Charmed: Let Gorgons Be Gorgons (11 page)

The statue of Vaughn Ramsey stood in the living room of Prue’s castle in the exact spot it had been in since Paige orbed it there. They’d pulled off the switch perfectly, even with the little hiccup of the replacement statue having a complete meltdown when Paige and Piper returned it to the park.

Phoebe was monitoring social media on her phone while Prue and Piper tried altering the potion they’d made. It looked like the viral marketing campaign angle was becoming the go-to explanation, taking on a life of its own. Videos posted online by witnesses in the park were spreading, but not with the fiery speed Phoebe had seen other buzzworthy posts getting picked up. It helped that most people were shrugging it off as a dumb campaign for an out-of-touch media mogul and choosing not to promote his network. Added bonus was that his competition was ignoring the lack of story as well.

“We’re good so far,” Phoebe said as she put away her phone. “Are you sure we need to get the dwarf, fairy, and leprechaun back?”

Prue held up a finger as she poured the latest attempt at the potion over the statue. They all waited, but Ramsey remained solid as a rock. Prue added the empty potion bottle to the pile. “I don’t see any other option. I’m not even sure that will work.”

“Besides, Paige is already getting them,” Piper reminded her. “I doubt she’ll be happy if she gets back here and we tell her we sent her off for nothing. We treat her like a magical cab enough as it is.”

Prue circled the statue. “This is so strange. We’re at the Nexus of the All. You’d think magic would be even stronger here.”

“Certainly felt that way this morning,” Piper said. Prue didn’t seem to catch the concerned tone in her voice, but Phoebe couldn’t miss it. There was something weird about the magic this morning. Phoebe always felt a little odd here at the Nexus, but this was different.

“Something must have happened between then and now,” Phoebe said. “What if we try smashing it? Maybe he’s just inside a thin coating of stone.”

“And maybe we’ll break him into dozens of pieces that we can’t put back together again,” Prue said.

Phoebe shrugged, remembering the five-part investigative report his network had done on the hidden value of denying women certain medical services. “I don’t see the problem there.”

“Maybe whoever is doing this is getting stronger,” Piper suggested. “Learning from his mistakes.”

“Or
her
mistakes,” Prue added.

Phoebe was glad to see that Prue was onto her line of thought. “This is the second jackass we’ve had to rescue today. It’s possible that whoever is doing this isn’t just after powerful people. Maybe they are after powerful jackasses.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Prue said.

“True,” Phoebe agreed. “But it could give us a clue. This might not be our typical demon. The congressman and this guy aren’t exactly innocents in the purest sense of the word. More like oppressive jerks that like to use their positions to tell other people how they should live. Could be we’re dealing with some witch gone rogue trying to teach them a lesson.”

“After spending a few minutes with the congressman this morning, I can relate,” Prue said. “But even so, no one should use magic for their own purposes. We learned that message the hard way. We’ve still got to figure out what’s going on and stop whoever is doing it.”

Phoebe nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. We must stop them. And then maybe give them a cookie.” She smiled as both of her sisters gave her that very specific look that she received so many times throughout her childhood.

Thankfully, Paige arrived with the reinforcements before they could say anything about her lighthearted joke. Not for the first time, Phoebe thought of all the things her sisters had been cheated of not knowing about Paige when they were growing up. In this moment, the main thing Phoebe could focus on was the fact it would have been nice for someone else to be the baby of the family.

Then, she focused on the fact that they seemed to be missing someone. “Where’s the leprechaun?” Phoebe asked.

Paige held up a small black pot filled with what appeared to be gold, but Phoebe knew from experience was something else. “Couldn’t make it.” Paige shook the pot. “But he sent along some luck for us. We’ll make do with the dwarf and the fairy.”

The fairy giggled as she tried to dip her toes in the golden magic. Paige waved her away like she was swatting a fly.

“The dwarf has a name,” the shorter gentleman said as he leaned against his ax.

“We’re sorry,” Piper said. She was often the one that filled the role of apologizing for her family. “That was rude. We never have been formally introduced.”

“Well, I already know who you all are,” he replied, holding out a hand. “Name’s Stein. Francis Stein.”

Paige took it since she was closest. “Nice to meet you, Frankie. That’s kind of a traditional name for a dwarf, isn’t it?”

