10:9
Abe blinked as they stepped out of the screechy room door into not-the-hall. Because it was not the hall. No cobbled stone floors. No rock block walls. No chandeliers with light pooling beneath them.
In fact very little light at all. Which made it hard to get a good visual read on the space. Abe looked down at the floor. It was actually too dark to really tell what kind of floor it was but it had a pliant feel beneath their feet that felt like wood of some kind. Not, they leaned into the ball of their foot, creaky creepy haunted house wood which was good.
All things being equal they preferred to not be in a creepy haunted house. Not that such a place didn’t have the potential to be awesome, exciting, and new but they kinda felt like a haunted house inside The House would not be a place they wanted to explore.
There was nothing specifically odd to the space, beyond the dim lighting. In fact, if someone reached into Abe’s head, withdrew their Safe Space, and made it manifest it could be this space. And yet it failed to invoke peace. Maybe because it felt too much like someone, The House, reached into their mind and pulled it out?
They slanted a glance to their left and saw Dan. To the right and slightly ahead Siobhan, Prairie, and Gwen stood next to each other. Gwen and Siobhan craned their necks to look left and right while Prairie folded her hands in front of her and directed a vague look down the length of the room.
A door slammed against its frame, drawing Abe’s gaze behind themselves. Yes. The door was very much closed with Patti standing against it, discernable despite the dim lighting of the space. Dempsey was a hulking form to her right, large figure half obscured by the shadows in the room.
The doorknob made click click noises then Patti said, “Door’s locked or blocked or sealed for all I know. But I do know there’s no going back.”
“Is there ever?” Dempsey asked from the side of his mouth.
“I can live in hope.”
Abe turned back to survey the room. Dim lighting was supplied by overhead lights, pinpointing spots on the floor not quite equidistant down the wall starting twenty or so feet to Abe’s left. A quick look to the right showed more of the same running the length of the right wall as well.
The lights made circles of brightness against the floor, the column of light like a cone projecting from ceiling fixtures. Abe tracked their gaze up from the light pooled closest to them on the right, about fifteen feet from their location.
The light fell soft on a large canvas. The angle was off to tell the subject of the art. Just back from the pool of light on the floor was a small bench that would probably hold a single person. This setup continued down the length of the walls on either side with pools of light in front of canvases and small benches to sit on while contemplating what was on the canvases.
“It’s an art gallery.”
“Looks that way,” Dan said, looking to the left while Abe looked to the right.
“Pretty big one,” Ben said from further up the floor. Hands in pockets he stalked down the center area, casually peering into the shadows and marking the pools of light.
“More like a museum,” Abe agreed. They eyed the almost black center of the space, straining to make out any detail. It was dark enough they had to strain to make out Ben. “I’ve never seen a museum that is so dark though.”
There is a hush cemeteries and art museums share. A sense of beauty awaiting a receptive viewer and the space to reflect on it. Or maybe the contemplation of the human condition represented in effigies and canvases with their encapsulation of sorrow, longing, and the echoes of love and joy in stone and paint. It didn’t matter if it was a small cemetery or large, a small art museum or large, they all held the calm of a held breath just as this space did.
Abe loved museums. The Safe Space Abe built in their mind when Magick-induced panic encroached was the high-vaulted ceiling room in which a Man-Ray sculpture sat protected in a glass structure they’d seen on an art tour when they were younger. The mental construct of white walls – light to the dark that threatened their sanity, high ceilings consuming sound, and the wooden floors with a subtle spongy give under soft footfalls never failed to soothe Abe. Unfortunately, the same air of serene hug and blanketing calm was missing from the room they entered.
Kim wandered off to the left, heading for the closest piece of art. She stopped behind the bench and leaned forward to peer at it. “Huh.”
“Huh?” Ivan asked, stepping up to peer over her shoulder.
Kim shrugged. “Pretty boring composition. Room with chair.” She waved a hand at the canvas.
“I don’t know a lot about art but, yeah, not something I’d hang in my home. Different tastes I guess.”
