Chapter One: A Partial Glimpse

An Elder.

A freaking Elder.

He wanted to start swearing. In fact, he probably would have started, uttering every possible curse that came to mind, except for Lola. He couldn't swear in front of a woman. It didn't matter that she was a demon, and that she probably knew far more colorful language than he ever would. It didn't matter that he despised her with every fiber of his being. It didn't matter that, if there was ever a time to swear, it would have been right at that moment, at the exact point in time when he discovered that one of the ultimate paragons of Good was going to turn his brother evil.

His mother had raised him to watch his language around women, and so he kept his lips pressed tightly together and fought back the urge to curse.

But still… an Elder?

Lucifer was reclining on a leather sofa in yet another lavish and decadent Underworld haunt. Lola was standing behind him, her lips quirked into that smirk that seemed to be forever plastered to her features. Both of them were staring at Chris, and Lucifer had raised an eyebrow as if to ask, Well, what did you expect?

An Elder.

No way. No freaking way. This wasn't possible.

And yet…

Lucifer might be all powerful, but he had rules he had to follow as well. And one of them was that he couldn't lie.

"Did you get what you wanted?" Lucifer asked.

Chris was silent for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. It wasn't enough, he realized with a jolt. Lucifer might be able to give him a few meager details, but it wasn't nearly enough. He didn't know when the Elder would go after Wyatt and he didn't know how he would succeed in turning the Twice Blessed evil. More importantly, he didn't know if the Elder was working alone.

What if he wasn't? What if multiple Elders were after Wyatt?

But none of it even made sense. It still didn't explain why an Elder would want to turn Wyatt evil.

"I need more," he said finally, looking at Lucifer. "I need answers. All of them. Not just these… these cryptic hints."

"Cryptic hints?" Lucifer repeated, a definite mocking tone to his voice. "You asked to know who turns your dear little Wyatt Halliwell evil, and I told you. That's hardly a cryptic hint."

"But it doesn't make any sense!" Chris snapped.

"Are you accusing me of lying?" Lucifer questioned, bemused. "Now, now, white-lighter, I thought you knew better than that."

Chris exhaled in frustration and turned away from the devil and the sorceress. His head hurt. It was throbbing painfully, as though someone was repeatedly stabbing him in the forehead with a red-hot knife. He needed to sleep. He desperately needed to sleep. But how could he do that now, when he was so close to succeeding?

Then a depressing thought occurred to him. He still had to deal with the Charmed Ones and Leo. They hardly trusted him now, and even though Leo had expressed some small level of belief in his words after the incident with the Order, it wouldn't be enough. They would never believe that an Elder was after Wyatt, particularly given the source of the information.

So what was he supposed to do? March back into the Manor and inform them that the devil had told him not to trust the Elders?

Somehow, he didn't think that would go over to well.

Particularly given the identity of the Elder…

He spun around to face Lucifer once more. "At least tell me if Gideon is working alone," he said, half-requesting, half-demanding.

Lucifer smirked and remarked sardonically, "Aren't you a bit demanding for a boy who spent so long refusing my help?" He leaned forward, gazing intently at Chris. "You should learn to open up a bit more. You're so closed off, Christopher. It is quite a problem."

"Open up?" Chris repeated disbelievingly. "A paragon of Good is going to try to turn my brother evil and you think my problem is that I'm not trusting enough?"

Lucifer shook his head and sighed. "So stubborn," he said in mock disappointment. "Kids these days…"

Chris felt an almost uncontrollable desire to punch the devil in the face. Lucifer was providing him with the answers he had desperately sought. Lucifer was giving him a chance to stop this, to save his family and the rest of the world. But he was smirking the whole damn time, and Chris wanted nothing more than to wipe that self-satisfied expression off the devil's face.

And Lucifer could tell this. "Temper, temper," he chided. "You wouldn't want to do anything rash, would you?"

He was clearly getting quite a bit of amusement out of the entire situation.

Chris clenched his hands into fists and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"You wanted to know who turned Wyatt Halliwell evil, and I provided the information," Lucifer said, rising to his feet. "I've upheld my end of the bargain. What you do with this information is now entirely up to you." And without another word, he was gone.

