GAH! Thanks to an incredibly eagle-eyed reader, it's come to my attention that I actually posted the very, very rough draft of Chapter Fourteen, the one sent to me Beta for editing. It still had her notes in at some points. So here we are. Hopefully grammatically better as well as everything else better.
If anyone else spots something stupid like that, you can tell me. In fact, please tell me. I don't bite.
Chris was momentarily blinded by the orbs swarming in front of his face. He had travelled many hundreds of times by orbing, but this felt nothing like it. It was a nasty, dragging sensation that had left him with no choice in the matter of where he ended up and he hated not having control. Moreover, it had left him feeling sick and disorientated. He blinked a couple of times, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, still seeing the weirdly purple-tinted orbing lights dancing across his vision.
He cursed fluently with a stream of obloquy he was , glad his mother was nowhere near to hear as his stomach lurched and he had to fight with himself not to vomit. This was travel sickness at its worst. By some weird coincidence, the fire truck that had been stabbing him in the back had managed to orb out with him and was still jabbing into his spine. He squirmed and swore again, flicking the toy across the floor with an annoyed gesture of his hand. The sirens wailed as it rocketed across the uneven stone before the truck hit a particularly large bump and overturned, skidded on its side and came to a halt, the wheels still spinning.
The air was cold around him and he could feel moisture on his bare arms. He shivered despite himself, looking up at the low, dark ceiling. It seemed to be pressing down on him with the weight of what looked like solid rock. Very solid rock. The witch-whitelighter pulled a face and tried to orb out from what appeared to be yet another demonic trap — God, didn't the stupid Underworld-dwellers ever give up? — but immediately an incredibly complex web of deep purple magic sprung up from some black crystals around Chris, forming a latticed dome. It reacted violently with Chris's orbing lights and threw the witch-whitelighter none-too-gently back down to the floor. He grunted, rolling over onto his back to stare at the ceiling.
Well, he should have seen that one coming. Despite the fact that none of his generation of Halliwells had inherited the extremely rare yet coveted gift of premonition from their bloodline, he still should have been able to see what was coming. He deserved to be zapped for not realising that orbing wouldn't work. The crystals were black, so they were well hidden, but still.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to force the adrenaline that being shocked had created out of his system and when he opened them he jumped in surprise, seeing a person standing over him; a pair of eyes looking down at him instead of the ceiling he had expected. Gradually the rest of the face came into focus and he was looking up at Gideon's bearded features and the Elder was looking down on him from above in a twisted version of a saviour.
"Gideon? What—?" Chris shook his head, sitting up. "Never mind. You couldn't give me a hand here, could you?"
The Elder just continued to look down on him as if he were something under a microscope slide, and Chris wondered if Gideon had actually heard him.
Tentatively, the witch-whitelighter tried again. "Gideon?"
"This is all wrong… This was never meant to happen…" Gideon mumbled as he straightened up, steepling his fingers and pacing the length of the subterranean stone room twice before spinning on his heel and coming to a conclusion. There was nothing he could do now. The brat was here; he knew who Gideon was and was probably on the way to working out his plan of attack….
Perhaps he could convince the boy that he was a shape-shifting demon? He mused on this for a while, frowning and staring at an empty patch on the wall. Yes, that may just work… But to convince the whelp that he was a demon he would have to make sure he didn't play nice. With a flick of his wrist the Elder sent the cage crackling to life. The network of power focussed in a spot above Chris, building brighter and brighter before descending, eliciting pained yells from the witch-whitelighter trapped within.
Learning to Tango
Bridget winced as the baby gave her a kidney shot. She was really starting to think that this baby was the devil incarnate, or whatever it was destined to be, what with the number of times it had booted her in the kidneys in the last two days. She placed her hands protectively on her stomach despite herself and gently eased herself up from the rocking chair in her room. Rocking seemed to be the only thing the completely calmed the baby, but now her swollen ankles ached from all the to and fro motions she had been making. She stopped and the baby had kicked her. Well, at least the kid knew what it wanted without having been born yet, which was an admirable quality in itself. Hoping that this meant she was doing at least something right she walked around the room, straightening a picture on the wall which was slightly askew.
She worried to herself quietly as she ran a finger across the top of the frame, wiping the dust on her top, because it felt so alien to her to feel this confused. Hell, worrying was weird enough. She never worried. It was what all of her friends said about her — she would just do something without worrying about it or its consequences until they actually happened. But ever since this baby…
She was feeling so many emotions and recently she had begun to realise that some of them were actually the baby's. Frustration was a big one but then again she wasn't sure if that was the baby's frustration because his demonic powers were being suppressed by Magic School or her own frustration at being cooped up in here, being cosseted every day by people — namely Chris. She hadn't become an invalid when she got pregnant. She could still take care of herself. If there's one thing Bridget Vance hated it was being patronised. And people who made fun of her height. Ben…
The hunter walked around the room slowly, trying to get the child inside of her to settle down. He was restless recently, but perhaps that was just concomitant with her own feelings and nothing to do with the baby. She paced some more and made shushing noises absently, staring out of the window every time she walked past and tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. She had scraped it to the nape of her neck in some resemblance of a bun this morning, and tendrils had been making their bid for freedom ever since.
At least Piper was coming soon. She would have some to gripe to or with about pregnancy; someone to ask whether what she was feeling right now was normal. Maybe she should go down to the library and see if any bejewelled magical text took her fancy? Why would anyone in their right mind waste rubies that size of hens' eggs on the cover of a mouldy old book? They must be completely insane. Perhaps she could get her nails under one of them and pry it out without the librarian or Gideon noticing? She pondered this for a moment before slowly and painstakingly making her way out of her room and into the deserted corridor.
