Sebastian Kane stood outside the great whirling house-machine, staring at it with wide and angry eyes. The bastard had done it... he really had constructed the machines according to the ancient designs. And from the energies that he could practically see swirling and writhing around it, the damned thing worked. That alone would have earned Cyrus Kriticos the wrath of the other sorcerer. Much less that he had Sebastian's daughter trapped inside. His hand clenched on the walking stick, knuckles white and fingers twitching with the need to do something.
But as much as he would like to... this was not something that he, or the girls for that matter, should do alone. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, antique lady's hand mirror, and shook it a little bit. It clouded over.
"Erik," he said.
The mist rolled over the mirror for perhaps a minute, and then it curled away towards the edges. A man about his own age, white streaks lining his temples like lightning, looked up. "Who calls?"
"It's me, Erik," he told the other. "Something's happened. The Ocularis Infernum... someone's constructed the damn thing, and they're trying to open the Eye."
"Then they must be stopped," Erik interrupted flatly, and Sebastian resisted the urge to throttle the man for wasting time stating the very obvious. "Do you need my assistance?"
"Perhaps..." Sebastian continued, "There is a complication. My daughter and two of her friends are inside the machine... which has been cleverly constructed to look like an eclectic but rather ordinary house."
Erik paused. Sebastian waited for the usual sort of comment that he anticipated from the other man... something about sacrifices needing to be made, or what could one expect from a girl, or something like that. He'd never had a terribly good opinion of the fairer sex, and they'd actually had several conversations sharing similiar views on the subject. But this was different. This was his daughter. And be damned if he was going to let her rot in some sorcerer's godforsaken machine.
"What do you propose to do?" Erik asked finally.
Sebastian relaxed slightly. "Nothing, at the moment. I am not entirely sure I can breach the walls. Meredith, as much as I hate to admit it, is on her own. But should she fail, and the Ocularis begin to open..."
"I understand," Erik said. Sebastian doubted he did, but it was good enough.
"I would prefer rescue to revenge," he interjected dryly, "But if revenge is all that is left, then it should be such that no one even considers constructing so much as a pocket-watch according to the Ocularis designs, much less this monstrosity."
Erik nodded. "I will await your news... I presume this will be over within the evening?"
"One way or the other."
Erik nodded. The mirror clouded over again and when it cleared, he was gone. Sebastian took a deep breath.
"Daughter mine, if you manage to pull this one out of your proverbial hat, I will see to it that you do not leave the house for the next month," he muttered.
The odd-looking procession was slightly longer now, as Laurel brought up the end and Meredith kept watch at point. Dennis, at his own request, was sandwiched between Arthur and Maggie, gritting his teeth and managing to put up with the constant barrage of images if it meant he didn't have to let go of anyone's hands. None of them wanted to be stuck in the house alone. At either end, the witches tried to do what they could to shield the poor psychic. It helped, a little.
"You know..." Meredith said slowly as they made their careful way through the halls. "I think I'm actually starting to get a sense of how to get through the halls of this damn house."
"You're kidding, right?" Maggie looked at her funny, and Meredith looked back and smiled wryly.
"No, seriously. I can't figure out which hallway to go down or anything, but I know... the library's roughly that way.." she pointed back over her shoulder and to the left. "The bedroom's over that way," she pointed again, this time to their right. "My guess is there are a few more rooms around here. The rooms themselves can't really change position, just the halls. It's like a ... I don't know. Some kind of sliding door maze like they use for rats in psych labs."
"Always wanted to be a rat in a maze," Arthur muttered, halfheartedly trying to make a joke. Dennis giggled, a bit high pitched, and then swallowed it back. Meredith chuckled softly, but didn't say anything.
In the back, Laurel was watching Dennis, wondering what it was that he'd seen. Merry'd told her a little bit about his abilities, what she could discern anyway... and told her a little bit about his visions of his own demise here in the house. She'd asked Laurel to take a look into the webs of the future, see what the probabilities were and how they lay. Since then, Laurel had looked twice more.
