=:= Cindy =:=

After bidding Tanya and Brandi a good day, Cindy worked the teleport spell. A moment later, she was standing in the living-room of Becky's apartment.

It was a nice place, a little larger than where Tanya and Brandi were staying. It was also very clean and tidy, the furniture was mostly new, and it all matched.

Becky was on the fourth floor of a small building in London, Ontario. There were several windows and a little balcony, which gave her a good view of the town and nearby park. The balcony was probably really nice in the warmer months too. Unfortunately it meant more work for Cindy, to get the whole apartment fully warded.

Becky wasn't home at the moment. Cindy knew her friend had classes today, she probably wouldn't be home for another three or four hours. That was ok though, it would give Cindy time to do all the wards without interruption. She figured the work would be done around when Becky got home, then they could have a little visit.

Cindy pulled out the last USB drive and the amulet she'd brought, and left them both on the coffee table by the sofa where they'd be easily found. Then she opened the jar of ink and got out the pen, and got to work.

She started on the front door, taking her time as she carefully laid the runes up and down both sides of the door-frame. It took about thirty minutes, then when it was done she worked the magic to empower the runes and activate the wards.

Power flowed into the runes, and the ink faded from view. The runes were still there of course, and anyone with the Sight -- or anyone who knew the spell to let them see magic -- would be able to see them. But to most eyes, the wards were invisible.

From there, Cindy moved to her friend's bedroom, and started working on the windows in there. A couple hours later, she'd done most of the other windows and now she was back in the living-room, on her knees drawing runes along the bottom of the sliding glass door that opened onto the balcony.

Doing this while Becky was at school seemed like a good idea at first. She was able to work without any distracting conversation. But it was also incredibly boring, and Cindy was starting to think about taking a break.

Luckily a distraction came, in the form of someone knocking at the apartment door.

Cindy frowned. She wondered if she should answer, since it wasn't her place. But a distraction might be nice, and she'd been thinking about taking a break anyways. She closed the lid on the jar of ink and put the pen down, then got up and walked over to the door.

Swinging it open, she immediately frowned. There were two uniformed police standing there in the hall. They were tall, imposing, and both wore serious expressions on their faces.

Cindy hesitated a little. The wards on the door would keep these guys out if they meant any harm, but she was still wary of them.

"Uh, can I help you?" she asked, looking up at them both.

The one on the left asked, "May we come in?" His name tag identified him as Constable Murray.

"Is this Ms. Rebecca Eckhart's home?" the other one asked. He was Constable Pullman, according to his name tag.

Cindy was frowning at them both but shrugged, "Uh... Yeah, ok." She moved aside and the two men stepped past her and into the apartment.

They got past the wards so she knew they didn't have any malevolent intent. She closed the door after them, watching as their eyes swept over the apartment.

Murray was probably six-foot-two, and looked like he worked out. Pullman was maybe five-foot-ten, and looked a little softer. They were both big men though, and both looked serious. Pullman had a moustache, Murray was clean shaven. Pullman looked like the older of the pair, mid-forties perhaps, while Murray was probably mid-thirties.

Still watching them, she asked, "What's going on?"

Pullman had a little notepad in his hand now, and asked, "Do you live here, miss?"

"No," Cindy replied, frowning. "Becky's my friend, I'm waiting for her to get home from university."

While she was talking with the one cop, the other was walking around, looking around the living-room. She saw him look at the coffee table and she knew he'd noticed the USB drive and the amulet. And now he was staring at the partly-finished runes she'd been working on at the balcony door.

She had a bad feeling where this was going, and said "I'm not going to answer any more questions, until you tell me what's going on. Is Becky ok?"

The cop ignored her and asked, "What's your name? When was the last time you saw Ms. Eckhart?"

Cindy ignored his questions, and looked at the other one. Murray had moved back to the coffee table, and was reaching down for the amulet.

"Don't touch that." Cindy stated. "Now tell me what's going on! Is Becky ok?"

Constable Murray straightened up, leaving the amulet, as he frowned at her. Pullman repeated his question. "Miss, what's your name? And when was the last time you saw Ms. Eckhart?"

Cindy stared at him, but said nothing.

Pullman frowned, "Ok, we can continue this down at the station, if that's the way you want to do it."

