8:21
Dempsey, Gwen, Patti, and Ivan shared stories of each of their adventures, stopping to question some of the details and exclaim over others. Several times the group broke into raucous laughter as Gwen described her amazing dance prowess, complete with gyrating arms and shaking shoulders, while Dempsey just scowled, crossed his arms, and shook his head.
At a sound from the hedge they broke off and turned in that direction. Dempsey reached behind his back for his shield prompting Patti to lift her punch shield in front of her. They both stopped when they saw Ben and Kim jog out of the break in the hedge next to the closed ribbons window, their strides easy.
“You noticed that?” Ben asked.
Kim drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “Kind of hard not to.”
“Noticed what?” Ivan strode over quickly, stopping just short of Ben. “Besides you aren’t running? Or even breathing hard?”
Kim stepped away from the break and beckoned for Ivan to follow her a short distance away from the hedge. She was definitely not breathing hard, though the breaths she drew were measured and controlled.
“That’s actually what Ben and I were discussing. I don’t think he’s trying to catch us. We slow down. He slows down. Halfway through that I started jogging and I swear Ben was just fast walking.” She turned to Ben “Were you fast walking?”
“I was.”
“Whoa.” Leaning back with her hands on the table, Patti shifted her gaze between Kim and the hedge maze.
“We slow jogged him into one of those dead ends. I figure we have at most a meros before he catches up.” Kim planted her hands on her hips and shifted her focus to the others in the room. “Hey, Gwen.”
Gwen lifted a hand. “Hey.”
Kim’s gaze tracked over the others. “What’s our status?”
Dempsey pointed up above the table he was leaning against. “We got a piece.”
Patti grinned and waved her entire arm in a far more expressive gesture than Dempsey. “So did we.”
“Okay.” Kim cast a look back at the entrance to the maze. “Anyone got the juice to stop him again?”
Gwen walked up to them. She stopped a short distance from the break Ben and Kim had entered through then shook out her shoulders and rolled her neck. “I’m not feeling a ton of,” air quotes, “juice. While Dempsey and I were in the mirror maze I lost my connection to Gryphon and I got some energy back, but once we got out here it snapped back on. It’s like his emotions are all around in this place.”
Patti walked over. “Like its part of him?”
The look Gwen slanted Patti was equal parts confusion and interest. “Maybe?”
“Oh.” Patti nodded her head vigorously but didn’t expand. Instead she turned her attention to Kim. “I used some Magick getting our piece. I’m not sure how much more I have, but my tank isn’t completely empty.”
“Okay. Don’t have time to explain but can you,” Kim leaned to look around Patti at Gwen leaning against the hedge, “do that merge thing with Patti?”
Gwen squinched up her mouth. “Maybe?”
Kim turned and looked back in the maze. “Incoming!” After announcing that she frantically spun to look at Patti. “You know that song Heartbreaker?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
Kim just shrugged.
“Its a classic!” When Kim just snapped her head around to look down the maze then turned back to Patti without acknowledging this truth, Patti threw up her hands. “Yes.”
“So.” Kim bounced on the ball of her feet and looked into the maze. “Gwen you do the merge thing. Patti you sing.”
“I need intent. What am I intending?”
“To put on a flippin’ great show?”
There was no more time for Patti to question anything – either Kim’s intent in this or her own sanity – because Gryphon came slow jogging through the break in the hedge, nose twitching, head moving side-to-side like he was clocking everyone in the area.
“Go!” Kim yelled and dropped back, leaving Patti front and center right in Gryphon’s path. The look she shot Kim promised retribution but she didn’t hold back. She drew in a deep breath and began to sing, “Your love is like a tidal wave, spinning over my head.”
She felt Gwen’s hand falling on her shoulder then the dual sensation of excitement and confidence filling her to brimming, twining with Gwen’s voice as she joined in on, “Drownin’ me in your promises, better left unsaid.”
Gryphon took one step onto the marble floor, then stopped. He stared and cocked his head, switching his attention between Patti and Gwen, then focusing on something behind them which caught and held his attention. Patti decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead she focused on Gryphon, both her attention and her Magick, willing some of the excitement flowing from Gwen to her to weave to him and join them together in a current of song and fun.
