Meredith paced up and down the tiny room. It couldn't have been his real library, she decided. For one thing, it wasn't nearly big enough. And it didn't hold nearly enough books of value, even assuming the only thing Kriticos had wanted to know anything about was the Ocularis. Oh well. It would have to do for now, and anyway, that was what all those damn years of study had been for. Reading all that damn Gardener and Buckland and everything had to be good for something.
"Shouldn't we be doing something?" the older man, Arthur Kriticos (who had turned out to be Cyrus's nephew, now there was something!) wanted to know. He was impatient, which Meredith could fully sympathize with... he was probably worried half to death about his kids.
"Not necessarily. We have a little time before Cyrus gets too impatient to be safe. I don't think he has all the things he needs, yet, or he would have done this before now."
Arthur blinked, and nodded slowly. "Okay, that makes sense. But what does he need?"
"Shouldn't we..." Maggie looked at Arthur nervously. He looked down at the floor, a bit sheepish and ashamed. ... Ashamed of what?
"Shouldn't we...?" Meredith tilted her head to one side inquisitively. "What?"
"Kalina said something about a thirteenth ghost..." Dennis mumbled from where he was still curled up against the wall.
Meredith looked around between each of three of them. "A thirteenth ghost?"
Maggie nodded emphatically. "She called it... like, a failsafe, a way to turn off the machine."
Meredith frowned. "I suppose it's possible. A zodiac has twelve, twelve for the twelve months usually, or twelve moons if you want to get technical... twelve spokes on the wheel, twelve signs in the zodiac, a paradigm of magical numbers, fours and threes... but if you want to get technical there's thirteen moons in a year, roughly... and I suppose the thirteenth ghost could be that extra moon, sort of like ... but that wouldn't... at least it probably wouldn't act like a failsafe... more like an activation key..." she looked up, realizing at the last second that she'd been talking to herself. "What did she say this thirteenth ghost had to be? What kind of zodiac sign?"
Arthur looked puzzled. "She said it had to be... a sacrifice of pure love."
Meredith narrowed her eyes. Now she knew Kalina was up to something bad. "And you believed her? Look. Don't you find it just a little fishy that Cyrus dies... and he's not actually dead, by the way." They all stared at her in shock. She waved it away. "Don't ask, magical woo-woo. Cyrus dies, leaves you this big creepy mysterious house that turns out to be the key of ultimate power. Only we knew... you had to know... that Cyrus wasn't the kind of person to give up any kind of power to anyone. He'd be more likely to have left instructions to destroy it upon his death, or some kind of dead man's switch that rigged the house to blow up. Barring all that, he sends a lawyer to bring you here, then your kids suddenly disappear in the creepy old house. Which, granted, doesn't sound suspicious, but when you consider it as incentive to get you to ..." she trailed off.
Maggie and Dennis were staring at her in shock, but Arthur was nodding as though it made sense. "And you figured it all out now?" Dennis asked. Hysteria was laced all through his voice, and it occured to Meredith that they'd have to either calm him down or sedate him before they did much of anything.
"Actually, no..." she admitted. "It's the kind of thing he's done before. Manipulated people into doing what he wanted for the reasons he needed. He's a pretty smart kind of a bastard. I suppose Kalina also told you that the glasses enabled you to see the ghosts."
Everyone nodded. "But... they do," Maggie said patiently. "That's how we got away from them all."
"Yes..." Meredith said, just as patiently. "But doesn't it strike you as odd that the ghosts didn't hurt you until you put the glasses on?"
Everyone opened their mouths to offer some sort of explanation... and then stopped. And thought about it. She saw comprehension flash across Dennis's face just before a look of pure horror, and then he tore the glasses off his face and flung them across the room. They shattered against the glass warding wall.
"The glasses help you to see the spirit world by bringing you into it, a little way. It's like not being able to see clearly under water until you stick your head into it." She picked up the shards of the glasses. "It's actually kind of interesting, the different spell strings he layered onto it. There's the standard sort of imposition of clairvoyance, but there's also a little transformation... mortal to spectral... and a little bit of transference in there... or maybe that's the mortal to spectral part, and then the transformation would be from mortal to para-mortal, or even supra-mortal... the concatenation is remarkable..."
