Marie Laveau clutched a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and a plate with an orange and a warm cinnamon bun in the other. Elbowing the microwave oven door closed, she set her breakfast down on the wooden table that dominated the kitchen of their in-house sorority dorm and dropped into a chair.

She looked out of an open window, feeling the warm morning sun basking her in an aura of radiance, and feeling the soft whisper of the early breeze brushing gently against her cheeks. She gave a sigh of contentment.

"Excellent!" Her cousin exclaimed from the kitchen counter. Swiftly Zack Warren moved across the kitchen, carrying a hot cookie sheet he’d just taken out of the oven. On its surface rested round disks of freshly baked bread, their tops adorned with what looked like skeleton fingers. He slid the sheet onto its cooling rack, then stood back to admire his handiwork.

Trying out new recipes definitely topped his list of likes. He’d decided to try out the recipe for pan de muerto, or "Bread of the Dead", a pastry the Mexicans baked while they celebrated the Day of the Dead (known by most as Halloween) – a time where people honored the dead.

Satisfied with the results of his latest experiment, Zack left the pieces of pan de muerto on the cookie sheet to cool, then settled back in at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the morning paper, the New York Times. He was halfway through the front page when his brother staggered in, stretching his arms out wide and yawning.

Marie smiled and jiggled her eyebrows at Zack, then nodded towards the doorway. Even with his tousled hair, sleepy eyes and the rumpled nightclothes he had worn to sleep last night, Zane looked so good.

Good-naturedly, Zack rolled his eyes and shook his head, a slight grin forming at the edges of his lips.

Zane’s gray-blue eyes focused on Marie’s cinnamon roll as she licked a dribble of gooey icing off her hand. "That looks good… and fattening."

Marie looked at Zane in askance. Then deliberately sank her teeth into the cinnamon roll. "Mmm-hmm," she added dramatically, licking a smudge of stray icing off of her lips with her tongue.

Zane huffed. "You guys should have warned me that Zack was such a great cook before I moved in."

Marie grinned as Zane lifted the top off the storage tin. The tall, young man didn’t have to worry about ruining his slender figure with a few hundred extra calories. Zane was a human trashcan. He has a metabolism that burned fat faster than he could chew. However, that wasn’t what Marie intended to point out.

"Sorry, Zane." She lifted the cinnamon bun. "This is the last one."

"No fair!" Zane’s lips puckered into a playful and boyish pout.

"All’s fair when it comes to grabbing Zack’s last homemade cinnamon bun." Marie opened her mouth to take another bite. Just as her teeth clamped down, the bun flew out her hand and into Zane’s. She ate air. "But using magic is so low."

"Opps!" Zane shrugged with a sheepish smile as he crossed the kitchen and handed the bun back to her. "Guess I was really hungry."

"So am I." Marie scowled, but she wasn’t really angry. Being one third of the Charmed Ones and the Power of Three, Zane could move things from one location to another with his mind. However, he hadn’t learned to control the power yet and often moved objects without meaning to.

"Don’t worry, Zane," Zack quipped as he folded up the newspaper and got off his seat. "I think I may have something that can pick you up." Zane slipped into his brother’s seat as he moved off, sneaking a quick sip from Zack’s cup of coffee.

"That’s not the only cup of coffee in the house, you know," Zack observed, loading up the now-cooled cookies onto one big plate. "I made a whole pot."

"I’m not awake yet," Zane protested, yawning. He snuck another sip. "What if I spill a full cup?"

Ever since he’d moved in, Zack realized that even though his long-lost brother can be an early riser at times, sometimes he had to be pried out of bed with a crowbar. And even though his brother’s body was up, Zack knew it would still be several minutes before Zane’s brain becomes well and truly kicked in.

"Try this," he suggested, sliding two freshly baked pastries onto a small plate and placing it in front of Zane. "It ought to help wake you up."

The pastry was halfway into his mouth when Zane spotted the decorations. With a little shriek, he dropped it back onto his plate with a thump. "Please tell me those are not fingers."

"I can’t do that," Zack answered, trying not to smirk. "But I can promise that they’re not real ones." He laughed as he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. Then, taking pity on his brother, he topped off another cup, put the pot back into the coffeemaker, and then sat down beside him. Reaching for the pastry, he took a healthy bite, then set it back down on the plate.

