"It's time to go to work!" Daniel called out to the shadow.
From the shadows, his demon ally materialized. In his hands, he clutched a jar with blood collected in it. Daniel took the jar and placed it on the alter behind him. This would be the last time he'd need to gather all his followers, because after this final ritual, his goal would be accomplished.
Sure, it would have been nice to have all three Charmed One's blood as an extra boost, but truth be known, all they had needed was one sister to act as their final, magical sacrifice. Now they had a jar full of red, syrupy blood – it was the greatest, most potent ingredient to his twisted plan. He poured a few drops into about two hundred cups. Each follower filed toward the alter to grab their cup. They took the blood and anointed it upon their foreheads. This was it. Daniel could feel the energies working in the air. His goal was about to be realized.
The demonic aid summoned forth the other demons working in allegiance with this demented human being. They lined themselves along the wall behind the alter. They too played an important part in this plan. Daniel was human, average, and unremarkable. So, Daniel enlisted the aid of magical creatures to do his ritual work for him.
In the manor, the sisters sat in the attic. Piper and Paige were concocting potions, and spells to try and find their human foe. This was new territory for them. Normally their enemies were demonic, and therefore, easier to locate through magical means. Daniel Barker however, flew under those radars – making the sisters' jobs that much harder.
Phoebe wasn't helping. She wasn't doing much actually; still sitting on the couch, staring blankly toward Wyatt's play-pen as he played with his toys. She could hear her sisters talking about the fight to come, she understood it. Something inside her felt trapped. It was as if her will to thrive, her spirit wasn't there. Something in her was still dead.
"Don't add that!" Piper froze the ingredients before they fell into the potion.
Paige sighed. "You know, this would go a lot faster..." She raised her voice, to add force "If you would stop doing that!"
"Sorry, but that would just make him sneeze..." Piper grabbed the frozen herbs out of mid-air, and placed them back on the table. "Add this." She grabbed another jar knowingly and mixed it in. "Smells good..." She said sarcastically.
"Sure, if sweaty feet smell good." Paige pinched her nose shut. "I think I am gonna puke."
They chatted casually as they made their stinky potions. Suddenly Phoebe was standing beside them. She stared into the pot. Piper and Paige both jumped, a little startled.
"Whoa, didn't hear you come up behind us, Hun." Paige said, placing a hand on Phoebe's shoulder.
The middle sister pulled back, away from her sister's embrace. "I can still hear them. They're chanting." She said, almost to herself – as if she didn't know anyone else was there.
Piper looked to Paige, frowning, and then to Phoebe with concern. "Who's chanting? What do you mean?"
"They're asking for it now. It's starting." She said.
It was then that the door to the attic opened, and Leo came in, tired from Chris' fussiness. He smelled the potion, and almost fell over from the odor. He covered his mouth and nose and braced himself to walk closer to 'the pot of deadly fumes'.
"Hey, it's good to see you moving around." He said happily to Phoebe. When she didn't respond to him, he looked to her sisters with confusion. "What's wrong with her?"
Piper put some hair behind her ear and said. "She's making no sense. She's talking about 'they' again. 'They're' chanting... 'They're' asking for it..." She explained.
Leo closed his eyes and focused in on Phoebe. "I'm sensing something different from her. It's as if her life-force isn't all here, like she's split between this life, and the next." The Elder sighed.
Paige blinked hard. "I get it!" She exclaimed.
"You get what?" Piper asked.
Paige leaned herself against the table. "The blood those cult people drained from Phoebe – it was probably a sacrifice, right? Well, demonic resurrections don't fix stuff, that's what Cole said. So, that blood, and her life-force, or energy that they took from her, is still out there, being used for whatever those people needed it for. This means, that Phoebe's consciousness is probably split between where she is, and where her stolen life-force is. Get it? She's tuning into that, that's what she's talking about."
Piper nodded, understanding. "So when she says it's starting, she means the cult is starting their ritual."
"If that's true, then you guys have to find them now. If they use Phoebe's life-force for evil, than she could be turned, not to mention she'll never be whole again." Leo commented, looking oddly at Phoebe as she played with the lace on the curtain.
Panicking now, Piper began to go on a manic rampage, flying around the attic searching for anything that could give them a location to a human.
"Why don't you just orb there?" Leo asked, confused.
Paige scrunched her nose. "I've never had to sense for a human before. I don't know if I can."
"Paige, you're a whitelighter too, you can do this, just concentrate." Leo tried to support her.
Paige closed her eyes. She thought about Daniel, remembering the photo from the newspaper. She thought about his followers, and tried to sense them. She sighed, opening her eyes. It was useless. She couldn't find them.
"I'm sorry." She wanted to cry.
Piper took her hand. "Don't say sorry, just concentrate, and when you sense him, you take us there."
Paige gulped down, and focused again. This time a slight tingle began to roll up her feet, through her legs, all the way through her body until it reached her mind. There it was. Hundreds of people, their energy seemed to scream out at her. But was Daniel there? She concentrated again. Yes, yes he was. Paige squeezed Piper's hand and orbed them through time and space to the location she felt their enemy.
Leo clapped his hands together lightly, sighing awkwardly when he realized he'd inadvertently left himself with babysitting duty – again. This time, he also had to watch Phoebe, who was... well... not herself.
The Elder watched as the dazed witch wandered around, fiddling with little knick-knacks, and pulling on the curtains as if they were the most amazing things in the world.
