Chapter 4

It had been nearly three in the morning by the time they got home and thank God his fosters parents were chill because they would have been grounded for sure otherwise. He had to feel sorry for CJ and Ryan and the others whose parents had them on a tighter leash. Their parents were probably having kittens by the time they got back.

As it was he and Kyle were so exhausted from the escapades the night before they never even opened their eyes until noon. Travis was still tired, but there would be no rest for the wicked. It was family day so it was move it or lose it in his household.

The plan was to head down to the shelters downtown and dole out hot meals to the homeless. Every Sunday they gave back in one way or another to the community. Their agnostic foster parents insisted that was better than going to any church and praying for change. They told them time again: "Kids be the change you want to see in the world."

Ever the hippies that they were: they were still activists at heart, but now instead of sit-ins and protests to change the world they had a new philosophy to change the world one person at a time. They insisted too that Trav and Kyle pick an organization to donate their time to.

So Travis volunteered at an animal shelter and Kyle was a mentor for troubled kids. He said he'd been the epitome of troubled, so he had an inside track on how they felt. Kyle was really good with them too -- a real natural.

He often told them if he could change so could they. He was a great example of how they could turn their lives around. It didn't hurt either that there was a smoking hot Un-enlightened girl that volunteered with the SF Boys and Girls club. Travis would never consider dating outside of the magical world; they have to keep too many secrets as it is, but Kyle seemed to really like her.

So he and Kyle donated a couple of evenings a week and all day Saturday to animals and kids and Sunday to one community project or another, but they didn't feel like it was too much. They loved sharing their foster parent's passion in making a difference.

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After spending the afternoon in Mission Hills at the community center, Travis and Kyle headed out to meet up with the gang at their usual hangout : Lauren's. Now if any of them could do whatever they wanted it would be Lauren. Her mother wouldn't even notice if she never came back at all last night. She's been holdup in her bedroom for years. She's a full blood Fae, who the human world is convinced is suffering from the stay at home phobia. Agor . . . phobia or some shit. Talk about tough. He and Kyle could relate their parents had abandoned them but at least they weren't in the next room. That was some next level shit.

No she didn't even have that phobia thing, she was suffering from iron sickness. Lauren had explained it to them. Fullblood Fae need to go back to fairy or the Summerlands every once in a while, but time passes differently there. If she went back she might not even come back in Lauren's lifetime. If the Fae stay here for too long all the wifi and electricity and the iron that is all over the place starts to slowly poison them and they go crazy from it. And she can't leave and take Lauren with her because halfbloods are not welcome. The fullbloods are all like: do whatever you want we don't care, but keep your Halflings to yourself; we don't even want to know they exist. That's just one way that halfbloods are discriminated against in his world; there are plenty others.

On the bus ride over to Lauren's he had fallen asleep and would have missed their stop, but thankfully Kyle didn't, he woke him just in time. Travis was grateful he didn't even have the energy to walk several bus stops back, he barely had the energy to drag his ass off the bus.

When they knocked on Lauren's door her doorbell was covered in cobwebs and neither of them wanted to fight the giant spider guarding it just to get the occupants of the house's attention. Travis wondered if he could get her house on some sort of community project thing and get volunteers over to fix it up. It really was falling apart. Why not? If he and his family could do so much for strangers, why not for his friend? Maybe he should ask Bruno about it later; he's handy. He might have some ideas.

Lauren yelled out, "Come in," from the living room and they walked in to find everyone else had already arrived.

"You're late," Zach reprimanded, "The meeting was supposed to start half an hour ago."

"Sorry we got here as soon as we could, "Kyle complained.

"Yeah," Travis added, "lean in real close you'll smell the food we've been serving to like hundreds of people."

"We never even had time to stop for anything for us to eat. I'm starving. "

Kyle picked up Lauren's home phone and said, "I'm ordering Chinese anyone else hungry?"

There was a chorus of me's. So Lauren volunteered to write down everyone's requests. By the time the food was ordered Zach was tapping his foot in frustration.

"Are we ready now to discuss what happened last night?"

When everyone kept talking and horsing around. Zach raised his voice.