"Concate-WHAT?" Maggie stared. "And what's that in English?"
"Oh. Umm.. a concatenation is a series of strings... they use the term in internet code as well... oh, never mind..." she slumped down against the wall and looked up against the ceiling, trying to think of what she could do by herself. "Honestly, I hope my friends get here soon. Cyrus... I could probably take him down if I had a choice of where I did it, and when, and how... but not on his own turf like this. Hell, I wouldn't have come here tonight if I hadn't been chased into it."
"Chased into it?" Arthur stared at her. "Chased by who? You still haven't explained how you knew we were here, or what was going on." Now he was starting to look at her suspiciously. Which she couldn't really blame him for.
"Oh, me? Oh, that's easy. My Goddess chased me here." She flipped a rude gesture in the general direction of the sky. "When the Goddess calls, Her priestesses answer. It's a kind of annoying life, but you learn to live with it."
"Your Goddess?" Maggie looked at her like she'd grown horns.
"Sure. Oh, don't give me that look. You know how Christian priests always say they have a calling and such-like? Well, so do we. Only... a bit more direct. Sort of the difference between a subtle hint and a slap upside the head." Meredith sighed. "We all volunteer for it, it's not a conscripted army. But once you consign your soul to the Goddess... that's it. Priestess doesn't mean 'special' or 'revered', it means service to the community in whatever way you can." She thought about it for a second. "Actually, it's kind of Marxist."
Arthur kindly didn't say what he thought of THAT comment.
"But that's neither here, nor there." She stood up abruptly. "And besides, I think I've come up with a plan."
Arthur sighed. It seemed as though he was giving up all hope, or at least all hope that he had any idea of what the hell was going on. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Oh well... she'd deal with it later. "What's your plan?"
Meredith took a deep breath. "We get out of here. I lead you.. actually, I lead Dennis, and you guys follow me... don't wear the glasses, I'll steer you around the ghosts and if you're not wearing the glasses they can't do more than haunt you anyway. They may try to talk to you, but don't listen to them. Only listen to me, or each other." She shouldered her duffel bag again, and gently pried her thermos out of Dennis's hands. He stood up reluctantly, still pale and shaking a little. "We head towards either the front door or the roof, where, if I'm not mistaken, Laurel and Amber will be waiting for us. And hopefully I can call in some bigger powers as well." She stuffed the thermos back into her bag.
"And then?"
"And then we go in kicking ass..."
Amber took several deep breaths, trying to think as if each of her next few seconds of life might be her last, trying to make her last few seconds of life count. At least if she went down, Merry was probably already in and could do something to stop this, and Laurel wouldn't be far behind. And if there was a problem there was always Merry's father, and Laurel's cousins, and who knew what else. Merry had almost certainly left a note for her father. And he always seemed to know when the three of them were in trouble, anyway. Granted, this had led to some embarrassing moments in the past... Amber smiled with the memory, and felt the gun barrel dig further into her ribs.
"What are you smiling at, bitch?" Kalina wanted to know.
"Witch. It's WITCH. Get it right." Even her bravado was tempered now, though. She'd always been the most outspoken of the three, but with the gun barrel this close to her body, magic or no magic, priestess or no priestess, she was going to die.
"Whatever. You three are up to something, sneaking around here, and I want to know what it is."
Amber almost laughed at the idiodicy of that statement. "We've come to stop the Eye from opening and destroying the entire world, of course. What else did you think we came here for, fun and entertainment? That's what movie theatres are for."
"Well, you can't," Kalina said, with the sort of triumphant finality that gave Amber cold chills and told her exactly what side the other woman was on. "All the ghosts are in place except the last one, and he'll be ready as soon as I get back to him... or as soon as Cyrus does."
Amber frowned. There was a tremor in her voice at the mention of the old sorcerer. Which meant that though Kalina might be allied with him, even maybe as his apprentice, she knew at least some of what he was capable of. She'd never understand why people chose to study under those kinds of psychos... she'd've taken Crowley before she took Cyrus as her teacher. At least Crowley didn't have the kind of maniacal singlemindedness it took to sacrifice one's own students for... whatever.