From where she’d moved to look at the first canvas on the right Gwen called, “This one at least has the usual stuff I’d expect. Kids. Garden. Trees. Flowers. I could see this in a motel room.”
“Ringing endorsement,” Siobhan rubbed her finger down the edge of her jaw as she looked at the same canvas. Then she turned and looked at the others. “Hey, Ben,” she called up to where he was standing shrouded in darkness in the center of the wide space between the next two pools of light, bench, and canvas setups. “Come back here so we can talk?”
“Sure.” Ben strolled back within easy speaking range, rocked back on his heels, and pushed back his jacket to hook the fingers of one hand into the front pocket of his pants. Very much the indolent image of a sophisticated young man at rest. Abe’s fingers itched to sketch him.
They shook their head and focused on Siobhan. Which proved timely as they watched someone or thing step out of the dark spot between canvases and strike like a snake, snapping an arm around Prairie’s neck.
Prairie moved with considerable speed, throwing up an arm to block the move. The arm that had been going to loop around her neck stilled a foot from its intended target.
It was hard to tell details in the shadowed room. Abe could make out a dark sleeve falling back from a pale arm. Most likely feminine. Definitely holding a fan in the hand at the end of it. A fan whose sticks ended on gleaming sharp blades that caught the diffused light from the light pointing down at the closest canvas.
Prairie’s arm shook from the pressure she was applying to keep the arm from reaching her. From below her bent elbow a mist seeped from her sweatered side. It pooled downwards and then rose, transforming from mist to solid in a mikro to reveal Kirby. As soon as he was solid the three-headed dog barked like mad from all three heads and lunged for the dark figure behind Prairie.
From the left Ivan swept in. As he moved he unfurled the compact shield from his bracer. With no hesitation he brought it down in an arc, contacting the hand holding the fan. There was a crunch as the metal of the shield contacted the arm and then the arm was pulled back.
A susurration marked the movement of Prairie’s attacker as they retreated into the shadows. It didn’t sound like cloth or footfalls. More like “shoosh shoosh shoosh”. Maybe like a snake’s scales brushing a surface.
Kirby gave chase, his, no, their barks echoing from the walls of the gallery.
While Prairie, Ivan, and Kirby made quick response to the attack the others in the group weren’t slacking. Kim instantly snapped fire into her fingertips then started stalking a short arc covering the front of the group on the left. Siobhan snatched a potion and instantly turned her attention to the right flank. Meanwhile Gwen whipped out her plunger and held it at the ready by her shoulder, covering Siobhan’s left side and facing out toward the right front of their group with an intent look.
Dan pulled out a book from his vest, thumbed to a page, and held it open there with his forefinger. He reached for the hand crossbow strapped to his right thigh, popping the strap holding it in place and resting his hand on the grip. Abe darted a glance back behind them, noting Patti wielding her punch shield towards the left and Dempsey holding his larger shield firm as he faced to the right. In this way the group formed a loose oval with Dan and Abe in the center towards the back of it. Ben was–
Where was Ben?
Abe darted their gaze around the space, starting at Patti and going around the oval, probing the dim space beyond the oval for a glimpse of Ben. They saw nothing. Probably Ben was doing Ben stuff but it would have settled Abe’s heart to see the entire group.
“What was that?” Patti snapped.
“Where did that come from?” came from Ivan as he scanned the dark in front of the group.
“I don’t know,” Abe strained to hear Prairie’s quiet reply. “It wasn’t there and then it was.”
“You blocked it fast,” Ivan replied.
“Gotta be fast in a trauma center,” was her reply.
“Seriously,” Gwen quipped, “I do not want to go to a trauma center where someone might try to slit my throat with a bladey-fan-thing.”
“It doesn’t happen often,” Prairie said.
“But,” Gwen replied, “it does happen.”
“Only once.”
“Shh,” Dempsey hissed. “I think I–” he broke off as he threw his shield up to block an arrow that came hissing out of the dark somewhere to the right and in front of them. Abe snapped their head to the side to stare at the arrow buried in the shield. Dempsey jerked the shield down and it took on a glow. And the arrow melted.
