Garden of Evil Read online

  Trapped in Paradise

  ”I’m sure you already know this, but I have to tell you, your home is beautiful,” Paige said, walking along the periphery of the library, taking in the leather-bound titles as Micah followed closely behind.

  “And I’m sure you already know this, but so are you,” Micah said. “It was so important to me that you love this place as much as I do,” he continued quietly. “But I knew. I knew the moment you saw it that you had fallen in love.”

  A warm rush raced over Paige’s skin as he moved his hands to her waist. She looked up at him, her eyelids heavy. “How could I not?” she said. “It’s . . . fascinating.”

  As they gazed into each other’s eyes, Paige felt the same dizzying sensation she’d experienced at the restaurant the night before, but it was okay. She was beginning to enjoy it—this feeling of being lost in his eyes.

  “You haven’t even seen the best part yet,” Micah said, his voice throaty.

  “The best part?” she repeated, temporarily incapable of forming her own thoughts.

  “The garden,” Micah said, his eyes flashing with excitement. “You have to see the garden.”

  Published by Simon & Schuster

  An original novel by Emma Harrison

  Based on the hit TV series created by

  Constance M. Burge

  SIMON PULSE New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Simon Pulse edition July 2002

  ™ & © 2002 Spelling Television Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  All rights reserved, including the right of

  reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  ISBN 0-689-85283-5

  For Matt . . . for always

  listening to my ramblings

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  Chapter

  1

  The warm afternoon sun tickled the back of Paige Matthews’s neck as she rolled over onto her stomach and flattened out the pages of the glossy entertainment magazine she was reading for the fifth time. It was a cloudless spring day in San Francisco, and the beauty of the great outdoors had lured Paige, her two sisters, Phoebe and Piper Halliwell, and their significant others, Cole and Leo, to Delores Park—along with the rest of the neighborhood. As Paige pulled her dark sunglasses over her eyes and looked around, a group of squealing children ran by playing tag and a pair of lovers walked hand in hand through the green grass, whispering sweet nothings to each other. It was all enough to nearly drive Paige insane. She lifted her head to look at Phoebe and Cole. “Hey, do you guys want to—”

  Paige cut herself off the moment she saw what they were doing. Cole was dangling a whipped cream–dipped strawberry over her sister’s open mouth, and Phoebe’s head was tipped back to accept the fruit. Her long brown curls tumbled over her shoulders and down to the blue picnic blanket. They may as well have been posing for the cover of one of Phoebe’s favorite bad romance novels.

  “Never mind,” Paige said, rolling her big blue eyes as Phoebe giggled and bit into the strawberry.

  “Uh . . . you guys?” Piper said from the other side of the blanket, glaring at the sickeningly sweet lovers. “I thought we were going to try to be a little more . . . uncouply this afternoon.” The fact that her own love interest—her husband, Leo—had wandered off momentarily seemed to designate her leader of the non-couple campaign.

  All three of them looked over at Paige, their faces clouded with guilt. Paige felt an embarrassed, irritated blush creep over her otherwise milky white complexion.

  “Don’t lose the goo factor on my account,” she said, sitting up straight and slapping her magazine closed. She reached up and tightened her ponytail, going for nonchalant. “Just because I haven’t had a boyfriend in months, and there are absolutely zero prospects in my immediate future, doesn’t mean you have to tiptoe around me.”

  “No. Piper’s right,” Phoebe said with a little nod, moving a couple of inches away from Cole and rolling her shoulders back resolutely. “We don’t have to be all over each other all the time.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Cole said, taking a flirtatious nibble at Phoebe’s neck.

  “Cole!” Phoebe shrieked, laughing as she swatted him away. “Down, boy.”

  “I’m sorry!” Cole said, his teasing pout totally incongruous with his usual dark and brooding demeanor. “If the bounty hunters are going to leave me alone for five minutes, I’d like to use those five minutes to their full advantage.”

  “Hey! Nibble away!” Paige said, waving her hands at them. “Cole’s right. Some freakish minion of the underworld could appear at any moment to hunt him down and you might not see him for days.”

  Paige opened her magazine again and forced herself to stare at it. But she couldn’t concentrate on a single word on the colorful page in front of her. Instead, she attempted to mentally deal with the fact that her conversations now included phrases like “minions of the underworld” and “bounty hunters.”

  It wasn’t that long ago that Paige was just a normal, only child, going through her day-today life as a social worker, blissfully ignorant to the otherworldy evil lurking all around her. But ever since Phoebe and Piper had entered her life, she’d been learning new and freakish things every day.

  First of all, while Paige had always known she was adopted, she’d been shocked to learn that her real mother—also Piper and Phoebe’s mother—had been a witch. Not only that, but her father had been a Whitelighter—a supernatural force of good who protects witches. With parents like these, it was clear to all three sisters that Paige should have some serious powers. It hadn’t taken long for her to find out that she could not only orb—make herself disappear and reappear in a whole other locale—but that she could also orb objects from one place to another.

