Disclaimer: Don't own Charmed never will… blah, blah, blah!!!
Thanks for all the reviews!!! Thank you thank you thank you…
Reminder: Ok well Paige, Chris, copy girl and scientist are in the lift and after a spirited sing song are making their way back through the vent.
"Well, so far he has had the building for an hour and two people are dead," The gremlock watched the projection closely.
"Yes, but there is five floors worth of scientists for him to kill!" The Harpy spat.
"If two per hour is his plan. They will all be dead in the next three days though." The Fury hissed.
"We shouldn't trust him. I say we send my warriors in to destroy the Charmed one and the firestarter now!" The Harpy screeched.
"Give him time Dalia." The Head said calmly.
"He has a week." The Gremlock said, "Then we finish the job and kill him."
"I say we just kill him anyway!" Dalia sulked.
"No! He is a good ally. Now we can see the great demon of fear at work!" The Head said interested.
"I agree with Dalia, I say we kill him!" A Trok demon said leaning closer to the projection.
"Patience…" The Fury hissed.
"We're demons. Why should we care?" The Trok demon snarled.
"SILENCE!" The Head bellowed, the room fell silent. "We are going to kill all the people whether Barbas wants us to or not, we will be sending Dalia's troops in first. What do you say to that."
The Harpy nodded solemnly.
"Now… let us continue our observation without killing one another, please!" The Head said.
Phoebe raced under the tape surrounding the science building and ignored the shouting officers, she headed straight for Darryl who was still on his phone.
"Hey, any news?" She asked.
"The Fire department have just arrived with their equipment builders are coming soon too." Phoebe glanced over at the trucks parked near the bricked over building.
"Do you know what this is?" He asked exasperatedly.
"No, idea!" Phoebe shaking her head.
"Great, all I can do is go along with the rumours at the minute." He glanced at the building, "But it looks a bit big for just a prank." He said nervously.
"Listen, you want to know what my suspicions are?" Phoebe asked.
"No, it's better I don't know."
"Aw, what a good way to look at things Darryl." Phoebe cooed placing her arm on his shoulder, "Anyway we think it has something to do with Barbas the demon of fear."
Darryl thrust his hands over his ears, then looked at her anxiously, "Your mouth stopped moving. Are you done yet."
Phoebe nodded.
"Good, I just want to look at this as some normal case, and not have demons racing around. It makes it harder for me to explain if I actually know there is a demon loose."
He looked over to the fire fighters who were now approaching the building with all sorts of tools and battering rams etc. One swung an axe at the solid brick wall, he was engulfed in electric charge and hurled back against the truck. The other fire fighters stepped away cautiously, Phoebe and Darryl raced towards the man lying slumped against the truck, Phoebe bent down and paced her two fingers on his neck, he had no pulse. She stepped away. This was not good!
"Probably snapped his spinal cord with the force against that truck." A fire fighter appeared behind Phoebe and stepped over to his fallen comrade.
"ALL RIGHT GUYS. AND WE ARE OUTTA HERE!" He bellowed to his work mates. The rest of the fire fighters gathered their equipment and raced back to their designated trucks and were soon gone. The dead fire fighter fell to the floor, his face on the pavement.
"Wait!" Darryl yelled as the trucks pulled away.
"What now?" Phoebe asked, Darryl ignored and pushed past her.
"Great, they got this on tape!" Darryl growled walking purposefully towards the camera man and the woman reporter.
"It seems the building it all covered in some sort of electric charge that has just fatally wounded a member of San Francisco's fire force." She rambled, as the lardy camera man checked his watch passively and followed her towards the building.
"NO!" Phoebe yelled as the reporter got dangerously close to the building. That wasn't Barbas' power, what the hell was that?
It was too late the woman reached over to touch the building and was hurled backwards knocking her camera man to the floor and landing straight onto him.
"JERRY?" She squealed as she stumbled to her feet. Phoebe raced towards them, what the hell was that woman thinking? She had seen what the wall had done before, so then she just put her life at risk and her friends. The reporter lay over her cameraman crying hysterically, her green suit crumpled. Phoebe examined the cameraman and saw blood dribbling from his mouth, he was dead too, she had crushed him.
The reporter stood over her friend bawling, Darryl rushed to Phoebe's side.
"Call an ambulance!" She instructed quickly, her voice cracking, "And make sure no one gets through this tape!" She added hesitantly. Darryl nodded and flipped his phone from his pocket.
"Yeah, 911, we have two non pulsating victims at the Sine Labe building downtown, please send an ambulance. Darryl Morris. Yeah, I work with the police, we are working on this."
Phoebe had to get home and tell Piper. As long as Paige and Chris weren't around, she now assumed they were in the building and considering the damage it had caused from the outside she wasn't sure she wanted to know what was going on, on the inside.
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts!" Craig sang loudly, they were now back in the vent.
"They're lovely!" Chris sang.
"There they are all standing in a row…" Craig sang.
"Big ones small …" Chris sang.
"Shut up you two!" Carla snapped.
"Yeah cut it out!" Paige added angrily.
