The first place Chris sought Bianca out was her apartment, but when he orbed to it and rapped loudly on the door a stranger answered. The previous tenant had moved months ago, the man at the door explained (glancing with uneasy bewilderment at Chris's sodden, muddy socks), and hadn't left a forwarding address. She must have moved to hide from the demon who had hired her, or so Chris assumed. She wasn't stupid, after all, and certainly had reason enough for paranoia.

Undeterred, he returned home, the photo of him and Jake still clutched in one hand as he reappeared at the bottom of the attic landing. He felt cold, his entire body encased in ice as he ascended the stairs and pushed the creaking door ajar. Wyatt was already there, paging through their old tome, but he looked up when his brother entered. "Chris…" he said nervously.

"I need the Book," Chris stated flatly.

"Are you sure?" Wyatt asked, though he stepped back immediately to allow Chris access. Ignoring the question, Chris brushed past him and began to page through it.

By the time he glanced up again, Wyatt had long since departed. He went through every page without faltering until he landed on the witch-summoning spell, then methodically began to gather the supplies he would need. Once the crystals were set in a circle, he sat on his knees before it, the Book in his lap, and tonelessly began to chant. Lights swirled inside the ring of crystals, spinning brighter and faster as a shape took form.

By the time her outline solidified, Bianca already had a knife unsheathed in either hand, her eyes narrowed to slits. When her gaze landed on Chris, her brow furrowed, her stance eased, and she tucked her knives back into her leather boots.

"Chris?" she said, stepping out of the summoning circle, "What are you doing?"

Chris climbed to his feet, the Book hugged to his chest. "We had a truce," he stated, voice devoid of emotion. "That's not enough anymore."

Wary, she replied, "What are you talking about?"

Chris snapped the Book of Shadows shut, his hardened gaze never leaving her face. "I need information."

"I told you I can't—" she began, but he cut her off harshly.

"My charge is dead." He thrust the Book down on its lectern with a heavy thud. "Someone is going to pay." Here he spun to glare at her. "And you are going to tell me who."

The skin around Bianca's eyes softened. "I'm sorry for your loss," she remarked gently, but his expression remained unchanged.

"Who. Is. He."

"Chris," she sighed, her hands open and placating, "He'll come after my daughter. If he finds out I ratted him out, nothing will stop him. He can hold a grudge for years. Decades."

"He won't get the chance," Chris said coldly.

Bianca gave him a once-over, the rigid posture, the icy glaze over his eyes, the murderous glint of intent. She did not doubt his determination. What it truly came down to was a question of power. Could she trust Chris to finish the job? He was only a teenager, after all, one who would be going up against a demon at least a couple centuries old, probably older.

Then again, Chris was a Halliwell, the son of a Charmed One. What he may have lacked in maturity, perhaps he could make up for with raw power. She knew whom she wanted to win. Could she stake her daughter's life on mere hope? Was it foolish to put her trust in the teenager who had helped protect her child once before?

Bianca exhaled loudly. Then, her chin rose, her eyes sharpened as she steeled herself, decision made. "His name is Lord Demoriel."

Chris felt his fingers go numb and stared down at them, blinking as he turned his palms over, bent and unbent each knuckle. It seemed, somehow, too easy. Was that all he needed? Was that enough?

"Why?" he croaked, and an unnamable pain crept into his throat at the question, his voice cracking. Sucking in a breath, he asked, more stoically, "Why did he kill Jake? What's he after?"

"He wants your powers."

"My powers?" he echoed, confusion slicing through his emotionless exterior.

She watched him carefully. "Yes. Your powers to control time."

Automatically—Death's chiding voice ringing in his ears—Chris countered, "Time can't be controlled."

"Well, he intends to control it," she replied, "Using your powers."

Chris knew nothing about the abilities of his opponent, but it didn't matter. He was filled with the certainty of cold hatred. This would end only one way. There wasn't even the option to die trying. Jake was gone. This demon would pay.

Make him suffer! Mutt squealed.

