Chapter 10

After training Donnie and Kelly caught up with the gang to tell them about the attack at the Amazon River Basin. There were more than a few shocked faces at the news, but everyone agreed it was too dangerous to meet at Lauren's as they had planned, at least not until they had some safeguards in place.

The question on everyone's lips however had been:

How did the Caits know where he was?

Once everyone was showered and changed Kelly strolled with Donnie down the hall toward the school library, but on the way he kept shooting furtive glances her way which made her wonder what he could possibly be thinking.

When they finally reached the ancient wooden door he rushed to open it for her, and as the door swung wide she found herself once again marveling at the wonder of their world.

Haven High's school library was a thing to behold, a real ancient wonder of the world, and the once and true library of Alexandria. A wizard of extraordinary power had anchored it to the school with a time spell of tremendous magnitude over a century ago. And even though the real library was burnt to the group before the birth of the baby Jesus, the time reminisce allowed its previous construct to be tethered to the school where it will remain until the end of time.

In the training gym the kids had decided to convene in the school library. They all had to agree Donnie was safest here in the school, and it couldn't hurt to see if they could find some answers in the stacks. Luckily for them it was the first day back so the place was pretty much deserted. Clio wasn't even among the thousands of books, where she normally could be found, but Lauren cast her anti-eavesdropping spell in any case.

After what happened last spring if they were caught meddling again in council affairs they all knew what the consequences would be, Tuma had spelled it out to them pretty clearly. Not one of them was willing to pay that price. Well she guessed maybe a few of them wondered once and awhile what it would be like not to have their powers any more, (namely poor Connor the Gean Canach whose touch was a death sentence) but no one was willing -- just yet -- to openly defy the council. Someday perhaps -- but that day wasn't today.

When she and Donnie walked in everyone was already there waiting for them and it looked to her like Brenna and Lauren had already gotten to work on defensive spells to ensure the feline freaks didn't get their paws on their friend.

They were huddled together going over notes and even had some scrolls unraveled in front of them. Everyone else was lounging around the table quietly. Kelly speculated that they were probably too tired from their brutal training session to do much else. She knew she was feeling it. She'd been face planted into the mat more times than she could count. Which trust her wasn't the norm.

Again Xander choose the furthest seat from her proving that there was no distance far enough. Which really stung. No matter how much she wanted to believe it was no skin off her nose, it still hurt to know that seemingly overnight he'd ceased having any feelings for her. And again, she had to wonder what had gone wrong?

When she dragged her eyes away from Xan – of course she had been staring – she found herself inexplicably curious to see where Donnie was looking, and she was pleasantly surprised to find him looking straight at her. When their eyes locked he gave her a tentative smile, but she promptly looked away. There was no need to encourage the delusional boy.

Lauren was the first to speak, apparently her and Brenna had finally come up with a game plan," Guys we think we've found a few solutions, but with more questions than answers we can't be one hundred percent certain that they will work."

"One in particular keeps coming to mind, "Brenna announced to the waiting group. "How do they keep finding him?"

"We've narrowed it down to three possibilities," Lauren interjected, "They are scrying his location, but in order for that to work they would need something of his -- either something really person or even a piece of him."

Lauren looked to Donnie and asked, "Are you missing anything special to you?"

"No I miss nothing," he said after seeming to give it some thought.

"Well there are some creatures that can visit you in your room in the dead of night to steal your bodily fluids, but with the warding I did last spring I doubt anything negative could get in."

Lauren continued, "There is one other possibility, but it's a rather indelicate question would you prefer I ask you it in private?"

"No please . . . my friends they can ask me anything." He said matter-of-factly.

"Oookay . . . here goes . . . have you had unprotected sex with anyone lately?" Lauren blushed five shades of red at her own question?

Donnie chuckled and for some damn reason chose to stare her deep in the eyes as he said, "No I have not."

