by Eloise Flood
Prue exhaled slowly. “Yeah. I tend to agree.”
“Yes!” Phoebe let out a happy squeal. She flung herself backward on the bed, arms spread wide. “I am so glad you guys believe him! Because I believe him, too, but I thought it was just because I have a thing for him. You know?” She rolled over onto her stomach. “So we’re going to help him, right?”
“Slow down, Phebes,” Prue cautioned. “There’s still a lot we don’t know.”
“Like just how powerful this Diana is,” Piper added.
“Pffft.” Phoebe blew out her breath and waved a dismissive hand. “She’s no match for any of us. I can tell.”
“We also need to find out where they’re keeping Mrs. Jeffries and how we can rescue her,” Prue pointed out. “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to tip our hand until we’re sure she’s safe.”
“Right. Of course,” Phoebe agreed. “But we are going to help Niall, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”
Prue and Piper exchanged grins.
“Yes, Phoebe,” Piper said. “We’re going to help him.”
“Good. Then let’s get to work,” Phoebe said. “Because in case none of you remembers what day it is, it’s June twentieth. Which means midsummer’s day is tomorrow.”
CHAPTER
7
What we need,” Piper said, “is a tracking spell.” She reached over with her fork, speared a bit of pickle off Prue’s plate, and popped it into her mouth. It was about eight o’clock. The Halliwell sisters and Niall were seated in a booth at the Black Dog, a pub near Hay Castle, over plates of shepherd’s pie and tall mugs of cider.
Prue glanced around nervously as Piper spoke, but as her eye swept the long, low-ceilinged room, she realized she didn’t have to worry. The only other people in the place were a row of grizzled regulars lined up at the oak bar, nursing pints of beer. No one was listening to Piper.
“A tracking spell? What for?” Niall asked.
“Well, for one thing, it’ll help us locate Mrs. Jeffries,” Prue explained.
Phoebe swallowed a mouthful of cider. “And your father’s spell,” she added.
“I don’t understand,” Niall said, frowning. “What do you need to find Merlin’s runes for? Can’t you just send me back yourselves?”
“Uh, not exactly,” Piper said. “Although we’ve managed to send ourselves through time on a couple of occasions, the spell we use wouldn’t work on anyone who doesn’t have our powers.”
“See, we’re still learning our powers,” Phoebe put in. “We don’t invent spells the way Merlin did. Not yet. All our spells are written down in a big book that’s in our attic back home in San Francisco.”
“Got it.” Niall smiled at Phoebe, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He really does seem smitten with her, Prue admitted to herself. “So how do we find this tracking spell, then?”
“There are several in The Book of Shadows,” Piper said. She cast a glance at Prue.
“Right.” Prue took a last bite of her shepherd’s pie and laid down her fork. “Well, I guess I’d better get going.”
“Going?” Niall repeated, sounding a little lost.
“To San Francisco,” Phoebe told him kindly. “That’s where the book is, remember?”
“But—but—” He stared from one sister to the other. Prue almost laughed at the baffled expression on his face. “Isn’t that thousands of miles away? Even in one of your great jet planes, surely it takes at least a day or two to get there? Midsummer’s day is tomorrow! There isn’t time!”
“Relax,” Phoebe said with a laugh. She took his hand. “Prue is traveling the old-fashioned way. By magic. She has the power to astral project. You know, go out of her body. You’ll never even know she’s gone. In fact, technically she won’t be gone. Except in spirit, that is.” She stopped and studied Niall’s face. “Whoops. Am I freaking you out?”
“Leaving now,” Prue announced. She couldn’t help adding, for Niall’s benefit, “If the waitress comes by, will someone order me another cider?”
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
“You got it,” Piper assured Prue, giggling.
Prue closed her eyes and began to focus inward. Within seconds she felt the now-familiar sensation of weightlessness, of being pulled irresistibly up, up, up through a long, dark tunnel . . . And then she was floating down through bright sunshine, flinching the way she always did when a roof loomed up at her, then relaxing again as she passed right through its seeming solidity.
