Charmed: Let Gorgons Be Gorgons (13 page)

“
All
time,” Phoebe corrected. “We’re the most powerful witches of
all
time. Talk about getting your facts straight.”

Frank sneered at her. “Who said I was talking about you?”

“The gorgons are witches?” Prue asked.

“Witches first,” he said. “Gorgons later.”

Paige and her sisters took seats on the couch, careful not to crush the fairy that had perched herself on the armrest. Prue had to widen it slightly with her magic so they could all fit. It seemed like this story might take a while.

“As you already know, the oh-so-wise Council of Elders gifted mortals with the powers of gods so they could take on the Titans. And as you also know, mortals went a little crazy with power. Ruled—and tortured—the ancient Greeks for years and years. Toward the end of their reign Medusa and her sisters were up-and-coming witches. And since the Elders rarely deal directly with their messes, the sisters were sent to Greece to check out what was happening when things finally got out of hand. See if they could work some magic to do some good. Half those stories you hear about heroes rescuing people from the Nemean lion or killing the Minotaur? That was really Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale. But since they worked their magic in secret, some random dudes took all the credit.”

“How come no one knows about this?” Paige asked.

“How many mortals know about the work you do?” Frank replied.

“More than I’m comfortable with sometimes,” Piper said. “But we get your point.”

“I thought you might,” he said. “Remember the time period. Not only were witches in hiding, but women as heroes? That didn’t go over so well with many of the storytellers. Medusa didn’t care. She wasn’t in it for the glory, unlike her sisters, so the Elders balanced out the sisters’ powers with their desires. Medusa was the most powerful by far, but she had a mortal lifespan. Stheno and Euryale were immortal, but weaker on their own.”

“Why?” Paige asked.

Frank shrugged. “Why do the Elders do anything? But this is where the legend meshes with reality. While they were checking on the Gods, Medusa fell for Poseidon, which was kind of against the rules. Witches falling for Whitelighters or Cupids is one thing, but witches falling for the Elders’ magical screw ups was quite another.”

“Did Poseidon love her too?” Paige asked.

“You think I have access to Poseidon’s diary?” Frank asked. “Who can tell? It was over two thousand years ago. But that’s not the point. Whether he loved her or not, the one thing everyone agrees on is that he forced himself on Medusa. Raping and pillaging was nothing new to these Gods. They constantly forced themselves on the powerless, taking what they wanted through magic or sex. As powerful as Medusa was, she couldn’t stop him.”

Paige shook her head in disgust. “You hear these stories in school and you think they’re just crappy legends. But then you realize they really happened to people.”

“It gets worse,” Frank said. “The rape occurred in the temple of
Athena
. And the Goddess of War was pissed that her temple was defiled.”

“I’m guessing she unleashed a big can of whupass on Poseidon for that,” Paige said. She’d briefly inherited the abilities of that particular goddess when the Charmed Ones had taken on the escaped Titans. She still remembered the rage she had felt tied to that magic. When she imagined it directed Poseidon’s way it made her smile, though it was a smile tinged with regret.

“You’d guess wrong,” Frank said. “One god would never blame another god for the things their power made them do. No. Medusa bore the brunt of Athena’s anger.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Paige felt angrier about it due to her connection to Athena. “She blamed Medusa for her assault? She attacked the victim?”

Frank nodded. “And that’s when Athena cursed her into becoming a gorgon. It was motivated by rage, but it served a greater purpose as well. It was her way of fighting back against the Elders. Took out some of their servants. The witches. Medusa still had magic as a gorgon, but she was incredibly weaker.”

“So she was victimized, victim-blamed, and finally used as a pawn in a battle that she didn’t start?” Paige asked, growing more disgusted by the moment.

“Pretty much,” Frank replied. “Athena turned her into a gorgon so that no one would ever want to look upon her. The added bonus was that it sent a message to Athena’s enemies not to mess with her, or else she’d turn them into something even more hideous.”

“I’m starting to understand why Medusa wanted to turn people to stone,” Phoebe added.