“Frank will be fine. Not all of us inspire cartoon characters,” he said as he sat on Prue’s couch. “Can’t tell you the fairy’s name and don’t think she’d want you to know. But I told you that spell wouldn’t work. You can’t just whip up essence of magical community. We’re not props you can use whenever you want to trot us out.”

Phoebe walked over to him. “Hmmm… seems like someone’s a bit--”

“Say ‘grumpy’ and you might just find the pointy end of my ax sticking out of your head.”

Phoebe stepped away from the dwarf. “Actually, I think I’ll go with psychotic sociopath.” The fairy laughed again, but Phoebe wasn’t sure if the tiny winged creature was laughing at what had been said or if she simply enjoyed threats of violence. Could go either way with fairies. In the magical community those little winged pests were really the closest to psychotic sociopaths, now that she thought about it.

Prue clapped her hands together like a kindergarten teacher, which told Phoebe that her sister was already learning how to deal with the magical community. “All right! The faster we do this, the faster you can get home. Up, up, up!”

Frank hopped off the couch and moved over to the statue of Vaughn Ramsey. “You sure you don’t want to keep him like this? Adds a touch of class to the joint.”

Prue sneered at the guy. “Positive. Now, if you don’t mind?”

He raised his ax. “Ready when you are.”

Prue nodded to the fairy, who flew over the statue’s head and sprinkled some pixie dust on it. Paige pulled a bit of luck from the small cauldron and threw it at Ramsey. Frank finished it off by swinging his ax where the media mogul would never want an ax to be swung.

It didn’t work.

“He’s still stone,” Piper said, stating the obvious.

Frank swung again, taking a small chip out of the statue’s arm.

“Hey!” Prue yelled. “Careful there. We’d like to return him in one piece.”

Paige held up another circle of golden magic. “Should we try it again?”

Phoebe’s phone rang and she was thankful for the distraction. She glanced at the screen and decided it was a call she had to take. Without even bothering to interrupt the argument that was brewing between Prue and Frank, Phoebe started moving out of the room. “Hey, Elise. What’s up?”

“You know how you asked me to keep that news about statues appearing out of nowhere off the radar?” her boss asked over the phone.

“It’s on the radar now?” Phoebe guessed. She stopped short of the hallway.

“And how.”

“I’m putting you on speaker.” Phoebe turned back and pressed the speaker button on her phone and held it out for her sisters to hear. She ignored the annoyed glare that Frank threw her way.

“Another one of those statues turned up,” Elise said. “Actually a dozen of them. And it wasn’t in a park this time. It was in the offices of Carolyn Barnes.”

“Carolyn Barnes?” Phoebe said. “Why do I know that name?”

“The Gorgon Gaze,” Elise filled in the blank that immediately made things click in Phoebe’s mind.

“That witch!” It was out of Phoebe’s mouth before she realized what she was saying. She smiled an apology toward her sisters. “And I mean that in the most ignorant, stereotypical sense of the word.”

“And here you’re always teaching me about the subtle persecution of witches through modern slang,” Elise said lightly over the phone.

Phoebe laughed, darkly. “Yeah, sometimes I break the rules myself. I try not to do it in front of the girls. But she really is a horrible person. You don’t know the number of letters and emails I get from readers that refuse to acknowledge their husbands or boyfriends are even a little responsible for cheating on them. They quote that hateful anti-woman propaganda that Barnes spews like they’re cutting and pasting from one of her books.”

Prue chimed in, derailing Phoebe off before she went into full rant mode. “But back to the point, Elise. Someone got to her?”

“And some of her staff,” Elise said. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

Phoebe groaned. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Just sent it to your phone.” As soon as it was out of Elise’s mouth, a video popped up in Phoebe’s text messages.

Phoebe ignored the dwarf’s continued grumbles as she motioned for her sisters to gather closer and pressed play. The video was jerky and hard to make out, but the screams on the audio were clear. About a dozen voices—mostly men—provided a soundtrack for the images of bodies running past the camera, jostling the person holding it. The video remained jerky as the screams subsided one-by-one.

The camera swung wildly, as the person holding it ran for the exit. The image alternated from in front of him to behind him as if the person filming couldn’t decide which was more important: escape or capturing the moment to go viral.

