Chapter Nineteen
"For you maybe," Piper warned before shouting to the others, "Now!"
Paige and Belthazor immediately reacted and threw their vials at Zankou at the same moment Piper threw hers.
Zankou was consumed in pale grey smoke and colorful sparks flew. He groaned in agony as his shape distorted.
"It's working," Paige happily realized.
"Not…if I…have any…thing…to say…about…it…" Zankou's form ultimately held together and he fell to his knees. He shot an aimless fireball toward the witches as he coughed painfully in order to clear his lungs.
Paige immediately orbed out of the fireball's path while Belthazor shoved Phoebe behind him and, just barely, blocked it with an energy ball of his own.
"Source's vanquish..." Phoebe suggested as she quickly joined Piper and Paige.
Holding hands, the three chanted the spell Phoebe had created two years earlier and they waited with baited breath as Zankou was caught in a new whirlwind of smoke and sparks.
But there was no explosive boom, just a loud poof, and when the air cleared, Zankou was still there, lying before them on the ground. "Foolish witches," he whispered as he began to push himself up. "You think you…can defeat me…when the Source himself couldn't?"
"We defeated the Source," Paige hotly declared. "We'll defeat you."
"Look to the future, Phoebe…Know that I'm meant to rule. And know you belong…" Angered by his weakened state, he straightened his back and stood tall before them. "Join me and I might let your sisters live…if only to amuse myself from time to time."
"Never," Phoebe declared, wishing her voice sounded more emphatic. Could she never atone for her evil past life? Could she never find happiness in a life filled with good? She glanced at Belthazor and wondered if she had been wrong in wanting him to change. 'If I can't manage it, how could I ever expect him to?'
Belthazor knew Zankou's words were cutting into Phoebe's soul. She was always trying to prove herself worthy, to rid herself of an evil taint, and it was one of her flaws when it came to him that she always equated his failures as her own and vice versa. But this wasn't the time for soul-searching. "Focus," he cautioned her.
"The other spell…" Piper reminded her sisters.
To give them time to get their papers, Belthazor fired a large energy ball at Zankou who was thrown back to the ground but was not destroyed. He fired again.
"Enough," Zankou spat as he retaliated with three small fireballs. But he knew they wouldn't do much damage and decided to retreat before the witches recovered. Without another word he flamed out of the chamber.
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"What're you doing here?" Kyle asked in surprise when Zankou appeared in his living room. "If the Avatar sees you, I'll lose my chance."
Zankou cleared his throat which still burned from the unsuccessful vanquish, "I'm afraid the witches have necessitated a change in our plans. You will still challenge the Avatar. Only now you will not use the vanquish. I'll need the Avatar alive in order to absorb his powers as I kill him."
"No!" Kyle shouted as he shoved Zankou across the room with the flick of his wrist. "We had a deal! You promised me my revenge!"
Zankou hit the wall and slid to the floor where he sat for a moment both stunned and pleased. "Your powers are growing," he commented as he slowly picked himself up off the floor. "Good…very good…"
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"Damn!" Belthazor exclaimed when Zankou disappeared. He turned to the sisters who were beginning to sit up after having dived to the ground when Zankou fired at them. "You're hurt," he realized when he helped Phoebe to her feet. He gently touched her shoulder to examine the burn.
"I barely feel it," she replied looking at it.
"It's the rush of adrenalin," he commented. "Leo needs to heal you." He spotted a similar nasty burn on Piper's arm. "All of you."
"We need to find Zankou," Piper argued as she joined the pair, doing her best to ignore the pain. "He's hurt and it might be our last chance to send him back into stasis. We shouldn't've tried the Source's vanquish."
Phoebe tried not to sound so defensive when she replied, "That vanquish spell's the strongest we've got. I thought it could work with him hurt."
"Well we still have our stasis spell," Paige commented. "We'll defeat him."
"If we can find him," Piper complained shaking her head. "We shouldn't've risked using that spell."
"We don't know the stasis spell'll work any better. We've never used it before," Phoebe told her. "Using the Source's vanquish spell made sense."