  Paige was a powerful witch—one of the Charmed Ones—and when she was together with her sisters, they could pretty much conquer anything: demons, warlocks . . .

  Anything except a serious romance drought.

  “There you are!” Piper said suddenly, shaking Paige out of her thoughts. She knew from the sweet giddiness in her sister’s voice that Piper was welcoming her husband, Leo, also a Whitelighter, back to the picnic blanket.

  “For you, fair maiden,” Leo said. He handed Piper a huge bouquet of wildflowers, and Piper’s face lit up before she caught herself.

  “Thanks, honey! You brought flowers for . . . all of us!” Piper said brightly. Clearing her throat, she quickly split up the bouquet and gave a third of the flowers to Paige and another big chunk to Phoebe. “Wasn’t that nice of Leo?” Piper asked, pushing her straight brown hair behind her ears.

  “Nice try, Piper,” Paige said, gazing down at her flowers.

  “Okay. What’d I do?” Leo asked tentatively, raising his eyebrows as he sat down next to Piper.
br />   “Nothing,” Paige told him with a quick smile. “They’re just trying to get my mind off my extreme lack of boyfriend. And failing miserably.”

  “Oh,” Leo said, his face creasing with an apologetic frown. “Anything I can do? I mean, besides kind-of bring you flowers?”

  “Yeah. Know any nice Whitelighters you can set me up with?” Paige asked, squirming up to sit on her knees.

  Leo shot Piper a wary look and she glanced away, scratching behind her neck—a telltale sign that she wanted to avoid the question.

  “Well—”

  “Come on, guys!” Paige said, biting her bottom lip. “Where else am I going to find a guy who understands my new superhero lifestyle?”

  “You don’t want to go there, Paige. Trust me,” Piper said, busying herself with opening Tupperware boxes and ripping apart a package of napkins, causing them to fly all over the place. Paige raised her eyebrows at her sister’s sudden manic mood swing.

  “Piper and I went through a lot to be together,” Leo explained, reaching out a hand and stopping Piper’s arm before she could cause any more destruction. “The Powers That Be did almost everything to keep us from getting married. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. Especially not you.”

  “Fine,” Paige said with a sigh.

  Normally she found Leo’s monster protective side endearing, but at that moment she could have done with a little less big brother and a little more matchmaker. Unfortunately, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, so instead she turned to her next best bet to cheer her up: sweets. She dug into the picnic basket in search of some chocolate-covered pretzels.

  Fruit . . . crackers . . . cheese . . . .

  “Uh . . . Piper?” Paige said, sitting back from the basket again. “Did you get my pretzels?”

  Piper winced and slapped her hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry! I completely forgot,” she said. “But I made cookies.”

  She held out the Tupperware box as a peace offering, and Paige peeked inside. It was filled with little butter type cookies with some kind of fruit substance in the middle of each one. Fruit. So not the point of cookies.

  “Thanks, anyway,” Paige said, feeling irrationally disappointed. What was the big deal? So what if Piper had forgotten the one thing she’d asked her to get? The girl was busy, what with running her club, P3, and fighting evil all the time. Still, it wouldn’t have been that hard for her to remember one little thing. . . .

  “Hey, Paige, come on,” Phoebe said, pushing herself up to her feet and straightening her shirt. She reached out her hand to Paige. “Let’s go snag some ice cream from the cute ice-cream-truck boy.”

  Paige laughed. “What, you think the ice-cream-truck guy is the one for me?” she asked.

  “Well, if he is you can get your sugar fix and a date at the same time,” Phoebe said with a grin. “How efficient is that?”

  Paige rolled her eyes again, but she took Phoebe’s hand and let her sister pull her to her feet. Who knew? Maybe the ice-cream-truck guy was her destiny. And if not, at least she knew there was a swirl cone out there with her name on it.

  Phoebe Halliwell was feeling quite content as she and Paige walked arm-in-arm across the park. While she was dedicated to the calling of the Charmed Ones, she savored these rare days when there was no evil to fight, when there were no glory-grubbing demons after her boyfriend, when she could just enjoy a tranquil day in the park with her family.

  “So, we’ve all been annoying you with our gushiness lately, huh?” Phoebe asked, scrunching her nose as she looked at her sister.

  “Well, it’s kinda hard not to feel lonely when you’re living with two perfect couples,” Paige replied as she kicked at a long patch of grass. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad you guys are so happy. I just wish I could be happy, too.”

  Phoebe smiled sympathetically at Paige. There was a time not so long ago when she’d felt just like her little sister. And it wasn’t until she’d stopped focusing so much on dating and had gone back to school that she’d happened to meet Cole.

  Of course, once she’d fallen in love with him, she’d found out he was a half-demon who’d been sent to do away with her and her sisters. But Cole had since turned against his evil master and dedicated his life to doing good—thus the demon bounty hunters who were out for his blood. Apparently the bad guys didn’t take well to traitors.

