Synopsis: There are some days when it just doesn't pay to get out of bed... especially when you are being hunted down!
Accidental Magic

By
Allystra Krane
edited by Sephrena Miller
Chapter Seventeen

Runaways

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"What the hell happened?!" Terri shouted as she stared at Allyssa, whose eyes were radiating forth a brilliant white light

Augustine was by their side in moments. She put her hands on Allyssa's shoulders and hissed out "Sleep," to which Allyssa just passed out, falling forward into Augustine's arms.

"Is she going to be okay?" Cindy asked, frightened.

"Allyssa will be fine," Beatrice said as she walked over. "I was actually half-expecting this event to occur."

"You knew she had that potential?" Augustine hissed. "How come you never told me this?"

"You were planning to retire in two years; I honestly never thought it would come up."

Bullshit!" Augustine replied. "You hid this from the council until you could 'wake up' her ability when it would benefit you more. I suppose all the disdain you had toward her was part of the farce?"

"ENOUGH!" shouted Terri, causing their attention to refocus. "I don't have the time or the patience to listen to brood squabbling right now! If I wanted to do this I'd go home and log into the vampire role-player chat room."

"You have any idea who you're speaking to?" Beatrice snapped back.

"A couple of self-important women with superiority complexes who need me as much, or more, as I need them," Terri fired back. "Now tell me what happened to Allyssa."

Augustine smiled at Terri, instead of the scowl she was expecting. "Superiority complexes huh? I knew I liked you the first time I met you."

Augustine leaned Allyssa over and Terri took the girl into her own lap. Allyssa began to stir, looked up with half-lidded eyes and smiled.

Terri noticed a shape moving in the corner of her vision and realized Allyssa's hand was reaching up to caress her cheek.

Before she could turn her head, Allyssa had straightened up to plant her lips on Terri's, using her hand to keep Terri from turning away.

Terri watched as the awkwardness of the moment began to register on Allyssa's face as their kiss seemed to bring her fully awake.

Terri had a moment to chuckle inwardly as Allyssa remembered how and where she had fallen asleep.

"So, did you intend to kiss Terri in your dream or you think she was someone else." Cindy remarked with a smile.

"Uhm, no comment," was Allyssa's reply. "Was I dreaming or did I start glowing?"

"You are a spirit caster dear and your aunt knew it."

"SWEET!" squealed Allyssa, her tone unlike what Terri expected.

"You mean you like it?" Terri asked.

"Oh heck yes," Allyssa stated as she got to her feet. "No longer must I collect the tears of preachers for healing spells."

"Uhm, what?"

"Stop being so dramatic Allyssa dear. You're scaring your friends." Augustine said. "It's a reed called 'Preacher in the Pulpit' and it collects rainwater. The water mixed with several ingredients and the reagent required for a regular user to heal. We imbue the water and pour it on wounds."

"And Allyssa doesn't have to?" Terri asked.

"I would think that your sudden and rapid recovery would have clued you in," Beatrice said. "Even while doing nothing, the very air around a spirit caster is charged with healing energy that should have cleared up all the ill effects of those sink spells we already cast upon you. Were she to actually act, she could focus that power into sealing up cuts and healing burns."

"You mean none of you can do that?" Terri asked. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, for many centuries, our kind of magic and their kind were separate. We have developed our own ways of healing now, but besides the components that are required, they use more mana than a spirit caster's spell, so it's inefficient as well."

"So they just have access to a different form than most users?" Terri asked as she looked at Allyssa who appeared to be actually beaming. "What now?"

Terri was helped to her feet, where she was immediately embraced by Allyssa. "You're going to let everyone else get a sink in and I'm going to make you feel better."
 
 
As if on cue, Allyssa's eyes began to shine and Terri could feel the last aches disappear, leaving her with speed.

"How can you just be doing this?" Terri asked. "You just became a spirit caster!"

Allyssa embraced Terri more forcefully than before.

"I just think it."

Augustine looked over the girls and their embrace. "I guess everything is back on schedule."
 