The normally gleeful Demon was unusually grave as he spoke up quickly with the assurance of decades of expertise. Lords are a lot more dangerous to deal with than your average demon. They earn that title with wits and brutality. If you plan to go after him—

"There's no if," Chris stated aloud. Bianca stared at him with bewildered concern but didn't dare interject.

I get it, Demon countered calmly. He went after one of yours. Which means he went after one of ours. I'm all for making him pay. Do it right. Take your time with this.

"Time is up," Chris snapped. His hands clenched into fists, nails digging thin crescents into his palms. "This happens now."

Finally, clearly uncertain, Bianca spoke. "Be careful. Going straight to him will be exactly what he expects. He'll have the upper hand on his own turf. And, Chris?" The teen glanced up without really seeing her. "Kill him. If you lose, then so do the rest of us. He'll go after your family next. And not to be selfish, but"—she flashed a ghost of a smile—"he'll come after me."

"Thank you for your help," Chris intoned. He turned away, a clear dismissal, and Bianca gave one last sympathetic nod toward his back before shimmering away. As soon as she vanished, Chris turned back to the lectern to open the Book. Now that he had a name to work with, he intended to scrounge up every detail he could about this demon. Furiously, he turned page after page, his flipping so aggressive that nothing short of magic prevented the tome from tearing.

About two thirds of the way through, he halted, frustration reaching its breaking point. "Well?" he snarled at the ceiling. "Are you going to help me or not?" But the Book remained silent, almost apologetic in its stillness. Clearly, his ancestors could offer no assistance.

"Fine," he growled, slamming it shut with as much force as he could muster, "I'll do it without you." Spinning on his heel, he stormed out of the attic.

Chris spent a quarter of an hour in his room, penning a spell in a little notepad on his desk. Uh, maybe you should ask for help, Ian suggested nervously. From your family.

At least ask your brother, Krissy added, aiming for logic to cut through Chris's single-minded focus. If he's anything like my sister, he'll be excellent backup.

Viciously, Chris slammed his fist against his desk. With it descended a wall in his mind to silence them, not solid, not by any stretch, but translucent enough to let him finish his spell in peace. Setting down his pen, he snatched up the pad of paper and stomped over to the center of his room. With the pad clenched in his fist and his jaw tense, he began to chant.

"Demoriel has planned his last, today his machinations die, his time of power struggles passed, as I go to where his head does lie."

The room around him swirled together, slowly at first, but gaining traction until everything became a rush of color bleeding together, the shapes melting away. When his vision cleared, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

At first, his surroundings seemed familiar. Torches winked dimly from the walls, and in the center of the room stood a queen-sized bed with a dark canopy of fabric providing privacy. He couldn't quite place what felt so recognizable, not until Demon remarked from inside his head, Well, you can't deny the guy's got taste, and Chris's mind flashed to Demon's wedge, almost a replica of this cavern.

Chris did not react to the comment. Stepping around the bed, he nearly stumbled into a fire pit, cold and empty and surrounded by boulders. Behind it was an austere doorway of mahogany that seemed to grow organically out of the craggily rock wall. He crept to it, listening for noise that would alert him to the enemy. When he heard nothing, he eased through, then followed a long hallway to a split in the path, where for the first time he hesitated.

To the right, the corridor ahead was lit with torches, light flickering over the stones that jutted from the walls and casting moving shadows along the floor. To the left, a much narrower corridor lay splayed out before him, its path almost immediately plunged into darkness.

Voice nearly swallowed up by the oppressive silence, he whispered, "Which way?"

Well, well, look who wants our help, Demon sneered, but the rest seemed to take a moment to consider the question.

Mutt, the first to give his opinion (Definitely go left), Chris ignored, as it seemed he based his decision entirely on impulse. For once Krissy and Merlin seemed to agree to take the well-lit path, as the torches surely indicated more regular use and was likely where he would find Demoriel. On the other hand, as Christian pointed out, travelling in the dark meant that demons were less likely to notice him sneaking in, a fact that Ian, more fearful than any of the risk of exposure, whole-heartedly approved of, and Death had no qualms about the black. Chris waited for Perry to weigh in.

"Well?" he demanded at last, keeping his voice so low it didn't even echo.

