Death lurking within

Chapter 6

A/N: So over a year pause this time. This story really is slow going for me. Hopefully I will be able to start writing regularly again in general. I really want to finish this story, but I can't promise that it will be soon, but rest assured, that I really do want to finish.

Disclaimer: Who cares whether I write this or not? Seriously. Anyway, me no own. But that's ok, if I said I did no one would believe it anyway.

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It was still raining, as it had been the entire day. It seemed a little bit like fate to Phenola, even though she knew that bad things could happen just as well on sunny days, and that no matter of how magically powerful she and the people she knew were, that would not motivate the weather to care about any of them. She didn't really mind the rain, anyway. It seemed a little refreshing, one little thing that had not changed, and would not change in her life, no matter how unsteady everything else that happened to her was. It kind of reminded her of the fact, that this was reality. Even though everything that was real to her wasn't something she really cared to accept as anything other than a nightmare.

So she didn't mind standing outside in the rain. Even though doing that would probably earn her a cold, or maybe even pneumonia, if it was only long enough. Considering, that would be kind of ironic. All that hassle about this very bad disease might actually make her sick.

But she didn't really need that to happen, now. So she finally decided to ring the doorbell she had been looking at for almost ten minutes now.

The door opened after only a little waiting and she found herself staring into her mother's face.

A feeble "Hello", was the first thing she managed to say. Phoebe seemed very surprised, and Phin knew she had every right to be suspicious. She definitely hadn't made a good first impression on any of the Charmed Ones. That much was certain at least.

"Why are you here?", Phoebe asked the young girl, a wary, but not quite suspicious look in her eyes.

"Because…" Phenola hesitated. Why was she here, anyway? "I need help", she concluded after what seemed minutes to her, even though it hadn't been nearly that much.

Phoebe wasn't really sure of what to do, or to say, or even to think. The teenager definitely made a pitiable appearance. Puffy faced, red eyed from crying and completely soaked through with rain. And she looked so sad and lost that an inexplicable instinct immediately told Phoebe to hug the girl. But she resisted that instinct. Still, she stepped away from the door just far enough for her to pass through and made a small gesture with her head, to tell her to get inside.

Phenola immediately felt grateful and somehow better. Entering the warm mansion suddenly made her realize how cold it had really been outside. And somewhere deeper inside her was that feeling that running to mommy could somehow make stuff right. She knew it was silly, but that childish feeling that her mom could to anything was still there, even after all those years when she hadn't seen her. And even though she knew that there were indeed things that could bring a Charmed One down and had. Even if they hadn't yet here.

Without really thinking about it Phin went into the living room and sat down on the couch. Phoebe didn't have any objections to that, apparently and sat down in front of her on the other side of the couch table. They looked at each other quietly, for a moment neither saying a word.

Just when Phin felt like she had to say something to end the silence, and to explain herself, and also needed to do something to stop her instincts from telling her mother everything at once, which would probably not help her situation at all, Paige entered.

"So who was that at the door?", she asked in the direction of Phoebe, but once she spotted Phin she just said. "Oh", quietly and sat down as well.

The situation had gone from uncomfortable to even more uncomfortable. Phoebe was still staring at Phin, who suddenly realized that she was trying to get a read of her emotions. Surpressing her emotions, or at least partially to keep them from being read by outsiders (or rather her mother) had been second nature to Phin for such a long time that she didn't even notice it when she did it anymore. She knew, however, that she really needed the Charmed Ones' trust if she wanted to accomplish anything here right now, because her options alone were very limited. And without opening up that trust would be hard to gain, so she let her barriers down just a little.

Phoebe leaned back almost immediately, apparently satisfied and more relaxed now.

Paige, who hadn't been aware of what had been going on right then, suddenly asked, "So whose daughter are you?"

Phin stared at her, startled. She had kind of expected accusations, or requests for more information on what exactly had happened to Chris an what to do about it. Her own identity hadn't struck her as a matter of any importance. "Phoebe's" she said in a low voice, without looking at her mother.

She heard her gasp and exclaim in surprise: "What? You're my daughter?"