"Him?" she latched onto whatever she could find to talk about, anything to keep Kalina from shooting her.
"Arthur... Cyrus's nephew, although I don't think I've seen a more boring and stupid man in a long time." Which probably meant that Arthur was nice, very unschooled in anything remotely magical, and ordinary. "He's going to sacrifice himself for his kids, and then ..." There was a dramatic pause. Amber nearly groaned out loud. "The Eye will open."
Kalina should have found an acting teacher, Amber thought sourly. She was melodramatic enough for it... "What makes you think he'll sacrifice himself for them?"
"Cyrus has them." Kalina shrugged. Amber felt the gun barrel move just a little, and held her breath. "If Arthur doesn't kill himself in the wheels of the machine, he'll kill the brats. Simple. Right after I deal with you and Meredith Kane."
So Merry WAS inside the building. Amber thought about taking a few risks, but didn't say anything. "And how are you going to do that?"
"I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll just shoot you both. After I find her again..." Kalina made a vexed noise. "I think she's left the library."
Amber, given the way the conversation was going, let her mind wander briefly away. If Merry was in the house, she could find her, and probably fairly easily too...
amber! you are here. thank the goddess...
here, but can't talk long. kalina has a gun on me.
....
"Come on..." Kalina got impatient and prodded Amber forward with the gun. "Let's go through the halls to the main entrance. They're probably waiting for the rest of your stupid, nosy group."
we're going to the main entrance. she wants to shoot us all so we can't interfere
i thought something was wrong. i left a note for father, but...
yeah. for all we know he could be out. laurel knows, she should be coming. be careful, merry.
you be careful too. you're the one with the gun pointed at you
Amber winced and started walking forward as Kalina prodded more insistantly. She wondered just how tight the safety was on that thing, how stiff the trigger was. If it wasn't stiff at all, if it was easy to pull, a startled movement could get her shot. This wasn't going well at all. She only hoped Laurel was having better luck.
Cyrus stared at the rather familiar looking young woman with a curious look and a mad, dangerous glint just lurking behind his eyes. Laurel stood frozen, as though staring at a snake about to strike. Her heart was trip-hammering in her chest.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"
"Shouldn't we be doing something?" the older man, Arthur Kriticos (who had turned out to be Cyrus's nephew, now there was something!) wanted to know. He was impatient, which Meredith could fully sympathize with... he was probably worried half to death about his kids.
"Not necessarily. We have a little time before Cyrus gets too impatient to be safe. I don't think he has all the things he needs, yet, or he would have done this before now."
Arthur blinked, and nodded slowly. "Okay, that makes sense. But what does he need?"
"Shouldn't we..." Maggie looked at Arthur nervously. He looked down at the floor, a bit sheepish and ashamed. ... Ashamed of what?
"Shouldn't we...?" Meredith tilted her head to one side inquisitively. "What?"
"Kalina said something about a thirteenth ghost..." Dennis mumbled from where he was still curled up against the wall.
Meredith looked around between each of three of them. "A thirteenth ghost?"
Maggie nodded emphatically. "She called it... like, a failsafe, a way to turn off the machine."
Meredith frowned. "I suppose it's possible. A zodiac has twelve, twelve for the twelve months usually, or twelve moons if you want to get technical... twelve spokes on the wheel, twelve signs in the zodiac, a paradigm of magical numbers, fours and threes... but if you want to get technical there's thirteen moons in a year, roughly... and I suppose the thirteenth ghost could be that extra moon, sort of like ... but that wouldn't... at least it probably wouldn't act like a failsafe... more like an activation key..." she looked up, realizing at the last second that she'd been talking to herself. "What did she say this thirteenth ghost had to be? What kind of zodiac sign?"
Arthur looked puzzled. "She said it had to be... a sacrifice of pure love."