But all Perry would utter was a soft plea: Don't do this.

Teeth bared in a silent snarl, Chris slunk down the well-lit path to the right. He heard a voice inside him sigh.

He glided along with his left shoulder grazing the wall. There weren't any alcoves, corners, or pockets where he could duck out of sight on short notice, but if someone were to enter the corridor, staying pressed to the wall might give Chris a couple seconds of advantage, just enough to make the difference between life and death.

But this advantage went unutilized because he ran into no one during his trek. The wide hallway eventually opened into a cavernous space with another corridor leading out at the opposite end of the room. Chris cast a quick glance around the perimeter and, when he spotted no other living creatures, carefully ventured into the room.

The air around him smelled stale with an acrid tinge of—meat? Burning flesh? It tasted old on his tongue, as if the stench had burrowed deep within the skin of the world, a stain that could not be scoured away. All along the walls were additional torches, these more ornate than the ones in the hallway, inscribed with ancient runes that Chris had never seen before. The torches flickered, casting only a dim light in the cavernous space. Around the perimeter were scattered some remains, aged and cracked bones—human or demon, Chris couldn't tell.

But very quickly Chris's eyes were drawn to the center of the room, where, on a raised dais, stood a marbled throne gleaming in the torchlight. Propped against the arm of the seat, seeming almost to remain upright of its own volition, was a thin staff, its black wood shiny and smooth, its silver handle the shape of a rattlesnake's head, its mouth agape. Its fangs, made of diamond, and eyes, embedded rubies, glittered, making the snake look alive.

Rounding the dais, Chris ascended the stairs, then walked another tight circle around the throne. Just as he began to reach out a hand to touch the silver serpent head, a voice reverberating across the walls made him freeze. "And so we finally meet."

Slowly, Chris turned. Standing in the entranceway of the opposite corridor was a towering figure, somehow a letdown from the face Chris had pictured encountering. Did this creature look appropriately gruesome? Perhaps. He had black hair that fell loose to his shoulders, red eyes sunken into his face, a sneer that was yellowed, skin almost gray. And he certainly wore the appropriate apparel for his station, steel-toed boots and a fitted leather cloak clasped at the waist with a silver belt, his collar high at his neck.

But Chris had expected this demon lord, the monster behind all of his ills the last few months, to look worse, more terrifying, somehow demonstrably more dangerous than every other demon he had encountered. This demon was simply more of the same, another Bar-shed, another Agramon. This was the demon who had ended Jake's life? How disappointing. He wasn't even particularly tall. Certainly Siyut, with his sunken holes for eyes, had been more intimidating.

Looks can be deceiving, Demon warned.

But it was difficult to take that to heart when his most disturbing feature was a pair of glowing red eyes that twinkled in the dark, almost identical to the tiny rubies implanted in the snake staff's head.

I guess people really do look like their pets, Krissy quipped. It was something Chris may have said himself if he weren't too cold to feel even a sliver of humor, too single-minded to think of anything other than vengeance. He had his fair share of banter with demons—hadn't Ms. Gowell been disturbed to find that out?—but not now. Not now.

Demoriel stepped closer, his arms splayed wide in a gesture of peace. "I was not expecting you yet, but I suppose I should not be surprised you found me so soon."

Chris was not fooled by the charade. His mind did not sway from its objective. Ignoring the taunting leer on Demoriel's face, he said, "So all those demons—Agramon, Shed'avi, Bianca—you sent them all."

Demoriel puckered his lips as he pondered the statement. "Not all, no," he admitted at length. "Not the fire-touched twins. Their kidnapping in fact hampered my plans. But I dealt with them easily enough. And Agramon was never supposed to attack you. But"—he tipped his head as if sharing a joke between them—"you just can't get decent minions these days."

"Why did you do it?" Chris heard himself ask, his voice a toneless note in the stagnant, empty air.

His sharp eyes followed as Demoriel inched toward him, and his fingers tightened around the throne's backrest. (Not yet, Demon warned.)

"Did what? You'll have to be more specific, boy," Demoriel cooed with a cold, barely-masked glee eclipsed in his eyes. "Oh, do you mean why did I call for your charge's head?" He drummed the tips of his fingers together in front of his face, the perfect façade of impish scheming.

