Chapter Eight

Today you were wearing forget-me-not blue,

I held you and said, "I'll never forget you,"

You smiled at me and stroked my hair,

But you were never really there.

The reasons we wanted, the how and the why,

Turned into such curses: I wanted to cry,

But I've found the strength to stand up and say,

"I no longer feel that way."

"Prue, he killed Grams." Now I understood what had happened. I knew she had Spanish with him and he must have bragged a little too long – Piper doesn't break like other people. Piper gets pissed. I just looked at her: seeing how much she hated this thing and how far she was prepared to go to get revenge. "I want him gone, Prue. We're going home now and we're going to find something in that damn book and when we do he'll be sorry he was ever born."

"Okay, let's go get Phoebe," she nodded in agreement and we practically ran to the car.

"We need to see our sister Phoebe, please," Piper leaned over the front desk and I could tell she was trying really hard not to kill the woman behind it.

"I'm sorry, but unless a valid reason is provided children are not allowed to leave during school hours." She turned back to her computer and began typing calmly. I tugged on Piper's arm, pulling her toward me.

"Freeze her," I said quietly into her ear.

"But I don't know how! Last time was just really weird," she muttered back. The lady was beginning to give us suspicious glances so I smiled at her until she looked away.

"Just try." She stuck her tongue out at me but I just raised my eyebrows at her. She sighed and threw up her hands in the direction of the woman who froze instantly, along with the rest of the room. I couldn't help grinning. "Way to go, sis!" She just glared and tugged me along the hallway towards Phoebe's class.

Phoebe's POV

I was sitting in my Pre-Algebra class, my head resting on my hand. I was staring at the teacher, trying to listen but not succeeding. I suppressed a yawn and began tapping my pencil on the page of my open notebook.

I didn't even notice Piper walk into the classroom and talk to the teacher. I did notice her hands on my shoulders, shaking me.

"Phoebe. Phoebe. Pheebs, wake up! We need to talk for a minute. Outside." I looked up at her and saw the fear in her eyes. I nodded.

"Just leave your things, Miss Halliwell," Ms. Kearny said. "I trust you won't be long, Piper?"

"No, we'll just be a moment, Ms. Kearny," Piper told her, before dragging me out the door. Prue was leaning back against the wall in the classroom.

"What's up?" I asked. "Did something happen?"

"Santiago," Prue said. "He was bragging to Piper about how he was gonna kill us…blah, blah, blah. The point is he's the one that killed Grams, Pheebs. He pushed her down the stairs, put her in that coma, and made sure she died. I don't think he was sure our powers would come out but they sure as hell did."

"We have to find a way to vanquish him," I said. "There's gotta be a way."

"How?" Piper asked. "We're new to this. We have no idea what we're doing and nobody to teach us."

"We'll figure it out, honey," Prue said, putting her arm around Piper's shoulders. "There's gotta be a way."

"Wait, so you couldn't have called to relay this news?" I asked.

"We figured asking to speak with you over the phone would get us something along the lines of 'You'll have to wait until school's released, dears'."

"Didn't they give you something like that when you walked in and asked to see me?" I asked, still slightly surprised that they'd been let past the office. Then, it hit me. "Way to go, Piper!"

"Seems this stupid power actually comes in handy," she said with a smirk. She gently elbowed Prue. "But I can't take all the credit. It was Prue's idea."

"Well, then, kudos to both of you," I said. "Now I've gotta get back to class and you two should probably get back to school too."

"Probably. We signed out but we can only be gone for so long if none of us are sick or dying or something."

"Yeah, now go," I said, gesturing down the hallway. "We'll talk more at home. I promise." I hugged both of them. "We'll figure it out." Prue nodded and smiled. Piper mimicked her actions. "Together."

"Yeah, together," Piper repeated, a genuine smile crossing her lips.

"Together," Prue said. I smiled up at them, proud to be their sister. Who wouldn't be?

"Okay, enough corniness," I said. Prue laughed out loud. "Go. Seriously. You stay any longer and Ms. Kearny's gonna get mad. You think she's bitchy now? Watch her get angry."

"I remember," Piper said. "Luckily, I was never the one she got mad at." She hugged me once more. "See you later, Pheebs." She took hold of Prue's arm and proceeded to lead her down the hallway toward the school's main doors.

"Consider yourself lucky," I said softly, watching them leave.

When Prue and Piper came to pick me up, I'd already formed an idea on how to vanquish Truco, alias Santiago. Through the day, since the two of them had come to see me, I kept remembering the spirit board and what Mom had written on the back of it.

The power of three will set you free.

That had to mean something. The line before that had. It had clued us in on The Book of Shadows, which in turn had helped us discover Truco. Too bad a spell to get rid of him hadn't come along with his description. But that line…that was our vanquish. I knew it. I just knew it.

"Phoebe, you in there?" I looked up and saw that we were back at the Manor. Prue was looking at me, concern showing plainly in her eyes.

"I'm fine," I assured her. "I've just been thinking…well, I'll tell you inside." Prue nodded and all three of climbed out of the car and went in the house. Prue pulled Piper and I into the living room. She and Piper settled on one couch, nestled together, and I sat next to them in an armchair.

"I think the rest of Mom's note on the spirit board means something," I said. "It has to." I grabbed it off where Piper had left it on the coffee table. "Look. 'The power of three will set you free.' It sounds like part of a spell. Or, at least it rhymes."

Prue sat up, trying to detangle herself from Piper, who was trying to hold her back at the same time. Prue whispered something in her ear and Piper sat up so quickly, it looked like she'd been physically shocked.

"I think you're right," Prue said, taking the spirit board out of my hand. "With no spell in the Book, this is the only way to defeat him. Do you think we use the entire message or…?"

"No. Just the one line," I said. "If we say it together, since it says the power of three, we may be able to defeat him. Of course, I'm just guessing here but…it feels…right, to me. What about you guys?"

Piper leaned forward to read it over Prue's shoulder. Her eyes locked with mine for a moment before she looked back at the board, then back at me.

"Yeah," she said. "I agree. It's our only option so far and it just seems to make the most sense, the way you phrase it, Pheebs. Even if it's wrong, what's the worst he can do?"

"Kill us," Prue said quietly. "He could kill us." We were all silent for a moment, thinking of Grams and Mom – or at least I was. "Phoebe, it didn't list the powers he stole, did it?"

"Nope," I replied. "Just said he'd stolen them from witches around the world. He probably wants ours, too. And we have to stop him." Piper stared at me, I felt so worried that this would be it, that she would break but instead I saw the steel return to her eyes and I couldn't help but smile.

There was a huge bang and a gush of wind blasted its way into the house – someone had smashed the door down.

"Come out, come out wherever you are!" Truco was here.

Piper's POV

"Took you long enough." He was standing in the doorway to our living room and I couldn't feel a thing: just anger. I stood up and reached for my sisters, they took my hands and I saw an expression of fear pass over Santiago's – Truco's – face.

"Don't you want to know what you are?" He spoke slightly faster than usual, I could tell he had realized that he was going to lose and was trying to put of the inevitable. I decided that we might as well get something good out of this.

"Oh, and what's that?" I raised my eyebrows at him and I could tell that he didn't think of us as bunch of high school girls anymore- I didn't feel like one either.

"You…are the Charmed Ones," he replied, almost reverently.

"Well, that's a load of crap," Prue announced, decisively. "Let's just finish this."

"Wait." Phoebe let go of my hand and walked slowly over to Truco. "What do you mean?" He just grinned, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around so that his arm was around her neck. He looked at us, smiling before he vanished. He was just…gone. And he had taken Phoebe.