Possession 2/2
Mar. 26th, 2012 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deeperwondermentTitle: Possession 2/2
Author:shadowcat
Rating: PG-13.
Word Count: 10,636
Fandom: Charmed AU
Character(s): Phoebe Halliwell, Belthazor/Cole Turner, The Source Of All Evil
Challenge:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
witchesbigbang
Summary: The first time Belthazor/Cole meets Phoebe, she's a prisoner of the The Source of All Evil in the Underworld and his Oracle. He doesn't know why she's there and why she hasn't been rescued, and Phoebe's not telling him anything -- nor is she offering more than a token resistance to anything that happens to her. Cole is determined to find out why she's there -- and what these new feelings and urges that he's feeling mean to him and who he is.
Author's Note: Warning for character assault and implied sexual situations.
Belthazor had been stalking through the tunnels of the Underworld. Truth be told, he had gone looking for a fight. The feelings that the Oracle had caused to rise in him left him feeling off-balance and it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed. The fact that she had almost caused him to question his own loyalty to his liege had him in a high temper.
What was it about her?
He had come across witches before -- hundreds of them -- and he had killed them all with no remorse. He was the best assassin that The Source of All Evil had, and he had never questioned his duty. Never once had he felt guilty in all of the years he had been killing.
Then he met this witch. The Source's pet. The Oracle. The imprisoned Charmed One.
Not only did he feel himself lay claim to her, The Source gave her to him to break...
...and he couldn't bring himself to harm her. He couldn't do it, and to top it all off, he had promised her that he would not allow any further harm to come to her.
He growled in frustration, slamming his fist into a wall.
He'd go back the and show her that he was in control of this situation -- that she was his.
He turned to head back to where he had left her when something -- some emotion -- seemed to crash into his soul. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, when it happened again.
This time he could almost taste the terror and the pain in the emotions striking him. It was Phoebe. Somehow, he knew, it was Phoebe.When he heard the scream in his mind, he reacted instantly, shimmering to the location of the scream.
The first thing he was aware of when he shimmered into the chamber was the smell of blood. He could also smell fear in the air as well. His eyes focused, searching for his witch. When he spotted her, rage filled him, causing him to shift into his demon form.
Phoebe was chained to the altar, and she wasn't moving. There was one demon straddling her and another was at her head. Both of them were holding bloody athames. The blood... the blood that he smelled was hers, as was the fear. Seeing the demon straddling her, his mind decided he knew what had happened here -- what had happened to her.
Someone was going to die.
Quite possibly both of the demons that were now making her bleed.
He was at the altar in a heartbeat, grabbing the demon from on top of Phoebe and throwing him into the wall. An energy ball followed and the demon was dead. He turned with a growl and grabbed the second demon, shoving him against the wall by his throat.
"Explain yourself," he snarled. "What the hell are you doing?"
The demon struggled for a moment, and realized that he wasn't a match for Belthazor's strength. "We heard that The Source had turned the witch over to you. We found her alone and plotting ways to escape, and stopped her."
He didn't believe a word of it. Phoebe had told him she was here in order to protect her family, so there was no way that she would try to escape as soon as he was out of her sight. There was also the exchange he had witnessed between her and The Source. She had wanted to fight back, but she hadn't allowed herself to do that. Therefore, there was no way she would have done what this one was saying she had done.
"What have you done to the Oracle?" Belthazor's hand flexed around the demon's throat.
The demon realized that for some reason Belthazor was really angry. The witch must have done something that he had wanted to punish her for... and now he would have to wait for her to heal. The Source's favorite didn't have a reputation for being the most patient of beings, and now he wondered if there was a way he could get out of this with his head attached.
"We meant no disrespect, Belthazor. She was trying to escape and we thought it would be best if we prevented it."
"What. Did. You. Do." An energy ball formed in his other hand.
The demon's eyes widened. "Softened her up for you. Cut her a few times... showed her what it meant to disobey the Source. Taught her that she needed to be a little more friendly to all of us down here."
Belthazor growled. He didn't like what the demon was implying they had done to HIS witch. He disbursed the energy ball and pulled the demon from the wall. Before the demon could say anything further, Belthazor grabbed his head and twisted -- breaking his neck. Dropping the demon as he turned to nothing, Belthazor walked to the altar. He undid the chains and looked Phoebe over to see how badly she had been hurt.
There was a thin cut on her face that was oozing blood, and a few bruises. The cut wasn't deep enough to scar, just looked like they had cut her face to scare her.
And she had been scared. She had been terrified. He could smell it on the air in the room -- and he wasn't happy about it.
He gathered her up in his arms and shimmered with her to another part of the Underworld -- a part where his chambers were and he had made himself a little more at home. He usually traveled around so much that he didn't spend a lot of time here. However, what time he did spend here was eased by some of the modern luxuries he had added.
One of those modern luxuries was the very big bed that he had in the bedroom and that was where he immediately went. He placed Phoebe down on the bed and then moved her skirt away from her legs so that he could get a better idea of any other injuries she had sustained.
That was when he saw the knife wounds to her hips and her legs. The demons had seemed to be just slicing away at any flesh they could reach. One of the wounds appeared to be deep and he summoned a cloth to his hand to press against her hip. He was hoping that he could stop the blood flow until he could request the services of one of the alchemists. One of the alchemists would need to heal the worst of the wounds to her legs. He couldn’t tell how deep the wound was and he wasn’t any kind of healer. The Source wouldn’t be happy if she was damaged – and honestly, he was furious that someone had attacked what belonged to him.
He wished that he had taken just a little more time to make the demons suffer before he killed them. Seeing how many times she had been cut caused his rage to rise up again. Rage and an additional emotion that he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt.
Guilt.
He felt guilty that he had left her alone while he was trying to sort out his thoughts about her and everything she had said to him. He had known that she was afraid of being tortured by him like she had been by the Source – and it hadn’t occurred to him that one of the demons further down on the ladder would dare to risk his anger by harming someone that belonged to him.
