Chapter 2: Likelihood

Phoebe glanced at the handset when it started ringing, then willed herself not to hear it so that she can finish putting the paragraph in her head down onto computer before she forgot it. If there would've been a demonic emergency, her sisters would have called her on her cell as they always did.

The phone rang for what seemed an eternity before her secretary put her head in the door, "I think you really want to get that."

Phoebe reached out with one hand to press some buttons on her phone and turn it onto air mode before returning to hitting her laptop's keyboard, "hello?"

"Mrs. Turner?" A female voice enquired.

"Eee...I prefer the name Phoebe Halliwell," she said offhandedly, still concentrating on typing.

"But you are Mrs. Phoebe Halliwell Turner, correct?" The voice insisted.

"Technically, yes. Why?"

"My name is Martha Titchfield, and I am a nurse at San Francisco Memorial. Your husband has been brought in an hour ago after having had collapsed at his office. So far..."

"I doubt that," Phoebe stopped typing, having had lost the thread.

"What?"

"Uh, I mean, how can that be? Are you sure it's him?"

"I'm afraid it was his co-workers who called an ambulance. He was brought in unconscious with tremors, tahycardic, vomiting, hardly breathing. From the contents of his stomach and the substances found in his bloodstream we believe he has been poisoned somehow, but we are not certain with what. The only certain thing we can say that there were traces of hemlock. Poison hemlock, an exotic species introduced to the US..."

"I know what hemlock is..." She bit her tongue. Of course she knew the plant as a witch, but that might put her in a bad light if authorities start to question who allegedly poisoned the celebrated lawyer from McCarter, Kelvin and Kline, if any of this was true at all. Cole was invincible, what crazy plan was this now?

However, the nurse took her interruption as a sign of impatience to find out more about her husbands condition, "don't worry, his condition is not critical just now. Hemlock contains several piperidine alkaloid toxins that are potentially lethal with large ingestions, but the fragments we pumped out were hardly digested, so we assume there isn't much toxin in his body. We have decontaminated the gastro-intestinal tract and are administering fluids, keeping his potassium level at optimum. I'll be glad to explain everything to you when you got here..."

"Oh, of course," Phoebe got to her senses, "see you soon," she put down the phone, thinking about how is she going to explain to Elise that once again, she had business to attend to. Then it clicked with her. Everybody, even Elise would expect from her at this point in time to rush to her husband's side, towards the end of her divorce or not. Surely, she would do that. If she was going to find out what curious game was Cole playing at, she had to become one of the players.

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"Is Prue one of those people who never turn up in time?" Paige orbed back to the manor.

"She can be," Piper looked up from the pregnancy magazine she was reading, "why?"

"We were supposed to meet at four," she looked at her watch and frowned slightly, "it's half four."

"It will be whitelighter business, Paige."

"No, unfortunately not," Leo arrived, "she was forbidden to get in touch with you guys for a while now again."

Piper stared angrily for a few seconds before exploding, "how can they toy with us like that? Not to mention Prue."

"They had good reason."

"How dare you defend them when all they do is deprive us of our chance at happiness? If it wasn't for us witches I bet they would all be dead!" Piper was shouting, angry tears forming in her eyes over loosing her sister, even if in another way once again, but also in general against the elders who made her remember how they used to deny her and Leo any contact as well, "they must be basking in our sorrow," she said bitterly, her voice breaking.

Leo grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him, "you know that's not true. Let me explain. It isn't just that she is not allowed to see you, but she is also been barred from coming down to earth for a while. Unfortunately she made a big mistake. She used the Book Of Shadows for personal gain."

"So what? We do that all the time," Paige intercepted.

"Yes, but this one backfired. She conjured a wish demon to change one thing in the past. She wanted to tell Andy that she loved him before he died and the wish demon granted her that. What she didn't know was that a dead witch conjuring a wish demon has side effects. Namely, no matter she says the reversal spell or not, the demon remains in this realm. And to make matters worse, this one is out for witches, hoping they will make other mistakes. One of them already wished she had never been a witch, so he is winning. You really have to be careful what you wish for, especially if you speak out loud before we can vanquish this demon...Paige, you should go warn Phoebe..."

tbc