A/N: I know, I know -- I literally took FOREVER to get this chapter out. However, my life suddenly took a very busy turn and, combined with my inability to decide in what order I wanted my ideas for this story to play out, the update is coming rather late. I will try and update sooner, but to be honest, it won't be as quick of an update as those first few chapters were. As always, I don't own Charmed in any way (I would have kept Chris for longer if I did!) and this story is written purely for entertainment, no infringement intended. And remember -- this story is completely AU after "Prince Charmed" in the sixth season. :)
Piper was surprised.
The room that Chris orbed her into wasn't the traditional demon lair. At least, it wasn't as far as her experience with demons and the underworld went, and she was pretty sure that her experience was hard to match.
Chris, however, looked quite at home, and Piper realized that her experience was nothing to that of Chris. How had she never thought of that before now? Sure, she and her sisters knew, and often even said aloud, that he had "demonic connections," but she had never really thought about what that entailed.
The room was large, the ceiling high, and it was strangely light and clean. There were pillars in the corners, the wall was painted white and the floor was dark marble. Maps and blueprints papered the far wall, candles were melted into alcoves in the wall and there were books, more than Piper could count, stacked in pile after pile littered around the room. A large brass bed complete with sheets and throw pillows was in one corner, a small kitchenette in another, and a large table drowning in papers stood in the center of the room.
It was a demon apartment complex.
Suddenly Piper frowned. "Wait, what about that apartment we were at earlier?" she looked at Salome, standing disdainfully by the bed and glaring at them, but she addressed Chris.
"I have more than one place of business," Salome answered sharply.
"Oh," said Piper, glancing at Chris and Wyatt. "Well, okay then."
"Are we going to do this or not?" Salome hissed at Chris, her eyes flashing.
"Don't snap at me," he replied coldly, stalking forward and setting Wyatt down gently on the table. Piper took a hesitant step towards them. She trusted Chris, she really did, but she still didn't like the idea of this red headed demon witch experimenting with her baby son.
As Piper stepped closer, Chris stepped away. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked over at Salome with raised eyebrows. "Well?" he prompted. She sneered at him, her nostril flaring, and then took a few hurried strides over to Wyatt.
Her fingers were long and scarred, and when she touched them to Wyatt's face, Piper couldn't help but wince a little. Salome began to stroke his hair, and after a moment or two of what seemed like quiet contemplation, she looked up at Chris. "How do you know so much about me?" she asked him.
"You tell me," Chris answered curtly.
"That's what you said when I asked you how you knew of Kirjack," replied Salome.
"Yes, and you still haven't told me. I thought you were supposed to be good at telling the future." He paused, and a crude little half smile curved his lips, "Apparently I don't know you as well as I thought I did."
Salome gave Chris a loathing glare. She turned away from him, flipping her ratty red hair over her shoulder as she turned to face Wyatt. She bent down so that her head was level with his. Piper stepped to the right a few feet in order to see their faces. Wyatt was completely calm despite the scarred face of a demon that hovered a few inches from him.
"Why isn't his force field up?" Piper asked Chris, frowning.
"Because he trusts me now, and I trust Salome, and he can see that," Chris answered breezily. He didn't look at her. Piper looked back at Wyatt and Salome and saw, to her amazement, that sometime in the last minute, Salome's eyes had begun to glow a brilliant green.
And with Piper looked on in widening fear, Wyatt's small, round eyes began to glow bright green as well. Piper took an alarmed step towards them, starting to protest. Chris stopped her with a hand on her arm. He gave her arm a squeeze of reassurance.
She froze, looking over at him. "Don't worry," he told her. There wasn't a trace of a smile or any kind of affection on his face, but the expression he wore was a familiar one; it was the expression she associated with Chris and had since he'd first come back from the future. It was comforting in a way.
Abruptly, Salome rose. And Wyatt was left blinking rapidly in confusion. His eyes were normal again. Piper couldn't help herself: she crossed what little distance was left between him and her and picked her blonde baby up in her arms, cradling him to her. Neither Chris nor Salome tried to stop her.
Instead, Chris put his entire focus on Salome, as if Piper wasn't even there. "What did you see?" he demanded of the demon. Piper glanced between him and Salome.
Salome was smug. That couldn't be good.
"A lot," Salome answered. "This boy will be more powerful than anyone before him."