“You’re the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy. The invincible winner and you know that you were born to be.”
From behind them Patti heard Kim yell, “Pyrotechnics!” and from the side of her eye she saw one of Kim’s hands flare out. Then under it a creature of fire and strength shimmered into existence. One moment it was barely a heat mirage, the next a mammoth coyote with a ruff of flames and an aura of dancing sparks took a stance on its four clearly defined legs and roared.
Patti about lost the song. And her bowels. But, the Song pouring through her and the strength Gwen channeled kept it all together. Poop and singing.
“Fuuuuuuck,” Dempsey said, real loud from somewhere behind them. Patti didn’t turn to look, too focused on her intent and the Song that carried it. C’mon, you hairy bastard, rock out!
Kim’s voice joined Patti’s and Gwen’s, “You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker. Don’t you mess around with me.”
Gryphon’s muzzle dropped. He turned it left and right, eyeballing the trio over each side of his long nose. Then that nose receded, the hair flowing back to his hairline, leaving smooth skin and a large, but human nose in its wake. Below that nose was a well-shaped mouth with normal human shaped teeth. This was clear when he threw back his head and laughed, the joyful noise his mouth and throat were making reflected in merry blue eyes. He didn’t join in singing. Maybe his throat wasn’t there quite yet, but he clearly nodded along as Patti, Gwen, and Kim sang, “You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker don’t you mess around with me.”
The fire creatures peeled off from either side of Patti, flowing towards Gryphon. For a moment Patti almost broke her song to cry out not to hurt the Beast. But she didn’t need to because the creatures clearly had other ideas. Or maybe Kim did. Because as Patti started in on, “Your love has set my soul on fire, burnin’ out of control,” the creatures slowly moved forward to bracket Gryphon.
Patti felt Kim’s hand fall on her shoulder, pulling her back. “Keep singing,” Kim whispered in Patti’s ear and tugged her to the side. Gwen, connected to Patti hand to shoulder, shuffled in the direction Kim lead. Singing, “You taught me the ways of desire, now it’s takin’ its toll,” Kim nudged Patti and Gwen over so the two fire creatures could gently herd Gryphon towards one of the breaks in the hedge on the opposite side of the room.
Gryphon cast a look back, showing the fur and muzzle flowing back over his features. Before his mouth fully transformed he called, “thank you,” in a guttural tone that was more Beast than man.
Really pouring her all into, “You’re the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy. The invincible winner and you know that you were born to be,” Kim tipped a finger at him then nodded for the fire creatures to continue herding Gryphon back into the maze. When he turned again it was to howl in the Beast’s voice and swing his arms in what might have been interpreted as a half-hearted effort to connect with the fire creatures. They in turn shook their manes, sending sparks flying and falling to thankfully gutter on the marble floor instead of smolder in the hedges, then squared their shoulders and took a synchronized step forward. When he didn’t immediately move into the maze one dropped and made like it was going to snap at his hamstring. That got him moving.
And through all this Patti, Gwen, and Kim continued to sing; Gwen channeling joy into Patti, Patti weaving it around her Song, and Kim just grooving with shaking shoulders and pumping arms next to them.
“You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker. Don’t you mess around with me!” They continued to sing until the glow of the fire coyotes stopped radiating out of the maze.
Patti broke off singing and turned to look at Kim, who for her part just lifted her eyebrows and dropped her head forward to meet her collarbone as she gave a deep shrug.
“You’re nuts!”
Kim snickered. Gwen let go of Patti’s shoulder, stepped back, and shook her head in a semblance of censure. But then she started laughing. And Kim started laughing. And then Patti did too.
That was awesome!
Ben wandered up to the break in the hedge and poked his head in. When he pulled back he turned to look at Kim. “Will they burn down the maze?”
Kim showed the grace to not give a really definitive answer. “Probably not? Fire has a will of its own. And sometimes, okay most of the time, maybe it wants to set the world on fire. But I think it appreciates it can’t do that right now.”
Dempsey made a choking noise. “It appreciates it can’t do that?”
Kim turned and looked at him. Then shrugged real big.
“You aren’t right in the head,” he muttered. Maybe it was something about the acoustic of the room, maybe it was he wanted to, but whatever the cause his voice clearly carried.
