Shadows Like Ghosts

The Heart

Cupids were supposed to be very charming beings, and Eroof was no exception. With his blonde curly hair, blue eyes, and boyish features, Cole imagined he would make a very good Apollo. Most of the time he was a very charming man to be with. He was funny, eloquent, charismatic, and wise. Unfortunately, his mission in life was something Cole held absolutely no interest in, and this annulled almost everything good about the angel.

" It's called 'the point of life'." Eroof emphasized. " Or 'the purpose of life'."

" If you haven't noticed already," Cole returned, mentally regretting having gotten himself involved with Eroof the other day at the cafeteria, since it seemed to open the opportunity for Eroof to turn his attentions on him, " I'm not exactly alive."

" That does not mean you should not still enjoy your existence." Eroof flashed him a shining smile.

What ever happened to your empathy? Cole wondered with irritation. " If you don't stop setting me up with Billie, I'm going to steal your ring."

" You wouldn't." Eroof replied with confidence. " Besides, are you seriously telling me that you are not attracted at all, to Billie?"

Cole resisted the urge to grimace in disgust. Doing so would insult the witch in question, never mind that she was not actually present. No matter how crazy Eroof was being, Billie did not deserve to be insulted. " Billie is a lovely lady." He retorted. " But some things, no matter how lovely, simply shouldn't be. If you think Billie is so great, why don't you hook yourself up with her?"

Eroof was not as gracious as Cole. " Ew!" He grimaced, his fair features scrunching up. " Me, with Billie? No. She deserves a different sort of man. Besides, I'm not Coop. Coop gets to fall in love with his charges. I don't."

Cole found himself smirking in satisfaction. " It's called 'the point of life'." He echoed Eroof's words right back at him. " Or 'the purpose of life'."

" Ha! Well-played, because I was about to say that I am not exactly alive." Eroof bit his tongue, grinning. " But fair enough. We do need a little procreation around here, however. One reason Wyatt is so strong is because he has so many under his command."

" Right." Chris walked in then. " And the Resistance is all about breeding more soldiers."

" Oi, just doing my job." Eroof folded his arms. " How are you doing, kid?"

" Just planned our next attack while we're on a roll. This time it's for another base because we're recuperating over here." Said the teen. " I am exhausted. I wish someone else would take charge. Namely, Billie."

" Nuh-uh." Billie's voice rang out at that, though neither Cole nor Eroof could actually see her. " Leadership goes to the one with the most competence and I am not even gonna pretend."

" I've accepted that." Chris frowned. " Wish we had more time to train, but if we take too much time Wyatt might catch whiff of the fact that he has just lost a fort. Cole, can you get rid of the palantir for us again?"

" I can," Cole replied without hesitation, " But I must ask you one favor."

" What is it?"

" Don't get yourself shot with a darklighter arrow again."

" I won't." The way Chris said it made Cole frown a little. " Eroof, out."

" Fine." Eroof frowned. He teleported out of the room.

" What is it?" Cole asked, realizing that Chris had wanted to talk to him alone.

" I can't go fight anymore." Chris said to Cole. " Not after last time."

" Alright," Cole said gently.

" No." Chris shook his head. " I froze again. I…" The color drained from his face as he remembered the face of the warlock. " I saw one of them and I lost it."

" Chris, I may not be able to fight Wyatt for you, and I may not be able to save everyone at once." Cole looked into the boy's eyes. " But I meant what I said when I promised you, I won't let you get hurt again."

" I know." Chris's face contorted in distress. " I know that, Cole. But I still can't do it. I still can't fight him. Or any of them…" He sighed. " I wish I could get rid of this fear."

Feeling that a hug may be too much, Cole merely slapped the boy's upper arm. " Have faith in your own strength." He told the child. " I know your mother, I know your aunts, I know you. Trust that in time you will heal, and do not feel guilt if you're not ready yet."

" I hope you're right." Chris said gravely. " Because if this doesn't get better, I'm gonna have to step down whether they like it or not."

oO

Wyatt had no idea that one of his primary forts had been taken over by the Resistance. He had been too preoccupied with one of the earlier developments—that of Resistance activity in Colombia. Everyone knew that El Dorado was situated in Colombia, and that within the ancient and abandoned city was magic enough to reshape the entire universe. However, everyone also knew that ever since El Dorado had been abandoned thousands of years ago, no one has been able to enter the ruined city. Some secret password was needed to open the gates. Many have tried, but the city's defenses were so strong that either nothing happened, or the adventurers who sought to enter the city never returned.

