The air tingled with the silence.
It was a silence as unnatural and oppressing as the gloom of the Underworld around them. Their ears were the only particularly useful sense and they were straining, trying to catch the faintest sound of an approaching enemy. Ben's sneakers slipped on some loose scree left on the narrow path. Barely three foot-widths across the path dropped into a sharp incline, a slope covered with small stones, rocks and bleached white objects that Ben really hoped were rocks, but somehow doubted that they were.
The debris skittered down the small incline making a noise that was deafening to their ears which were compensating for the nearly non-existent sense of sight. Chris whipped around, ready to fight. He missed his friend's sheepish expression in the dark but caught the shrug of Ben's shoulders and his heart rate resumed its normal thumping. Even that was annoyingly obstreperous in the blanket of silence.
Chris rolled his eyes and turned back the way he came, using one hand on the damp and, in some places, slimy, wall to guide him along. He didn't think the fall down the incline would kill him, however steep it was, but it might hurt him a lot, and then alert demons to their presence. Also he couldn't see what was at the bottom. There could be some kind of pit or abyss. You never knew with the Underworld. It was best to keep a low profile until they got their man. Demon. Whatever.
Apparently there was a demon disgruntled enough by some upper level ones that would enjoy spiking its old masters' guns. He was, however, very difficult to find because the masters knew that he wanted to betray them. Chris couldn't even be sure if the demon was in the Underworld any longer, let alone in the direction they were travelling. Being down here really screwed up his whitelighter senses as well. Not only could he not hear anything from the world above, down here everything seemed muffled and distorted. He couldn't tell if a demon was around the corner or half a mile away. He really didn't like being down here much.
He kept reminding himself that it was for the future, for Wyatt, but he still didn't like creeping about in the half-light looking for a demon that he wasn't even sure existed. Suddenly, with a loud clatter, Chris tripped over something on the floor. He fell hard, throwing his hands out to protect himself, but because the path was so narrow his right hand plunged into nothingness and grazed across sharp stones and gravel, while the left one took all of the impact on the wrist. Swearing at the pain he tried to get up, but the bank of small debris that he was pushing on to rise gave way abruptly, sending his right side off of balance and starting him rolling sideways down the slope.
"Oh, brilliant. Fantastic, just great," he muttered darkly, before his mouth filled with dirt and his sliding quickened in pace. He reached out to grab the ledge that he had been walking on not moments before and he swung so he was lying on his stomach. He couldn't get any type of grip on the loose surface, and his feet dug in only to scatter more rocks.
"You would be so dead without me," Ben said, rolling his eyes and grabbing his friend's wrist, pulling him halfway to safety. As Chris's waist and hips reached the ledge Ben suddenly felt the back of his neck tingle and he half turned around to see the air alight with flames. On his knees already, it was a short drop to the floor. The fireball whizzed over his head and shattered on a stalactite hanging from the roof above the slope.
As Ben scrambled to get up he fired a ball of ice behind him. It shattered on the wall in a blaze of frigid shards and he knew he had missed but with the top half of his body hanging over the edge of the precipice he could not twist his neck enough to see what he was aiming at. Chris threw out one of the arms scrabbling for possession and the thud of the demon hitting the wall shook up his body and sent stones skittering down the slope.
With a sudden surge and a scattering of small rubble Chris was on the path just as the demon started to recover as well. The witch-whitelighter deflected another fireball, briefly brightening the slope with a flare-like burst as it died on the roof.
With a complicated manoeuvre Ben swung himself back up onto the ledge, wrenching muscles in both his elbow and abdomen. He looked up and found himself looking at the demon. It was tall, with bright, poisonous green flesh and electric blue marking that actually appeared to be glowing. However, he was now in Chris's line of fire, turning the responsibility of fighting the demon over to him.
Forming another ice ball in his upturned palm he threw it at the demon, knocking it backwards and spreading ice across its torso. It gave a guttural roar and got back up, shattering its glacial confines with a flex of its powerful muscles.
Mentally muttering, 'uh oh', Ben formed a fireball this time and threw the weapon, but it exploded on impact with one of the demon's, a ring of fiery energy bursting forward and throwing Ben and the demon off of their feet. Chris dropped to one knee and closed his eyes, and the fire that followed the energy burst swept over them in an angry orange wave, crackling as it rushed over the TK shield.
The half roll that Ben had done after getting hit by the energy would have tripped Chris up had it not been for the fact that he was crouching. Chris got up, stepping over his friend to take his turn at fighting the demon, but realized that it was sliding down the incline and with a flick of his wrist sent a powerful, concussive telekinetic blast in the shape on an invisible ball at the demon, which was knocked off of its feet and did a clumsy, forced somersault down into the uncertain darkness.
Sincerely hoping that there was some kind of bottomless abyss down there Chris let go of his adrenaline and blew a deep breath out.
"I really hope that that wasn't the demon we were meant to be questioning," Ben said from the floor, poking at the hole in the knee of yet another pair of ruined jeans.
"That was to high a level to be our demon," Chris said, extending a hand to help Ben up off of the floor, but ending up down there with him as he realized that the hand he had offered was the left one - the one he had fallen hard on. He had snatched it back and they had both fallen over.
