Chris orbed into the attic. The attic had always seemed to him like the safest place to be in the house. That and the fact the Book of Shadows just happened to be there, and it was in the Book that he could find the spell to vanquish any little lime-green mutant midget Farthins that may just happen to be hanging around. He began to walk towards the pedestal and the Book and glanced casually at the sofa, then froze.

Curled up on the sofa, her dark eyes following him, was Eryn.

"What are you doing up here?" he asked cautiously. He was making a concerted effort to not do anything to piss her off, but even so he was fully-expecting her to blow up. So when she spoke, he was extremely surprised that she wasn't yelling.

"Couldn't sleep," she replied quietly.

"Happen a lot?" he queried, still standing where he was.

"Only when someone dies in the bed I'm sleeping in," she said dead-pan.

Chris arched an eyebrow slightly. Not much you can say to that. I wonder if she's…no, she can't be serious. "So…did you sleep any better up here?" he asked slowly. Eryn gave him a crooked smile.

"Yeah. I could breathe." She slowly got to her feet and stretched her arms up above her head. "But even so, I didn't sleep much," she added, lowering her arms and rolling her shoulders.

"Why's that?"

She shrugged slightly. "New places…they make me nervous. I don't usually sleep more than three hours in a new place on the first night. I get all angsty. But I did last night." She went quiet for a second, then shrugged again. Chris noticed that she looked kind of pale. "Not the best experience of my life."

Chris watched her. He didn't know what to say. Then it hit him. They had just had a conversation…a civil one. Neither had bitten the others head off, it hadn't turned into a screaming match, and she hadn't threatened to deck him. He opened his mouth to speak, but a swirl of blue and white orbs appeared in the door of the attic and solidified into one very pissed off Wyatt.

"Oh, crap." Chris said, backing towards the Book as Wyatt slowly advanced on him.

"You're gonna wish you'd never been born, boy," Wyatt told him grimly.

"Can I make a plea?" Chris asked, holding up his hands. Wyatt looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head.

"Um…no." Wyatt took another couple of steps towards Chris, then dove for him. Chris side-stepped him and managed to take a step towards the door, but then Wyatt grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him back. Chris managed to utter one tiny "help" before Wyatt grabbed him in a headlock and began to drag him bodily over to the east window of the attic.

"Uh, Wyatt, don't…" Chris began as Wyatt flicked his fingers at the catch on the window. The window opened, and Wyatt tossed Chris out.

"Could you…not have killed him?" Eryn asked from where she was standing in front of the sofa. Wyatt turned to look at her. "Because I was just having a civil conversation with him."

"Oh, hey," he said, shooting her a grin. "Didn't see you there." He waved his hand at the window, and it closed.

She nodded. "Yeah, I kinda guessed that."

"What do you mean, 'civil conversation'?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Just what I said. Civil Conversation. He didn't bite my head off, and he didn't say something to make me feel the need to smash him. Civil." She frowned at him. "And then you felt the need to throw him out a window."

Wyatt rolled his eyes. "I was justified."

Eryn arched an eyebrow. "Justified? How so?"

"He woke me up."

"Oh, yeah, and that so justifies throwing one's brother out of a third-story window and watching him go splat."

"I didn't go splat," Chris said from the sofa behind her, making her jump. She turned around to look at him.

"Jesus, you're quiet," she remarked. "I didn't even hear you orb in." He nodded slightly.

"Being thrown out of a window for opening your big mouth does that to you," he told her, shooting Wyatt a nervous look. But Wyatt smirked and held up his hands.

"We're even, little bro…for now…" Chris gulped "…but right now we have bigger demons to fry, namely the demons after Eryn." Eryn snorted.

"Oh, yeah, sure, you two are so gonna vanquish these guys," she said sarcastically. Chris and Wyatt stared at each other.

"Well, gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," Wyatt said, a hurt expression on his face.

"At least we know where we stand," Chris murmured, looking at her from beneath lowered lashes. Eryn looked at him, then Wyatt, and sighed.

"I'm sorry, guys. I didn't mean it that way…well, I did, but…" She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "It's just…a lot of people have said that to me. Said that they were gonna vanquish these demons of mine." She shrugged. "Let's just say those that didn't die wish that they had."