Learning to Tango
Gideon had left Chris breathing heavily on the frigid floor of the Magic School dungeon. Hopefully future boy would now not think that the Elder had any connection to his kidnapping. Hopefully. Well, it wasn't like he could go anywhere and give anyone forewarning. He would wash his hands of the torture he had just performed, completely abnegate his responsibilities as a pillar in the world of good magic until Wyatt was dead and the world was safe. It was all for the greater good. He couldn't have either of the brats from the future stopping him eliminating Wyatt or getting to the girl acting as the Source's incubator.
He finished climbing the steps of the dungeon and turned, still seeing the witch-whitelighter crumpled in a heap of his magical cell. Showing not a shred of remorse, Gideon suddenly had an idea — one that would be incredibly entertaining. Reaching into one of the pockets of his robe her pulled out a crystal and tossed it down the stairs towards Chris.
Chris looked up shakily through blurred eyes, distrusting anything that had come from the hand that had hurt him. He swallowed as Gideon waved a hand at it, throwing a projection onto one of the dank dungeon walls. The witch-whitelighter frowned at the image as it came into focus on a short, dark-haired young woman. He realised that the scene was Magic School's library and, with artifice that could only be Bridget's, the young woman dug her nails under one of the precious gems adorning a book.
The scene suddenly cut to his mother scrying in the attic, one hand placed on her bump the other holding a circling scrying crystal. She was forcing it to circle wider and wider, and he realised with sudden guilt that she was looking for him.
The scene cut again to Ben and Paige, who were crawling around Phoebe's bedroom on their hands and knees, looking through the carpet fibres and occasionally talking. He looked up in confusion at his captor. This didn't make sense. Someone was watching them? Was it Gideon? Or was that even Gideon?
His head fell back to the floor as his arms gave out. There was a rousing burst of music from the crystal and he looked up to see two 'W's clash together and explode, forming the words Witch Wars. A golden athame spun into view halved the words. Chris looked up again, but the stairs were empty.
Learning to Tangoorbed to the Games Masters' cavern.
Clea looked up as he Gideon reappeared in the control booth and sneered, then looked back down at the controls in front of her. Her fingers flew over the buttons and sliders and keys with the skill of someone well practiced in doing so. Gideon privately wondered how long the demons had been doing this undetected.
On a small monitor to Clea's left a shot of an empty room with a seat in it was flickering slightly.
Gideon pointed to it. "What's that?"
"Confessional Cave," Clea bit out. "It's where the gamers go to reveal their plans to the audience." She refocused on the sliding glass window in front of her, peering through with calculating eyes and watching Corr present, her fingers poised, ready to start again at any moment.
"How is the next round going to play out?" Gideon asked.
"Once the Charmed Ones have deciphered the note we're going to send some demons in to…" she paused, curling her lip at the pathetic idea, "steal something from the Manor."
"We're going to need more of a distraction than that," Gideon said grimly, quickly filling the demoness in about how his trap had not captured Wyatt but rather Wyatt's grownup brother and how he, Gideon, needed a large distraction to enable him to snatch Wyatt from their formidable grasp right out of the Manor.
When he was done Clea looked him up and down twice, snorted in contempt and spoke into a microphone too quietly for the Elder to hear. Across the room, Corr pressed an earpiece deeper into his ear as he listened.
Learning to Tango
Piper was fretting. Fretting and pacing and chewing on a nail and wondering why she ever bothered to pay for a manicure when she always ended up gnawing them off when she felt worried. And fretting.
Where was Chris? Where had Wyatt orbed him to? Wyatt's orbing had never yet managed to land anything outside of the Manor so far, but they had searched the house twice yelling Chris's name and it had come up a blank.
Right now, Paige and Ben were fingertip-searching the floors on the first story under her orders, in case Wyatt had shrunk his brother and his voice had been made to small for him to be heard.
She tossed a dark look at the abandoned scrying crystal on the table. It had helped them ridiculously little, not even hinting as to where Chris might be. She glared at it as it fractured the light into rainbows. Wyatt gurgled something on the baby monitor and she looked up at it, but the lights settled back down and she heard no more from him.
"Nothing. Not even the tiniest hint of a nephew," Paige announced, walking into the attic and shrugging, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.
"Did you try scrying with the note the darklighter left?" Ben asked Piper, who turned on her heel to look at him.
"Note?" Paige wondered, looking between Ben and Piper.
"We got attacked while you were gone," Ben said. "The darklighter left a note spliced to one of his bolts."
"I tried. It's no use."
Piper sighed and turned away from the other two, pacing the length of the attic again and running a hand through her hair. "I tried. It's no use."
"What does it say?" Paige said, walking over to the table on which the much-traduced scrying crystal lay and picking up the sheet of thick cream paper, looking at it. She frowned in confusion and turned it up the other way, and then flipped it over. The paper was a mass of black blobs, which had run over the page until no writing could be made out. It had seeped through onto the back and the paper was hardened and crinkled. "Huh?"
"The darklighter fired it at me while I was in the shower," Piper said. "And apparently they've never heard of indelible waterproof ink."
"Oh," Paige said, balling it up and tossing it back down onto the table. "Anyone for a Plan B?"
"Panic?" Ben suggested helpfully.
"Got that covered," Piper griped, chewing on a different nail. "Plan C?"
"No," Ben said flatly. "Unless…"
"Gonna need a little more than 'Unless'," Piper said, making a forward motion with her hand.
"Don't worry. It wouldn't work."
"What wouldn't work?" Paige asked curiously, looking at Ben.
