The War on Witches (14 page)

Paige orbed into Prue's home on the Nexus and had to steady herself to stay on her feet. Orbing with her sisters and an extra passenger wasn't the problem. She carried people along with her all the time. It was the Nexus itself. It was moving. The floor was tilting. “What's going on?”

Piper clung tight to her as the floor dropped. “Hold on!”

Paige held on to her sisters and Alysha as the floor shook and fell, bounding about like an earthquake. The small sculptures and artwork that Prue had re-created fell from their shelves. The picture the kids painted for her nearly slipped off the wall. Paige and her fellow travelers managed to keep to their feet until the movements stopped.

“Everyone okay?” Piper asked.

“I thought you were taking me someplace safe,” Alysha said.

“So did we,” Paige agreed.

Piper was already off, moving from the living area to the rest of her sister's magical home. “We need to find Prue and find out what's happening.”

Phoebe was after her in a flash. “Hold on, Piper! We should stay together!”

Paige grabbed on to Alysha. “Phoebe's right. We shouldn't split up. Let's go.”

“Out of the frying pan and into the frickin' fire,” Alysha said as they followed.

Prue's magical home on the Nexus didn't shift or jolt as they made their way through the rooms, but the damage was already done. Pictures had fallen, furniture had slid into the middle of rooms, and the rugs were bunched into piles. But more was out of place than just the items that filled the house. Walls were coming apart, sections of the ceiling were missing, and floors had rippled so it was like walking through a fun house as they searched for their sister, with Piper calling out the entire time.

“Prue! Prue!”

“In here!”

“That doesn't sound like a
Prue,
” Alysha said.

“That's Cole,” Paige explained as they hopped over a pile of debris on the floor.

“And Cole is?”

“A long,
long
story.” Paige grabbed Alysha's hand again. “Come on.”

They found Prue and Cole in a room that had to be the master bedroom. Paige had never seen it before, but it was a sight to behold. It was half the size of Paige's entire house, featuring a separate sitting area with a fireplace and doors leading to a bathroom, a walk-in closet, and a photographer's darkroom. Paige briefly considered whether she and her family were staying with the wrong sister. If it wouldn't have been a pain to orb Henry and the kids around the world, she would have asked to stay.

The room centered on a king-sized bed where Prue was almost lost in the bedding. They were in the veritable calm at the center of the storm. While the rest of the house was in shambles, littered with debris, the master bedroom seemed relatively at peace. The same could not be said for Prue.

The eldest Halliwell sister was tossing and turning, twisting herself in her sheets. She was sweating and seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness. Her eyelids flittered and she could barely focus when they were open.

The tattoos on her arm had nearly faded completely.

“Prue!” Piper cried. “Prue, are you okay?”

Phoebe looked to Cole. “What happened?”

“It's the imbalance of power,” Cole said. “It's affecting her and the Nexus.”

“It's this bad?” Phoebe asked. “How delicate is this place? It's only a handful of witches.”

“No . . . more . . . dozens. . . .” Prue said. “Spreading . . . all over . . . Northeast. . . .”

Piper placed a hand on her sister's forehead. “It's okay, Prue. We got it. This is more of an attack than we'd originally thought.”

“Sounds like it's getting bigger,” Paige added.

“This demon obviously has more minions than we'd anticipated,” Phoebe said. “Beyond this Austin kid and the others that attacked the coven.”
“Austin!” Alysha dug around in her purse. “He gave me this.”

Paige took the folded piece of paper. She opened it to reveal writing in some ancient language she was unfamiliar with. The ink was red as blood. “This isn't . . . ?”

“Blood?” Cole took the page from her. “Not quite. At least, not entirely. It would take forever to write an entire book in blood. The blood would dry too quickly. You'd have to keep dipping the pen.”

Alysha whispered to Paige. “Um . . . He knows an awful lot about writing with blood.”

“Former demon,” Paige replied. “Part of the long story.”