Viral must have won out as the camera paused when the owner reached the exit. He took one last shot at the forest of statues in the office. It was nearly impossible to see past the stone people, but Phoebe could make out three shapes that looked somewhat human, but not quite. They were green, with glowing eyes, and what looked to be snakes writhing on their heads.

Phoebe paused the video. The image wasn’t clear at all. It was nearly impossible to make anything out. And yet she was absolutely certain of what she was seeing. “Looks like we can put Medusa back on the list.”

“And her sisters,” Paige agreed. “Fitting they’d attack a website named for them. Probably want to collect on the money Barnes has made using their images.” Paige smiled wide, but the grin got weaker when she realized her sisters were staring at her. “What? It’s not like the woman didn’t deserve it.”

“Her employees don’t,” Piper said. “They’re just doing their job.”

“At a horrible website,” Phoebe said. “But that’s not the point. Is it, Elise?”

“No,” her boss’s voice came back through the phone. “Nobody knows what to make of this attack, but after the congressman’s statue appeared in the park and Vaughn Ramsey is still missing after
his
statue molted or whatever…”

All four sisters looked over at the statue. He wasn’t so much missing as he was indisposed.

“You can’t keep it quiet anymore,” Phoebe guessed.

“It’s news,” Elise said. “Weird, inexplicable news, but news. It’s gone up on every local news website in the last five minutes. No one knows what to make of this attack and I certainly won’t be sharing what I know just for page views, but if another big name disappears, it will go from human interest to lead story. This video is already viral.”

“I’m sure the guy who took it is so glad he can get some joy out of his coworkers’ being attacked,” Piper said.

“That was fast,” Phoebe said. “I was just looking for anything related to stone cold Vaughn Ramsey online.”

“Only a few sites have made the connection so far,” Elise said.

“Thanks for letting us know,” Phoebe replied. “Hopefully we’ll have something before it gets that far.”

“I’ll keep you posted from here,” Elise said as they ended the call.

Prue looked around her living room as Phoebe put away her phone. “Why do I have the feeling that my home is about to become a museum?”

Frank cleared his throat—excessively—like he had an actual frog in there he was trying to get out. “You know, we don’t have all day to stand around here. We haven’t even been offered a snack.”

Prue looked to Paige. “Can you get another pizza? I think my company might be here a while.”

“With bacon and anchovies,” the dwarf said. “I can’t speak for the fairy.”

The winged creature just giggled as was the way of fairies, but Paige had become well versed in translating their laughs. “I’ll get two,” she said as she orbed away.

That settled, Piper turned away from their guests to focus at the issue at hand. “This one’s going to be a bit harder to pull off. That building is going to have a ton of media attention thanks to that shaky video. To say nothing about the police that I’m sure are already investigating. I doubt Henry can do anything about that and I don’t need Paige here to tell us.”

“Yeah, but if the statues don’t disintegrate like the last one, people will be asking more questions,” Phoebe said. “We kind of screwed ourselves with that.”

“On the bright side it explains how the statue of the congressman disappeared out of that truck this morning,” Piper replied.

Phoebe shook her head. “That seems like so long ago.”

Prue waved her hand and the floor swallowed up the chair that was beside the statue of Vaughn Ramsey just before Frank was about to sit on it. The move earned her a “Hey! Watch it!”

Prue ignored him. “I’ve got all the room we need to store as many statues as we have to. But how are we going to stop this before I have to add a new wing to my house?”

“One thing at a time,” Piper said. “First we need to figure what Medusa and her sisters are up to.”

“Then we stop them,” Phoebe agreed.

“This is almost as exciting as watching Prue assemble puzzles,” Cole said. They were into their second hour watching the most boring mortals on the face of the planet go about their humdrum lives.

“Give it time,” Coop replied. “Whatever’s going on, it’s been spreading fast enough that we should get some kind of clue soon. I’m sure something is going to happen to at least one of these couples before the day out.”

“Maybe we could force the issue,” Cole said. “Pick a couple and try to instigate a fight. That might call the attention of whoever is doing this.”

“I’d prefer not to do his work for him,” Coop said politely, but dismissively.

Cole shifted on the wicker couch. This was the most uncomfortable piece of furniture he’d ever spent time on. Coop didn’t look any cozier in his chair. It was no wonder that Leo slipped out to Magic School a few minutes ago. Cole would have to find an excuse to stretch his legs as soon as the former Whitelighter got back.

