Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 10, 2011 23:30:45 GMT -5
Chapter Fifteen – Trending Topic
8:30AM
Paige put down the spell she was working on in order to pull the phone out of her back pocket. It had been vibrating like crazy and was generally driving her crazy. “Hello?”
“Paige, it’s Tyler,” the voice on the other end stated.
Paige smiled slightly. “Tyler, hi. How are you doing?” It was nice to hear someone’s voice outside her family.
“Okay so far,” he informed her before quickly running into the reason he called. “Matt was on the computer and he found something you’ve got to hear. I’m giving the phone to him.”
Paige didn’t have time to reply before a new voice replaced the first. “There’s someone on Twitter telling everyone to avoid tap water.”
“What?” Paige’s face showed her confusion, but of course Matthew couldn’t see that. Why would Matthew think this was important?
“He or she is calling themselves WitchFever,” Matthew was quick to inform her.
That got her attention. Someone clearly wanted attention and wanted it fast. The question was: Were they an attention seeker or legitimate? It was clear what Matthew though, so she figured she would give this a fair trial. Besides, every lead was better than none. Slowly they were putting together information. She just hoped that the solution they found wasn’t just to put this off for another hundred and thirty years, killing millions in the process including two of her brother-in-laws and countless others she knew, she many innocent lives. So many people that had no idea the only reason they were dying was because magic was real and someone who had magic had decided a killing spree would be fun.
Matthew was still talking, so Paige forced herself to concentrate.
“WF says that the witch’s fever is spreading through the water and to either not drink water or else only drink bottled water until this is over. They are also saying avoid coffee, hot chocolate made with water, concentrate juice made with water. This person has half the population of twitter following them. Some people think WF is nuts. Some are scared WF has poisoned the world’s bottle water supply. Most people, though, are taking him/her serious.”
“What do you think?” Paige asked even as she remembered the “water bottle diet” Henry’s boss had their department on. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but now that she did, the timing was kind of odd. The whole thing was. Was that why almost no one in the department was sick?
“I think it makes sense,” Matthew admitted. “I also think WF is a witch.”
“Oh?”
“Just a second,” he directed. “Let me find it. It’s all very vague, but I think I’m right.”
Paige waited silently wondering what he had found. She didn’t have long to wait.
“Here is it,” he announced after several seconds. “This is a response to someone else who said real witches had probably cursed everyone.”
“Okay,” Paige frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that. They didn’t need someone starting another witch hunt. She was glad she hadn’t dealt with the one when Melinda died and she was even gladder that she hadn’t been forced to deal with what Prue had in the other reality. The earlier witch hunt had been small and fairly localized. The one in the other time line had started with Phoebe’s death and had continued on with the deaths of hundreds of people, maybe even thousands. Prue didn’t like talking about what had happened during the witch hunts, but Paige had gotten bits and pieces.
She knew from Melinda that Melinda’s best friend had been a witch and so had her boyfriend. The two had been sister and brother and when one had been caught out as a witch, the entire family had been tested and with the exception of their nonmagical father, the entire family had been executed. According to Melinda they hadn’t done anything other than be born witches.
From Vicki she had learned that only one of her children had been born, but Little Henry, as they had called him in the other time line had not survived childhood. Vicki had given her few details and Paige suspected she had few, since Little Henry had been killed by demons before Vicki had been born.
“What do you know of real witches?” Matthew read off the computer screen in front of him.
“That’s it?” Paige frowned confused.
“That was how it began,” Matthew told her. “It’s all rather vague,” he repeated, “but I think so. I think I’m right. I hope that helps.”
“I’ll get the word out about the water,” Paige decided. “See if you can get them to tell you how they know and if they know more. Call me if you find out anything else.”
“Will do,” Matthew assured her with a smile in his voice. “Bye, Paige.”
Paige hung up and looked at her daughters. “It’s in the water.”
The twins looked at each other. “Dad, needs to know,” Jani announced. “I’ll call him.”
Paige shook her head. “No, I’ll call him. I need to ask him some questions. Someone at his office might have seen this coming.”
Henry Mitchell had spent the early parts of the morning with an officer whose partner was stage four. It hadn’t been a pleasant morning so far and he hadn’t even reported to his own department yet. It seemed that there wasn’t much call for juvenile parole officers today. Pretty much every kid who so much as had a heart was behaving like angels. Half of the parolees had already been admitted to hospitals with the disease no one could even identify. The other half were either scared for a loved one who was sick or else they were scared they would get it. And none of them knew how to avoid it.
One of the advantages of being married to a witch was when there was a magical disaster he heard about it and knew more details than the general public.
One of the disadvantages of being married to a witch was when there was a magical disaster he heard about it and knew more details than the general public.
Talk about your two-edged sword.
Henry entered his officer and watched the heads in the room turn to look at the door and see who was entering. He took note of the empty desks in the room. Unlike in most departments he didn’t assume those desks were empty because someone was on sick leave. Most of them were empty because the rest of the department needed their help. His phone rang and he dug it out of his pocket.
He pushed it open and tapped the “Accept call” button on his cell and put it to his ear. “Is everyone all right?” he asked before his wife had a chance to say anything.
“Not really,” was Paige’s reply, “but other than Andy being in stage five, no one is worse. I called because there’s someone offering what seems to be a reasonable explanation as to how this is getting passed.”
Henry exhaled slowly. She was right. No one was all right. Even people who weren’t sick weren’t all right. Everyone was affected by this. “How reasonable?” he asked as he looked around his office. So far only two of his immediate coworkers had gotten sick. One was stage four. The other was stage one. If he could keep any more of them from getting sick, he certainly would.
“It explains why almost no one in your unit is sick while most of the force is hospitalized,” Paige added, echoing her husband’s thoughts.
Henry glanced around at those in the room with him a second time. It was kind of odd that so few of them were sick.
“It’s the water, Henry,” Paige pronounced. “This is passing through the water. The bottled water your chief insisted on your drinking these last couple of weeks isn’t tainted yet.”
Henry stared at the bottle of water on his desk. “Are you sure?”
“No,” Paige admitted, “but it fits.”
“Then, I’m going to talk to the Chief,” Henry told her. “He implemented this only days before people started getting sick. And he told us to try and get others to drink only bottled water, too. He might know something.”
“No, Henry,” she protested, startled. “If he knows something, then he might be dangerous.”
“Paige if he knows something , then he’s trying to protect us,” Henry assured her, or tried to anyway. “I’ll be all right. He won’t harm me.”
“Henry . . .”
“There isn’t enough time to argue, Paige,” he interrupted. “More people die every minute. We don’t have time for this. I love you and if I find anything I’ll call.” When he hung up he stuffed his cell phone back into his pocket and headed toward his boss’ office. If his boss knew something, Henry wanted to know why he wasn’t telling everyone. And he wanted to know if his boss knew how to stop it.