Chapter Three: Fires of Hell

"He doesn't go into the Underworld," Chris said. "He'll go there to vanquish his enemies or punish any followers he is displeased with, but he doesn't… he never goes for any other reason. He makes everyone come to him."

Bianca shrugged, and said in an unsurprised tone, "It's a classic power play, Chris. Make your subordinates come to you. There's nothing really remarkable about that."

"This is different," Chris answered. "He was like this growing up, too. The Underworld made him uneasy. He much preferred to summon demons to the Manor and then vanquish them there."

Bianca considered his statement, then said, "Well, I can't say I really like the Underworld, either. Demons have the home court advantage there. And the entire thing reminds me of… well, of what I would imagine hell to be like." Her lips quirked into a wry smile, and she added, "Given that I'm probably going to hell after I die anyway, I'd rather not spend too much of my life there."

"You're not going to hell," Chris protested.

Bianca just shrugged, and didn't bother pointing out that a couple years on the side of Good didn't make up for two decades as an assassin witch.

Neither said anything for a while, then the Phoenix asked, "You think it is something more, don't you? You think there is a reason why Wyatt doesn't like the Underworld."

Chris chewed his lip. "Maybe," he said with a frustrated sigh. "I wish I knew. I wish there was someone to ask. I've talked to the cousins about it, and none of them have any idea… my mother would have known… or my father… or Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe… but since they're not around for me to ask…" He trailed off and didn't finish the sentence.

Again, there was a moment of silence. Then Bianca said, "He's your brother, Chris, so you know him best. If you think there is something more to his dislike of the Underworld, then there probably is."

Chris awoke with a start, the dream clinging to the edges of his subconscious. He'd only sat down for a moment, but he'd been running himself ragged over the past few weeks, and the lack of sleep had clearly caught up with him.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. He'd only drifted off for about fifteen minutes, which at least meant that he hadn't wasted much time.

He stood up and stretched his aching muscles. Lucifer's answers, Phoebe's premonition, and Bianca's words from dream all lingered in his mind.

He needed to get back to work.

"Did you come all the way here to warn me about the Charmed One's premonition, white-lighter?" Lola purred, sidling up to Chris with a smirk on her lips and trailing a finger over his chest. She tilted her chin upwards, meeting his gaze, and said, "Careful. I might think you actually care about me."

Chris caught her wrist and pushed it away. "I don't," he said coolly. "But you are no good to me if you are dead." He stepped around her and glanced at the doorway. He was fairly certain they were alone, but he had spent far too long in the hellish future to relax just because there weren't demons attacking at the moment.

Lola followed his gaze. "Ah… still worried I will betray you, white-lighter?" she laughed. "Don't be a fool."

Chris raised one eyebrow. "Fool?" he repeated. "Am I really a fool for being on my guard?"

Lola stared down at her hand, contemplating her painted nails. They were bright red, matching her lips. "Lucifer doesn't want you dead… yet," she commented. "You are safe until he is done."

Chris faced her, wondering at her words. There was something there – a warning that Lucifer was still manipulating him, still playing with him – and Chris almost asked why she would tell him that. Was she betraying Lucifer by warning Chris…

Or did Lucifer want Chris to know that he wasn't done yet?

Instead of thinking about that any further, however, Chris said flatly, "Just stay away from Piper's club, Lola. I don't know when Phoebe's premonition is supposed to take place, but if you aren't there, then it can't come true."

Lola nodded, red hair tumbling into her eyes. She flicked the strands away and her expression grew serious, that perpetual smirk fading. "As you wish," she answered in a would-be casual voice. As though it didn't matter to her. As though she was frequently told that her death was going to happen in the very near future.

Chris started pacing. "When will Lucifer answer my question?" he demanded. "I won't wait forever."

Lola raised an eyebrow. "Yes, you will," she answered. "You will wait for as long as is necessary."

Chris whirled on her, anger coloring his tone as he snarled, "Is Lucifer going to make me wait?"

