Disclaimer: I do not own any of Dark Angel or Charmed.
Chapter Eight
"Drat." Piper had tried to freeze as soon as she realised someone was coming out of the garage, but it hadn't worked. It looked like a child, head completely shaven, but then it had moved away so fast that it looked like a blur. That certainly wasn't natural.
"Leo? You ok?" Looking through the open door she saw that her husband was flat on the floor. Checking him over, she was relieved that he was only unconscious. "Paige? Get down here!"
Turning her attention back to Leo, she tried to wake him. Just as orbs appeared, signalling Paige's arrival, Leo stirred with a groan.
"Leo? Can you hear me?" Piper was holding his head, and Paige moved closer. "He was knocked out cold and he's got a huge lump on his head."
"Did you see what it was?" Paige asked as she bent down to heal Leo's head.
"I'm not really sure…" Piper kept her eyes on her husband, who was grimacing in pain. "It looked like a child, but it must have hit Leo hard, and I couldn't freeze it. I'm going with something magical, probably demonic. Leo honey are you ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks Paige." Leo nodded at his sister-in-law in thanks. "I didn't even see whoever it was before I got hit, the garage was too dark to see properly."
"Hey, that's not ours, is it?" Paige pointed at the glove on the floor.
"I don't think so. Maybe it got left behind?" Piper reached over and picked up the glove before helping Leo to his feet. "Since when do demons wear gloves?"
"If they're pretending not to be demons?" Paige said pointedly.
"I don't know, Phoebe said she felt fear. Why would a demon be hiding in the garage anyway?" Leo asked.
"Who knows?" Paige headed back towards the house. "But we'd better check out Polly first."
"Coop! Finally you're here." Phoebe looked up at her husband from where she was holding her eldest daughter on the floor of the attic.
"Well somebody had to settle the bill." Coop took in the scene in front of him. "She's back then? What happened?"
"A power of three spell worked. But she was hurt." Phoebe looked down at Polly. "You're ok now honey. Can you tell me what happened?"
Polly's eyes moved quickly between her mother and father. She held on tight to Phoebe, but kept watching Coop. "Are you Daddy?"
"Of course I am sweetheart. Why wouldn't I be?" Coop crouched down beside the two of them.
"You changed."
"Polly? What do you mean?" Phoebe drew her attention.
"Daddy was mean."
Phoebe looked up at her husband. "When was this?"
"In the cave. With the cold man." Polly looked upset, so Phoebe shushed her and comforted her again.
"A shapeshifter maybe?" Coop was distressed at the idea of someone looking like him to hurt his daughter. "But why?"
"I don't know, but I don't think she's going to be able to tell us much more." Phoebe smoothed her daughter's hair on her head. "She's too upset."
"We need to get to the bottom of this." Coop stood up and helped Phoebe up with Polly.
"We do, and I have an idea." Paige came into the room. "Phoebe, do you think you could use your empathy power to channel her thoughts? Maybe get an image of what she saw?"
"I don't know." Phoebe looked worried. She spoke quietly as Polly was still clinging to her. "It might still upset her. What did you find downstairs? It's not as close as it was."
"Whoever or whatever it was, knocked Leo out and ran off." Paige glanced back towards the stairs. "Piper couldn't freeze it – she said it looked like a child."
"So it's magical, a demon immune to your powers?" Coop asked.
"We don't know. But we have a glove we think was left behind." Paige held it up. "I can try and scry for it, but I'm not even sure it's connected."
"Maybe we need to do both." Coop looked between the two sisters. "If it is connected, we need to know. And the only way we can know that is if we know as much as possible about each of them."
"We can try." Phoebe stroked her daughter's hair, looking at her. "We can try can't we darling, you'll help Mommy stop anyone doing this to you again?"
Polly looked worried at these words, but nodded slowly, then buried her face in her mother's shoulder.
"Come on, we'll find you somewhere comfortable to try it." Coop directed Phoebe and Polly down the stairs. "Any of Piper's cookies about the place for Polly?"
"There's a fresh batch in with the kids in the bedroom." Paige smiled at them. "We'll figure it out Phoebe. I promise."
Phoebe sat on the bed with her daughter in front of her, facing her. She reached for a tissue, and wiped Polly's face, where a trace of chocolate from the cookie had remained. "I love you," she said as she kissed her daughter's face.
Taking Polly's hands in her own, she spoke. "Close your eyes Polly, and just relax. I'm going to try and remember with you what happened tonight, but it's not real, ok? You're safe here with me now."
Polly just nodded, but she closed her eyes. Phoebe closed her own eyes and concentrated. She could feel Polly's fear, her empathic power working for her children as it didn't on her sisters since they'd taken that potion years ago. Pushing all other thoughts aside, she concentrated on Polly's fear. What do you fear?
Him. An image flashed in Phoebe's mind. A tall, muscled, blue man.
What happened to your hands? Polly flinched when Phoebe sent that idea to her. In return she received a feeling of cold and pain and an image of a glass wall. The images continued and she saw Coop's face, then the face of a demon, with horns, snake eyes and blonde hair.
A frozen wall? Phoebe thought to herself. The wounds on Polly's hands could have been cold burns. Then she got one last image from her daughter, of the wall melting, revealing the blue man behind. At this point Polly burst into tears.
Still empathically connected, Phoebe sent her feelings of love and warmth before closing the connection. Opening her eyes she saw Coop standing in the doorway as she held her daughter. "It's ok now honey, Mommy's got you."
In a cave inside a volcano, the heat was oppressive. And so was the tension.
"I told you we were vulnerable up here!" The blonde demon shouted at the blue man. "Now we don't have any way to open his seal."
"We will find another witch."
"But it has to be one of that family, and they'll be waiting for attacks now!"
"We will find another." The blue man gazed calmly at the glass wall in front of him, a figure just visible behind it. He held up one hand in front of the wall, not touching it. "I will free you, my brother."
