Many apologies for the wait. I know leaving y'all with the cliffhanger in chapter ten was cruel even for me. I won't lie that I've been procrastinating, but I've become re-inspired since I am now apparently in competition with Phoenix786. And here I thought I was the only one weird enough to crossover the two shows. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, please R&R, don't own anything, don't profit from this blah blah blah.

Chapter 11: Betrayal

---Gwen and Rose, Suite 2330, Tipton Hotel Boston---

"So what do we do with them kousin?" Rose asked in her unpleasantly shrill voice, watching Gwen step lightly over their victims while she sat comfortably on her enemy's couch. Gwen didn't answer at first, seeming too pre-occupied with making sure that Zack and Nicole were actually out cold. "You know, I still have the whitelighter over here. She kould take out all three of them with that handy little knife. The police would think it was a lover's quarrel, teenage angst and all that." She smiled wickedly at Max who still held her weapon to Cody against her will. She glared defiantly at her captor. No doubt there would be a string of curses flying from her mouth if the witch weren't holding it closed for her.

Gwen stood up, seeming satisfied with her work. Rose couldn't help but notice the way her hazel eyes lingered on Zack for a moment before she started snapping orders in her usual way. "I believe Grandmamma specifikally ordered us to keep them alive."

"So you've started kalling her that again?" The other woman jeered. "You know, that order she gave us not to kill these Proktor boys seemed very out of karakhter for Abigail, don't you think? You would know after all. You're her sukcessor."

"Even she is kapable of kompassion when she sees how valuable these two kan be. She has a sharp eye for talent. She must have changed her mind after I gave her my report. These boys are powerful."

Rose nodded in agreement. "Powerful and attraktive, wouldn't you say?" There was a little more implication in her words then Gwen would have liked.

"I hope you don't mean you're thinking about kollekting another little boy-toy Rose. I need you fokused."

Rose shrugged, that pearly white smile never leaving her face. "So if she wanted them kaptured, just how do you suppose we're going to get them all out of here like this? We kan't blink very far with this many people."

"I'll blink them to the back alley behind the restaurant one at a time. You keep your hold on Max until I have them all safely outside. Then we'll blink her with us together. In the meantime, klear out the evidence."

"I don't think we have anything to fear from the inspektor you told us about. It sounds like he suspekts them and thinks you're either dead or missing."

"It's not him I'm worried about." Gwen narrowed her hazel eyes at her contemptible second cousin. "Zack let some troubling news slip to me. Natalia of the Tribunal is on our trail now."

Not even Rose could hide the shiver that went up and down her spine at the mention of that name. One of the most powerful demons still alive that had managed to slip through the cracks of the Charmed Ones' onslaught of the Underworld. The only surviving member of the old guard of the underworld whose influence and power had been on par with demons like The Source, and Zankou. Being made a neutral observer on the Tribunal hadn't made her any less dangerous or cunning. "What does she want with us? We've been so kareful, taken so many measures, the Tribunal kan't be onto us already."

"Apparently, she has a konnektion to Zack and Kody. I had forgotten that she was also of the Seven. By involving them, we've stirred up a hornet's nest, and the only way we're going to survive it is if we play our kards right. We'll talk more about this later. Right now we need to get out of here. I'll take Nikole first. Are Thomas and Rourke in the van?"

Rose nodded. "They're waiting and ready with the sedatives. They should long enough to get them back to the estate."

"Good. I'll take Nikole first." She bent to place her hand on Nicole's shoulder. A look of confusion crossed her face pale. She ran her fingers lightly over her shoulder, left exposed by her tank top. She felt cold. But her moment of contemplation was cut short by a thunderous crash. Both women looked to the door which fell to the floor of the suite, cracked in two. Gwen only caught the flash of black out of the corner of her eye before there was another crash. The couch Rose had been sitting on only moments ago was flipped over with the blond woman lying on the floor, pinned down by a pair of long muscled arms with unnatural bulging black veins. She had slipped up and forgotten about Nathan, who now had Rose pinned under his arms, leering at her with the glassy black eyes of Gabriel. And with Rose down, Max was on her feet. Acting quickly, Gwen put up her deflection disc just as the whitelighter's purple lightning shot from her dagger. Max dove out of the way and charged Gwen, knife raised. But the pale witch had a trick of her own. Deflection was the only power she had told them about, but it wasn't the only one in her arsenal. Max's knife was blocked by one that had simply appeared in Gwen's hand.

