THE NEXT DAY…
Phoebe decided to stay home and write her column over the kitchen counter, a cup of coffee fuming close to the laptop. She typed the same line for the fifth time and then held delete long enough to erase it yet again. Her mind was inevitably somewhere else.
Coop had gone on duty and Paddy had to go to the library to get some books to work on her thesis. She would be a graduated child psychologist in just a few months. She had convinced her sister Praline to go with her so she could worry about mundane things, like what kind of iced coffee were they going to get on their way to the library.
"This is pointless" Phoebe told herself shutting down the computer and walking away, grabbing the coffee mug on her way to the living room. She started picking up after the girls. A pair of socks here "Praline's" she thought. A couple thick books that were hard to lift with just the one arm. "Paddy's" she smiled to herself as the everyday chores inadvertedly gave her some comfort. She saw a picture of her three daughters in front of the manor, not unlike hers with her sisters, and went to pick it up. She stared at it lovingly for a moment or two, the weight of all she was carrying lost somewhere in between her memories, until the same premonition she had seen the day before when touching her daughter as she had been recently healed, hit her like a bullet, making her drop the stuff on the floor and making it hard to breathe. "Bianca" she gulped. Why had it been so violent? It's not like an argument with her boyfriend would be totally out of the blue right now. It made her feel anxious. "Paige!" she called out deciding to go to her daughter right then and find out what had that been about. "Paige!" but Paige was nowhere to be seen.
Paige was right in the middle of something with a few of her charges who had been attacked by a gang of dark lighters. She thought of telling Wyatt and Sam about it, since they could probably put an end to whatever was going on, but didn't want to make matters worse, so she did what she could do and went to help them herself. It didn't sit too well with Henry, but then again, he understood her charges were a whole different issue.
As Phoebe kept calling her, her anxiety turned into full blown panic. She was certain something wrong was going on with her daughter. So, she did something she wouldn't have done, if she hadn't been so scared for her baby girl.
"Wyatt!" she only had to call him once and they both showed up.
"What's wrong?" he asked immediately. They looked around looking for a clear reason to being summoned.
"Take me to Bianca's, please" Phoebe didn't dare look at them straight in the eye
"Why? What's wrong?" asked Sam.
"Not sure. I just have this feeling that there is"
"Let's pay her a visit then" said Wyatt offering his hand to hold. Phoebe hesitated and then took it. They were immediately orbed to Bianca's. She was fighting a demon with knives, while a tentacled demon had plunged its tentacles into Jackson's chest and torso, flailing him like an unconscious rag doll. A few scorch marks randomly decorating the floors, telling them there had been more not too long ago. Phoebe gave a step forward but Wyatt put his arm in front of her, stopping her on her tracks, and as their eyes turned pitch black, they released powerful shadow blasts to swiftly end the fight. Jackson fell to the floor, unmoving. Bianca ran to his side.
"Do something!" she yelled at her cousin. Phoebe was checking for his pulse, but there was none.
"Honey, he's gone" she cried. "They can't do anything now" Phoebe wasn't all too sure anymore that they would have been able to help him, had he still been alive.
"We can do… something" said Sam. She approached Bianca and knelt beside her. "Do you want payback?"
"No, honey. That's not the answer" Phoebe told her daughter, as Sam's eyes fixated on her. Bianca was already nodding between her tears. She caressed her beloved's face, drenching her hand in his blood and then she kissed his forehead.
"I'm sorry, mom. This is not fair" she held her now empty womb.
"I know, sweetie, but this is not…"
"I'm gonna let them see just how far they've gone" Wyatt and Sam smiled and orbed to the underworld, taking Bianca with them. Phoebe was left to call upon her sisters to try and follow suit.
IN THE UNDERWORLD…
"You were warned over and over again" Wyatt told the demons in the cave.
