“You’re not going anywhere,” Paige said to the Anubi demon, holding a ball of fire over his face menacingly. “Not until you tell us what you’ve done with all the witches you’ve taken.”
The Anubi let out a low, menacing laugh and a chill ran down Piper’s spine. “They’re all dead,” he told them. “But we still have their blood if you’re interested.”
Piper’s breath caught in her throat as the Anubi turned its massive head toward a line of more than twenty canisters on the windowsill. If each one held the blood of a different witch, then there were even more victims than they had thought. Suddenly, Piper felt her whole body go numb. She turned and looked at Tessa and Taryn who were huddled together by the door.
“That means that Tina is…Tina is actually…” Taryn took one step away from her sister and fainted, her body falling limp on the floor. Tessa crumbled next to her and started to sob.
Her heart twisting painfully, Piper turned slowly back to the Anubi, lifted her hands, and just as Phoebe, Cole, and Leo flung themselves out of harm’s way, blew him to pieces.
Charmed™
The Power of Three
Kiss of Darkness
The Crimson Spell
Whispers from the Past
Voodoo Moon
Haunted by Desire
The Gypsy Enchantment
The Legacy of Merlin
Soul of the Bride
Beware What You Wish
Charmed Again
Spirit of the Wolf
Garden of Evil
Date with Death
Dark Vengeance
Shadow of the Sphinx
Something Wiccan This Way Comes
Published by Simon & Schuster
For Liesa.
Happy birthday to my charmed friend.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Simon Pulse edition March 2003
™ & © 2003 Spelling Television Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
The text of this book was set in Palatino.
Library of Congress Control Number 2002111178
ISBN 0-689-86510-4
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
Chapter
1
“Viva Las Vegas! Viva…viva…Las Vegas!” Paige Matthews sang to herself as she pulled her little green VW Bug up in front of Halliwell Manor on a beautiful Thursday evening.
The sun was just starting to set, painting the sky over San Francisco with streaks of bright pinks, purples, and yellows. It was Paige’s favorite time of the day, when work was over and the whole world seemed to sigh with relief. But on this particular Thursday she’d been alternately singing and humming ever since the early afternoon. Unfortunately, she’d been singing the same three words over and over and over again because they were the only words she knew of the classic song. But Paige didn’t care. She couldn’t have stopped singing if she’d magically clamped her own mouth shut. She was just too excited.
Paige grabbed her crocheted bag and climbed out of the car, then took the steps up to the front door of Halliwell Manor two at a time. She had always wanted to go to Las Vegas—to see the Strip and all its lights and sights and sounds for herself. Maybe even score a huge jackpot. And now she was actually going! This time next week she would be there—playing the slots, cruising the casinos, winning some cash….
If she could convince her sisters to come with her.
Paige’s two older sisters, Piper and Phoebe Halliwell, had been a little less than sociable lately, what with all the demon fighting they’d been doing in the past few weeks. But that was part of the package when you were the Charmed Ones—the three good witches destined to protect the innocent from the forces of evil. Maybe things had been a little more demonic of late, but that could actually work in Paige’s favor. She was going to stay positive and hope that her excitement would prove to be contagious. Her sisters wanted a vacation. They needed a vacation. They just didn’t know it yet.
“Piper?! Phoebe?! Are you guys home?” Paige called out as she burst through the front door. She pulled a computer printout from her bag as she paused for an answer. The sound of hurried footsteps greeted her, and moments later Phoebe came barreling down the stairs, while Piper rushed in from the kitchen. Both of them looked stressed and concerned.
“What is it?” Piper asked, pushing up the sleeves on her white peasant top. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” Paige said with a grin. “Everyone chill. I am not here to announce a brush with death, demon related or otherwise. Although this guy did cut me off on the freeway, and it was all I could do to keep from orbing him out to Alcatraz.”
Piper and Phoebe exchanged a disturbed look, and Paige rolled her eyes.
“I would never actually do it, you guys,” she said with a scoff.
And she wouldn’t. Paige knew better than to use her powers as an outlet for road rage—or to vent any other emotion, for that matter. The Charmed Ones were not allowed to use their powers for personal gain. It had a way of backfiring when they tried. But there was nothing in the Book of Shadows that said they couldn’t daydream.
“Okay, Paige, so what’s up?” Phoebe asked, coming down the last few steps and sitting on the landing. She swung her dark brown ponytail over her shoulder and looked up at her younger sister. “What’s with all the shouting?”
“It’s good shouting,” Paige said, putting her bag down on the floor near the stairs. “The best kind. See?” She held out the computer printout to Piper and smiled. “We’re going on vacation!”
“We are?” Phoebe asked, her perfect eyebrows shooting up. She seemed psyched at the proposition, and Paige felt a little flicker of hope rise up in her chest. Maybe this would turn out to be an easy sell. Of course, she hadn’t gotten to the part she was worried about yet. The part her sisters would probably have a hard time swallowing.
