Chapter Eighteen: Satan's Spell
Shelia had watched the sisters fight their way through many different disasters. She had seen them pull off spectacular and unexpected victories. But she had seen them lose battles, too, and she had been at Prue's funeral, and she had hugged Phoebe after everything that had happened with Cole Turner, and she had tried to offer Piper comfort when Leo had left her.
She knew them.
And she knew that something was very wrong.
Although she had never been as close to them as her husband had, she did consider them friends. Knowing what they did every single day, what they gave up to protect innocents, she was more than willing to help in any way she could. That usually meant watching Wyatt, and so when Paige had appeared in a swirl of white and blue orbs, Shelia hadn't hesitated to take the blonde toddler from Paige's arms. She hadn't bothered to ask when they would be back for him – they never knew the answer to that question anyway.
And if Paige had seemed a little more worried than usual… well, Shelia hadn't given it any thought at the time.
Now, though…
Shelia watched as Piper held Wyatt closely to her chest. The Halliwell matriarch looked tense and upset, and Wyatt seemed to be picking up on that because his face was scrunched into a frown. Paige and Phoebe were hurrying through the house, sprinkling what appeared to be sparkling gold dust everywhere and whispering rhyming words.
Spells.
"Piper?" Shelia asked, taking a step towards her friend. "Piper, what's going on?"
Piper looked up and met Shelia's gaze. Her expression was hard. Flat. It wasn't unusually for Shelia to see that look of determination in Piper's eyes just before the sisters faced some great evil, but there was something off about it this time.
Something wrong.
Piper jerked her head towards Paige and Phoebe. "It's fairy dust," she said, and then looked back at her son.
Shelia waited a moment for more of an explanation, but none came. Was she supposed to understand what this meant? Was she supposed to know why they were sprinkling fairy dust around her house?
"It's an extra precaution," Paige said finally, walking over to stand next to her sister and nephew. She smiled at Shelia. "I don't think the Elders will come after Wyatt – he has his force-field to protect him, and I doubt they've come up with a way to get around that." She looked at Piper and added, "But we don't want to take any chances."
"Elders?" Shelia repeated. The name sounded familiar, and it took her only a moment to place it. Leo had become an Elder last May, during the attack of the Greek mythological characters. Piper had referred to it as a promotion…
So the Elders were good beings, weren't they?
"I don't like this," Piper murmured. She pressed a kiss into Wyatt's hair, and Shelia saw the hard expression melt into one of pure love. "I don't like leaving him."
"I know, sweetie," Phoebe said as she tossed a handful of sparkling gold dust onto the windowsill on the opposite side of the room, "but we can't take him to the Underworld with us."
Shelia stared at the windowsill for a long moment and wondered if the protection around the house would fade if she tried to do a little dusting. Did they expect her to just leave the glitter everywhere?
Paige must have misinterpreted her expression as one of worry, because she squeezed Shelia's arm and said, "Don't worry, you are perfectly safe here."
Shelia nodded, still not understanding the conversation happening around her.
"I don't see why we have to go back to the Underworld at all," Piper snapped. She looked up, her face flushed with anger, and Wyatt began to fuss.
Phoebe pinched the bridge of her nose and bit back a groan. Once the emotional headache had passed, she exchanged a brief, worried look with Paige. Shelia didn't get it, but she also decided it wasn't worth questioning.
"Piper, we have to…"
"We don't have to do anything," Piper interrupted. She paused for a moment, clearly struggling to regain her composure, and then sighed. She placed Wyatt in his playpen and reached for Paige's arm. "Let's get Chris."
"We'll be back soon," Phoebe said, hurrying across the room and taking Paige's other arm. "And don't worry about all this – it really is just a precautionary measure. You're perfectly safe here."
And with that last reassurance, all three sisters disappeared in a swirl of orbs.
Shelia stared at the spot where they had been standing only moments before, her heart pressing into her throat. Something was very, very wrong, and she had no idea what it was.