"Can we please get off of this tiny path now? There's barely enough room to breathe without falling off of it…"
Chris rolled his eyes and reached out into the dark with his whitelighter powers. They were down there trying to find a demon and dammit, they were going to do it. He wanted to be able to take Bridget and the baby back to a better future, and that was what he was going to give them. With a sense of grim determination he even closed his eyes to the surroundings, trying to find the damn demon so they could pull information for it and be back up top in time for lunch.
"Demon…" he said softly, opening his eyes, his radar finally alerting him.
"What?" Ben asked, getting up and looking around. He conjured a handful of flames and held the flickering light aloft. "Where?"
The flames caressed the features of the being standing in the thick shadow cover of the corner of the path. As they travelled over its face Ben recognized the electric blue marking and was about to throw the handful of flames when the demon crossed the space between them in a stride and backhanded him across the face, throwing him backwards where he seemed to hover slightly as if he were in a cartoon before plummeting to the loose surface and rolling to the bottom out of sight.
"Here!" He called out triumphantly as Chris froze it, before balancing himself sideways and skidding down the slope after Ben.
"Ben?" He yelled. All he could hear was his own breathing and the noise of stones rushing over one another. "Are you down there?"
Above on the ledge, the demon fought the freezing spell put on him, his limbs moving as though through molasses but he was moving nonetheless. Slowly, a fireball appeared in his hand and as if the use of his power brought life to him he became fully animated, throwing it at Chris's back.
Just as the fireball was about to hit him the gravel underneath his shoes slipped and he dropped considerably and the fireball whizzed harmlessly over his head. It did, however, hit the stones, melting some of them and throwing white-hot shrapnel at Chris, who fell backwards and took a blow to the temple as he tumbled and slid down the embankment on his butt and back, disappearing into the darkness.
"You're going to die, witches…" he said in a singsong voice, shimmering out.
He appeared at the bottom, where the two witches lay still, their faces cut and scratched, bleeding in many places from various wounds on their arms, faces and necks. Oh, this was too easy. Too anticlimactic. He paused for all of around three seconds before conjuring a fireball and, grinning widely, let it revolve in his hand. The ball turned slower and slower as he thought and he eventually put it out in a puff of smoke.
He could do with a couple of witch toys. His last one had died. Apparently separating a human from its head was fatal, which was a completely ridiculous anatomy flaw in his opinion. Just as it was about to haul them up a voice called out through the darkness.
He turned, sniffing the air, narrowing its eyes and growling. "Who's there?"
Out of the gummous shadows a demon stepped. It was much shorter than the green and blue one and much less muscular looking. It was a deep shade of orange all over.
"Bard!" The larger demon's guffaws echoed around the cavern. "You hope to challenge me for these witches!" He broke off laughing again, great peals rolling around the rocky cavern.
"Yes, Torc. I do."
Torc grinned in amusement before conjuring a fireball in his hand and readying it to throw. "You're so pathetic I almost feel guilty. Almost." Before he could throw his weapon Bard formed a light dart and sent it hurtling into Torc's shoulder, the surprise extinguished the fireball.
"Who'd you steal that power off? What are you, a warlock now?" Torc sneered, spitting on the ground in his contempt for warlocks, but less full of himself now he was bleeding.
"It doesn't matter. But these witches are mine!"
Torc threw another fireball at him and the lesser demon was forced to dive out of the way. From his position on the ground Bard threw another light dart, this one hitting Torc in the stomach. The green demon howled in pain as more blood flowed, forming a fireball again but missing in his rage. This lesser demon was winning…
"Last time, you snivelling piece of scum," Torc said, breathing hard. "Where'd you steal that power from?"
"Never. You. Mind." Bard growled, tossing a larger dart right into Torc's chest, vanquishing him.
As soon as the pillar of flames from Torc's death had faded Bard looked down at his prize. They'd practically fallen right into his lap as he hid out down here, practicing his power over and over in the hope of beating some upper level demons. And now he even had not just one witch but two to give to his masters as thanks.
He crouched low over Chris's body, taking a handful of the witch-whitelighter's shirt and stretching to reach Ben, but his fingertips scrabbled on nothing but rock and stones. He stretched himself as far as he could, but couldn't hold both of them and shimmer. Cursing he got up and began dragging Ben.
"This wasn't part of the game…" he muttered, before finally getting them close enough to shimmer them to his masters.
Learning to Tango
Phoebe jutted out her hip and pouted dramatically, bringing up her hand to rest it on the jutted hip before blowing a kiss, turning on one heel and strutting away. She was met with wild applause from her sisters and Bridget, who were sitting on the chairs set out in the changing area of the store, and she dropped her act and smiled her baby-Phoebe grin.
"Do you like it?" She did another little twirl, the dark silk swooshing around her legs. She looked at herself in the mirror again, desire tugging at her. It was a deep crimson, a luxurious colour that she just adored…
"What does the price tag say on that thing, Phoebe?" Piper asked as her sister admired the dress from a different angle in the mirror.
"Who cares, Piper?" Paige said. "Phoebe can't not have that dress. I mean, look at it! It's to die for…"
"Today, I am going to throw my credit rating out of the window," Phoebe agreed absently, arching her back in another pose. "Is it legal to marry a dress?"
