"Ok, so now what, do we camp out here till the wedding tomorrow evening?" Phoebe asked, once they were sure the demon women were gone.
"There appears to be an empty apartment next to Laura's. Why don't we make camp there?" Prue said, straining against her shoes.
"Sounds good to me." Paige said, and orbed them all into that apartment.
The first thing each of them did was to remove her shoes. Then they settled down on the abandoned sofa left in the living room.
"Wish we had something to eat, I'm famished." Paige said, holding her rumbling stomach.
"Don't think about food and you won't be hungry." Piper said, noticing her own hunger pains.
"Easy for you to say, I could sure go for a Big Mac right about now." Phoebe added, rubbing her feet.
"Too bad there won't be a McDonald's for at least forty years!" Prue put in, as she got up to check out the rest of the apartment.
It was a fairly small one bedroom flat. Apparently the last tenant hadn't left too long ago, as it was still fairly clean and showed no signs of neglect. When she got to the bedroom she found a rather large mirror on one wall. The rest of the walls were empty, with slightly faded flowery wallpaper on them.
She stopped to admire herself in the mirror, when she realized her reflection was not the only one in it.
"Tim?" She asked, to the image she found there.
"Yes, this was the easiest way to communicate with you there. Are you all in that apartment?" He asked with a look of great concern on his face.
"We're all here; do you need to speak to all of us?" She asked him.
"Actually I need to pull you all back here, at least temporarily. I think there's more going on here than just your ancestor." He continued, and waved his arm, replacing his reflection with an image of swirling gray clouds within the glass.
Prue peeked her head out the bedroom door and got everyone's attention.
"Hey, we're being recalled. Tim says there's something else going on." She said, as the other girls got up and carried their shoes with them.
"What is that?" Paige asked, peering at the swirling clouds in the mirror.
"I guess that's our way home, so who goes first?" Piper asked the assembled group.
"Age before beauty." Phoebe said, pushing Prue toward the mirror.
"Alright, I'll go first, bunch of chickens." She said and hopped through the mirror.
Piper and Phoebe went next, without any incident. Paige was about to step through when something shot out from across the room, shattering the mirror.
"Hey what the hell…" Paige started when she was blasted down by a fireball flung by Sarah.
A few seconds after Phoebe stepped through the mirror in the attic, it shattered violently. Everyone there looked on in surprise.
"What happened?" Prue asked, looking to Tim for an answer.
"The mirror on the other side must have been shattered. We'll have to assume that Paige has been captured." He said, standing before the Book of Shadows.
"We have to go back and get her then." Piper said, walking over to Leo and Wyatt.
"Right now we have a bigger problem. Phoebe do you remember the premonition you got when you touched my arm earlier?" Tim asked.
"Yeah, a huge explosion, you said it was some kind of time explosion. Do the demon girls somehow cause this?" She asked him back.
"No, I believe Tempus is going to do this. I had forgotten till I was going through the book that he could shut down time completely." He informed, a very serious look on his face.
"Shut down time, how can he do that?" Prue asked, coming up to stand next to him at the book stand.
"With this." He said, pointing to the open page of the book.
Prue perused the entry very quickly and then began to read aloud. "The Portal of Time was discovered by the Ancient Druids in what is today Great Britain. When they realized that all time flows forth from it, they built a temple over it, to keep it away from dangerous hands, for the one who controls the portal can shut it down with a series of sacrifices, and incantations, thus stopping time and bringing an end to the Universe."
"You think Tempus is trying to get control of this Portal?" Piper asked.
"Yes, I think he intended to wipe you out because you are the only ones who could stand in his way. Keep reading, Prue." Tim said, walking away from the stand and pacing the attic.
"If the incantations are not completed, the seeker of destruction can be stopped by four witches standing at the compass points of the temple, and chanting the following spell. He who seeks to stop times pace, Will not continue in this place, We who stand, directions four, Will not let you close the door, Evil will not cease this flow, Time will cause you now to go. No matter what you try to do, Destruction will now come to you. A little wordy, but seems like it would do the trick." Prue continued, looking at her sisters.
"But we need Paige to make that work, which means we still have to go back." Phoebe said, amazed at this turn of events.
Back in 1910, Paige awoke to find all four demon girls staring down at her.
"What should we do with her? Kill her outright, or wait till we kill her ancestor and watch her fade from existence?" Sarah asked, still bouncing a fireball.
"How about just letting me go?" Paige timidly asked.
"Oh I don't think so, you're a serious threat to our plan, witch." Susan added.
Paige looked around and found herself in what appeared to be some sort of large audience chamber. She was chained down to a table, about the size of a pool table. Beneath her appeared to be some sort of pentagram.
"Nicholas should be home soon. As soon as he is, we'll see what he thinks about how to dispose of you." Sophia said, leafing through an old book.
Paige decided now might be a good time to try orbing out. She concentrated, but nothing happened.
"There is an energy field around this room. You didn't think I'd let anyone come and go without my knowledge now did you?" Nicholas said, entering the room and morphing back into himself from his Johnathan form.
"I'm sure my sisters will be coming back for me, any minute, and then you'll be in trouble." Paige said, rattling the chains binding her to the table.
"I highly doubt it, by now Tempus has found a way to prevent any more time traveling. By this time tomorrow, you and your sisters will no longer exist. But that doesn't mean we can't still have some fun." He said, and took down a jeweled athame from the wall.
Just before he could slice into Paige, Sarah screamed from across the room.
"What's wrong?" Susan asked, standing next to her.
"I don't know I just feel very strange." She said, then vanished slowly from their midst.
"Did you do this?" Serena asked Paige, walking toward her with murder in her eyes.
"Uh, hello, chained to a table here, I'm hardly in any position to do anything." Paige said, confusion in her face.
Meanwhile, Sarah reappeared lying on a stone table, unable to move. She looked around her, there were four large pillars around her in a circle. The table she was laying on was also in the center of a circle. On the table with her were candles, all lit. Just then a figure in a robe walked out from behind one of the pillars. He removed his cowl and it turned out to be none other than Tempus.
"What's going on Tempus? I demand you release me right now! My sisters won't stand for this." She said, trying to move, but finding her voice and head the only things she had control over.
"I'm afraid I can't, Sarah. But, for what it's worth, you and your sisters are all going to suffer the same fate. But your sacrifice will end a great deal of suffering in the universe. I need you to be quiet now, as I have to concentrate before killing you." He said, setting a large athame next to her on the table.
She suddenly found she couldn't even control her voice any longer. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. Tempus raised his arms above his head.
"Oh Cronus, great God of time, I beseech thee! Accept this first sacrifice to you, so that time may be made to stop, and those who burn in your name will no longer know pain. Duis aliquip dolor velit, eros praesent, accumsan feugiat illum nostrud et vel enim et consectetuer, veniam augue, duis. Ut consequat iusto lobortis dignissim ea ut dignissim qui dolor veniam iriure sed tation feugait. Dolore exerci ut hendrerit aliquip, tation autem commodo luptatum luptatum veniam odio, hendrerit euismod nisl nulla, sit lobortis, aliquam, velit consequat lobortis ipsum feugait duis consequat. Quis praesent sed consequat, delenit eros iriure, zzril ut nibh facilisi ex consectetuer dolor dolore eu blandit delenit nibh eu. Et enim in dolore eros, laoreet enim, dolore diam, adipiscing facilisis magna delenit aliquip laoreet at ut quis." With that, he stabbed her in the heart with the athame. She flamed out of existence and the Earth trembled a moment.