It was a mistake that he wouldn't make again. From now on, where he went, Phoebe went. He wouldn't let her out of his sight for any length of time that he didn't have to. He had assumed that his reputation alone would keep her safe and he had been wrong. He would have to rectify that and make sure that the Source didn't find out what had happened. She was supposed to be his to take care of and so soon after taking the responsibility of her, she had been attacked and possibly almost killed.
He didn't like those facts.
He sat down next to her and took her hand in his as he summoned bandages and clothes to his side. Carefully, not wanting to cause her further pain, he stated cleaning up the worst of the wounds.
As he was carefully cleaning Phoebe’s wounds, he felt rather than heard the Alchemist arrive outside of his quarters. Making sure that Phoebe was covered up except where she was bleeding, Belthazor allowed the Alchemist admittance.
When he saw the Oracle lying so still and bleeding, the Alchemist frowned and then looked at Belthazor for an explanation.
“She was attacked by two lower levels who thought that they could make points with me by scaring her and then making sure that she couldn’t run.”
The Alchemist nodded. “Does the Source know?”
“No. There’s no reason that we need to tell him. I killed the two demons and then called you to help take care of her wounds.”
The Alchemist called in his supplies. “I can fix the damage and make sure there is little to no scarring –“
“No scarring,” Belthazor interrupted. “I want no scars left to be memories of her ordeal.”
“Then I will have to give her something to deeply sedate her so that she will not feel the pain of the healing or tear something while I’m trying to work on it.”
“Then do so.”
“And the Source?”
“He’s the one that gave her to me. I highly doubt that he will have a problem with us sedating her so that you can take care of what a few rogue demons did to her.” There was a barely contained savagery in Belthazor’s voice.
“She won’t be available to him for her powers for some time if I do this, Belthazor.” The Alchemist cautioned. “I’m not a White Lighter that can heal everything instantly. It will take time, potions and care.”
“Better for him to be without her for some time than be without her because she has perished from her wounds. A dead Oracle is good to no one and he will be pleased that we did everything to safe her and keep her unblemished. You know how he is about the women he keeps around him.” Belthazor pointed out as he looked at him. “You see what he has her dressed in. We cannot allow there to be any scars left on her or it is you and I who will see his rage for it.”
The Alchemist paled slightly at that. “Yes, I see. Well then, I’ll have to do everything I can to make sure his eyes do not fall upon us for anything happening to the Oracle.” He sighed, looking down at her. “The healing will not be easy and she will be in pain – even with the help of the sedation.”
“I’ll be here to give you whatever assistance you need and find a way to keep her calm if she wakes up from the sedation.” He shook his head as he took in the bleeding cuts and then sighed. “At least it will give her a familiar face to focus on and hopefully not panic and make your job more difficult.”
“You care about her,” the Alchemist said as he eyed Belthazor. “Such a thing is dangerous down here.”
Belthazor frowned at him. “Do you plan to report me?”
The other demon shook his head firmly. “No, just be careful. There’s something about this one that has the Source on edge when he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. I can only imagine what he might do to her if he thinks that you’re going soft for her.”
“And his way to keep control is removing the temptation of anyone that could draw loyalty away from him,” Belthazor nodded. “I know that very well. I’ve seen his politics up close and personal.”
“Then we will both have to make sure we work very carefully in order to keep that knowledge away from him.”
Belthazor sighed and then nodded. “If we’re both working together, it will make things much easier and will keep her safer for now.” He lifted a brow at the Alchemist. “But why are you willing to help me keep her safe?”
“You think that I’m planning something to betray you?”
“It had crossed my mind.” Belthazor looked at him. “I would hate to have to kill you just so that she could heal in peace.”
“She’s kind,” the Alchemist said after a long moment of thoughtful silence. “She hasn’t been cruel or mean-spirited to anyone down here unless they have been threatening to her, first. You would think that a witch trapped down here and being hurt as she has been hurt would have nothing but hate for anything remotely demonic, but I haven’t seen anything like that. She has tried to be kind to some of the younger ones and has even tried to protect them from bullies.”
“Doesn’t she realize that all that will do is make it worse for the young ones she protects?”
“It hasn’t seemed to because the bullies focus their attention on her when she does something like that. Which, I think, she expects all along when she does it.”
Belthazor looked down at the unconscious Phoebe. “How foolish of her.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so. I don’t know by what means she was trapped and brought here, but she only lashes out at the Source or at any other demons that lash out at her.” The Alchemist shrugged. “I haven’t been able to figure out why she does it, except for the fact that she just seems to have a depth of compassion that I’ve never come across before.”
Belthazor had to agree. “She does seem to have a dangerously soft heart. That and she’s braver than I think she should be while down here.”
“That is very true. She doesn’t cower away from anyone unless they have already done something to scare or harm her.” The Alchemist frowned. “Except for the Source. No matter what he does to her, she never truly cowers from him. She continues to walk a fine line between defiance and obeisance. There is more to that than I have seen, but as of yet, I can’t seem to puzzle it out. He’ll torture her, but won’t out and out kill her. She’s not completely obedient, but she is careful to not provoke him too much.”
“It’s definitely an intriguing mystery,” Belthazor mused as the alchemist got to work on Phoebe’s wounds.
“Wyatt. Have to protect Wyatt.”
Belthazor’s eyes opened when he heard Phoebe murmuring in her sleep. He leaned over her, concern in his eyes. Touching her face, he could tell that she was running a fever – which the Alchemist had told him would happen. She would actually wake up because of the amount of the potions she had been given, but he had warned that fever and hallucinations were possible. The best thing to do for her was to try to keep her calm and wipe her down with a cool, wet cloth if her fever spiked too high.
“Phoebe, Bright One, you’re safe,” Belthazor murmured, trying to keep her calm. He gently wiped her forehead. “You need to stay still so you can heal.”
“Wyatt,” she whispered, moving her head back and forth. “I need to keep Wyatt safe. I have to do this. I have no choice.”
He continued stroking her face even as his mind was turning over the name. Was Wyatt the name of the idiot White Lighter who let his charge get kidnapped by the Source? No, he remembered. She had called her White Lighter Leo. So who was this Wyatt that Phoebe was calling out for and becoming agitated enough to tear open her wounds again?