It didn't look good for Dennis.
Over and over, she watched as the ghost slammed Dennis against the wall, practically breaking him in two. She watched the blood froth from his mouth, the pain galvanize him, the terror cross his eyes before they finally achieved that horrible blankness of death. Meredith, looking through her eyes, had grimaced and fled from her mind the first time she'd seen that. Laurel had played it over and over again, trying to be clinical and look for a way out. She wasn't seeing one.
Not that Dennis needed to know this, of course. She sighed... it really wouldn't do to give the poor man any false hopes. He was already on edge enough as it is. Laurel wondered... what must it be like to live like that? Always apart from everyone else, always at one remove from the rest of humanity. She'd never known that kind of separation... none of the three of them had, for that matter. Laurel had had her aunt to teach her witchcraft... and Meredith had had her mother (and even if she hadn't, her father would have probably made a sorceress of her)... and Amber had been adopted by the local coven at such a young age that they'd been amazed at her early skill when the three of them had finally met.
Dennis hadn't had any of that. Laurel wondered if at least his family life had been relatively forgiving. She knew what that was like... she'd known a young man, with five siblings and parents who were always busy trying to feed them all... the poor boy had been so empathic it had been almost painful. Eventually, he'd thrown himself off of the Golden Gate Bridge. She shuddered with the memory.
No... when this was all over, then the tiny coven could take Dennis in hand, maybe introduce him to Sebastian (if Meredith's father didn't ground her first), maybe introduce him to Laurel's twin cousins, sorceress and witch, not powerful but very, very skilled. When it was all over, if they all survived, then they could teach him that he wasn't abnormal, simply part of a smaller norm. She smiled slightly at the thought. They could all have fun with that.
Meredith stopped. Laurel was so distracted with her own thoughts that she nearly ran into Arthur, and stopped barely in time. "What is it?"
The middle three looked around warily as Meredith held up a hand for silence, closed her eyes... and opened them again, worried. "It's right down there..." she pointed below them. "The Ocularis."
Dennis frowned, knelt and put a hand on the floor. He turned pale. "So are the kids..." he said, standing and backing up. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"Then we need to find a way to get downstairs," Arthur said, trying to press past Dennis. He put a hand on the other man's chest to try and move him aside, and Dennis screamed and doubled over. Arthur jumped; Maggie jumped back. Both witches dived forward, trying to calm things down.
"Don't touch me!" Dennis wailed. Laurel and Meredith dropped to their knees beside him, arms encircling him protectively even as he cringed from them too. They touched their foreheads to the sides of his head, preventing him from moving.
"I hate pure psionics," Meredith muttered absently. "Too hard to control."
Arthur actually looked sheepish. "Sorry... I keep forgetting."
Dennis was shaking, and looked even more like he was about to be sick, but he was starting to calm down. "Yeah, try living with it," he muttered, but without rancor. Laurel murmured something in his ear, and he nodded, closing his eyes and breathing slowly, more evenly. Finally they all stood together.
"Anybody remember where the stairs are?" Meredith said after a second, stepping back from Dennis and propping her fists on her hips. Everyone shrugged... Dennis frowned, and started down the hall a little ways.
"I think they're this way... shit!"
The walls had started to move again.
"Oh no..." A panel was sliding in between them... aiming directly for Dennis. He stood there, frozen, till Maggie grabbed his arm and he shrieked, pulling away.
"Augh!"
"Dennis!" Everybody yelled. His eyes locked onto the pane of glass, heading straight for him on a path that would bisect him from crown to crotch. He gulped.
"Oh god..."
"DENNIS!" Meredith grabbed his arm and yanked. Barely in time, his arm scraped against the glass as she pulled him to one side, slamming into Maggie, herself. They fell against the glass wall where Meredith had been standing and sunk to the floor.
"Merry!" Laurel tried to say through the glass. The sound came through, but muffled. "Meet us downstairs! We'll try and get to the kids and the Ocularis!"
