Thunder rumbled outside the house in Northeast Calgary, and Jenny Macmillan ran to the window to watch the storm approach. She turned back and looked at the three other girls who she’d invited to her slumber party and exclaimed, "This is going to be the most perfect night for our party. Look at this storm."

"I’d really rather not," murmured Debbie Jansen, the sound of the storm sending shivers through her body.

"Come back to the game, Jenny. It’s your turn again." Sharmala Nygard adjusted her position on the bed in front of the Monopoly board, proud of her hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place.

"I’m bored of the stupid game," Jenny droned. "You’ve already won, Sharm. Just take my money and cards." The flash from another lightning fork danced in her eyes.

"That’s not fair. We’ve been playing too long just to quit." Andrea Sherman was a close second to Sharmala. "I want to finish it properly."

"Oh, let’s just forget about the game," Jenny declared, her tone strong with annoyance. "Let’s go outside and watch this lightning in the backyard."

"That ranks right up there at the top of my list of favourite things to do," Andrea said sarcastically.

"I don’t think it would be wise, Jen. That lightning is very close to us." Debbie whispered.

"Let’s play the game. We’re almost done. Jen, it’s your turn." Sharmala pleaded as Jenny shot her a perturbed look.

"I’ve got a better idea," Jenny said with a sinister smile. "Let’s play with this." She opened the top drawer of her dresser and tossed a black leather-bound book toward the bed. It landed on top of the game board upsetting the hotels and houses. The other three girls were startled by the unexpected intrusion.

"Way to go, Jen," Andrea scolded. "You always have to have your way."

"What is this?" Shamala picked up the black book and traced the red pentagram embossed into the leather.

"It’s a book of magic spells." The three girls looked at Jenny suspiciously.

"Really?" asked Andrea skeptically, still upset about the game.

"Yes. Remember, when I went to my grandmother’s funeral in Lethbridge." The girls nodded, as Jenny paused. "We had to clean out her house and I got stuck with the attic. There was a trunk there that apparently belonged to my great-great-grandmother. I opened it up and most of the clothes and stuff were all rotten and moldy. Everything had gotten wet when the roof leaked or something. I was throwing things into a garbage bag when I found this book in a black silk bag. It was in perfect shape, like you see it."

"So have you used any of the spells in it?" Sharmala asked as she passed the book to Debbie, who quickly passed it to Andrea.

Jenny pointed out the window at the storm. "I did that, I think. The book is all in Latin, but it’s very easy to read. I’ve even used my Dad’s Latin dictionary to translate some of them."

"You caused this storm?" Andrea had forgotten about the game and was leafing through the pages of the book.

"Yes," Jenny stated with an evil grin.

Both Sharmala and Andrea got off the bed and joined Jenny by the window. "That’s quite a storm. You do good work, Jen." Sharmala whispered.

"I don’t think we should be playing around with this stuff. What if something bad happens?" Debbie cautioned.

Before Jenny could respond, there was a soft knock on her door and it opened slightly. The frightened face of her five-year-old brother, Aaron, peered around the door. "Jenny, I’m scared of the thunder."

Jenny shook her head in anger. Her parents had given her permission to have the slumber party only if she babysat Aaron, who normally would be sleeping. "Go back to bed, Aaron," she commanded harshly.

"But I’m scared," the small boy whined.

"Go back to bed, or so help me…" The door closed quickly, the little boy knowing his sister’s threats were never to be taken lightly.

"So, what have you picked out for us to try in here." Andrea held up the book, eager to see if it was real.

"Actually, I translated the description of one spell that is supposed to summon a spirit guide who will teach us even more powerful spells. And with the four of us here we have the requirements to make it happen.

"What are the requirements," Sharmala asked, taking the book from Andrea.

"We need a virgin in the room." Jenny looked at Debbie and raised her eyebrows. "And we’ve got Debbie for that."

"I guess we’re out of luck then," Debbie shot back defensively, "because I’m not a virgin."

"Yeah, right, Deb. We’re all friends here. It’s okay," Andrea consoled.

