Charmed: Let Gorgons Be Gorgons (19 page)

“Were the gorgons there? Did you miss them?” Prue asked as her sisters appeared in the living room. She almost missed seeing
them
because they had orbed in on the other side of her new statue garden. She had to weave her way between the stone people to see the ones that could move, knocking into Paige in the process. She’d almost mistaken her youngest sister for a statue. Paige was standing so still.

“Paige, are you okay?” Phoebe had an edge in her voice.

That’s when Prue realized her mistake hadn’t been far from the truth. Paige’s body was still flesh, but she was as immobile as the statues around her.

“Can’t… put down my arms,” Paige said. Her legs weren’t moving either. “I can… wiggle… my fingers.”

“Can you activate your healing power?” Piper asked.

“I’ll try.”

While Paige worked her magic, Phoebe filled Prue in on all that she had missed. She’d already known about their fight with the Titans, but it was still a shock to find that something that had happened years ago while she was out of her sisters’ lives still had ramifications in the present day. Prue blamed herself once again for being so distraught that she’d been gone for so long. Grams and their mom never had a problem getting in touch with their living family members. Prue still couldn’t explain why her own death had hit her so hard. Aside from the obvious, of course.

Prue could only watch as Paige reached inside herself and tried to heal against the magic taking over her body. Her hands emanated a golden glow that she tried to direct inward. With her arms refusing to cooperate, she couldn’t physically direct the power toward herself, but she tried to focus with her mind. “Only slowing things down.”

Prue grabbed a bottle from the table. “Try the potion. See if it works.”

“A little help,” Paige said weakly.

“Oh. Sorry.” Prue flushed with embarrassment. Paige had just said she couldn’t move her arms. Prue took in the situation, unstopped the bottle and poured it over her sister’s head. “Sorry about this.”

“No problem,” Paige grumbled as the liquid oozed over her. She closed her eyes while she still could so nothing got in.

“We’ll fix your hair later,” Phoebe added, which earned her a glare from both Paige
and
Prue.

As the potion dripped down Paige, she struggled to move her arms and legs, but Prue only saw the barest motion, and she wasn’t even sure that that wasn’t wishful thinking. “That… all we got?” Paige asked.

“It’s the entire bottle,” Prue said. “We didn’t make any more since it was useless. I can get Frank and the fairy back. Maybe.

Piper took in the statues around them. “That hasn’t been much of a success so far.”

“Bad enough Paige is stuck like this,” Phoebe said. “I don’t think she needs a fairy buzzing around her head.”

“True,” Paige said.

Phoebe stepped up to Paige, examining her closely. Looking right into her eyes. Prue joined her as they both tried to see if there was any graying going on.

“Personal space,” Paige said.

“Sorry,” Prue said as they both stepped back. “I was just wondering why you haven’t turned all the way to stone yet. I mean, before you started using your healing power.”

“It happened pretty fast in my vision with the congressman,” Phoebe added. “Those people in the shaky, blurry video got hit right away too.”

“Maybe because she’s a witch?” Piper suggested. “The other victims were mortals.”

“Turned to stone… fast… with the Titans.” It was getting harder to understand Paige. Her jaw wasn’t moving as much as it usually did when she spoke. Prue didn’t take that as a good sign.

“This must be a different magic,” Prue suggested. “You said your spell had worked back then.”

“Our magic worked yesterday morning too,” Piper reminded her. “We undid the spell on that congressman.”

“Stheno… getting… stronger,” Paige struggled to say.

“Stheno’s getting stronger?” That didn’t make any sense to Prue. According to Phoebe, Medusa had been the one to cast the spell on Paige.

“No,” Phoebe said. “Stheno said
she
is getting stronger. I’m guessing she was talking about Medusa.”

“Okay,” Prue said. “Then Medusa’s getting stronger. That still doesn’t explain why her power’s not strong enough to work against Paige.”

“Because it was just her and not her sisters?” Piper suggested. “But then why would she do it on her own. No, that can’t be it.”