"We kind of already knew that," Piper interjected, annoyed. She always did hate a smug demon. "In fact, the whole world kind of knew that. Except you, apparently." Salome glared, and Piper was pleasantly surprised when Chris snorted.
"He'll also bring magic into the open," Salome said calmly. "He'll wipe out the Cleaners. He'll revolutionize magic. Did you know that?" Piper didn't, and she was sure her surprise showed. How did one even go about 'wiping out the cleaners?' How had no one stopped him? He couldn't possibly be that powerful. . . .
"Yes," Chris answered. "I did."
"Of course you did," Salome smirked at him. "You're from the future, after all." She glanced at Piper, as if hoping to have spilled the beans. Piper sent her a nasty glare in reply, and, unfazed, Salome turned back to Chris, saying, "Which begs the question, why do you want to know about the future? Shouldn't you know all that there is to know about your own brother?"
Piper wondered how she would have reacted to that if she hadn't learned only a few hours earlier of who Chris really was. That would sure have been a hellish way to find out. Of course, no way of finding out at this point would be a bed of roses.
"If you're as clever as you think, you should already know the answer," Chris answered her. "Think about it," he patronized, "Why did I come back from the future?" His voice was thick with annoyance, as if she were a child pestering him. Piper resisted a smile. He was playing her, wasn't he? He was certainly in his element. A part of it saddened her — how much of his life dealt with demons? Yet a part of it made her proud: her son could handle his demons, and he could handle them well.
"To change it, I'd assume," Salome said, "But if I were your brother, I'd have killed you before you could get the chance do such a thing." She paused, as if appraising Chris, before continuing, "I suppose everyone has their weakness. Even the powerful Wyatt Halliwell falls short when it comes to dealing with his baby brother."
"He's evil, then, in the future you see?" Chris asked, ignoring her comment.
"Oh, I understand," Salome smiled, "You came to see if you'd been successful in saving him. You hoped I'd see his future as a good witch." Her grin grew wider, "Sorry to disappoint." When Chris said nothing, she went on, "I'm intrigued, though, by your actions. Why go to all this trouble to travel to the past and then not just kill him? He can't stop you as a baby," Salome glanced distastefully at baby Wyatt. "Unless, of course, it's because he's your weakness."
Chris didn't answer. Instead, he told her coldly, "I know yours, Salome Wentworth, so don't try that on me." The two glared at one another, and Piper was hit with another sudden realization. She had known it all along, in a way, yet she hadn't really realized what she knew. . . .
Salome Wentworth wasn't just one of many demons that would work for her evil son. There was more to it than that. Chris didn't simply know of her. He truly knew her. He had known to come to this strange liar. He knew how to speak with Salome, how to deal with her and manipulate her. How closely had she worked with Wyatt? Was it possible that it was she that turned him?
"What turns him?" Chris asked abruptly, demandingly, yanking Piper from her thoughts.
"If it was as simple as that, why would you wait to ask me now?" Salome replied. She was unendingly smug again, and although Piper had never really liked any demon she'd come across, she particularly hated this one.
"What turns him?" Chris repeated, once again ignoring Salome's comment and waiting for a direct answer to his question.
Salome seemed to consider him again. "I'll make you a deal," she finally said, and her eyes were alight with something that made Piper's stomach twist. "You answer me three questions I want to know about the future, and then I'll tell you want you want to hear more than anything else."
Chris only stared at her.
"Surely you don't think I'd be brazen enough to try backing out on my half of the bargain?" she added, her eyes flashing at him as if she was issuing a challenge. As far as Piper could tell, Chris accepted.
"What are your questions?" he asked with a flat face and a hard voice. "And as soon as I answer them —"
"I'll tell you what you so desperately desire to know," Salome finished, nodding her head.
Piper couldn't believe this. It was so sudden. After all this time, would it really be this easy? Would she really tell them what they so desperately needed to know? And if such was the case, why hadn't Chris come to her earlier, as she'd asked?
"First," Salome began, speaking lazily but keeping a steady gaze with Chris, "Answer me this: under what circumstance will your brother and I come to work together?" Piper frowned. She was confused.
"That's really all you want to know?" Chris looked skeptical.
