Legacy: Lovers Lane, Part II
by Lady Dawson
Chapter One: The Keeper of the Prophecy
No one moved, no one spoke, no one even breathed as Cassandra disappeared with Susan Dawson, vanishing into thin air. Chris Halliwell only stared at the spot where she had vanished, his heart clenching as the full implications of what had happened hit him in full.
He'd been tricked, once again, by a demon. And if he had been thinking straight, if he had just trusted Susan, as Brooke Murphy had told him, then maybe they wouldn't be in this situation right now.
Maybe Susan would be safe, as she obviously was before they had tracked her down. While he loathed the half-demon who apparently held a place in Susan's heart, he had to admit that she was probably safe with Brandon James and Bobby Connelly. Her Whitelighter, even though he was betraying their trust by kissing Brooke, did take care of her. And Bobby . . . well, he was her brother, after all. That pretty much said it all.
Casting a glance towards Ethan Hale, Chris noticed the desolate expression on the half-demon's face as he stood up, turning away from the group as he headed towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Brandon demanded, blocking his path. Ethan shook his head, gritting his teeth. "Look, we need to get her back and the only way to do that is to work together."
"Brandon, get out of my way," Ethan snarled.
"Just let him go," Chris said coldly, looking at the half-demon with indifference. "I mean, he's the reason why all of this is happening." His brother shot him a warning look as Ethan turned his attention back to the younger Halliwell, taking a threatening step towards him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, his voice cold and menacing. A deaf man would have backed away at his imposing manner.
"You know what it means," Chris retorted. "Maybe if you had just stayed away from her in the first place, then your father wouldn't have found reason to come after her. She would never have been in any danger and—"
"And she would've been dead long before now," Ethan growled at him. "I not trying to be egotistic here, but that's just the deal. If my father hadn't accepted that job to assassinate her, then somebody else would have. And there's no guarantee she would've made it out alive."
"She's stronger than you think," Chris shot back.
"Don't presume to think that I don't know that." Ethan's brown gaze tore through him. "Don't think that I don't know how strong she is. But I also know that she has her limits. And if you think for instant that she can handle being held captive by my father again, if he does the same thing he did last time, then you don't know her at all."
Silence fell over the hotel room and Chris couldn't think of a good comeback. What exactly had happened when Susan had allegedly been kidnapped by Tristan Hale?
Ethan turned on his heel to leave and might've made it past Brandon had Brooke not stopped him. "Hold on a minute, Ethan," she said before looking at the group at large. "I don't know about you guys, but I've had about enough of this. Right now, Susan is in danger and I'm not just gonna sit around while you two have this jealousy contest with one another. If this Tristan is as bad as Susan made him sound on that message, then we're going to need everybody on board."
"There is no way that I am working with a demon," Chris snapped at her, keeping his eyes fixed on Ethan.
Brooke folded her arms across her chest, her brown eyes narrowing. "Well, I am," she replied. "In case you haven't noticed, Christopher, we are in a lot of trouble here and so is your girlfriend. So unless you want to see her lying dead somewhere in the Underworld, then I suggest that you get on board."
Bobby let out a low whistle, shaking his head. "Never thought you had it in you, Murphy," he commented. Brooke glared at him and he held up his hands. "Don't look at me; I'm completely on board. She's been through enough."
"Glad we agree," Brooke said with a smile at him before turning to the other guys in the room. "So . . . Wyatt, Brandon? You two either get on board or get off the tracks."
Both Whitelighters looked at each other, surprised, but Brandon shrugged. "Don't look at me; I've got no quarrels with this."
"I thought it was against the rules for Whitelighters to work with demons," Chris muttered, giving Brandon a dirty look, which the Whitelighter either ignored or didn't notice.
"Times change," Brandon replied. "Besides, it's either this or I risk losing a charge. Believe me, the Elders will understand."
"Wyatt?" Brooke asked, her hands on her hips as she looked at her boyfriend. Chris shot a thundering look at his brother, who sighed.
"Little brother, sorry, but I'm gonna have to go with them on this one. Like it or not, I don't think that Susan's in any danger from Ethan. Besides that, he's the only one who might have a chance of tracking her in the Underworld. Plus, you know how your dad's mind works. We might stand a chance if we work together."