Ben rolled his eyes, sighing, feeling stupid for mentioning it. Now they were going to waste time on it rather than actually using their ingenuity to find Chris, because the potion wouldn't work. But instead of finding some other way to find his best friend, they would pin all their hopes on his potion. "It's a potion. But it won't work because you need part of Chris. Blood or hair or something. And we don't have any of him."
Piper thought the problem over for a while. "Has he not got a comb? Wait, that's a ridiculous question, isn't it? Or, or, some flakes of skin? Or fingernails? Has he bled on anything?" She was running the possibilities through her mind one at a time, trying to work out some way of getting hold of some of Chris's DNA.
"If we're looking for blood then the laundry hamper should be the first stop," Paige said dryly. "Everyone in this family bleeds on some item of clothing or the other every other day."
Piper looked up at her half sister and nodded, beginning to dole out orders. "Right, yeah… Paige, you go look in the laundry hamper and then downstairs in the laundry room if you can't find anything. Ben, get started on the potion, whatever it is. I'll go check your room, see if Chris has left a part of himself in there."
Paige nodded once and orbed out and Piper made for the stairs. Ben crossed the room to the ingredients cabinet and pulled out a bundle of dried tarragon, snapping a sprig in two and adding it to the heavy iron pot on the bottom shelf of the cupboard. He filled his arms with the burner and the pot and set them up on the table, pushing the map and crystal to the floor. He struck a match and lit the burner, shook it out and then added half the contents of a bottle of water next to him. Slowly, it began to heat up and he popped the top off a jar, pouring a handful of cumin seeds and tossing them into the pot. They bobbed up and down on the surface like tiny rowboats and Ben sighed, methodically pulling the petals from a dried yellow cowslip flower and dumping them into the lightly simmering water, unaware that he was being watched.
Learning to Tango
"Him?" Clea asked. "You want us to attack him?" She was looking into the monitor at Ben, who was stirring the bubbling potion in front of him.
"Yes. He isn't fundamental to the cosmic balance as the sisters are because he hasn't been born yet — nothing will be affected should something happen… which I trust you will do your best to avoid." Gideon was still quite against blood being spilt. Even if it was for the greater good. However, sacrificing one of the future interferers would not be detrimental to the cosmic balance because they would be born again. Even so he didn't want too many deaths on his hands. That may make the other Elders suspicious. He shifted uncomfortably. This was a pestiferous issue that was refusing to go away. It wasn't that it bothered him, no, it was the opposite — that the death of Ben really wouldn't bother him at all. And yet he called himself an Elder.
"So, there are rules with this as well?" Clea asked conversationally, probing subtly into Gideon's plan as well as pushing a slider up and tapping a few keys to bring Corr back from the commercial break.
"Of course," Gideon replied slowly, making sure he sounded as if he were warning her.
"Well, demons don't always play by the rules," Clea said lightly, implying deeper meanings. She wanted to see how far she could push Gideon, what his limitations were on these tasks. Obviously they couldn't hurt the Charmed Ones but this male witch? What would Gideon think if there was an… accident? A little blood spilt to get the ratings up? "What kind of rules? I mean I'm only asking jJust so we can make sure the demons do play by them?"
Gideon looked her up and down acidly. "Try not to kill him," he said menacingly, before orbing out.
Clea smiled, the red light on the microphone blinking, showing that it was transmitting everything to Corr, who would already be introducing the new idea to the audience. Because they always thought alike… What an opening.
Learning to Tango
The surface of the potion was at a rolling boil now, and a splash leapt out and sizzled on the burner, the seeds the escapee potion contained bursting and popping.. Ben quickly turned it down and the tumultuous surface calmed slightly. The witch tossed in a bundle of knotgrass and poked it to the bottom of the pot with a ladle, and then sprinkled a pinch of cinnamon onto the bubbling surface. Finally he flicked a single mustard seed into the potion and it exploded, forcing him to step backwards a couple of paces, fanning at the air.
"Explosion means you're done, then?" Paige asked, walking back into the attic.
Ben looked up and was about to answer when a presage chill seized him, the hairs on his arms dragging raised Goosebumps from the skin.
"What's wrong?" Paige asked, taking a look at the potion.
"Nothing, just… must be standing in a draught…" Ben shrugged it off and turned the burner down again, dunking floating ingredients to the bottom of the pot with the ladle.
"So what is this potion going to do exactly?" Paige wondered, watching the knotgrass bubble as it was swallowed into the liquid's depths.
"It's kind of complicated. What it does is it looks at the human DNA that you drop in and then searches everywhere for an exact match to that DNA — i.e. the person it came from — and then transports you to them whatever plane, time or dimension they're on or in. Which is really useful, what with the slipping in and out of timelines habit Chris has picked up. Luckily, it's not actually in your Book of Shadows, or you would have had Wyatt here in a flash…"
Paige gave a short, fond laugh and walked behind Ben, looking into the pot. The surface was lightly simmering, rearing up into slight splashes but not spilling out of its iron confines again. Ben looked distastefully at the patch that was burnt onto the burner and sighed slightly, knowing that he was going to have to scrape it off later or face Piper's wrath.
There was a noise behind him and he turned, seeing Paige testing the balance of an athame in her hand. She thrust once into empty space with it then tossed it into the air, snatching it mid-spin by the hilt.
"Paige, what are you doing?"
Ben's voice echoed around the dungeon and Chris squinted, crawling closer to the edge of his cage to get a better look. The crystal was on one of the uneven points of the floor, so the projection was slightly wonky. He cocked his head to one side with his eyes narrowed.
"Wait…" he murmured, sensing something not quite right with the picture but unable to put his finger on it. He watched as
Paige turned to him Ben in mild surprise and said,. "Just locking and loading," before the half-witch replied, tucking the weapon into the waistband of her jeans.
