#amusedbywindows

********

The nightcrawler demon lurched up from where Kim had split its skull and with a cry she put it down again, her staff windmilled into its jaw, shattering it, sending it sprawling--

--she whirled the staff one-handed as she drew her wand: "CARPE DIABOLUS!"

--and a Devil's Trap flared into being beneath the beast, and Kim just ignored it and hurried into battle as it gurgled and thrashed helplessly behind her. 

********

Combat raged around them, but could not touch them, could not reach them-- they were in a pocket universe.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've called this meeting," The Basilisk mused, then chuckled. "(Oh, I never get tired of that joke.)"

Tommy didn't answer, well, not conversationally: "STUPEFY!"

The Basilisk rolled his eyes, swatted the bolt away with the back of his hand. "Right, yes, the time-wasting expressions of bravado, yes, that doesn't get tiresome at all."

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Tommy screamed with such fury that his voice broke--

--but The Basilisk impatiently caught this in the palm of his gloved hand and threw it back in Tommy's face--

--it exploded, he sprawled, his cutlass flew one way, his wand the other.

"You have been," The Basilisk mused, strolling over to Tommy where he lay on the ground, half-Stunned, "quite the pain in my arse, Thomas Stearns Decker. I really do wish The Roman had let you burn with your family."

But then he smiled a simpering smile. "Ah! But the opportunity presents itself to get it right this time."

********

As the demon's telekinesis tore open Claire's forehead... the other end of the tear simply sutured itself back together again.

The demon hesitated.

"Yeah," Claire scowled at him. "You like that? Wait 'till you see my next trick."

Eyes widening with fury at her impertinence, the demon whipped his hand across himself, and his telekinetic backhand broke Claire's jaw. With a roll of her eyes, Claire flared her nostrils-- her jaw popped back into shape, the bones set, the bones knit-- "As I was saying-- it pays to have two daddies. On the one dad, I can break down doors and bag and tag-- but on the other dad-- you know what he taught me?"

The demon hissgurglegrowled, unable to comprehend this mortal's resilience--

--and Claire continued, meeting his gaze, her voice an absolutely perfect Lancashire accent, a perfect Claude Rains: "Wands are for sissies."

And she Vanished.

The demon roared in frustration, lowering both hands and thrashing this way and that, looking for the mewling little thing--

--he found the shotgun behind him, levitating, leveled at him, and Claire turned visible again, holding it there, with a smirk and an itchy trigger finger. "Boom, baby."

A explosion of rock salt ruined the demon's day, not to mention its countenance.

********

"And lo, it was written," intoned The Basilisk, as he opened a secret compartment and drew forth a stone chest inlaid with Enochian symbols, "in The Book of Carver, that as The Lord turned His Face from The Earth, so too did The Archangel Gabriel turn his face from The Lord, renouncing his holy status to go and dwell amongst pagan deities upon the face of the Earth, and across the stars. In so doing, he cast to Earth like a falling white-point star the badge of his office as The Left Hand of God-- the very stele with which Gabriel had written on the walls of the banquet hall of King Belshazzar, with which he had inscribed on the heart of Mary that she would be the mother of a savior."

He glanced up at Mae as she fought against the Curse that bound her, and he smiled a devil's smile. "And hark, for it shall be written, in chronicles of prophets yet to come, that this was the day that lowly Ministry Unspeakable Nial Ross truly became The Basilisk, the Shining Serpent of Petrifying Power, for having made myself The Lord of Time, spreading my soul across The Time Vortex, I now achieve mastery of Space."

He swung open the chest, and gloated over its contents, and tears began to roll down Mae's face.

********

Two demons held Jeanette's arms, and another reared back with claws to behead her. And she grimaced at them.

"I have been shown the future," she glowered, "by Voltaire himself. And I know the reputation destined for France. But know you this: I DO NOT SURRENDER."

 CRACK.

She Disapparated.

The demons that had been holding her screamed, unholy terror, soaked in blood, horribly Splinched, arms gone below the elbow--

--Jeanette reappeared an instant later, her wand leveled at the face of the demon who would have severed her neck: "INCENDIO SANCTI!"

It didn't have time to scream.

*******

"Thomas," The Basilisk announced, standing over Tommy there in the bubble of time, "I have done some very exhaustive, laborious calculations, and do you know what I have discovered?"

"I have a feeling," Tommy groaned from there at his feet, sprawled out, head spinning, "that you're about to tell me."

"Quite so," The Basilisk chuckled, holding up his gauntleted left hand and turning it this way and that. "It turns out, dear little Thomas, that I can kill one person in this timeframe, in this moment, in this scenario, free and clear, and history will remain intact. I can pick and I can choose, it doesn't matter, the nature of this nodal point in The Vortex is such that any death will smooth over into the natural flux."

