"Dream Twister"
Copyright 2005 Penn O'Hara
F13
Usual disclaimers apply.
Follows immediately after "Hot Twister"
Any errors due to
oOo
"Piper! What are you doing?" asked Phoebe, then glared at Zankou, whose hands were still resting on Piper's shoulders. "You can leave anytime, Zankou. The sooner the better."
Zankou released Piper, transferring his attention to Phoebe. That's the way Phoebe liked it. Piper was vulnerable, confusion over her relationship with Leo and the pressure of being a working mother. Phoebe, though without her powers, was in full control of her emotions. She straightened her spine and stared back at Zankou as he wandered idly toward her, his hip motion a languid glide.
"Are you asking me?" he asked with a supreme confidence she itched to deflate, "or ordering me?"
"Either way," Phoebe said, "you're history."
"Piper," Paige accused. "Why didn't you show him the door? The fast way?"
Phoebe looked at Piper in alarm. "Your powers? Why didn't you get rid of him? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Piper said on the defensive. "He appeared in the boys' bedroom. I couldn't do anything violent with them there."
"And here? In the den?" Paige asked. "What about now?"
Piper licked her lips and Phoebe felt another prickle of alarm.
"Ladies! I'm hurt." Zankou had settled himself on their sofa, arms splayed along the top, one long leg crossed over the knee of another. He looked at the others briefly before fixing his attention back to Phoebe, his eyes half-closed and bottom lip thrust forward. "I'm still here and frankly, I resent being spoken about in this fashion."
"Can it, Zankou! You were told to leave–"
She didn't finish the sentence. In one swift, fluid motion, he was off the sofa and in her face. Steeling herself not to back away, Phoebe stared him down.
"Try and make me." Zankou's snarl was more a sexy purr than a threat and his smile made Phoebe blink, her lips parting on a soft gasp.
Paige rushed in between them. "Get away from her!"
Zankou looked down at Phoebe's youngest sister with interest. "Perhaps you then." He fingered a lock of Paige's hair. "So young. So pretty. You would adorn my lair very nicely."
"I wouldn't go with you if I had the hounds of hell snapping at my heels!" Paige cried.
"Hmm, and so fiery too!"
"Leave her alone!" shouted Phoebe. "Why are you here? Have you run out of demons to harass in the underworld?"
Zankou ran his hand down Paige's hair before turning back to Phoebe. Resting an elbow on his folded arm, he looked her up and down and then sighed. "Very well, I'll tell you. Before I eliminated 'The Seer' I saw my destiny–"
"I don't believe you," Phoebe grated, still feeling the loss of the female demon she had befriended. "Kira couldn't show you the future while she was being engulfed by a fireball."
"True, but ask yourself what we were doing…" Zankou lifted his hand, examining his fingernails. "… before I finished with her."
Phoebe made a sound of disgust.
"As I was saying," Zankou continued. "I saw my destiny. And it was with … a Charmed One." He swung his gaze around the room, touching on each one of them. "One of you is going to… reform me."
"As if," Paige quickly said.
"Hardly," Piper added.
"Unfortunately, I didn't get to see which one of you it was." Zankou trailed his fingers under Paige's chin. "Was it you, my pretty one?"
Phoebe frowned. Paige wasn't moving. Instead she stood there as if mesmerized by the demon. "Paige! Snap out of it!"
Paige shook her head and stepped back, and Phoebe put herself between Zankou and her sister, protectiveness fueling her bravado.
"If I prove to you it's not going to happen, will you leave us alone?" Phoebe asked.
Zankou cocked his head to the side. "I can't guarantee it…" He smiled broadly. "But it's a start."
"What are you doing, Phoebe?" Piper asked. "You can't bargain with him."
"You can't prove anything," Paige said. "I thought you didn't have the ability–."
"Actually Kira gave me a bit of a voltage jumpstart," Phoebe quietly admitted, guilty that she had been holding back from her sisters.
Paige gasped. "When?"
"You never told me," Piper accused.
Zankou walked a small circle around Phoebe, looking at her with interest. "Really?"
"Let's see, shall we?" Phoebe put out her hands, palm upward. She trembled, afraid of what might happen if he touched her, despite her inviting him to do it.
Zankou lifted a brow then held his hands above hers, hovering so that they didn't touch, but close enough that Phoebe felt their warmth. Slowly he lowered his palms to hers and Phoebe was immediately engulfed with an electric energy that shook her. She bit against the desire to run from him; instead, she shut her eyes and concentrated on the hazy vision that was already ghosting and taking form.
Phoebe saw Zankou standing on a crowded sidewalk, hands in the pockets of a well-cut business suit, his chin lifted to the skyscrapers above him. He was oblivious to the turned heads of the women who passed him, not even acknowledging their polite greetings.
