Cole watched as Phoebe intoned the words of the cloaking spell while gingerly pouring poppy seeds on the floor, drawing a large circle around his mother. Erzsebet was standing in the middle of the attic of the Manor, with her arms crossed in front of her chest and a look of steely determination on her face as she stared straight ahead. Cole sighed; he couldn't blame her for looking grim when she was about to place herself at the mercy of the Charmed Ones.
"So," he asked Piper in a low voice, not wanting to disrupt Phoebe's spell, "are you sure that this will be enough to prevent the ritual from being sensed in the Underworld?"
"If someone tunes in while we're performing the ritual," she said, "they may sense powerful magic, but not the specifics of it."
Cole nodded in silence, still frowning slightly, and Piper cast him a curious look.
"Cole we've cast all kinds of spells through the last years and Evil never stirred. Why should it be different now?"
"My mother's powers…" -- Erzsebet shot him a warning glare from across the room and he shrugged -- "are rooted deep."
Before Piper could reply, Phoebe placed the jar with the remaining poppy seeds on the top of a dresser, announcing:
"Cloaking spell, done." She hesitated, glancing at Erzsebet, and added: "We're all set."
"What am I supposed to do?" Erzsebet asked dryly.
"Just stand there and don't fight the spell," Piper told her, entering the circle with Phoebe.
"Now remember what we've talked about," Benjamin reminded them as Paige joined her sisters. "Keep your eyes on the lantern," -- he pointed at a brass lantern sitting a few feet before Erzsebet -- "and stop when it lights up."
Paige held a pottery bowl full of ground Echinacea roots, and after each sister took a handful of powder out of it she gave the bowl to Leo to put it aside.
"Hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night," the sisters started to chant in one voice, "The oldest of gods are invoked here, the great work of magic is sought."
Cole watched tensely as his mother stiffened, like a fox hearing the hounds at the distance. Even if he knew that Phoebe and her sisters meant her no harm, it still looked for all the world like a vanquishing, and he hated it just as much as she did.
"We're the strength of the cave bear," Paige intoned, throwing some powder at Erzsebet's feet.
"We're the wisdom of the whale," Phoebe said, following suit.
"We're the bravery of the eagle," Piper finished.
"We're three," they said in unison. "We're one. Earth, sea and sky."
"Powers of this demon rise, course unseen across the skies, come to us who call you near, come to us and settle here."
Erzsebet shuddered and inhaled sharply. Her face was ashen, in painful contrast with her raven hair, as she started to glow with a dark yet surprisingly sparkly luminescence.
"Past," Piper said, throwing more powder at the demoness' feet.
"Present," Phoebe said.
"Future." -- when the powder cast by Paige hit the floor, the shadow surrounding Erzsebet started to creep from her to the lantern.
"Once passed along, later on lost," they chanted. "We summon it again, to restore destiny's course."
"Powers of this demon rise, course unseen across the skies, come to us who call you near, come to us and settle here."
Just as Phoebe raised her hand to throw more powder, the lantern lit up and Cole and Benjamin hastily said in one voice:
"Enough."
Erzsebet swayed on her feet and Benjamin quickly moved towards her, but Cole was faster as he rushed around the girls and towards his mother.
"Mother?" he called worriedly as he approached her.
"Weak," she mumbled faintly, and he reached out and grabbed her arms above her elbows, catching her when her knees buckled. His mother was a petite woman, no taller than Phoebe, but Cole often forgot this as he was faced with the power of her aura, and it always surprised him to realize how light she was.
"It's okay," he said gently as she leant against him, grabbing the front of his shirt for support. "It's okay, I got you." He carefully positioned himself between her and the others, knowing how much his mother hated to show weakness.
"You should lie down now," Benjamin said, giving her a concerned look.
When Cole tried to lead her towards the nearest divan, though, Erzsebet shook her head, standing her ground with unexpected forcefulness considering her drained look.
"I don't need to lie down," she declared through colorless lips.
"Mother…"
"No," Erzsebet said adamantly. She started to pull away from him but quickly changed her mind when the world around her blurred and swirled. "I'll be fine," she insisted nonetheless. "I'll be fine; just give me some time."
Cole sighed and looked at his father over her head, silently asking for his help. He had once seen his mother lead a successful raid against a coven of six witches sporting two cracked ribs and a broken ankle, just so that word didn't get out that she was wounded.
"Just sit down until your head clears," Benjamin compromised and, after a moment of hesitation, Erzsebet nodded her head in agreement, letting the two men walk her to the divan.