Wyatt started to cry.
It was hard not to think about Leo.
Chris didn't want to think about him. His relationship with his father had been… complicated.
He'd been young then, when his opinions of his father had become set facts that he spent the rest of his life believing, and the circumstances of their relationship had been too convoluted for him to understand at the time.
But if he was honest with himself – and, at least when it came to Leo, that was a very rare occurrence – he would have to admit that the problem had never been that Leo didn't love him.
No, that would have been too simple. A lack of love was an easily identifiable problem. And because all parents are supposed to love their children unconditionally, a lack of love would have also led to a very black-and-white version of events: Leo would be the villain and Chris would be the innocent victim.
But it was far more complex than that – and complexity only made everything so much worse.
But now Leo was gone, perhaps dead. And Chris didn't want to think about that.
Unfortunately, he couldn't just let go. He couldn't give up, not like Piper had. He'd inherited her stubbornness, but now she had seemingly lost that particular trait and he still had it in spades.
All of this was making his head hurt, and he sent a silent thank you to whatever Powers determined the abilities that witches were born with that he was not blessed with empathy. He had his own emotions to deal with; he honestly had no idea how he would deal with anyone else's.
The shower of bright orbs signaled the arrival of the three sisters, and he turned his thoughts away from Leo's fate and focused instead on them.
"Wyatt is safe," Piper said the moment she appeared. She smiled, though the smile did not reach her eyes, and Chris let out a breath of relief.
Paige had taken Wyatt to Shelia's as soon as this conflict with the Elders had begun, and they had been operating under the assumption that he would be safe there. But as the Elders had proven that they were no longer content to merely punish Leo for his actions – now they wanted to remove the Charmed Ones and all of their allies from the magical world – Wyatt's safety became of the utmost importance. Chris would not put it past those insufferable beings to kidnap Wyatt under the guise of removing him from his parents' corrupting behavior.
And look how well it had worked out the last time an Elder went after Wyatt…
"Did you hear anything from the demons?" Paige asked. Piper may have given up on this battle, but at least it appeared as though her two sisters were still determined to fight.
Chris nodded, a little worried. "Easy pickings," he said, feeling bile rise in his throat. Paige quirked an eyebrow at him, confused, and he ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. "It's what one of the demons said, when I was eavesdropping. Witches are easy pickings now."
His first plan had been to actually talk to the demons, but that had quickly changed. They hadn't wanted to talk to him. His identity as the Charmed Ones' white-lighter was too well known, and no one would believe that he was interested in anything other than defeating Evil.
And, as it turned out, the demons were in no mood to talk to any agent of Good because they were so completely convinced that they could decimate the other side.
"How?" Paige asked. "Why are witches easier targets now than…"
"In-fighting," Chris interrupted. He thought briefly of Leo and then shoved the thought away and snapped his gaze to Paige's face. "The witches that fought with you no longer have white-lighters or the support of the Elders. It makes them easier targets."
"They don't have anyone to heal them if they get injured," Phoebe murmured, sympathy creeping into her voice. "They just… die."
Chris nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. "And they don't have access to information. Not everyone has as complete a Book of Shadows as we do, and when they are confronted with demons they don't recognize, they turn to the Elders for guidance. Without that guidance, they don't learn who the demons are or how to vanquish them."
"So some of the witches are in danger, but surely not everyone..." Phoebe started.
Chris cut her off. "Actually, it turns out that not everyone is entirely pleased by the Elders' actions."
Phoebe nodded. "That tracks with what the Elder told me," she said slowly, turning to look at Paige and Piper. "We know that at least some of the white-lighters…"
"It's not just white-lighters," Chris interrupted once again. "Some Elders are starting to question, too." He frowned thoughtfully. "The Elders have a… a council or sorts. Only a few are involved… ten or eleven, maybe? Whenever judgment has to be passed on another Elder, the council makes the ruling."
"How do you know about that?" Paige asked curiously. "We've never heard anything about it." Then she turned quickly to Piper and Phoebe and added, "We haven't, have we?"
