Been Feeling Lost
Can't Find the Words to Say
Spending All My Time Stuck in Yesterday
Where You Are is Where I Wanna Be
Next to You, You Next to Me
You're the Voice I Hear Inside my Head
The Reason That I'm Singing
I Need to Find You
Gotta Find You
You're the Missing Piece I Need
The Song Inside of Me
I Need to Find You
Gotta Find You
Gotta Find You~ Joe Jonas
Chapter 11
Comet sped down the streets of Minnesota as quickly as he could. Though he could of course fly, he didn't like the idea of being shot down again and running seemed like a good alternative. Luckily, it was close enough to Christmas and late enough at night that no one questioned a reindeer galloping down the street with the spirit of the season on his back. The girls grip on his neck was strong and the physical feel of her freight was almost overwhelming.
The driving thought in the reindeer's head was Charlie. If Comet could find Charlie and make sure Angelica was safe with him then he could go back and save Fiona. That weird man had had some bad magic and leaving her with him was the last thing Comet had wanted to do. At the time, though, the look in Fiona's eyes hadn't given him a chance to argue.
Sooner than he expected, Comet was back at the Miller's doorstep. There was no time to waste. The doorbell was all together inoperable with hooves so he headed straight to the front door and kicked at it strong enough to be heard but not to break it off the hinges. Comet continued scratching at the wood, hoping that any damage he caused would be forgiven in light of the circumstances.
Finally, the door opened revealing a thoroughly confused and tired looking Charlie. "Comet?" he asked, but before he could continue the reindeer turned around revealing what looked like a large white spot on his back. The spot, that was actually Angelica, looked up when she heard Charlie's voice her face filled with fear. Charlie's own face paled, "What happened, Angie?"
The Christmas spirit sprung from the reindeer's back and into Charlie's arms. She began sobbing, burying her face in his shoulder. "He got her," she choked out. "He got Fiona!"
"Who got her?"
Charlie jumped at the voice that had come from behind him. He held Angelica closer and turned toward the source. At the base of the stairs was Bernard followed by a man in a blue and silver suit who Charlie didn't recognize. Bernard's face was all business, though his eyes, fixed on Angelica, held the slightest hint of fear.
Angelica looked up and started rambling and crying at the same time. "Bernard… I, I couldn't do anything. I don't know what happened and I tried but she's still with him."
"Who has her?" The man Charlie didn't recognize asked. "Who has Fiona?"
"The boogey man!"
Bernard and the man exchanged worried looks that unnerved Charlie more than the chill that had run down his spine when Angelica named her tormentor. A second later Bernard headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" the blue suited man asked.
"I'm taking Comet and I'm finding Fiona"
"Not without me you're not!"
"Look Jack, it'll be easier if I go on my own, you'll just get in the way."
"You don't get to give the orders here Bernard. You already lost her once. I'm not letting you screw something else up." Jack's words were so cold that, though invisible, they hung thickly in the air.
Bernard took a deep breath, repressing the urge to simply deck Jack and be done with him. There wasn't time for fighting, there wasn't time to argue; he had to find Fiona, he had to fix this. "Charlie, call your dad and see if he knows any ways to defeat a bogey." Bernard turned his attention back to Jack. "You can come… if you can keep up."
With that Bernard jumped on Comet's back. The reindeer automatically took off back toward the park where he had left Fiona. Jack grumbled before speeding on self created ice in the wake of the elf and reindeer.
Charlie watched until they had completely disappeared from his line of sight. Still holding Angelica close, he closed the door and grabbed his cell phone hoping that someone knew how to defeat the bogey man. Something told him it wouldn't be as simple as hiding under the covers like he had done as a child.
*~*~*~*~*~*
When Fiona came to again she prayed the last few days had only been a dream. She desperately hoped she would find herself lying in her bed at the North Pole never having stupidly agreed to take on the council's mission. She wanted Angie to be safe and she wanted to be able to turn her concentration back to her plants. Instead, she opened her eyes and repressed an urge to groan. She was, sadly, no where near home.