"Fair enough," Ben said absently, wondering where Piper was with the piece of Chris. It still sounded gross every time he thought about it, despite the fact that this was probably the fifth time he had had to make and drink this potion. "Was there nothing in the laundry hamper?"
"Hamper?" Paige questioned, walking back across the room. "Oh, right. Yeah, sorry. No, nothing useful in the hamper. We'll wait until Piper gets back and see what she's found."
Ben turned the heat as low as it would go, not wanting the potion to burn to the bottom of the pot and stirred it gently, keeping an eye on the flame in case the tiny flickering heat source blew out. The sodden knotgrass bubbled to the surface again and she pushed it to the bottom of the pot, the dying scream of air bubbles escaping lost as he started with surprise and dropped the ladle with a splash upon finding Paige's hand on his arm. He rolled his eyes. She had scared him. Gods, there should be laws made against doing that to people… He turned to Paige and smiled uncertainly at her, fishing the ladle from the concoction as he did so. His hand came back dripping with potion and as he wiped it on his jeans a voice floated into the attic from the stairs.
Both he and Paige looked up at the new arrival, who just shrugged and said, "I guess I was wrong. Chris didn't bleed on anything."
There was a moment of silence as Paige blinked at… herself standing behind Ben with her hand on his arm. Ben looked between the two identical witches in complete confusion. He had no idea which one to blast and his hand hovered in midair, first aiming at one Paige and then aiming at the other.
The silence was broken by Piper pulling herself up the stairs, relying heavily on the banister. "No luck in the bedroom. Did Paige have any luck with the hamper?" She looked up and it took a couple of seconds to register that there were two of her sisters in the room and she raised her hands, but she, too, didn't know which one to blast.
"Uh, hello? Demon?" The Paige standing behind Ben said, gesturing at the Paige by the door.
"Oh, as if!" The Paige by the door shot back angrily. She held out her hand and yelled, "LAMP!" The light orbed in the direction of Ben and the Impostor Paige.
The orbing lights were almost painfully bright to Chris, his eyes already having adjusted to the darkness of the dungeon. But he didn't look away as the lamp rushed ever closer to hitting Paige's double. He grinned to himself despite his situation — he'd known something was off.
Impostor Paige raised her free hand and scattered the orbing lights with a fireball, muttering, "Busted," and twisting the arm that she was resting her hand on behind Ben's back before he could blast her and using her other hand with startling speed to press the athame to Ben's neck.
"Huh," Ben said weakly, the cold steel point just ready to pierce his Adam's apple. His shoulder was screaming in pain and he was afraid to swallow in case the slight movement brought his throat anywhere closer to the blade. He'd seen many a person with a slashed jugular. It was never pretty.
"Don't move," Impostor Paige told them, "and no one gets hurt."
"Demons always say that," Piper groused, "and guess what happens? Someone always ends up with a hole in them."
"Usually the demon," Paige added smugly.
Ben felt something odd, like a hot wind on his shoulder blades and he turned his neck slightly, just as the athame fell to the floor, narrowly missing skewering his foot. Free of Impostor Paige's grasp he turned fully and was just in time to see the last of her flaming death and something akin to bolts of electricity being sucked up the point and into the handle of an athame identical to Impostor Paige's and then the hand of the demon that was standing behind him.
Ben raised his hands to blast the huge brute demon that he recognised from the book but the power glanced off the demon's huge barrel chest and did no damage save for a scorch mark on the ragged waistcoat. The brute demon swept a huge arm out and caught Ben in the chest, sending him flying backwards into a chest of drawers, which spilled the contents of its top onto the floor and spat a drawer through the back of the piece of furniture. Splintering wood caused Wyatt to wake up and start crying and Piper, torn between her motherhood duties and her witch duties for not the first time, hesitated long enough to be blasted by an energy ball. She ducked instinctively, curling her arms around her stomach but the crackling orb still hit her, knocking her off her feet.
Paige yelled and waved her arm, orbing the couch behind Piper. It had barely materialised when the pregnant witch landed on it, drawing a cloud of dust from the piece of furniture that sent her into a sneezing fit.
"Uh… Athame!" Paige yelled, and Impostor Paige's fallen athame dissolved into an orb cloud and headed straight for the demon. The dagger was flicked aside by the demon brute as if were nothing more than a fly, and he conjured another energy ball to throw at Paige.
Piper blew the weapon up before it could leave the demon's hand as she struggled up from the sofa, relatively unscathed. The strength of brute demons came from their… strength and not their abilities with magical weapons. She hoped to the Gods that Chris was holding out inside her. She couldn't even think about losing him now, not after everything…
Ben was on his feet again, snatching up the dagger that Paige had failed with and jumping at the demon's back, hoping to get enough of an angle to push the knife through the demon's shoulder and into the heart. However, the blade met bone too soon causing the knife to jar and Ben fell to the floor, leaving the demon with nothing but a flesh wound.
The brute demon roared in anger, wrenching the knife out of its shoulder and turning to Ben, grabbing the witch around the throat and lifting him clean off the floor. Ben clawed at the massive hand as he choked and then raised his own hands, intending to blast the demon's eyes which seemed to be the only weak spot he could exploit. The demon, perhaps sensing Ben's future action, shook him like a doll and Ben's hands fell. Darkness began to appear at the edges of his vision, accompanied by a myriad of arcing colours. His oxygen-deprived lungs were screaming at him but his brain felt as if it were floating; he was getting so light-headed…
Behind the demon, Piper was deploying her power at the brute's back whilst Paige was orbing pieces of furniture at the demon's hulking form. It didn't seem to be having much effect and the youngest Charmed One's eyes swept around the room, looking for something, anything, that she could turn into a projectile.
