Again, no copyright, yadadada. This started off as being quite hard to
write, I have no idea why. But then it all fell into place and just wrote
itself. Very creepy. Enjoy! And R&R, don't let Gryffindor620 do all the
work please!
=============================================================== If the atmosphere had been tense before, it was doubly so now. Molly had concentrated the potion that she and Piper had work on before and was ladling it out very carefully into bottles in the kitchen. "One of these things made him go 'ouch,'" she said grimly. "Lets see what ten will do. A scream of agony is all we need to get Piper out."
Phoebe was honing her axe again, and in the process making a noise that was putting Paige's teeth on edge. She was about a second away from snapping something irritable at her sister when Tom and Leo orbed in, followed a second later by Cole.
"-still don't see why we couldn't have just checked the place out," Leo was saying testily to the two others as he appeared.
"Because we don't want to give him any warning at all," replied Tom as he dropped the crumpled maps onto the table, followed by a pencil and the compass. He looked up and grinned at the others. "We've found them." He pulled out a map of San Francisco. Dozens of lines had been drawn from different points all around the bay, converging on a point in downtown San Francisco. "They're somewhere near an abandoned warehouse just off China Bay."
Phoebe looked up at that. "Big place, double doors on the outside, next to an old fire station?" she asked.
Everyone stared at her. "Let me guess, you had a premonition?" asked Cole, slightly aggrieved.
She shook her head. "Piper, Prue and I checked the place out once when we were looking for a better location for P3. It's owned by a pack of lawyers who've been putting on and off the market for years. We turned it down because it would taken too much money to convert and we didn't want the customers to be freaked out by all the rats in the area."
"Oh," said Cole. "And I was all set to complain about premonitions and bad timing." He looked around at the others, who were all looking grim as he felt.
"We're going to scout the place out first and then make our move once we know where she is. If we see the Hammer, we take it with us and Leo orbs it up to the Elders. If anyone gets in our way we take them down. Any questions?"
There was total silence in the room.
"Let's go get your sister back," Cole said to Phoebe and, reaching out his hand to grasp hers, they shimmered out as Leo and Paige orbed the others away.
************************************************************************
Piper stared at Tethos. "I've never heard of a suicidal demon," she said scornfully. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Whatever that means. I've been hanging around Brits too much." She folded her arms again.
He looked at her and smiled. It looked as if there was a lot of pain behind it. "You have no idea, little witch, no idea at all."
The response was a growl. "No idea of what?"
The smile evaporated away. Tethos turned away for a moment and his hand slashed the air carefully. There was a white flash and a... Piper stared... rent appeared in midair, through which she could see the wall of the warehouse, but bathed in some kind of odd light, as if the life had been sucked out of all the colours. Tethos pushed his arm through. When it came back he was holding the joined up other two parts of the Hammer of Ra.
"No idea of what it's like to be a demon," he said and waved his free hand. The rent sealed itself with a snap. "To have evil within you. To fight it every minute of a day and refight that same battle the next day and the day after and the day after that."
"I know what it's like," she said, somewhat startled by his words. "I've talked to Cole. You call him Balthazar."
Tethos turned back. "Yes, I was going to ask you about that. He seemed very different to the last time I saw him. It was like looking at the sun trying to come out from behind a cloud."
Having no idea what the last sentence was about, Piper shrugged. "He's in love with my sister, Phoebe."
That did get a response. Tethos stared even harder at her. "A demon in love with a witch? And you have a Whitelighter with you - and someone who felt both witch and Whitelighter. That's a strange combination. A powerful one too."
She stared at him. "You really have no idea who you're messing with, do you?"
The Fist of Osiris came out of the inside of his cloak as Tethos laughed softly.
"Not that I care," he said as he started to push the final piece into the Hammer of Ra, "But who are you? Don't tell me that you're the Charmed Ones, born into the world at last?"
"Boy, you really don't mix with the other demons, do you? Yes, we are the Charmed Ones."
Tethos almost dropped the Hammer as the final piece clicked into place.
************************************************************************ Down in his throne room the Source came out of his seat with a jerk and stared at a point in the ceiling. Then he growled in frustration. The Hammer was complete. If that fool Gorgos made a hash of things now... He pulled a short black rod out of a hidden pocket. Tethos was strong... but strength could be beaten with cunning...