" They had around six thousand members gathered at El Dorado." Said one of the warlocks. " The only reason possible is that they believed they had the right password. However, the gates require the right individual to say the password in order to open."

Wyatt clenched his jaw. He knew neither the password, nor who or what the individual must be.

" Who said the password?" Wyatt asked.

" Whitelighters." Said a leading Darklighter. " It must be because the right individual must be a whitelighter."

Wyatt shook his head. " We may learn more if we knew exactly what the inscription on the gates said."

The problem was, nothing evil could approach the gates without being overcome by its magical defenses.

" We need a whitelighter to approach the gates and retrieve the message." Wyatt began. " All Resistance members are protected by Christopher's spell against our influence. The only unprotected whitelighter that we are aware of is Leo Wyatt, but we cannot find him."

" Even if we do," Said a sorcerer, " It is doubtful if we can influence him to serve us. He is a fool, but he will not keep making the same mistakes."

" My lord," Said a high-leveled demon, " May I voice one other option?"

" Speak." Wyatt commanded.

" Though the gates require a whitelighter to open," The demon suggested, " I believe there is one being that cannot be killed by earthly magic."

Wyatt did not need further explanation. " Cole Turner has already shown that he is allied with the Resistance."

" He is a neutral being." Said a sorceress.

" No doubt, my lord," Said the first warlock, " If the Resistance can convince him to ally with them, you can offer him so much more. Merely summon him and promise to give him whatever he wants, and he can go to the Resistance, find the password, and perhaps even learn what individual is needed to speak the password in order to open the gates."

Wyatt was not entirely pleased with this suggestion, even though he saw merit in it. The Dark Lord was silent. He was thinking about the last time he saw Cole Turner. " I won't let you get hurt again."

Wyatt may not be as smart as his brother, but he was no fool. " There is nothing we can do to convince Cole Turner to join us." He suddenly said. " There was only one thing he wanted."

It was Chris. Funny how the source of all his troubles always centered around that little ingrate. When Piper died, his problem had been taking care of Chris. When he gathered enough power to take care of Chris, his problem had been Chris's betrayal. When he established his Empire, his problem had been Chris's Resistance. Everything that goes wrong in his life always had to do with Chris. And now, for some reason, Cole Turner had become fond of Chris, had allied himself with Chris and made himself the boy's protector.

" I'm your older brother, you little piece of shit!"

" You are no brother of mine. My brother would never enslave anyone, no matter how mad he is!"

" We cannot count on Turner." Wyatt declared. " He got what he wanted and we cannot change his mind, especially as no earthly magic can affect him."

" My lord," Said the seer who Wyatt first called when Cole Turner had rescued Chris from the dungeons, " May I speak?"

" Just say what you need to say."

" I believe that there is still a way to persuade Cole Turner." She began. " His heart has opened to Christopher Halliwell, but it has not necessarily closed to his first love."

" He made it clear that resurrecting Phoebe Halliwell is not one of his desires."

" Perhaps he does not know his own heart." The seer replied. " If forced to choose, there is no way to say he would not abandon Christopher in the hopes of winning back her love, as he had attempted so many times in the past."

" Hm." Wyatt considered this.

" To be safe, we can conjure a clone of the third Charmed One." One of the warlocks picked it up. " And threaten to take it away if Cole does not provide us access to the city of El Dorado. That way, we do not risk incurring the wrath of a Charmed One herself in our attempt to seduce Turner."

Wyatt shook his head. " Chris is an empath. He will instantly sense that it is a clone."

" Turner may not necessarily believe him."

" No." Wyatt thought back to the look in the man's eyes when he shimmered Chris away. " He loves the boy." He frowned. " However, that fact may be used against him. Assemble the Warlocks." He ordered. " The fact that the Resistance did not enter El Dorado means that they have failed. Chris would want to find more information, and this is the perfect time to trick him."

Cunning as Chris was, Wyatt thought, his little brother was hardly infallible. He thought impassively to how the boy had frozen at the sight of the Dark Lord. No. Definitely not infallible.

The next time he captures Chris, though, he will kill the boy dead.

Wyatt looked at the demons, wondering which demon he could afford to kill.

oO

The Resistance bases were all hidden by Chris's magic, which, unlike the magic he had used to block the door, were linked to his raw power rather than his concentration. The spells essentially kills anyone working for Wyatt who crosses the barriers, and there is no way to block or cancel out the spells unless Chris himself canceled them. The spells were too strong and specific for any number of demons, darklighters, or warlocks to destroy. Wyatt might be able to overwhelm the barriers if he tried, but there were other protections that would attack Wyatt, and to overwhelm the barriers the Dark Lord would have had to use all of his concentration and focus. Distractions could, in fact, be lethal.