“Phoebe, Wyatt is safe, I promise.” Well, he didn’t really know that, to be honest, but right now he would tell her anything to keep her calm. He would lie to her if it kept her from tearing open her wounds before they had been able to heal enough that she was no longer in danger from them.
“Wyatt,” Phoebe murmured once more before going still and quiet again.
After he wiped her face again, Belthazor sat back, watching Phoebe. When she seemed relaxed and unconscious, he put the cloth back in the bowl on the shelf next to where she was resting.
Wyatt.
It was the first time he had ever heard her mention anyone by that name and he wondered who he was. It wasn’t the White Lighter and she hadn’t mentioned any brothers; only sisters. That made sense because he knew that the legends of the Charmed Ones all said that they were female. Whomever he was, he was someone of great importance to Phoebe.
A boyfriend, then?
That thought caused him to narrow his eyes and snarl softly as his demon form manifested. A boyfriend that she was pining for could not be tolerated. Her life was down here now and she was his. His. He was forced to share her with his master, but he would not share her with anyone else – and most especially not some weak human above world who hadn’t even been able to keep her safe and protected when she was with him. For that alone, he should die. He had failed her and in Belthazor’s eyes, he no longer had any right to live.
He got to his feet and paced the area on quiet feet as he pondered what should be done about this new complication. It had never occurred to him that there might have been a man in Phoebe’s life before she was imprisoned by the Source. It was something that would need to be taken care of in a very careful manner. The boyfriend would need to be removed and then news would need to be brought to the Oracle about his death. She wouldn’t have a vision of it happening ahead of time because he was a human and not an innocent. The visions she had down here had thus far all been about things that the Source was putting into play – or people that could stop him in his tracks.
How to do it, though? It would need to be done with no one knowing that he had been involved. The problem he faced was finding someone that he trusted to carry out the assignment without asking questions. He couldn’t do it himself because Phoebe had already picked up on his emotions and some of his thoughts before her attack. He needed her to trust him and to turn to him as her protector – something that she would not do if she was somehow informed that he had been involved in the death of her above world boyfriend. She was loyal and she was too compassionate, so he knew that she would never accept him if he was the one to kill her Wyatt.
Belthazor growled as he looked at where Phoebe was unconscious. However he decided to take care of this problem, he needed to take care of it while she was too injured to be aware of anything happening around her. He needed her to be oblivious to his comings and goings while he started things in motion.
Closing his eyes, he summoned the one person that he could mostly trust down here to watch over his woman.
The Alchemist knocked softly on the wall after he was summoned.
“Belthazor?”
“Keep her safe,” he growled. “I need to take care of something important, but I don’t want to leave her unprotected.”
“I will keep her safe from anyone save the Source.” The Alchemist tilted his head. “I am not feeling suicidal today.”
“Understood. Do not let anyone else near her, Alchemist.”
“On my life, Belthazor.”
“It will be if anyone hurts her on your watch,” Belthazor promised before he shimmered out.
The Alchemist shook his head and then sat down in the chair that the other demon had vacated.
“Well, Little Oracle,” he said gently. “It seems that you have gotten quite under his skin.” He took the cloth and started wiping her forehead and face to bring the fever down. “I wonder what it was that had him taking off in such an agitated state. No doubt we’ll find out when he gets back, but I would not want to be the one that is the recipient of his complete focus like that.”
It wasn’t hard for him to find the house where the Charmed Ones were living. Their combined power was like a beacon to any demon that was stalking them. Of course, he couldn’t get inside the house unless one of them let him in. He could almost taste the powerful wards and protections that encompassed the house. There was no way that any demon would be able to easily attack them from in there.
Thankfully, he didn’t believe he would need to get into the house to get the information that he was looking for. He highly doubted that the Charmed Ones would allow any male that wasn’t married or blood to live in the house with them. It would be too difficult to keep the protections separated – especially if they were unlucky enough to marry a human with no powers of their own.
He would listen at a few windows and find out where Phoebe’s boyfriend lived and then he would leave to take care of things. There was no reason for him to stick around after he got his information. He wasn’t interested in Phoebe’s sisters. The less he had to do with them the better. If they spotted him around their house then they might try to vanquish him and that was the last thing that he needed to try to deal with. He’d be forced to defend himself and he was certain that if he hurt one of her sisters, Phoebe would never forgive him.
He didn’t want to earn her hate or be the source of her pain any more than he had to.
He was trying to decide how to go about getting his information when he heard an irritated voice from inside the house.
“Wyatt, you get back in here!”
Belthazor froze. Had he heard correctly? Wyatt was here? He frowned. That could complicate matters. It meant that he would have to wait around here until the man left the house unless he wanted to draw the attention of the remaining Halliwell sisters.
Which he certainly did not want to do.
Staying out of sight, he leaned against the house next to the nearest window so that he could see and hear what was going on.
“Wyatt!”
The sound of running feet came to him out the window and then he heard laughter. He peered in and then stared in shock.
There was a little boy jumping up and down on the couch and giggling. He was watching the child when a woman came into the room and put her hands on her hips.
“Wyatt, what are the rules about making your toys move around by themselves?”
The little boy laughed. “Make them fly!”
“Not unless you’re going to put them back and clean up after you’re done with them.”
“Aunt Paige is funny.”
“Yeah, well Aunt Paige just had to explain to Aunt Prue why there were dinosaurs in her bedroom.”
“Protecting her!”
Paige’s face softened at that declaration. “Yeah, you’re just like Phoebe in that,” she said softly as she lifted him into her arms and held him close.
“When will she come home?” Wyatt demanded.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know. Hopefully soon.”
Wyatt squirmed in her arms and then orbed away and to the floor. “I’m a big boy now and she needs to come home!” He stomped his foot at Paige before he went running out of the room.
“Wyatt!” Paige started after him, but was stopped when two other women came into the room.
“He’s all right,” one of the other women said. “Daryl corralled him.” She tilted her head. “What sent him off in a five year old temper tantrum?”
“Sorry, Piper,” Paige sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I mentioned Phoebe.”
The other two women winced.
“Yeah,” the third one agreed. “That would do it.”
“What’s going on, Prue?” Paige asked. “Phoebe was only supposed to be gone for a year, two at the most, and then we’d rescue her. It’s been almost five and she’s still down there somewhere.”
