Biting my lip, Harry and I looked at each other before I winced as I caught my split lip.
"Well Harry and I haven't been totally honest with you" I said turning back to Chris and the Halliwells. I saw their faces fall and I rubbed the back of my neck. "-you see there is one final part of the plan that needs to be uncovered" I shrugged and watched as Wyatt ran a hand over his face. I grinned at how uncomfortable he was feeling. I jolted in surprise before frowning at Wyatt.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly but I ignored him, instead focusing on his face. I saw worry there before I felt it in my heart and gut, as though the worry was something that I was feeling. Tilting my head I continued studying Wyatt and as each second passed I found that I was able to feel more of his emotions. Worry and fear at what the final phase of the plan could be as well as the trust he felt since he trusted that the plan wouldn't involve any of us getting killed. Mostly though I felt the love he felt for me, his family and Amy and I smiled at the fact that his feelings for Amy were growing. He knew that she wouldn't hurt him, and he loved her too much to hurt her. I grinned and started bouncing on the balls of my feet, which in turn earned me startled looks from the Halliwells.
I turned to Chris and looked into his eyes before I was bombarded by his love for me and how happy he was at the fact that we could finally get on with our lives. Lives which included each other. I also heard his thoughts, and the fact that he'd made a promise to himself to never let me go again. We smiled at each other.
I love you so much Chris I thought and pushed my thoughts too him, the way I would usually have done. It took a lot of focus on my part, as well as a lot of time, but eventually Chris received the thought. His face glowed when her heard me.
"Seems you're recovering quickly love" he said walking over to me and placing his hands on my waist. I nodded at him before answering the questioning gazes that were burning my back.
"Sorry guys, I've just found out that the bonds are back. After two days of living without feeling the boys I felt that Wyatt was shit scared" I said grinning at Wyatt over Chris' shoulder. This announcement made him glare at me. Harry cleared his throat.
"Oh right" I said and moved away from Chris before looking at Harry, trying to figure out how this would work.
"Wyatt can you sense any of my demonic power?" I asked him and he looked shocked before he scratched his head while focusing on me. After a few seconds he shook his head.
"No Lila. Why?" he asked and I went to twirl a piece of hair around my finger before realising that it wouldn't work. The potion had singed my hair and so I'd had to get it cut much shorter so that it would grow back healthy. Chris and Melinda had said how they liked my new short hair, but everyone agreed that they missed my trade mark long curly hair. Sighing I looked at Harry before we shrugged.
"I can shimmer us there" he said and I grinned at him before nodding.
"Right so the final part of the plan we cooked up means we have to go back to the Underworld" I sighed as I saw everyone freeze.
"Oh please, I thought we'd established that I'm not going to kill you" I said looking at each person individually.
"That's fine Lila" Chris said before glaring at Wyatt when he went to interrupt. "-what do we have to do?" he asked looking at me. I stroked his cheek lovingly as I answered him.
"Well since I can't shimmer Harry will have to. Can you track our shimmering?" I asked and Wyatt nodded, "-great do that but be careful, I have no idea if there will be any demons there" I shrugged and everyone nodded.
"Okay who's going?" Piper asked just as Caleb and Derren orbed into the Manor. They smiled at us, before Caleb nodded at me.
"I was thinking just Harry, Wyatt, Mel, Chris and I. If it's possible Derren can you please keep an eye on us in case we need help?" I asked and Derren nodded.
"Sure Lila" he said looked confused. I remembered that he was my whitelighter as well and probably had no idea what was happening since he hadn't been around the past two days, which made me wonder why he hadn't healed Wyatt and me?
"Don't worry, I'm sure everyone will fill you in. Okay places people" I said, clapping before I moved next to Harry.
"Ready sis?" he asked and I nodded at him before looking at the three Halliwells, who nodded. Harry took my hand in his before he shimmered us out of the Manor.
My stomach did flips before we landed in the Underworld and I instantly recognised that we were in the intersection which led to the tunnel where the living quarters were, and the other tunnel which led to various places. Even though I'd lived here for about four weeks, the place still confused me.
"Okay here we are" Harry said and I nodded before a loud booming sound echoed through this part of the Underworld. Harry and I ducked reflexively before I winced as I guessed what may have caused the sound.
"Shit" I cursed before hurrying down the tunnel which led to the living quarters.
I ignored the curtains that led to the rooms that used to belong to Josey, Harry and I, instead heading for the tunnel which would lead me away from here and towards the rest of the Underworld. I emerged in the main cave where Wyatt and Chris had appeared just two days ago, before the battle began, and saw that they were there along with Melinda, except they were all on the floor rubbing their heads.