“Maybe because she wasn’t trying to turn Paige to stone,” Phoebe said. “She was trying to attack Athena.”

Prue stared blankly at her. “I don’t get it.”

“Right before Medusa went all crazy eyes, I thought Paige was getting through to her,” Phoebe said. “I got the feeling that Medusa wasn’t the one behind this little escapade. Stheno seemed to be in charge. But then Medusa sensed some residual Goddess of War on Paige and whatever progress had been made went out the proverbial window.”

“Sit-ters.”

“What was that, Paige?” Prue asked. “Sitters?”

“Sssssssss.”

“I don’t think she’s referring to the snakes in Medusa’s hair,” Phoebe said.

Prue was pretty sure Phoebe was right. She was also confident that she knew what Paige was struggling to say. “Sisters!”

“Them or us?” Piper asked.

“But that’s it!” Prue said. “That’s the connection. We’ve been thinking of Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale as gorgons all this time.”

“If you’d seen them at the stadium it would be pretty hard to think of them as anything else,” Phoebe said.

“But they
were
something else,” Prue said. “Before they were cursed. Frank said they were witches. Or implied they were. Three powerful sister-witches that worked for the Elders? Sound familiar?”

“You think they were Charmed?” Piper asked. “And that’s the connection? That’s why their magic isn’t working on Paige.”

“Not exactly,” Prue said. “The prophecy said we’re the most powerful witches of all time. Well,
we
were and now you all are. Either way, the ‘of all time’ part sounds kind of infinite to me. But I’m thinking they were something
like
us. Maybe a precursor to the Power of Three. That’s why her magic doesn’t fully work on Paige.”

“And how does this help us?” Phoebe asked.

“It’s elementary,” Prue said, looking at Paige. “The Power of Three will set you free.”

“Where are we?” Medusa demanded. A moment ago, they were inside that stadium and now they were in some kind of gray stone building with metal bars attached to the walls. The fact that the damned goddess hadn’t sent them down to Hades was no consolation for her actions now or in the past. “What did Athena do to us?”

“Her name is Paige, dear,” Euryale said. “That wasn’t Athena.”

“That horrible scheming goddess was in there somewhere,” Medusa insisted, the snakes in her hair spitting with a rage that drowned out all reason. “I could taste her.”

“We could have used this passion yesterday,” Stheno said. She was calmer than Medusa had seen her since her resurrection.

Medusa spun on her. “You knew! Don’t deny it!”

Stheno smiled. “I knew that she had been touched by the magic that made Athena who she was. But that was years ago. I honestly didn’t think the residual magic had stayed with her. I never imagined you would sense it. Of course, I might have if you’d told me you were back at your full strength.”

Medusa seethed with eyes glowing and snakes writhing around her head. “You do not want to see me at my full strength. Now tell me where we are.”

Stheno just stared smugly at her while Euryale provided the answer. “Far as I can tell, that witch sent us to Alcatraz. Former prison and current tourist trap. By the looks of the place, I’m guessing it’s closed for maintenance or something today. Or maybe we’re just in a closed off portion, though I can’t imagine the Charmed Ones sending us some place we could cause trouble. Usually mortals would be stumbling over us with their cameras.”

Medusa ignored most of what Euryale had said, focusing on the important part. “The Charmed Ones? You’ve called them that before. You gave me the impression they were witches. Why would they possess the power of Athena?”

“Long story,” Stheno said. “And not a very interesting one. The point is now that they know about us, they will do anything to stop us.”

“Yeah,” Euryale said to her eldest sister. “I thought you were taking care of that part.”

Stheno’s eyes narrowed. “This will be the last time I contract work out. From now on, we take care of our problems ourselves.”

“Fine with me,” Medusa said, the rage building in her. She might not have Athena in this era, but she had the next best thing. “And we start with the Charmed Ones.”