Chris closed his eyes. Either Lucifer didn't know anything else – and that seemed remarkably unlikely – or he knew more but was holding his cards in a closed hand, unwilling to let go of all of his secrets quite yet. He still had the upper hand and he knew it.

Who knew the kind of damage the devil could do with the information he still had locked away?

"Darling," he heard Lola murmur, and he opened his eyes to see her standing directly in front of him, "don't look so glum."

He glared at her. "I still don't know how…" he started, but Lola cut him off.

"You didn't ask how. You asked who." The sorcerers trailed the tips of her fingers down his chest. "And he told you who. So now you know quite a bit more than you did before. There's no reason to be so grumpy."

He shoved her away. "Get out, Lola," he snarled.

She tilted her head to the side. "As you wish," she answered softly, and shimmered away.

As soon as she was out of the room, Chris curled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the wall. He felt the sudden crunch of his bones as they hit the stone with incredible force, and looked down in time to see blood seep out from the broken skin on his knuckles.

An Elder.

A freaking Elder.

She knew she was overreacting. Everyone kept telling her that – Leo included. She had redecorated Wyatt's entire nursery, replacing anything red or black with shades of light blue and soft yellow. She'd even insisted on repainting the walls a lemon cream color in the hopes that this would somehow inspire her son to be warm and happy all the time.

Wasn't yellow supposed to be a happy color?

She didn't want to believe Chris. The white-lighter had done nothing but lie and manipulate them since his arrival, and for him to spout something as preposterous as Wyatt turning evil… It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

But it was. She had felt it, felt this heavy truth settling onto her chest as Chris uttered those hated words. And she'd known then – even if it would take a lot longer for her accept it – that her baby boy was going to become the Source of All Evil.

She didn't want to believe it, but that didn't make it any less true.

Which was why she had redecorated Wyatt's nursery, and it was why she was now flipping through a parenting magazine, reading an article on how to teach children not to bully others. The child in the article had shoved another child into the sandbox and stolen a toy doll, and that wasn't anywhere near the same thing as taking over the world, but she didn't know where else to turn. Who could give her guidance on this?

"Piper?"

The Halliwell matriarch looked up at the sound of her name. Phoebe had entered the sunroom and was giving her an odd look.

"Are my emotions too loud for you?" Piper asked with a heavy sigh. It would have been so easy to make that remark sound snide and even petulant, but she knew just how much stress was currently present in the house, and she had seen the burden it was placing on Phoebe, even after they had taken the empathy-blocking potion. Her middle sister seemed to be getting quite a bit less sleep than usual, and there were dark circles underneath her eyes.

But Phoebe just waved off the concern and sat down across from Piper. "Do you want to talk about anything?" she asked tentatively.

"Let me guess," Piper said tiredly, "Leo's worried that I've gone off the deep end and sent you to talk to me. Again."

"Well, I think he'd like to talk to you himself, sweetie, but last time he tried, you threatened to blow him up," Phoebe replied pointedly.

"He said I was overreacting. All I wanted to do was get rid of those stupid red shoes that…"

"That Leo gave to Wyatt just a few weeks ago?" Phoebe cut in. "And the red fireman's hat that he bought…"

Piper snorted. She had a feeling Leo didn't mind her getting rid of that one as much, even if he had been the one to buy it for Wyatt. After all, he'd gotten it before he'd known about Greg, and now that she was dating a fireman, he likely didn't want Wyatt owning anything that reminded him of that particular profession.

But the shoes were a different story. Leo had gotten them for Wyatt, and Wyatt did seem to like them, and she had decided to get rid of them…

And Leo had been upset about that.

"They're just a pair of shoes," Phoebe said after a moment. "They aren't what turns Wyatt."

"You don't know that!" Piper snapped, her patience wearing thin. "We don't… we don't know anything! All we know is that my only child turns evil! How can I…" She rubbed her eyes, sagging against the sofa. "What kind of mother am I?"

"This isn't your fault," Phoebe said firmly.

But Piper didn't believe that. How could she? After all, she was Wyatt's mother. It was her job to protect him, to teach him, to help him grow into his destiny, and somehow she had failed at all of that.