Lola rolled her eyes. "That wasn't a threat, white-lighter. I was merely stating a fact. We both know that, if necessary, you will wait forever, because you have no intention of giving up on your mission, and you can't back out of the deal now. Not that you would, anyway. Lucifer is your best chance at saving the future." She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a smug look. "Don't make empty threats."

Chris bit back the urge to telekinetically throw her into the wall. He forced himself to take a few breaths, and then asked again, "When will Lucifer answer my question?"

"Be at the eldest Charmed One's club at midnight," Lola said. "He'll be here."

"Midnight?" Chris repeated, smirking. "Going for the cliché, are we?"

Lola inclined her head. "Indeed."

Chris gave her one last hard look, then orbed away.

The summons wasn't entirely unexpected, given the turmoil of the past couple days, but Leo still felt a twinge of annoyance as the call came for him. He was watching Wyatt sleep, as he did quite often now, and it was something that he convinced himself was neither creepy nor paranoid.

He hadn't reacted to Chris' revelations with quite the same intensity that Piper had, but nothing could stop the gnawing sensation in his stomach every time he looked at his son. The very idea that Wyatt could turn evil seemed preposterous, and yet…

Chris hadn't been lying, Leo was convinced of that. The raw anguish in the young white-lighter's voice when he explained what the future was really like was enough to tell Leo that this wasn't some convoluted plot to get close to the Charmed Ones or Wyatt.

The summons came again, and Leo sighed. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he grumbled under his breath as his body broke apart into blue and white orbs.

He wasn't a white-lighter anymore, he was an Elder. And he didn't like being treated like a white-lighter, didn't like being summoned this way, as though his obedience was expected. It wasn't pride or arrogance that made him wish the other Elders would remember that he was no longer at their beck and call. It was merely that he had given up everything that mattered to him – Piper and Wyatt – to be an Elder, and if he was going to be treated like a glorified white-lighter, he didn't understand why the sacrifice would be worth it.

But the summons had come from his old mentor, and that did make things slightly different.

He reappeared Up There and glanced around through the mist until he spotted the other Elder. "Gideon," he called out, and strode quickly towards his mentor.

"Ah, Leo," Gideon said in his slight British accent, his mouth curling into a welcoming smile that did nothing to hide the seriousness of his gaze. "I am sorry to pull you away from your son."

Leo frowned. "You were spying on me?"

"I was watching you,' Gideon corrected calmly, refusing to start any sort of argument. "Come, walk with me. We need to talk."

Leo nodded slowly, and followed Gideon as they began to walk through the clouds. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that the other Elders were keeping tabs on him – he was rather new to this – but it still felt like an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, this was Gideon, and Leo trusted him completely.

Gideon had been his mentor, helping him adjust to being a white-lighter. And he'd later taken Leo's side and argued for allowing him to marry Piper. It wasn't fair to start an argument with him over something as trivial as this.

Particularly not with Lucifer now walking the Earth again.

With that thought in mind, Leo asked, "Is this about Lucifer? Is there any news?"

"We believe he is working with a sorceress," Gideon said. "She's a… a broker, I suppose would be the best word. She's helping him contact potential clients. Or, rather, client. Singular."

Leo's brow furrowed in thought. "Client?" he asked. "Only one?"

Gideon nodded. "We don't know who it is yet, but we are fairly certain there is only one."

"But why would Lucifer only make one deal? Why would he show up after all this time and only gain one soul?" Leo demanded, bewildered. That made no sense at all.

And Gideon appeared to be equally baffled. "We are not sure," he admitted, his tone making it quite clear how much it frustrated him that he did not understand Lucifer's motives. "And Leo… he doesn't appear to be doing anything else."

"At all?" Leo questioned. "He's not starting a war? He's not turning family members against each other? He's not corrupting good people?"

Gideon shook his head, and the two Elders lapsed into silence.