Ivan laughed, walked over, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the family.”
Dempsey just slowly shook his head and gave a really large sigh.
“I had it completely under control,” Kim muttered as she wandered towards the table with Patti.
“You could have set me on fire.”
“Highly unlikely. Highly.”
“You fill me with confidence.”
Kim slanted a look at Patti and grinned. “It was cool. Admit it.”
“I almost shat myself when the fire thing popped up next to me.”
Gwen paused in hiking herself up on the table next to Dempsey. “Me too.”
Kim spread her hands and her wide grin dared them to resist it. “But you didn’t.”
Ben sidled over, leaned against the table, and crossed his legs at the ankle. “It was kind of-”
To which Kim nodded like a bobble head and supplied, “Awesome.”
Gwen snorted and did spirit fingers. “Pyrotechnics.”
“Not enough wine,” Patti grumped, then shook her head while repressing a smile as Kim returned Gwen’s spirit fingers.
Ivan sauntered over to Kim with his hands in his pockets. “Do the fire coyotes take any of your Magick to create?”
“I don’t create them.”
“You don’t?”
“They are manifestations of Fire. I don’t create them.”
“Then how do they manifest?”
“Because they want to?”
Ben lifted a hand to get Kim’s attention. “You’re telling me those things are always around?”
“Not always.”
“Do you work at being vague?”
Kim grinned at this. “No. What did you think the elements did? Disappeared because you weren’t looking at them?”
“No.” Ben shoved his hands in his pant pockets and looked intently at the floor. “Maybe. Somewhat.”
“If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?” Before either Ben or Ivan could respond to that Kim added, “Better. If no one sees the tree fall in the forest does that mean it didn’t fall? Nature happens regardless of us providing it a frame of reference. So, yes, Fire is always around. So is Water, Earth, and Air. And I’d say Prairie would say Spirit is too.”
Ivan’s expression shifted. “You think Spirit is an Element?”
“I’m not sure.” Kim twisted her lips to the side then pinched her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “That just kind of came out.”
“So,” Ivan said, “the fire creatures. They’re acting on their own to chase Gryphon?”
“Not exactly.” Kim scrunched up her nose. “More like I asked them to.”
“Does that take Magick?”
“It’s rude to ask about a girl’s Magick. At least buy me dinner!” Ben snorted. Ivan just shook his head. Then Kim grinned. “Fine. Kind of but I think its almost intuitive. When They had-” She stopped and looked off into space. A meros, maybe more passed with Ivan and Ben staring at her and her staring at nothing. Then she shook herself and made a clear effort to focus on Ivan. “The elements, at the end, attacked Them because they wanted to. And I know,” she shoved her bangs back, “that’s a lot of ‘theys’. Anyhow, uh,” she gestured with a hand towards the break in the maze, “I had no Magick at that point.”
She went quiet, taking several deep breaths through her nostrils. “My Magick? I don’t think I control the elements. I can do parlor tricks like summoning fire or water or whatever, but my best understanding is that I can see and communicate with the elements. I ask if they want to do something and if they want to, they do. All the fire burning and the air catching people. That’s them. Not me.”
At Ivan’s confused look she added, “Like Pyro not the Human Torch.”
“Oh!” His expression said he got it now.
“Only I don’t need a lighter or a flamethrower because the elements are always around. The first time I interacted with each of them they approached me. I never saw them until Air manifested to me. They have, for lack of a better understanding, will.” She shoved her bangs back again and paused for a mikro. “Or maybe its purpose. Or a job? A set thing that they add to the world? I don’t know. They don’t exactly have conversations with me. Its more needs and feelings and stuff rather than words.” Dropping her hand, she looked at Ivan. “I don’t make them do things and what they do for me is a bare fraction of what they do. Like, what I see and I interact with isn’t all of Fire or all of Air. It’s single manifestations of it. I ask them to do something and if they want to they will. And, I think I went off on a tangent. Does that answer your question?”
“So, you expend a small amount of Magick to communicate with them but what they do after that they don’t need anything else from you?”