“Much as I love this newfound commitment to our plan,” Stheno said, “I don’t know that it’s the best way to allocate our resources. Now that your powers are back, we are at the strongest we’ve been in a very long time. We don’t need to be together to turn people to stone permanently. We can go anywhere in the world! Do anything! We can change the very fabric of society.”

“And the Charmed Ones will stop at nothing to make sure we don’t do that,” Euryale said. “Honestly, I think Medusa’s on to something.”

Medusa knew she was in trouble when Euryale was agreeing with her over Stheno. She also knew that her anger wasn’t logical. This Charmed One wasn’t Athena. She hadn’t even been born when the curse took effect. But the rage Medusa felt was clouding her thoughts. She’d mistakenly believed that she had gotten past her anger, but all she wanted now was revenge. This Paige woman finally gave her an outlet for her emotions. And she wanted vengeance.

Thunder clapped outside the gray building, shaking the stone walls around them.

“That… sounded familiar.” Stheno pushed past Medusa, moving toward the small window.

“What is it?” Euryale asked.

Medusa was too busy trying to separate her anger from the rest of her confused emotions that she really didn’t care what her sisters had noticed. At least, not until Stheno was staring at her with a smile on her face unlike any Medusa had ever seen her wear.

“Do it again,” Stheno said.

“Do what?” Medusa hadn’t
done
anything.

“Get angry,” Stheno said. “Get
mad
. Think about Athena and the power she held over us. About that supposed ‘hero’ Perseus that killed you and took you from us. Rage against Poseidon for stealing your--”

A crashing thunder shook the very foundation of the building before a bolt of lightning blew out the window Stheno had been beside a moment earlier. Glass flew at them, but Euryale stopped it with a wave of her hand, changing the glass into butterflies that flapped their way through the bars, disappearing down the hall.

Both Stheno and Euryale laughed with glee as they took in the destruction of the window. Medusa blinked twice, afraid to believe what it could mean.

Stheno’s smile shifted into something darker as she raised a hand, gathering the moisture in the air above her palm before turning it into a ball of ice. “Our active powers have returned!”

It couldn’t be possible. Medusa refused to believe it. They were standing there in their gorgon bodies, snakes hissing on their heads. They weren’t witches any longer. They didn’t possess any magic beyond the parlor tricks Athena had gifted them with. And yet, the lightning Medusa had called down was not part of her curse. It came from before that time. “How?”

“Your rebirth,” Stheno said. “When we tapped into the magic of the Charmed Ones and the magic of the Nexus of the All, it changed us. We were connected with the most powerful witches of all time. It might have reawakened our powers too.”

“But we still bear the curse,” Euryale said, pointing to her face as if she needed to remind them.

In a blink, Stheno adopted her human form. “So what? It’s just another gift we carry. Turning people to stone can come in quite handy. And with our magic back, we can probably keep these glamours up indefinitely.”

Euryale let out a squeal, clapping her hands together as she changed her body. The outfit she wore this time fit her like a second skin. She had even worse shoes on that appeared to be made from the skin of snakes.

“But it’s not us,” Medusa said, sounding unsure of herself. If Athena’s curse could be subdued, she might be able to live a normal life. She might be able to move on. But even as she changed herself back into the form she’d been born into, she could still feel the snakes which now slumbered on her head. She could still feel the hate for Athena and for the woman alive today that had once tasted her power.

“But it
can
be us,” Stheno said. The sudden calm that came over her was even worse than Euryale agreeing with Medusa. “If tapping into the magic of the Charmed Ones and their sister is what brought our own gifts back to us, I wonder what would happen if we took
their
magic as well.”

Coop watched as the residents of Grand Haven Retirement Village went about their late morning activities on the well-manicured grounds. A painting class had set up on the patio while another group played bocce on the lawn. Several other residents seemed to be taking leisurely strolls, but there was something very predetermined about their chosen routes. As nice as the “village” was, Coop couldn’t see himself ever moving into such a casually structured place, and that had nothing to do with his immortal status. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”

“Yes, it is kind of a constricting way of life,” Cole replied, taking a sip from his drink. They waited in the gazebo for someone to either kick them out or ask them what they were doing there. So far, it has been a half-hour and not a soul had approached. “These people don’t seem to enjoy as much freedom as this community wants it to appear they do. And yet, it has a stunning lack of security.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“I’m talking about your plan. I don’t like your plan.”