"Oh, must be your lucky day," Tommy wheezed, "for me it's more like everybody lives, but hey, you get to be cheery over somebody dies, I see how it is."

The Basilisk sneered. "I shall, I think, occasionally miss that unstoppable gob of yours, Thomas. But only occasionally."

"Well," Tommy mused, "as long as they're special occasions."

The Basilisk pointed a gauntleted finger at Tommy's forehead. "Winner-winner chicken dinner."

*******

The demon who had sucker-punched Ichabod turned and set its rabid sights on Katrina, still reeling as she was from the bolts that had fallen from the blue--

--but then he staggered to a halt, glancing bewilderedly down at himself-- 

--a sword had impaled him, gone right through from the back that its tip protruded from his belly. He half-glanced, surprised, over his shoulder, to find Ichabod there, dirt-covered and bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but still fighting, brave to the last.

He reached back to twist Ichabod's neck like a bottlecap but then Katrina flung her hand towards the sword, towards the impaling weapon, and she bellowed: "PURIFICUS FERRO!"

The weapon turned to purest iron and it burned, the demon howled-- but that howling stopped an instant later when Ichabod yanked the sword back out and lopped off the demon's head as though he had been born to the motion.

********

The gauntlet gleamed in the stained-glass light of the church interior, and Nial Ross slid it onto his left arm with a reverence so slow and sensual it bordered on the obsessively salacious-- "Look at it. Look at it. Have you ever beheld such power?"

Mae narrowed her eyes at him, her wings practically vibrating. 

He flexed his fingers, his eyes lit up-- "Oh. Oh. That is-- I can see such-- wonders-- The Metatron may have been the scribe, The Voice of God, but I can see why The Lord would give this to the chief amongst his messengers... I can see the writing in everything, the Marks and Runes, the operating system, the machine code of magic, of miracles-- such Deep, Deep Magic."

He leveled his gaze upon Mae. "Even down to those funny little helices curling within your cells, those matrices-- you really are half-Angel, aren't you?"

  Taking his wand in his left fist, he snapped it like a twig between his fingers, let it explode harmlessly in his clenched palm, and let the fragments fall from his fingers. "No need for that anymore. Feeble thing, so underpowered, and I swear Ollivander overcharged me."

He walked closer to her-- "And speaking of power-- I think today deserves a little celebration, don't you? A little icing upon the cake."

Extending a fingertip, he slid it in a little semi-circle across the base of her throat, and a jagged, glowing crack formed in her skin--

--it hurt like Hell, but Mae couldn't even scream-- 

--a wisp of pale pale beautiful light began to emerge from the gash, and Ross leaned down a bit, mouth open, eagerly waiting to breathe it in.

********

The battlefield was slow motion that crashed like lightning and silence louder than words.

Kim's fingers and hands blurred so quickly as she whirled her staff about-- she might as well have been snagging arrows from the air --putting down demons left, right, center--

--Katrina and Ichabod fought back to back, Katrina's palms unleashing white holy light even as Ichabod slashed and hacked and parried and thrust, besting anyone who might lay a finger on his beloved--

--Claire pumped the shotgun with one hand, Linda Hamilton, as with the other hand she swept her wand to slam shut Devil's Traps, here, there, then she tossed the shotgun to herself and fired--

--Jeanette swept out of a spin in which she had slashed a gout of holy water across all around her, and then something caught her eye.

"...what?"

********

The Basilisk pointed his finger at Tommy's forehead, and a relishing grin spread across his face, and then something caught his eye, and his head jerked up to see.

"...what?"

Jeanette sprinted for them, for the two of them, they should have been invisible and isolated thanks to the power of The Fourth Eternity Turner which The Basilisk wielded, and yet-- her gaze fixed upon them, she pelted through the battlefield, heedless of her own injury-- made for them like a shot.

When she reached the edge of the bubble, however, she hit it like a wall, staggering back and bellowing with frustration, beating on the barrier with her fists. She closed her eyes and tried to Apparate through, but aside from a shuddering shimmer that wracked her body, she went nowhere.

"Hm," The Basilisk frowned, "yes, I didn't notice her when I was here before. Interesting. Her genetic structure includes that of House-Elves. Perceptions and powers inaccessible to humans, though terribly diluted."

Scrambling out from under the shadow of The Basilisk's gauntlet, Tommy scrabbled for his wand, but The Basilisk ignored him-- as he went, Tommy sputtered: "You can see genetic codes?"