Cole remembered seeing Chris, years ago, set up these barriers, the young still-fourteen-year-old anxious and fearful that the barriers would not work. At the time, Cole had been too disinterested to really care, but now he appreciated the beauty of the bases. The buildings were old, the facilities were old, but the magic was genius. At the bases young children could play and learn, mothers could nurse their infants, the wounded could rest—there were even recreational activities, with sports in the courtyard that was within the boundaries of the barriers, and arts and music and dance. It was amazing that a mere teenager had managed to create this sort of refuge. Billie had definitely amplified his magic, but the spells were Chris's idea.

Now he watched Chris direct the warders in what was once the Quarter base, using the same spells he had used before at the Resistance bases. He actually had a list of spells on a piece of paper, but the list of spells were composed of squares, circles, and triangles. These obviously meant something to Chris, who would look to the paper every now and then and recite a spell under his breath. Billie would amplify Chris's magic as he completed each spell.

" Damn." Said one of the warders. " Never thought demons to be the polished type but check it out. We need to get things more like this rather than the crap we have at the bases."

" Yeah, about that," Billie remarked apologetically, " Haven't been so good about maintenance lately. I'm gonna go fix stuff like the cafeteria tables and anything else that's broken."

She was referring to her reality-changing powers, which, just as she had dried herself by will alone and had changed the demons and warlocks into worms, could fix and transform many things at the base, including people. In fact, the only living person Billie could not transform was Chris. His magic was too strong, and anything she tried simply had no effect on him. " Otherwise," she had told Cole, " I'd have taken away his pain already. And kicked Leo's ass, but Mr. Moron here wouldn't let me."

" Done." Chris finally breathed out a sigh, satisfied. " Wyatt has officially lost a reality-changing base. We can station witches here and whitelighters, as well as several others to guard but the spells are in place. I'm gonna head back to the Cal base to see how the next attack is progressing."

He looked at Cole before orbing out. Cole obligingly followed. They reemerged in the conference room.

Charlie was the one listening to the transmissions, as Sardo was out on this particular mission.

" This is nuts." He said to Chris. " Either Wyatt doesn't have a clue we're doing this, or this is all a trap."

" Too risky of a trap." Chris shook his head. He looked gratefully at Cole as he said this. " Without the palantirs, or whatever those things are called now, it is actually very possible that Wyatt doesn't know about this at all."

" Can you make sure?" Charlie asked. " I mean, you slipped through Wyatt's defenses before. Maybe you can sneak into his headquarters and eavesdrop or something."

Cole glanced at Chris, who frowned a little.

" I don't want to risk Wyatt catching Cole. You never know if someone discovered a way to detect otherworldly beings and capture them."

Cole smiled fondly at Chris. " I'm not an otherworldly being." That defeats the purpose of being undefined. He was away at Wyatt's headquarters before Chris could respond. Wyatt was talking to his warlocks, and Cole had dropped in, unfortunately, at the end of the conversation.

" If we claim El Dorado," Said Wyatt, " We claim the Resistance. Wherever they are. Even my brother's spells cannot stand up against the magic in that city. This is our only mission for now, since the Resistance has been laying low ever since the last break-in."

He doesn't know. Cole realized instantly, and felt a little frustrated when Wyatt dismissed the warlocks. At least I got what we wanted.

" He's interested in El Dorado?" Chris worried his bottom lip when Cole returned. " But he can't even approach that place, let alone claim it. He can't brainwash any whitelighter because there aren't any out there anymore. Everyone is here."

" Yeah, how do you know that?" Charlie asked.

" You weren't here when Kevin was around." Chris looked down. " Kevin gave me a list and ordered all the whitelighters here. Oh shit." The boy paused. " He can't."

" What?" Charlie demanded.

" There is one whitelighter still out there." Chris replied. " Or Elder, depending on what position he's assumed by now."

" Oh shit." Charlie echoed Chris's earlier words. " Your father's not that stupid is he?"

" He still has this crazy idea that Wyatt can be 'turned back', as if anything had turned Wyatt in the first place except Mom's death." Chris said bitterly. " If he's still researching, I don't know. We should get him down here, force him here in case Wyatt decides to use him."

" Uh, about that…" Charlie suddenly grinned nervously. " Billie and I sort of…blocked him."

