Snippet #875505

"Hello, Renar residence." Jordan clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder. He needed both hands to fumble with the fire extinguisher. "This is Jordan speaking."

Logan would have heard a whoosh as Jordan sent a blast of foam onto a merry blaze feeding off most of their living room table. The thing had cracked and collapsed like kindling.

The Renar's pleasant three-story home was in shambles. What wasn't smoking had been toppled over and smashed. The china cabinet had its innards sprawled out, dangerous and glinting shards. Jordan took care to avoid that part of the room. Having taken care of the larger fire, he scrambled over the up-ended sofa where he thought he saw something else burning.

While Logan breathlessly explained what had happened to him in the others, Jordan ambled through the ravaged home in a sort of stupor, dousing smaller fires here and there. Though the dining room and living rooms had taken the most damage, the kitchen was in fair disarray as well. There was a faucet running, and all the plates had found their way out of the cupboards -- onto the marble floor in bits and bits. That wasn't even mentionining the cutlery. There had been quite a scuffle.

Sylvia was in the kitchen, now, screeching. She was sitting on the chest of a thin man, pounding at him with her little fists. A periwinkle hat lay alone and crumpled under what had once been their ceiling fan. Sylvia shrieked and shrieked, and the man cried and cried. Jordan plugged his pinky into his spare ear.

"What? Yeah, Logan. I can hear you. No, this isn't a bad time. My sister is only about to commit murder."

"Who the hell do you think you are? Coming in here, throwing your fucking FIREBALLS at us?"

"Should I stop her? It's really good for her, I think."

"If you and the rest of your CULT BUDDIES think we're going to have ANYTHING to do with you .. HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU, WALTER KRONKITE .. "

"Definitely clearing out some bottled up aggression. Might just let her go on for a while."

"I should rip your THROAT out, and stuff your EYEBALLS up your -- "

"Yeah. Yeah, good point. Let me get her a second."

"Sylvie?" Jordan stepped back into the kitchen, waving smoke from his eyes. "Hey. Hi. Busy? No? Okay. It's Logan."

Sylvia turned, looked around. Some of her curls had fallen in front of her face. She smiled at him lovingly. "Jordan, sweetie, may I borrow the extinguisher?"

Jordan covered the reciever of the phone. He looked down at the petrified Wizard, who was frantically mouthing -- 'NONONONON -- '

"Are you going to bludgeon him?" Jordan asked fairly.

"Of course not."

"Do you know what 'bludgeon' means?"

"Give it!"

Jordan brought the phone back up to his ear just as Logan asked for an account of what had happened up in Cedar Heights. Jordan was only too happy to oblige.

Literal seconds after the call to Nikki had gone to voicemail, a fireball had slammed through the Renar's kitchen window. This didn't speak particularly to any sort of marskmanship skill, considering how large the thing was. Still, Sylvia had shrieked and fallen to the ground. Jordan went the route of a more manly-type shout, and wasn't too far behind joining his sister.

They had crouched there, breathing heavily while their house alarm and smoke detectors wailed. Sylvia rolled to the keypad on the wall, while Jordan went for the round white thing above the sink. Soon, there was silence. They stared at each other.

While their ears rang and their hearts pounded .. there came four polite raps on the front door.

Things had picked up speed from there. There was a lot of shouting about 'Where Mrs. Renar was!' and how the kids 'Didn't know and wouldn't tell anyways.' Of course, there were a lot more adjectives thrown in, and a lot more fireballs. Eventually -- after most of the house had been trashed -- the Wizard learned not to piss off a hundred pound female. Sylvia went for the cutting board and cracked the man in the head, knocking his hat off as she did so. He wasn't shouting so confidently, now. In fact, he was doing much more whimpering these days.

Their phones had quickly been jammed down the trash disposal once the block letters started scrolling. Just to be safe, Jordan had turned the water on, too -- filling the entire sink to short the circuits. He crossed the kitchen, now, and shut the faucet off. The sink gurgled wickedly.

By now, the siblings had reasoned that their mother's work at the Conklin Center downtown had everything to do with all this madness. Jordan pointedly avoided mentioning this to Logan as he finished the story.

" .. so, yeah. Sylvia got mad fast. Things are under control, more or less." Another whoosh; Jordan had missed the sink towels smouldering. "Where are you guys again? Wedgewood? You need a ride? Well, how did you get there?" Jordan frowned. "Wait. How in the heck did you fit three people on .. "

"They need a ride?" Sylvia looked back around. She observed Jordan with a curious expression. "Well, Jordan. Go get your keys, and we'll get them!"

"We are not going to pick them up." Jordan covered the receiver again.

"It's what mom would want us to do!"

"Dad wouldn't want us leaving the house."

"Mom wouldn't want them out there by themselves."

"Dad would tell us to not be idiots."

"Mom would say it's too late for that."

Sister and brother stared each other down. Jordan pretty much knew he had already lost. After glaring the glare to end all glares at Sylvia, Jordan uncovered the phone and returned to the conversation.

"Logan? Yeah, bro. Stay put. I'll come and get you in the truck. Tell Dawn to chill out. I don't wan you cramming three people on that bike again."

Jordan ended the call, stepped to the side, and carefully set the cordless phone back in its cradle.

"So." He cleared his throat, shifted his hold on the fire extinguisher, and looked down rather awkwardly at the wizard. "What're we gonna do with Mr. Chuckles here?"

"I don't know, Jordan." Sylvia raised the cutting board, and the wizard started to whimper again. "What do you think he was gonna do with us?"

"We'll take him along." Jordan decided. He set the extinguisher down, and reached for his CSHS lanyard that had his keys. "He shouldn't be too much trouble after the thrashing you gave him."

Sylvia absently hummed a Taylor Swift song as she seized a handful of the Wizards hair, and hauled him up and towards the door. She hefted the cutting board in her hand as a sort of cattleprod. While the two left the house, Jordan took the time to look around, let it all sink in.

This was his life. This was his life, smashed to bits and burning. No more rich lake-front houses for him anymore. Everything had changed. The world had changed.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Jordan grabbed a Klondike bar from the freezer before joining his sister and her hostage in his truck.

"Seatbelts." Was all he said as he climbed into the drivers's seat.

"Are you fucking kidding me." Sylvia poked her head out from the back. The Wizard was cowed neatly as far against the window as he could physically go. "What, you think we're gonna get a ticket for -- "

"I think if we're gonna be doing any evasive driving, I want you buckled up." Jordan jangled the keys, turned the engine on. He never thought he'd be so glad to hear his baby's V8 in his entire life. "Do it, Sylvie."

She scowled at him. "The end of the world trumps your five-star crash test rating." and she sprawled out, one foot on the Wizard's chest just to let him know, again, who was in charge.

"Your funeral." Jordan said, shrugging, as he backed them out of the driveway.

"You know .. " Sylvia poked her head out one more time. "Given the circumstances, that was a really poor choice of words."