Charmed: Let Gorgons Be Gorgons (21 page)

“Now she tells me,” Prue said.

Medusa was approaching Paige, eyes glowing with rage.

“Yes, sister!” Stheno shouted behind her. “Do what you were made to do!”

Medusa’s step faltered almost imperceptibly. Phoebe would have missed it, had she not been looking right at the floor beneath the gorgon’s feet at the time. She took the risk and raised her eyes to Medusa’s face. Behind her glowing rage, there seemed to be a slight bit of confusion. And maybe some hesitation.

It might be enough.

Phoebe was back on her feet, moving with speed. She held up her hands, coming up with her most insane plan on the fly. She’d never used her power like this before, but if there really was a connection between them, it might just work.

“Medusa!” Stheno called out a warning as Phoebe approached, but it was too late. She already had her hands around the gorgon’s head. At this proximity, she could hear the hissing snakes hidden beneath Medusa’s dark hair.

“It’s okay, little snakies,” Phoebe said. “I’m not planning to kill her. Just make her see.”

Phoebe focused her mind on Paige, pulling images from the past to fill her own mind, hoping to share them with Medusa. She remembered some of her sister’s most heroic deeds and the work of the Charmed Ones as well. Phoebe filled her mind with images of some of their greatest battles, and all the Innocents they’d protected—both during their time with Paige, and the early days with Prue. Then she pulled up her most recent images with all four sisters working together. If that didn’t convince Medusa they were on the side of good, then nothing would.

Lighting danced around the two of them, but it wasn’t attacking. If anything, it was keeping Medusa’s own sisters at bay. The glow in Medusa’s eyes dimmed, but still not enough to invite anyone to look directly at her.

“I get premonitions,” Phoebe said into Medusa’s ear. “I can see the future and the past. I don’t need to use my abilities to know that you’ve been badly hurt. What happened to you was horrible. But it wasn’t my sister’s fault. She’s one of the good ones. We all are. Just take these images to see what we have done. We didn’t hurt you. The people frozen here in stone aren’t to blame either.”

“
Everyone
is to blame!” Stheno called out through the crackles of lightning. “Everyone who didn’t act to stop it. The people who shared your story over the centuries, turning you into the monster.”

“Yeah,” Phoebe agreed as the lightning diminished. “That sucks too. But acting like a monster isn’t the best way to prove them wrong.”

“But it’s a good way to make them listen,” Euryale added. “Stheno was right. It’s the really horrible people that get all the press these days.”

The glow left Medusa’s eyes as they filled with even more confusion. Now, Phoebe was confident enough to look right at the gorgon. Even if Medusa tried to activate her magic, Phoebe felt secure that she could counter it. The feeling wasn’t logical, but it made sense to her. The lightning was completely gone. The castle was still. Prue had stopped her attack as well.

“Your sister’s right,” Phoebe said, calmly, as if they were having a simple conversation. “It does seem that way. If we hadn’t been working to stop you the world would know about you by now. They would think of you as monsters.”

“But they would have heard us,” Stheno insisted. Her voice was lower, but no less intense. “They would have feared us.”

“But not respected you,” Phoebe said.

“But they would have
listened
,” Stheno insisted. “And that was the point.”

“Yes. It was.” Phoebe nodded and smiled. Stheno had given her the exact opening she needed. “It was all about getting your message out, wasn’t it? We noticed the connection between your victims. People who used their own mortal powers to oppress others. To hurt womankind. We saw what you were doing.”

“And the world would have seen it too, if you hadn’t stopped us,” Stheno added.

“Yes, they would have,” Phoebe replied, speaking directly to Medusa. “But at what cost? Making yourselves into the monsters people have believed you were for thousands of years. Monsters on the outside as well as the inside.”

“We’re not monsters,” Medusa said in a whisper.

Phoebe took a step forward. “I don’t think you are. I don’t think your sisters are. I think the anger you all feel is justified. I understand how it grew over time with your sisters. I get how your early death kept you from processing it all properly. But that doesn’t justify turning people to stone. Making other people afraid. And it certainly is no excuse for what your sister did to us.”

“Did you to?” Medusa glanced back to Stheno.

Phoebe fought the smile forming at her lips. It was just as she suspected. Medusa didn’t know. “I just got a message from my husband,” Phoebe said. “You may not know this, but some really bad things have been happening to us lately. My sister and I… our careers were put in jeopardy. Innocents were hurt.”

“We needed a distraction,” Stheno explained, unprompted. There was no regret in her tone. “We did what we had to do.”

“Including partnering with someone who did exactly the thing you claim to loathe,” Phoebe said. “A man who used his own powers to force a woman to love him. And in the process he destroyed her life.”

Phoebe shared the story of Dafydd and his twisted love, pointing out that Stheno hadn’t seen fit to turn him to stone. She’d embraced his powers and used them for her purposes. By the time Phoebe finished, the confusion was gone from Medusa’s eyes. So was the rage. All that seemed to be left was regret.

Medusa turned to her sisters, but Stheno knew enough not to speak.

The same could not be said for Euryale. “Like we said, it’s the horrible people that get all the press these days.”

It was over in a flash. One moment Stheno and Euryale were standing there in the flesh and the next they were stone. There wasn’t even time for the shock to register in their eyes.