 

~*~
 
 
Terri rang her doorbell, supported under each arm by Allyssa and Cindy.

She was exhausted and she was sure it was the sink spells that had done it.

Lexi answered the door, but not before Terri nodded off again.

She awoke enough to move her feet instead of being dragged into the house, followed by her boarders, who were all feeling refreshed and very awake.

Several had offered assistance in walking her in but Cindy and Allyssa insisted in the task themselves.

Terri's mother offered them the sofa in the main floor sitting room and they laid her down on it softly.

Terri was quietly listening to the other people in the room when an alarm went off in her head.

Her eyes snapped to full alert and she shouted "Nethazar's here!" interrupting the conversation.

"WHAT?" screeched several of the women.

"Terri's got an old moat alarm around the house!" Allyssa hissed. "Front or back?"

"Four in front, more in back!" Terri groaned, still tired. She tried to get up off the couch, but was pushed back down by Cathryn.

"Martha and Sophie, cover the front door and cast delayed Teleports. Allyssa, take your friend and get out of here."

"Where?" Allyssa demanded.

"ANYWHERE BUT HERE!" Cathryn screamed back. "Everyone spend as much mana as you can to teleport as many times as possible. They won't be able to chase if you juice out and then run a block and do it again. Just randomly and don't go home or anywhere you normally go."
 
 
There was a hideous sound of wood and metal tearing as the front door was attacked from the outside. Terri could see a few faces becoming pale.

"Nancy, take her mother and the girl and GET!"

Everyone in the room save Terri, her mother, Lexi and Cindy began casting spells under their breath.

As the door shuddered and gave way, a creature entered the house, with six spindly legs and a decidedly spiderlike appearance.

Its appearance gave Sophie and Martha the chance to send brightly colored bolts in its direction. Terri thought she recognized one from her nightmare and watched as it tore the limb right off the beast, but had no time to react as her world snapped to black and she felt the familiar buzz of teleportation.

She appeared into a blinding white, only to realize she wasn't on the ground and promptly fell a foot into snow, like one does a belly flop in a pool.

It was utterly freezing here and worst of all, Terri could not catch her breath as she picked herself up off the ground. She realized the air was thin and they had to be on a mountain. She couldn't feel her fingers already, though the suit began doing its best to cover her completely.

"Wh-wh where?" was all she could get out before Cathryn grabbed her shoulder and drug her out of the snow.

Terri didn't get time to react as Cathryn picked her up like a rag doll and proceeded to leap off of the top of the mountain peak they were on.

The wind carried them out away from the surface and they were falling faster, the air still unable to put out the fire in Terri's lungs.

She looked down toward their approximate landing spot, only to see the ground rushing up to meet them at a fantastic pace.

Just before they hit, however, there was another blackening and they were teleporting again.

She wrenched her eyes open again in time to see them over water and falling fast again.

Cathryn tossed her away like a sack, straightening herself out to plunge in with pointed toes.
 
 
Terri suddenly felt the suit pulling her arms in against her chest, sliding over her face and pulling her body into a shape that felt like a wrapped mummy.

She felt the water's surface pass over her from foot to head as she plunged in like a pointed spear, but not any pain. The suit wasn't opening up for her to breathe, however.

She struggled vainly against the suit, only to feel it shifting on her. The suit released its grip on her arms and she found she could swim in the water. The material around her head was quickly inflating into a bubble and she was starting to be able to see out of it.

Finally she could breathe again and spent several seconds coughing and gasping for breath before looking out of her bubble.

She could see Cathryn, just submerged in front of her, not moving.

Terri looked at her own hand and realized that the suit had formed webbing between her fingers, and there was a large black tail fin attached to her still mummified legs.

"Oh, hell no!" she said. "I am NOT going to be a mermaid!"

But the suit wouldn't listen and she refused to waste whatever air recycling it had in her bubble without doing something.

She paddled her way through the water, not quite getting the hang of the tail fin. She grabbed onto Cathryn then made a hasty swim for the surface.