“Yes. It’s why when I got tired following Air around after you guys earlier.” Her eyes widened. She smiled and shook her head. “Which you didn’t know because you were running around. The point is still valid though. I had to use my Magick to communicate with Air and see what it was seeing so it tired me. Fire is doing what it wants to do chasing Gryphon.” Her eyes went out of focus for a mikro, then she grinned. “And its having fun doing it.”
“So, we could free up people to help the others? Because,” Ivan looked at Patti and Gwen whispering back and forth while Dempsey towered over them, a bemused expression on his face. “there’s a lot of us just sitting around.”
Kim considered this. “My only concern would be that Fire starts to have too much fun and burns the maze down. With us in it.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Ivan cast an apprehensive look at the maze. “That’s not good.”
“But, I can stay out here just in case and stop it before it gets too bad. You others could definitely go help. Just leave me maybe one other person in case I have to call Fire back and we have to let Gryphon chase us again.”
Patti broke off her conversation, proving she’d been quietly listening. “I could stay.”
“No.” Gwen said. “Let me.”
Dempsey frowned at this. “You said if you are in the maze you have a connection to Gryphon.”
Gwen shot Dempsey a look that was heavy with “and?”
“You need to go back into one of the windows, even if its one we already finished, so it cuts your Magick’s connection to him.”
“You could go into the portrait one,” Ben suggested. “There was no threat in there.”
“That’s a good idea,” Ivan said. “You could just go in and sit on the stairs. That would let you watch through the window so you can still see what’s happening out here.”
Gwen’s lips thinned. “It’s like a timeout.” Her expression took on a hang-dog air. “I’m going to miss all the fun.”
“Yeah,” Dempsey said, “I guess you are.”
“A little sympathy would be nice.”
“I’ll be sympathetic when we’re out of here and you aren’t being drained.”
Gwen’s shoulders dropped. “I guess you’re right.”
“I usually am.” Appearing unaffected by the look Gwen leveled on him, he pointed his finger towards the portrait window.
“Fine, dad.” Heaving a sigh, Gwen slid off the table and slouched in that direction. She stopped halfway there to throw a look at Dempsey over her shoulder. “But don’t get used to me obeying you. This is a one time thing.”
“Noted.” The corners of Gwen’s lips may have tipped up at Dempsey’s droll response. May have.
Ivan looked between the two windows with friends still behind them. Then he turned to Ben. “Book or Rose?”
Ben tapped his mouth. “Hmmm.”
“Siobhan is alone in the garden,” Kim’s expression darkened. “I wish I hadn’t made the choice to pull Prairie out and leave her there without any backup. Especially after…”
Ivan’s gaze clouded as the implication of what Kim said sank in. Alone. He squared his shoulders, set his jaw, and stared at the open window with the rose.
“Garden it is.” He looked back at Ben. “You coming?”
“Yep.”
Reaching the window Ben planted his hands on the sill and staring to pull himself up when a hand appeared on the sill from the other side. Ben stepped back and returned the wave Siobhan gave him, then followed her hand gesture to clear the frame.
Once he was clear Siobhan planted her butt on the windowsill then pivoted to swing her legs out towards the marble floor. She clutched several bundles of cloth with plants sticking out of them in one arm, the other hand she used to hold her skirt down against her thighs. When she slid down from the windowsill and gained her feet it became clear why she was holding the skirt.
“Damn.” Kim’s eyes went real wide. “Did you get caught by something and have to cut your skirt off to save yourself?”
Siobhan gave her a close-mouthed smile that dripped with quiet threat. To which Kim shrugged and said, “It is a valid question.”
Siobhan just shook her head all slow and sad then walked over to the table, laid the bundles of plants down, then pulled her sleeve down and used it to pull a stained-glass rose from her bag.
“Here.” Ivan strode over, hand out. “I can reach the lamp easier than you.”
“No.” Siobhan ducked her shoulder, blocking Ivan. “Don’t touch. It could be contaminated.”
“Contaminated?”
“With poison.”
“With poison?”
Patti leaned towards Ben and murmured soto voce, “Did someone replace Ivan with a parrot?”
“I don’t know. He was with you.” Ben shot back. “Did you replace him with a parrot?”
“Couldn’t find one big enough.”