"What happened?" I asked hurrying over to help them up.
"You tell us. One second I was tracking Harry's shimmers the next you guys vanished and we bounced off something" Wyatt said before groaning as he stood up. I winced.
"Sorry I forgot to mention that the demons in the same group as me placed wards around that part" I said waving through the doorway where I had just emerged from, "-I just assumed they would have gone when the demons died" I shrugged and Harry fiddled with his fingers. I frowned at him and he looked at me before shrugging, obviously understanding that I knew he wanted to say something.
"Which demons?" he asked and I clucked my tongue in thought.
"Err, Darien, Asher, Frederick and Silus, with me occasionally adding" I shrugged as I ticked us off on my fingers and Harry nodded.
"That makes sense. Maybe they didn't vanish because not all the demons are dead" he said and I gasped before realising that he was in fact right. I had a feeling that Silus may still be alive since he hadn't been on the battlefield, and so wouldn't have been vanquished by Harry. The same goes for the other two older demons.
"Oh well-" I shrugged, "-do you think you can do something about these little brother?" I asked gesturing towards the wards which I could now see.
There had been a few wards and spells and runes placed around this part of the Underworld to keep good at bay, especially the Halliwells. Each of these revealed themselves to me now so that I could see each spell. They looked like balls that each had a specific colour, to differentiate between when one finished and another started. If I focused a little more I could see the seal that had been placed on each ward, identifying it as belonging to a specific demon, since they all used their own spells. These seals actually looked like old fashioned locks with a signature beneath the lock belonging to a demon.
"I think so, it will take some time though" he said and I nodded placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll help you if you need me to" I said and Harry grinned before turning back to the balls of protective power.
I saw him squint before he breathed when he could also see the balls. I felt the crackle of power from him as he focused on the first ball, which I instantly knew belonged to Asher. This one was a warding power that I knew was made up of a spell with a hex bag of sorts. I left Harry to deal with the spell part while I hunted down the hex bag finding it hard to do so because I had watched the wards being made after Asher had set his spell, so I had no idea where to look or what the hex bag smelt like.
Letting out a large breath of air I sent my senses out, feeling myself become alert as I tried to feel any vibrations that would symbolise magic and cheered when I found the bag. I skipped over to the wall just to the right of the doorway that led on to the part of the Underworld that the group of demons had occupied. Frowning I studied the wall and smiled when I saw a little opening cut out of the wall. I reached my right arm in and pulled the hex bag out before skipping back over to the Halliwells.
"Harry catch" I said and threw the bag into the air. Harry shot an energy ball at it and when the energy ball burned the hex bag I saw the ball of Asher's power disappear, as well as heard the buzzing sound of his power disappear as well. I hadn't realised that it made sound.
Next up was Frederick's spell and I had been here when he did it. I remember that Frederick had said a spell in Latin, which I vaguely understood, but wasn't really paying attention to. That was possibly very stupid of me but Harry had no problem with tearing that ball of power down. He glanced at me over his shoulder grinning. I gave him a funny look and he shrugged.
"I actually studied Latin while you did the language" he said and I rolled my eyes at him. I knew there was a reason as to why Harry studied the books all of the time.
Once the blue colour of Darien's shield had disappeared, which had been easy to take down in the first place, next up was Silus. I bit the inside of my cheek and played with my cuticles since I knew that Silus' protection ward would be the hardest to take down. Harry shook his head.
"Lila I don't understand it" he said and I walked over to him before letting the ward reveal itself to me. I squinted against the yellow colour of Silus' shield before I was finally able to see why Harry didn't understand it. This particular shield was made up of little runes which were to do with the demonic language that I had studied, and thanks to this knowledge I understood all of the runes that were on the shield, especially the four main ones that had been used.
The four main runes that were etched all the way around the shield were Aloa, Jerik, Lacona and Unir which were the runes for things that are hidden, anger, power and death. I sighed since these were the four runes that I knew would be hard to break. They all had runes that could cancel out their power but these were very complicated and didn't always work.
"What's mine is yours" Harry said, taking my hand in his and I nodded at him, feeling his powers flowing around his body, ready for me to tap into if need be, but I decided to leave this to Harry, unless he had trouble drawing the counter runes.
I took a deep breath focusing only on the four main runes which stood out from all of the rest since they glowed more. A feeling rose in my gut and I knew that if I got rid of these four runes then the shield would cease to exist because the other runes that had been used all tied in with these four. Confusing I know, it was actually giving me a headache.
"Aloa, Jerik, Lacona and Unir" I said pointing at the runes as I said their names. These revealed the runes to the point where Chris, Mel and Wyatt gasped behind me. I knew that they could see the runes glowing, though to them they would just see the symbols hovering since the shield was only visible to Harry and me.
