Short, short chapter, but a chapter nonetheless. Enjoy!
Paige was leaning against the wall of the mug, her legs drawn up to her chest, hugging her knees. A strand of hair was in her mouth again, her teeth working on it absently. Piper was sitting next to her, her legs stretched out in front of her; both of them were lost in their separate thoughts. The only light came from a glow-in-the-dark, temporary tattoo that Paige didn't even remember buying, and the garish green light was making her feel ill. What was more, it was dimming with each passing minute, threatening to plunge them into complete blackness. The silence gaped.
A small moan reached their ears and they snapped out of their collective trance. Phoebe was stirring. Excitement and hope jolted Paige's body awake and she was on her feet in a second, crossing the space between her and her sister quickly, intent on seeing any sign that Phoebe was okay and not suffering any kind of permanent brain damage.
"Is she okay?" Piper asked concernedly, only just managing to get to her feet. The ceramic behind her was slick and offered little to no help in her rising and she had nearly already fallen once. This was the third trimester for you — you had to love it.
Paige frowned, reaching out to gently shake her sister's shoulders. "I think so…" I hope so. She didn't want to tell Piper her fears, though. She was pretty sure that her sister had had it up to her eyes with the day so far and she saw no reason to worry her anymore than she already was.
Phoebe moaned again and turned her head first one way, then the other before opening her eyes halfway and peering at Paige through her lashes. "Paige? Oh, thank God. I was having this dream…" She sat up and rubbed her eyes, and then her forehead. "I'd been shrunk, and—" She caught Paige's look and sighed, wrinkling her nose. "Not a dream, huh?"
Both Piper and Paige had sagged in relief at the sound of her voice. It had been an unaired fear between them — that there was something critically wrong with Phoebe and that they could do nothing to help her. Having her awake and talking to them had been the best thing that had happened so far.
"Not a dream," Paige confirmed monotonously. She pulled a slightly guilty face. "We're… uh… under my bed."
"Um… okay…" Phoebe said slowly, her brain processing that piece of information. She brought her fingers to her aching temples and massaged them. "Why are we— Scrap that. Why am Ieven asking you to make sense of a supernatural predicament? That's their hallmark — they don't make sense." She rubbed her eyes again, just as Piper crouched down next to her and began stroking her hair.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Piper said, giving her sister a half-hug. "We were really worried."
Phoebe grinned, clapping her hands together. "So, we're up to full Charmed power now?" she asked, suddenly bubbly. "Great! Let's whip out a vanquish on these demons' asses and get the hell out of here!"
"Well… There's kind of a problem with that," Piper admitted apologetically, biting her lip. She hated to burst Phoebe's bubble, especially when that bubble had caused such a sudden surge of enthusiasm that probably would have helped Phoebe come up with some kind of useful spell, but she didn't have a choice. The sooner Phoebe was brought up-to-date, the better.
"Yeah. We don't know anything about these demons. And I mean anything. Not even their favourite colour," Paige said, bummed. "We're totally in the dark here."
Piper cocked an eyebrow at her. "Favourite colour? Huh?"
Paige rolled her eyes exasperatedly and huffed a sigh. "It was just an example! Okay, yes, I agree that it was a stupid example but it was an example nonetheless."
Piper smiled and reached over to half-hug Paige. "I knew what you meant, honey. Just teasing."
"Okay, if we can just go back to the situation in hand," Phoebe said. "Like— when did I lose my sandal?"
Piper cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm sorry, what? That's your issue in hand?"
"No," Phoebe said, rolling her eyes heavily and shaking her head. "I got sidetracked. Okay, issue in hand, issue in hand… Oh. Right. How the hell are we going to get out of here?"
"Oh, that issue in hand," Paige said. "We totally hadn't even thought about that one. Thanks for reminding us that we have to escape."
"Yeah, okay, Miss Sarcasm," Phoebe said. "Tell me, then, what's your master plan for getting out of here? And preferably soon, because I have an interview with a radio DJ sometime for my column and if I miss it Elise is gonna explode harder than a volcano."
Paige grinned and stretched languidly. "My master plan totally rocks. Okay, here it is. We wait here for a while and rely on my totally super-smart nephew get us out of this mess." She grinned smugly. "He takes after me, you know."
