Max shook his head and sighed. “Look, Brianna. I don’t have time for this. Either tell me what you need my help with or else let me go after my brother. He’s vulnerable to suggestion and I have a feeling his mother didn’t raise him the way our father has since he arrived here.”
Brianna sighed. “Do you even know what happened to her?”
Max shook his head. “One day ten years ago he showed up. Father said he was his son, and the proof is rather difficult to refute. You remember. It was two years after we met.”
“Max, River isn’t like Damien,” she reminded him. “Damien’s half human for starters.”
“We don’t know River isn’t half human,” Max informed her. “And that doesn’t mean anything. I’m not human.”
“Aka would have told us,” Brianna argued.
“Would she?” Max sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter to me if he’s human, demonic, or whatever. He’s my brother, just like Damien, just like Beono, and yes, just like Naidran. If I can save any of them from this, I will.”
Brianna stood there silently, looking at him. She sighed.
“Well?” he asked impatiently.
She exhaled slowly. “Ben let the demons get away yesterday, but we know that’s not what he wanted. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I saw bloodlust in him. I could almost feel it, it was so tangible. We both know how well my powers work with the four of you.”
“There is a reason we drank the blocking potion as soon as we learned what your power was,” he reminded her.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Yeah, to thwart me. At any rate, the damage those demons did has been undone,” I hope, “but the demons are still around. After what Ben . . .” She sighed. “Everything is not well with him. He’s been keeping dangerous secrets from us.”
Max looked at her curious.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” she forged on, “but he is not in a position to deal with this on his own, so I need your help. Aka’s off doing who knows what, looking for some sort of answer to some sort of question that I’m not even sure what is and Toby’s trying to deal with Ben.”
“Bennett has issues,” Max announced.
She gave him a look. “Why do you call him that? I never heard you do so until yesterday.”
“It annoys him,” he informed her with a shrug. “I think I will call him that from now on.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just remember that if he actually wanted to, he could probably vanquish you in a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds.”
Max shook his head. “His conscious wouldn’t let him, not over something that trivial.”
“People start hearing you call him that and . . .”
“All they’ll here is me using the end of his name,” Max informed her. “He’s CT Bennett. They all know that.”
“Yeah, but it’s still not a good idea,” she argued. “Are you coming?”
“Do you know where to find them?” he asked with a scowl. “Or what they are?”
“Yes to the first and no to the second.”
“Great,” his scowl grew. “I guess we’ve got our work cut out for us.”