Author's note: I know it's been a while, so I hope I haven't lost all my readers, but I promise I wasn't neglecting the story! I was working way far ahead, which means that updates should come pretty regularly from this point on, all the way to the end. Thanks for sticking with me, and especially thank you to all reviewers! And now, back to Chris and Cole in the future...

Chris skirted along a narrow ledge behind Caza, who had chosen a precarious rocky alcove to shimmer into the Underworld for their search-and-capture operation.

"Why exactly was this a good idea?" he asked as he carefully placed his steps to avoid slipping into the abyss below. If that happened, he could just orb himself to safety, of course, but why get into that position to begin with?

She didn't immediately answer him, instead concentrating on maneuvering her way around a tricky outcropping, around a bend and out of sight. When Chris made it past the obstacle, she was a few feet ahead, lightly jumping a gap to wider, more solid ground.

"We're doing this," she said as Chris joined her, "because I know my way around, I know the best places to arrive undetected. And on our stroll, I can pick up useful information."

"Do you plan to share any of that information with me?"

"No." She then amended herself: "If there's a fireball aimed at your head, I might warn you. Might."

"Oh, thanks."

"Your brother might object to you being incinerated. Not until he interrogates you on whatever you've been doing and wherever you've been."

"Actually, he knows where I've been. He didn't tell you at all? Or Cole?"

"No," Caza said, her tone indicating how little she cared. "I knew Wyatt had captured Bianca and was interrogating her on your whereabouts and plans. But he told us that he would deal with her alone, no help, no witnesses. So he did."

Chris tried very hard not to let his imagination run to horrible places with that statement.

Caza continued, "At some point, he trusted Bianca enough to let her loose to find you. Seemed foolhardy to me, but it wasn't my call. And since you're here but she's not, I'm not sure how that all worked out. Is she dead?"

"Yes."

"I'm not surprised. No way her defection back to our side was permanent, and I doubt Wyatt ever completely bought it. She was on borrowed time either way."

They moved along through cave-like corridors that to the untrained eye looked endlessly identical. Chris, however, had a fair idea of where they were — both in this time and in the past, he had spent more time in the Underworld than any witch ought to. As for Caza, of course, this would be her natural home, no matter that Wyatt had ensconced her, along with so many of his demon hoard, in a tower high above the city.

Once in a while, Caza would pause, paying close attention to something only she could perceive, before picking up the pace again. When she caught him watching her at this work, she smirked.

"Oh, that's right, you're used to relying on Mero powers, aren't you? How's Penka doing these days?" When Chris didn't respond, she said, "Don't play dumb, we both know he's been working with you, helping out in your little resistance."

"I'm not playing dumb. I just don't believe you really care how he is."

"Oh, I'm hurt," she said with a fake pout. "You think family doesn't matter to me? Even if that family is as disgraceful as him?"

Chris started walking again, letting her follow this time. "I guess you and I are in the same boat," he said. "Both of us with a brother picking the wrong side — a witch who's evil, a demon who's good."

"Penka, 'good'?" she snorted. "He's just a coward. The way I see it, Wyatt and I are in the same boat, both of us with a brother who's weak and just plain an embarrassment."

Chris assumed that was how Wyatt saw him, but it wasn't something he needed to hear echoed by this demon. But one thing that would look weak would be to let her see how she had hit home, so he affected an attitude of indifference. He had had months of practice in the past hiding feelings, after all. All he said was, "Like I said, you don't care about Penka. Anyway, I have no idea how he is. I'm way out of the loop. I've been gone, remember?"

"Yes, you have. And now you're back and your brother is gone. What a weird coincidence."

Chris shrugged. "I don't see why it's weird. He's done that all his life - drop out of sight for a day or so. I'm sure he'll reappear at any time now."

"Then why do you seem more worried about his absence?"

"What? I'm not worried, why would I be?"

"Beats me. But you don't hide it very well."

Now Chris found himself in the odd position of wanting to defend himself as a good liar, but he let her continue.

"I just wonder if you being worried is a good thing, or something I need to worry about, too."

She suddenly halted and grabbed Chris's upper arm, yanking him back.

"Ow!"

"Shut up," she hissed. "We've found them." She jerked her head toward a recess in the wall that lined the path ahead of them. "There's a chamber off to the right there. Let's see ... there are demon guards, run-of-the-mill types — they're forming a perimeter, and their thoughts are broadcasting just how excited they are about the coming destruction."