************************************************************************
He was staring at Piper again. Then he threw his head back and laughed again, a long and very heartfelt laugh. "Oh, so that explains why the Source has been hatching his plots like a demented hen!" he said, when he finally stopped chuckling. "Oh, dear, I haven't laughed like that since I heard Nixon's resignation speech. He was an idiot as well."
Tilting her head Piper looked at him. "You're very cheerful for a supposedly suicidal demon," she muttered.
Tethos sighed and placed the Hammer on an invisible surface. "Did Balthazar tell you about me? About what I did?" Receiving a nod, he scratched his nose with a talon.
"I'm a thousand years old," he began. "I was born in 991 by the Christian calendar. I've seen a lot in my time, walking in the world of men after I was damned. I saw Viking longboats sail down the Menai Straits. I saw William the Bastard walk out of Westminster Abbey and into the smoke of the buildings burnt by his men during his coronation. I was at Runnymede to see an idiot called John sign Magna Charta, and at Bosworth Field to see Richard of Gloucester charge to his death against Henry Tudor. I've seen Jerusalem fall so many times that they all merge into one."
He sat down onto what appeared to be an invisible chair.
"I saw the last defenders of Byzantium march to what they knew would be their deaths. I saw Charles Stuart go to his so-called martyrdom. I once got drunk with Peter the Great. I watched Frederick the Great pass by on the way to Rossbach and I saw Napoleon the First ride with his marshals to the slaughter in the snow that was Eylau. I heard the roar of 'Douro, Douro!' from the Portuguese soldiers at Sorauren shake the hills when they saw the Duke of Wellington arrive to stop the French. I heard the guns of Verdun and the Somme. I have seen enough death to sicken even the Source.
"And all though that time, all through those years, there wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think about my wife and my son. I loved them both, and my brother, so dearly but they've been dead for centuries and I will never see them again. Ever. And you wonder why I want to end it? This-" he gestured at the completed Hammer. "Is the one thing strong enough to kill me."
Piper was silent. Then she asked: "How did you know the pieces were being discovered?"
There was a pause as he pulled out a small book. "This. It's a prophecy about the Hammer, although translating it from the original Egyptian was hard. When the first piece was found I could feel it through the earth thanks to the prophecy. 72 years later the second part was found, and then recently the last part. The prophecy mentions the "man of darkness from the northern cold mountains who looks to the light." That's what 'Tethos' means in the old language. Some Egyptian priest saw me in a vision thousands of years before I was born. That kind of thing shakes you."
"Tell me about it, I know how that feels," muttered Piper. "How did you get hold of the prophecy?"
"The last Byzantine Emperor gave it to me. He knew who I was - what I was - but he gave it to me as he went to his death. Said to remember the light, to fight the good fight even at the time when things were at their darkest. I took it, read it, and planned this."
There was a quite moment in the warehouse, broken only by a faint splashing from one corner where water was dripping down the wall and onto an office partition that was slowly falling apart.
Suddenly Tethos sniffed the air. "Company," he growled. Then he smiled. "Gorgos."
Turning with the speed of a striking snake his hand went out, hooked into empty air and pulled. There was a crash and a struggling form smashed through the walls of the office and came crashing to the floor where it bounced hard enough to make Piper wince. It was tall, violently hairy and extremely ugly as it swayed upright and gazed at Tethos with a look that combined abject terror with defiance. It hissed, smiled and then gaped at the floor.
"Sorry," said Tethos, "No shimmering in here. I've set up a few booby traps and I doubt that a maggot like you has the strength to break the shielding on the building anyway. Getting in is easy. Getting out will be a challenge that you won't have to face, because," his hand went out again and suddenly Gorgos was clawing at his throat and making choking noises as he slid across the floor towards the red-skinned demon, "You won't live that long."
Gorgos slid to a halt and then gasped with relief as whatever grasp Tethos had around his neck vanished. The older demon leant forward and sniffed the air. "Harold Smith and Ibrahim Nasser. You killed them both, didn't you?"
He leant forwards and gazed into the face of the now terrified demon. "This is for the innocents you've killed, maggot."
Tethos pushed Gorgos with a deceptive slowness and suddenly the intruder was moving faster and faster, sliding towards the wall at an increasing speed. At the moment that he slammed into it with bone-cracking force a bolt of fire shot out of Tethos's hand.
Gorgos had just enough time to scream once before it hit the centre of his chest and he exploded into a gout of fire.