Ivan shot them both a stern look, prompting a laugh from Patti. Even Sass peeped enthusiastically, like it understood the point or maybe just wanted in on the fun.
Heaving a dramatic sigh and shaking his head like he was just too sad to even, Ivan turned back to Siobhan. “The lamp piece might be contaminated with poison.”
“Yes.” Siobhan eyed the table, then placed the lamp piece on the surface and reached down to grab her abbreviated skirt between her legs. Then she bent her knee and raised it in the general direction of the edge of the table. The angle was all wrong so she angled her leg out and tried the knee lift again with no more measurable success. Lowering her foot to the ground she eyed her skirt then eyed the table, pursing her lips as she considered the logistics of climbing on the table without flashing the room.
“Here.” Ben sauntered over, pulling a leather glove out of his jacket and smoothing it over his hand. “This has got to be safer than your sleeve.”
Siobhan looked at the table’s edge one more time before heaving a sigh and stepping back to give Ben access to the rose lamp piece and the table. “Fine.”
Ben easily scrambled onto the table then picked up the rose piece with his gloved hand and placed it in the slot shaped like a blob at the start of the ribbon on the lamp shade. On the image projected on the sky the words “ again. I” showed in white at the far right of the rose. The “I” flowed into the “wish” on the portrait piece while the “again” sat closer to “Beast” on the bird piece. The message, still fragmented because of the missing book piece now read. “I wish” then a space followed by “back to my palace and see my Beast again.”
Ivan tipped his head back to look at the image. “One more piece.” Adjusting his chin down he turned to look at the open window with the book on it. “I wonder what’s taking so long.”
“Well,” Kim said, “time is all kinds of messed up in here because we haven’t run Gryphon through the maze that many times and Patti said she was in the aviary for over a bell before she came out to get me but to me it felt like maybe fifteen meros passed. Meanwhile, you’ve been able to go through whatever you and Ben went through in the portrait window and then you helped Patti get the bird piece. All in the time it took Siobhan to do whatever she did. Which was slightly less time than it took Dempsey and Gwen to get their piece, which was still longer than you and Ben took. See what I mean?”
Ivan fingered his goatee. “I guess.”
“I almost feel like I’m a time loop with the amount of times I’ve explained this, but hopefully everyone’s up to speed now. Anyhow,” Kim pressed, “maybe it hasn’t been that long for them in the book room?”
Ivan eyed the window and shook his head. “Still. Even if there’s time distortions, it feels like they’ve been gone too long. Maybe we should go in there.”
“I’m not discounting it but,” Kim scratched her neck and looked at the window, “we don’t know what is in there. We don’t know if we’ll be able to find them.”
“I have to agree,” Siobhan said. When Ivan turned to look at her she expanded. “I was pretty deep in the garden. If someone had come to get me I don’t know they could have found me. Now, there was no threat in there, but if there had been they could have ended up facing it alone while I was in a different part of the garden and unable to help.”
“I’m really sorry we left you alone in there,” Kim said, a wealth of guilt in her voice adding credence to the words.
Siobhan gave Kim a tight smile. “I was fine.”
“Still.”
“It’s okay.”
“Still.”
Siobhan narrowed her eyes at Kim who immediately went quiet and turned her attention back to the book window. “I say we give them another fifteen meros.”
Ivan stared at the window for several mikros, then turned back to look at the others. “Fine. Fifteen meros.” He sidled over to Siobhan, asking her what had happened in the rose room. As she spoke he made all the appropriate noises, nodded in the correct places, but anyone with eyes could see his focus remained on the book window.
15
*
Abe walked along the bookshelf, trailing the fingers of their clean left hand over the spines. They stopped, pulled out a book, then pulled out another and another, holding the stack against their chest with their right arm. Once they’d cleared a foot or so of space on the books shelf they ran their their hand over the back of the shelf, turning their hand so they could feel along the pages of the books to either side. After determining there was nothing there, they replaced the book pile.
Prairie, crouched slightly further along the curve of the terrace, did the same on a lower shelf while Dan stood to Abe’s left doing the same with the higher shelf.
Abe pressed their fists to the small of their back and arched, then cast a look along the shadowy terrace. “Maybe there’s another way?”
Dan looked over at them. “Hmm?”