"No, that's simply my first question. And come now, Christopher Halliwell, I thought you knew me so well. Surely you know that the only future I can't see is my own." She paused, and when she spoke again, it was with emphasis on every word, "When will I first meet your brother?"
"He'll come to you," Chris answered slowly. "He'll make you . . . see into my future. He'll ask you to tell him how I can be turned."
"What will I say?" Salome tilted her head at him.
"Is that you second question?" Chris challenged.
"It's an extension of my first," she answered calmly, slyly, as if she was loving every minute of their exchange, of the power she held and the manipulation she wielded.
"Extensions aren't a part of the deal," he said stonily.
Her nostrils flared. "They are now. And considering I have all the cards, I'm the one to make the rules. Or perhaps you don't want to know how to save the future nearly as much as you say. . . ."
"You tell him that the only way to turn me is to invest my future in the demonic world," Chris told her angrily. His fists were balled. For a single moment, his cool wavered. A moment later, however, and he was in control again. Piper was intrigued. Without realizing when it had hit her, she suddenly wanted to be the one peppering Chris with questions, able to get answers out of him even when he was angry. As awful as it sounded, she desperately wished she had some sort of leverage over him with which she could get answer after answer.
"And what does he do?" Salome prompted. She stepped closer to Chris, and her eyes seemed to widen and focus in on his. He responded by narrowing his own eyes, and she flew backwards with the force of his magic. Instantly, her robes flapping around her as she did so, she rose from the heap in which she had landed, fury leaking from her.
"Stay out of my head," Chris told her calmly. "I didn't ask you to look at my future."
There was a tense moment of silence where the two only glared back at one another, each one waiting for the other to break. Piper considered saying something, but she knew it would be better to hold her tongue and wait it out. Finally, as if conceding to the fact that Salome did actually hold all the cards, Chris spat stiffly, "You told him to make me fall in love with a demon. You said it would be the only way to slowly turn me.
"For the record," he added, smiling slightly all of a sudden, "it backfired. I ended up turning her." Again silence reined, but Piper was reeling. He was talking about Bianca. She was a demon, and he'd fallen in love with her and successfully turned her. At least, he'd been successful until Wyatt had turned her back and sent her after Chris.
Apparently satisfied at last, Salome began again, "Second question," she hesitated, and Piper wasn't positive, but if she had to guess, she was pretty sure the first flicker of doubt, of fear, had flared up in Salome Wentworth's eyes. "Tell me this," she breathed, "Why does he kill Kirjack?" What Chris had told them earlier made it sound as if the only relative Salome was ever close with was her demonic father, Kirjack.
And now, in looking into Wyatt's future, had she seen him killing her father?
Piper didn't know what to make of it. Could they somehow use this to their advantage? She glanced over at Chris, hoping to catch his eye and communicate silently with him about what to do next. He wasn't look at her, though.
He was staring straight at Salome when he said, "to punish you. You might have been one of his favorites, or you will be one of his favorites, but above all else, Wyatt likes control. He killed Kirjack to punish you and remind you exactly who's in control."
"I see."
For the umpteenth time, there was silence.
Piper's mind was still running in overdrive. It had been for hours now, as one hit after another came. As if everything with Chris wasn't enough, now even more questions were driving her in circles. What was the real story behind Salome? Would they be able to get the essential information out of her? And how evil was Wyatt in the future? Everything Piper heard made the situation seem worse and worse, and her heart weighed heavier and heavier. If only they could get out of Salome what turns him. . . .
"What's your third question?" Chris questioned impatiently, breaking the silence.
Salome didn't hesitate this time. "Why do I kill it?" she asked. Piper frowned again. She didn't like being out of the loop, but she knew, as much as it irked her, there was no right way to go about joining in. Whatever was going on between Chris and Salome, it might just be the key to everything, and Piper wouldn't ruin it no matter what.
"Because he wants you to," Chris answered simply. "And you do what he wants you to do."
"Why?" Salome demanded. The flicker of fear shown in her eye for a brief instant again, and Piper's curiosity burned even brighter.
"You know why," said Chris. "And you can try and fight it, but there's no point. It happens. The only way it won't happen is if he doesn't turn evil and you two never start working together. Which brings me to you half of the bargain: I answered your three questions; now tell me what I want to know."
Piper's breath caught in her chest. Would it really be this simple?