While making deals was certainly what Lucifer was best known for – hence the multiple stories in classical literature about people making pacts with the devil and the widespread belief among the more mainstream culture that being a witch was a form of satanic worship in which women attempted to trade their souls for magical abilities – it wasn't his most potent gift. If he could start an entire war by whispering words into a listening ear, why wasn't he doing it?

Why would Lucifer go through all the trouble of rising for just one deal?

"Maybe the soul he wants is special," Leo suggested. Then he stopped, another thought occurring to him, and turned to face Gideon. "Has he already made the deal? Has he already contacted the client?"

"We think so," Gideon said.

Leo pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. "Then… the Charmed Ones weren't the target after all? Wyatt wasn't…"

"Not yet," Gideon said quickly. "Lucifer hasn't targeted them yet. It doesn't mean he won't. He's patient, Leo, and time is certainly on his side. Perhaps he has decided to do things one at a time." His expression grew grim as he finished, "We cannot assume that the Charmed Ones or your son are safe."

Leo let out a shaky breath. "The sorceress that Lucifer is working with… do you know her name?"

"Yes. Her name is Lola," Gideon replied.

They spoke for a few more minutes, but neither had anything substantive to add. It was clear to Leo that Gideon had reached the end of the extent of his knowledge on the subject, and Leo himself didn't know what to make of what he had learned.

He knew Gideon wanted him to send the Charmed Ones after Lola. The Elder didn't need to say it aloud for Leo to understand that. And it was the right thing to do…

Except that if Lucifer hadn't gone after the Charmed Ones yet, if his plan was never to go after the Halliwell family, then sending the three sisters to vanquish his broker would only serve to make them his enemy. The sisters had never backed down from a fight before, but Lucifer was different from the other evils they had fought.

Lucifer couldn't be beaten.

Still, Piper wouldn't hesitate to blow up Leo if she found out that he was concealing information from her, and she would find out.

So he took a breath, steeled himself for the argument that would undoubtedly follow this revelation, and orbed back to the Manor's attic.

What he had not expected was to find the three sisters standing around the Book, already looking at an entry on the sorceress Lola.

"Oh, Leo," Piper said in faint surprise as he appeared. She regained her composure a moment later and asked with a brief gesture towards the Book, "What do you know about a sorceress named Lola?"

"She's working with Lucifer," Leo answered automatically. "What do you know about her?" Was it possible that the Elders had already passed along this information? But no, that didn't make any sense…

"Phoebe had a premonition of her being vanquished," Paige said, giving Leo a puzzled look. "If you knew she was working with Lucifer, why didn't you mention it when you were telling us about him?"

"I didn't know," Leo said, crossing to the Book and reading the brief entry quickly. "The Elders – Gideon, my old mentor – just told me now. That's why I came here."

The Book didn't say much. Lola appeared to be a fairly typical sorceress, and the usual warnings applied; sorceresses lie and manipulate to trap their victims, do not trust a word she says. The only bit of interesting information it did note was that she had survived even after refusing to give her loyalty to the previous Source. While that certainly wasn't unheard of, it did mean that she was cunning enough to avoid death.

He glanced over at Phoebe. "Where did your premonition take place?"

"Backroom of P3," Phoebe said. "Definitely at night, but I'm not sure when. I'm a little hazy on the details."

Piper and Phoebe exchanged a brief look, and Leo didn't need to hear Piper's thoughts to know exactly what she was thinking. Her face twisted into a scowl, and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

It was Paige who spoke, tentatively asking the question as she looked between her sisters and Leo, "You don't think… Chris…?"

Leo didn't want to believe it. He had been so sure of Chris' motives, so convinced that – despite Chris' previous untrustworthy actions – the white-lighter's intentions were good. But Gideon had said that the deal had already been made, Gideon had said that Lola had been in charge of contacting the client for Lucifer…

And it seemed now that Lola knew Chris.

"He was there when I got the premonition," Phoebe said quietly. "I described this sorceress to him, but he said he didn't know her." She paused, then added, "I did get the feeling that he wasn't being entirely honest…"

"When is he ever entirely honest?" Paige interrupted pointedly.