She touched down on the attic floor of Halliwell Manor, the sisters’ big Victorian house. She stood for a moment, letting the moment of disorientation she always felt after one of her journeys fade. Then she crossed to the carved wooden stand that held The Book of Shadows.
As she approached, a breeze seemed to riffle the pages of the huge book. Prue smiled, knowing they would magically fall open at whatever page she needed to see. That certainly made her task easier. When she was astral projecting, she was basically a ghost—without substance. She had an advantage because of her other power, the ability to move things with her mind. But using that power was kind of like wielding a sledgehammer. It wasn’t much good for a delicate task like turning pages.
She waited. In a second or two, the wind seemed to die and the pages of The Book of Shadows stopped flipping. Prue bent down and studied the spell on the page before her. Her lips moved slightly as she committed it to memory.
“Got it,” she murmured aloud. Then she closed her eyes and began the journey back to her body.
Phoebe happened to be looking at Prue when she came back from her projection. She saw her oldest sister give a slight start, as if she had caught herself on the verge of nodding off. Prue’s blue eyes fluttered open.
“Welcome back,” Phoebe greeted her.
“How did it, er, how did it go?” Niall asked anxiously.
Prue took a gulp of cider. “I got what we need,” she said. She waved the elderly waitress over and asked for the check. When it arrived, she placed some pound notes down on the scarred wooden table. “Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. We’re going to need privacy to cast the spell.”
Back in their suite, Phoebe’s eyes went wide as she spotted a gargantuan bouquet of roses in a crystal vase on the coffee table. A florist’s card nestled among the deep red blossoms. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
Beside her, Piper let out a gasp. She hurried forward and snatched the card. “Oh, no,” she muttered as she read it.
“Piper?” Prue raised a quizzical brow at her. “What’s up? Who are the flowers from? Leo?”
“Not exactly.” Piper’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. “It’s kind of a . . . a misunderstanding,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later, okay? Right now, we need to get going on that tracking spell.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, what do we need?”
Phoebe gave Piper a curious look. But Piper was studiously focusing on Prue. Shrugging, Phoebe let it go.
“For finding the spell, we need one of the runes from it,” Prue said. She looked at Niall. “Your father probably would have signed it with his own special rune, right? So you’d know it was really from him?”
“I suppose so,” Niall agreed, shrugging.
Phoebe was already rummaging in the desk for a pad and a pen. She held them out to Niall. “Draw Merlin’s rune right here,” she directed. Then she turned back to Prue. “What else?”
“To find Mrs. Jeffries, we need something of hers, or something that she touched,” Prue said. She tapped her chin, thinking. After a moment, her face lit up. “I know! Are there any of those strawberries left in the fridge?”
Piper opened the small refrigerator and peered inside. When she straightened up, she was holding a small basket woven of thin strips of wood. A single, bruised, discolored strawberry sat in the bottom. “I never thought our disgusting habit of never throwing out old food would actually pay off one day,” she commented.
“This is Merlin’s rune,�
�� Niall announced. He held up the pad. Phoebe peered at the symbol on it. It looked like one of those elaborate graffiti that decorated the steel shutters on the storefronts in the Tenderloin back home, she thought.
Prue arranged the rune and the strawberry carton on an end table that she’d moved to the middle of the carpet. Then she brought a glass of water from the bathroom, dipped her finger in it, and traced the outline of a pentagram around the objects. “Piper, can you turn out the overhead light?” she called.
Piper did so. Now the only light in the room came from a small reading lamp on the desk. “Okay. Piper, Phoebe, take my hands and repeat the words of the spell after me,” Prue commanded. She glanced at Niall. “You might want to stand back. We’re going to summon up a minor demon, and he might be kind of annoyed at being disturbed.”
As they joined hands, Phoebe felt the surge of their combined powers flowing through her. She closed her eyes.
Then Prue began to chant, and she and Piper joined in.