The rim of the mug began grating across the gritty floor and the Charmed Ones looked around expectantly, getting automatically to their feet. Piper's fingers twitched and she raised her hands into an offensive position, just as someone half-stumbled, was half-dragged under the rim and pushed to the floor in a crumpled heap. Vague sounds of pain came from the tangled heap of limbs that was the new arrival.
Piper immediately blasted the offending demon, her power exploding on its chest throwing it backwards and out from underneath the mug. She raised her hands again and rushed forward, just as Paige dissolved into a cascade of bright blue lights that began streaking towards the gap between the floor and the mug rim. The ceramic slammed back down suddenly with a deafening boom and left them in the quiet again, just as Paige's orbing lights would have reached freedom. The Charmed One's orbs hit the side of the mug hard, reconstituted and hit the floor in a groaning pile.
The witch-whitelighter swiped a hand across her forehead and grimaced, trying to block out the strange ringing she felt in her ears. "Ow. Ow. That hurt. Ow. Sympathy, over here. Let it flow, I can handle it."
"So, that's your super-smart nephew, huh?" Phoebe caught a glimpse of Chris's green eyes from behind the curtain of brown hair that was obscuring his face and sighed inwardly. She was teasing Paige about it, but she had really thought that Chris was their last hope as well. Depression spread over her.
"Chris!" Piper asked, whirling around. She'd been so focussed on the demon that she hadn't even noticed her own son? With parenting skills like hers, it was no wonder Wyatt was the future of all evil. Depression seeped through her like a stain.
A pained mumble answered, "Yeah, right here." Chris heaved himself into a sitting position, his ribs burning like white-hot metal in his chest.
"Oh…" Piper began, walking over to him, sympathy written on her face. He was hurt… "Are you okay?" she asked, throwing her arms around him. He emitted a strangled yelp mixed with a whimper, and she immediately backed off. "What's wrong? What was that noise for?" She searched him up and down for any obvious injuries, but the dim light source was not made for the job.
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. I just had a… couple of problems with the whole demon situation," Chris said, hedging so he didn't have to give them the full details. He didn't want to have to tell them about Leo, or the fact that he had left Wyatt in serious danger, or the fact that he had brought Kaden, the start of all of this mess, into the house in the first place and he had been wrong to do so. He felt guilty enough as it was, without having to relive it and have his mother and aunts beat him up about it as well, because he totally had that covered.
"Join the club," Paige muttered wryly, getting up from the floor gingerly and stepping over the tattoo, throwing looming shadows around the circular walls of their prison. "You know, it's getting awfully crowded in here…"
"Yeah," Phoebe said, stepping up behind her, limping because the loss of one of her heels made one leg four inches shorter. "Let's hope that your super-smart brother-in-law can save us, huh?"
"Are you even gonna let that go?" Paige wondered, turning back to her. "Because, let me tell you, it's got really old already."
"Leo isn't gonna be doing much saving of anyone," Chris reported from the floor, shifting to a slightly-less painful position on the floor. "He's possessed. Or… under a spell. Or something. I don't know: I only had time to get the gist of these demons. I didn't do details or—"
Paige turned to him, her eyes glinting with triumph. "Wait, you know what the demons are? And how to kill them? So this is you… I don't know coming to our rescue?"She jabbed Phoebe in the ribs to emphasise her point and smirked at her half-sister. "So, really, that makes me what… Not wrong? Which is, oh, I don't know… right?"
Chris shrugged awkwardly and bit his lip. "Well… Kind of. I was… speed-reading. And being attacked. So it didn't go so well. I'm sorry…"
"It's okay, you did the best you could," Piper told him soothingly, rubbing his back. He yelped in pain again and tried to shuffle away from her touch, so she put her hands in her lap quickly. "I'm sorry, honey. How badly are you hurt, anyway?"
"It's nothing. I'm fine," Chris bit out mechanically, far to used to just telling people this because they expected him to be fine to even tell his own mother what was wrong with him. He lied as easily as he breathed. "I just got a little busted up."