Max's brown eyes followed the blade to find that it was inlaid into a steel gauntlet that had magically fastened itself around Gwen's forearm. The witch maneuvered her blade expertly, knocking Max's dagger away and delivered a heeled kick into her stomach. "I'm quite skilled in many different forms of martial arts Max. And since I am skilled in blade konjuring, I have also been instrukted in the ways of the sword. This weapon is kalled a pata, a sword unique to Northern India. It's my favorite, bekause it allows me to employ both. Want to see?" She swung her blade again, aiming for Max where her shoulder met her neck. Max retracted her stance just in time to block, but the other girl was definitely more skilled than she was. In a few quick maneuvers, she twisted Max's athame out of the way, elbowing her in the chest with the same arm and bringing the flat side of the blade hard against her head. The whitelighter swooned and staggered back. Gwen used this opportunity to turn her attention to her fallen cousin.

With her other hand she shot an energy ball into Nathan's back. The demon powered creature reared and screeched something terrible before rounding on her with those horrid black eyes. His sleeveless top allowed her to see the rippling black veins that coursed with Gabriel's strength. She had fought him before and barely escaped. But she was no longer hiding her powers or her identity. But looking at that fierce gaze told not even that would be enough. She'd have to try a different tactic. As he readied to advance on her, she narrowed her hazel eyes at him. She no longer saw Gabriel, the ferocious demon who possessed witches. She just saw Nathan. Something she had tried to force to the back of her mind was now going to be her advantage.

Nathan moved with his unnatural speed, ramming his forearm into her throat, pressing her back up against the wall. Her slender frame was like plush beneath his weight. His other hand held her arm to the side, preventing the use of her blade. He leered down at her. He was about a head taller than her, and his arms were easily two of hers. He wasn't as big as Rourke, but he was definitely deadlier. Gwen coughed through the pressure on her neck and said in a hoarse voice, "You wouldn't kill me, would you Unkle Nathan?" She could feel his grip slacken almost instantly. She could probably wriggle her way free by force, but that wasn't her style. "Don't you rekognize me? You told me once I had the prettiest hazel eyes."

The fierce gaze that his face had been locked in softened, like shifting a mask. "Gwen?" He said in that strange voice that sounded like there were two people speaking. "Little Gwen? Art's girl?"

"Not anymore." She answered harshly. "Your brother and his wife are dead."

"But… you were so gentle." There was anguish in his voice now.

"I was nine. The last time you saw that little girl was ten years ago. But why should you kare? You didn't even have the decency to tell her goodbye before you vanished. Leaving her without her only playmate while her father raised her to be a leader, and her mother trained her to be a weapon."

"Your mother." Nathan's eyes became light again, fading from glassy black to the icy blue shade they had always been. "What did she do to you?"

Gwen's pale lips curved into a triumphant smile as she slipped her other hand between the two of them. Nathan made a move to stop her, too late. She rammed her energy ball into his stomach, throwing him off of her with such force that he crashed into the opposite wall and fell to the floor in a heap. His eyes fluttered open as the edges of his vision started to go black. All he could make out were noises of more struggle and the clanging of steel. Vaguely he could make out a blur of brown as the whitelighter jumped back into the fray. The last thing he heard was the voice of his niece, now the harsh and commanding tone of the successor of the Tate line.

"Rose, grab the girl and let's get out of here! She's the main objektive. We kan't sukceed without her!"

Nicole! He moved his arms, trying to push himself back to his feet. The monster within him growled in fury, but it was half hearted. The distinct sound of two blinks and the warm feel of blood on his fingers—his blood was the last thing he could make sense of before his face hit the carpet again.

---One Hour Later---

Looking down, air whipping through his hair, the clouds parted to show him a sight he knew well. Boston looked so beautiful from the air. All those lights sparkling like a cluster of stars. He drifted closer. He was flying? If he were in his right state of mind this would have seemed strange, but right now it felt perfectly natural. But something more out of place held his attention now. Those lights he saw were not the lights of the city. It was the flickering of flames. The entire city seemed shrouded in its blaring orange light. A thousand screams could be heard below as the fire swept through the streets and licked at the walls of every building. In the center of the city, the flames exploded into a mushroom cloud. That explosion held his gaze as it began to move. It wasn't moving the way fire should. It was shaping itself into something. The cloud of flames was actually growing wings. And from its crown sprouted a head with a hooked beak. A great fiery bird had emerged from the flames and was flying over head to cover the rest of the city in its wings.

