“An honest mistake,” Paige grumbled, crossing her arms irritably.
“Let's orb these guys into the basement and come up with a plan,” Phoebe said.
Paige grabbed two of her Kissers by the frozen elbows and, crossing her fingers, orbed. When she opened her eyes, she was on the basement side of the door. Yes! Orbing back into the kitchen, she repeated the maneuver. But this time the boys unfroze as soon as they hit the basement steps.
“You'll be sorry,” Alan growled.
“Inconstant love,” Teddy roared.
“Eeek!” Paige squealed before orbing out of the basement. She landed back in the kitchen to the sound of her suitors banging fruitlessly on the door.
“Inconstant love,” Paige muttered. “Everyone's a critic.”
Then she stopped short.
“Wait a minute,” she said, turning to face her sisters. “Love! That's what this is all about, right? Thwarted love. And revenge for it? So maybe the way out is to give the love that Lupercalus wants.”
“So what do we do,” Piper asked sarcastically. “Bake them a cake?”
“Well, I think we should start with the one you really do love,” Paige countered. “Maybe if you shower Leo with affection, it'll knock the revenge demon out of him.”
“Paige,” Piper sputtered, “that's . . . that's crazy!”
“Is it?” Phoebe said, putting a hand on Piper's shoulder. “You know, I'm feeling an attack of guilt coming on. Because . . . we haven't exactly been the most supportive mates lately.”
Piper looked down, then looked at Phoebe skeptically.
“I mean, the whole experience with Josh made me realize how perfect Cole is for me,” Phoebe said. “He respects my magic, instead of fearing it. He's never run away from the challenge of Halliwell life.”
Phoebe's voice choked.
“And I was going to tell him all this, as soon as things calmed down,” she continued. “Now, I just hope I get the chance.”
“You're right,” Piper said, slumping against the kitchen island. “Those dumb quizzes. Why did I think my marriage was in a rut?”
Suddenly Piper turned to Paige.
“You're right,” she said. “This is probably the sappiest thing you'll ever hear me say, but . . . maybe love can conquer all. Or at least, Lupercalus. So let's give it a shot.”
Throwing open the basement door, Piper quickly put every growling guy in the room in freeze frame. Then Paige hurried down to the bottom of the stairs, where Leo was frozen in midscowl. She orbed him into the kitchen. Once the basement door was securely locked again, Piper nodded at Paige and Phoebe. They maneuvered Leo into a chair. Then each grabbed one of his arms.
Finally Piper flicked her finger at her husband, unfreezing him.
“Piper!” Leo roared. Instantly, his right hand sprouted razor nails and he began flailing, struggling to break free of Phoebe and Paige's grip.
“Leo . . .” Piper began.
“Sorry . . . you'll be sorry!” Leo yelled.
“Stop it!” Piper cried. She dropped to her knees in front of Leo. Suddenly she forgot all about the plan. It was as if the crisis—and her sisters—had melted away. And it was just she and Leo here in the kitchen, the way they'd been so many times, hanging out, chatting, laughing about Piper's culinary experiments.
Why did I never appreciate those things until they were nearly gone, Piper thought, tears springing to her eyes.
“Leo,” Piper began, “I'm sorry for what I've put you through the last few days. I don't know what I was thinking. Those things that might make you a less-than-ideal modern husband, according to some clueless relationship guru . . . those are the things that make you mine. I love how you won't let me open a door, no matter how strong my magic is. I love the way you wake me up every morning with a goofy little song. I love that you're content, Leo.”
As Piper spoke, feeling like every word was coming from some untapped well in her heart, she saw her husband's face begin to soften.
Glancing hesitantly at Phoebe, Piper placed a tender hand on Leo's knee.
“Okay, so you're quirky,” she said with a small smile. “Having a husband who's, well, dead has its challenges. But it also means—I'm living with an angel. I'll never take that for granted again.”
With that, Piper slowly leaned in. She was sure she saw a flicker of recognition in Leo's eyes just before their lips connected in a soft, adoring kiss.