"Now you shall feel the wrath of the consequences" said Sam conjuring an athame and offering it to Bianca's bloody hand with every intention of being impassive bystanders themselves. She let out a powerful sorrow-drenched cry and launched herself at the demons.
She managed to get a few killed with nothing but the single blade provided, but soon, as demons saw their majesties weren't getting involved in the actual fight, they started to gang up on her, surrounding her from all angles. Her pain blinded her away from any fear and kept thrusting the knife to whoever was within reach.
"They killed Jackson… they killed your child… they won't…ever… stop…" said Sam in a calculated way.
"Neither will I" said Bianca feeling all the hate she ever felt in her heart rising up to the surface like a boiling wave growing inside her, until it finally exploded. Something very similar to a shadow blast erupted from her, forming tentacles which swiveled all around her, throwing demons against the walls of the caves or right down punching a hole through them, vanquishing them after excruciating seconds.
Once the cave was empty, Wyatt and Sam smiled to each other, while Bianca fell to her knees crying her eyes out. The tentacles vanishing up in smoke.
"We'll make sure this stops now" Wyatt told her. Sam kissed her forehead. "Vizkaroth" he called out. The demon shimmered in instantly, bowing down before them.
"How can I be of service?"
"The Source. How do we take in the Source?"
"Follow me" he said pleased as Wyatt orbed Bianca home, where she would remain pretty much unresponsive for the next few days and ask…. well, demand, in very unkind words, to be left alone.
He proudly walked them by a bunch of caves and demons were either kneeling as they passed by or getting vanquished as they tried to approach them. Vizkaroth took them down where the Source's power lied. He knelt in front of the stone steps and started to get ready for a ritual… he conjured a wooden crate out of which he took…
"Soil from an ancient burial ground…" he poured it into a cup. "Blood of light…" he poured a thick red liquid from a dark flask. They didn't know the blood had come from White Lighters-to-be, but at the moment, they certainly wouldn't have cared. "Demon's bile, unwillingly given" he poured a dark green fluid in. "and lastly…"
"Our blood" Wyatt said it, but they both anticipated this was coming. Vizkaroth took out the same blade they had used to bring back the Nexus and repeated what they had done down in the basement of the manor. They put their hands together over the blade and Vizkaroth pulled it down in one quick movement, letting their blood flow into the cup this time. He turned away from them and chanted…
The throne of power has been claimed
The worthy have come to fill the void
Presenting an offering willingly given
To an ancient evil now destroyed
To build their strength within the hour
Leave vanquished source,
But share its power.
A thick black smoke rose from the ground in front of Vizkaroth who still held the cup in front of him solemnly. It burst into flames as a sign of acceptance and then it hovered for a few seconds as if calculating its path. Wyatt and Sam stood firm, holding hands tighter than ever, when the power of the Source floated into them. It felt like a train was crashing head on into them. They held on to each other as every inch of their body was screaming in excruciating pain. Their eyes somehow an even darker tone of black. When they could finally breathe again, they saw Vizkaroth was down on his knees, marveled at their presence. They could still feel sharp bursts of pain here and there as the source's power settled in, trying to merge along with the Nexus. Sort of like trying to fill an overly filled jar.
"No one will cross you now" Vizkaroth looked up and smiled. He had done it. After hundreds of years, he had brought this magnificent creature into being.
"Let's go home" said Wyatt kissing Sam and caressing her cheek. She stared into his eyes and smiled. They disappeared in purple/ black flames heading home.
That night, just when they thought they might get something remotely similar to a break, they had quite the unexpected visit…
"Clear" whispered the first officer, having checked the training room.
"Clear" whispered the second, having checked Edward's old room. The third, fourth and fifth kept aiming their guns, one upstairs, one towards the living room and the third to the back door just for good measure. One of them, the lead no doubt, signaled them to head upstairs, but as soon as the first officer got a couple steps up…
"Evening, gentlemen" said Wyatt, all guns pointed straight to them.