"Harry the opposite of hidden things?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. I'd quizzed him on some of the runes, since they were slightly easier to remember and he'd found it hard.
"Easy the opposite is visible things" he said and I nodded.
The rune Aloa consisted of a donut shape with a line through. The donut representing an object and the line representing the fact that the object was hidden.
"Okay now you see the donut with the line?" I asked and he nodded at me, "-well you need to draw the rune that cancels it out."
"Why can't you?" he asked and I sent him half a smile.
"Because runes are magical and right now, I have hardly any magic" I explained and he nodded before taking a deep breath, "-okay now the counter rune is a square with lines drawn through opposite corners" I said and Harry nodded before lifting his left hand up. Now Harry was in fact right handed, like me, when he writes, but for some reason when he draws he is left handed. Strange but hey it makes him unique in my eyes.
As instructed Harry drew a square in the air before drawing one line from one corner to another, which cut the square into two triangles, before joining the other two corners up. When that was done he smacked the rune with his hand and the rune spun in the air before landing on top of Aloa. The two runes fused together before the counter rune burned Aloa so that it disappeared, leaving the rune for visible things in its wake. I grinned as the Halliwells walked forward, studying the shield which had now been revealed to them.
"Next symbol is Jerik, the rune for anger" I announced.
"The counter rune is some sort of good feeling?" Mel guessed and I grinned at her.
"Yes love actually, weirdly enough" I said shaking my head and studying Jerik.
This rune was one of the weird ones. The lines that made it didn't really symbolise anything, it just made a picture in my opinion. Jerik consisted of a rectangle shape in the middle, where the shorter sides had semi circles coming off them. The edges of the semi circles each had a line coming off them so the lines joined into a point, forming a sort of triangle.
"Okay Harry the counter rune is an upside down heart" I said and he looked at me funny.
"Don't look at me like that, I don't make these runes up you know" I shrugged and he rolled his eyes before tracing an upside down heart in the air, and smacking it with his hand. Just like before, the counter rune fused with the original so that the heart overlapped the rectangle before Jerik fizzled out, leaving the upside down heart behind. I nodded.
"Next is Lacona, the rune of power" I said and saw Melinda nod, since she was stood on my right hand side.
Lacona was basically an hourglass shape symbolising the sands of time, and supposedly the power collected in this time for a demon. I never understood the meaning of that rune though, it seemed really stupid to me.
"Okay counter rune is just a lightening bolt going through the hourglass shape, but you have to make sure that the tip of the lightening bolt touches the part where the lines of the hourglass intersect" I instructed and Harry nodding. This rune was the quickest one to get rid of but the fourth and final rune would be much harder.
"Lila?" Harry asked after Lacona had disappeared, and I turned to him biting my cheek. I swallowed before realising that because I couldn't gnaw on my lip now- thanks to the split lip that Wyatt gave me- I'd taken to biting the skin off the inside of my cheek.
"Yeah Harry I know. The fourth and final rune is Unir the rune of death" I sighed.
"You say it like it's a bad thing" Wyatt said and I turned to see that both Chris and Wyatt had joined Melinda. I smiled at him and shrugged.
"It is. Death is something that cannot be avoided, even for demons that live for centuries. Demons die when they get vanquished, mortals die as part of the circle of life. Death can never be evaded and so there is no known counter rune for Unir" I said and saw Wyatt pale.
"But never fear, there is a rune of containment" I said and Harry jumped up and down.
"I know this one" he said and I rolled my eyes at him before he drew a circle in the air and smacked it so that the circle glowed around Unir. The symbol for Unir was just a simple skull that you would see on bottles of toxic solutions in labs and maybe schools. When the circle fused around it, Unir didn't disappear like the rest, instead it just stopped glowing.
The final rune had been neutralised and with that the yellow glow of Silus' shield collapsed with a sound that reminded me of breaking glass. I nodded at the Halliwells and we walked through. I sighed in relief when they were able to step through the doorway without being thrown back.
I led them back down the tunnel, passed the living quarters and all the way down to the intersection. I waited here for Melinda to catch up since she had lagged behind, glancing around every now and then, and something reminded me that I still had a few things in my living quarters, but I don't know what made me think of that.
"Okay this way" I said once she'd caught up, and I led them down the other tunnel so that with every second, we walked further below the Underworld, to where the cells were that kept witches. It was here that I had been kept prisoner, along with seeing a witch get infected, and it was here that the final part of the plan would happen.
I frowned as I realised that it had taken a while to pull down the warding shields. Oh well, there was plenty of time left.