“Whoa. Your shield can melt arrows?”
“No.” Dempsey’s voice was slow. It didn’t have a hint of doubt but his response was slow and a bit drawn out which Abe read to be doubt.
“Okay. Weird.”
“Yes.” Dempsey raised his voice, “Be prepared to defend.”
“As if we aren’t!” Gwen called back.
“Just–” Dempsey rolled his eyes. Abe could see it from their side eye. “Yeah.”
There was a swish, whack, swish from the front beyond Ivan and Prairie. Abe turned that way and probed the dark with their gaze. They squinched their face up and really strained and saw absolutely nothing. Ivan’s head turned quickly to something on the left then he canted his head like he also wasn’t sure what he’d seen.
The sound of actual real totally authentic hooves sounded on the floor. Abe’s first thought was that the thunking definitely confirmed the floor was wood. Their second thought was that was going to leave a mark. It was a real testament to the crazy they faced on the regular that their very first thought wasn’t “what’s a horse doing in a building?”
A horse, color indeterminate in the dim light, stopped within breathing distance of Ivan and Prairie.
“Prairie, duck!”
Prairie did exactly that and Ivan threw up his shield, blocking a bayonette thrust. There was enough force beyond the strike, probably from the height at which it came from and the fact that bayonettes were reach weapons so probably had a lot of thrust, that it drove Ivan to a knee. Still he held his arm up, his shield steady, and turned his shoulder so Prairie was safeguarded behind his bulk.
Kim came screaming from the left, flinging a gout of fire from her hand. It splashed against the side of the horse and the leg of the rider in the stirrup there. Splashed being the best word Abe could come up with as it went sploosh as it hit the animal and the leg. Something splashed from the impact point. Maybe blood? It was hard to tell from where Abe stood what with it being so darned dark.
They’d said it was dark, right? It was dark. So all Abe could tell was something went splash which didn’t feel like what should happen when a cone of fire hit something. Like shouldn’t there be smoke and stinky hair burning smell and screaming?
If they’d been hit by a gout of fire Abe would have definitely been screaming. But the attacker on the horse with the bayonette let out no sound as it was hit by fire. It did retreat or something because it was there one mikro, gone the next.
Then it was chaos as attacks came in from almost every side except the wall with the door behind Patti and Dempsey. Ivan fell back a step as a bird, maybe a hawk maybe an eagle who knew but it was a bird, swooped in with claws reaching for his face. He deflected the strike with his shield and the bird went careening off to the left where Kim tossed it back with a sweep of air.
The silence of it all made for a very surreal experience. Long moments of no sound then, blam, something flew or stabbed or stepped out of the dark and hit someone. The only noise was the sound Abe’s team made as they defended themselves.
As soon as a threat was repelled the area fell back under the muffling blanket of silence and the group was left standing there staring into the dark, casting quick glances to the side at the people to their left and right before snapping to attention to handle another threat. It was like the moments between attacks were caught in a vacuum or floating in that amniotic substance Abe, Dan, Patti, and Ben had been stuck in when rescuing Roanne.
Kirby came bounding out of the dark chasing a group of four dogs. Kirby’s footfalls made the noise you’d expect on a wooden floor. The other dogs’ feet made no sound at all.
All four dogs were, as best as Abe could tell in the dim light, white with splotches of color. The white was obvious, but the other colors were hard to determine due to the darkness of the gallery. They were kinda small, maybe only about as tall as Abe’s thigh or a little lower and their bodies sloped a bit from shoulder to back haunches, the slope enhanced by the way their legs sat back on an angle that was emphasized by their running pace. They ran together in a tight pack; the way they held their positions suggesting they often ran this way.
The dogs ran through the gaps between Prairie and Gwen and arrowed straight for Abe and Dan. Kirby soared over Gwen’s shoulder because the gap the other dogs went through was too small for the larger dog.
The dogs drove forward faster, running from Kirby and on a direct path to Abe and Dan. Eyes wide Abe willed ink to slide down their arm and pool in their palm but before they could throw it Dan uttered a string of words that were too fast and low for Abe to make out. In front of them a flare of light resolved into a fan of knives.
