July 15, 2002 – 11:00“At what time again are they supposed to arrive here?” said Frank after posing a small shelf on the wall near the kitchen island.The cherub sculpture was still sitting in the middle of their kitchen island. Frank grabbed it and put it on the shelf he had just screwed on the wall. It made him think of the conversation he had with his family in Victoria’s car, on their way back from the flyball game.“Late afternoon, I’m not sure the exact time. Barla worked today, they were waiting for her to leave. Gus is also coming with his new boyfriend, but they won’t be staying with us. He’s got a cousin living somewhere in West-Island.”“You sure we got the space to host four people?”Coralis sat in the living room, searching for something in a thick book. She got up to get a refill of coffee. Frank was supposed to work in the evening, but he traded his shift with a co-worker.“Yes, you’ll see. Now that you know about us, expect them to invite you to their next End-of-Year
July 15, 2002 – 18:00“He’s not entirely wrong, I think there is a war brewing between factions, and possibly against humans, but not all of us are against them,” said Coralis.“That’s what we told them and Hector pointed out why you and Sebastian would never fight with the radical ones.”“I would never indeed. Many of them have tried to recruit me over the years, but I always refused.”“Refused? You mean you destroyed all of those who came after you,” said Erik.“If this is true, and a war erupts, it’s not the vampires or the shifters that are going be at the forefront of it, especially if the EBEE is behind it. It’s those who stood against them,” said Kief.“If history taught us anything, it’s always the witches that end up being hunted or those that are perceived as such. Oh lords from above, my girl, if war comes to us again, I fear for you,” said Barla, hugging Coralis.Frank felt as if he was meeting his in-laws for the first time. He could clearly see the family-type bond betwe
July 25, 2002Coralis and Sebastian rang Lizzy’s doorbell. Coralis didn’t want Sebastian to come, fearing they wouldn’t be able to shop in peace, but he insisted. She also thought that it wouldn’t help the rumour about her and Sebastian being together, but she knew that neither Stephanie nor Frank cared about it.An excited Audrey answered the door, and Sebastian activated a mute-ball when the door closed behind them.“I don’t typically fly when I go to the local elemental shopping mall: the area is too crowded with humans, which makes it hard to find a landing spot. I thought about using a portal, but considering it’s your first time going there, and you haven’t fully come into your power yet, I arranged for a safe transport to get us there, he should be here in a minute.”“Safe transport? What do you mean by it?” said Lizzy.“The CMMA has a float of drivers for when they need to go to densely populated human areas. Let’s say that we’re well connected and that the CMMA felt like they
August 2, 2002 Coralis stood next to Andrew, in the middle of a forest in a remote location southwest of Thurso and the North Sea in Scotland. It was a few minutes past midnight and the moon was full. They were surrounded by ghouls and goblins. She knew that Sebastian and Emery weren’t far from them.Under their feet was a large pixie cemetery. For the past 2 weeks, ghouls have been causing them problems. They had a lot of wards, but somehow, ghouls managed to get past them and dig up some graves. Coralis and Andrew had spent the week there to investigate it. They discovered that elves had been helping goblins to take down wards, so ghouls could make their way to the graves.High Elf Yalor, wanting to make sure that EBEE elders weren’t involved against them, decided to send two representatives there. He argued that if they sometime send agents to collaborate with CMMA agents on cases, so can the CMMA send agents to help on their cases. Emery and Sebastian arrived early in the afterno
October 20, 2002 – 23:45Coralis climbed to bed next to Frank. He pulled her to him and kissed her neck. She heard her hologram vibrating on the bedside table. She cursed and tried to ignore it. It wouldn’t stop and a purple light came out of it, so she turned to check where the call was coming from. It wasn’t from EBEE, so she pressed to answer it.Someone she recognized as the principal of the Winisk Elemental School came out of it. She sat straight up.“Blue Thunder, according to our records, you are the elemental guardian of Ms. Audrey Hudson. It is therefore must inform you of her disappearance.”“Audrey disappeared? When?”“It just got brought to our attention. Her roommate notified us when she realized that her bed was empty.”“I’m on my way. Expect me in your office in an hour.”Coralis turned it off and got up to get dressed.“How is that possible, I thought the school was well protected and no intruders could get in.”“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out and when I fi
October 21, 2002 – 03:15Coralis stood near the edge of the highest rooftop of the school building. She pulled her hologram out to reach out to Sebastian. She knew Frank wouldn’t be sleeping and that he wanted her to call him when she had a chance. She decided to call him after she spoke to Sebastian and Lizzy.Sebastian was about to answer Linda about what exactly they were doing for a living when he felt his hologram vibrating.“It must be Coralis,” he said. Lizzy stopped pacing. He answered it and Coralis’s holographic image came out of it. “Before you say anything, you need to know that Louis and Linda were there when I arrived with Stephanie. I didn’t know how to explain how you’d be at the school already or our method of communication, so uh, now they know about us.”“WHAT?”Sebastian turned around and rotated his hologram so she could see who was with him. Louis was amazed by what he saw above the device that Sebastian was holding. Coralis saw Lizzy next to Sebastian.“Did you