Maybe she just wasn't cut out to be a mother.

Before she could voice any more concerns, however, the air was filled with the sounds of chimes and blue and white lights appeared. They coalesced a moment later, forming Chris.

Piper glared at him.

He took a step back from the heat of her gaze, and quickly shifted his attention to Phoebe. But her expression matched Piper's, though there was slightly less hostility.

He cleared his throat. "Good, you're both here. Is Paige around?"

"No, she has a temp job or something," Piper replied coolly. "What do you want, Chris?"

After the disaster with the Order, she had only very reluctantly allowed him back into her house, mostly due to Leo's persuasion. She didn't want to see him; she hadn't been lying or even exaggerating when she told him that. But Leo seemed to think that he could be trusted – or, at least, that his good intentions should be trusted – and had convinced her to give him access to the Book.

She had agreed, but she hadn't been happy about it.

She didn't blame him for telling them about Wyatt, though she knew that he believed she did. At the time, she had been furious with him for what he had said, but once the truth had really sunk in, once she realized that that had not been a lie, she had stopped being angry with him for his words. She knew better than to blame the messenger just because she didn't like the message.

But all his manipulations, trying to get them to bind Wyatt's powers… the lies he had told for the first several months he'd been here… not to mention the fact that she was fairly certain Leo was right, and Chris was responsible for sending him to Valhalla…

She blamed him for all of that, and she had no intention of forgiving him any time soon.

Chris looked uneasy, and he ran a hand through his hair, then he said, "I've heard some… rumors. In the… the Underworld."

"Ah, yes," Piper said sarcastically, "let's trust the demons. That always works out well."

"They were right about the Order," Chris said, and then immediately looked as though he wished he hadn't brought it up. Piper narrowed her gaze at him, and Phoebe's expression hardened. Chris looked away, then said quickly, almost desperate to change the subject, "I don't think we should discount the rumors."

Piper had a very different point of view on that subject, and would have launched into a litany of reasons why trusting demons was never a good idea, but Phoebe spoke up before she could say anything.

"What are the rumors?"

"They're saying that… well, that an Elder has been in the Underworld. Dealing with demons."

Piper laughed, although the sound seemed hollow even to her own ears. "An Elder?" she repeated. "You think an Elder turned evil? That's insane."

She might not be among the Elders biggest fans, particularly after Leo had left her to join them, but she couldn't believe that any of them would turn. They were the leaders of Good, dedicated to helping the innocent. They could be conniving, judgmental, and demanding, but they simply weren't evil.

Besides, if one turned, wouldn't the others sense it? Wouldn't they notice? And why was Chris the only one hearing these rumors? If an Elder really was wandering through the Underworld making deals with evil, everyone would be talking about it. She would have heard these rumors by now.

"It's not insane, Piper," Chris defended himself. "Think about it. If an Elder turns, becomes evil, then Evil gains an incredibly powerful ally, but they also gain an ally that Good inherently trusts. And that's what they need to get to Wyatt. A demon would have to fight its way past the three of you to get to Wyatt, but an Elder… you'd never suspect him. He could just walk into Wyatt's nursery and…"

"Don't be ridiculous," Piper dismissed him.

"I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. Instead of looking for the real threat to Wyatt, you're wasting all of our time with these absurd theories," Piper argued. "We don't have time for this, Chris."

"Can't you just trust me?" Chris asked sharply.

This time it was Phoebe who answered. "Trust you?" she repeated incredulously. "Trust you?"

"Don't you think it is a little late for that?" Piper added bitterly. "We tried to trust you. We defended you to Leo every time he accused you of being responsible for sending him to Valhalla or whatever other wrong thing he thought you did, and it turned out that he was probably right all along. You aren't trustworthy."

"This is Wyatt! This is your son. You can't just not investigate this rumor. Something is going to get to him, corrupt him. Don't you care?"

Piper was out of her seat before she could stop herself, her hand raised to strike Chris. He froze, eyes widening in fear, hurt, and resignation at her action, and that odd combination of emotions, more than anything else, was what made her restrain herself from slapping him.

Chris stared at her warily as she dropped her arm.