Abe’s eyes darted to Ivan and Prairie. They were some little way from them but those knives could easily fly that far and hurt them. Or go to the side and stab Gwen or Kim. Or Ben wherever he was.
For a mikro Abe just stared at Dan in shock. Of all they knew of Dan they did not think he’d make a choice that would hurt his friends but there you go, weird knives of light flashing in the dim light of the oval formed of their friends’ backs. Then the daggers veered, clustering together, and darted into the four dogs coming at them while completely avoiding Kirby who landed with several barks in the center of the oval.
Where the light daggers made contact with the dogs they just ceased to be. Just there one mikro, poof and gone the next. Abe darted an incredulous look at Dan. Dan returned the look, eyes wide enough that Abe could see the whites around the pupils even in the dull light of the room.
Kirby bounded and landed where the dogs had been. And their feet flew out from under them. They skidded across the space, heading for Dempsey on an unstoppable course.
“Dempsey!”
Dempsey turned at Abe’s yell, saw Kirby skidding towards him and quickly adjusted to the left so he was up against Siobhan’s side and there was a large gap to his right leading to the wall next to the door. Kirby kept sliding and fetched up against the wall.
Fetched up. Abe snorted at their own humor. Then turned as Kirby pushed off the wall and shook themselves all over. Something wet and dark, if dark was even a good descriptor in the gloom, flew from Kirby’s legs.
Abe frowned. It looked way too thick to be blood. Abe looked up at Dan. “Can you cover me for a mero?”
“Yeah.”
With that assurance Abe dropped to their knees and ran the pointer finger of their right, unmarked hand over the floor where the dogs had disappeared and Kirby had started their mad slide. Their first touch confirmed the floor was wood. The second sunk into a viscous pool. Making a stink face, they raised the fingers to their nose and took a sniff.
Not blood. There was a muskiness to the fluid and a hint of oil. Oil? Also a chemical scent that was vaguely familiar. For a mikro they contemplated tasting it but, ugh, no. Just no. Not that intrigued.
Well… No. Not that intrigued.
They rubbed their fingers together, testing the texture of the liquid. It was unguent. Slippery but also slightly thick and there was a subtle grittiness to it.
They rocked back on their heels and lifted their right hand. They’d get so much more information if their ink could read it. And yet the thought of putting their inked fingers to the gunk made them recoil inside. Or was it the ink recoiling? They closed their eyes and searched inside of themselves where the connection to their ink coiled, drowsy but with a hint of electric potential.
Uh, they thought to themselves in the ink, here goes something.
They brought their ink blackened fingers to the gunk on their other fingertips. Instantly the ink started to pull and then, woosh, with no warning it spewed the substance out. The gob of the stuff formed a rough ball in the air. Before it could splat on the floor the stuff gathered itself and flew off into the darkness, shooting between Gwen and Prairie and disappearing into the shadows beyond them.
The pool of the stuff on the floor gathered in on itself. Abe fell back with a startled cry that almost drowned out the subtle swish slurp the liquid made as it seeped between the cracks in the wood floor and disappeared. It moved more like liquid mercury than blood or water or ink, silky liquid movement that begged Abe’s touch even though they feared like mercury this was not a fluid that should be touched.
A shift of light – dark, whatever – was all the warning they had when an armored knight with a big sword came silently from the right and swung for Siobhan. Dempsey grunted and lunged to block the sword with his shield but he was just a bit too far for effectiveness and all he caught with his shield was the knight’s lunging back leg. Luckily Siobhan had a potion ready and she flung it a mikro before the knight connected.
The potion hit the visor of the knight’s helmet, the vessel breaking and releasing its contents with a splash. The knight stood completely still for a mikro and then, kablam, exploded.
Luckily the explosion went in the direction of the potion throw which was to say away from their oval. Dempsey, still in contact with the knight with his shield was flung back. The shine of his shield highlighted the rag dolling of his arms and legs.
