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Chapter 20: Scapegoat

Paige just orbed home from work when the doorbell rang. With a sigh, she went to the door, opened it, and immediately tried to close it when she saw who stood outside.

Agent Brody put a hand against the door, stopping Paige from closing it. "Paige, just hear me out for a minute."

Paige impatiently opened the door and opened it. "Just one minute."

He took a breath. "Alright. I am not with Vermillion. I personally think he's an ass."

Paige let out a little snicker.

"But he's a determined ass. He's not going to rest until he gets someone for those murders."

Paige's smile fell. "We've dealt with situations like this before. I think we can handle it."

"Not like this. He wants to pin the murders on you."

"Me?" Paige asked, astounded.

"Not you particularly, but you and our sisters."

"That's a bunch of shit. We didn't kill anybody! Why would we?"

Brody just held up his hands. "I'm just the messenger. But I do think I have a solution. May I come in and talk to you and your sisters?"

Paige held the door open a little wider and Brody walked in. Paige led him to the kitchen where Piper and Leo were feeding Wyatt and Phoebe was sitting on Jason's lap.

When Piper saw Brody walk in behind Paige, she angrily asked, "What is he doing here?"

Paige held up her hands. "Piper, just listen for second. I think you need to hear what he has to say."

After Brody finished explaining how Vermillion wanted to pin the murders on them, Piper sat down. "Oh jeeze," she said, putting her hands in her face.

Leo put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find a way out of it. We always do."

"Not this time. This isn't your normal demon vanquish," Brody said, shocking all of them into silence. They never mentioned demons or anything supernatural to him.

"Who the hell are you?" Piper asked, her voice holding back anger. "How the hell do you know about demons?"

Brody held up his hands, as if saying I come in peace. "I was raised by my aunt who was in a coven. My parents were killed by a demon."

"So you're a witch?"

"No. I have no magic. Neither did my parents."

"Then how do you know about this?"

"I learned from my aunt. Look, I'm here to help you guys because you are the Charmed Ones."

"You know about that too?!" Phoebe exclaimed.

"Yes. I know Piper has the power to freeze, you have the power of premonition, and Prue had telekinesis. Paige, I am guessing, has telekinesis, just in a different form. Am I right?"

"Yeah," Paige said. "I guess you could say that."

"Alright!" Piper exclaimed. "Everyone just shut up for a minute. How the hell did you find out so much about us?"

"I told you, from my aunt."

"No other witch would know which know which one of us had which powers. There's something you're not telling us."

"I've done a little digging."

Piper, fully aggravated now, froze Brody. "Oohh. I cannot take much more of this," she said. "He's so lucky I'm not allowed to blow up innocents."

"Piper, calm down," Leo said.

"Yeah, you don't want to send him flying across the room, now do you?" Phoebe asked.

Piper turned to her sister, but couldn't find her. "Phoebe? Where did you go?"

Leo tapped her shoulder and pointed upwards. Piper looked at Phoebe to see her sister levitating about six feet in the air. "Phoebe! What are you doing up there? Get down here this instant!"

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? Are your powers screwed up?"

"No. I think the baby made me do it."

"What? How?"

"You have Chris's telekinesis, so I think my baby can levitate."

"I found her floating about three feet over the bed this morning."

Piper put her face in her hands. "We do not have time for this. Jason, figure out a way to get her down."

"Me? What can I do?"

"I don't know. It's your kid too."

Piper turned to Paige. "Paige, I think he's a demon."

"No, he's not."

"How do you know?"

"Most demons don't ring the doorbell."

"Cole rang the doorbell."

"Good point. I'll--"

She was cut off by a demon hurling an energy ball at her. She orbed out of the way, but the energy ball kept traveling, hitting Kyle squarely in the abdomen. He unfroze and sailed across the room.

Piper reacted quickly. As Leo ran to Kyle, she flung the demon across the room and froze him in midair. Phoebe, who Jason managed to get down from the ceiling, landed a kick to the demon, sending him flying again. Piper blew him before he hit the wall.

The girls walked over to Leo, who was healing Kyle. "I think this disproves your demon theory," Leo told Piper as he healed Kyle. Leo couldn't heal demons.

Kyle sat up and said. "What the hell was that?"

"That is how Andy Trudeau died. You might want to be a little more cooperative if you want to live next time," Piper told him, all seriousness.

"Okay. What we need to do is going to break about twenty federal laws and land us in jail if we get caught."

"What do we need to do?"

"Break into a evidence warehouse, hack into a federal database, and falsify evidence in two murder cases without getting caught by the FBI."

"Is that all?" Paige asked, a little hysterically.

"Yeah, that's about it."

"Well great. That will be a piece of cake," Paige said sarcastically.

"I forgot one thing."

"Oh no," she groaned.

"We have to find someone you can blame for the crime, a scapegoat, if you will. It needs to be someone believable. Someone the police will have no problem believing."

Everyone was silent for a moment, until Phoebe spoke up and said, "Cole."

Piper looked around. "Cole? Where?"

"Cole. We can use Cole."