Stolen Love

Hi there. Here's the second chapter of the weekend. I hope you enjoy it!

NOTE: I've actually had second thoughts on the rewrite. What I might do is just tell more stories from different periods in the Church and Shawn saga. Would you be interested in a story from Bem's perspective? Maybe Comet or Andy? Is there a story that you'd like me to tell? Write me and let me know. I make no promises, but I love new ideas.

Disclaimer:

If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.

Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips

42 Tomorrow is Another Day

Leah made it through her first shift, but only barely. When I took my hand from her shoulder, she slumped down in the seat. She would have crumpled all the way to the floor except for me and my telekinesis. I caught her with magic before she slipped that far.

Met checked her out. "Acute exhaustion." He pronounced after a thorough examination. "She needs complete rest for at least twenty-four hours."

"Did I hurt her?" I asked. As I asked, I didn't know if I could handle the answer. Leah lay curled up, half on the bus seat and the other half resting on a platform of my magic power. She was sleeping soundly but showed no outward signs of any kind of injury.

"She's not hurt." Met announced to my relief. "A day or so of rest and she'll be as good as new."

I stood in the center aisle of the bus, looking down at my sleeping niece, worried and sad and angry. Andy appeared next to me. He tugged on my upper arm to turn me away from Leah and her predicament. "Uncle Church," he called me until I directed my unhappy face his way, "come on. She's fine and it's my turn anyway."

"No." I refused. I put my foot down later than I should have but did it with firm resolve.

"Uncle Church," Andy complained in the same indignant tone he'd used over lunch, "we talked about this..."

I lost my patience. Enough was too much. "GODDAMNIT NO!" I shouted at my nephew. "NO!" I walked the length of the bus to the back and turned to face everyone. "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THIS MAKES ME FEEL? I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT, OK? NO!" I sat in the seat at the back of the bus and buried my face in my hands.

I was sad and angry at myself and disappointed and desperate and completely overwrought. I couldn't keep the shitstorm of emotion bottled up. Tears flowed instantly. They soaked my palms and leaked between my fingers. "I just can't." I said to my palms, pleading in my own way for everyone to understand. "Shawn wouldn't want me to. He'd hate the idea of me hurting anyone for him."

For the first time since I couldn't remember when, Joe came to my aide. "I agree with Church." He announced to everyone present. I was grateful to him for his words. They helped me to believe that my decision not to go on was the right one.

Andy ignored his father and tried to persuade me. "But Uncle Church," Andy's voice came from somewhere next to me, "Leah isn't hurt. She just gave all she had. It's her decision to do that to help Shawn, just like it's mine to give my all for him."

I raised my head to explain to the boy where he was wrong. I saw that he's taken the seat opposite mine, facing the aisle. He had his hands clenched in worried knots between his knees. He seemed balled up with concern, but I didn't know who the concern was for.

To make Andy understand, I had to relate a story I didn't often tell. "When I was in the hospital, after the first mission, when I was less than one hundred pounds of skin stretched over brittle bones, I expected Shawn to be proud of me for winning."

I noticed some movement at the edge of my vision. It took my attention from Andy and made me look up. Comet had come to join him and sat in the seat in front of Andy. More movement followed as Paul took the seat in front of me, with Joe next to him.

I glanced up to see if anyone else would be joining us, as I didn't want to tell the story more than once. Vulp and Cy remained at the front of the bus to confer with Neb. I assumed they were more mission-oriented than the rest of the group. Met remained in attendance over Leah. I gave the group near me a moment to settle before I continued.

"When I woke up and could talk a little, I expected Shawn to be proud of me. I'd given my all. I'd almost given my life to save his. That's the way I looked at it. I didn't see myself as saving the world so much as I was saving the place where Shawn lived. More than once, I'd promised myself that if I had to lay down my life for this world, I would, because it was where he lived.

"My life...my existence didn't mean a damn to me, not compared with his. When I needed more magic, to destroy the barrier, to push it back and kill King Pravus, I reached for all the love I had for Shawn and all the hatred I had for anything that threatened him. I hurled those emotions into the magic. That's what gave me the boost I needed to win.

"But..." I said sharply to stop Andy from opening his mouth. I could tell by his face that he thought I'd made his point for him, and he was getting ready to pounce. He was still wrong.