Abe looked at Dan. Dan looked at Abe. Then as one they ran out into the dark. Abe threw the pool of ink in their palm forward to form a rippling shield while Dan thundered to where Dempsey lay at odd angles on the floor. Abe stepped a few steps in front of Dempsey, holding the sheet of shield and scanning the dark with their eyes, trying to pierce it and failing miserably. To be safe they flicked their fingers up, adding more ink to the top of the shield so it almost scraped the ceiling way above their heads.
“Got him,” Dan grunted. Abe looked over their shoulder to see Dan helping a visibly wobbly Dempsey to his feet. He clutched his glowing shield and looked around, his chin bobbling.
“Come on.” Dan dug his shoulder under Dempsey’s free arm and started scuttling backwards towards the main group.
Once they were certain they wouldn’t ram into Dan and Dempsey, Abe started slowly backing up while retaining their shield. Only once they were back in the relative safety of the oval did they release the shield. It flowed through the air, coalescing into a fluid ribbon which rippled and danced as it retracted back into their palm. They closed their hand into a fist and integrated into the defensive oval, taking Dempsey’s place so he could catch a mero in the center.
They cast a quick glance to Patti on their right. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. You?”
“So okay.” Abe beamed and bounced on the balls of their feet. “This is exciting.”
Patti eyeballed them. “You have an interesting definition of exciting.”
“Do I?”
Patti just chuckled and turned to stare into the dark.
“Abe!” Siobhan cried, drawing Abe’s attention in her direction as a group of four dogs came whuffling from the dark intent on ankles or worse.
Prairie leaned around Siobhan, saw the dogs, and called, “Kirby!”
Kirby galloped around the exterior of the oval, intent on the approaching dogs. While Kirby engaged, three heads barking echoing off the barks of the four dogs approaching, Abe peered at the attacking dogs. They looked–
“Are those the same dogs that Dan hit earlier?”
Patti shuffled over to stare at the dogs over Abe’s shoulder. “Dogs look like dogs?”
“Bunny says they don’t smell right. Not dogs,” Prairie offered.
Siobhan jerked a look at Prairie. “What?”
“I can’t get better. It’s Bunny. Let me ask One.”
Abe looked to Siobhan. “Bunny? One?”
Siobhan shrugged and pulled a face. Before she could do more Prairie said, “One says that they do not smell like animals.” She paused then said in a hesitant tone, “They smell like a wall? And,” another pause then, “Magick.”
Abe, Siobhan, and Patti watched as Kirby chased the dogs off then came gamboling back to dance in front of Prairie. Then looked at Siobhan, Abe, and Patti and woofed.
“Kirby caught one and it popped,” Prairie stopped and cocked a head at Kirby. “Popped?” The middle head nodded. “Definitely popped. Like, uh, a goose liver.” She pulled a face. “Gross.”
Kirby poked her with its left head then spun and went on point, paw up as it looked into the dark near the closest pool of light. A mikro later they were bounding off again. “One says the dog popped and it tasted foul and then the taste and the fluid the dog became just disappeared from his mouth.”
“Watch out!” came from Ivan and then there was a burst of fire in the dark as Kim flashed out at a figure running towards she and Ivan from the dark. The fire didn’t quite reach the figure as it was a distance from the oval but it did illuminate the figure so Abe could see if was a woman in a dark dress with lace coming from beneath the full sleeves falling back to reveal a pale arm and a razor-tipped fan flashing towards Ivan. He tossed up his shield but before the hand and fan could come close to him, Kim threw out another burst of fire that hit the dark sleeve of the pale woman.
Rather than setting the sleeve ablaze the fire fizzled as it made contact. Smoke boiled from the point, clear in the afterglow of the fire Kim threw, and an acrid scent drifted on the air.
“The fuck?” Kim exclaimed. “That’s not right.”
It wasn’t. Right, that was. Cloth caught fire. One of those universal truths. But the sleeve didn’t catch fire. It did something because smoke and stink, but it didn’t catch fire. And that was just not right.
Abe ordered the different impressions in their mind even as other attacks came from out of the dark and the others in Abe’s group responded, driving off the attackers. Popped. Tasted foul. Smoke. No fire. Stink.