“I know,” Cole repeated. “You’ve made that perfectly clear the dozen other times you mentioned it. But it’s the best option we have for bringing Dafydd out into the open.”

“It seems wrong,” Coop said. “Manipulative. I would have preferred staking out Phoebe’s other couples and waiting for him to show up.”

“That’s probably because it
is
manipulative,” Cole said without a moment of hesitation. “Kama’s got the couples covered. Dafydd hasn’t gone near them. Hasn’t gone back to Piper’s restaurant either.”

“We’re putting people in danger,” Coop reminded him.

“Only for a moment,” Cole said. “As soon as he appears we grab him by the throat and beam him to Cupid’s temple where we can force that disgusting river water down his throat.”

“I don’t like that part of the plan either.” Coop said. “Let me try to reason with him first. He is the man who trained me. I don’t want to just grab him and force him to drink that swill. Maybe I can get through to him. I just don’t understand what would make him betray his calling like this.”

Cole looked skeptical. “Do you really need me to explain how love can make people do crazy things? Would you like me to cite examples?”

“That’s okay. I’ve heard the stories.”

“I will say it’s worse for people like us,” Cole added. “The ones who never die. Or at least exist for a very long time. You’d think that with so much time and so many different opportunities to fall in love that we’d be better at it. Have more experience. But that’s not the way it works out.”

“I didn’t really have any experience,” Coop admitted. “Not before Phoebe.”

Cole paused for a beat, looking him over. “That’s… sad.”

“Job hazard.”

Cole nodded like he understood. Coop assumed Cole’s former life as a half-demon came with enough hazards to put his to shame. Maybe complaining about his life to Cole Turner was not the most sensitive thing Coop had ever done. His mind went back to the thought that kept playing on repeat. “We should have thought this out more. It’s not… fair.”

Cole leaned forward in his seat. “You heard Kama. Stheno was the one who used her mythological connections to get access to the vault.
She
stole the ring for Dafydd. They’re clearly working together with him being some kind of distraction for the Charmed Ones. He’s already affected Phoebe and Piper so you know what that means.”

Coop sighed. “That Paige could be next. Which might mean an attack on her Charges or Magic School.”

“I’m guessing that’s going to be worse than breaking up some couples or making a few mortals sick.”

Even though everything Cole kept saying was true—and he was saying it in the most direct way possible—Coop couldn’t help but feel like it was coming out in a slightly condescending manner. Then again, Cole usually had that tone when he spoke, which made it difficult to read his true intentions.

As logical as the argument sounded, Coop still felt like this was not right. But none of that mattered because it had worked. Dafydd beamed in right beside the gazebo in a red glow much stronger than the pink light that Coop was used to.

“Where is she?” Dafydd demanded. “Where’s Marsha?”

Coop and Cole were on their feet. They moved so fast that Cole lost his drink, sending the plastic cup spilling to the ground.

“She’s not here, Dafydd,” Coop said, trying to keep the situation from escalating. Coop hadn’t seen his friend in decades, but time—and magic—had been kind to him. A little graying at the temples. A few wrinkles around the eyes. All in all, he looked very much like he did on the day he was stripped of his powers. Dafydd was no longer immortal, but he would enjoy a longer life than most people. There wasn’t a crime Coop could think of that would force a Cupid to lose everything.

“Like hell she isn’t,” Dafydd replied. “I’ve still got friends in the magical community. I know you came here to move her some place safe.” The Eros Ring sparkled on his finger, even when it wasn’t active. Coop could feel the emotions coming from it. He was surprised that it didn’t have a calming effect on Dafydd. Perhaps because he’d only used it for evil purposes.