Bridget snorted as a guy across the store missed his mouth with his coffee as he stared, dribbling the scalding liquid down his shirt. He immediately jerked back from his girlfriend's hand as it burnt the skin, pulling out a tissue and dabbing at the stain.
"It'll all end in tears when the bill comes through," Piper warned, but making no move to stop Phoebe reaching for her credit card. Secretly, she thought that that dress was to die for on Phoebe as well. Her sister was just right for it, from her skin and eye colour to the way she carried herself. But being the oldest sister involved being a bit of a nag sometimes, and so she was just doing her job. And she was a tad jealous that she would never be able to make something like that work, especially with the baby she had a heads up on.
"Oh, come on, Piper," Paige said, moving to a nearby sale rack and snatching off a jacket and a dress that she thought were Piper's style. "Buy something you'll regret tomorrow, go on."
"Well…" Piper said, drawing out the word and she fingered the fabric of the black dress. She jumped up, snapping her fingers and pointing at Phoebe. "Phoebe!"
Phoebe cringed, waiting for another lecture about money. She didn't care, she had to have this dress; it might as well have been made for her. Her fingers scrambled to tuck the price tag out of view as Piper spoke again.
"Phoebe! That… that is going to need a new pair of shoes."
"Yay!" Phoebe gave a little round of applause, giddy and grinning. "Piper's in the building!" She gave Piper a quick hug and danced with an invisible partner back to the changing room, closing and locking the slatted door behind her.
Paige shrugged. "I guess that means I had better find a purse to match." She disappeared into the store. Seconds later, the hanger with Phoebe's dress on flew over the top of the door, followed by about a foot of the dress before it stopped, draped there.
Piper was sitting down again, looking at the items of clothing in her lap, biting her lip, apparently fighting some kind of internal battle. "You know what?" She said suddenly, snatching up the jacket and the dress by the hangers. "Screw it! Just for today I'm going to say screw it!" She threw up her hands and was halfway to a vacant changing room before she stopped and turned. "Oh, no! I'm sorry, honey, we're meant to be buying clothes for you, aren't we?"
"Oh, I'm good sitting here," Bridget said, smiling. In all truth she was. She didn't want to go into a changing room and try on something that had used to fit her before she got pregnant. That would just be too depressing. She'd get by… somehow. She didn't want to have the sisters come back from the racks with something from the maternity wear section, something that looked like a flowery marquee.
"Here," Piper insisted, shoving the black dress in her hand at Bridget.
"Oh, no… It's a… dress…" Bridget said, with a small, nervous laugh, shaking her head. "Do you know how hard it is to pull a flying roundhouse in a dress?"
"Yes!" Phoebe's muffled voice sympathized from the changing room, sounding very much like she had something over her head.
Piper blinked. "Well, okay…" Piper countered. "Do you have any idea what it's like to try and pull a flying roundhouse – whatever the hell that is – when you've got a baby on board? See, I'd imagine that would be a little difficult. Anything with the word 'flying' becomes a little tricky when you're pregnant. Seeing your feet is a little tricky when you're pregnant…" Piper paused, trailing off with the dress still held out in front of her. "Oh boy, I really didn't miss that…"
Paige returned, passing three purses over the changing room door as well as something purple and shimmering. "I think what Piper's trying to tell you in her very roundabout way is that you're going to be doing more sitting on your ass than kicking ass, so a dress wouldn't inhibit you all that much."
"Ohmigod, Paige!" Phoebe gasped, and the purple disappeared over the door. "Where'd you find this?"
"It was actually on a sale rack. Check out that twenty percent off sign, Piper," Paige said pointedly, waggling her eyebrows at her oldest sister.
Piper rolled her eyes, passing the dress in her hand to Paige. "Sorry, Paige, this just isn't me…" She lovingly ran her hands over the tan suede jacket, shrugging hers off and shrugging into the new one. "This however…" She walked over to the mirrors which allowed her to admire it from three angles. She half-turned before sighing and taking it off. "This does not say, 'Mom'. This says, 'One sticky hand print and I'm history.'" She admired it sadly one last time in her hands before tenderly putting it back on its hanger and turning back to Bridget.
"Come on, sweetie. Let's go and indulge in something elasticized, shall we?" It was a second before Bridget took her outstretched hand for help up, but when she did Piper thought that she could really feel them connecting. Smiling, she led her sort-of daughter-in-law (one day, perhaps. As long as she was sure Ben could keep his astral projecting under control) in the direction of the maternity section.
"It's no good, Paige…" Phoebe said, emerging sad and defeated from the changing room with the purple dress. "It's too long for me."
"Really? Oh…" Paige took the dress and held it up against herself. "Well just look at that. Looks to be just my size, who knew?" Phoebe narrowed her eyes playfully at her sister as Paige slipped into Phoebe's vacated changing room.
Learning to Tango
Bard turned to make sure his witches had made the journey with him. He dropped them when he realized that they had and grinned, walking around the darkened cavern, stepping over black wires trailing across the floor.
"Is anyone here?" He called, moving to the back of the cave, his voice and footsteps echoing off of the high ceiling and rocky walls, adorned with more cables and flat screen monitors.
Ben sat up. "Normally, I would make some comment about how pathetic it was that we were so good at playing unconscious, but my jaw hurts too much to laugh." Ben rubbed his jaw as he spoke, almost to emphasize the point. "That is the demon we want the info from, though, right?"