"Look guys we really need to talk about this!" He grabbed the bridge of his noise before he turned down the volume.

But the tone he took got their attention; all eyes were on him. Even Kelly knocked off the playing with Donnie-cat thing she loves to do. She was keeping her distance from Xan who looked like he was relieved about it.

He continued as he rubbed his temples, "We still haven't gotten our weapons passed the barrier and I'm afraid if we don't act soon we'll be letting everything get away from us."

Wow Travis thought dudes wound up tight. Trav was glad once again that Zach stepped up to lead their little ragtag group, sure as shit he didn't want the stress, not that he could lead, he didn't have the brains for it.

Just then Lauren stood up calmly from her spot on the couch and went over to squeeze Zach's arm. When they made eye contact they looked like they were having a convo only they could hear which was entirely possible with Zach, whatever she was doing, it seemed to work.

He watched as Zach's shoulders sagged and he let out a deep breath to relax.

Zach muttered, "Sorry guys," I'm not frustrated with you just the situation we keep finding ourselves in. It seems like we keep taking one step forward and three steps back where Liam is concerned, but something's got to give, because Liam keeps upping the ante."

"Okay guys," Lauren interrupted, "I've got my trusty little note book. Let's jot down all the questions that we have and see if we can come up with some theoretical answers. What do you think?"

It sounded good to him so he nodded in agreement with the rest of them.

All eyes turned to Lauren then as she beckoned Zach over to squeeze in beside her on the couch. It looked a little cramped when he did, but everyone looked like they wanted to help the dude relax, so they moved over without complaint.

"Zach what's your biggest concern right now? Let's address that first," Lauren suggested, her pen poised over the ringed note book.

Zach sighed again taking a moment to think before he answered, "I guess I have to wonder why they haven't attacked the school again, but that's right up there with why did they take the death worm in the first place and what was the pact that Liam made with the worm?"

Zach laughed at himself when he saw Lauren furiously writing down all his concerns.

Okay let's start with the first question: "Why haven't they attacked the school? Does anyone have any theoretical ideas?" Lauren looked around the room at everyone in attendance.

Everyone shrugged their shoulders in unison.

"Okay let's table that one for the moment. How about does anyone have any ideas about why they took the dead deathworm or the possible pact Liam made with it?"

No one spoke they just kept looking around waiting for someone to come up with something brilliant and as usual it was Lauren who did.

"I've got an idea, but again it's pure conjecture."

"Go ahead at least it's something," Zach encouraged.

Lauren took a deep breath before she began, "Okay, well," she bit her bottom lip nervously, "I think he was the one that brought him here in the first place."

Zach interrupted her there he was obviously shocked by here theory, "Why would he do that? Why would he want to weaken his own kind?"

"It's not about weakening us per se, it's about weakening the council. We'll form their guard someday, but that's not why either. I think he did it to use the power the deathworm siphoned from the halfbloods for another reason."

Cam sucked in a shocked breath making all eyes turn to him, but he quickly darted his eyes to the floor in shame, he tried to hide his reaction though by picking at a bit of frayed rug. Megan rubbed his tense shoulders from above him in the comfy chair.

Trav realized that everyone staring at him was making Connor uncomfortable, so he looked back at Lauren, who cleared her throat to get everyone else's attention.

Quinn spoke from her other side, "That's a great theory but what's the reason? What's he gonna use the siphoned powers for?"

"I'-m-m not sure," she stammered, "but if you think about it. He's pretty powerful right?" She looked up at everyone who nodded and encouraged her to go on.

Trav couldn't help his excitement she was definitely on to something.

"But still they're plans have failed time and time again. Maybe he's powerful enough, but the rest of his gang's not."

"And for whatever reason," she continued, "he seems to trust them, "so it's not a matter of switching them out with more powerful players. He's keeping a tight nit group around him similar to the group Hitler surrounded himself with, but as the saying goes 'you're only as strong as your weakest link'." Lauren paused to consider her next words.

Travis looked around the room in her hesitation, and witnessed everyone clueing into what she was saying, but he was too thickheaded to get it, she was going to have to spell it out for him.

