Change Happens
Chapter 18: Everybody Loves Raynor
Cole stared coldly at the page in the Book of Shadows, emblazoned with a hand drawing of Raynor. His fingers curled into his palm and his nails began to dig at the flesh, but he all he could see was red and all he could feel was blossoming anger.
"Cole?" Phoebe had her hands shoved deep into her pockets, staring awkwardly at her husband. "Cole?"
Cole emitted a low, primal growl as his head bobbed up to greet Phoebe's eyes.
"Do you know anything about him?"
"He was a demonic mentor of mine. An old friend of my mother's as I was growing up. In fact, he knew my father too; my one weakness. When he got wind of our relationship, he concocted a plan to turn me back to evil. Somehow he stole my father's soul from the afterlife and used it as leverage to get me to kill again."
"Did you get his soul back?"
"Yes..."
"But?"
"But I..." Cole's voice trailed off as his eyes returned to the page. "Give me your hand."
"What?"
"I need to show you something."
The precognitive hesitated for a second, before placing her hand in Cole's and disappearing in a wave of demonic transportation.
----
"Paige, can you pass me that cup?" Piper glanced up from the sink. Her hands on up to her elbows were covered with white suds, and she held a soggy white and red checkered dishcloth in her right hand.
"Piper, do you really think cleaning is a good idea at the moment?"
"We can't do anything until Phoebe and Cole get down here, and I really don't believe that we should interrupt them right now."
Paige threw back her shoulders and stretched her arm out for the coffee mug in front of her. She wrapped a pale hand around it and as she turned, her face contorted in pain. Her mouth dropped into an 'o' formation and her fingers loosened around the cup. It seemed to fall in slow motion, and then burst into a thousand pieces once it touched the tile flooring. Paige's white hands flew to her stomach and she gasped, tumbling back into the kitchen table.
Dropping the cloth, Piper dashed straight for her baby sister. "Oh my god, Paige!" She wrapped her sudsy arms around Paige and pulled her close, stroking her sister's dark hair. "It's okay, breath. Breath." She eased Paige into a chair and pushed her hair behind her shoulders. Her mind whirred as she grabbed the cordless phone from its stand and pressed in '911'.
----
Phoebe held her breath as she gazed around the dustyMausoleum. Shehadn't been there in so long, yet theplace hadso many memories for her. Itwas her and Cole's special place. So many secrets had been kept here, and it was where Cole's father lay to rest. "Cole, what are we doing here?"
Ignoring her, Cole shimmies past her and slips his hand around the side of the coffin. He stands maneuvering only his arm for a moment, and then a groaning click resounds through the room. As the half demon pulled his arm back, a cloud of orangey-gray dust bloomed from the coffin, and the nameplate on his father's coffin slid upward and ejected a cherry wood box with intricate carvings. Cole gently pulled the box into his hand and held it tenderly to his chest. "Phoebe," he said as he unlatched the box. "I'd like you to meet my father." As the lid popped open, a glowing white spherical ball floated from the royal blue velvet interior and just hung in mid air, between Cole and Phoebe.
Phoebe stood dumbfounded. Her chestnut eyes shifted between Cole and the ball of light. If she didn't know better, she'd have mistaken it as one of Pearl's exploding light balls. "Y-your father?" She sputtered.
Cole slid his hand under the glowing sphere, and held it just above his palm. "After I got him back from Raynor, I couldn't do anything with him. So I just made a place for his soul to rest with his body."
Phoebe stared wide eyed. "Why didn't you just free him? Send him back to the afterlife?"
"An evil being can't free a trapped soul, Phoebe."
"But you aren't evil!"
"It's complicated, Phoebe. But once I killed that innocent, I lost my only chance to prove myself at being a good being. The grand design forbids me from releasing his soul."
Phoebe's hand whipped out before her, grabbing at the sphere. "Then let me. I'll free him."
"You can't."
"Cole, I'm a Charmed One. How much more good can I get?"
"A trapped soul can only be released by the one who trappedit, oronethe soul'sdescendants."
Phoebe placed her hand to her mouth, rubbing her index finger over her soft lips. "Pam."
----
Paige opened her eyes to a bleary line of vision, and far too bright fluorescent lights.
"Paige?"