Cole held the page up, examining it closely. “But there's definitely blood in the writing. We'll need to use magical means to learn more.”

Paige grabbed the paper. “The spell Prue and I used earlier should work.”

Prue moaned as her body twisted. Something in the hall crashed, but the bedroom remained calm. “It's happening . . . again. . . .” Prue said. “Spreading.”

“How can they be attacking so many witches with one book?” Cole asked. “Even if they're teleporting all over the East Coast, it's got to take time.”

“There's more than one book,” Phoebe explained. “They had at least six in the woods. There may be more.”

“There are probably more,” Piper added.

“I've seen that book,” Alysha said. “It's pretty big. If there are more of them . . . that's a lot of blood.”

“Yes,” Cole agreed. “It is.”

A collective shiver ran through the group.

“We need to figure out who this demon is,” Phoebe said. “I only got a glimpse of him before he blinked out, but he was red and silver. I think he had horns.”

“We collected a video,” Paige offered. “From one of the witnesses' phones before we erased it. It's not very good.”

Cole watched the jumpy video. He shrugged an apology. “The Underworld's a big place. That blur could be anyone.”

“I could draw him,” Alysha said.

Paige smiled. “Of course! We have our very own forensic artist! Hey, maybe I will start that witch-scene investigation team.”

“I'll need a sketchbook and some colored pencils,” Alysha said.

“On it,” Prue said weakly. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The art materials appeared, growing out of the top of a desk on the side of the room.
“That's convenient,” Alysha said as she went for the sketchbook.

Paige held up the sheet of the Book of Light. “I'll go take care of this. Find out whose blood it is. If it belongs to the demon, we could use it to vanquish him. Piper, I'll need some help.”

“I'll come too,” Phoebe said.

“No,” Paige said. “You stay with Prue. Keep an eye on her.”

Phoebe's eyes weren't on Prue at the moment, but Paige knew it was for the best. Piper needed to be separated from Prue to be effective, and Phoebe could use a bit more bonding time with her new, old friend.

Paige didn't wait for arguments before leaving the room.

Piper watched as Paige crushed basil in a mortar. “I realize this isn't the best time, but do you know who's covering the dinner shift?”

Paige stopped what she was doing to give her sister a meaningful look, but Piper wasn't sure how to define it. “What?”

“You were the one who was in this morning,” Paige said. “Why don't
you
know who's on schedule tonight?”

“I have been kind of occupied lately,” Piper reminded her.

Paige put down the pestle. “I know, Piper. You've got Prue back. I can't imagine what that's like, considering the bond you two share. But she's back for me, too. I finally have the chance to get to know her. And she's back for Phoebe, whether or not Phoebe's ready to visit here when the world isn't falling apart. It's a miracle. Like, a literal definition of one. But our lives can't stop entirely for her.”

“She's trapped in this place,” Piper insisted.

“And that's not fair,” Paige said. “But when has the magic ever been fair? Is it fair that your life finally settled down enough for you to open your dream restaurant only to find that now you barely have time to run it?”

“I think you'll agree that Prue's life is a bit more important than fulfilling my dream,” Piper said.

Paige picked up the pestle again and continued crushing the basil. Her eyes were focused on the mortar, avoiding Piper. “Is it? Would Prue want you to give up on your dream for her? And what about Prue?”

“What about her?”

“She's trapped here. At least for now. Prue's got to be able to come to terms with that. She has to be able to make a life for herself here on her own. She can't do that if you don't let her. At some point you're going to have to go home. It's not just your restaurant. Your children need you. Leo needs you. It's going to be hard on her today. It will be harder next week. Even harder the week after that. It's not going to get any easier.”

“At some point I'll start annoying her and she'll want me gone,” Piper said lightly.

Paige poured the basil into the smoking cauldron. “Phoebe, maybe. But you? Never.”

“You're right,” Piper said. “I know you're right. But . . . I'm not ready.”

Paige gave her a good, hard look. “I get that. But it's not going to happen on its own. You're going to have to decide to be ready at some point. And some point soon, because that restaurant is going to drive me nuts.”

