by Sara DeHaven
Soon they were making their way along Alki Avenue, the street hugging the south shore of Elliot Bay. It was full dark, and the downtown skyline could be seen across the water. A mix of high-rise apartment buildings and funky little beach shacks lined the street on their left, looking across the bay at the view. A white ferry, lit up like a floating birthday cake, was chugging across the water.
They were moving slow, and traffic was dense, doubtless due to kids arriving for the flash mob. As they neared the designated meeting spot, Kevin directed Daniel down a side street so they could find parking. He ended up parking illegally, too close to a stop sign, but they were all anxious to get out and get moving. Kevin led the way to the bakery, and as they moved closer to the main drag, the sounds of a crowd grew on the cool evening air. There was a faint cacophony of music, several people having apparently brought boom boxes, or perhaps playing their car stereos, and there was the murmur of a lot of people talking. So far, Bree noted with relief, there were no screams or yelling that she could make out.
As they walked closer to the corner where they were to meet, Bree could make out the stiff, straight form of Keeper Javier Ortiz. He was talking to a group of perhaps fifteen or twenty people, all crowded in close to hear. She saw Dion standing a little to the right of Javier, and he saw her as well and gave her a wave. Bree and the others came up to the edge in time to hear Javier saying, “So I want you to disperse into the crowd in small groups of two or three. Do what you can just to be that adult presence, and intervene, ah, normally where you see trouble starting. Those of you able to pick out which of the kids are particularly troubled,” he said, obviously code for ‘possessed kids’, “keep close to them. If it comes down to it, you may have to physically subdue them and get them out of the crowd where you can deal with them. Police officers are arriving, so let them handle trouble where that’s feasible. We’re just trying to keep a lid on things here, and anyone who can ward will help with that. We can’t expect to solve the troubled kids’ problem tonight, at least not all of them.” More code, for “we can’t expect to do exorcisms on all of them tonight.”
No shit, Bree thought, trying to picture setting up and concluding a full exorcism ritual with this many people around. Maybe if they could get the possessed kids away from the crowd, but how were they going to accomplish that?
“How many troubled ones have you counted so far?” one of the women near the front asked.
“Eighteen on my last walk through,” Javier replied grimly.
“Eighteen!” Bree whispered. It was a disastrous number of possessed. She looked around her. Of the few people in the group she was actually acquainted with, there were only five she knew for certain were Exorcists, and that included her, Daniel and Javier. Dion was a low power Reader and a high power Healer. Probably some of the people were Keepers, and those were more likely to be Exorcists as well, but they weren’t all wearing their normal Keeper blue, so she couldn’t tell at a glance.
As Javier finished his instructions, he began dividing people up into groups. When he got to her, Daniel and Kevin, Javier said curtly, his voice pitched low so as not to be overheard, “You three make a team. Thorvaldson, try to limit your casting to the less obvious. If you see a chance to pull one of the possessed kids away from the crowd, you and Bree go ahead and try for an exorcism. Bree, let Daniel take primary, he’s got more experience.”
Daniel caught Bree’s eye at that, and she grimaced as Javier nodded and moved on. Like hell he was going to take primary, not if she could help it. Daniel turned to include Kevin, and said resolutely, “Let’s go.”
They crossed the street and were immediately enveloped in a throng of young people. They covered the steps down to the beach, and she could see from the top of the steps how far the crowd extended to either side. She had no sense of how big the numbers might be, as she had no experience in trying to guess such a thing. But it looked like one hell of a lot of teenagers.
There were three bonfires going on the beach, and kids were densely packed around and between each of them. Some were swaying and dancing to tunes coming out of boom boxes, others were talking and laughing, and she saw not a few drinking from flasks or surreptitiously smoking joints. She forced herself to open her Demonsense, which she had been consciously preventing in self-defense.