Meredith narrowed her eyes. Now she knew Kalina was up to something bad. "And you believed her? Look. Don't you find it just a little fishy that Cyrus dies... and he's not actually dead, by the way." They all stared at her in shock. She waved it away. "Don't ask, magical woo-woo. Cyrus dies, leaves you this big creepy mysterious house that turns out to be the key of ultimate power. Only we knew... you had to know... that Cyrus wasn't the kind of person to give up any kind of power to anyone. He'd be more likely to have left instructions to destroy it upon his death, or some kind of dead man's switch that rigged the house to blow up. Barring all that, he sends a lawyer to bring you here, then your kids suddenly disappear in the creepy old house. Which, granted, doesn't sound suspicious, but when you consider it as incentive to get you to ..." she trailed off.
Maggie and Dennis were staring at her in shock, but Arthur was nodding as though it made sense. "And you figured it all out now?" Dennis asked. Hysteria was laced all through his voice, and it occured to Meredith that they'd have to either calm him down or sedate him before they did much of anything.
"Actually, no..." she admitted. "It's the kind of thing he's done before. Manipulated people into doing what he wanted for the reasons he needed. He's a pretty smart kind of a bastard. I suppose Kalina also told you that the glasses enabled you to see the ghosts."
Everyone nodded. "But... they do," Maggie said patiently. "That's how we got away from them all."
"Yes..." Meredith said, just as patiently. "But doesn't it strike you as odd that the ghosts didn't hurt you until you put the glasses on?"
Everyone opened their mouths to offer some sort of explanation... and then stopped. And thought about it. She saw comprehension flash across Dennis's face just before a look of pure horror, and then he tore the glasses off his face and flung them across the room. They shattered against the glass warding wall.
"The glasses help you to see the spirit world by bringing you into it, a little way. It's like not being able to see clearly under water until you stick your head into it." She picked up the shards of the glasses. "It's actually kind of interesting, the different spell strings he layered onto it. There's the standard sort of imposition of clairvoyance, but there's also a little transformation... mortal to spectral... and a little bit of transference in there... or maybe that's the mortal to spectral part, and then the transformation would be from mortal to para-mortal, or even supra-mortal... the concatenation is remarkable..."
"Concate-WHAT?" Maggie stared. "And what's that in English?"
"Oh. Umm.. a concatenation is a series of strings... they use the term in internet code as well... oh, never mind..." she slumped down against the wall and looked up against the ceiling, trying to think of what she could do by herself. "Honestly, I hope my friends get here soon. Cyrus... I could probably take him down if I had a choice of where I did it, and when, and how... but not on his own turf like this. Hell, I wouldn't have come here tonight if I hadn't been chased into it."
"Chased into it?" Arthur stared at her. "Chased by who? You still haven't explained how you knew we were here, or what was going on." Now he was starting to look at her suspiciously. Which she couldn't really blame him for.
"Oh, me? Oh, that's easy. My Goddess chased me here." She flipped a rude gesture in the general direction of the sky. "When the Goddess calls, Her priestesses answer. It's a kind of annoying life, but you learn to live with it."
"Your Goddess?" Maggie looked at her like she'd grown horns.
"Sure. Oh, don't give me that look. You know how Christian priests always say they have a calling and such-like? Well, so do we. Only... a bit more direct. Sort of the difference between a subtle hint and a slap upside the head." Meredith sighed. "We all volunteer for it, it's not a conscripted army. But once you consign your soul to the Goddess... that's it. Priestess doesn't mean 'special' or 'revered', it means service to the community in whatever way you can." She thought about it for a second. "Actually, it's kind of Marxist."
Arthur kindly didn't say what he thought of THAT comment.
"But that's neither here, nor there." She stood up abruptly. "And besides, I think I've come up with a plan."
Arthur sighed. It seemed as though he was giving up all hope, or at least all hope that he had any idea of what the hell was going on. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Oh well... she'd deal with it later. "What's your plan?"
Meredith took a deep breath. "We get out of here. I lead you.. actually, I lead Dennis, and you guys follow me... don't wear the glasses, I'll steer you around the ghosts and if you're not wearing the glasses they can't do more than haunt you anyway. They may try to talk to you, but don't listen to them. Only listen to me, or each other." She shouldered her duffel bag again, and gently pried her thermos out of Dennis's hands. He stood up reluctantly, still pale and shaking a little. "We head towards either the front door or the roof, where, if I'm not mistaken, Laurel and Amber will be waiting for us. And hopefully I can call in some bigger powers as well." She stuffed the thermos back into her bag.