“But I’m not understanding why Athena would give her
any
power,” Paige said. She’d only shared Athena’s powers for a brief time several years ago, but the one thing Paige took from the experience was that the Goddess of War was a first and foremost a strategic tactician. Punishing Medusa while still allowing her to do anything like turn people to stone seemed off.

“That was an unintended consequence,” Frank said, clearing up Paige’s confusion. “Medusa was only supposed to be a horrible monster, striking fear in any man that looked upon her. But Medusa’s magic was twisted in the curse, which is how she came to turn people to stone when they upset her.”

“It doesn’t automatically happen to everyone who lays eyes on her?” Prue clarified.

“Athena started that rumor,” Frank said. “No. Medusa could control the power to some degree. She could do other basic magic too. Teleportation. Pretty good with glamours after a while. But she was nowhere near as powerful as she used to be. Not that it mattered to Athena. The fact that Medusa still possessed magic enraged Athena. That’s when she sent Perseus after the gorgon to end her life. That’s probably the story you’re familiar with. He used her reflection to turn her to stone. Cut off her head and put it on his shield, which he gave to Athena because he was a little suck up. Blah, blah, blah, the end.”

“And Medusa’s sisters?” Prue asked.

“They went after Athena, of course. No one is really sure if it was done out of love or the fact that their own magic was diminished while their sister was under the curse. Of course, with their weaker magic, it was easy pickings for Athena to curse them as well. It took a few years before Perseus could track down Medusa. In the meantime, the gorgons turned more than a few people into stone. Mostly because they were trying to defend themselves. Believe it or not, the people of ancient Greece got a little crazy when there were monsters in their midst. Or anyone that would qualify as a little different.”

“Not much has changed,” Paige said, though she had trouble considering green, scaled creatures with snakes for hair as qualifying as a “little” different. Still, she was having a problem with the idea of calling them monsters after knowing a bit more about what they’d gone through. It wasn’t entirely different from some of the situations she and her sisters had found themselves in at times, considering how often they’d been used as other people’s pawns. Thankfully, they had never experienced the horror of a sexual assault like Medusa had gone through. “Anyone else suddenly rooting for the gorgons?”

“No,” Prue said, definitively. “I get that what they were put through was horrible. I don’t blame them for being angry at the gods or Elders or so-called heroes that did those things to them. Hell, I’d want vengeance too. But that was over two thousand years ago. From what you’ve told me, the gods are gone. These people they’re turning to stone sound like jerks, but they certainly didn’t have anything to do with Athena’s curse. The gorgons have to be stopped.”

“I’m not going to vanquish them,” Paige said, with just as much conviction as her eldest sister. “They’ve been punished enough.”

“I don’t even know if we can vanquish them,” Phoebe chimed in. “They’re not demons. Not witches either, now.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Piper said. “If they can be reasoned with, we’ll talk to them. But if they need to be dealt with more forcibly, we can do that too. Much as I’d love to use my magic on anyone who ever annoyed me, there are rules about these things.” Piper turned back to Frank. “The only thing about all this that confuses me is that Leo said that Medusa’s supposed to be dead. How do you explain that?”

The dwarf simply pointed to Prue and then grabbed another piece of pizza. Apparently, story time was over. Paige was about to ask if he had any more information at his disposal when Phoebe’s pop song ring tone went off and Piper’s phone rang at the same moment.

Paige suspected that things were about to get a lot worse.

Piper didn’t waste a second, bursting through the front door to Halliwell’s the moment Paige had orbed them to the restaurant. The hostess on duty hadn’t made much sense over the phone, but it was clear there was some sort of emergency. Nicolette wasn’t prone to hysteria. Something big had to be up for her to use such a frantic tone at a volume that everyone around Piper could hear her through their connection.

Part of the challenge was the dueling noise from Phoebe’s phone as Mika’s voice emerged with similar volume and urgency. Neither call ended well, with both sisters grabbing Paige and telling Prue they’d be right back. Paige stopped off first at the
Bay Mirror
to drop off Phoebe, figuring she might be able to assist with Piper’s problem since she often helped out at the restaurant. One step inside the dining room and it was clear to Piper that she was going to need all the help she could get.