"Traitor," Chris muttered.
"Shut up, Chris!" Brooke shouted, her patience wearing thin. Everyone was caught off guard when the ground started rumbling underneath them and Chris stumbled in surprise. Bobby dived under the counter as Wyatt pulled Brooke into the bathroom doorway. Brooke had her fingertips pressed against her temples in concentration and the quake slowly ceased and she opened her eyes, looking sheepish. "Sorry . . ."
"Are you trying to get us killed?!" Chris yelled at her.
Bobby, apparently having enough, put his fingers in his mouth and released an ear-splitting whistle that caused Ethan to trip over the couch, landing in a heap on the ground and Chris sent some potion vials smashing into the wall.
"I'm with Brooke," he said in annoyance. "Enough! While we're sitting around here bickering, Susan's in real trouble here. So can we save this banter until after this is over. Now," he added, moving towards the potion that Cassandra Hale had smashed on the stove. "What exactly was this for?"
"Susan was trying to make a potion to vanquish Dad," Ethan said, looking towards Bobby more gently than he had any of the others. "We thought that if we added my blood to the potion, then it might lower the invincibility, you know? Remove whatever's blocking him from being vanquished."
"Hmm." Bobby scooped some of the potion still on the stove on his finger, sticking some of it on his tongue before spitting it out. "Jeez, she must really hate this guy. Okay, I think I know what she was trying to do, so I can recreate what she had here, but we're gonna need something else. And this ingredient's a little hard to come by."
"What is it?" Brandon asked. Bobby ran his fingers through his hair, looking dubious as to answer.
"Ksane root," he finally said, causing everyone to stare at him in astonishment, shock, or bewilderment. Brandon was the first one to speak.
"Bobby . . . I'm not sure if you know this, but a Ksane root will stop . . . I mean, it has enough power to destroy civilisations. It even has before." He looked at the group at large. "It's powerful stuff, too powerful. There's a reason why both sides agreed never to use it."
"But only one of them agreed to it," Ethan said quietly. He stood up and looked at Bobby pointedly. "Are you absolutely sure that it's gonna work?"
"Absolutely."
"All right. I can get it," Ethan told him. "The rest of you should try and find where that assassin went to. We find him, he'll lead us to Cassie—"
"And Cassandra will lead us to Susan," Brooke finished up for him. "Okay, you two do that," she said, pointing at Wyatt and Chris. "I'll stay here with Bobby and help him with the potion."
"You can't make potions," Wyatt pointed out. She glared at him.
"I said I'd help, he'd do the actually making," she replied before looking at Bobby worriedly. "You can make potions, can't you?"
"Not a problem," Bobby replied, rolling his eyes.
"Okay, good. So we'll do that, you two do the snoopy thing, Ethan will get that root and Brandon, go Up There and get the Elders to . . . do something, give us any kind of information . . . whatever They can do that would help us, that would great. Just get them to help! Okay? Everybody clear on what they're supposed to do? Great," she added without waiting for an answer. "Then let's move out."
--
Susan Dawson stayed huddled in the furthest corner in her cell, fiddling with the chains that kept her from moving too much. She remembered all too well what had happened when she'd tried that the last time. The chains were created so that if a prisoner yanked on them hard enough, an electric current would shoot through their body, enough to knock them out for a few hours and paralyse them for a few more.
Looking up as the cell door opened, Susan scooted herself as one of the demons entered, dropping off the evening meal without so much as glancing at her. He was out in the matter of seconds.
The bread was mouldy, the water hot and sick-looking. But even if they had provided her with a five-course meal, Susan couldn't have brought herself to eat it. She wasn't hungry. Her stomach was churning, her hands shaking, and she couldn't keep her mind off of what was going to happen.
"If you're not hungry, then . . . would you mind?" a quavering voice asked from her side. Susan looked up to see a pale face peering out from a hole in her cell. The girl was half-starved and obviously beaten.
Picking up the bread and water, Susan got to her feet and walked over to the girl, passing her the food through the hole.