"Yeah. Good Witch, Bad Witch." Chris said, taking authority immediately, rotating his shoulder backwards to try and ease the pain, not wanting it to be still or risk it going stiff.
"Bad witch," Ben jumped in with a grin. Off Chris's look he asked, "What?"
"Nothing. I'm just thinking that we've been doing this for way too long…" Chris hadn't meant to put such regret into his voice. He winced inwardly, knowing that Ben would have picked up on it. In all truth he was tired. He was just sick and tired. Demon after demon, probe after probe, attack after attack… He would be glad when his job was done, and there would be a future without a homicidal brother to return to. And maybe – just maybe – he might be able to lead a semi-normal life.
Not the sort of life that his mother craved. However much he tried to conceal it, he actually enjoyed the adrenaline rush that he associated with fighting demons; he enjoyed the feeling that he had done something for the world and for all of those unknowing innocents out there. But at least semi-normal, which would be a life in which he didn't have to hide from his brother anymore.
"You think?" Ben asked sarcastically and was about to push Chris's tone when he cocked his head, hearing the demon's shuffling footsteps coming towards them across the sandy floor. Chris smiled a semi-grim, semi-happy Showtime smile and threw out his hands, freezing the demon in place. With another small hand gesture he unfroze the demon's head, one of the things he had learned in his mother's many Wiccan workshops.
"Wha?" The demon snarled, "You two. I thought you were unconscious."
"Yeah, we recover fast, I guess." Ben said, standing up and brushing himself off.
"Unfreeze me and I'll do all I can to make sure your deaths are relatively painless."
Ben snorted, waving a hand and freezing the demon's hand solid. The demon screamed out in pain, trying to break free of the freeze.
"You deserved that for using such a cliché," Ben told him in disgust, raising his hands again. The demon shied away from Ben's fingers, and the witch grinned. "What's the matter? Afraid I might just-" With a small explosions one of the demon's fingers shattered in a blaze of fire.
Chris winced. "Ooh… You know, that look like it hurt. You might kill him."
"Sorry. My fingers slipped."
"Yeah, well he needs those fingers. Don't slip anymore, got it?"
Ben just rolled his eyes and sighed, yawning theatrically.
"Now, the word out here in the Underworld is that you've got some info on a certain twice-blessed child. You want to share?" Chris asked, folding his arms over his chest.
"I know nothing. I am going to take such pleasure in killing you…" The demon gritted his teeth and tried to break free of the freeze again, but failed.
This time the whole of the demon's hand shattered in a burst of fire. The demon's screams took longer to die this time, and Ben looked down at the floor, trying to let the screams wash over him but failing. It was for the future. The future. He reminded himself of Nixa's marble-cold body and his resolve hardened, when he looked up it looked like the pain of the demon meant nothing to him.
"Easy Ben, that looked kind of painful…"
"Oh, come on. As long as he's got a mouth to talk with, who cares?"
Bard was breathing hard, deep sucking breaths that made his chest heave. "I… know… nothing."
"No? Nothing about a Charmed One's child, perhaps?" Chris asked, half sitting, half leaning on a desk behind him.
The demon's eyes flicked towards Ben, who quirked an eyebrow at him. The witch's arms were folded across his chest like Chris's, and he was drumming the fingers of his right hand on his left upper arm.
"Everyone knows about that child. He is meant to be the end of the entire Underworld. Of course I know about him."
"Nothing specific? Who might want him dead, perhaps?"
"Everyone wants him dead. We're into self-preservation just like humans. Just because we're demons doesn't mean we don't want to live."
Chris gave a non-committal shrug. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Only a little birdie told me that you have information, more information, on the kid. So why don't I know it yet?"
Ben raised his hands again, watching fear come alight in the demon's eyes. He let them fall, slapping against his thighs. "You know, this is boring. I mean, you ask him a question, he denies all knowledge, I blow another body part off. I actually have better things to do with my time."
"Well don't kill him…"
This was an act that they had both been perfecting all of their lives. Sometimes in the reverse roles, sometimes in the ones they were in now. It often worked on demons; they were a good team and could do it well. But whatever type of front they put up, they could never truly enjoy it. Desperate times called for desperate and ruthless measures and while it was by no means they're favourite method of subterfuge they couldn't argue with results.
"Not even a little bit?"
Chris rolled his eyes. "Just don't kill him."
Ben pouted and raised his hands, expecting the demon to speak just from the fear. When Bard didn't talk, Ben had to freeze his other hand.
"My… my masters… They… they want to kill the child. But we… all want him dead. I… I tell them that it's suicide, but… ratings…"
Ben and Chris exchanged looks and just as Chris was about to pose another question Bard made a choking noise and he burst outwards. A roaring pillar of flame surged from the sandy floor, and Ben and Chris shielded their eyes from the resulting explosion, Bard's screams echoing before silence reigned again.
"I didn't do that. We didn't do that," Ben said, looking around the seemingly empty cave.
"I can't sense anyone…" Chris said quietly, his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, tapping his thumbnail against his bottom teeth.
"Well we are in the Underworld," Ben pointed out. "And your ability doesn't work best down here."