"I would offer you coffee, considering the late hour, but…" Sam grinned. "I guess that's out of the question"
"Put your hands up!" the leading officer shouted.
"I really wish you wouldn't yell, my children are asleep" said Sam.
"Hands where I can see them, now!" he kept instructing them. There was a loud cry from the children's bedroom, where at least one of the kids had woken up, startled by the noise.
"See, we were trying to be civil, but…"
"Fire!" the order was given. None of the bullets hit home and the shells hadn't even stopped bouncing off the floor when… practically simultaneously, an officer imploded, a second was thrown up against the ceiling and then the floor, one was scorched into nothing and the last two were erased by shadow blasts.
Wyatt and Sam did a quick check on the kids, but Kai was on the verge of falling back to sleep sucking his thumb and luckily his cry had gone unnoticed by the rest of the children. No doubt from having heard him on his nightly feedings.
Both parents went downstairs, standing behind the front door and sensing just how big the problem was outside.
"Vizkaroth" Wyatt called out. He shimmered in at once. "Blind them from their phones"
"As you wish, my liege" Viz did as he was told and just like it had happened in the park, he made everyone within half a mile suddenly forget how to use a phone and as an extra bonus, he had convinced everyone to disconnect any kind of device.
"Get our neighbors back to bed while you're at it"
"Yes, my queen" he took a moment longer and then nodded. Wyatt and Sam stepped out of their home.
They were faced with at least a dozen patrol cars, parked at odd angles around the front of their house. Dozens of policemen stood there, guns up, pointing straight at them.
"Evening, Chief" Wyatt's voice boomed on the otherwise empty street.
"How did you know it was me?" he said coming forward, hands up, showing he wasn't carrying a gun himself.
"Honestly, it's hardly an impressive guess to believe the Chief of police would come with such a posse" Sam looked around.
"How can we help you, Chief?" Wyatt held his wife's hand tightly in his.
"Imma need you to come with us, son. Both of you actually"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible at this late hour. It's way past our bedtime, but perhaps you'd prefer to come over for brunch?"
"Do you see all those guns pointing at you right now?"
"Are you very confident any of those bullets would make it to us?" Sam rhetorically asked.
"Cause we are confident that they won't" Wyatt's voice echoed deep in the Chief's bones, even if he tried with all his might to hide it from them.
"I don't think you understand the position you're in" the Chief threatened, standing his ground.
"Oh, we do" Wyatt smiled. "Question is… do you?" they stared at the police force and they all started to slowly turn their guns to their own face, their hand still precariously on the trigger. "See, it wasn't the best idea to break into our home"
"Especially when our children are in their beds"
"You have the opportunity to work with us… and each and every one here tonight just wants to get home at the end of their shift and we are prepared to do that"
"We are being more than generous. I suggest you take the offer" Sam couldn't help but smile a little at their powerlessness.
"And if I don't?" said the Chief still every bit as determined to not lose face.
"Can't you figure the answer to that yet?" a helicopter was approaching the site, no doubt called earlier. Their majesties orbed it down in the middle of the empty street and allowed a couple minutes for the people inside to run out, then, they compacted the vehicle with a twist of their fingers. The Chief gulped and walked backwards, slowly away from them.
"You will do as you're told. Question is, how many people are you willing to sacrifice for that to happen?" the chief turned to look at the officers still at gunpoint.
"Would you sacrifice your own?" Sam stared at the Chief.
"Do say hello to your lovely wife for us…and… don't ever come back here" Wyatt kissed Sam's hand on their way back to the house.
"May you enjoy the rest of your evening" said Sam waving a hand and disintegrating patrol cars and guns into nothing, before finally stepping inside, side by side with her husband.
"Vizkaroth, could you pick a couple demons to guard our home? Apparently, we'll be forced to do that from now on"
"I'm afraid none of them would be trustworthy until after the coronation"
"Right. We forgot about that. When can you set it up?"
"I'll get right on it, my liege"
"You do that"