He was drifting lower, lower, the smoke was choking him now. All he could see was the harsh light of the flames and the haze of the smoke. He was no longer flying. He was falling. He could feel himself plummeting to the city below. Even through the smoke, the spires of the rooftop of the Tipton hotel were clear as he fell toward it at incredible speed. The heat enveloped his body. He hit the roof, and then… cold. Cold and wet. He coughed and gasped in surprise.

Zack lurched forward to find himself back in the suite. A pair of blue-green eyes were over looking him with a toothy grin beneath them. In Trevor's hand was an empty glass whose contents were now splattered across Zack's face. "Rise and shine."

Zack moaned and rubbed his eyes, stumbling back to his feet, realizing he was still on the floor where Gwen had blasted him. Gwen he thought. That face, that gorgeous face he had trusted, thought of as a friend in that short time he had known her, the same girl he had compared to Maddie, the same girl he had been wracked with guilt over ever since that night at the bridge. Her return from nowhere in the nick of time had seemed like a miracle then. It had all been a horrible lie. And that cold smile she had worn told him she had enjoyed every minute of manipulating him, gaining his trust, only to get him and the people he loved to do her dirty work. She was no better than Natalia or Rose. He felt so… betrayed wasn't exactly the right word. This was the first time he'd ever been treated this way by a woman, and that stung him a little more than he cared to admit. He felt used. But he realized with a jolt that this wasn't the time to worry about that. He was a witch first, and he had no idea where his innocent was. "Where's Nicole? What happened? Gwen, she—"

"We know kid." Trevor steadied him by putting a hand on his shoulder and helped him to his feet.

"Max figured it out when she went Up There." Cody said. Zack saw his brother for the first time since he'd been knocked out. He looked disgruntled, and from the looks of his wet hair it seemed that Trevor had woken him back up the same way he had done to Zack. "Turns out she intercepted our case request when she found out who we were. She figured we'd have better luck than her family since Nathan wasn't running from us."

Trevor nodded. "She went through a lot to get the drop on you guys, intercepting your case, tampering with your potion ingredients, she even learned how to drop her accent just so you wouldn't catch on. They must want Nicole really bad."

"Nicole! Where is she?! What happened?!"

"Steady, steady, you'll have to get Max to look at that wound." A sharp pain in his shoulder where Trevor touched him reminded Zack that he had recently been hit by his own fireball. "Hey Max, when you're ready Zack needs some attention over here."

"I'm a little busy." Max replied bitterly. Zack followed her voice with his eyes to see her on the couch, sitting across from someone who she was applying her healing touch to. Her hands were glowing with a soft warm light as she applied them to the person on the couch with her. Zack found those familiar icy blue eyes pinned on him. Nathan was here. When had that happened? And Why was Max healing him? He tensed when they made eye contact. Nathan kept his eyes firmly on Zack, but something was different about his gaze now. When he had worked as a bellhop, he had never looked at Zack and Cody with anything more than annoyance. But when they had seen his true self, that gaze had always been furious. There was no anger now. It looked more like… curiosity.

Nathan stared a little longer before he finally spoke with the answer to Zack's question that no one wanted to give. "Gwen has her. She's probably taking her back to Abigail as we speak."

Max sighed as she finished healing Nathan and looked back at him with sincere apology written across her features. "I'm sorry Zack. I tried. They got to her and blinked before I could do anything."

Zack's chest started to burn hotter than the wound on his shoulder.

---Gwen, Tate Beachside estate---

"So in the end, you were able to kapture Nikole, but we had to leave the others behind." Abigail said casually to her granddaughter. "Well I suppose that's better than nothing. Besides, now Nathan has to kome to us. You did very well Guinevere. Your skill at deception is sekond to none."

"Thank you grandmamma." Gwen bowed her head respectfully to the matriarch of her family from where she knelt at her bedside. "When do you suppose we kan expekt them?"

"You are the future head of the family Guinevere. When do you think they'll make their move?" Abigail studied her granddaughter with a look of appraisal. The only thing that annoyed her Gwen more was how Tituba was staring at her with that look of boredom she always wore.

She kept her features straight as she answered. "The best possible time to move in would be sometime when we're all in publik, where we kan't all use our powers easily. They won't kome here where we're at our most powerful. And the charity benefit we're holding at the Boston Children's museum has been widely publicized. If they're going to get klose to us to find out where Nikole is, it will be there."

"And how exaktly do you plan to stay one step ahead of them?"

