HOURGLASS

CHAPTER EIGHT - Not Superstitious, Only a Little Stitious 6:00

We had six hours before we were due to meet up with Zephyras. At the moment we were waiting for the sun to set, which was going to be in an hour and a half, at four thirty. Since we had done so much research and had a plan that we were going got use, we wanted to make sure that it was going to work. Charlie may not actually know if exorcising Zephyras would work, but he would have a much better theory about what might happen.

As Nessa and I munched on Ritz and apple slices, we talked about the possibilities of infinite universes. "So, there's a universe where you're a guy and I'm a girl?" I asked, chuckling slightly.

"Yeah! And that also means that there's a universe where I'm straight. Must be a reaaaally boring universe, if I'm being honest." Nessa giggled at her own humor and fell off of the couch. Her mom, who had gotten home about an hour ago, walked in and laughed at her child.

"What's so funny, you two? I swear, ever since you met this rascal, all I hear is giggling." her mom said, fake glaring at me.

"You mean all we've done is giggle in our twelve year friendship? Oh gosh, Robin, all we can do is GIGGLE!" With the last word she launched up from the floor and started to tickle me. As a very ticklish person, I was susceptible to all forms of the gentle torture. The only plus in the situation was the fact that there were no feathers anywhere accessible to Nessa.

"Gah, ah, NO, okay, eegh, I surrender!! I will, hehe, kick you if you, gah! Continue to, eh, tickle mee!" I squeaked out with much trepidation. I pushed Nessa off my stomach with my feet and placed her next to me on the couch.

"So. Not. Fair." I panted. "Or okay. Or funny. You know that I hate being tickled! C'mon, dude, we gotta be professional demon slaying badasses! Not tickling bandits." I shoved her side and grinned at her. "Alrighty, I think that it's time for us to go get Charlie." Pointing at the sun disappearing behind the horizon, I got up and started walking towards the door. I looked at Nessa is if to say 'You coming?'. She sighed and languidly rose off the chair.

We got into the car right as the sun vanished behind the Earth. I loved our world, and I really took it for granted sometimes. If something were to happen to us while we tried to save some universes, and we got trapped elsewhere, I would desperately miss this place. Not to mention that my dad would be all alone most of the time. I grit my teeth and breathed in for a long time.

"Let's do this thing, Nessa. We've got a vampire to pick up and a demon to exorcise. What are we waiting for?" Her face lit up like the Griswold's house at Christmastime, and we shot out of her driveway at speeds way too high for a neighborhood. She flew across the road and drove so fast that I was surprised that the police didn't just sense the lawbreaking that was going on outside Voodoo Doughnuts. Nessa nearly hit an excited tourist with a pink box of the doughnut shop's famous Rapper's Delight doughnuts. The Maple Blazer Blunt in his hand went flying and landed on a soon to be very angry business woman.

Nessa cackled like a witch and flew her broomstick (car) over to the cemetery. We landed (parked) on the side of the road next to the gate. We hopped off (out) of the vehicle and tramped over to the gate. An elderly couple looked at us in disdain and whispered, loudly. "I hope that these hooligans don't mess up this beautiful area. Young people today have no respect for anything!"

I turned around to face the offender and politely stated, "I am so very sorry that we concerned you. It's just that I wanted to visit my mom since I was busy yesterday, with it being my birthday and her death day. I miss her and felt like I should come and talk since it's been a decade now. But please, if you want us to leave my mother's grave alone, of course you have to tell us!" The old lady blushed and said, "Oh, of c-course. I didn't kn-I didn't thin-I am so sorry. Please go on in, and tell you mother that she has a wonderfully civil child."

I entered the cemetery and huffed at the woman's retreating form. "Sometimes I think that the older generations are ruder than the younger ones because they feel so much more entitled." As I finished my sentence Charlie appeared from the growing darkness.

"Hey mates, what's up?" He adjusted he brown jacket and dusted off his navy blue collared shirt. His pointed ears twitched in the chilled wind as he looked around the area. "Do you know what you're going to do to get rid of her? Because I've told you about everything I know."

Nessa nodded her head and said, "Yeah, we've got a plan. We did a huge amount of research and figured out a way that we could perform an exorcism and get Zephyras's soul out of the body that she stole when she came to Earth. The only problem is that we have to do it here, because if we end up in Erkir, I don't know if we'll be able to get back."

Charlie nodded solemnly. "Yes, that is a good idea. Is there any, possibility that the host human lived?" He looked concerned. "I used to know her. I was told to kill a human, but not actually 'kill' them. I met this woman that matched the queen's specifications, so I approached her when there was no one else near her and told her that a being beyond her comprehension needed her body. I was sure she was going to care me a psycho and I'd have to kill her, but she agreed.

"She said she'd had a vision about Zephyras and that she had been looking for me for weeks. Her only request was that her family thought her completely and utterly dead. On her son's seventh birthday, we created an elaborate scheme to 'kill' her, but only to the rest of Earth. I used some magic that I borrowed from a magus and shot her so that she would die for a few hours. When her body was taken into an ambulance I took it over and drove the body to the ritual site. I revived her and we completed the ritual. She became Zephyras. Her soul was pushed to the side, and she said that she would hold out for as long as she could.

"I just don't know if she's still holding on." Charlie sighed and looked at the ground. "I felt so bad seeing the father and child lose their minds at the funeral, over an empty coffin. It made me so sad in fact, that I convinced the new CEO of the woman's company to pay the broken family every month. I think it was, $20,000 a month? I just hope they're okay now."

Nessa and I looked at each other in utter shock. Charlie looked at our confused faces, obviously not connecting the dots.

"My mom, didn't, she, she didn't die? She used her body as a vessel because she knew that we would avenge her and stop it all? She, sacrificed herself for the world and there's a chance that she's ALIVE?!" Charlie's eyes widened along with his mouth as I practically screamed

"You're Emma's son? You are Robin Griffin? The same one? I thought it was some bloody sick twist of fate that you had the same name, not that you were the same person." All three of us stared at the others in shock.

Nobody had expected it in the slightest.

My mom was alive?