=:= Cindy =:=

"Where are we going to be hiking today?" Zoe asked, before stuffing another piece of bacon in her mouth.

Cindy had a glass of orange juice in one hand, and a map in the other. She sipped the juice as she frowned at the map, then finally set it aside and sighed. "We're running out of options."

From the Goddess's description of events six centuries ago, she'd always envisioned the area as being heavily forested. They knew Llanhedd was a farming village, but there was apparently enough forest beyond the farmland that it took an hour or two to walk through it to reach the hidden temple.

Of course, that had been six hundred years ago. Nowadays most of the landscape was farmland, with only small stands of trees and small islands of forest here and there.

Cindy knew the odds were there'd be no trace of either medieval village or temple, but she wanted to give it a good effort. They'd already spent three days exploring the area around Grosmont. She knew they needed to be looking somewhere south of the medieval town, but didn't know how far south.

After another look at the map, Cindy asked "I hope you don't mind a slightly longer walk today? It's farther away, but there's a promising chunk of woodland to the south-east, near a golf club."

She showed the map to Zoe, pointing at the spot she had in mind.

"That's like... Seven or eight kilometres away." Zoe frowned, "It's going to be a long day. Two or three hours to get there, time to explore, then a few more hours to walk back here..."

"Yeah..." Cindy looked at the map again. "It's not too far from there to Monmouth. Let's check out from here, we'll head south-east and explore these woods, then from there we can just go straight into Monmouth. I'm sure we'll find someplace there where we can spend the night."

The catgirl thought it over then nodded, "Ok Cindy, that sounds good." She stuffed another piece of bacon in her mouth and added, "Better eat up, we're probably not gonna find anywhere to get lunch."

Cindy smiled and nodded, taking a bite of her toast.

An hour later she and Zoe had finished eating, packed everything up in their backpacks, and filled up their water bottles. They said goodbye to the friendly couple who owned the B&B, and then set off.

From Cross Ash they followed some rural roads that led south-east past fields and farms. Before long though, they were cutting across fields and looking for foot paths. They tried to avoid trespassing where they could, but the roads didn't go directly where they wanted. If they followed the meandering roads it would add at least another hour to their walk.

Fortunately the weather was with them at the moment. Despite being late October, there was some sun and it wasn't too cold. Their hoodies were enough to keep them warm, and of course their hiking helped them stay warm too.

"After we finish up in Monmouthshire, where are you thinking of going next?" Zoe asked.

Cindy was quiet for a bit, then shrugged "I guess we could check out more of Wales since we're here? Then maybe go tour around Scotland?"

Zoe nodded, and commented, "I don't know what the winters are like in the UK but sooner or later it's gonna get too cold for us to feel like hiking and stuff..."

"Yeah." Cindy frowned. She thought about that, then grinned. "Well when it gets too cold here, it'll be summer in the southern hemisphere. We could pop over to Australia and do some wandering around there?"

The catgirl gave her a look, "How are we gonna get there?"

"Same way we got to the UK." Cindy giggled. "I've got a spot in Melbourne we can teleport to, and then we can just roam around from there."

Zoe was staring at her wide-eyed again. "Holy crap, Cindy! Where else have you been?"

She was smirking a bit as she started listing off some of the places she'd secretly visited over the past two years. "Tokyo, Paris, Vancouver, San Francisco, Miami, Wellington, Santiago..."

"When did you find time to do all that travelling?!" Zoe was still staring, and the look of befuddlement on her face was priceless.

Cindy shrugged, "I didn't like stay or whatever, just like, a quick visit here and there. An hour at most usually, just time to have a quick look around and find somewhere to set up a magical waypoint." She paused, then decided to give her friend something else to think about. "Of course, those are just places I've been to on this world..."

"No way!" The catgirl stopped in her tracks. "What do you mean 'on this world'?!"

"Oh... Let's just say this isn't the only 'Earth' out there." Cindy grinned. "But to be honest it's actually not safe trying to travel to uh, 'other places'. Not yet. And there's plenty for us to see and experience on this world."

Zoe just stood there, staring at her through narrowed eyes. "You're being sneaky and evasive again, cutie. What have you been up to?"

Cindy giggled again and shrugged, "You know me, always messing around with magic, always experimenting. Now c'mon, let's keep moving."

They slowly started walking again, but Zoe wasn't finished with her questions yet.

"Yeah I do know you and your experimenting." Zoe gave her a bit of a glare. "You just said something about not being safe. Did you get yourself in more trouble?"

Cindy shrugged, "It was like, a year ago... Last September actually. And yeah I got myself in trouble. I accidentally went somewhere I shouldn't have, and got stuck for a while. I eventually got back though, and everything's ok again, so don't worry about it."