"I’m not a virgin, Andrea," Debbie declared. "You can believe what you want but your spell won’t work if that’s what you need."

"And just who have you lost it with?" Jenny asked.

"Doug." Debbie smiled as she saw all three girls’ mouths drop open. Doug was their high school class president and quarterback on the football team.

"Okay, so we need a spell that doesn’t need a virgin," Sharmala said matter-of-factly.

"No, we don’t. The description doesn’t say that the virgin has to participate in the spell." Jenny walked to her door, opened it and called for Aaron. The little boy peeked out of his room at Jenny and she said softly, "If you’re still scared of the storm, come and sleep in my room."

"Jen, don’t get him involved," Andrea whispered but Jenny just shook her head and came back into the room.

"There we go. We have one virgin. Now we have to sit in a circle with the book on the floor in the middle." Aaron appeared at the door, dragging a huge stuffed bear. "No, Aaron, leave the bear in your room."

"But Theodore is scared too." Aaron pulled the bear close to him. It was a big as him, and he’d dressed it in the Space Ranger costume he’d worn for Halloween, complete with helmet, cape, boots and a plastic laser gun in a holster.

"Space Rangers don’t get scared by storms. Put him back."

"He told me he is scared too," the little boy insisted.

"Oh, whatever. Just get into my bed and go to sleep. Don’t bother us or you’ll be back in your room."

Aaron settled into the bed quickly, pulling the bear on top of him. When she was convinced that he wasn’t going to present any problems, Jenny turned back to the girls and winked.

"So, what do we have to do now," Sharmala asked.

"I can’t believe you’re thinking of doing this with your little brother in the room," whispered Debbie as she stepped into Jenny’s path.

"Oh, don’t whine. He’ll be perfectly safe. The spell doesn’t require his blood or anything like that, just his presence in the room. Give me the book, Sharm. Let’s form a circle on the ground. The spell is very specific that no one can break that circle until we’re finished. That’s the only part that it says is dangerous."

Debbie grabbed the book as Sharmala passed it and whispered harshly, "You can’t do this with him here." She clutched the book against her chest.

"Give me the book, Debbie." Jenny glared at Debbie coldly. Outside the wind seemed to pick up and several brilliant flashes of lightning lit the room.

"No, you don’t know what might happen." Debbie stepped back realizing she couldn’t get to the door easily. Sharmala and Andrea stood quietly watching, as if they were in a trance.

"I’ll give you one more chance," Jenny warned, then she lunged at the frightened girl and grabbed the book. As she pulled it forcefully out of Debbie’s hands, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the room. Debbie let go of the book and covered her ears as the thunderclap tore through the air. When the resistance was gone, Jenny’s pulling caused the book to fly across the room and hit the dresser.

"That was way too close, Jenny. Can you stop the storm?" Andrea asked.

"It’s gone," whispered Sharmala as she looked out the window. "The sky is clear and there are stars shining."

"That’s not supposed to happen." Jenny looked at Debbie hard. "Maybe our fighting over the book interfered with the spell." Jenny walked over and picked up the book, which lay on the floor. A single sheet of paper lay beside it. "Oh great, a page came out."

"I’m sorry," Debbie said softly.

"Hey, look at the writing on this page. It looks like it’s done in gold." Jenny held the page out for the other three to examine. "I don’t remember seeing it in the book before, but I only skimmed through. Maybe it was stuck between pages."

"It looks like Latin that has been written phonetically. Is it a spell?" Andrea asked, passing the page to Sharmala.

"It must be but I don’t know what it does," Jenny shrugged.

"Let’s try it," Debbie said enthusiastically, drawing curious looks from all three girls.

"It looks fairly simple. Why not." Jenny sat down on the floor and crossed her legs, indicating for the other girls to join her. "We should probably hold hands for this one too, and remember not to break the circle."

The three girls sat down and Debbie set the page of golden writing on the floor in the middle. As they grasped hands, Jenny started reading the phrases from the page in a strong voice. Nothing happened for several moments, then a pale light started to glow just above them. As the watched, it grew in intensity and seemed to coalesce into a clear blue gemstone floating just over their heads.