October 21, 2002 – 09:00“High Mage Finnas himself? Thank you for doing that. I just got back from Timmins, where the prisoners I found had been taken from. I couldn’t just leave them in the middle of no-man land, they were weak from massive blood loss. I lightly hypnotized them and they’ll wake up by their front porch. After I find Audrey, I’ll need to have that tunnel destroyed and find out why in gods world there was a tunnel linking an elemental school to a blood den,” said Coralis.“Want me to go with you to Chicago?”“Sure, if you want to. Frank is on his way here and I don’t think the father will show up. Just in case he does, I’ll set up a ward that would prevent any elemental from entering the house, except us and Andrey.”About an hour later, Coralis and Sebastian landed behind a dumpster by the back entry of The Bloody Velvet. As expected, the club was empty at this time. She was about to pull out her phone to call Veronica when one of Charlie’s guards walked out from the k
October 21, 2002 – 21:30“If you see Louis’ car, or any car owned by Audrey’s family, your duty will be to protect its occupants, ward the hell out of the car, like you’ve done at Healing Moon,” said Coralis to Sebastian.“You got it, boss. Do you think they will come?”“I hope they won’t. We don’t know what we will be running into, but we can’t stop any of them from doing so. They’re humans. I think they will, just in case Audrey is going to be there and I can’t blame them. Frank and Stephanie know the type of danger we’re heading to, do you think that’ll stop them from coming?”“Sounds like people I want to meet,” said Veronica.“No, it won’t. Louis and Linda took the revelations well, but I don’t think they are realizing what they’re probably going to witness,” said Sebastian.Coralis hovered above the address, trying to get a read of the type of wards present on the property.“I hate coven witches. I’m sensing dark magic in the wards, but I’ll be able to take them down. The roofto
October 30, 2003 – 19:06“Aww, that was quite the unexpected moment, ladies and gentlemen. We should apologize for the longer intermission, but we won’t. Tonight, history was written in front of your eyes, as…”Frank felt he was on cloud 9 while returning to the team’s box. She said Yes. That alone was a victory. He figured that realistically, she probably wouldn’t be going home with him that night, but she was still his. In the end, that was all he needed to hear.As far as he was concerned, he and Coralis were now engaged, that was what mattered to him at the moment. If that meant 24/7 bodyguards, so be it, he didn’t care. They would figure this out, together. He didn’t lose her.The stadium staff stopped by the team’s box entryway and he got in. The people in the box ignored the game and awaited their turn to hug and congratulate him.“I knew she wouldn’t tell you no!” said Victoria, as she passed her arms around him. “I’m the one here who’s known her the longest. Didn’t I tell you
October 30, 2003 – 18:36Frank got up his seat and followed them. He tried not to think about what he just heard and focused on what he needed to accomplish. He knew that they would have a lot of catching up to do when they would finally be able to talk.They took him to an entry point of the field and stopped there. As soon as the siren announced the end of the first period and both teams reached their field entry point, the announcer silenced the crowd.Both teams stopped where they were to figure out what was going on. The stadium staff standing next to Frank ushered him to go to the middle of the field. They weren’t at ground level, but he saw a gangway forming from where he stood, leading to the middle of the field. Everyone stared silently at him.Coralis was shocked and confused. She wasn’t expecting to see Frank standing in the middle of their field. She looked at Sebastian, wondering if he knew what he was doing there. Sebastian was sporting a wide grin on his face and she fr
October 30, 2003 – 17:00Frank pulled by the sidewalk in front of Victoria’s apartment. He was about to text her that he was there, but he saw her walking out of her door, so he closed his phone and dropped it in the glove box next to him.“Ready? Didn’t forget anything?” said Victoria when she climbed into the backseat and fastened her seatbelt.“As ready as I’ll ever be, and yes, I’ve got everything I need. I’m super nervous, I’m not gonna lie, but I need to do this. Thanks for getting me in.”“As if I would want to miss that. Plus, they’re playing The Imperialists, you couldn’t have picked a better game to do this. Her three musketeers will witness it.”“Her 3 musketeers?”“That’s what I used to call Coralis, Gus, Erik and Henry at school. Gus may not be there, but Sebastian makes a better one now.”Frank and Stephanie laughed.“I can see the analogy,” said Frank.“Sebastian convinced him that he wanted tonight’s game. Frank wanted to do it last Monday, but a game against Russia… l
