11:10
Patti let out another piercing whistle. She wove Magick into it. Asked the sleepwalkers to come to her. But, even as she did so she felt resistance. Another Magick. And interwoven deep below the resistance was that damned tiny little subtle song she’d been hearing since entering the ballroom.
Even as she stepped into place with the others, a spare arm length separating her from Abe on the left and Ivan on the right with Dan and Prairie in the middle of the triangle they formed, she pushed a portion of her mind to latch onto the tune.
It eluded her. It Fishing eluded her.
And then she had no more time to focus even a portion of her mind on the puzzle of it because she was bracing to hold off the sleepwalkers who approached from all directions, quickly impacting Ivan and Patti’s shield and hitting the ribbon of ink Abe poured out. They collided hard with the shields and were absorbed and then repelled by the ink.
It was fine when one wave hit. But then another one did. What was probably five or six people became ten or twelve and then the next wave came. And Patti’s feet started sliding backwards on the marble floor.
Next to her Ivan flexed his knee forward and leaned into his shield. He braced the shielded arm with the hand of his free arm. His jaw went sharp as he gritted his teeth and pushed the mass of bodies back a little bit. Abe flexed their shoulder and put a snap in their ink, flicking the sleepwalkers back ,but it was only a momentary respite as they just kept coming.
Patti started to maybe regret just a little the amount of Magick she put into her whistles. Maybe. A little. Lot.
That regret mounted, crowding out any other thoughts as her feet slid again. She felt hands push against her shoulder blades, shoring her up. A quick look over her shoulder showed it was Dan with his hands on her back while Prairie had a hand placed in the small of Abe’s back and one resting in the center of Ivan’s.
“Ivan?”
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
Patti then turned to Abe. “Abe?”
“I’m okay. Maybe a little tired.”
“Here.” There was a subtle sound of pages flipping and then Dan muttered, “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Mahatma Gandhi.”
A mikro later Abe laughed. “Wow. Thanks!”
“Welcome.”
“You got any more of that for me?” Patti shot back over her shoulder.
In answer Dan repeated the words. A wave of energy flowed from the hand pressed to her back and she found she was able to draw a truly deep breath. “I’ll repeat. Wow! Thanks!”
Dan didn’t respond as he was saying the words again and Patti guessed giving Ivan some juice. With the renewed energy from Dan’s spell or words or whatever he called his Magick, Patti was able to push back against the press of sleepwalkers and take a few steps forward, so she was no longer at risk of crushing Prairie and Dan. Which was great for the three mikros it lasted and then the pressure increased as the sleepwalkers shoved into Patti’s shield.
Stepping forward she heaved with her shield, but the mass did not budge. A quick scan over the sleepwalkers explained that. They had to be four deep, expanding out in concentric circles though expanding wasn’t the best word for it as they were, in fact, contracting as they bunched closer together and shoved harder against the shields and Abe’s ink.
“Siobhan?” Patti yelled.
“Yes?” Came back instantly.
“Any progress?”
“Maybe?”
“Cool. Cool. Faster is better.” Patti shoved back on her shield again. Her arms were really starting to burn despite the extra oomph Dan had imparted. “No pressure. Just—Yeah.”
Two things happened at basically the same time. Her brain or Magick caught on that damned tiny tune that she couldn’t say was weaving through the ballroom and was definitely not weaving through the air. Driven by instinct, she hummed it beneath her breath, trying to parse the melody. What was it?
The second thing was sleepwalkers on the verge of the big group smashing into Patti’s team started drifting away from the mass and as Patti watched they began heading towards the wall where Dempsey, Siobhan, and team were searching.
She clamped her cudgel between arm and ribs and lifted her fingers to her lips to let out another Magick-laden whistle. The sleepwalkers closest to their small circle all turned their heads to look-slash-not-look, as their eyes were closed, at Patti for all the world giving the impression of deep-sea creatures born without eyes that still managed to navigate their world. But the ones peeling off from the group kept on their slow shuffle towards the other team.
Yeah, no. Patti blew another whistle. Poured more Magick into the effort. And maybe the shuffling feet stumbled a bit and a few of the stragglers turned back toward Patti’s group but at least five sleepwalkers kept on walking toward the searching group.
Five sleepwalkers. Kim with her Air and Siobhan and Gwen with a shield. Seemed like a formula for a bad time.
Behind Patti Prairie started humming. Humming the elusive melody teasing Patti’s brain since they entered the ballroom. Patti turned her head to snap Prairie a look.
“That song. What is it?”
“Deadman’s Party. Oingo Boingo. It’s been stuck in my brain since we came in here.”
Prairie stopped her humming to respond. And as she did so, Patti felt her Magick swell behind her solar plexus and then it started pulsing that tune. Well, crap. That was it. The tempo was completely wrong, slow as if played by a symphony not a rock band with synths, but now that her Magick had latched on, she was absolutely certain Prairie was right.
“Why?”
Patti shrugged. “Stuck in my head too. No one else is hearing it.”
“Oh. Weird.”
“Weird. Or Magick.”
“Could be both.”