Chris stared. Silent seconds ticked by.

" What the fuck did you do that for?" Chris demanded in a low voice.

" He was pissing us off." Charlie gestured at Cole. " Besides, you have Uncle Cole here."

Once again, Cole found himself nearly flinching at the term, but Chris did not even seem to hear it.

" What if he needs our help?" Chris stared suddenly at the wall. " That's what he's been trying to do the last few times. He's been trying to get our help and we've been kicking him out."

" Screw him." Charlie snapped dismissively. " You need to accept that you are who you are and that your father's a douchebag. You don't have any obligation towards him. Stop pining after him!"

" I'm not pining!" Chris slammed the table, accidentally breaking part of it off. " Fuck!" He yelled, kicking at the splintered wood. " It's not just about him needing help! What if he's the whitelighter, huh? He could get Wyatt into El Dorado once he deactivates the defenses with the password! For all you know, Wyatt could have him already and had already gone in to El Dorado and it's goodbye for all of us!"

The boy was frightened, Cole knew, so he pointed out as soothingly as he could, " Leo does not know the password. No one has figured it out for millennia. Even if Wyatt does have your father, he has no way of getting into El Dorado without the password."

This seemed to cut through Chris's mind, and he deflated. " Yeah, you're right." He nodded. " I still need to show you the password. Damn, I keep forgetting."

" Don't worry about it." Cole turned to Charlie, who was pale and nervous. " I'll go check to see if Leo has been captured. You haven't cast the spell over the Quarter base, so I should be able to bring him there."

" Yeah, do." Chris said quickly. " And let me know. Though don't…" He paused.

" You won't need to see him." Said Cole, understanding the young one's trouble. " Just tell me where he is."

" He's at magic school." Chris said dully.

" Magic school?" Cole stared in bewilderment. He remembered that place being attacked by Wyatt. Wyatt had killed all the children. " Why would he be there? Wyatt did not kill him there?"

" Yeah." Chris hung his head. " I set up the same spells around that place when I learned he wasn't coming to the bases with me, that he was gonna stay there. I couldn't just leave him there. Shut up." He snapped at Charlie as the other man groaned. " I'm still not finished with you." Charlie instantly looked remorseful. " Anyway, I'm just nervous that he's there by himself. Around the bases we have other warders and other barriers that aren't mine, but up there he only has my magic protecting him and he's all alone."

Chris really did have a noble heart. " I'll be back." Cole said.

Emerging at Magic School, Cole took a moment to look around. Wyatt did not have Chris's strategic foresight, and therefore did not know to destroy or steal the books in the school in the heat of battle, so most of the books lay scattered but untouched. The emerging Dark Lord had been far more interested in taking lives than taking resources. It was only after this brutal massacre that Leo Wyatt had finally realized what his eldest son had become. Rather than allying himself with the younger, however, Leo had been convinced that Wyatt had been turned somehow, and had viewed Chris's Resistance as a betrayal. Chris did not share Leo's views, having grown up alongside Wyatt and seen the transformation, and felt that Leo's insistence on his theory to be a betrayal of Chris himself, and to be a show of continued favoritism of the Twice-Blessed one. The rift separated the two ever since, with Chris leading the Resistance and doing his best to fight against Wyatt's forces and provide refuge for free beings, and Leo, apparently in magic school all this time, researching into the past trying to figure out where they had gone wrong and when Wyatt might have been turned.

Cole found Leo, looking through books, as expected. Leo glanced up at Cole when he entered the hall.

" You." Said Leo. He slammed the book shut. " What do you want?"

Cole thought of their last meeting, the words he had said to Leo, and Leo's hurtful reply. " You may not want your thoughtless son, but your thoughtless son is still worried about your safety."

" Hmph!" The whitelighter grunted bitterly. " He remembers me now, does he."

" You're the one to talk." Cole instantly defended. Just two months ago, he was not sure he could stand up against Leo, but Chris seemed to be a driving force that powered him to facing the whitelighter. " After all these years. And you didn't even know Chris was captured, tortured, raped, under Wyatt's commands."

" I know I'm a horrible father." Said Leo, flipping open the book he had been reading. " I remind myself of that every day."

Cole frowned. This was not really the way he imagined this encounter would go. He had imagined Leo would fling insults at Cole, that Leo would accuse him of being evil, of corrupting Chris, of even corrupting Wyatt, maybe, though that was preposterous. Cole had not even interfered in this world until Billie pestered him into rescuing Chris. He had no power to magically corrupt anyone either.