The Basilisk chortled. "Of course I can. And I can edit. How else do you think I could have crafted Harold Saxon into a worthy Heir to Voldemort?"

Tommy came up in a crouch, pointing his wand, and hesitated: "What? Wait, you what?"

Outside the bubble, Jeanette staggered back, shaking her head, and then turned and ran off.

"It wasn't just a matter of killing his parents and making him into a dark mirror of The Potter Boy," The Basilisk noted with patronizing tones. "I needed a Wizard of Mass Destruction, and a Parselmouth, those don't come along every day. I unfurled his DNA in the womb and I made myself the perfect little Dark Messiah, one who would hungrily follow my every command the way that Potter did Dumbledore's."

"You bastard," Tommy sagged, gritting his teeth, "it wasn't enough to take his childhood, his innocence, to pollute his mind, you couldn't even let him be born himself?"

The Basilisk leered at him. "Of course not. It was for the greater good."

Tommy shot to his feet, wand upraised: "I'LL SHOW YOU A GREATER GOOD, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The Basilisk turned to face him fully, laughing, laughing, and beckoned to Tommy with that stele-clad left hand, let's do this.

But then a whiter shade of pale blurred beside him, and The Basilisk looked up in surprise--

--as Jeanette pounded towards him, knuckles white as she gripped the reins astride Ichabod's horse--

--riding at full tilt with maximum Determination, she brought the horse up for a leap, and in mid-air they Apparated at the last instant--

--and shattered through the wall of the temporal bubble as though it were so much plate glass.

The Basilisk screamed, clutching his head with both hands: "NYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

********

Nial Ross screamed, clutching his head with both hands: "NYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

He staggered back from Mae, bleeding from the ears, from the nostrils, the eyes, the mouth, unable to comprehend--

--Mae dropped to the floor, released from her Bind, and her Grace hurriedly inhaled itself back into the cut across her throat.

"I don't understand," Ross shook his head, "this wasn't written."

Mae came up with her wand, eyes blazing in their darkness, and even though her voice was a rasp, she made it thunder: "EXPELLIARMUS!"

The Charm hit Ross broadside like a Train à Grande Vitesse, blasting him into the sacristy-- but as he lay there Stunned for a moment, she could see that while The Disarming Charm knocked things out of people's hands, this gauntlet was on his hand and it remained firmly in place.

He gazed up at her woozily. "Another time, then, Earth Angel."

And snapped his fingers-- he Vanished in a billow of red mist.

"Good riddance," Mae wheezed, rippling her wings as though shaking off cobwebs, "t' goddamn bad rubbish."

Mae touched her wand-tip to her throat, healing the injury, cast Accio to retrieve her stele, and hurried to rejoin the fight.

********

The bubble collapsed around them, regular Time came rushing back in, and The Basilisk roared as he bled from nostrils, ears, eyes, mouth-- the damage to the energies of his Eternity Turner powers had damaged his flesh as well, feeding back into his earlier self--

--"Miserable bint!" he snarled, as Jeanette vaulted off the horse and took on a dueling stance with her wand.

"Noble action," Jeanette replied, "speaks louder far than crass words."

Tommy adjusted his grip on his wand. "Reinette! Come on, we'll take him both together! He can't kill both of us!"

The Basilisk curled his lip. "Perhaps not. But one will do. Just in time for barbecue."

And he snapped his fingers.

Tommy's eyes flashed wide. "...no..."

And Jeanette clutched at her chest and coughed out a ball of fire as conflagration consumed her insides. Her wand caught alight, and as it fell to the ground beside her, its explosion ignited the hem of her dress.

Tommy screamed: "NO!"

And sprinted to where Jeannette fell, hurriedly extinguishing her burning clothes with his wand. 

The Basilisk tossed a salute to Tommy from his brow with the tips of his gauntleted fingers. "Looks like it's my lucky day! See you again soon."

And then he Vanished, in a swirl of red mist.

By the time Tommy reached Jeanette, the fire had already gone out, and he thudded to his knees in the dirt of the road, cradling her in his arms, "nononononono, hold on, hold on! We can fix this, we can fix this! Reinette!"

Her eyes barely focused to find him, and she breathed out smoke as she spoke. "Don't worry, my lonely angel. I think I shall still make quite a beautiful ghost, mais non?"

She reached up with one hand to cup his cheek, the back of his head, and managed a tremulous smile: "Godspeed."

Her hand fell back to her side, and the light went out of her eyes.

Tommy stared down at her for a long, long moment, his face taut with pain and regret, and then he buried his face against hers, against the side of her neck, and he screamed: "NYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" 

Around him, he didn't even notice as the surviving, untrapped demons belched themselves up into the sky, billowing clouds of black smoke against the wide wide blue.

