Authors note; I'm mentioning once again that the comic in question is the Hellboy 'Right hand of Doom' collection by Mike Mignola. Most of the mythology does exist but I have taken severe liberties with it.
Piper managed to convince Paige to orb the two of them back to the Magic School. It wasn't that hard. Someone under the spell would do anything they were asked, just as long as it wasn't too difficult. Chris and Phoebe were already there. They had brought Donna with them. She was lying on a bed and was unconscious. Leo was trying to heal her while Chris explained what had happened. Phoebe was holding Wyatt, who was crying.
"This isn't right, Darklighters don't steal souls. I wish I knew what he was doing" said Phoebe, rubbing her nephew's back to try and calm him. Paige stood idly staring off into space. Piper took her baby from her sister. Leo was having no luck.
"This just doesn't make any sense. First off this Ames guy steals a book from here, and Gideon is convinced that he must have had help to do that, and then he makes friends with Barbas and steals Phoebe's boss' soul. Why?" Chris said aloud
"What else do we know?" Leo asked.
"Just some story about a monster vampire that feeds on the sun and the moon and can cause eclipses" said Piper. Wyatt hiccupped a few times in her arms. She sat down with him and carefully took a piece of paper from her pocket
"Vampire? Where did you get that bit from?" asked Phoebe
"Book of Shadows, It's in the vampire section. 'A creature that the vampires both fear and adore, they tell tales of one so great that he eats the sun and the moon and can cause eclipses'" Piper read from the paper, "That's it, no vanquishing spell or potion, not even a name"
"Chris knows what it is!" said Paige cheerfully
"No, I said I was sure I'd heard of something. I just can't remember where" said Chris. Leo looked thoughtful.
"The sun and the moon? I think I may know something. I remember hearing about a man who lives in Romania. If the stories are right then he is descended from a saint who defeated a creature that tried to consume the moon. It may be the same thing"
"Donna's as safe as she's going to be here, we should go check this out" said Chris. Phoebe nodded.
"I'm coming too. I owe it to Donna" she said as she grabbed hold of Leo's arm. Leo glanced across at Piper and Wyatt before he, Chris and Phoebe orbed. Wyatt grumbled a little as his father left, then he orbed Chris' comic into Piper's hands.
"I thought I took this off you" she said. Beside her, Paige beamed.
"Aww, he just wants you to read him a story. There's time for that"
Piper looked up at her youngest sister. The new mega happy Paige was really starting to get on her nerves.
"You, come with me. We're going to reverse this spell if it's the last thing we do. Come on" Piper stood up, put her son in a pushchair and dragged her sister by the arm
-
Ames had returned to his lair, but not before he had found a safe place to hide the woman's soul. Now he just had to figure out some way of getting the amulet from Barbas. A quick search revealed that, just as he had suspected, the book was gone.
"Damn you Barbas" Ames said quietly to himself.
-
Phoebe was thinking the same thing. Leo had taken them to a small village in Romania, the type that anyone looking to film the latest 'Dracula' movie would do back flips over broken glass for. At first she had thought it was deserted, or maybe her spell had affected here as well. But then Chris had found the first body. A man who looked about thirty, except for the fact that his hair was now shocking white. There was only one demon that killed that way. Phoebe felt sick. The man had plucked out his own eyes to try to escape whatever it was that the Demon of Fear had tortured him with. After that she, Chris and Leo found other bodies. All of them had been driven mad from their fears. Some, like the first man, had tried to fight. Others had simply given up the will to live. Some, driven by madness, had turned against their families and friends. The worst were the ones Barbas had left alive. Their minds had been destroyed; they were now little more than prisoners locked away in their own bodies, all trapped in cells of flesh that they could never escape. It was horrible. Finally Leo found the home of the man he was looking for. He came out looking pale.
"Leo?" Phoebe didn't know what to say. Leo looked like he was about to throw up.
"You don't want to know" was all that he would say.
-
In the darkened lair Ames sat and thought to himself. Everything was starting to fall apart and he could not let that happen. He conjured a replica of the amulet that Barbas had taken and tried to think of some way to switch the two without the Demon realising. It wasn't going to work, the Darklighter could tell. Frustrated, he threw the copy away and watched as it disappeared now that it wasn't wanted. An idea started to form in his mind. One of the Charmed Ones had the power to telekinetically orb objects from one place to another. He conjured the power stripping athame and held it thoughtfully for a while. The witch would no doubt be protected by her sisters if she was the one affected by the spell, and if she wasn't then it would be suicide to try anything. But she couldn't be the only witch to have that power, could she?
-
Piper was starting to get very annoyed. Paige kept saying things like 'calm down' and 'there's time' and it was getting on her nerves. Sigmund had offered to help her reverse the spell. He had gone to the manor to find if Phoebe had left it written down somewhere. Wyatt was playing contentedly in a playpen. Piper sat down for a moment, wondering how Leo was doing when she heard the sound of orbing. She looked down at her lap. Wyatt had orbed Chris' comic to her.
"How many times…" she muttered, putting it on the end of the table. Paige looked up.
"You've got time to read him a story, Sigmund isn't even back yet" she said. Piper rolled her eyes.
"I've got it! I found it!" A slightly out of breath Sigmund ran into the room brandishing a piece of paper. Piper took it.
"I can see what went wrong too, The line 'giving all the time to breathe'. Phoebe didn't specify anyone so the spell affected everyone who wasn't in a protected area" He explained as Piper read.
"It's not like Phoebe to make a mistake like that" Piper mused
"She didn't take her time. You make mistakes when you rush" said Paige sagely. Sigmund helped Piper up.
"The sooner we reverse the spell the better" she was saying as she knocked the side of the table. The comic that Wyatt was so fond of fell to the floor. It landed open. Sigmund picked it up and handed it to Piper, who took it feeling slightly disgruntled. She looked at the open page. It contained a foreword from the author. One line in particular caught her eye.
"Sigmund, where's Gideon?" she asked.
"Why?"
"Read this". He took the book and read the part Piper pointed out.
"The Vârcolac. This story was inspired by a single paragraph I read twenty years ago describing a type of Romanian vampire which "eats the sun and the moon and is able to cause eclipses". Piper, you don't think that…"
"That the very thing I've been looking for in the Book of Shadows and wasn't there turned up in a comic? That doesn't matter; just find out everything you can about a Vârcolac" Piper commanded. Then she looked down to where her son was smiling impishly.
"Ooh, was mommy being silly again?" she asked as she picked him up.
-
Against Leo's wishes, Phoebe had gone into the house where Leo had found what was left of the man they had been looking for. She was now wishing that she hadn't. Leo had put a sheet over the body but it didn't help. They had sent Chris to the Elders to tell them what had happened.
"I can't believe that something like this could be allowed to happen" Phoebe said quietly. Leo picked up what looked like a small diary.
"Phoebe, I know that this is bad, but all that we can do now is stop Barbas and the Darklighter from summoning the beast, whatever it is"
"Whatever it is, it means enough to that Demon for him to wipe this whole place off the map" Phoebe said bitterly. Leo silently put a hand on her shoulder and orbed them away from that horrible place.