“No, we’re not,” Piper said flatly.
So much for the hope flicker.
Piper handed the page to Phoebe, who glanced over it quickly, then smirked.
“You’re kidding me, right?” she said, holding the paper out in Paige’s direction.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Paige asked. She gingerly took the printout back and looked down at it morosely. What was wrong with them? Didn’t they see the potential for fun in the sun? For an enriching experience? For huge jackpots?
“You want us to go to a Gathering of the Covens?” Piper asked in a disdainful tone she usually reserved for talking about the troublemakers and drunks she sometimes had to have booted from her nightclub, P3.
When the sisters weren’t fighting demons, they did have their day jobs. Piper ran the most popular nightclub in town, Phoebe wrote an advice column for one of the area’s newspapers, and Paige was a social worker. Yet another reason why they needed a vacation. Technically they were each working two jobs!
“Yeah!” Paige said, her eyes wide. “What’s so far-fetched about us going to a Gathering? We are witches, you know. We’re, like, the witches.”
“Exactly. And I’m guessing ninety percent of the people who show up at that thing don’t know the firs
t thing about the kind of evil we have to deal with on a daily basis,” Phoebe said, standing up on the bottom stair. She pushed one hand into the pocket of her denim skirt and rested the other on the gleaming wooden banister.
“So? We don’t know very much about the Wiccan religion or culture,” Paige argued. “We spend most of our time vanquishing demons. Don’t you want to know more about the craft behind what we do?”
“Paige, we know about the Craft,” Piper said. “Or did you already forget the hours of potions studying we did when you first moved in here?”
Paige groaned. How could she forget the most torturous study sessions of her life? Piper had been like a drill sergeant when Paige first came to the manor, teaching her all about crystals and herbs and the various reptilian body parts that were used in spells and potions. Paige had found her sisters only recently, so she had a lot of Charmed learning to do to catch up. But there was so much more Paige wanted to know! Maybe she and her sisters were pros at throwing together vanquishing spells and conjuring protection crystals, but that didn’t mean their knowledge of magic had to end there.
“How did you find out about this, anyway?” Piper asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It was slow at work this afternoon and I started surfing the Web,” Paige said with a shrug. Her spirits were starting to deflate more with each passing moment. “You wouldn’t believe how many covens have their own Web site.”
Piper and Phoebe laughed, and Paige felt her face color. “I’m not saying we should go digital,” she said, frustrated. “But it sounds so cool. The Gathering is going to be around the summer solstice, and there are all these rituals they perform to honor the Goddess….”
Paige looked to Phoebe, hoping at least to find an ally in her middle sister. Phoebe had always been a little more into the spiritual, romantic, mystical side of things than Piper, who was all about practicality. But Phoebe was still looking at Paige with a skeptical expression in her big brown eyes.
“Besides, you guys, it’s in Las Vegas!” Paige said, not willing to give up quite yet. “We could have so much fun!”
“That just makes it even more bizarre,” Phoebe said. “If they’re going out there to be all spiritual and commune with one another, why are they going to Sin City, of all places? I have this vision of chicks in black hats smoking cigars and playing craps.”
Even Paige had to smirk at that mental image, but she quickly wiped it away.
“Piper—”
“I’m sorry, Paige, I just don’t see the point,” Piper said, running her hands through her light brown hair. “I mean, we’re out there fighting evil every day. What do we have in common with a bunch of people whose idea of being a witch is casting magic circles and blessing their cats?”
“You’re so judgmental,” Paige grumbled, looking away.
She had no idea why she was letting herself grow so upset over getting shot down, when she’d suspected all along this was going to happen. She’d known Piper and Phoebe long enough to know that they were going to be skeptical about the Gathering. But she couldn’t help it. She hated the fact that her sisters wouldn’t even consider her plan. They had to be able to tell how excited she was. What was she supposed to do, go to this thing alone? Not likely. It was a Gathering of the Covens, not a Gathering of Lone Loser Witches.
“It’s just not my idea of a vacation, sweetie,” Piper added apologetically.
Paige wracked her brain for a good, convincing argument, but she couldn’t find one. At least not one that would change the minds of the Stubborn Ones. That was what she was going to call her sisters from now on—the Stubborn Ones.
“Besides,” Phoebe put in, “Cole and I just got engaged. I don’t know if I want to leave him here while we go dancing around under a full moon with a bunch of phonies. Especially not with all the demons that have been popping up around the manor lately. Cole’s human now, and there’s no way he could defend himself.”
“Well, Leo will be here,” Paige argued. Piper’s husband, Leo, was a Whitelighter, a kind of guardian angel who looked over the Charmed Ones and came whenever they needed help.
“But he can’t be here all the time, and there’s not much he can do to fight demons on his own,” Piper pointed out.
“I can always orb us back here if I need to,” Paige said.
