Piper flung the torch out at the three decomposing innocents that were coming at her. The tears forming in her eyes felt like acid. She had to blink them back just so she could see where the shove her torch next. Each time she thrust it out, another of the three would come at her from a different direction. The worst part was, she knew all of them on some level, and she'd been able to save none of them.
Her wracked brown eyes settled in on the woman in the middle, dressed in the dirty and tattered – and formerly pristinely white – blouse and floor length skirt. Piper knew her the least – not at all on a personal or even acquaintance level in fact – and thus when she looked at her green and decaying face and pitch black eyes, the pain wasn't as great as the men to either side of her. The memories came flooding back to Piper as the levies in her mind gave way.
Shadow pointed his finger lazily. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to go 'Wooo-o-o-o! They did their research!' and run away?" he asked sarcastically, waving his hands in mock fright as he spoke.
"Might be a good idea," Phoebe replied in a threateningly calm voice.
"Or what…" he rubbed his finger along his face."…you'll kill me?"
"No. Actually," Piper replied with a smirk on her lips, "we'll do worse: we won't touch you."
"Look at that," Shadow taunted. "Witches think they have this one figured out. Well, let me tell you all something…" His stood abruptly and his arm shot out, wrapping around the neck of an innocent woman who happened to be passing by. "Don't dance if you don't know the steps!" He brought his other arm around, armed with a knife from one of the café tables, and plunged it into her back.
"No!" Piper shouted as she threw up her arms to freeze time.
Phoebe grabbed a knife from the table as she and her sisters clambered their feet. In one swift motion, she speared it into the frozen warlock's side and he burst into a black particle-like explosion. The frozen woman collapsed into Phoebe's arms instantly. "Oh my God!" she yelled as the scene unfroze and she brought the woman to a lying position on the ground.
Piper fell to her knees beside Prue, with Phoebe directly across from her. She pressed her hands to the bleeding gash in the innocent's abdomen as onlookers and guests at the café began to look their way towards the source of all the commotion.
Prue flung her head around, "Call nine-one-one!"
Piper thrust the torch forward, at the innocent whose name she never even had the chance to know. Her stomach lurched as the woman jumped back from the flames. From her peripheral vision, she saw the rotting man to her right jump towards her and she quickly shifted the torch to him, making him rear back from the fire. Although the skin on his face had been burnt away leaving only a skull, the angle of his neck made Piper know exactly who the man was.
"It's called a what?" Billy asked, walking around behind Piper at Quake, who was sat down.
"A Wendigo. Apparently, it looks like a normal person during the day but then it transforms at night. It survives by feeding on human hearts." Piper replied, grimacing slightly.
"What?" Billy asked, pulling up the chair and sitting down on Piper's table.
"According to my information, the first Wendigo was a mortal who betrayed by his lover, cut out her heart and ate it. As soon as he did, his own heart turned to ice and that's how he became this monster." Piper recited what she had read in the Book of Shadows.
"So, what , it like... it takes love from others. Is that it? Or... then why did it go after you? Are you in love?" Billie asked, eyebrows raised, studying Piper's face.
"No, er, no- no. Unfortunately, no. It must be attracted to something else." Piper said, adverting her gaze from Billy.
"Like maybe beauty?" Billy asked, and Piper looks away more, getting embarrassed. "I'm sorry. It's just you remind me a lot of my fiancée."
Um, anyway, from what I gather, it strikes during the three phases of the full moon. Which means it may try again tonight." Piper warned Billy, quickly changing the subject.
"That's what it did before. Amazing. You know, I've been tracking this thing for two months and in one night you're a PHD in Wendigo." Billy exclaimed, a smile on his face.
"Well, I've read more about it. Um, I should call Andy, I mean Inspector Trudeau and tell him this." Piper said, pushing her chair out, ready to stand up.
"No, Agent Fallon's better. She's been so great to me ever since Laura... And she's already a believer. I'll tell her, okay." Billy offers, getting up and walking behind Piper, ready to leave, when Piper stands up, nearly falling right back over again.
"Whoa. Dizzy." Piper falls into Billy's arms.
"You okay?" Billy asks, stabilizing Piper.
"Must have stood up too fast. Will you call me after you see her, please?" Piper said, moving out of Billy's grasp, and turning to face him.
"Sure." Billy said, smiling at Piper, she sure reminded him of Laura.
"I can help, Billy. I can't tell you exactly how or why, but I just want you to know I can. You're not in this alone." Piper said, moving over to the counter.