"Hopefully," said Tethos, adjusting his robe, "He wasn't able to report back to the Source."
"Wrong," said the Source as he appeared behind him.
=============================================================== If the atmosphere had been tense before, it was doubly so now. Molly had concentrated the potion that she and Piper had work on before and was ladling it out very carefully into bottles in the kitchen. "One of these things made him go 'ouch,'" she said grimly. "Lets see what ten will do. A scream of agony is all we need to get Piper out."
Phoebe was honing her axe again, and in the process making a noise that was putting Paige's teeth on edge. She was about a second away from snapping something irritable at her sister when Tom and Leo orbed in, followed a second later by Cole.
"-still don't see why we couldn't have just checked the place out," Leo was saying testily to the two others as he appeared.
"Because we don't want to give him any warning at all," replied Tom as he dropped the crumpled maps onto the table, followed by a pencil and the compass. He looked up and grinned at the others. "We've found them." He pulled out a map of San Francisco. Dozens of lines had been drawn from different points all around the bay, converging on a point in downtown San Francisco. "They're somewhere near an abandoned warehouse just off China Bay."
Phoebe looked up at that. "Big place, double doors on the outside, next to an old fire station?" she asked.
Everyone stared at her. "Let me guess, you had a premonition?" asked Cole, slightly aggrieved.
She shook her head. "Piper, Prue and I checked the place out once when we were looking for a better location for P3. It's owned by a pack of lawyers who've been putting on and off the market for years. We turned it down because it would taken too much money to convert and we didn't want the customers to be freaked out by all the rats in the area."
"Oh," said Cole. "And I was all set to complain about premonitions and bad timing." He looked around at the others, who were all looking grim as he felt.
"We're going to scout the place out first and then make our move once we know where she is. If we see the Hammer, we take it with us and Leo orbs it up to the Elders. If anyone gets in our way we take them down. Any questions?"
There was total silence in the room.
"Let's go get your sister back," Cole said to Phoebe and, reaching out his hand to grasp hers, they shimmered out as Leo and Paige orbed the others away.
************************************************************************
Piper stared at Tethos. "I've never heard of a suicidal demon," she said scornfully. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Whatever that means. I've been hanging around Brits too much." She folded her arms again.
He looked at her and smiled. It looked as if there was a lot of pain behind it. "You have no idea, little witch, no idea at all."
The response was a growl. "No idea of what?"
The smile evaporated away. Tethos turned away for a moment and his hand slashed the air carefully. There was a white flash and a... Piper stared... rent appeared in midair, through which she could see the wall of the warehouse, but bathed in some kind of odd light, as if the life had been sucked out of all the colours. Tethos pushed his arm through. When it came back he was holding the joined up other two parts of the Hammer of Ra.
"No idea of what it's like to be a demon," he said and waved his free hand. The rent sealed itself with a snap. "To have evil within you. To fight it every minute of a day and refight that same battle the next day and the day after and the day after that."
"I know what it's like," she said, somewhat startled by his words. "I've talked to Cole. You call him Balthazar."
Tethos turned back. "Yes, I was going to ask you about that. He seemed very different to the last time I saw him. It was like looking at the sun trying to come out from behind a cloud."
Having no idea what the last sentence was about, Piper shrugged. "He's in love with my sister, Phoebe."
That did get a response. Tethos stared even harder at her. "A demon in love with a witch? And you have a Whitelighter with you - and someone who felt both witch and Whitelighter. That's a strange combination. A powerful one too."
She stared at him. "You really have no idea who you're messing with, do you?"
The Fist of Osiris came out of the inside of his cloak as Tethos laughed softly.
"Not that I care," he said as he started to push the final piece into the Hammer of Ra, "But who are you? Don't tell me that you're the Charmed Ones, born into the world at last?"
"Boy, you really don't mix with the other demons, do you? Yes, we are the Charmed Ones."
Tethos almost dropped the Hammer as the final piece clicked into place.
************************************************************************ Down in his throne room the Source came out of his seat with a jerk and stared at a point in the ceiling. Then he growled in frustration. The Hammer was complete. If that fool Gorgos made a hash of things now... He pulled a short black rod out of a hidden pocket. Tethos was strong... but strength could be beaten with cunning...
************************************************************************
He was staring at Piper again. Then he threw his head back and laughed again, a long and very heartfelt laugh. "Oh, so that explains why the Source has been hatching his plots like a demented hen!" he said, when he finally stopped chuckling. "Oh, dear, I haven't laughed like that since I heard Nixon's resignation speech. He was an idiot as well."