What was only seconds, felt like hours as her arms hurt from all the rigorous activity.
 
 
Terri finally broke the surface with Cathryn in tow. She got the woman in front of her and gave her the Heimlich, knowing she had nowhere for proper CPR.

Cathryn burst back to life spitting an impressive amount of water out of her lungs. She coughed and gagged, vomiting twice before she could calm down.

Terri's head bubble popped and the material became a large, Elizebethianesque animal collar, preventing the moving water from getting near her face, but still allowing her to breathe air.

"Are you trying to get us both killed?" Terri demanded. "And where the hell are we? And where the hell did we land the first time?"

"That was K-Two, Everest's little brother. Only a few miles away and almost as tall."

"What the fuck are you doing? You nearly got us killed, what with slamming into the ocean and landing on a mountaintop."

"They need time to find where we teleported from to trace it, and up there it's so cold and we jumped off the top and got so far down the side, that anyone would freeze to death just looking for the second portal."

"So where are we now?"

"The Straights of Magellan, Cape Horn, in the southernmost tip of South America.

"This is nuts, why are we going all over the world?"

"Because we can," Cathryn replied and the world went dark as they shifted again.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Six deserts, two more frozen wastelands later, which included the center of the arctic known as the North Pole, a very spacious closet in what Terri guessed was either Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, Liberache's former Las Vegas mansion or else was in Elvis' Graceland, before finally landing in an alleyway in a small town.

Picking herself off the ground, she asked, "Are we done yet, or you want see the concrete platform of the Eiffel tower come rushing up to meet us?"

"Tempting, but no. We're here."

"So where is 'here', Scotland?" Terri demanded.

"The country? Don't be silly. The city, yes," replied Cathryn. "It's best you don't know which state."

Terri followed Cathryn out of the alley and into the dim, but warmly lit street.

"What are we doing here?" Terri asked.

"Getting you a place to stay for a day or two."
 
 
Terri followed the woman, despite thoughts that she had gone insane, into a corner pub in the middle of town.

"Susan, I'm here to cash in," Cathryn said as she threw herself down on one of the barstools.

The woman cleaning glasses behind the bar scowled at her. "You ain't said Boo to me in ten years and now you want to call in favors?"

"Not for me," Cathryn said as she jerked a thumb toward Terri. "But for her. I need her to lay low and I figured you could put her up on your couch?"

"And what do I get outta this?" Susan sneered.

"I can cook and wash dishes," Terri answered. "My parents run a B and B and I make breakfast couple times a week."

Susan looked her over for a minute before turning toward Cathryn. "How long?"

"I'll be back the day after tomorrow," Cathryn said. "I'll get her outta your hair then."

"What's going on?" Susan asked. "This official business?"

"The worst," was the reply.

Susan turned back toward Terri. "What's so special about her."

"Gimme a drink and I'll tell you."

Susan filled a shot glass with whiskey, setting it in front Cathryn.

"I was hoping for something more."

"You didn't specify and I'm cheap."

"Fine," said Cathryn before she downed the drink and walked back to the door, brushing past Terri. "Be good and stay out of trouble. I'll make sure your mom is okay and have her call your cell phone."

"I don't have a cell phone!" Terri snapped back.

"What teenage girl doesn't have a cell phone this day and age?"

"Well, thinking I'm a teenage girl is your problem right there."

"Right, I keep forgetting."

"Hey!" hollered Susan, "You never told me why she's gotta hide out here?"

"Terri, meet Susan Meyers, Augustine's sister-in-law. Susan, meet Terri D' Angelo. Granddaughter of Agatha Winston, a teenage vortex and, up until recently, a boy."

With both women in states of shock, Cathryn took her leave.
 
 
Susan looked over Terri again. "Well, that would explain why she needs you hidden."

"Are you a user?" Terri asked, tepidly.

"No," was the stern reply. "My brother was the wunderkind, probably what drew Augustine to him. She came to this country and married my him, and no, I don't consider that a coincidence."