It was at that moment that Paige realized someone's warm hands were cupping one of her's. She arched her head to the side and blinked several times, before the silhouette of her big sister came into view. "P-Prue?"
The silhouette shook her head. "No sweetie, it's Piper." The brunette wiped at the corner of her tear dotted eye, before she reached out to stroke the side of Paige's face. "How're you feeling?"
Paige closed her eyes and leaned her head deep into the white pillow. "What happened to me? Where am I?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was talking to you in the kitchen, and you asked me to pass you one of the dirty cups."
Piper nodded as she continued to stroke Paige's face. "You blacked out, sweetie. I called the ambulance."
"I-I blacked out?" Her hand bolted to her massive belly. "The baby-"
"Is fine...for now." She indicated an IV next to Paige's bed. "They were early labor pains, but they've given you some medicine to hold off the labor for a few more weeks, until it's time. They also say you need bed rest."
"But we've got a de-"
"Phoebe and I can take care of it, Paige. You yourself said that Raynor doesn't need a Power of Three vanquish."
"But what about Ohanzee? We still haven't figured out how to vanquish him! And Brianna-"
"We're working on it, Paige. And we'll cross those bridges when we come to them. Right now all I'm worrying about is you and the baby." The timer stood up and leaned over her baby sister's bed, pecking her on the forehead. "I have to go now. You need to stay here and rest. If there's a problem, call Leo. I'll be back in a few hours."
"But Piper-"
"No buts, Missy Paige." The brunette wagged her finger as she gathered her coat from the back of her chair, and headed towards the door. "I'll see you soon. I love you."
Paige laid numbly for a minute, watching as Piper began to shut the door. She couldn't believe that she'd really just said those three special words like it was nothing. "Piper, wait!"
Turning around, Piper poked her head back inside the white room. "Yeah?"
"I love you too."
Piper's knuckles became white as she gripped the door handle a little harder. Then she smiled. "I'll be back soon, honey." Then she was gone.
----
"I knew you'd come, Belthazor." Raynor wore a cocky smirk on his face. "And you brought your little witch too."
Phoebe's eyes blazed like fire. "You bastard!" She ran at him, only to be violently repelled by a flashing blue force field.
Cole helped his wife to her feet, and then neared his fellow demon cautiously. "This isn't one of your powers, how'd you get it?"
Raynor scoffed. "I have my ways, Belthazor."
"Last time I saw you, I twisting a knife in your gut. You aren't even an upper level demon. How did you come back?"
"I have friends in high places." He waved his hand around the room. "Or, rather, low places as the song goes."
Suddenly Phoebe's eyes flickered. "Cole!"
The half demon whirled around in an offensive manner, before realizing his wife wasn't in any immediate danger.
"Low places," the retrocognitive repeated with an inspiring grin. She narrowed her brown eyes and Raynor as she latched onto Cole's wrist. "You've just given me a brilliant idea," she smirked. "Let's go."
Raynor's smirk melted from his face as he darted towards the couple. "You're bluffing!"
"Wanna find out?"
Raynor pressed his hand out towards Cole, and the blue force field ignited again. Although it didn't blast him away, it kept him apart.
"Guess I shouldn't feel too bad, huh? At least I can leave." Wrapping his arms around Phoebe's waist, he shimmered them out, leaving a confused and disturbed Raynor in his wake.
----
The windows rattled as Piper slammed the front door shut behind her. She tossed her coat to the golden rack, and marched through the manner like an army sergeant. So focused on her path, she almost ran right into Cole and Phoebe as they shimmered in front of her. "Oh god! Phoebe, Cole..."
"Sorry," the psychic instantly apologized. She wiggled free of Cole's arms, and motioned to the stairs. "C'mon, let's talk in the attic."
Cole surged after her. "What happened back there? Did you have a premonition?"
"No."
"What happened? Phoebe? Phoebe! Wait!"
Piper threw her arms into the air as she ran after the couple. "What the hell is going on? What happened where? Where have you guys been? I thought you were up in the attic this whole time!" As she reached the top of the stairs, she flexed her fingers and Cole's leg motion halted.
Cole crossed his arms, staring down at his frozen legs. "Piper!"
"What's going on?"
Realizing that nobody was behind her, Phoebe stopped and turned back to her husband and elder sister. "When Raynor mentioned that song, it gave me an idea."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that out when we were down there."
