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Shape of Things to Come
Part 1:In the Fullness of Time Chapter 9
Justice with favour have I always done;
..........(Henry VI Part II William Shakespeare ) |
The weekend after Phoebe’s work disasters, the relationship between Fern and Melinda did become strained however. Acting as Melinda’s taxi service, Fern heard a couple of Melinda’s wildlife warrior friends let slip their plans to create a storm about caging wild animals when Melinda used her ‘secret’ way into the zoo and let some of them loose. Melinda had spent a very nervous weekend wondering whether Fern would tell her parents about the plan. After discussing it with her sisters, Fern decided to be a responsible adult and had gingerly told Piper and Leo on Sunday night. Piper’s reaction had been predictable, as was Melinda’s at what she called ‘betrayal’ by Fern.
As a result, on Monday morning, with two dogs at his feet, whilst the other two hovered between Melinda and Piper, Cole Turner, the ex-demon and now guardian of the realm, as well as husband, father and lawyer leant back against the kitchen bench, concentrating on his morning mug of coffee whilst pretending not to watch the confrontation in front of him. He decided once again that whatever else could be said about his sister-in-law Piper, and there was much he could say, she really did make good coffee. Right at this moment though, Piper was not thinking about coffee. Hands on her hips she was roaring at her daughter Melinda that when she said no, she meant no.
Cole was the only member of the family to witness the confrontation. Leo probably deliberately, was visiting Durand because when he joined with Piper to confront Melinda over her recklessness, Melinda was often able to divert the issue. She usually accused her parents of collusion, by screaming that listening to her father was useless because he only did what Piper told him. Phoebe was upstairs helping the other children prepare for school, also deliberately, Cole suspected. The boys were quite capable of getting themselves ready, and Mandy only needed minimal supervision. The Simpson girls had chosen to have breakfast next door.
Phoebe had made sure Cole was present when Piper ‘spoke’ to Melinda, after stopping Piper in the first heat of anger ‘talking’ to Melinda the night before. “You are going to referee aren’t you?” She asked Cole, trying to keep the order out of her voice “This could get ugly if you don’t.”
“I know” he said dryly. He never knew whether he was protecting Melinda or Piper but, the whole family knew he needed to referee when the explosions happened between them, which was more and more often these days as Melinda struggled with her teenage years.
In the kitchen Piper hands on hips and red in the face roared out at her extremely angry daughter. “You. Are. Not. Going. To. Risk. Exposing. Magic.”
Melinda, her face as almost the same colour as the pink strips in her overly blond straggly cut hair yelled back just as loudly as her mother, saying things to the effect that her mother was not the boss of her, something to which Piper angrily disagreed. Melinda suggested that dad would let her and Piper told her firmly dad would do what Piper said. Melinda yelled she could orb anywhere and no one could stop her.
“Want to think again about that?” threatened Piper.
“I hate you” screamed Melinda.
“Suffer” said Piper.
Both looked at Cole, who with practiced indifference ignored them by examining the coffee cup.
“You’re not helping” Melinda roared at Cole.
He looked up from the coffee cup. “I’m not trying to” he told her casually, knowing from long experience that any attempt to calm her down only prolonged the rows.
“You’re not going to try and tell me I shouldn’t do it” she spat at him.
Cole smiled as gently as he could “If you are asking me the question, you already know you shouldn’t.”
Melinda sent him a death glare that should have vanquished him, “Bloody lawyer” she screamed at him, much as her mother often did, then she spun on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen, grabbing her school bag as she went. She turned to bellow at her mother “This is not the end of it” slamming the passage door as she left
Piper clapped her hands to her side in frustration. “I swear I will keep her away from those damned animal….” Piper struggled for words.
“Fanatics” Cole supplied grinning as he poured her a cup of coffee.
“Idiots” Piper snarled as she rather ungraciously accepted the coffee. “Honestly Cole” she snapped “You can’t believe that any good can from her being mixed up with the bunch of…” Piper struggled for words again in disgust.