"But, Shawn was not proud of me. Shawn was angry. He yelled at me...a lot. He said it wasn't my choice to give my all for him or anyone else and where did I get off assuming that would make him happy. Where did I get off trying to leave him here alone? Shawn wouldn't want anyone pushing themselves as hard as Leah pushed herself. It would make him sad. I know my husband. He would rather stay missing for another day, or even another week, than to hurt anyone to get himself found."

As I said it, I felt the weight of the words bear down on me like each was its own granite slab piled onto the heavy weight of dread I already bore on my shoulders. When I'd jerked awake that morning, I thought sure I'd be holding Shawn by the end of the day.

I hadn't wanted to get my hopes up, but the feeling I'd had, when he shouted at me through my dream...it seemed so real that I had to believe it. But, there I was, just thirty minutes after lunch, resigning myself to another day alone and resigning Shawn to another day suffering whatever he was suffering on his own.

I worried about what we'd learned that morning, about Verpa opening his mouth and about Domus maybe being aware that we were onto him. I worried what that meant for Shawn. I worried they'd try to move him. I worried all kinds of undefined catastrophic things that were too terrible to think about.

I wanted to touch him, and talk to him, and feel his emotions. I wanted to press him against me so I could feel his heat and the way his chest expanded with his every breath and the way the muscles of his body moved under his flawless skin. I wanted my husband and all that went with him, his thoughts and his feelings and his love and his beauty.

The hollowness of every minute we spent apart echoed around me with deafening volume like I was the clapper in a great church bell. It blasted me with silence and desperate want. I lowered my face into my hands and the tears flowed like fountains. No one said anything around me, nor did the bus shift to tell me anyone moved around as I wept. The only sound was from the light salt breeze off the ocean and the occasional scream of a sea bird. Even these were muted by my grief.

The first sound that clubbed its unwelcome path into my brain, was Andy's voice. He muttered that if Com was missing, he'd take all the help he could get until he was found. I felt my jaw clench as white rage flared around my black sadness. I dropped my hands from my tear-stained face and stood in one motion to loom over my know-it-all nephew. "GET FUCKED, ANDY!" I screamed in his face.

I marched down the bus aisle, shouldered my way passed the Dux brothers, and stomped off the vehicle. I pointed my steps along the block and down the street in the direction we hadn't yet searched. Through my rage, I was seized with sudden inspiration and marched back to the front of the vehicle. I held my phone up to the windshield. "NEB!" I shouted at the glass. "Send me the map and take everyone the FUCK out of here!"

Neb left the driver's seat at a run. She was in front of me in the merest of seconds. "You can't..."

I didn't let her finish. Instead, I laid out all the reasons I wanted her to leave me alone. "Domus already knows what's happening. No one wants to hurt me, because if they hurt me, I can't pay them. I've already been recognized here by at least one person, and probably several others, and I'm not an idiot. I'm streetwise, and I'm in good enough shape to walk all day long. I'm not as efficient as Andy or Leah, but I can probably sense him up to a half-mile away, so I'm going to walk around until I can't anymore. If I find him, I'll call you. Please Neb...please." I begged my friend.

"I'll go with you." She offered without thinking.

I refused her. "No. You're in charge. You need to go back and check in with Bem and do all the things the boss needs to do."

Neb shoved her imaginary sleeves up her arms in a gesture that told me she was unhappy that I wouldn't let her stay with me. "Take Cy." She made her second attempt at leaving help with me.

I could tell she wasn't going to leave me on my own, so I offered a compromise. "I'll take Vulp; being with him will be like being alone."

Neb smiled with no amusement on her face and nodded once. She turned on her heels and went back to the bus. A minute later, my phone chimed that I'd received a message. I checked it and saw that the message was the search map and a closeup inset of the `dog's head' area.

I oriented it against the street I was on and got my bearings. When I had my direction figured out, I looked back toward the bus to wait for it to leave. I watched as Vulp finished a quick but intense conversation with Neb. What I assumed that meant was Neb was talking at him and he was making small motions of understanding.

I got worried when Joe got out the rear entrance of the bus and hurried over to me. I expected a tirade. What I got took me by surprise. "I'm sorry for what Andy said. It wasn't fair of him. Shawn is your husband and the decision to stop or go should be yours. I think you're doing the right thing."