When Chris remained stoic, Demoriel continued as if he had received confirmation, "I should think that would be obvious." And then he paused, like a professor mid-lecture, eyebrow raised, waiting for realization to dawn on his pupil. But Chris did not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and eventually, looking a bit dispirited, he said, "I assume you know by now what I'm after?"

"My powers," Chris supplied.

"Just so." Demoriel linked his hands patiently behind his back, now only a few yards away. "This was all part of the experiment. To find out whether extreme emotion allowed for easier extraction of your latent abilities. Though not so latent anymore, I have learned. It is no matter. You have unlocked barely a fraction of the power you could possess. There is still time for extraction."

Something heavy settled in Chris's gut. So it was true. He had already known it, of course, but hearing it from the monster himself made it that much harder to deny: If Jake had not been assigned to him, he never would have died.

But then Demoriel added, "Alas, the boy's demise is, indeed, your fault," and Chris felt a sudden hot wave rush through him.

Because he could—and certainly did—blame himself for what happened, felt so guilty he could barely look Carmen in the eye at the funeral, but there was something terribly perverse about this demon, the very one who had called for the assassination, asserting such a claim. The scenario felt so ludicrous it impelled Chris to doubt, for the first time, the veracity of the statement.

"No," he countered, suddenly calm, "It's your fault." (Now! Demon snarled.) With a sharp slash of his hand, Chris sent the demon flying off his feet, crashing into a torch embedded in the wall behind him, the flame snuffing out from the gust of wind.

Too quickly, Demoriel was on his feet once more, a bundle of lightning crackling in his open palm. It leapt from his fingers toward Chris, who dove off the side of the dais to evade it. The bolt zapped past his ear, so close he could feel the hair rise on the back of his neck.

As Chris ducked behind the throne, Demoriel opened one upraised hand. The staff beside Chris leapt to attention, spinning in place momentarily before it rocketed toward Demoriel's outstretched palm.

A distant memory emerged for Chris as he crouched there, one from so many months ago it felt like decades. The day his mother had pulled him out of school to help with a demon, the day he had first learned about Perry, about his trip to the past, the revelation catalyzed by the method he had used to snuff out the demon's life. Crushing his heart to dust. Now, Chris tapped into that memory as he closed his fist, seeking out the demon's beating heart.

But when his fingers tightened, he felt nothing between them.

That's not gonna—Demon began at the same time that Demoriel, sensing Chris's endeavor, sneered, "Foolish child. I removed my heart half a century ago. You will not find weakness from within."

And then the throne shielding Chris exploded, showering marble shards and debris over his head. Chris rolled out of the way, then clamored to his feet, already facing Demoriel, fists clenched in a fighter's stance. Thrusting out one of his hands, he sheered a sheet of boulders off the wall above Demoriel's head, sending them raining down atop the demon. This would not slow Demoriel for long. While the one hand compressed the rocks harder upon Demoriel to pin him down, Chris cast his gaze frantically around the room, seeking out something suitable for an attack. His eyes landed on one of the torches at the far end of the room.

With his free hand, he snatched up a small ball of fire, drawing it carefully away from the torch and carrying it on a gust of wind across the room where the demon lay buried beneath the rubble. Already Chris could feel the pressure of Demoriel fighting back and suddenly, with a burst of power, the boulders shattered into tiny pebbles that blasted out in every direction. Chris threw up an arm to protect his eyes from bits of shrapnel that would have blinded him as shards blew past, leaving shallow gashes in his face, arms, and torso. The ball of flame flickered but then held steady where it hovered in midair above the demon's head.

Demoriel grunted as, bearing his weight on his staff with both hands, he clamored to his feet. The smirk had slipped from his face, replaced with a teeth-baring snarl and eyes that spat loathing across the room as his chest heaved.

