Shape of Things to come

Shape of Things to Come

Part 1:In the Fullness of Time

Chapter 10

Justice with favour have I always done;
Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never.
When have I aught exacted at your hands,
But to maintain the king, the realm and you?
Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
Because my book preferr'd me to the king,
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven
..........(Henry VI Part II William Shakespeare )

After Cole and Leslie left for work and she had made sure that the boys had time to ride their bikes to school, made certain Melinda’s friend turned up for her lift to school, and dropped Mandy off, Phoebe drove to the university. She was alone, planning on meeting Charlie and Paige there. Melinda had words to say about the effect on the environment when two people used two cars to go to the same place, but Charlie had classes and Phoebe was not working that day. Paige would meet them at the university, orbing in from Ireland. They intended to investigate the HR building and the people working there, then go their separate ways.

As she drove Phoebe was engulfed by a nagging concern that had been bubbling away all weekend when she finally calmed down from the shock of Friday morning. It was not so strong that she could tell if it was a premonition or just the voice of her experience as a witch but there was something not quite right. Charlie had been to HR building numerous times. She was always looking for any casual jobs at the university, as were many students and she had never been exposed to mind numbing evil before. And when Phoebe considered the happenings of Friday in calmer frame of mind, the truth was that the seeds of concern about approaching controversial subjects had been a part of academic life for some time, which is why she was careful how she approached the lecture on Friday. Which was why she had been so shocked at the level of antagonism and provocation she had received from management.

Phoebe did not expect any problems today. They were not intending to fight, just discover if Charlie’s belief that HR was being overrun by evil was true. She was a wise and experienced witch who had fought evil for a very long time and she knew how to play the rules. She knew that evil under Tempus avoided exposing magic to the world at large. If nothing else, Tempus was known for his subtlety and his willingness to allow time to work for him and the creatures under his control followed his lead. Something that in the last years had been to Good’s advantage, not like the times of the old source and the period of evil gone crazy after his vanquishing.

Adding to her concerns was how her guardian, lawyer, ex-demon husband who knew things about evil that he could not always share, had reacted to her account of Friday’s events. Cole had arrived home in the early hours of Saturday morning after doing whatever he was doing in the magic world then calling at P3, just in case a lawyer was needed after the police visit, which was the case because two customers and a band member were caught with drugs.

When Cole finally came home, Phoebe had been in an exhausted sleep when returned but woke up to pour out her long day of miseries. He had listened, lying on his back beside her as she snuggled against him. She told him about Charlie feeling evil present in the HR building. “Do you thing we have a magic problem?” she asked.

After that he had been the perfect husband all weekend, going to watch Mandy ride a pony, helping her with shopping, not even bitching to much about the cost of taking all the kids to dinner on Saturday night when Piper and Leo had gone to the P3. He did not even complain about watching Donald playing baseball on Sunday, which generally bored him. Phoebe made him go because Paige was away and the family felt it was important Donald knew he had a cheer squad.

In fact, Cole had been good about everything except talking about magic, which was why Phoebe was concerned. After Cole’s demon days and before he became a guardian, because she was so scared to trust him, Cole gave Phoebe the power to know when he lied and she still had it. But all she had to judge him by, when he was avoiding lying was her knowledge of him. Despite being a very good lawyer, except at his demon worst, Cole was a very bad prefabricator, and watching him turn himself inside out to avoid talking about magic made her very suspicious of what the guardian knew. He also seemed, she realised, just a little anxious that Piper was not included in the expedition, as if he was concerned about Power of Three. She remembered he had seen his brother guardian Proctor last week and then discussed something with the whitelighter Francesca, nothing unusual but still she wondered if Proctor had said something guardianlike to him that he could not share.