“Could be.” Patti watched the few sleepwalkers eluding her whistle. “I have an idea.”
“Okay?”
Patti cast back with her open hand, groping the air. “Hold my hand.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Now. Do you know the words of that song?”
“I do.”
“Then sing along.”
With that Patti stopped the talking and started to sing. When Prairie’s voice rose behind her she wrapped her Magick around it, weaving it into the tune she poured into the air. A mikro later Sass joined in, warbling the melody but not the lyrics.
The Magick swelled more against Patti’s solar plexus. Keeping her arm locked to hold her shield in place against the pushing masses, she closed her eyes and breathed into the Magick and the lyrics.
“Patti?”
Patti didn’t slow or stop even though there was an urgency in Ivan’s voice she wasn’t used to.
“Patti!” Dan’s snap almost startled her into a hiccup in the rhythm but the Magick was just too strong and the feeling was just too right. From underneath her own voice she heard, more like felt, the rumble of Dan’s voice and then she felt a hard tugging on her lower legs.
She opened her eyes a crack and looked down only to have her eyes go super wide as she saw her feet a solid foot above the ground, held down by Dan’s firm grip around her ankles.
“Uh–”
Before she could say more the Song swelled within her, demanding her focus and she found herself melting into it. Which was probably not the best. Melting into Magick didn’t seem—good.
She clamped down on the Song with her Magick, clenching her asscheeks which probably did nothing but felt like it should help. She also tensed all her abdominal muscles. Her hand tightened on Prairie’s until the other woman cried out. But then Prairie’s fingers closed harder on Patti’s.
“Prairie?” Dan’s voice was filled with uncharacteristic stress. “Prairie!”
Patti twisted her head to look at Prairie. The other woman pressed her free hand to her throat. Her mouth moved like she was trying to say something but all that came out was more hum. A hum Patti felt deep in the core of the Magick thrumming in her chest.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit!
Prairie moved her hand from her throat and tapped Patti’s chest, right above where her Magick roiled. Her fingers dug in and then Patti felt something release inside of herself. A snap, an expansion like her ribs opened – which was just gross – and then the Song was flowing up from her chest, through her throat, and out her mouth. It ran like honey. Like it had weight and thickness.
The impact of it became clear almost instantly. Her body drifted down, her toes then her heels coming to rest on the marble floor. It was like the Magick had needed a release.
She watched as golden motes poured across the space in front of her. She crossed her eyes so she could sorta see the stuff pouring out of her mouth. It was kinda fascinating. She was fascinated. She followed the flow of motes from her mouth, over the sleepwalkers in the first line against their shield wall, then further over the sleepwalkers crowding behind this line.
The motes kept going, flowing across the ballroom. Patti could tell when they got the outlying sleepwalkers who’d broken off towards Siobhan’s group because they came to almost immediate halts then pivoted in a fluid way that just felt like a body shouldn’t be able to do that – though if they were floppy with sleep maybe? – and started shuffling back towards Patti.
Yes! Score! The feeling of buoyant jubilation was so extreme Patti found herself looking down to make sure her feet were still on the ground. They were. Dan continued to hold a loose grip around her ankles but when she looked at him he dropped back to his heels and released the hold.
“You good?”
She had to read his lips because the song pouring from her was all she could hear. She nodded.
“Patti?” Ivan’s tone snapped, rising slightly at the end.
Patti turned to look at where Ivan stared at the press of sleepwalkers. Where before they’d been pushing in on their shields, now they were jerking and grunting. Their eyes were still closed but it was like they were in the throes of a nightmare.
“Stop singing, Patti.”
Patti tried. She did. But the Song was too insistent. It wanted out and through and to grow. The flow of motes from her mouth thickened until it was like she was caught in a pollen storm. She fought to clamp her mouth shut. Her jaw fought her.
She was hostage to her Magick.
“Patti!” Ivan slapped his hand over her mouth. The Song wasn’t having that. It thrust against his palm, throwing his hand free with enough force that he winced.
Patti turned to Prairie, eyes wide with her panic. Prairie hummed louder. Patti shook her head ‘no!’. She tried to loosen her grip on Prairie’s hand, but it was like a circuit of current bound them tight. Jerking her head to the side she met Ivan’s wide-eyed stare.
“Patti! Stop!”
Patti shook her head hard. She opened her eyes as wide as possible and just stared her fear into Ivan. She couldn’t let go of Prairie’s hand. She couldn’t release her shield or they’d be overwhelmed. And she couldn’t stop singing to ask him – beg him – to hit her. Knock her out. All she could do was beg him with her eyes.
Before he could act a sound came from the side of the room the searchers were on. A sound that swept away the Song pouring from Patti. Dempsey’s shield came flying across the space, held aloft by women who were alternately visible and not. With transparent hair trailing behind them. Kim running in the tail of the wind made it pretty clear these were air elementals.
What had made them pick up the shield was unknown. But what was clear was the absolute devastation the shield and the elementals were causing as they smashed into sleepwalkers, sending them cascading to either side like bowling pins.
