“What do you mean brother?” Jackie looked at Mike then back at me.

Luke answered. “Brothers. You and Michael are Alex’s bothers.”

“What? No we’re not. I have parents. I wasn’t adopted. Neither was Jackie. There is no way the three of us could be related.”

“But we are. The three of us were given up for adoption when we were three so that we wouldn’t be in danger.”

“Alex, no. This is insane. I’m not your sister and Mike isn’t your brother. You’re wrong.” She went to sit down next to Michael. He put the charm next to him.

“Michael, give the charm to Luke.” Luke held it and nothing happened. “Now take it back.” Like before, right when he touched it, it started to glow.

“Why did it glow for me and not him?”

“It only works when one of the three of us touch it.” Jackie took it from him and the charm glowed again. “Dad gave it to me.”

“Your dad? But you said he’s dead.” She placed it on the table. “Charm.” I placed the string back on it and put it around my neck. They looked at me with a shocked expression.

“He is. He’s a white-lighter just like Luke.”

“What’s a white-lighter?”

“A witch’s guide. Kinda like an oracle. I can get to where you are by orbing and can also heal your wounds, but only if I can get there on time. I can’t bring people back after they died.”

“Alex, are you a white-lighter too?”

“No, Mike. I’m not. I’m…well we’re half white-lighter, half witch.”

“Don’t say we, Alex. We are not your brothers. Get that through your head.” I’ve never made him so mad at me before. Would it be so terrible that I was his brother? They didn’t believe me. What now? “Look, I’ll see you later. I’m leavin.”

“Yeah. So am I. Sorry Alex but you’re wrong. You’re wrong.”

They left.

“They didn’t believe me, Luke. What do we do now?”

“Give them time. Look, through what your dad and I have seen, Michael believes in magic. Ok, he believes in it a lot. It’s just a shock to them. They’ll wonder if you were telling them the truth and then they’ll try to figure it out. Just give them time.”

“Yeah. Yeah I guess so. Do I need them to summon mom?”

“No you don’t but you need the spell and I don’t know it.”

“Will it work if I made it up? I really need to talk to mom.”

“Maybe. When the one you are summoning is a familiar, the spell will work with one person. When you use it to try and summon someone who doesn’t know you, it needs more power behind it. So, you gonna try to write one?”

“Like I said, I really need to talk to her.” I got up off the couch and went up the stairs into the attic trying to think of a spell. “What do I need for a summoning spell?”

“I’m not sure, Alex. Just try a spell and see if it works. Have one yet?”

“Yeah, I guess. Here goes.

“Hold on. Wait a sec.”

A few seconds later, the same white light from the first time I saw my mother appeared. When the lights faded away, there stood my mother. “Hi mom.”

She looked around, I guess looking for Mike and Jackie. “Alex?”

---

Michael and Jackie walked to her house. “It can’t be true, can’t it? I mean there’s no way Alex is our brother.”

“It can be, Mike. Maybe we are.” He looked over at her with a shocked expression on his face.

“No it can’t. Jackie we weren’t adopted. We have parents. It’s crazy you would even doubt that we aren’t.”

They walked for a couple more blocks and all she heard was Michael saying that this was crazy.

She looked at him in frustration. “Why is it so hard for you to accept that possibility? You think of him as a brother already. Why do you hate the idea you might actually be it? Look you’ve known him way longer than I have, since the third grade, right? Well, in the four years I’ve known him, he was always protecting me and was always there when I needed him. He did the same for you when you were in the eighth grade, didn’t he? Why would you hate it so much if Alex turned out to be your brother?” She was almost yelling. Michael looked frustrated as well and started pacing back and forth.

“Because.”

“Because what, Michael. Because what.”

“Because I was in love with him once, all right. I don’t want Alex to be my brother because I want him to be more than that.” He fell to the floor on his knees. “I like him. I like him a lot. And if he turns out to be my brother, nothing could ever be between us. I told him I thought of him as my older brother because I figured that’s the closet I’ll ever get to be with him.”

She looked at him with an expression of shock and sadness. She went up to him and knelt beside him. He wasn’t in tears but he had his eyes closed tightly. “Look, I talked to him about this before. He told me he felt something for you in the past but now all he could think of you is his brother. Because that is what you are. What he said is true Mike. We’re Alex’s brothers.”

He looked up at her. “What?”

“Michael, I was adopted.”

---

Back at the manor:

“What did they say?”