"But there should be… Something," Chris persisted. "Some kind of signature, but…" he broke off, shaking his head, "Let's… let's just get out of here…" He didn't like the feeling he was getting. Like tiny bugs creeping up the back of his neck a bad feeling was spreading.
As they orbed away from the cave the air shimmered to reveal Gideon sitting in a plush leather chair, his legs crossed ankle on opposite knee.
"Brats," he snarled, disappearing in a shower of purple orbs. They'd nearly got the demon to confess all, and then he wouldn't be able to put his next plan into motion.
Well, if everything went the way he hoped it would, they'd be dead soon anyway.
Learning to Tango
"Okay, are we ready?" Phoebe called. In the changing room to her right was Piper, in the room to her left Bridget, the room to Bridget's left contained Paige.
"Just a minute!" Paige called out, fighting with the thin straps. She eventually got them over her shoulders and did a twirl, admiring the colour against her skin. She loved purple. Okay, so she had absolutely nowhere to wear it and no one's jaw to drop now she was single again and it would take many more temp jobs for her to make up the price tag, but who cared? "Okay, that's it!"
"On three then!" Phoebe said. "One, two, THREE!"
The four women burst from their changing room; Phoebe and Paige were clad in their dramatic dresses that wouldn't have looked out of place on a red carpet, along with killers heels. Phoebe had a black purse and a wrap to match the dress and Paige had found a sequined silk scarf.
Piper and Bridget were dressed much more sensibly, in flat shoes that were no less designer than the heels Phoebe and Paige were wearing. Just because they wouldn't be able to see their feet didn't mean they had to wear something cheap on them.
Piper was wearing a long brown skirt and a cream coloured top; both were too big as she wasn't actually pregnant yet. Bridget's clothes looked better on her as they were made to fit around her growing stomach and being able to get into the hipster maternity jeans had pleased Bridget no end.
The sales assistants were glaring at their pouting and posing, but none of them cared. This was fun time, and when you had a life like theirs why the hell not?
Learning to Tango
"Troxa. I think we found our demon," Ben said, tapping the page.
Chris frowned and leaned on the podium. "Troxa… an invisible demon," he shrugged. "Go figure. His weakness is that his ectoplasmic biochemistry is sensitive to cold and he may become partially visible… Did you actually understand any of that?"
"Nope… Ooh…" Ben winced as he read down the page.
"What?" Chris asked, looking into Ben's face and trying to interpret the expression there.
"Vanquishing spell is Power of Three. You're going to have to interrupt your Mom and aunts. Think you can do that without having your soul eaten four times over?"
"Or being called neurotic," Chris muttered darkly, shoving his hands in his back pockets and thinking for a couple of seconds. "No, we better get them to do this. The sooner we kill the demon behind this the better."
"I think mine was worse," Ben deadpanned. "But rather you than me…" he said, walking backwards a couple of steps to lean against a glass-fronted cupboard and await the arrival of the Charmed Ones.
Just as Chris opened his mouth to call for Paige footsteps announced someone on the stairs. Both of the witches turned to the door, just as the Charmed Ones and Bridget burst in. Phoebe was wearing over-large dark glasses and had a silk scarf flung over her shoulder, and they were all laden down with shopping and giggling. Letting out a collective breath they sank onto the couch, dropping the bags to the boarded floor.
They were still in fits of laughter and one of the bags fell over, spilling its contents slightly. An innocuous light grey shoebox slipped from the top, but none of the four women noticed.
"And did you see her face when Phoebe threw that scarf over her shoulder…?"
"…and swept out of the shop saying 'Ciao!'?"
There was more laughing this time, and Ben and Chris exchanged looks. Ben felt a pang of jealousy that was so automatically and immediately quashed that after a couple of seconds he wasn't even sure that he had felt it. They'd been having fun – not that he'd ever begrudge anyone fun – while he'd been rolling down a slope covered with pointy stones in the Underworld.
And there was Bridget, laughing and smiling as if she didn't have a care in the world, when she, too, knew that the future would be like if they didn't work to stop Wyatt, and they were sitting there giggling like teenagers.
Looking at them you would never think that the fate of the world rested on at least three of the women, Ben thought dryly. They were ditzy and so damn ordinary it scared him sometimes.
"No one- no one put a spell on you guys, did they?" Chris asked uncertainly, taking an unintentional step backwards. This was a new and an interesting development and he didn't really feel like being the adult here. His head still hurt from hitting it on that rock, so the last thing he wanted to do was end up acting the grownup for what basically looked like a bunch of schoolgirls.
"What?" Piper said, looking up and turning around, seemingly noticing him for the first time. He felt slight rejected that she hadn't noted his presence, before reminding himself that he had never meant to get close enough to his mother to feel rejection anyway. "Oh, no, sweetie. I just- I just haven't had that much fun in such a while." She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and smiled brightly.
"So, I hear you've been in the Underworld. What's the word on the demon front?" Paige asked, pressing her lips together to try and suppress another laugh. She failed and set the others off, but she just felt giddy – giddy and free.
"Okay, can we focus here on the demon? Then we can concentrate on whatever assbackwards problem you all have, got it?" Chris said, nodding his head as if encouraging kindergarteners. He swivelled the top half of the podium around, displaying Troxa's page. "We think this is one of the demons after Wyatt. He killed one of his minions-"
"We're using the word minions?" Paige asked, wrinkling her nose.
