Chapter 2: Recruitment

"Believe it or not, almost half of the Earth's population is demonic now," Chris finished telling them all he knew, "Erika is not dead either, she would have had the same faith as the rest of them. If it goes on like this, there won't be any humans left in a week's time."

"But if it's not infectious and this old demon Saroruka is the only one that turns people demonic, we have a shoe in," Phoebe hoped, "we only need to vanquish him and we'll get Richard back, along with the rest of the people."

"Not to mention some breather, cause there are too many demons around for any of us to think about sleep! How long can we last anyway?" Piper said leaned back, half asleep, despite of what she was saying about being too worried to sleep.

"It says the power of three should be enough, although it's power resembles the Source's in strength," Paige read up from the book, what she had orbed down in the meantime.

"The Melinda spell then," Chris supplied.

"Well, yeah, but it also says you can't trap it because he is basically mist, and doesn't completely solidify," Paige shot her eyes in despair for a second, "the only thing that can trap ii is the call of his own blood. Any relatives you can think of?...I didn't think so," she slammed the book shot, muttering, "we'll never locate him..."

"Cole," Leo orbed in, "the relative you're looking for," he explained, seeing the puzzled faces, "Saroruka is Cole's great grandfather."

"If you didn't know, newsflash, Cole is dead," Phoebe frowned, "and I'm intending to keep it that way."

"Phoebe, as much as I would agree with you otherwise, we are terribly outnumbered by demons and we are under extreme circumstances. We have to take what gives," Piper argued.

"Well, don't count on me," Phoebe held on to her own.

"Come on, Phoebe," Paige begged, "can't you see we have no choice? My eyes are red, my tired face is repellent, my boyfriend is a demon..."

"So what?" Phoebe retorted, "what's new? You still haven't lived here enough Paige, if you think there's something out of the ordinary going on," she said grumpily for being so drained.

At that moment they heard the thunder again and everything became white for a second. They only saw the branding iron in action this time and Paige was blasted across the room, then everything turned back to normal.

"Oh, no," Piper stood up and stepped away from her half sister who just got herself together after being thrown full force into the doorframe, "she is a demon now, right?"

"I'd think so," Chris stood in her way, "you sort it out, I deter," he initiated contact with his youngest aunt and orbed her out.

"You..." Phoebe lifted her arm to gesticulate towards their current whitelighter just as he was disappearing, "...will be a demon too," she finished the sentence sighing, "even if not here," she walked over to the book, "my sister is a demon, my whitelighter is a demon. Now we need a spell to contact the other side."

"But what other side? If Cole was in the wasteland he would've got out by now," Piper fretted.

"He died a human with enormous powers," Leo offered, "that means he would be where humans go."

"Evil humans, right? Hell maybe?" Phoebe tried, "that won't work. Humans who are evil enough get recruited back to the underworld. He would also be here by now."

"Well, that means he didn't go to hell. For some reason, he didn't move on anywhere past being the first stage of being dead. That means, as an Elder I could go there and simply bring him back."

"You can do that?" Piper exclaimed.

"Am I not in contact with you Grams, taking her back and forth? Of course I can do that."

"Don't tell me you met Prue."

"Yes, but now it's not the time, Piper. We need this demon vanquished before it's too late. If my theory is right, I'll be back in a short while. Get everything ready, it should be very easy once we get Cole's blood, and everything would reverse back to normal," he orbed out.

A cascade of flames shot out from the approximate place Leo was standing before, as a demon materialised. The sisters dodged the discharge it let off towards them and at the same time, all kinds of, presumably transformed ex humans were smashing the windows as creepy deep voices filled the air.

"That short while might be a bit too long," Phoebe jumped up in the air to try to finish the first demon off before the rest of them got into the house.

tbc