Around him, he didn't even notice as his fellow fighters lowered their wands and weapons and slowly gathered around him, bearing silent, agonized witness to the boy rocking back and forth with his first real dance partner dead in his arms.

********

They stood now outside The TARDIS.

Claire gazed quietly, horrified, at Tommy as Mae hugged him close-- they both looked shaken beyond words, but Mae knew the Team Mom role better than anyone.

She glanced at Kim, at Katrina, at Ichabod. "So... we didn't win this one."

"If we did," Ichabod shook his head, looking just as burned and as burdened as any of them, "I would hesitate to classify this as anything but a Pyrrhic victory."

"No," Kim shook her head. "We didn't win this one. Pyrrhic or uvverwise. But we damaged Dark Forces 'ere an' now, and we wounded 'im... we wounded The Basilisk for the first time. An'-- this mightn't seem like much, this might'n't seem like anyfhing-- but now we know 'is name. I know a fhing or two about real names and-- 'e's not just this-- impossible bastard wiv the implacable name anymore. 'E's 'uman."

"Names," Katrina nodded slowly, "indeed have power."

Claire watched as Tommy got out the key to The TARDIS on the chain Sally had made him, the same chain on which he wore his St. Christopher's medallion, watched as Tommy unlocked the door and he and Mae went inside.

"There's better things than power," Claire shook her head. "But I guess it'll have to be enough for now."

Kim nodded in firm, grim agreement. "For now."

She inclined her head to Mr. and Mrs. Crane. "Fhank yeh bofh. Yehr 'elp 'ere 'as meant the world."

Ichabod bowed emphatically, arms out to his sides, in the manner of the day, and Katrina smiled a faint little smile. "Blessed be, Brigadier McLeod."

As the TARDIS faded off back to the future once more, Katrina and Ichabod held hands and watched it go.

Katrina closed her eyes for a moment, and blinked back tears, and turned her gaze up to her taller husband. "Do you love me, Ichabod Crane?"

Ichabod turned to look at her. "You know, Katrina Crane, that I do."

Katrina smiled a pained, pained smile. "And you understand now that I would have told you-- I would have told you when I was ready-- when I was ready-- in the fullness of Time."

Ichabod measured this taste in his mouth for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. Yes. I believe that you would have."

Katrina's pained smile twitched a bit in one corner. "Thank you."

And up on tiptoe, she kissed her husband on the mouth. 

Gathering her up in his arms, he kissed her right back.

Katrina and Ichabod, for instance, were locked in fierce debate.

"A witch," Ichabod grimaced. 

"You say it," Katrina gestured helplessly, "as though it were a word that meant one thing and one thing only. But my coven is sworn to oppose the Darkness, just as you are, to bring power on behalf of those without it!"

"I have been opposing the Darkness under the command of good General Washington," Ichabod replied ferociously, "and yet you saw fit not to include me in your own machinations? This suggests to me that you feared my opposition."

Katrina squared her shoulders and glared at him. "There is law, for all Witches and Wizards, for almost a century, forbidding the revelation of Wizarding society to they who are not Magical."

"And what of the law that binds us," Ichabod demanded, "the vow as husband and wife? Is this less significant to you than the Wizarding law?"

"You know that it cannot be," Katrina replied, with vim and venom, "but the reasoning behind that Wizarding law holds strongly even with us-- if I were to confess to you my Magical nature, you would be in as much danger as I of being dragged before a magistrate and set alight like so much kindling."

Ichabod gestured fiercely: "The Witch Trials, yes, I am familiar with the case-- a tragedy of superstition run amok. But certainly honesty between us would preclude such unreasoning behavior on my part? Surely I cannot be lumped in with their barbaric lack of discernment, of empathy."

Katrina's nostrils flared: "Perhaps it was empathy which we were seeking to circumvent, Ichabod. How effective would you be as a warrior against mystical foes if you were second-guessing yourself at every maneuver? 'What if this worker of magicks is truly beneficent?' Your hesitation would cost us dearly, we needed you to defeat the enemy, not invite them to tea!"

Ichabod hesitated. "'We,'" he frowned, "'us.' The plural-- who else--?"

George Washington strode through the flap into the tent, holding it open as Reinette stepped in gracefully behind him. 

Washington gazed at the two Cranes as he let the flap slip closed again. "Captain. Ichabod. You know that I hold truth in the highest esteem-- Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light-- truth is the heart of our endeavor, because it is lies and control of truth that bring about the tyrannies against which we fight. But in war there comes a necessity to withhold some truths-- to classify information as unfit for public consumption-- so as to effectively coordinate against the night. It is for this reason that Jeanette, Katrina, and I withheld a measure of the truth from you. It is not to dishonor you, Ichabod-- it is tactics."

