7:13
Kim
At first she thought the crackling was the static in her mind. But then the harsh intake of a breath pulled at the darkness, there was the clatter of a chair against the floor, and a higher voiced one of Them screamed, all breath and primal fear, “What are those?”
Kim cracked her eyes open. At first it was the same old same old. Black. Dark. The Void. Whatever poetic term you wanted to place on ‘there was nothing to see’. But then from the shadows a fire coyote slunk, head low, back humped, padding steps inexorable. And then another. And another. Wind wisps sailed over them and around them, feeding the fire with their air Magick, weaving, dancing, but not laughing. No, there was a deathly serious look to those beautiful pointed featured faces, an intensity that pulled the breath long before their touch could.
From the darkness came the sound of slow, steady footsteps. The earth guardians, making their approach in the inexorable manner of a lava flow down the slope. People thought lava moved fast. The average person could outrun lava, no problem. But, unlike lava that eventually stopped, the earth guardians, slow as they were, always reached you.
From somewhere inside of the empty shell Kim summoned a chuckle. It sort of fell out of her nose and lay there on her cheek, a larva too weak to wiggle so it just lolled there pulsing. Snick-snick-snicker.
The only thing missing was- Nope, up from the floor jetted a spurt of water that resolved into graceful figures that glided like they had no legs. Because, they didn’t. Or probably they- Whatever, Kim had never dove beneath their skirts, as it were, to confirm.
She rested her head back, closing her eyes as a tired smile stretched rubbery, flaccid lips.
“You really have no understanding of Elemental Magick, do you?” She wet her lips and forced them to move around words, slurred and sluggish like a dribble of fluid oozing in a crack at the bottom of a dry creek. “That’s the elements. Or at least how they come to me.”
A weak laugh manifested somewhere around her sternum, cutting all the way up as it crawled her throat to fall from her lips. “I don’t create the elements.”
There was the sound of frantic movement, feed scuffing and furniture being shoved aside. Kim kept talking through it, under it, over it, eking the words into the dry moments between the scattered sounds.
Her voice cracked. She swallowed to get some small moisture into a throat drier than cotton candy shriveled at the bottom of an open bag. “They are there and my Magick lets me see them. Talk to them. Sometimes ask them for help.” She gulped, smiled, let her eyes drift shut. “Also, ask them to not do things. Like hurt people.”
The laugh cut her throat, little fibers of it gouging the dry tissues. “You drained all my Magick and they aren’t listening to me. But I think they still like me. And they don’t like you.”
Kim cracked her eyes open to watch the darkness transformed by the swirl and rush of elemental creatures surging past the table she lay on and into the darkness where the sound of raised voices originated.
“Run!” It was one of the deeper voices. The bad one. Not that they weren’t all bad but… yeah, That One.
“Open the door!” the higher one screamed as a sizzle sounded and the smell of cooking flesh settled heavy on the still air.
More rushing sounds, broken into fragments by the snatching hands of the air. Gasps for breath. Screams of pain combined with the sizzle and pop of burning flesh. The flowing rush of water, the roaring destructive force of the tempest behind it. The thud, thud, thud of stones striking flesh. And then blessed silence. They must have opened the door they were referring too. Though it didn’t seem like it had provided them the escape from the elements they’d hoped.
Kim closed her eyes again, took a deep breath, and relaxed into the quiet. The spiky weight that was the hunger settled below her sternum. It pulsed, dull, hard, digging at her. With an effort of will she pulled at the stuff of her, drew it tight around that core, insulating it with the tissue thin layers that were all that was left of her until it was a hard knot, its pulsations muffled.
The shell rattled around that small hard core of her. She could feel the void where that which was ‘her’ should have been. Heat burned her eyeballs. She fought to push them down but there was so little of her left. Too little to waste on suppressing a tear. There was no one here to hide her weakness from. No one but herself. And somewhere in the time between that bathroom and this she’d give up the fight to hide from herself.
A hot tear trickled from the corner of her eye. Then another. And another.