The scene inside was like something out of one of those disaster films where the world’s population is struck with some kind of global pandemic. Halliwell’s was apparently ground zero. Piper was expecting the beginning of a zombie attack any minute.

Patrons were doubled over in their chairs and even on the floor looking various shades of green. One man was rolling around on a table in what Piper hoped was a melodramatic act. A couple of members of the wait staff were similarly ill while the hostess and bartender seemed frozen, wondering what to do. Piper worried that the kitchen staff was in similar shape since any other time Chef would have been the first one out there making sure their guests were okay.

Nicolette broke out of her shock and came running over with cell phone in hand the moment she saw her boss walk through the door. “Piper! Paige! I’m on with 911. This is crazy.”

Piper looked at the phone and then to her sister. “It’s okay, Nicolette. We’re here. Paige could you take over with the operator while Nicolette fills me in on what’s going on?”

“Absolutely.” Paige held out a hand and took the phone from the hostess. As Piper walked off with the young woman she did her best to listen in as Paige got on the call. It was difficult since her sister lowered her voice so no one else could overhear. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “This was a complete overreaction to a little tummy ache. Everything is fine here. We don’t need any ambulances.”

It took a little bit to convince the operator that Nicolette had been overreacting, and Piper assumed Paige was getting the lecture about wasting resources by calling emergency services for nothing. Piper had gotten that same lecture herself after Wyatt’s multiple calls to the hotline over the years. Piper had taught him to use the number if there was ever an emergency. It wasn’t the child’s fault that the Manor was struck by an emergency on a weekly basis sometimes.

Piper was still working to calm Nicolette as Paige got off the phone. She just hoped calling off the ambulances was the right thing to do. They were only guessing that this was some kind of magical malady. If they were wrong, they could be putting the lives of her customers at risk. But Piper was having a hard time imagining anything in her kitchen causing this kind of reaction, and she motioned for the bartender to pour a glass of water. Jessup seemed equally stunned from his spot behind the bar as he handed over the glass without a word.

Nicolette took a heaping gulp of water and followed it up with a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Piper. They just overwhelmed me. It was just one or two people at first. They started feeling a little funny and then—BOOM—it hit everyone.”

A woman in a black dress and cartoonishly bulky costume jewelry forced her way into the conversation “Are you the manager here?”

“I’m the owner,” Piper said with her brightest smile.

The woman huffed, obviously not caring about semantics as she waved her hand toward a man doubled over in his chair at the nearest table. “What did your food do to my husband? Is he dying?”

“We’re trying to find out, ma’am,” Piper said. “I just got here, but I will let you know the moment we figure this out.”

“I’m going to sue,” the woman said as she whipped out her cell phone. “I am going to own this building and everything you have ever bought in your life! Do you have a house? A car? Well, it’s mine now.”

Piper threw up her hands a moment before the woman could press the screen of her phone. Piper’s magic stopped the call from happening, along with everything else around her. The dining room became a frozen tableau of people in pain. “This is going to destroy me.” She immediately hated herself for thinking of her own problem before her suffering customers, but it was the first thing that popped into her mind once the moaning stopped.

“We don’t know it’s the food,” Paige said. “Not unless everyone in the restaurant ordered the same exact thing.”

For the first time, Piper got a good look at her surroundings. It seemed like every customer was showing signs of some degree of suffering. A quick check of the tables revealed different menu items on the tables in various stages of being eaten. It wasn’t like everything had come out of the kitchen at the same time. The woman that had accosted her only had a small garden salad, which barely looked to be touched.

“Think you can heal them while they’re frozen, Paige?” Piper went to the door and locked it, flipping the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. The last thing she needed was someone walking in on this pretty picture.

“I don’t know that I can heal them at all,” Paige said. “But it’s worth a try.”

Piper crossed the dining room and peeked through the window in the door to the kitchen. The four members of the kitchen staff were all curled on the floor, writhing in pain. Piper was a stickler for keeping the kitchen clean, so it wasn’t as disgusting as some kitchens she’d worked in over her life, but it still hurt her to see her employees in such pain. She raised her hands and froze them as well. “The kitchen staff’s in the same shape. Let’s start in there and then you can do the rest while I talk to Chef and figure out what went wrong.”