"Fine." Cindy sighed. "My name is Cindy Talbot. Last time I saw Becky was uh..." She thought back to the coven meeting after she'd returned from Wales. "It was second half of October. I spoke with her last night though, on the phone." She then insisted "Now tell me what's going on. Please!"

The two cops glanced at each other, then Murray replied, "Ms. Eckhart's body was found a couple hours ago..."

He kept talking, but his voice had faded to a distant mumble. Cindy stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed onto it as her body felt like it had gone numb. She found herself staring at the amulet on the coffee table.

She was too late. If she'd been here yesterday, or this morning even...

The two cops had moved closer, standing to either side of her, but she ignored them. They might have continued talking, but Cindy couldn't hear them. She wasn't paying attention any more.

She kept picturing Becky in her mind. Becky, Tanya, and herself, they'd been friends since high-school. From grade eleven till the end of grade twelve, the three of them had been so close. Of course they drifted apart a little after they graduated, but they were still best friends.

And now Becky was gone... Cindy had no idea how to break the news to Tanya, or the rest of the coven.

She and the others thought Becky would be safe. She was so far from home, separated from the others by distance. It had seemed like Sam and Nikki were the most at-risk, not the others. They were wrong. Again. They kept being wrong, and now one of her best friends was dead...

She gradually realized someone was touching her, and tried to pull away. "Let go of me!"

It was the two cops. They'd pulled her to her feet, and one of them was talking about taking her to the station, as he pushed her towards the door.

Cindy tried to push him away, but Murray grabbed her shoulder, then twisted her arm behind her back.

He was talking to the other one, "Think we'll have to arrest this one. I don't know, failure to comply? Resisting arrest?"

Cindy struggled but she had no chance of getting free, and it just made him twist her arm harder. Then she felt him putting handcuffs on her, locking them onto the wrist that was already twisted behind her back first. Then her other arm was wrenched back and cuffed as well.

The pain in her arms finally pushed her grief and shock aside for now. She lashed out with her magic, hitting both of them with the sleep spell she'd learned from Ciara's notebook.

Both cops crumpled to the floor. Pullman wound up on his back, snoring. Murray was face down next to the door.

Cindy got rid of the cuffs, teleporting them off her wrists. She knew she needed to get out of here, but first she had to find out what happened to Becky.

She knelt next to Pullman and checked him, finding his notebook. His handwriting was crap, she couldn't make any sense out of it. She did see he'd written her name though. She focused on the notepad and it vanished in a burst of intense flames, leaving just smoke and ashes.

Then Cindy focused on him, and used the mind-reading spell she'd cooked up in Wales.

The images and thoughts flickered into her awareness. She saw her friend laying dead on the floor of a washroom at university. Becky was crumpled on the floor against the wall near the sinks, a hand on her chest over her heart, a look of shock frozen on her face. There was a needle on the floor near her body. The cops suspected it was a drug overdose, and crime-scene people had taken over from the regular police and campus security.

Pullman and Murray had been on the scene at the university, but they'd been sent to Becky's home to check on things here. Pullman thought Cindy was suspicious, and he'd noticed the half-finished runes as well. When Cindy reacted to Murray reaching for the amulet and USB drive, he figured Cindy and Becky were involved in something illegal, and there was probably evidence on the USB drive.

There were tears in Cindy's eyes now. She wished she could un-see the image of her friend laying dead on the washroom floor.

Moving quickly, Cindy grabbed the USB drive and the amulet, then picked up the jar of ink and the pen. She hesitated, looking down at the half-finished runes. They were visible until they were empowered, and both cops had seen them.

She realized they knew her name, too. She should have lied or something, given them an alias.

Cindy stood there fretting for a few moments. Her mind was torn between grief and worry. The last thing the coven needed was police visiting the vineyard looking for her.

After another minute or two of uncertainty, she made a decision. She poured power into the unfinished runes, causing them to flare out of existence. The balcony wasn't warded but it didn't matter any more. Then she looked at the two sleeping cops.

Samantha definitely wouldn't approve, but Cindy didn't know what else to do. Once again she was cooking up a brand-new spell off the top of her head. She didn't know how to remove their memories of meeting her, but she could try and overwrite that memory with something else. Focusing on the unconscious men, she cast her new spell.

If it went according to plan, the last thirty or forty minutes of their memories would be replaced by something completely useless. Instead of remembering anything about Cindy, they'd both just remember an hour's worth of wandering through woodland and across fields in Wales. She figured it was boring, there was nothing that would lead them back to her or anyone else. It was the most harmless thing she could think of.