If they could save Wyatt, then everything would be better, everything would be saved, and she could focus solely on Chris and how he had come to hate his own family. . . .
Salome straightened her back, as is preparing herself. "I can't tell you who turns Wyatt."
Chris immediately threw his hand forward, and Piper was sure the demon would have been thrown back by the force of the spell had Salome not been quick enough to raise her hands and produce a defensive force field. Piper had to resist the urge to blow her up herself. She had lied to them!
"If you think I'm going to let you get away with this," Chris threatened, taking a menacing step towards Salome, "Then you are sorely mistaken, and not nearly as intelligent as Wyatt gave you credit for."
"Calm down," she replied coldly, "You should have known I would be unable to tell you who turns Wyatt. It is not that simple. If it was, you would have come to me before now. If it was easy to see who turns Wyatt, if it was a simple act that any demon could foresee, then you would have long ago discovered it."
Chris threw up a hand at her again, and when she sent a force field to defend herself, he orbed away, appearing a moment later behind her, a knife in his hand and at her throat. Piper's eyes widened. How had he learned that trick?
Bianca?
Digging the knife into Salome's neck until a trickle of blood ran free, Chris muttered angrily into her ear, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you this instant, you filthy, cheating bitch."
Salome didn't reply at first, but ground her teeth as if to control her anger. "I do not lie, Christopher Halliwell. And I do not go back on a bargain. I told you I would tell you what you want to know more than anything else."
"And now you tell me —" Chris began furiously.
"And now I tell you that I cannot say who will turn Wyatt, but I can tell you want you want to know more than anything else . . . Or were you under the mistaken impression that they were one in the same?"
Piper didn't understand. Salome was making no sense. Chris had come back from the future, risked everything, put himself through unending misery, all to save his brother from being turned evil. And now this demon was claiming there was something else he wanted to know more?
"What the hell are you talking about?" Chris breathed, apparently as confused as Piper.
Salome looked over at Piper, and there was a long pause before she asked calmly, "Is it strange seeing your mother so young?"
"Answer me," Chris pushed the knife deeper into Salome's pale neck, and the demon flinched ever so slightly in response.
"Does it bother you," Salome went on, her eyes straining to look up at Chris, "to spend time with her, knowing of the brutal murder that lies in her future?"
Piper was dumbstruck. What had she just said? The red-haired demon glanced at Piper, her eyes dancing, before she looked back at Chris, saying, "I told you I'd tell you what you want to know more than anything, didn't I? Now, what do you really want to know more than anything?"
Piper couldn't believe this. Suddenly the memory of Wyatt killing Penny flashed into her mind, and Penny's words echoed in her head: Did you kill Aunt Piper too? She had nearly forgotten about that. Sometime in the future, before her boys were even grown up, Piper would be killed by demons.
"Well?" Salome prompted.
"What are you trying to say?" Chris asked.
"Oh, you know exactly what I'm saying. It's a brilliant offer, really. Are you telling me you don't want to know who kills your own darling mother?" There was obvious glee in her voice at the brilliance of the bombshell she had dropped. Piper looked over at Chris. She couldn't read the expression on his face; she didn't know what he was feeling beneath the hard mask that contorted his features as he glared at Salome.
"Are you trying to play me again?" Chris asked angrily.
"Do I really look that stupid?" Salome answered. "So? Want to know how to save Mommy's life? Or is there something else you'd rather know? Is there something else that you can honestly say you wish to know more? Because, please, by all means, ask what you will. . . . You'll only have this opportunity once."
Finally, Chris glanced over at Piper. The look on his face took her breath away again. His mouth was a hard line, his forehead creased, but his eyes . . . she had never seen them so anguished before now. As his eyes left hers and traveled across her face, she realized he wasn't looking to her but at her. He wasn't asking her opinion.
Before Piper could open her mouth to say a single word, Chris released Salome from her grasp and shoved him away. She stumbled only slightly, her hand rising to her neck as he glared at her and snarled angrily, "Who kills her?"
Salome gave a horrible grin. "Are you sure that's what you really want to know?"
"Damn it," he spat, "Just tell me who kills my mom!"
Piper wondered how they had gotten to this. It was all happening too quickly. She could barely even grasp either the fact that she was Chris's mother or the fact that she would supposedly die young, and now. . . .
"Very well," Salome smirked. "Have you ever heard of a clan of demons known as Thraxor demons?"
