[A/N, I posted this one so soon after the last one, because its more of a chapter where not much action happens, but its there more to move the story along. However, before I update again I want some reviews so get writing people ;) ]
Chapter Three
Awaken The Darkness
Normally when parents go out for a nice day together, just the two of them, they don't like to receive a phone call from a hospital, asking them to come pick up their daughter. Once the shock of hearing their daughter had been hit by a car has worn off, and the realization that she was okay kicks in, they might get slightly angry with the fact they had to spend several hours, and dollars, on paper work and care. This situation was, of course, no different. Her father had spent the better part of an hour screaming at her for being a careless bike rider, and immediately assumed it was her fault. It might have been, she didn't really know whose fault it was, and explaining that she wasn't sure didn't helping her case. Neither of her parents seemed to care that she could have been killed, the fact that she hadn't meant she could be yelled at. In the end she screamed at both her parents, told them that she hated them, then stormed up stairs, and slammed and locked her bedroom door behind her.
She didn't bother turning on the light, it was already eight o'clock, and though that wasn't exactly a late night for her, today had been too exhausting. Between the accident and her screaming parents she just wanted to disappear into the darkness of her room. The moon shone brightly through her window, easily lighting the path to her bed, so with little effort she navigated through the mess on her floor, and threw herself onto her bed, not bothering to change into her pajamas.
Stupid parents... Stupid driver getting her into trouble... It hadn't been her fault... It couldn't have been her fault... Everyone was always blaming her for something she hadn't done... Sometimes she wished they'd just all die...
She clenched her fists. She hated them all.
Slowly the rage inside of her grew. Normally she never got this angry. Normally she'd take several calming deep breathes and try to talk things out.
Normally there wasn't a demon inside her slowly taking over her body without her knowledge.
# # # #
"Kayla?" Her mother knocked softly on her daughter's door before she opened it slightly. "Kay sweetie?" She blinked in surprise.
Her daughters room was usually a mess, but this was ridiculous. All the blankets had been ripped off her bed and were sitting in a wadded pile on the floor. The blankets were in such a tangled mess that she briefly entertained the thought that the pile looked like a nest.
"Kay, you need to get up and get ready for school." She sat down on her daughter's bare bed. "Come on, I know you are mad but still..." she nudged the pile of blankets with her foot.
The pile of blankets shook slightly and a soft hissing noise came from it.
"Kayla Laura Couter, you will get up this instant and get ready for school," the woman stood up sharply, grabbed a blanket and pulled hard.
She barely had enough time to let out a small scream before the creature that had been huddled under the blankets gave a high pitch growl and lunged at her.
# # # #
At the exact same moment the creature struck, Piper was suddenly awaken by a screaming Wyatt. Piper gave a soft groan and rolled over to glance at her alarm clock. Six-thirty in the morning. Wyatt hadn't woken her up at the crack of dawn in quite awhile, she wondered curiously what caused his sudden fit.
"Mmm... What is it Wyatt?" She asked as she forced herself to sit up.
Wyatt, of course, didn't answer and just continued crying.
Piper dragged herself across the room to Wyatt's crib and picked him up. "You need a diapy change?" she asked in a forced perky voice. "No? Well then what is wrong?" She bounced him up and down making shooshing noises. Since she couldn't tell what was wrong with him, Piper couldn't figure out what to do to calm him down. It wasn't long before Phoebe and Paige came in looking curiously at Wyatt and Piper. Phoebe was already dressed for work and holding a cup of coffee, but Paige looked ready to go back to bed.
"What's wrong little man?" Phoebe asked coming over.
"I think he might have had a bad dream," Piper said. "I can't figure out any other reason for him to be crying."
"Mmm..." Was Paige's only thought on the matter. She had been out late the night before and she wasn't awake enough to be coherent yet.
"Maybe if I can distract him with food," Piper mused and headed out her bedroom door.
Once down stairs Piper practically had to force Wyatt into his high chair.
"What is wrong with him?" Paige asked, sipping some coffee.
"I have no clue... Look Wyatt, cereal, mmm? Cereal good!" She poured some cheerios in front of him. Wyatt ignored the cereal and instead began smashing his little fists on the high chair's table.
"Come on Wyatt..."
"Wyatt! Look! Mmm so tasty!" Phoebe said excitedly and put a cheerio in her mouth.
Again, Wyatt ignored them.
"Does he want his daddy?" Paige asked.
"Maybe," Piper said slowly, "Leo!"
Instantly Leo orbed in next to them.
"What's up?" He asked, but quickly noticed the screaming Wyatt. "Hey buddy, what's wrong?"
Wyatt stop crying the second he made eye-contact with Leo.
"Ta da!" Paige said cheerfully.
"Well I guess we found our solution," Phoebe patted Leo's shirt. "Love to stay and chat, but I've got to get to work."
"So early?" Piper asked as Phoebe started leaving the kitchen.
"Yeah, I have a giant stack of letters left over from last week that I need to stop putting off. See ya!"
Piper was pretty sure that wasn't the whole story, but she didn't see a point in pursuing the point, plus she heard Wyatt giggling. She turned around and saw Leo bending down next to the high chair with his tongue out and a cheerio on the tip of it. Wyatt was giggling at Leo as he brought the cheerio in and out of his mouth, crossing his eyes each time. Piper couldn't help but smile at her ex-husbands antics.
"Hey," Paige suddenly said, "Where has our favorite nephew been hiding?"
Piper didn't know the answer to her question, she hadn't seen Chris recently. "Probably out looking for a new demon for us to fight," Piper rolled her eyes. Demons found and attacked them often enough, it seemed almost anti-productive to go looking for new ones to pick fights with.