Piper pulled back and smiled sweetly at Leo. The moment was so blissful, she'd forgotten her sisters were even there. She was startled when Phoebe whispered, “He's calmed down. I think it worked!”
Shakily, Piper stood up. She gazed at Leo's face, which was locked in a dreamy smile. Then she looked at Paige and Phoebe.
“Let him go,” she said.
“Are you sure—”
“Let him go,” Piper said. “He's my husband. I know Leo will never hurt me.”
Tentatively, Phoebe and Paige released Leo's arms. He stood shakily and took a halting step toward Piper. It wasn't until he'd almost reached her that Piper glanced down and noticed . . . Leo's clawed hand. It hadn't returned to normal.
“Um, Leo? . . .” she squeaked.
“Who's sorry now, woman?” Leo roared, raising his talons over his head.
chapter
11
“Okay, that didn't work!” Paige screamed as Leo moved in on Piper, ready to rip her heart out. Phoebe leapt onto her brother-in-law. She straddled his back and grabbed his flailing claw.
“Piper,” she yelled.
“Freeze him!” Piper had stumbled backward into the middle of the kitchen. She stared at Leo, who was spinning around, trying to fight Phoebe off. She was in a daze. She couldn't believe her outpouring of love had had no effect on her husband.
“Leo, please,” she cried, broadcasting all the hurt she felt into that one word.
Leo stopped fighting Phoebe for an instant. His eyes connected with Piper's. She gasped in hope.
And then, with a great burst of strength, he heaved Phoebe off of him, sending her flying onto the kitchen table.
Without another moment's hesitation Piper threw up her hands and froze her husband in his tracks. Paige pointed at the frozen Leo and orbed him into the basement. Unfortunately she accidentally orbed the raging Alan out of the basement at the same time.
“Yah!” Alan cried, ducking and rolling behind the kitchen island before any of the sisters could get a handle on him.
Paige grabbed a meat mallet out of the ceramic pitcher of kitchen tools Piper kept by the stove. Phoebe sent Piper a silent signal with her eyes. Phoebe snuck around one side of the island and Piper around the other.
One, Piper mouthed.
“Two,” Phoebe whispered.
“Three!” Paige screeched.
But when all three sisters pounced to the opposite side of the island, Alan was nowhere to be seen.
“Um, screaming sort of does away with the element of surprise we so value,” Phoebe said to Paige, rolling her eyes.
“Sorry,” Paige said. “This whole ambush thing is a little new to me. I got overexcited.”
“And for that,” said a sinister male voice above them, “you'll pay!”
Piper gasped as she glanced at the stove. Perched like an agile monkey on the hood over the range was Alan, his silver claws glinting in the afternoon sunlight that flooded the kitchen.
“How did he do that?” Paige demanded.
“Something tells me there's more to Lupercalus's magic than meets the eye,” Phoebe said.
“Yeah?” Piper said, still seething over Leo's rejection. “Well, two can play at that.”
And before she could stop herself, she flicked her fingers at Alan. He leapt from the stove hood just before an explosion blasted a black, smoky hole in the white-enameled tin.
He landed on the desk chair, crouched like a feral cat. Piper promptly shot another blast at him. He dove out of the way again and this time, it was the computer printer that bit it
, exploding in a shower of sparks.
“Piper!” Phoebe cried. “Remember? Innocent? We've got to subdue him without, you know, subduing him!”
Piper's hands halted in midflick.
Phoebe dashed across the kitchen and caught Alan in the gut with a neat roundhouse kick. Then she pummeled him across the floor, backing him up until he was standing in front of the basement door, woozily trying to fend off Phoebe's blows.
“Someone get the door!” Phoebe grunted. Piper rushed over and opened the door a crack. Phoebe shoved him through it, then slammed the door in his sneering face.
“Oh my God,” Piper said shakily as Phoebe slid the lock into place. “What did I almost do?”
“It's okay,” Phoebe said. “Piper, you're only human.”
“Half-human,” Piper corrected her. “My witch half should be above revenge. It's like I've been infected by Lupercalus too. No offense, Paige.”
Piper glanced at Paige. She was staring at the obliterated printer with her fingers to her chin.