Wyatt glanced at Chris, who nodded slowly. He got it. She didn't want them to get hurt, so she was trying to discourage them. She didn't want more blood shed on her account, more people hurt. He knew the feeling.

"We're not those people, though," Wyatt said softly. "We're twice-blessed. We can handle it." Eryn began to shake her head, but Wyatt interrupted.

"Look, we won't even attempt to go after them until we hear about them from you, okay? I mean, I didn't even know there was a demon called…Ardariaen?…consolidating power in the Underworld until you told me."

Eryn began to speak, but Chris interjected.

"Look, it's not like you have anything better to do than to tell us what's up. Your only other option is to sit around twiddling your thumbs, doin' jack-all all day. And, besides, all I've heard about the sitch is what Dad told me, and that was pretty vague.

"So you might as well tell us. Who and/or what is after you?" Chris asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. Eryn sighed, grumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "Males…" and began.

"Okay, fine. What's after me is a demonic clan known as the Pen-Ultimae, and more specifically, the most powerful of their last generation, a demon called Ardariaen." She rolled her eyes.

"The Pen-Ultimae had this wacky-tabaccy idea that if they combined every breed of demon except the "unworthy" ones - Rat Demons and such - they would have the most powerful demon in the world." She sighed and shrugged.

"Well, maybe not such a wacky-tabaccy idea, because now they do in Ardariaen. His mother was a Pen-Ultimae, and his father was a Darklighter, so now they've gone and combined all the "worthy" demonic breeds with Darklighter blood.

"Ardariaen has an entire arsenal of powers, ranging from empathy to telecoercion, from molecular disintegration to reconstitution. He's the culmination of the Pen-Ultimae line: every power ever inherited in the history of the clan, he has." She shot them each a dark smile. "Scared yet?"

"Why exactly are they after you?" Wyatt asked. Eryn took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

"It's just because of…me. Who I am. What I am."

"Wow, extensive explanation," Chris told her. She frowned, then shot him a crooked grin.

"Sorry. It's just…kinda hard to explain…"

"Does it have anything to do with the fact you're part Whitelighter?" Wyatt asked.

Eryn nodded slowly. "Partly." She sighed. "Ardariaen's never had the chance to get his hands on a real live Whitelighter before. When I came along, the offer was too good to pass up, especially since I'm part witch, too. I mean, think about it…" She looked at each of them in turn. "When a witch and a Whitelighter have kids, the results…they're amazing. You two are living examples, and so am I. We have powers any demon would kill for…and believe me," she added with a faint smile, "Ardariaen will kill for them."

"Kill?" Wyatt asked, arching an eyebrow. "I thought you said they inter-breed."

Eryn nodded. "They do…when they can. If they can't…when a demon breed won't comply…doesn't want to dilute any of their bloodlines…then the Pen-Ultimae kill for powers. They figure that if they can't have that demon's blood in their progeny's veins, they might as well just have its powers."

"What's the difference?" Chris asked.

"When they get a demon's blood, the offspring will be invulnerable to that type of demon. If a Pen-Ultimae meets, say, a Gith Demon, they won't be attacked, because they'll be kin. Bound by blood. And they get the powers, too. But if a Pen-Ultimae just gets the powers of a particular demon, they can still be attacked by that type of demon," Eryn explained.

"There's just one thing I don't get," Chris said slowly, getting to his feet and walking over to her. "It's been bugging me for a while."

"What?" Eryn asked.

"Why didn't you tell us you were half Whitelighter?" He asked, annoyed. Eryn opened her mouth to reply.

"Because she isn't half Whitelighter. She's only a quarter," a cool voice interjected. Chris saw Eryn pale slightly, then she took a deep breath and turned towards the speaker. Chris and Wyatt turned to look as well.

A thirty-something looking man was standing casually in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket. He had dark brown, almost black, hair, and grey eyes a few shades darker than Eryn's. He was watching them with an amused expression on his face, though that amusement stopped short of his eyes, which were like chips of steel.

He waved his hand, and a horde of demons shimmered into the attic, surrounding them as he added, "Hello, daughter."

Chris and Wyatt looked at each other, surprised, then at Eryn. She swallowed.

"Hello, Daddy."