Charmed: The Return
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Chapter Four: Certainty
Sam Montana walked up the stairs leading into the Manor. The rain had subsided long enough for him to make it from his car to the door, before starting up again. He opened the door and took a deep breath. He could see Rachel's raincoat on the entrance table, as well as Chris' keys. He added his keys and jacket to the table and headed into the house to find his family.
He made his way up the stairs to the second floor when he heard the voice of his sister and some guy. He poked his head in her opened door. "Hey Ali. Where's Chris and Rachel?"
"Upstairs." in her normal, tough as nails attitude.
"Thanks. Who's your friend?" he asked kindly as he pushed the door opened and entered the room. His sister gave him looks of death.
"I'm Jerome Wallace." he said, not moving from his spot on her bed.
"Sam. Ali's older brother. Boyfriend?"
"No, Sam, he's just a friend from work. Is there something I can help you with?" she said tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear.
"No, Ali. I'll be upstairs if you need me, and maybe you can join us. If you aren't too busy." His eyes darted to Jerome.
"Will do." and with that Sam was gone.
"Sorry about that Jerome. He has issues, and lots of them." she apologized.
"It's okay. We all have our problems." he smiled and took her hand in his.
"Yeah, well he's a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Trust me, no one can compare to my charming brother."
"Well let's not worry about him." he reached in and kissed her, and she kissed back. Furiously.
Sam entered the attic and saw Chris and Rachel hovering over a potion. "So, what's the skinny?"
Chris immediately explained his case and the demon and Rachel took over about the potion they were making. "Oh, and that's it? Do we need all six of us?"
"It would be preferred, but only three can be necessary. I mean, three from the three bloodlines." Rachel said as she added an ingredient to the potion.
"So that would be the three of us. But I feel as if maybe we should have everyone here. It strengthens us, plus all the powers would be better. Have you met Jerome?"
"Yes." the two said in unison. Sam detected indifference from Chris and an Ick factor from Rachel.
"Interesting character, really."
"Sam, this is no time to be talking about your sister's taste in men, although it is an improvement over some of the guys she dated when we were in high school."
"Yeah, she was a problem child." Sam said as he read over the notes the two witches had taken on Jekyll.
"Like you weren't?" Rachel said to Sam. And Sam's eyes immediately fell on the floor and stared at this boots in shame.
"I'm sorry, I should not have said that. It was unfair."
"It's okay. Really. I've come to terms with my past. It's my future that I am more concerned with." he said waving the note pad of notes.
Sam had problems as a teenager. Growing up as one sixth of the most powerful offspring in the world had its challenges. Losing both parents at a fairly young age also had its traumatic effect. Sam would do everything his parents did not approve of. Drinking, smoking, and drugs, the three things all parents fear for this child. Sam was arrested when he was eighteen for DUI, and again at nineteen. He had his license suspended and enrolled into an alcohol rehab facility. He is an active member of AA and has been sober for the past four years.
"For this potion, won't we need demon flesh for it to work the way we want?" Sam asked, remembering his potion lessons, his Aunt Piper used to give them.
"Yeah, but we need to find him first. We're waiting for Wyatt to get home and start writing a spell for us, then we'll go after him."
"Wyatt's not coming home tonight." Sam said as he looked at the various ingredients on the table.
"What the hell do you mean?" Rachel asked annoyed.
"Wyatt didn't tell you? He was working with a client until six, then had to go to a dinner for his girlfriend, or something. I guess she's getting promoted."
"Wyatt never mentioned a girlfriend. I thought he was into the whole screw and ditch movement?" Chris said as he added a final ingredient.
"Well, he is. He met this girl last week, and I guess it's serious."
"You've got to be kidding me. We need him, he's the best spell writer in the family!" Chris exclaimed as his cell phone went off.
"Yeah, well we'll have to try." Rachel said as her cell phone went off as well. Chris dug in his pocket and pulled out his silver phone and Rachel pulled her black one out of her bag.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes." Chris said as he closed his flip-phone and hung his head in disbelief.
"Look Marcia, keep the god damn Tribune away from there now!" Rachel roared into her phone.
Chris and Sam looked up at her.
"Damn it. I'll be there in twenty-minutes. I want every thing accounted for Marcia." and she slammed her phone shut.
"Rachel, is everything alright?" Sam asked as he walked around the table they were working at and placed his hand on her shoulder.
"The paper got broken into. Can one of you give me a ride?" she asked, tears in her eyes and pain in her voice.
"I'll bring you. I'm on my way there now." Chris said, his green eyes leveling with her brown ones.
"Why? I didn't hear about any dead bodies being there."
"It's something else. Inspector Abridge won't tell me. Let's go."
"Are we orbing?" she asked.
"Yeah. Let's orb to a crime scene slash newspaper office. We might as well just wear tee shirts that say, 'Oh by the way, we're witches!'."
"Sorry, it was just a suggestion."
"Sam, while we're gone, finish the potion and perhaps get Ali up here to help you scry and start a summoning spell." Chris ordered as he and Rachel left the room.
Chris and Rachel drove in silence to the Bay Mirror. Chris had a pounding headache, and Rachel was a nervous wreck. They pulled up to the office and cops and yellow tape littered the outside entrance. Chris pulled his car over and the two got out. Chris went around to his trunk and pulled out his messenger bag and slung it across himself. Rachel grabbed her purse and placed it nicely on her shoulder as she brushed her blazer and started to walk forward, her shoes hitting the pavement.