“On it,” Paige said as Piper held the door open for her. Paige started with the chef, focusing her healing power on the woman’s stomach, which she was cradling. A golden glow emitted from Paige’s hands as she reached out for the malady and tried to fix it. With the woman being frozen, Piper imagined it was a bit more challenging than usual since Paige couldn’t be sure exactly what was wrong or even when to stop what she was doing if the magic worked.

At the point Paige felt like she’d done all she could, she turned off her healing power and moved on to the rest. It only took a couple of minutes for her to work through the entire crew. Once she was done, Piper helped her up off the floor. “Thanks. Now, go take care of the dining room. I’ll unfreeze everyone in here and make sure they don’t leave. Maybe they can give me some kind of clue what was going on.”

Piper watched her sister leave to work her magic. As soon as the kitchen door stopped swinging, she held up her hands and turned off her power, being sure to limit her range to the immediate area. Paige’s healing spell must have worked, because the kitchen staff looked confused as they were unfrozen, but they did not seem to be in pain any longer.

Piper helped her chef off the floor as the others got up on their own. “Are you okay, Suzanne?”

“Much better,” the chef replied. “I think I might have passed out for a moment. I don’t remember you coming in.”

“Have a seat,” Piper pulled a stool over before helping her other employees to their feet. “All of you, sit down and don’t go anywhere for the moment.”

“What about the customers?” Suzanne asked.

“Paige is with them,” Piper assured her. “I think they’re going to be okay. It seems to be passing. Can you tell me what happened?”

Suzanne shook off the haze of her recovery. “It was the strangest thing. Cary was the first to mention something was wrong. He’s pulling a double so he took his dinner break before the rush and I made him the risotto. He started getting a bit woozy while waiting on his tables. Nothing serious at first. Certainly nothing that made me think anything was wrong. Then it was like all the color suddenly drained from his face and I swear he started speaking in tongues. Eventually he couldn’t speak at all. He was just moaning and clutching his stomach. Pretty soon it spread to the customers. And, well, us in here.”

“They didn’t all have the risotto,” Piper said.

“That’s the thing,” Suzanne said. “Hardly anyone ordered it. I was the only one in here that even tasted it.”

“You tested it?” Piper asked.

“While I was preparing it earlier,” Suzanne replied. “Not after I thought something was wrong.” She handed Piper some printed receipts. “Before I got hit, I pulled all the orders of people who were getting sick.”

“It’s spread across the entire menu,” Piper said as she reviewed the orders. It confirmed what she’d already seen on the tables.

“Some of those meals don’t share any ingredients,” Suzanne pointed out. “Not even spices.”

“No,” Piper agreed. As the chef who had initially come up with most of the recipes on the menu, Piper knew each dish intimately. “So maybe it’s not food related?”

“You think something’s in the air?” Suzanne suggested. “In the water?”

Piper’s head hurt. “I think we’re going to have to shut down while I figure this out.”

Piper spent the rest of the night dealing with irate customers. It was understandable. They thought her restaurant had made them sick. She couldn’t exactly explain that they were victims of magic of unknown origin. Then again, the fact that they had been made ill in what was very likely some kind of attack on Piper probably wouldn’t have eased their anger.

Paige had been able to heal everyone but they weren’t exactly thrilled to be so violently ill even for a brief time. It took all of Piper’s natural powers of persuasion to keep them from writing bad reviews or contacting anyone official to complain. Thankfully the husband of the woman with the costume jewelry had convinced her not to complete her call to the lawyer.

Several times Piper had to rely on her supernatural powers as well to freeze the room just so she had a moment to calm herself. It was better than using the other aspect of her power to blow them all up.

In the end, it had cost the restaurant several free meals in the future and a promise that any medical bills would be covered if anyone still wanted to go to the hospital and that she would be closed for the rest of the night. She didn’t bother to say that she might have to be closed longer than that. It wasn’t like she could open her doors again when she didn’t know what had caused the problem in the first place. That would take some work of a different kind.

Once everyone was gone, Piper and Paige bagged up several of the uneaten meals and orbed to the attic of the Manor. It was going to take all their magical resources to figure out what was going on.