“They didn’t believe, mom. The idea of being related to me was ridiculous to them.” I let out a sigh. “I’ve never seen Michael so mad at me before. It almost killed me.”

“Alex, are you close with him?”

“Yeah. I’m very close with him. It’s weird now that I know he’s my brother but I really liked him before. You know, more than friends.”

“I know. I’ve been watching you remember. It never happened because you two were meant to come together as brothers, nothing more.”

“I know that now. It’s fine anyway. I stopped feeling like that a long time ago. I’m not like that. Anyway, for the last three years, Mike has been nothing more than a brother to me. And Jackie hasn’t been anything more than a sister. I still can’t believe we actually are.”

“Well believe it because it’s true. Look honey, they’ll come around. Just give them time. Just be aware before they do. The Source knows who you are and can kill you before the Power of Three comes together.”

“Don’t worry mom. I will. Send my love to grams and dad.”

She disappeared. I looked over at Luke. “Guess there’s nothing else I can do…”

“But wait.”

---

“Why… why did you never tell us?”

“I don’t know. I was going to when Alex said he was but it never came out. I was adopted. I should have told you before since we tell each other everything. Sorry.”

“You were adopted. Then, it’s true? We’re his brothers?”

“There’s a big chance we are. We’ll have to accept it if it’s true. We’re witches.”

“But, I wasn’t adopted, Jackie. I wasn’t.”

“Then maybe we’re not.”

“I got to go home. I’ll see you later.” He left in the opposite direction. The entire way home, he thought if it could be possible that he was adopted. It isn’t possible. Is it? As he passed the front of the house, he saw his mother’s car was in the garage. Should I ask her? He went inside and saw his mother. “Hey mom.”

--

Jackie walked continued walking to her house thinking. I can’t believe it. He’s my brother. She turned around and walked back to Alex’s house.

---

The warlock waited until no one was around. “Dark-lighter. I call you here.” A few seconds later a dark cloud appeared and from it emerged a figure in black clothes holding a crossbow.

“What do you want, Eames. Couldn’t defeat the witch?”

Eames swung his hand and threw the same blade as before at the dark-lighter. He walked up to him and took the crossbow from the fallen dark-lighter. “Oh I’ll beat them. I’ll kill them. And they won’t be able to hurt me even with the Power of Three, I also posses the powers of a white-lighter.” He disappeared.

---

I sat in the living room thinking of what my next move would be. Should I go after that warlock or should I try and convince them. All of a sudden, I saw the warlock appear in front of me.

“Hello, witch.” He flung a fireball at me and I managed to dodge it. From where I was I could see the weapon on his belt.

“Blade.” I didn’t wait for it to get to me because he might think of a way to deflect it. Instead I made it hit him on his side and he started to bleed. While he bent over in the pain, I tried to freeze him. It appeared like he did at first but he slowly got out of it. Then I tried to explode him. He shattered into a thousand pieces but reconstituted himself.

“I knew I was right at stealing that white-lighter’s powers.” He held his hand over his wound and healed himself. “Now, where were we?” He through more fireballs and then disappeared. He couldn’t have left. He was just fighting. I looked around but couldn’t see him anywhere. He reappeared behind me and threw me to the floor at a corner of the wall. He held his hands opened and a crossbow appeared in them. He prepared to shoot it.

---

Luke orbed in and saw Alex against the wall and Eames with a dark-lighters arrow. “Oh shit.” Next thing he noticed, Jackie was standing right beside him.

“Luke, what do I do? How do I help?”

“You need to call for your powers. It’s the only way you’ll be able to use them.” < Alex, what’s the Call For Power? >

---

I needed to call the paper I wrote the spell down on but if I said something the warlock would shoot that arrow. I closed my eyes and called the paper with my mind. Spell. I had my hand behind my back and the paper orbed into it. I didn’t know if I could but I had to try. I concentrated again and orbed the paper from my hand into Luke’s. ( That’s the one. Hurry it up. ) --- “Read this.”

“Just read it?”

“Now. Read it.”

Jackie took the paper in her hands and read it.

“So how do I do it?”

“Exactly how Alex did it before. Just say ‘crossbow’ and throw the light at the floor so it doesn’t land on your hand.”

She put her hand out in front of her. Just before the arrow was released she called for it. “Crossbow.” It was surrounded by blue light and orbed out of the warlock’s hand and began to come down into hers. Before it could land in her hand, she closed it into a fist and motioned the light to land on the floor next to her.