"Don't worry Grandmamma. I already have a kountermeasure in place. It will definitely allow us to keep them in check." She went on to explain just how she was going to keep the upper hand over their enemies. Abigail nodded in approval.

"Excellent Guinevere. You have your father's discipline and diplomacy, but you have that kutthroat steel trap of a mind that your mother valued. You'll make a fine head of the family." She placed the china cup she had been drinking from back on the platter that lay in her lap and snapped her fingers, signaling Tituba to take it away. "Very well, that is all. Go see to it that the necessary preparations are made."

"Yes Grandmamma." Gwen stood back up and curtsied before turning to leave. But in her old age, Abigail had forgotten to mention something.

"Oh, and Guinevere,"

With the slightest hint of annoyance, Gwen turned back around to face her grandmother. "Yes Grandmamma?"

"I agreed to grant your request and have the lives of those Proktor boys spared, out of simple curiosity. You seem set that they kan be turned, and I agree that they would be valuable assets if that were true. But keep in mind; if I believe it is impairing your judgment, I'll have to rekonsider. Thomas never misses."

It irked Gwen how calmly Abigail could explain how she was going to blackmail her. So she was going to dangle Zack's life in front of her face like a carrot on a string for a horse? But she'd bite her tongue for now. "Yes Grandmamma, I understand."

"Very well then. You may go."

---Nicole, elsewhere in the estate---

Torchlight bounced off the walls of cavernous room, casting unsettling shadows in its wake. The stone ceiling was all she could see. But it was enough to feel the safe embrace that held her small form now to keep her from being frightened. She didn't even cry when that tall dark man with black hair and beard, gazing down at her with dark hungry eyes, though he frightened her immensely. Those hands around her told her everything was going to be okay. But he was taking her, taking her away from that safe embrace, that fortress of protection. Why? Why was he reaching for her? What did he want? But once he had her, her world became as dark as his eyes.

She gasped and lurched forward in the tiny bed, finding herself back in the tiny bedroom that had been deemed to be her cell for now. It was decorated with girly wallpaper that was far too childish for her or anyone she had seen when she had been dragged here, and the faded color of the room stated that it had been a long time since this room had been used. If her powers had been working, she could have blasted through these walls like they were Styrofoam. But those sedatives that strange girl Tituba kept forcing on her made using her powers like trying to make a tight fist when your hands are numb from intense cold. But at least it was working on her empathy as well. It felt nice not to have to feel the anger of everyone in the area. She sat forward and curled her knees to her chest, turning her thoughts to that recurring nightmare. What did it mean? She hadn't really thought of it since she had started living with Zack and Cody. She hadn't had a single nightmare since then. For once she had slept with normal dreams that a sixteen year old girl should dream about. Silly things like Zack riding off with her into sunset on a white stallion, dressed in shining armor. She'd be mortified if he ever found out about those, but she'd choose it over seeing that man again every night.

She started when she heard the bolt to her door click. It opened to admit the dark skinned girl that had become her warden for the time being. Nicole had to agree that of everyone she could have chosen, Tituba was the best candidate. At least unlike Thomas or Rose or any of the others, she couldn't talk.

"You've got another good hour before you have to drug me up again." She said tartly. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw a quick snicker tug at the corners of Tituba's mouth. The older girl paid her no mind and simply placed a small platter of cakes on the nightstand against the wall. They looked delicious, and judging from the way they were arranged on the plate, they had been prepared with care. "Um… thank you." Tituba nodded in response. "Hey, not that I'm complaining, but why are you being so nice to me? I'm a prisoner aren't I? Aren't I supposed to be chained up somewhere, living only on a crust of bread and a glass of water or something like that?" The look Nicole received from her was one of confusion. "You're right. That's a little too cliché." Tituba nodded again in agreement. Nodding seemed to be the only way she could communicate.

She went about her normal obsessive routine of straightening things in the room, even though they didn't really need fixing. Aside from the bed, Nicole hadn't really touched anything else. She had already found that the window did not open and was made of bullet proof glass. She found it odd that a family of witches would take precautions against something as mundane and mortal as bullets. But perhaps they weren't just a mafia in the magical world. Once she was through, Tituba curtsied politely and made to leave.

"Hey thanks again for the cakes. Think you can bake a key into it next time?" she said jokingly.

Tituba opened the door to exit, but turned and face Nicole, looking at her with an unreadable expression. Then to Nicole's shock, she opened her mouth and said "Just be safe." Then she gently clicked the door shut.