Chapter 14 - A Magical Assistance?

"Wh - wh -"

"Piper, breath." Paige said quickly, grabbing hold of me.

"How did he get out!" Prue raged.

"I don't know. You have to understand, there was no way he could. But he's just vanished." Andy said pointedly.

"So ... what, you think magic is involved?" Phoebe asked.

"I think it could be." Andy admitted. "So does Darryl. I have to go down there, but you should check your book."

"I'll come too." Henry said. "I could talk to some people -" He and Andy kissed Paige and Prue goodbye, warned us to be careful, then left.

"Paige, call for the book." Prue said. Usually, we wouldn't use magic like that ... but I guess Prue thought it important.

"Maybe he's using guardians? We've faced them before." Paige stated, opening the book and flipping the pages.

"Or phantasms." Phoebe said.

"It could be anything." I sighed. "Why can't he just ... go away? He's always in our lives."

"Shh. Calm down." Leo warned. I sat down heavily.

"Go, to the kids." I told him. "Stay upstairs with them." He nodded, then left.

"OK, I'll scry." Phoebe said, walking towards the stairs.

"Take Piper." Prue commanded.

"Don't try to foist me off." I muttered. "I'm not the only one "with child"." I smiled.

"Exactly." Paige pulled the book away from our oldest sister, who sent the youngest evils as Phoebe and I made our way upstairs.

"Why can't he just leave us alone, Pheebs?" I sighed, after a few minutes of unsuccessful scrying.

"Honey, we dont know he'll come here. And if it's magical ... it's probably not even Dan's choice." Phoebe said gently.

"Yeah, but I bet he isn't fighting it too much." I grumbled. "I moved on, I was free, and he just keeps on -"

"Calm down. Breath. I feel your pain." She dropped the floaty-dreamy voice. "Really, I do. Can you ease it up a bit."

"Sorry." I smiled in spite of myself.

"I don't think we can find him." Phoebe sighed. "If he's being helped - or possessed - he'll probably be cloaked." I nodded.

"Maybe they found something." I suggested, reffering to our other sisters.

"Maybe." She was as hopeful as me, then. Not a whole hell of a lot.

"We've narrowed it down to three." Prue said, when we walked back down the stairs. "Phantasms, guardians, and these guys. Terrors. They possess a "victim"harboring a deep hate, or resentment or anger -"

"A negative emotion, basically." Paige cut in.

"Right. In this case Dan. Then they force the victim to act on the emotion - to terrorise, and ultimatly destroy the object of the emotion, in this case us."

"No. In this case me." I sighed.

"Right." Prue admitted. "So chances are it's these guys."

"Just because they're new and we never faced them before." Paige smiled.

"And there's a vanquishing spell." Prue added. "So it shouldn't be too bad."

"Yeah, right. Your not the one gonna be terrorised and destroyed." I muttered.

"Piper -"

"If you tel me to calm down Phoebe I will blow you up. I mean it. I almost miss 'relax'!"

She closed her mouth.

Good.

"We think we have it." Prue said as Phoebe and I went downstairs. "Terrors. They possess a 'victim' that's feeling deep hate, or something like that, and find the object of it's hate."

"In Dan's case, you." Paige told me.

"Then they cause the object as much pain and terror as possible, and ultimatly destroy it, and the person they've possesed."

"Great." I muttered.

"Wait,. it gets better." Paige said. "We can't get him here. They'll have him protected. So we just have to -"

"Wait for him to attack?"

"Exactly."

"Fabulous."

"As soon as he attacks, we'll cast the spell, get the little bugger out of him and hand him over to the police." Paige assured me.

"As soon as he attacks." Prue agreed.

I nodded. "I know."

But when exactly will that be?

Now, apparently.

The door flew open so hard it left a dint in the wall, and Dan stepped before us, his usally too-gelled hair flying around, his eyes blazing red.

"Oh. Oh, OK. The Spell." Prue said, pulling me towards the book.

"Evil being deals in pain, let the pain on you now rain, leave this human soul alone, find another one to roam."

"That's a vanquishing spell?" I asked.

Paige scanned the page, then her eyes widened.

"Uh - no - all it does is bring it out of Dan. There's no vanquishing spell!"

Meanwhile, Dan had turned red, and seemed to be in a lot of pain himself. After seveal minutes, a small black thing fell out of him, and Dan callasped. The black thing - a tennis ball with arms and legs - writhed in pain for a few seconds, then blinked at us with it's red eyes. It looked at me, and the next thing I knew it had lunged forward ... and buried itself inside my chest.

Uh-oh.