"I feel like I'm going to throw up," she grumbled as Cole gingerly helped her sit by Benjamin's side.
"It's okay, we don't care much about this couch anyway," Cole quipped, smiling as she grunted and closed her eyes, acceding to rest her back against Benjamin's chest.
"Maybe you shouldn't have gone through this with an empty stomach," Piper offered as she approached them.
"Well, thank you for thinking of this before you started the ritual," Erzsebet said wryly, keeping her eyes closed.
"Can I get you something to eat now?" Cole asked.
"You can get me my powers back now."
Cole glanced at Phoebe, who was sweeping up the powder and the poppy seeds while Paige picked up the lantern and gingerly placed it on the dresser.
"One hour," Phoebe said in response to his non-asked question. "There's peppermint iced tea in the fridge," she added, looking at Erzsebet. "It should help settle your stomach."
"Do you need some help over there?" Cole asked, giving Phoebe and uncertain look.
She did, but he was so visibly unwilling to leave his mother's side that she didn't have the heart to say it, so Phoebe just shook her head with a smile:
"I'm almost done, anyway."
"I'll go get that iced tea," Paige volunteered, glad to have an excuse to leave the demoness' presence for a moment. Even without her powers -- most of them, anyway -- Erzsebet still held an aura of might that was rather unsettling when combined with the antagonism that she made no effort to hide.
"Erzsebet…" Benjamin started to say, but she cut him right off.
"I'm not talking to you right now. This," she crabbed as Benjamin's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "may not be as bad as a vanquishing spell, but it definitely ranks a close second."
"I'm sorry," he said gently, smiling at her. The color was already returning to her face, but Erzsebet didn't make an effort to pull away from him even as she slightly cranked her neck to shoot him a sour look. "The worst part is over, though," he told her. "We'll need to let the powers rest for one hour, and by then you should be feeling strong enough to go through the second part of the ritual. Which," he quickly assured as she grimaced, "I'm sure you won't find as unpleasant as the first part."
Erzsebet just huffed by way of response, but her expression wasn't so harsh as she asked, still addressing Benjamin but this time looking at Cole:
"So, can we both get our powers then?"
"Like it was meant to be from the beginning," Benjamin said with a smile.
"Like it was before they meddled," Erzsebet corrected him pointedly, and Benjamin sighed.
"You're not even trying to be nice," he gently reproached her.
"I can either be nice or be honest," she told him petulantly. "You can't have it both ways."
Before Benjamin retorted, Paige orbed in holding a glass of iced tea. She hesitated and handed it to Erzsebet, and the demoness accepted it without a word.
"Thanks," Cole said to Paige while his mother took a tentative sip of the iced tea.
Erzsebet gave him a pointed look and for a moment seemed to be about to snap at him for thanking the younger witch on her behalf. But the spell had left her spent and she didn't feel like starting a fight right now; plus, her upset stomach did indeed feel a little better, so she just drank some more iced tea and leaned back on Benjamin with a sigh.
- x x x x x -
The Power Broker stopped dead in his tracks; the hand he had raised to store a demonic power in yet another innocent suddenly froze in the air. He inhaled deeply, shuddering as he took in the intensity of the powers he was sensing. Ancient dark magic, the kind that you could only find in a few upper level demons.
"What…?" -- his partner, an ambitious Chameleon who was trying to rise in rank, gave him a puzzled look.
"Shh!" -- the Power Broker acknowledged the Chameleon's presence just enough to hold up an impatient hand to silence him.
"The carrier…"
"Let him go," the Power Broker hissed, his eyes glazed over as he focused on the powers, trying to track them down. Some upper level demon must be being vanquished not far from where they stood, and any witch -- most probably witches -- powerful enough to take down such a strong demon ought to be approached with extreme caution.
The Chameleon impatiently shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching as prudence and greed fought for control in the mind of the more powerful demon. The Power Broker swallowed hard without even noticing that he was salivating: he had heard of magic like this, black magic that was rooted in the darkest recesses of the nether realm, but he had never been near it, let alone grasp it. He had to have it.
"Come on," he told his partner. "You'll provide diversion, and I'll make us both rich." On a 70/30 basis.
- x x x x x -
"Feeling better?" Cole asked his mother as she handed him the empty glass.
"Yes," she sighed. "But not as good as I'll feel when this is over. Has it been an hour yet?"
"Twenty minutes," he said with a smile, checking his watch. "Would you…" -- he never finished the sentence as her stance changed subtly, her eyes suddenly becoming sharp and alert as she straightened up on her seat.