The two approached the cop in charge of the tape. "I'm sorry, but this is a crime scene."
"Officer Davis," Chris said looking at the cop's name tag. "I'm Dr. Chris Halliwell, forensic anthropologist. I was called to this scene."
"I need to see some ID." he said. Chris rolled his eyes and pulled out his morgue ID and license and handed them to the cop, who stared for an awfully long time at the photos. "You're clear." Chris and Rachel started to walk through, when he placed his hand around Rachel's arm. "Not you, Missy."
"My name is Rachel Dean. I'm the owner of this paper." she said with dangerous eyes.
"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am." and he let go. Rachel nodded and went through the tape.
"How come I got carded?" Chris asked annoyed. "I used empathy on him." she said as she went through the glass doors and headed towards the elevator.
"Personal Gain." Chris said under his breath. The two got off at the second floor and saw the amount of people in the room. Forensic Investigators were fingerprinting and photographing. There were seventeen employees in an office being interrogated by police inspectors. Glass and broken wood littered the floor as long as papers strewn through the floor.
"Marcia!" Rachel yelled across the room in a angry voice. A short, plump black haired woman in her mid-forties crossed the room to where Chris and Rachel were standing.
"What do we know?" she asked sternly, her patience slowly going out the opened window.
"I don't know. We were all in Elise's office for a conference, and when we came out, everything was like this." Marcia said, visibly shaken and scared.
"Elise scheduled a conference? I own this paper and I am an employee as well. How come I didn't know about it and how the hell do you not hear desks and glass being broken?" Her brown eyes flashed an anger, Chris had never seen.
"I don't know." she looked at her worn gray pumps.
"Is anything missing?" her words perfectly annunciated.
"No."
Rachel sighed in relief, but her anger still had not dissipated. "Who is the inspector in charge of this?"
"Abridge. She's in the copy room."
"Thank you, Marcia." Rachel said and went on her way to the copy room. Chris following.
"Cassie, why am I here?" Chris asked as the inspector came into view. She looked over and shoulder and saw him and walked over to him, rather quickly. "Chris, you need to come look at this. You should come too." She said looking at Chris and Rachel.
Chris followed her and pulled on latex gloves as he walked. Rachel looked around the office and saw the disaster of the break in.
"Holy mother of god." Chris said as his eyes saw what was meant for him. On the wall in the copy room, smeared in red blood was the word, Jekyll.
"Chris. Is that who I think it is?" Rachel whispered to Chris, and all he did was nod.
"Has forensics been in here yet?"
"Yeah, finished about ten minutes ago. Pheno test confirms it human blood. They're sending it to DNA, top rush."
"Good. I want a sample for myself and some photographs. Can everyone clear the room?"
"Yeah. Okay, everyone out!" Everyone stared up at Cassie and followed her orders without any hesitation or defiance.
"You too, Cassie." and a look of anger flared onto her face, as she left and closed the door.
Once the coast was clear, "Okay, obviously this demon wants us to know he's watching us."
"Okay, but why not do it in a more subtle manner? I mean why do it in a case of yours and now a break in? What's next?" Rachel asked.
Through the glass of the copy room, Abridge was listening, but luckily for them didn't hear the word demon. She reached into her pocket and dialed a number on her cell phone and brought it up to her ear. "Hello? This is Inspector Cassie Abridge. I need everything you have on file for a Christopher Halliwell and Rachel Dean. Yes, top priority. Thank you." and she hung up and watched the two witches converse.
Sam was pacing the attic floor with a pad of paper and a pen in his hands. His face was etched with frustration and annoyance. He stopped pacing to see Ali standing in the doorway.
"Hi." she said as she looked at her brother. Her eyes were, for the first time since reuniting, kind. Her hair was pulled into a slick ponytail and her clothes were different. She had a long white flowing skirt on, and a black tank top.
"Hey." Sam smiled kindly.
"So, who's the demon and what do we need to do?"
"Is Jerome gone?"
"Yeah, he left ten minutes ago." her eyes still held that kindness. Sam started to tell Ali the story and about their possible solution.
"And how is the spell coming?"
"Horribly. I was never able to write spells. Aunt Phoebe tried to teach me constantly and I just never got it."
"Well, remember what she said? Spells are precise and require a certainty in the wording. In order to write a good spell, one must dig deep and find their certainty."
"I've spent half my life digging for certainty and it was never there."
"Sam, don't do that. Not now." Ali said placing her hand on his forearm.
"I wish I could be like you. You are so much like mom and dad. Strong willed and brave. I wish that things went different."
"I do too. But I've accepted what has happened and I've made the past five years a period of discovery and growth."
"So have I, but I fell so badly in the beginning and it sucked that I did not even have my sister to help me."
"You had me. You had all of us, we all did. We just chose to walk away from all of this. Magic, family, friends and our lives. We gave up so much just to find peace, and we found it and now we need to walk back through the door and accept everything we shunned, especially family. Magic will always be there, but family can come and go so quickly. I love you and I don't want to lose you again." tears emerged from her eyes.
"You never lost me. I lost me and now I finally think I've found me." he too was crying.
"I love you brother." she smiled as the two embraced. "I love you to Ali."
"Now let's get working on this spell." she said as she grabbed the pad of paper and made her way over to the table and pulled out a chair and sat down. Sam smiled and did the same.
Sorry the long delay in the updating. After watching the series finale tonight, I decided I needed to get this chapter up. So here it is! Enjoy and review!