Chapter Seven

The intermingling of thumping and swearing that appeared to be the soundtrack for the falling bodies caught Ben's attention. He craned his neck around to watch with wry amusement as what appeared to be a being with four legs, four arms and two heads came crashing down the wooden stairs to land on the concrete floor, perfectly still. The heap remained that way for a good minute before eventually a hand clawed at one of the steps, trying to untangle itself and its owner.

"Doesn't sneak and creep mean anything to you two?" Ben sighed, shaking his head at rescue missions these days. "We could hear you arguing for the past ten minutes."

Bridget was grumbling and trying to get out of the tangle of limbs that was her and Wyatt. "It's his fault. I was doing fine on my own," she bit out, managing to wrench all but her legs free from Wyatt's bulk.

"I found the basement," Wyatt shot back. She was using his shoulder to try and get her legs free and he shoved her hand off because she was pressing on a soon-to-be bruise. She fell back down on her ass and he smirked at her just as she glared.

"You pushed me so I shoved back. Therefore I found it," she clarified icily, sniffing and she finally managed to roll Wyatt off her.

"You pushed me first."

"Did not! You started it — ow! That's my foot!"

Ben looked at the crowbar and butcher's knife on the ground. "And you didn't impale yourselves. That's a plus. Then we really would have been screwed," he mused, rolling his eyes at the warring pair.

Bridget could at last stand up, but her sunglasses were dangling in front of her face from one of their arms, tangled in her hair. She started carefully pulling them out, teasing them free while trying not to pull out any hair. She was bruised but mostly fine. Wyatt, however, had a cut forehead so she smirked at him. He scowled back and, as she pulled her sunglasses free, she scowled as well, sticking her tongue out at him. Wyatt made a face back and got to his feet, wincing.

"As entertaining as you two are," Ben sniped, rattling the handcuffs against the pillar as a hint. "If you could get us out, we'd really appreciate it."

"What's wrong with Chris?" Bridget asked, moving forward into the basement. "Did Josh do this?"

"Um… No. Not exactly…" Nixa said shiftily, looking to the floor. "We kind of had an accident."

Wyatt closed his eyes and snorted out a laugh. "One that rendered my brother unconscious? He's already down to his last fifty brain cells, kids. You might want to lay off with the whole knocking out thing, you know?"

"Fifty?" Ben whistled. "What's it like to aspire to that number, Wyatt?"

"Okay, someone uncuff him so I can kick his ass."

"Do I get front row seats?" Bridget asked eagerly.

"You could be the pep squad," Wyatt told her, patting her on the arm. "I mean, you're a little overdressed but that's easily fixed."

"I'm just guessing, but there was going to be a joke about climbing on top of your pyramid coming up, right?" Bridget asked, cocking her head.

Wyatt was about to answer when Ben cut him off. "Okay, firstly, ew. Secondly, have sex on your own time and far, far away from each and every one of my five senses. Now, Wyatt, big strong football player that you are give us a hand. Please."

"Ladies first," Wyatt said with a smirk, moving over to Nixa and flicking a wrist, unlocking the manacles. Nixa immediately set about rubbing her wrists, revelling in the feeling returning to her hands for the second time that evening. "And I think that, as a good sibling, I should heal my brother too?"

"Oh, yeah, this is great. Let's all draw out Ben's misery for as loooooong as possible. Thank you all," Ben bit out sarcastically, catching the golden glimmer of healing out of the corner of his eye.

"It's not so bad…" Bridget said tiredly, walking over to him. "Look at you, you're fine."

"I have like ninety ice burns on my hands from trying to get out of these freaking things! Don't stand there grinning at me, d— Wait, where are your clothes? Where have all your clothes gone? And, question: Why do you ever bother putting them on?"

Bridget narrowed her eyes, but her lips quirked upwards. "I should so slap you for that, but—"

"—you totally enjoyed it?" Ben finished for her.

"Let's just find you a key…" Bridget said, turning around and looking through the basement, trying to work out the most likely place that a crazed rich boy would keep keys to his handcuffs.

Chris woke up suddenly, groaning and putting a hand to the now-healed cut on his head. He looked up at Wyatt and smiled his thanks, extending an arm to be helped up. Wyatt did so, suddenly realising that his brother was so wet that he was squelching.

"Did you jump in the pool or something?" the blond asked.

"No, but Josh's goons thought that we'd make good water balloon targets," Chris replied sunnily, even though he was scowling. "God love each and every cave-dwelling one." He wrinkled his nose at his sleeve and flicked water at the floor, then peeled off his hoodie and began ringing the water from the fabric. The cool in the basement bit into his arms without the protection of his top and he shivered as goosebumps raced up and down his body. "I think I'm getting pneumonia," the younger Halliwell groused as his body was overtaken by a particularly large shudder. "Which is not fun."

