Chapter 6

The Charmed Ones spent an awkward couple of minutes staring at their guests after Phoebe let the pair in. A lot of unexpected things tended to happen to the Halliwell sisters, but it still wasn't often they had the father of the girl they were just discussing miraculously show up at their door. After a few pleasantries, Piper had decided to invite Mr. Pierson and his companion to dinner. The sisters busied themselves in the kitchen while Leo showed their guests around to the safe parts of the house and made small talk.

"Does anybody else find their timing a bit weird?" Phoebe said in a low voice.

Piper shrugged. She was putting finishing touches on the roast she'd been preparing. "Personally, I think it's a good thing. I mean we have been waiting for Deirdre's father to show up since she got placed here."

Prue nodded, glancing into the dining room. "Yeah and maybe he can shed some light onto who her Watcher might be. But did you get a load of the woman with him?"

"Yeah, I can definitely feel some power in her." Piper nodded.

"And did you notice that she seems to know the Manor pretty well? I mean the way she acts, it's like she's been here before. And she hasn't said a word since she got here." Prue's eyes narrowed in suspicion while she spoke.

"That's not all, you guys." Phoebe handed Piper some fresh herbs. "When I shook the guy's hand, I got this really weird Premo…"

The youngest Halliwell was cut off as Leo walked in with the guests.

"…tion. Yeah I may have that salary raise I've been hoping for at work." Phoebe tried to pass off what she'd been saying to her sisters when they came in.

Adam just seemed to look bored. His companion still held the look of mirth in her eyes. After another awkward moment Prue clapped her hands together. "Well, why don't we all sit down in the dining room? We can eat and discuss…things."

After they were all settled in, Adam was the first one to speak. "So, is my daughter not coming to dinner?"

The sisters exchanged some panicked looks that seemed to set the raven haired lady into a fit of laughter, "Oh for god's sake, Old Man. Why don't you just take pity on them, and tell them why we're here."

"Yes, do spoil the fun." Adam replied, his thick British accent becoming even more pronounced with his sarcasm. "This is your show, Old Woman. I'm just here for the child. Why don't you tell them?"

"I'm sorry." Phoebe said, holding up a hand. "Is anyone else here confused?"

The woman stood from her seat. "Oh well, I suppose I have dawdled enough."

She raised her hands on either side of her head, and mumbled something that sounded vaguely Celtic in the direction of the foyer. There was a shimmer of light revealing a figure that made the Halliwell women rush out of their seats to greet it.

"Gramms!" Phoebe rushed over and nearly threw her arms around her grandmother before realizing that the lady wasn't corporeal.

"But how?" Prue asked. "We didn't summon you."

Gramms shrugged, quickly cut off by the woman standing behind her granddaughters. "No. But I did."

The face of the Halliwell matriarch lit up as she walked over to her summoner. "Lady Evelyn! It's so good to see you!"

"And you as well Penny. But I go by Eve these days."

Penny's smile only widened. "Of course." She turned to her confused granddaughters. "Come here my darlings, and meet a very old friend of mine."

The sisters followed their Gramms back over to the dining table. "Girls, this lady has guided and watched over generations of Halliwells from the beginning of our line."

"So…you're not human?" Prue ventured looking at Eve.

"What I am is unimportant at the moment." The immortal woman replied. "What is important is that we seem to have a problem with a certain young Slayer."

"You know about Deirdre?" Piper asked, getting even more confused by the moment.

"Does that surprise you? I knew where to find the Charmed Ones when the time came." Eve replied.

"So you're her Watcher." Prue concluded.

Eve shook her head. "No that honor belongs to the grouchy Old Man over there."

Adam rose from his seat as Eve pointed at him. Phoebe shook her head. "But he's not human either."

"Yes, well isn't that the pot calling the kettle a freak?" Adam retorted dryly. "Not to be a bore, but can we get on with the business at hand here."

"Yes." Leo stepped into the conversation. "How is all this going to help us find Deirdre?"

"Finding her isn't the problem." Adam grumbled.

"Then, what do you need me for?" Penny questioned Eve. "I'm sure the girls can scry for little Deedee. Aren't the Charmed Ones enough to solve whatever the problem is?"