Abe indicated what felt like the infinite stretch of shelves with a jerk of their chin. “We’ve been at this at least fifteen meros and I think we’ve covered maybe twenty feet of shelves. If we keep on like this we’ll be searching until I’m older than these books.”
Prairie breathed a small sigh and rocked back on her heels to look up at Abe and Dan. “Abe is right.”
Dan replaced the book he was holding and looked down the length of shelf curving along the wall. The shelves were floor to ceiling and covered the wall without break. At a rough guess there had to be several million books there. Abe and Prairie weren’t wrong. Even if they only pulled every book off the shelves and checked behind them they’d be there until they died of old age. There had to be some clue on where the lamp piece was. Maybe that’s what they should be looking for.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
Abe screwed their mouth to the side and tapped their fingers on the shelf. Then they turned and looked over to the rail along the terrace. After that they turned to look at the stair that curve up in a gentle arch to the third floor terrace. Finally they turned back to look at Dan. “I don’t know.”
“Prairie?”
Prairie looked up at Dan’s question. Shelving the book she was holding she rose to her full height and arched to stretch her back. “I’m wondering if maybe you have to use your Magick in some way?”
Dan gave her a steady look. “How?”
Prairie considered him for a long moment then gave the smallest of head shakes. “I don’t know. Maybe you could use your Magick to… I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a book that you can read, imbue with your Magick, like, you could make it come true? I don’t know. Maybe there’s a book about someone looking for something and you could use it to find what we’re looking for?”
Dan turned to look at Abe. “Is that possible?”
Abe rubbed their chin and hmm’d. “I don’t know. It seems theoretically possible? Is there a book about a search that you could use?”
“There are many books about searching for treasure. The Gold Bug. Treasure Island. But the organization here isn’t anything I’ve seen. No dewey decimal. It might be by subject because everything on this shelf,” he tapped the shelf with his knuckle, “is anthropology.”
“I noticed some plaques on the shelves. Here,” Abe walked back a few feet, still within the glow of Dan’s torch, and tapped something on a shelf. “I can’t read this. Can you bring the light closer?”
Dan shifted over towards Abe so the light from the torch fell on the brass plaque affixed to the upright at the start of the section.
“It says cultural anthropology.”
Dan scanned his eye along the shelf, looking for any other plaques that might have numerical index numbers.
His search was interrupted when Prairie turned to look into the dark further along the terrace near the stairs leading up. “Did you hear something?”
Dan went stock still, straining to hear what had caught Prairie’s attention. From the darkness he heard a click of claws on stone floor. He pointed at Abe, then tapped his ear, then pointed in that direction. Abe turned, tipping their chin up. Taking controlled breaths, Dan walked towards Prairie, his steps measured and slow so as to make no noise, and tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned her face up to him he pointed, tapped his ear, then pointed again. She nodded.
From the direction of the sound of claws came a subtle snuffling and then more clacking claws on stone. The darkness made it impossible to see and the acoustics of the library made it difficult to guess by sound how close the creature was making the sound. Dan tapped Abe’s shoulder, then Prairie’s, held up two fingers and gestured behind his shoulder. Prairie nodded then turned to face the darkness and pulled her daggers out. Holding them at her side, she flicked them, indicating Abe and Dan should move back along the terrace.
Abe nodded then slowly began to walk backwards. Dan matched their steps and Prairie followed after. They walked backwards until they reached the stairs curving down to the main floor. The click of claws from the dark followed them, matching their pace.
They were being stalked. Dan considered their best course of action. Their stalker had approached from the stair to the third floor terrace. If it had come from a book then it seemed logical the book would be on the third floor. Their retreating was moving them in the opposite direction from where they probably needed to be.
Stopping her reached forward and gently tapped Prairie’s shoulder. When she stopped and looked back Dan beckoned her closer. She drew close, ducking her head and turning her ear towards him so she could hear his whisper. “We need to get to the third floor.”
Her response was to nod. Then she looked back into the darkness from which the claws came, the sound drawing closer. Shifting her daggers to one hand, she tapped her chest and then made a stabbing motion. When Dan nodded he understood her intent to attack she reached to tap his chest. Then she pointed her finger at him before sweeping it in a arch. Dan read this as she wanted him to go around when she engaged their pursuer.
