by Paul Ruditis
“I’d imagine.”
“Dafydd was a senior Cupid,” Coop explained. “He trained me and Kama and a bunch of us. Raised us, actually. Oversaw our upbringing from the time we were cherubs. Taught us everything about the Cupid lifestyle. Helped us come to terms with the mortal lives we had lost out on since we all died so young. And he was good at it. Fatherhood came naturally to him considering that he, like the rest of us, never knew his own parents. Of course, he’d had a lot of practice by the time I came to Cupid’s temple. Dafydd’s been around a while.”
“Sounds like it.”
“He was good at the job,” Coop said, like he was trying to make sense of the story as he shared it. “One of the best. A straight shooter in every possible way.” Coop laughed to himself. “Perfect score on the archery range. Dafydd had the highest success rate of couples in the history of Cupids going all the way back to the time of Eros.”
“Eros? I thought he was Greek.”
“He was on vacation in Italy when the whole idea for an army of Cupids came up,” Coop explained. “It’s a long story.”
“And we’ve probably only got time for one long story right now,” Phoebe said, though her curiosity was piqued. In all this time, she never really asked Coop how the Cupids first came about. She kind of thought of them as always existing, like Whitelighters. But obviously there had to be a first. Naturally, she’d always thought it was just… Cupid. But now was not the time for history lessons. “What made Dafydd turn?”
“Not what,” Coop said. “Who. Her name was Marsha. She was an artist. No one famous, but she had the potential to break out if Dafydd hadn’t intervened. She was destined to fall in love with a banker. A typical opposites-attract scenario. I’ve assisted with dozens of them. Couples who are meant to get together, but have trouble seeing beyond their differences. We give them a little nudge to get past their initial bias and recognize the possibilities. Most times it’s a simple assignment.”
“Until?”
“Dafydd fell in love with her,” Coop said. “No. It wasn’t as clear as that. He became obsessed. Thought the banker wasn’t good enough for her. Thought no one was.”
“He stalked her?”
“Well, yes, but that wasn’t the worst part,” Coop said. “He used his powers over her to make her fall in love with him.”
Phoebe sucked in some air. “I’m guessing that’s frowned upon. As it should be.”
“‘Frowned upon’ doesn’t even begin to explain it,” Coop said. “Cupids are agents of love. We aren’t supposed to fall in love ourselves. Except in special circumstances.”
“Like with a Charmed One?”
Coop smiled. “Very special circumstances. It isn’t illegal for us to fall in love. I mean, it’s not encouraged, but it has happened.”
“I never realized.”
“It’s in the way we’re raised from the time we’re cherubs,” Coop explained. “Our expression of love generally comes from bringing others together. That’s how we find fulfillment. We carry a piece of every couple we’ve matched with us. It’s kind of difficult for one person to compete with all the love we already have inside, to make us yearn for a love that comes from a single being. It takes a very special person to make a Cupid feel that the love in our own hearts is not enough to sustain us. To find a soul mate that can equal the love we already possess… the odds are infinitesimal. It’s why I didn’t realize at first that you were my soul mate. It’s so incredibly rare.”
Phoebe smiled. “I think I’ve just gotten the best compliment of my life.”
Coop reached across the desk and took her hands in his. She felt the warmth of his love flowing through the connection, which made the expression on his face all the more painful to see. “Dafydd hadn’t found a soul mate. Marsha didn’t feel the love that he felt for her. But the real problem was that once a Cupid uses his powers to make a person fall in love there is no way to undo it. It’s the first rule that every cherub learns.”
“But Cupids make people fall in love all the time,” Phoebe said.
“No, actually. We don’t. We persuade. We set up situations. We encourage what is already there. But we don’t create love. And we certainly don’t force a mortal to fall in love with one of us.”
Phoebe nodded. It made sense. She was constantly telling her readers that love had to come from a natural place. If mortals couldn’t force it to happen, why would Cupids be able to? “How did you find out about him?”