"That's what she just said, genius," Paige said with a sigh. "Cole?", she inquired further, while Phoebe was too busy staring at her daughter in disbelief to ask any further questions. Phin just nodded. She felt extremely uncomfortable, and she could almost hear Chris' voice in her ear, scolding her for revealing so much about the future. But he wasn't here right now, and so she would just have to go about this in her own way.

"I… wow… " was the comment that came from Phoebe, but Phin decided to focus her attention on Paige for the moment, since there was a much higher chance of getting any help there. "I need your help", she said with a pleading tone in her voice.

"What happened? Where were you and Wyatt before?", asked Paige in a calm and controlled manner, that surprised even herself a little. It was probably just easier to deal with the situation at hand efficiently than focusing on the whole weird problems associated with it.

"Well, we were at some kind of Underworld cave. I guess Wyatt picked out a random place to get away from you", she tossed a quick look at Paige "No offense", she added. Paige just nodded for her to go on. "And then this demon showed up. She claimed to be a Necromancer and said she could revive Chris. I don't believe that, and I think it would be better for him to stay… " the word dead would not cross her lips. "where he is now, rather than some demon playing around with his body…"

"No one can revive the dead", Phoebe said, apparently finally having gotten over the fact that her teenage daughter was sitting there, and especially the fact that she was apparently getting back together with Cole. Cole… she definitely didn't want to go into that whole thing again.

"I know, I told Wyatt, but he doesn't want to listen. He's determined to get Chris back, which is kind of nice, but he's going to do anything for it… and well, he doesn't have any trouble working with demons, I mean it's what he does, so he doesn't see how that's bad, so it makes sense from his angle, but he has to be stopped, that demon wants something bad, and I know it, and he just wants to trust her, for no reason at all…" the pace of he talking had picked up all the way through her speech and she stopped, once she realized she was rambling. "But I can't stop him on my own", she concluded, slower and more quiet again.

"Whoa, that was kind of fast", Phoebe said and held her hands up to slow her down a little.

"I… I just… you know, I don't want Chris to be gone, I want him back, too, but not this way, but if it actually did work it would be great, but I can't believe it will. I mean… I kind of have this responsibility now, to… you know… respect Chris' wishes, kind of make sure he's got his peace and everything… I feel like I owe him", Phin said, without taking much note of her mother's comment.

"Okay", Paige breathed out. "Then we'll have to stop this demon. I agree, I mean, getting him back would be great, but that demon would be a very stupid one if she actually wanted to get someone back who fights demons as viciously and systematically as Chris does..." she felt the need to correct her use of tenses concerning Chris, but she couldn't bring herself to actually do that, so she just let the words stand the way they were.

Phin just nodded, and just when Paige was about to add something, they heard footsteps on the stairs and Piper entered their field of view.

She seemed to be in a quite pitiable state. Something about her seemed completely disheveled, even though her clothes didn't seem off. The look on her face seemed a little haunted, and even though she had lived in this house for just about her entire life, the way she looked around the room reminded the others of a newborn horsebaby. She had a certain surprised look on his face, as if it was the first time she really saw her surroundings, and yet there seemed to be (and Phoebe was not the only one who noticed) a quiet resolve about her, as if she had accepted that she would have to face her nightmare and live through it in order to wake up again.

"The crystal just did the weirdest thing", she said in a tone that was meant to be casual but came around feeble and false. "At first there was nothing, and then it started pointing to our house, so I don't know, maybe they're closer than we think, or… " she stopped right in the middle of her sentence when she spotted Phin sitting on the couch. The look that crept on her face now was strange. She didn't really seem to disapprove of her sitting there, but it was all too obvious that she wasn't really eager about it either.

There was a tension in the air that made Phin want to sink as deep into the couch as possible, just to get away from that stare. She wasn't sure what to expect of Piper. She guessed that this all had to be hard on her, but what her aunt really felt she couldn't even begin to guess. She sure as hell didn't know what she would've felt or done in that situation. And again Phin had to remind herself that the short interactions she had had with her past family were definitely not ones that would make any good impression on them.

Out of the blue Piper simply broke the tension. "Hi," she said in a quiet, but not at all hostile voice. She seemed more vulnerable than Phin could remember ever seeing her. And she did remember the weeks right after Piper's future self had found out about Chris' disease.