Zankou's head came down and his gaze alighted on something across the road. He pulled one hand out of his pocket and lifted it, his mouth attractively curving. A baby stroller mounted the sidewalk in front of him, well-sprung with shining wheels, and Zankou bent down to reach a finger into the carriage, his smile widening with pride.
The woman pushing the stroller stepped around it and was scooped into Zankou's arms, his lips coming down to meet hers and kissing her thoroughly. Phoebe watched as the woman pressed herself into Zankou and threaded her fingers through his hair. Phoebe recognized the woman, even though her hair was much longer and fell in waves down her back.
It was herself.
On the front of the building behind where Zankou stood, were two foot high copper letters denoting the name of the business within the premises. The embracing couple obscured some of the letters but Phoebe could make out most of it.
P H O
B Y Z A N
P U B L I S
When Zankou raised his head, the Phoebe in the vision pouted and pulled down on the back of his neck for more–
Phoebe gasped and pulled her hands out from under Zankou's, splintering the vision and dispersing it. She now looked into his self-satisfied, hateful face.
"Well, well, my little Seer-in-training. Very interesting," Zankou said, folding an arm and stroking his bearded chin.
"What?" Piper asked. "What did you see?"
Zankou leaned into Phoebe who pulled away, rubbing her arms with her palms. Her skin was covered in goose bumps, her stomach churning, yet the euphoria she felt in this vision was as powerful as the one she experienced in the Avatars' aborted Utopia.
"Tell us!" Paige demanded.
"This is rubbish," Phoebe grated.
Zankou cocked a brow. "Would you have said that if the vision had shown you driving a wooden stake through my heart?"
"Don't be absurd."
"Forgive my lapse into the absurd then, my darling," he said, dipping his head.
"Shut up! I'm not, and never will be, your darling."
"But…" Zankou spread out his hands. "We owned a publishing enterprise between us, did we not? And we were most demonstrative with our affections in a public place and then of course, there was the child–"
"The child?!" gasped Piper and Paige together.
"There was no–"
"What was in the stroller then?" Zankou asked with a lift of his brows. "A trained monkey?"
"If it had anything to do with you, it was probably a wild boar." Phoebe cursed her pettiness, but couldn't stop herself.
Zankou's smile was wide. "Ah, now you are acknowledging there was a union between us."
"No! Stop twisting my–" Phoebe scowled, and took a deep breath. "You're very good at it, aren't you?"
"I am good at many things," he crooned, stepping closer. "What particularly have you labeled me with now?"
Phoebe held up a hand, warding him off. "Twisting things around. What if–? What if you were able to twist the vision somehow?"
"Could I?" he asked. "Would I?"
"Yes, you most definitely would." Phoebe felt the tension ease from her with the certainty he had somehow influenced the vision. "It means nothing. You probably engineered it."
"Why would I bother?"
"I don't know."
"Whereas, I… now know everything! Excuse me, ladies…" Zankou inclined his head toward Paige and Piper and threw his arms outward.
Phoebe was blinded by light and caressed by a gentle heat; then in the same instant was jostled by a hurrying figure who dashed past her and disappeared through an open doorway. Phoebe looked around her, no longer in the den at home, but in a reception area where a phone was ringing stridently and the night receptionist was calmly asking people to hold.
Zankou sauntered toward the pert well-groomed woman and bent his head to quietly speak to her. She blushed and ignored the caller on the end of the phone to pass over a small wad of messages. Zankou spoke again and the receptionist dropped her eyes and smiled. Phoebe cringed at the ease with which he flirted with anything in sight. It came as naturally to him as breathing.
Strolling back to Phoebe, Zankou stowed the messages into his leather jacket and took Phoebe's arm.
"Come and see my office. Your office, if you want it."
"You have an office?"
Zankou nodded. "One can't inhabit a dark cave forever. I do have a life with some purpose." He led the way to the right of the reception area, down a quiet and deserted corridor. "But I'm planning on branching out and so I have the problem of replacing my role as CEO of Demkou Publishing. Are you interested? If you are, I can always… change the company name. Just like the vision showed us. It's our destiny."
Phoebe felt a chill ripple through her as Zankou ushered her into a room that was easily five times the size of her office at the Bay Mirror. It gleamed with trimmings, accessories and ornaments made of bronze while the furnishings were of black and glass. Black leather office chairs and sofa, bronze and glass desk, matching coffee tables, sideboards and shelving. The only splashes of color were red swathes through the black carpeting and a red laptop lying on the desk's smooth surface. Phoebe looked around at the opulence of the room and felt her legs lock, refusing to go further. The room fascinated her, both repelling and exciting with its promise of distinction and power.
"What do you do in here?" she breathed, forcing herself to move. She gravitated toward the panoramic night view beyond the floor to ceiling glass windows. They were easily over fifty floors from ground level and the city horizon was a mass of pulsing and moving lights.