For the next half hour, the catgirl kept questioning her about her 'otherworldly travel', but Cindy refused to talk any more about it. Zoe finally let the subject drop after Cindy promised not to go on any more secret magical excursions without first giving her friend all the information and letting Zoe decide if it sounded safe or not.

They wound up following a road again, heading south east through the countryside. And at last, they spied the woodland up ahead. They'd passed several smaller stands of trees on either side of the road, but agreed that if there was anything to be found in those, it probably already had been.

Ultimately they both knew the odds were slim of them finding anything at all. It was more about looking, Cindy decided. They could say they'd done it. And it gave them something to do, a goal to focus on. Of course, it would be wonderful and amazing if they did manage to find either the old temple or some trace of the village. But Cindy wasn't going to let herself be disappointed if they didn't.

They cut across one more field, and then entered the woods.

From the map, Cindy knew they had come in at the north-west end, and that the woods were thinner here. There was a golf course just to the west, so they headed south, towards where the small forest would be thicker.

Before long they found a trail, and followed that as it headed south. When the trail turned to the east, the two girls ignored it and continued on south, picking their way through the trees and underbrush as they explored.

After about thirty or forty minutes of wandering between the trees, Cindy noticed Zoe had suddenly stopped moving. The catgirl was standing still, her nose and ears twitching slightly.

After a few moments, she said softly "I think we're being followed."

Cindy smiled as she thought about their encounter yesterday. She whispered, "More horny young Welshmen, coming to help the cute Canadian tourists lost in the woods?"

"I don't think so," Zoe replied, shaking her head. Her ears were folded back slightly and her tail twitched. She wrinkled her nose a little, "I think it's a couple middle-aged men. I don't like their scent."

Cindy sighed. "Well if they're up to no good, they picked the wrong girls to mess with."

The two of them continued on, slowly exploring the woods, looking for any trace of the Goddess's old temple.

After another fifteen or twenty minutes, they emerged from the woods into a meadow area. It looked fairly large, Cindy figured it was about the size of a large house, and it seemed rather pretty. As they were looking around, Cindy saw two men step out of the woods into the meadow to the right of herself and Zoe.

The men were a little ways off to the west, about a third of the way around the meadow from where she and Zoe were standing. The men both looked to be in their mid- to late-thirties, and both were dressed like junior accountants or something. It was an odd choice of clothes for them to be wandering around the woods, in suits and ties and all that.

Both Zoe and Cindy were staring at the two men, and Cindy saw the men raise their right hands. For a split second, Cindy thought the guys were going to wave at them or something.

Then she felt the buzz of magic in the air, and suddenly she couldn't move.

Cindy's body had simply stopped obeying her mind, and she stood frozen in place. She was still breathing, but she couldn't even move her eyes, she was stuck staring at the two men.

To her left, she could hear something was wrong with Zoe. From the sound of it, her friend wasn't frozen like she was. Cindy heard Zoe collapse to the ground, and the catgirl started whimpering in pain.

Cindy's heart rate spiked with fear as her body dumped adrenaline into her bloodstream. Acting almost on reflex, she worked two spells at once in her mind. A clairvoyance-like spell separated her awareness from her body so she could see everything around her despite not being able to move her head. The second spell was something she'd actually learned during that otherworldly excursion, and it allowed her to enhance her senses so she was able to perceive magic directly. She needed to know what those men were doing to Zoe and herself.

To her left, Cindy could now see Zoe was laying on the ground on her side, a hand over her heart clutching her chest. She was pale and her body was trembling. Her eyes were closed, her ears back, and her tail was curled down between her legs. Cindy could see a coil of magic was wrapped around the catgirl's heart. It seemed to be squeezing, constricting, stopping Zoe's heart from beating.

With another wave of adrenaline and shock, Cindy realized her best friend was dying. A filament of magical energy extended from Zoe's heart back to the outstretched hand of the guy on the left. The magic tasted black and felt like death.

She could also sense the magic linking the hand of the second guy back to her own body. It smelled sickly green and sounded like bile. It was wrapped around Cindy's head, and had to be what was keeping her immobilized, though apparently without harming her.

Still acting on reflex and instinct, Cindy focused on the guy on the left, the one who was killing her best friend. She wasn't thinking about the consequences, she just knew she had to stop him. She cast a teleport spell and the guy vanished, along with the lethal magic he was using.

The dark coils of energy faded and Zoe's heart started beating again, but Cindy could tell it was slow and weak.

With his companion suddenly gone, the second man looked startled. His magic remained focused on Cindy though, keeping her paralyzed. He looked like he was starting to work a second spell now, his lips moving as he raised his left hand.

Cindy didn't let him finish. She focused on him and hit him with a simple self-defence spell. Normally it would just leave someone stunned or confused for a minute or so, but she was still acting on fear and adrenaline. She poured a ton of power into the spell as she cast it.