“We should have moved the sofa in here from the other room,” Coop said as he adjusted his position in the chair.

Cole nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything. They’d already exhausted every topic of conversation he could come up with, from asking about Coop’s kids to the current organizational structure of the Cupid community. The latter was a subject he frankly didn’t care about at all. At least it kept them from discussing the white elephant in the room: the one thing they had in common.

It wasn’t that Cole was avoiding talking about Phoebe. He simply didn’t know a good way to broach the subject. He found his answer while watching the multiple couples onscreen—or on window. “She really seems to care about this job.”

“Phoebe?” Coop asked, as if there were any other option. “She loves it. And she’s good at it, too.”

Cole nodded. “A natural from the start.”

“That’s right,” Coop said. “You were there when she got it.”

“More or less,” Cole said. “I wasn’t always myself in those days.”

Coop shifted in his chair, but didn’t add anything. Probably too polite to bring up the whole sordid time when Cole was infected with the Source. Back then, he’d been trying to trap Phoebe into marriage and giving birth to his demon child. Cole wondered how much about their past Coop knew about. Probably all of it. It didn’t exactly make for casual conversation. They should probably just stick to the weather.

An uncomfortable silence fell on the room as neither man knew what to say. Thankfully, they were saved by Leo’s return.

“The kids are taken care of.” Leo paused to take in the awkward way Cole and Coop were sitting before moving on as if he didn’t notice. “Bailey’s going to stick around to keep an eye on them until we can get them home.”

Coop sat up straight. “That’s one brave librarian.”

Leo smiled. “Henry’s going to join her once he gets off work. The two of them should be able to handle eight kids.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Cole said.

“It happens more often than you’d think,” Leo said. “The entire staff at Magic School pitches in, watching the kids when we’ve got something going on. Most of them are more than happy to support the Charmed Ones.”

Cole nodded, but that wasn’t really what he’d been talking about. He managed fine when the entire family came for their visits to Prue. Mostly kept to himself. He wasn’t one to let small children climb all over him. He had no intention of offering up babysitting services to any of the sisters like the staff at Magic School seemed to do. But none of those things were foremost on his mind at the moment.

If the past had played out differently, this would have been his life. If the child Phoebe carried while he was the Source of All Evil had survived and been born a witch instead of the heir to the Source, things might have been different. Cole might have found a way to change for that child. To be the man he was trying to be today. But then what? Popping out a brood of little ones while he worked at some legitimate law office? He’d tried working at a normal mortal job. It was boring.

But would Phoebe be the woman she was today if he’d stayed? Cole knew it was over between them, but he couldn’t help wondering about the might-have-beens. It was odd since he wasn’t normally one who dwelled on the past. But with very little to entertain him on the Nexus of the All, it seemed that dwelling was his number one way to pass the time. It wasn’t any different at the Manor watching the most boring type of reality television ever made: actually reality.

Coop sat up suddenly, leaning forward, and pointed to the window second from the end of the row. “Looks like we got something. How do we turn up the volume on this thing?”

Cole motioned to Coop as he got up and moved to the window along with Leo. “Your magic activated it, so you control it. Just concentrate.”

Coop joined them by the glass wall, raising his ring to the image of two women who looked to be in the middle of a raging argument. It caught Cole off guard, because a moment earlier they had been sitting quietly, one quietly reading while the other was working on her tablet. Their legs had been curled together in that casual romantic way that two people who have been in a relationship for a time just seem to fit. If Cole’s thoughts hadn’t been on himself, he might have noticed what had set them off, but he was fairly certain he hadn’t missed anything.

Cole tried reading their lips as Coop’s ring glowed brightly, connecting with the image until they had sound.

“Your mother has never treated me like part of the family!” the taller, light-haired woman screamed, echoing through the Manor loud enough to alert the nosey neighbor next door.

“Turn it down!” Leo yelled with an eye out one of the unobstructed windows.

Coop cringed as he waved his hand over the window, running from top to bottom as the volume decreased to a more manageable level. “Sorry.”

“Don’t even get me started on the way your brother talks to when he’s had a bit too much at every single family gathering!” the other woman replied, her dark hair whipping around as she gestured wildly.