Then Phoebe decided she was being foolish. Cole was just not sharing something about Greater Magic because it was outside her domain. Nothing was going to happen on a random visit to HR, Phoebe told herself again. Tempus would not attempt an open confrontation with Good because that was not his way. Lord knows over the last ten years he had made his intentions clear. If Charlie was right and there was extreme evil there, even if they recognised the witches prying, Tempus had shown the way he wanted to do things. His demons would only confront witches if it did not involve a public ruckus.

Phoebe was late meeting Paige but Charlie was later, so she and Paige had a coffee at the student café and Paige happily told Phoebe about her lovely weekend in Ireland, describing almost every special moment with Mark, mostly because as Phoebe knew, Paige was going to have a less than lovely week missing him. Charlie finally arrived, glared at more by Paige who was an on-time person, than Phoebe who had a strong understanding of the difficulties of a relationship with time.

Paige had collected one of the crystals that indicated the presence of magic from the Manor.The witches had spent ten years after the first one was a gift from the guardian Arturo learning about how these crystals worked. She had it in her pocket, not quite content to rely on Charlie’s feelings of evil. It was flashing green and blue lights because of the closeness of the witches. Paige pulled the hoodie she had worn in Ireland over her head covering her distinctive fair hair, nothing unusual there, lots of people around the campus wore hoodies. Phoebe put on a denim cap the covered her hair and came low over her eyes, many people wore caps on the campus, just like Charlie was doing, wearing a bright red baseball cap because people tended to notice the cap and not the face underneath. She also took off her glasses because she needed her eyes uncovered to use her firepower.

“We’re not going into battle” Phoebe told her but Charlie kept the glasses off.

Confident they were not wearing anything that made them memorable, the three witches walked nonchalantly into the HR building, a rather ugly two storey brick building near the highest part of the very hilly site. They knew the secret to checking dens of evil was to appear indifferent. HR was a place that had many visitors, staff bringing concerns and questions, people coming for job interviews, and various committees meeting there so that whilst there were the ever-present security cameras, the witches carefully acting as if they had a reason to be there would not cause any alarms.

As they entered through the smudged glass doors, in front of them was a reception desk with two staff behind it, stairs to the next level were beside it. The building was so old there was no elevator but the next level had door access because of the hilly location. At each end of the building was a large open-plan office where most of the people that Phoebe described as worker bees undertook the paperwork and record keeping that was the life blood university administrators. In both offices, the witches could see staff, mostly women going about their jobs because as Paige informed them, it was usually women who got stuck with low paid clerical jobs. Some were talking to each other, some were busy working away on computers, some were moving about the office holding papers and folders. Everything was normal except that Charlie caught her hand to her face and said OMG shrinking away as evil hit her.

Paige and Phoebe looked at each other and Paige carefully pulled out the crystal from her pocket. It was no longer flashing green and blue but ripping through ugly shades of dark brown and steel gray, lit with even uglier magenta and a horrible burnt orange.

“Lower-level demons, grunts. A couple of sects. Some mortals” Paige whispered to Phoebe as Charlie swallowed uncomfortably. “Segregated” she added “Grays one end, browns the other.”

Phoebe caught Charlie’s arm. “Just be calm” she whispered softly, “Breath, they won’t do anything here. To many people.”

“Not quite vanquish fodder” Paige murmured as she glanced at the crystal. “A little further up the hierarchy.”

Some of the staff looked away from whatever they were doing and stared directly at the three witches, with expressions that were almost evil. Phoebe wondered why she had never noticed such malevolence before in HR.

“They won’t do anything here” insisted Paige. “Let’s check upstairs.”

As HR was a busy place visited by many people, and most of the private interviews happened in the offices upstairs, it was usual for people to just go upstairs without being announced. Reception never asked for identity or even called the offices. The three witches confidently walked past the reception desk, and one recognising Phoebe smiled and said “Hello Dr. Halliwell.”

Phoebe acknowledged the greeting with a nod but continued confidently walking to the stairs. Paige holding Charlie’s arm followed her.