“Leo is doing his best, but he just can’t get a reading on where in the Underworld the Source is holding her.” Piper said quietly. “And scrying isn’t giving us any information, either.”
Prue shook her head. “We just have to keep searching the book and trying anything we can think of to find her and bring her back home.”
“She’s going to think that we’ve forgotten all about her,” Paige grumbled.
“No she’s not,” Piper corrected her. “Phoebe would never believe that of us. She knows how much we love her – and that we would do the spell to bring forth the power to raze the Underworld if she died down there.”
“Grams and Mom would never have let her do what she did if they thought there was any other way to protect Wyatt,” Prue reminded them both. “But the danger she saw in her vision to him is long past, so now we need to focus all of our energy on trying to find her and bringing her home.” She looked pointedly at Paige. “That means no more spending energy on what should have been or having doubts.”
“Prue is right,” Piper said looking at both of her sisters. “She sacrificed herself to protect Wyatt and it’s time that we bring her back to her family. She’s been gone too long and who knows what she has been through.”
“The important thing is getting her back,” Prue said firmly. “We can worry about what might have happened to her during her captivity after we’ve got her home safe where we can take care of her.”
Belthazor had heard enough and when the three sisters left to go into the other room, he shimmered back to the Underworld.
Belthazor sat in the chair next to where Phoebe was sleeping and he watched her. He had been wrong. She wasn’t calling for a boyfriend in her fevered state. She was calling for her son. The son that she had sacrificed herself to keep safe because of something she had seen in one of her visions.
It explained so much about her. It explained why she had looked out for the young demons that were bullied by their elders. It explained why she only pushed the Source so far – and why the Source was afraid of anything happening to permanently damage her. He didn’t know what power the sisters had been talking about, but it was obvious that the Source had believed their threat. If Phoebe died or was permanently damaged, the remaining Charmed Ones had access to something that would destroy not only the Source but the entire Underworld.
He would be more curious about that power if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still reeling from the information he had learned about Phoebe and her son. For him, she had entered captivity and risked death; and she had apparently been down here a lot longer than she had expected to. Her son was about five or six, so that meant that Phoebe had been apart from him for at least four years – more if he had been a newborn when she had her premonition.
He sighed, holding his head in his hands. That knowledge changed everything. As much as he wanted to keep Phoebe with him, how could he keep her away from her son? She loved her son so much that she had gone through who knew what at the Source’s hands and she didn’t do anything to stop him or to escape.
And he had no doubts that she would have been able to come up with a way to escape if she had put her mind to it. It never occurred to her because she was focused on keeping Wyatt safe and unharmed. He didn’t know what she had seen in her premonition, but it must have been pretty bad to cause her to go through such desperate measures. It didn’t surprise him, though, because he knew full well what an attractive draw a child of one of the Charmed Ones would be to evil everywhere.
How many people in the world – good or evil – were lucky enough to have a mother like Phoebe?
He answered the question before it fully formed. Almost none. Very few mothers would have been brave enough to do what Phoebe had done for her child. Phoebe was a rare kind of mother, and that meant that she deserved to be with her family.
He leaned forward and stroked her cheek gently.
“Bright One,” he whispered. “Oh, Bright One. As much as I want to keep you with me, you don’t deserve this kind of life. As much as I want you to be mine, your place is with your son. He needs his mother every bit as much as I want you.”
Wyatt needed his mother; he needed a parent that loved him as completely as Phoebe did. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to Wyatt and his soul if Phoebe never came home again. After all, he knew what his life had been like after his mother murdered his father. So many things about his life would probably be different if his father had lived and had been able to take him away.
He did not, under any circumstances, want Phoebe’s son to turn out like he had. He had the power and the ability to make sure of that. There had been no one to help his father, but he could help Phoebe. He could do the one thing that no one else could do.
He could give the Oracle back to her family.
Decision made, he stood up and then scooped Phoebe up into his arms. He kissed her forehead and sighed.
“It’s past time you were taken back where you belonged, Oracle.”
It was highly likely that the Source would want to kill him for this act of defiance, but he would deal with that when the time came. There was a little boy out there that desperately needed his mother.
After wrapping Phoebe up in a blanket to keep her as warm as possible, Belthazor shimmered back to the Halliwell house. Making sure that she was securely wrapped in the blanket, he placed her gently on the back porch of the manor and then tossed a light energy ball to slam into the door. It wouldn’t damage anything, but it would get the attention of everyone in the house. Once he heard people running to the door, he hid himself to watch what happened.
“What the hell –“ The expletive was cut off as Prue saw the bundle on the porch. She lifted her hand and used her power to lift up part of it and then she gasped. “Piper! Paige! We need Leo and we need him now.”
Prue dropped down to her knees and touched her long lost sister’s cheek. She stayed there, looking around to see if there was anyone out here. Once she was sure it was safe, she pulled Phoebe into her lap.
“You’re safe now,” she whispered. “You’re home and we’ll take care of you.”
“Prue what’s the – Phoebe?!” Piper looked from her older sister to her younger sister. She returned her gaze to Prue. “Is it really her?”
Prue nodded. “It is and she’s hurt.”
“But how did she get here?” Piper ran a hand along the strands of Phoebe’s hair that were sticking out of the blanket.
“I don’t know, but it was obviously not on her own. She’s wrapped up too carefully for that.”
“You mean someone brought her home, but who?”
Prue shook her head. “More questions that I don’t know the answers to. Help me get her inside, she’s hurt and needs Leo.”
Piper nodded and helped Prue pick up their sister. “God, Prue, she’s lost so much weight. What did he do to her down there?”
“It doesn’t matter right now, Piper,” Prue responded. “What matters is that she’s home and she’s safe. There will be plenty of time to get the answers we need from her.”
The door closed behind the sisters as they went inside and there was the sound of a man’s shocked voice calling Phoebe’s name.
Once the door was shut, Belthazor stepped out of the shadows and smiled sadly at the house.
“Good bye, Bright One,” he murmured. “You focus on being happy and being a good mother, and I’ll focus on keeping you safe.”