Fiona wasn't sure where she really was. The room was small and the only piece of furniture in it was the lumpy blue couch she currently resided on. Sitting up slowly, Fiona's head began throbbing as a strange buzzing sensation over took her whole body making it hard to move. "I see you're finally awake, Fiona." Fiona froze, the words chilling her deeper than anything she had ever felt. It was painful to hear him say her name, as if by merely mentioning it he had disgraced any honor it possessed. She looked up defiantly, meeting his steely gaze. In the doorway stood the bogey man, looking just as nonchalant as Fiona had left him. He leaned lazily against the door frame, clothed in black from head to toe, his skin a sickly almost gray color and his blonde hair falling loose and scruffy over garnet eyes. "How are you feeling, dear?"
Her eyebrows furrowed. "Are you serious?"
What Fiona could only describe as a twisted kind of mirth filled the man's face, "Quite serious."
"I'm fine."
"Well that's excellent news." He stood up straight and walked across the room toward Fiona. She resisted the urge to shrink back into the couch and away from him. He paused for a moment as if waiting for her to continue the pointless conversation. When no reply came, he slapped his hand to his forehead. "How rude of me, I know all about you and here you know nothing of me."
Fiona didn't feel any strong desire to get to know him on a more personal level. She just wanted to leave, but another glance at his deadly gray skin and she thought better of fleeing. "No, I don't."
"Well, my dear, my name is Terrance and I am a…" he paused choosing his words carefully. "...A purveyor of fine magic."
"Or a boogie man"
"More colloquially, yes, but you, my little spring sprite, should know things aren't always as they seem and many creatures are simply… misunderstood."
"Some are," she agreed. "Others think they are superior to the rest and choose not to act with any sense of decorum or right and wrong."
"Who's to say one way is right and the other not? You've no doubt heard of survival of the fittest. I am that personified"
Fiona felt the anger growing slowly within her. His ego was far larger than she had realized, though it wasn't out of character for a boogie man. Boogie's were notorious for thinking their power gave them the right to take what they wanted. "What does this matter anyway?" she replied. "Just finish me off and stop toying with me." She shifted her glare to his hands hoping they didn't immediately lunge at her in rage.
Terrance, instead, innocently raised his hand to eye level scrutinizing them carefully as if he had forgotten they had to power to drain magic in second. As instantly as it had left, the evil glint in his eyes returned when he looked back up at Fiona. "Darling, if I had wanted you gone, I would have done it much earlier. No, you are of no use to me with no power."
"Well, unless you need some gardening advice, I don't know how I can help you."
He shook his head, a thin smile crossing his lips, "Silly girl. You don't even know do you?" His condescending tone made her want to punch him in the face regardless of the consequences of skin to skin contact. "Your magic is some of the most unique I have ever encountered."
"What do you mean?" Fiona had never considered herself all that unique, especially when it came to magical abilities. There was nothing incredibly special about growing flowers and trees at will. A large population of fairies could do exactly the same thing. Sure, Fiona had been given the task of bringing about spring, but that had been luck more than outshining her peers. She knew her face had betrayed her thoughts because the corners of Terrance's lips curled into a larger smile.
"Your magic is highly adaptable," he continued to explain as any good villain would. "Because you only have it part of the year, it is far easier for it to bond and intermingle with every other magic you encounter. With just the taste I had of it, I could feel everyone you've come in contact with including the entire Council of Legendary Figures."
"That's all well and good," Fiona said, glad her voice had held study. "But how does that help you."
He chuckled again, a truly skin crawling sound. "You said it yourself dear, I take powers. It's much better when those powers can work well together." Terrence paced back toward the doorway. "On top of that, I'm quite sure someone will be coming for you soon. Maybe that winter nymph…Frost? You've got some of his magic. There also seems to be a lot of magic from an elf…"
Fiona ignored his last few remarks. He was trying to crack her, trying to show he knew more about her than he should, and trying to scare her into thinking he would go after her friends. It was all working spectacularly well but she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing. "So I'm bait?"