She closed her eyes and she wept. The shell curved and stretched and tore and the emotion seeped through the cracks of it. Arms wrapped around herself she rocked on that table and she wept.
*
One minute Dan and Patti were falling in tandem. The next they were drifting to land gently on their backs with their faces pointed up at the hole they’d fallen out of. It was situated in a dark earthen ceiling and it looked far too small for them to have fallen through, but Mystery House and all its mysteries. Was there really a good answer to any question regarding it?
“We should move,” Patti murmured.
Dan stared at the hole, then responded in a distracted tone. “We should move.”
“The others are probably following.”
“Probably.”
“You move first.”
Dan didn’t move. First or at all.
Patti lifted a languid hand to pet Sass who was nuzzling out of her cleavage. “We’ll be crushed.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m really tired.”
“Yep.”
“Can we go home now?”
“Nope.”
Patti sighed and slowly rolled up to sit. “C’mon,” she stretched her free hand out and poked Dan in the side. “Time to get up.”
Dan threw an aching arm over his eyes. “Ten more minutes.”
“Nope.” Patti poked him again. “Move.”
Dan lowered his arm and eyed Patti from its shadow.
“I hear something.” She looked up at the hole. Dan lowered his arm fully and did the same.
“Nothing.”
“Sound person.” Patti pointed a finger back at herself, then nudged Dan with her foot. “Move.”
Following her own advice, she pushed herself up to a crouch with her arms then made a strong effort to stand fully. She tottered back and forth before settling in something resembling an erect position. Frowning, she shoved her hair out of her face, slicking it back over her scalp. “Why am I so tired?”
“Theory.” Dan stopped to put some effort into rising to his feet. He did a quick survey of the area, confirming there were no clear threats present. All he saw was a small room. Dark earthen walls. Not natural like a cave or tunnel, but cut in clean lines that met the ceiling in which the hole was clear. “This place uses our Magick.”
“Huh?”
“Remember when we were here for Siobhan and Gwen got tapped?”
“Vaguely.”
Dan stepped back, planting his hands at his lower back and stretching while he eyed the hole in the ceiling. “That.”
Before Patti could ask more Prairie came drifting out of the hole, expression serene. Arms soft at her side, she fell straight down so her feet landed first and then the rest of her followed. By running forward with the motion she managed to retain her footing, though she did stumble slightly doing so.
Right after her came Abe, who had released a wave of ink above themselves like a parachute that let them land soft and sweet. Soon as they had their feet they scrambled away from what was now becoming the landing zone, reeling in the ink as they moved, and took up a position next to Dan with their head tilted back to watch the hole.
“Everyone else coming?” Dan asked Abe.
Abe shrugged.
“You tired?”
“Yes.” Abe kept their gaze on the hole. Dan’s “Theory” had them turning to look at him. “Yes?”
“This place is draining us.”
Abe’s expression was placid. The knowledge heavy in their eyes made them look older. Not old. Just like they’d seen things. Things people their age did not see. “It’s using our Magick to create itself. The more we interact with it the more it pulls from us. Was that what you were thinking?”
“Mostly.” Dan thought then corrected himself. “No.” He worked it over in his mind like it was a toothpick, shifting it left to right. “Is that a thing?”
Abe shrugged, then lifted their chin to the hole. “Incoming.”
Over the next several minutes the hole disgorged the remainder of the group. They gave themselves a few minutes to recover, each commenting in one way or the other about exhaustion or lethargy or a feeling of being drained, to which Dan and Abe explained their idea of the House using their Magick to run its scenarios.
“Well, that’s unnerving,” Siobhan said to this, taking a deep breath. “But I’ll say that’s a problem for our future selves to handle. Let’s find Kim. Thoughts?”
Ben, who had immediately moved to survey the area as soon as his feet touched ground, walked back to the group. “At first I thought we were in a small room but the more I walk the more it expands.”
Dempsey peered off in the direction Ben had come from. “Any idea which way to go?”
