Chapter Twenty-Two: The King of Thieves
The Charmed Ones reached the first floor just as two deadly, green rays pulverized the ancient entrance doors.
The girls unconsciously cringed at the loss but their minds were instantly brought back to the matter at hand when Ava Nicolai, their five-years friend, stepped through the dust and destroyed frame – the only remainder of the once grand doors.
"Ava, please," Piper begged, raising a hand helplessly toward the midwife who had helped her through a pregnancy she had believed she could never be blessed with.
A deadly jet pierced the air and would have done Piper's hand, if not for Billie, who repelled the attack with her own hand, palm toward Ava.
The green current crashed into the banister, leaving a hole.
Piper turned her head long enough to see the blonde witch and her two friends. "Leave this to us," she couldn't help to command, already turned back to the Gypsy woman.
"You're welcome," Billie grumbled heading for the stairs, Taylor and Amos in tow. She could hear Phoebe whisper, "Piper, careful. There's something off here; I don't think this is truly her."
"It's no time for guesses, Pheebs," Paige replied.
Billie couldn't hear the rest as she jogged up the steps, her friends following.
As she quickly crossed the second floor hallway, a very distinct thud that had nothing to do with the fight downstairs halted her course. The others mimicked her. She closed her eyes, focusing her hearing, and there, over the sizzling of air as more green rays were launched and furniture was broken, she heard footsteps, then another thud, from upstairs.
The three's puzzled eyes met. A muffled triumphant cry resounded then. Billie resumed her course, this time at an advanced run.
Opening the attic door with her power, Billie raced in just in time to see Brooks tear a page from the obviously very reluctant Book of Shadows – it glowed a fierce golden hue. Brooks' face was blissful, although contorted in pain; the book was definitely trying to defend itself.
"Couldn' help yerself, could yeh?" Amos hissed at his old-time friend and foe. "Thiev'ry's yer secon' skin, innit?"
Everything happened in a heartbeat. Amos pulled an athamé from his belt and threw it; Brooks swiftly caught it in mid-course; he smirked and slit his own throat open. As blood oozed, Brooks' body collapsed to the floor, another figure remaining behind on his steak.
Donned in black from head to toe, his skin an olive tinge, the Possessor demon still wore the mocking smirk he had forced onto Brooks' face, and carried the Book he had caught with Brooks' hands.
Taylor gasped. She tried to run forward but Billie caught her arm and restrained her.
From the corner of her eyes, Billie saw Amos clench his teeth and narrow his eyes. She knew he was using his telepathy to do something on the demon. Well, she might as well not stand there and do nothing herself, she thought.
She TK'ed the Book and the torn page out of his clutches and recognized the thud the volume made when it landed on the floor: so it had put up a fight.
A gasp startled her. She turned and saw Amos falling, unconscious, behind her. The Possessor's smirk grew. He flicked his middle finger and his thumb together and the torn page flew in between the two.
"I don't think so," Billie growled, pushing him in a wall. Instantly, the whole house shook, as though the blow had been ten times stronger than it actually were. Must be a hell of a fight, downstairs, she thought. Still the idea that her power could have done that made her shiver on the spot where she had fallen from the quake.
"No you don't!" she heard Taylor screech not far away. But the energy wave that shot through the attic only met thin air – and eventually the wall, which blew up in scattered splinters. The Possessor had shimmered out with the page.