"No," Piper answered, frowning, even as Chris replied, "Yes."
Piper looked over at him. He didn't spare her a glance. "They're demonic purists who believe the underworld is meant to be lead by an elite few, those who have pure demonic blood and only demonic blood," he said. She didn't know if he was explaining this to her or proving something to Salome. "They've a reputation for attempting to kill and enslave lesser demons, and are therefore hated by most all of the underworld and forced to live on the fringe."
"That's right," Salome nodded her head.
"One of them kills her?" Chris breathed. Piper was suddenly aware of how sweaty her palms were. This was too surreal. She gripped Wyatt tightly, so tightly that he squirmed in her arms.
"Yes," she answered, her eyes twinkling, "One by the name of Amaymon."
Amaymon. The name echoed in Piper's head. Amaymon. She would be killed by a demon named Amaymon. How was she supposed to react to that?
"How?" Chris immediately asked. "How will he kill her?"
"Sorry," she shook her head, grinning, "That's all you get. Only who kills her. The rest is up to you. Good luck." And then, before either of them could stop her, Salome Wentworth shimmered away.
For a minute neither Chris nor Piper moved. After a few long, drawn-out moments, Chris looked over at her. "Let's get back to the manor," he told her gruffly, not meeting her gaze. "Salome will be back only after we've left. We won't be able to get any more out of her."
"Chris," Piper began timidly, "I don't know what to say, but I —"
"We can talk later, Piper," he cut in. She felt a physical ache. Was it so terrible to want to be called Mom? Perhaps just once? She could do nothing about it, though, and a moment later, he put his hand on her shoulder and orbed them away.
Leo knew he ought to orb right back down to the girls and tell them what he had discovered. The Elders hadn't had much to say; only that Salome Wentworth was one who could hold all the information they needed, but one out of whom it was extremely difficult to get anything.
They said she was known for offering deals in exchange for information, but that in making a deal, one must be extremely cautious. Leo had listened intently, and he knew he should tell the girls everything. Maybe they could make some sort of deal with Salome? Perhaps Chris would know how to properly deal with her?
Chris.
And there was the reason why, instead of orbing back down to the girls, he orbed to the windy top of the Golden Gate Bridge. He had come here often before he'd fallen in love with Piper, before the Charmed Ones had finally received their powers and he'd had to get close to them. After all, he'd been a whitelighter for years, and this really was the perfect place to think.
It was strange to think that he had lived for so long, been a whitelighter for so many years, before the Charmed Ones had become a part of his life. No, before they had become his entire life. It seemed impossible that he had existed so long without them. He could still remember observing them as children. He would have never guessed, all those years ago, as he watched Piper playing, going to school dances, fighting with Prue and Phoebe, that he would one day marry her.
And so much had changed since he had married Piper. He'd had a son, a beautiful, amazing baby son. Then his whole world had been turned upside down when a mysterious twenty-two-year-old from the future had come to them. And now, after everything that had happened in the last year, after the trust, the mistrust, the anger, the fear, the forgiveness, the hatred, he's finally learned that the mysterious twenty-two-year-old is his other son.
His other son, a boy who absolutely despises him, who looks at him with eyes brimming in disgust, a boy who treats him like a nonperson, wanting nothing to do with him. And the more Leo thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Why would Chris want anything to do with him? He had treated him terribly the entire time he'd known him.
And what did he even know about Chris? He knew that he was neurotic, demon-obsessed, extremely manipulative and an avid liar. He was a whitelighter and a witch; he'd fallen in love with a demon. He was determined and persistent; he was demanding and unpleasant. Was that it? In a year's time, was that all he had managed to learn?
No, wait, there was more. At one point, when he and Chris had been on good terms, Chris had let something slip: he'd mentioned that he had skateboarded as a kid, that he'd been obsessed with it. And once — Leo clung to the memory — once, when Piper had made oatmeal raisin cookies, Chris had said that he liked chocolate chip better, the way his mom used make them when he was little.
By his mother, he had meant Piper. He loved Piper's chocolate chip cookies. Leo loved them too. So was that it? Was that the only thing Leo and Chris had in common: their mutual love of Piper Halliwell's chocolate chip cookies?