In fact, Piper was completely correct. Chris was out looking for a demon for them to fight, but he was a day too late.
He passed under the large slightly rusted sign, ignoring it. Mostly because he didn't care. It was a cemetery, he didn't know or care who Frank Williams was, nor did he care why the cemetery was dedicated to him. The police had finally called off the search of the grave yard, and all Chris knew or cared about was finding the right grave. He knew it was on the north side of the cemetery, under a fairly young oak tree. Chris hated cemeteries. For one, the thought of bodies of mortals being thrown in random holes in the ground seemed wasteful, and in this case deadly. For another, being surrounded with death was particularly unpleasant after the all too recent death of his fiancée, and the impending death of his... Chris stopped walking, closed his eyes, and cleared his thoughts. He couldn't be thinking about anything angry or vengeful, especially when dealing with this demon. Slowly Chris managed to focus on his goal: save Wyatt from evil. It wasn't a particularly pleasant thought after recent events, but it wasn't an angry one, and it certainly was a consuming thought.
He walked across the cemetery, taking the most direct route to the north side, carelessly stepping on any grave that happened to be in his path.
Once he reached the tree Chris couldn't help but smile. The last time he'd seen the tree it was thicker than his leg, now it was no more than a sapling that he could easily grip the trunk, and possibly rip it out of the ground with little effort.
Now where was the demon? It was very powerful. Its evil presence could even be felt by passing mortals; a select few could even see the creature. Chris blinked. Where was it? He shouldn't have necessarily seen it, in fact he shouldn't have. The creature hated daylight. The only way it could move around during the day would be by possessing a body. Still, Chris should have been able to feel its presence. It should be in the grave he was stand over, dormant, until... unless. Every muscle in Chris's body tensed. Unless he had remember the date wrong and it was already awake.
Ignoring the fact that anyone could have seen him, Chris orbed.
"Has Phoebe had a premonition?" He demanded as he appeared in the kitchen.
Piper jumped in surprise. "Good morning to you too, and yes she did."
Chris went pale. "Where is she! And Paige! That demon could attack any minute and you three need to be ready to vanquish it."
"Well Phoebe is at work," Piper said while carelessly pouring more cheerios for Wyatt, Leo had eaten about half of them before leaving and Piper wanted to make sure Wyatt had a proper breakfast. "Paige is upstairs taking a shower, and you, are about twenty-four hours too late."
"What?" He asked, shocked.
"We vanquished it," Piper stared at Chris curiously. "Yesterday."
"Just like that?" Chris snapped his fingers.
"No more like this," Piper flicked her fingers at Chris sarcastically. "Chris? What's going on? This some sort evil future demon?"
"Yes! I mean... it is... was... near future," he snapped, running a hand through his hair, looking thoroughly confused. That demon had taken a power of three spell hadn't it? Had he not only mistaken the date the demon would attack, but the demon itself? There were too many future demon attacks he knew about... They were all starting to mix together in his mind...
"I've got to go," he said suddenly.
Piper had barely even opened her mouth to speak before Chris orbed out.
"Who ya talking to?" Paige asked walking in just in time to miss seeing Chris.
"You're favorite nephew," Piper said almost unconsciously answering the question and biting her lip. "He's up to something..."
"Well yeah," Paige said in her most "DUH!" voice, "He usually is."
"Well I wish he would tell us what was going on for once, instead of just telling us what to do." Piper said exasperated.
"You hear that?" Paige said suddenly cocking her head to the side.
"Yeah... Sirens..."
"Coming up the street," Paige said in surprise, and walked right out of the kitchen, and towards the front door.
"Want to go see what the policemen are doing here today Wyatt?" Piper asked Wyatt, who she expected to be indifferent. Instead Wyatt burst out crying. Apparently someone really didn't like sirens.
"Leo!" Piper shouted, and instantly he appeared. "Watch your son a minute okay?"
"O...k..." He said looking confused, but more than happy to have an excuse to be with Wyatt.
Piper quickly left the room and jogged to catch up with Paige who already had a fair head start.
By the time they had arrived at the house down the street the police had already set up police tape around the whole yard, and the police were busily trying to disperse the crowd that had already gathered.
One investigator was being particularly vocal in attempting to disperse the crowd.
"Folk please! Step away from the line!" Darryl Morris shouted to the crowd. "We have a serious investigation going on here!"
Piper and Paige, of course, ignored the request and moved towards the police tape.
"What's up Darryl?" Paige asked as she reached the front of the crowd.
"Hey, maybe you guys can help explain... something," Darryl looked extremely anxious, yet slightly relieved to see them.
Paige and Piper ducked under the police tape and started following Darryl, but they were promptly cut off by a uniformed officer.
"Ladies I'm going to have to ask you to step back," he said firmly.
"It's alright sergeant, they're with me," Darryl interjected.
"But Lieutenant-" the sergeant began, but stopped when he received a rather stern look from his superior. "Yes Sir!"
As they approached the front of the house Piper saw the front window was smashed, and the flower bed below it was littered with the broken shards. Piper also noticed the window, which was the focus of several who investigators taking pictures of it and dusting it for prints, had a large amount of a red substance on it.
Right before they reached the front door Darryl stopped and turned to them. "Now this is a fresh crime scene so if there is anyway you can..." he did a small finger flick at Piper, "to help make sure you don't contaminate anything..."
Piper rolled her eyes and flicked her hands, causing a deafening silence to come over the crime scene and the crowd, both of which were now frozen in time.
"Alright, lets go figure out what Darryl wanted us to see," Piper said, heading for the front door. Paige promptly followed right behind her.