He glanced once more at the house and then shimmered away.
Author:
shadowcatRating: PG-13.
Word Count: 10,636
Fandom: Charmed AU
Character(s): Phoebe Halliwell, Belthazor/Cole Turner, The Source Of All Evil
Challenge:
witchesbigbangSummary: The first time Belthazor/Cole meets Phoebe, she's a prisoner of the The Source of All Evil in the Underworld and his Oracle. He doesn't know why she's there and why she hasn't been rescued, and Phoebe's not telling him anything -- nor is she offering more than a token resistance to anything that happens to her. Cole is determined to find out why she's there -- and what these new feelings and urges that he's feeling mean to him and who he is.
Author's Note: Warning for character assault and implied sexual situations.
Belthazor had been stalking through the tunnels of the Underworld. Truth be told, he had gone looking for a fight. The feelings that the Oracle had caused to rise in him left him feeling off-balance and it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed. The fact that she had almost caused him to question his own loyalty to his liege had him in a high temper.
What was it about her?
He had come across witches before -- hundreds of them -- and he had killed them all with no remorse. He was the best assassin that The Source of All Evil had, and he had never questioned his duty. Never once had he felt guilty in all of the years he had been killing.
Then he met this witch. The Source's pet. The Oracle. The imprisoned Charmed One.
Not only did he feel himself lay claim to her, The Source gave her to him to break...
...and he couldn't bring himself to harm her. He couldn't do it, and to top it all off, he had promised her that he would not allow any further harm to come to her.
He growled in frustration, slamming his fist into a wall.
He'd go back the and show her that he was in control of this situation -- that she was his.
He turned to head back to where he had left her when something -- some emotion -- seemed to crash into his soul. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, when it happened again.
This time he could almost taste the terror and the pain in the emotions striking him. It was Phoebe. Somehow, he knew, it was Phoebe.When he heard the scream in his mind, he reacted instantly, shimmering to the location of the scream.
The first thing he was aware of when he shimmered into the chamber was the smell of blood. He could also smell fear in the air as well. His eyes focused, searching for his witch. When he spotted her, rage filled him, causing him to shift into his demon form.
Phoebe was chained to the altar, and she wasn't moving. There was one demon straddling her and another was at her head. Both of them were holding bloody athames. The blood... the blood that he smelled was hers, as was the fear. Seeing the demon straddling her, his mind decided he knew what had happened here -- what had happened to her.
Someone was going to die.
Quite possibly both of the demons that were now making her bleed.
He was at the altar in a heartbeat, grabbing the demon from on top of Phoebe and throwing him into the wall. An energy ball followed and the demon was dead. He turned with a growl and grabbed the second demon, shoving him against the wall by his throat.
"Explain yourself," he snarled. "What the hell are you doing?"
The demon struggled for a moment, and realized that he wasn't a match for Belthazor's strength. "We heard that The Source had turned the witch over to you. We found her alone and plotting ways to escape, and stopped her."
He didn't believe a word of it. Phoebe had told him she was here in order to protect her family, so there was no way that she would try to escape as soon as he was out of her sight. There was also the exchange he had witnessed between her and The Source. She had wanted to fight back, but she hadn't allowed herself to do that. Therefore, there was no way she would have done what this one was saying she had done.
"What have you done to the Oracle?" Belthazor's hand flexed around the demon's throat.
The demon realized that for some reason Belthazor was really angry. The witch must have done something that he had wanted to punish her for... and now he would have to wait for her to heal. The Source's favorite didn't have a reputation for being the most patient of beings, and now he wondered if there was a way he could get out of this with his head attached.
"We meant no disrespect, Belthazor. She was trying to escape and we thought it would be best if we prevented it."
"What. Did. You. Do." An energy ball formed in his other hand.
The demon's eyes widened. "Softened her up for you. Cut her a few times... showed her what it meant to disobey the Source. Taught her that she needed to be a little more friendly to all of us down here."
Belthazor growled. He didn't like what the demon was implying they had done to HIS witch. He disbursed the energy ball and pulled the demon from the wall. Before the demon could say anything further, Belthazor grabbed his head and twisted -- breaking his neck. Dropping the demon as he turned to nothing, Belthazor walked to the altar. He undid the chains and looked Phoebe over to see how badly she had been hurt.
There was a thin cut on her face that was oozing blood, and a few bruises. The cut wasn't deep enough to scar, just looked like they had cut her face to scare her.
And she had been scared. She had been terrified. He could smell it on the air in the room -- and he wasn't happy about it.
He gathered her up in his arms and shimmered with her to another part of the Underworld -- a part where his chambers were and he had made himself a little more at home. He usually traveled around so much that he didn't spend a lot of time here. However, what time he did spend here was eased by some of the modern luxuries he had added.
One of those modern luxuries was the very big bed that he had in the bedroom and that was where he immediately went. He placed Phoebe down on the bed and then moved her skirt away from her legs so that he could get a better idea of any other injuries she had sustained.
That was when he saw the knife wounds to her hips and her legs. The demons had seemed to be just slicing away at any flesh they could reach. One of the wounds appeared to be deep and he summoned a cloth to his hand to press against her hip. He was hoping that he could stop the blood flow until he could request the services of one of the alchemists. One of the alchemists would need to heal the worst of the wounds to her legs. He couldn’t tell how deep the wound was and he wasn’t any kind of healer. The Source wouldn’t be happy if she was damaged – and honestly, he was furious that someone had attacked what belonged to him.
He wished that he had taken just a little more time to make the demons suffer before he killed them. Seeing how many times she had been cut caused his rage to rise up again. Rage and an additional emotion that he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt.
Guilt.
He felt guilty that he had left her alone while he was trying to sort out his thoughts about her and everything she had said to him. He had known that she was afraid of being tortured by him like she had been by the Source – and it hadn’t occurred to him that one of the demons further down on the ladder would dare to risk his anger by harming someone that belonged to him.
It was a mistake that he wouldn't make again. From now on, where he went, Phoebe went. He wouldn't let her out of his sight for any length of time that he didn't have to. He had assumed that his reputation alone would keep her safe and he had been wrong. He would have to rectify that and make sure that the Source didn't find out what had happened. She was supposed to be his to take care of and so soon after taking the responsibility of her, she had been attacked and possibly almost killed.