“Well,” Ben jerked a thumb back towards where the hole let out in the ceiling. “There’s a wall that way. And no wall,” he turned and indicated the way he’d come from. “that way. So I say, that way.”
Dempsey shrugged and hefted his shield. “Sure.”
The group fell into loose formation with Ben in the lead and Dempsey next to him. Ivan took a second to look over to Prairie, confirming she appeared no worse for the fall, then moved to flank Ben from the other side. Siobhan, Gwen, and Prairie dropped in behind that line and Patti, Abe, and Dan fell naturally into a loose back line.
As Ben had noted the room or area or wherever it was they were at – Dan was going with the primordial subconscious of the House, if the House could be said to have a Conscious or otherwise and he suspected it did – expanded as they walked. The room or landscape continued to be dim and dark and there continued to be at least the illusion of walls to either side.
“Do you hear that?” Patti whispered over to Dan.
“No. Song?”
“No.” Patti went quiet a moment, focusing, then said, “Crying.”
“Where?”
“To the left.”
Dan pitched his voice to carry. “Crying. To the left.”
Instantly Ben, Ivan, and Dempsey adjusted to walk in that direction. Ivan snapped out his collapsed shield and Ben shifted his daggers into his hands. Siobhan reached quietly for a vial from her bag, holding it loose at her side. Gwen hefted her plunger. Prairie slid her daggers out of their sheaths.
Abe looked at Dan, their eyes wide, as he pulled his crossbows out and prepped them. “Trouble?”
“Just getting ready. When they took Siobhan, we almost caught one of them but they escaped. Maybe teleported.”
“Teleported? I’ve never heard of anyone who can do that.”
“Saw a guy cut a hole in the sky, step through, close the hole.”
“Really?” Abe drew the word out. “Interesting.”
“Dempsey thinks it could be an arcane item.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
Abe waved their hand like they were waving off a fly. “It could be an arcane item.” They started to walk forward then stopped and looked back at Dan. “Cut a hole?”
“Yep.”
“Interesting.” Abe didn’t expand and Dan didn’t press. More urgent things at the moment, but he’d remember to ask what that ‘interesting’ meant later. Because it felt like it meant something
Abe turned and started walking again. As they did so they dropped their shoulders so their cassock slid down their arms. With the air of long practice, they caught it and looped it over the bag they still had strapped across their chest, then flexed their blackened fist. “Ready.”
The space didn’t so much open up as it converted, the walls going from close enough to see, to the periphery, to out of sight or possibly even gone, so they walked in a big space. Considering the sense of vastness you’d expect their footfalls to echo but they didn’t. Instead they seemed to be swallowed up. As the walls receded into nowhere they took their light with them. So, at first they were walking in a well-illuminated space, then in one lit like twilight, then gloaming, until eventually the light petered out to nothing and they were walking in darkness.
As the light faded to almost nothing Siobhan reached into her bag and parceled out alchemy lights, shaking them to activate then handing one to Ben, one to Dan, and kept one for herself so each of the three lines had a light. Dan clipped his to a carabiner on his vest so that he could keep both crossbows at hand. It cast a soft light, swinging slightly with his steps, enough for he, Abe, and Patti to see where they were walking as the landscape was swallowed by darkness.
The velvet darkness, heavy and thick, settled around them until Dan couldn’t even hear his own footfalls. Abe and Patti faded into the dark. It was only his knowledge that they were there that made them distinct, like his definition of them was holding them firm in his mind. Up ahead he could see the circle of light cast by Siobhan’s light, her form a black silhouette cut from dense paper cut out of the circle. Such was the density of darkness that he couldn’t see the light Ben held.
It was like when he startled from a nightmare and looked around and all his eyes and his mind could see was darkness. That was the feeling. A nightmare darkness where his heart stormed against his rib cage and his breath tore fast and sharp out of his lungs as his mind grasped for something real.
“Dan?” From his right a hand came out of the darkness, tapping along his upper arm before settling on his shoulder. He startled, his body shuddering on something between a flinch and a clench to not shit himself. His finger tensed on the trigger of his crossbow and a bolt shot off into the darkness.