"Are we underneath the Pyramid?" As well as Chris knew the Underworld, his knowledge of how it might correspond with the world above, if at all, was sketchy.

"Not really."

"Isn't that where we need to go to find Andras?"

"No. He's in there." She let out a frustrated breath. "I can't catch his mind. But everyone around him, their minds are all directed to him. But we can't just shimmer right to him without seeing him."

"How many guards?"

"Seven, eight. It's doable, if you can manage your end of it. We fight our way through, and you get the crystals around him the second we're next to him, that's all."

"That's all."

"Don't screw it up."

Cole guessed that Chris had managed to mutter the spell to take down the Manor's shield while he was fetching crystals in the detritus of the attic. In any case, when Cole put on his own little show of deactivating the shield, to keep Caza believing it was he, not Chris, who controlled it, the two were able to shimmer out, Caza with a grip on Chris's arm that looked painful.

Now Cole had to wait, in the unshielded Manor — even if Chris would have been able to reset the protection before Caza took him away, which Cole doubted, all three of them had agreed to leave it down so there would be no impediment to bringing Andras in. Cole restlessly wandered the house, looking at exhibits, puzzling how Wyatt had got these outfits anyway — most of them had been magically created and then magically uncreated. The museum pieces had to be reproductions. Obviously, the reclining mermaid meant to represent Phoebe was, anyway. You can't just save a fish tail in a closet. He touched it. It gave slightly under his fingers, and was indeed made of some kind of synthetic material. Silicone? It felt smooth, not nearly scaly enough.

He decided it might be useful to scour the attic for ... what? Something useful to hand over to a resistance that barely existed anymore? He went up there anyway. It was something to do. The crystals in a semicircle around the wall were still in place; the wall was just a wall. Wyatt had not come home. Just in that moment, Cole half-wished he would; though he was loath to admit Caza might be right on this score, Wyatt probably could vanquish Andras without much trouble. And he was expert at getting information out of the unwilling.

In a reconnaissance of the second floor, Cole poked his head in the bedrooms, including - it was so strange to think of it - one that had been his own, with Phoebe, long ago. And he recalled that Chris had once told him that as a child, Wyatt had let Chris in on a secret: hidden objects stolen from the Elders under a floorboard in Wyatt's bedroom. An intriguing idea, to imagine Elder artifacts might still be there, forgotten but potentially useful - but probably not. In any case, Cole didn't know which bedroom, let alone which floorboard. He moved on.

He returned downstairs and walked past the foyer, the open space they had chosen and cleared in preparation for holding Andras, and tried to relax in the living room. He was failing at this when he heard a noise coming from the kitchen. What had been a bit of play-acting to bring Chris out in the open while Caza was there was now happening for real: There was an intruder, and with the shield barely down for twenty minutes.

When he shimmered into the kitchen, the woman he found there shrieked. She wore the uniform of a museum guide and seemed to be hyperventilating.

"The museum is closed today," he told her.

"I ... I know that now, sir," she stammered. "I just ... this was my shift, and I walked in ... and no one was here, so I was looking for guards, or someone ... I didn't realize it was closed."

"Now you do," Cole growled. "Get out."

The guide scurried out as fast as her high heels would let her. In her haste, she almost stumbled down the stairs leading from the porch, and she kept up that brisk pace down the street and out of sight.

And good thing, too. As Cole turned away from the door, Caza shimmered into the foyer: this time, instead of gripping Chris, she had in tow a black-clad figure that had to be Andras. Barely a second later, there was Chris, in a crouch, orbing in not only himself but a circle of crystals. Caza let go and stumbled back, just in time to be out of the crystal cage that sprung up and trapped Andras.

"Get the shield back up! Now!" Caza yelled.

Cole stepped out the front door and pretended to do so, assuming that Chris was actually doing the deed. When he turned around, the smallest of nods from Chris told him that the Manor was protected once more.

"I'm impressed," Cole said, walking around the cage holding Andras.

"No thanks to her," Chris said. "I thought she'd never give me the space to do anything."

"I'm surprised she let you orb back here."

"I didn't see any other way to get it done," Caza said. "Don't expect it to happen again."

She stepped in front of Andras. "We already know what you're up to. Your henchmen can't keep their mouths or their minds shut."

"Then you don't need anything from me, do you?" said Andras, who gingerly moved a hand forward, and yanked it back when he hit the shock of the crystal cage.

"What we need to know," Cole said, "is if you managed to set your little plan in motion before we caught you, and if you did, how do we stop it?"