Joe's words made me feel a whole lot better. I was glad he said them, though it was certainly a change of pace for Andy to be the one who I was pissed at, and for Joe to be the one coming to me with words of consolation. "What are you going to do?" Joe asked.

"I'm going to do the best I can." I admitted. "I'm gonna walk around until I find him or until my feet fall off. I don't know what else to do."

"How?"

"Our link." I explained. Joe had been around Shawn and I long enough to know about the emotional link and to understand how it worked.

"Let me go with you."

I rubbed the back of my neck with the heel of my right hand and tried to come up with a reason to refuse. I didn't think I wanted anyone with me. I accepted Vulp because I assumed he'd be his normal stoic self, and I wouldn't have to make conversation. Joe was another matter. I didn't know what to expect from him. After the blow up that morning...I wasn't looking forward to his company. I expected we'd have to have a talk or some-fucking-thing before we'd be friends again and that was the last thing I wanted to do after I told my brother's son to `get fucked.'

"You don't want me?" Joe asked with a ton of worried emotion in his voice. "I won't...I mean...this morning, I guess...I'm sorry about that. Paul set me straight. I'm here for you, to help, if you'll let me."

I didn't see a way out. I didn't want Joe along, but I didn't think I had a choice. At least, I didn't see how I could refuse. I recognized that Joe was trying, but he'd promised to try before and none of those many promises had ended well for our relationship. I decided to hope for the best. I figured, if worst came to worst, I could dump my brother on Vulp and continue the search on my own.

Vulp approached while I was giving-in to Joe. He eyed me cautiously and moved around to the far side of me to have a private word. He used his hands to draw a square in the air between us and uttered a single word. "Box."

I put us inside one and told him it was in place. Vulp patted a bulge in his hip pocket that looked like a banana with a sharp bend in it, or a pistol-style energy weapon. I assumed it was the latter. "Neb told me what you told her. I will do what is necessary."

It took me a minute to realize the man had just promised to kill me if something happened to Shawn and I went on a rampage. When my mind connected the dots, it made me feel strange. I was glad for Vulp's promise, but sad that, if the worst happened, he would likely have my blood on his hands by the end of the day.

It's not that I wanted to die, but I knew that if anything happened to Shawn...if the worst came to pass, that would be the end of my restraint. Just like any weapon of mass destruction would need to be destroyed before it became unstable and put people at risk, I would need to be put down, like a rabid dog, before I put people at risk. I decided to leave things as they were and not to bother with justifications or explanation or anything else. "I...I guess...uh...thank you."

Vulp held his hand out for me to shake. "I'm sorry now, if it comes to it."

I shook his hand. "If it comes to it, you'll have nothing to be sorry for."

That settled, I released the box around us. Joe was in the middle of telling Neb that he was going to stay with me. He dismissed her and the bus to go back to the hotel. She wished us luck and drove on. As Andy passed, he eyed me sourly from his seat next to Comet. He was obviously sulking, but I didn't give a fuck. I considered childishly flipping him off as the bus went by, but I thought better of it. As mad as I was at him, I still owed him for an entire morning's search effort.

"Ah...fuck it." I said aloud to no one as the bus slid passed.

Joe and Vulp gathered around me. "So...how do we do this?" Joe asked.

I took a breath to explain but held my words as Joe's eyes tracked behind me. I spun around to look where Joe looked just in time to see Paul as he hurried over with his book under his arm. I focused my gaze behind him to see the bus round the far corner of the block. I figured that Paul had gotten Neb to stop after she'd driven by me, had gotten off, and sent her on her way. I wasn't displeased to have him with me, but I worried about all the walking.

Hell with it.' I thought. If he gets tired, I'll float him along with us.'

"Glad to have you, Paul." I said to the old man with the worried look on his face. I guessed he was uncertain how I would react to his adding himself to the party. Even if it upset me, I couldn't be mad at the man. He'd done too much for me. "Glad to have you all." I said to include Vulp and my brother at the same time. "Let's get to it." I started to walk.

Five hours later, the three of us were sitting in a row. We'd stopped because it was obvious that Paul couldn't go on. He'd made a valiant effort, but his pace had been slow, and he'd had the least endurance out of all of us. He tried to pretend he could go on, but I knew he was spent. I thought about floating him with us, but I'd started to question what we were even doing, so I stopped us for a rest and to reappraise the situation.