“She’s been some place safe for over fifty years. Why would we move her now?” Cole’s response saved Coop from having to admit his manipulation of the truth. “Those friends passed along the information we wanted you to have. It was the only thing we knew would bring you out of hiding.”

It wasn’t that Cupids couldn’t lie, but Coop felt like he lost a part of himself every time he chose not to tell the truth. Honesty was at the core of any relationship. Even a lie made with the best of intentions told to someone who had done horrible things didn’t change that. “I’m sorry, Dafydd. You gave us no choice.”

“That doesn’t mean much coming from the man responsible for destroying her life,” Dafydd said. “Now you’re even using her to betray me. You should be ashamed.”

Cole laughed in a taunting way. “Wow. Demons have nothing on you when it comes to hypocrisy.”

“Who the hell is this?” Dafydd said.

“A friend,” Coop replied. It was the easiest explanation and one that he was finding truer with every passing moment. Cole looked a bit taken aback by the comment, but didn’t say anything.

“Afraid to see me on your own?” the former Cupid asked.

Coop held out a hand. “We’re here to help you, Dafydd. You need to return the Eros Ring.”

“As soon as you take me to Marsha.”

“You tried to destroy my wife’s career and close my sister-in-law’s restaurant to convince me you’re worthy of Marsha’s love? That’s the most twisted--”

“I’m not interested in convincing you of anything.” Now Dafydd let out the taunting laugh. Coop thought it must be something they taught in villain school. The former demon and former Cupid were both skilled in that department.

It was interesting, this point that Coop had reached in his life. He was partnered with a former demon—his wife’s ex-husband—on a mission to stop his former mentor—a fallen Cupid—from destroying numerous lives. What odd set of circumstances could have ever brought him to this place? It was as much a question for his mentor as it was for him.

“What happened?” Coop asked. “What made you do it?”

“This woman came up to me and offered the ring in exchange for keeping your family occupied,” Dafydd said. “Once I knew it would hurt you, I was all in.”

“We figured that part out,” Coop said. “I mean, why did you use your Cupid ring to make Marsha fall for you when you knew she was destined for another? Why would you betray her like that? Why would you hurt her?”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Dafydd insisted. “You did when you reported it to our--”

“That is not an answer!” The group painting on the patio looked over at the sound of Coop’s raised voice. He smiled an apology their way before continuing in a more acceptable tone. “Pretending for a moment that her punishment was my fault, I wasn’t the one that forced her to feel an unnatural emotion. That was all you. And you knew what it would do to her. So, I want to know… why did you do it?”

Dafydd looked at Coop like he’d lost his mind for asking the most obvious question in the world. “Love.”

It was then that Coop accepted what Cole had been saying all along. After all this time, Dafydd still couldn’t even entertain the idea that what he’d done was wrong. That what he was continuing to do by punishing Coop and his loved ones was a bad thing. He was never going to accept it. Dafydd really believed his twisted version of love justified his actions.

“Fine, Cole,” Coop finally said. “We’ll do it your way.”

Without another word, Cole reached out and grabbed Dafydd into a chokehold before teleporting him to Cupid’s temple.

Coop remained behind for a moment to make sure that no one had seen them disappear. The painters had returned to their easels. The bocce ball players were deep into their game. No one walking the grounds had noticed Cole’s sudden disappearance.

Truth be told, it had caught Coop off guard as well. To see Cole embrace violence so quickly even though the demon was long gone from his body was the most telling difference between the two men.

It wasn’t that Cole was evil anymore. He’d done more than enough to prove that since his return. But Cole lived by a different code, one that Coop would never embrace. But part of him—a small part—appreciated that aspect of Cole’s personality. It would be handy to have around when things got rough. As they often did when the Charmed Ones were around.

All along, Coop had been making it clear to Phoebe that he didn’t have any problems with Cole hanging around. Now, for the first time, Coop realized that he was actually kind of glad.