When Jenny finished reading the words on the page, she looked up at the floating crystal and smiled. Andrea glanced down at the page that Jenny had been reading and noticed that the words were moving. "Jenny, look at the spell. It’s changing or something."

"That’s something I’ve never seen before," Jenny whispered, and the other girls nodded. "Guess, it wants me to read on."

As she spoke the new words, the glow became brighter, changing from the soft blue to a brilliant white. She was almost done reading when a small voice behind her asked, "What’s that, Jenny?"

With her back to the bed, Jenny hadn’t seen Aaron get up. Her temper flashed and she stood up quickly, not even thinking about her own admonition to not break the circle. She took one step toward her brother and suddenly the light from the crystal flared up and shot past her right side, like a balloon with the air escaping. It ricocheted off the corner of the bedpost, hit the ceiling and the wall. It knocked books off her desk as it continued to bounce like a pinball off surfaces in the room. Andrea and Sharmala dived for the closet. Debbie remained sitting on the floor with her eyes closed. The glowing crystal bounced off the floor and hit the light fixture in the ceiling, shattering the bulb in a hail of sparks, then it dropped rapidly to the bed and vanished when it impacted the oversized teddy bear still lying there.

The room grew very quiet and Jenny asked, "Is everyone alright? I guess I shouldn’t have done that." She was crouched down with Aaron under her. She hadn’t seen where the crystal went because her eyes had been closed. "Where did it go?"

"It must have bounced out the door," Sharmala offered, pointing at the open door, "but I don’t hear it anymore."

Debbie was still sitting on the floor and she took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. "What happened? Where’s the crystal? It told me it had chosen me. Where did it go?"

"What do you mean it chose you?" Andrea asked, standing up and adjusting her clothing.

"When you started reading the second page, I heard it, or at least felt it, tell me that it had chosen me to be its host. I couldn’t resist it, so I said yes. What happened? My eyes were closed." Debbie looked at each of the three girls.

"Jenny broke the circle and I guess it escaped," said Sharmala sarcastically.

"What did it want you for, Deb?" Jenny ignored the comment and questioned her friend.

"All it said was something of great importance." Debbie stood up and stretched. She bent down to pick up the paper containing the spell. "We need to do it again. You didn’t complete the whole spell." Suddenly she stopped speaking and read the paper. "That’s weird. It’s in English."

The other three girls came close to examine the paper. Jenny snatched it and read the single line of text, "Light has a new champion. Thank you."

"But nothing happened. I didn’t receive the crystal. Who’s the champion?" Jenny was frantic. "It was supposed to be me," she whined.

"Where’s the book?" Sharmala asked, looking around the floor.

"I set it on the floor behind me when we started." Jenny turned around and spotted a corner of the book under the bed. As she picked it up, the whole book crumbled into dust in her hand. "That was weird. I think more happened with that spell than we imagined. Let’s go find out where the crystal went when it left the room."

Jenny felt a soft tug on her shirt and turned to Aaron. "You can’t tell anyone about this, Aaron." She stopped talking and followed her brother’s transfixed gaze to her bed. Her eyes grew wide and the other girls turned to see what she was looking at.

The teddy bear was sitting up on the bed, and a faint sound of raspy breathing came from its direction. It turned its head and took in its surroundings slowly. As the girls backed away, the bear shifted itself off the bed and shuffled stiffly to Jenny’s vanity table. It climbed onto the chair and stared at itself in the mirror. It growled and muttered several unusual sounds to itself then turned and looked at Debbie. Again it spoke in a deep growly voice, but no words were intelligible.

"Theodore, is that you?" Aaron took a step toward the bear, who cocked his head inquisitively.

Jenny grabbed Aaron quickly and pushed him behind her. "I don’t know what you are, but you’re not welcome here. If you can understand me, please leave."

Theodore climbed off the chair and pointed with a short finger at Debbie, muttering more unusual sounds. "I know, it was supposed to be me," Debbie apologized, assuming the bear was aware that she had been chosen.

