10:6
From where Patti stood next to the door she had a clear view of Ben entering the room the open door revealed. His foot barely cleared the threshold before a cacophonous screech blasted the space. It felt like it blew Patti’s hair back from her face where she stood outside the room. She couldn’t even imagine how much worse it was for Ben in the room. Well, she could guess as he came flying from the room with his dark skin ashen and tears trailing down his stark cheeks.
He grabbed the door in shaking hands as he hurtled through the doorway, yanking it shut behind him so hard it banged and rattled in the frame. Backing away with his eyes so wide they looked like they might fall out of his sockets, he heaved several times before looking at the others.
He jerked his thumb at the door. “Let’s try another door.”
“Yeah,” Patti nodded. “That works.”
Everyone else who’d been far enough back from the door to not have caught the blast looked at them with questioning expressions. Patti met their looks with wide eyes and shook her head. No. Just no. She made a cutting motion across her throat and looked at where Ben was walking down the hall to the next set of doors. As she watched he lurched to the side and almost face planted into a wall, managing to throw up his hand and catch himself at the last mikro.
He’d evened out his walk, mostly, by the time he reached the next door. Crouching down he did his magic, not Magick, on the door and pushed against it. It hit an invisible barrier just beyond it and stopped.
“Fuck,” she heard his curse down the hall.
Patti waved the others forward, patting her hand towards the left wall where Ben was not. When he stood up and moved across the hall she patted her hand in the opposite direction, directing the others to go to the right. Which proved a good call as the door in the left wall also unlocked and hit a jam.
“Motherfucker,” Ben muttered under his breath as he pressed a hand to the side of his head over his ear and then tipped his head to the left several times like he was clearing a blockage. Or maybe ringing. Heck, Patti’s ears were ringing and she hadn’t been in the room.
Ben wobbled down the hall to the next set of doors. And the next set of doors. And the next set. After that the hall ended at a blank wall. Everyone followed behind Ben, going slower and slower as each door failed until finally they were moving with the speed of a glacier. Maybe a little slower. Slow enough that when Ben gave up, threw his hands in the air, and started stalking in the direction they came he managed to lap pretty much everyone clumped up a set of doors back from the end.
Releasing a grunt, Ben dug his hands into his jacket pockets and rocked back on his heels while contemplating the one door that had opened. He ground his teeth, a muscle popping in his jaw, then turned.
“It’s this or nothing.” He stared down the length of the hall towards where they’d entered. Patti’s gaze followed. She squinted to see down the shadowed length until she saw what had drawn his wrathful glare. There was no door in the wall they’d entered, just stone blocks. Of course there wasn’t.
“Its this or nothing,” Ben said.
“What was in there?” Ivan asked.
“Fuck if I know. I got hit with a wall of sound that made me see actual stars and I hauled the fuck out of there.”
“Maybe it’s just an alarm?”
Ben tipped his head as he tightened his lips. “Maybe.”
“You are good with alarms.”
“I am. When I can actually see.”
“Remember that time you disabled that alarm in that pitch dark house?” Ivan offered with a conspiratorial grin.
The corner of Ben’s mouth quirked, transforming his expression from rage to amusement. “Which time?”
He and Ivan shared a snicker.
Ivan turned back to the group and shrugged with his hands open at his side. “Misspent youth.” He jerked a thumb at Ben, “That’s how we met.”
“I was climbing out a window he was trying to climb in when we were like this tall,” Ben held his hand somewhere around his hip. “Ran into each other and went flying. He punched me in the face and I kicked him in the ass and then it was on.”
Ivan chuckled. “The Guard came while we were tumbling back and forth in the alley whaling on each other.”
Ben raised his brows at Ivan. “We got a square meal that night in the lockup.”
“Yeah,” Ivan blew out a breath. “I’m lucky juvenile records are sealed.”
“So lucky.”
They both chuckled again then Ben turned serious as he looked at the others. “If its an alarm I’ll figure it out. But if you enter expect to deal with the noise.”
“Do we really have a choice?” Abe asked.
Ben shrugged. “You could stay in the hall until I find the alarm and disable it.”
Patti raised a hand. “I volunteer to do that.” She turned as the others made noises. “You didn’t get hit by that blast. I didn’t really either. Just a part of it. And I almost puked.”
