Chapter Seven
Prue and Andy exchanged confused looks. Phoebe was standing there waiting for their answer. Paige looked shocked at her sister's daring.
'No,' said both Prue and Andy.
'That is such a silly question,' said Prue. 'Why would y –'
'Are either of you white lighters?' Phoebe asked before Prue could finish her question.
'White whatters?' said Andy.
'What's goin –' Before Prue could complete her question Phoebe had ran out of the kitchen.
Prue and Andy turned to Paige for an explanation.
'Don't mind, Phoebe,' said Paige. 'She, er, she asks strange things sometimes.'
Before Prue and Andy could respond Paige had also run out of the kitchen.
Paige caught up with Phoebe on the stairs.
'Phoebe, why did you choose now to ask it?' moaned Paige.
'Which one?' asked Phoebe.
'The witch question,' said Paige. 'Even though, I don't understand why you had to press Prue for an opinion.'
'It looks like this Petey search is going to take a little longer than we thought and I did not want to waste the truth spell by not asking the witch question,' said Phoebe.
'That was so awkward though,' said Paige. 'And are you going to tell me why you needed to press Prue for an opinion?'
'I wanted to find out what Prue actually thought of us,' said Phoebe bluntly. Then she added, 'I thought that was obvious from the question I asked her.'
Phoebe and Paige entered the attic. Piper had a silver mortar out on a table and had lit some candles.
'What do you need me for?' asked Paige. 'Is it a Power of Three spell?'
Piper shook her head and passed Paige a scrap of paper.
'These ingredients are all present in the kitchen. I need you to telekinetically orb them here,' instructed Piper.
Paige looked concerned. 'Piper, don't you think Andy and Prue will notice the blue glows coming from the cupboards?'
'I doubt they will notice,' said Piper. 'Stop yammering and start calling for stuff.'
Paige sighed and looked at the first item on the list. 'Rosemary.'
As the rosemary appeared in a flurry of orbs Paige directed it towards Piper.
'Cypress,' said Paige. As the cypress appeared in a flurry of orbs Paige directed it to Piper.
Phoebe was looking at the Book. 'Piper, this spell is partially similar to the Blood to Blood spell.'
'I know,' said Piper.
'Petey is not a relation,' continued Phoebe. 'Do we need to do the Blood to Blood part of the spell?'
'He is not related, but it might help to strengthen the spell by using Charmed blood,' said Piper. 'Oh, that reminds me, Paige! Could you orb up a knife? I took our usual spell casting knives downstairs the other day to clean them.'
Paige sighed and said, 'Knife.'
The knife appeared in a flurry of orbs into Paige's hand. She placed the knife on the table by the silver mortar.
Two minutes after Phoebe and Paige had left the kitchen, Andy turned to Prue and said, 'What you said about the sisters, was that true?'
'Yes it was,' said Prue. 'Focus on the use of the past tense. It was true. I did think that about them when I initially met them even if I did not voice it to them until just now when Phoebe asked.'
'Prue, are you still going on about my investigation?' asked Andy.
'Of course I am,' said Prue. 'I cannot shake the feeling that they could be –'
'They are not,' said Andy. 'I am going to prove them innocent in this investigation. Also, you know I would never have let them babysit Petey if I thought it were true.'
Prue and Andy did not notice the cupboard behind them light up around the edges with a blue glow.
Prue sighed. 'I know you would not have, Andy…'
'There is a 'but' on its way, isn't there?' said Andy.
For a second time, the cupboard behind them lit up around the edges with a blue glow.
Prue nodded. 'Andy, I hate to disagree with you, you know that.'
'Prue, what is wrong?' asked Andy.
'I hate to disagree with you, but since you told me about your investigation I have been unable to trust those three women. There have been so many clues to back up that they could be…'
Andy took a sip from his coffee cup but then realised it was empty. He waited for Prue to continue.
'A lot of the things that the sisters have been saying do not add up,' said Prue. 'It is as if they are hiding something.'
Andy was staring down at his coffee cup as he listened intently to his wife, while Prue was looking up at the ceiling as she tried to explain to Andy what was going through her mind. Therefore neither of them noticed the knife on the draining board next to the sink disappear in a flurry of blue orbs.
'Also since we have gotten back here they have not allowed us to see our own son,' said Prue. 'I don't care if they say they don't want us to disturb him too soon, he is my son!'