“I was sent to follow up on Marsha and her banker,” Coop said. “Their path to a union had suddenly come undone, but Dafydd couldn’t explain why. His reports were totally shoddy, missing key information. It wasn’t like him at all. When I went to investigate, it wasn’t that hard to figure out what happened.”
“So you reported it,” Phoebe said. “And then?”
“Dafydd was stripped of his ring,” Coop explained. “With no way to channel his magic he was lost for a long time. Imagine if you knew you had the wonderful gifts you possessed, but suddenly forgot how to use them. That every time you tried to force a premonition, you saw everything but what you wanted. Or what you saw was a lie. Or gibberish that you couldn’t make sense of.”
“I’d feel completely useless,” Phoebe said.
“But the worst part was that Marsha was hidden from him for her own protection,” Coop continued. “Her love for him was a lie. The Cupid administration would never allow him to abuse that more than he already had.”
“Please tell me she got to go away with her banker at least,” Phoebe said.
Coop sighed. “It wouldn’t matter if she had. Any chance for them had been destroyed. Any chance for anyone other than Dafydd had been destroyed. Marsha would live out the rest of her days pining for a man she would never have.”
“That poor woman.”
“It’s what Dafydd blames me for,” Coop said. “If it was just about him having his powers stripped, he would have gotten over it. But he sees me as the one that damned Marsha to a life of solitude. He’s hated me ever since. For a Cupid—even a former one—there is no more dangerous emotion than hate.”
The sadness Phoebe saw in her husband’s eyes was not just from his story. “This is not your fault,” she insisted. “What happened back then? Dafydd did that to himself. What’s happening now is his fault too.”
“But if I hadn’t--”
“No,” she insisted. “It’s in the job description for both of us. We’re here to fulfill the roles intended for us. That brings us up against bad things from time-to-time. Okay, all the time. But still, you are no more responsible for what’s going on now than I am for every time the Source of All Evil returns seeking vengeance. That’s just the way of the world.”
“But I feel--”
“No.”
Coop revealed a shy but grateful smile as Phoebe squeezed his hands. Nothing more needed to be said between them on that matter.
“What I want to know,” Phoebe said, “is how is he doing this if he doesn’t have his ring anymore?”
“He must have gotten one,” Coop said. “And if we find out how, it might tell us everything we need to know.”
Chapter 19
Paige was impressed. Phoebe’s column was always an entertaining read, but today her sister had really outdone herself. She’d written so deeply about love and commitment and the challenges of keeping a marriage fresh that Paige wanted to orb over to Henry’s office just to tell him that she loved him. Considering how often she popped by unexpectedly when magical calamities struck, she decided to send him a text instead so his coworkers didn’t get tired of seeing her. Her message to Henry was filled with every romantic emoticon in her phone. She wasn’t usually the smiley-faces-with-hearts-in-the-eyes and kissy lips type, but she was feeling un-ironically gushy by the end of Phoebe’s column.
Even with Paige’s busy life shuffling between h
er kids, her Charges, and those aforementioned magical calamities that came her way, she always tried to carve out a bit of her day to read her sister’s work. The article Phoebe had written in response to the mass breakups of the couples she had married did everything it needed to do. It explained her perspective on the situation, gave some tips to others out there with marriages on the rocks, and seemed to include some kind of vague threat to some unknown “forces” that seemed to be working to pull the couples apart.
That last part was the most interesting. Thanks to a brief text message exchange the previous night, Paige knew exactly which “unknown force” Phoebe was referring to. But none of them knew what, if anything, it had to do with their gorgon situation.
Paige had stayed up with Piper late the night before testing food to see what was in it. No recognizable poisons had come up by the time Paige had to orb home to help Henry put the kids to bed. Some nights, her children were perfectly agreeable and went off to “sleepytime” without a care in the world. Last night had not been one of those times. She’d spent so much time trying to get Henry and the twins to bed that she’d hardly managed to get enough sleep herself. She’d poured herself a coffee in one of the big mugs the moment she got to Piper’s that morning.