“Maybe it’s because of your sensitive ears?” Gwen offered. When Patti turned to her, question in her frown, Gwen added, “Because you are a musician. You have to have better ears, right?”
Prairie raised a hand. “I can go in to help find the alarm. I’m used to a lot of yelling in the Trauma area of the ER.”
Patti shook her head. “This is more than yelling.”
“A lot more,” Ben added.
Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin Prairie met both their gazes without flinching. “I’m going to do it.”
“Okay.” Ben shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ll help too,” Kim offered. “I don’t claim to have any special training at listening to loud noises but another pair of eyes could help? Plus I can call for some help.” She flicked her wrist to set fire dancing over her fingers.
“I can help too,” Siobhan said. “I’m used to a lot of noise being a grade school music teacher.”
Patti cringed in sympathy.
“Okay,” Ben gestured at the door. “Anyone coming with me step to the left. When the door opens step in and as soon as we’re clear I’ll close the door so those in the hall aren’t hit. Much.”
Prairie, Kim, and Siobhan stepped to the left of the door. Patti stepped all the way across the hall to where the other door was and then a little to the side. Ivan looked between the door and the hall and then through the path again. Ben followed his friend’s gaze.
“Stay out here, Ivan. Four of us looking covers the four walls. We don’t need more people. Plus we may need to cycle people out.”
Ivan nodded at this logic though his expression reflected regret. “I’ll be waiting on the other side of the wall, you get?”
His words spoke of some secret language the two men shared. Ben nodded. “It’s just an alarm.”
“It’s just an alarm.”
Ben laid his hand on the doorknob and looked at the three women standing beside him. “Ready?”
“Ready.” Prairie responded. Kim nodded and flicked her hand towards the floor. Fire dripped from each of her fingertips and when it hit the cobbled floor five fire dogs sprang up. One of them was the chihuahua from the Roanne mission. It’s excited bark up at Kim, which sounded to Patti like the crackle of a banked fire, brought a smile to Patti’s mouth.
Siobhan straightened the strap of her bag and lifted her chin to Ben. Then she held up a finger and then dug into her bag. She pulled out a handful of some kind of plant thing. Look, Patti was no horticulturist or whatever the name was for Plant Person. Looked like a handful of plants to her.
“Hemp,” Siobhan explained as she fluffed out the plant stuff and handed a hunk to each of the people going into the room. “Shove it in your ears. It’s used as insulation. It might help.”
Ben and Prairie took the fibers from Siobhan. Kim shook out the flames on her fingers and took some too. Siobhan showed them how to slot the stuff in their ears. They all did it then turned back to the door.
Satisfied that those going with him were ready, Ben pushed the door open just enough to let the four through while keeping the bulk of the noise back behind the diagonal slant of the door. Even so Patti reared her head against the wall at her back and grit her teeth at the release of sound that had a physical impact like taking a chop of a ruler to the underside of her nose. Motherplucker, she should have asked Siobhan for some of that hemp!
Sass let out a thin wail from her house. Patti reached down, plucked the mouse from its house, and clutched it to her chest so it was muffled by her boobs. It shook hard enough Patti felt the vibration in her bones.
She looked down the hall to assess the effect of the sound on the others as the door slammed shut. Dempsey held his shield in front of Gwen so only her feet showed beneath the huge thing and he turned his head so his ear was pressed to the shield. Abe had unfurled a wave of ink and formed a shield in front of them while Dan stood, legs braced like the oak he was, holding himself steady with his gaze pinned on the door. Ivan stood behind the two with his hands pressed to his ears. Seeing Patti look at him he lowered his hands and shook them out at his side.
“It’s worse in there?” he yelled way too loud, his voice echoing off the stone walls, floors, and ceiling.
“Yes,” she hollered back.
Dempsey lowered his shield. “That was bad.”
“It was,” Patti agreed.
Long meros passed. The door did not open. Those left in the hall shifted on their feet, keeping the door locked in their sights except for the times when they shifted their attention to look at each other.
“Do you think they’re okay?” Abe asked quietly.
Patti only answered by shaking her head while keeping her gaze riveted on the door.
Abe turned their attention elsewhere. “What do you think, Gwen?”
There was a several mikro pause after the question. Patti slanted her gaze towards Gwen. She was holding her hand to her chest and had her other palm pressed to her forehead.