Andy looked up at Prue. 'Prue, if you were really that worried then you would have barged into the living room by now to see Petey. You know as well as I do that the sisters would never harm him.'
'The only reason I have not barged into that room yet to see my sleeping son is because of how I saw Paige treat him earlier. She appeared to care for him,' said Prue. 'That is the only thing that is keeping me sane right now.'
Prue stood up.
'You know what, Andy. They have all disappeared upstairs. Let's go check on Petey in the living room,' said Prue. 'I think he has had enough sleep by now.'
Andy stood up and followed Prue to the kitchen door.
'Why not?' agreed Andy.
Leo orbed into the attic where Piper, Phoebe, and Paige were setting up the last parts of the spell. Leo handed Piper the yarrow root and she added the right amount to the mortar.
'Piper?' said Leo.
'Yes, sweetie,' said Piper, not looking up at Leo.
'I was thinking… Why did you use the truth spell to find out whether they were witches?' asked Leo.
'It was the only way we could think of,' said Piper.
'You could have attempted to freeze them,' said Leo. 'Your power will not work on good witches, so if one of them had not frozen, you would have known.'
Piper looked up at Leo crossly.
'Why did you not tell me this earlier?' shouted Piper. 'We wouldn't have lost Petey then!'
Leo looked scared. 'Piper, you lost Petey and cast the spell without consulting me first.'
'If you are going to moan about not being in control, then maybe you should not leave to see the Elders so often!' said Piper angrily.
'Oh, are we back to this morning's argument already!' shouted Leo.
'Yes! You left me at the passport agency because you thought the Elders were more important than me – your own wife!' shouted Piper.
'Piper! I have to go when they call me! It is my work!' shouted Leo.
Phoebe and Paige were standing in the middle of this argument feeling rather awkward.
'Er guys,' said Phoebe.
'Well, Leo, maybe you should marry the Elders then!' shouted Piper.
'Er guys,' said Paige.
'Fine!' shouted Leo.
Piper's eyes widened and she calmed down a little, almost bursting into laughter. 'Did you just agree to leave me to go and marry the Elders?'
Leo went pale, realising what he had said. 'I got caught up in the flow of the argument… I did not mean to say that.'
'Er guys,' said Phoebe and Paige together.
Piper and Leo turned to Phoebe and Paige.
'We need to get on with the spell,' said Phoebe.
'Remember, Petey?' said Paige.
Piper and Leo nodded. Piper returned to putting the ingredients together, while Leo stood quietly.
Cole shimmered into the attic.
'Cole, they need to concentrate on this spell,' Leo said to Cole.
'I have important information,' said Cole.
Leo glared at Cole. 'It can wait.'
Cole sat down on a chair in the corner of the attic and muttered to himself, 'It won't work.'
Leo, Piper, and Paige glared at Cole for saying this. Phoebe was about to say something. However when Piper gestured for Phoebe to take the knife from her, after Piper had added a drop of her own blood to the spell, Phoebe became distracted. She stared at the knife reluctantly.
'Why do I need this?' asked Phoebe.
'I already told you, Pheebs,' explained Piper. 'This may not be a spell to communicate with relatives, but I think Charmed blood will strengthen it.'
'You have Charmed blood,' said Phoebe.
'I think Piper is referring specifically to the Power of Three,' said Paige.
Paige took the knife from Phoebe. Paige added a drop of her blood to the mortar before handing the knife back to Phoebe.
'Pheebs, you are not screamish,' laughed Paige.
'I know,' said Phoebe. 'I just try to avoid this when I don't think it is necessary.'
'It is necessary,' said Piper. 'Anything to help us find Petey.'
'It's not necessary,' muttered Cole. This time no one heard him.
Phoebe sighed. Reluctantly she pricked her finger with the knife and added a drop of blood to the mortar.
The three sisters gathered around the Book.
'Are we still going to recite the Blood to Blood part of this spell?' asked Phoebe.
'No,' said Piper. 'Petey is not related so that part has no significance.'
Piper, Phoebe, and Paige began to recite the spell:
'Power of the witches rise,
Course unseen across the skies.
Come to us who call you near,
Come to us and settle here.'
Suddenly there was a breeze in the room and a swirl of lights appeared within the circle of candles. This was closely followed by an eruption of smoke. When the smoke cleared, the three sisters, Leo, and Cole were still the only people present in the attic.
'Why didn't it work?' moaned Piper. She turned to Leo and said, 'It should have worked, right?'