A figure darted from the dark, headed for Abe. Instinctively they pooled ink in their palm but before they could do more than that the figure jerked to an abrupt stop. They were close enough Abe could vaguely tell it was a young woman, wearing a shepherdess outfit from a nursery rhyme. She had soft light curls; it was hard to tell what shade of light but light.
Something about the play of light from the nearest spotlight highlighted the shepherdess’ skin so her pale throat appeared to glow in its paleness. Then that throat split open, the skin gaping as her head fell back, held to her neck by a thin strip of attached skin.
Where there should have been blood or gore or spinal cord or something there was white. Just white. And then the shepherdess kind of collapsed in on herself, her shoulders dropping into her ribs or somewhere like that and her torso expanding out, almost like melting wax. Her entire body melted into itself like that, cascading towards the floor where the colors of her spread in a pool before seeping into the cracks in the floor.
Caught between horror and intrigue, Abe eyed the floor as the last of the pool flowed into it. Then they lifted their gaze and searched the darkness, trying to find what had slit the shepherdess’ throat. There was nothing there but dark.
Abe jerked a look at Siobhan. The other woman had turned and was staring at the ground with open eyes and a gaping mouth. She turned her gaze up, meeting Abe’s wide stare.
“Did you just see that?”
“Yes. I saw that.”
“What did you see?”
“A shepherdess about to clock me with her crook and then bleh,” they made a slashing gesture across their own throat.
“Yes. That’s what I saw too. And then she–”
“Melted?” A movement from the dark drew Abe’s gaze. They threw up a hand and flung out the pooled ink in their palm. It splatted against something Abe strained to see but all that was there was darkness. Darkness that gave a grunt.
Abe’s mouth formed an ‘O’.
“Did you–?” They turned their head to look at Siobhan.
“Yes. I,” Siobhan paused and then added, “Saw something that wasn’t there.”
“Me too. Interesting.”
“I think Patti had it right with what you find interesting.”
“Told you!” Patti called then grunted. Abe turned in time for Patti to come hurtling at them with fumbling feet and flailing punch shield threatening to knock her in the chin. Abe threw out their right hand to catch of brace Patti and ink unspooled from their hand forming a cushion for Patti to drop against.
Well, that was interesting.
Abe chuckled as the thought flitted through their brain. Maybe they did need a better word to describe interesting things. Like their ink acting on its own to protect Patti. Because that was definitely interesting. Or insert better word.
“Hey?”
Abe’s voice was drowned out by the sounds the others made as they dealt with the incoming attacks from the dark. Siobhan slanted a glance at them and Patti kinda grunted but beyond the two closest to them no one responded to Abe’s ‘hey’. They turned to face the center of the oval while Siobhan shuffled to cover their back and spot.
“Hey!” They yelled.
“Hey!” Kim hollered back as she flicked several fire gouts from her fingers into the dark to the left.
“Yo!” Ivan replied while blocking the chop of something from the dark in front of him.
Woof, Kirby, well woofed. Prairie’s giggle in return was almost smothered by the fighting sounds.
Dan touched a finger to his forehead. Dempsey bunched his legs under himself and rose tall in the center of the oval. Once steady he gave Abe a ‘what’s up?’ stare.
Satisfied enough of them could hear, Abe pitched their voice to carry and asked, “What’s happening when you hit the attackers? Prairie said Kirby said,” they shook their head at that string, “or rather One said that the dog they beat popped and tasted bad. Dempsey caught an arrow on his shield and it melted. Uhm. The dogs, which I’m pretty sure returned, that Dan hit blurped and seeped into the floor.”
“Blurped?” Kim shot back, proving she was listening despite being pointed outwards and shooting fire from finger guns. Which was really nifty.
Nifty. That was better than interesting? Maybe that was better than interesting. Nifty!
And back on track!
“Yes. Blurped. Blooped. Splooted?” They tested it, repeated it because it felt right, “Splooted. Then seeped.”
“The ones I’m hitting are kind of,” Kim stopped like she was testing the word then said, “Blorping.”