"You were a target for water balloons?" Bridget asked gleefully, grinning. "Oh, man, I so wish I could rewind time… I would have gotten here like an hour earlier and told them to fill them with flour." She laughed, walking back over to the steps and picking up her crowbar, throwing it into the air and catching it languidly, knowing that every second that she ignored Ben it was making the witch's irritation build more and more.

Ben faked smiled at her. "Oh, you're funny. With friends like you, who needs enemies? Now, you're still standing there throwing that instead of HELPING ME. Huh. Look at that."

"Don't be such a baby," Bridget dismissed, waving her hand to illustrate. "I'm on it, I'm on it…" She huffed an exaggerated sigh, snatching the crowbar from the air and letting it rest loosely by her side. She did a kind of half-hearted turn, pantomiming looking and then paused, her face breaking into another wicked grin. "On second thought… Who has water balloons?"

"Not funny," Ben groaned, rattling the handcuffs again. "And by the way, there's no key. I've astralled all over this dump looking for it. So if there's anyone in the room that can pick locks or, oh, I don't know, is in possession of super-strength or telekinesis that would be real helpful."

"Jeez, you're such a cranky bitch when you get a little tied up," Wyatt said. "Besides, if you ever manage to get with a girl you might learn to like handcuffs."

"Oh, bondage humour? Great. We've now moved on to bondage humour. How freaking hysterical."

Nixa quirked a smile. "Well, actually…"

"You too!" Ben banged his head against the pillar behind him, closing his eyes and groaning. "I must have done something really bad to deserve you guys. I hate it when Karma wins. You know what? I need new friends. Seriously, when I get home, you're all going on eBay. Fifty cents or nearest offer for all of you. As long as they pay shipping."

"Good luck finding some friends that will stick around for fifty cents," Bridget remarked dryly with a snort. "And if you think that you're wrapping me in brown paper and FedExing me halfway across the country you so have another thing coming."

"Hm… Yeah, you know, you're right. I have nowhere near enough stamps for that."

Bridget stepped forward, her eyes flashing, but Chris stuck out his arm tiredly and held her back, rolling his eyes heavily. "You fight like you're married," he told both of them irritably.

"Married!" Bridget screeched, shoving his arm away. "What are you, crazy? If I ever get to the beginning of the aisle and found him up there, I'd impale myself on a candle holder."

"She's not worth it, really," Ben added. "I mean, all that effort to find a black wedding dress would be such a pain in the ass."

"There are plenty of black wedding dresses," Bridget sniped. "I looked them up online. And they're all very pretty. And, besides, if I got a black dress I wouldn't need to buy anything new for your funeral when I beat your head in, would I?"

"No, you wouldn't need to buy anything new. The prisons give you orange jumpsuits completely free."

"Jail? For killing you? I'd get to meet the President. I'd get an award. There would be no prison for me," Bridget said, extending her fingers to study her nails. "They better not try to fob me off with a ribbon. I want a fat ass trophy. Gold. Not gold-plated, either: gold."

"If you kill me, I'll haunt you forever. You'll never be able to get rid of me."

"So, really, nothing would change?"

Chris rolled his eyes once more exasperatedly. He hadn't meant to start off an entirely new argument. You never knew what would spark off an argument between Ben and Bridget, though. Although, argument was probably the wrong term. They would just continue to 'fight' without meaning a word of it until one of them ran out of ammo and was forced to concede. However, that often took a while. "Guys, c'mon. This is getting old," he cut in with, determined not to let this go on for a moment longer. He raised a hand to use his power on Ben's cuffs when the door burst open at the top of the stairs, admitting Josh. The baseball player hurriedly jogged his way down the steps, looking at his watch and not at the people assembled in the room until he reached the bottom of the steps.

"Wyatt?" he said in disbelief. "How…? And… Nina's friend? What are you doing here? What's going on? You can't be here now. You have to leave. This second," he implored desperately, fixing them each with a pleading look. "Seriously. Go."

"We've come to vanquish you," Bridget said, adjusting the grip on the crowbar. "Hope the Wasteland is to your satisfaction." She stepped forward, wielding the crowbar like a sword, but Wyatt got there first, pulling a vanquishing potion from the pocket of his swimming trunks and hurling it at Josh. The vial didn't break on the baseball player's chest but it did shatter on the concrete floor, bubbling away malignantly.

Josh pulled a face at the frothing ooze. "Yeah, one of you is going to need to mop that up. Whatever it is."

"No pillar of flames? Um… What? Did I miss something?" Wyatt asked, turning around and looking at Chris, who only frowned and shrugged in confusion. Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Wait, I get it. I knew that I shouldn't have used your vanquishing potion. I knew I should have made one of my own. Amateurs."

"Our potion was fine!" Chris said indignantly. "I expect you just threw it wrong."

"I threw it… Chris, explain. How do you throw something wrong?"