The Song pouring from Patti stuttered and then stopped. Perhaps it wasn’t needed any more. Perhaps it was just as dumbfounded as Patti was by the amazing chaos caused by shield and elementals.
Once the Song stopped Patti felt her grasp on Prairie’s hand release. The energy flow reversed. For a moment Patti felt a sucking sensation in her soul then a pop that was felt rather than heard came and she found herself staggering two steps to the side. Which proved fortuitous as it was at that moment the air-propelled shield cleared the last ring of the sleepwalkers and went smashing into the small group clustered against Patti’s group’s shield wall.
Ivan dove to the side. Abe fell back on their ass and then rolled in a flurry of cassock. Prairie grabbed the back of Patti’s jacket, yanking her out of the trajectory of the shield. Dan stood, rock solid with braced legs, and braved the gust of wind as the shield flew past him. His short hair ruffled. The skin of his face did that weird thing where it rippled from the force of the breeze. But he kept his feet.
Kim came skidding to a stop in front of where Ivan lay on the floor.
“Get up! Dempsey found a door and Siobhan cleared it.”
Steadying her feet, Patti looked quickly at the scattered sleepwalkers. They didn’t show any signs of movement and definitely didn’t look like they were going to get to their feet and start their ambling again. In fact they looked like they had fallen back into deep sleep. Some curled on the floor. Others lay on their backs with slack mouths.
“Ladies!” Kim yelled towards where the shield was now banging into the rose covered wall to the right. “Let’s go!”
She made a gesture and the shield stopped banging the wall. A moment later it turned on the air and started back towards Patti’s group at a more leisurely speed than it had approached. Still it would make a big whomp if it hit, so Patti fell to the side to give the shield space to fly back across the floor in the direction of the other wall.
Kim watched it fly past then turned to look at Patti’s team. “Now?”
Ivan rose from the floor with a very small groan. Dan reached down and hauled Abe to their feet. Then they all trooped across the dance floor to the left wall where Siobhan and Dempsey stood near an opening in the vines and roses.
Kim walked over with her hand on Dempsey’s shield. She clearly had to wrestle it from the hands of the elementals. She even whispered, “I’ll get you something else.” Then she shoved it at Dempsey who accepted it with no comment.
“Hey,” Gwen muttered as Kim walked over to stand next to her.
“Hey.” Patti nodded her head.
“That was like some kind of song. I couldn’t help singing along.”
“You couldn’t?”
Ivan cast a quick glance at the dance floor. “We should move.”
Gwen leaned around Kim to shake her her head at Patti and mouth, “Nope.”
Patti put that in her think bank and set her focus on the next step forward.
The vines and roses were pulled aside like a floor-length curtain, doing that drapey thing at the top of a door revealed in the center of the foliage. It was dark wood, banded with blackened metal, and with a black iron latch. Siobhan leaned in, grasped the latch, and pushed the door. It glided open without resistance, revealing the bottom of a set of stone stairs which were illuminated by a burning torch in a wall bracket.
“This where we need to go?” Abe asked from the back of the group.
Ivan nodded. “Guess so. Unless we want to keep looking?”
Dempsey scratched behind his ear. “This is the only thing I could find. I tried.”
Ivan scrubbed his hand over his head. “Feels like we always take the route that’s handed to us. Maybe we should question more?”
Siobhan gave him an assessing look. “I don’t disagree. We too often do whatever is spoon-fed to us. It makes more sense to question it. Just because ARFA has seemed to help us before we should still exercise caution and engage logic.”
Ivan gave her a smile. “Thanks.”
“But,” Siobhan shrugged, “in this case this seems to be our only option.”
“True.” Ivan lowered his hand then walked towards the door which remained opened and the vines pulled back.
Everyone trooped over. Ivan stood at the entrance and looked over the group. “Same formation. Patti and I at front with our shields as they are more maneuverable than Dempsey’s. Dempsey, you got the back?”
“Yep.”
“Dan and,” he cast a look over the group, “Kim next ready for range if needed. Then Abe and Gwen. Prairie and Siobhan. Dempsey at the rear. Splitting up the healing just in case.”
“You think we’ll need healing on the stairs?” Dempsey asked.
Ivan shrugged. “Better prepared and not need it than not prepared and need it.”
“Valid.” Dempsey hefted his shield. “Moving.”
Everyone stepped in the order Ivan dictated, with Ivan, Patti, Abe, and Gwen taking several of the stairs before everyone could fit through the door. Dempsey was the last to clear the doorway with Siobhan in front of him as he needed the space to get through with his shield.
As he cleared the threshold there was a swishing sound. Dempsey and Siobhan pivoted fast but not fast enough for Siobhan to stop the vines from closing over the opening. She frowned and smoothed her hand over the air directly in front of the curtain of vines.
They didn’t so much as twitch. She did the same thing. This time there was a twitch, but instead of sliding back to reveal the ballroom once more the wall of green shimmered for a moment then transformed into a wall of grey stone.
Siobhan’s head reared back then she turned with wide eyes. “I guess there’s no going back that way.”
Dempsey grunted. “Looks like.”
“Well, then I guess we move forward.”
Enter The Woods 