"But why would Chris be working with Lucifer?" Phoebe asked. "I mean… do we really think he is that evil?" She hesitated, then cleared her throat and added, "He did save Wyatt from the Order."

"How do we know that wasn't some plan to get close to us? To get us to trust him so that he could get closer to Wyatt?" Paige argued.

Piper nodded in agreement, and though Phoebe didn't look entirely convinced, she didn't argue the point. Leo frowned, torn. The initial mistrust of Chris that had plagued him for the first few months after his return from Valhalla was still there, even though he did his best to ignore it. And it was screaming at him now, telling him that Chris had never deserved a second chance, and he'd be a fool to trust the man from the future. But the more logical part of him was pointing out that this didn't make any sense, because why would Lucifer have even needed Chris' help in the first place? Lucifer could have gotten close to the sisters, and to Wyatt, on his own.

He said nothing.

Piper pursed her lips. "There's a vanquishing potion," she stated flatly, nodding to the Book. "So let's vanquish this sorceress. Then we can deal with Chris."

The child was terrified.

He had no idea where he was. The Man – the one Daddy had said was a friend, was someone they could trust – had brought him to this place of cold and dark. And the cold wasn't just cold, not just the chilliness of a winter evening when Mama would wrap a coat around him. It was a different cold.

An evil cold.

The Man had looked at him, and the friendliness had been gone from his gaze. The Man's eyes were cold, too.

He'd barely managed to get away. But he wasn't strong enough yet to orb all the way back to his parents, and he found himself in another dank cave not unlike the one he had just left.

He was in the Underworld. He didn't know much about the Underworld, just knew that Bad Things came from there.

He wanted to go home.

"Well, well, well… what have we here?"

He turned, eyes widening in fear and horror. The… thing… was tall, with nails that curled into claws at the end of each finger, and dark hair complemented by dark eyes that glittered with malice. He was advancing on the child slowly, lips curling into a triumphant smirk.

He clearly thought the boy was easy prey.

The boy began to tremble, fear seizing the muscles in his small body. He backed away on unsteady feet, nearly stumbling on the uneven ground. The cave floor was slick beneath his feet with something that was dark and red and he didn't want to think about what it was.

He just wanted to go home.

Terror made him act. He didn't think, not really. He just knew that he was cold, that this thing advancing on him was cold, that the cold was everywhere and he was afraid.

He wanted to be warm again.

He blinked his eyes, lids closing briefly, powering forming in his chest and bubbling under his skin.

The thing erupted into flames.

It shrieked as it did so, and the boy backed away even further. He fell, hitting the ground. There was something red and sticky on his hands and he didn't understand any of this.

The thing kept shrieking as the flames consumed it. It flailed about, arms flung wide. It's cries of pain and fear filled the air, bouncing off the wall and echoing through the cave. It's voice rose several octaves as it gave a few last, final screams. Then the screams died into nothing and the entire thing disappeared, replaced by a pile of ash on the floor of the cave.

The child stared at it.

Why would the Man try to hurt him? Daddy had said he was a friend.

Had Daddy been wrong?

He just wanted to go home.

He heard footsteps and felt an unwelcome presence. It was the Man again, he could sense that. The Man was looking for him, following him through the unending maze of caves and passageways.

Why was this happening to him?

Chris felt as though his stomach was trying to rebel against the rest of his body. It heaved and turned over, and he stumbled away from Lucifer, breaking contact and disrupting the vision. When the Devil had informed him that he could show him the truth, could make him understand how Wyatt had been turned, he hadn't really expected to relive it.

His brother's fear had been his own. He'd felt like a child – two years old and terrified – trapped in the Underworld. And he finally understood why Wyatt said that Good and Evil meant nothing to him. How could he place any faith in those concepts when someone in the side of Good had tried to kill him?

Chris inhaled sharply, trying to get fresh air into his lungs. He felt sick.