"Oh man, what did I get myself into...?" Leo muttered to himself.
Suddenly Piper found herself in the middle of a large room. She was surrounded by hundreds of people; they were all dressed in the same, ugly robes. At the front of the room Daniel was standing, surrounded by demons, who were chanting.
"So be it!" They chanted.
Just as Piper was taking all of this in, Paige pulled her down as she screamed. "Watch out!"
A fireball flew past their heads and hit the man directly behind them. He burst into flames, turning to ash. With no one behind them to break their fall, the girls hit the floor, hard.
Rubbing her butt, Paige helped Piper to stand. "I think we're late." She sighed.
"Welcome!" Daniel shouted from across the room. "You're just in time!"
Piper put a fake smile on. "Oh thank God. I thought we were late."
"Well you are too late, to stop me that is. But you're just on time to watch the show!" He exclaimed with joy.
Piper rolled her eyes and motioned to freeze the room. Nothing happened. The eldest witch was disturbed that even her enhanced powers couldn't touch him. Daniel Just laughed at her fleeting attempts to freeze or blow him up.
"I'm afraid that my Lord is beyond your tedious tricks." Daniel scoffed and laughed as the floor beneath them began to shake.
Paige braced herself, holding onto Piper for balance. "What's happening?"
Before Piper could add her fair share of moaning about the current situation, a burst of wind blew through the room, knocking everyone, including the sisters off their feet. They stood up to find a large demon standing before them.
Its feet alone were the size of midgets, its hands looked like five long talons banded together with strings of flesh. Its eyes were a glowing a bright green, while its mouth was covered in drool that smelled like toxic waste. It looked like a large version of a poisonous and evil wolf, only with more humanistic features.
"Holy Mother of..." Piper was shell shocked.
Paige pulled out her potion. "Compared to this guy, our potion smells like roses."
"These are the Charmed Protectors?" The Demonic Lord of the cult gurgled as it spoke.
Piper let her left eyebrow rise higher than the right. "Was that joke?" She looked at Paige. "Did that thing just make fun of us?"
"I don't think this is the time..." Paige reminded.
Piper shook her head. "Seriously, was that a joke?"
"Piper, would you focus?" Paige knocked her arm with her elbow.
As the two girls began to squabble about battle tactics, the demonic lord stretched out its talons and telekinetically lifted all of the cult leaders off the ground, incinerating them instantly. Both sisters screamed bloody murder as they watched so many innocent humans being slaughtered.
"Oh my God, Piper, lets go!" Paige grabbed her sister before she could object and orbed them back to the house.
Paige had been too panicked as she orbed in, that her landing was more of a crash; Piper and herself were sitting it what had once been a coffee table. Brushing themselves off, they ran up to the attic, out of breath and hysterical.
"Piper, calm down and tell me what happened." Leo said.
Piper took a breath. "I don't think our potions are going to work..." She said plainly.
Leo looked to Paige for more. "What?"
The littlest sister stepped up. "The thing we're fighting, I have never seen anything like it. It just killed about two hundred people, all at once!"
Leo stumbled back at the news. "I think I should go find out what I can." He orbed out.
Piper turned to Phoebe. "Are you ok?"
"It wants more, to give more." She rambled.
Paige crossed her arms, trying to figure Phoebe out. "Wants more to give more?"
This time it was Piper that understood. "Daniel... this was all for Daniel. He must have given those people to his 'Lord' so that he could get something back... but what?"
"The only thing he could want... power. He's human, but look at how many demons he has working for him. Why would demons work for a human unless they could benefit from it too?" Paige wanted to pat herself on the back, but there was no time. "Question is, what the heck is that thing and how can we stop it?"
Piper moved to the Book of Shadows. She pulled her hair back into a pony-tail and rubbed her eyes quickly. She flipped through the pages, spanning them until she came to a page near the back.
"What are you doing?" Paige asked.
Piper glanced up, then back down. "This... look at this."
"What, what is it?"
There toward the back of the book was a page that none of them had ever seen before. It was as if it had come out of no where. Beside the written half, there was a sketch of a woman that looked remarkably like Piper. They stared down at the page in awe.
"That's you!" Paige exclaimed.
Piper shook her head in amazement. "How can this be?"
"How did you know this was here? It wasn't here before." Paige remembered.
The eldest sister shrugged. "I don't know. I just... I just knew."
Paige read the new entry in the book out loud.
"The Mother of Magic; She is a product of a universal conversion of magic. Her children are destined to become the most powerful and influential magical beings of all time. During the years before her children ascend into greatness she shall multiply in power times ten. She will wield the power to control time, and have ability to transport people and objects through time and space, as well as have a substantial control over her children's powers during the years when they are too young to use them on their own."
Piper's eyes widened. "Wow."
"I know... that is one the weirdest pages in the book." Paige scratched her head.
Leo orbed in. "The elders seem to think that this thing is an extinct demon, it was around before most of the demons we know about, they called it a Hallowed Wolf."
Piper sighed, rolling her eyes. "Great."
"Well good. Maybe the new super-Piper can kick some super-demon butt!" Paige pointed to the book.
Leo looked at the book. "When did this get added?"
The Elder's ex-wife closed the book, tired of seeing it. "That's the thing, it didn't get added; it was just – there."
Paige smiled wide. "Isn't this fun?"