“I don’t know…,” Phoebe said, looking at the floor. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Paige took a deep breath and pushed her dark hair behind her shoulders, trying not to look as disappointed as she felt. Usually when Paige got an idea like this in her head, she wouldn’t give up until she got her way. But she could tell she wasn’t going to get anywhere with this argument, and it was clear that Piper and Phoebe thought it was pretty much over anyway.
“Okay, fine,” Paige said, crumpling the page up in one hand. “It was just an idea.”
She picked up her bag and started up the stairs, brushing by Phoebe. She knew that Piper and Phoebe would probably start whispering about her in approximately five seconds—talking about whether she was really upset and if they’d handled the situation properly. It was what they did. And Paige didn’t mind, really. She’d been on the other side of it many times. She just didn’t want to catch one word of it.
As soon as she got to her bedroom, she closed the door behind her and cranked up her stereo. She kicked off her wedge sandals as she sat down on her bed, then tossed her crumpled-up vacation idea toward her garbage can. It missed by about three feet and hit the floor.
Frustrated, Paige thrust out her hand. “Paper,” she said through her teeth. The ball of paper was engulfed in a swirl of blue white light, then appeared in Paige’s hand again. She chucked it at the garbage can once more, this time executing a perfect basket. Then she flopped back on her bed and looked up at the ceiling.
“So much for viva-ing Las Vegas,” Paige muttered.
“I feel kind of bad,” Phoebe said quietly as she followed Piper across the living room and into the kitchen. “She was so excited.”
She slid onto one of the stools at the center island and leaned her elbows against its cool surface. Part of her wanted to say yes to Paige’s proposition simply because her little sister was clearly dying to go, but she just couldn’t find it in her heart to share the excitement. There was a lot going on in Phoebe’s life lately, and learning how to be a better Wiccan was not on the top of her priority list. Helping her soon-to-be husband find a job, writing her column at the paper, and staving off the demons had to come first.
“I know,” Piper said with a sigh. “But Las Vegas with a bunch of wanna-be witches? I don’t think so.”
She poured out two cups of coffee and slid one across the tiled island to Phoebe.
“Mmmmm, but where would you go if you could go on vacation?” Phoebe asked, cradling her cup in both hands and drawing her arms in toward her chest as she took a sip of the hot coffee. “I mean, if you could go anywhere in the world?” she added, grinning as she started to daydream herself.
“Right now I’d definitely go for the islands,” Piper said, tilting her head to one side and closing her eyes. “The warm sun, the gauzy clothes…the fruity drinks with umbrellas.”
“And Leo, of course,” Phoebe said with a knowing smile.
“Of course,” Piper said, her eyes popping open. “Leo is a given.” She took a sip of her coffee and looked at Phoebe. “Okay, now I’m salivating. Where’s my husband when I need him to take me to the Bahamas?”
Suddenly a huge swirl of light appeared in the center of the kitchen, and when it disappeared, Leo stood there smiling and holding a tropical flower. “You called?” he said, sliding up to Piper’s side.
“This whole Whitelighter thing can be so convenient sometimes,” Piper said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss her husband. As a Whitelighter, Leo was able to orb from place to place and could always hear Piper and her sisters when they called for his help. Paige was half Whitelighter, half witch, so she could orb not only
herself, but other objects as well.
Piper took the big pink flower from Leo’s hand and twirled it between her fingers. “What would you say to a weekend on the beach?” she asked.
“I’d say it’s long overdue,” Leo replied, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Okay, you guys are making me miss my man,” Phoebe said, shifting in her seat.
“Where is Cole, anyway?” Leo asked.
“Job-hunting,” Phoebe said with a grimace. “Let’s just hope he has good news when he gets home.”
As if on cue, Phoebe heard the front door open, and she put her coffee cup down and spun around in her seat, fully expecting to see Cole come striding through the door. But instead their friend Daryl Morris walked in, his forehead creased with worry and his necktie loosened uncharacteristically.
“Good, you’re here,” he said, rubbing his hands together as he looked from Phoebe to Piper and back again. Anxiety was coming off of him in waves. “Where’s Paige?”
“She’s upstairs,” Phoebe answered as Daryl removed his jacket and took a deep breath. “Daryl, what’s wrong?” she added. “You’re freakin’ me out a little here.”
“I’ll tell you once we get Paige down here,” he said, going back out the way he came. As he called up the stairs for Paige, Phoebe shot Piper and Leo an alarmed look. Daryl was a detective with the San Francisco Police Department and the only civilian who knew about the sisters’ powers. He didn’t come to them in an agitated state unless he wanted to warn them about some major evil or to caution them because someone was becoming suspicious of them. Phoebe felt an unsettling churning in her stomach, and by the time Daryl returned with Paige, she’d managed to imagine about a hundred dreadful scenarios.
“What’s going on, Daryl?” she asked, looking up at his dark, handsome features. “Spill, already.”
“You’re not gonna like this,” he began, causing the little hairs on the back of Phoebe’s neck to stand on end. “It looks like someone’s been kidnapping practicing Wiccans.”
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