"How long?" he asked finally, looking over at Lucifer. "How long does that go on?"

"A few months," Lucifer said casually.

"Months?" Chris echoed, horrified. "Months?"

"Well, you didn't really think it was going to be easy to turn the Twice Blessed evil, did you?" Lucifer said with a nonchalant shrug. "He's born of a Halliwell and a white-lighter. It doesn't get much better than that."

"And this is… this is how Gideon turns him…" Chris breathed, not quite able to believe what he had seen. But Lucifer didn't lie, he knew that. The vision had been real.

Wyatt's fear had been real.

Chris reached out and steadied himself against the sofa. He realized with a start that his entire body was shaking. He clenched the sofa cushion, his knuckles turning white from the effort. His stomach heaved again, but he forced the nausea down.

Lucifer studied Chris for a moment, then said, "The boy is two when this happens. A few months of orbing around a demon-infested Underworld on the run from a supposed Source of Good? That would turn anyone." His lips curled into a smirk as he added, "Trust me, I know."

Chris glanced sharply at Lucifer, but refrained from asking the obvious question. He didn't really want to know just how many children the devil had corrupted through methods similar to Gideon's.

He closed his eyes and fought to regain control of his rational mind. It took a moment, but he was able to finally push away the horror and disgust at what he had seen and focus instead on the details. Lucifer's vision had finally provided answers to some of the more confusing questions.

Such as why Gideon of all people would turn someone evil.

"Sanctimonious bastard," he muttered under his breath.

"That title could easily be applied to all Elders," Lucifer interjected.

Chris shrugged. He had never been a big fan of theirs. Once it had become clear that Wyatt was beyond their control, they had sealed themselves off from the world to prevent an attack on the Heavens. They had, in effect, abandoned their charges and all the innocents they claimed to care about in order to save themselves. Only a few had remained on Earth and joined the Resistance, determined to fight for Good. The others had simply stood there and watched the world burn.

In their defense, Wyatt would have annihilated them all in a heartbeat if he'd been able to, and they would not have been able to help anyone then. But for Chris – and, really, for anyone in the Resistance, any of the people who had spent years risking their own lives to protect the world against Wyatt's steadily increasing power – running and hiding was just cowardly.

But whatever disdain he felt for the Elders in general was nothing compared to the utter hatred he felt for Gideon specifically.

"He was so damn convinced that Wyatt had too much power that he actually tried to kill a child," Chris muttered, shaking his head. "He didn't even give Wyatt a chance to prove that he wasn't evil. He just… How could he be so self-righteous, so arrogant, so uncaring…? He destroyed my family. My mother and aunts gave everything to his cause, my father sacrificed his own happiness to be an Elder, and this is how Gideon repays them?"

The nausea that had lingered after the vision was completely gone now, replaced by a different feeling altogether. Fury – icy cold and incredibly dangerous – coalesced into a hard ball in Chris' stomach.

He was going to make Gideon pay.

"Well, I don't think you helped matters any," Lucifer commented dryly.

Chris raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Lucifer said quickly, "Gideon was going to go after the Twice Blessed no matter what. From the moment the child was born and the extent of his power was realized, the seeds of this plot were planted in Gideon's mind. It was always going to end up like this." He titled his head to the side and stared at Chris thoughtfully for a moment before adding, "But, of course, your little revelation that Wyatt was evil in the future… let's just say any doubts Gideon might have been entertaining were gone the moment he heard that."

Chris stared blankly, then his jaw dropped as the realization set in. Lucifer was right. If he hadn't told the sisters that Wyatt was evil in the future, if he hadn't told Leo, if Gideon had never learned any of that…

But Gideon had learned it. Because of Chris.

Oh, God.

"Damn it!" he swore.

"Like I said," Lucifer murmured sympathetically, "Gideon would have gone after Wyatt no matter what. So you really can't blame yourself for it. All you did was strengthen his resolve and possibly cause him to move up his timetable."