"Hi", Phin shyly said back. Somehow it felt like she would have to say more, but Piper didn't really make any invitation to start a conversation and just came down the stairs quietly, while Phin was completely at a loss for what to say.

She probably could've sat there just staring at Piper for quite a while longer if it hadn't been for Paige, who suddenly brought her attention to the more pressing matters at hand.

"Is there any condition the demon had, that maybe we could interfere with?", she asked in a serious tone to remind everyone of what they were doing here.

"Huh?", was Phoebe's reaction. "How did you get that idea?"

"Well it's just… we shouldn't risk a confrontation with future Wyatt", Paige said, with an intentional stress on the word future. "because I really don't know what kind of trouble that would get us in. And I doubt he'll be too pleased if we just vanquish the demon, so maybe we should just make sure the demon can't do whatever it is she intends."

For some reason no one answered right at that moment and Paige felt all eyes resting on her, with looks on their faces ranging between quiet amazement and outright incredulity. "What? It's a good idea", she exclaimed in annoyance.

"Yes it is… I'm just not used to you… thinking logically like this…" Phoebe said hesitantly.

"Gee thanks", Paige replied in a voice dripping of sarcasm.

"Um… the demon said she needed a personal item of his, to connect his soul with his body. I mean, I doubt she's going to really want to do that, but maybe if Wyatt doesn't find anything, he won't dare to attempt it", Phin speculated.

"Sounds pretty solid. So I guess we just have to make sure all his stuff is here", Paige said.

"You know, if that works, that would be great. So, where do you think we need to look?", Phoebe asked.

"Well, I guess he got some stuff here, like laundry and so on. And we definitely need to check the backroom at P3, that's where he spent most his time in the past", Paige said.

"Ok, so let's split up. I'm going to look around the house to make sure Wyatt can't just steal it from here, and you go get his stuff from P3, ok?", Phoebe planned. She threw a quick look at Piper, to check whether she seemed to be at all interested in joining in on the conversation, but Piper just stood there and listened to what was being said with an unreadable expression.

"Fine by me", Paige agreed. "Do you want to come with me?", she asked Phin, who looked up quickly and nodded.

"Good then let's go", Paige announced and took Phenola's hand to orb them out.

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In the darkness there was a flickering. Almost as if reality had a hiccup and needed to reorganize itself a little, the air at that point seemed to quiver, and suddenly, out of nowhere, two figures appeard. Two very demonic figures.

"Ew! Oh my god!", came the exclamation from one, accompanied by a gagging sound.

"What's the matter with 'your god?'", came the bored reply from the taller of the two demons.

"It's just… I didn't expect it to be this bad…", the small furry creature replied in a subdued tone. She was definitely uncomfortable, even though this was nothing more than any other underworld cave around. Except for the content, of course.

"What? The body? Don't you find him pretty?", Neema asked, and a little sardonic smile crept on her face, as she stepped closer to the large stone, where the younger of the Halliwell brothers lay in the deepest sleep of all.

Slowly the other demon followed her, but careful not to minimize her distance to the corpse to much. "That's just disgusting", she commented, and felt as if the remains of her last meal were up and about to leave her digestive system the way they weren't supposed to.

"Well I always though your kind was carnivorous", Neema said. She chuckled a little when she added, "Carnivores who eat their pray alive, not to forget."

"Well our victims never ever look like that. We're way more cultured", the feline replied, with a note of insult in her voice.

"I'm sure you are", Neema said, even though she doubted that a little, to end the discussion of that certain topic. She leaned closer over the body and looked right into the boy's face. He looked very bad, but that was to be expected, after having been infected, but she could tell, that besides all the wounds and deformations he would have been a handsome young man.

"Where is that 'ally' of yours, anyway?", her apprentice asked, shooting anxious looks all around the cave.

"Running errands", Neema said. Very gently, she extended a hand to touch the face. It was warmer than most of the corpses she usually worked with, a hint to the recency of this particular death. She knew her assistant waited for a more clear specifications, but she wasn't going to give any at the moment.