"Don't you dare accuse me of not caring about my son," Piper said in a low, venomous voice. "Don't you dare."

"I-I'm… sorry," Chris stammered, eyes switching between Piper's livid expression and Phoebe's look of disdain.

"Get out, Chris. Just get out," Piper spat.

Chris obeyed instantly, disappearing in a swirl of blue and white lights.

Piper sank back onto the sofa and buried her head in her hands.

It was misty. The white of Up There was omnipresent – in the marble floor and columns, in the ornate doors and arches, in the fog that swirled around everything. Even the white-lighters wore white robes over their clothing, the heavy uniform hiding any color that might have shown through.

Only the Elders' golden robes stood out against the backdrop of white.

It was into this expanse of white dotted with the occasional gold that Leo orbed. He wasn't wearing his traditional golden robes, and had no intention of putting them on, so his jeans and flannel shirt made him seem very out of place. He didn't mind that, though, because despite the few months he had spent as an Elder, despite the fact that he truly believed this was his calling, he still didn't feel quite right in this role.

He didn't like the looks of awe that were directed his way by members of the magical community, didn't like the deference white-lighters used when they spoke to him, and really did not like the fact that Piper had now lumped him in with all the other Elders, with beings she so frequently couldn't stand.

An Elder approached him. She was female, and she gave his jeans a disapproving look, but did not comment.

"Aravis," he said by way of greeting.

"Leo," she replied. "Walk with me."

Leo obeyed the request and fell into step along side her. She was silent for a while, refusing to speak as they passed by a clump of white-lighters. Whatever she had to say was not something she wanted many others to know, and that worried Leo.

A lot of things worried him.

Clearly, a lot of things worried Aravis, too. Her expression was grim, and there were lines of anxiety on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes.

After some more silence, she finally said, "We have heard a troubling rumor."

"Oh?" Leo prompted. They always heard troubling rumors. In fact, it was part of their job. Most information the Elders received and synthesized came from rumors, most of which originated in the less savory parts of the Underworld. In some ways, they were little more than gossiping teenagers, and wasn't that just ironic?

"If it is true," Aravis continued, "we may be facing a problem unlike any that we have experienced in a long time."

"Worse than the Titans?" Leo asked, surprised.

"Far worse," Aravis said grimly. She paused, and turned to face Leo completely. He stopped as well, and waited for her to say something, but she remained silent.

"Well?" he pushed, feeling frustrated. Why couldn't she just tell him what she'd heard? Why did Elders always have to be so annoyingly cryptic?

Aravis tucked a few strands of hair behind one ear and adjusted the hood of her golden robe. She looked older than most Elders, and Leo knew that she was older than them, too. Some said she was one of the first Elders ever, and although Leo doubted that was true, he didn't doubt that she had been around for a long time.

And she was afraid. She had lived through multiple Sources, through the Titans and other Greek gods, through various attacks on the Heavens… and this – whatever it was – scared her.

"Aravis," he said anxiously, "what is it? What have you heard?"

"Lucifer has risen."

"Lucifer? You mean… the devil? Satan? The fallen angel who rebelled against God? He's real?" Paige asked skeptically, leaning against the wall of the attic and folding her arms over her chest.

Leo nodded.

Paige glanced over at the Book of Shadows resting on the podium in the center of the attic. "Is he in the Book?"

"Paige, he more than predates the Book. He predates the written word," Leo replied. "He predates the spoken word."

"Of course he does," Paige muttered sourly.

"How is it even possible to predate the spoken word?" Phoebe demanded. "People could speak long before they could write. All they had do was make sounds."

"He predates language," Leo explained.

"So, if there is a devil, does that mean there is also a God?" Piper asked from her spot on the worn pink sofa.

"Well, we know that there is a higher power," Phoebe reasoned. "After all, the Elders exist."

"But the Elders aren't God," Piper replied. "We also know that there is an angel of Destiny…"

"Actually, there are multiple angels of Destiny," Leo interrupted.

"…but I don't really think he's God, either," Piper finished, ignoring Leo's comment. "So is there one all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful being that is responsible for the creation of the world and mankind and all that?"