Finally, Cindy closed her eyes and focused on home. A moment later she appeared back in her bedroom.

She dumped the ink jar, pen, and everything else onto her bedside table then just collapsed onto her bed and started sobbing.

=:= Zoe =:=

"This is so neat!" Ciara grinned, her eyes fixed on the large-screen tv.

She and Zoe were sitting in the 'family room' area at the far end of the house, where they'd been streaming cartoons all day on the big tv. Ciara was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with a can of soda next to her, and a bowl of freshly-microwaved popcorn beside her.

Zoe had pulled a chair over and was sitting sideways on it with her tail wrapped around her waist and resting on her lap.

She wasn't very happy about being stuck with baby-sitting duty, but having a few thousand hours' worth of cartoons on the streaming site made it a lot easier. Zoe wasn't really sure why Ciara needed a baby-sitter anyways. She was pretty sure the girl would stay out of trouble on her own.

Even though she looked about ten years old, she was something like forty, if you counted how long she'd been around. At least, she had that many years' worth of knowledge, from her brother's memories.

Zoe wasn't really sure how that worked. Ciara didn't seem to know either, but it didn't really matter. The point was she seemed harmless, and Zoe would have rather gone with Cindy to help do the runes and stuff at Tanya's and Becky's places.

But with Nikki having to spend time at the winery and Sam needing to take care of some things at the spiritual retreat, and Jess and Kara both back at the support org, that just left Zoe to stay here and watch over their little Irish friend.

"Didn't you have cartoons back home?" Zoe asked.

"Yes," Ciara shrugged, "But not this many. And you couldn't just watch them all day long!" She grinned, and had another drink of her cola.

After a few moments, Zoe said "You know there's other things we can watch too. Not just cartoons. There's all kinds of movies and stuff..."

Ciara just shrugged again as she stared at the screen. "I like cartoons. I like this cartoon."

Zoe sighed. They were halfway through the third season, and there were at least four more seasons on the streaming service. She had a feeling they'd be watching this stuff for days.

It was getting later in the afternoon now, and Zoe was just starting to think about getting herself a snack or maybe a half glass of milk, when her ears twitched. She thought she heard something from upstairs, from the bedroom she and Cindy shared.

"Stay here, kid." Zoe said as she got to her feet and started for the stairs.

Ciara didn't respond, she was still engrossed in the cartoon while Zoe made her way up the stairs.

On the one hand, Zoe was positive no-one could break in thanks to all the wards on the house. But Cindy wasn't due back till after dinner tonight, and there wasn't anyone else home right now but herself and the kid.

The rooms actually had pretty good soundproofing, but as Zoe approached the door she could definitely hear someone inside, and it sounded like they were crying. She realized with a shock, it sounded like Cindy.

She yanked the door open and hurried into the bedroom. Sure enough the small blonde was laying across the bed, hugging a pillow as she cried. Zoe climbed on the bed and pulled her girlfriend into her arms.

"Shhh Cindy it's ok," Zoe whispered as she held her. "I'm here, I've got you... What's wrong?"

It took a minute or two for Cindy to calm down enough to talk. She took a few shaky breaths, then with more tears welling up in her eyes she whispered "Zoe... They got Becky. Becky's dead..." As soon as she'd said the words, the small witch started crying again.

Zoe continued holding her, but she was reeling with the news as well now. She wasn't as close to Becky, but in a way she felt she owed her new life to the computer sciences student. Reading about Becky's transformation on a conspiracy website was what led Zoe to meet Cindy, and the rest of the coven.

She felt her mouth go dry and her stomach felt heavy. She continued holding Cindy, but said softly "Cindy we have to tell the others. We have to tell Sam and Nikki..."

Cindy just nodded slowly. She kept her arms around Zoe though, and continued crying for now.

Zoe held Cindy for another ten or fifteen minutes, until her girlfriend finally calmed down again. Then she grabbed her phone and sent a quick text to Nikki.

=:= Liam =:=

"Really! That's amazing!" Liam smiled at the attractive young blonde. "Where abouts in Cardiff?"

Christopher had disappeared for the day, and Liam hadn't had anything to do so he'd decided to try once again to visit the spiritual retreat. It was relatively low-priority but it was one of his assignments, and he didn't like to leave jobs un-finished.

