Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial

Good morning guys? Are you HUNGRY? Well, if you have your bowl and are ready, I am.

Hmn, when last we left our intrepid heroine, she was sopping wet, and about to get visitors of the most unwelcome kind.

And now I give you . . . The Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial.
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I opened a seam to the office. I'd worked there long enough, I could envision the place in my sleep. And while it might not be the perfect choice, it was, at least, better than the deep end of the high school swimming pool. Certainly it would be drier. And he was close enough to home to be able to get a ride.

I didn't stay to talk. Unless I missed my guess, there was a battle going on. A battle I was a part of.

I gave Bob a fierce hug, quick thanks, and opened a seam next to the ruined counter. "Be careful Bob. I don't know how, but Evan knows I care about you, and he found this place before. He could be back if we don't stop him."

We had to stop him. The question was how? Not only how to manage it, but HOW was he finding me? I'd been careful. Damned careful. And there's no way he could've traced us to the church using magic. Not with the ambient energy of the place interfering.

As I stepped through and into a pitched battle the realization hit me. There was only one way Evan could have found us here. Someone told him where we were going. But who?

I had set my seam to empty me into the small space in the main room behind the altar. It was a bit of a ways away from the action, but I didn't want to materialize into the middle of a fireball, or gunshot. And there were gunshots. Helena had apparently gotten tired of the interference with her magic and decided that less was more. She wasn't a very good shot, and her stance was all wrong. But that wouldn't make the bullets hurt any less if by a stroke of bad luck you got hit.

I moved to the far wall, moving quickly and in silence toward the battle. As I did, I gathered my will, wondering if what I was about to try would work. If Helena couldn't do magic here, could I? If I couldn't, there was always the Ladysmith. But it was in my backpack in the farthest corner of the room. No, magic was my best bet. Assuming, of course, that our little ceremony had worked. It felt like it had. But, oh. . . crap, what if . . . . Well, there was only one way to tell.

Taking a deep breath, I positioned myself, carefully hiding the bulk of my body behind the door frame leading into the baptismal area. Gathering my will, I tried to envision a ball of fire the size of a tennis ball. I felt the power being pulled from deep within me. It was painful, but not the spike of disabling pain of before. No, this was deeper, but more tolerable. It made me ache to my bones, but I could stay upright, could still think. Narrowing my eyes against the pain, I made a motion like throwing a fastball into the center of Helena's back. At the end of the "pitch" I released the energy I'd been holding.

A blue-white ball of flaming energy the size of a beach ball hit between her shoulderblades hard enough to lift her off of her feet and send her flying, face-first, into the far wall, leaving an indent like a cookie-cutter form in the drywall before she collapsed limply to the ground.

Oh my.

My knees weakened, and a wobbled a little, both from the effort it had taken and from sheer surprise.

Evan snarled. Whirling, he launched a fireball at me that was just as powerful, and far more controlled than my own. I dived and rolled, managing to get mostly out of the way. My borrowed robe was scorched, but it was too wet from my faux baptism to actually catch fire.

Evan gathered his will, and would've attacked me again, but Buford was on him. The fire that blazed in his dark blue eyes was a match for the lightninglike power that was loosed from his hand, flying in an eye-searing bolt over Eleanor's prone body and into Evan's hastily-raised defenses.

I crawled toward my backpack. Helena wasn't moving; wasn't breathing, but I wasn't ready to try magic again just yet. I'd put too much of myself into that one blow. Besides, the lack of control frightened me. If I tried to loose a blast at Evan, I'd be likely to take Buford with him. So I didn't dare. But I could shoot the bastard. Oh yes I could!

I was holding the backpack, drawing the gun when I felt . . . something. A shudder ran through me, from head to toe, and the crystal of my necklace burned like fire against my chest.

In my mind, like a pained scream, I heard Cassandra's voice. Sahara, I NEED YOU!

WE ARE BETRAYED!