As the bear took a step toward them, its movements becoming smoother, Jenny picked up Aaron and bolted toward the door. Andrea and Sharmala followed quickly behind. Debbie paused only for a moment and then left the room as well, pulling the door shut behind her.

They sat speechless in the hall for a long time listening to the bear moving around the room. After an hour it grew quiet in the room and Debbie whispered, "Maybe he’s hungry or something. We should get him some food."

"I just want it out of the house," Jenny said angrily. "I’m not about to make it feel at home."

"It’s been quiet in there for a long time. Maybe it’s changed back. It was supposed to be Debbie and not some teddy bear. The spell might have worn off or something."

"What’s happened to Theodore, Jenny. Is he alive now." Aaron had stared wide-eyed at Jenny’s bedroom door the entire hour.

"I don’t know, Aaron. Don’t ask me anymore. And don’t you dare tell Mom and Dad." She got up and walked to her door, slowly turning the knob and peering inside.

"What’s it doing?" Sharmala asked trying to see past Jenny.

"It appears to have left." Jenny stepped into the room. The bed was pulled to the open window. The sheets were tied together and dangled out the window, blowing gently in the evening breeze.

"Should we report this to someone?" Andrea asked.

"Yeah, right, who do you call to report an escaped teddy bear, the Police? Or maybe we should call the Humane Society? We could even call Matrix and tell them." Jenny’s tone was sarcastic and belittling. "I think we should just forget it happened and let someone else deal with it."

"Is Theodore not coming back?" Aaron asked, tears in his eyes.

"Yes. He’s gone forever. Now, go back to bed. We’ll buy you a new bear even better than Theodore tomorrow." Jenny turned and started to put her room back together. Aaron complied with his sister’s order as tears streamed down his face. Andrea and Sharmala shrugged at each other and helped Jenny move the bed away from the window.

Debbie looked out into the dark night and whispered to herself, "No, he’ll be back. He’s got a lot of work to do."

"Put all the money in the bag, old man, or I’ll kill you where you stand," Vince Policelli threatened. He wore a ski mask and waved a gun at the gas station attendant. "And don’t even think of hitting that alarm button."

"Please don’t shoot me. Most of the money is in the safe." Walter Smith’s hands shook as he took the small amount of cash out of the till. This was the third robbery at the station in under a month and the new safe held most of the money on hand.

"Then give me cigarettes too," Vince snarled. As Walter rushed to comply, Vince became aware of a low growling sound behind him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder but saw nothing.

"There, that’s all I’ve got." Walter passed the bag of cash and cigarettes across the counter and then noticed the movement behind Vince. "What the heck is that?" he asked in a whisper.

"Nice try, old man." Turning sharply, Vince jumped back at the site of the short creature that stood behind him. It looked like a teddy bear wearing a shirt with "Space Ranger" on the front, and pointing a rather large gun at the young man. "Hey, easy with that, little fellow. You might hurt someone."

The bear growled and muttered something, its dark eyes never wavering from the thief’s face. The attendant carefully pushed the silent alarm button under the counter while watching the confrontation.

Realizing that the gun the bear was wielding was only plastic, the thief laughed loudly and pushed it away with his hand. "You’d better be careful, I hear bear season is open." As he pulled his gun from the pocket of his jacket, the bear suddenly jumped at him and slammed its fist into his groin viciously. A whimper came from the thief’s mouth as he fell to the floor clutching himself.

"I don’t know who you are but thanks." The old man leaned over the counter and chuckled at the thief curled up in a ball on the floor. The sound of a siren was heard in the distance and the bear-like creature turned and ran out the door into the night.

Officers Brian Kent and Sandy Wilson couldn’t help but laugh as their headlights illuminated the car parked in the dark alley. A burly man wearing a leather jacket was hog-tied on the hood of the car with what looked like a seatbelt. Other than the jacket, he was wearing only sweat socks. He turned his head away from the light and struggled to get free.