“Paige?” Piper said again. “Hello? You there?”
“The computer,” Paige said softly. “That's how he did it.”
“What?” Phoebe said, walking over to Paige.
“It all connects,” Paige said, staring at her sisters. “I can't believe I didn't see it. Lupercalus got into my head through the computer!”
“Okay, back up,” Piper said. She righted the desk chair that had somehow survived her little fire fight with Alan. Then she sat Paige down. “Start at the beginning.”
“Okay, well, I remember when I was clicking through Kiss.com—every time I clicked the mouse, these little flashes would pop out of the screen,” Paige said as Phoebe and Piper pulled up chairs to sit next to her. “They made me feel a bit dizzy. Then I forgot all about it.”
“Oh-kay,” Piper said. “Go on.”
“Well, here's the thing,” Paige said. “Max made me feel dizzy too. In the same way that the computer did. I figured I was lovesick. But maybe it was his icky demon-ness messing with my head.”
“Hang on,” Phoebe said. “This sounds familiar. I'm going to snag the Book of Shadows.”
A few minutes later, Phoebe had the Book open on the kitchen counter. And she was pointing at a page in triumph.
“I knew it,” she declared. “This is a section about different classes of demons. It says ephemeral demons can exist in the earth's orbit, electrical fields, nuclear power sources—anything that retains energy.”
“That explains why Max's weapons were such shockers,” Piper said. “He's made of electricity!”
“And to become corporeal and do his dirty work,” Phoebe continued, squinting at the Book of Shadows, “the demon needs a magic conduit.”
“And what is a witch-slash-Whiteligher if not magic, incorporated?” Piper said. “So Lupercalus was lurking within Kiss.com, waiting for someone both lovelorn and supernatural to click in.”
“Oh, this is so embarrassing,” Paige said, dropping her head into her hands.
Phoebe slammed the Book shut and hopped off the counter.
“Would it make you feel any better if I told you about the time we turned into the seven deadly sins?” Phoebe said. “And mine was lust?”
“Oh, yeah,” Piper said. “Now that was embarrassing.”
“Well, at least I didn't max out all our credit cards with my greed,” Phoebe said, sneering playfully at Piper. “Talk about embarrassing. Paige, she literally bought a George Foreman grill for every room in the house.”
“Okay, let's stick to the subject, shall we?” Piper cut in. “Here's my hunch. Lupercalus was exiled in the computer until Paige's presence released him. So the way to get rid of him?”
She pointed at the darkened computer screen.
“We need to keep him out of the box.”
Half an hour later Phoebe was putting the final touches on a spell while Piper paced in front of the basement door.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “The natives are definitely getting restless down there.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than a loud crash reverberated out of the basement.
“Sorry!!!!” several of the possessed men bellowed in response.
“Yeah,” Piper yelled at the door. “Say it like you mean it.”
She turned to her sisters.
“Who knew revenge demons were so darn tedious!” she said.
“Okay!” Phoebe announced, finishing her spell with a flourish. “Plan in place. All we have to do is get Lupercalus into the kitchen and engage him in a fight, which should be easy enough, considering his violent tendencies. Then when he hurls one of his energy balls, Piper freezes it. I douse the ball with the Origin potion, which we will be whipping up shortly, and it will zing right back into him, hopefully knocking him out of his corporeal state. Then, while he's still all fizzy, we say the spell that will whoosh him into our low-tech receptacle.”
Phoebe held up a thick, glass mason jar with a vacuum-seal top.
“Grams's pickles lasted for decades in this thing,” she said. “And it's about as nonelectronic as you can get. So it ought to hold Lupercalus—indefinitely.”
“Not the simplest solution we've ever had to work with,” Piper said, biting her lip. “But, I've got to say, it works.”
“Except for one little glitch,” Phoebe suddenly realized. “We can't do any of this stuff without our handy-dandy demon in hand. Now that Max knows we're onto him, and he's got a veritable army of heartsuckers shacked up in our basement, why would he come back on his own?”
“I guess,” Piper said with a sigh, “we're going to have to play fetch-the-demon. Which means someone's going to have to make another trip down that silver rabbithole.”