"Down there? Raynor?" Piper's eyes bulged. "You went and confronted him alone?"
"I killed him once already, Piper. I could've easily done it again."
"That's not the point! You left without telling me or Paige-"
"Paige. Where is Paige?"
Piper could've smacked herself at that moment. She was yelling at her family for not telling her about confronting a demon that both Phoebe or Cole were perfectly able to vanquish, but she hadn't told them that she'd taken Paige to the hospital. She could already feel it coming. "In the hospital."
"What?" Phoebe nearly lunged at her. "And you didn't feel the need to tell me? What happened? Wh-what about Leo?"
"Early labor," Piper replied too simply. "They gave her drugs to stop it, but she needs bed rest, so I left her there. I told her to call Leo if anything happened."
"What about the baby?"
"She's fine. They're both fine."
"What if Ohanzee were to attack-"
"Phoebe, she's surrounded by people! It's a hospital, for cryin' out loud. All of Ohanzee's attacks thus far have been alone, where he's drawn someone away and killed them privately. I think she's fine right now. Besides, we have to work on getting Brianna's soul back before we can figure out how to vanquish Ohanzee." She snapped her fingers. "Now, about Raynor and you seeing him?"
Phoebe looked to Cole, who nodded for her to continue. "Cole took me to Raynor's old lair, hoping he'd be there. He was, but he was being protected by a force field."
"Actually, I think he was being held there by a force field. When he tried to grab at me, it blocked him. Obviously if he was controlling it, he would've gotten at me."
"Right." Phoebe raked her hand through her wavy golden-brown hair. "And when Cole asked him how he came back from the dead, he said he had friends 'in high places,' and then he made a reference to that country song about 'friends in low places.' It got me thinking about the next few lines of the song..."
"Which are?"
"'I've got friends in low places, where the whiskey drowns and the booze chases my blues away, and I'll be okay-'"
"And that's got to do with what?"
"The line about chasing away the blues! Piper, don't you see? I think my empathy advanced for reasons other than to help us today!"
"How is that going to help us?"
Cole, on the other hand, looked shocked. "Your empathy advanced?" He went to step towards her, forgetting about being frozen at the legs, and lurched back. "Uhm, Piper?"
"Oh, right, sorry." Piper blinked her eyes and Cole's legs unfroze.
He stumbled forward, completely unaware of the foreign gesture as the witch usually used her hands to expel her powers. He crashed straight into the wall, knocking a picture to the floor.
Piper's hand shot out like lightning, halting the frame before it could shatter. She tenderly picked up the framed photograph, a picture of Prue the day she'd graduated High School, and replaced it. "Be more careful," she growled.
"I'm sorry," came his sincerest of apologies. He slipped past the witch, and wrapped his arms comfortingly around Phoebe's waist. "Go on."
"Right. So I was thinking that since now I can send emotions from one person to another, maybe I can direct feelings of love and goodness from us into Raynor, which would weaken his defenses enough to trick him into summoning Brianna from where ever he's hidden her soul." She turned around to lookCole with a vengeful looketched intoher pretty features. "Similar to how he tricked you into being evil, but in reverse."
Piper seemed to consider it a moment, and then gave a violent shake of her head.
"What? Why?"
"Because it's too dangerous, Phoebe. The only way you even activated your advancement was in a time of deep emotion stress and you don't know if you'll be able to do it again, much less if it'll even work the way you want it to."
"But we have to try!"
"No." The elder witch placed her hands squarely to her hips and gave her baby sister the best stare down she could. "We have to think of something else. I'm not going to lose another sister."
"You're not going to lose me-"
"You're exactly right, which is why we aren't going through with this plan." She flicked her wrist, signally that the conversation was over. Then she whizzed past Phoebe and Cole, heading for the attic.
"Phoebe, I know that look."
Phoebe twisted her neck, glancing behind her at the half demon. "Don't start with me, Cole. I have to do this." She turned in his arms, standing on her tip toes and kissed him softly on the lips. "I'm going to go pick up the girls from school, okay? When I get back, I promise that we'll get everything sorted out." She slipped from Cole's grasp and trotted down the hallway, leaving Cole to wonder how this day would really play out.
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: I know that there's a million and one different things going on in this subplot, but rest assured that I (unlike Kern) will not leave you hanging. Everything WILL be resolved in due time.