"How come there isn't anyone here?"

"Cause it's harvest time and the hands gotta get sleep so they hit the sack early. I've been dead for the last hour."

"Oh," Terri said, looking about the room, noting the pool table and the dim lights. "How come this place doesn't smell like smoke?"

"Teenagers shouldn't be in bars, how would you know?"

"The bar down the street from my house makes ribs to die for and I might have gotten in the door for a pickup or two without having an ID."

"Well, go through the back and up the steps. You look old for a vortex, but not old enough to be in here."

Terri passed into the back without touching the stacked cases of beer and other supplies.

She got to the top of the stairs and opened the door to a dwelling that was larger than she had expected.

Sitting along one wall was a television cabinet with a Playstation controller and cord snaking out of a door that was slightly ajar.

About an hour of 'Katamari' later, Terri was interrupted by Susan waving her hand in front of the Television.

"Wow, you were really into that," Susan said. "Have you unlocked the unlimited game yet?"

"Uhm, no."

"Well," Susan commented as she sat down on the couch. "To answer your earlier question, Augustine cleared up the smoke once and now anyone smoking in my bar gets sick."

"She is very forceful with her opinions, or so I've been told."

"I would have been more surprised if she had dropped you off herself," Susan expressed, "but then again she wouldn't do that."

"Cathryn knew what she was doing when she left you here, no one in this area is a user and no one would think to look for you here."

Terri sighed, "I hope Mom's alright, we teleported off in different directions."

"I'm sure they'll be fine. Now what's this all about you being a boy?"

Terri told a brief history, including finding out that her grandmother was responsible for almost everything.

While she told her story Terri was watching Susan's reaction. When she finished, Susan looked her over again.

"You are surprisingly naturally acting for being female for only a week. I heard much about Agatha Winston prior to my brother's death."

"How did he die?"

"Two years ago, heart attack. Even Augustine couldn't save him."

"So, what did he tell you about my grandmother?"

"Well, until she died, she had been a reclusive woman, almost to the point of being a hermit. Her husband died long before and she had only one kid, who couldn't cast magic."

"It skipped a generation, I guess," Terri added.

"But it was when she died that the truth came out."

"Yeah, she could see the future," Terri interrupted. "With striking accuracy but poor taste."

"That's what all the evidence she left seemed to point to," Susan said as she stood back up and walked over to a bookcase, pulling out a ratty envelope from between two books. "Which means this is for you."

Terri took the envelope, inscribed with her name on it.

"She gave it to me ten years ago and told me I would know who to give it to."

Terri turned the envelope over in her hands several times before opening it.

"To my confused, hurt and upset granddaughter:" the letter began, "Don't worry, your mother and Lexi are fine. Your father is another matter, as he is arriving home from his conference right about now..."
 
 

~*~
 
 
A tall, well built man in a Pin-striped Business suit dropped the bag he was carrying onto the sidewalk in shock.

In front of him, the dark, lonely hull that was supposed to be his home was partially destroyed.

He had strangely not noticed the levels of damage from the street, but now that he was halfway up the path to the front door, the giant hole where the front door had been was now quite evident. So too was the front windows which all appeared to have been blown out from the inside.
 
 
In the dark, and being concerned, he failed to notice the disturbingly giant inspection creature that was lying dead on the floor as he crushed it underfoot, looking for his family.

There was evidence of people in the house recently, including Lexi's night bag on the floor next to the kitchen door.

He raced up the steps, hoping to find everyone huddled for safety in the attic. He threw open Terri's door, knowing how to press the frame just right to disengage the lock.

He turned on the light, but finding no one he realized something was amiss. There were several pairs of womens panties on the bed, all but one neatly folded. A large vanity dresser stood in one corner, where Terri's tall oak dresser had once been.

The entire room, to him, had been refurnished for a girl.

"When did my Son get a girlfriend?!"
 
 

~*~
 
 
To Be Continued...
 
 
End of Chapter Seventeen