Phoebe finished giving her column one last review before sending it off to Elise. It was the second day in a row that she’d come in right under deadline, but recent events justified another piece to address the PR issue of her couples breaking up. Not that she could explain it any more today than she could the day before. But she put her tablet down on the nightstand feeling optimistic that the crisis had been averted. Mika could focus on the next one. Hopefully in a section of the newspaper far from
Ask Phoebe
.

The good news was that the full Cupid force was in on the case, working to undo the damage Dafydd had created with the Eros Ring. Without his magical influence, all the couples that had broken up would have the chance for reconciliation. It wouldn’t be easy. Things had been said and done that could not be easily undone. But with the guiding hands of some of the best in the business, Phoebe was sure most, if not all, of the couples would be back together soon. Though she did worry for the poor movers who were going to have to get Bri back into her house on that hill.

“
That
was not fun,” her harried husband said as he came into the room and collapsed on the bed, making it shake violently. “As soon as I got Parker to sleep, P.J. wanted a glass of water. When I got back with the water, Parker was crying because… I still haven’t figured it out, actually. And that just set off a chain of events that I can’t even begin to explain. How do those two small bodies get packed with so much energy?”

Phoebe kissed her husband as he climbed up beside her. “I’ll put them to bed tomorrow night. You’ve certainly earned your keep today. Thanks for all your help with the other thing too.”

“It was the least I could do,” Coop said as he snuggled in beside her. “Dafydd’s actions weren’t my fault, but they were my responsibility.”

“Just like Medusa and her sisters,” Phoebe said. “Now that she’s not under their influence, I think she’ll be able to get the help she needs. The Elders are going to look after her for a while. And I’ll be checking in with the Elders to make sure she’s getting the help that she needs from them since they were kind of the ones that started all this in the first place.”

“And her sisters?”

“They’re going to stay statues for a while,” Phoebe said. “Until Medusa can figure out how to help them as well. Then she’ll turn them back like she did all the other people.”

“Elise is still going with a viral marketing campaign in the paper?” Coop sounded slightly disappointed by the lie.

“I know,” Phoebe said. “She’s not crazy about it either, but she can’t really report the truth. That’s the story her reporter submitted so that’s what she accepted. A series of viral marketing campaigns meant to get people talking. Since none of the people who turned to stone had any clue what happened to them, they all went along with it so they didn’t look foolish. It did kind of give them some publicity. What that publicity accomplished, I don’t know, but people are talking.”

“Not about what Stheno wanted,” Coop said.

“Medusa’s going to see to it they start,” Phoebe said. “The thing about her sisters living so long is they’ve amassed quite a fortune of their own. Medusa’s going to try to put some of that to good use. Using mortal means to get a message of empowerment out.”

“At least something good will come out of all this,” Coop said.

“I’m still not sure how the gorgons could access our power,” Phoebe said. “It’s not like the Warren line goes back that far. Or maybe it does.”

“Ancient magic is all connected to what we have today,” Coop said. “Time isn’t so linear when it comes to those things.”

“Still, I wonder if somewhere back through history we might be related. Like Medusa’s a way, way distant cousin or something.”

“Go back far enough and I think most of us are related somehow,” Coop said.

“It could be possible I have a small amount of Greek in me.”

Coop smiled flirtatiously. “I do find Greek women sexy.”

“You’re a Cupid. You find all women sexy.”

“All people, really,” Coop said. “Cupids are very open.”

Phoebe ran her fingers up his arm. “You’re very loving.”

“Cole was a big help today too.”

Phoebe stopped what she was doing and pulled away from him slightly. “A Cupid should be better at setting the mood.”

Coop laughed, lightly. “Sorry. Still got a lot on my mind. I’ve never been crazy about Cole’s way of doing things, but love can’t heal everything I guess. I’m not sure what Dafydd’s punishment will be, but a tribunal has been called to decide it.”

Phoebe nodded. “Hard to punish someone who has been living in a self-created punishment for decades.”

“True.”

Phoebe moved closer to her husband again, putting her arm around his chest. “I love you, you know?”

Coop wrapped an arm around her as well. “I know,” he said. “I love you too.”

Phoebe and Coop settled into one another, enjoying a simple shared moment of two people who were together in every possible way.

It was a brief moment before the crying screams of two restless children pulled them both out of bed, but it only grew when they held those children in their arms, enjoying the bond of a loving family.

Paul Ruditis
has written numerous companion books and novels for TV shows like
Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Star Trek, The Walking Dead,
and
The West Wing
. He has co-authored both of the official
Charmed
episode guides and has written several earlier
Charmed
novels, as well as the
New York Times
bestselling comic book series revealing the show’s “unaired” ninth season.

Charmed: Let Gorgons Be Gorgons
© 2015 by Spelling Television Inc. A CBS Company.

TM & © 2015 Spelling Television, Inc. A CBS Company. All Rights Reserved. Charmed and all related characters, names and indicia are trademarks of Spelling Television, Inc. ’15. All Rights Reserved

A novel by Paul Ruditis. Based upon the television series
Charmed
, created by Constance M. Burge.

All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

EPub Edition February 2016 ISBN: 9781443448772

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, by arrangement with CBS Consumer Products Inc.

First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd in serial form, as four separate ePub editions, in 2015.

First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd in this single volume ePub edition in 2016.

HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use through our Special Markets Department.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8

www.harpercollins.ca

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au

HarperCollins Publishers (Canada) Ltd.

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca

HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

The News Building
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9SG, United Kingdom
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com