He'd rented a car and come by this afternoon on a whim. To his surprise, not only did he get in, but the receptionist turned out to be Welsh. He'd been chatting her up for the past fifteen or twenty minutes, hoping to get some information out of her. Or at the very least, he might be able to talk her into joining him for a nice little diversion as soon as her shift ended.

Gwen replied, "Oh, it was near Radyr. My family moved to Canada when I was a girl though, so I don't actually remember all that much about the place."

"Oh come now," Liam grinned. "You can take the girl out of Wales but you can't take Wales out of the girl, isn't that what they say?"

The cute blonde giggled, and Liam thought to himself she had a pretty blush.

He'd already ascertained there were no wards on the exterior of this building, and verified that Gwen's aura showed no exposure to magic in at least the past year. He was fairly confident that like the winery, the wellness centre wasn't part of the cultists' activities.

It was good news, it meant not only had he completed this part of his assignment, but he was also free to continue trying to seduce the attractive young woman infront of him.

He was just starting to ask how she came to be working here, when the main doors behind him flew open as someone came rushing in.

"Gwen, is Samantha in her office?!" The speaker was a woman and she sounded rushed and upset.

Liam turned, and realized with shock it was the goth woman, Nicole. The one William had claimed to have killed, before his alleged suicide. The Brotherhood believed she was either the priestess or the vessel, and here she was standing not two meters away from him.

He could see she was upset. Her face, her eyes, the tone of her voice when she'd spoken to Gwen. Liam assumed she'd just received bad news, and immediately deduced it was because of whatever Christopher had disappeared to take care of.

The woman's eyes met his, and Liam knew she recognized him too. He automatically reached out and cast the death spell, reflex and training taking over. He felt the magic flow through him, he felt it constrict around her heart. And then he felt the power drain away, dissipating harmlessly into nothing.

At the same time, he saw Nicole's eyes flare with blue light, and the last thought to cross his mind was 'Ah, so she is the Vessel after all...'

=:= Christopher =:=

It was late afternoon as he pulled into the hotel's underground parking. He'd been in the car almost all day, and he was tired of driving. He thought about loosening up in the hotel gym before dinner.

Still, his mood was better. They'd been here nearly three weeks and it was nice to finally have something to show for it. It was also nice to get a bit of payback, after they'd killed William last week.

Arguably, murdering the coed wasn't really much progress. And it was against protocol. They were supposed to eliminate the priest and vessel, before going after the other cultists.

Christopher justified it though, knowing it would shake up the rest of them. It showed them they weren't safe, that they could all be targeted. And most of all, it made him feel better.

Yes, it was definitely good for morale. His mood was up, and the cultists' moods would be down.

It would also be good for his men, he thought. He'd proved to them as much as the cultists, that these women could be gotten-to. It also proved that whatever happened in Wales last month had to have been the Cardiff team's fault. The men must have broken protocol or slipped up somehow, to let the abomination and the teen get the better of them.

Certainly that young woman at the university had been no trouble whatsoever for Christopher. It was almost laughably easy in fact. He simply followed her into the restroom and used the death spell. She hadn't even made a sound, let alone attempted to retaliate.

Planting the drugs on the scene had been utterly unnecessary, but he felt it was a little artistic flourish. It would ensure the local police had something to do, and might even bring the cultists a few extra headaches. The police would do some digging, and might send people calling on the cultists. Perhaps not, but it never hurt to muddy the waters a little.

With the car parked, he made his way inside and into the lift. A few minutes later he emerged on the top floor. He rounded the corner and spotted Anthony at the end of the hall, knocking on the door to his suite.

And just like that, his good mood faded. Now he'd have to put off his visit to the gym while he listened to whatever the old wizard wanted to ramble on about.

"I'm here, Anthony. What is it?" Christopher said as he approached, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

The older man turned towards him and seeing the look on Anthony's face, Christopher immediately knew something was wrong.

"We've just lost Liam." Anthony stated, sounding anxious. "Christopher we've got to get moving."

PurpleCatGirl

Sorry this chapter was kinda sad & stressful. This is about the halfway point for the story, there's lots more to come so please stay tuned. Next chapter is due on Saturday.

Thanks everyone for reading & for your support & comments. We've been abit quiet lately b/c we're dealing with some depression & anxiety issues, but that won't affect the current story. 

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