Before the demon could catch his breath, Chris launched his next attack, spinning a tiny whirlwind of oxygen into existence around his fireball. The tornado fanned the flames so that the sphere doubled, then tripled, in size, at which point he used two delicate fingers to pinch off a single flicker of the flame, drawing it into a thin strand, the magic tickling his palm as it narrowed, a glowing wire of living fire. The tail of this he wrapped around Demoriel's feet and fed to the hem of his cloak until, slowly at first, the fabric caught fire. Then, quite suddenly, the entire cloak was burning, flames licking up Demoriel's sleeves, engulfing him, so bright they washed out the features of his face.

A sound emerged from the demon's throat, perhaps a groan or a grunt, and Chris felt nothing, not elation, not remorse, not a twinge at the prospect of his death. He expected a scream, but it never came. Instead, low at first, a voice that reverberated across the walls of the cavern grew into a cackle of deep, mocking laughter that chilled Chris's blood.

"Did you think I would burn?" Demoriel sneered, both arms rising, staff aloft, as though he welcomed the fire, bathed in it, basked in its warmth. Shadows danced along his face, highlighting different portions at a time, casting sharp angles of light and dark around him, his razor teeth gleaming. "My lordhood was forged in fire, boy. You can do nothing to harm me. If it weren't for want of your power, I would have snuffed you out the moment you set foot in my lair."

From a distance, Chris felt something try to penetrate the icy exterior around his heart, a tendril of fear, but he didn't give it a chance. The crushing didn't work? Next attack. The burning didn't work? Next attack. Think.

His mind trickled back to his long-past battle with Agramon, just one of a long line of minions subservient to this monster, and the natural magics he had tapped into during the skirmish. While losing ground, he had reached out for power deep within the earth's crust. Phoebe had warned him never to make the attempt again—the effort had nearly killed him then—but he had learned a lot more control since that fight and, more importantly, didn't care terribly if he lived or died, just as long as it meant a permanent end to Jake's murderer.

Dropping to his knees, he dug his fingers into the dusty earth. Pebbles and clumps of hardened dirt wedged beneath his fingernails, but he welcomed the pinpricks of pain, allowed them to focus his mind.

As with Agramon, he poured his magic deep into the soil, soaking it, seeking out the energy imbued within every rock, each grain of sand; but this time he returned empty-handed. The real world was teeming with natural magic that gave birth to all life, but the Underworld was barren. Not even a whisper of power echoed back to him.

Chris heard someone snarl and realized it was his own voice from deep within his chest, fury let loose. He would not leave here with his mission incomplete. He owed Jake this victory.

Suddenly, it struck him: I still have a source of magic. A veritable fountain he could tap into, something he hadn't possessed last time, a deep, internal reservoir abounding with power. His subconscious. The abyss.

Every consciousness within his mind was another well of magic, gleaming with color so vibrant that Chris, when he turned his focus inward, had to squint against the brightness. The strident red of Krissy, the opulent navy of Perry, the radiant magenta of Christian… and Chris would use whatever it took.

He drew the power out of him in a slender stream—What's he doing? Ian cried, voice spiked with panic—and channeled it down his arms, through his palms, and into the dirt beneath him. Finally, he felt the ground quake, felt it surge around him, smooth as water. If he could not kill Demoriel outright, he would open the earth to swallow him whole.

The walls rumbled; the cavern ceiling lurched. The ground strained beneath Chris's demanding grip. It would split for him. With or without nature on his side, he was in control. The pressure built, so tight around him Chris's ears popped and the selves inside his head were driven to their knees, until it came to a critical juncture and, with a scream of air, exploded with a loud cr-rack!

In the space between his hands, the earth split, a crevice that instantly raced along in front of him, widening and deepening as it went. On either side of Demoriel, the ground rippled and became liquid, surging into the air like a wave ready to crash over his head, but at that moment Demoriel raised one arm, his index finger extended forward like an accusation. From the tip of his fingernail exploded a bolt of white hot lightning that shrieked straight toward Chris, hitting him dead-on in the chest and knocking him off his knees. The waves of earth around Demoriel lurched, then hardened in their new shape, which the demon calmly sidestepped.

With a soft moan, Chris rolled back onto his hands and knees as the souls within his mind tried to catch their breath. But Demoriel appeared just as, if not more, shaken, his nose wrinkled in disgust. Raising his staff, he cried, "Enough of this! The time has come."