Vulp sat on a simple box of my magic, Paul sprawled in a soft recliner that was also made of my magic, I sat on the curb, and Joe paced back and forth in the street. I assumed Joe's body was still getting used to being over a hundred pounds lighter and he was having a hard time settling down. I didn't want to settle down either, but I was depressed enough about our lack of progress that sitting on the curb with my elbow on my knee and my chin on my fist seemed the appropriate posture to match my mood.

I was brooding on the situation and thinking about the search. The part of the city we were in, the `dog's head,' was primarily residential with some larger commercial buildings dotted around. Properties that were owned by Domus were evenly distributed over the whole area. Most didn't have provisions to land a plane, but that didn't necessarily disqualify them as potential places to imprison Shawn. The buildings around us followed the mold of the rest of the city. The residential buildings were built of what looked like pastel-tinted polished cement, while the commercial buildings were black glass.

The area was more than a mile inland from the beach and didn't have the same resort flair as the rest of the town we'd searched that morning. The residential buildings were all one or two story and seemed to have a smaller footprint than the ones closer to the ocean. The area seemed poorer, but not any less well-kept. The people who strolled the streets didn't have the vacation vibe of the ones near the sea. I guessed they were locals. Based on the type of area that it was, and where it was, I assumed we were in the residential area for the locals that worked at the resort area.

We'd walked and walked but covered next to no ground. As we sat, Vulp reviewed the situation to my dismay. "At the end of Leah's shift, we had covered twenty-three miles of a thirty-mile search path. As this area is shaped like a triangle, the seven miles remaining would have covered an area of thirteen square miles. We've walked eight miles. Even if we assume Church's range is a half-mile, which may be a bit generous, we've only covered a maximum of four square-miles. We'd have to walk at least another fifteen miles to cover the rest of the search zone."

Having delivered his shitty news, Vulp lapsed into silence. I propped my other elbow on my other knee and dropped my head in my hands to brood some more. I was getting tired. It had been a long day, an emotional day, but I didn't want to give up yet. I also blamed myself for a bunch of shit.

My thoughts reflected my miserable mood. I berated myself for every choice that I'd made. `I should have rented a car to drive around here instead of walking. I should have let Andy search for fifteen or twenty minutes. That would have covered two or three miles at least. That might have been enough to find Shawn. I shouldn't have let Paul come with us. If not for him, we would have covered more ground and we wouldn't be stopped now.'

Paul's voice interrupted my brooding. "May I express how very strange this is?" He had a note of wonder in his tone that would have brought a smile to my face had I not been so miserable. "I'm sitting on magic." Paul chuckled. "Why, young man," he pursued, "don't you make a seat for yourself?"

I explained that my magic wouldn't support me. Paul thought that was both a shame' and fascinating.' Having expressed his thoughts on the matter, he fell silent and opened Fidum's Bible to continue his studies.

I went back to brooding. Beyond the abuse I heaped on my own head for the bad decisions I thought I'd made, I also harped on myself for shouting at Andy. In all the years I'd known the boy, all the years since he came to Solum, I'd never shouted at him like that. I'd never, EVER, said anything that brutal to him.

I berated myself for my words. You said you couldn't use Shawn's...absence as a reason to do something he wouldn't want you to do, but you used it as a reason to tell your nephew to get fucked.' Pretty shitty, Church.'

"Oh fuck." I said aloud. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Walk around calling him like a fucking lost dog?"

Joe stopped his pacing and moved so his feet were in my line of sight as I stared at the ground. "Let's think about this." Joe's lawyer's tone broke into my brooding. It was an even, deep voice that he used whenever he needed to reason something out. "Church, explain this link you and Shawn share. Tell us how it works in detail. Maybe there's something we're not doing."

I didn't think there was anything we weren't doing besides moving forward. Instead of arguing, I decided to humor Joe. I tried to explain how the emotional link between Shawn and me worked. I detailed the magic I dumped into the world all the time and the magic frequency that Shawn and I were tuned into and the carrier wave and all that.

I didn't know who of my audience was following along because I left my head in my hands as I explained. I said most of my words to the blue-tinged road pavement under Joe's feet instead of to the men around me. I finished talking and no one said anything. The only reaction I seemed to get was Joe's feet moved out of my line of sight and he resumed his pacing. I assumed he and the others were thinking about what I'd said.