"Benjamin, go check on Ben," she said in a calm but curt tone, not looking at him as she thoroughly scanned the room.
"Be careful," Benjamin said simply before vanishing.
"Cole…?" Phoebe said nervously, understanding that there was only one thing in which both men would so blindly trust the demoness' instincts, and it didn't mean good news.
"Piper…" -- before Cole could tell Piper to freeze the entire room, Erzsebet pointed an assertive finger towards the further corner of the room.
"Chameleon," she said, and Cole cursed inwardly. How on earth were they going to figure what was out of place in this mishmash of an attic?
"Just blow everything up, Piper," Leo said, and as Piper raised her hands towards the objects that piled up on the corner of the attic, their bluff was rewarded by the sight of a dollhouse morphing back into a Chameleon.
The demon waved his hand towards Piper, sending her staggering backwards against the divan. While Piper tumbled on the divan, bumping heavily into Erzsebet, Phoebe threw a fireball at the Chameleon, but he quickly ducked to dodge it.
"Phoebe, that was mine!" Piper protested when the fireball destroyed the sewing machine.
"Well enough to bitch, well enough to fight," Erzsebet barked, impatiently shoving Piper back to her feet. "There's another one there."
"Book of Shadows!" Paige called out, while Piper quickly froze the small fire that Phoebe had started and the others turned in the direction Erzsebet had pointed in time to see the smoke surrounding the Power Broker vanish.
While Phoebe hesitated, not wanting to set the room on fire with another misdirected fireball, the Chameleon started to raise his hand again, but the empty glass that Erzsebet had snatched from Cole's hand flew across the room like a missile and hit him squared between the eyes, knocking him out.
Meanwhile, Piper turned her attention to the Power Broker just as he was firing an energy ball at her and at the group huddled around the divan. Leo jumped towards Piper, but Erzsebet was quicker as she grabbed her by her arm. She shimmered out with Piper while Cole lurched out of the way of the energy ball, knocking Phoebe and Paige to the floor with him, and poor Leo found himself alone to face the energy ball.
"Someone vanquish him already!" Erzsebet shouted in frustration as she shimmered back in a few feet away, with Piper in tow.
The Power Broker faltered, momentarily blinded by the explosion of blue orbs that filled the attic as the energy ball hit Leo with a blast, and Piper waved a weak hand towards him, still fighting the nausea caused by the shimmering. The demon froze in the act of raising his hand to throw another energy ball, and Piper placed her hand on the wall for support, leaning as much forward as her belly allowed her before throwing up.
"Leo!" Cole called out while Phoebe jumped back to her feet, throwing a fireball at the frozen demon.
"I'm okay," Paige said, sitting up and rubbing her bruised elbow as the blue orbs gathered again to materialize a still slightly dazed Leo.
"He's not," Erzsebet said curtly, grabbing Leo's arm and yanking him away from Paige and towards Cole.
"What…" -- the Whitelighter didn't finish the sentence and drew a sharp intake of breath, his head immediately clearing at the sight of Cole's calves, burnt almost to the bone by the scrape of the energy ball. The back of the legs of his pants was gone, and the smell of burnt flesh made Piper gag again.
"Cole!" Phoebe shrieked, kneeling by his side just in time to catch him as he collapsed face down.
"He's in shock," Erzsebet informed tersely, her expression unreadable as she looked from Cole's ashen face to Leo's glowing hands.
They watched in silence as Leo used his powers for what felt like an eternity, his lips pressed tightly together as Cole's mangled flesh slowly reconstituted over his bones.
"Wait," Phoebe said softly when Cole came to with a grunt and tried to prop himself on his elbows. "Leo's hasn't finished yet," she told him, placing her hand on his shoulder to keep him down.
"Did I just pass out?" he asked, giving her a slightly disconcerted look as he rested his face on her thigh.
"Life on the surface has softened you," his mother remarked evenly, reaching out and gingerly wiping a few droplets of cold sweat from his forehead.
"Okay," Leo finally said, retracting his hands and sitting on the floor with a sigh.
"That was close," Piper said as she found her voice again, swallowing hard.
"Way too close," Phoebe concurred in a shaking voice, hugging Cole as he sat up.
"Job hazard," he joked without much conviction, snuggling her and kissing the top of her head. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at his mother.
"I'm…" -- Erzsebet's eyes widened as the thought hit her like a blow; she swirled around, turning to the other side of the room.
"Where are my powers?"