"I thought you believed in God," Phoebe said, glancing at Piper in confusion. "You spent so much time being afraid you were evil and would be unable to enter a church when we first got our powers, remember? Remember when Pastor Williams told you that the Bible said you should kill all witches…?"

"Thou shall not suffer a witch to live," Piper murmured. It had been a long time since she had thought about those first few nerve-wracking weeks of being a witch. Phoebe was right; she had been terrified that being given these supernatural powers meant that she was evil. But time had passed and she'd seen true evil, and she had stopped worrying about her own morality.

"I wonder what Lucifer looks like," Paige said thoughtfully. "Do you think he has cloven hooves and horns?"

"Maybe… maybe he's a shape-shifter and can take on any form he chooses," Phoebe suggested.

"This still doesn't answer the question of whether or not there is a God," Piper interjected.

"We need to focus on what Lucifer is actually doing, not what he may or may not look like," Leo said, breaking into the conversation with a slight edge to his voice. He was used to the sisters interspersing random bits of information about their personal lives into all their conversations about magic, and he had never minded it before. He knew part of their strength lay in the fact that they could bond both as sisters and as powerful witches. But this was different.

Lucifer was different.

Piper gave him a look, one of those that reminded him quite clearly that he was no longer her husband or white-lighter.

"Lucifer is dangerous," he said.

"We could use the same Power of Three spell we used on the Source," Paige suggested. "The magic of the entire Halliwell line should be enough to vanquish him. Right?"

"No," Leo said bluntly, shaking his head. "It's not. It won't be. You can't vanquish him."

"Ugh, does that mean we need to turn into goddesses again?" Phoebe asked with a note of complaint in her voice. "Because I did not like that."

"I don't know," Paige said slyly, "you seemed to be enjoying yourself at that bachelor auction."

Phoebe flushed scarlet.

"Well, seeing as I very nearly lost my humanity," Piper said, "I'm with Phoebe. Let's avoid turning into goddesses."

"You aren't taking this seriously enough!" Leo said angrily, frowning at each of the sisters in turn. Piper was still giving him that look, and now both Phoebe and Paige were scowling at him as well.

"Leo, chill," Paige said softly, a hint of surprise in her voice at the vehemence that had been in his tone. Leo had always been the far more serious member of their family, although their new white-lighter was even more extreme in his dedication to fighting evil. But it had been a long time since she had seen Leo look this put out, and it bothered her. It was almost as though he was turning into Chris.

Phoebe, who had known Leo longer, found herself thinking of the Leo they had known years ago, back before he and Piper were married. He'd been more a stickler for rules then, but he'd never gotten this angry with them.

Leo ran a hand through his hair. "Lucifer can't be vanquished," he said.

"What do you mean he can't be vanquished?" Piper asked. "That's not possible. No demon is completely invulnerable…" she turned to her sisters for support, "right?"

"He's not a demon," Leo answered.

"Fine. Fallen angel. Whatever he is, he can be vanquished. We just need to find a strong enough spell to…"

"You can't," Leo said again. "Don't you understand? I'm not telling you that Lucifer is hard to vanquish. I'm not telling you that you need more power. I'm telling you that it simply can't be done."

Piper felt a chill run down her spine at those words. She didn't want to believe them – wouldn't have believed them – except that Leo was always the one who believed that they could do anything if they just tried hard enough, and for him to now be telling the three sisters that they couldn't defeat someone…

She sent a sidelong look towards Paige and Phoebe, and saw that they appeared to be just as upset as she was.

Leo started pacing. "Lucifer is… well, we aren't quite sure what he is. But he's the beginning of evil. He's chaos and darkness and misery. He spreads discord and turns people against each other, injects everyone with hopelessness…" He trailed off for a moment, a look of contemplation on his features, before saying, "He's what started evil."

"So he's all-powerful and pure evil," Paige said. "What fun." But the horror of the situation seemed to have finally sunk in, and her quip lacked its usual humor.

"He's not all-powerful," Leo corrected. "In fact, as far as power goes, he doesn't have anywhere near as much as you would think. He doesn't have any offensive magical abilities."