He cocked his head and tightened his lips, then shook his head in the negative. To which she bobbed her head hard. Before Dan could repeat his silent objection she pivoted and went running forward into the dark. Abe shot Dan a quick look then followed in Prairie’s wake. Dan clenched his hand into a fist then took off after them.
The long drawn out howl of a dog sounded from the darkness, likely in response to their approach. The glow of the alchemy torch swinging from Dan’s vest hit Abe and Prairie’s backs. Their shadows stretched before them, long and black in the circle of green light.
Abe and Prairie came to an abrupt stop as a large paw extended from the dark, breaking the edge of the circle. Claws clacked on the stone floor and then another paw came forward. Abe and Prairie fell back next to Dan. Abe’s eyes were wide, the proverbial platters, focused on the dog.
The dog seemed to form from the darkness. First it was the one leg. Then the next. Black as the shadows. Then a head flowed from the darkness and into the light, its skull wide and slightly curved with a prominent arch starting above the eyes before flattening towards the back of that skull. Below that arch it had mecium-sized, almond-shaped eyes. The phosphorescent glow of the alchemy torch hit the surface of the eyes then seemed to double back, brighter, giving the eyes the look of green fire. The second set of eyes, in the second head that emerged from the shadows, shared this glow. As did those of the third head.
Three heads. Three sets of eyes. And each was pinned on a separate member of Dan’s group. Those heads stood somewhere in the region of Dan’s hip. Probably closer to Abe and Prairie’s rib cages. That height meant the creature didn’t have to strain to capture Prairie, Abe, and Dan’s gazes.
For a moment Dan, Abe, and Prairie just stared back, each meeting the set of eyes focused on them. Then the head on the left, the one focused on Prairie shook, setting fleshy jowls rippling. The mouth of the head to the right, focused on Abe pulled back in a snarl. Its bite was undershot so the action revealed only the teeth in its lower jaw. But they were impressive enough to make Dan take another step back.
“Dog,” Abe said, just in case there was any doubt.
Prairie responded with, “Big dog.”
Caught in the intelligent stare of the head focused on him, Dan muttered. “Cerberus.”
Prairie got right to the point. “Can we fight it?”
“We could.”
“Can we beat it?”
“Unclear.”
As one Abe, Prairie, and Dan took a big step back. Cerberus took two steps forward and then all threw mouths opened and emitted a chorus of growl and howl that brought Dan’s nerves to life. His head grew light and his sight dimmed at the edges, fight or flight instincts shooting blood to his extremities and stealing it from his brain just when he really needed his brain to be functional.
Then the unique mental processing he’d developed in basic training kicked in. His mind separated. It was the only way he could explain it. His lizard brain kept his nose drawing breaths, slow and steady, and his heart pumping blood, kept his vision from going black and locked legs against feet that were itching to run. Meanwhile his higher functioning detached, allowing him to assess from a virtual remove. His hands worked of their own accord to loose his crossbows. Once they were free of their holsters he held them loose at his sides.
“Three of us. Three heads. We could try to take him.”
“Do we want to?” Abe’s voice broke in the middle of the question.
The time for debate or intellectual discourse ran out as Cerberus gathered its massive haunches and lunged forward, each head aimed for a different target, which was to say one on Prairie, one on Abe, and one on Dan.
Dan’s mind cataloged the details of the stories of Cerberus, quickly narrowing on how Heracles defeated the creature in unarmed combat. Then he snarled, channeling his old Drill Sergeant, “Abe! Shield!”
At Dan’s snap Abe flicked their right hand out, responding to the authority in his voice, ending with their hand extended in front of Dan, knuckles out. From it poured a flow of ink that effectively blocked the heads aiming at themselves and Dan. The third head, aimed at Prairie, was faster than the ink, which was saying something as Abe whipped the darkness out with admirable speed.
Prairie crossed her daggers, blocking the snap of the third head’s teeth. She lunged forward, throwing her weight into it and shoving the head back. Then she twisted at the waist, shoving the head back towards the other two behind the shield. Once that head was behind the ink, Abe flicked their fingers back at some impossible angle and the ink followed, curving into the darkness Cerberus remained half submerged in.