Caza was standing as close as she could without entering the crystals' circle. She stared down Andras for a moment, then said, "Damn it. I'm getting nothing."

"Isn't he a demon?" Cole said.

"That's what the Book said he was," Chris said.

"Maybe it's the crystals," Andras said, smirking. "Take the cage down."

"Don't even try," Caza scoffed. "I've read minds through crystals plenty of times. I've also dealt with demons who think they can block me. One way or another, I always get through."

To Chris, "one way or another" seemed to be taking a long time. He had been dispatched to the sunroom to work on a vanquishing spell that didn't require the Power of Three. He wrote a small pile of them while Caza — with Cole's assistance — tried to break down Andras's mental defenses. Chris supposed he could try one spell after another on Andras until one worked, but he doubted any of them would. He wondered if a fireball from Cole would do the trick. How about a fireball released at the same time as the spell or a potion? Combining powers had some merit.

Chris wandered back into the foyer to run this idea past Cole. He found him nonchalantly leaning against the bannister while Caza paced, pausing to look at Andras, who was a little singed but still standing, though probably only because, caught in the cage, he had no choice.

"Any luck?" Chris asked. When Caza scowled at him, he added, "We're kind of running out of time here."

Just then, Caza stopped dead in her tracks, and lifted her head like a dog that had caught the scent of a rabbit. But she wasn't looking at Andras. She was looking at the door, with the slightest of smiles playing on her lips.

"Oh, this is rich ..." she muttered, then walked to a window and looked out before announcing brightly, "Hey, we've got company."

Chris hung back as Cole went to look. Cole's response: "Oh, hell."

"For all that it's closed, this museum is getting a lot of traffic today," Caza said. "Let him in, Cole."

"What? Why?"

Caza smiled. "Family togetherness?"

Family? Chris thought and then it dawned on him: Oh, no no no. Go away, Penka.

Caza said, "He seems to really want the attention of someone in here. I want to know why. He can't hurt us. Maybe he could even help. Not likely, but you never know. Bring him in."

"Go get him yourself," Cole said.

"Oh, but I need you to open this place. And if I step out there, the minute he sees me, he'll run away."

"And he won't when he sees me?"

"You're not me. I doubt he would even recognize you."

Chris didn't like this. She sounded way too reasonable about it. But Cole walked out and one more time Chris had to temporarily let down the Manor's defenses. He walked into the sitting room — casually, he hoped — to look out the window, and work the spell out of Caza's earshot. He rubbed his temple as he watched Cole outside roughly drag a confused-looking Penka up the stairs. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been at work in the past, focused on a goal, and now he was nothing but a magical doorman, with a house full of demons of one sort or another. Sighing, he returned to the foyer just as Cole and Penka came in.

Penka immediately tried to back out when he caught sight of his sister, who just looked amused. But Cole had already closed the door behind them, and Penka probably knew anyway that he wouldn't make it out of the yard.

"Well, this is just great," Penka said huffily, taking in the odd scene in the foyer, with Andras caged in the middle, looking both worse for wear and contemptuous at this new turn of events.

"What brings you here?" Caza asked. "The museum's closed."

"Yeah, I ... I just ... " He took a side glance at Chris and seemed to be studiously avoiding looking at Cole. "I found out something, and I wanted to warn ... um ... Wyatt."

"Wyatt."

"Yeah, Wyatt." Penka's voice took on more confidence as he warmed to the lie. "He's the one who gets things done in this city, right? Well, it's a pretty big threat to the city that I learned about. I live here, too. I'm a constituent, you might say. He ought to do something about it."

"Let me guess," Cole said. "A giant sinkhole swallowing up the Pyramid and most of downtown?"

"Um, I don't know about the Pyramid specifically, but-"

Caza pointed to their prisoner. "We already know. We've even caught the culprit. Way ahead of you, as usual."

"Oh, thanks for that. See if I try to help again. I'll go then."

"No, I don't think so," his sister said.

She closed in on him with an unpleasant smile, and Penka nearly fell into the mermaid's lap as he backed away.

"With all the secrets bouncing around in your head, all your unsavory associations, I know you're probably glad that Mero demons can't read their own kind. Unless!" She tapped a finger to her temple. "Unless they're really, really good. Like me. And, Penka, you're such an easy mark. I knew it!"

She turned her back on him and Penka sidled out of her orbit.

"Cole Turner," she said with a chuckle. "You are so busted."