Legacy: Ghost of the Past

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Six: Walking into a Trap

"You know, if we just keep walking around here in circles, then we're never going to find out anything," Susan told Bobby as he took her around another bend. He ignored her. "Look, our best bet is going to be in your dad's office, Bobby, that'll be where he keeps the important stuff so nobody figures out what he's up to unless they go looking someplace where they're not supposed to be."

"For the record, you're not supposed to be here at all," Bobby said grumpily. Then he sighed. "Look, I'm just a little concerned, okay? What if this happens to be a trap?"

Susan chuckled. "Honey, it can always be a trap," she told him. Bobby smiled slightly. "But we're not going to find out anything just by walking around here. If we're going to know what your dad is up to, then we're going to need to get the information he has here."

"Which means going into his office," Bobby sighed as he came to a stop, glancing towards the door that lay in front of him. Susan peered around the corner and saw a woman that was probably Peter's secretary sitting at the desk outside, working on something.

"Bobby, if you're worried that he's going to find out you're helping us—"

"I'm not," Bobby said softly. She glanced at him. "I'm not worried about me, Susan. I'm worried about you."

She stared at him, slightly touched by his concealed affection for her. It was hard to find, but she knew that it was there. He was a good kid, despite having such a father and his mother under a spell to keep them both there and forced to work for demons. If he had been born into a different life, then he would undoubtedly be much happier and not so . . . cautious about doing the right thing.

Susan sighed as she faced him, placing her hands onto his shoulders, forcing Bobby to look at her. "Bobby, listen to me," she told him as he looked at her straight into the eyes. And there was that odd look in them as he did so. She had never been able to understand it and didn't today. But he got that same look every time he looked at her straight in the eyes. "Nothing is going to happen to me, all right? I am not going to die today or anytime soon, because I have too much to live for. Nobody is going to be dying today. And if you want to know something, I'm more worried about you," she added. "I'm scared for you, because if your dad is everything that you say he is, then I'm scared what he'll do to you if he ever finds out you're helping us."

Bobby managed a weak smile. "I guess we're just a couple of people who just care too much for others," he said. She chuckled. "All right, I'm going to sneak into the office and see if anybody's in there," he said. "Will you be able to hear me if I call you from in there?"

Susan wondered if that was true; she was only one-fourth Whitelighter and she rarely used her Whitelighter powers. Would she be able to hear him? "I'll try," she told him.

Though he looked severely worried, Bobby stepped into the shadows. Susan watched in amazement as his body vanished into it, letting him disappear into it and move silently and easily through the shadows. The secretary glanced up, as though she had sensed his passing, but shook her head, dismissing it as she returned to what she was doing. Susan could've sworn she saw him slip through the door, but it was only for a second and she was sure she imagined it.

Susan glanced around her, to see if anybody was watching that could've seen what had happened, but there was nobody there and she couldn't sense anybody. Listening carefully, Susan almost jumped when she heard Bobby's voice say, "Susan."

Looking both ways, Susan closed her eyes in concentration, concentrating on Bobby's presence as she orbed to him. The moment that she materialised, she grabbed hold of the desk, trying to regain her composure.

"Sorry," she said to a bemused Bobby, "it's been awhile since I've done that on my own."

"Letting your Whitelighter powers go to waste?" Bobby said in mock exasperation as he walked over to his father's desk and opened it. Susan walked around the desk to join him as her eyes caught sight of a picture of Peter and his family on the desk.

"That's her," she said, picking it up. Bobby glanced at the picture and froze. "She's the woman who attacked us a couple months ago." Susan looked at Bobby quickly. "This is your mother?"

"Yeah," Bobby said softly.

"That's strange," Susan muttered. "I thought she was my stepmother, because she thought that I was my mother when she attacked. Did your parents know my mother?"

"I don't know," Bobby answered, a little too quickly, she noticed. "Maybe. But I think we should just find the stuff and go, before anybody finds out that we're here. Hey, look at this," he said suddenly, picking up a file from the drawer and unfolding this. Susan glanced down at the papers and the photos that were inside of it.

"Photos and information on us?" Susan murmured, peering over Bobby's shoulder to stare at it. "Why would he want this for?"

"I don't know, but take a look at this," Bobby said as he found an old parchment torn out of a book. "At the birth of the twenty-first century, there will be five children born within the first ten years of its life. Two sons of the second daughter of sisters three. A nymph born to witches. The child of a fallen witch. A light from the shadows. Each is strong on their own, but together they are the key to destroying That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named—that's all that is says," he cut off, looking up at her. "Half of the page is missing."

"The child of a fallen witch," Susan whispered, a tremor filling through her. "That's what that demon Aisling called me, but she said 'daughter' instead of 'child'." Bobby nodded, his gaze fixed on the paper. "The sons of the second daughter of sisters three," she said, pointing to the first line. "That's Wyatt and Chris—their mom was their grandmother's second child and she and her sisters are the Charmed Ones."

"Right," Bobby agreed, looking pale. "And this nymph born to witches . . . that would be Brooke?" She nodded, not liking the sound of this at all. "But who is the light from the shadows?"

Susan shook her head as she took the parchment. "That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named," she said slowly. "What is that?"