“Just pain. So much,” she paused, heaved a sigh, “Pain. Confusion. Uhm,” she focused her attention on the ground then looked up with blank expression and blanched skin. “I think we have to go in.”
Dan unsnapped a vest pocket and pulled out a book. He held up a finger then scanned down a page, flipped it, then scanned down another and yet another. One more flip then he nodded and looked up.
“I’m going to try something.”
“What?” Ivan asked.
“I’m going to try to make it silent around us.”
“Will that work?”
Dan shifted his toothpick left to right. “Unknown.”
“Of course.”
“I’m okay with trying.” Dempsey shifted his shield and moved to stand in front of Dan.
“What might happen if it fails?” Patti asked.
Dan shifted the toothpick again. Seemed to think a mikro, then said, “Deafness. I don’t believe it would be permanent.”
“You don’t believe?” Patti pressed.
“Yes.”
Patti drew a steady breath through her nose. Contemplated the door. Weighed the threat from the sound in the room against losing her hearing. Even temporarily that was not something a Music Magicker really was gonna say yes to. Better the screech than no sound at all.
“I’ll pass.”
Surprisingly to Patti, Gwen said, “I’m going to pass too.”
Abe and Ivan said they’d do it.
“Anyone who needs to be affected come close. I’ll say it low so hopefully it doesn’t carry.”
“Hopefully?” Patti repeated.
“Hopefully.”
“Yeah, I’m going to just,” she paused and strode down to the next chandelier down the hall, “stand right here!” She raised her voice to be heard. Gwen looked back at where Dempsey, Ivan, and Abe stood with Dan and then hurried over to stand with Patti.
“Cover our ears?”
Patti heard the first words out of Dan’s mouth, “Silence is all we dread. There’s Ransom in a Voice,” before she covered her ears, nodding to Gwen as she did so.
She lowered her hands when Ivan came striding up to her.
“Can you hear me?” he asked in a loud voice.
“I can! Can you hear me?”
Ivan held his hand up flat to the floor then shifted it back and forth. “A little!” he yelled.
“Good!” Patti screamed at him.
Gwen cringed next to her at the loud noise. She gritted her teeth. “This is going to be unfun.”
“Starts with F, followed by U, does not end in N,” Patti repeated what Siobhan had said when they were saving Roanne. Gwen chuckled then drew in a breath big enough it raised her chest.
Patti looked at the others. “Not going to go away if we stand here.”
“Agreed!” Dempsey yelled at her.
“Okay!” she yelled back and then walked to the door, took a fortifying breath, and pulled the door open.
An almost physical wall of noise hit her. In the face. In the chest. Definitely in the hand she clutched Sass in. Damn, she felt it through her bones like the low, deep thrum of pain that would seize the bones of the hand she got frostbitten on when she was young when she went out when it was particularly cold.
It was one-hundred percent not fun.
She gritted her teeth, clutched Sass closer to her chest, and stepped into the barrier of sound. Almost immediately nausea struck her. A wave of vertigo flowed in from the room, sweeping through the front of her face and exiting out the back of her head and leaving swooping and pulsating waves pressing at her skull.
Patti’s eyes blurred and she stumbled. She had to get away from the door so the others could get in. Instinctively she raised her punch shield in front of her. It did no good. None. Still she pushed forwardish on wobbly legs to clear the door.
A thunk hit her as someone stumbled and fell into her back. She fought to keep her own feet, double-timing her steps on a leftward trajectory. Her feet tripped over each other, threatening to send her to the floor. Dempsey swooped in and grabbed her arm, righting her.
She turned to mouth thank you or something like that because right then she wasn’t sure she could make her brain make words. Ivan rushed past them on the right, stumbling and tilting as he rushed to a dark form in a familiar jacket slumped against the far wall. Stooping down he looped his hands under Ben’s armpits and lifted his friend’s lax body enough to start yanking him across the floor towards the door.
Planting a soft kiss on Sass’ head, Patti stashed the mouse back in her house on Patti’s belt. Sass let out a pathetic peep that drew hot tears to Patti’s eyes. But she couldn’t do a thing to alleviate her little friend’s pain. She couldn’t alleviate her own!