The girl hungrily tore into the food, devouring it in seconds and sloppily drank the water, but Susan could only stare at the girl. Now that she had gotten a good look at her, she recognised her. She was thinner than she remembered, her hair longer, her face paler and gaunt, but it was the same girl.
"Neasa?" she whispered, shock running through her. Blue eyes flashed upwards and the girl cocked her head. "Neasa Jackson, is that you?"
"Susan Dawson," Neasa whispered, getting unsteadily to her feet and walking over to her. "By the gods, it can't be! How could you be here? How did you get here?" Her voice was unsteady and shaky, a trace of the confident young witch that Susan had met years ago. Before San Francisco, before Ryan and her mother's deaths, before Brooke . . .
Before Ethan.
"It's not the first time," Susan whispered, shaking her head. "I got away once before, but Tristan's got sort of a vendetta against me. Plus my father who turned the dark side is working with him . . ."
"What did you do to Hale?" Neasa asked, shaking her head. "We're in the top security vault. Only the ones that he doesn't want to get away he puts here. He doesn't put just anybody here. He has to hate them a lot."
Susan shrugged. "I fell in love with his son and he turned to the side of good for me," she admitted, causing Neasa to release a small chuckle.
"You fell in love with a demon?"
"Half-demon," Susan countered. "His mother was very much human, I'll have you know. What about you, how'd you get here?"
"It's not me that he's after, it's my sister," Neasa admitted. Susan nodded; she remembered Neasa's twin sister Noreen. They had been identical to the last strand of hair, yet as different as day and night. "He thinks that if he keeps me here long enough, then she'll come racing to my rescue."
"What did your sister do to him?" Susan asked, curious.
Neasa sighed. "It's not something that she did to him. It's something that she's keeping from him. There's this prophecy that was given to two guardians upon the previous keepers deaths. Each had one part of it and only with both parts can the full prophecy ever be read. I had one part and Noreen had the other. And this stupid fallen witch stole it from me when they captured me. Once they have Noreen's half, then they'll know exactly what's in that prophecy."
Susan's heart stopped in her chest, her mind travelling back to that fateful day in Peter Connelly's office, when she had discovered, at long last, the truth about her half-brother and her memories of that night her family had died had been returned.
"Was it . . . Neasa, you need to tell me, was the prophecy about the two sons of one of the Charmed Ones, a witch who is also a nymph, the child of a fallen witch, and something called 'the light in the darkness'?"
Neasa's eyes flew to hers and her mouth opened slightly. "How do you know . . .?"
"I found the prophecy in Peter Connelly's office," Susan explained hastily, glancing over her shoulder at the door. "I stole it from him and hid it, so that he couldn't find it again."
"Well, that's something. But how do you know Peter Connelly?"
Susan looked at her miserably, her shoulders sagging. "Because," she said quietly, "Peter Connelly is my father, Neasa." The blonde witch's mouth opened in surprise. "And I'm friends with these two brothers, Chris and Wyatt Halliwell and my best friend has a witch and a nymph for parents."
"And you're the daughter of a fallen witch," Neasa whispered. "It's happening. It's happening now! Of course, all of you are coming together."
"Neasa, you have to tell me, please," Susan whispered. "The part that I found mentioned That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named. Is this the battle that we're supposed to be fighting together? Is Tristan the great evil?"
The blonde witch shook her head. "It is much more powerful than Tristan Hale and Peter Connelly," she replied. "If this was the battle, you'd know it. I don't know what the great evil is, Susan, nor do I want to. But I do know that it's more powerful than anything that you have ever faced. It comes from another galaxy and is older than all of the demons that walk the earth put together. And you've got to be ready for when it comes."
"When will that be?"
Neasa shook her head helplessly. "I don't know," she whispered as the door to Susan's cell opened and she spun around to find the guard in the doorway, his face twisted into a sadistic smile.
"Time to meet with the Master," he said smoothly.
--Opening Credits--
Title song: "Chariot" by Gavin Degraw
Drew Fuller as Chris Halliwell
Wes Ramsey as Wyatt Halliwell
Michelle Trachtenberg as Susan Dawson
Anne Hathaway as Brooke Murphy
Hayden Christensen as Brandon James
and Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Connelly