Chapter 2

"You did it! You really did it! We've been after him for the last six seasons, but you really did it! It's finally over!" said the Mayor beaming.

He was beside himself with joy to have Brandon now in jail.

They would finally be able to make sure that he paid for his crimes after all this time. Without Brandon around to lead them they were able to round up a few of his men as well, but made sure they kept them separated from each other to be safe.

"It wasn't all that bad for us. He was pretty easy once you got close enough," said Ariel smiling with a 10,000 megawatt smile for the mayor.

No one could miss the lively bounce in her step or the way she seemed to almost purr at those around her.

While it was early in the afternoon, that was the soonest they could even manage to Nathan out of bed, and that was why they were having their meeting with the mayor so late.

Though even now, after having been in bed since about this time yesterday, Nathan still looked a touch tired and groggy. He didn't look completely sleepy, but to those who knew him they realized he was off his game and dragging, and not even close to as alert as he normally was.

Terrance and Rory knew that while he was happy to do this for his wife and to be debriefed by the Mayor, as soon as they were through here they both also knew that Nathan was headed back to bed.

Yet as tired as he looked they still secretly wanted to know what Ariel did to him that caused him to look this way time after time.

Her actions gave them the impression she was completely insatiable, and they really wanted to know if that was true. If it was, then it was also clear that one man would never be enough to satisfy her, and they really wanted to be in on taking up some of that slack.

Even though they knew deep down in their hearts it would never happen as they watched the way she looked at her husband. Both Ariel and Nathan said that his tiredness was due to all the wild magic in her that needed to be tamed, and that could only be done by Nathan. But it didn't stop them from wondering.

Yet what was funny was that, while they both wished they had met her before Nathan, they had never been told by either Ariel or Nathan that while Nathan looked to be in his early thirties and Ariel in her late twenties, Ariel was the oldest of the pair with both well into their sixties.

Neither man had even been born yet when the two of them met. More than likely both sets of their parents were still taking their first steps when Nathan and Ariel first met.

"Don't be so modest my dear. If there is anything I can ever do for you, I swear on lives of myself and my family, the lives of my only brothers family, including his woman on the side and the child he doesn't think any of us know about, that the citizens of this town will do all in our power to make it happen," said the Mayor with a large smile as he looked around the room at them.

Right before anyone could speak again the Mayor's secretary burst in the room making a beeline straight for the Mayor. Everyone could see that she was clearly excited.

The young lady looked to be in her late teens. She had her short brown hair cut close to her collar, but it followed her face nicely as she had more of an oval face. She also had blue eyes that were shining with news as she approached.

Both Terrance and Rory noticed the nice youthful figure that her pale yellow dress did a poor job of hiding.

If the Mayor hadn't introduced her early on as his niece they might have thought to make a play for her after the job was done, but it was dangerous to make enemies of people in charge if the relationship went sour.

"She's back! Our Angel of Mercy came back and she said she originally wanted to check in on us, and see if we had ever fixed our problem with Brandon since she was passing back this way again! How could someone be that selfless to worry about perfect strangers like us?" said the young women gushing as she faced the Mayor.

"Everyone this is a treat. You'll get to meet the one person who single handedly saved this town last season from a plague that should have wiped well over half of us out. Miranda, her mother, and two brothers were some of the ones that were saved," said the Mayor with an answering smile for his secretary.

As everyone looked at each other in confusion the Mayor said "Miranda, please send her in."

The young woman rushed out the door to get her hero from before who had saved so many people.

While Kat was standing outside the Mayors office waiting, she was reliving the last time she was here almost a season ago.

"My god what do we do? We've lost several families to this plague! Everyone is sick and no one knows what it's from and how to fix it. What do we do?!" asked the Mayor to no one in particular as he paced back and forth.

This was a meeting of the town council and they were trying to figure out what to do to save the citizens. It was ten members of the council and the Mayor trying to figure out how to stop this crisis.

"So far the count is twenty three dead, and countless others sick. We have no way to save them all. Well over half of the citizens have..." started councilmen Fredrick Peters before a wracking cough over took his speech.

"My God you have it too. And you came here? You've infected us all!" said councilwoman Linda Fackler as she drew away from Fredrick, as if that would save her at this point.

"Like it matters? We have no idea how it's even being spread! For all we know everyone is already sick! Every day brings new deaths and more who are sick. The only thing we can do is quarantine this town and keep it from spreading to the countryside. The best we can hope is that bastard Brandon comes back and this also wipes out his gang," said Mayor Abramson bitterly.