Phoebe shook her head.
Chris studied Piper. It was clear that the eldest Halliwell had no desire to be part of this conversation, and was doing her best to ignore it. But she also hadn't demanded that they stop talking or stormed off yet, and that might possibly be a good sign.
"Chris" Paige prompted, "did you hear me?"
Chris blinked, and then nodded. "It… it came up once," he said, his throat feeling suddenly dry. "I… in the future."
Damn it, was the world conspiring to not let him forget his possibly-dead father?
He swallowed, then said quickly, "Anyway, my point is that, if only a few Elders made the ruling about Leo, it is certainly possible that the Elders not involved in the ruling would oppose it."
"And we know that some of the white-lighters didn't want to abandon their charges," Phoebe added.
"So… our world is turning on itself?" Paige asked.
Chris nodded. "It's not just the witches who no longer have white-lighters who are in danger. We're so busy fighting ourselves, the demons are having a field day."
He closed his eyes and tried to force back the images that rose into the forefront of his mind. He'd been sneaking through the Underworld, looking for demonic clans to spy on, and had found the site of a massacre. An entire coven of witches had been kidnapped and brought to the Underworld. The cave had been stained red with blood – fresh blood – and the bodies had been warm. Their faces had been contorted into looks of terror, and burns had littered some of the figures…
His stomach twisted.
"That bad?" Piper whispered, and he felt her rest a hand on his arm.
He jerked his eyes opened and stepped away from her. A look of hurt passed through her gaze, but then quickly disappeared as her expression fell back into calm stoicism.
"Yes," he said, ignoring the guilt he felt at the emotional pain he had inadvertently caused by his instinctual reaction. "It was that bad."
"We have to do something," Paige said firmly. "We have to help…"
"Why?" Piper demanded, spinning around to glare at her sister. "Why do we have to do anything? Why do we have to risk our lives for them?"
"Piper…"
"Don't Piper me," the eldest Halliwell said harshly. "I won't risk what remains of my family just because the Elders are too pig-headed to realize that they are destroying everything." And her hands came to rest on her stomach.
"The entire magical community is at stake," Paige countered.
"And this baby is worth more to me than the rest of the world," Piper answered, looking down at her stomach.
Chris inhaled sharply, though the action went unnoticed by the feuding sisters.
"We can't abandon them," Paige said reasonably.
"The Elders abandoned us," Piper answered, her voice rising in volume as her eyes narrowed into slits of fury. "They took Leo. They took him away from me, again. He's probably dead now and I…" She stopped, choking on the words. When she continued, there were tears in her voice, but also a steely determination, "God, I just can't lose more. Prue, Leo, Mom, Grams… I won't lose either of you, and I won't lose Wyatt or Chris. I won't."
When Chris had been seven, demons had attacked at the Manor. It wasn't a particularly uncommon occurrence, but it was terrifying nonetheless. As usual, his mother had rushed forward to fight them, and he had found himself wrapped in Wyatt's tight embrace as a blue force-field formed around the two of them, protecting them from the evil in their midst.
Aunt Paige had been there, and she'd been hit in the stomach by a dark-lighter arrow.
Chris could still so vividly remember what had happened. His mother had been out-numbered four-to-one, but when she'd seen her youngest sister fall, her expression had hardened into something that still sent chills down his spine when he thought about it.
The demons had been vanquished and Leo had come to heal Paige and everything had worked out alright in the end, but that expression…
Chris saw it on Piper's face now.
She was not going to back down from this. She saw her family as being in immediate danger, and she was going to do anything – sacrifice anything – to keep them safe.
"Piper, many of these witches are in danger because of us," Paige argued, grabbing Piper's arm. "Because they agreed to help us. We can't turn our backs on them."
Piper didn't even falter, didn't stop to consider Paige's words, didn't hesitate. "No," she said firmly, flatly. "I'm done. We're done. I won't lose anyone else."
