A/N: This is a play on, "Who Let The Dogs Out?" Now I know this sort of seems like I'm leaving the last subplot hanging, but I'm not. I'll deal with it again in the sequel, as there will still have to be a criminal trial and all.
GuevaraX5452: Well not only is Andy the Inspector, but remember that Cole's still a District Attorney. And just because their wives don't get along on the greatest terms doesn't mean they won't come together to quick some serious Dane ass for Persia. ;) As far as your question about Pam, I'm not really sure. I'll have to noodle on that one. And concerning your character, I'll have to see what I can do. I'm mulling over some scenarios right now. (Now I just want to make sure that you want her in this fic and not a challenge fic, right?)
Peanut2lb: And that something is correct. They'll be more about Dane's aftermath in the sequel.
The-Cheese-Fairy: I'm a spoiler junkie and AGH! I canNOT believe that Phoebe and that Dex guy get married! They will not of even known each other HALF the season!
Prince Halliwell: I'll definitely have to consider that.
Ed: Wow, knowing that I caused a response like that really makes me feel good. Emotional responses are the best!
Phyre: Ooh, but he'll be dealing with Cole in the future. He still works for the criminal justice system.
Every Halliwell Counts
Chapter 34: Who Let The Demons Out?
A thunderous sound rocketed through the air as a shower of metal shards, paper, rotten vegetables, and rancid liquid rained down in the middle of an alley in the middle of downtown San Francisco.
"Piper!" The eldest Charmed One roared through gritted teeth, as she raised her hands to form a telekinetic shield of protection around her younger sister and herself.
"Not my fault!" Piper shrieked. "I meant to slow him down!"
"Why is it that you are the one who has the hardest time controlling new powers?" The raven haired witch asked as the last of the falling debris was caught in her web of telekinetic energy.
"Maybe because they all come from the same place, unlike your powers," the timing witch snared as she flexed her fingers in front of her elder sister's face.
"Erg!" With another motion of her arms, everything that had been caught in the web of Prue's telekinesis was flung back across the alley like a sling shot, flinging right into its intended target.
"Show off," the brunette snorted as she stalked over to the demon and raised her hands.
"Piper!" Prue yelled.
Ignoring the elder, the timer landed a two inch heel right across the demon's throat.
"Trying to pull a Jessica Simpson?" Prue snorted, crossing her arms and leaning across the cement wall of the alley, allowing her sister to have her moment.
"What?" Piper asked innocently. "Isn't my Daisy Duke better than her's?" Her stern face returned as she gazed irritably down at her prey. "Look, buddy, I'm getting bored of this game." She placed her hands together, cracking her fingers. "Now I don't know what's gonna come out of here, so if you want me to spare you, you had better tell me who sent you."
"I'd rather die," the garbage drenched demon replied, having been hit with the contents of the dumpster that Piper had accidentally exploded in her attempt to slow down the demon.
"Well, let's just see if we can help ya out," Piper said as she raised her arms.
"No! Wait!" The demon yelped, his memory suddenly becoming clearer. "Rykor. It's Rykor, he's after the-" But before he could finish, magical flames consumed the demon and he transformed into a pile of black and brown ash.
"The one time that actually works and then he dies on his own," Piper grumbled as she headed back out towards the car.
Prue stifled a laugh. "You probably would've blown him up anyway."
"Well, at least I would've gotten satisfaction out of that," the timer retorted as she climbed into the passenger seat of Prue's car.
"Mhmm," Prue mumbled as she started the ignition. "Oh, by the way," the blue eyed witch pulled a clump of napkins from the side of her door. "You have a clump of rotten banana in your hair," she grinned as she handed the napkins to Piper and pulled out of the parking space.
----
"Thirty-two!" Tyler cried triumphantly, chipped and dirt encrusted nail at Persia's math paper.
"Eww, you need to clean those," Persia said as she scribbled down her answer.
"And that's what I get for solving the unsolvable?" Tyler groaned, rubbing his hands on his grimy white t-shirt.
