The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper and Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, Darryl Morris, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc.

Paige came back into the parlor, looking disgusted. "That was Darryl on the phone. A woman out for a nice afternoon drunk drive rammed the patrol car carrying Jimmy Haines. The officers will be OK, but they were injured and knocked unconscious. Jimmy escaped."

"Damn!" Piper said. She looked up at Leo. "What do you want to bet the drunk driver has a cage of fire around her soul?"

"We'll never know now," Paige said grimly. "She's dead."

There was a moment of cold silence.

"He's efficient, you have to give him that," Phoebe said. "We might have had two leads to the soul collector. One of them's dead, one of them's missing."

"Maybe the police will pick up Jimmy fast," Leo said.

"And if they don't? We can't pull the bait-and-freeze number again. The police are going to wonder why these wackos keep trying to kill Clara when Darryl just happens to be there."

"One thing's for sure," Phoebe said, "the collector's going to keep sending wackos after her until we vanquish him."

"Can you take Clara someplace safe until we can get to the collector?" Piper asked Leo, but Leo's gaze was suddenly abstracted.

"No," he said, "I can't. The Elders are calling."

"Can you just drop her off before you – "

"Sorry. Emergency." He gave her an apologetic look and orbed out.

"I swear they do that on purpose," Piper said.

"I'll orb her someplace," Paige offered.

"You'd need to stay with her, though. There's a demon after her, it's not like we can drop her at a – safe house in Jersey and leave her alone there."

"I hate splitting up," Phoebe said.

"Me too," Paige said, "but from the way you described Jimmy I doubt if it'll take the cops long to find him."

"Yeah, he wasn't Mensa material," Piper confirmed. "OK. Clara, grab some magazines or books and I'll package up some sandwiches for you. Paige, have you got any ideas – "

"No," Clara said, quietly but firmly.

They all turned to her. She was still looking at Cole.

"No," she repeated. "I won't leave him."

Cole gave the sisters an almost panicked look and then tried a third smile on Clara. "Really, I don't need – "

"You don't know what you need," she said with quiet authority. "I've never seen such a mangled soul. I'm a healer. Let me help you."

"Clara, he's evil," Phoebe said. "You can't help him."

"I don't believe that."

"Help him later," Piper said. "If the soul collector kills you, you won't be able to help anyone. Hide now, heal later."

"I can't!" Clara faced them all. "You're not seeing what I'm seeing. Would you, would you run away to save your own lives if someone were – lying on the floor here, conscious and grotesquely mutilated?"

In the pause Cole said mildly, "I resent that."

"I'm not going anywhere until he and I have at least one good talk."

"Uh – sister conference!" Paige piped up. "Kitchen? Now? Talk among yourselves," she said, grinning broadly at Cole, who was backing away from Clara as though he were a little nervous.

"OK," she said to her sisters when they were in the kitchen. "Here's the deal. We get Cole to take Clara someplace safe and protect her."

"Are you insane?" Phoebe inquired in a polite tone.

"Not about this. Phoebe, ask Cole to take Clara somewhere safe. Tell him to humor her, let her think she's doing him some good, but to keep his eye out for assassins. The soul collector's a non-killer, and if anyone else tries anything – as powerful as Cole is now – " Paige shrugged – "sound asleep, he could kill Carlos the Jackal."

"And if Clara annoys him, he could kill her in his sleep," Phoebe said.

"That's why you talk to Clara," Paige said to Piper. "Tell her we've been trying to get Cole some help, us getting him to protect her is a great excuse to let her treat him, but warn her not to say anything bad about Phoebe."

Piper and Phoebe exchanged looks.

"You know Cole keeps trying to horn in and help us," Paige said. "You know Clara wants to help him. Let her think she's doing some good. With all three of us working to track down Jimmy and the collector, it shouldn't take long. She's no threat to Cole, and he won't kill her just for fun. Even when he was the Source, he didn't kill just for fun."

"We can't let her take that risk," Phoebe said.

"You know, I think we have to," Piper said. "You can tell she's determined to treat him, and I think if we kicked him out now she'd follow him until he gave her a chance. I'm with Paige. Let her think she's doing some good while she's hiding."

Her face still concerned, Phoebe nodded.