His serpentine smile reappeared, "You do like to simplify things, don't you? Why don't you come with me?"
Fiona didn't see any real choice. The only way out of the room was through the door and with Terrence in the way she figured she could make it all of three feet before he grabbed her and knocked her out again. She stood up slowly, ignoring the dizzy feeling associated with her last lose of magic, and followed him out of the room down a long low-lit hallway. The entire building was silent aside from the quiet hum of industrial lighting and the click of Terrence's boots on the wooden floors.
He soon stopped outside of another room. In the entrance were metal bars where a door should have been. Terrance touched the lock and it sprung open. He motioned to Fiona to enter. Head held high, the sprite walked into the room sure that what ever lay waiting in the darkened cell was better than being in the boogie man's presence any longer. Once she was inside, he closed the door with a resounding clang. "I trust you'll be fine in here," he said as he walked away.
Fiona sighed heavier than she had in all of her long life. Saving Angelica had sounded like such a good idea at the time. She sat on the ground, leaning hard again the cold cement wall and pulling her knees up to her chin. Terrance hadn't taken all of her power, but the bit he had left her feeling tired and cold. It wasn't bad enough that she had been nearly frozen only a day earlier, if he continued taking her magic she might not be able to recover. She wished she had Bernard there or at least his jacket. Fiona was sure he was going crazy and had probably completely freaked out the second the radio had gone dead. If Terrance was using her as bait though, she didn't want him trying to find her. Before her thoughts could completely run away from her, a noise caught her attention. Fiona looked up into the darker corner of the room and saw a pair of bright green eyes staring back at her.
"Are you alright, dear?" a raspy voice asked.
Fiona nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine."
The speaker moved closer to Fiona, letting the light from the cells only window fall on her. She was a dark gray wolf, lean and lanky, head tilted at Fiona in confusion. "You look quite pale."
"Maybe because she's got a talking wolf jabberin' at her!" Someone else, with a thick Irish accent, said.
Next to the wolf, a very short man dressed in all green appeared. Fiona knew he was a leprechaun, one that was very far from home.
"No, it's not that," Fiona admitted though she couldn't suppress a shiver. "I'm just freezing."
"Make yourself useful," the wolf said to the leprechaun. "And grab that blanket."
The leprechaun glowered at her, but hurried off coming back a second later with a light blue piece of fabric. He handed it to Fiona who pulled it close around her. "Thank you."
He nodded. "I'm Darby and that's Dakota," he said indicating the wolf.
As he spoke two more creatures came forward. "The groundhogs over there are Chuck and Phil."
"She looks familiar" one of the groundhogs, Chuck, said. "I mean it's hard to tell humans apart, but I recognize you, like you've come around a lot."
"Well she's obviously not a human if she's with us," Phil replied.
"But she looks familiar to me too" Darby said. "What's you're name, dear?"
"Fiona"
"As in the spring sprite? That Fiona?" Dakota asked eyes wide. Fiona nodded. The leprechaun, the two groundhogs and the wolf exchanged worried glances. "Then he's moving faster than we thought."
*~*~*~*~*~*
The second Comet's hooves touched the ground, Bernard jumped from his back and hurried toward the wreckage that had once been the sleigh. The snow was littered with wood and debris. A few feet away was a shallow crater where Bernard presumed the two girls had actually landed.
Before Bernard could investigate the scene further, Jack slid up beside him. "Any sign of her?"
"No," Bernard replied simply. He tried to ignore the winter sprite, tried to focus on the scene at hand.
Jack seemed to understand and, instead of continuing to instigate like he normally would, started his own search of the area. Aside from the crash site there was no real evidence that anyone else had been around. There were footprints scattered about, but no sign of a struggle. "I don't know where he took her, but all I can smell is boogie magic." Jack shuddered and covered his nose with his sleeve. The boogie man's magic was thick enough to almost weigh one down and smelled of the strongest sulfur.