'I don't know why it did not work,' said Leo.
Cole stood up and walked over to the Halliwells and Leo.
'I told you it would not work,' said Cole.
'Oh shut up, Cole,' said Piper grumpily.
'Piper, leave Cole alone,' said Phoebe tetchily.
'I agree with Piper,' said Paige. 'Cole, you must have put our focus off.'
'Oh my gosh, Paige,' shouted Phoebe. 'Can you never put your hatred of Cole to one side for a second? Petey's life may be at stake and all you can do is put Cole down!'
'Phoebe, Cole turned up here being all negative about our chances of finding Petey! Yet you decide that it is Paige who does not care about Petey!' shouted Piper.
'Piper, you are being just as bad as Paige!' shouted Phoebe. 'First of all you refused to let Cole take Petey –'
Paige interrupted Phoebe. 'Are you about to blame me for losing Petey? Don't you think I already blame myself for leaving him in the car? What was I supposed to do? Andy and Prue turned up early and I could not risk them going inside or noticing me in the car so I had to leave it in order to stall them.'
'I am not blaming you, Paige! I am blaming the two of you for not letting Cole take Petey!' shouted Phoebe.
'So you are saying it's my fault!' shouted Paige. 'Thanks!'
'Phoebe, you know we don't trust Cole!' shouted Piper.
'Next you two are going to start accusing Cole of being the demon who kidnapped Petey!' shouted Phoebe.
'Of course not!' shouted Piper. 'He was annoying enough to be present in the manor when we said the truth spell!'
'Stop fighting,' said Leo, raising his voice, taking control. 'We need to find Petey. Fighting won't help.'
Leo hugged Piper in an attempt to calm her down.
Phoebe embraced Cole in order to try and calm herself down and show him that she was not mad at him in the slightest.
Paige stood there awkwardly, waiting for the two couples to get back to the main issue of Petey. Paige cleared her throat and the couples separated. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige returned to the Book to look for an alternative way of trying to find Petey.
Piper looked up at Leo. 'Could you orb to the Elders and find out what they know?'
'They won't know anything,' said Cole.
Everyone looked over at Cole.
'What do you know?' Piper asked.
'So now you want to know,' laughed Cole.
'Truth spell. You have to answer,' said Paige.
'I know and I will if people stop interrupting me,' said Cole. 'When I was in the underworld interrogating demons – which was incredibly easy thanks to the truth spell – I found out that a demon had kidnapped a witch child. The demon had already taken the little boy to the Source. That is also why your spell did not work. The Source will have the boy protected against spells like that.'
'Say this was true, why would the Source want Petey?' asked Piper.
'Apparently the Source seems to think that Petey is the eldest child of the eldest Charmed One,' said Cole.
All eyes turned to Piper and Leo. Piper and Leo both blushed.
'Hey! We would have told you if we had had a child,' said Piper.
'And I am pretty sure we would never put our child up for adoption if we did have one,' added Leo.
Phoebe and Paige laughed at Piper and Leo's nervous responses.
'Why would the Source think that Petey is Piper's child?' asked Paige.
Cole shrugged. 'Maybe because you three were looking after him tonight. To be honest, I don't know but considering we are still in truth spell mode, we can ask him that when we rescue Petey.'
'Phoebe, Paige, and I are going down there, but not you, Cole,' said Piper.
Cole laughed. 'Piper, you need me. You won't be able to track the Source down without me.'
'Plus, with your explosion power's disappearance, Cole is our only source of fire power,' said Phoebe.
'How about me?' moaned Paige. 'I can use my power to attack demons.'
'Only if they throw fireballs first,' said Phoebe. 'If they throw fireballs you can telekinetically orb those back at the demons, but we need to be more proactive than that. Cole can throw his own ammo.'
Piper sighed. 'Fine. Cole can come with.'
'I am going too,' said Leo.
'Leo, it is not safe,' said Piper.
'I may be your husband, Piper, but I am also your white lighter,' said Leo. 'My job is to keep you three safe. I can also heal you if you get hurt.'
'Really? I can heal too you know,' winged Paige. Everyone else seemed to be trying to take her role.
Leo turned to Paige. 'Paige, your healing powers are still weaker than my own. I can fully heal the three of you, while you can only partially heal Piper or Phoebe. Besides, Paige, if I am not there and you get hurt, who will heal you?'
Paige gave in. 'I guess so.'