The dead fascinated her. She had never been fond of killing, never quite found the sense in that, but after they had died, humans suddenly were so much more interesting to her. And not just humans. Dead demons were excellent subjects as well, but it was hard to find a demon that didn't just dissolve upon dieing. And witches… they seemed to be the most interesting of all. Hard to come by, since their families, who were usually witches as well, made sure that the bodies were safe. There were cases, however, like this one, where a witches family could even be used to Neema's advantage.

She looked at the entire body, carefully analyzing all the details visible to her. The condition was bad. Or rather, extraordinary. She wasn't quite sure yet, how all this would impact her work, but she was all about experimenting and learning, so this made her even more eager to start working.

But she couldn't rush things. If she did anything now, she knew she would soon be toast. She needed to take care of the twice blessed one first, before she could really start what she was going to do. Still there were some things she could do now, and examining the body without damaging it was definitely one of them. She wasn't entirely sure how she could explain undressing the body, so she decided not to go as far for the moment. Very gently, to be sure not to do any further damage, she touched one of the places, where the skin looked as though it had been burned. It had a surprisingly smooth texture and seem nearly as bad an injury like this.

"Um… master", she suddenly heard her assistant's feeble voice say.

"I'm busy", the necromancer said, without even bothering to turn around.

"Well, I uh… I think you should turn around. Cause, someone's here…", the little demon stuttered.

Neema turned around this time. Indeed, there was someone there. Two Cretsa demons, ugly as hell, which was of course a given were standing at either side of the feline demon, which made her look even smaller, than she really was. Neema surpressed a sigh. She would really have to teach that girl how to express important information more efficiently.

"Well, this is an unexpected visit", she said slowly and managed a small polite smile. "May I ask what brings you here?"

She wasn't really sure whether to expect an answer or not. Cretsa were, from what she had heard, not very smart, and she had never bothered to find out if they were capable of speaking.

"The boy", one of the creatures said in a rough voice. He didn't seem to be used to speaking, so she guessed amongst each other they had some other form of communication. Not that it mattered.

"Well, I'm afraid you can't have him. He is under the protection of the twice blessed One, and I still need him. I am right in presuming you referring to the dead boy, yes?", Neema said in a very polite but nevertheless kind of cold voice. Maybe her complicated wording was too much for the Cretsa, but she didn't care. She just wanted to be rid of them.

"Yes, dead boy. We want", the Cretsa who had spoken before clarified.

"Well, he's not of any use to you anyhow", Neema said, and threw a glance at the body.

"We eat", the Cretsa said. He said those words with a lot of force, apparently to enforce that they indeed had a use for the body. But still the missing pronoun made the statement seem very ridiculous.

"Well, no. He died before he was killed by your venom, in case you hadn't noticed. That means you can't digest the body anyhow, so you don't need to have him anyway", Neema explained. She really hoped that this argument would make them go away, because she was really not in the mood for a big confrontation with the Cretsa, who, despite their ugliness und limited mental capabilities could be formidable opponents. Especially since she wasn't that much of a demon who did great in open confrontations.

"True", the Cretsa replied and, even though it was hard to tell through the dark green skin covered with a weird mix of scales and blemishes, his expression seemed to darken at that admission. "We know", he added. "But you dead magic."

For a moment Neema was at a loss for what that was supposed to mean. Was that a threat, or maybe a general comment that the world of magic was dieing? She just stared at him bemused, and apparently he seemed to take the hint.

"You raise corpse, so corpse die cretsa way, cretsa eat", he explained, and Neema realized that "dead magic" was supposed to be a simpler word for necromancer.

"And why would I do that?", Neema asked.

"You do", the Cretsa said, and seemed to be very convinced of that.

"Why?", Neema emphasized. That was just annoying. Apart from the point she doubted that she would be able to pull off what they wanted her to do, he didn't even make a good argument for his side. That was just stupid.

"Cretsa make you" Well finally, there was some sort of threat.

"Well, I don't think so. And besides, the disease's progression is supposed to stop at death, so I sincerely doubt that would work your way. Also, I want the body for myself, so it would be stupid for me to comply with you wishes", Neema explained. She doubted she could make them go away with reasoning, but it didn't hurt to try.