“Not all demons” said Paige checking the crystal, as Charlie staggered under the weight of evil. It was still flashing but much more vivid shades of the ugly brown and steel gray and the magenta and orange were very deep as they approached the top of the stairs’ “Higher level grunts up here” Paige told them.

The next floor had a long corridor on either side of the stair case. Each corridor had walls made from large bricks painted a cream colour that was grubby from age and green floor tiles. The university clearly did not spend extra money on its lower rung administration area. At both ends of the corridor the witches could see security cameras, something of a protection from anything evil doing something violent, they knew. On both sides of the corridors were office doors with various names attached, some of the doors were shut, some were ajar and there was a soft murmur of voices throughout the building. There was no one else in the corridor. The place did not have any life to it but in Phoebe’s experience isolation of slightly more senior administrators was a common university occurrence to give them an illusion of power, so everything would have been very normal if the crystal and Charlie’s magic were not telling the witches that the whole floor was inhabited by two very evil demon sects.

They walked along the corridor to be sure with Charlie feeling worse and worse, and she finally had to lean against a wall clutching her head with the crystal madly flashing even darker brown and much less gray.

“Segregated demons” Paige told them. “Like downstairs. Grays other end. Brown this end.”

Two men walked out of one of the offices near the stairs and stared a little suspiciously at Charlie leaning against the wall and Phoebe holding her up.

“Mortals” muttered Paige glancing at the crystal. “We walk out” she decided.

In front of the two mortals another door opened and two more people a male and female appeared. The crustal flashed very dark brown.

“Demons” stated Paige calmly. The witches glanced at each other and Phoebe made a gesture of defense and indicated the security cameras to the demons. The witches waited, their posture still defensive when the male’s eyes flashed a deep ugly orange and it sent a fire ball straight at Phoebe. Paige deflected the fireball, and it bounced off the walls leaving huge dark burn marks. The female demon’s eyes flashed dark orange and she sent a lethal star straight at Phoebe who easily avoided it by levitating up the walls, catching a glimpse of two horrified mortals faces as she did so. Charlie, taking a deep breath ignored the pain in her head and ran close to the demon and then blinked sending a blinding fire at the female and it disappeared in a burning shower of brown goo which also spattered over the walls.

Paige reached for Phoebe intending to orb but Charlie had moved down the corridor toward the stairs and the mortals, so instead they both followed her. Several more brown demons appeared from the offices, and surged toward the witches. Then the witches noticed, half way up the other end of the building five other demons, females were coming toward Charlie. Charlie pushed the two terrified mortals out the way, and rushed down the corridor at the demons whose eyes flashed a horrible magenta. She managed to destroy one but more doors opened and more demons appeared, and both corridors were filled with demons firing weapons from razors to lethal stars and disintegration lasers as much at each other as the witches.

Suddenly the whole corridor was a mass of demon weapons and demon goo, as terrified mortals also came from behind the doors. Phoebe and Paige ordered them to retreat to the offices but several panicked and ran for the upstairs exit. Phoebe and Paige had enough experience to avoid demon weapons as demon after demon was sliced, blown up and disintegrated. The corridor became splattered with magenta and orange tinged brown and gray goo, and the walls covered in more of it alongside the burn marks. Three gray demons came at Charlie. She retreated backwards, reaching the stairs, and backed down, all the while sending fire at the demons and screaming at people to get away from the stairs and out of the building.

Grabbing Phoebe, Paige orbed downstairs, reappearing near reception to be behind the demons attacking Charlie. Paige destroyed some demons with a shaft of orbs adding goo to the downstairs floor and the walls and Phoebe grabbed a sharp paper razor knife from the reception desk and destroyed another.

“Its demon against demon” she called to Charlie and Paige. “We need to get out of here.”

Charlie was at the bottom of the stairs having fired another demon but as the two frightened receptionists huddle behind the desk, she was caught between three more female demons, flashing magenta eyes who had come from the open office and were hurling star bursts to shepherd her toward the Charmed sisters.