"I can't not fight," Paige retorted.
"The Angel of Destiny gave us a chance to have a normal life," Piper snapped bitterly. "We should have taken it." She let out a long breath and dropped her arms to her side. "Leo would still be here if we had."
"You don't know that," Paige replied softly, but Piper ignored her.
"Phoebe?" Piper asked, turning to her middle sister. "What do you think?"
"Don't put me in the middle of this," Phoebe said weakly, and Chris suddenly felt a tremendous amount of sympathy for her. Paige had always been the sister most invested in magic. Piper had always been the one desperately seeking a normal life. And Phoebe had been in the middle, constantly wavering back and forth on the issue.
Chris could understand Piper's point of view, even if he was convinced that she was wrong. But he'd felt that way at several points during his time in the Resistance. He'd wanted to give up, wanted to throw in the towel, wanted to know why he was always the one who had to pay the price to save the world.
But Phoebe didn't just understand Piper's point of view; she felt it. The pain, the loss, the grief…
How could anyone consider empathy a gift?
He glanced again at Piper and noticed that, once more, her hands had come to rest on her stomach. She was pressing her palms flat against the fabric of her shirt in what was clearly a defensive gesture, as though she could somehow protect her unborn child from the world all around them.
"I don't even understand how this all happened," Phoebe said wearily.
Chris curled his lips into a snarl. Unfortunately, he understood exactly how this had happened.
The back room of P3 was empty when Chris orbed into it. He knew it was dangerous to be out of the Underworld, knew that the Elders could come after him at any moment. The thought concerned him – at least a little – but he had to take his chances. He couldn't stay in the darkness and dankness of the Underworld much longer. It reminded him too much of the future before the formation of the Resistance, of running and hiding from Wyatt, living in caves and scrounging for food in a destroyed city.
He needed to breathe fresh air again.
And besides, he had a couple potion bottles in his pocket, just in case he ran across any demons. He'd use them on Elders or white-lighters if he had to, although he was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
He glanced around the room. There was almost nothing of his left here. A shirt was draped over the back of the sofa. A pad of paper and a pen sat on the table. A book lay open on a chair.
He sighed.
The scent of vanilla filled the air.
"What's the matter, white-lighter? Feeling a little tired? Perhaps you need something to take your mind off your troubles?"
Chris turned to face Lola. The sorceress smiled at him, lazily running her fingers over a gold bracelet on one wrist. She looked relaxed, even peaceful… but he knew not to let her appearance deceive him. Underneath the casual air, she was tensed and ready for any attack he might throw her way.
"You knew," he said.
She lifted one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Darling," she cooed, "I have no idea what you mean."
"Then what are you doing here, if not to gloat?"
She ran her tongue over cherry red lips and considered his question for a moment. "Well, I do like to gloat," she admitted finally. "Although lately I feel as though you are taking all the fun out of it." She ran a finger suggestively down his chest, and he was abruptly reminded of what Bianca had looked like moments before she had slammed her fist into his chest and started draining his powers.
He stepped backwards.
"You played us," Chris said. His tone was even, as though he was stating a mere fact. "You pretended to turn on Lucifer, but you didn't. Not really."
It was the only conclusion that could be drawn from this entire mess. After the deal Lola had made with the Charmed Ones, she had not returned to seek their protection. She was no fool – if she had truly betrayed Lucifer, she would not have left their side - and their protection - for even a second. The fact that she was not fleeing for her life meant that she knew she wasn't in any danger.
He hadn't mentioned this to the Charmed Ones. He had decided that the last thing the three sisters needed was the added burden of figuring out what to do about Lola. They would no doubt want to go after her immediately, and would allow themselves to be easily distracted from the more pressing problems.
Lola's smile shifted into a smirk. "Of course. Did you really think I would turn on Lucifer?"
"This was what he had planned all along," Chris said, anger seeping into his tone. "A civil war. Elder turned against Elder, white-lighter turned against white-lighter… and witch against witch."