---

He was unarmed. I had a chance so I orbed out of that corner and landed next to Jackie. “You came back. You believe me?”

“I did before. I just couldn’t accept that I was a witch. I’m still having trouble with it.” The warlock had a fireball in his hands and was about to launch it. I turned my face to see it just on time.

“When he reflects the fireball use the exploding power on him.”

“How?”

“Just gesture at him with your hands. Fireball.” The ball orbed out of his hands and onto mine. I threw it at him and he deflected it. She used the power on him and he exploded but then reconstituted himself.

“Don’t you understand? You cannot destroy me.” He disappeared. I wasn’t sure if he left or blinked to another location of the house.

Jackie looked around expecting to see the warlock appear behind her. She looked at Luke. “What do we do now?”

“Shhh.” He had his eyes closed and looked like he was concentrating.

“What?”

“I can’t sense him. With the powers of a dark-lighter, he can block my telelocation.” I made to pick up the crossbow. “NO. Don’t touch that. A dark-lighter’s arrow is poisonous to white-lighters. It can kill any of the three of you since you’re all half white-lighter.”

( All of them are half-white-lighter? Perfect. ) We looked around but couldn’t see anyone. We noticed something different about a part of the wall. A second later, that part of the wall turned black, and formed to the warlock again. “That is very good to know.” He smiled. “Think you can orb there faster than I can?” He became surrounded by dark orbs and disappeared.

“He went to Mike, didn’t he?”

“We got to get there before he does or Michael will die.” Luke grabbed us both and orbed us to Michael’s house.

---

“But how could you never tell me? Alex’s father told him risking his relationship with his wife so that his kid would know the truth. But you lied. The entire time, you’ve been lying. Even when I asked you if you would ever lie to me about something like this, you said no.” Michael was pacing back and forth in front of his mother.

“Michael, I know I should have told you but I was afraid you might act, well… the way you are acting right now. I didn’t want you to leave me.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten angry before. But I was adopted and you never told me even after having lived with Alex and keeping him around every time he said he would go to stay somewhere else.”

“But that’s what I didn’t want for you. I didn’t want you to go looking for your parents and find out that they were dead and have to feel like you’re all alone.”

“But they are. My parents are dead. That’s why they gave us up, so that we would be safe from whatever it was that killed them.” She looked at him in question.

“Us?”

“Yeah. Us. Jackie… Jackie is my sister and Alex is my brother.”

“What?” She couldn’t believe it. How could it be that her son was around his family the entire time? “Are… are you sure?”

He began to say something but then realized he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Michael stopped pacing and looked at his mother. “I’m not entirely sure. But I’m beginning to think that they told me the truth.”

They were both quiet for a few minutes. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Look mom, I’m not gonna leave you. I have to find out the answer to some things but you will always be my mother.” He left the living room and went into the living room. He was making his way to the door when he saw the warlock orbing in. When the warlock appeared, Michael froze in fear. Him again. What does he want?

Eames walked towards him but Michael didn’t move back. He stood there frozen in terror. “I guess your brothers didn’t make it on time, did they?”

“No. We did.”

---

“How do you get used to that?” Jackie and I orbed into Mike’s house and saw the warlock getting closer to him. “It gets easier.” It was obvious that the warlock was going to use the crossbow again. “Luke, just go. Meet us back at the manor. If you die, nobody will be around to heal us.”

“Be careful.” He orbed to the manor. We got closer to the warlock so that if he tried something, we would be able to protect Michael somehow.

“I guess your brothers didn’t make it on time, did they?”

“No. We did.” Before he could turn around, Jackie froze him. “What do we do, what do we do?”

“We got to get to the manor. We won’t be able to beat him without a spell.”

Michael came out of his shock and spoke up. “Then do one.”

“We would but all the spells are in the Book Of Shadows. And the only way to get the book is by summoning it with the power of three.” The warlock was starting to break through the power.

“We got to get to the manor.”

They both looked at me. “How do we do that? If we run he’ll catch us.”

“Like every other white-lighter, we orb.” I went over to Jackie and pulled Mike over to us. How did I do this again? I closed my eyes. I needed to concentrate but all I could think about was the warlock escaping and killing us. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Alex, relax. You got us out of this before and you can do it again. I know you can and so does Jackie. You’re my brother so of course you can.” He was smiling. I needed that. I needed to know that they trusted me and believe that I was their brother. Then came Jackie’s voice from the other side. “Yeah. He’s right. Just relax. Concentrate and do it. Orb us out of here.”