Tilting her head Piper looked at him. "You're very cheerful for a supposedly suicidal demon," she muttered.
Tethos sighed and placed the Hammer on an invisible surface. "Did Balthazar tell you about me? About what I did?" Receiving a nod, he scratched his nose with a talon.
"I'm a thousand years old," he began. "I was born in 991 by the Christian calendar. I've seen a lot in my time, walking in the world of men after I was damned. I saw Viking longboats sail down the Menai Straits. I saw William the Bastard walk out of Westminster Abbey and into the smoke of the buildings burnt by his men during his coronation. I was at Runnymede to see an idiot called John sign Magna Charta, and at Bosworth Field to see Richard of Gloucester charge to his death against Henry Tudor. I've seen Jerusalem fall so many times that they all merge into one."
He sat down onto what appeared to be an invisible chair.
"I saw the last defenders of Byzantium march to what they knew would be their deaths. I saw Charles Stuart go to his so-called martyrdom. I once got drunk with Peter the Great. I watched Frederick the Great pass by on the way to Rossbach and I saw Napoleon the First ride with his marshals to the slaughter in the snow that was Eylau. I heard the roar of 'Douro, Douro!' from the Portuguese soldiers at Sorauren shake the hills when they saw the Duke of Wellington arrive to stop the French. I heard the guns of Verdun and the Somme. I have seen enough death to sicken even the Source.
"And all though that time, all through those years, there wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think about my wife and my son. I loved them both, and my brother, so dearly but they've been dead for centuries and I will never see them again. Ever. And you wonder why I want to end it? This-" he gestured at the completed Hammer. "Is the one thing strong enough to kill me."
Piper was silent. Then she asked: "How did you know the pieces were being discovered?"
There was a pause as he pulled out a small book. "This. It's a prophecy about the Hammer, although translating it from the original Egyptian was hard. When the first piece was found I could feel it through the earth thanks to the prophecy. 72 years later the second part was found, and then recently the last part. The prophecy mentions the "man of darkness from the northern cold mountains who looks to the light." That's what 'Tethos' means in the old language. Some Egyptian priest saw me in a vision thousands of years before I was born. That kind of thing shakes you."
"Tell me about it, I know how that feels," muttered Piper. "How did you get hold of the prophecy?"
"The last Byzantine Emperor gave it to me. He knew who I was - what I was - but he gave it to me as he went to his death. Said to remember the light, to fight the good fight even at the time when things were at their darkest. I took it, read it, and planned this."
There was a quite moment in the warehouse, broken only by a faint splashing from one corner where water was dripping down the wall and onto an office partition that was slowly falling apart.
Suddenly Tethos sniffed the air. "Company," he growled. Then he smiled. "Gorgos."
Turning with the speed of a striking snake his hand went out, hooked into empty air and pulled. There was a crash and a struggling form smashed through the walls of the office and came crashing to the floor where it bounced hard enough to make Piper wince. It was tall, violently hairy and extremely ugly as it swayed upright and gazed at Tethos with a look that combined abject terror with defiance. It hissed, smiled and then gaped at the floor.
"Sorry," said Tethos, "No shimmering in here. I've set up a few booby traps and I doubt that a maggot like you has the strength to break the shielding on the building anyway. Getting in is easy. Getting out will be a challenge that you won't have to face, because," his hand went out again and suddenly Gorgos was clawing at his throat and making choking noises as he slid across the floor towards the red-skinned demon, "You won't live that long."
Gorgos slid to a halt and then gasped with relief as whatever grasp Tethos had around his neck vanished. The older demon leant forward and sniffed the air. "Harold Smith and Ibrahim Nasser. You killed them both, didn't you?"
He leant forwards and gazed into the face of the now terrified demon. "This is for the innocents you've killed, maggot."
Tethos pushed Gorgos with a deceptive slowness and suddenly the intruder was moving faster and faster, sliding towards the wall at an increasing speed. At the moment that he slammed into it with bone-cracking force a bolt of fire shot out of Tethos's hand.
Gorgos had just enough time to scream once before it hit the centre of his chest and he exploded into a gout of fire.
"Hopefully," said Tethos, adjusting his robe, "He wasn't able to report back to the Source."
"Wrong," said the Source as he appeared behind him.
