"They're still not answering," Morris said, holding the cellphone up to his ear.
"It doesn't matter. We're already here," Kendall said. The car stopped and the two men got out.
Agent Kendall approached Agent Folmer's car carefully. There was a good chance that they were dead ... or swapped. He couldn't think of any other reason why they wouldn't be answering their calls.
Imagine his surprise when he saw them sleeping.
"God damn it!" he yelled, then reached in through the half-opened window and opened the door.
The sudden noise seemed to stir Agent Folmer awake. He looked up at Kendall with sleepy eyes, which then turned into wide eyes.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Kendall yelled. "You're supposed to be watching the house!"
"We ... we were. But then these people ... they came by and started asking about Jane Madison. We tried to take care of them, but ..."
"But what?"
"We ... fell asleep," Folmer said, as if he couldn't quite believe it himself.
"I got one shot off," Agent Willis said, still trying to wake up fully. "See?" he said, pointing to the back window.
Kendall looked and saw the bullet hole and the large crack it had caused.
"But before I could do anything else, I ... I fell asleep." He thought for a moment. "That girl. She was ... chanting something."
"Chanting?" Kendall asked.
"Yeah," Folmer agreed. "I remember that."
"Could she have been a witch?" Kendall asked.
Folmer and Willis looked at each other, then laughed. But when they looked at Kendall, they saw that he wasn't laughing. It was a serious question.
"Witches don't exist," Folmer said, firmly. Then he asked "Right?"
"You'd be surprised what you think doesn't exist but does," Kendall said. He looked at the house. "Whoever those people were, they're probably inside the house right now. While you were asleep, we detected a spike. Someone in that house is using magic."
Folmer and Willis looked at each other again and exchanged odd glances. Had Agent Kendall lost his marbles? First he talks about witches, then magic? This was the real world - magic was for children and fairy tales. They were sure that this body swapping phenomenon was being caused by some experimental machine, not someone's magic wand.
"Morris," Kendall said.
"Yes?"
"Get the briefcase."
Morris nodded, then headed back to their car. A moment later, he came back with a metal case. Kendall opened it and took out the device he used back at the Pussy Kat Klub. He put on the headset, but didn't turn them on, yet.
"Come on," Kendall said, and Morris and the two agents followed him up to the house.
Jane picked up the phone.
"What are you doing?" Rachel asked.
"I want to call my sister again. I need to know if she's okay."
Rachel grabbed the phone from her and put it down. "I think you've gotten us into enough trouble today already."
"What are you talking about? You're acting like I did that on purpose. You think I wanted my sister to swap with her daughter?"
"No," Rachel said. "But ..."
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
"I wonder who that could be," Jane said, approaching the door.
Rachel grabbed her and held her still. "Goddess, what is wrong with you? Do you have to answer everything?"
"It might be my son," Jane said.
"Or it could be someone else. There are a lot of crazies out there, especially today."
Jane looked at her, then shrugged her off. "This is my house. I can answer my door if I want to." She walked to the door, then opened it.
Outside were three men in suits and ties and one of them was wearing some sort of headset/goggles. He reached up and apparently turned the goggles on. Then he smiled. "I've been waiting all day for this." He grabbed her arm.
"Hey! Let go of me!" Jane yelled.
"This is her. Take her," the man said, and the two other suited guys took her out of the house. Then the man entered the house with another guy, who looked a little nerdier (especially with those glasses), then shut the door behind him. "Now," he said. "Which one of you is a witch?"
Rachel, Zoe, and Athena all exchanged glances.
"Who are you?" Rachel asked.
"Special Agent Steven Kendall, FBI," he said. "And this is Dr. Morris Bertman," he said, gesturing towards the nerdy guy.
"You were talking to those two guys out in the car," Rachel said. "About Jane Madison. What do you need her for?"
"That's no concern of yours. What should concern you are the consequences of your actions."
"Actions? What actions?" Rachel asked. Who was this guy?
Kendall turned off the goggles. "Causing a phenomenon of this magnitude is serious business. But to spike it? That's borderline insanity."
"Who are you?" Rachel asked again. "Really, this time. You're not FBI."
Kendall smiled. "I can be whatever I need to be. And for the moment, FBI is just fine."
Rachel started to get nervous, which made Athena and Zoe uncomfortable, because Rachel usually wasn't nervous.
A knock at the door broke the uneasy silence.
Kendall turned towards the door. "What are they still doing here? They should be back at home base by now," he said, before opening the door.
"We're almost there," Scarlet said, peeking around the corner of one of the houses on the block. They may have gotten rid of their orange prison suits, but they still looked dangerous. And it was the warden's suggestion that they keep to the shadows, just in case.
Scarlet was about to move around the corner, but halted when she saw a black car speeding down the road, which then stopped near Zoe's house, next to another black car.
"What are they ..." she muttered to herself.
"Is there a problem?" Debra asked.
"I'm not sure. There are some people outside Zoe's house. I'm not sure who they are, but they might be dangerous."
"We better be more careful, then," George said. He nodded for Scarlet to keep moving.
As they got closer, they heard someone yelling in anger, then an inaudible conversation. And then they watched one of the guys run back to the car that had just arrived there and grab a metal case, which he then brought back to the other car.
"What are they doing?" Debra asked.
"I don't know," Scarlet answered.
One of the men put something on his head, then walked across the street. The guy who had the case and also two men from the parked car walked with him.
When Scarlet, Debra, and George got close enough, they saw that the men were headed towards Zoe's house.
"Okay, we definitely have a problem now," Scarlet said.
They stealthily moved on, getting closer and closer. As they did, they watched the two men from the parked car escort a young woman out of the Madison house. Scarlet didn't recognize her. They shoved her into the backseat of their car, then got in themselves and drove off.
The two other men were still in the house.
A few minutes later, they had finally made it ... and without any real complications. Scarlet walked up to the door and was about to knock, but then stopped.
"What's the matter?" Debra asked.
"Those two men are still in there."
George didn't come all this way just to stop. He reached forward and knocked on the door. Scarlet turned and glared at him.
When the door opened, she turned back and got quite a surprise.
"Kendall?" she asked.