"It's really strong over here." Bernard said, kneeling in the snow. He brushed aside the cold white powder revealing a large patch of dead grass beneath it. "He must have grabbed Fiona here; the plants are toast."
"Things only die when she's really distressed"
"Well, I assume being grabbed by the boogie man would cause her major distress."
Jack glared at the elf, "I was just saying…"
Bernard knew he was trying to help and that Jack was just as worried about Fiona as he was. It didn't mean he had to suddenly like him. "Look, she's obviously not here. Let's go see if Charlie got any more information from Santa."
"Fine" Jack said. He waved his hand and in a flurry of snow and ice disappeared.
Bernard wiped the snow from his face and grumbled to himself. He walked over to the sleigh again and grabbed Fiona's duffle bag from the wreckage. It was miraculously in tact despite having plummeted through the sky. As he stared at the green bag he felt a gentle nudging at his arm and he turned to find Comet, looking sullen. The reindeer cooed at him as if asking if he was okay. "I'm fine Comet… I'll be better when we find Fiona." Comet nodded emphatically as Bernard hurried and jumped up on his back and they took off again.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After several hours of conversing with the other creatures in the holding cell, Fiona learned more about just how bad the situation at hand was. Apparently, the boogie man known as Terrance had been at his game far longer than the Council had thought. Her cellmates were all mythical creatures. However, none of them or the others that had been nabbed before ran holidays or seasons so they had gone unnoticed by the Council of Legendary Figures.
Dakota was a breed of enchanted wolf, blessed with some nature magic and the ability to speak. She had been out hunting when Terrance had found her. She had been around the longest at three months. Darby was a member of the royal court of leprechaun but of low enough status as not to be missed. Phil and Chuck were the closest, being the groundhogs that predicted the weather after the second of February. Terrance had grabbed them well after their season so they hadn't gone unnoticed yet.
His plan had, apparently, been the same with Angelica but she had proven a more difficult target. If he had managed to get rid of her before the start of the Christmas season then he would have become untouchable. Since it hadn't worked he had had to readjust his plans. The others feared that he might use Fiona as a replacement for the Christmas spirit.
In all honesty, Fiona wasn't that worried about him or her own safety. If anything, she was more upset that this had been allowed to go on for so long. She was furious with the Council, furious that Mother Nature hadn't noticed the phenomenon of missing creatures and furious no one had put a stop to it. There was no question Terrance was powerful and he was far more than Fiona could have possibly handled on her own. She couldn't understand how a boogie that had grown so powerful hadn't been detected sooner. The fact that he seemed to be taking "lesser" creatures and draining them slowly probably did help him out some. He was clever and dangerous, a terrible combination. Worse yet, according to the others, the stronger he got, the more magic he needed.
"Has anyone tried to escape?" Fiona asked.
"If we were to try to run he'd grab us. It's a large building, but he seems to always know when anyone is lucky enough to get out. He puts an end to that quickly. No one here is strong enough to take him on." Dakota sighed heavily, laying her head on her outstretched paws.
Before Fiona could ask anymore questions, the door to the cell opened. Terrance stood in the doorway wearing his skin crawling smile. "Getting acquainted are we?" He took a step forward and the four creatures shrunk back. Fiona rolled her eyes and held her ground. He passed over the sprite and stopped in front of the two groundhogs. Stooping down he picked up Chuck with carefully gloved hands. "I'd love if you could come with me, my friend."
"Let him go!" Phil called chasing after Terrance as he began to leave. Dakota jumped in the way, stopping him. Terrance paid no mind carrying the groundhog out of the cell and closing the door behind him.
Phil glared at Dakota and raced toward the bars. He pulled at them futility and continued to cry out for his friend.
Fiona watched him, unsure of what to do. Dakota walked over to her, head hung low. "Chuck didn't have much magic left." She whispered. "He'll probably be done after this."
"We need to get out of here," Fiona declared. "All of us."
"And how do you propose to do that, missy?" Darby asked, justifiably cynical. "We already told you that no one's been able to escape here."