Paige was just finishing off that coffee when Piper returned from getting her own kids and her husband off to Magic School. Paige’s niece and nephews weren’t even remotely prepared when she popped in this morning, so Paige had sent her kids ahead while Piper and Leo continued to wrangle their brood.
It was Magic Fair Day at Magic School and Leo was one of the judges for the student projects. He couldn’t take off to help like he had the day before. Not everyone had the freedom to blow off their jobs at a moment’s notice. Honestly, Piper didn’t really have that kind of flexibility either. She also didn’t have much of a choice until she figured out what needed to be done to reopen her doors.
“The kids got off okay,” Piper said as she poured herself her own, smaller, cup of coffee. “Mel is wearing two totally different sneakers because apparently that’s what looks good according to her. I eventually got tired of fighting. If she wants to be mismatched and walk with a slight limp, so be it.”
“Your daughter is destined to be a trendsetter,” Paige said. “Two different shoes is probably one of the least weird things kids at Magic School will ever see.”
“Good point.”
Paige handed the paper to her sister as Piper slipped into the chair across from her. “You should read Phoebe’s article. It’s really good. Especially for something she rushed to come up with last night.”
“I’ll check it out later,” Piper said as she put it down on the table. “I’ve got news. I didn’t have the chance to tell you while Chris was running around with his underwear on his head, but I figured out what was in the food. Considering recent events, I’m not sure why we didn’t test for it right away.”
Paige leaned forward. “I’m intrigued.”
Piper smiled the satisfied smile of a mother who figured something out after staying up working too late the night before. “Ambrosia.”
“The food of the gods?” Paige said. “So this is tied to the gorgons.”
Piper pulled out her cell phone. “Seems pretty likely. I didn’t want to call Suzanne too early, but I’m hoping she’ll be up by now.”
Paige considered the ramifications of Piper’s discovery while her sister waited for the chef to pick up. What she knew about ambrosia from her mythology lessons in school was probably comparable to the tales of the gorgons: a little fact mixed with mostly fiction.
“Suzanne,” Piper said into her phone, pulling Paige’s attention toward eavesdropping. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
Paige couldn’t hear the chef’s end of the conversation. Suzanne was somewhat soft-spoken, which always made it difficult for Paige on the rare occasions she helped out in Piper’s kitchen. The look on Piper’s face suggested that Suzanne had been up already.
“I’m working on the problem and you’ll be happy to hear it doesn’t look at all like you could have done anything about it,” Piper explained. “Someone tampered with the food in your kitchen. I was wondering if you happened to have noticed a strange woman, or maybe three women, hanging around yesterday?”
Paige strained to listen, but could barely make out the muffled sounds of a voice coming through the line. It didn’t matter. After a few “uh-huhs” and “okays,” Piper ended the call.
“Was it them?” Paige asked as soon as the cell phone screen went dark.
“No,” Piper replied. “At least, Suzanne didn’t see any strange women. But she did have a bizarre interaction with a man who claimed to work for the health inspector.”
“Tell me she didn’t leave him in the kitchen alone,” Paige said.
“That’s the bizarre part,” Piper said. “Suzanne would never leave a stranger in her kitchen. And yet, she clearly recalls him coming in, but doesn’t remember him leaving. Or anything about the encounter. In fact, she completely forgot him until I specifically asked her if anyone came by.”
“Which is why she never mentioned it to us last night,” Paige guessed. “Okay, so now we have a new player in the mix. Do we think it’s the same guy messing with Phoebe? The former cupid?”
“I hope so,” Piper said. “I can’t take anymore new villains. I’ve already got my fill.”
Paige forced a smile. “Oh, but this is fun! And by fun, I mean incredibly annoying.”
“Tell me about it,” Piper said. “According to Leo, ambrosia isn’t intended for mortals. It’s incredibly dangerous.”
“I thought it did good things,” Paige said. “Like make people live forever, or be really strong and stuff like that.”