When was his birthday? What was his favorite holiday? What was his favorite subject in school? When was his first kiss? What did he like to do in his spare time? Leo knew nothing, nothing, about his own child.
To make matters worse, his future self apparently didn't know anything either. No matter how Leo tried to stop it, the memory of the scene between his future self and Piper's future self was continuingly playing on a reel in his head. How could he treat his own son like that? How could he ever become that dad?
And most importantly of all, how could he fix it?
Not to mention that the son he did know, his little blonde baby, was going to become the greatest force of evil the world has ever known, was going to kill his own family. How was he supposed to deal with that? The urge to fix it, just fix it, surged in him with every thud of his heart, but somehow the thought of going back to the manor, of facing the sisters, of facing Chris. . . .
How could he fix it?
How was it even broken in the first place?
Leo let his head tilt up and his eyes fall closed. He wished he could go back in time and change things. He wished he could start over and trust Chris from the very beginning. He wished he could keep everything from ever getting this bad.
He opened his eyes.
He didn't know how, but it had come to him, and he was positive that he'd known it all along. He only had one option available to him now: he had to speak with Chris. He had to find out how he had become a horrible father, he had to find out how he could make up for it, and he had to find out how he could help.
Steeling himself, Leo orbed back to the manor.
Phoebe and Paige were in the attic, and when Leo orbed in, they both looked over at him eagerly, their faces flickering with disappointment when he fully materialized. "We thought you were Chris and Piper," Phoebe explained.
"What do you mean?" he immediately asked. "Where are Chris and Piper?"
"They went off with Salome after she agreed to tell them what she discovered about Wyatt. They took Wyatt with them. I guess Piper is going to let Salome read his future," Paige said. She frowned. "Read his future?" she repeated thoughtfully. "Somehow that doesn't sound right. I should have see, huh?"
"It doesn't matter," Phoebe dismissed. "The point is that they've been gone for way too long."
"How long has she been gone?" Leo frowned.
"Not that long," Paige replied, shooting Phoebe a look. "Our Phoebe here, however, is a little paranoid and started thinking they'd been gone too long when they'd been gone for five minutes."
"Can you blame me?" said Phoebe exasperated. "The situation isn't exactly ideal or anything." She sighed, running a hand over her hair. "I still can't believe all this is happening."
"As soon as we deal with Salome," Paige assured her, "We'll be able to sit down and talk with Chris."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Leo argued. "He doesn't seem very receptive to us."
"We still need to talk to him," Paige said. "I have to talk to him. I have to find out how that party I saw happens." She looked away from them.
"I know," Leo murmured. "I have to talk to him, too." He gazed out the window, his thoughts swirling. He knew he had to talk to Chris. There was no way to avoid it. But it certainly wouldn't be easy, not least of all because Chris hated him.
"Oh, honey," Phoebe said to Leo, walking towards him and reaching out a hand to reassuringly squeeze his arm. "We're going to figure this out. You won't become the father we saw. You're too good for that — too good of a man; too good of a husband."
Leo was about to answer her, but his reply died in his throat as a swirl of orbs brought Chris and Piper, clutching Wyatt, into the attic. "Oh, I'm so glad you're back!" Phoebe exclaimed, letting out a sigh. "How'd it go?"
"What did Salome say?" Paige added. "What happened?"
"I haven't changed the future yet," Chris answered sourly. "She still saw him as evil." He wasn't looking at any of them, but instead staring out the window, his face a mask. He finally turned back to the sisters, telling them tiredly, "It looks like you all will be stuck with me for a while. Do you mind?"
"Do we mind?" repeated Phoebe disbelievingly, "We wouldn't have it any other way!" Chris gave her a small smile. Leo wanted to say something, but his throat seemed to close before he could even open his mouth.
"So did you kill Salome?" Paige prodded.
"Are you kidding?" Chris raised his eyebrows. "You don't kill Salome. You can't."
"Is she invincible?" Paige frowned.
"No, not technically," Chris shook his head, "But that doesn't mean it's possible to kill her. She wouldn't let you — she'd see it coming, and she'd thwart you. Believe me, people have tried. It's useless. Better to have her as an ally."
"We're not regularly the type to have demonic allies," Paige told him.
"Well, you should be," Chris snapped. "As good witches, all three of you," he glanced at Phoebe and Piper, "should use whatever resources you have. Sometimes the best resources are demons."
