In the spirit of the holidays, I'm putting up a chapter before I get out for my much needed vacation, so to all of y'all, have a very merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Ramadan, and whatever else I might have missed! Please enjoy!

Mythica: It always makes me feel good when I know that because of me, somebody's lazing off on the job! Enjoy your family's visit and I hope y'all have a lot of fun!

Raya: I'm in your corner. I also hope they save James and that Matt's idea works. His mind isn't in complete working order, it seems as of late…

chyp: Indebtedness.

Sam walked around the basement of the brothers' house, having appeared from out of nowhere in particular. She examined everything in there before turning to the most prized possession the brothers owned, the Book of Light. She nonchalantly approached it, running her finger across the cover as she traced the three intertwining circles that symbolized the Complete. As she opened the Book, she let out a small gasp upon seeing that the pages were all blank. She flipped page after page only to find that there was nothing there. Whatever happened to the words, she thought, it had to be something bad.

She held her hands over the Book and a bright white light began to emanate from them, illuminating the Book. Suddenly, images started to flash through her head, images that detailed the events involving the mystery of the missing words. She closed her eyes tightly and opened her mind to the recollected memories racing through her head…

"Cut the crap," James said. "Once we get rid of Sabo, we're out of here. How do we do it?"

"There is a spell," Mastiphal explained, "hidden in both the Book of Shadows and the Book of Light. Only when the two books are together will the spell show itself. It must be read by both sides, good and evil, to contain the evil that has been unleashed."

Mastiphal held up the Book of Shadows while James held up the Book of Light. Within seconds, both books began to glow a strange orange color that gradually brightened until it completely illuminated the chamber. At the peak of the glowing, Mastiphal chanted, "Ex Suum Ut Nostri." Then, the light subsided and the books returned to normal.

"Did it work?" Matthew asked.

"One way to find out," James said as he opened the Book. "It's here. Right on the front page. Did it work for y'all?"

"Yes," Mastiphal said. "Better than we had hoped."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Matthew asked.

"'Ex Suum Ut Nostri'?" Sam repeated to herself. Nevertheless, she continued to recall more events of the past in order to discover why the Book was in its current state…

James turned to face the Council for at least a goodbye and an expression of gratitude, but they had disappeared. The brothers assumed that they had returned to their chamber.

"Didn't even say goodbye," Wesley said brashly.

"I guess it was for the best," Matthew said. "I mean, how awkward was it before, when we all had the common enemy? Now, any kind of confrontation would be retarded unless it was to, you know…"

"But we could've fought this out right here, right now," Wesley said. "At least we could've gotten it over with."

"I think evil is a little more insidious than that," Matthew said. "They're probably waiting for the right moment to take us down."

"Whatever it is," James said as he flipped through the Book with wide eyes, "it's gonna be good…"

Sam opened her eyes as a thought popped into her head. Having relived the first vision and having just seen the second one, she was quick to put the clues together, but she wanted to be certain that what she thought was true. She repositioned her hands over the empty Book of Light and once more pulled a past memory into her head…

"Let the object of objection return,
So that its existence may be reaffirmed."

Wesley stepped away from the Book of Light, wondering if the spell he had just cast would be effective. He waited alongside his brothers for some sort of sign to signal that everything had worked. The more they waited, however, the less hopeful they became. Matthew finally grabbed the Book and flipped through it, confirming that the spell had in fact not worked.

"You didn't really think that a spell you got off some TV show would work, did you?" Matthew snapped at Wesley.

"I'm sorry," Wesley said defensively, "but none of your spells have worked! These are desperate times, man! Besides, 'Charmed' has some good spells!"

"That's pretend," James said, siding with Matthew, as usual. "This is real life."

"Please," Wesley said under his breath.

"Well," James said, "I guess we have to come up with something else to make the words in the Book reappear."

"Well that's just not possible!" Matthew exclaimed, flipping through the Book of Light.

"Words just can't…disappear!"

"They can and they did," James said with a tone that held both reassurance and uneasiness.

Matthew continued to ignore James' words of reassurance and kept flipping through the Book of Light, the centuries old spell book that had been passed down to him and his brothers. He carefully looked at every single page, hoping that whatever had happened was some stupid magic trick that was easily fixable, but every time he came to the conclusion that something terrible had actually caused the words in their most prized possession to disappear. He briefly put the empty Book down and shook his head before continuing.

She slowly removed her hands from over the Book and took a minute to think things through. This would surely be the best way to make things right, but she knew that she couldn't be found out, at least not now. She held out her hands over the Book of Light. Her warm powers created a strong golden glow that engulfed the Book completely. The pages began to turn of their own accord as words began scribbling themselves onto them. Then it was done. The Book closed with a thud and the symbol of the Complete flashed once before returning to normal.