Chris rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Well what would you prefer we call them?"
"Foot Soldiers of Darkness?" Paige tried eagerly, and then relapsed back into laughter again. Chris ground his teeth together impatiently.
Ben blinked, his mouth open. "Were there any demons at the mall?"
"We're just a little high on spending," Phoebe said, "really." She, too, was suppressing more laughs and cleared her throat in an attempt to look serious.
"How did you get cut up?" Piper asked, finally noticing the dried blood marring their arms, faces and necks. She got up concernedly, all laughter gone from her at least.
"Long story," Chris retorted shortly, concealing an eye roll at the lack of attention paid to them and waving the question away. There was no time for lengthy explanations. He gestured back to the book, starting to explain about Troxa but Piper wouldn't let them be.
"You're going to have to put something on that," she said, turning to her sisters. "Paige, will you go and get the hydrogen peroxide from the bathroom please?"
"Mo-om!" Chris dragged the word out in frustration and embarrassment, gently slapping her hands away as they inspected his arm. He managed to untangle himself from her grip and took a step backwards, wrenching his sleeves down. None of his wounds were deep or serious and he hugged his to his chest.
"Aw, that's cute," Bridget mocked, smiling angelically. Chris scowled at her, but she only smiled wider, blowing him a discrete kiss as Paige came back with an armful of medical supplies from the bathroom. She tipped them onto an empty armchair and Chris goggled, wondering how many armies they were planning on patching up from their bathroom cabinet.
"We're fine," Chris protested, trying to bring their attention back to the Book. "But we'd be better if you could take a couple of seconds to memorize this spell, so we can summon our demon and kill him."
"Sweetie, Troxa is already dead," Piper said, twisting the cap off of the bottle and pouring a little of the liquid onto a cotton ball, brandishing it in front of her almost menacingly as Chris took a step backwards.
"Dead? But…" His shoulder's dropped. That left them with no leads, once again. Incredibly tempted to kick the Book across the room he turned on his heel to pace in frustration, but then turned back just in time to block Piper's lunge at him.
No way was he going to be cleaned up with that stuff. Not in this lifetime, or indeed timeline. It hurt like hell. He almost wished his mother hadn't noticed his state, despite the fact that her ignorance would have stung more than the hydrogen peroxide in her hand.
"It'll only sting for a minute, and the stinging means it's helping," Piper coaxed gently, as Bridget smothered giggles.
"Chris, don't be such a baby. You're meant to be a hardened demon fighter and you're acting like a four-year-old over some First Aid," Bridget said, rolling her eyes. "You could just not clean it up, of course, and get gangrene or something, which would be so unattractive, by the way…"
"Yeah, I think child psychology only works on children," Ben said, smirking at Bridget. She narrowed her eyes and grabbed a cushion from behind her to throw at him, but it floated to the floor in a snowstorm of grey ash mid-air.
"Oh, no! No, no, no…" Bridget said, shaking her head and then putting it in her hands. "I thought I'd got that under control… Aaarg…"
The only time she'd ever felt her elation disappear so quickly into despair was the night that she came home and found her parents… She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to let her façade crack and let a torrent rush through. She sucked in a deep breath of air through trembling lips and looked up again at Piper, obviously torn between attacking Chris's wounds with peroxide and cleaning up the floor.
It was grey and drizzly, and tiny silver beads of the moisture drifting aimlessly in the dreary Washington air that was so utterly different to California and yet so likeable all at once. She could blend in here, be a different person, have new friends, normal friends and most of all the dullness here made everything seem so insignificant, so… familiar, despite the fact that it wasn't. Californian sun highlighted individuals, it didn't allow for concealment.
The SAT score was burning a hole in her pocket, and despite the fact that she was walking fast she tried to double her pace. Her leg muscles burned but she hadn't used her endurance for a while and she enjoyed it. So, pumping her leg muscles harder she made her way home.
She opened the front door, tossed her keys onto the pot on the hall table with pinpoint accuracy, hung her coat in the hall closet and noticed that the house was in darkness. The Washington evening was closing in on the house, masking it in greyness.
"Mom? Dad?" She walked through the modest house, flicking the lights on as she went. The hall lights flared to life and she turned left into the kitchen, switching on the fluorescent bulbs as she went, barely managing to conceal a cringe at the way they illuminated her. She clutched her envelope tightly in her fist.
She passed the dining room – it was a room they only used for company which was thankfully rare – and entered the den, twisting the dimmer on the wall to full. Her father's thinning head was showing above the sofa and her mother head – oddly – was to be seen over the back of her father's easy chair, something unheard of. It was her dad's throne, and no one sat in it. She had done almost a full circle of the house now; the hall could be seen through the other door of the den.
"Mom, I-" The chair eerily turned of its own accord and she found her mother, her clothes stained crimson, her eyes glazed. Brown dried blood had dribbled down her chin and Bridget backed away in horror, dropping the envelope to the floor. "Mommy?" Her voice squeaked as tears filled her eyes and she dropped to her knees, the deep pile carpet squelching.