Abe’s mouth moved on silent words. Their ink shot from the darkness on the right, curving back through the phosphorescent glow and striking Abe’s shoulder. The force of it carried them sideways into Dan. He turned and braced, taking their slight weight against his chest.
The eyes they raised to Dan were black. Not ‘the pupils had darkened’. The sclera was black. No white showed at all.
“I’ve got him.” Abe’s voice was distant, though not as distant as that stare. They jerked against Dan, their shoulder digging into his chest. Dan holstered one of his crossbows so he could brace his hand on Abe’s shoulder, bolstering them further. “He’s fighting me.”
Aware of the ticking clock on Abe’s control, Dan cast his mind over their situation. If the dog proved the same as the Morlock then even if they defeated it, literally a Herculean task, it would just remanifest and continue to attack.
He turned to look at Prairie over his shoulder. “We need to find the book it came from.”
“It came from the area of the stairs. Either the book is on the third floor or its closer to the stairs. You need to get over there.”
“We need to get over there.”
Prairie shook her head ‘no’. “You need to get over there.”
Abe’s shoulder jerked beneath Dan’s hand. “Hurry.”
Determination drew Prairie’s soft features into harder lines. “What are its weaknesses?”
“Uncertain.”
“Strengths?”
“Very strong. Three-heads so triple the teeth and the bite. Tail ends with a venomous serpent head.”
“So avoid it.”
“Avoid it.”
“One heart? Three?”
“Unknown.”
Abe let out a cry. Their arm jerked and then their ink was rapid flowing back from the right to the left to flow up their fingers and along their wrist.
The head closest to Prairie was the first to be revealed. It lashed forward, jagged teeth bared. She dodged it, then came in from the left side, slashing at its shoulder with a dagger. The leg on that side buckled, victim to the enchantment in the blade, and Cerberus pitched sideways, falling out of the last of Abe’s retreating ink.
While the head on that side reflected confusion the center head and that on Abe’s side remained alert and aggressive. Releasing a bolt from his left hand crossbow, Dan shoved Abe to the right to free up his hand and he wasted no time grabbing his second crossbow from its holster.
The crossbow bolt hit Cerberus in the center of the chest. A clean strike. It should have elicited at least a yelp. Instead the flesh around the bolt parted, tattering to shadow or smoke, and the bolt continued through. Dan stared as the tatters of Cerberus’ chest reformed.
The surreal image refused to coalesce in his mind as fast, leaving him vulnerable when Cerberus’ center head lashed forward. He barely danced back in time to avoid the strike. As it was Cerberus’ teeth snagged one of the pockets of his pants, the cloth tearing away as the creature drew back and the contents of the pocket clattering on the stone floor.
Prairie dove in from the left and threw herself into the air, her body coming down on the dog’s back from tail to shoulder. She wrapped her arms around the dog, planting her hands behind its front legs. She pressed her cheek to the dog’s shoulder and ducked her head down as hard as she could. Cerberus reared back, snapping at her with the teeth of its right and left heads, but he was unable to reach her. Once it realized this it began to buck, clearly trying to throw Prairie off. Abe gave Dan a startled look, shouted “Go” then dove in from the right, plastering themselves over Prairie. Their combined weight started to drag the dog back and down so its front legs pawed the air while its back-legs collapsed.
Dan watched as Prairie and Abe held tight, their faces tucked against the dog’s body still avoiding the snap of teeth, and then they jerked their own weight back to fully snap the dog’s front legs into the air so it was rearing back with Prairie and Abe’s hold keeping it upright.
Prairie pulled her head back. Her lips parted on an O. “Oh,” her whisper went almost unheard over the sound of scrabbling claws against stone.
She frowned, squinted into the darkness, then shook her head. Dan was about to snap at her to protect her face but then she pressed her cheek back against the dog’s heaving side. It was nearly impossible to see her expression in the uneven light of the alchemy torch but her shoulders released. She still held the dog but now the hold seemed more an embrace?
Abe flashed a look at Dan. “Go!”
No time, Dan’s logical mind snapped at him. Do not waste the chance they’ve bought! He shook off his questions and ran in the direction Cerberus had come.
Enter The Woods 