I heard another sound, a soft slam that could only have been a book being abruptly closed. "Why then," Paul's voice asked, "why...and I'm certain you have thought of this, so I'm asking out of curiosity, but...if your connection is transmitted over this `carrier wave' of magic, why can't you increase the amount of magic you...discharge...I suppose that's a good enough word, discharge into the world?"

Joe's feet stopped pacing as he agreed with Paul's question. "That's a good point. Church, can you do what he said? I mean, you talked about being a bonfire...can you burn hotter?"

Paul's question, and Joe's follow up, struck me at first like a dead leaf falling on the calm water of a pond, and then it hit me like a sledgehammer. I raised my head to look at Joe, then at Paul. Joe just looked like Joe, but Paul had his head turned toward me and the remains of the question on his face. "I never thought about that." I admitted. "I wonder if I can." I set my brain to work on the problem.

I stood up and walked along the block, away from my brother and my friends, to give myself some room to think. I thought about the power plant in my core. When I used magic for things, it always acted as a demand plant and created magic as the need presented. I wondered if I could control the plant directly.

I remembered back when I was gearing up to destroy Pravus, I built power inside my body, like coiling a watch spring, but I'd released that magic to a task. The idea that Paul came up with required me to flood magic into the environment with no direction. I wondered if that was possible.

I shut my eyes and tried to focus on the imaginary machinery inside my body that made the magic. Logically, since I was a bonfire of magic,' as Beni the bartender had characterized me many years before, it made sense that the machinery ran all the time. That meant that even when I wasn't actively using magic, the power plant idled, almost like my base metabolism. I thought about the magic generator' like it was one of my body's systems. Just like my heart and lungs, they would do the minimum required when I was resting but would automatically increase production when demand required. The power plant did the same.

Now I was faced with a need to override the control system, but I didn't know how. I thought about the body systems that were automatic and those that were voluntary. Something like my breathing was both. I could control it, or I could let it do its thing and know that my lungs would always do the minimum to keep my body supplied with oxygen.

My heartbeat was something else entirely. I'd heard that some people were in touch with their bodies enough to be able to manipulate their heartrate at will, but that didn't apply to me. I wasn't even in control of my emotions enough to keep them in check, let alone being able to control something like my pulse.

I thought about what I'd been doing that morning, offering my magic to my niece and nephew while we searched for Shawn. I'd pushed it along my arm to my hand and gathered it on my palm before I gave it a gentle push into Leah or Andy. I knew I could discharge magic from any part of my body; destroying Pravus had taught me that. I'd shared magic from my entire body with Bem, and with Shawn on more than one occasion. I used my hands most of the time because they were my normal interface with the world.

But that's not entirely true.' I reminded myself. I don't use my hands to control my telekinesis. I don't even use my eyes for that, just my will.' I rolled that realization around in my mind to see if it was useful. I apply my will to objects and they move.' I thought. I command the object with my magic, just like I command my muscles with my mind. The vehicle of the command is my magic instead of my physical body. I call on my magic to leave my body and solidify out in the world to move things. Does that help me?'

I didn't see how it did. Just like I would flex a muscle to perform a task, I didn't see how I could separate the command from the act. When I wanted my arm to move, I didn't say, arm move,' and my arm responded. I simply thought that I wanted the arm to move, and it moved. The telekinesis was the same thing, except it was done as a projection. I focused on an object and willed the object to move, and it did. I couldn't separate the thought from the act any more than I could with the muscles in my body. OK, that's a rabbit hole.' I thought. `What about the Vitalis magic?'

I opened my eyes and brought my right hand up to my face. I'd used that hand all morning to push power into other people. As an experiment, I pushed magic down my arm and into my hand. I offered the power to the air like I'd offered it to Andy or Leah. I felt the magic trickle down my arm and gather in my hand. I pushed on the magic without visualizing it doing anything. I thought that maybe that was the step to skip.

When I used my Vitalis magic, my white magic, that always involved a visualization of the energy doing something. I visualized what I wanted, then supplied the energy to fulfill the vision. I wondered if I just supplied energy, would it do what I wanted it to do? Would it flood into the environment and find my husband? The concept, as I thought about it, was like when I'd shared my magic with Shawn or Bem. The difference was, this time I would share it with the whole of the environment instead of one person in physical contact with my body.

