"What are we looking for again?"
"A demon that throws fireballs," Wyatt replied in a monotone, leaning backwards to sprawl out on the attic floor. "Like there aren't a couple thousand of them in the city."
Thirteen-year-old Melinda Halliwell rolled her eyes from her seat a few feet away, the Book of Shadows open in her lap. After a narrow escape with an unidentified demon that afternoon, Melinda and her brothers had spent the past hour trying to figure out what exactly they were dealing with so they could vanquish it. "Thank you, Merry Sunshine," came her sarcastic retort. "Could you be any less helpful?"
"We have to find this demon," Chris said, kneeling behind Melinda to peer over her shoulder. "If we don't find this guy ourselves, we're going to have to drag Mom, Aunt Paige, and Aunt Phoebe into it, and then we'll get a lecture on why we didn't come to them in the first place. I, for one, would rather avoid the three of them chewing us out at the same time, so could you pick your lazy ass up, Wyatt, and help us out?"
A serious lecture was the least of their worries if their parents or aunts discovered what had happened, she thought. Her mother especially wouldn't be pleased to hear that she'd been hurt in the confrontation and Wyatt had had to heal her. "Play nice, you two," mumbled Melinda as she continued to leaf through the book. "'Take him back' spell? What's this?"
Chris rested his chin on her shoulder, looking down at the aged page as he murmured the words. "Take him back, take him away. Remove him now, don't let him stay. We call the spirits to help undo and send him back to Timbuktu… What the hell kind of a spell is this?"
Looking up from the Book, Melinda's jaw dropped slightly. "Um, Chris?"
He glanced down at her curiously, wondering why she sounded worried. "What?"
Melinda bit her lip. "I think it's a spell that works."
Chris' head jerked around to where Wyatt had been on the floor, but all he saw was an empty space. "Shit." He hadn't thought about the fact that the spell might work if he said it. He should have known better, he mused – anything in the book was fair game, even if it said it required the power of three.
"Mom will kill you if she catches you talking like that."
"Forget that," Chris said, his concern growing by the second. "We just sent Wyatt to Timbuktu. He's going to be pissed when he gets back."
"No," corrected Melinda with a raised eyebrow. "You sent Wyatt to Timbuktu. I didn't read the words aloud."
He grumbled under his breath, knowing she was right. Wyatt was going to murder him. Catching a smile on Melinda's face, Chris huffed. It was one thing to know she was right; it was quite another for her to rub it in. "Bite me."
Melinda smirked. "Nah. Wyatt will kick your butt enough when he returns."
Just then, a blue light appeared in the middle of the room and in orbed Wyatt, the expression on his face making it clear he was seconds from exploding. "What the hell is wrong with you, Chris? You just sent me to f*cking Timbuktu!"
Though thoroughly amused and just itching to jump in, Melinda wisely kept her mouth shut. She could've said something about Wyatt's language just then, but she knew better than to do that when Wyatt was angry. As the oldest, he tended to boss her around, and she didn't feel like provoking that side of him. This was between Chris and Wyatt, and it was going to stay that way.
Unfortunately, Melinda didn't get to watch them hash it out as her name suddenly echoed up the stairs. "Mel?"
Her eyes widened a bit, wondering if she was in trouble. "Yeah, Mom?" she called back.
"Where are you?"
Piper's voice wasn't angry or suspicious, but Melinda remained cautious. "Up in the attic," she answered loudly, glancing at Wyatt out of the corner of her eye. He was silent as he listened to the exchange.
"Have you seen your brothers?"
She paused, aware that she had her brothers' undivided attention at that moment. "They're up here, too."
There was a brief pause before Melinda heard Piper's voice again, and this time it was tinged with suspicion. "What are you kids doing up there?"
"Just some studying," she replied smoothly, surprising herself. Usually Wyatt was the best at stretching the truth, as she had a hard time not blurting out the whole truth the moment she was confronted. Perhaps the fact that she couldn't see her mom's face helped, she thought. "Chris and Wyatt are helping me with history."
"Okay…" Piper seemed to buy the excuse. "Dinner will be ready in ten minutes, and I need someone to set the table."
Chris was about to volunteer when he was interrupted.
"I'm coming, Mom," Wyatt shouted, standing up quickly.
"No way!" Chris objected in a hushed voice, careful not to let Piper hear him. "You need to help find this demon, because you haven't done a damn thing other than to just lay there!"
"One of us has to go downstairs. It can't be Mel, because she said we're helping her study. And as for you," Wyatt paused, clapping a hand on Chris' shoulder, "your game face still needs work." Wyatt smirked. "That leaves me. Have fun!"
Before Chris could object further, Wyatt orbed out of the attic.
Chris resisted the urge to throw something, knowing that would draw their mother's attention at once. "He always does this!" he griped as he plopped down on the floor a few feet away from Melinda, draping his arms around his knees. "Wyatt leaves us to do all the research and shows up when it's time to actually vanquish the demon."
Her eldest brother's tendency to weasel his way out of the heavy work hadn't escaped Melinda's notice, but instead of letting it annoy her that evening, she opted for humor. "Yeah, well, that's because he's all brawn. If he sat around researching with us, he'd have to admit that we're smarter than he is." She threw Chris a wink, grinning when he snorted softly.
"Best not to let him hear you say that," Chris warned with a smile. "His ego couldn't take it."
Melinda giggled a bit before sobering up. "Seriously, though, Wyatt or not, we need to figure out who the demon is." Turning her attention back to the book, she turned the page and sighed. "I really hope we don't need the Power of Three for this. If we do, we're screwed."
"It'll be fine," reassured Chris. "We've got this. Just keep looking."