A/N: This chapter was written after about an hour and a half of pain-staking research. I had to get the flashbacks right in honor of all those mega Charmed fans. This one's for them. Once again, I don't own anything. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine: Enemy Revealed

"How could you not tell us?!" Cody shouted.

"Cody, can we not do this now?" Max argued back, albeit more meekly. She was usually more defiant, but something about the way Cody was looking at her made her feel very low.

"Max is right." Leo put a hand on his shoulder. "Right now we need to figure out what happened.

"That's easy." Piper fumed, getting to her feet. "The demon that's possessing Carlisle figured out we were on to him and came to kill us, and he brought friends."

"He seemed to know a lot about us." Phoebe sighed. "I mean, most of the Underworld does, but he seemed to have intimate knowledge. He knew Paige was a whitelighter, and had that darklighter bring her down first."

"And with me down for the count, the power of three was weakened. And yet, we've never even heard of this demon before." Paige sat back down and folded her arms.

"They call him The Heir." Natalia answered, faltering to her feet. "He's a very powerful upper-level demon."

"Oh, so you knew about this." Piper retorted.

"Of course." Natalia replied, ignoring the jibe. "Max has been working undercover with me for some time. We've been trying to stop the buy-out."

"You've been working with her?!" Cody lashed at Max again.

"Cody, please!" The girl cried.

"Cody, she really wanted to tell you. She just"-- Zack began.

"YOU knew about this?!"

"By accident!" Zack cried defensively. "She made me promise not to tell!"

"SHUT UP!!" Cody lashed his arm out at Zack who was thrown suddenly against the wall with unseen force. He landed on the floor with a thud. He recovered quickly, jumping back to his feet, glaring menacingly at his twin. He raised his hand out, and threw a fireball. Cody was about to retaliate with his power before Piper intervened.

"Whoa!" She grabbed Cody's wrist with one hand, and froze Zack's fireball with the other. "Cool it." She warned, trying to calm the situation. "The last time my sisters and I used our powers on each other, we lost them. Zack, please." She indicated the fireball.

Zack snorted resentfully before he clapped his hands together, extinguishing it, then stormed out of the room. Cody shrugged Piper off of him and followed suit, stomping up the stairs.

"Cody." Max pleaded. She tried to follow, but found herself restrained by Piper.

"Let them go. They need some time." She let Max go and rounded on Natalia, finding some comfort in redirecting her frustration. "Alright Nat, this is your mess. You want our help then start talking."

"Excuse me," Natalia huffed, but remained eerily serene, "but I believe I just saved your life. You are in no position to be upset with me."

"Upset? No, I've moved past upset and right to pissed off!"

"Point taken." The sorceress narrowed her eyes at the eldest Charmed One. "But I think we need to first make a battle plan. Leo, you need to report to the Elders. They told me The Heir had something stolen from the West Andes, but they didn't tell me what. If I'm right, then we are all in serious danger."

Leo looked to Piper who nodded. "I'll watch Wyatt. We have to work with her if we want to end this." She hated admitting that. She had never liked Natalia, even when they were allied. If there was one thing she hated more than demons, it was cryptic demons.

Leo nodded back and handed baby Wyatt to his mother. "You be good for mommy, okay buddy?"

"Max, you go with him." Natalia instructed. The young whitelighter nodded and complied without defiance for once.

She was glad to throw herself into her work to get her mind off her guilt. Both she and Leo orbed out.

"Alright then," the sorceress addressed the sisters, "I think it would be best if you stayed here with the twins for now."

"Well where are you going?" Phoebe asked.

"Back to Boston. The Heir is staking out a pentagram territory, and the warlocks I enlisted are having trouble holding his forces back. I'm going to stop him before he claims the Tipton."

"Not by yourself you're not." Piper laughed. "You're taking one of us."

"You think it wise to sever the Power of Three?" Natalia jabbed.

"No, but I'm not leaving a hotel of innocents in yourhands, that's for damn sure."

"Good idea. I'll go." Paige offered.

"But Piper has more firepower than you." Phoebe interjected.

"Yeah, but I can orb. I feel like we've had this conversation before."

"Fine, I don't care." Natalia sighed. "Paige and I will go back, and you two will remain here with the boys."

Piper nodded firmly.

"Good luck." Paige waved before orbing out, followed by Natalia's shadow. Once they were alone Piper turned to her sister.

"Alright, you need to check the Book of Shadows and see if there's anything on The Heir that can help us vanquish him."

"Okay, what'll you be doing?"

"I'll be upstairs scrying for Carey."

"Carey, why?" Phoebe tilted her head.

"Kurt said she didn't show up, and we need to assume she's being targeted." Piper explained. She was getting to be quite a pessimist lately.

Phoebe looked back at the spot where her baby sister had just been standing. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

"Well, I don't trust Nat, but if she wanted us dead I don't think she would've fought The Heir to save us."

Phoebe furrowed her brows. "Yeah, why did she do that?"

Piper shook her head. "I don't know. But I know she knows a lot more than she's letting on." She sighed and placed Wyatt on her hip to take him upstairs for bed before starting her tedious task of scrying for the boys' mother.

A few hours later Phoebe had given up. Not only was their nothing on The Heir in the Book of Shadows, for some odd reason it kept flipping open to the entry on The Source. She had a feeling Grams was overreacting. The Heir was powerful, but he wasn't that powerful.

She decided to sleep on it. She crawled into her bed, careful not to step on Zack who was curled up in a sleeping bag at the floor, pulled the pink coverlet over herself and closed her eyes.

"Seems almost anticlimactic after all this time doesn't it?" The Source sneered in his grating tone before grabbing Paige by the face and throwing her across the attic. Then he turned to face Phoebe who was kneeling by a badly beaten Piper. "Say hello to Prue for me."