"Lucifer always did have big plans," Lola agreed. "And this one… this one was beautiful."
Chris curled his hand into a fist, digging his fingernails into his skin. It was all he could do to keep from lashing out at her.
Although, he reflected bitterly, since she was not actually on their side, there really was no reason to not telekinetically throw her into the wall.
"I would have thought you'd be happier," Lola said.
Chris started, then frowned. "What do you mean?" he demanded.
"You wanted the precious Twice Blessed Child to be safe," Lola said softly. She was keeping her distance from him now, perhaps sensing the dangerous shift in his mood, but the scent of her vanilla and cinnamon perfume still filled the air.
"I didn't want to start a civil war," Chris snapped.
Lola tilted her head to the side. "You made a deal with the devil, white-lighter," she chided. "Don't tell me you didn't know that it might come back to haunt you."
"I didn't expect…" Chris stopped. There was no reason to have this conversation with her, no reason to admit that he really hadn't believed that Lucifer could do something like this.
"People do frequently underestimate Lucifer," Lola agreed. She walked towards him, passing the sofa and trailing her fingers along the cushion as she did so. "Or, perhaps I should say that people underestimate themselves. It would be unfair to give Lucifer all the credit."
Chris simply gazed at her, nonplussed.
"Oh, but haven't you figured it out by now?" Lola asked, laughing softly. "Lucifer's power isn't just in his silver tongue. It's that he can see the evil that already exists inside of people, and he can capitalize on it." She stopped in front of him, and reached up to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt.
He caught her hand before she could touch him.
"Do you really think any of this would have worked out so spectacularly well for him if you weren't such damaged goods?" she asked with a pout.
"Damaged goods?" Chris repeated. He shook his head and barked out a laugh. "Is this some sort of insult about how I care about people? How it is a weakness?"
"Oh, no, darling," Lola replied, that damnable smirk still resting on her pretty features. "Do you think your family has the monopoly on martyrdom? You're not the only one who is willing to die for what you believe in."
"And what do you believe in?" Chris asked, dropping her hand and stepping away from her once again.
"Lucifer," she answered simply. She turned away and walked over to the sofa. Settling herself onto the cushions and arranging her flowing blue skirt to carefully cover her long legs, she gave him an unsettlingly scrutinizing stare.
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"I'm here to offer you a chance," Lola said, "though I can't guarantee it will do you any good."
Chris hesitated, torn between wanting to hear what she had to say and knowing that he couldn't trust a word that came out of her lips.
Finally, he nodded and gestured for her to continue.
"End the war," she said softly. "Tell the truth."
"The truth?" Chris repeated. It was a question, but Lola didn't answer. She didn't need to: it was obvious enough to Chris.
Tell the Elders the truth about the deal with Lucifer. Tell the Elders the truth about everything. It would make the deal he had with Lucifer null and void, and then Lucifer would have the right to Chris' soul.
But it might end the war.
"Of course, it also might not end the war," Lola said, her words cutting into Chris' thoughts. Chris pursed his lips and didn't say anything, but she continued anyway, "For the sake of honesty, I do feel I should point out that the war is no longer just about your involvement with Lucifer. Witches have died. So have other magical beings, including white-lighters… and Elders. The war is now about trust and freedom and the fact that not everyone thinks the Elders should be able to make unilateral decisions. So perhaps you can get the Elders to stop distrusting you if you tell them the truth – but that doesn't mean everyone is going to be willing to forgive and forget. That doesn't mean the war will end." She paused, then added, "Actually, if I had to guess, I would say it probably won't end the war. But it is your only chance."
Chris folded his arms over his chest. "And if it doesn't end? Then what?"
"Then you lose everything," Lola answered adroitly, her eyes glittering with malicious glee. "The civil war doesn't end, Lucifer takes your soul anyway, and your family falls apart." She leaned forward, her chin resting on the back of her hand, one elbow propped up on her knees. "It is a gamble."