I gave the magic a push and felt it flow. I didn't see anything, no plasma left my palm, but I very clearly felt the magic flow from my body. I pushed harder and felt the power plant at my core activate to make more magic to push out. I forced more energy from my palm, but no physical representation of it appeared. I decided it was time for a larger test.

I looked to Paul and Vulp who were still seated on my magic. "I want to try something." I announced to them. "Do you mind getting up? I'm not sure what this experiment will do to my telekinesis."

Vulp stood. Paul struggled a bit until I used the magic recliner that I'd made for him like it was one of those chairs for the elderly that would push them upright. I helped Paul stand and released the magic that had created his and Vulp's seats. As I prepared to get started with my experiment, Joe came over to me and bounced on his heels. "What are you going to do?" He asked.

"I think I figured out how to push magic out, but I don't know what's going to happen around me. I want you to stand back and...I don't know. I don't think I can protect you. The only thing I can do is go slow. I think if I do that...I don't know, Joe. I'm scared of what might happen. What do you think?"

Joe seemed surprised that I'd asked for his opinion. I was a little surprised I had as well, except I wasn't. Joe was a smart guy and even though we disagreed most of the time, or had for the last dozen years, that didn't change the fact that he was a smart guy who usually had good judgement. He was also the guy who was physically closest to me at that moment. I might have asked anyone for advice, had they been standing there at the moment. The difference between anyone and Joe, was that I trusted Joe. That realization surprised me a little when I had it, but I brushed it off. I knew I trusted Joe. Even when I hated him, I trusted him.

I waited for Joe to give me his thoughts. He didn't leave me waiting for very long. "Your magic, just like all the magic I've experienced in this world, seems tied to your intentions. You don't intend to hurt, so I don't think you will. Go slow and pay attention. If I...or we, feel anything that doesn't feel right, we'll let you know."

I never thought of magic the way Joe described it, but it sounded right. The magic I used, be it telekinesis or Vitalis magic, always did exactly what I wanted it to do. I hoped that meant the magic I planned to put out there to find Shawn, would do exactly that. "OK, Joe...thanks. Why don't you go over with the others and if you feel anything...anything at all, scream."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll scream." He smirked at me and lingered for a long second. I was just about to ask him what he was grinning at when he opened his mouth to speak again. "You got this...big brother." He ducked away from me before I had a chance to respond.

Well, fuck me.' I thought. I don't know what the fuck Paul said to him back at the barracks or this morning, but whatever it was must have been some powerful shit.' I rubbed the back of my neck and got ready to start my experiment.

Despite Joe's projected confidence, I had a cartoon-y concern that I would push magic out and wind up naked because I'd vaporized all my clothes. I had a less cartoon-y, but very serious concern that I would push power out and vaporize everything around me, including houses, cars, and people. Neither thought was particularly attractive. I hoped that the worst that would happen would be that I would wind up naked in the middle of a public street. I reasoned that if my clothes survived the experiment, all and sundry around me should survive as well.

I checked on Joe, Vulp, and Paul. It seemed obvious that Joe had told them what I was going to try, and what they were to do if they experienced any off sensations. Joe seemed quietly confident in me, Paul gave me a thumb's up sign, and Vulp shook his fist in the air in what I took to be a gesture of solidarity.

"OK, OK, OK, OK, OK," I said aloud to psyche myself up for what I was about to do, "I gotta be out of my mind. Just do it before you think about it too much." I took a deep breath, blew it out, and got started. I used the same process that I'd used to push magic down my arm to my hand, to push magic from my core to every part of my body.

I felt the power gather on the surface of my skin, more than I'd ever gathered there before. It was an indescribable sensation, a very little bit like goosebumps and static electricity and getting out of the shower into a cold room. At my core, I felt the positive feelings that went with creating magic in large quantities. I felt them start and grow. I followed that pleasure and pushed the magic from my body, out into the world.

The power plant inside me started to hum as I pushed the magic out. At first, I was surprised at how quickly the power plant ramped up. When I thought about it for a mere second, I realized that a non-directional cloud of magic likely took a large amount of power to feed. I thought of Shawn and poured more energy into the cloud, letting the magic course from my body. I looked to my audience to see if they felt anything. They still looked like they were waiting for something to happen. "Anything?" I asked them.

All three shook their heads in unison. Paul asked what they all wanted to know. "Are you doing it?"