Puzzled, Ichabod shook his head, stared at the beautiful blonde woman. "Jeanette-- you knew this also?"

"'Jeanette,'" Tommy shook his head. "But I thought-- I thought your name was Reinette--" he hesitated-- "or-- Jeanne Antoinette--"

She gazed at him with an imperiousness and a curiosity. "You speak with such impertinence, little boy, as though you know me, but I know you not at all. Indeed, I was once called by each of these names, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, The Little Queen-- and many other titles besides, but this was long ago, in another life, before I falsified my passing so as to better serve The Ministry of Magic of my beloved France. I thought perhaps this would mean I could teach Herbology at L'Académie de Magie de Beauxbâtons, but I am honored to serve wherever I am needed."

"Jeanette," Washington gestured to her grandly, "is an agent of the French crown, our allies in the war against tyrants both of this Earth and of this present darkness."

He swung his gaze about the room. "Now. If we are quite finished with slackjawed dismay and incredulity, perhaps we can discuss the matter at hand?" Washington narrowed his eyes at the four time-travelers. "That is your cue, if it were not already plain, to start talking."

Despite the conciseness and incisiveness of Washington's explanation, Tommy's eyes still lingered on "Jeanette," and hers on his.

"We come," Kim explained quickly, "to find The Left 'And of God."

"The Left Hand of God," Ichabod frowned quietly. "This could mean any number of things. To stand on The Right Hand of God was to stand in a place of honor, as in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, and to stand on His Left Hand was to be cast out, to be pronounced anathema. Do you seek that which was cast out from Heaven?" he hesitated-- "--there is also-- prevailing imagery-- the angels of The Lord acting as his agents, his metaphorical limbs, The Fingers of God-- the archangel Michael was called The Right Hand of God, and Gabriel, His Left."

"We've been tryin' t' puzzle out that very thing," Mae admitted. "An' not f'r a little while."

"The point is," Claire noted, "it's here, not more than a few miles away-- locked up in some kind of vault in a church-- and the bad guys are going after it, we gotta beat 'em to the punch."

Washington frowned. "You have no credentials, no correspondence, no identities of any kind, you even somehow bypassed our further lookouts and took our nearby sentinels off their guard. I cannot simply commit forces to what might amount to a fool's errand-- not without intelligence."

"If I may, General sir," Jeanette expressed, "I might perceive the truth of their words."

Washington gestured swiftly. "Then be done with it."

Katrina frowned. "Do be careful, old friend. It does not do one well to walk in the halls of a stranger's mind."

"I don't make a habit of it," Jeanette replied, and walked around the tables of charts and maps and troop placements to approach Tommy Decker. "But this young man is not a stranger-- are you, Tommy? He has known me for years."

Tommy's eyes widened. He felt like he could hear both his heartbeats and that he could feel his pulse in his eyeballs. "Oui, Madame."

And Reinette touched her hands to the sides of his head-- and Tommy felt his life flash before his eyes-- lonely little boy, lonely then and lonelier now-- his hearts rose and sank with every triumph, every tragedy-- he felt it all over again, and she felt it with him.

She lingered, cheerfully, on a dance at The Yule Ball.

--and then she stepped back, and he was blinking away tears, and his pulse had yet to subside.

Kim looked away for a moment, and she, too, was wiping her eyes.

"They do not lie, General," she explained. "Whether their information is erroneous, I cannot say-- but they do not attempt to deceive us any more than is necessary-- and they are burdened with glorious purpose."

The General nodded briskly, brusquely. "Very well, then. Go. Captain Crane, Nurse Crane, Agent Après-Déluge, accompany these would-be Defenders of The Earth to this church, and secure the weapon from The Enemy."

"Thank you, General," Claire inclined her head. Deference to authority wasn't really her cup of tea-- but this was General Fucking Washington, she could play nice.

Ichabod opened his mouth, and shut it again, apparently intending to voice his concerns about the trustworthiness of his squad-- but General Washington had given the order, and it was, apparently, not his to reason why-- it was his but to do and die. "Very well. At your command."

Tommy was still quite shaken, but he nodded boldly. "Yes. Of course."

Ichabod swept open the flap of the tent, gazed with blue blue eyes at each of them. "Let's go."

As they emerged from the tent, Mae gently poked Tommy with a grin. "He totally stole y'r line."

Tommy harrumphed. "Sounds better in French."

"Indubitably," Jeanette smirked, as she passed them by.