Chris didn't answer. He wasn't entirely sure what to say.
"But then, let us suppose that you do stop the civil war," Lola continued thoughtfully. "It will still take a while to rebuild everything that has just been destroyed. All that trust, just shattered… And even if the fighting stops, without the trust, the demons will still have the upper hand, and you'll still lose even more lives…" She trailed off contemplatively, then added, "Not to mention what losing you will do to your family."
"And you are just loving this, aren't you?" Chris spat.
"Like I said," Lola replied with yet another smirk, "Lucifer's work was quite the masterpiece this time." Then she paused, inclined her head, and said, "Although, as I said before, we can't give Lucifer all the credit, can we?"
"Get out," Chris hissed through clenched teeth.
"Oh, and miss my opportunity to gloat some more?" Lola said with mock disappointment, rising to her feet. "But darling…"
Chris acted without thinking, his fury and rage bubbling and boiling in his veins. His vision was shimmering red with anger, and before he even registered the action, the vanquishing potion was flying from his outstretched arm. It struck Lola in the chest, and her body was engulfed in flames.
For a moment, everything was silent.
Then Chris heard clapping behind him, and spun around to see Lucifer standing there.
"Well, well, well…" Lucifer said, wearing a Cheshire Cat grin and staring at Chris with his brilliantly blue eyes, "I guess that particular premonition was inevitable after all."
"You just… you knew that I would…" Chris stammered, stunned at how quickly everything had happened; Phoebe's premonition had come true. "Lola was just expendable to you?"
Lucifer raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Of course, Christopher," he said. "I'm playing for bigger stakes. Everyone is expendable." He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and played with them for a moment, still watching Chris carefully.
"What?" Chris snapped.
"I'm just wondering to myself what you are going to do now," Lucifer said. He glanced at the pile of ash that had once been Lola and sighed. "It is so much more fun when I have someone to actually talk to about these things. What is the point of making predictions about how Good will destroy itself if there is no one with whom to place the bet?"
Chris shook his head in disgust.
"Oh, don't be so judgmental," Lucifer said. "The fact that I am even here, talking to you… you should take it as a compliment. I've already said that I respect you, and I don't say that to many people."
"I don't want your respect," Chris growled.
"Well, whether you want it or not is entirely irrelevant," Lucifer answered. "Although, I will admit that my respect isn't generally the best thing to have." He looked down at the sunglasses for a moment, then said, "I tend to ignore those I consider beneath me. Destroying them isn't all that… rewarding."
"And you want to destroy me?" Chris asked, feeling dread build in his stomach.
"Oh, that wasn't the original plan," the devil said airily. "Before I met you, the plan was merely to bring about a civil war and cause unimaginable anguish for one of the most powerfully magical Good families the world has ever seen."
"Oh, is that all?" Chris scoffed sarcastically.
"But now that I've met you, I've added 'do everything possible to destroy you' to my list of ultimate goals. Because I respect you so much." Lucifer slipped the sunglasses on and gave Chris a chilling smile. "So now you know the end game, Christopher. Are you going to roll the dice, sacrifice your soul with the hopes that telling the Elders the truth might stop this war? Or are you going to sit back and watch everything burn? The choice is yours."
And without waiting for a response, the devil disappeared.
Long after the devil had left, Chris still hadn't rejoined the Charmed Ones. He was back in the Underworld, safely away from Elders, but the conversation with Lola weighed heavily on him, and he didn't want to deal with Piper just yet.
So he found himself sitting in the middle of an abandoned cave, talking to himself.
"Lucifer could obviously block himself from the Elders, and he probably blocked Lola, too. So they couldn't hear what we were saying, but I bet they were aware that we had met. Another reason for them not to trust me."
Chris rubbed at his temples, pushing away the headache that was beginning to form.
"Damn him," he swore. "Conniving bastard."
It was obvious now. Most things were, of course, when looking backwards. But Lucifer's plan – one that had seemed good but perhaps not incredible at the time – was now crystal clear. And it was so ridiculously brilliant that even knowing all the details didn't help figure out a way to beat it.