"No fireballs or telekinesis or whatnot?" Phoebe asked hopefully. "Well, that's good, right? He can't kill us."

"He can't kill you himself, at least not magically," Leo corrected. "But he can still have you killed."

"He has minions?" Paige asked.

"No," Leo said with a shake of his head. "Well, sometimes he gets a few demons to work for him, but he doesn't need them. Mostly he works with sorceresses – they're his favorite kind of demon because they're power lies in charm and seduction, just like his – but often he works on his own." He stopped his pacing and sat down on a stool near the potions table. "His power lies in his ability to manipulate. He knows… well, he knows practically everything. And he can use that knowledge to his advantage. He can whisper in your ear, make you believe anything, make you turn on anyone. And the worst part is that it isn't mind control. You're still the one making the decisions, choosing the actions… and when it is all over and he's moved on, you have to live with the knowledge that you did this. You destroyed everything. It was his lies, yes… but it was still your decision."

The room was silent as Leo paused to collect his thoughts. He doubted he could truly describe the horror of this fallen angel, doubted the Charmed Ones would ever really understand what he was like. But Leo still had to try, because Lucifer had risen, and that did not bode well for the world.

"He's torn apart entire civilizations by planting seeds of doubt and discord. He's sewn hatred and fury and contempt into human interactions. They say he's responsible for introducing the seven deadly sins to the world. He even convinced the Elders to attack each other once… they started a civil war that nearly killed the entire magical community… He's every dark thought you've ever had, every base desire, every reckless and hurtful action. And he does all of this without ever drawing attention to the fact that he is the one who is doing it."

"How come we've never faced him before?" Piper asked. It didn't make sense. They were the greatest force of Good the world had ever seen and he was the beginning of evil. Why had he never targeted them?

"Lucifer doesn't always walk the Earth. Sometimes, he just sits back and lets things happen. In fact, he mostly only shows himself if he sees something or someone whose destruction he will get a great amount of pleasure from, or if Good is too close to winning an important battle. He's been quiet for a long time, and I guess he never thought of the three of you as a threat."

"But… but we're the Charmed Ones!" Phoebe protested.

Leo shrugged. "And he's Lucifer," he replied. He didn't really want to elaborate on why Lucifer might not have viewed them as much of a threat. The fact of the matter was, no matter how powerful the three sisters were, they were still mortal, and they would still die. And Lucifer wouldn't.

It was probably not until Wyatt's birth, until the realization that the Halliwell line could culminate in more and more powerful witches, each generation greater than the next, that Lucifer had taken any notice of them. For all their power, the three sisters were still beneath his notice.

It was a depressing thought.

"Do you think… do you think he's after Wyatt?" Piper asked finally. It was a possibility she didn't want to consider, because if Lucifer was the one who turned Wyatt evil, and if he truly couldn't be vanquished, how was she supposed to protect her son?

"I don't know," Leo said heavily. "But I think… I think it is a definite possibility."

Piper felt physically sick.

"He also likes making deals with people," Leo added.

"Faustian deals?" Paige questioned.

Leo nodded. "Yes. He gives them what they think they want in exchange for their soul. But usually, what they think they want… well, he has a way of making it exactly what they don't want. Their greatest nightmares come true, and yet he still gets their soul in the end. He likes destroying people, tearing them apart slowly, making them suffer, forcing them to realize that their suffering is all their fault. They are the ones that wanted the deal, they are the ones that brought this upon themselves… He likes causing pain, and it doesn't always have to be someone important. Sometimes he goes after an average, unimportant person. Sometimes he goes after a great leader. Most of the time, he just goes for whatever will be the hardest. He likes taking the most honorable people he can find and… and ruining them. He likes the challenge."

"Is he making deals now?" Piper asked.

Leo nodded again. "The Elders think he's working with a broker, probably a sorceress. We have to find her and vanquish her. We have to do anything we can to prevent him from making more deals. And… we… you three… you need to be careful." He looked at them all seriously. "Lucifer has risen, and for all we know, he's coming after you."

"Or Wyatt," Piper murmured.

"Or Wyatt," Leo agreed. "The Elders don't know exactly what he has planned, but… it does seem likely that Lucifer will try to come after this family."