---

Michael looked over at the warlock and saw him walking towards them. He looked over at Jackie and motioned for her to stay quiet, that if she bothered Alex’s concentration, they wouldn’t be able to orb.

“All right. Here we go.” The blue light surrounded Alex. And then the same light surrounded Jackie and Michael. They orbed to the manor.

“You haven’t escaped yet. Blinking is much faster than orbing. Poor white-lighter.” He started to disappear but then heard the voice of The Source, (No. Stop. The witches are most likely going to summon their precious book. They’ll powers will be compressed and separated into the three of them. Let them come for you, and then destroy them. ) The warlock growled in anger. He disappeared.

---

Luke sat in the manor using his power of telelocation. They’re still alive but they’re not on the plane. Where are they? He could sense them but couldn’t get a location. ( Alex. Alex. Jackie. ) Nothing. He got up and started pacing back and forth. “Where are they?” He stopped and looked over at the figures orbing into the house. They orbed, of course. I should’ve known that.

We landed and just like before I began to fall to the floor. Only this time, nobody caught me. I fell to my knees and hands. I couldn’t get up. I felt so weak. Jackie and Mike helped me up and sat me on the couch. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.” Luke came over and looked for some sort of wound. “There’s nothing Luke. Why do I feel so worn out? I was fine a couple seconds ago.”

“A witch is not meant to have more than one power. Alex, you and Jackie are carrying four each right now. The only reason you two can stand it is because the healing ability of the white-lighter in you stabilizes it. Whenever you tap into your white-lighter powers such as orbing, you weaken.”

“I had to do it. If we didn’t, we could’ve died.”

“He’s right. There was no other way.” Luke looked at the Mike, then at Jackie. Then he looked at me.

“The three of you.” He smiled. “Finally.” He got up and pulled me up to stand. “Come on. We got to call the book and get the three of your powers straightened out.” We went to the attic.

“So that’s why this place was always closed wasn’t it?”

“Yup. Grams didn’t want us to discover it.”

Mike walked up to Jackie and I. “What do we have to do?”

Jackie answered him. “Call the Book Of Shadows.”

Then Luke came. “But first, you got to call for your powers.”

Mike said the spell like the two of us had done before and received his powers. I was curious to know what was my power, my initial power. I was hoping it wasn’t the premonitions. “Well, how do we call the book?”

“First, you have to write the spell between the three of you. I’ll get the rest of the things ready.”

Michael looked like he was hoping for this. “Write a spell? Man. Will it work?”

“Yeah, if you get it to rhyme. Also it has to make sense with the situation.”

After about an hour or so, we had finished writing The Charmed Creed. It didn’t fulfill all of Luke’s qualification but it still made sense. “All right. We got the spell, now what?”

Luke went over and got from the shelf three white candles. “Each of you call for one.”

The three of us opened our hand and said, “Candle.” The three of the candles orbed out of Luke’s hand and appeared in our own. “Next?”

“Come over here and stand around this bookstand with the candles lit and say the spell together.” We walked over to the stand and lit the candles. Jackie stood behind the stand, Michael stood to the right of it and I stood to the left.

We looked at each other. Jackie spoke, “You guys ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s do this.” We broke up the spell into four parts. “Who starts?”

Since Mike wrote most of it, “I will. Jackie then you go and Alex you go last. Then we’ll do the last part at the same time.”

“You guys aren’t done yet. Alex, take the charm your father gave you and put it in front of the book.” I did what he said and the charm became part of the book’s cover. It split. The circle widened and the three parts to the trinity became separated. “Now each of you touch the ring that corresponds to where you are standing.” I touched it and the ring glowed blue. Jackie and Mike touched the ring in front of them and the same thing happened. “Now just repeat this spell: Take my powers, blessed be. And split them into equal three.” We looked at each other and knew that this is where it would begin. From the point the book is completed, our lives will be changed forever. I looked at them and said, “It’s now or never.”

“Yeah. The Book has been summoned. Now you can find out who that warlock is and see if there’s a vanquish for him.”

“Wait, so there might not be?”

“No. There isn’t always a vanquishing spell in the Book of Shadows. If there isn’t, you’re gonna have to write one. Whenever you create a vanquish and use it to destroy a demon, it’ll appear in the book.” Michael looked up.

“Well, writing a spell is not a problem.”