********

They didn't have enough horses to spare for all of them, but Ichabod rode his own horse-- it was a whiter shade of pale, and the irony of this would be lost on all but a few --and Katrina rode behind him, arms around his waist, though at this point neither of them seemed especially enamored with the arrangement. 

A short distance behind, Claire, Mae, and Kim walked with Jeanette in awkward silence.

Tommy walked up beside the loping horse, hands in his pockets, looking burdened.

Tommy glanced up at Katrina where she rode with Ichabod. 

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," Tommy began, "I'm sorry for the disruption we've caused your life with my inadvertent revelation. But I do need to talk to you about something-- it's a matter of a lot of lives, and a lot of death."

Katrina smiled wearily, sadly down at him. "You have not bothered to contain your words before, young man, loose them now and I will reply in kind."

"Right, yeah," Tommy swallowed hard, and attempted: "In the year 1402, a mysterious woman arrived from almost five hundred years in the future and became trapped, there, unable to return. I've since learned that she was helped back to her proper place in events by members of your sisterhood. Is it at all possible that you know what spell that they might have used?"

Katrina furrowed her brow, digested this query. "I was not there. While members of my coven have been blessed with The Elixir of Life by our ally Nicolas Flamel, I myself have not consumed it. All the same-- all the same I can think of three ways in which a person would be propelled centuries to the future by means of magic."

She glanced, awkwardly, agonizedly, at Ichabod, who stared boldly, coldly ahead.

Sighing, she gazed back down at Tommy. "The first is-- by becoming a living Horcrux to an immortal being. So long as they live, you too would live-- even from the brink of death. That being could sleep for centuries, and you too would sleep-- awakening only when they did."

If wordplay from the unfamiliar sounds of "whore crux" came to Ichabod's mind, he held his tongue with chivalrous bitterness.

"Of course," Katrina mused, "one would be vulnerable as one slept-- you would become a target, for instance, for those who might slay the immortal being, as eliminating any Horcruxes would be the only way to ensure its eternal destruction."

Musing, she considered further: "The second is-- is to place a person, body and soul, into Limbo, or Purgatory-- a Phantom Zone between life and death-- one could theoretically be freed at any point in the future-- but there are forces and creatures there that are darker far than any here, and the threat to the imprisoned being would indeed be great."

Tommy shook his head, "Mm, no, those don't sound like it. What was the other thing?"

Katrina squinted for a moment. "There is a spell to take those who have been uprooted in time and fling them back to their appointed place. But while it is simple to say-- it requires much power, perhaps more power than all but the rarest and mightiest Witches and Wizards could attempt to contain. More likely-- more likely it could be cast by a quartet of casters, joined together in the manner of the old, Four Who Speak As One--"

"By Calling the Quarters," Tommy shook his head. "Of course, of course, I'm an idiot. Thick. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit."

Katrina arched her eyebrows as though impressed. "Yes. Yes, that's the spell. 'Everything changes, nothing is lost.'"

"Essentially," Tommy smiled faintly, "'You can go home again.' Of course, you'd still be subject to the ravages of aging-- but if you were sent back in time from the future, using that spell, that aging would be reversed."

"Theoretically," Katrina permitted, "if one were aged by traveling to a time further forward than one's own time, the spell cast to return you home would also return you to your age, yes. Simply casting the spell on someone who has aged returning home from the past would have no effect, because they are already home. But traveling to such a future would not be possible."

"No," Tommy shook his head. "No, of course not."

Katrina squinted at him.

"Pardon me askin'," Kim squinted at Jeanette, "but what's yehr deal, anyway?"

"My deal?" Jeanette replied, squinting back at Kim. "Pray, explain, and do not mince words-- I sense that you do not truly wish my pardon, and I would implore you to not pretend."

"Fine," Kim frowned, "I saw how fhoroughly yeh looked fhrough 'is 'ead back at the camp, an' while I'm impressed by yehr Legilimency, I also know yeh know 'e's spoken for, fhree times over."

"Is he?" Jeanette replied, blithely. "I saw no bethrothals, no espousals, no oaths of commitment, no songs sung under windows at night, no ferocious lovemaking by candlelight-- a kiss, or two, nothing more. I saw attraction, but no action."

"Oi," Kim shook her head. "Don't get clever in French." 

"She's got a point, though," Claire noted, with a shrug, "no ring, no thing."

Kim glanced at Claire, surprised, and Claire again shrugged-- she hadn't spent a lot of time with the ghost Reinette, but she'd thought she was pretty cool. 

"Besides," Jeanette shook her head with a twitch, "none of the women with whom he shares a mutual yearning are yet born, and I will be dead long before they arise, surely that circumstance removes me from treading on toes?"