Lucifer had known that Gideon's betrayal would effect Leo the worst, and that if Leo was the one to kill his old mentor, all the fury and pain that Elders normally kept firmly buried would get knocked loose.
And the devil had known that Leo would be desperate enough to rescue Chris that he would trade his soul without thinking about the birds and the bees consequences, and a little while in hell would be enough for that anger and hatred to take over whatever self-control Leo had left.
Those emotions would color all of his subsequent dealings with the Elders, and while the calm and collected Leo might have been able to convince the Elders not to start a war on their own children, a hurt, betrayed, and rage-filled Leo would simply lash out, giving the Elders more reason not to trust him… or anyone who took his side.
The devil needed an out-of-control Leo, and the Elder had walked right into his trap.
"But Leo wasn't the only one," Chris muttered in disgust. "I did, too."
He got up and started pacing, unable to full comprehend how idiotic he had been.
Lucifer had known that the Charmed Ones would be desperate to get Leo back, and Chris would be desperate not to disappear, and that the family would foolishly believe that – being Halliwells – they could beat him at his own game. He'd tricked them and they hadn't even realized it, hadn't spent enough time considering all the possible ways he could be playing them.
How much of it had been their own pride, and how much had been his whispers in their ear?
"But Lucifer can't lie," Chris growled, kicking at the ground, "so perhaps all of this is our fault."
It wasn't even like he didn't know that Lucifer had once caused a civil war among the Elders. He'd heard that story growing up, and Leo had mentioned it to the sisters when he'd first heard the rumors of Lucifer being active. A civil war among Elders that had nearly destroyed the entire magical community…
How had he not seen this coming?
And then there was the issue of Piper. Lucifer must have known just how much losing Leo would break her. She was drifting away from her calling, giving up on her very identity, and if she lost Chris, she would be destroyed completely. Chris knew that, could see it so very clearly every time he looked at her.
If he told the Elders the truth, gave his soul back to Lucifer, Piper would crumble to pieces. And she would take Paige and Phoebe with her, because Chris knew enough about those two to know that Phoebe would not be able to survive losing another sister and Paige was not yet strong enough to survive being completely alone.
So now he had a choice, and neither one of his options had any guarantee of making the situation better.
He slammed his fist into the wall. "Damn it!" he swore, not caring about the burst of pain in his bones or the smear of blood that appeared on the stone. "I've done this before."
How many times did this argument come up in the future? How many times had people demanded he kill Wyatt to save the future?
And wasn't that just the ironic part of all of it? After successfully fleeing the future so that he would not have to choose between killing his brother or letting the world burn, he now had to be the one to make the choice between destroying his family or letting the entire magical community of Good fall apart.
He had no doubt that Lucifer was gaining an immense amount of pleasure from the situation.
After all, the devil wanted to destroy him.
Wyatt had wanted to do that, too.
Chris glanced down at his bleeding hand, then slowly clenched it into a fist once more, ignoring the throbbing pain.
"Wyatt took away everything that was good in the future," he said aloud. He didn't know if Lucifer was watching him now, spying on him, and it didn't really matter. Whether or not the devil heard these words, Chris still needed to say them. "My friends, my allies, Prue… Bianca. He took away everything and everyone I loved in an effort to turn me to his side. He wanted to destroy me, wanted to replace me with a lackey who would be forever loyal to him."
Chris lifted his chin and looked up at the ceiling of the cave, imagining Lucifer staring down at him.
"And guess what," he said. "Wyatt failed."
He knew that he might not be able to save the world, though he would certainly do everything possible to stop the war. And he knew that he might not be able to save his family, though he would sacrifice anything just for a chance to bring Piper back from the edge of destruction. And he knew that this might all end with Lucifer taking his soul.
But he was not going down without a fight.
"You want to play this game, Lucifer?" he said. "Fine. Let's play."