Cole stepped forward, extending a hand to help Prue up off the floor.

  “Damn it,” she said, slapping his hand away and pulling herself up. “Why did you do that?”

  “What, save your skin? Because she was about to take a slice out of it, you know?” Cole argued.

  “You could have killed her!” Prue roared, getting in the man’s face after his Energy Ball had chased Piper away.

  “It was low voltage,” he assured her.

  Just then, the front door burst open, and Paige entered in a panic, pointing wildly in the direction of the street. “Leo, someone, help!” she fretted. “Something’s happened to…Prue?”

  Prue shook her head, then faded in a red-white haze.

  “Wha-what’s going on here?” Paige muttered, looking from Cole to Leo and Donnie, both of whom were rising from the floor. She moved to assist the man. “Donnie, are you okay? I promise none of this is how it looks!”

  “Really?” he asked, rubbing his head as he straightened up, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets as they locked on Paige’s chest. “Because from where I’m standing, things are suddenly looking pretty good. Where’ve you been hiding those, baby?”

  Regretting her display of concern, Paige pursed her lips, drew back her arm, and slugged the man. He fell backward onto the couch, knocked out cold.

  “Paige!” Leo chastised, looking to Cole, who nodded approvingly.

  “What? You only said I couldn’t use magic to punish him,” Paige justified.

  “Where’s Piper?”

  “Cole hit her with an Energy Ball,” Prue explained, entering the parlor with the Book of Shadows and the other objects taken from Paige’s office in hand.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What?” Paige exclaimed. “Why? Wait, are you a bad guy now?”

  “No, but Piper is. And it was low voltage!” Cole repeated, irked by Prue’s attempt to rile Leo up unnecessarily.

  Prue looked at Donnie quizzically. “Why is he unconscious? Piper didn’t hurt him, did she?”

  “No, that was Paige,” said Leo reproachfully.

  “What?” said Prue. “Oh, never mind, I don’t even care at this point. As long as Piper didn’t hurt an Innocent, because that will probably seal her transformation.”

  “Transformation? Can someone please tell me what is going on here?” Paige demanded loudly.

  Prue sighed irritably. “Try to keep up; I Astral Projected here when I read in the book that Piper might be turning into a Fury—a sartorially-challenged vengeance demon with a bad manicure. When I arrived, she tried to hurt this guy, pushed me and Leo down like we were ragdolls, and Smoked out when Cole hit her with one of his—”

  “Low voltage,” Cole interjected.

  “—Energy Balls.”

  “Piper’s turning into a demon?” squeaked Paige.

  “Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” said Prue.

  “I think I need to sit down,” breathed Paige, dropping down onto the couch and then pushing Donnie’s legs away from her with disgust. “Oh, this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have stolen the Book of Shadows.”

  “You stole the Book of Shadows?” Cole questioned with a smirk, entertained by the idea that this girl had succeeded where he and so many others had failed.

  Pressing on, Prue announced, “Alright, we’ll get to Piper in a minute. First, we need to get rid of this guy. Does he live alone?”

  “Who, Donnie? Are you kidding? What woman would have him?” Paige jested.

  “Leo, can you heal him without waking him up?”

  “Sure,” Leo obliged, holding a shining palm over the man’s face for a few moments. “That’ll do it.”

  Recalling her words from the previous week, another instance where they had needed to ‘get rid’ of someone, Prue recited while grabbing Paige’s shoulder for a power boost, “It’s time to rest, so slumber deep. Return to home, your sweet retreat.”

  “Whoa!” Paige exclaimed when the man lying next to her vanished in a flash of white. Ignoring Prue’s casual handsiness, it was pretty cool.

  “I knew there was nothing wrong with that spell,” Prue grumbled before sitting in Donnie’s now vacant spot and opening the Book of Shadows atop the coffee table. “Leo, can you Sense Piper?”

  “I’ve been trying, but it’s too faint to get a read. It must be because her witch side is diminishing.”

  “That rules out Scrying.”

  “Scrying?” Paige enquired.

  Prue took a deep breath. She didn’t have time for this. “Yeah, supernatural LoJack,” she explained briefly. “Alright, Leo, why don’t you try Orbing around and see if you can pinpoint her? Cole, fancy making yourself useful and checking out the area where we encountered the Furies?”

  “Sure, I wouldn’t want to be accused of not being useful,” answered Cole pointedly. He then reached into his pocket and withdrew Prue’s lost athame, placing it down on the coffee table. “No need to thank me.”