“It would probably be easier for me if you weren't so good at the job.”

“I'll remember that,” Paige replied. “And I'll make sure to screw a few things up along the way.”

“You do that,” Piper said as the smoke in the cauldron changed from white to red.

“Looks like the spell's ready,” Paige said.

“Looks like it is,” Piper agreed.

Prue was no longer on the Nexus.

No, that wasn't right. Her body was still at the Nexus. Her body was never going to leave the Nexus again if the Elders were to be believed. But her mind had gone someplace else. Someplace familiar. The images weren't clear yet, but she recognized the shadows.

It wasn't astral projection. That she couldn't do. It was the first thing she'd tried to help her escape. Being able to send her soul traveling would have solved everything for her. Well, not everything, but it would have helped. She should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

She was in a vision. The flashes of violence had been expanding to full pictures, moving with sound. This was the first one she'd been pulled into. She finally understood why as the image began to clear.

She was in Salem, Massachusetts, at the tourist trap officially known as the Salem Witch House. It was not her first time there. During her time after she came back to Earth but before she'd reconnected with her sisters, she'd taken a job at the Witch House in an attempt to create a new life for herself. She'd gone by the name Patience back then. Somewhere along the way, they'd stopped calling her that and she became Prue again.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that the demon was sending people to attack witches here. That's what had drawn Prue to the Witch House in the first place. Not only did it give her the chance to repair some of the centuries of damage done to the reputation of witches, but it also allowed her the opportunity to meet fledgling practitioners just learning the craft. The place seemed to attract them.

That's part of the reason it hurt so much to see this particular witch trapped under the spell of the Book of Light a woman with crazed eyes held in her arms.

The witch was named Sarah. Prue had helped the girl cope with her new powers. That they had lost touch in the meantime was only one of the regrets Prue had about her new prison at the Nexus.

Prue reached out to pull the woman away from Sarah, but her arms went right through her without even ruffling her clothes or causing a breeze to blow her hair. Prue screamed, but no one in the room heard the sound, not even herself. She wasn't really there at all. The images only played in her mind, placing her on the scene.

She could only watch as Sarah fell to the floor, her power to move things with her mind gone like all the others.

Gone from Sarah, but not gone into nothingness. The magic was being pulled from her unconscious body, drained from her, by the book. As the pages absorbed the last tendrils of magic, the book slammed shut and the woman with the crazy eyes made her way out.

Only then did Prue come out of the vision.

Her eyes opened to see Cole leaning over the bed. He was saying something to her, but she couldn't make out the words. All she could tell was that her sisters were gone.

Phoebe ran to the master bathroom to search for a washcloth. If Prue had to be confined to the Nexus, she was in the most luxurious prison Phoebe could imagine. Her bathroom featured a huge whirlpool tub and a separate shower with multiple massaging showerheads. The floor was marble and Phoebe could feel heat radiating from it to keep Prue's toes warm on those cold desert mornings in the middle of nowhere. The counter around the sink was large enough to hold every one of Phoebe's beauty products and still have room to double as a baby-changing station in case of emergency. There was even a bidet. It was the bathroom Phoebe had always dreamed of and never imagined Prue would want.

Prue had always been the responsible one. Phoebe was the dreamer. She was the one who longed for the castle in the sky. And yet, here was Prue with the ability to make her home into whatever she wanted and so far, it wasn't how Phoebe would have imagined it. As morbid as it was when the place looked like the Halliwell Manor, at least that made sense to Phoebe. Prue had always loved their family home. It obviously had to change because it was keeping her rooted in the past, but is this really what Prue wanted? Or did her design have another motivation? Was she really longing for Phoebe to visit more?

Phoebe found the washcloths in a cabinet to the right of the sink. While she held one under the cold water to get it nice and cool for her sister she gave herself a good hard look in the mirror. She had been avoiding this place, but was it just because of Cole? That would be the easiest answer.