"And then?"
"And then we go in kicking ass..."
Amber took several deep breaths, trying to think as if each of her next few seconds of life might be her last, trying to make her last few seconds of life count. At least if she went down, Merry was probably already in and could do something to stop this, and Laurel wouldn't be far behind. And if there was a problem there was always Merry's father, and Laurel's cousins, and who knew what else. Merry had almost certainly left a note for her father. And he always seemed to know when the three of them were in trouble, anyway. Granted, this had led to some embarrassing moments in the past... Amber smiled with the memory, and felt the gun barrel dig further into her ribs.
"What are you smiling at, bitch?" Kalina wanted to know.
"Witch. It's WITCH. Get it right." Even her bravado was tempered now, though. She'd always been the most outspoken of the three, but with the gun barrel this close to her body, magic or no magic, priestess or no priestess, she was going to die.
"Whatever. You three are up to something, sneaking around here, and I want to know what it is."
Amber almost laughed at the idiodicy of that statement. "We've come to stop the Eye from opening and destroying the entire world, of course. What else did you think we came here for, fun and entertainment? That's what movie theatres are for."
"Well, you can't," Kalina said, with the sort of triumphant finality that gave Amber cold chills and told her exactly what side the other woman was on. "All the ghosts are in place except the last one, and he'll be ready as soon as I get back to him... or as soon as Cyrus does."
Amber frowned. There was a tremor in her voice at the mention of the old sorcerer. Which meant that though Kalina might be allied with him, even maybe as his apprentice, she knew at least some of what he was capable of. She'd never understand why people chose to study under those kinds of psychos... she'd've taken Crowley before she took Cyrus as her teacher. At least Crowley didn't have the kind of maniacal singlemindedness it took to sacrifice one's own students for... whatever.
"Him?" she latched onto whatever she could find to talk about, anything to keep Kalina from shooting her.
"Arthur... Cyrus's nephew, although I don't think I've seen a more boring and stupid man in a long time." Which probably meant that Arthur was nice, very unschooled in anything remotely magical, and ordinary. "He's going to sacrifice himself for his kids, and then ..." There was a dramatic pause. Amber nearly groaned out loud. "The Eye will open."
Kalina should have found an acting teacher, Amber thought sourly. She was melodramatic enough for it... "What makes you think he'll sacrifice himself for them?"
"Cyrus has them." Kalina shrugged. Amber felt the gun barrel move just a little, and held her breath. "If Arthur doesn't kill himself in the wheels of the machine, he'll kill the brats. Simple. Right after I deal with you and Meredith Kane."
So Merry WAS inside the building. Amber thought about taking a few risks, but didn't say anything. "And how are you going to do that?"
"I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll just shoot you both. After I find her again..." Kalina made a vexed noise. "I think she's left the library."
Amber, given the way the conversation was going, let her mind wander briefly away. If Merry was in the house, she could find her, and probably fairly easily too...
amber! you are here. thank the goddess...
here, but can't talk long. kalina has a gun on me.
....
"Come on..." Kalina got impatient and prodded Amber forward with the gun. "Let's go through the halls to the main entrance. They're probably waiting for the rest of your stupid, nosy group."
we're going to the main entrance. she wants to shoot us all so we can't interfere
i thought something was wrong. i left a note for father, but...
yeah. for all we know he could be out. laurel knows, she should be coming. be careful, merry.
you be careful too. you're the one with the gun pointed at you
Amber winced and started walking forward as Kalina prodded more insistantly. She wondered just how tight the safety was on that thing, how stiff the trigger was. If it wasn't stiff at all, if it was easy to pull, a startled movement could get her shot. This wasn't going well at all. She only hoped Laurel was having better luck.
Cyrus stared at the rather familiar looking young woman with a curious look and a mad, dangerous glint just lurking behind his eyes. Laurel stood frozen, as though staring at a snake about to strike. Her heart was trip-hammering in her chest.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"