Suddenly she surged up, vaulting over her father's head and coming to rest catlike in front of him, already knowing what she would see. Jeremy Vance was slumped in the chair, just like he should have been in his easy chair, the remote in his hand. But the remote was on the floor and there was no TV on to stare intently at…
Bile rose in her throat and she staggered back out to the kitchen and relived her lunch down the waste disposal unit, breathing heavily. Her hair was stuck to her tear-tracked face and as she reached into the dishwasher for a clean glass the shaking of her hands intensified and she dropped it.
She didn't remember the tumbler shattering, because at that moment a figure stepped from the dining room and with a flash of light and a loud sound and a searing pain in her temple, her life before and indeed after that became a fractured mess.
She absently pulled her hair over the scar the bullet had left now and took in a deep breath, clasping her hands in her lap to stop them shaking. She focused on the scene in the attic in the here and now, something that she could at least have an influence on.
Piper had decided to abandon the tidying and was forcing Chris and Ben onto the other, much more blasted, couch. Apparently 'no' was not in her vocabulary either. She gave them both the Piper Look that deserved to be patented and they knew it was useless. As they flopped backwards at exactly the same time Piper knelt down at their feet and began dabbing at Chris with the pellucid liquid. He hissed in pain and his mother's demanding hand around his wrist was all that kept him from snatching it back from her. He scowled, which just made her smile all the more.
For someone literally carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders, her son was such a kid. Fortunately none of the wounds looked deep nor life-threatening, only dirty. Which would save on them calling for Leo because he was really not their favourite person right now, and vice versa.
Biting her lip to suppress laughter she stuck a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles band-aid over a graze on her son's arm as he let out a snort of laughter and put his free hand to his head, rubbing it over his eyes and groaning.
"I'm guessing this could get very humiliating very quickly, right?" He mused, settling back and letting his Mom clean him up. "Ow!" He yelped, as she dabbed at a cut that hadn't quite stopped bleeding yet.
A few bloody cotton wool balls and a lot of Band-Aid backings later both Ben and Chris were covered in multi-coloured cartoon characters, from The Rugrats to Peanuts.
"Yeah. You'd never guess that we were nearly twenty-three, would you?" Ben asked dryly as the sisters and Bridget snickered at them. He grinned sheepishly at the back of his hand, which proudly bore Tommy with his screwdriver aloft, and then rolled his eyes.
Bridget rolled her eyes. "I just hit 20 and I still have the undeniable urge to watch Rugrats. You need to deal with the fact that your low level of maturity is showing." Ben stuck out his tongue and Bridget did so right back.
"It's cute though. You've gotta admit." Phoebe said, the corners of her mouth twitching.
Chris felt a blush creep up his neck, so he quickly jumped to his feet. "Okay, well if we're done with the laughing at us, we still have some kind of demon to cap-"
He heard orbing lights behind him and turned to find Leo standing there, dressed in full Elder garb. Chris sneered at the robe and folded his arms across his chest, throwing himself back into the couch besides Ben. The poor old piece of furniture squeaked its protests.
"We-"
"Oh, it's 'we' now," Chris muttered darkly.
Leo took his breath and closed his eyes for a second before continuing, his tongue pushing a bulge in his cheek. "The Elders and I," he continued deliberately, gritting his teeth and refusing to look at either Chris or Ben, "need your help."
"Ah, a mission," Paige said brightly, standing up. "What have you got in mind?"
"Well, we're not sure, but it looks like there's been a sudden surge in witch killings…" He paused and began pacing slightly. "A whitelighter reported her charge missing this morning, and then by the time she found her charge, she was dead. It's starting to happen all over…" he hesitated again. "I just want you to investigate. Nothing that's going to get you into trouble or see you ending up the same way the other witches have, okay?"
"Sure. Do you have anything for us to scry with?" Paige asked.
Leo held out his hand and orbed an athame onto a small, round end table. "We think the demon used this on one of its victims, but it also might belong to the witch that was killed. But it's the best lead we've got, I'm afraid."
"Okay. Well Leo, if you could take Bridget back to Magic School then we'll get started." Phoebe's face fell. "Well my sisters will get started, but I have deadline, so I'm really sorry, guys. I'm going to have to bail on you."
She looked torn between the map already spread across the table and the stairs. Paige scrunched her nose.
"Okay, well the next two demons are yours," she said, and Phoebe felt relieved. Paige has just said the very thing she wanted to hear – albeit subconsciously. Her half-sister wasn't going to make Phoebe feel guilty about having a job and a life, so she hightailed it down the stairs, mindful of her heels, where she grabbed her keys and left for the Bay Mirror.
After another whirlwind Phoebe departure Paige lifted the scrying crystal with one hand and clutched the hilt of the weapon with the other, taking a deep breath in and out. "Okay." she said, drawing the word out. "Let's see what we've got here."
Learning to Tango
The light coming through the stained glass windows was golden now, slanting at a steep angle. Ben and Chris sat on the couch, the Book on a table in front of them, quietly flipping through its many pages and scribbling notes on potential demons that might just turn Wyatt evil.
So far they'd come up with hardly anything. There were so many demons – some of which were dead, or banished, or banished then dead… Some of them were alive, some of them were unknowns. Even Chris – someone who studied his family history intently – couldn't remember all of the demons and warlocks that had been vanquished since Melinda Warren. He sighed, flipping another page and scribbling a note in the top left corner of the yellowed parchment.