October 24, 2003Frank returned home in the middle of the night from a concert, where he had been interviewing the band. He knew that Coralis had a game in Europe that day, but his sister told him that they would be playing at home on Saturday. Coralis and Sebastian usually head back right after their game when they played home next, so he was hoping she’d be home.But she wasn’t. He looked at the time. He wanted to call Stephanie to see if Sebastian was home, but at 3 in the morning, he figured that his sister was probably asleep and he didn’t want to wake her up. He looked at his empty glass of whiskey in the middle of their living room table and the half-empty bottle next to it. He sat in front of it and filled his glass, hoping that it’d help him get some sleep.He missed her. He needed to know if she was okay. He wanted to believe she didn’t leave him, but it was becoming more difficult to hold on to that idea. He needed to know that she was still with him, that he was still in h
October 16, 2003For the past few days, she spent most of her time in her London flat. Her flyball team played in Europe and the EBEE had sent her on some cases around the city. Twice, she met with Sonylla, Panjik and Emery in a Pixie-run inn located near Tremblant.She sat on the foot of her bed, listening to her voicemails, just like when she started seeing Frank. It was full when she got back from the flyball field in Bulgaria. Part of her wanted to disconnect it and throw it across the room. She didn’t like the tears coming down her eyes as she listened to them. She didn’t know how to handle them. She hated the situation more than he did.She missed him. She needed him.Another part of her, however, didn’t want to send him the wrong message. She loved him, even if she didn’t understand it. She didn’t want him to think she left him just like that. She hoped that when it was over and the danger had dissipated, he would forgive her and get back to her.She knew however that it probab
October 10, 2003 – 11:30“High Mage Rollio?” said Sonylla.“I almost got captured last night on my way back from the flyball field. I didn’t even sleep at home, to make sure that whoever came after me wouldn’t find out about my human boyfriend and use him as leverage against me.”They all looked at her.“You too?” said Emery.“Yes, High Mage Rollio,” said High Mage Finnas, briefly looking at Sonylla before turning his attention to Coralis. “Almost got captured? How did you escape? Agent Gaspart Yoz managed to escape those who came after him but lost consciousness in the back of an alley. He woke up earlier this morning, but will need to remain at our clinic for a few days.”“No offence Finnas, but the answer to that question is pretty obvious if they tried to catch her while she was flying home. Blue doesn’t use portals. They would have needed at least an entire team of professional flyball players better than ours to successfully capture her,” said Emery.“This is fortunate for us, b
October 10, 2003 – 1:30“How do you think he is going to react? He loves you, madly. You know he is going to be upset and worried sick about you. However, I honestly understand why you may not want him to know where you are. We can’t lie. I mean, we may manipulate some wordings, when necessary, but if he directly asks me where you are… best if I don’t know, you’re right… but I don’t like it.”“Neither do I. I’d much rather be in bed with Frank right now, but before I come back home to him, I need to find out who sent them. These guys weren’t amateur, but whoever paid them forgot that I’m a damn professional flyball player.”“One of the bests at that. That was a dumb move on their part to try to get you while you’re flying.”“Dumb or not, they still tried. When you talk to Frank, can you please remain vague in your answers? I know he will worry and be mad at me. Our apartment is heavily warded, but I don’t know what my enemies are capable of. I need to find out who came after me tonigh
October 9, 2003 – 22:00Coralis was on her way home from her flyball game. Her team had a solid victory against Morocco. As she was about to enter the Laval skyline, she sensed she was being followed. Not wanting to lead her stalker to where she lives, she decided to circle the city anti-clockwise. She didn’t want to be seen entering the Montreal skyline.The uneasy feeling of being followed persisted and grew stronger. Suddenly, she saw someone floating still ahead of her, so she took a sharp turn west toward Rigaud. She was about to make a U-turn before passing the provincial border, but three people suddenly appeared right in front of her, and two on either side of her, forcing her to take another sharp turn going down.They were trying to capture her.She stabilized her altitude before reaching the top of the trees below her and paused. She was thankful that she wasn’t flying above a town. Looking up, she saw more people appearing from all directions, trying to trap her.Meanwhile
September 10, 2003 – 22:20“No, probably not, but who knows. Are you still calling it like that?” said Coralis as she pressed buttons on the microwave.“Perfect name for it, doesn’t it?” said Veronica while the others couldn’t contain their laughter.“If you say so. Henry came up with the idea to create a cursed replica of it and plant it in a location associated with my mother’s family because I found it at the same place as the Rawindra Sword and I had to kill two de Lima’s family members for it.”“That way you could find out who’s after it and possibly kill some middlemen in between. That’s a genius plan, I must say. You got no issues with possibly killing more relatives?” said Veronica.“That’s the idea, yeah, and no, I’ve got no issues. They’re no family of mine,” said Coralis as Frank rubbed her back. “Better I go after them before they find me and come for me. The original is believed to work only when an elf wears it, but I will make this one work on any elemental, except for