The distinctive sound of Patti’s yelp came from the direction of the hand.
“Shit!” Dan relaxed his finger on the trigger. “Did I hit you?”
Patti’s voice came warped from the darkness. “No. I think it was close.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Jumpy.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.” Came a whisper from Dan’s other side, then he felt slash heard Abe step closer to him. Their leg warped the edge of the circle of the light hanging from Dan’s vest, jabbing in like a tentacle.. “This isn’t natural.”
“Ya think?” Patti whisper yelled across Dan. “Sass is freaked. And the crying is getting louder.”
Dan strained to hear. Still heard nothing. Said as much. “Can’t hear it.”
“Sound person.” Patti gave Dan’s shoulder a squeeze.
“Still to the left?”
“No, we’re moving in the right direction.”
The circle of light warped more on the left as Abe raised their hand and sifted the darkness with their fingers. Dan watched each individual dark shape cut the light then retreat as Abe drew their hand across the air. “I think this is potential.”
They must have heard Dan’s unspoken question because they added in a rush. “Like what I explained to you. The stuff that makes everything.”
“Huh.” Dan squinted into the darkness, trying to see anything but solid nothing. For a second he thought he caught a shimmer shake and the darkness kind of reordered itself, but then it resolved back to black velvet heavy on his senses.
“You need to leave.” Out of the darkness ahead the voice came, strong, unfiltered by the muffling effect blanketing them.
“Kim!” Patti’s proclamation was soft, muffled in Dan’s ear, proving whatever the effect was it was still on them.
“Go.”
Yep. Patti was right. That was Kim.
The circle of Siobhan’s light swung wildly, like she was searching with it.
“Moving up,” Dan said to his right and then turned and repeated it to his left in case Abe hadn’t heard the first. “Moving up.”
With that he picked up his pace, moving towards Siobhan’s fluctuating light. While the trick of the darkness had made it feel like they were a distance from Siobhan, Gwen, and Prairie it actually only took about fifteen to twenty steps to reach them.
His light played against Siobhan’s back before she stepped aside so he could come in next to her and combine his light with hers. He assumed Abe and Patti settled themselves somewhere in the group too, because he still couldn’t see much. Though combining his light with Siobhan’s did make a brighter circle it didn’t expand it much. The dark was just too oppressive. And hungry.
Dan frowned. He wasn’t sure where that word had come from, but as he rolled it around in his mind he realized that was a solid word to describe the way the darkness swallowed sound and light and enveloped them with a touch tangible as humidity leaving a coat of damp on your skin.
He turned to pitch his voice to Siobhan. “Kim?”
“Kim.” Siobhan nodded and thrust her arm straight out to swing the light some more, making the circle formed by it in combination with Dan’s bulge and dance oddly along the edges. She raised her voice to call into the darkness. “Kim!”
While the darkness severely hampered their ability to hear each other, it must not have had a similar effect on Kim as she answered. Or screamed. Much more a scream. Yeah.
“Go!”
“Move forward?” Dan asked Siobhan.
Siobhan directed her arm forward, elongating the circle of light. “Sure.”
Moving with the coordinated efforts of frequent companions, they walked forward towards where Dan could now see Ben’s light darting. The circle of light parted on a long silhouette, revealing Ivan and then there was an ‘oof’ to the left.
“Sorry!” Abe’s voice came warped through the darkness.
“All good.” Dempsey’s voice replied. “Hey, Abe?”
“Yes?”
“Can you do anything with this?” He didn’t need to elaborate. The gist was clear. Or at least it seemed to be as Abe replied. “I’ve tried. It’s set in this pattern and doesn’t want to break out of it.”
“How about just trying to make it move back?”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that.”
A moment later a small circle of not quite light but definitely not pitch cleared to Dan’s left, revealing Prairie, Dempsey, and Abe fetched up against Dempsey’s back.
“Can I do that?” he asked to which Abe responded. “Have you tried?”
Dan thought back to trying to see anything in the darkness. “Maybe?”