He didn't like those facts.
He sat down next to her and took her hand in his as he summoned bandages and clothes to his side. Carefully, not wanting to cause her further pain, he stated cleaning up the worst of the wounds.
As he was carefully cleaning Phoebe’s wounds, he felt rather than heard the Alchemist arrive outside of his quarters. Making sure that Phoebe was covered up except where she was bleeding, Belthazor allowed the Alchemist admittance.
When he saw the Oracle lying so still and bleeding, the Alchemist frowned and then looked at Belthazor for an explanation.
“She was attacked by two lower levels who thought that they could make points with me by scaring her and then making sure that she couldn’t run.”
The Alchemist nodded. “Does the Source know?”
“No. There’s no reason that we need to tell him. I killed the two demons and then called you to help take care of her wounds.”
The Alchemist called in his supplies. “I can fix the damage and make sure there is little to no scarring –“
“No scarring,” Belthazor interrupted. “I want no scars left to be memories of her ordeal.”
“Then I will have to give her something to deeply sedate her so that she will not feel the pain of the healing or tear something while I’m trying to work on it.”
“Then do so.”
“And the Source?”
“He’s the one that gave her to me. I highly doubt that he will have a problem with us sedating her so that you can take care of what a few rogue demons did to her.” There was a barely contained savagery in Belthazor’s voice.
“She won’t be available to him for her powers for some time if I do this, Belthazor.” The Alchemist cautioned. “I’m not a White Lighter that can heal everything instantly. It will take time, potions and care.”
“Better for him to be without her for some time than be without her because she has perished from her wounds. A dead Oracle is good to no one and he will be pleased that we did everything to safe her and keep her unblemished. You know how he is about the women he keeps around him.” Belthazor pointed out as he looked at him. “You see what he has her dressed in. We cannot allow there to be any scars left on her or it is you and I who will see his rage for it.”
The Alchemist paled slightly at that. “Yes, I see. Well then, I’ll have to do everything I can to make sure his eyes do not fall upon us for anything happening to the Oracle.” He sighed, looking down at her. “The healing will not be easy and she will be in pain – even with the help of the sedation.”
“I’ll be here to give you whatever assistance you need and find a way to keep her calm if she wakes up from the sedation.” He shook his head as he took in the bleeding cuts and then sighed. “At least it will give her a familiar face to focus on and hopefully not panic and make your job more difficult.”
“You care about her,” the Alchemist said as he eyed Belthazor. “Such a thing is dangerous down here.”
Belthazor frowned at him. “Do you plan to report me?”
The other demon shook his head firmly. “No, just be careful. There’s something about this one that has the Source on edge when he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. I can only imagine what he might do to her if he thinks that you’re going soft for her.”
“And his way to keep control is removing the temptation of anyone that could draw loyalty away from him,” Belthazor nodded. “I know that very well. I’ve seen his politics up close and personal.”
“Then we will both have to make sure we work very carefully in order to keep that knowledge away from him.”
Belthazor sighed and then nodded. “If we’re both working together, it will make things much easier and will keep her safer for now.” He lifted a brow at the Alchemist. “But why are you willing to help me keep her safe?”
“You think that I’m planning something to betray you?”
“It had crossed my mind.” Belthazor looked at him. “I would hate to have to kill you just so that she could heal in peace.”
“She’s kind,” the Alchemist said after a long moment of thoughtful silence. “She hasn’t been cruel or mean-spirited to anyone down here unless they have been threatening to her, first. You would think that a witch trapped down here and being hurt as she has been hurt would have nothing but hate for anything remotely demonic, but I haven’t seen anything like that. She has tried to be kind to some of the younger ones and has even tried to protect them from bullies.”
“Doesn’t she realize that all that will do is make it worse for the young ones she protects?”
“It hasn’t seemed to because the bullies focus their attention on her when she does something like that. Which, I think, she expects all along when she does it.”
Belthazor looked down at the unconscious Phoebe. “How foolish of her.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so. I don’t know by what means she was trapped and brought here, but she only lashes out at the Source or at any other demons that lash out at her.” The Alchemist shrugged. “I haven’t been able to figure out why she does it, except for the fact that she just seems to have a depth of compassion that I’ve never come across before.”
Belthazor had to agree. “She does seem to have a dangerously soft heart. That and she’s braver than I think she should be while down here.”
“That is very true. She doesn’t cower away from anyone unless they have already done something to scare or harm her.” The Alchemist frowned. “Except for the Source. No matter what he does to her, she never truly cowers from him. She continues to walk a fine line between defiance and obeisance. There is more to that than I have seen, but as of yet, I can’t seem to puzzle it out. He’ll torture her, but won’t out and out kill her. She’s not completely obedient, but she is careful to not provoke him too much.”
“It’s definitely an intriguing mystery,” Belthazor mused as the alchemist got to work on Phoebe’s wounds.
“Wyatt. Have to protect Wyatt.”
Belthazor’s eyes opened when he heard Phoebe murmuring in her sleep. He leaned over her, concern in his eyes. Touching her face, he could tell that she was running a fever – which the Alchemist had told him would happen. She would actually wake up because of the amount of the potions she had been given, but he had warned that fever and hallucinations were possible. The best thing to do for her was to try to keep her calm and wipe her down with a cool, wet cloth if her fever spiked too high.
“Phoebe, Bright One, you’re safe,” Belthazor murmured, trying to keep her calm. He gently wiped her forehead. “You need to stay still so you can heal.”
“Wyatt,” she whispered, moving her head back and forth. “I need to keep Wyatt safe. I have to do this. I have no choice.”
He continued stroking her face even as his mind was turning over the name. Was Wyatt the name of the idiot White Lighter who let his charge get kidnapped by the Source? No, he remembered. She had called her White Lighter Leo. So who was this Wyatt that Phoebe was calling out for and becoming agitated enough to tear open her wounds again?
“Phoebe, Wyatt is safe, I promise.” Well, he didn’t really know that, to be honest, but right now he would tell her anything to keep her calm. He would lie to her if it kept her from tearing open her wounds before they had been able to heal enough that she was no longer in danger from them.