"I oversee every aspect of the business." Zankou inclined his head to her, then rubbed his fingers together. "I make money. Lots of it. Then I give it away."
Phoebe laughed with disdain. "Sure you do," she scoffed. "There isn't a charitable bone in your body."
"Oh, I don't give it away for philanthropic reasons. I give it away so that people are indebted to me. So that I have many favors to call upon, or I can just enjoy a satisfying grovel from an undeserving hypocrite regularly."
"Don't think I'm going to grovel–"
"Far from it! I merely want to hand over the responsibility." He came up behind her and spoke softly into her ear. "Introduce you to the power such a position brings." Phoebe shivered, the moist warmth on her skin, the feather-touch of his lips on the hairs of her nape jolting her to the core.
"What would I have to do?" Phoebe closed her eyes and felt herself sway. Shaking herself, she looked around the office again, imagining herself there, sending editors scurrying to produce a cutting-edge magazine – her magazine. Her editorial would be on the inside of the cover: two whole columns devoted to her choice of contemporary topics.
"Everything!" Zankou waved his hand in a flourish encompassing the room. "Or nothing. That is entirely up to you." He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her to him. "Realize a dream. Define the dream, because now you have the means…" He tilted his head, eyes half-closed, lowering his mouth so that his words were a breath on her lips. "… with which to achieve it."
Phoebe pulled back, eyeing him suspiciously. "And what is the price of this so-called dream?"
"You name the price," he purred, running his hands down her arms to caress her inner wrists. "You tell me what you're prepared to pay. Or consider it a wedding present. My gift to you. Remember the vision? Our own enterprise. Together."
Licks of molten blood danced under Phoebe's skin where his fingertips stroked. She shrugged off his touch, despite the excitement he induced. "It's hands off, Zankou, whatever I decide. And there definitely will be no wedding."
Zankou held up his arms in surrender. "No hands." He smiled, lowering his eyes to her mouth again. Phoebe watched his eyes smolder and widen till the pupils seemed ablaze with fire. Her limbs felt heavy, her knees trembled and she swayed forward till her body touched his.
Groaning, Phoebe shut her eyes and lifted her face to his. His lips covered her mouth, hot and hard with delicious force. Zankou made no move to hold her, true to his promise of no hands, but Phoebe was as unable to pull away from him as if she'd been shackled to him with chains.
It's just curiosity, she told herself. She wanted to discover what those lips tasted like, what it felt like to play with fire, what her body would do when presented with forbidden excitement.
She found she liked it.
Her ribs quaked with short hard pants, her hips locked against his and her hands came up to touch him, traveling up his leather-covered chest to the only flesh available to her: the softly-bristled skin of his neck and jaw, the firm contours of his ears, the springiness of the thick hair on his scalp. Phoebe allowed herself to be drawn into the essence of him and finally understood the meaning of a toe-curling experience.
Opening her eyes slowly, savoring the intoxicating feel of his body against hers, she focused on the wall behind him. A small bronze plaque in the shape of a large opened book, commemorating 125 years in business, hung on the wall just above eye level. The company's logo was etched on the plaque in large letters:
P H O E N I X
B Y Z A N T I N E
P U B L I S H I N G
Another wall appeared in Phoebe's mind; the wall from her vision. The outside of a building and the letters, P H O and B Y Z A N and P U B L I S in three rows. Phoebe took a sharp breath as she realized how she had been duped. There was no future publishing company in their joint names. She would even bet that Zankou had nothing to do with the firm at all.
"Who owns this office?" Phoebe demanded.
Zankou merely smiled.
"This isn't yours to give away, is it?" She pushed at his chest in disgust with herself for falling for the ploy. "This is all just some elaborate hoax. A trick. For what? What do you hope to achieve?"
"You deny me this opportunity to bestow your dream upon you?" Zankou's teeth snapped on his words.
"It's not yours to give!" she repeated, pulling out of his arms.
"It will be after I arrange a little accident for the present owners–"
"Take me back! Take me back, Zankou, or heaven help me, I'll–"
Zankou snarled and fire engulfed them, materializing Phoebe back in the den. Her sisters jumped up from the sofa at her return, jostling each other to get to her.
"What happened?" Paige asked.
"Thank God he brought you back," Piper said. "Are you all right?"
"Bah!" Zankou exploded. "This one is no sport. She can't help but look a gift horse in the mouth." He pursed his lips then rounded on Paige. "What I need is one who is untouched by suspicion or judgmental thinking."
Zankou slowly approached Paige, and Phoebe jerked toward them. Her progress was halted by a flaming wall of fire.
"You are so very young and pretty and… untried,” he told Paige.
Through the flames, Phoebe saw Zankou run a hand down Paige's arm.
"What are you doing later?" he purred.
oOo
Another Twister to come…