She immediately felt the presence of multiple possessed, which triggered a shaky nausea. As they wound their way through the crowd, towards the furthest bonfire where Bree could feel a likely target, she saw the first sign of trouble. Raised voices, then one young man shoving another hard in the chest. The second one nearly went down, and with a snarl, he steadied himself, then shoved back. Voices were raised all around them, some trying to calm the two boys, some egging them on.
Bree glanced around, saw a police officer heading their way, and continued on. The sounds of the conflict intensified behind her, and she felt her shoulder blades drawing in and tensing in response. She suddenly felt far too short, and hemmed in.
With relief, she felt Kevin take her hand, felt the bulk of him behind her. She heard some more cries in front of her then, and tried to quicken her pace to keep up with Daniel, but the crowd seemed even denser now.
Adding to the difficulty was the fact that where she might be able to squeeze through, Kevin couldn’t easily follow. Bree glanced at the faces around her. Some were still smiling and laughing, but many of the kids were looking ahead, the taller ones able to see what she couldn’t, the source of the rising yells somewhere in front of them.
Before she could break through to where the action was, she was jostled quite hard, as whatever conflict was up ahead started to spread out and affect the people nearby. Some tried to get away, while others pushed to get closer. Bree got her feet stepped on several times, and was shoved almost to her knees another time, only Kevin’s grip on her hand saving her. A frightening image of getting trampled to death leapt to mind. It wasn’t a crazy fear, either. If a crowd this big got out of control, she was sure it was a possibility.
Finally, she got close enough to the bonfire to see what was happening. She and Kevin came up beside Daniel and saw a fist fight was in full swing, involving at least six kids, most of them boys, but two of them girls, their screeching epithets rising above the lower rumble of the boys’ grunts and swearing. Quickly, Bree focused her Reader sense on the group, and what she felt made her heart sink. One of the boys was possessed by a good sized demon, and worse, both he and one of the girls were powered kids, both Casters.
Teenaged powered could definitely be a danger to themselves and others. And short of being Binders or Demon Masters, young Casters were by far the worst. They didn’t have the skill yet to shape their power into really lethal castings, but with enough emotional energy, they could stumble their way through some quick and dirty spells that could do some serious harm. And, of course, the easiest and the most harmful spells were those one could cast against people in close proximity.
Even as she stood there trying to evaluate the situation, a skinny blond girl flung out an arm at the girl across from her and sent the other girl sprawling and clutching her throat. Dear Lord, Bree thought frantically, she might have actually tried a stop breath spell. At least now Bree knew where to start. “I’ll deal with the girls, you see if there’s any cops nearby to flag down to break up the boys’ fight,” she shouted hurriedly in Kevin’s ear.
He nodded and released her hand with a little squeeze. “I’ll see what I can do to keep the boys in line,” Daniel told her. Bree hurriedly agreed, and marched over to the blonde girl who was standing over her opponent with a twisted smile on her face, both fists outstretched. Bree slapped the girl’s face and grabbed the girl by both arms and shook her before her face could finish registering shock at being struck. “You listen up, little girl. We do not cast in front of normals, and we do not cast to hurt another, except in self defense.”
An expression of mixed fear and defiance came over the girl’s face. “What’re you, some Kee
per?” she sneered, and Bree realized from the tone of it that she was most likely holding a Keltoi’s daughter in her grasp.
“Yeah, something like that,” she told the powered girl with another little shake. The other girl was climbing to her feet now, to Bree’s great relief. “No matter the right or the wrong of it, it’s just plain stupid to cast in public,” she hissed at the girl, moving in closer, trying for a little domination with physical proximity. “You think your people would be happy to hear you did such an incredibly idiotic thing?” Her attempt at projecting a convincing level of intimidation must have worked, because the girl’s defiance slid right off of her face, and she muttered, “Okay, okay, fine. I won’t do it anymore.”
“Go home before somebody gets killed here tonight. And don’t be so sure it won’t be you,” Bree admonished with a final shake.
The little blonde turned away, face flushed, and looked around, probably trying to find some of the people she came with. Bree would like to have followed her to see that she left, but she had bigger fish to fry.