“Wyatt,” Phoebe murmured once more before going still and quiet again.
After he wiped her face again, Belthazor sat back, watching Phoebe. When she seemed relaxed and unconscious, he put the cloth back in the bowl on the shelf next to where she was resting.
Wyatt.
It was the first time he had ever heard her mention anyone by that name and he wondered who he was. It wasn’t the White Lighter and she hadn’t mentioned any brothers; only sisters. That made sense because he knew that the legends of the Charmed Ones all said that they were female. Whomever he was, he was someone of great importance to Phoebe.
A boyfriend, then?
That thought caused him to narrow his eyes and snarl softly as his demon form manifested. A boyfriend that she was pining for could not be tolerated. Her life was down here now and she was his. His. He was forced to share her with his master, but he would not share her with anyone else – and most especially not some weak human above world who hadn’t even been able to keep her safe and protected when she was with him. For that alone, he should die. He had failed her and in Belthazor’s eyes, he no longer had any right to live.
He got to his feet and paced the area on quiet feet as he pondered what should be done about this new complication. It had never occurred to him that there might have been a man in Phoebe’s life before she was imprisoned by the Source. It was something that would need to be taken care of in a very careful manner. The boyfriend would need to be removed and then news would need to be brought to the Oracle about his death. She wouldn’t have a vision of it happening ahead of time because he was a human and not an innocent. The visions she had down here had thus far all been about things that the Source was putting into play – or people that could stop him in his tracks.
How to do it, though? It would need to be done with no one knowing that he had been involved. The problem he faced was finding someone that he trusted to carry out the assignment without asking questions. He couldn’t do it himself because Phoebe had already picked up on his emotions and some of his thoughts before her attack. He needed her to trust him and to turn to him as her protector – something that she would not do if she was somehow informed that he had been involved in the death of her above world boyfriend. She was loyal and she was too compassionate, so he knew that she would never accept him if he was the one to kill her Wyatt.
Belthazor growled as he looked at where Phoebe was unconscious. However he decided to take care of this problem, he needed to take care of it while she was too injured to be aware of anything happening around her. He needed her to be oblivious to his comings and goings while he started things in motion.
Closing his eyes, he summoned the one person that he could mostly trust down here to watch over his woman.
The Alchemist knocked softly on the wall after he was summoned.
“Belthazor?”
“Keep her safe,” he growled. “I need to take care of something important, but I don’t want to leave her unprotected.”
“I will keep her safe from anyone save the Source.” The Alchemist tilted his head. “I am not feeling suicidal today.”
“Understood. Do not let anyone else near her, Alchemist.”
“On my life, Belthazor.”
“It will be if anyone hurts her on your watch,” Belthazor promised before he shimmered out.
The Alchemist shook his head and then sat down in the chair that the other demon had vacated.
“Well, Little Oracle,” he said gently. “It seems that you have gotten quite under his skin.” He took the cloth and started wiping her forehead and face to bring the fever down. “I wonder what it was that had him taking off in such an agitated state. No doubt we’ll find out when he gets back, but I would not want to be the one that is the recipient of his complete focus like that.”
It wasn’t hard for him to find the house where the Charmed Ones were living. Their combined power was like a beacon to any demon that was stalking them. Of course, he couldn’t get inside the house unless one of them let him in. He could almost taste the powerful wards and protections that encompassed the house. There was no way that any demon would be able to easily attack them from in there.
Thankfully, he didn’t believe he would need to get into the house to get the information that he was looking for. He highly doubted that the Charmed Ones would allow any male that wasn’t married or blood to live in the house with them. It would be too difficult to keep the protections separated – especially if they were unlucky enough to marry a human with no powers of their own.
He would listen at a few windows and find out where Phoebe’s boyfriend lived and then he would leave to take care of things. There was no reason for him to stick around after he got his information. He wasn’t interested in Phoebe’s sisters. The less he had to do with them the better. If they spotted him around their house then they might try to vanquish him and that was the last thing that he needed to try to deal with. He’d be forced to defend himself and he was certain that if he hurt one of her sisters, Phoebe would never forgive him.
He didn’t want to earn her hate or be the source of her pain any more than he had to.
He was trying to decide how to go about getting his information when he heard an irritated voice from inside the house.
“Wyatt, you get back in here!”
Belthazor froze. Had he heard correctly? Wyatt was here? He frowned. That could complicate matters. It meant that he would have to wait around here until the man left the house unless he wanted to draw the attention of the remaining Halliwell sisters.
Which he certainly did not want to do.
Staying out of sight, he leaned against the house next to the nearest window so that he could see and hear what was going on.
“Wyatt!”
The sound of running feet came to him out the window and then he heard laughter. He peered in and then stared in shock.
There was a little boy jumping up and down on the couch and giggling. He was watching the child when a woman came into the room and put her hands on her hips.
“Wyatt, what are the rules about making your toys move around by themselves?”
The little boy laughed. “Make them fly!”
“Not unless you’re going to put them back and clean up after you’re done with them.”
“Aunt Paige is funny.”
“Yeah, well Aunt Paige just had to explain to Aunt Prue why there were dinosaurs in her bedroom.”
“Protecting her!”
Paige’s face softened at that declaration. “Yeah, you’re just like Phoebe in that,” she said softly as she lifted him into her arms and held him close.
“When will she come home?” Wyatt demanded.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know. Hopefully soon.”
Wyatt squirmed in her arms and then orbed away and to the floor. “I’m a big boy now and she needs to come home!” He stomped his foot at Paige before he went running out of the room.
“Wyatt!” Paige started after him, but was stopped when two other women came into the room.
“He’s all right,” one of the other women said. “Daryl corralled him.” She tilted her head. “What sent him off in a five year old temper tantrum?”
“Sorry, Piper,” Paige sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I mentioned Phoebe.”
The other two women winced.
“Yeah,” the third one agreed. “That would do it.”
“What’s going on, Prue?” Paige asked. “Phoebe was only supposed to be gone for a year, two at the most, and then we’d rescue her. It’s been almost five and she’s still down there somewhere.”