Suddenly there was an orange flare on the other side of the room and Bridget appeared amidst a scattering of fiery orbs. "Hey. What's up?" She looked around the attic at the mess and then at the demon choking Ben and her face fell. "Oh."
Learning to Tango
Gideon orbed into Wyatt's bedroom, where the infant was screaming his lungs out. The Elder twisted his face into a smile and took two steps towards Wyatt, kicking toys out of the way as he did so. He stretched out his hands and was just about to pick Wyatt up when the child opened his crinkled eyes and saw him. Wyatt's shield sprung up, knocking Gideon backwards into a shelving unit full of stuffed toys. They rained down on him, some squeaking as the fell and the Elder cursed silently, tossing them across the room as he clawed his way from the heap.
Wyatt had stopped crying now and was looking at him oddly, his blue eyes still wet with tears. Gideon advanced on him again, crushing a toy car under his foot. He stepped over the totalled wreck of splintered plastic and reached Wyatt, his fingers already feeling unpleasantly hot the closer they got to the translucent blue bubble.
He took a deep breath and plunged his hands into it, nearly crying out from the searing pain as his skin blistered before his very eyes. His hands began to look like rippling boiling water and he pulled them back out, staggering backwards a few steps and holding them up, palms to him in the manner of a surgeon who had just scrubbed up for an operation.
His fingers were fattened and raw and he hissed as he reached inside his robes, the slight contact with the fabric sending pain jangling along his bloody nerve endings. His hand closed around empty air in his pocket and he realised that he had left the cursed athame at Magic School in his office. How could he have been so stupid?
He kicked a teddy at Wyatt but it bounced off the toddler's shield, its head lolling limply as it fell. Gideon growled in frustration and orbed out.
He'd get Wyatt. Even if he had to ask for another distraction, he'd get him.
Learning to Tango
Piper blasted the demon one last time and he finally turned to her, flinging an unconscious Ben into the wall. He would come back for the witch target later. He just wanted to make them pay first for hurting him. He knew he wasn't meant to harm the Charmed Ones but they seemed so weak — it would be easy and he would be famous; the new Source, even…
He advanced slowly, Piper's explosions just fizzling out on his chest. She blew up the energy ball that was slowly revolving in his palm but he formed orb after magical orb every time she used this tactic. She swallowed but her brown eyes remained steely.
"Energy ball!" Paige yelled, but before the ball could orb to her the brute demon casually backhanded an armchair at her, sending her crashing into the bookcase. She fell to the floor, groaning, with the chair pinning her legs. The energy ball reappeared, heading straight for Bridget. The hunter snatched it from the air and crushed it, but the demon continued his advance on Piper unawares.
All of a sudden, Piper swore she felt the floor quake for just a second as Bridget demanded in a deep, twisted voice that wasn't her own, "Stop."
The brute demon turned to face the black-eyed woman. He looked her up and down, taking in her petite size and the condition that she was in and sneered, powering an energy ball up and throwing it at her. It died on her chest with an explosion and she looked down at it.
"Hm… Ow. You want to play with fire? Well don't come whining to me when you get burned." Her black eyes then seemed to leap to life with orange flames, animated in a way that made the demon drop to his knees, resting his forehead on the rug.
"My Queen. Forgive me. I-I-I had no i-idea you were going to be h-here. I didn't even know you were still a-alive. I would have never pledged my loyalty to someone else if I-I had know that you… you were alive…"
"Are you done?" Bridget vamped haughtily, putting a delicate hand to her mouth to cover a yawn.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Bridget looked down at him with disdain, the fire fading from her eyes but the total blackness still residing. She looked up at Piper and smiled but Piper had to force herself not to back away, reminding herself that it was only Bridget. There was something predatory about the smile — the way it couldn't ever hope to light up jet black eyes reminded Piper of the blank stare of a shark. Even the smile was starting to look vaguely shark-like and the Charmed One swallowed, sitting down on the couch Paige had orbed over earlier rather than backing away and admitting her fear.
"My Queen…?" The brute demon began uncertainly, bringing the attention back to him.
Bridget sighed and sniffed, adding a slight roll of her eyes. "Yes, very well. You may kiss my feet."
The demon made a noise but Bridget couldn't tell whether it was one of protest, confusion or just a random grunt, but she fixed him with her obsidian stare anyway and he quickly moved his head to kiss the heads of the fuzzy stuffed bunny rabbits stitched to the end of her slippers.
At the other end of the room Paige was just getting up, rubbing the back of her head and groaning. Also, with a hacking coughing fit Ben woke up as well, massaging his neck. Livid purple bruises were rising around his throat.
"Where's Chris?" Bridget wondered, turning to look at Piper. Once again, fear raked away at Piper's insides as she was forced to face down the familiar onyx Source stare.
"We don't know," Ben choked, before breaking off and rubbing his neck some more.
"You don't know?" Bridget asked, worry tingeing her voice. "Why don't you know?"
Piper thought she could see the tips of flames licking from Bridget's tear ducts and got up, her hands out to placate the Hunter. "It's okay. We've got a potion. We just need part—" Piper stopped, looking at Bridget's stomach, and then putting her hands on her own. "—part of Chris. We need part of Chris and we've got it right here."
"Huh?" Paige said, her forehead crinkling into a slight frown.
Piper was about to explain when the brute demon narrowed his eyes and lifted his head slightly, looking around the room. Why was the Source associating with these people? The Charmed Ones? Who had destroyed three Sources before this one?
Again, Piper was sure she felt the floor tremble as flames erupted across Bridget's ebony eyes and she weakly sat back down on the sofa, just as Bridget's voice boomed through the attic.
