Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 9, 2011 17:27:31 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty – What’s In a Name
and Hal
Flashback
Flashback
Wyatt nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s all I can tell you. I saw no intruders. I did try both the door and the phone and could not use them. I’m glad to see that they are usable now. I’m not sure what else you think I can tell you.”
“Are you sure there is nothing else?” Hal Brookes looked at him speculatively. “Surely there is something else?”
“Nothing else that I can say,” Wyatt repeated. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be much help in catching whoever did this.”
Hal sighed. “Fine. I’m sure that the police are going to want to talk to you anyway.”
“They already did,” Wyatt informed him with a sigh. “It was a very long and unproductive conversation. There is nothing I can do to help the police. I don’t know who did this!” he added in exasperation.
Hal nodded. “One more question?”
Wyatt sighed. “Fine. What is it?”
“Why didn’t your cell phone work?”
Wyatt groaned. “My cell phone was decimated when something crushed it.” Nathan’s foot, he thought, but he wasn’t going to say that aloud.
Hal scowled. “I hope you don’t intend for us to replace it.”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t expect you to replace it Hal.” I don’t expect anything of you. As if dealing with curses didn’t make a bad enough day, it appeared that the situation had put his boss in a bad mood and all he wanted to do was get Hal out of there.
Thankfully, that is what Hal did next.
As soon as he was out of the room, Wyatt turned back to his computer. Ever since he had gotten here, he had been looking through ever database he could and there wasn’t a word about the Aphrodite Crystal. Of course Chris had mentioned that the three demons neither of them had seen the day before had stolen it from some cave somewhere, but they had gone to the trouble of the changing the physical manifest, why not the technological one?
He sighed. It probably didn’t matter, but there was no way demons who didn’t bother doing that were smart enough to be behind the attacks over the last few months, and someone was definitely behind them.
“Are you busy in here?”
Wyatt looked up to see Andrew standing in the doorway. He shook his head. “Not really, I guess. Come in.”
Andrew entered the room, shutting the door behind him, and stood in front of Wyatt’s desk. “Do you have time to talk?”
“I think I just implied that I did,” Wyatt informed him, amused. “Want to have a seat?”
Andrew shook his head. “Not really.” I think it’s best if I don’t.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Have it your way. What brings you here?”
“Twenty-eight years ago a demon tried to kill my mom,” Andrew announced without preamble. “She doesn’t remember that. Pretty much no one involved does.”
“How old are you?” Wyatt asked, giving him a strange look.
“Almost twenty-eight,” Andrew informed him. “Why?”
“Just trying to figure out if you were relating something you experienced or something someone told you.”
Andrew snorted. “My mom was pregnant with me at the time. I don’t know a lot of the details except that I was the target, not my mom and that your family saved her life and mine. I don’t know why I was the target, but is there any possibility that I was the target this time?”
Wyatt frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but is there anything else you know about the people who attacked you.”
“Not people,” Andrew informed him, annoyed. “Demon, warlock. I don’t know. They have been silent for years. No attack has been made since then, but why would someone target someone who hadn’t even been born yet.”
“Prophecies are the most popular reason,” Wyatt retorted. “I can look into it and I’ll ask my mom and her sisters what they remember about you.”
“Her name’s Tanya, Tanya Parker,” Andrew informed him. “I doubt they’d know my name. She worked with your Aunt Prue before she died.”
Wyatt frowned. “Um.”
Andrew looked at him curiously. “What does “um” mean?”
“Aunt Prue’s not dead,” Wyatt mumbled. No time like the present to start letting that get into the general public.
Andrew stared at him blankly. “I was at her funeral,” he protested.
“You remember that?” Wyatt asked skeptically.
Andrew shook his head. “No, but Mom has mentioned it.”
“Well, she’s not dead,” Wyatt repeated. “She lives in Boston with her family.”
Andrew’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Wyatt nodded.
“Mom would probably like to look her up,” Andrew commented. “They weren’t close by any means, but Mom looked up to her.”
“Well, if she’d like her number, let me know and I’ll talk to Aunt Prue,” Wyatt offered.
Andrew grinned. “I’ll let her know.”
“I guess that explain how you know about magic,” Wyatt commented, “but what about whitelighters? How’d you know I could heal Nathan?”
Andrew chuckled. “Your dad had a charge who lived next door to me. I was pretty young when he lost his magic, so I don’t remember that. I guess something happened to his replacement, so I found out when he was introducing them to their new whitelighter.”
“I can’t imagine they just informed you that my dad used to be a whitelighter, that the person with him was still one,” Wyatt retorted.
Andrew laughed. “Not at all. They didn’t inform their charge either, said something about him being a future whitelighter, whatever that means. I was hiding.”
Wyatt looked at him amused.
“What?” Andrew replied defensively. “I was seven. When we are doing what we shouldn’t, we hide.”
Wyatt burst out laughing. “I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for kids when I use magic.”
“I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” Andrew commented. “I think it’s me. I seem to be a magnet for magic.”
Wyatt looked at him curiously. “How so?”