Suddenly, she had to look anywhere, but Donnie's direction, because a small smile was threatening and she certainly did not want him to know how happy it made her to hear that. Oh sweet Jesus, she was losing her ever loving mind.

Brenna broke up the awkward moment when she said," Well that excludes scrying as the culprit.

"The other option is they got close enough to put a magical tracker on you, like Liam's crew did to Travis last year, a simple detection spell will find it if it's present. "

Lauren stepped over to Donnie and stood him up and away from the others before she started muttering under her breath and waving her hands around his head and body.

The essence of her magic spell could be seen, but only barely. It looked like the heat waves that drift off the hot cement on a road in the dead of summer. They were drifting off of Donnie but if there was something to find, Kelly hadn't seen any indication.

And Lauren had to agree, because she let her hands flop to her sides uselessly and sighed audibly before shaking her head.

"Great another dead end she thought, just as Zach said, "Now what"

"Yeah you said there were three possibilities." Quinn asked.

"This one's even more far-fetched, but it's the only other thing we could think of," Brenna began, " Do you guys remember the blood magic Lauren did last year to alert us if Liam and his crew breached the wards of the school?"

Several kids nodded in agreement.

Who could forget to eerie red eyed blood hound that howled mournfully when the perimeter of the school had been breached.

"Well if they used blood magic in a similar way they would be able to track his location with it. Donnie is there any chance of a secret sister or brother in your family?"

"Mio Dio no . . . my mother she is too . . .," Donnie shoulders sagged before he spoke the next word, "no she no like children."

Kelly couldn't help, but noticed that Donnie looked more awkward about answering this question than he did answering the question about his sex life. And who could blame him, she wouldn't want to talk about her mother either. In fact, most of their crew had non-existent mothers that they would prefer not to even think about.

Lauren recognizing the pain they were causing by this line of question quickly changed the subject, but not far enough.

"What about your father how does he fit in to your life?"

Kelly watched as Donnie's face grew hard giving him a menacing look which totally didn't suit him before he spoke in a voice as cold as the grave, "He does not. He no acknowledge me."

"Ouch Bro that's cold." Kyle slapped him on the back comradely.

"We feel you Dude, "Travis wrapped his arm around him from the other side.

CJ spoke up then and said, "Some of us don't even know who our father is."

"Yeah there's a whole lot of 1-800-call-Maury in our magical world." Quinn quipped.

"Believe me when I say this ya'll . . . you lucked out. I wish I didn't know my father, either." Kelly had spoken before she realized she had intended to . Which made her wonder what was up with her? She never talked about her home life and now she was . . . what . . . suddenly a sharer?

When all eyes fell on her she just shrugged and said, "Ya'll aren't the only one's with messed up families."

Brenna got them all back on track though by asking, "I think what Lauren is trying to say is would your father donate his blood to track you?"

"Si but I don't know why they want me dead?"

"I think I have an idea of how we can find out."Connor spoke up from the other side of the room where he leaned against the wall. When everyone turned to him he suggested, "I think we need to consult the Oracle."

Delphi the Oracle of their school was a fifth year computer geeks that ran the computer lab. Don't ask her how she skipped the curse of frying every piece of complicated electronics in sight, but she did. In fact, according to Lauren who had consulted her once last year, she even uses complex computer codes to scry the answers to the queries of her peers?

"Or we could just wait until they attack again, maybe if we ask real nice they'll spill the beans." Ryan joked."

Ever pragmatic and serious Marley snorted, "They'll spill something alright, but it unfortunately won't be beans.

Liv continued for her girlfriend, "Guys how we're going to keep him safe is the more pressing question we should be considering."

Lauren pointed at her notes and the scroll on the table "We have three possible solutions, but there are no guarantees that they will work. And we'll definitely need a back door if they don't."

Zach who normally took the lead at their little meetings spoke up for the first time, "What would those be," he asked.

Apparently he knew his strengths and his weaknesses and magical spells weren't one of them, and as such was perfectly willing to let Brenna and Lauren take the lead, but now he was ready to help get the proverbial show on the road.

