Chapter 9 - Working Against Us

"Come on then, Pat-a-cake." I said eventually. "What would like mummy to cook you?"

"Anything I want?" Patty asked.

"Anything you want." I nodded. A huge smile spread acroos her face.

"Chocolate cake!"

Well, I couldn't say no, could I? Espectially not when Wyatt - and Phoebe and Paige - started crying "Yeah! Cake!" Rolling my eyes agreed.

Then everone decided to help. The result?

A chocolate covered kitchen, chocolate covered people, one broken bowl and a very lopsided, huge cake, with various sized finger marks on it.

It tasted OK though. Actually, better than OK. Phoebe joked that the secret ingrediant was love. I'm not sure what it was, so maybe she was right.

It makes me smile just thinking about it. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time.

I looked over them, finally sleeping peacfully in our bed. The kids had barly been apart for the last few hours - Wyatt was reluctant to let go of Patty's arm - even now he was clinging to her pyjama sleeve. Chris, young as he is, also seemed happier with his sister there.

"Look like angels, when they're asleep, don't they?" Leo said quietly from behind me. A smile spread across my face as I turned around.

"Technically, the boys are part angel." I replied.

"Ah, but they're also part witch." He murmured. I rolled my eyes.

"I wouldn't care if they didn't have any powers at all." I said quietly. "As long as they're safe." He nodded.

I gave a little gasp, then smiled widly as Leo asked if I was OK, concerned.

"It kicked." I smiled. "The baby. It kicked."

"Really?" A smile spread across his face.

"There. Quick." I placed his hand on me, and he beamed as it kicked again.

At that moment I felt so complete.

"I'm just so gald we have her back. If anything happened to any of them -"

"I know. But we wont let it. I promise you." He clicked out the bedroom light, and with one last look at them, I pulled the door towards me, leaving a crack, just enough light filtering in to illuminate their faces.

Walking into the kitchen, his arms still around me, Paige looked up startled, and Phoebe looked slightly guilty.

"What?" I asked.

"We thought you'd gone to bed." Prue said.

"No. We put the kids to bed. Eight o' clock isn't usually our bedtime." I told her smiling. "What's going on?"

Paige gave a little sigh. That's when I saw the book.

"OK, well we didn't want to worry you, but we got thinking about when we were looking for Patty." Phoebe said gently. "Why Leo and Paige couldn't sense her, my premonition ... I mean, Michael isn't magical, he couldn't have cloaked her, or sent me a fake vision."

"So ... what, you think someone was helping him?"

"Maybe not helping him, formally." Prue answered. "But trying to ... make it harder for us?"

"Can any demons do that?" I asked.

"No." Cole said. "Upper level demons could send Phoebe her premonition, but they couldn't cloak Patty."

"And no one was working with Michael, no one was seen with him and he says no one was helping him." Andy told us.

"Not to his knowledge, maybe." Paige said. "When I was trying to sense her, it was like I could almost hear her, or I faintly heard her or something, but I couldn't zero in on it."

"I felt the same." Leo admitted. "That's why I though she was maybe just to far away. Usually I'd have been able to sense her though ..."

"Right, but she wasn't far away." Phoebe said pointedly. "Which means something was blocking you. Us."

"Do you think that's why scrying didn't work?" I asked, slipping into a chair at the table. Leo sat next to me.

"It could have been." Prue said thoughtfully. "Maybe someone didn't want it to work until it suited them?"

"Maybe someone just wanted us to use the power of four." Paige said suddenly.

"What?"

"Demon's couldn't cloak her. Only certain demons would be able to fake premonitions." Paige explained, leaning forward.

"Witches and whitelighters can cloak themselves and others, but they'd have had to be within contact distance of Patty - they'd need to touch her while reading the spell." She continued.

"Michael denies anyone went near her, Patty said she didn't see know one else." Paige finished triumphantly. I was trying to follow her train of thought, but I was lost.

"There's only one kind of magical being that would have been able to do that." Slowly, she swung the Book Of Shadows round so we could all see it - Leo and I from across the table, Prue and Andy by the coffee machine, Phoebe and Cole at the island.

I looked at the page in shock, taking in the image of several cloaked figures, and letting my eyes pass again and again over the word at the top of the page.

Paige looked around at us all, then said one word.

"Elders."

Short chapter, but I can't be bothered writing more, lol. Maybe reviews will make me write more ... dum-da-dum-dum-dum ...