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Chapter 6: You Too, Brutus?

Leo shot up, pressing his palms to his ears, however pointless the exercise was. The more he wanted to enjoy lying next to his wife, the more Paige's voice got louder in his head as his once charge called him, the connection still alive. He pulled his shirt on while tracing the call's location, and orbed to the frostiness of Death Valley.

"I didn't want to speak about this in the house," Paige explained right away, "and you forgot I told you I needed to speak to you."

"I hope it's not gonna take long," Leo looked around in the eeriness.

"You're back being intimate with Piper I take it?"

"I...think so."

"Good. Than you are even more likely to know how she would feel about eliminating Phoebe. You can see I can't just ask her myself. Last time I mentioned something like this, she didn't say anything. It might put me in a bad light with her if I tried again."

"Eliminating? What do you mean eliminating?"

"Eliminating, getting rid of, disposing, sending her to hell, eradicating, you know what I mean."

"You...wanna...uh...your sister?" Leo stammered.

"Phoebe's a predicament. She makes us look weak cause we tolerate her on the throne having hardly any useful powers. There will be a revolution in the underworld against us if we don't think first and make sure she disappears for good. Discredit to our honour, that's what she is."

"Paige, I don't know if Piper agrees with that or not," he made a non-committal answer, "but I'll find that out for you. Now can we maybe get out of this freaky place and meet somewhere else next time?"

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"What do you think? An odd reality, huh?" Cole asked Leo the next morning, when they shimmered away to have brunch at one of the demonic cafes somewhere under the hidden catacombs of Rome, "seems like our only purpose here is being toy boys, one of us being used more often than the other," Cole frowned, somehow not being over the moon about the fact that he was the one more demanded. Not to mention that Phoebe dismissed him in the morning by making herself available to her subjects for audience and that apart from the deliverance of some sexual pleasure, nothing important happened between them all night. He could've made love to the walls with the same effort.

"Not quite that bad," Leo differed ironically, "it appears I was also employed as a contract killer."

"You too?" Cole snorted, not sure if he should laugh or not, "after you left, Piper freaked me out once more by dragging me away from Phoebe, but she only wanted to tell me to kill Paige."

"Only?"

"Well, better than you know what."

"Was that about 4 am?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Because that means she wanted Paige killed before I told her Paige wanted Phoebe out of the picture. And I was given the job. Just who exactly is this person I'm married to, you know? You seem to be on more friendly terms with her..."

"Khm...back to the problem. Phoebe. When was this...this assassination meant to take place?"

"Noon. Least likely time for any demon to interfere. There's a set up with some witches."

"Piper wanted me to do Paige at midday as well. She gave me some darklighter venom, so I don't have to bother going to fetch some from somewhere. Looks like the beastie wants to rule. Excuse my words, but that's what she is. Not really the Piper you would go for. Question is, what are we gonna do about it?"

"It's not like the other two are much better, Cole. And there's something else. The Elders think I am this ex angel who opened an orbing business for lower level demons who can't shimmer. But they still contacted me half an hour ago. They want the same thing as Piper. They don't think I would intentionally go against Piper in anything, but they entrusted me with taking out Phoebe and Paige from the equation..."

"Shit," Cole threw his serviette onto the coffee table, "it makes sense. If this is a gatekeeper's task and the sisters are evil, we are meant to murder them all, cause the Leo and Cole of this dimension wouldn't be able to."

"And we are?...Cole, I don't think I'm ready for such accomplishment," he emphasised the last word sarcastically, "rewarded or not."

"Na ja, you're new at this."

"At the killing? Well, not so new. That's why in purgatory, remember?"

"Not the killing. I meant the tasks."

"Why? How many times did you have to kill them in how many alternate dimensions before? Apart from the one time in ours, as an assignment from the Source."

"None, so far. But all these tasks have something in common. They cause quite a lot of pain. Physical and emotional, preferably both."

"You can't ask me to kill Piper. Even the Elders in this world had the sense not to."

"I'm not. I'm asking you to take this darklighter venom with you. Don't worry, it can't harm you. You're not really a whitelighter, you're dead, currently."

"You want me to take your job. Does that mean you won't let me kill Phoebe?"

"No, I won't. Cause that is one thing I will have to do myself. If she had to die, I don't want her to have to do it alone. I have to be there for her, you understand?"

tbc