"Guys I think that Liam tricked the deathworm into to coming to San Fran to feed so that he could steal the power it siphoned, and the deathworm probably being centuries old and nobody's fool refused to come without the trust-me-knot pact. That left Liam with no choice but to hope that either we or the council's guards would take the worm out, so he could swoop in at the last minute, just like he did, and claim the prize. He could then use that siphoned power to make his allies stronger. "

"OH EM GEE!" Liv exclaimed, "that's diabolical!"

"It's been two weeks since the battle in the Gobi desert." Ryan interrupted from his spot on the plush rug. "Why hasn't he attacked the school again? If your theory is right, why not use that extra power to attack the barrier? They'd probably get through this time."

"Yeah, not like I'm complaining or anything, but WTF is he waiting for?" Ray ground out.

"I think I know," Brenna raised her hand nervously like in class which made everyone laugh.

She laughed at herself too before she began, "Lots of rituals and magical rites to do with sacred ceremonies have to take place on the full moon, maybe he needed to wait for the full moon to release the siphoned magic from the death worm."

Yeah right now it's probably just a rigor mortis filled corpse, so when's the full moon? CJ asked.

Lauren said with a sigh, but anyone who took divination with Cally the muse already knew the answer, "It was two days ago."

Lauren began to rub her temples too -- apparently it was catchy, "but that's only a problem if my theory is right."

"Well," Zach finally spoke up. "It's the best one we've got."

"So that leaves us with another problem we need to get passed the barrier with our weapons like yesterday, which mean we have to revisit the gorgon idea again. It really is the only one I've come up with. " Lauren beseeched the guys. She looked around the room as she spoke.

"And," Zach added, "we've got to find out all we can about the other members of Liam's crew. We need to know exactly what we're up against."

Connor stepped forward then from his place holding up the back wall of the room and announced, "I might be able to help with the gorgon thing."

"I volunteer to do it, but we still need to locate one. All I'd need to do is touch her and I can command her to run on the spot until she sweats up a storm."

Zach threw up his hand to object, "We can't let you do that Connor you might kill her."

"Not if I just graze her with my finger. At first I thought just one touch is deadly, but didn't you all see the Aswang? She had no reaction to me when we faced off with them in the desert. I touched her when they attacked us at the Yule ball. She should be head over heels for me, but she had no reaction to me, so it must have worn off." He suggested excitedly.

"Which means," he continued with a big shit eating grin, "with the briefest of touches I might be able to command people for short periods of time without causing long lasting effects."

You could have knocked Trav over with a feather when Connor smiled. The guy was always so sullen looking, when he finally smiled, it was like seeing the sun come out after two weeks of rain. All the girls sighed in unison.

Zach cleared his throat to get 'everyone's' attention again, yeah right, he probably didn't like Lauren mooning over yet another guy. Travis chuckled to himself at the thought.

"I can help with the question of where to locate the gorgon and finding out more about the other members of Liam's crew, by consulting the rumor mill, "Xander suggested.

"How fast can you get it done? Because we need to have our weapons at school asap they could attack any day now." Zach asked him point blank.

Xander chuckled, "Please," he rolled his eyes and snorted, "We're in high school. I'm pretty sure that's where the rumor mill was invented. I can have all the answers you need by tomorrow evening."

The door bell rang then. Apparently delivery guys aren't afraid of big ass spiders Travis thought with a snort.

"Okay, "Zach said when Lauren went to answer the door, "let's eat and table this discussion for tomorrow evening. All agreed?"

"Yeah good idea Brah," Kyle interjected, "Thinking of Liam and his evil minions while I eat fucks with my digestion."

Everyone had to laugh before jumping up and anteing up for the meal.

Travis wasn't feeling very hunger more tired than anything. He wondered if he might be coming down with something, but now that he thought about it, he hadn't felt himself since the club.

He shrugged off his worries though, no use mentioning it unless he was sure something was up. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

****************** THANKS FOR READING********************

I hope you all liked this chapter.

Well dang that not great news about the deathworm. That's all the gang needs is more powerful enemies.

What do you think is going on with Travis? I hope he's right and he's just being paranoid.

Tune in tomorrow to find out.

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