"Binding Ties"
Disclaimer: Aaron Spelling and the former WB own Charmed, which is the creation of Constance M. Burge. I own nothing, and no profit is being made from this work of fan fiction.
She did it for love. Prue smiled weakly despite the tears that threatened to fall. In any other place, at any other time, she might have laughed at the irony. Here in this dank cave, surrounded by a handful of flickering candles, after the ordeal she had just gone through, she needed most of her inner strength to suppress the grief that arose from that thought. The other thoughts that followed it weren't much better.
She had been reasonably sure that Tempus would carry out the Source's order to restart the day, if only because the exposure of magic threatened evil and good alike. Leo had orbed Phoebe out of the Underworld; Prue had seen to that herself, despite her sister's protests that she hadn't found Cole yet and that she wouldn't leave without Prue. All of her considerable skill at intimidation had been necessary to make Phoebe see that this was the only way to fix things. She had said the same thing earlier, when Leo came to the hospital. The two of them had finally orbed to the Underworld, found Phoebe and gotten her out. Then Prue went before the Source to fix her own mess and save her sisters. She had made a deal with the devil himself.
Piper would not die of that random gunshot wound. Phoebe wouldn't be targeted because of her relationship with Cole. The horrible way she'd treated that innocent misguided girl, the near death of Dr. Griffiths, the position she'd put Darryl Morris into -- all would be undone when the day started over. Prue had to believe that.
Her family was saved, and the only price had been her life. The life of one of the Charmed Ones in exchange, the Source had said, and there had never been a question in Prue's mind that she would be the one. She'd thought when she was standing before the Source, her hands still covered in Piper's blood, that she was agreeing to her own immediate death. The next thing she knew, she was regaining consciousness in this dimly lit, musty cavern.
"Well, well. Of all the people I never imagined I'd see in the Underworld. That's where you still are, by the way." Prue turned sharply toward the familiar voice, just as its owner stepped out of the cave's shadowy entrance. The thick chains tying her hands to the cave wall didn't give much, but as she twisted against them, struggling to sit upright,
her visitor came briefly into her line of sight. She gritted her teeth when she recognized him.
"Cole. What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"
He smirked and walked further into the cave. "The Source changed his mind at the last minute." Cole sat down on a rocky outcropping hidden in shadow, folding his hands in his lap. A moment passed in silence before Prue narrowed her eyes in his general direction. "What does that mean, Cole? Are you saying Tempus didn't reset time after all?"
His smirk widened as he shook his head. "Actually, that happened right before I was sent in here. Some arrangements had to be made before the reset. Tempus had to pause time for…a while."
Now Prue glowered towards him outright while she struggled with her bonds. "Arrangements? Pausing time? What the hell are you saying?"
In reply, Cole gestured around the cavern. "The Source decided that you're more valuable to him here in the Underworld, alive. So, he devised a plan to fake your death, and told Tempus to pause time while it was prepared and put into place." At her outraged and disbelieving look, he went on. "I wasn't involved in the planning. The Source hasn't been exactly quick to trust me again after my uneven display of loyalty to the brotherhood. In addition to everything else."
Her glare lost none of its intensity even as she smirked. "I'll bet. Which brings me back to my first two questions. What am I doing here, and why were you, of all demons, appointed to welcome me?"
He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise as he got to his feet and came toward her. Being
careful to remain in the shadows and beyond the reach of her ability to send him flying
with a pointed look, he replied, "You'd have preferred one of the Source's bodyguards break the news, some demon you've never heard of before? Does the saying 'better the devil you know' not mean anything to you, Prue?"
She rolled her eyes toward what she assumed could only be the cave's ceiling, although she couldn't see it through the lengthy shadows. "It would probably mean more to me right now if the devil in question would actually tell me something useful, instead of blowing hot air."
To her annoyance, all she got in reply was a deep chuckle. "I've already told you several useful pieces of information, particularly about how important the Source considers you to be. Think about it. I told you that he had time paused in order to fake your death, and fake it convincingly. He also had very ancient, powerful dark magic performed on a certain type of lower level demon using your blood, so that the demon was altered to look like you, to be you, down to your DNA. Tempus showed it how you acted during the timeline he would erase, told it to mimic that, and had it get in place. Then he reset time. Shax attacked at the Manor and killed the decoy."
Prue blinked a few times, taking the story in. Demons lied all the time, of course, but that
one was pretty elaborate and creative as lies went. She had to give Cole and the Source some credit. "Nice try. How did the Source get my blood? What did he expect to happen when Leo tried to heal this decoy?"
Cole took a step into the sphere of candlelight surrounding her. "Promise me you won't hurl me to the ground, and I'll show you. I'll even tell you why he went to all that trouble."