"The Charmed Ones aren't the ones that helped put a Binding Spell on Deirdre." Eve replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You did what?"

Prue practically yelled at her grandmother. It was enough that Gramms had bound the sisters powers when they were young, but putting such a spell on Deirdre didn't seem to help anything. This was especially true considering the girl was already an active Slayer. Penny seemed to have gone ashen, if ghosts could actually accomplish that feat.

"It was just a little one." Penny mumbled. "And besides, Gloria asked me to do it."

"Except you broke one of the cardinal rules." Eve scolded. "You didn't ask what the Binding was for."

"I assumed it was to prevent her from being Called as the Slayer. She is a Potential you know." Penny raised her nose, trying to add weight to her justification.

"But Deedee is the Slayer, Gramms." Phoebe whined, covering her eyes and slumping down in a chair. She couldn't believe that her grandmother would be so irresponsible.

Penny shook her head. "Oh, I've really made a mess haven't I? So, what was the spell really for?"

"Binding the Wolf?" Adam ventured a guess, directing it at his sometime companion.

Eve nodded. Penny gasped a little and fell silent. Off the looks of the others in the room, she decided to elaborate. "You all had better sit down."

As soon as everyone was sitting back at the dinner table, Penny continued. "I never told you girls this because I was sworn to secrecy and you wouldn't have understood at the time anyway. When Gloria first brought Deirdre here, she told me all about the town that she'd grown up in and about Deirdre's real parents."

"I thought Gloria was her mother." Leo interjected.

Penny shook her head. "Gloria raised Deirdre as her own, along with Adam here." She spared a smile for the man who had befriended her over a handful of family holidays. "The woman who gave birth to Deirdre was Gloria's sister. They had lived in a town called Wolf Lake. This was the same town where my ex-husband took my sons Seth and Richard after our divorce. Apparently, Seth had a fling with this young lady and left her pregnant. He and his brother left Wolf Lake shortly thereafter. I made up the story about Seth and Gloria being married to spare your feelings. You three were too young to understand the situation. "

Penny stared sadly at her granddaughters for a moment before continuing. "For some reason, Deirdre's birth mother didn't feel it was safe for her to be raised in Wolf Lake with her own people. She arranged with Gloria and with Deedee's paternal grandfather, my ex, to have the child brought here where she could be raised close to a loving family."

"Okay," Prue said when her grandmother trailed off, "But that doesn't explain why Gloria had you put a Binding Spell on Deirdre."

Penny sighed. "The reason they called Gloria's hometown Wolf Lake, was that it's mostly peopled with Wolfen."

"Huh?" Phoebe voiced.

"Werewolves." Replied Adam.

"Werewolves?" Piper shrieked. "You're telling us that our cousin is a werewolf?"

Leo placed a calming hand on his wife's shoulder. "Relax, honey. Not all werewolves are bad people. Some of them, like the Wolfen, can control their shapeshifting and their killer instincts."

Eve nodded. "The problem is that your Gramms' Binding Spell and Deirdre's Calling as the Slayer has dampened her Wolfen half. She is still an extremely powerful mystical creature. And messing with that is never good. While she could have easily made it through her first Flip or shapeshift when she hit puberty, as normal, now her Wolfen tendencies are going to manifest themselves violently."

"But how is that possible?" Penny asked. "What could've broken the Binding Spell to set her other half loose?"

"Well I'm guessing it was a combination of three factors." Eve replied. "One: you as the primary spellcaster have already died."

"Yes but Gloria helped with the casting. So the spell should've outlived me."

"But Gloria died over a month ago, Gramms." Prue pointed out.

"Alright, that's two factors." Piper said. "What about the third?"

Eve's lips curled into a smile that might have looked evil if they hadn't known better. "Some males from the Wolf Lake Pack happen to have wandered into San Francisco quite recently. She'll be meeting up with one or two of her own kind soon, and that will definitely push her over the edge, if it hasn't already."

"Just how is it you know all this?" Prue's eyes narrowed again with suspicion.

Eve and Adam exchanged a mischievous look. "Let's just say I saw it in a dream."