"Wow," Mae winced, "y'did read th' unabridged version."

"Fear not," Jeanette reassured Mae, "you have not despoiled my days to come with this foreknowledge. It is not the first time I have seen my future, though these are parts of it to which I now look forward. In my younger days, I founded a salon at Étiolles and spoke philosophy with enlightened minds-- including Voltaire, whose forward-thinkingness included a surpassing gift for Divination."

"If yeh know," Kim shook her head fiercely, "that 'e's not from around 'ere, then yeh know it won't matter to 'im 'oo's dead an' gone, 'is 'earts'll be broken regardless-- 'e feels so much, in the moment, that not only will 'e be sundered that 'e can't keep yeh, but it might derail 'is chances wiv 'is proper loves when 'e goes 'ome."

"A heart can love in many ways at once," Jeanette replied, "and all of these fully. I was the mistress of a king, and yet I closely befriended his queen, both of us in full knowledge of the other's relation-- this was as it should have been. The Ancient Greeks had four words for love, not just one, and yet these did not even begin to describe the spectrum of which one heart is capable-- and Tommy has two."

She shook her head. "The Britons have always had such a narrow view of romance, persecuting half-breeds, scrutinizing gender-roles, so fond of categories. Whereas my mother's husband was not my father by blood, and my mother-- was part House-Elf."

"France," Mae reflected wryly, "'s seriously like another planet."

"Hey," Claire chuckled. "I don't judge. My boyfriend has spider-blood and I don't think any of us didn't crush on Legolas when we Bootleg-Balled the 'LoTR' and 'Hobbit' trilogies."

"Legolas, yeah," Mae chuckled softly, "but Gollum not's much."

"Well," Kim frowned, as Jeanette's revelation sunk in. "That's-- that's impressive, uh-- logistically. An' I guess that explains 'ow yehr Legilimency speed-read 'is superbrain wivvout blinking."

"Never underestimate the power," Jeanette replied, "of an open mind."

"Yeah, well," Kim shrugged. "Forgive me if I still want t' protect m' friend from being too open too quick. Protect the one what's 'ere, an' th' fhree girls yet t' come."

Jeanette mulled this over. "Still again, you request my forgiveness without truly desiring it. But what you desire is for us to understand each other. And we do. You understand my philosophy towards love, and I understand your philosophy towards loyalty. And I will respect yours if you will respect mine."

Kim considered that. And nodded, slowly. "We have an accord."

Up at the front of the group, Tommy frowned. "One thing that's bothering me. I thought demons weren't able to pass onto hallowed ground. We should just be able to waltz into the church and spirit the thing away without interference, yeah?"

"There are as many Hells as there are myriad Heavens," Katrina pointed out, "and in those fractious Hells are many species, each capable of darksome powers, and many riven factions, all vying for the same ultimate control in the absence of their Lord. Azazel, Neron, Moloch, Mephisto, The Ogdru Jahad-- it is rumored that multiple factions work even now to each craft their own Horsemen of The Apocalypse, racing to be first to usher in their own version of the destined Armageddon. Which creatures and what cause we might face here, of course we know not."

"No," Tommy frowned. "No, I s'pose not."

"Hh," Ichabod harrumphed.

"Oh, he speaks," Katrina glanced at him dourly.

"It merely occurs to me," Ichabod retorted, "that for a woman who claims to not be of the variety of Witch that has congress with The Beast, you are certainly passingly familiar with his politics and troop movements."

"And our beloved Washington," Katrina returned fiercely, "has spies within the camps of The British, elsewise you would not have known to plot your Destruction of the Tea, and yet you do not accuse him of intimate relations with Henry Clinton, or with Charles Cornwallis!"

"That," Ichabod protested, "is an entirely disparate matter."

Katrina smiled faintly, sadly at him. "This is war."

It was then that they rounded the bend, saw the white wooden building amongst the trees, with its steeple and its hanging sign.

And saw that the building stood surrounded by a dozen Redcoats-- Redcoats who it seemed could not step foot upon the church grounds.

"They've found it," Ichabod frowned, spurring his horse, "but we may yet win this day!"

Tommy gestured frantically to the girls, breaking into a run, "COME ON!"

But even as Katrina clung 'round Ichabod's waist and his pale horse powered forward, Hell was indeed before them--

--one of the Redcoats strode brazenly onto the church's terrain, this one apparently not himself possessed, uttering a grim and gloaming prayer in German, promising fealty to and requesting protection from some terrible entity--

Katrina flung out her hand, summoning eldtritch forces of her own: "NO!"