Her magic hit the man like a sack of bricks, and he went down in a heap on the ground. At the same time, his spell evaporated and Cindy was released from its grip.

She dropped to her knees with a sob, and immediately put her hands on Zoe's chest. She started casting healing spells on her friend as tears rolled down her cheeks.

=:= Zoe =:=

Zoe slowly drifted back to consciousness. She was laying on the ground somewhere, she could feel and smell grass and dirt beneath her. And she could hear crying. Cindy was kneeling over her, and the small blonde was crying.

"Wha..." Zoe groaned a little. "Are we ok?" She pulled herself up to a sitting position, and Cindy threw her arms around her, hugging her as she continued sobbing.

Zoe held her girlfriend, "It's ok Cindy... I'm all right. I think I'm ok."

She could see one of their attackers laying in a heap on the ground a dozen meters away. There was no sign of the other one.

The two of them held each other for another minute or so. Finally, Zoe asked "Cindy what happened? Are you ok?"

Her friend finally let go and sat next to her on the ground. She sniffed, "I'm ok... Those guys used magic Zoe! They were gonna kill you!"

Zoe nodded slowly. She remembered sensing magic, and then feeling like there was a red-hot knife in her chest, twisting into her heart. She could feel her tail twitching at the memories, and her ears were folded back again. She looked down at herself, putting a hand on her chest. It felt ok now, there was no pain any more.

She looked back across the field, then asked "What did you do to them? Where's the other guy?"

Cindy bit her lip, and fresh tears started to roll down her cheeks.

"Zoe... I killed him. The one who was killing you... I didn't think, I just reacted, and I killed him! I murdered him..." Cindy was starting to break down again, as the fear and shock were replaced with guilt.

Zoe pulled her girlfriend into another hug. "Cindy, it's ok. It was self defence... You did what you had to do."

She could feel the small blonde was trembling as she whispered, "I've never done that before... I've never even thought of it before..."

"What did you do?" Zoe asked softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Cindy shuddered a little, then whispered "I teleported him... Way up into the sky... Like... A hundred kilometres up..."

Zoe sighed. She knew that high up was basically the edge of space. She also knew Cindy was bad with numbers and distances, but even if she'd only sent the guy a tenth that high, his death would still have been pretty much instant. For now, she just continued holding her friend.

After Cindy had calmed down again, Zoe asked "What about the other guy?"

"He should be ok...Just knocked out..." Cindy whispered. "I clobbered him with a pumped-up stun spell..."

Zoe looked over at the remaining attacker, he was still laying motionless in the grass.

Now that the shock was over she was starting to think again. "Cindy those guys attacked us with magic. They were following us...stalking us. And they attacked with magic, for no reason! We have to find out what's going on."

She could tell the small blonde was still in shock, and still dealing with guilt. Cindy looked uncertain, confused, worried.

"Do you think you could read the guy's mind, Cindy? Find out who they are, and why they attacked us?" Zoe asked softly. She didn't know of any mind-reading spells, but if it was possible, she knew her girlfriend could figure it out.

She watched as Cindy took a few deep breaths. A small thoughtful frown settled on her face, replacing the confusion and worry. After a few seconds, she said "Samantha says 'mind magic' is forbidden... She says the mind is sacred..."

Zoe let out a quick sigh. She knew Cindy respected Samantha and didn't want to disobey their priestess, but Zoe felt like sometimes rules had to be broken. And this was one of those times.

She looked her friend in the eyes and stated, "Cindy those guys tried to kill us with magic. What if the others are in danger too? We have to know."

Cindy gulped, then nodded. "Ok Zoe... Yeah I think I can do it."

The two of them slowly got to their feet and cautiously approached the fallen man. Zoe could see he was breathing ok, and he didn't appear to be hurt in any way.

She watched as Cindy moved to stand near the guy's head, then she felt a tingle of magic as the blonde witch started working her spell.

Cindy talked quietly as she cast the spell, telling Zoe what she was doing. "It's just another variation on the truth spell... Modified to have wider parameters, then just pour more power into it... It's not gonna be too deep, but it should get some stuff..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened.

Finally the magic stopped and Cindy looked back at her, a shocked expression on her face.

"Zoe, these guys were ordered to attack us... Ordered to murder you, and to take me prisoner... They were gonna 'bind' me then take me back to London, for 'interrogation and processing'... They're part of a larger group... I don't know how large. But... " Cindy gulped. "Zoe they're gonna go after the coven! They're sworn to eliminate Gods and Goddesses... Zoe they're gonna try to kill Sam and Nikki!"

"Oh fuck!" Zoe gasped. She looked back down at the guy, frowning at him.