“Then maybe not. Try again?”
Dan looked to the right past the circle of light, focusing on the darkness until his eyes twitched. “All I see is darkness.”
“It might not work for you because you have to see words.” Abe’s voice went up at the last, making it sound like a question.
“Maybe.” Dan swept his gaze over the group picked out in the varying splotches of light and not dark. Patti shuffled closer, moving into the circle of light formed by his and Siobhan’s lights. Ivan was picked out at the far edge, more dark silhouette than actual figure. Dempsey, Prairie, and Abe were in the circle of not darkness Abe carved. And Siobhan was forward and slightly to Dan’s left. “Where’s Gwen?”
Siobhan answered. “To my left.”
That left-
“And Ben?”
As if in answer to his question somewhere in the darkness and vaguely in the direction of ‘ahead’ Ben’s voice came muffled and warped. “Found her! Let me-”
His words cut off. Just word and then no words. Dan jerked his head around, straining his ears, trying to catch something from the darkness.
“Oh, no!” Patti cried and squeezed Dan’s shoulder.
Dan cranked his head to her side. “You hear something?”
“I think so. We need to go!”
Even though the darkness was still consuming their words almost as soon as they left their mouths there must have been something in Patti’s Magick that made her voice stronger because it was clear by the way Ivan stiffened and Dempsey lofted his shield that they’d heard her.
Dan didn’t get to ask if she meant forward or away, which had seemed to be the direction Kim wanted them to go, because Ivan was suddenly moving forward, his silhouette disappearing from the front of the circle of light. The gray circle Abe held shifted as they moved forward, probably following Dempsey.
Damn the heroics. They never took time to think! Faced with losing them completely or giving the rest of them time to think, Dan made the decision he almost always made and followed. Siobhan matched her pace to his as they marched their circle of light forward.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” They heard Kim before they saw her. Dan strained his eyes to see anything beyond the circle of light formed by he and Siobhan. It was only as Dempsey, followed by Prairie and Abe with their circle of gray twilight, stepped forward that he was finally able to catch a glimpse of something beyond enveloping black.
Kim sat on the ground, hunched forward a little, with her left knee up and her left arm draped over it. Her left hand clasped her right near her right leg where it lay flat on the ground with her knee bent at an angle. It was hard to see her face. Her head was down, her gaze trained on Ben who was splayed out on the ground in front of her left leg. The light he’d used to navigate in the dark lay in front of his limp right hand, casting the left side of Kim’s face in a bright green luminescence while hiding the right side in deep shadow.
“Siobhan, I need a light!” Ivan dashed out of the dark, hand outstretched.
Without hesitation Siobhan thrust her light into Ivan’s hand and he immediately used it to run a sweeping perimeter around Kim, keeping a buffer of about fifteen feet between he and she.
“Ben!” Before Dan even had the time to think to stop her, Gwen ran towards Ben and Kim.
“No.” There was no force to Kim’s words. They came out soft, without emphasis. “Don’t.”
Her words didn’t stop Gwen. But the pulse of… Dan struggled to come up with a word to describe the sensation that spread a nimbus of exhaustion and need with Kim at its center. Hunger. That was… Maybe it was that.
Exhaustion and need and sadness and pain washed over him, more like radiation than water, and he felt whatever it was inside of him that was him or his Magick or his soul or whatever word you wanted to use to describe it rock back with it. Like that need had a physical presence and it flowed through his skin, reaching inside of him and driving the him that was HIM to retreat from it. He felt an emptiness against his ribs and a heaviness against his spine. The thing radiating from Kim latched its nebulous hooks into him, yanking him forward, and he instinctively threw everything he had into pulling back away from it.
“Root,” he mumbled through numb lips, shoving his thoughts into remembering the word on the page in his book so it swamped his mind with a crisp image of the white page and the black word written on it. His Magick latched onto the word, drawing it out of the air and into him. A force arrowed from his head to his feet. It snagged itself in the part of him trying to escape through his back and yanked it down past his hips, into the legs he braced, down through the tops of his feet and then rebounding back up to his locked knees. The thing radiating out of Kim flowed through him, ribs to back, exiting to flow deep into the darkness.