She turned to see that while she’d been dealing with the girl, the fight had spread. She saw Daniel physically separating two boys, one of whom was considerably heftier than him, and the big one was pushing back. She saw Daniel’s left hand make a subtle little waving gesture, and the boy fighting him flew back and landed on his ass in the sand. It was a beautifully controlled telekinetic spell. If she hadn’t been watching closely, she would have thought Daniel had simply been successful in pushing the boy.
He turned to the other kid, and did the same thing. “Okay boys, that’s more than enough,” he admonished. “You all came here to have fun, not get into trouble. This place will be crawling with cops any second. Do you seriously want to get arrested for assault?”
Both kids were scowling as they shook their heads and muttered, “No.”
Bree was shaken out of admiring how Daniel was handing the situation by a hard shove to her back. She stumbled towards Daniel, and his hands caught her and kept her from falling.
Daniel's eyes narrowed in concentration as he focused on whoever had slammed into her. This time, she didn’t see him move at all, just felt a wash of power shoot by her. She heard a grunt and some swearing. Daniel must have cast another telekinetic spell to push people away from her. He let go of her and went on past her.
She turned to see him facing an angry group of four young men, two of whom were climbing to their feet. With dismay, she registered that two of them were both possessed and powered. Those two had likely perceived that Daniel had cast against them.
Daniel was holding up his hands palm out in a soothing, placating gesture. “Look, I don’t want anyone to get hurt here.”
“The only one who’s going to get hurt here is you if you try that again!” one of the possessed boys sneered. He was a soft, chubby looking kid with long brown bangs. He was clearly hopped up on the sense of confidence and power that being possessed could supply.
“Hey, I’m just trying to keep people from getting trampled,” Daniel replied, posture relaxed. “No harm done.” Bree could see at once that Daniel’s attempt at de-escalating the confrontation was working. Three of the boys had relaxed and had turned their attention elsewhere. A short, wiry Hispanic kid, one of the possessed, wasn’t buying into it. His eyes narrowed, and he took a step towards Daniel, one hand raised to gesture some kind of offensive spell.
The kid never had a chance. Without moving out of his relaxed posture, Daniel twitched the fingers of his right hand, and the boy staggered and fell to the ground. Another flicker of Daniel’s fingers, and the boy was clutching at his eyes.
“What the fuck?” he cried.
“Sand in your eyes?” Daniel enquired, not quite managing to hide his satisfaction at putting the boy in his place.
One of the other boys growled, “Back off, dude,” and stalked towards Daniel.
Daniel held his hand up again, said, “I’m backing off. I don’t want any trouble.”
It might have worked if the influence of demon kind weren’t so heavy in the air, stimulating aggression. The boy, another Hispanic kid, this one taller, with long hair and a bad case of acne, charged Daniel, fist raised. Daniel dodged the punch easily, took the boy’s extended wrist, and used the kid’s own momentum to pull him past and plant him hard in the sand.
One of the other boys came at Daniel from behind, and in a move far less subtle than Daniel had managed, cast a dizziness spell. His aim was off, and spell barely glanced against Daniel, who recovered his balance quickly.
Daniel was already half turned around when the boy barreled into him, shoving hard. Daniel almost went down, but he managed to pivot out of the boy’s reach, one hand in the sand, the other extended in a throwing motion. The boy attacking him froze just long enough for Daniel to push back up to his feet.
By now, the sight stop spell was wearing off, and the boy on the ground was shaking his head and blinking his eyes hard. In the meantime, a small crowd had formed around the fight. As Bree glanced around, she saw a circle of avid faces, only a few registering concern or fear. She was having a hard time figuring out how to cast in a manner that would both help Daniel and not be too obvious. Practicing with Daniel in his work room was clearly far simpler than a real life battle. She clearly needed to practice in a group setting so she could get some idea what to do with several opponents at once.