"Did I tell you to stop?" She shouted at the demon. The athame in the demon's hand suddenly flared into flames and appeared next to Bridget, the tip a searing blue hot. She looked at it and flames devoured it again, suddenly making it vanish from view. And then the demon was clutching at his chest, screaming. Fire consumed him and then, with a yell and an explosion, he was vanquished. The athame dropped to the floor, electricity crackling around the blade and up into the handle.
"Is it safe to come out now?" Ben croaked, looking in awe at his friend.
Bridget sighed satisfactorily, her eyes returning to brown. "Yup." She dusted her hands together and sat down on them on the armchair, waiting for someone to talk.
"Bridget…" Paige said, blinking and swallowing hard, completely stumped for words. "That was… Wow…"
"Bridget, I need your finger," Piper said briskly, walking over to a mannequin in the corner and plucking a pin from it. It would be better if she didn't focus on what Bridget — or rather her grandchild — had just done. That would only add to the worry, and there was only so much a pregnant woman could take…
"Why?" The Hunter chirped, smiling at Piper.
"Because for this potion to work we need some of Chris, right? Well, where better to find some of Chris than in himself and in his child?"
Ben's eyes suddenly lit up with newfound hope and he pulled himself from the floor and strode over to his potion. Luckily, the fighting had not disturbed it and he turned the burner back to life, heating it up again.
Piper closed her eyes, the pin hovering millimetres from her index finger. She screwed up her face and plunged it in, drawing a crimson bead to the surface of her flesh. She shook her finger slightly and the drop rolled off, falling into the potion and disappearing. It slowly began to turn blue. Bridget came over to the table and pricked her thumb, dripping the blood into the pot. The potion exploded again and Bridget, Piper and Ben were knocked off of their feet in different directions.
"Forgot to mention that," Ben said sheepishly, pulling himself up from the floor.
"Yeah, well, no harm done and all," Bridget said dryly, glaring at her friend.
The potion had turned deep blue and Ben used the ladle to pour some into a large vial. He corked the lid with his thumb and then shook it, watching the liquid slosh about against their transparent confines.
"Now—"
Whatever Ben had been about to say was lost as a darklighter black orbed in on the other side of the attic with her back to the door. Piper flicked her wrists at her but she rolled easily, her black cloak moving around her like water rather than cumbersome material. Piper's power blew a gramophone to pieces just as the darklighter snatched the athame from the pile of ash that was the slain brute demon and grasped its hilt tightly, bolts of electricity surging from the handle into her wrist.
"Thanks for that," she said, quirking at eyebrow at the group. She then conjured an energy ball in her hand and threw it at them. They all dived out of the way and it hit the table, blowing it in two and sending blue potion cascading onto the floor. Glowing cinders of ingredients fluttered down to turn white and die on the sodden rug.
Piper blew a mouthful of hair out of her face and cried indignantly, "Since when have darklighters had energy balls?"
The darklighter twisted her lips into a pityingly smile and gave a small laugh. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"
"The athame," Ben finally said, looking at her fingers curled around the handle. "The athame absorbed the others' powers and now she's absorbed them from the athame."
"Ah, such a clever little witch," she mocked, "and not bad looking, either. The cameras really don't do you justice, you know. I'd complain to the management, if I were you."
"Cameras?" Paige asked, cocking her head slightly to one side.
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," the darklighter said airily with a smirk, enjoying toying with them..
"If you know what's good for you, lady, you'll turn around and dark orb that fat ass of yours right back down to hell," Bridget said forebodingly, curling her lip and looking murderous.
The darklighter looked her over and laughed. "Fat? Glass houses and stones and all of that, you sow."
Ben grinned, a frisson passing through his body. "Did you just say what I thought you just said? Because that really, really wasn't a good idea. Seriously."
The darklighter looked him up and down coldly, curling her lip. "When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you."
Beside Ben, Bridget was practically vibrating with fury. Finally, she exploded, unleashing her wrath that had made many a demon quail. "Fat! FAT! I am not fat you brainless BITCH. I am PREGNANT, I'll have you know!" Bridget ignited a fireball in her palm and threw it as hard as she could at the darklighter. It hit her full on in her chest and set her catapulting backwards into the wall, wrenching a light fitting from the ceiling as she went.
She landed with a crunch of broken china and glass and a shower of sparks, but she wasn't dead. Bridget's eyes glinted, furious. Her pupils began to dilate until they had swallowed up her entire eye sockets and she summoned another fireball, which reflected in her eyes just as a swoosh of flames rushed over them. She threw the fireball at the fallen darklighter, who black orbed out. The ball of flames annihilated the wall, blowing wood and plaster everywhere.
Bridget turned, her nostrils flaring just as the darklighter reappeared with her loaded crossbow and fired three bolts in rapid succession. Piper froze hers before it could hit and Paige orbed hers harmlessly into a stack of cardboard boxes but Bridget walked deliberately into it. The arrow crumbled into ash before it could pierce her flesh.
"Your bloated corpse is going to be FAT," Bridget snarled. "You hateful WHORE!" And with that Bridget flung three fireballs at the darklighter, who black orbed out again. Piper whimpered and threw out her hands, freezing the fireballs in place before they lost another wall. They really couldn't deal with that kind of draught.
The darklighter black orbed in behind Bridget, firing an arrow solidly between her shoulder blades. Bridget stiffened, gasped, then fell forward onto the rug and lay unmoving.
Stunned silence reigned in the room for a while, before Ben growled in anger. . "You have no idea what you've just done," he snarled, his eyes taking on a maniacal gleam of their own as he fired a stream of jagged ice shards at the darklighter, which were annihilated with an energy ball. Chunks of frozen water fell to the floor, bouncing one or twice on the wood.