“Like calls to like, by this ancient rule;
Dirt to dust, and gem to jewel.
We call upon thee, O great Maklik
To hear, and show us what we seek!”
Phoebe opened her eyes. For a moment nothing happened, and she wondered if the spell had failed.
But then steam began to rise from the watery outline on the table. A moment later a shape began to form in the air.
It was a head. A hideous, ridged head, with two small horns sprouting from its forehead. Its gash of a mouth opened in a ferocious snarl, and Phoebe drew back instinctively. Then its voice croaked, “I hear and obey, witches.”
The head vanished and another image took shape. This time it was not a head, but a building—a brick Victorian house.
“That’s Diana’s place!” Phoebe blurted out, astonished.
Then she fell silent, for the image was changing. It was as if they were following a video camera. It led them through the door . . . up the stairs to the third floor . . . through another door and into a living room illuminated by the soft light of dozens of candles. Phoebe bristled as she saw Diana curled up on the couch, a cordless phone pressed to her ear.
The demon’s-eye view sped through the living room and to a hallway. At the end was a ladder that led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. There the image began to dissolve.
“That must be where they’re hidden,” Piper said.
“In the attic,” Niall said softly. He let out an exclamation in a language that Phoebe didn’t recognize. “So she’s had Merlin’s spell up there all the time!” He strode toward the door. “I’ll soon have it back!”
“Wait!” Prue called, dropping Phoebe’s hand. “Niall, you can’t just barge in there and take it by force. Mrs. Jeffries is up in that attic, too, don’t you get it? We can’t risk her safety.”
Niall stopped, his jaw working. “Of course,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I confess I had forgotten about your friend. But you’re quite right.” He sighed. “So what do you propose we do?”
“Prue, you could project into the attic and have a look around,” Phoebe suggested. “At least we can see what we’re up against.”
“Good idea.” Prue took a seat on the daybed. “Back in a few,” she said with a smile, and closed her eyes.
But Piper had barely turned the overhead light on before Prue’s eyes snapped open again.
“What happened?” Piper asked anxiously. “Did something go wrong?”
“I’m not sure. I couldn’t get into the attic. There’s some kind of magic force keeping me out.” Prue shook her head. “Diana must have set some kind of protection spell on it.”
“Well, well.” Phoebe pressed her palms together and looked appraisingly at her sisters. “I hope we all brought at least one black outfit. Because I think we’re going to have to do some old-fashioned breaking and entering.”
Just after ten o’clock that evening, Phoebe, Piper, and Prue strode down the steps of the Trelawney Hotel. “I feel like I’m wearing a big sign that says Burglar,” Prue complained, glancing down at her slim black trousers and black T-shirt with distaste.
“Oh, stop it,” Phoebe scolded. “You look very chic. Just like Audrey Hepburn in that movie where she goes to France and becomes a beatnik.”
Prue rolled her eyes. “Right.”
They were on their way over to Diana’s flat. Niall had gone ahead to get Diana out of the way. “Do what you have to. Take her for a drink, dancing, whatever,” Phoebe had told him. Keeping her voice light, she’d added, “Just promise me you won’t take her for a romantic stroll along the river.”
“Phoebe.” He’d pulled her close and pressed a swift, forceful kiss on her lips. “Be careful, will you?”
“Piper!” A masculine voice boomed through the night, making Phoebe jump. “Where have you been?”
Peering down the dark street, Phoebe made out a portly, balding man with a bushy mustache hurrying toward them.
“Oh, no,” Piper moaned. “It’s Sir Andrew. Hide me!”
“Why?” Phoebe wanted to know. “Anyway, it’s too late.”
“Didn’t you get my flowers and my note?” the man asked plaintively. “Why didn’t you meet me? I waited at the restaurant for hours!”
“Sir Andrew,” Piper said quickly, “this is all just a huge mistake, really. You aren’t in love with me—”
“How can you say that?” he wailed. “My darling, you are everything to me! Marry me, Piper!”