"There are three things we thought of so far and we can continue to look for more."

"Firstly we can cast an obscurus spell it will obscure his location. Secondly we can draw a protection circle around him at night. If we make it strong enough no magic will be able to penetrate it."

Lauren looked to Donnie and said, "It might help as well if you slept as a cat just in case you have to make a quick retreat."

Donnie chuckled again and replied, "This is no problem I already sleep like that."

Kelly smiled despite herself as she pictured Donnie the Russian Blue all curled up on a pillow.

"The third thing is the port slip we discussed yesterday." Lauren looked at Kelly and added, "That is of course if you're still willing to have him stay at your house?"

Kelly nodded and said, "I can sneak him in to the house in Cat form and he can sleep in my room."

When Kyle snickered she fixed him with a hard stare and said, "Grow the heck up. It's not like that. The boy should be so lucky," she huffed and rolled her eyes.

There were a few exchanged looks, but mostly everyone just looked relieved, aside from Donnie he just looked dejected.

Zach gave her an encouraging smile of thanks, and said "That's great it gives him the added protection of a human shield. I can't help, but think Liam hasn't truly given up on the Ankh. But that's only assuming Liam has anything to do with this."

"The oracle should be able to clear that up tomorrow." Xan suggested, "I'll go see her first thing."

"Xander she's not going to want to see you don't you remember the last time we went?" Lauren pointed out, "No I'll go," she insisted, "she'll be more apt to give us an appointment right away if we don't cheese her off."

Cam sat forward in his chair and announced, "I'd like to run some tests to see if there's something different about Donnie they might be after, and at the very least, I might be able to create a draught that can shield him or make him invisible to them or something like that."

Megan gave her boyfriend a big fat kiss on the mouth before saying "That's a great idea Babe. Maybe you just need to create a Cait nip that will distract them every time they attack?"

Cam snickered at the thought but said, "you might be on to something there I'll look into it."

"I'll look into some protection charms as well. There's has got to be something he can use." Brenna offered.

Ollie and I will provide the muscle, "said Ray the dragon shifter as Kelly thought holy bejeezes when did Olivia turn into her incubus counterpart? She'll never in a million years get used to that.

"Thanks Ray but I'm going to be portalling him everywhere for the time being. It's too risky to travel the conventional way. Not until we have some clue why they want him dead"

Donnie blanched at the thought. She couldn't blame him. His life was in danger and now they were talking about portalling everywhere. Portalling sounds like fun but it isn't. It was bad enough to have to do it in emergencies, but on a daily basis. Her stomach did a sick little flip flop at the thought.

Lauren looked to her with her massive hazel eyes and offered, "I can portal you both back to your house, right after I do the spell.

Kelly just smiled and said, "No thanks I already have my ride, and she jingled baby's key fob happily.

With everything decides it only took a matter of minutes to come with a plan.

Kelly would drive home and in the meantime Lauren would perform the obscure-us spell on him, then she and Brenna would portal over from the school to create the portal slip and protection circle, once that was done they'd portal Donnie over and place him in the ring. And all they would have to do was reverse the order in the morning.

Lauren announced, "As for a change of clothes I'll grab some stuff from Cam 2.0"

"And I'll grab some toiletries from my locker in the training changing room," Zach kindly offered.

Kelly could tell Donnie wasn't liking the idea of wearing someone else's clothes to school tomorrow.

She nearly laughed out loud when she thought: judging by Cameron style Donnie won't be doing the walk of shame tomorrow he'll be doing the walk of lame. In the end she couldn't hold it in. She had to smoother a giggle at Donnie's crestfallen face.

He spared her a glance when he heard her and then rolled his eyes, making her laugh in earnest. She'd tried to hold it in, but in her defense she had to admit the boy was funny.

Well it looks like Kelly and Donnie are going to be spending a lot more time together.

I wonder how that will work out? If you are wondering the same thing . . .

Tune in tomorrow to find out.