"Look out!" Chris yelled at the projection, feeling sheepish when he realised that no one could hear him.
Ben raised his arm to attack again but the darklighter tossed an energy ball at Paige and it took him by surprise. The witch-whitelighter was thrown out of the door and down the attic stairs. The darklighter feinted towards Piper and made it looked like she was going to throw an energy ball at the oldest Charmed One but then at the last second she spun and threw it at Ben, narrowly missing flinging him out of the door as well. He hit the wall hard next to the door and slid to the floor.
Piper flicked her hands at the darklighter but the power wasn't doing anything. It wasn't even glancing off her like it had with the brute demon. She barely remembered what happened next because her mind was screaming at her, bouncing around one thought inside her skull..
No, not Chris… Please, Gods, not Chris…
She took an energy ball to the abdomen and was hurled backwards into a stack of cardboard boxes, which poured down their contents all around her. As the chinks of light were swallowed by a deluge of cardboard, her mind went black as well.
Satisfied, the darklighter walked slowly across the room to where Ben was rubbing the back of his head and trying to get the attic to focus by repeatedly screwing his eyes closed. She looked up to the ceiling and smiled, using her fingers to wave and then kissing two of them and blowing it towards the hidden camera before seizing Ben by the hair and dark orbing out with him.
Learning to Tango
Corr grinned at the camera and flourished with his hands to where the darklighter was going to appear next. She black orbed in on the spot with Ben in tow, who she threw to the floor. She then curtsied, knowing that she was being silently lionised by the viewers and revelling in the attention. She blew another kiss into the camera and smiled.
"As the only survivor from the last round, Bronwyth has won the prize — the witch." The camera panned down to focus on Ben, who was lying on the floor, trying to recover from that last hit with an energy ball and the blow to his head. Everything seemed to get getting farther and farther away — sounds were echoing and his vision was dimming…
He was suddenly back handed across the face and that helped to bring the cavern back into view and he shook his head, blinking. He groaned and then tried to jerk his arms out of the unforgiving grasp of his captor but she tug her talon-like fingers into his wrists and he gasped in pain as she finished tying his hands together, rendering his powers useless. He'd been hovering on the precipice of unconsciousness for so long he hadn't even realised what she was doing.
"But…" Corr began, and the darklighter looked sharply upwards.
"But? There was no 'buts' in my contract," she snapped, glaring at the games master.
"This is a good but," Corr explained, both to the camera and the darklighter.. "but Tthe but is simple. I that, if you can get past the Charmed Ones again to bring the girl you shot back as a prize, you can keep the witch and a mystery prize."
Bronwyth looked up at him, thinking for a while. Not willing for her all-too-brief stint in the limelight to be over she nodded. "I'll do it."
Corr smiled. "However… If you fail we offer this witch as well as the mystery prize to one lucky audience member," Corr said, looking directly into the camera. "And that could be you. So stay tuned to Witch Wars."
Clea cut to a commercial break and the title screen flared into life on the monitors around them.
"I'm not going to fail," Bronwyth said arrogantly, flicking her hair back over her shoulder. "But I don't see why you want the girl. She's dead — I sensed whitelighter in her and shot her."
"Yeah, in the back," Ben muttered darkly from the floor.
"Shut up, you," Bronwyth snarled, nudging him with her foot. "Can we do something with him? Please?" Two demonic stage hands grabbed Ben under the arms and dragged him off. "Thank you!" The darklighter called, just as Clea started counting down the time until they went live.
"Never be too certain," Corr told her. Welcome back. Remember, you're watching Witch Wars. "Let's take a peek into the Charmed One's attic, shall we?" Corr said, waving a hand at the camera as Clea cut the camera in front of him and cued a full screen shot of the attic. Corr, Bronwyth and Ben, off camera for now, turned to watch it on one of the plasma television screens.
In the attic, a hand reached its way from in between a stack of cardboard boxes. Its wrist emerged next, surrounded by a tattoo. It gripped one of the boxes, the tendons straining against the flesh but this caused more of them shifted, crushing the hand. The pile stopped moving.
All was silent and Corr was about to get Clea to cut back to him lest the viewers lose interest in the proceedings when orbing lights brought Wyatt into the attic. He was whimpering again and looking around the room desperately. Finding no one comforting there he began to cry loudly, and the hand started clawing at the cardboard boxes again. Wyatt looked at it steadily and then blinked, and his mother orbed out of the mess to stand next to him.
She wobbled slightly, unsteady on her feet, and then picked him up, kissing the top of his head and cradling him to her chest. He had probably been woken up by the noise of the fight and had been scared when no one had come for him. She shushed him, bouncing him gently and eventually he began to stop crying so Piper walked across the room, putting him in his playpen.
She passed Bridget, whose eyes were open and staring unseeingly at the floor. She averted her gaze, not knowing how much more pain she could take today. She also covered Wyatt's blue eyes with her hand as she walked past. What would Chris think? Bridget and his child, gone… He would be devastated. And he may never forgive her for what had happened. She didn't even know if she could forgive herself, but she fought away tears for Wyatt's sake and arranged his blanket over the mesh side of the playpen so he couldn't see anymore of Bridget's body and then stroked his hair lovingly.
The realization that she had also lost her grandchild had yet to truly sink in.. That would probably come later, when she was alone. Everything was slowly falling apart at the seams — she had been looking forward to being a young, trendy grandmother. And now that had been taken from her. By a darklighter? How was that fair? (I dunno… work with something like this)
"You play there while Mommy goes and does some grownup things with Aunty Paige, okay?" The Charmed Ones cooed, crossing to the stairs and peering down. Paige was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom, blood leaking from her mouth. Piper gasped and started down the stairs immediately. She had numerous bruises all over her body, but suddenly they all paled in comparison to a wrenching,y, her numerous bruises had been causing her multiple pains in several areas of her body, but they were suddenly accompanied by a sharp pain in her abdomen. Fear gripped her and all of her other aches were forgotten as she bent over and then gripped the banister, he knuckles turning white as she sunk to the steps, gasping in pain.