"Yep," the brunette grinned innocently. In the time they'd spent since the incident with Dane Burnham, the electric witch had learned that Tyler Michaels was actually something called The Firestarter. Not just any pyrokinetic witch, but a special and highly coveted witch, as his powers were much stronger than average pyrokinetic witches. She'd discovered that long before her time with the Halliwells, or even Pearl's, they'd helped Tyler escape The Source's slavery and bound his powers at his request, only to be adopted by a nice family not too far from the Manor. She also discovered that he was a year older than her and would be graduating in about a month. "So, what about this one?"
"You need to figure some of them out by yourself," the blonde boy drawled. "Come on, that one's easy."
"Not when you're in Trump's class."
"She's not that bad," Tyler defended.
"Yeah and demons aren't a bad thing," came the electric's sarcastic reply.
Suddenly the clairvoyant Charmed One came bursting into Persia's room.
The electrokinetic bounced to her feet. "Mom!"
"Hurry, come on, we have a demon to chase," Phoebe's voice was urgent.
Persia turned sadly to Tyler. "I'm so sorry, I'll call you when we get back." She grabbed Tyler's red backpack and handed it to him. "Ask my dad to take you home, please."
"Cole?" Tyler asked.
"Yeah, Cole," the young witch said as she slipped a tan colored leather jacket over her bare shoulders and across her orange sequined halter top. "Thanks for the help."
"No problem." Tyler's face was a murky mixture of worry and helplessness. "I'll talk to you later."
Persia waved a goodbye and slipped out the door with her mother. "So where exactly are we going?" She asked as she hurried down the stairs after the psionic.
Phoebe reached the bottom step and swirled to face Persia, her face glum. "The cemetery."
----
"Whoa, where's the fire?" Andy raised a curious brow at his witchlighter niece.
Phiona grabbed a small white handbag with carnation pink embroidery on it, from the side of the sofa. "A school Bake Sale. We're cooking everything in the school kitchen and we'll be selling it at the faire in Golden Gate Park this weekend. I signed up, because I also get extra credit for donating my time." She pushed a strand of blondish-brown hair from her face. "Besides, how can you beat getting extra credit for doing something as fun as cooking?" She swung open the door. "Gotta go, the van for the volunteers is waiting for me."
She's definitely her mother's daughter. Andy thought, laughing to himself. "Be careful and have fun, Phi."
"You too, Uncle Andy," replied the young Blessed One as she trotted out the door.
Turning on his heel, Andy proceeded on his way up the stairs of the Halliwell Manor. He and Glenn had taken the day off to take Prissy and Pandora to get ice cream for the afternoon. "Glenn!" He yelled, swinging open his brother-in-law's bedroom door.
Glenn pulled a red t-shirt over his head and let it fall nicely over his olive tanned chest, before looking in the mirror to make sure that his spikey hair hadn't been harmed. "Yes?" He asked, squirting some gel into his hands and fixing one of the spikes.
"You comin', man?"
"Sure am," the fellow mortal answered before grabbing his wallet from his and Paige's bed and shoving into his back pocket. "Have you wrangled the kids up?"
Before Andy could answer, there was a shrill voice from behind him. "Daddy!"
Alarmed, the Inspector turned to see Pandora with one hand plugging her nose and one hand over her mouth. He narrowed his eyes in amusement. "Pandy, what's wrong?" He asked, scooping his daughter into his arms.
"Prissy smells like da bafroom did after Auntie Piper's burridos."
Andy looked to Glenn, raising a brow. "Well, I'll go put Pan in the car! Meet me out there with Prissy!" He yelled.
"Andy!" Glenn raced to the door. "Andy!" He yelled, but unfortunately for him, Andy was already down the stairs by that time. He placed a hand to his head, groaning at the thought of changing Prissy. Muttering something unfriendly, he padded made his way through the house to Prissandra's room and as he entered, his pulled his shirt up over his nose. "Of all the Halliwell kids, you're take the cake for the most toxic," he said as he plucked the little girl from her crib and laid her on the changing table.