Zane shuddered. "Gross," he remarked, eyeing the skeleton fingers on the pastries warily.

A man’s head popped into view at the kitchen doorway. "My, my," the man said, waltzing into the well-lit kitchen and sniffing the air. "Something smells great this morning." Standing at about six feet tall, Scott Summers surveyed the kitchen. The morning sunlight glinted off the ruby-quartz lenses of his visors – the only thing that can keep his eyes from projecting devastating blasts of force beams.

"Came over for another free breakfast, I see," Marie teased.

Scott grimaced and gave a sheepish grin. "Guilty as charged." He draped his arm over Zack’s shoulder and punched him playfully. "What can I say? My buddy’s cooking is the best. I’m charmed."

Zack shrugged Scott’s arm off his shoulder. "Stating the obvious but whatever." He picked up a plate of pan de muerto and offered it to Scott.

Scott looked stricken. "What are those? I hope you’re not planning on handing those things out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween… Whatever they are."

"These are called pan de muerto. And they are what’s smelling great this morning. Want some?" Zack offered the plate again. Scott reflexively took a step backward. He had a queer look on his face, as if someone had just offered him a plate of bugs.

"N-no thanks," he said hurriedly before taking a seat next to Marie.

Zane grinned mischievously at his brother and winked. "Told ya."

"Couldn’t you have stuck with making bagels or donuts or something equally normal?" Scott asked as Marie got up to refill her coffee mug.

Zack rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Scott, I’m a chef. I can’t make bagels and donuts."

"Why not?"

Zack let out a sigh. "Never mind."

Marie returned, balancing two cups of coffee, some toast, and a small tub of margarine. "Here you go," she said, handing one cup of coffee to Scott. "I took the liberty of pouring you one."

"Thanks," Scott said gratefully, reaching out for it. His fingers accidentally brushed against Marie’s, and for a second everything seemed to be fine.

Then Marie gasped. Her body jerked. Marie braced herself as a vision bludgeoned her with such an incredible force that she could blow a mental fuse. The images that flooded her mind masked what happened next in real time.

The vision went as swiftly and as suddenly as it came, jerking her backwards to reality. Marie let out a bloodcurdling scream. She dropped the things she had been carrying and toppled backwards, clawing at her chest, as if that force beam had really hit her.

"Marie?" Zack’s anxious voice broke through the fog that muddled Marie’s mind, but she couldn’t shake off the physical effects for several more seconds. Shaky and nauseous, she breathed in and out deeply to quell the sensations. Apparently, her system reacted in direct proportion to the intensity of the violence in the disaster she’d just foreseen.

Scott’s head popped into view. "Marie? Are you okay?" He offered her his hand.

She almost jumped out of her skin. Moving faster than she ever had in her entire life, Marie got onto her feet and moved towards her cousins. Zane eyed her warily. "You just had a vision, hadn’t you?"

"Really?" Scott sounded amused. "You had a vision?" He stared at her in the eye. He stared at her with such intensity that Marie could practically feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It made her feel like as if bugs were crawling all over her body. "So tell me, Marie," he hissed. "What did you see?"

Marie shrank back. She gulped. What was she supposed to say? That Scott tried to kill us? I don’t think so. Even though she had just came into her powers and became one of the Charmed Ones, Marie has learnt to trust her instincts and most importantly – her powers. And though her visions were usually cryptic, they weren’t too hard to comprehend, especially when so much emotion and violence had been seen and felt. But that wasn’t what was bothering her. What bothered her was that...

Her visions had never been wrong.

So what does this mean? She thought, her heart hammering. Is Scott... is Scott evil?

"Marie?" Zack repeated once more, snapping her out of her momentary lapse. "What did you see?"

"N-nothing," she stammered, shaking her head fitfully. She hoped her voice hadn’t betrayed her, revealing how badly shaken she actually was. A sickening feeling began to form at the pit of her stomach. The ground below her began to sway.

Hazily, Marie noticed that her cousins were staring at her with a look of puzzlement.

Then everything started to go dark again, as if she was entering a tunnel. Marie had time to wonder why her cousins’ eyes suddenly widened with alarm.

Then she pitched forward, fainting.