Patti turned to watch Ivan’s path and bit back a silent curse when she saw the door was closed. She didn’t need to wait to see Ivan drop Ben to try to yank the door open with both hands on the doorknob applying his considerable strength to the task to know it was sealed tight.
Crap. She leaned her arm against the wall and hung her head, drawing breaths in through her nose and forcing them out her mouth. She even made those ‘hee hee hee’ noises they told pregnant women to make. It did little to combat the waves of sick. And still the screech persisted.
Again wishing she’d thought to ask Siobhan for some of that hemp to shove in her ears, she tilted her head enough to cast her gaze around the space. It looked like a music room. Instruments stood in stands along the wall opposite the door and extended partially along the adjoining walls.
The space was so large that while the stands probably extended ten feet down the wall Patti leaned against there was still at least twenty feet between her and the closest rack of fiddles. Violins, she corrected. In a room like this those were violins not the more colloquial fiddles.
Her vision went cloudy as she focused on the instruments, the shape of them and the stands swimming in front of her like a heat mirage. A little farther down the stand a figure slumped. Patti squinted through the fuzz in her vision to see Prairie’s slight form lying on the floor with one of her arms stuck in a stand so its limp length draped, elbow down with the hand about two feet off the ground.
That had to hurt. Hurt worse that the screech. Probably. For all she knew Prairie was completely numbed to the pain at that point.
Patti pushed off the wall and forced her stumbling feet towards Prairie. She fell to her knees next to the smaller woman and carefully lifted Prairie’s hand from the trap of the stand. Once Prairie was clear of the impediment Patti reached for her shoulder and shook her. Prairie raised dazed eyes to Patti, her features squinching as she tried to focus on Patti’s face.
“Patti?” she mouthed.
“Yeah!” Patti screamed. Prairie flinched and scrunched up her face to focus on Patti.
Prairie mouthed a bunch of things that Patti just couldn’t make out. Patti pressed her free hand to her ear and then shook her head and yelled, “I can’t hear you!”
Leaning up on an elbow Prairie mimed some more and Patti hollered again, “Can’t! Hear!”
She stooped, dropped her shield to lie on the floor, and got her hands planted under Prairie’s armpits. Flexing her rock-climbing-blessed thighs she easily lifted Prairie to her feet.
Prairie patted Patti’s arm then locked her knees so she could stand on wobbling legs. Satisfied Prairie wasn’t going to fall again, at least for the mero, Patti stepped back and tried to focus her gaze enough to assess the others’ condition.
Slightly to the right of where Ivan scooped up Ben, Siobhan sat on the floor with her legs splayed in front of her and a hand over one of her ears. Her face was twisted on a rictus of pain but she still scrabbled at her bag, sinking her hand into it to the wrist as Patti watched.
Kim leaned against the wall across from Patti. A swirl of air and fire rose around her passed her head, making it hard to see her features. From what Patti could see she had an expression of utter calm on her face but she wasn’t moving. Maybe she couldn’t?
Dan had Abe’s arm in his hand, supporting the smaller person’s limp frame which trailed behind him as he slowly walked across the width of the room, moving like someone fighting a tide.
Dempsey had fallen to one knee and planted his shield, the shoulder of his shield arm tense as he held himself upright. Despite his fallen status he scanned the space with slow sweeps of his head. Searching. Looking for the source of the sound probably.
Well, so much for the silencing spell Dan had done. It seemed to be having some success as Dan, Ivan, and Dempsey were still sort of functional but it looked like it hadn’t fully latched on to Abe.
Gwen had made it halfway across the room before falling in the dead center of the floor. With one arm draped over her head so her right ear was muffled by her bicep and her left covered by her hand, she dragged herself forward with her other arm towards Siobhan. Her teeth were gritted and there was an intensity in her eyes that staggered Patti even more.
Damn that girl was tough.
Dan kept coming, adjusting to head towards Patti. When he got close enough he turned to shift Abe up on his hip. Bending his leg he made a shelf that Abe could grasp onto. With his two hands free he gestured to Patti. When she looked at him he mimed something with his hands out at his sides. Then he pushed them up over his head with his palms flat. When Patti just squinted at him he drew his hands from above his head to his side, keeping his palms sort of flat like they were pressing against something round.
Like a bubble. Son of a biscuit eater!
Enter The Woods 