The serpent staff wriggled, its eyes aglow, and its shape melted like water. As it gushed to the ground, it writhed, bunching and reshaping its body into a coil that became a living snake.

"Bring me his power," Demoriel ordered.

The serpent's head rose, the gaping mouth closed, and a tongue darted out to taste the air. The muscles in its body tightening, the living ebony rattlesnake with bloodred eyes uncoiled itself as it cut a path toward Chris's fallen form.

Chris heard the threatening rattle of its tail as if from afar. Groaning, he threw out a blind wave of telekinesis to disarm the threat, but in his haste he lost precision. The attack missed the serpent by several inches, instead pinning Demoriel against the wall, his feet dangling uselessly inches above the ground as he struggled against the invisible bindings. Chris rose up on his knees, hands outstretched, and tightened his grip until fingernails bit fiercely into his palm.

Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed his calf. His grasp over his powers stuttered, and Demoriel landed on his feet. Behind Chris, the serpent had burrowed its fangs deep beneath his skin, leeching a magical substance into his blood that made his veins begin to glow.

Inside his mind, the abyss spluttered to life, brighter than before, the souls within their wedges grown luminous as well, an ethereal phosphorescence from beneath their skin. Each of their auras, even Sir Christopher's, assumed vanished forever, shone in the deep crevices, the scars of the world that Ian had painted over now alight with the knight's vivacious yellow.

"What—" Chris gasped, "What do I do?"

Perry's voice, low and determined, cut through Chris's murky thoughts with a clarity that stunned him. You're the Keeper of Time, he reminded him.

From Chris's fingertips, light exploded outward, pouring into the dust around him, every hue, sweeping the grains into a tornado that hovered around his body. He swung one hand behind him, and the dust tornado followed in a gush, swallowing the snake until the creature released him and, with an enraged hiss, shriveled into dust and blew away as if it had never existed. His veins faded to their natural color as blood began to spill from the twin puncture wounds in his calf.

An infuriated voice cried out—Demoriel—and Chris swung back to face him.

Sands of Time, Perry supplied softly. Wipe him out of time.

Turning both hands back toward Demoriel, who was in the process of conjuring a ball of lightning, Chris sent the sand soaring past his own hunched form into a whirlwind that spun around the demon faster and faster. The stream of colored sand spun so brightly that it washed out of all color, becoming a single, argent hue that glowed brighter with each second that passed until Chris's vision had been blotted out entirely.

"You wanted my power," Chris said, his voice as stone, "Here it is."

The tornado of sand sucked all the oxygen out of the air within, leaving Demoriel's lightning ball to fizzle away. Instead, Demoriel watched as his extended palm grew ancient and wrinkled, the skin cracking and peeling.

Inside Chris's head, his other selves groaned as light continued to stream out of their bodies. Ian was the first to scream, and soon an unending cry was pulled out of each of them, the power sucking out of them through Chris's hands. Chris's head began to ache and a warm, thick trickle began to drip out of one nostril, warning bells blaring in his mind. But he could not, would not, stop.

Like his hands, Demoriel's face shriveled and sank into itself, the Sands of Time cutting through a demon's timelessness and aging him before Chris's eyes. With his eyes wide in horror, Demoriel's face, lit up by the blaze of the sand, sagged, his every feature highlighted in the garish glow.

"No!" he roared, but his voice sounded shaky, trembling, weakened with age. He tried to summon electricity but procured only sparks in the palm of his hand. His lips crackled, his skin flaked away, and each piece that parted from his body turned to dust before it could flutter to the floor.

The sands wound faster around him, and before Chris's very eyes the face crumbled into dust and got whisked into the whirlwind until the space within it stood vacant. Demoriel was gone.

Finally, Chris let himself fall back against the ground. He gasped for breath as the voices in his head did the same, and everything swirled away into a dreamless unconscious.

A/N: This was a tough one. I generally struggle with action scenes. I hope this sufficed.

weiliya - Thank you for your comment! I hope you enjoy the progression. We're getting very close to the end now.