Fear crawling from his sternum to the base of his throat, Dan swept his gaze around the group, rapidly assessing. Ivan was flat on his stomach. For a moment Dan thought him downed completely but then Ivan started crawling slowly into the darkness beyond Kim, the humping bump of the light he still held tracking his movements.
Dempsey had somehow managed to not only get his shield up in time but had also triggered its magic so a nimbus of light radiated from it, shielding both he, Prairie, and Abe in its lee. As Dan watched the light flickered but then it steadied and grew brighter. Dempsey wobbled and the shield dropped an inch or two, but then he firmed his stance with his head turned to the side and his eyes closed against the burn of the light coming from the shield.
To Dan’s right Patti was bent over, one hand on her thigh, the other clasped to hold Sass against her chest. She retched, a wealth of pain in the sound emitting from her mouth. To his left Siobhan staggered and fell to her knees. She raised a shaky hand to her cheek, then lowered it to the strap of her bag, popped loose a vial, and quickly quaffed it.
Gwen. Well, Gwen was lying supine behind and slightly to the right of Kim, her hand outstretched towards Ben and her face smashed into the floor. Kim turned her head slowly and looked down at Gwen.
She lifted her left arm from where it was draped over her knee and reached for Gwen. The light from Ben’s torch played over the strings coming out of Kim’s arm, their line traveling up to disappear into the darkness above like bioluminescent strands of a jellyfish. She threw her head back and sniffed. “Kill me.”
“What?” Siobhan’s voice was thready, shaking. Dan felt a sympathetic quiver where the parts of him were anchored in his lower body.
Kim turned to look at Siobhan. “Kill me.”
There was no force behind the words, just a dull acceptance. No, the force came as another pulse radiated from her, washing over them again with possibly greater intensity and need. Dan focused, gritted his teeth, willed his strength into legs that had become both physical and metaphysical anchor.
Patti keeled over, smacking her forehead against the floor. It was only her gasp that told Dan that she was okay. Or as okay as she could be. When Sass let out a pitiable peep from underneath her she wriggled painfully to her side and curled her legs up so she was curved in a fetal position. Ivan dropped face first, but then reached out a slow arm to pull himself further away from Kim. Dan couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to be that close to the epicenter of the pulses she was releasing. It was bad enough where he was.
Dempsey continued to hold the line, the glow of his shield a knife carving the darkness. Prairie pressed against his back, her cheek at his ribs, and Abe held a similar spot to his other side.
The potion Siobhan had quaffed apparently had given her the energy to withstand the next hit of whatever it was Kim was exuding. She looked shaken but was still moving enough to pop another vial and drink down its contents. Once she did that she crawled over to Patti and shook her shoulder.
“Patti, uncurl. I need you to drink this.” She waved another vial in front of Patti’s face.
Patti gave a sad moan and shook her head before tucking her chin harder into her collarbone. Siobhan drew a deep breath, then pulled her hand back and slapped Patti’s cheek. Patti’s eyelids snapped up and she riveted Siobhan with a look dripping outrage. Siobhan clenched her jaw and waved the potion again. “Drink.”
Patti craned her neck and blinked her eyes. “So tired.”
“Yes, I know,” Siobhan adopted a no-nonsense tone. “Drink.”
Patti let her mouth fall open, swallowing as Siobhan tipped the vial against her lips. It was hard to tell in the green light of the alchemy torch but it looked like her color got a little better.
Siobhan shook the vial, tipped the last few drops of it onto her fingertip, then leaned into Patti’s cleavage to rub the drops on Sass’s muzzle. Sass’s mouth fell open and the drops went in then Sass rubbed their head gently against Patti’s chest.
“Moving!” Dempsey announced then started back shuffling to reach Dan, Patti, and Siobhan. Abe and Prairie moved with him like they’d done it a hundred times before, keeping well behind the protection of Dempsey’s shield.