Chris opened his mouth to argue, but Nixa got there first. She stamped her foot, running a hand through her hair in annoyance. "Quit arguing. Why do I have to explain this again?" she grumbled, huffing a sigh. "Okay. All of you keep up. Josh is not the demon. Josh only feeds the demon. His dad summoned the demon to stop his terminally-ill wife dying from cancer, and Josh is feeding it while they are out of town. If anyone has any questions, please raise their hands so I can snap their wrists off and slap them with their own hand, because I am so not repeating that again."

"Crap," Wyatt said matter-of-factly. "Well, that screwed up my battle plan. How about everyone else's?"

"Out! Now!" Josh shouted, but with a pleading undertone to his yelling. "The demon—" The lights above him began blinking and he looked up at them fearfully, subconsciously backing up the steps and gripping the banister hard. "Is here," he finished in a whisper, obviously finding it hard to suppress his fear. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

From the shadows in the corner of the room, a large shape began emerging, seeming to suck the darkness into itself and grow bigger. Josh backed another step up the staircase as it oozed into the middle of the room and paused, its heavy breathing audible as what appeared to be its head looked around the room and each of them in turn, seemingly confused. After what seemed like hours of laboured breathing the demon turned towards Ben, raising a smoky, translucent hand and brushing it across the witch's cheek.

Ben shuddered involuntarily as he was seized with prickling ice cold. Gasping, he tried to shift his head away from the demon but couldn't manage to summon the strength to do so. Paralysis began to spread from the demon's touch. Eventually, the demon withdrew his hand from Ben's face and formed an energy ball. He threw it at the others.

Wyatt immediately dissolved into a cloud of orbs and Nixa and Chris threw themselves out of the way. Bridget held up her crowbar and jammed it into the pulsating, white heart of the crackling orb, twisting it and shattering the energy ball.

"Strike one," the Hunter muttered, readying her crowbar like a baseball player. "Bring it on."

Wyatt reappeared and the demon threw another energy ball at the blond Halliwell, which he redirected at the demon. However, it responded with another energy ball, and the two orbs collided in midair, the resulting explosion sending Wyatt and Bridget flying backwards into the laundry niche. Wyatt hit the washer while Bridget smashed into the wall above the counter and fell half in the sink.

Nixa and Chris got to their feet. Chris threw out his arm but the demon barely staggered. Nixa looked around desperately and saw Bridget's fallen knife. She ran to the bottom of the stairs and snatched it up. Josh grabbed her from behind, latching an arm around her neck so, choking, she pivoted violently forward, throwing Josh onto the floor on his back. She gasped, rubbing at her neck and, glaring filthily at Josh, she darted back into the fight.

"Witchy powers don't seem to be doing much," Chris said tersely, throwing out his hands frantically into what should have been a freeze. The demon just kept gathering more shadows from around the room and managing to move through the freezes despite Chris's best efforts. The demon growled and broke free, throwing an energy ball at Chris and throwing him to the floor. Nixa ran at it with her knife poised but the demon backhanded her mid jump, tossing her into the support pillar next to Ben's.

"THIS is why you should've unchained me," Ben muttered, gritting his teeth as the demon advanced on him. Closing his eyes, his chin hit his chest and he reappeared behind the demon in a blur of red. "Hey!" his astral form yelled. "Lord of the Rings reject! Over here!" The demon turned on him and the witch gulped. "Should've thought this through…" he muttered, backing away as the demon advanced. Bridget had still been clutching her crowbar when she had been hit, and the knife that Nixa had had was nowhere to be seen. "Bridget, Nixa, anyone who wants to jump in now and save me?"

The demon threw an energy ball at Ben's astral form, blasting it into the back wall. It disappeared before it hit, the red smear barely discernable from the energy ball's explosion. Ben woke up just as there was some movement in the laundry niche. Wyatt was clawing his way back to his feet using the counter above him, still looking dazed. The demon turned back to face Ben, walking back towards the witch, who kicked out at the demon. His entire leg went numb as soon as it connected, and then he felt the demon's claws puncture the skin around his temples, drawing blood.

He was suddenly gripped with a paralysing pain. It crushed the air from his lungs and stopped him drawing anymore in. He gasped, yelling wordlessly. Behind his back, his hands were withering away to nothing. The nails were yellowing and creases and liver spots were spreading their way across the surface. Across the top of his head and around his temples, a streak of metallic grey began spreading through Ben's otherwise dark hair, zig-zagging from one strand to the next.

His eyes sunk deeper into his sockets and the skin around them became finely and then deeply lined. His brow furrowed into uncountable crevasses and his lips became pinched, lines radiating from them etching themselves on his skin. He threw his head back, finally drawing the tiniest of breaths but letting it out again in a yell. His aging face screwed up in pain, he dimly caught sight of Wyatt throwing an energy ball, but it just glanced off something before it hit the demon and exploded on the wall, scorching the concrete. Ben wanted to yell out that the thing, which paid little heed to magic normally, was invulnerable while feeding but didn't have the capacity to do so.

