Chapter 2: In The Wrong

Cole woke up to the high pitch of a baby crying. He pulled the curtains of the baldachin bed to witness Phoebe trying to put some yellow liquid down a naked newborn's throat, with the skin still covered in the white slime of the intrauterine fluids, "what is going on?" He jumped up, taking the bed sheet with him.

"You just go back and sleep, darling. I'll deal with this one. You must still be tired from fighting the Daevas for the talisman. I can tell that, the way your vigour was missing when you acclaimed me back."

"Please, don't kill her!" A woman burst in, with her skirt bloody with a couple of guards after her, that pummelled her down onto the ground.

Phoebe strolled towards her with the child screaming in her hands, then launched the bundle into the air, for the unfortunate young woman to catch, which she managed even in her anguish, "if I killed all the peasants, who would work the fields," she sneered at her, "I just bound her powers. Too many good witches were born around here in the last centuries. I need to make sure that none of you becomes one, don't I? Throw them out," she waved to the guards, "why don't you rest, my other half?" She turned towards Cole.

"I…can't," Cole admitted an absolute truth, but not the reason, and gathered his clothes.

"You don't look well. Maybe I should make a potion to help you relax."

"No, I'm just…dazed, a bit," Cole acknowledged a half truth, but again, not the grounds for it. Whoever this was, it looked like Phoebe, but that was all. It was time to find out some more about this one, and their relationship. It was obvious, that she loved him here, even if in a possessive way. But who were they, what were their positions in society? "It would probably help me if we did some work instead," he continued, "the quicker we achieve our goal, the better I will feel."

"Hungry for the kill, huh?" She waved her hand and a tiny, delicate looking statue

with fine features embedded in a flat egg-shaped yellowish-brown talisman, size of a finger became visible on the table. It was always there, it was only made undetectable by some illusion. Phoebe took it by its chain and placed it around her neck, "I located a witch about four miles north from Bruges, on a farm. Her powers are escalating, so we should deal with her as soon as possible. Can you feel her presence? Can you shimmer us?"

"I think so…" Cole took her by hand unsurely, and transported them to an old
cottage in a dense grove of trees. The dwelling must have been pleasing once, but now it was crumbling in disrepair and overrun with wild flowers. The garden nevertheless, was growing a wide range of plants in orderly rows. In it, a brown, long haired woman was watering her vegetables, gently pushing a grey rabbit out of the way with her leg, not to harvest the plant too early. She noticed their shimmer and raised her hands, forcefully waving them in the air in Phoebe's direction.

"Oversight, witch," Phoebe levitated up towards her, knocking her over and landing on the good witch's chest, "you can't blow us up. We're protected. But you're not!" She swayed her finger a little until a spiky stiletto materialised in it and raised in above her heart, forcefully slashing downwards.

"What are you doing?" Cole seized her hand with the weapon in his.

"We need her insides for the potion to assimilate her powers. Why? What do you have in mind? You wanna play with her first?"

"That would be nice," Cole kissed his wife, then pulled her towards himself.

"I got her for the time being," he told the good witch, "Piper, call for Leo. Now!"

"Who's Leo?" Piper of this reality and time scrambled to her feet.

"You know this slut?" Phoebe struggled against his hold on her wrists, "I was also informed that you were sleeping with a witch, but I vanquished the demons for lying to me. I thought you would never do that!"

"You don't know who Leo is?" Cole ignored his significant other, giving her a push and grabbing Piper instead. He shimmered her away, no matter where, just away from his raging malicious wife.

tbc