  Prue kept her gaze focused on the book, pretending she didn’t see the knife sitting there as she turned its pages. She wasn’t going to give Cole the satisfaction of a response, let alone a thank you.

  Once Cole and Leo departed, Paige felt awkward again, watching Prue flick through the book in silence. “So,” she started, “earlier, in the car, you…astral…?”

  “Astral Projected.”

  “Is that something I can do?”

  “No,” Prue said shortly, before expanding. “Astral Projection is my second power. We started with one each, and developed new ones as our magic grew.”

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  “I see. And you didn’t wanna tell me before you…projected? I thought you had an aneurysm or something.”

  “I was in kind of a hurry.”

  “Right,” Paige nodded, accepting that an apology wasn’t about to come her way. “So, you guys turn into demons on a regular basis?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Prue answered casually.

  “Will you be able to turn Piper back?”

  “We were able to change her back when she turned into a Wendigo.”

  “A Wendi-what?

  “Wen-di-go.”

  “Ah,” said Paige, as if hearing the word slower magically helped her understand.

  Prue rubbed the bridge of her nose. She had heard herself that time. She might be at risk of losing another sister to evil, but she was being rude, and she might just need Paige’s help to save Piper. “It’s a heart-stealing Werewolf-kinda demon,” she said in a softer tone. “But we were able to save her before she hurt anyone. These things usually require blood to be spilled to stick. That was the rule when Phoebe turned into a Banshee, anyway.”

  “One of the wailing women of Irish folklore?” Paige asked, trying to impress, rather than feigning complete ignorance.

  “Yeah, but with worse hair,” said Prue, the corners of her mouth curling upward at her recent black-and-white memories of Phoebe, a mess…but alive. She cleared her throat. “Instant Karma Spell. Is this the one you used?”

  “Uh-huh,” Paige confirmed, looking at the entry. “I wasn’t even sure it would work, what with it being intended for demons. I figured, demon, dirtbag… What’s the difference, right?” She mentally kicked herself when Prue didn’t laugh at her dumb joke.

  “Looks like a standard reversal spell should do the trick,” said Prue, lighting Paige’s candle with a match. She scrawled down some words on a piece of paper before crinkling her nose all of a sudden. “Eww, what is that?”

  “Vanilla!” said Paige brightly, taking in her aromatherapy candle’s fragrance. “For relaxation?”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure what’s relaxing about the smell of one of our kitchen cabinets, but to each their own.”

  Paige couldn’t help but pout in response to that comment, but she held her tongue as Prue scrunched her note lengthwise, lit it with the candle flame, and spoke, “Guided spirits, hear our plea, annul this magic, let it be.”

  “Please let it be,” Paige added, looking expectantly at her swollen breasts. A second later, they began to shrink down until her top was left stretched out and rather empty-looking. After a moment of relief, she pulled the fabric taut and looked to Prue for an opinion. “Do you think it worked a little too well?”

  Cole Shimmered into the room then, saving Prue from answering. “That was fast,” she remarked. “Did you find her?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to look,” he said, dabbing at a bloody graze on his neck. “Every time I used my Sensing powers, a bounty hunter Sensed me. I fought off three of them.”

  Averting her eyes from a small wound on Cole’s neck, Prue flipped faster through the Book of Shadows, hoping an answer would pop out at her. Now would be a handy time for one of Grams’ little interventions, but after the abrupt end to her last visit, it seemed doubtful she would be permitted.

  Paige huffed in annoyance. She wanted to help, but none of the spells she had looked at earlier that day came to mind. “Can’t you just bring her here, like how you sent Donnie away?” she suggested.

  “No,” Prue answered, then elaborated for Paige’s benefit. “There’s a spell we could use with different wording, the one that Piper used to find you, actually, but she’ll resist the call.”

  “Alright, so…we add bait!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if Wendigos eat hearts. What do Furies eat? Blood?”

  Prue was about to correct Paige’s likening of Furies to Vampires, but there was something to the idea. “That could work,” she said. It had to. “They don’t drink blood, but they do hunt evildoers.”

  “And if we were to offer them a particularly juicy morsel to feed on, so to speak…?” said Paige, glancing at Cole. “You were some big-time ‘evildoer,’ right?”

  Prue looked his way. She didn’t ask him, though. She had her pride. Besides, she knew he would volunteer.

  Cole let out a mirthless laugh. “Is it my turn to be useful again?” he quipped. “Fine, but remember, I won’t be of any help to you, especially if Piper’s met up with the other two Furies, so you better call Leo back before we fight.”

