"My mother did nothing wrong but love you. That was her mistake. Loving a man who can't love anyone or anything," Peter hissed as he advanced.
"Is that what you think? That she loved me? You poor deluded fool. She sold herself for a few bucks. Just like some common streetwalker. She just tried to wrap herself in respectability."
Peter cast the second energy ball at Cole engulfing him in the magic of the weapon.
"Is that the best you have?" Cole demanded literally laughing at Peter. "You're the son of the great Belthazor. And that's the best you can muster? I was a feared demon in the underworld for nearly a hundred years. And that measly little energy ball is all you can conjure?"
Peter cast another energy ball at Cole. Then another. And another. Reason had left him. He hurled a lifetime of hatred and anguish one weapon at a time. All he saw was the man he had hated his entire life. The things Cole had said about his mother enflamed his pent up rage. Forgotten was his promise to his mother. Cole deserved to die and Peter was not stopping until he had finally killed the man that had wronged him his entire life.
He cast energy ball after energy ball at Cole. Each time Cole taunted him. Telling him how pathetic he was and how he was such a disappointment to his mother. Peter continued to attack relentlessly.
He had just formed another energy ball and was about to cast it. Cole had not risen from where he had fallen from the first attack. Peter was about to cast the weapon when he looked at Cole and the surreal quality of the scene penetrated the haze shrouding his reason. Startling him back to reality.
Lying on the floor, arms outstretched his father was smiling, waiting. Though he appeared unharmed he had made no effort to either defend himself or to attack. And as Peter stood over him, an energy ball raised to cast, the image of this twisted demonic parody of Christ on the cross etched itself into his consciousness.
Peter was suddenly exhausted. He extinguished the energy ball with a sad shake of his head. In place of the rage that had consumed him moments before, was only a gaping void. He returned to his human form and turned away.
"You're not worth it. Even if I could kill you, you just aren't worth it," he muttered as he started for the door.
"Nooooooo!"
Peter froze mid step, the piercing wail chilling him to his very soul. He'd heard a sound like that only once in his lifetime, the one and only time he had ever been hunting. It was the agonized cry of a wounded and dying beast and it had come from the man behind him.
Turning back, he looked down at Cole. He stood looking into his father's eyes and saw something in those blue depths that he had never seen in a demons' eyes before.
Pain.
Not the pain caused by any form of physical trauma. From all indications Cole remained uninjured even after all the attacks by Peter. The pain he saw was emotional pain. The type caused by injuries that couldn't be diagnosed by any doctor or seen by any type of machine. And Peter knew.
"You son of a bi… You deliberately provoked me. You wanted me to attack you. All those things you said about my mother. About me. You knew what I would do when you said them."
Cole sat up and slumped against the wall, he looked up at his son in silence and shrugged tiredly. Peter continued to stare down at him; an odd snippet of a poem he had read once suddenly came to mind.
…the old man rocks, eyes too weary for the world, he waits to die…
"You're smarter than I gave you credit for," Cole said quietly. "I'm not sure anyone has told you but it seems I'm invincible now. I absorbed so much power in the Wasteland I can't be vanquished. Not even by myself. When you showed up I thought maybe you could do what no one else could do. You're my son. Maybe that connection would be strong enough to end my miserable existence."
"So all those things you said? You were just trying to piss me off? So I'd attack you?"
"Why not? I've tried just about everything else. I can drink as much alcohol as I want. I can't even get drunk. And those prescription pills. Heart pills that should have sent me into cardiac arrest. I took several bottles of them. All they did was give me heartburn."
"Why? Why try to kill yourself at all?
"You're joking, right? Forget about what I did to your mother and you. Forget all the witches I've killed. All the evil I perpetrated on the mortal world. I hurt Phoebe. I hurt her so badly she actually vanquished me. Then, when I needed her help to escape the Wasteland she said she couldn't help me. She said it was over between us forever.
"Then I stumbled on a way out of the Wasteland. My soul. It protected me from being transformed like other demons. Once I had absorbed enough magic to escape I figured Phoebe would be so happy I was back we could pick up where we had left off. Before that whole business with the Source."
"But that didn't happen."
"No, it didn't. Phoebe didn't want anything to do with me. No matter what I did she wouldn't believe I had changed. That I wasn't the demon I used to be. She said I was a demon and still evil and that I'd never change. She never wants to see me again."
"Look, I know it hurts…."
"Hurts? Yeah you could say it hurts. Phoebe gave me a reason to live. I tried to be what she wanted. I really did. But I guess she was right. We just had too much going against us. She's a Charmed One. I'm half demon. Or I was. I guess it was just too much to expect that our love could overcome all that."
"How long have you been back? From the Wasteland I mean?"
"Seven or eight weeks, why?"
"And you expected her to just accept you back in such short a time? Cole, it takes time to build a relationship. I know you and she had a good relationship once before. But you can't expect her to forget everything that happened overnight. You need to give her time to adjust."
"She's never going to adjust. Let's face it. There's nothing I can do to get her trust or love back."
"I know she loves you. That hasn't changed."
"It's not enough. Not for her.
Peter shook his head in disbelief. He'd come to find answers and had instead found an invincible, love sick, suicidal demon. Unbelievable. Well, his father might have lost his way, but Peter wasn't about to be cheated out of finding his way.
"Get up," Peter said sternly, reaching down to grab Cole's arm and pull him to his feet.