Phoebe sighed heavily and finally gave in, bending and taking off her other sandal so she could walk on the same gradient. "Oh, great…" she said, fiddling with the buckle. "So you don't really know anything useful that would help you in coming to our rescue?" She shot a grin up at Paige, and then began mocking her. "Which would make me, oh, I don't know… right?"
Paige scowled at her and poked out her tongue and Phoebe, satisfied, went back to trying to undo the stiff buckle on her shoe.
Chris glared at her tiredly, totally not in the mood for his aunt to be so dismissive and be in a war with his other aunt, but she was yanking her sandal off her foot and didn't notice. He knew that she was only saying what she said to win the argument with Paige, but it didn't stop her comments hurting. He had tried, dammit. The least she could do was see that. He turned reproachful eyes on her, but she still wasn't looking at him so he bit out irritably, "Yes, I do know something useful, as it happens. These demons… Okay. They feed through their eyes. They drain powers through their eyes."
"They don't have eyes," Paige pointed out, frowning. "Are you sure you have the right—" Chris had switched his glare over to her now and she closed her mouth, pursing her lips shut and held out her hands, palms towards him. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Carry on."
"But," Chris continued, shooting a pointed glance at his aunt. "But, back in the seventeen hundreds a coven managed to blind and shrink their whole clan. They couldn't manage to do anything else. They were some of the most powerful demons at the time, because they could suck power, but they were reduced to nothing. Even new demons that were born of their kind were born blind and small, so they managed to perfect their other senses so much so that being blind really wasn't a problem to them."
"I thought you said you were speed-reading," Phoebe huffed, sitting back down on the floor. "This is a very long speed-read story."
"I was," Chris shot back. "The Book tends to waffle. That was me paraphrasing."
"Draining through their eyes? Is this something to do with Kaden?" Piper asked slowly, cocking her head. "Is he one of these demons?"
"Kaden?" Paige asked, narrowing her eyes in confusion. "Should… should I know who that is?"
"Innocent du jour," Piper quickly explained off-handily, waving a vague hand in her sister's direction. "He's a kid that Chris dragged home. He—"
"Hey, I object to the whole 'dragging' thing," Chris butted in with. "I did not drag him home, he just… I mean I… Okay, yeah, so I can't think of a better verb, but dragging is totally not it."
Piper just looked at him, before turning to her sisters. "All those in favour of dragging?" She raised her hands, as did her sisters. "Motion carried." She could almost feel Chris's eye roll and she smiled a little. "He's this kid that Chris dragged home. If he looks at you, his eyes turn… freaky and you get weak and feel… drained."
"So this Kaden kid is one of these demons? I thought you said that they were all born blind?" Paige asked, her already-shaky grasp of the situation slipping.
Chris nodded at his aunt's question. "They are. These demons could not only drain people through their eyes, but posses them as well. Somehow, I think that they've learnt how to get their control of possession back even without their eyes. Three hundred years of studying seems to have smartened them right up. Lucky us. But they could only possess beings other than witches or demons, that was the thing. They drained witches and use the power that they gained to possess people to boost their numbers, usually killing the witch, and, when that being gets enough power, he would… turn into a demon."
"So… When Kaden gains enough power he'll… go fully demonic on us?" Piper asked. "But he's just a kid. That's not fair…" If that happened, they'd have to vanquish him. A seven-year-old for God's sake. That wasn't right; that wasn't what the Charmed Ones stood for.
Paige reached out and rubbed her sister's shoulder comfortingly. "They're demons, honey. That's the way they work." She shrugged sadly. "All we can do is vanquish these demons before it happens."
"There's something else. Kaden, he… isn't being born," Chris continued with. "Kaden is being made a demon. Which means—"
"—eyes. He'll have eyes." Realisation hit Piper. "And, when Kaden's a demon, he can possess more people to drain powers, who will possess more people… Oh, God… They'll be loads of them. How are we meant to stop innocents turned demons? They're… They're rebuilding the whole clan, starting with Kaden."
Chris bit his lip and looked down at his shoes in both sadness and guilt. "And Leo."
His mother and aunts turned to look at him in shock.
Psst… I think I got away with not posting for months on end… Yeah. They've not noticed. Everything's just fine…
One word: Oops.
Oh, and another. SORRY!