“Ugh,” Phoebe said, slapping her hands together wearily. “Time to pummel a portal out of another suitor. Let's move all the breakables out of the room this time.”
• • •
A half hour later Paige and Phoebe were hurtling through a brand-new, gooey time portal, which had emerged from the head of the first suitor Paige orbed in—Alan, as luck would have it.
“Beggars can't be choosers,” Phoebe had said as she gave Alan a swift belt across the jaw. That had been enough to unleash another howling cyclone. And, gripping each other's hands tightly, Paige and Phoebe had jumped in. Piper stayed home to give Alan his memory spell and brew up the Origin potion they'd need to banish Lupercalus. She'd promised to wait exactly an hour, then say the “Wytch Summoning” spell that would bring them back through the portal, hopefully with Lupercalus as their hostage.
Squelch!
After a long, circuitous tumble, the tunnel finally spat Paige and Phoebe out. Paige bounced, screaming, across a hard surface, then stood up rubbing her backside painfully.
“Ew!” she said. “That was the most disgusting trip of my life.”
“That's time travel for you,” Phoebe said. She'd landed right next to Paige with a painful yelp. Then she stood up and flicked a stream of silvery goo off her arm.
“But at least this time I know exactly where to find our de—”
Phoebe stopped in middeclaration and looked around in a panic.
“Uh . . . Paige?” she said, looking around her wildly. “Does this look like ancient Alexandria to you?”
“Not unless there was a lost civilization of Soho in ancient Egypt,” Paige said, gazing at the apartment in which they'd landed, complete with exposed rafters, twelve-foot ceilings, and giant windows with a gorgeous, urban view. “This is the coolest loft I've ever seen!”
“Well, would you expect anything less of Max Wolf, superlawyer and revenge demon?” Phoebe said. “Be on your guard, Paige.”
“Good point,” Paige said, walking slowly across the red-tinted cement floor. She paused by the long, glass dining-room table with the black leather-and-chrome chairs. In the middle of the table was a black vase containing one perfect calla lily. Across an Oriental rug was a gleaming open kitchen and, beyond that, a Ch
inese screen hiding . . . something. Paige gave Phoebe a hard look, then nodded at the screen. Together they tiptoed over.
Paige held her breath, then quickly peeked around the screen. She was so sure that Lupercalus would be lying in wait for them, she was almost disappointed to see nothing but a pristine, low bed piled high with a fluffy, white-and-taupe duvet.
“Well, the guy's got impeccable taste, I'll give him that,” Phoebe said stepping cautiously into Max's bedroom and glancing around. The loft was clearly empty. “I feel like we've walked into a Crate and Barrel catalog.”
Blurp.
“Phoebe?!” Paige cried. She blinked and stared into the bedroom. Phoebe had been walking toward the bed. And then, with a wet, squelching sound she'd disappeared.
Into thin air.
She was just—gone.
“What's going on?” Paige screamed, lurching into the bedroom.
Blurp.
Paige felt as if someone had just pushed her through a wall of Jell-O. And when she emerged, the illusion continued. She was floating in a substance, a crystal-clear, bright blue gel.
And there was Phoebe, floating nearby, looking as shell-shocked as she felt.
“I guess that loft was too good to be true,” Phoebe said, her voice sounding burbly and far away in this strange substance.
“I'm just grateful they have oxygen here,” Paige said. “Now we need to figure out where ‘here’ is.”
They were surrounded on all sides by flashing yellow lights and glowing bars. Slashes of lightning occasionally zapped over their heads or below their feet. And in the distance, Paige could see a tall rectangular structure that looked eerily familiar.
“What is that?” Paige said, pointing at the huge structure.
“Is it a building?” Phoebe replied hopefully.
Paige made swimming motions and was surprised to feel herself zing through the blue gel, leaving a bubbly wake behind her. Phoebe swam up next to her, then whizzed ahead.
“I've got to admit,” Paige said, feeling the cool, gelatinous substance skim over her skin. “This stuff is kind of cool.”
Date with Death Page 11