Bobby shook his head as he flicked through the other pages, which were all on plain, modern paper. "Hey, look at this," he said, opening it to Chris's page. She looked down at it and saw the name that was circled on the paper. Her stomach inwardly tightened as she saw it, her face going pale. "Who's Bianca Malone?"

Susan said nothing as her hands shook slightly and her face went pale, her mind flashing back to earlier that day, when Wyatt had mentioned Chris's demonic ex-girlfriend in passing.

"Who's Bianca?" she asked Chris once Wyatt had left the room, looking at him in bewilderment. Chris looked like a fox caught in the headlights as he looked at her.

"She, uh . . . she was a girl that I dated a while back," he said simply. "Don't worry about it, it's nothing."

"Chris . . ." Susan sighed. "How long is it going to take us to be honest with one another?"

With a small sigh, Chris raised his head to look at her. "Bianca was a demon that was sent to kill me and Wyatt. I didn't know she was a demon at the time, but we had to vanquish her."

"Oh, gods," Susan muttered as she shoved the parchment into her pocket. "Bobby, put it back." He stared at her. "I know what he's going to do and we need to get out of here, now."

"Why?" Bobby was bewildered, though he did exactly as she told him to, obviously worried about whatever showed on her face due to the amount of fear and panic that was racking through her mind. "What is it?" he asked her. "What's going on?"

"He's going to summon Chris's ex-girlfriend back from the dead," Susan told him as she grabbed Bobby's hand, concentrating on orbing out. But just as soon as she tried, she realised that there was something very wrong and she looked at Bobby fearfully.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't orb," she said, panicking as a low chuckle emerged from behind them and both witches whirled around.

"No, you can't," Peter Connelly said with a smirk. "Although I must admit, I'm impressed, Susan, I didn't think you'd actually figure it out. But don't worry," he told her. "I still have enough heart to make sure you and your boyfriend end up together . . . forever, in the afterlife."

Susan was frozen, not because of what Peter Connelly said, but because the moment she saw him, memories started flooding back.

She remembered. She remembered everything, as how it had been. Ever since the accident, she had thought that there was some kind of lock around her memories of that night, but had assumed it was caused by grief.

No, it was no accident. There had been no car accident. Peter Connelly had come to her house that night, killed her mother, her brother. He had transformed her memories, making her think that it was an accident so that he could get away with it.

Get away with murder.

But before she could say anything—if she could even figure out what she wanted to say—Susan felt her head start to hurt and the room spun around her and she suddenly became aware of just how closer the floor was than it had been the minute before.

She heard Bobby shout her name and felt him turning her over, his face filled with pure terror as her vision became clouded. Then she realised that she wasn't conscious of much else as her eyelids fluttered closed and Susan slipped into a state of unconsciousness.

--

Chris and Wyatt orbed into the law firm that Susan had told Chris they were at, looking for both Susan and Bobby as they searched through the building. "Where could they be at?" Wyatt said, his hands flexing and un-flexing as they reached the top of the building.

Peering around the corner, Chris saw that Peter Connelly's office was just ahead, guarded only by one demon posing as his secretary. "All right, here what we need to do," he said, looking around towards his brother. But Wyatt was gone.

Whirling around, Chris saw Wyatt ahead of him, walking straight into view of the secretary. "Hey, you can't go in there!" the secretary shouted as she stood up. "Stop! I'll call security!"

"Go ahead," Wyatt said carelessly. "Call security." He didn't even look remotely intimidated as he walked past her and pushed open the door to the office and entered the room. She hesitated, but finally let him go, not bothering to carry out her threat to call security.

Chris let out a sigh, half-exasperated with his brother's carelessness and half-admiring his boldness, and looked around at his surroundings. When he was sure that it was clear, he orbed out of the hallway, materialising in the closed office.

"What the . . ." he said when the scene met his eyes before him.

Peter Connelly was sitting calmly at his desk, the Grimoire laying open in front of him. Wyatt was being held back by demons, a knife held at his throat. Susan was lying unconscious on the floor, Bobby kneeling down next to her while demons stood all around them, fireballs at the ready. Chris looked around as demons started surrounding them.

"Welcome, young Halliwell," Connelly remarked. "I'm grateful that you got our invitation." The demons around them chuckled and he stood up, walking over to Chris. "It's amazing how much trouble young people can be. I'm certain I didn't cause as much trouble when I was your age."

"What did you do to her?" Chris demanded, his eyes fixed on his girlfriend's prone body. She was still breathing, he saw with some relief. It was only that comfort that caused him not to start vanquishing demons left and right.

Which, of course, would be extremely difficult, seeing as he only had one working arm right now.

"Now, Mr. Halliwell, you have two choices. You can try and attempt an escape, in which my demons are prepared to kill your girlfriend and your brother should you do so," Connelly told him. "Or you can empty your pockets of the potions and lay them down, slowly, and let me get what I need from you. Once the spell is finished, then you all go free."

"Chris, don't!" Bobby yelled at him. "You can't trust him!"

"Shut your mouth, son," Connelly told him, still watching Chris. "And you can trust this: I will get what I need from you, one way or another. And if I have to do it by force, then all of you will die. And just so you know, you can't orb out of this room. There's no way you'd make it out of the room alive."

There was a long pause and then Chris slowly pulled the potions from his pockets, laying them silently at his feet.