“Say what?” Phoebe gasped.
Piper sighed. “I’m really sorry, but I just don’t have time for this right now.” Raising her hand, she zapped him. Frozen in the moonlight, his mustache drooping, Phoebe thought he looked very much like a sad walrus.
“Come on,” Piper said. She started off down the street. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Excuse me,” Prue said. From the extreme politeness of her tone, Phoebe could tell she was super-annoyed. “Don’t you want to fill Phoebe and me in on this little drama?”
Piper sighed. “I thought it would have worn off by now,” she said. “See, in my wildflower book, there was this section about love charms. . . .”
“Oh, no,” Phoebe groaned. “You put a love charm on that poor old guy? Piper, how could you?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Piper insisted. “I didn’t think it would really work. I mean, what are the odds? I just did it as a joke, really. Only he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.”
Prue sighed. “Well, that’s one more mess we’re going to have to clean up before we leave here.” They turned onto the Oxford Road. “But it’ll have to wait until after we deal with the Druids.”
They reached Diana’s building and walked up the porch steps. “I hope Niall didn’t have any trouble getting her out of the house,” Phoebe said nervously.
Piper tilted her head back and checked the windows on the third floor. “All dark,” she reported. “They’re gone.”
With Phoebe and Piper shielding her from the eyes of any passersby on the street, Prue focused her power on the front door. After a moment, they all heard the quiet sound of the lock tumblers turning over. Prue turned the knob, and the door swung inward. So far, so good.
They climbed quietly up the stairs to Diana’s flat. Phoebe tried the door. “Niall did his job,” she whispered. “It’s unlocked.”
She stepped cautiously into the dark living room. There was a click behind her as Piper closed the door. She took another step forward.
She felt a pair of hands grip her arms. “Hey, Piper, or Prue, or whoever it is, let go of me!” she whispered.
Then the lights clicked on, and Phoebe froze in horror.
Diana stood facing her, arms folded, a sneer on her full lips. Behind her stood a row of men and women with watchful eyes. The Druids, Phoebe guessed, even though they weren’t wearing their white robes at the moment.
But what really turned her cold was the sight of Niall. He lay at Diana’s feet. He was bound han
d and foot, and a mauve scarf was tied over his mouth. On one temple was a swelling purple bruise. He was very pale.
Phoebe cast a glance over her shoulder. The hands on her wrists belonged to a tall, strong-looking man. He was holding her lightly, but she had no doubt that he’d tighten up if she tried to move. Prue and Piper were being held by two other similarly large men.
“So the little love-toy dabbles in spells,” Diana said. Her eyes flicked past Phoebe to Prue and Piper. “Or is it one of your friends who tripped my magic alarm? Come on—I know one of you was snooping around here earlier. Looking for this, I’m sure.” She held up a scrap of parchment, nearly black with age.
Phoebe bit back a gasp. Merlin’s spell! There it was, so close she could almost touch it.
“Yes, that’s right, I’ve had it all along. I was going to give it to Niall after the ceremony tomorrow.” Diana scowled. “But now I’ve changed my mind. I think he—and the three of you—need to learn a lesson.”
Flames suddenly blossomed from a red plastic-lighter from her left hand. Phoebe’s heart skipped a beat as she realized what was about to happen. “No!” she cried, lunging forward. The hands on her wrists yanked her back. “Diana, don’t!”
But it was too late. Diana had already touched the flame to the bit of parchment. It flared brightly—and then it was gone.
“Old sheepskin burns very quickly,” Diana observed, watching the ashes sift to the floor. She bent down and spoke to Niall in an icy voice.
“I have the spell in my head,” she said. “But that’s the only place it exists now. Do you understand me?”
Niall nodded, his eyes dull with despair.
Diana looked up at the Charmed Ones. Her green eyes were hard.
“The only way you can save him now is to stay out of my way,” she stated. “He does what I want him to do—or tomorrow at the stroke of midnight, he dies.”
CHAPTER
8