Cindy looked like she was still in shock, still processing what she just learned. "They didn't know we could work magic... They thought we were defenceless!" She looked angry again now, glaring down at the unconscious man.

Zoe frowned too, but then realized something. "Cindy that's a huge advantage for us. If they think the coven members don't know magic, they won't have their defences up around us..." She bit her lip, then added "We can't let this guy report back Cindy. We can't let them find out we know magic, or we'll lose that advantage."

The small blonde got a worried look in her eyes. "Zoe we can't kill him. I can't do that again... I can't have another death on my conscience... I don't even know how I'm gonna deal with the first one..."

Zoe pulled her friend into another hug. "It's ok Cindy. We won't kill him. We just gotta make sure he won't talk, and they won't find him..."

Cindy gulped a little, "How are we gonna do that?"

They were still hugging, as Zoe ran through all the options she could think of. Finally she settled on something. It was extreme and she had no idea what it would actually do to the guy's mind. She knew it probably wouldn't be good, but fuck it. These bastards had tried to kill her and were gonna do Goddess-knows-what to her girlfriend.

"I'll take care of it Cindy," she whispered. "I've got an idea."

Zoe looked down at the unconscious man. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was clean-shaven and his short dark hair was immaculately cut and styled. His suit looked expensive, custom-fit. She could imagine him as some wealthy, upper-class snob. Well, that life was about to come to an abrupt end.

She focused on him as she cast the spell. It was basically the one 'forbidden spell' that Zoe knew, something she'd learned from reading one of Cindy's private note-books. It was the first spell Cindy had made on her own, and it was basically a permanent transformation curse. No-one would ever be able to turn this guy back to normal except Zoe. And she knew it wouldn't take very long before he was fully adapted to the new form anyways. After a week at most, he wouldn't even want to be changed back. Assuming his mind wasn't immediately scrambled by the transformation itself. Either way, he wouldn't be in a position to share his opinions or thoughts on the matter for a long time...

Cindy stepped back as she felt Zoe working her spell.

Swirling lights surrounded the guy, then when they faded, his fancy suit appeared to be laying empty on the ground, apart from a lump in the middle.

Zoe bent over and pulled the clothes away, revealing the baby girl laying unconscious within.

"Oh!" Cindy gasped. "You used the curse, didn't you?"

She nodded as she picked the infant up, cradling the baby in her arms. "Yeah."

She used her foot to sort of kick the clothes into a little pile, then a teleport spell sent the would-be-assassin's belongings a hundred meters straight down, eliminating all the evidence that the guy had ever been there.

"What are you going to do with him? Her? We can't take a baby home with us." Cindy was looking uneasy again.

Zoe nodded, "I know, but we're not leaving her here. I'm gonna take her to a hospital, leave her where she'll be found and looked after. It'll be somewhere the rest of her friends will hopefully never find her though, so they won't be able to like, read her mind or whatever."

Cindy asked, "What hospital?"

"The one in Newmarket, Ontario." Zoe shrugged. "My parents used to take me there a lot. I had a lot of 'accidents' as a kid..." She scowled but pushed those memories aside. "Anyways I know it well enough, I can teleport there. I'm gonna take her there, leave her with a nurse or something, then we have to go straight home. We have to warn the others, Cindy."

The small blonde nodded slowly. She glanced around the meadow once more, then finally said "Ok Zoe. Do you want me to come with you to the hospital?"

Zoe shook her head, "I'll be fine. I'll meet you at home in a few minutes ok?"

Cindy nodded, "If you aren't home in ten minutes I'm coming for you."

"Understood." Zoe smiled. "Thanks Cindy."

She watched as her girlfriend concentrated, then vanished in a buzz of magic. Zoe was still cradling the unconscious infant in her arms, as she did the same. She closed her eyes, focused on the emergency entrance of the hospital she knew so well from her youth.

It took a few moments to locate a spot where she could appear unseen, then she worked the spell.

Just like that, she was across the Atlantic, back in Canada. She was in a small supply room behind the nurses' station in the emergency ward at Southlake Regional hospital.

Zoe took a quick peek out the open door and saw two nurses just outside. One was seated, the other standing, and the two were talking with each other.

She ducked back into the storage room. Pulling a clean blanket from a stack of them on a shelf, Zoe quickly wrapped the baby girl, then gently set her down on the floor in the middle of the room where she'd be impossible to miss. Finally she took a few steps back, and prepared to teleport herself to Cindy's bedroom in Welland.

Just before she triggered the spell, Zoe reached out and knocked a little plastic bottle off a shelf. She knew the noise would catch the nurses' attention so they'd come in and find the baby.

With that, she cast the spell and the storage room faded away. A moment later she was in Cindy's arms again, the small blonde hugging her tightly.

They were home, they were together, they were safe.

PurpleCatGirl

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