“My mom doesn’t remember what happened when she was first pregnant with me, but she does remember something that happened several months later.”
The parking lot for the supermarket was filled with cars. Tanya Parker was pushing a cart towards her car filled with groceries. She was visibly pregnant. The sound of arguing caused her to look up. A man and a woman were yelling at each other. Tanya shook her head and sighed. She pushed her cart in next to her car and started searching her purse for her keys.
“Hey, lady, out of my way!” a young man’s voice called out to her seconds before he rammed into her and knocked her to the ground.
Tanya slammed to the ground, landing on her stomach. Trying to ignore the pain she started to get up. The pain in her belly forced her back down and she hit her head against the edge of the car, knocking her out.
When she came to she heard a man ask, “Is she going to be all right?”
“They’re both going to be all right,” another man answered. “When she comes to, she’s going to remember being knocked down. She’ll want to see a doctor to make sure her baby is all right. I’ll need you to deal with that.”
“Her baby is all right, isn’t it?” the first man asked.
Tanya kept her eyes closed. She had a feeling this conversation would end if they realized she was listening and she wanted to know what was going on.
“The baby is just fine,” the second man assured him. “I need you to either call 9-1-1 or bring her to the hospital to be checked.”
“9-1-1? Isn’t that a bit extreme, Andy?” the first man asked.
“She might not think so,” “Andy” informed him. “We both saw that boy run into her. She might want to prosecute.”
“I don’t think I could ID the kid if he stared me in the face,” the first man retorted. “And since both she and the baby are . . .”
“Just call them, Sean,” Andy ordered him. “I’ll be gone when you arrive. Don’t mention my presence, especially if Darryl is there. He’s smart. He’d realize something was up.”
“I know that,” “Sean” threw back. “I’ve been listening. I’ll see you later, okay.”
Andy shook his head. “Sorry, Sean. They’ve reassigned me. I’ve come too close to getting caught one too many times. They want me away from San Francisco. I’ll be back long enough to introduce you to Natalie, my replacement, but after that . . . I have to go. Sorry.”
Sean sighed. “Figures. I feel like they’ve been playing musical whitelighters with me these last few years and I finally get a whitelighter I like and they reassign you. Would it do any good if I moved?”
Andy burst out laughing. “I doubt it, but I appreciate the thought.” His face turned serious as he added, “Keep an eye on Prue for me, will you.”
Sean nodded. “I will. Be careful.”
Andy sighed. “I will.”
“Get going before she wakes up and sees you,” Sean urged him. “I guarantee she won’t keep your secret.”
From behind her barely opened lids, Tanya fought a smile. If you only knew. And then it was all she could do to keep shock from showing off her face as Andy vanished in swirls of lights and bubbles.
“You saw that, did you?” Sean commented, proving she had failed to keep her expression blank.
“He had to make a decision there,” Andrew commented. “He decided to start by introducing himself. His name was Sean McInnis.” He didn’t notice the startled look on Wyatt’s face as Wyatt recognized the name of his host the day before. “He convinced her to keep what she heard quiet . . . at least from the police. He did end up calling the police for her, mostly because she didn’t want someone else to get hurt. She told me once that it would have been unremarkable, especially after what had happened before, except that when one of the detectives introduced himself as Inspector Darryl Morris, Sean reacted a bit oddly and she suspected this was the Darryl Andy had mentioned. It was only later that she really began to put the pieces together,” Andrew informed Wyatt. “On her last day of work before maternity leave she was in Prue’s office delivering a sandwich to her when she noticed a picture on Prue’s desk. It was a picture of Prue with Andy. Combined with Andy’s mention of Prue, she was convinced that this was the man she had seen, until she asked Prue about him.”
Wyatt grimaced. “I can imagine how that conversation went.”
Andrew laughed. “Yeah, Mom was a bit startled when she was informed that Andy had been dead for several weeks.” Andrew looked at Wyatt. “He healed Mom, didn’t he? And me? She might have miscarried there and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Mom’s always thought that, but Sean refused to answer that question.”
“It’s possible,” Wyatt admitted. “You’d have to ask Uncle Andy about that one.”
Andrew looked at him startled. “Uncle Andy?”
Wyatt nodded. “He’s married to Aunt Prue.”
“But she thought he was dead,” Andrew protested. “And he sure seemed certain he wouldn’t see her, again, at least according to my mom.”
Wyatt nodded. “They met, again, ten years later. I don’t know the details, but they are both alive and well, living in Boston with their two daughters.”
Andrew smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I was named after him you know.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything, just looked at him surprised.
Andrew laughed. “To this day Mom’s convinced that Andy did something and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. She would love to thank him for that.”
“I’ll let him know,” Wyatt assured him.
With that Andrew left, leaving Wyatt with a lot to think about. He walked over to the wall and picked up the phone. He punched in the number for his aunt and uncle in Boston. It appeared to be a good idea for him to let them both know about his conversation with Andrew. He had a feeling they would have a much better idea of what was going on than either he or Andrew did.