" What do you want." The whitelighter demanded, though his eyes had returned to the book.

Cole scowled a little as he sat down on the table across from Leo. " You're not as safe as you can be. Your son is worried about you."

" Yeah, he does that a lot." Leo spat.

Angry now, Cole slammed the table with his fist. " You really are quite amazing, Leo." He hissed. " After everything you put Chris through, he still cares enough for your well-being to risk having to tolerate your presence, and you aren't even the least grateful."

Leo slammed his book shut again. " Yeah? You think I don't know that?" Cole suddenly realized the man's eyes were filled with tears. " You think I don't tell myself that, every single day? I'm a retard. I know that. But I'm not that stupid. I know I hurt Chris. I don't need you to remind me. Even if Chris himself isn't evidence of that already, I get enough from his fellow Resistance members."

Confused, Cole was at a complete loss as to what to say. Leo did not give him a chance to come up with a response. The whitelighter was still talking.

" Wyatt was born at the manor." Leo's voice cracked as he spoke, and tears flew nearly horizontally out of his eyes as he blinked. His face contorted in self-loathing. " We knew he was powerful. The Twice-Blessed one. But we also knew that he could go either way. He could be good or evil. And with the Twice-Blessed one, we couldn't take any risks."

If Cole was speechless before, he was even more so now. How on earth does that make any sense? He wondered, and was about to break in, but Leo spoke right over him.

" So we were careful." Leo went on. " I was careful. I wanted to make sure that Wyatt could never be corrupted. Never. It was why I spent so much time with him. With Chris, it's not even that he was less powerful than Wyatt, though that had a huge part in it. He was born at the hospital. He was going to be a good witch. No matter what. It was Wyatt that was more dangerous, Wyatt that was not only Twice-Blessed but could go either way. And when you're dealing with that kind of responsibility. I mean, your son is the most powerful being in the world. How do you raise him?"

Now Cole was incredulous because Leo was even saying all of this. Is he actually opening up to me?Cole thought in shock. Was Chris some kind of miracle worker? Giving Cole a family in the Resistance, making Leo open up—or maybe this was all Wyatt's doing when he flipped the world upside down and turned the rules around.

" It seemed more important that Wyatt was good than it was to spend time with Chris…at the time." Leo wiped at his eyes. His voice had broken so that his words were barely coherent. " It was also for Chris too. I love Chris. He's my son. I couldn't take the chance that one day Wyatt might hurt his brother, or his cousins. So all that time spent, teaching Wyatt morals. Maybe I tried too hard. Or it was simply never meant to work. And Chris," The man sobbed, " He was such a good boy. He is such a good boy. I neglected him, I hurt him and he's still so good. You know how much it hurts, to learn that all those years of raising a kid, devoting your heart and soul, and you wind up losing both of them—all those years, one big, giant mistake." Leo shook his head. He stopped sobbing. " When he killed the children, I simply couldn't accept that it was really him. My baby boy, my eldest son who I had spent so much time teaching and loving. And Chris came at the wrong time, said the wrong words, that Wyatt was evil and we needed to fight him. I was too…weak…to accept such a thing."

Cole had gone from shocked, to sympathetic, to slightly contemptuous. He remained silent, however, as Leo continued pouring his heart out to him.

" Every time I see Chris, I think of all the times I missed his birthday, his graduation, his sports game." Leo stared at his hands. " And every time Chris speaks I get so angry. Not at him…at myself. I can't tolerate him. I keep wishing I could go to the past and change things around. I hate how he still cares about me. I wish he hated me, like a normal person."

" You are a selfish, pathetic fool." Cole was thoroughly contemptuous now. " You are so absorbed in your own problems, you don't even see how your actions hurt your son." He rose. " Nevertheless, Chris asked me to bring you down to the base so that you are protected from Wyatt."

" My other son." Leo laughed bitterly. " I've tried going to the bases, Belthazor. He has finally blocked me out."

" I am not Belthazor." Cole replied, annoyed. " And blocking you was done without Chris's knowledge. It was Billie and Charlie. There is one base now that you are not blocked from and I am taking you there."

" No." Leo replied adamantly. " I am staying here."

" What for?" Cole snapped. " You think you can find out where you went wrong from a bunch of magic books?"

" It was what I had been trying to get Chris's help with." Leo replied. " I think Wyatt was turned by a demon,"

Cole was about to snap again, or downright hit the man for being so thick, but Leo's next words stopped him.

" And I might know exactly when that happened."