Halliwell Manor:
Piper woke up in the middle of the night. The phone was ringing. Sleepily she reached over and picked it up. "Yeah, Piper Halliwell speaking," it was a policemen on the other end. Piper's eyes went wide. "What?...Okay, I'm coming over."
She threw off the sheets and started getting dressed fully awake. Baby Chris started crying disturbed by her loud movements. "Oh, no, baby, it's alright." She picks Chris up and holds him rocking him slowly. "It's okay, nothing wrong." Damn it. She almost called for Leo but he was at magic school trying to organize after Paige's brief rain as head mistress. She rocks Chris back and forth till he calms down.
After putting Chris back to bed she heads over to Phoebe's room. "Wake up,".
"What" Phoebe says curling up further under the covers. "I was up late."
"No later than me, get up."
"What?" Phoebe opens her eyes.
"Get dressed there was a murder at P3,"
"What!" Phoebe sits straight up in bed. "When? Who? What?"
"That what I got you for. Hurry up I'll get Paige to watch the kids." Piper leaves the room.
Phoebe jumps out of bed and throws on some jeans and a sweatshirt. Not her best look but it was what was there on hand. Piper shows up again at the door, "come on."
"Okay, okay." Phoebe fallows seeing Paige in her nightgown.
P3:
He sat at an all night café drinking a cup of coffee. IT was not a pleasant drink, too bitter much like beer but one learned to drink it. The caffeine helped. Was looking out the window at the blinking lights of police cars as they went around the corner to the P3 club. Someone had found the body.
He could have moved it but there would have been no point. Nothing had warranted the extra effort. He had taken Sanders' wallet emptying it of bills then tossing it aside. That same money had purchased the coffee he was now drinking.
He hadn't stuck around to savor his kill, he had just been a bit tired and in truth had nowhere else to be at that particular moment. That was probably the worst part, there was no more guilt when he killed, that feeling had long since left him. But the feeling of purposelessness that fallowed. The space between was what ate at him now. The waiting with nothing to do and nothing to occupy this time.
He could train, he could practice, hell he could move on to another city. Nothing was keeping him here. He had found Sanders buy chance or whatever providence that all men who crossed his path were subject too. He took another sip of the coffee. Maybe he needed a new hobby, but what was there left to do?
He watched as a Jeep pulled around the corner and two relatively attractive women exited the vehicle. He was actually surprised he recognized both of them. It took less than a moment for him to realize the older woman with the long hair was the bar tender and the younger had been none other than the famous Phoebe Halliwell. He reached over to an old paper that had been left further down the counter. Her column was prominently shown.
"Question," he read aloud. "My boss keeps occupying my time with work making it really hard to be with my boyfriend. I think he is the one but as long as I'm working we just can't find the time to really get to know one another." Without humor he contemplated the answer he would give. So many factors to consider, age, what was the work are a flippant blond airhead like so many modern women…ultimately none of my business, make up your own mind. He read the answer, "Ask yourself if what you do is worth your happiness. You can always find a new job and you don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering if this was the one. Temper that with your own self awareness and ask yourself if what you do makes you feel fulfilled and is the problem your boss or is it you and your boyfriend." He shrugged, not too bad.
He was about to put the paper away when another article next to the column caught his attention. "No leads in robbery/homicide…" he read further. A bar had been robbed by a gun toting biker like figure and a shooting had ensued. A business man had been shot as well as the hooker he had been engaging at the time. Both died. No new evidence and the business man's family were calling for help placing a rather large reward for any information leading to an arrest.
A chase. He stood up leaving the unfinished coffee and dropping a few the bills he had taken off of Mr. Sanders' body by the cup.
Crime scene:
Piper and Phoebe were allowed to go past the Police Tape. Too bad Morris wasn't here anymore. All the magic stuff had finally gotten to him. He had been promoted but had to move. The new detective on site was a woman with long pail blond hair. "I'm detective Bleach," she introduced herself. Phoebe was caught off guard and didn't hold back the snicker. The detective glared at Phoebe, clearly already irritated. Considering the time it didn't surprise Piper in the least.
"Hi, I'm Piper Halliwell, this is my sister Phoebe." Piper introduced herself.
"Mrs. Halliwell, you were working here tonight?" Detective Bleach stated more than asked.
"Yeah, do you want me to…" Piper tried to offer to identify the body giving Phoebe a chance to slip away and see if she could get a premonition or something.
"That will not be necessary at this point. We would like access to your security cameras and the phone number to any of your staff that were also working tonight."
"Sure." Piper said. She led the detective into P3. Phoebe tried to slip away but the detective was clearly keeping an irritated eye on her.
Once inside P3 Detective Bleach spoke up. "Miss Halliwell, where you also here earlier?"
"Yeah," Phoebe answered promptly. This person kind of reminded her of Cryogen. I was sitting right there. Phoebe walked over to the stool she had been sitting on. She touched the counter and a vision flashed. She was sitting at the bar then saw a man across from her yelling at Piper. Then it flashed back to herself but she was talking to someone but it wasn't a person it was…smoke, a vapor with glowing blue/white eyes. The vision ended.
"…did you see anyone looks suspicious?"
"Excuse me," Phoebe asked realizing the detective had been talking. Then was embarrassed seeing that the detective had been talking to Piper and not her.
Detective Bleach gave Phoebe a withering look. "Oh if looks could kill," Phoebe said under her breath.
Later back at the Manor:
"I saw vapor, smoke, it was kind of transparent like it wasn't even there." Phoebe tried to explain. "Oh and there was sense that things seemed to fade around it."
Paige was looking through the Book of Shadows. "I don't see anything in here about a smoke demon. There is a mist entity, and Elementals and shadows…no, no smoke."
"And it was sitting next to you?" Piper asked trying to feed Wyatt.
"Yeah but you would think I would notice a man made of smoke sitting next to me." Phoebe scoffed.
"What about that guy that blew you off?" Page suggested. "You know the cute one."
Suddenly it dawned on Phoebe. In the premonition she had been speaking to the smoke as if she could see it there. It could have been camouflaged or something. "You're right Paige, he was right there and I remember turning to speak with him like I saw myself in the vision."
"Okay, so we have an Idea what he looks like what do we do now? Sometimes I wish we still had a whitelighter to talk to." Paige closed the book. "Well, I have to go check on Billie. She has got it into her head that she can summon a demon to interrogate it about her sister."
"Oh, bad idea," Piper said and waved Paige off.
"Maybe you can ask Leo about the smoke demon?" Paige suggested before leaving.
"Might not be a bad idea." Phoebe agreed. She grabbed her jacket "got to go to work."
Right after she left the phone rang, which Piper had to go answer leaving Wyatt alone for a few moments. "Mrs. Halliwell," Detective Bleach was on the other line. "We identified the man killed behind your club. A Mr. Eric Sanders. He looked like he had been robbed, we found a wallet with credit cards but no cash. There were some strange circumstances, will you come down to make a statement?"
"Sure, I'll just need to get a babysitter."
"Look forward to seeing you." The detective hung up.
Else Where in San Francisco:
He stepped passed the police tape left on the ground. There were only a handful of people around. The owner of the club and his bartender as well as a few loyal patrons. This place had lost a lot of clientele after the incident. The bartender looked up from the glass he was cleaning but didn't see anyone. He looked back down. He stood right in front of the man but said nothing. No reason to alert them to his presence. He moved to an out of the way stool and sat down and waited. Let the people act out unaware they were being observed.
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