"I know." Billy said, leaving. Little did Piper know she basically sent him to his death.
A part of her had always wondered what would have happened if she'd have gone with him, or if she had urged him to see Andy, and not Ashleigh. As much as she hated to admit it, Billy had changed her view on innocents, he died for no good reason, he wasn't a threat to anyone, and she had sent him to the slaughter.
Her eyes glazed over again and everything in her line of vision became blurry, like a bad watercolor painting. She quickly fluttered her eyes to move out the tears and successfully caused them to drain down her cheeks. She noticed the third zombie moving towards her just in time and jerkily shoved the torch out in front of herself like a baton. The zombie locked his cold, dead eyes with hers and chills ran up her spine.
"Piper," Prue spoke determinedly, "when I tell you, just let that go."
"What?" Phoebe yelped in alarm.
Piper stared wide eyed at the rusty blades in front of her: one was being held in mid air by her freezing power alone, while the other Prue and her former doctor, the man who had treated her when she'd been diagnosed with Arroyo Fever, Curtis Williamson, were telekinetically battling for control over. "But-"
"We're done playing around," Prue stated firmly. "Hit the deck, now!" She retracted her arm in time with Piper and the three sisters dropped to the ground. The blade she'd been holding with her power, as well as the blade Piper had kept on a freeze, sped over their heads. Prue's blade hit the wall and fell, while Piper's hit a metal pipe and recoiled like a boomerang.
The blade spun back through the air and right into Dr. Williamson's chest with a chopping sound akin to a butcher's clever as it dug into meat. The doctor stumbled backwards several steps and growled, before reaching his hands around the blade and forcefully ripping it out of his stomach. Blood began to colour his white lab coat along the rusty incision line. He managed to lock eyes with Piper before falling to the ground like a ragdoll.
"No!" Piper shrieked, before tearing away from her sisters and dropping to her knees beside Dr. Williamson. She placed her hands over his blood chest wound. "Oh God!" She fisted his white lab coat. "Please don't die!" she begged, her voice cracking with each word. "Come on! Look at me, come on! Don't do this. Come on. Come on! Please don't die!" she begged, before placing her head onto his unmoving chest. Her body began to shake as racked sobs escaped her throat.
"Piper…honey…" Phoebe attempted.
"I'm…sorry!" Piper cried.
Dr. Williamson's decaying hands latched onto the thick wooden middle of the torch and rested it away from Piper, tossing it to the stone cold floor of the mausoleum, leaving her physically defenceless against the decaying ghosts of her past.
Piper began to shake her head in alarm. She raised her hands in an attempt to use her non-offensive power. For a millisecond, the three zombies before her seemed to freeze, but under the control of their Alchemist, they quickly broke free and continued to come at her.
"Please don't make me do this!" she begged. The sound of Phoebe's struggled cries pierced her ears as she was held down by Tim and Inspector Davidson and slowly strangled to death. Then her head flitted to the side, glancing a glimpse of Paige struggling under Joanna's weight.
Piper closed her eyes, fighting away the tears that threatened to fall again. "God help us!" She looked directly at Dr. Williamson's corpse and raised her hands. He exploded in a vicious eruption of rotting skin and bone. Next she turned to her female innocent and flicked her wrists again, blasting the woman with her power. The woman's scream echoed through the mausoleum as she was killed for a second time. Lastly she turned to Billy, and with tears running heavily down her face, she motioned her fingers for a third time, and the man she basically murdered shattered into bone dust.
"No!" the Alchemist screamed in horror.
The distraction of his voice caused Joanna to look up from her struggle with Paige, the latter of whom managed to grab the green potion vial meant for the Alchemist and slam it into the chest of her former charge. What was left of the blonde innocent's earthly remains exploded into oblivion, leaving no trace of her left.
Piper aimed her hands painfully towards where Phoebe was being attacked and in two sharp blasts, both Inspector Reece Davidson and Tim blew into dust. Piper swallowed uneasily and curled her flexed hands into fists as Phoebe and Paige ran to either side of her.
"It's okay," Phoebe whispered as she touched Piper's trembling arm, "you had to."
"We all had to," Paige agreed quietly.
Piper cupped her hands together, unable to say anything. She knew the only way for them to escape was for her to use her power against the innocents, but the sting of her double betrayal to them wasn't any lessened by that truth.
"You!" the Alchemist hissed. "He told me you wouldn't! You couldn't!" He was shaking he was so angry by the loss of his beloved pets.