Apologies for the lateness of this thing folks, I've had an oddly lazy weekend where very little I set out to do actually happened. Normal service should be resumed as of tonight. Apologies also for the shortness of this piece. Oh hell's toenails, disclaimers... I don't own the characters, copyright ain't mine either. Life sucks. Please R&R!

Phoebe closed the Book of Shadows with a sigh. "Nothing."

Glancing up from where he'd been staring out of the window, Cole shrugged. "I didn't think that there would be. He never associated with any demons that I knew about. And he never killed anyone - anyone human that is - that I heard about."

"But he killed plenty of demons?" asked Paige from the depths of the large armchair she had snuggled into once it had become clear that Tethos was very much an unknown quantity for the book.

"Oh, yes," Cole moved over to stand by Phoebe. "Plenty of demons." He looked at her and tucked a tendril of her hair back over her ear. "Have you located your nagging doubt that we've missed something?"

She bit her lip in thought. "No, and it's starting to drive me nuts. It's something that's been fluttering at the back of my mind since." she spun around to face him. "You told us about Tethos!"

He raised an eyebrow. "Something I said?"

Phoebe wrinkled her brow with thought and paced around the stand on which the Book of Shadows lay. "Um..." She stopped dead in her tracks. "You said that Tethos started this rite of his about 30 years ago." Cole nodded.

She raised a finger. "When was the third part discovered again?"

"1972," said Paige and then her eyes widened. "Cole, when exactly did the Source hear about Tethos going into his magic mojo thingy?"

Cole cursed. "1972. That's too exact to be a coincidence... He knew that it had been found. He must have. But how?"

Now it was Cole's turn to do the pacing, holding his palms together and placing the tips of his forefingers against his nose. "Finding magical artifacts is tricky - it's easier to scry for people. And this thing, whatever it is, is dismantled, so it's not giving off any magical energy. You could scry for the pieces for years until your chains wear out and your crystals turn to dust and you still wouldn't find a thing. So how... It might be a very powerful location spell, but that wouldn't give a precise idea where something was. You could hide something in San Francisco and the closest someone might get would be 'central California.' No, he must have something else." He looked up. "We need Leo. We need to find out what this thing is."

Far below they heard the front door slam and after a few minutes the others trooped, led by Piper, who was staring at her British Museum ID pass. "- still don't see why you couldn't have used a better one, I look like I just crawled out of bed... hi, anything in the book?"

"Nope, nada," said Paige. "Did you find it? Or was that too optimistic?"

Piper slumped in a chair and smiled sarcastically. "Waaayyy too optimistic, honey. Place was like Fort Knox, head of security made lots of qualified denials and according to Hawkeye here," she waved at Tom, who raised his eyebrows, "...he was recording the talk for the shadowy Mr Cunningham. I, SO, didn't like that place."

"Hawkeye?" quizzed Phoebe. Tom shrugged. "In our job you have to notice things."

Cole cleared his throat and put his hands in his pocket. "Well we've noticed something here," and he explained about the timing connection.

Theresa muttered something that made Tom laugh. "Swearing in Gaelic is very helpful," he explained, "when no-one else knows what you're saying." Then he frowned. "We should have spotted that. And you're right, how did he know?"

There was a sudden muffled shout of "Piper?" far below.

"Up here, sweetie," called Piper, and Leo ran up the stairs into the room. He did not look happy.

"We have a problem," he began and then stopped when the Charmed Ones gave a collective groan.

"When don't we have a problem?" said Piper.

Leo grimaced but then added: "I know what it is." The others turned and stared at him. "It's the Hammer of Ra."

This did not bring the reaction that he had expected, with the Charmed Ones and their British counterparts collectively shrugging in bafflement. Cole, however, went white. "Please tell me you're joking," he said in a low voice.

"No joke, Cole. I'd never joke about something like that."

Once again Piper made a face as she broke in between the Whitelighter and the demon. "Can you two start with the subtitles again? What is this thing?"

Cole stepped closer to Phoebe, who looked at him puzzled. "The Source has been looking for it for centuries. It's an ancient Egyptian weapon. A very powerful one."

Perching on one of the arms of the chair where his wife was sitting, Leo nodded. "It was built in the time of the Pharaoh Khufu - who built the Great Pyramid. He was a very powerful magic user. The Priesthood of Ra kept it safe in one of their temples, and it was only ever used in anger once." He said the last word with such a grim finality that a pall of silence settled over the room.

Paige broke it. Sitting with her chin on her knees she asked: "What happened?"

Sighing, Leo imitated Cole's earlier gesture by putting his hands together and touching the tip of his nose. Then he looked up.

"The Old Kingdom of Egypt fell apart for lots of reasons. One of them was a scorpion-demon called Argol. Very big, very powerful, very destructive. The last Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom finally lured him into the desert to the west of the Nile. Then he took the Hammer of Ra and... annihilated him. There's a big hole where Argol was standing at the time."

Her eyes narrowing, Piper looked up at her husband. "I recognise that tone of voice. How big a hole?"

Cole answered for the Whitelighter. "It's called the Qattara Depression," he winced.

There was a clatter as Tom knocked the table he was leaning over in shock. "But that's a hundred miles long and at least fifty miles wide!" he exploded. "It's huge!"

Shrugging, the demon said: "That's why the Source wanted it. It's incredibly powerful. In the chaos that followed the fall of the Old Kingdom - even with Argol dead nothing could stop it - the Priests of Ra obviously must have thought that it was safer to bury it. And once they in turn were dead..." He shrugged.

"There's more," said Leo. "There was a prophecy that one day it would be found again." Piper blinked. "When? What does the rest of the prophecy say?"

Leo looked intensely uncomfortable. "We don't know," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "It's... gone missing."

"How do you lose a prophecy?" exploded Paige. "I thought the whole idea of prophecies was that they turn up at the right moment for the heroes to save the day?"

"Well, it was on a stone tablet in Giza. One of the later Pharaohs had it copied onto papyrus around 500BC... then the tablet was lost, and the papyrus was taken to Constantinople in 450AD and..."

"And?" prompted Phoebe.

"It went missing during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. It was seen with the last Emperor just before he led his men into a battle which they... well they all died."

"Great!" said Piper, throwing her hands in the air with exasperation. "Why stop when you're having a run of really, truly terrible, bad luck? How can you lose a honking great stone tablet anyway?"

"Calm down, honey, calm down..." soothed Phoebe, before turning back to Leo. "And there isn't any other copy of this prophecy?" The Whitelighter shook his head. "Not that the Elders know about."

There was the sound of a throat clearing. Then Cole said: "I think I know of someone who does. Who may know what is says." He grimaced. "Guess who was in Constantinople when it fell?"

"Nope, our luck just gets suckier and suckier," muttered Piper. "Let me guess... Tethos?"

Cole gave a rueful nod.