“Zealots” Cole suggested amused. “Well, I can. But I can understand why you can’t.”
“Oh, stop being a bloody lawyer” Piper snarled. Cole from many years experience at being the whipping boy when Piper could not get Melinda to what she called listen, grinned.
“I’m not being a bloody lawyer” he told Piper “I’m being ‘Unca’ Cole.”
Piper sent him a death glare that should have vanquished him.
He ignored it. Life would not have been normal if Piper did not want to vanquish him. “Honest. Don’t worry Pip” he told her as Piper stared at him incredulously. “She knows you’re right.”
“Hah” said Piper into her coffee. “You know that.”
“Yes” said Cole glancing at his watch. He was waiting for Leslie because parking being what it was at their office, they usually shared a car and Leslie was not a Monday morning person. He helped himself to another cup of coffee. “I know that because she didn’t ask me to interfere and she does if she thinks you’re being unreasonable. I also know that despite being a radical animal activist” he smiled at the words “unlike some of her friends she’s not an idiot.”
“Hah” said Piper.
“Pip she knows as well as you do, regardless of what she feels about caging animals, going into a zoo and freeing them is a stupid thing to do.” He told her, then glanced at his watch again.
“Does she really think she can orb in there and let the animals out? Does she think I would let her?” Piper demanded.
“She knows exactly what will happen if you let lions and antelopes into the same space” Cole assured her, amused. “Pip, she wants you to say no. Then she can go to the idiot zealots and yell and complain about her… bitch of her mother threatening to kill her if she went ahead and let the animals loose, or worse going to the Powers that Be or the police to stop it. And they can all say what a bitch you are and Melinda is off the hook about the secret way she knows to get into the zoo and let the animals out.”
“Hah” said Piper as Leslie called out to Cole to hurry. She had work to do. “I feel like … she makes me be… the world’s worst bitching mother” she admitted.
Cole grinned “Pip you are being a good mother. Melinda knows she got a little carried away boasting about how she could secretly let the animals out. She let her passion take control and she’s frightened of what those idiot fanatics will call her if she says she does not want to do it. So, you won’t let her and she doesn’t have to. And maybe the nutcase friends will find another way to make a point, where the animals don’t get hurt.” He put the mug in the dishwasher because Piper was watching him. “And she knows you have her back. Its just, she does not say please mom help me, but it’s what she’s asking.” He touched Piper’s shoulder as he walked by “Trust me, her memory in thirty years will be that mom had her back. Not some antelopes got chewed up. I better go” he said rolling his eyes as Leslie yelled his name again. Then he turned back to Piper “You are busy at P3 this morning aren’t you? Not going with the girls to check out the university.”
“Why are you asking?” Piper eyed him curiously “You think they will need Power of Three?”
“No, I don’t” he said very carefully.
Phoebe was waiting for him on the stairs. She leant forward for a kiss “All okay?” she asked indicating the kitchen.
“A few more rounds to come” he answered returning the kiss “You be careful today” he told Phoebe.
She pulled back to look at his face “Who’s talking?” she asked suspiciously “You or the guardian?”
“Husband” he answered a little too quickly then added “Don’t be rash.”
Leslie made an impatient sigh behind him. He grinned at Phoebe, and turned away before she became indignant at the idea that she would ever be rash these days and yelled at him.
……………………………………..
As the Charmed Ones went about their normal lives, the new demon Briareos was settling into its lair which now had the comfort of suitable accommodation, heraldic banners, and proper seating. Enough seating at least for the demon himself and the lackies from his former life that he had convinced Tempus he needed in order to serve his master well. In the short time since he was granted demonhood, Briareos had advanced his ambitions, mostly to his satisfaction. As he had done in his mortal past, he concluded that his path to power in the demon realm was by controlling how mortals thought and acted and ensuring those thoughts and actions were in the best interest of demons, particularly him.