“What about the mortals?” she called returning fire for fire with the demons.

While some mortals stood their ground, others hid under desks and clearly a couple of brave mortals were on the phone calling for help. There were demons everywhere, mostly females, one side flashing magenta eyes, the other flashing orange eyes, and all hissing vitriol in demonese. Charlie leaped the reception desk and Phoebe levitated over furniture as demons followed them.

Phoebe used the paper knife on two more demons while Paige orbed shafts at anything demon in her way, creating more mess as they exploded. Charlie sent fire everywhere in the office, taking out demons, setting fire to paperwork and causing cheap plastic fittings to melt over the rest.

The witches were no longer the centre of the demon attacks. Demons were sending weapons of barbs, star bursts and ice daggers in their general direction but they were also sending them at each other. The whole downstairs became a mess of weapons going off, demons exploding and hissing demonese, paper and other items catching fire and frightened mortals screaming.

A few mortals were injured by flying weapons but most had been left out of the battle as the demons furiously attacked each other. Fortunately, a few brave ones had already started evacuating anyone who could move. Phoebe just began to feel relieved no mortals were killed when a couple of mortals confronted them, thrusting demonic knives, clearly taken souls because they hissed “Witches, witches” but were struck down by demon weapons before they could do any damage.

Paige finally was close enough to Charlie to grab her and Phoebe managed another extreme flip to reach them. Weirdly before Paige could orb, three of the grays broke away from the battle with the browns and clutching each other’s arms hissing out some ugly chant in demonese, then threw three small vials that burst into obnoxious smelling magenta smoke that surrounded the witches. As all three started coughing Paige grabbed Phoebe and Charlie and orbed coming out of it very close to where Charlie had parked.

“Whoa” said Charlie her voice shaking “What happened?” She looked down at her badly burnt jacket “So demons won’t risk a public ruckus” she said.

“Big magic problem” answered Paige “Mark” she yelled calling for the whitelighter.

None of the Charmed Ones had much use for the Simpson’s whitelighter, a dour man called Caleb who had one been their whitelighter-and miserably failed at the task. Ever since the Simpson girls had come into their charge, the Charmed Ones and Caleb had politely and implacably despised each other but Mark could not act for Charlie and Caleb was needed.

Mark arrived first but they had barely finished explaining what happened when Caleb arrived. He was inclined to start blustering but Mark taking charge just told the witches to get away. “Drive” he said calmly. “Don’t leave cars here.”

“We know the drill” snapped Phoebe because she was in shock. Mark nodded, knowing better than to acknowledge her temper, although Caleb pressed his lips together, ready to say something, then as Mark caught his eye, refrained.

“Paige” Mark said, trying to hide his concern for her “All okay?” he asked in a soft calm voice.

She nodded “Mark there are mortals hurt” she said. “Evil souls I think, but some others maybe.”

“We will fix it” said Caleb carefully. “Leave” he ordered “The danger is to expose magic.” And for once had the satisfaction of the Charmed sisters obeying him.

Paige looked at Mark her face as pale as her hair “Wrest Peak” she said and he nodded. If mortals were hurt, and magic was exposed it was up to the whitelighters to fix. The witches could do nothing, but retreat.

Charlie was still shaking but understood what she had to do, so she walked as calmly as she could to her car, and drove off and Paige orbed Phoebe to hers, before orbing back to the Manor.

Mark and Caleb orbed into the HR building. The fighting had stopped, and there were some mortals outside the building, a few clutching burnt arms, and bruises. The two whitelighters quickly moved through the building, as they heard sirens arriving outside. They had some time to lay hands on seriously injured mortals but two were beyond help.

Only then did the two whitelighters have time to take in the scene of papers and furniture burning. There were mortals trying to leave but slipping on the brown and gray goo that covered almost every stick of furniture and wall and floor and everyone in the room. The damage was impressive.