I admitted that I was. I figured since they couldn't feel it, it was safe to increase the flow. I shut my eyes and pictured my stolen love in my mind. I pictured Shawn, the image of us in our wedding photo. I pictured his smiling eyes as I gripped his ass under the tail of his suit jacket. I imagined the soft heat of his lips on mine and the firm handful of flesh that I'd held. I remembered the joy I'd felt. The joy that my life had suddenly been completed.

As I relived that moment, I bore down on the magic. I felt my power plant increase production. Feelings of euphoria filled my body. I knew the amount of power that discharged from my body was massive, but I still hadn't felt anything of Shawn. OK, Church,' I thought to myself, pour it on. Go for broke and see what happens.'

I chased the euphoria and asked my power plant for even more. I willed the nuclear reactor inside me to give me everything it had without melting down. I didn't want a repeat of the physical emaciation I experienced when I destroyed Pravus, but I wanted to find Shawn. I was more than willing to spend some fat and muscle to do it. I held the image and the sensations of Shawn in my mind and encouraged myself aloud. "More," I said, "more, and More, and MORE!" I shouted into the air. As I shouted, I felt the magic swell within me and burst forth.

The pleasure of creating the magic was almost orgasmic. I reveled in it, except it was a hollow pleasure. The true pleasure of my life was missing. I felt the magic cascade from me. I felt it flood into the world and I sent my thoughts and desires along with it. I felt it carry my will and my want, my love and my desperate loneliness out into the environment as the magic and my emotions searched for the answer to my loneliness. I felt the massive cloud of power surround me and swell larger and larger, though it struck no one and nothing. No feedback returned through it.

As my experiment went on with no results, I recklessly considered asking the reactor to melt down. I recklessly considered giving my magic everything I had. I was ready to risk my life and my health if there was even a chance that risk would help me locate my husband, my beloved, my Shawn. I was getting ready to release everything I had, to melt down the reactor in one spectacular last-ditch effort. Then it happened. At the extreme edge of the magic cloud, something changed.

My magic struck something. To my mind, I felt like I'd been running down that corridor from my nightmare, the one with all the doors. I felt like I'd been flinging the doors open, one after the other, searching for Shawn. Right before hopelessness swallowed me, I flung open just the right door and found him, as sad and lonely as me. I found him sitting by himself, waiting for me to rescue him. I swore I felt him raise his head and look in my direction, his lonely sadness changed to joy in an instant.

"SHAWN!" I cried and took several steps in his direction.

Shouts of panic jerked me out of my delight at having felt Shawn's presence. The urgency of the cries made me think my magic discharge was hurting people. I shut it down and froze in place with alarm. Right before I lost contact with Shawn, I felt what I could only describe as an emotional embrace from him.

The power plant inside me went from full output to an idle in an instant. I opened my eyes and looked for my brother and my friends to see what the trouble was. I was barely aware of the tears that streamed down my face.

All three of them, Vulp, Paul, and Joe hurried over to me. Joe got to me first with Vulp right behind. Paul trailed breathlessly in the rear. I grabbed Joe in a hug and crushed him. "HE'S OK!" I shouted. I lifted Joe off the ground and spun him around in my arms. "I FOUND HIM!"

Joe beat his fists on my upper back and shoulders so that I would release him. I set him down and looked from him to Vulp, to Paul. Paul stepped warily away from me, his hands and arms out in front of him to ward me off in case I latched onto him the way I had Joe. Vulp also took several steps away and remained pushed up on the balls of his feet in a `ready' stance so he could put more distance between he and I if I lunged at him.

A voice that I didn't expect to hear took my attention away from all three men. "HARDER!" The voice shouted at me and sounded rattled and worried. I turned toward it and saw Cherry Cera lurch out of an egg car that was stopped right in front of me. He yelled as he walked over to me. "What's WRONG wit ya'? I could'a killt ya' HARDER!"

It took me a minute to comprehend that I was standing in the middle of the street and Cherry was upset with me because I'd walked out in front of his car, and he'd almost hit me with it. I didn't care. Even if he hit me, I wouldn't have cared. I tried to hug Cherry, but he fought me off. "What's wrong wit ya' Harder? Fuck man!" He shouted as he struggled against my advances.

"I FOUND HIM!" I shouted at Cherry and confused the poor man even more than he already was.

"FOUND WHO?" Cherry yelled back.

"SHAWN...THE BEAST, YOU BEAUTIFUL MAN!"