"I bet he's the one who did this! I bet he's laughing at us as we struggle and die. We need to send some people to make him tell us how to fix this," said councilmen Stevens

"Yep, because that worked out so well the last few times we sent men to find him. I bet the men will do so much better while weak and coughing as they face him this time," said Councilwoman Mary Howard with a sour expression.

The scowl from Stevens was apparent to everyone from the sarcasm.

As the group broke down into murmuring with a few outbursts, the door suddenly swung open with a bang and Miranda Abramson rushed into the room headed towards where her uncle was seated at the head of the table.

"UncleCalebwehaveawaytofixthis!" Miranda seemed to scream as all her word flowed together.

"Miranda! What have I told you about interrupting council business! This is critical! Now get out and go back to your dessskkk..." said the Mayor as his speech trailed off.

A he thought about it, he realized that Miranda hadn't been to work in days because she was out sick since she was just starting to show symptoms of coming down with this plague, and so he sent her home to rest.

Getting up from the table, he didn't even notice as the table went silent as everyone could see the look on his face as he approached his niece with a look of utter shock on it.

"Miranda? How is this possible? You were sick two days ago. You were coughing ... you had a fever ... How are you better?" asked the Mayor.

"It was her!" said Miranda as she pointed back the way she came.

As the council looked in the doorway they could see a very attractive yet young brown haired woman just standing there. She was wearing light brown button up shirt and dark brown home spun pants, but they did nothing to hide her voluptuous figure from prying eyes. They were sure she couldn't be more than eighteen at best from looking at her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I found this young lady wandering outside of town delirious. I recognized what was wrong with her, and after I gathered some herbs and used a little magic on them, I was able to cure her.

"Once I did she asked me to follow her home and I was able to cure her mother and two brothers as well. If you don't mind I can cure everyone with a little time and some help. We just need to gather the right ingredients to fix this," said Kat in a soft voice.

Several of the men seemed to be staring as she spoke. There was something about her that just drew you to her and all the males wanted to find the nearest bed to take her too.

But almost as if she noticed what the men were thinking, suddenly whatever it was they felt, as she smiled around at everyone in the room, was now gone and the men seemed to start to think more clearly. They still found her desirable, but the blinding desire was suddenly gone.

Kat had dropped her guard around Miranda and forget that sometimes she affected males this way if she wasn't careful. If she wasn't so tired from working around the clock to gather the herbs, create the cure, and then cure her family she would have had a better grip on her power just then.

"How do we know..." started Fredrick before his wracking cough started and he all but collapsed across the table.

Walking into the room Kat took a flask from her hip. She opened it as she reached Fredrick, and using her left hand that started to glow she placed it over his head as she put the flask to his lips.

Fredrick, before he thought better of it started to drink for some reason and after a few gulps started to feel almost instantly better. What no one realized was that Kat put him under a compulsion and made Fredrick drink.

To everyone's shock and amazement after a few moments Fredrick was able to sit up. The cough and his tired manner were completely gone. He was looking around the room with bright eyes at everyone.

"I'm cured! I've never felt better in my life! Young lady what did you do?" and Fredrick.

"It's something I've seen before in my travels and it is curable. But we need to move fast if we are going to save everyone," said Kat with a smile.

The council quickly broke up as every available body in the town was instructed to find the plants Kat needed to start her cure.

As Kat thought back about that she remembered how everyone brought her and some helpers all the herbs she needed. Having a paraded of almost everyone in town coming to the office that she was working out of, Kat worked for almost two days straight healing everyone round the clock.

While she was able to use her magic at the time to keep her from getting tired, at the time she was starting to run low on power from using it to heal so many.

Thankfully there were quite a few young men who wanted to be with the town's savior. She was discreet enough to not having them all at the same time, but she took just enough power from them all to build up her reserves and leave them with happy dreams of their encounter.

Soon she needed to leave the town, even though they wanted her to stay and help with another problem. She said if she was ever back this way she would try to help, but in all honestly she didn't really expect to ever come back.

But now that she had she was ready to try and fix their other problem if it still existed. The only problem was that she was just told that a group of mercenaries had already captured him.

Well the least she thought she could do was say hi to the Mayor since she was here before she left. The only thing was that she was starting to feel a familiar magical pull. She was trying to place where she last felt it and why it felt so familiar to her.

While Kat was still lost in thought the door opened and Miranda waved her inside.

"Uncle Caleb is ready to see you now," said the young woman with a large smile.

Just barely inside the door Kat stopped frozen looking on in horror as she heard "YOU!"

Kat realized at some point she would have to face some of the ones she had harmed in the past, but she still wasn't ready for the encounter.

The young woman opened the door and beckoned the young woman who was standing at her desk into the room and Nathan and his friends heard her say "Uncle Caleb is ready to see you now."