Piper took a sip of her coffee. “Not so much. It can be deadly. Sounds like what we got last night was a mild case.”
“If that was mild, I’d hate to see it in full effect.”
Piper put down her mug. “I can’t reopen Halliwell’s until I figure out what foods need to be replaced. I might have to restock the entire kitchen. This is going to get expensive.”
“Especially with you paying the staff for these unplanned vacation days,” Paige added.
Piper shrugged. “It’s not their fault they work for a Charmed One.” Piper added another cube of sugar to her coffee as Phoebe and Coop came into the kitchen. “Running a little late this morning?”
“P.J. didn’t like the outfit I picked for her,” Phoebe replied as she went for the coffeemaker. “It was four rounds of debate followed by two complete costume changes before Coop could beam us out.”
“All I had to deal with was shoes,” Piper said with mild relief in her tone.
“Probably for the best,” Paige added. “It gets crowded in that attic when we’re all up there at once.”
“And the fewer people witnessing my children’s clothing catastrophes the better,” Piper added as she took another sip.
“P.J. and Parker are comfortably at Magic School daycare,” Coop said as Phoebe finished off the pot of coffee, handing him a cup of coffee. He put it down on the table and focused on his sisters-in-law. “I assume Phoebe updated you on our situation?”
“As much as she could in a text,” Piper said. “And we might have an update on that too.”
Paige watched Coop’s face fall as Piper filled him in on their latest suspicions. They didn’t know for sure that this Dafydd person had been the one to poison the food at Halliwell’s, but they had enough information for an educated guess. It was probably the last thing Coop wanted to hear.
Coop was pulling Piper out of her seat and into a hug by the time she was done. “Piper, I’m so sorry that the restaurant got caught up in this mess.”
“Thanks, Coop, but you don’t need to do that,” Piper said as he released her. “From what Phoebe told me, you were only doing your job. Besides
, we don’t know for sure that Dafydd was behind it or what his motivation is.”
“If it is him, his motivation seems to be getting back to me through my family,” Coop said. “I hurt the person he loved. He wants to hurt everyone I love.”
“We should let them know at Magic School to keep an extra eye on the girls,” Phoebe said, placing a hand on her husband’s arm. “Just as a precaution.”
Piper pulled out her phone and started texting. “They already keep so many eyes on our kids that it’s probably not necessary, but I’ll give Leo the heads up.”
“What I don’t get is that Phoebe said Dafydd’s not a Cupid anymore,” Paige said. “How does he have any power?”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Coop said. “He was never stripped of his abilities. Just his ring.”
“I thought the ring was the power,” Piper said.
“It is and it isn’t,” Coop replied. “When Cupids are reborn as cherubs we have no inherent power. It comes from the ring, which we get as soon as we’re old enough to wear it. As a father now, I’m beginning to suspect that that comes when we’re old enough to be sure that we won’t accidentally swallow it.”
“Smart plan,” Phoebe said.
“That’s why it’s so strange that the girls are showing Cupid powers,” Coop said. “Like how P.J. can beam without using a ring. I think being the child of a Cupid and a Charmed One gave her more skills than she should possess.”
“You think P.J. beaming all over the place isn’t her active witch power? That she can do other things too?” Paige asked.
Phoebe shrugged. “We’ve talked about it, but we can’t be sure. The girls are still so young. We’ll just have to watch them as they grow up. I’m sure all our kids are going to surprise us in a bunch of different ways.”
“Oh, goody,” Paige said. “Something to look forward to.” Paige often regretting binding her daughters’ powers, but it was times like these that she saw the value in the decision. She’d only agreed to do it after many long conversations with Henry, but they felt it was safer that way. With Henry Jr. being adopted with no inherent powers of his own, it just felt like, as a family, they should wait to let the girls come into their gifts when they were a little older to keep everyone safe. As logical as that decision was, Paige still questioned herself over it every single time she watched her nieces and nephews use their naturally born skills.