No one said anything. Before today, someone would have snapped back at him. Perhaps Leo himself would have intervened. But now, everything was different. In one day, the entire dynamics had changed.
"Look," said Chris, breaking the telling silence, "Forget Salome. We got what we need out of her. She's not going to harm us, and it isn't worth the trouble to kill her. What we should focus on is the Thraxor demon Amaymon. Leo," Chris turned to him. Leo froze. "What do you know about the demon Amaymon? Anything?"
The way Chris was looking at him, the tone of his voice, the words he spoke — it was as if absolutely nothing had happened. It was as if they were back to square one, when there was no animosity between them, but no affection either. They were just Leo the Elder and Chris the Whitelighter, both working on separate tracks to take care of the Charmed Ones. "Leo?" Chris added impatiently.
"Ah," Leo rubbed his forehead, "I would have to check with the Elders. The name doesn't ring a bell, though." He wished he could have said something different, something better. He wished he could have been useful. He wished he could have kept Chris in conversation, instead of watching his son turn away from him and instead to Paige, standing behind the book.
"Look up Thraxor demons," he instructed. "Salome told us Amaymon was one of them." Paige nodded, already flipping through the book.
"Thraxor demons?" Leo repeated. Why were they getting involved with Thraxor demons? They were not an easily dealt with clan of demons. But . . . were they the ones to turn Wyatt?
"Yes, Thraxor demons," confirmed Chris.
"Do you think they might be the ones to get Wyatt?" Phoebe asked. "Did Salome tell you that?"
"No, no," Chris shook his head, slightly annoyed. "Salome couldn't tell us who turns Wyatt. No future teller can, believe me; I've tried just about everyone."
"Then why am I looking up Thraxor demons?" Paige asked, "Which, by the way, I've never even heard of before now."
"Because they're going to kill me," Piper answered. Leo felt the ground shift beneath him. What had she just said? Phoebe and Paige both froze as well. "We made a deal with Salome," Piper explained hastily, shifting Wyatt where he sat on her hip, "Chris told her a few things about the future that she couldn't see, and in exchange, she told Chris what he wanted to know most of all. . . ."
"Who kills Piper?" Phoebe asked hesitantly, disbelievingly. Piper nodded.
"Look, we got we needed to know," Chris began, his voice all business. "Sometime in the future, Piper will be killed by the Thraxor demon Amaymon. It'd be best to hedge our bets and kill the demon now — kill the entire clan, even. So, Paige, what have you found?" Chris didn't look directly at Piper or Leo, focusing intently on Paige only.
"Ah, it, ah," Paige flipped a few more pages in the book, before, "Here we go. It's a pretty small entry, but it says, 'Thraxor demons, while differing in powers and origins, are a clan of demons who believe themselves to be superior to all others. They collectively use their magic to purge the demonic community of those they believe unworthy of the demonic title, and they are therefore hated by the majority of the underworld.'
"Well," Paige looked up at them, "They sound like a delightful bunch, now don't they?"
"Is that all it says?" Leo asked impatiently.
Paige shook her head, reading on, "'Still, they include some of the most powerful demons in the underworld, many of whom were formally in the service of the Source and who, for various reasons, became renegades and decided, for their protection, to join the Thraxor demons.'"
"Wait, wait, wait," Phoebe interrupted the moment Paige paused, "So these demons aren't actually a particular race? It's like a fancy, exclusive club or something?"
"Looks like it," Paige nodded.
"Then how are we supposed to find out how to defeat Amaymon?" Piper asked hesitantly, glancing between her sisters. Chris turned to Leo again, raising his eyebrows.
Leo nodded quickly. "I'll go check with the other Elders," he said. He couldn't believe this — it was one hit after another. Wasn't it enough to deal with saving his sons? Now he had to worry about what would happen to his wife? "I'll be back as soon as I can."
The last thing he saw as he orbed away was Chris turning his back on him.
To Be Continued . . .
A/N: Did you miss the memories? (or future scenes, as I suppose a more appropriate title would be?) I missed writing them. THey're the most fun. There will be more in the future, but probably not for a few more chapters. Salome will be back, but again, not for a few more chapters. As for Chris's broken relationship with every member of the family -- he'll have his first deep conversation in the upcoming chapter, so stay tuned . . . ;)
And please review!
