Whipping people with a wet noodle/Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial

All right Posse. What is WITH you guys! I mean the new members are being oh so very good, despite the bad example set by the older crew who simply are NOT sending the addresses I requested. Do I have to get all "Evil" overlordy? Is it that I'm just not intimidating enough now that I'm "Not-so-Evil?" HMNNNN? (Stomping my not-so-little foot, which, by the way, seriously irritates the bunions.)

All right. I'll say it. (I may actually choke on this you know.) PLEASE. There. I said it. PLEASE send me your addresses to catadamsfans@gmail.com . If you like you can put either WET NOODLE or DARN IT YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE THIS in the re line.

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All right. That said. Time for the early edition to the Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial. It's going to be short, but I've got to get to the day job. And I'm giving myself some slack because I'm on deadline for the book due August 1. But if I have time, and there's outcry, I may try to find a way to do more mid-week next week.

Ready? Enjoy.

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Panic! Absolute total freaking panic. The logical part of my brain might know and trust Bob, but I couldn't BREATHE. Elbows and knees lashed out, but the blows were slowed by the water, and he held me inexorably under. As the pressure of the breath I was holding built in my lungs, my magic built too. Sparkling stars shot across my darkening vision, and I felt a stab of blinding pain as my power tried to shoot outward, slamming against the dam my father had built. Then a sharper, lance of pain, like a scalpel slicing across my mental skin.

I felt the rush of power hit me like a speeding truck. So much power. Damnation, was I really that strong? Wow. In the same instant, Bob released me and I rose to the surface to gasp for sweet, glorious oxygen.

"Did it work?" Bob asked. "I hated holding you like that, but they insisted."

"Oh yeah." I looked into his eyes and smiled "It's okay." Turning to Eleanor I started to say thanks, when I saw a telltale shimmer in the shadows behind her, felt power wash across my skin.

Nor was I the only one. Eleanor whirled around, power at the ready. Buford started wading as fast as he could toward the end of the pool. Glancing over his shoulder at me he shouted "Get him out of here!"

"What's going on?" Bob looked back and forth, trying to grasp what was happening, and failing.

"We've got company coming, and not the happy kind. Hang on!" I grabbed him by the arm, gathered my will, and opened a seam.