Phoebe felt her rage boil over when he uttered her fallen sister's name. Just as he summoned a fireball, she dashed across the hardwood floor and leapt toward him, delivering a whirling kick into his chest.

"Phoebe!" Paige cried. Her sister tossed her the crystals seconds before The Source rose back to his feet leering down at her with his abyssal black eyes.

"You power was always the weakest, hardly worth taking. Your life, however is."

"Paige, now!" At her sister's urging, Paige planted the last crystal in the array, conjuring the cage around The Source.

He merely grinned with his jagged teeth, his features strained across his horribly scarred face. "Crystal." One of the crystal in the array orbed into his waiting hand thanks to Paige's stolen power. "Now for the moment we've all been waiting for." He smiled again, conjuring another fireball.

At the last minute Cole shimmered into the room, diving in front of Phoebe and absorbing the fireball.

"Belthazor?!" The Source roared.

"No." Phoebe replied. "The Hollow."

Cole whirled around and blasted The Source with one of his own fireballs, forcing him to stagger back. "Hurry, the spell!" He urged Phoebe, sending another fireball into their enemy.

Phoebe crouched by her sisters, and together they recited the spell;

"Prudence, Patricia, Penelope, Melinda,

Astrid, Helen, Laura and Grace,

Halliwell witches stand strong beside us,

Vanquish this evil from time and space!"

The Source cried out in agony, flailing his clawed fingers about wildly as fire stilled his breath once and for all… or so they thought.

There was a blast outside the door of the bathroom where Phoebe was hiding. It could only be Piper using her power on Cole. "Phoebe, get out here and help us dammit!"

How had it come to this? After taking The Source's power into himself to save her, Cole had become the new Source of all Evil. And now she had to choose between her husband and her sisters.

"Paige." Piper warned as Cole reconstituted his body. Phoebe heard a crash as her baby sister was thrown into the wall.

"Don't make me kill you." Cole threatened, followed by another of Piper's blasts.

"Phoebe, you heard what he said, he's gonna kill us, help us!"

"Forgive me." Phoebe whispered with tears streaming down her face. She opened the bathroom door and re-entered the living room of the penthouse as Cole reconstituted again.

He took aim with his fireball and looked at his wife apologetically. "I'm sorry. It's… It's for the best."

"I know it is." She replied before crossing the room to kiss him passionately.

"Phoebe?" Piper pleaded, unable to believe what she was seeing.

Phoebe pulled away from her husband. "I'm sorry too." She told him before placing the scattered crystal in the array, completing the cage.

"Phoebe, no." Cole whimpered. "NO!"

"I'm sorry baby, I'm so sorry."

"Prudence, Patricia, Penelope, Melinda," Piper began the spell.

Phoebe's tears began spilling down as she joined in, nearly choking on her words. "Astrid, Helen, Laura, and Grace."

"I'll always love you." Cole uttered his final words to her.

Paige continued with the next verse, "Halliwell witches stand strong beside us," before all three joined in to recite the final sentence.

"Vanquish this evil from time and space!"

Phoebe looked away, unable to watch Cole's fiery demise. After the explosion which rent the penthouse to bits, she stood by the pile of ashes that had once been her husband, and felt she'd never stop crying.

"To Be your Source," The Seer proclaimed in her soothing tone, "to start a new evil order, to kill the Charmed Ones, this was my vision from the beginning. Every council member here will reap the rewards wi—UGH!" She cut off abrubtly as the demon offspring she had taken from Phoebe began to fight within her.

"Looks like she's not having anymore luck with that thing inside her than you were." Paige observed. "Oh… sorry, that was insensitive."

"That's okay." Phoebe assured her. "The baby was never mine. From the moment it took over it just felt like this black hole of evil, totally soulless."

"Seer." The head of the council bellowed. "Are you prepared to accept the power and position of The Source before all these leaders of the Underworld?"

"I am."

The coronation continued as The Seer rose into the air, glowing with dark energy. She lashed out at the cage the three sisters were trapped in, sending a beam out of her palm just as they joined hands and began the Power of Three spell.

"The Power of Three will set us free, the Power of Three will set us free, the Power of Three will set us free…"

The head of council leaned in towards The Seer. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" She shouted, sending a second beam from her other hand.

"The Power of Three will set us free, the power of Three will set us free, the Power of Three will set us free!"

In a flash of blinding light, The Seer's beam was deflected back at her, then shot out from her body in all directions, taking out every council leader one by one. Then The Seer herself was vanquished in a fiery blast, and with her The Source, for the third time.

The energy of soulless evil that had resided in The Seer's womb drifted through time and space for what seemed like an eternity. In that time, its hatred for The Charmed Ones, the witches who had thwarted him not once, but three times, multiplied in potency. But it wasn't beaten yet. It couldn't regain all its powers yet, but there was something it could do. Belthazor had done it; fed on power from other demons until he could return from the wasteland.

In time the demonic powers it fed on allowed it to constitute a new body, a younger and stronger one than any of its previous incarnations. It laughed insanely with its newfound mouth, the wind and rain tangling its long black hair, and whipping through its dark billowing cloak. Phoebe could see worst of all, those soulless grey eyes!

Phoebe gasped and lurched forward in her bed. She looked back and forth about her room frantically for the danger whose identity had just become clear. The room was empty, save for herself and Zack, who remained undisturbed in his place on the floor, snoring with gusto.

She held her hand to her chest trying to get her breathing under control. It wasn't him. It couldn't be him. But suddenly it all made sense, and she couldn't deny it. Everything from her premonition of The Seer two days ago, the Book of Shadows flipping to that particular entry, and the intimate knowledge he had about her and her sisters before they had even met.

The Source of all Evil had risen once more, and was aiming to get back what he had lost. Then their mortal enemy would be coming for them.