He sat back when he realized that so far they were only halfway through the demon section of the book and closed his burning eyes. Piper had left to open the club, and Leo had orbed Bridget back to Magic School and hadn't returned. Phoebe was probably pulling an all-nighter at the paper to make her deadline and Paige, tired of the cramps in both of her arms and the ache in her head from the crystal's dizzying circles, had actually decided to go for a night-shift temp job for a break.
Ben yawned, stretched and got up; taking a small black book he had been looking in with him. It was something he'd found while routing through a set of cardboard boxes looking for other demon reference books, and, while it didn't actually have any demons in it, it had some pretty good spells. He'd have to come looking up here in the future and find it.
He was just about to suggest that they shut the Book for the night and maybe go to P3 when Leo orbed into the attic for the second time that day. Chris looked up from the tome that he had shifted onto his lap and his sore eyes hardened when he saw his father.
Leo was outlined by the late afternoon sun and shone even after the orbing lights faded, which just annoyed Chris even more. He may be an angel, but in reality he was a nothing, a nothing and a nobody. The witch-whitelighter regarded him for a short while before turning back to his research, ignoring his father.
"Where are the girls?" Leo asked, crossing the room and imposing himself into his son's line of vision. Chris, adamant he wasn't going to look up, flipped another page.
"Out," he said shortly, taking his pen and making the beginnings of a note.
"Do they know you're defacing the Book of Shadows?" Leo demanded, infuriated all the more as Chris rolled his eyes.
"I'm improving, not defacing," Chris corrected angrily, only managing to form another three letters before Leo grabbed the ballpoint, which surged across the page taking a black line with it. "Hey!"
"If I were you, Leo, I'd let him get on with it," Ben said. "Chris has spent so much time studying for this; he knows what he's doing."
The pen flew back into Chris's outstretched hand. He rearranged his fingers around it and was about to write when Leo orbed the pen away and out of the room. Probably into the fiery pit of purgatory.
Chris heaved the Book off of his lap and stood up. Taller than Leo, he looked down on his father. "I was using that!"
"Not until you've answered my question. Where. Are. The. Girls? Or do you not care?"
Chris's eyes blazed. "How dare you say that! How dare you? After all I've done for Wyatt and Mom and my aunts how can you say I don't care? You're the one who doesn't care, Leo Wyatt. You think you're so high and mighty just because you do jack but sit on a cloud all day!" His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides as he fought the desire to punch Leo. All of his hate and anger came bubbling to the surface for the second time and he started to wonder if he'd ever be able to vent all of it. "Why don't you just sense them? Or have you become too separate from them to be able to?
"You're the one that just drops in from the future and expects everyone to start running around after you! Now where are the girls?"
"Running… Leo, you followed me around for ages after I came back here. I never asked you to do that, as I recall I was actually pretty pissed about it. Now if you'll excuse me…" He crossed the room to a table stacked with pens and notepads for spell-writing but Leo's arm caught him hard across the chest and he staggered back slightly, enraged. "What is your problem!"
"My problem, Chris, is the way you're speaking to your father."
"Exactly. Father, not Dad. One little sperm is what makes you my father. What makes you my Dad doesn't exist."
Leo was stunned enough to let Chris pass and choose another pen from the table, but soon he rounded on his son again. He grabbed a handful of Chris's shirt, swinging the witch-whitelighter around and confronting him directly. Pens scattered and the table fell over.
Chris orbed away, but Leo made an angry gesture with his hands and the orbing lights crashed into the wall. Chris cried out in pain as he reappeared, gripping the pen so hard it snapped.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you. Now you may not care, but I love your mother and her sisters and when I ask a simple question I expect an answer, do you understand me, Christopher? Well?"
Chris threw the useless halves down and raised his hand to Leo, but Ben got there fast, blowing the Elder to pieces. Leo scattered in a cloud of orbs, which Chris froze in midair.
"I always liked him better that way," he said as Ben helped him up off of the floor.
Learning to Tango
I'm not going to beg for reviews. Because this sucks, I suck, and I actually enjoy having a shred of dignity.
Did I mention that I slept for the whole of five minutes on the bus this morning until someone poked me? I mean, that was the only sleep I got. Grumble. Gah. Yeah. Whatever. Let's thank the shiny people so I can move on with my pathetic excuse for a life. Ugh.
Oh, and before anyone enquires I am about… ooh… eight inches from my pretty shiny Mental Breakdown of the Month.
Stony Angel- Oy, I bet you're sick of the waiting, huh? Thanks for sticking by me. And I'm feeling mean, grumble. Too much Charmed recaps on TWoP does that. Heh. Go figure. Thanks for sticking with me, hun.
Dominique1: Tell me about it. And thanks a lot. Thank you much, muchly! Heh. At this rate I am never going to finish this stupid thing. Gah. Heh, thanks a lot. Yeah… Ignore me. I've gone into pretty shiny land where all the things I hate are smudge marks…
ilovedrew88- Hey! Thanks for reviewing. Unfortunately for you, you've just hooked onto one hell of a lazy ass writer. Heh. Thanks a lot, though. And don't mind me, I'm cranky. Sleep, remember, is good. Staying awake until your alarm clock goes off because you've forgotten to go to bed is bad. Go figure. No, I'm nice really. Just not today.