As soon as he was in range Dempsey called back over his shoulder. “We need to get them out of there.”
“Agreed.” A note of exasperation flavored Siobhan’s response. “Any ideas? I’ve only got so many energy potions and your shield only covers so many people. Plus we don’t know what happens when someone gets close to her. Does it trigger the thing she’s doing? Or does she just do it? We’ve already seen what happens when we rush in,” her voice broke, then she firmed her lips and continued. “So, we need a course of action before we proceed.”
“Is it a device or is it her?” Dan asked the question, though he was fairly certain of the answer.
“If its a device its on her,” Dempsey said. “The pulses seem to originate from her.”
Siobhan looked at where Kim continued to huddle on the floor. Neither Ben nor Gwen were moving. Not good. “Is she triggering it or did it go off when Ben and Gwen got close?”
Dan’s “Uncertain” was cut off as another pulse washed the area. Dempsey braced his shield, managing to cover Abe, Prairie, and Siobhan behind it but the pulse still hit Dan and Patti. Despite the lack of warning Dan instinctively took a step to the right, putting himself slightly in front of Patti. He forced down his immediate response to tense, instead focusing his strength down to his legs and envisioning the pulse moving through his sternum and out his back.
Patti flailed her arms out, grabbing one of the straps on the back of Dan’s vest. This kept her partially upright when her legs folded. After the initial wash of the pulse Dan tightened his core and leaned forward to take some of Patti’s weight.
Once the pulse passed Siobhan turned frantic eyes to the right. “Dan? Patti?”
“Not doing so-” Patti’s response cut off. Her grip on Dan’s vest released and she dropped to the ground behind him, grunting as her knees smacked the ground. “Ow.”
Siobhan threw a look in Kim’s direction then skittered over to give Patti another potion. “That’s it.” She played her fingers over the strap of her bag, “I have one left.”
Patti turned her head to look towards the right of Kim. “Save it for Ivan. If he’s still up.”
Dan focused his eyes in that direction, looking for any sign of movement. His heart clenched to see it. Slow. Steady. The light that Ivan held continued to move to the right and away from where Kim sat. “He’s up.”
Siobhan shifted and looked at Kim again. “But for how much longer? We have to do something and I hate to say it but I don’t think we can wait to form a plan. I need some ideas.”
“Siobhan?” Kim called, her voice scratchy and slow.
“Yes?”
“Leave.”
“We can’t.”
“I can’t leave this spot.” Kim moved her arm and the thin threads above her swayed. “I don’t know how much longer Gwen and Ben have. You have to kill me.”
Siobhan pitched her voice to carry. “Not happening!” Her voice cracked on the second word. She stopped. Gulped. Took a deep breath. “We’re getting you out of here.”
“Either you kill me or I kill them.” Kim took a breath loud enough to carry in the stillness. “I can’t stop.”
Siobhan blew a long breath between pursed lips. Then she squared her shoulders and yelled. “So, you’re doing it? It’s not a device.”
“No.” Kim planted her elbow on her knee and pressed her hand into her raised palm. “It’s me. They fucked me up pretty bad.” She sniffed around a half laugh that sounded strained and dry. “If you kill me you can get Ben and Gwen. And Ivan. I don’t think he’s doing so good.” Her head turned so she could look in the direction Ivan crawled.
“Fuck that,” Siobhan whispered, her eyes stark.
Dan didn’t even blink at the language. He kind of wanted to say something along those lines himself. Realizing he still held his crossbows ready, he clipped them to their lines then reached his left hand out to close around Siobhan’s shoulder. She turned at the touch, taking a big step to close the distance between them and pressed her face to his chest. Her shoulders shook as she took a deep breath and then another. She gulped, her forehead moving against him, then pushed away to brush the heel of her hand over her cheek.
“Okay,” she said, her voice choked. “What do we do?”
