TWELVE

"Will he be okay up there by himself?" Michelle asked as they sat in the living room.

"He'll be fine," said Piper. "That magical cage will hold him until we're ready to deal with him. Right now we need to discuss this and I don't want him listening in. First of all, someone want to explain to me how a human with no powers gets the drop on a warlock?'

"I may have no powers but I'm not exactly powerless," said Robert. "I do have skills. I'm an ex-Navy SEAL. All he had was that knife. I guess he figured I'd just cower in fear in front of him because of that. He has a lot to learn about a SEAL."

"I'll say," said Phoebe. "You can teach me a couple of those moves."

"What about what he said?" Patricia asked. "About my grandmother?"

"He's right about her name," said Michelle. "The woman we dealt with was named Heather Baxter. She was Patricia's grandmother and as we told you she had custody of Patricia after her mother died. It was all completely legal but she said Patricia didn't have any living relatives."

"Leo, you seemed to recognize the name," Paige said.

"Yes," said Leo. "I haven't heard it in about forty years. If it's true it would explain a lot."

"Grams had a sister named Heather?" Piper asked. "How come she never told us about her?"

"It happened a long time ago, before any of you were born," Leo said. "You know Grams was a powerful witch. But Heather didn't inherit any powers. It skipped her as it does sometimes."

"So she was just a normal person?" Michelle asked.

"We call them innocents," said Phoebe. "They don't have any powers to fight evil."

"Yes, she was an innocent," Leo said. "And it was always a point of contention between them. She could never understand why Penny got powers and she didn't. One day they got into an argument over it. A lot of angry words were exchanged. Heather stormed out saying as far as she was concerned Penny was dead and she never wanted to see her again."

"What happened?" Phoebe asked.

"Nothing," said Leo. "Heather left and Penny never heard from her again."

"So, does that mean we're related?" Patricia asked.

"If it's true," said Robert, "that would make you third cousins by my figuring."

"I'm pretty sure it's true," said Piper. "Like Leo said it would answer a lot of questions. Like where you got your witch powers. And why you have the same power Prue had."

"I'll check with the Elders again," Leo said. "With this information it should be easy to verity if she is your cousin."

"Well, cousins after all," Paige said, hugging Patricia. "Now you know where you come from. Believe me, I know how exciting that can be."

"What about our friend upstairs?" Robert asked. "What do we do about him?"

"He tried to kill Patricia," Michelle said. "And from the sounds of things, he's all ready killed other people. Shouldn't we turn him over to the police?"

"Somehow I don't think the police will be able to handle this one, honey," said Robert.

"Robert's right," said Phoebe. "There's only one way to deal with a warlock. We have to vanquish him."

"You mean kill him?" Robert asked. "I'm not sure I could condone that. It seems too much like murder to me."

"Robert, I know how this looks," Paige said. "But you were a SEAL. I'm sure you understand about war. Well, this is a war. A war between good and evil. He's all ready killed some witches. That's how he got his powers. If we don't vanquish him he'll just kill more witches. Maybe even Patricia."

"I understand that," Robert said. "But he's confined right now, right? He can't use his powers? Isn't there something you can do to make that permanent? It doesn't seem right to just kill him like that."

"We could use a power stripping potion," suggested Phoebe. "That would strip his powers and take away his reason for going after Patricia. Or any other witch for that matter."

"He may not want his powers stripped," Leo said.

"Okay, we give him a choice," Piper said. "That sounds like the fairest thing to me."

Together the small group headed upstairs to the bedroom where the warlock was being held prisoner. When they got to the bedroom Piper pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"Okay, you have a decision to make," Piper said.

They all stared into the room speechless. The room was empty. The warlock was nowhere to be seen.