  “You’re going to find someone,” Phoebe assured Paige, shaking her long hair back from her face as a breeze whipped by. “These things always happen when you least expect it.”

  At that moment, a flash of color went whizzing by Phoebe’s face and she let out a little yell, raising her arms to protect herself. When she whirled around to see what had attacked, she had to laugh. A bright red Frisbee was lying a few feet away from her in the grass.

  “Jumpy?” Paige asked with a smirk.

  “I guess I’m just skeptical about a danger-free day,” Phoebe said, shaking her head at herself.

  She glanced across the field and saw a pretty African-American girl a couple of years younger than Paige jogging toward them. Phoebe picked up the Frisbee to throw it back to her, but she froze before she could even lift her arm.

  The vision hit her with a blinding force and she squeezed her eyes shut, clutching the Frisbee in one hand. She saw the girl who’d missed the catch, screaming at the top of her lungs, as a hideous creature with razor-sharp, six-inch-long claws advanced on her. The girl cowered against a cluttered desk, terrified as she tried to fight off the demon, but in about five seconds, the creature had torn her to shreds.

  “Phoebe? Are you all right?” Paige’s voice cut through the vision as it slowly started to fade.

  Phoebe realized that her sister was supporting her from behind, and was absently grateful she hadn’t had this particular vision while she was on her own. If she had, she’d be sprawled out on the ground right now. Paige yanked the Frisbee out of Phoebe’s hand and Phoebe struggled to regain control over her breathing.

  “What did you see?” Paige asked.

  But Phoebe couldn’t answer her yet.

  That was so real, I felt like it was happening to me, Phoebe thought, clutching Paige’s forearm. Her visions were getting more and more vivid by the day, and sometimes she could barely stand to recall them—like when they featured innocents getting mauled for no apparent reason.

  “Hey, thanks!” the Frisbee girl said, finally catching up to them. “I’m kind of a spaz at this.” She took the Frisbee out of Paige’s hand, apparently unaware of Phoebe’s near-transparent complexion.

  “Find out who she is,” Phoebe whispered to Paige.

  “Uh . . . hey! Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Paige asked with a friendly smile. She let go of Phoebe, who took a deep breath and managed not to crumple to the ground.

  The girl looked at Paige uncertainly. “Maybe. I’m really bad with faces,” she said. “Do you go to San Francisco State?”

  “Yeah! Yes,” Paige lied, scrunching up her face as if she was trying to remember something. She stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Were you in my . . . English class last semester?”

  “Creative Writing? Yeah!” the girl said with a friendly smile. She reached out her hand to Paige. “I’m Regina Trager.”

  “Right! Regina!” Paige said as she grasped hands with the girl. “I’m Paige Matthews.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Regina said. “Well, I’d better get back to my friends.” She cast one last, searching look at Paige and Phoebe before she jogged over to a small group of chattering girls.

  “Regina Trager,” Phoebe repeated weakly. “I bet that girl has no idea what she’s in for.”

  Piper came running up next to her at that moment and grabbed her hand, obviously having noticed the fact that she’d almost keeled over.

  “Hey, are you all right?” she asked, smoothing Phoebe’s hair away from her face as she studied her.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Phoebe answered shakily. She wiped he
r sweaty palms on her skirt and sighed. “But we have to help that girl.”

  “What happened in your vision?” Paige asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought you were going to go horizontal for a second there.”

  “Some demon,” Phoebe answered, shuddering as she remembered the violence of what she’d seen. “Some big, scaly thing with Wolverine claws . . . ” She trailed off, gazing at Regina as she ran after the Frisbee again.

  “He doesn’t . . . kill her, does he?” Paige asked, glancing over her shoulder as well.

  “In a very not pretty way,” Phoebe said with a nod.

  Piper slipped her arms around Phoebe and gave her a comforting squeeze, and Phoebe smiled her thanks.

  “Don’t worry,” Piper said. “We’ll go home right now, find this thing in The Book of Shadows, and figure out how to vanquish it.”

  “Well, we’d better do it fast,” Phoebe said. “Because if we don’t get to Regina before that thing does, I really don’t like her chances.”

  Chapter

  2

  By the time the sisters had returned to the Manor, Piper was feeling more than a little uneasy. Phoebe was still pale and shaken from her vision, and Piper knew that her sister was playing and replaying the awful movie over and over in her head so that she wouldn’t forget a single detail. She hated that her sister had to go through that. Even though Phoebe’s visions had helped the Charmed Ones save dozens of innocents and vanquish countless demons, Piper wished Phoebe didn’t have to suffer through them so often. “Phoebe, why don’t you sit down for a minute?” Piper said as Phoebe started immediately up the stairs. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  “Piper, we don’t have time for tea,” Phoebe said, her hand on the banister. “We have to find the vanquishing spell, track down Regina, and stake out her house. Tea is not an option.”