“Start researching and look for the Rid Evil spell. If you word it differently, you can banish the warlock from the manor. If he can’t kill you, he might try to go after the book. You’ll need to know who he is first so you have to look him up before looking up the spell. I’ll be back. I’m being summoned.” He orbed.

Michael looked at Jackie and I. “So what do we do?”

“You heard Luke. We got to look up this warlock in the book.”

Jackie walked over to the book and started to flip through the pages. “Do we have a name?”

Michael went over to join her. “Do warlocks even have names?” They flipped through the pages. “Yeah. They do. Man do we have to destroy all these demons?”

I went over to look at the book as well. Mike turned to a page. “Look, here’s the spell Luke talked about, the spell to rid evil. What do you think he meant by wording it differently?”

Michael spoke. “We have to change the words so that it’ll work on the warlock we’re dealing with, I guess. It makes sense anyway.” He started to copy it down on a piece of paper he found.

Jackie started to go through the book again. After a couple of minutes, Luke returned. “Where did you go?”

“Elders said that the warlock has the power to go up there and if he isn’t vanquished soon, all white-lighters might be killed and the witches they protect will become vulnerable.” He walked over to Jackie. “Find anything yet?”

She looked frustrated. “Damn it. I don’t know what I’m looking for!” A cold wind began to blow across the book and the pages started flipping on their own for a couple of seconds. When they finished flipping, grams voice was heard through the house, “Blessed be.”

Michael got up and walked over to Luke. “What just happened?”

“Grams.”

We were all quiet. Jackie broke the silence, “That’s him.” The book had a picture. It looked exactly like the warlock we were fighting before. Jackie started reading.

“No. Guess we’re gonna have to write one.”

“It has to fight through all his powers.” Luke continued to explain, “You have to kill the white-lighter side of him and destroy the power he collected from the witches: cloning, transmogrification and deflection. The dark-lighter side he captured will be vanquished with the warlock.”

“All right. Mike, start working on the banishing spell. Jackie and I will try to find him somehow.”

“What about the vanquish?”

“We’ll do it when we know where he is and have some sort of plan.”

“Alex, how do we find him?”

Luke grabbed the book and brought it over to where we were. “You could scry for him. It should be in there.” We flipped though the pages and came across a page about scrying.

---

“All right I got it.” Mike came into the kitchen with the spell in his hands. “It took me a couple of minutes but I think I reworded it correctly. Find him yet?”

“No. Nothing. Maybe he found a way to hide himself from it. Or maybe our powers aren’t strong enough.”

“Powers. Spell.” The paper stayed in Michael’s hand. “Didn’t work.” I picked up a tennis ball that was on the table and threw it at Mike. “Throw this back at me, all right.”

“Sure.” He threw the ball and I gestured at it so that it would freeze in the air. It did. “The power to freeze. Wonder if I can still…?” I tried the gesture again to try to explode it but instead the ball unfroze and hit me in the face. “Guess that was an expansion. Oww.”

Jackie looked at Luke, “So what’s the other power beside the power to call?”

“Premonitions. It’s not an active power but it allows you to see the past and the future. It tells you which demon you’re fighting and who your innocent is; who you have to save.”

Mike and Jackie looked at each other. I picked up the ball and held it in my hands. “Ball.” They both called for it but it went to Michael’s hand. “So that means I get the premonitions?”

“Fraid so. Jackie you got him yet?”

She started to say no but then, “Yeah got him. He’s... here.” We looked at Mike and walked over to him. He took the spell into his hands and we read it at the same time.

“Michael, orb the arrow through him.”

“Arrow.” The arrow orbed and started for Mike’s hand. He moved his hand to point at Eames and it flew through him. It hit him and he started to fall to the floor. “Guess when you stole that white-lighter’s power, you also stole her weakness.”

Jackie looked at Mike. “A spell, Mike.”

“Uh… Alex I need time.” I froze Eames. He went to a paper and started writing. After about ten seconds, Eames was free from the power.

“Time’s up, Mike.”

“All right. I got one line. We’ll have to make up the rest as we say it.” We chanted the one line together.

Michael broke his power of transmogrification,

The dark-lighter’s crossbow and arrow ignited and turned to ash. Quickly following, Eames became surrounded with flames. When the flames disappeared a few seconds later, he was gone.

Luke sat in a chair by the three of us. “You did it. You vanquished a warlock.”

Michael sat in the chair next to him. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

---

“Look, here it is.

Mike got the candles from the shelf in the attic and we lit them and put them in a circle. “Ready.”