'Fine, you can come with us,' sighed Piper.
'Do we actually have a plan?' asked Leo.
'Nope,' said Phoebe. 'There is no time. If the Source does have Petey, we cannot waste time trying to think up a plan.'
'There is no time to make up vanquishing potions either,' said Piper.
Cole held Phoebe's hand, ready to shimmer out. Piper held onto Leo, waiting for him to orb out, and Paige was waiting to orb out by herself.
'Try to follow me,' Cole said to Leo and Paige as he shimmered out with Phoebe.
Leo nodded at Paige. They both orbed out of the attic, with Piper.
In a flurry of orbs, Piper, Paige, and Leo appeared in a dark cave-like tunnel that was the underworld. Cole and Phoebe were already waiting for them.
'I thought we were going straight to the Source's lair,' said Paige, looking around the tunnel.
'No. We need to find his lair first,' said Cole. 'I am not exactly in the inner circle with demons these days so it is going to take slightly longer to find it.'
'Well then, let's start moving,' ordered Piper.
Before the five of them had started walking, a hoard of demons appeared, surrounding them.
Piper rolled her eyes and said in her best sarcastic tone, 'Just what we needed.'
'Piper, stop –' Paige stopped talking in order to orb herself out of the way of a fireball.
Piper was thankful that the demon had stopped Paige from pointing out that Piper had just rolled her eyes.
Piper kept trying to blow the demons up, but each time, she kept either freezing the demons or freezing the fireballs.
'Thanks, Piper!' said Cole as he threw fireballs at the frozen demons.
One of the frozen fireballs suddenly unfroze and hit Piper's arm, frying her watch.
'That watch was a wedding present!' screamed Piper. She attempted to blow another demon up but once again only froze him. Piper screamed in frustration at her powers.
Piper continued to freeze the demons and their fireballs while Phoebe knocked them backwards with her martial arts moves. Cole blew demons up with his own energy balls. Paige continued to deflect any fireballs back at the demons. Leo kept orbing out of the way of fireballs.
Soon they had killed all the demons that had attacked them.
Trying to regain his breath, Cole said to Leo, 'You were not much help in that fight.'
'We have just gotten to the part where I become useful,' said Leo, trying to assert his manliness.
Leo held his hands over Piper's burnt arm and healed it. Then he approached Phoebe and healed her on her back where she had been grazed by a fireball. Next Leo healed a wound that Paige had obtained during the fight.
Cole laughed. 'That is only impressive if the wounds are fatal.'
'Leo, don't listen to him,' said Piper. 'He does not appreciate your worth like we do.'
Leo smiled at Piper. 'Thanks.'
They all followed Cole as he was the only one with the ability to sense for the Source. However onto every corner they turned, they found more demons to defend themselves against. This slowed them down more than they wanted in their search to find Petey and the Source.
Prue and Andy switched the living room light on. There was no one present in the room.
'Didn't they say Petey was in here?' Prue asked Andy. She was hoping that Andy was right about the sisters, but this did not back him up.
'Maybe we heard wrong,' said Andy. He looked worried at the sight of the empty room. 'I think they are all upstairs. We should go and ask them.'
Prue nodded. She followed Andy as he made his way up the staircase.
Andy knocked on each room before entering. Each room was empty.
'They are not here,' said Andy, trying to figure out what was going on.
Prue noticed that they had not checked the attic, so pointed it out to Andy. Andy nodded and made his way up the steps to the attic. Prue followed closely.
Andy stopped when he entered the attic. Prue walked in beside him and also stopped.
The sight of the attic was intriguing. In the middle on a plinth was some old book. There were candles dotted about the attic floor. A silver mortar full of some foul smelling substance lay on a small table. A knife which looked like it had blood on lay on the small table next to the mortar.
The most disturbing aspect was that the attic was empty. Therefore, except for Prue and Andy, the whole house was empty. This meant that they had no idea where Piper, Phoebe, Paige, or Leo were. Nor did they know where Petey was.
To Prue and Andy, it looked like Piper, Phoebe, Paige, and Leo had run off with Petey. The bloody knife on the table only added to Prue and Andy's fears.
A/N: How stupid are Piper, Phoebe, Paige, Leo, and Cole? Leaving Prue and Andy alone in the manor was not very smart or sensible. Oh… right… I control what they do in this fan fiction. Oops. Oh well, their forgetfulness about Prue and Andy's presence just helps the chaos. Please review.