"But who knows what he'll do now," Piper uttered in disappointment.
"We'll find him before he can do any damage," Paige assured her older sister.
Phoebe agreed, "How?" She hesitantly turned back to Belthazor, "Would it be safe for you to…" She shook her head and didn't finish. This wasn't his fight and it wasn't fair of her to keep expecting, demanding, his help. They'd find Zankou another way.
Belthazor informed her, "Demons have already sensed my presence even if they're unsure what exactly it is or what to do about it. I can handle it." And he quickly added, "I want to help. And you need it."
"I don't want you in danger, conflicted," she quietly admitted. "Not because of me. Not anymore."
"Likewise." He couldn't help but grin, baring his sharp teeth. Maybe she was changing. Maybe there was hope after all.
"Creeps me out when you do that," Paige shivered before announcing, "Zankou's probably with Kyle."
"I doubt it," Phoebe disagreed. "He's hurt and needs to recoup first. Kyle's too new to be of any help."
Piper nodded, "He's probably looking for some demonic doctor."
"I might know a place to start looking for him," Belthazor offered.
"I told you where he is," Paige spoke up. To the skeptical looks she received, she reasoned, "Zankou absorbs powers of those he kills and he told us that Kyle's about to kill an Avatar."
Following the same train of thought, Piper paled, "Zankou's gonna kill the Avatar and get those powers."
"He'll become invincible," Phoebe worried.
"Not even the Avatars are invincible," Belthazor declared, recalling his own failure. "They can be killed."
"If we had the vanquish," Piper anxiously reminded him, "which we don't."
"But Kyle does and we're wasting time so let's go," Paige said as she reached for Piper's hand.
"But we still don't know where to look," Piper cautioned. "Kyle could be anywhere."
"Maybe Leo could sense an Avatar in danger the same way he does for us," Phoebe shrugged. "I don't know, it's worth a shot."
"No," Piper resisted, "I don't want him in the line of fire. I have two boys to think of."
"Let's start with Kyle's apartment," Paige suggested. "I know him. He's waited his whole life for this so he probably went there to pick up something of his parents'. Y'know, to wave in front of the Avatar as his brand of justice before killing him."
"Okay," Piper slowly agreed, "but if Zankou's not there and Kyle is, we're going to stop him first."
Paige nodded understanding that her sisters wouldn't hesitate to use deadly force against Kyle if it meant saving an innocent, even if that innocent was an Avatar. She cast a side-long glance at the red demon gazing at her sister and wondered if this was how Phoebe felt being caught between someone she cared about and an innocent. Was Kyle now the same as Cole? 'Am I ready to put everything on the line on the faith that Kyle can overcome his demonic nature?' And more importantly, if she still wanted Kyle in her life, how could she want to deprive Phoebe of wanting Cole in hers?
Phoebe tapped her younger sister on the shoulder, "Paige, honey, you okay?"
Almost as if he knew what the young witch had been thinking, Belthazor promised, "Save him if you can. I won't interfere."
"You may have to," Paige sadly acknowledged. "C'mon, let's go."
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"Freeze them!" Belthazor shouted to Piper the instant they appeared in Kyle's apartment. At the same time, he fired an energy ball at Zankou who was thrown off-balance but wasn't harmed by the energy ball before he was frozen by Piper.
"Release Cole," Phoebe requested. "We'll need him to make sure Zankou doesn't escape."
Paige ignored Piper's compliance because she was too horrified by the sight before her. Kyle's potion had already been thrown and exploded in front of the female Avatar and the dark grey smoke had risen enough to touch her nose. And he was in danger from the Avatar's lightning bolt that had almost reached him. But, maybe worse, Kyle probably didn't see that Zankou had fired a fireball at him from behind. She tried to push Kyle out of the way but he was still frozen. "Unfreeze Kyle," she requested.
Piper shook her head with a grimace, "It's taking all I have to keep them all frozen…"
Paige indicated to Belthazor, "But you unfroze him without a problem."