“Look at us inventing a new language.” Abe grinned at Patti’s snark.
“Melting or liquefying might be better?”
“Sure,” Gwen said. “But I like splooting. What I’m hitting are definitely splooting. Whoop! One mikro!”
Gwen swept her plunger out, blocking the bitch slap – what it was a word! – of some pale hands flying at her from the dark.
“Sploot!” she hollered as she blocked, then cast a quick look back at Abe. “It would be more sensible to say that the surface of our attackers limbs is spongey and gives with hits. And if you hit them hard enough something fluid flies out. Or,” she shrugged, “they sploot.”
“Also, uh,” Abe added, “I think maybe the lady with the fan came back?”
“Seems like,” Ivan grunted and blocked a sword coming at his head from the dark.
“So,” Abe surmised, “The dogs may have been different dogs but the lady with the fan? That seems pretty specific. Unless our enemies are supplying each other with razor fans.”
“Razor fan armies would be cool.”
Abe spun trying to see where Ben’s voice was coming from. But they couldn’t. Probably Ben was doing Ben stuff out in the dark. Really, he shouldn’t be talking because he was in danger out there alone! When he talked the bad guys could find him!
“Razor fans would be horrifying.” Ivan said, though his voice got that kinda ‘I have an idea,” tone to it.
Abe cast their eyes around the space. It was a gallery. And this was a test. So it was probably a gallery for a reason.
Dempsey shouldered past Abe and stepped into line next to Siobhan. “You keep thinking, Kid. I’ll cover.”
“Not a kid,” Abe said in a distracted tone as they stared at the dim floor.
Dan walked over and looked down at them. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” Abe trailed off as they thought of how to explain what they were thinking. An idea flirted at the very edge of their mind.
They squinted into the darkness. Then shifted to look at the spotlight pools on the floor between benches and canvases. Then looked at the closest canvas which was just a big splotch of some colors from the angle and distance they were at.
“I’m thinking I’d like to see the canvases closer. Or better.”
“Okay.” No hesitation from Dan. He turned and said to Dempsey’s back. “The kid needs to get a closer look at a canvas.”
“Not a kid,” Abe muttered. Geez. You’d think they were one of Siobhan’s students!
“Okay,” Dempsey also didn’t hesitate in his response. He lifted his voice. “We need to pick a side and move closer to one of the canvases.”
“Which one?”
“One is as good as another?” Abe answered Patti’s question.
“Then I vote this way.” Patti pointed with her cudgel and began moving towards the pool of light in the Kim direction of forward and to the left.
“Works,” Dempsey replied and shuffled to the right so he followed Patti with his shield out to the darkness and the threats within. Which was great as almost exactly in that moment there was the clop of a single horse’s hoof and a bayonette jabbed from the darkness and smacked into Dempsey’s shield. From his left side Siobhan flung a potion. Abe squinted and saw it make contact with the flank of a horse.
The horse didn’t make a sound in response which seemed pretty weird to Abe. Instead it reared back as its flesh rippled back from the impact point of the potion before splooting in an undulating wave of something fluid that flew backwards with the force of the exploding potion.
The rider flew backwards as the horse dissolved, melted, something something turned liquid and formed a pool on the floor. No longer having a mount the rider dropped to the floor.
There was no accompanying thud when they made contact. Instead where their butt hit first a giant sploot went off with the following sploosh flying upwards about three feet and obscuring the figure on the floor. When the splash settled the figure was gone and the pool on the floor was bigger. It drew in on itself and again Abe had that sense of mercury. Or maybe thin pudding.
Neither one of those images was particularly appealing but there you had it. It looked like mercury or thin, animate pudding. Blargh.
Jerking their gaze from the pool as it seeped into the floor, Abe shuffled to the right to move with the group as they made their way as quickly as a weird amoeba could move across the floor and towards the closest canvas. The group formed an opening when they got close to the bench in front of the canvas and Patti looked back at Abe.
“This is your show, kid. Do your thing.”
Abe heaved a sigh. “Not a kid. But,” they shrugged and moved into the open space, “Okay.”
Enter The Woods 