Prissy giggled, wiggling her toes in the air. Her parents had been working day and night trying to potty train the tot, but apparently she was more stubborn than the other Charmed offspring had been, and still had plenty of accidents.
----
Persia jerked forward, her seatbelt slapping her back into her seat moments later. "Mom! You're going to get us both killed!"
"I'm sorry, but we don't have a lot of time!" The psychic got out of the car and headed for the gates of the cemetery.
"Wait for me!"
"Hurry up!" As she entered the gates, the empath felt a chill run up her spine. She was never too keen on spending time in graveyards, death lingered here and she didn't like it one bit. She could hear the crunching of brown, yellow, and brick colored Autumn leaves crunching under her weight and she hugged herself to scare off the chilly Fall air.
"Where are we going?"
"Over there," Phoebe pointed to rows of white tombstones, many unmarked soldiers from a war.
"I don't see anybody," Persia replied.
"There will be a girl," Phoebe replied cautiously, looking around to see if she could see the girl from the premonition that she'd had earlier.
"Her?" Persia's voice cut through Phoebe's thoughts like a knife through butter. She pointed a newly manicured nail straight forward.
Straight copper hair cascaded down the back and shoulders of a young girl, no more than eighteen years of age. A thick layer of bangs concealed her forehead and blonde highlights added a youthful look to the young female. She wore a simple white tank, although it looked slightly too small for her, and helped to make the illusion of a bigger bust. Going along with the simple fashion statement, she wore a pair of black cargo pants and worn black and white sneakers. Her face, however, was a whole different story. Copper toned lips outlined with black lip liner as well as her eyes outlined in black eye liner and her lashes weighed down with layers of mascara. She was padding quietly across the field of green, slipping in and out of the white tombstones. Finally she came to a stop, flopping down in front of one. Her hands, nails painted in black, went to her face. For a brief moment, all she did was stare. Then her body seemed to shake, as she sank into a fit of sobs.
"Hurry, she's going to get attacked now!" Phoebe exclaimed, running at the girl.
No sooner had the words left Phoebe's mouth, did the air behind the young woman ripple, and form into a monstrous beast. Sickly chalky gray skin covered the thing from head to toe. One arm looked human, while the other appeared to be some type of arm from an insect, multiplied in size a thousand times over. Sheer bat like wings shot out from the back of the beast, a few holes in the see-through skin and jagged edges hung down. The creature's head was like a shrunken head from something you'd see in a voodoo movie and it's mouth was a gaping hole with what appeared to be stitches all around it's dried out lips. One of its eyes was larger than the other, a pulsating red thing and the other looked relatively human with a large green iris. Tentacles wriggled freely from the top of the creature's blueish-gray head.
"Look out!" The Charmed One screamed.
Persia flung out an arm, aiming a bolt of powerful electricity at the beast, sending it flying into another tombstone and shattering it.
A scream from the innocent pierced the air, as she struggled to her feet and began to run like mad.
"Go get her, I'll take care of this thing," Persia instructed.
"I'm not leaving you alone with that!" Phoebe protested.
"Go!" Persia shoved her mother in the direction of the girl. "She might expose us!"
Knowing she wasn't going to win this and time was of the essence, Phoebe jogged off after the girl.
"It's just you and me now, buddy ol' boy," Persia said as she swirled her palms together and neon yellow electric charges crackled from her palms.
The demon snarled at the Child Of Light, throwing out its human arm and allowing a steam of neon blue to strike at the witch, wrapping around her ankle like a snake and swinging her through the air to smack into another white tombstone.
Persia's head hit the tombstone with a bone crushing blast, the side of her head caving in, and blood instantly pooling under her as well as out of her mouth and nose. The impact had also jarred her necklace open, breaking the clasp and sending it flying into the soft green grass. TheChild Of Light wouldbe dead in minutes and there was nobody around to save her.
TO BE CONTINUED...