twelve
By consensus the group met the next day at Leo’s pub. Kim’s color was a little ashen still but no one was pointing that out after she snapped at Patti for doing so when she entered the pub. Prairie seemed to have benefited from the night’s sleep and probably the infusion of Kim’s Magick. And Gwen was back to being Gwen, making an attempt to grab Ivan’s ass as he moved to sit.
He gave her the expected look which she largely ignored. Once everyone was seated Siobhan pulled a chunk of papers out of her bag.
“I found something in the house. I’ll read it after I get a report on everyone’s condition. Gwen?” She started, looking at her friend.
“I’m good,” was Gwen’s flippant response.
“Anything else? Like what you thought you were doing?”
Gwen shrugged. “So, the thing is that I’ve never been around Prairie for a decent amount of time while she’s doing her thing. But, the other night I was. And I noticed a flux of emotion. Like part of her Magick channels the emotions of the Spirits she works with. And I thought, maybe, the reason she gets so tired after is not only because of the drain on her innate Magick but also because her essence is trying to process foreign Magick. My kind of Magick.”
“On the way home I talked to Kim about it and told her that if it came down to it I was going to try to link with Prairie and take the Magick her body sees as foreign and mine sees as natural.” She shrugged. “It worked.”
Siobhan frowned. “By my assessment a little too well. My guess is that you took the emotional burden from her so that she could use her Magick unpolluted by it.”
“Pretty much yep.”
“And the screaming?”
“Well, see, that’s what was in her head. There was so much pain in that place.” Gwen pressed her hand to her temple and her gaze clouded, as if remembering what had overtaken her the night before. “You don’t… I didn’t… Okay.” She stopped to consider her words. “I knew there was some serious garbage there because of my whole fainting at the first touch of it thing in the torture chamber, secret lair place. I thought I was prepared for it the second time. That acting as a buffer, just channeling off what Prairie was feeling, wouldn’t be as bad.” She shrugged. “I was wrong. Whoops.”
“Whoops?”
“Yep, whoops.”
Siobhan turned with a sigh to Kim. “And you?”
“Super!” Kim gave an exaggerated thumbs up. “All topped up.”
“It was a stupid, undereducated, underthought out choice.”
“Sometimes the best discoveries are made by people making choices others would call stupid or undereducated. And I did think it out.”
“For a whole night!”
“I’m a quick study.” The smile tried for cocky but mostly just hit tired.
Siobhan threw her hands up and looked to Dan like “you handle this.”
“Blah blah blah. Stupid choice.” Dan droned in a flat tone, then gave a half smile. “And the right one. This time.”
“Yeah, like its a big surprise that my last words will probably be “I thought that would work”.” Kim grinned.
Ben snorted, then covered it up with his hand when Siobhan gave him “a look”.
Prairie leaned in. “What I did utterly sucked. Like a new level of suck on a plane of suck.” She made a cutting gesture with her hand for emphasis. “I have seen some shit in my head but what happened to that girl, Karen. Yeah, new level of suck”
Dan’s jaw firmed. “Her name was Karen?”
“Yes,” Prairie confirmed. “Her name was Karen.” She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “I was able to separate her from the rest of the dead in that place. And there was a *lot* of dead in that place.” Her widened eyes suggested more than anyone should have to process. “Mostly animals. Dogs and cats. She was the only human presence I could separate. She was a hooker. The guy in the house was one of her clients. One of her regulars before she retired. When she ended up needing money to cover some expenses she contacted him, told him she was looking to do one more job. He asked her to come to his house. She’d never been there before but she knew him,” Prairie shrugged, “It seemed safe enough.” Her voice petered off, “It wasn’t.”
Dan jerked a nod. “Karen was the girl I was looking for. Damn it.”
“I’m not going to -” Prairie cut off, raised a finger, amended, “I can’t talk about what he did. Just know that there are monsters walking among us and they wear human faces.”
Tears glistened in her eyes and she averted her face to hide it. Respecting this Siobhan drew the attention of the group. “That brings me around to what I found. It’s not good. I read it last night. Want me to read it for you?”
The group assented and Siobhan started to read.
Enter The Woods 