No, not Chris… Please not Chris…
She cried out again, doubling over and wondering if she was going to be sick. She couldn't lose Chris, please no… Hot tears pricked at her eyes and she rocked back and forth, riding out another wave of pain. This couldn't be happening — how could she be losing her son?
In the attic, Bridget suddenly took a deep breath inwards and floated back to her feet, pulling the bolt from between her shoulder blades and throwing it to the floor, wiping her hands on her maternity jeans. She waved a hand over her face and suddenly the wounds were healed, including the gaping hole in her back.
She looked around the attic and heard faint sobbing from the stairs and walked to the door and looked out at Piper doubled over in pain on the stairs and Paige lying on the first floor hallway's floor, her arm folded underneath her and blood leaking from her mouth and nose.
"Piper?" Bridget tried gently, starting on the stairs.
"Bridget!" Piper squeaked in disbelief, turning her red-rimmed eyes on her. "I thought—" The witch broke off as another pain seized her abdomen and she cried whimpered, doubling back over again.
"Piper, what's wrong, what's happening?" Bridget asked desperately, scrambling down the stairs to be at Piper's side. She gently rubbed the witch's back in circles, her brown eyes searching for an answer.
"Chris…" Piper began but pain and grief took over again and she began to weep openly into Bridget's arms.
Bridget felt her heart beat faster and her mouth go dry. Chris… She couldn't be a mother on her own. She'd be bad at it. She'd leave the baby to roll off the sofa, or forget to bring it when she was going out, or drop it, or… "They're not killing Chris that easily," Bridget told her unequivocally, straightening up and waving her arm, florbing Piper and Paige into the attic.
Her hands were trembling with fear as she made her own way up the attic steps, and she realised that it was her whole body that as shaking, not just her hands. She took some deep breaths in to calm herself but couldn't stop quivering. And she felt kind of faint and there was a strange coldness emanating from within her and she shivered, but then pushed it aside over her fears for Chris. Piper couldn't be having a miscarriage. Not now. She couldn't lose him; not after everything. Not after all they'd managed to come through together. She wasn't a strong enough person to raise this kid on her own, she didn't know how…
And she loved him.
Rapidly, golden light began to erupt from her body, blasting into every corner of the attic until even Bridget had to hide her eyes from it. The radiance shone strongly, beams of it penetrating everywhere, spilling out of the open attic door and glowing at the window. She risked a look from under her lashes and saw everything bathed in a brilliant yet soft yellow glow. She gasped in wonderment, feeling power thrum through her as everything took on a healing aura and then she was forced to close her eyes again as another blinding flash surged through the attic, building brighter and brighter until it was suddenly just gone.
When she had managed to convince herself that her child hadn't just caused a nuclear holocaust she opened her eyes a tiny bit, seeing the attic just as it had been that morning. Blasted and splintered furniture had repaired itself, blue potion had been lifted from the rug and the cauldron and ingredients righted on the table. The scattered books were back on the bookcase and Paige woke with a start, not a mark on her body.
Piper looked up, the pain gone. There were still tears drying on her cheeks but suddenly everything was well. Chris rolled over in her stomach as if the past few minutes hadn't happened at all. The witch
gasped in wonderment at Bridget, seeing an expression that surely mirrored her own on the Hunter's face. Bridget looked down at her swollen stomach in awe , and then stroked it gently, her amazement blocking out the cold feeling that was creeping through her veins.
"I—" She was about to elaborate when, out of the blue, pains like she had never felt before seized her and dealt her several dizzying blows and she yelled, staggering backwards to land on the sofa. "Piper…" she said weakly between deep, steadying breaths, "I… I think that baby's coming." She swallowed. "Now."
Learning to Tango
This was finished and ready for posting on the 28/05/05. But has been down for such a long time. Grumble. So that's why it's so late. They appear to have fixed the problem while I was sleeping, though, so they can't be all bad…
Your reviews are what inspire me to write more. I love every single one of them because it makes me happy to know that there are people still there even after a month or two (heh). So thank you to all of you.
I don't know how long this is going to turn out to be — probably less than twenty chapters, I should think. Bridget's labour and the consequences should probably take up one, the events after another one… And we'll go with another one after that, just to be safe. That's… seventeen? And maybe two for the ending? And what the hell, we'll throw in another one just in case I get wordy. Heh. And then, that'll be all folks. Sniff…
FrostyRose: - Hey! Thanks for reviewing. Jump? Where are ya jumping too? I hear Jupiter's nice… Except for that whole lack of atmosphere thing… Hm…
Pixie Wildfire - See! She's there! And we KNOW what we have in store for Bridget… Heh.
Stony Angel: - Heh! Yes, I know. I subscribe to a Word of the Day e-mail from so that sometimes I get a little carried away with long words that I like. But there we are. Thank you for reviewing, hun. As always, it means a lot to me.
ilovedrew88: - Here we are. Actually, I guess Piper never made it to Magic School did she? Heh. Got a tad preoccupied along the way. Oops. Thank you for reviewing.
minimonkey89: - I know! I scary, all powerful baby but still. Creepy. Anyways, thanks for your review. I really liked it. It amused me for some reason. But then I am easily amused because I have a veeeeeery small brain…
chattypandagurl: - Ah, Leo. I'd nearly forgotten about him. A little birdie told me he's being very unElder-like. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os… I like Spaghetti-Os…