Both she and Daniel also had to be careful to have little to no physical contact with the possessed, for fear the demon might try to jump bodies. Their personal wards would protect them to a degree, but if the demon was big enough, the wards would not be enough to save them.
There was only a brief pause as the boys worked up their courage to come at Daniel again. He wasn’t all that physically intimidating, but there was an air of confidence, and a readiness to his posture that indicated he wasn’t afraid. How nice for him. Bree was more than afraid, she was freaking terrified.
The three boys still on their feet rushed Daniel all at once. In a flurry of moves, Daniel dodged, pushed, put out a foot to trip, and added a telekinetic shove to leave all three boys on their butts or on their faces in the sand. There were cat calls and a roar of approval from the surrounding crowd. Bree heard one girl cry, “Go ninja guy!”
Demonic energy rose as the demons possessing two of the kids became enraged and surged to the forefront. She had the strong feeling that if she and Daniel didn’t put these boys down, fast, more people were going to pitch in, if only to see what Daniel could do. So in the pause in the action where the boys got back to their feet, including the one that had been blinded earlier, Bree stepped up beside Daniel. “We’d better end this fast,” she told him.
“Then it won’t be subtle,” Daniel warned.
Bree glanced around again. “Lesser of two evils,” she offered, stomach clenching at the looks of rage being sent her way by the advancing boys.
Daniel nodded without looking at her. “I’ll take the demon boys, you focus on the other two.”
She didn’t have time to respond. As the heftier of the kids reached out to grab at her, she cast a dizziness spell at him, putting a foot out at the same time so it might look like she had tripped him. He stumbled past her, grabbed at his head and fell down. There was no time to congratulate herself, as the tall boy got hold of her right arm, and his fist struck out at her face. In mid-motion, his eyes widened in surprise and stayed there as his body froze.
Bree seized the opportunity to shove him, and he went down. She turned to see Daniel grinning at her. The two possessed boys were down as well, one on his side, the other on his face. Daniel strode forward, and touched the shoulder of the larger boy Bree had put down, for all the world looking as if he were checking to see if the kid was okay. And maybe he was. But Bree could tell by the stiffening of the kid’s face that Daniel had also hit him with a heavy duty freeze spell. As she looked around, she realized he had done the same to the other three.
Daniel stood up and came ove
r to Bree, glancing around quickly to assess for further trouble. He leaned in and spoke in her ear. “That’ll hold them for a bit. I think we should get out of here before we attract any more attention.”
As he pulled back, Bree saw his expression. He was still smiling a bit, and his eyes were bright with a combination of excitement and satisfaction. “You’re enjoying this,” she accused.
“Maybe just a little,” he admitted. “Come on.” He took her arm, and pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers, who gave way readily at first, then less so as they got into that section of the crowd that hadn’t witnessed the fight. They finally made it out to an area that was less dense. “Where’s Kevin?” Daniel asked, dropping her arm and looking around alertly for further trouble.
“I sent him to look for a cop. Now I’m not sure that was the right move. I was just hoping we could prevent a major fight without having to do any casting.”
Daniel was scanning the crowd alertly. “Things are only going to get crazier with this much demonic energy floating around. I don’t see how we’re going to be able to avoid casting if we have any hope of keeping a lid on things. Besides, people don’t want to think they saw something unexplainable, something supernatural. I’ve seen that be the case over and over in dealing with normals. Try to be subtle, but don't let that preoccupy you too much."
“I can see your point, but the whole thing makes me nervous. I’ve never cast in front of normals before. In fact, I’m amazed that I’m casting offensive spells at all.”
“Admit it, it’s fun.” Daniel’s grin was infectious, and she smiled back in spite of herself.
“There you are,” Kevin called, and Bree turned to see him trotting towards them. “I never could find a cop,” he said as he came up, a little breathless.” When I couldn’t find one quickly, I figured the whole thing might already be over, and tried to make my way back to where I saw you before. I assume it was you two who put the freeze on those boys I saw?”