  “Wait, fight?” Paige queried, suddenly apprehensive, standing up out of anxiety more than in preparation to…what? Do battle with mythological creatures? Who was she, Xena the Warrior Princess?

  “Leo,” Prue called to the heavens.

  Seconds later, the man appeared. “Any luck?” he asked, looking from Prue to Cole.

  “No, but we have a plan to lure her here by reworking the Call a Lost Witch spell and using Cole’s blood,” Prue explained. Judging by his expression, she could tell Leo was conflicted about the idea. Still, he was hardly going to object. She certainly wasn’t going to.

  They both understood perfectly well that Cole was putting himself at risk. He had been a demon for over a century. The cries of his victims would be unbearable, if not fatal, but it wasn’t like they had any other options. If Piper killed an Innocent before they got to her, it was all over. Again.

  “If facing my crimes helps save Phoebe’s sister…” Cole reassured Leo. He had run up against Furies once before in his time. His human side made him susceptible to their powers, which were excruciating. It had been all he could do to flee, only escaping by the skin of his teeth. Still, was there a more fitting way for him to meet his end than at the hands of his victims, however indirectly? There was something almost poetic about it. God, he hated poetry. He was not dying today or any other day, not until he found Phoebe!

  “We need your blood,” said Prue, rousing Cole from his reverie. He resolutely stuck out his arm without a word, not wincing when she sliced open the palm of his hand with her athame and collected some droplets. Somewhat reluctantly, she then turned to Paige, taking a moment to explain this time. “You’d better say the spell with me to increase its power. Substitute ‘witches’ for ‘sisters.’”

  From the open book, Paige read aloud in time with Prue, “Power of the sisters rise. Course unseen across the skies. Come to us, who call you near. Come to us and settle here.”

  Prue let Cole’s blood trickle from the tip of the athame onto the candle flame below. “Blood to blood, I summon thee. Blood to blood, return to me,” she added. After a few moments, the flame petered out.

  “Did it work?” Paige asked.

  “Let’s hope so,” said Prue. “Leo, let us know if you Sense her approach?”

  He nodded in reply, already working on that, his eyes closed tightly in concentration.

  Paige made an odd straining noise, scrunched up her face, and threw her arms down, like a child trying to wish something into being. Prue knew she was young, but really? “What are you doing?” she finally snapped after a third occurrence.

  “I’m trying to do that Orb thingy,” Paige answered in frustration. “I can’t seem to get the hang of it, though.”

  Diverting from the path he had been pacing back and forth over, Cole approached Paige and roared in her face.

  She gasped, lurched, and disappeared in a flurry of blue-white sparkles. “What happened?” she asked, clutching her chest from fright when she reappeared a moment later.

  “You Orbed,” Cole told her.

  “I did?”

  “It’s a fear response. Until you learn how to control it, just—”

  “Get scared?”

  Cole smirked, “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

  Paige grimaced in thanks at what felt like a backhanded compliment, then wondered aloud. “How do we un-demon Piper when she gets here, anyway? I feel like we should have discussed this before we lured her to us.”

  “The book says we have to ‘close the portal of unexpressed fury,’” Prue answered.

  “Unexpressed?” Cole mocked. “I think she’s been raging for days.”

  Great, thought Prue. Somebody else had picked up on Piper’s anger. So, why hadn’t she? Had she truly not noticed her sister’s change in behavior? Or had she just not wanted to? Chasing demons while looking for answers about Phoebe, side by side with Piper, Prue hadn’t had to reflect on her own anger because her sister was acting just like she was. Surely, if they were both angry, they were behaving normally? Or perhaps misery just loves company?

  “We need her to face her feelings, voice the thing she’s not saying,” said Leo.

  “Which is?”

  “The same thing it’s been from the start. That she blames me for Phoebe’s death.”

  “Oh, Leo…” Paige’s heart broke for the man. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Unseen by the others, Prue shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. Piper had expressed those thoughts, passive-aggressively or otherwise, numerous times since…that day. She didn’t believe them, though; that was just her grief speaking. Prue had a good idea now of what the true source of her rage was. It was something she would never be able to express, not to her big sister.

  “I think I Sense a change,” Leo warned.

  Not a second later, Cole yelled out in pain and dropped to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.

  Prue took a deep breath. This was her chance. She had failed Phoebe, but she wouldn’t fail Piper. She wasn’t losing another sister to evil. “Incoming!”