Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 27, 2008 19:15:38 GMT -5
Chapter Five - Hide From My Mother's Eyes
Later, Wyatt was in the attic, standing in front of the podium, flipping pages of the Book of Shadows. Hannah was lying on the couch.
Chris orbed in by the stained glass window and walked over to his brother. “Sorry, I took so long. David’s covering for me. How do I know David?”
Wyatt looked up long enough to answer, “From work.” Wyatt looked down at the book. He flipped some more pages.
“Can I trust him?” Chris persisted.
“To cover for you?” Wyatt asked not sure what his brother was getting at.
Chris shook his head. “To drop my guard while talking.”
“Nope,” Wyatt told him, understanding now what his brother was getting at. “He’s not open to magic.”
“Otherwise?”
“He’ll cover for you.” Wyatt stopped and looked at the page the book was opened to.
“I guess that’s a no,” Chris said disappointed. “Anyone we can talk to?”
“I think I found her,” Wyatt told him, completely distracted from the conversation.
Chris walked over to look over Wyatt’s shoulder. “Soul Thieves? Are you saying this demon tried to steal the little girl’s soul?”
“Could be,” Wyatt admitted thinking. “Helen, one of the nurses at the hospital, described the victims as being alive, but having who they are missing.”
“Okay. That works,” Chris admitted. “Did she appear human?”
“Yeah, why?”
Chris pointed to a phrase on the page. “Unlike most demons, soul thieves have a decidedly human look to them.”
Wyatt nodded. “She looked human. She was posing as a hospital volunteer. She introduced herself to me this morning.”
Chris read another passage, allowed. “Soul thieves locate their victims by physical touch. They like victims who are strong, but there has to be some weakness they can use to get in.” Chris turned to Wyatt. “Did she touch you?”
“We shook hands,” Wyatt repeated. “She kind of insisted.”
“I guess she was trying to find her next victim. You didn’t fit the bill.”
Wyatt gave him a look. “She didn’t like the fact that I ignored her at first either.”
Chris smiled and looked back at the book. Chris read down the page and stopped. The smile slid from his face. “It says here that Soul thieves steal thirteen souls at a time. Once they capture the thirteenth soul they perform a ritual that permanently separates the soul from the person and ends their lives completely. Until this happens they keep the body alive.” Chris looked up at Wyatt. “That seems to indicate that if we can stop her, we can also get back the souls of the previous victims. How many others did you say she got to?”
“Ten,” Wyatt told him solemnly. “Hannah would have been eleven. So what’s to stop her from picking three more victims and just forgetting about Hannah?”
Chris looked back down at the book and pointed to another spot on the page. “It says here that a soul thief cannot choose a new victim once one is chosen. For this reason they try and chose their victims carefully, so they won’t be caught and stopped in the middle. Once a soul thief has their thirteen victims and completed the ritual of the separation they come to full strength. This lasts for twenty . . . years.”
“In other words,” Wyatt said by way of paraphrase, “it’s been longer than that and every soul thief out there is bound to want to find victims since they couldn’t use their powers for over twenty-years.”
“Yes,” Chris replied in a monotone.
“I don’t suppose it gives us a ball park figure of how many there are?”
Chris shook his head slowly. “Not precisely, but it says that the earliest soul thieves known to this family were twins, Kador and Firan with their little sister, Trae.”
“Only three?” Wyatt asked skeptically.
“That’s what it says,” Chris confirmed, “and your soul thief is in there.”
“She’s not my soul thief,” Wyatt mumbled annoyed.
“It seems to indicate that they are the only soul thieves unless they have children. Also there is a notation at the bottom. It has the name Firan Crennor followed by a date. I think he’s been vanquished. And based on the date, I’d say he was vanquished by Melinda Warren.”
“In that case there may only be two soul thieves.”
Chris nodded. On the couch behind them, Hannah started to toss and turn.
“Does it say how to vanquish one?”
Chris glanced back down at the Book. “There is a potion listed with a summoning spell.”
Behind them the end table next to the couch was overturned by Hannah’s thrashing, causing a loud crash. Chris walked over to the couch and began to pick up the table.
From downstairs a voice called out, that froze both brothers in their tracks. “Hello?”
Wyatt and Chris looked at each other. Then, they looked at Hannah, who was once more lying still on the couch. Chris pushed the table back up.”
“Mom,” Wyatt stated in a quiet tone.
Chris frowned and started thinking.
“We can’t let her see Hannah. She’ll worry about us.”
If there was one thing Piper Halliwell was good at, other than cooking, it was worrying. Chris didn’t really want his mother worried so he chanted a spell. “Hide from my mother’s eyes, what I wish to disguise. When vision should return, let this spell overturn.”
Wyatt looked at the couch and back at Chris. “I still see her.”
Chris shrugged. “You’re supposed to, just not Mom. Now, quiet.”
“You wrote a spell . . .” Wyatt began.
“Shh,” Chris warned him.
Piper Halliwell walked into the attic. “Oh. Boys. What are you doing up here? I though maybe Paige was over.”
Chris moved in front of the podium, trying to hide the open book from his mother’s eyes.
Piper eyes him and turned to Wyatt. “Wyatt? You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Wyatt assured her.
“Wyatt Halliwell, I don’t like it when you avoid the question.”
“I though you were at the restaurant,” Wyatt commented, trying another diversionary tactic.
Wyatt really wasn’t good at that. Piper answered in like kind. “And I thought you were at the hospital. Unlike you, I own the restaurant. Since you are not in charge of the hospital, what are you doing here?”
“I’m done for the day,” Wyatt assured her.
“And you Chris?” Piper asked, turning her attention to her younger son. “Why aren’t you are work?”
“I’m on break,” Chris told her without blinking an eyelash.
“At the manor?” Piper gave her son a look.
Chris shrugged. “Is that a problem?”
“And in the attic,” Piper continued. “You are two are up to something.”
“Just research, Mom,” Chris assured her. It was after all the main reason they were there. “Nothing too exciting, but since I’m on my break my time is limited.” Chris winced inwardly at that one. It was basically a lie, and something in him rebelled against lying, something he couldn’t remember.
Piper looked at her sons suspiciously. “All right, but make sure you put anything away when you are done.”
“Sure, Mom,” Chris agreed easily.
“See you later, Mom,” Wyatt added.
Piper walked out of the room. Both Wyatt and Chris breathed a sigh of relief as they walked back to the Book.
“Return to see, make vision free. Let every eye, Hannah spy,” Chris chanted, undoing his earlier spell.
“Are all your spells so strange?” Wyatt asked. It was, after all, a new thing to Wyatt, hearing his brother say spells.
Chris shrugged. “Hey, I don’t have a lot of time to worry about spells hiding Hannah.”
“How do we know it worked?” Wyatt wanted to know, casting a curious eye on the little girl on the couch.
“Well, if it didn’t,” Chris reasoned, “the only one who can’t see her is Mom.”
“Fine,” Wyatt acquiesced.
“Let’s work on the soul thief,” Chris suggested, wanting the topic over. “We still have a vanquish to do.”
Downstairs in the front hall, Piper was on her cell phone, heading toward the front door. “Leo, they are up to something,” Piper told her husband over the phone. “Can you try and find out what’s going on?”
On the other end, Leo was sitting next to a sink with tools spread out and the pipes exposed. “I think I’m about done here,” he told her. “Hank had some questions for me,” Leo added, referring to her teenage nephew, “but I don’t think that will take very long either. I’ll see if I can figure out what they are up to.”
As she listened to him speak, Piper opened the front door and walked out.