At the same time, he was making alliances with any demon sect that appeared useful, knowing, as he had done with kings and princes in the past, they would alienate each other, then he would destroy them, gain their resources and their power would become his. Admittedly it was not a unique plan, but in all its mortal history the demon Briareos had never had an original thought, just a genius aptitude for appropriating the ideas of others and manipulating those ideas into his own great capacity for evil. As he had done to monks, and kings and emperors in his thirty-eight year reign as pope.
He was aware that Tempus the time demon who understood the essence of slow infiltration was not anxious to have another demon intrude on that power. As the new demon well-understood, Tempus, knowing Good was becoming complacent about his subtlety, wanted Briareos to create the chaos and upheaval that would cause the most consternation for Good and perhaps remove a few of the sects that he most distrusted.
Tempus had chosen Briareos because having no restraint, the new demon would provoke Good into rash action and the easiest way to do that was to expose some of the, until now, carefully hidden evil of his reign. Tempus had no doubt that when Good realised the strength of his evil, they would be terrified. Briareos was willing to show Good that evil. The new demon came from an age where power meant no accountability and he had no fear of magic being exposed to the mortal realms. Indeed, as pope, Briareos learned that exposing magic or evil or alternate views usually led to fear and then unrest by the masses, which then led to control of those who panicked and more power for those who ruled.
In Briareos’ observation, when the enemy, and the enemy of demons was Good so it was his enemy, realised the foe they feared was active and had no fear of consequences they would rush into unconsidered action, determined to rid themselves of encroaching evil and justify the exposed violence on the grounds the enemy was evil. This determination to get rid of evil had enabled him in the past to provoke his enemies into destruction and war and the fallout from war was always chaos and more evil, especially as his allies fell out, which Briareos had every intention of making sure happened in his new existence.
One of Briareos’ greatest successes in his life of pope had been to cause civil wars by promoting the interests of those losing access to power and therefore prone to ill-considered resentment. He did this by providing them with the belief that they represented divine intervention, making them promises he had no intention of keeping and causing them to kill each other and their minions and weaken those the pope wanted to fall. Then as Innocent IX he took control of the rulers and the kingdoms. He was repeating the same scenario as a demon by using the benign humbleness and gratitude that in the past had fooled great kings. He had successfully created alliances with some sects fighting for their very existence as Tempus waited to weaken and to obliterate them with the most pain he could muster.
Briareos particularly sought alliance with sects who were successful at infiltrating institutions of learning. These sects also hated each other. With carefully planned, and supposed accidental meetings, he demonstrated how these waning sects and his growing power could benefit each other. Through this method, Briareos had made alliances with a branch of scribes known as Agures who had come to power under the old source by transposing knowledge and presenting it in such a way it could be used to add to the power of the source. Tempus who wished to control knowledge not create it, immediately cast them from his closest advisors.
There was also another sect called Ronoves, teachers and takers of souls. They should have been in favour with Tempus, but they had overestimated the value of their resources by demanding to much compensation and Tempus had banished them from any access to him.
These sects of demons had spent years trying to satisfy Tempus’ orders for quiet infiltration of places of learning and had gradually created organisations where individual thought and ideas were damned at a level that impressed even Briareos. Amongst many other successful infiltrations, the Ronoves were well entrenched a world-famous university in England, subverting both student activists and management to enforce a system of belief that publicly damned any disbelievers. The Agures had sown their influence over several Asian universities, particularly instilling what many observers now described as an unresolvable clash between culture and universal understanding while ensuring that the politics of the day was preached as indisputable gospel.
Briareos most successful alliance however was with the infamous Brotherhood of the Thorn, fallen so far from favour despite their cleverness at managing and infiltrating their way into influential positions in human establishments, that they were forced to seek alliance with any ambitious demon. The Brotherhood had a long history of using universities to their advantage, by fast tracking suitable demons into real qualifications, particularly business, accountancy, and law so they passed unnoticed in the earth enterprises.