"No use to you", the Cretsa commented, and something like an evil smile crept on his face. Or was she imagining that? "We no eat in body state, but you no magic in body state not too"

That was an awfully complicated sentence for a Cretsa and Neema was surprised. Especially since he had a point. The body was hardly useful to her in the sorry state it was in.

"Well, I'll find a way", she lied anyway. The Cretsa weren't supposed to know, that this actually might be a problem for her.

"And besides, you spend your entire time going around the globe infecting random people. Can't you just let this one slide? I'm sure you're prepared you something like this, I mean, the likeliness that someone dies before the disease offs them is not that low.

"Yes. But no random. Boy purpose", the Cretsa said. Neema was beginning to have violent thoughts, just because she wanted to think of a way to make this idiotic demon finally shut up. The way he spoke really bothered her.

"Why did you infect him on purpose?", she asked, because regardless of how he had said it, what he said had piqued her interest.

"Our secret", the Cretsa replied with now almost a playful note in his voice. And without warning both Cretsa disappeared into nothingness.

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"Wow, this is easier than I thought", Paige said. All they had found in the backroom that belonged to Chris was a neatly packed box full of things and a sock that had fallen behind the cupboard.

"Yeah. He's tidy", Phin commented. The two of them hadn't spoken a lot since coming here. Somehow it felt akward, and neither of them knew what to say.

"Do you think that's all of it?", Paige asked. They had spent almost half an hour meticulously looking through the entire room and finding and sorting through everything that was there, whether it could be considered a personal item of Chris'. But apparently he had neatly packed up everything that belonged to him.

"Yeah, I think so", Phin answered. "I guess we should go." Looking through everything and wondering whether it was his or not had been a very strange feeling for her. She used to know all his stuff when they had worked together in the Resistance, but now, everything seemed so far away from her that she felt like she was sniffing around a stranger's stuff.

"Ok", Paige said and nodded. She took the box and got up, but just when she wanted to orb they heard a weird sound. After a moment they realized it were footsteps, and they were getting closer. No one was supposed to be at the club right now, but maybe the bartender had decided to come in early.

Except that it wasn't. Before they could even react to the Footsteps, the door to the little office flew open and future Wyatt entered. Paige was so surprised she almost would've dropped the box.

Wyatt, on the other hand, seemed to be as surprised as they were. For a moment they just stared at each other, but then Wyatt noticed the box and his eyes narrowed to a dangerous look that Phenola knew all too well.

"Is that Chris's?", he asked in a voice that seemed to calm and controlled, but shook slightly with contained anger.

"Yes", Paige said. "It's his personal stuff, and you're not getting it" she finished, and before either of the future Halliwells could react, she grabbed Phin's arm and orbed them out. They did stay materialized long enough, however, to see Wyatt's incredulous look at her audacity slowly turn into a cold fury.

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"Wow, these were nasty", the little feline demon commented.

"True. And weird attitudes", Neema commented and turned back to the body.

"Is it true, that you don't have a use for the body like this?", her assistant asked nervously.

"Well… the condition of the body is an obstacle, but I'll just have to handle that later", she said. "Right now I have more important things to worry about. Like getting that personal item of his"

"What for? You're not planning to resurrect him anyway, so a personal item is irrelevant, isn'T it?"

"Well, you're right, but one thing you have to know about working with a body of a recently deceased the way I do it sometimes can have nasty surprises if you don't take care of certain things", Neema paused, to let her words have some more impact on her assistant. "When someone just died, the connection between the body and the soul is still there. Not nearly as strong as with a living person, of course, but enough to be very annoying to someone like me, because if you start working with the body some strange things can happen as a result of that connection. Especially with strong witches. So I need to do a little séance as a precaution."

"A séance? I thought you don't want the soul."

"I don't. But I do have to make sure, once I start working there is no soul anymore that would interfere."

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A/N: Is that a good cliffie? I'm not sure, because I don't know if it's entirely clear what she wants, but who cares?

I know, not a lot happened in this chapter, but I needed this to set the scene for the action in the next chapter. And yes, I do plan to do a next chapter, and actually to finish. And I don't intend to make another pause of the length of that before.

TBC, please review!