"Hey, you!" Bridget yelled, stepping up behind the demon and hitting it with every ounce of strength that she could muster with her crowbar. "I'm talking to you!" she shouted, beating every inch of shadowy, wispy skin that she could see and reach. "Leave him ALONE!" She rammed the point of the crowbar into the demon's back. It reared up, roaring in pain and turned, swiping the crowbar across the room and turning on Bridget.

Ben gasped in a shuddering breath, feeling his hands and face itch as the skin sprang back to being supple and young as his body pumped the life that the demon had been sucking out back in. Youth washed back across his face like a veil, re-colouring all but one streak of hair at the front of his head, which remained white. Sagging, the witch had to fight from passing out.

Bridget jumped and kicked the demon and it staggered backwards but managed to ready an energy ball in its palm. Bridget ducked under it and Chris directed the thing back at the demon, sending it crashing into the wall. Bridget felt a tug at the bottom of her faded denim shorts and looked down, seeing Nixa holding out her knife to her.

"Get him," the blonde bit out, her face betraying her pain.

Bridget took the knife. The demon was just starting to get up, so she waited until it was standing and them took aim before throwing the knife as hard as she could. It struck home with a satisfying thunk, embedding itself in the demon's forehead. It slammed backwards, the knife cracking the concrete behind the demon's skull as it was driven in. The demon began to convulse before rapidly dissolving as the shadows reclaimed it, one final ball of light rising from its chest and exploding, blinding them all so that, when they could finally manage to look again, the demon had gone.

"You know, I think I'll keep this," Bridget mused, crossing the room and wrenching the knife from the wall. "I feel that we've grown quite attached." She slid it into the waistband of her shorts and toyed absently with the handle as she turned back and surveyed the room.

"Are you okay?" Chris asked gently of Nixa, who was clutching at her ribs.

The blonde nodded, biting hard on her bottom lip. "Fine," she managed before tears washed over her blue eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. "I'm fine," she lied once more, not accepting Chris's hand up but rising painfully to her feet by herself. "I'm okay. Just… I… I'm really sorry," she choked through tears, before turning on her heel and fleeing the basement.

"Nixa?" Chris called, stepping over Josh to get to the steps. "Nixa!" The door slammed at the top of the stairs and she was gone. "Are you guys okay here?" Chris asked. "I think I should go after her."

"Don't," Bridget murmured, shaking her head. "I think she wants to be alone right now."

"But—"

"No," Bridget cut him off firmly. "She won't want to see anyone. Trust me."

"It's dead," Josh said, sitting up and staring at the slight pit in the concrete wall that Bridget's knife had made. "It's… dead. You killed it…"

"We had to," Bridget said. "It's kill or be killed. We had no choice."

"There's always a choice!" Josh yelled, gripping at his hair. His eyes were darting back and forth and he stood him, looking as if he, too, was about to burst into tears. "You didn't have to kill it! Do you know what you've just DONE?"

"We saved people," Chris told him, stepping in and glaring at Josh. "And that was the right thing to do."

"You've killed my mom!"

"Cancer killed your mom, Josh," Bridget said. "Not us."

"No…" the baseball player muttered, hugging himself. "No, this… you killed her. You've killed my mom…" He took one last glance at the hole in the wall and gave such a wail of pain that even Ben felt for him and ran from the basement, slamming the door behind him.

"It had to happen sooner or later," Chris said. "Right?"

"We did the right thing," Wyatt reassured him, throwing at arm around his brother. "You don't sacrifice the many for the sake of the one, remember?"

"Doesn't stop it sucking," Chris said glumly, walking away from Wyatt to go and sit on the stairs. "We grew up without a dad, Wyatt. We've just sentenced him to growing up without a mom. Right thing or not… It sucks."

"Just because the choice is hard doesn't make it wrong, Chris," Bridget said. "We did real good today."

"I know," the younger Halliwell said with a shrug. "I know."

"Okay. This is all very touching," Ben said sarcastically. "But when you're all done being all glum and introspective, would one of you mind, oh, I don't know… GETTING THESE DAMN THINGS OFF OF ME!"

Thank you for all of your wonderful reviews. Just the epilogue left to go now. On my computer I kind of have another one of these demi-typed-up, and I may post that next. It depends whether you all think it's worth it or not.

Also, it needs to be said that none of this would ever have happened without my Beta. That may sound so very cliché, but it's true. I never would have even written this if it weren't for her encouragement towards my idea, and I sure as hell never would have even thought of posting it without her. Go and see Pixie Wildfire and worship her. Heh.

Hope all was enjoyed,

Twisted Flame