"All right, break," Paige said, and in unison they turned back to the parlor.

"Cole, can I have a word with you?" Phoebe said, pulling him to one side.

Piper walked Clara in the other direction. "All right, Clara, you've got a deal. We'll let you treat Cole if you'll let him take you someplace safe until the collector's vanquished. But you have to know that he's half-demon, and he has an incredibly violent past."

Clara nodded.

"All right, I'll do it," Cole said to Phoebe. "What's Piper telling her over there?"

"She's saying that protecting Clara is just an excuse, and what we really want is for you to have a healthy soul."

"Is that what you want?"

Phoebe looked at the floor. It was five full seconds before she said, "I just don't let myself hope for it anymore, Cole."

"No, I won't insult Phoebe," Clara said with a smile. "Honestly, Piper, you act like I'd never seen anyone dangerous before."

"And you act like you feel sorry for him, which is – nice – " Piper said, "but – You like metaphors, right? You think you're treating a wounded dog, which is risky. But you're really treating a man-eating lion, and while you're bandaging his paw he could turn and rip your guts out." She blinked. "Actually, that last part's not metaphorical."

"Will she do it?" Cole said, stepping away from Phoebe. For those who knew him, his face was never funnier than when he was feigning humility. "Will she let me protect her while she treats my soul?"

"Do you have a card for that attorney representing the Wiccan?" Paige asked Cole. "I'll have my friend give him a call."

"Where will we go?" Clara asked, as Cole produced a business card from nowhere and handed it to Paige.

"Well – if we're keeping you away from human killers – " He glanced downward.

"If that means what I think it does, it's the worst possible place for you," she said briskly. "We need someplace quiet and close to nature."

"Quiet, and close to nature," he mused. "Got it. 'Bye now!" His put his hand on Clara's shoulder, and they disappeared in a shimmer of the air.

"Oh, God, I hope he didn't just shimmer her to the North Pole," Phoebe said with a touch of humor in her voice.

"All right, let's get to work," Paige said. "How do we find Jimmy?"

"To begin with," said Piper, heading for the phone, "we call Darryl back and ask if he knows where Jimmy hangs out."

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The air shimmered in a forest clearing, and a moment later Cole and Clara were standing there. Sunlight played on the forest floor between shadows of tree branches so high it seemed that the sun could graze them as it went over. Except for birdsong and occasional soft forest rustles, there was perfect quiet.

"Where are we?" Clara whispered.

"The Sequoia National Forest."

"Perfect," she said, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again seconds later, a snug, new-looking log cabin was in the clearing with them.

"Oh – you can't! I mean, it's marvelous. But this is a national forest, and -"

"You haven't spent much time around magic, have you? No one can see it. No one can get into it. And when I'm gone, no one will ever know it was here." Cole grinned. "Kind of like my mangled mutilated soul."

Clara drew a breath and looked at Cole straight on, and he realized again, with an odd pang, how repulsive she found him.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Well, I'm evil. Didn't you hear Phoebe? It's become part of her standard introduction. 'Hello, I'm Phoebe Halliwell, my husband is evil.'"

There were tears in her eyes again. "What happened to you?"

The expression on his face hardened. "If you knew, you'd cry for my victims, not for me."

"I can cry for all of you. What happened to you?"

He looked at her in silence for a moment, as if deciding what to do. There was a veranda that ran around all four sides of the cabin, and he leaned back against the railing, folded his arms, and began:

"I get my human soul and human name from my father, who was apparently a very good man who married rashly. My mother was a demon. When I was – maybe two, I don't remember – my mother killed my father and took me to Hell to raise me as a demon named Belthazor."

He paused a moment to let that sink in. "When I was nine, my mother was vanquished by a good witch. I tracked down the witch and killed her. This performance brought me to the attention of the Source of All Evil. Which, incidentally, he wasn't." Cole smiled briefly. "He was merely a very upper-level demon with varied ways of instilling obedience."

"Nine?" she whispered.

"Magical children grow up fast. And I was precocious, when it came to violence. The Source took me under his – claw – and taught me almost everything he knew about evil. Not really as a successor, he didn't intend to die. But even demons enjoy the vanity of having a chip off the old block. So, between my mother and the Source, I am the son and the heir to evil."