A young woman rushed toward the police cruiser, her face bruised and wet with tears. She held her blouse tightly closed with her hands and her skirt was partially torn. As Sandy got out of the car, the woman ran to her quickly. "That man tried to rape me," she sobbed. Brian radioed for an ambulance to be dispatched to the scene to deal with any injuries the woman might have.

"Okay, ma’am, you’re alright now. You’re safe. What’s your name?"

"Linda, Linda Parker." Sandy noted that the name matched what dispatch had passed on when a woman called from a cellular phone to say she’d almost been raped.

"I’m going to need you to give me a statement, but first, tell me how you managed to tie up your attacker so well."

"I didn’t. The bear did." The woman took a blanket offered by Brian and wrapped it tightly around her. Brian then moved toward the man tied on the hood of the car.

"Did you say a bear, ma’am?" Sandy looked up from her notepad.

"Yes, but he was no ordinary bear. His shirt said he was with the Space Rangers."

"The bear was wearing a shirt." Sandy tried not to sound incredulous.

"Yes, and a helmet and a cape and boots. He was only about so high," Linda continued indicating about three and a half feet with her hand, "but he was quick and strong."

"You’ve lost me. What kind of bear was this? Black? Grizzly?"

"No. Oh no, he was more like a teddy bear." Linda appeared completely convinced that her story was true.

Sandy’s attention was drawn to the corner of the parking lot when the man on the hood started cursing loudly at Brian. "Give me just a minute to give my partner a hand and then we’ll finish the statement."

Brian had handcuffed the rapist and was trying to untie the man’s legs. "Please, remain still, sir. I can’t help you if you struggle."

"Everything under control, Officer Kent?" Sandy asked, her hand resting on her sidearm.

"This is a seatbelt. It’s been ripped right out of the car and tied very well. This was some Boy Scout."

"Sir, can you describe the person who did this to you?" Sandy was curious to see how he described his assailant.

"It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Looked like some big teddy bear in a spaceman costume." Brian looked at Sandy, who just shrugged.

"Thank you. Officer Kent will untie you and we’ll get you a blanket before taking you downtown." Sandy walked back over to Linda, who was much more composed now. "Okay, Linda, describe for me, in your own words what happened.

"That man lives in my townhouse complex. His name is Russell. He saw me at the mall waiting for a bus and offered me a ride home. He’s always been nice like that. Well, he drove us here and then he reaches over and starts grabbing at my breasts. I opened the door to get out of the car but he blocked me from undoing my seatbelt and climbed on top of me after tearing my skirt. The door was still open and this cute little bear, the Space Ranger, appears at the door and growls at him. Russell pushed the bear away and suddenly the bear pulls him out of the car. Russell didn’t stand a chance. It only took a couple minutes for the bear to knock him out and tie him up."

"And where did the bear go when he finished tying him up." Sandy wondered if this was a new superhero from Matrix, or maybe the shapeshifter Omni.

"He just ran into the dark and was gone. That’s when I called the police on my cellular phone.

"Thanks, Linda." The ambulance and a second police cruiser arrived at that moment. "The paramedics will want to check you over and then we’ll take you down to the precinct to get a full statement."

"Thanks." Linda went with the paramedics, and Sandy walked over to Brian.

"He’s not denying the attempted rape, even after I explained his rights. He swears that it was a teddy bear that beat him up and tied him up." Brian held up the end of the seatbelt, which was torn. "That would have been quite a strong teddy bear to rip this."

"I’m going to call in and see if they’ve got any other unusual reports." Sandy squeezed the microphone hanging on her shirt and reported, "This is Officer Wilson, Badge 3566. I’ve got a woman here who claims she was rescued by a big teddy bear."

"Was the bear wearing a Space Ranger costume?"

"Yes," Sandy responded.

"That has to be the busiest teddy bear in the city."

"Pardon?" Brian grinned as he listened.

"That women is the twelfth report we’ve had tonight of a bear coming to people’s rescue. We’ve just alerted Matrix to the situation. They’ll need your reports and will probably want to investigate further."

"Roger, I think."

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