Prue didn't need more than a few seconds to decide that she would rather
have some answers she could use, even false ones, than the momentary satisfaction of using her powers on Cole. She nodded at him. "Fine. I won't use my powers on you, yet. But if you do anything other than playing the messenger, all bets are off."
She barely made out his nod before he took another tentative step into the light.
Still slightly wary, he crossed in front of her and put a hand on her upper right arm. She flinched. He held the heavy chain out of the way and carefully moved her arm forward. There, almost on her shoulder, was a scar in roughly the shape of an elongated oval. She gasped. Cole looked at her, and explained, "The Source bled you through that cut, then sealed the wound. But he wanted to leave that scar to remind you of the deal you struck with him."
Despite her shock, Prue did recognize the shape. "A vesica piscis. The triquetra consists of three of them intersecting in the middle of a circle. The only time I've seen one on its own like this, and not around a religious painting," she looked up at him pointedly, "was when Andras stripped our powers, and the triquetra on the cover of the Book of Shadows separated."
He met her gaze evenly. Finally, she asked, "So when Leo went to heal the decoy, could he tell it wasn't me?"
Cole shook his head. "It had your blood, meaning your powers and the connection you had to him as his charge. As far as he could sense, it was you. Shax fatally wounded it, and it played dead."
Prue closed her eyes, realizing the rest. "Whitelighters can't heal demons, but Leo believed it was my time, because he thought it was me, and they also can't heal the dead. Oh, God." She remained still for a moment. Then her eyes flew open. They gleamed triumphantly. "My soul. What about my soul? Because unless I'm very mistaken, I've still got that. But the Angel of Death would come for it if he thought I'd died."
Cole squeezed lightly around the scar on her arm. The thin pale line of the vesica piscis glowed. "The alchemist you three fought about seven months ago, you remember him?" Prue nodded, briefly distracted by the tingling on her arm.
"We vanquished him and his Frankenstein of a life essence," she reminded him. She still didn't know how much he knew about events during the period when she and Piper thought he was dead.
He chuckled at her continued bravado. "Well, there are other alchemists who work directly for the Source. They tend to be more skilled than an independent operator like the one you encountered. The life essences they create from a subject's blood can fool the Angel of Death. Not only him, either."
She stared at him. "No. There is no way some artificial spirit-form concocted from my blood would fool my mother or my grandmother." He released his hold on her arm and stepped back. Simple self-preservation told him that he should get out of the direct path of the fireworks to come. On the edge of the circle of candlelight, he paused.
"You'd be surprised," Cole told her. "A well-made life essence reflects every aspect of the subject's life history, knowledge and personality. Your mother and grandmother also might not scrutinize the essence as closely you think, when observing your grieving sisters from afar forces them to confront their deepest fears. The Source has his reasons for believing that a well-mixed essence surrounded by enough dark magic could then fool even Penny Halliwell." He ducked back into the shadows.
Prue was left stunned. The sheer complexity of the plan was one thing; its arrogant audacity was something else. She'd expect nothing less of the ruler of the Underworld and his demonic henchmen, though. Cole, one of those henchmen, had seemed pretty convinced that her family, living and dead, wouldn't catch on to the deception. Through the swirl of her conflicting emotions, Prue seized on that assumption, and a small plan of her own formed. She had been able to warn her sisters that way before, hadn't she?
"Well," she finally muttered, "I guess if the Source went to all that trouble, he wants to keep me here for a while. So how about you make sure my arms don't go permanently stiff by unlocking these chains?"
Cautiously, Cole once again emerged from the shadows. "You couldn't easily hurl me across this cave with stiff arms," he remarked, but at her glare he went to the manacles which secured her wrists above her head. Taking a rusty key from his pocket, he unlocked them and pulled away the chains.
Prue eyed him as she rubbed her wrists. "Thanks," she said. Then she set her thoughts on one goal, home, and tried to astral project to the manor. As soon as she connected with the core of herself and gave it a push outward, however, she felt a stronger force pushing the projection back into her mind. She came back to herself, dizzy, and looked up to see Cole still standing in front of her.
"I was wondering when you would try that," he told her. "You can't astral project to the surface from this deep in the Underworld. Too many layers of shielding spells, and obviously the general amount of black magic. Trying to break through will only drain you."
Prue rested her head against the cave wall while one of her now freed hands tried to rub away the headache she could feel starting. He studied her for a moment. Perhaps the emerging details of the funeral he should leave out for now. She surprised him a little, though, by opening her eyes a few seconds later, and looking him in the eye. "What is it the Source wants from me?"