Fiona looked around the room for anything that would cause inspiration. Her eyes finally rested on the small window in the wall opposite her. She stood up and walked closer to it, eyes transfixed on the small amount of blue sky she could see. "Maybe it's not a matter of getting out. Maybe we just need to let someone know where we are."
"You have a plan?" Phil asked breaking himself away from his own attempt to gain freedom
"I do," she said. "But I'm going to need to borrow some magic."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Back at the Miller's, the search still wasn't going will. There was still no sign of Fiona or the boogie man that had taken her. Worse yet, there was no way to track either of them and no where to even start looking. He could have taken her to a completely different country by now for all they knew.
On the plus side, the rescue party had figured out how to stop the boogie man if they could manage to find him. It had been an innocent suggestion by Angelica that had led to the discovery. The Christmas Spirit mentioned the idea of night lights as a means of protection for children from the boogie man. An hour or so worth of research later had uncovered an item known as the Light Stone. The Light Stone, was a more magical version of the human night light and was the easiest way to catch a boogie.
Jack, having the most magic, quickly teleported to the pole to help Santa find the item in the workshop. Charlie had gone upstairs to search the internet, hoping that maybe the plethora of knowledge held with in it could lead them to the boogie man's whereabouts. Bernard was left downstairs, wracking his brain for anyway to find the missing spring sprite. He sat down on the couch in the living room that he had shared with Fiona only a night earlier. Head in his hands, he contemplated how things had gone so pear shaped so quickly.
"Bernard," a tiny voice next to him said. Bernard looked over at Angelica and tried to smile reassuringly. "It's going to be okay. We'll find Fiona."
"I know we will," he said. He didn't feel like he was lying to the girl, but his words didn't feel truthful either.
"I know you two are close," she continued. "And I don't think you should get down on yourself. All you've done is try to help." Angelica hugged him tightly.
Her warmth and her words actually made Bernard feel better. Her hugged her back, whispering, "Thanks Angie."
They sat there quietly for a while, the first moments of peace anyone had had in far too long. Bernard watched as the first rays of sun lazily made their way across the carpeted floor. Suddenly the tranquility was broken as something whizzed past Bernard's head.
He ducked, impulsively, pulling Angelica down with him into safety. "What was that?" Angelica whispered.
Bernard stuck his head up, "I don't know. Stay here." Standing up, he tried to locate what had caused the disturbance. Lying on the couch between Angelica and Bernard was a thin green vine. It originated from the window sill and crept across the floor. Following it the erratic path it weaved, Bernard came upon the duffle bag he had saved from the sleigh wreckage. He reached into the bag and found the end of the vine twisted around something toward the bottom. With a swift pull, he dislodged the vine and the item attached. The elf smiled, for the first time in hours though he mentally kicked himself for not thinking of the solution earlier.
As if on cue, Jack appeared on the couch next to Angie. In his hand was a pointed glowing stone, the same bright white color as his hair. "What's going on?"
Bernard stood, holding on to the magical snow globe that had helped them find Angelica earlier. "Fiona sent a message" he said indicating the vine. "I know how we're going to find her."
There was no question in Bernard's mind what he wanted most at that moment and the image of Fiona that formed once the mini snow storm had dissipated was the clearest it could possibly be.
*~*~*~*~*~*
(A/N: Hello again... not much to say really. As a result of being hit by some of that X-mas spirit [Angie's hiding around here somewhere] I've been listening to a ton of Christmas music, watching Christmas specials and working on this story. This is good for you, especially if you've been sitting there cursing my name for never finishing this ^_~. I'm also going back and fixing some things in some earlier chapters... nothing too big but you might want to re-read them cause they make more sense now.
Nothing else really as I said. As always, reviews are totally appreciated. Thanks guys :D
Oh, and please don't think less of me because I used Camp Rock lyrics in the beginning... it's was about finding people... they're trying to find Fi.... I'm only slightly ashamed *hangs head*)