“Kill her?” Dempsey ventured, getting a fierce no from everyone except Abe and even Abe looked at him askance. He scowled and jerked his chin in Kim’s direction. “She said it. It’s her or everyone. We don’t have a way out of here and we aren’t getting any further with her doing whatever it is she’s doing. We need to end her.”
“You need to shut up.” Patti linked her fingers in Dan’s vest and dragged herself to her feet to wobble around and glare at Dempsey. “We aren’t killing anyone.”
She blinked rapidly, then sniffled and looked off into the darkness past Kim. “We’re going to find a way and its all going to work out.”
Prairie quietly stepped away from Dempsey, easing her way around Dan and Siobhan to wrap an arm around Patti. “Of course it is. To steal a saying from Kim ‘They don’t win.’.”
Patti nodded and sniffled again. “Yeah. That.”
Sass patted Patti on the chest and Patti reached down a finger to smooth it over Sass’s head. Then Patti squared her shoulders and tossed her head, sending the longer portion of her hair at the top to swaying. “I’m going to put her to sleep with a Lullabye.”
“Will it work?” Siobhan voiced the question Dan was feeling.
“Won’t know until I try.” Patti dropped her head, her chin almost on her sternum, and drew a deep breath. “Okay. If I stand in the front and project forward it will maybe only go that way. It would help if people could cover their ears though. And I think I’ll hit Ivan too.”
Siobhan drew her own deep breath, then nodded. “He’ll understand. Do it.”
Patti nodded, then stepped around Abe so she was in front of Dempsey’s shield. She looked down at the ground, took another breath that had to go to her toes, then opened her mouth and sang the first line of Golden Slumbers by The Beatles.
She’d just started the third line when Kim turned her head to look at her and yelled, “No!”
Another pulse came from her, catching Patti mid-word. Instead of it immediately dropping her to her knees as it had before it snatched at her Magick, yanking it out of her with the next words which came out strained and quick, like they were being stretched like taffy.
Patti’s mouth gaped, opening and closing like a fishes as the words were dragged from her. Finally she managed to close it on the word, “lulllll.” She clapped her left hand over her mouth and backpedaled double time, only stopping when she smacked into Abe.
Abe grabbed Patti’s shoulder and yanked her behind Dempsey’s shield. Patti looked around, eyes wide with panic, her breath sawing in and out of her nostrils so quick she was at risk of hyperventilating. She snapped around and ran towards Dan who opened his right arm and pulled her into his chest. She trembled against him, like a rabbit hearing a hawk. Peep gave a soft ‘squee’ and ran up her chest to settle on her shoulder and hug its arms around her neck.
Dan looked at Siobhan. Siobhan looked at Dan. Prairie moved around and rested her hand and then her cheek on Patti’s shoulder blade. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
Patti raised stricken eyes to Dan and opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. Her eyes widened more, until the whites were clear in the acid green light from the torch clipped to his chest. She pulled back and pressed a hand to the base of her throat.
Siobhan fingered the last energy potion on her strap, her gaze going out to the dark where Ivan had been crawling. There was no movement there. Whatever Kim had done must not have completely blocked Patti’s Magick. Likely Ivan was out now. So, he wasn’t going to need the energy potion.
Siobhan pulled the vial out and patted Patti on the shoulder. When Patti looked at her she lofted the potion. “Drink this.”
Patti shook her head in denial. Siobhan widened her eyes and cocked her head in a ‘you will listen to me’ look and waggled the potion. Patti’s lips tightened, then she took her hand off her throat to take the potion. Only after she swallowed it did Siobhan rock back on her heels and nod.
Patti took a breath, wet her lips, and then tried to speak. “My Magick.” Her voice sounded weak but at least it was there.
As if in response to her, and maybe it was, Kim called, “I told you.”
Siobhan looked at Dan. He looked back nodding as if he could read what was in her heart. Then she turned and looked at Dempsey.
“Rush her?” Dempsey asked.
“I think it might be the best option.”
“Then what?”
Siobhan shifted her gaze from Prairie to the right all the way back to Dempsey. “Then we-” she stopped, drew a deep breath, “kill her.”
Enter The Woods 