"Don't argue," Piper snapped, "Zankou's started moving."
"I'll fire at Zankou," Belthazor announced. "Phoebe, get ready to grab the Avatar. Paige, you get Kyle."
"Ready," Piper whispered as she released the others, "now!"
Leo orbed into the melee at the same moment that Phoebe and Paige pushed down their charges and Cole attacked Zankou. But he immediately put his confusion aside and orbed Piper out of the line of Zankou's unfrozen fireball.
"Say the spell," Belthazor ordered while keeping up his barrage of energy balls against a raging Zankou.
Paige and Phoebe jumped up to join Piper and the three huddled together as they recited,
"Being of evil, Zankou, depart from our sight,
Into limbo will you remain forever from this night."
A ring of fire surrounded Zankou and, as the circle became smaller, he threatened, "The day will come when I'll be released."
"When hell freezes over," Phoebe muttered.
"You won't live forever," he retorted while he tried firing at them. But the fireballs exploded harmlessly against an invisible barrier caused by the circle of flames.
"Your descendents will pay," he warned.
As if in reply, the sisters continued,
"A dimension alone shall this limbo be,
Never to be found, you will never be set free."
Before Zankou could react, he was engulfed in flames. And, with one final scream of agony, he disappeared in an explosion of red and orange sparks amid a cloud of thick black smoke.
The sisters were thrown back with Leo and all collapsed in a tangled heap.
"Ow," Paige complained as she tried to pull her arm free after all the smoke finally cleared.
"You're burned," Piper noted as she brought her hand to her forehead where Phoebe's hand had knocked her.
Surprised, Paige looked down at her torn shirt, "Must've happened from the Avatar's bolt when I pushed Kyle down." She looked across the room to him. "Kyle?"
Kyle got to his feet and raised his hand to attack the Avatar who was still prone in the spot that Phoebe had pushed her.
"No," Belthazor stated as he grabbed Kyle's arm and twisted it behind the younger demon's back.
Phoebe and her sisters had just gotten to their feet when Leo suddenly sagged against her. She spun and reached for him just as Piper darted to his other side.
Leo's knees buckled completely and, despite the sisters' support, sank to the floor. "She's dead," he whispered.
"No," Paige disagreed, staring in shock at the Avatar, "that, that can't be. The smoke barely touched her."
"She hasn't moved," Belthazor informed her while maintaining a strong grip on the struggling Kyle. He suddenly felt an invisible force push him back but he withstood it and yanked Kyle's arms. "Don't make me hurt you," he snarled, fighting the temptation rising within him, calling for blood.
"No one wants to hurt you, Kyle," Phoebe promised, hoping Kyle wouldn't provoke Cole into losing control. "It's over now, it's all over."
"She's dead," Leo repeated as sweat beaded his forehead.
Piper sat next to Leo and drew him into her arms. She kissed the top of his head and slowly began to rock him. He'd barely recovered from the other Avatar death and now this. "You're gonna be okay, Leo. You hear me?" But Leo didn't respond and she only squeezed him tighter.
Kyle finally stopped struggling and noticed the being holding him. "Who the hell are you?"
"Good question," Belthazor replied with a knowing glance to Phoebe. "Care to answer?"
Phoebe glared at him. He was Cole Turner. He always had been, in spite of the demon he was.She just had to learn that it was wrong to keep trying to separate the two. But now wasn't the time. "You're --"
"What have you done?"
Kyle turned his head to see the newly materialized lead Avatar and he began to struggle more fiercely, "I'm gonna kill you!"
"Not without the vanquish which you already used," Paige sadly noted. Would there be anything left of the good man she cared for?
"How does revenge feel?" Belthazor questioned while his former colleague knelt beside the fallen one.
"Not like I'd expected," Kyle glared.
"That's the problem with revenge," Phoebe rationalized. "It doesn't bring the dead back or make you feel better."
"I didn't say I didn't --"
"Leo's going to die," the Avatar interrupted.
"Then you'd better make sure he doesn't," Belthazor warned in a low growl.
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