"What? Songs lift our spirits!" Craig said cheekily.
"Not that song!" Paige growled.
"Well it lifted my spirits!" Craig said hurt.
"We are trapped in a blood covered vent, a body has come through here and,… and…"
"And you're wasting oxygen!" Carla added snappily.
"Women…" Craig sighed.
"I know…" Chris sighed nodding. Paige who was in front of him kicked him.
"Ow!" Chris growled.
"I see a light! We are near our freedom!" Craig said jovially, Paige looked up over him.
"That's … a fan!" She shrieked.
"Oh, my bad!" Craig shrugged.
"Wait, what are we going to do?" Carla asked anxiously.
"Hey, I was right, look there is a left turn over here!" Craig pointed out.
"Keep moving!" Chris yelled over the beating fan blades.
Everyone's hair whipped across their faces as the quickly progressed though the tunnel to a vent cover.
"And… we're trapped!" Craig said as they came to a stop.
Paige turned and hissed to Chris, "Hey! Use your power."
"I don't think I can, I couldn't orb out of here." He said quietly.
"At least try!" She said softly.
Chris shrugged, "Worth a shot I guess. I need a good view of it though." Paige nodded.
"Hey Craig, move. Chris does … weight lifting, maybe he can move the cover."
Craig snorted loudly but did as asked and moved over to let Chris through.
Chris glared at Paige as she crawled past, ok so weight lifting wasn't such a good thing to say, she shrugged him off.
He knelt over the cover and reached his fingers though the gaps carefully then concentrated on the nails. "Come on…" He murmured.
The nails began to shake, Chris felt a wave of relief they couldn't orb but at least they could protect themselves. The nails continued to vibrate slowly inching their way out of the holes.
"So… Chris body builds?" Carla asked Paige quietly.
"Yeah," Paige replied not catching onto what Carla was getting at.
"So, he'll have lots of… muscles." Paige choked at this comment, Paige had never met a more weedy looking guy when it involved muscles.
She nodded swallowing her laughter.
They heard a loud clatter over the beating fan and Chris turned and nodded at them, as she saw him jump through the gap where the cover had been Paige had to admit, weedy was one thing, but he was athletic.
"Out of the vent so soon?" Barbas sniggered astral projecting by Chris as he helped the girls done through the gap and Craig dusted himself down. The group were now culminating in a hallways, the corridor stretched to the left it looked for ever, but a flight of stairs could vaguely be seen about 20 feet to their left, the problem being the entire corridor was glistening white.
"Now it is time to split the group… "
Paige stumbled over to Craig who was examining the blood stains on his tattered jeans.
"Hey you, thanks for helping me out the vent." She said to him angrily.
"Hey weight lifter is doing a better job then me!" He replied still looking at his jeans with great fascination.
Barbas wove his hand and sniggered.
Carla who was didn't like the look of jumping onto the floor below her was being slowly coaxed out by Chris.
"Did you hear that?" Paige snapped spinning around.
"What?" Craig asked looking up at her concerned.
"That scream," she replied, "It was coming from down there." She raced past his down the corridor towards the stairs.
"Paige! Wait!" Craig said jogging after her.
Chris turned and looked as the two disappeared down the stairs and stepped away from the wall to see where they had gone and Carla tumbled out and landed on the floor.
"OW!" She groaned, Chris swung around and helped her to her feet.
"Sorry!" He said softly.
"No problem, I just think I cracked a rib," She said clutching her side.
Chris had broken all his ribs at least once but Leo had always healed them, so he decided to keep quiet.
She stood shakily and leant on his side draping her arm around his shoulder. Then she burst into laughter and hopped away giggling.
"Wait, your ok!" He said, as she laughed.
"Sure, I'm fine. It's just against the rules for me to you know…"
"Rules… huh?" Chris asked perplexed by her behaviour.
"Flirt with Whitelighters, silly!" She said still giggling uncontrollably.
"PAIGE!" Craig yelled jogging down the stairs after his assistant, for a girl she sure was fast. In all his life he had never met a girl as complex as her. Well most girls he dated only had their IQ in single digits, he didn't like to go out with intelligent women. He found them intimidating, and they never laughed at his jokes. It made him feel unappreciated. But Paige was different, she laughed at some of his jokes, only the ones which didn't involve female discrimination. Jokes with out this in his normally lacked in. Why had she kissed him then?
"Women…" He sighed to himself.
He checked his now bloodstained watch, it was broken the second hand kept ticking though, the rest didn't move, just the second hand. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. These were seconds he was never going to get back in his life… and he was standing a stairwell!
"PAIGE!" He yelled.
He raced down the stairs and ran into her, she had stopped her hands clasped over her mouth in shock. He followed her line of vision, on the floor he saw two bodies. They weren't bleeding they were burnt.
Paige fell to her knees, "Mom? Dad?" She whimpered.
"Paige..." Craig knelt beside her and squeezed her shoulder, she fell into his arms crying.
All he saw were two nameless bodies. Craig had the creepiest feeling, they weren't Paige's parents, she imagined them different. She had a photo of her foster parents in her purse.
Was she seeing something different?