While professing friendship and mutual advantage, Briareos sowed the seeds of distrust and fear in his allies. Under the guise of sharing and by overstating his connections with Tempus, he had created an atmosphere of absolute distrust amongst them, setting them against each other. All that was necessary was the correct balance of circumstances when their fear of Good prompted them into a rash and public act, magic would be exposed and chaos would be the order of the day.
By flattering, and carefully not revealing his plans, Briareos had encouraged his allies to use their minions hidden in the mortal institutions of education to deliberately provoke controversy and discord amongst staff, students, and departments. Because he had no scruples about consequences, he ordered these minions to be unjust in their demands, and to callously destroy lifetimes of work, all under the guise of representing false ideals. When worried people at the universities protested and interfered with these unjust demands, Briareos made sure his minions labelled them as false prophets who he could exploit as villains responsible for any strife and violence the false ideals provoked.
One of the Brotherhoods favourite haunts was a university in San Francisco where a recently deceased President had sold his soul to them for the base purpose of personal gain. He was the fourth inline to do so and they were in the process of ensuring one of their Brotherhood with a real degree in Business would replace him. Briareos discovered this university had a connection to the accursed Charmed witches, a couple of whom had gained degrees by attending there. Regardless of orders Tempus gave about circumventing the Charmed Ones, Briareos’ instinct for power told him the source was terrified of them and he concluded that this terror would be the reason he could force his way onto Tempus’ throne.
Briareos had a great secret, one he had kept from Tempus and his allies. At the bottom of the Great Pits was the soul of a demon scribe, a clever spirit that had devoted its whole being to finding the spells and incantations lost at the beginning of each sources’ reign. The problem for this scribe was that it was something of a Cassandra, one whose greatest finds were never believed, mostly because the powers of previous sources had been mytholigised into something greater than they were. The simplicity of the lines the scribe discovered were rejected because they seemed incongruous to the legends. Tempus had cast this scribe into the lowest level he could because it had dared to tell him when Tempus had banned all mention of them, it had found a means of destroying the Power of Three of the Charmed Ones. Not destroy the witches themselves but a means of forever nullifying them. Briareos believed the scribe, partly because the answer was so simple, just requiring three simple evil chants in a particular order, spoken in the correct circumstances. The first one had to be chanted and thrown in the heat of battle during chaos.
Briaroes had a plan. Firstly, he ordered one of his demon lackies, which he had convinced Tempus to release from the pits, to create an injustice involving a Charmed One at the university. He was certain she and her accursed sisters would try to vanquish the demon. Next, Briareos told the Renoves how a simple spell could destroy the witches, neglecting to tell them the spell was only one of three.
Then ever so benignly encouraging...forcing the Agures and Renoves into many of the worker bee jobs at the university, where the Brotherhood was entrenched, and ever so slyly making sure that their distrust was inflamed into hatred, he would cause a chaotic battle involving the Charmed Ones. With benign a smile on his face, he suggested to the Agures and Renoves that Brotherhood lackies who had long been entrenched in university were out to destroy them, which was actually true.
The Renoves were installed into HR at the university and they panicked when they discovered the university’s association with the Charmed Ones, because it was well known that one of the reasons for the waning of Brotherhood influence was their family connection with those accursed witches. Briareos in his most soothing voice told them the presence of the Charmed Ones at the university was simply one of those coincidences that occasionally happened in shared realms, which was true. He then at his most amiable ensured that the Brotherhood, sensitive to accusations about the Charmed Ones, knew of their allies’ fears. The Brotherhood then suggested their allies were using Tempus’ fear of the witches to undermine them, which was also true.
“We will do more than undermine if they have been conspiring with those accursed witches” the Renove leader snarled.
“Which will be nothing to the hell we will release” hissed the Agure leader.
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