Chris clenched his hands into fists.

Gideon's actions had created the very monster he had been so determined to destroy. And Chris coming back to the past had only made Gideon that much more convinced he was doing the right thing.

Wasn't that just fucking ironic?

Lucifer was getting to him. His voice, soft and gentle and so caring, was slipping past Chris' defenses and the white-lighter knew it was dangerous. He knew Lucifer was only trying to hurt him, to point out how much his actions had screwed up everything while still disguising his words as sympathy. The devil was stabbing a metaphorical knife into his heart and twisting the blade, and Chris knew he had to ignore it.

But he couldn't.

Because Lucifer was right.

"We could be running out of time," Chris said flatly, almost numbly. "This happened when Wyatt was two, so we still have almost another year… unless Gideon isn't going to wait as long this time. Who knows what I've changed by being in the past? This could be one of those things… Gideon could be coming for Wyatt soon."

"It's possible," Lucifer agreed quietly. "But that isn't your fault. You can't blame yourself for Gideon's actions."

A small voice in Chris' mind was yelling at him not to listen to Lucifer. The devil's honey-coated words were poisonous. Chris could defend himself against accusations, against hatred and distrust, against anger. But this… this quiet reassurance that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn't be held responsible for Gideon's actions…

Chris' exhausted psyche had no good defenses against words that were comforting and compassionate.

The little voice was yelling at him that Lucifer was only saying all of this because he knew it was the perfect way to make Chris feel guilty. It was the perfect way to hurt him.

But that little voice was already drowned out by the incredible amount of guilt that slammed into him the moment he let Lucifer's words get under his skin.

He rubbed at his eyes and turned away. The guilt weighed heavily against his chest and he struggled to draw a single breath. He rubbed at his chest and forced his weary mind to focus on something else. Anything else.

Anything was better than thinking about this.

"Why did you show me that glimpse?" Chris asked finally, meeting Lucifer's gaze for a moment.

Lucifer furrowed his brow. "You kept pestering me to answer the why and the how question, white-lighter. So I did. I thought you would be happy."

Chris gave a dark chuckle that abruptly cut off in his throat. Happy wasn't exactly the word he would use to describe the emotions he felt at watching his terrified toddler brother fight for his life.

"You kept refusing to answer those questions," Chris said. "It wasn't part of the contract." He paused, then added, "Besides, what I really wanted to know was whether or not Gideon was working alone, and you still haven't answered that. I need to know if I have to worry about the other Elders."

"Patience really isn't one of your strong points, is it?" Lucifer retorted.

Chris glared at him. It felt good to be concentrating on this. It kept his mind off the guilt, kept him from letting Lucifer's manipulations cause him any more grief. It kept him focused on what mattered.

Saving Wyatt.

"I'll get to the details about Gideon's followers in a minute," Lucifer said, waiving one hand dismissively. "Calm down, white-lighter. I have no intention of breaking the contract."

"Still doesn't explain why you gave me all this other information," Chris said firmly.

"I thought I'd be nice and give you some other answers as well. You can never have too much information, not if you plan on battling an Elder."

"You thought you'd be nice?" Chris repeated mockingly. "Gee, why don't I believe that?"

"I don't know," Lucifer answered mildly. "Why don't you believe it?"

"Because you would never do anything just to be nice," Chris snapped. "Tell me the truth!"

"Come now, white-lighter," Lucifer said cajolingly, "you know that the only thing I ever tell anyone is the truth. I don't lie, remember?"

"Just because you don't lie doesn't mean that you always tell the full truth," Chris countered. "Maybe you decided you would be nice to me, but that isn't the only reason you told me all of this. You have ulterior motives."

Lucifer lifted his chin. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"

Chris narrowed his eyes. "No, I don't."

Lucifer's lips split into a wide smile, and he said, "That is incredibly wise."

Before Chris had a chance to say anything else, the room was illuminated in white and blue light, and the Charmed Ones appeared.