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.

Cole had a fireball in his hand, and Clara screamed, "No!"

"Why not?" he asked.

"These trees are irreplaceable. If you started a fire here – "

"Demonic fire doesn't work that way. It completely consumes what it hits in a few seconds, and then vanishes. It doesn't burn anything else. Just leaves a scorch mark where the target was." There was a slightly cruel smile on his face. "See, I could take out – that tree, completely – and leave the others untouched."

"Why do you enjoy causing fear?"

He gave her a look that would have made a lesser person run for cover. Then he calmed himself and closed his fist around the fireball, extinguishing it. "In the blood, I guess."

"Or force of habit?"

"Well, now, that's the question, isn't it?" He swung himself over the veranda railing and began pacing the ground. "Nature or nurture? Ask any of the Charmed Ones, they'll tell you I was born evil and I can't be anything but evil in the end, no matter how hard I try."

"How hard have you tried?"

He gave her a sardonic glance. "Depends on when you're talking about."

"That period of time you were talking about, after Prudence's death, it sounds like you were trying hard then."

"I was. I reined in demonic impulses very well. And then, of course, when I lost my powers, I could relax even more on that score."

"The demonic impulses go with the powers?"

"To a certain degree. You know, Ms. Karnes, there are plenty of human beings who have demonic impulses with no demonic powers at all."

"Oh, I know. Please, call me Clara." She pulled herself up to perch on the veranda railing. "So, why do you blame Paige for ending that period in your life? Did she get your powers back?"

He laughed. "Oh, no." Then after a moment, "No."

"How did you get your powers back?"

He ducked his head and gave her a wheedling look Phoebe would have recognized. "It wasn't my fault."

"But it wasn't Paige's fault either, was it?"

He snarled. "You think you're just the cleverest little girl in class, don't you, Clara?"

"I'm talking to a human being named Cole Turner. I'm not interested in what any demon has to say."

After a long moment when their gazes locked, Cole laughed and turned away. "You have the guts of a bomb-squad guy, you know that."

"What happened?"

"The Source took Piper's and Paige's powers. Phoebe's powers – premonition and levitation – they're not much good in a fight. All the Source had to do was launch one good attack – hell, one middling attack – and they were dead, all three. I didn't know how they were going to get out alive. They didn't know how they were going to get out alive.

"I was given a way to absorb the Source's powers, and I got back to the girls in time to intercept – " he opened his hand to show an energy ball – "one of these, aimed at Phoebe. I absorbed it – absorbed all of his powers – turned it right back on him and kept him at bay while the Charmed Ones recited the spell that wiped him out."

Clara looked away.

"Sorry, am I making you sick again?"

"It's just – you're like strobe light right now, and it's hard – There's pride, that makes sense, saving lives, and something like – peace, but not – satisfaction, I think. It flickers in you when you talk about killing, not really fun, just – craftsmen get it, pride in their work and intolerance for having it done another way. Re-route that, if we can – But there's shame, too. Because you helped to kill him?"

"Am I ashamed because I helped kill the Source of All Evil?" He drew the question out, making it as ridiculous sounding as possible.

"Because you killed your mentor. The closest thing you knew to a father."

Now it was Cole who looked slightly ill. "Please, Clara. Don't sentimentalize Hell. Demons don't feel family ties or love, or passion for anything but their own gain. Demons don't need daddies."

"Humans do."

After a long moment, he said, "That's not why I'm ashamed."

"Why then?"

"I expelled all of the other powers the Source had absorbed. Piper got hers back, Paige hers. But the Source's own powers – with nowhere else to go – "

" – remained in you."

"And overwhelming demonic impulses."

"Forgive me, this is all new to me – Couldn't the girls have cast some sort of spell to take it out of you? A potion, or – "

"Being the Charmed Ones, they probably could have. If I'd told them about it."

"Why didn't you?"

"I tried. The Source was very strong. Of course, I'm very strong too. A very weird time. I could hear my own voice screaming in protest inside my own mind, my own mouth talking about Cole Turner in the third person – and at the same time it felt comfortable. It felt damn good, in a way, if you want to know the truth. I'm half demon. I need demonic powers. And the Source's powers – You actually are looking at a former ruler of Hell, Clara. I was good at killing efficiently and good at inspiring awe. I was so good I got Phoebe to marry Cole Turner and stay with me as the new Source. When you look at Phoebe Halliwell, you're looking at a former Queen of Hell."

She looked startled, as she may well have. "That's the guilt."

"That's Phoebe. My bride. My passion. My queen. My existence. My wife."

"Except that she introduces you as her ex-husband."

Cole stood directly in front of Clara, looking into her eyes. "Phoebe's will to do good is as strong as mine is to do evil. Stronger. People look at her and think, 'Oh, how cute,' and they have no idea."

"She left you."

"Rejoined her sisters, and then, of course, they had to vanquish me."

She damn near fell off the railing. "Vanquish? Isn't that like – killed?"

He gave a laugh that could only be described as demonic. "Very much like."

She just stared at him.

"Demons don't have souls. When they're vanquished, their consciousness, their individuality, is burned away on a different plane, a vast empty demonic wasteland. That's how the Source and my soul got separated. My soul remained whole; all that's left of a demon is a magical residue of powers, some basic drives and motivations. Later I discovered that my human soul could absorb that residue, and since I was the only soul there – "

"You were there alone?"

"There aren't other demons with souls," he shrugged. "Actually, I've heard rumors of one or two in Southern California, but in that dimension, my soul was completely alone."

She shivered. "Worse than Hell."

"Much worse. And time moves differently in different planes. In some it goes more quickly, and in some – Of course, without senses you can only guess at the movement of time. But I figure I was there for fifty years or so, feeding on the magical residue of vanquished demons, absorbing their powers, occasionally speculating which of the poor bastards had been sent there by the woman I loved. Eventually I was so powerful that I walked right back into the realm of the living."

"Walked – you mean – "

"Metaphorically. Oh, the body. That's interesting. First place I went was my apartment, where I'd been vanquished. Vanquishing is usually a fairly neat process – you get your occasional lower-level demon who explodes with green slime, but most of us just – atomize. However, I was able to find three little drops of my blood, on a dark table, where they'd been missed in the cleanup. From those, I re-created my own body."

"Magical cloning."

"I pulled my body on around myself like comfortable old clothes. There appear to be one or two anomalies – apparently my blood eats holes in metal now – but other than that . . .

"I came back to Phoebe a few months ago, in time to save her from being gunned down by a madman, and the only thing I could see on her face, when she saw me, was fear."

"You've saved her life many times."

"Yes," he said, and you didn't have to see souls to see the pride on his face. Then it faded. Then came the accustomed cynical smile. "On the other hand, I also tried to damn her soul for all eternity. How do you figure that tips the scales?"

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It wasn't a robbery, after all.

When Piper and Paige approached the door of apartment 122 it was slightly ajar. They pushed it open silently and crept in, looking all directions. Piper kept her hands slightly in front of her.

A young blonde woman, whose face was both youthful and somehow haggard, was lying on the sofa in the front room, tracing patterns on the coffee table in white powder that had spilled from a small clear bag. She was murmuring, and showed no sign that she knew they were there. At the far end of the front room were three more doors.

Piper opened one of them and froze a closet full of clothes piled on the floor. She shrugged, and each of them took one of the remaining doors.

Paige found herself in a grimy bathroom and had just checked the tub when she heard Piper call her, quietly but urgently.

Jimmy Haines was lying on the bed in the bedroom, eyes open, perfectly still. A hypodermic needle rested on the tips of his fingers.