“Leo is doing his best, but he just can’t get a reading on where in the Underworld the Source is holding her.” Piper said quietly. “And scrying isn’t giving us any information, either.”
Prue shook her head. “We just have to keep searching the book and trying anything we can think of to find her and bring her back home.”
“She’s going to think that we’ve forgotten all about her,” Paige grumbled.
“No she’s not,” Piper corrected her. “Phoebe would never believe that of us. She knows how much we love her – and that we would do the spell to bring forth the power to raze the Underworld if she died down there.”
“Grams and Mom would never have let her do what she did if they thought there was any other way to protect Wyatt,” Prue reminded them both. “But the danger she saw in her vision to him is long past, so now we need to focus all of our energy on trying to find her and bringing her home.” She looked pointedly at Paige. “That means no more spending energy on what should have been or having doubts.”
“Prue is right,” Piper said looking at both of her sisters. “She sacrificed herself to protect Wyatt and it’s time that we bring her back to her family. She’s been gone too long and who knows what she has been through.”
“The important thing is getting her back,” Prue said firmly. “We can worry about what might have happened to her during her captivity after we’ve got her home safe where we can take care of her.”
Belthazor had heard enough and when the three sisters left to go into the other room, he shimmered back to the Underworld.
Belthazor sat in the chair next to where Phoebe was sleeping and he watched her. He had been wrong. She wasn’t calling for a boyfriend in her fevered state. She was calling for her son. The son that she had sacrificed herself to keep safe because of something she had seen in one of her visions.
It explained so much about her. It explained why she had looked out for the young demons that were bullied by their elders. It explained why she only pushed the Source so far – and why the Source was afraid of anything happening to permanently damage her. He didn’t know what power the sisters had been talking about, but it was obvious that the Source had believed their threat. If Phoebe died or was permanently damaged, the remaining Charmed Ones had access to something that would destroy not only the Source but the entire Underworld.
He would be more curious about that power if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still reeling from the information he had learned about Phoebe and her son. For him, she had entered captivity and risked death; and she had apparently been down here a lot longer than she had expected to. Her son was about five or six, so that meant that Phoebe had been apart from him for at least four years – more if he had been a newborn when she had her premonition.
He sighed, holding his head in his hands. That knowledge changed everything. As much as he wanted to keep Phoebe with him, how could he keep her away from her son? She loved her son so much that she had gone through who knew what at the Source’s hands and she didn’t do anything to stop him or to escape.
And he had no doubts that she would have been able to come up with a way to escape if she had put her mind to it. It never occurred to her because she was focused on keeping Wyatt safe and unharmed. He didn’t know what she had seen in her premonition, but it must have been pretty bad to cause her to go through such desperate measures. It didn’t surprise him, though, because he knew full well what an attractive draw a child of one of the Charmed Ones would be to evil everywhere.
How many people in the world – good or evil – were lucky enough to have a mother like Phoebe?
He answered the question before it fully formed. Almost none. Very few mothers would have been brave enough to do what Phoebe had done for her child. Phoebe was a rare kind of mother, and that meant that she deserved to be with her family.
He leaned forward and stroked her cheek gently.
“Bright One,” he whispered. “Oh, Bright One. As much as I want to keep you with me, you don’t deserve this kind of life. As much as I want you to be mine, your place is with your son. He needs his mother every bit as much as I want you.”
Wyatt needed his mother; he needed a parent that loved him as completely as Phoebe did. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to Wyatt and his soul if Phoebe never came home again. After all, he knew what his life had been like after his mother murdered his father. So many things about his life would probably be different if his father had lived and had been able to take him away.
He did not, under any circumstances, want Phoebe’s son to turn out like he had. He had the power and the ability to make sure of that. There had been no one to help his father, but he could help Phoebe. He could do the one thing that no one else could do.
He could give the Oracle back to her family.
Decision made, he stood up and then scooped Phoebe up into his arms. He kissed her forehead and sighed.
“It’s past time you were taken back where you belonged, Oracle.”
It was highly likely that the Source would want to kill him for this act of defiance, but he would deal with that when the time came. There was a little boy out there that desperately needed his mother.
After wrapping Phoebe up in a blanket to keep her as warm as possible, Belthazor shimmered back to the Halliwell house. Making sure that she was securely wrapped in the blanket, he placed her gently on the back porch of the manor and then tossed a light energy ball to slam into the door. It wouldn’t damage anything, but it would get the attention of everyone in the house. Once he heard people running to the door, he hid himself to watch what happened.
“What the hell –“ The expletive was cut off as Prue saw the bundle on the porch. She lifted her hand and used her power to lift up part of it and then she gasped. “Piper! Paige! We need Leo and we need him now.”
Prue dropped down to her knees and touched her long lost sister’s cheek. She stayed there, looking around to see if there was anyone out here. Once she was sure it was safe, she pulled Phoebe into her lap.
“You’re safe now,” she whispered. “You’re home and we’ll take care of you.”
“Prue what’s the – Phoebe?!” Piper looked from her older sister to her younger sister. She returned her gaze to Prue. “Is it really her?”
Prue nodded. “It is and she’s hurt.”
“But how did she get here?” Piper ran a hand along the strands of Phoebe’s hair that were sticking out of the blanket.
“I don’t know, but it was obviously not on her own. She’s wrapped up too carefully for that.”
“You mean someone brought her home, but who?”
Prue shook her head. “More questions that I don’t know the answers to. Help me get her inside, she’s hurt and needs Leo.”
Piper nodded and helped Prue pick up their sister. “God, Prue, she’s lost so much weight. What did he do to her down there?”
“It doesn’t matter right now, Piper,” Prue responded. “What matters is that she’s home and she’s safe. There will be plenty of time to get the answers we need from her.”
The door closed behind the sisters as they went inside and there was the sound of a man’s shocked voice calling Phoebe’s name.
Once the door was shut, Belthazor stepped out of the shadows and smiled sadly at the house.
“Good bye, Bright One,” he murmured. “You focus on being happy and being a good mother, and I’ll focus on keeping you safe.”
He glanced once more at the house and then shimmered away.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-04 12:08 pm (UTC)