--but, too late, as with a cry that split the air, the Hessian pronounced the incantation for Fiendfyre-- 

--and exploded in a column of flame, an infernal inferno that speared up into the blue and cast sizzling ash about him in every direction before flaring out again-- obviously their enemies did not want their prize consumed.

"They've profaned the church," Katrina clenched her eyes shut, "the ground is no longer holy, we need to hurry!"

A number of the Redcoats surrounding the church turned to face them, some of their eyes turned to dark, inky pools-- others twisted and mangled into what looked like hulking, hairless versions of Kurt Darkholme-- 

Ichabod reined in his horse with startlement, seeking traction on the moment even as he drew his pistol-- "These-- I have seen these before! My commander in the British forces exhibited precisely this disfigurement--!"

"Yeah," Claire Bennet growled, sprinting past him and hauling her shotgun out of its bag, "you're very smart. Shut up."

Chaos ensued. 

Explosions of power both manmade and magical-- splintered stone and shattered wood--

--leaping down from Ichabod's horse, Katrina stood on the road, thrusting her hands into the air, contorting trees to entangle their enemies--

--Jeanette Apparated, Jinxed, and Disapparated again, there and gone again, in the thick of their enemies, apparently as adept at violence as she was at romance--

--Claire pumped, fired, pumped, fired, filling demon hosts full of rock salt--

--Ichabod vaulted down from horseback, letting his steed whinny and whirl away from the abominations, and as the demons launched attacks at Katrina with fists and sword and gun, Ichabod replied ferociously in kind, as for all the temporal squabbles they might endure he would go with her to Hell itself and back--

--Kim touched Mae's arm, one hand on her head-- "The fhing-- the artifact-- I can see it, we're close enough now-- there's a secret room beneafh the sacristy-- if I can find it so can they, hurry!"

Mae nodded, threw off her riding cloak, spread her wings-- her hat hurtled off as she flew for a window of the church-- smashing through the glass...

Tommy sprinted into the fray, drawing his cutlass from a pocket in one hand, his wand in the other-- "AGUAMENTI SANCTI!" he roared, and blessed water poured from his wand-tip to sizzle like steak on the face of a screaming demon--

--and then Tommy vanished. Like-- he Vanished.

Even as she Untransfigured her parasol into the iron bo, Kim felt Tommy's mind wink out and she stared at the spot where he had been in horror. "BLUDDY 'ELL! TOM!"

A telekinetic burst from a demon threw Claire back against a tree-trunk, her shotgun spinning away, and the demon who had done so leered with darksome eyes at her as his force of mind pushed her up up up off the ground, up the trunk, and with pointing finger to guide his teke, he began to slice her forehead open...

Two massive demons with muscles as powerful as machinery lunged at Jeanette from either side, pinning her arms and wand, forcing her to her knees, as a third popped claws from its distorted hand, advancing on her with his gaze securely upon her throat...

Demonic electrokinesis rained down lightning upon Katrina and her tangling branches alike, she staggered and cried out tears of salty agony as the demons she'd trapped ripped free...

Ichabod whirled from a blistering sword-strike to see Katrina in her distress-- "NO!" --even as a leathery blue fist drove him skidding away.

Mae sprinted down the aisle of the church towards the sacristy, saw to her shock that a Redcoat hunched already in the room, she advanced on him with wand and stele ready, and as she raised her wand to Stun him...

...he whirled, half-twisted, to face her, a wand of his own pointing at her heart: "EXPELLIARMUS!" 

...it hit her dead-center, blowing her off of her feet, knocking wand and stele out of reach, but he did not stop there: "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA! PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"

...and as quickly as breathing, she found herself hovering upright, unable to move, wings straining like a butterfly pinned to a mounting board-- and staring down at a very familiar pair of eyes.

...Tommy stumbled, disoriented, momentarily bewildered, as the battle ranged and raged around him. A nightcrawler demon barreled for him, claws curled, and he spun to meet it with a slash that should have bisected it clean in twain, but his sword passed through the monster and the monster passed through him as if he were not even there. Tommy pirouetted in disbelief as the demon kept running, kept running for Kim... though Kim bravely met it with a whirling staff-strike that split its skull... it leaped to its feet again immediately after, and Tommy raised his wand to try and cut it down--

"Don't waste your breath," a booming voice intoned behind him. 

And Tommy saw that this voice was right-- belatedly, he could see it, with eyes that could see timelines. They were a step outside of Time, in a bubble of Time, an isolated pocket.

Tommy turned slowly--

--and saw there waiting for his gaze a square-jawed man, grey of hair and frightning of eye, wearing red red robes and on his left hand a gauntlet of steely adamas.

"The Basilisk," Tommy spat, eyebrows curling over his dark, dark eyes.