“And your father!” the blonde said. “That time at the restaurant!”

“
That
one you totally deserved,” her wife shot back.

The blonde breathed deeply, glaring at her wife before turning and storming out of the house. “I want a divorce!”

Cole and the guys watched as the brunette shrugged and walked calmly to the bedroom. Now that her wife was gone, she seemed perfectly fine. She wasn’t huffing or talking to herself, cursing her other half for leaving in the middle of a fight. Not even reacting to what her wife had said.

She calmly grabbed a suitcase from the closet and filled it with clothes. She didn’t seem angry anymore or even sad. If anything, she was simply resigned. It was almost as if she were simply packing for a business trip. Cole would have imagined someone else in her position throwing clothes into the bag while mumbling curses in her wife’s direction. This woman was even taking the time to carefully refold her clothes so they didn’t wrinkle.

“What happened?” Leo asked. “Did you guys see anything?”

“Let me try to rewind this to catch what we might have missed,” Coop said. “Now that I’ve got a handle on this magic, it works pretty much like my own power. Just magnified by the number of windows available.”

Coop focused on the image again, willing it to go back to the beginning. After a moment, the picture froze with the suddenly calm woman about to put a stack of clothes into the suitcase. She took two steps backwards and returned the clothes to the drawer she’d taken them from. The image sped up as she returned the rest of her clothing to the bureau and backed out of the room.

Coop rewound through the fight back to the point the pair was simply sitting in their living room with legs casually intertwined. Cole had been correct in his assessment. They looked perfectly content quietly together until the moment the darker haired woman slammed her book down on the table.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “I can’t pretend that we don’t have a problem.”

“A problem?” the other woman said, putting down her tablet and matching her wife in tone and volume. “All we
have
are problems. Ever since that stupid mass marriage in the park just because you didn’t want our families there.”

“
I
didn’t want out families there?” the brunette said as she stood. “I’m pretty sure you were the one that made that decision. You were certainly the one that wrote in to that stupid advice columnist!”

The blonde popped up off the couch, gesturing wildly. “Can you blame me? I mean your parents have always hated me! Your mother has never treated me like part of the family!”

“That was sudden,” Leo said as they reached the point they had tuned in to the argument.

“And a weak reason to end a marriage,” Cole added. Few couples experienced the level of intensity he’d had in his own past relationships, so it was hard for him to take the everyday little dramas seriously. When loving too much could literally be the difference between life and death, it was hard to consider something as commonplace as parental disapproval as being insurmountable. His own father had married an upper-level demon that ultimately took his life.
That
was a problem that couldn’t be handled in a few sessions of marriage counseling.

But if the shadow crossing the window was any indication, this fight wasn’t entirely theirs to begin with. Cole pointed to the spot that caused his concern. “Looks like they had help.”

Leo and Coop leaned in along with Cole, but it was impossible to make out anything from their vantage point. “Looks like a man,” Leo said. “Though I guess it could be a demon or any other humanoid-type being.”

“I can help with that,” Coop said. He placed a hand on Leo and Cole’s shoulders and beamed them out of the Manor. They appeared in the couple’s yard a moment later. A pair of windows looked into the room and they did their best to stay out of sight so the brunette didn’t suddenly catch a trio of trespassers in her yard as she continued to pack.

“This is the right window,” Cole said as he got his bearings. It was always odd when someone else teleported him. He preferred to use his own powers to get from one place to the next. Cole pushed the concern from his mind as he pointed to a flowerbed beneath the window on the right. Someone had trampled the flowers in that spot.

“I’d call that confirmation,” Leo said. “Someone is trying to undo Phoebe’s work. But why? She didn’t use her magic to marry these couples. She was working her day job.”

“Let’s see what the evidence can tell us.” Coop picked up a few smashed petals and held them up to his ring, bathing them in the pink glow of his magic.

“That really is an all-purpose ring,” Cole said with a smirk.

Coop smiled. “It gets the job done.” He closed his eyes and focused his concentration while Cole and Leo watched. “I’m sensing a presence,” Coop said. “It’s a dark presence. Full of hate. Full of anger. It’s someone… it’s someone I recognize.” Coop opened his eyes. “I know who did this. But he’s not going after Phoebe. I’m the one he wants to get back at. This is all because of me.”