Meredith nodded, catching her breath. On the other side of the wall she watched as Laurel grabbed the very startled Arthur's arm and tugged him down the hall. Maggie and Dennis looked at each other, then at her, waiting expectantly for their marching orders. It was a little while before she stood up again, and her face was pale and drawn. She took a deep breath and started moving the only way they could: down the newly formed hall to their left. "Let's go."
They followed her a little ways in silence, Maggie in the middle, Dennis looking nervously over his shoulder in the rear. He seemed to be thinking about something.
"That last change... that was the last ghost, wasn't it?"
Meredith nodded tightly, but didn't say anything.
"What..." Maggie looked from one to the other, not liking the expressions on their faces. "What does that mean?"
"It means all the ghosts are loose, and Cyrus can start to power up the Ocularis now. It means the only thing he needs is the thirteenth ghost, and then he can unleash hell on earth. All he needs now is Arthur, and we're all doomed." Despite her confident tones of earlier, now she just sounded tired.
"Oh."
But as much as he would like to... this was not something that he, or the girls for that matter, should do alone. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, antique lady's hand mirror, and shook it a little bit. It clouded over.
"Erik," he said.
The mist rolled over the mirror for perhaps a minute, and then it curled away towards the edges. A man about his own age, white streaks lining his temples like lightning, looked up. "Who calls?"
"It's me, Erik," he told the other. "Something's happened. The Ocularis Infernum... someone's constructed the damn thing, and they're trying to open the Eye."
"Then they must be stopped," Erik interrupted flatly, and Sebastian resisted the urge to throttle the man for wasting time stating the very obvious. "Do you need my assistance?"
"Perhaps..." Sebastian continued, "There is a complication. My daughter and two of her friends are inside the machine... which has been cleverly constructed to look like an eclectic but rather ordinary house."
Erik paused. Sebastian waited for the usual sort of comment that he anticipated from the other man... something about sacrifices needing to be made, or what could one expect from a girl, or something like that. He'd never had a terribly good opinion of the fairer sex, and they'd actually had several conversations sharing similiar views on the subject. But this was different. This was his daughter. And be damned if he was going to let her rot in some sorcerer's godforsaken machine.
"What do you propose to do?" Erik asked finally.
Sebastian relaxed slightly. "Nothing, at the moment. I am not entirely sure I can breach the walls. Meredith, as much as I hate to admit it, is on her own. But should she fail, and the Ocularis begin to open..."
"I understand," Erik said. Sebastian doubted he did, but it was good enough.
"I would prefer rescue to revenge," he interjected dryly, "But if revenge is all that is left, then it should be such that no one even considers constructing so much as a pocket-watch according to the Ocularis designs, much less this monstrosity."
Erik nodded. "I will await your news... I presume this will be over within the evening?"
"One way or the other."
Erik nodded. The mirror clouded over again and when it cleared, he was gone. Sebastian took a deep breath.
"Daughter mine, if you manage to pull this one out of your proverbial hat, I will see to it that you do not leave the house for the next month," he muttered.
The odd-looking procession was slightly longer now, as Laurel brought up the end and Meredith kept watch at point. Dennis, at his own request, was sandwiched between Arthur and Maggie, gritting his teeth and managing to put up with the constant barrage of images if it meant he didn't have to let go of anyone's hands. None of them wanted to be stuck in the house alone. At either end, the witches tried to do what they could to shield the poor psychic. It helped, a little.
"You know..." Meredith said slowly as they made their careful way through the halls. "I think I'm actually starting to get a sense of how to get through the halls of this damn house."
"You're kidding, right?" Maggie looked at her funny, and Meredith looked back and smiled wryly.
"No, seriously. I can't figure out which hallway to go down or anything, but I know... the library's roughly that way.." she pointed back over her shoulder and to the left. "The bedroom's over that way," she pointed again, this time to their right. "My guess is there are a few more rooms around here. The rooms themselves can't really change position, just the halls. It's like a ... I don't know. Some kind of sliding door maze like they use for rats in psych labs."
"Always wanted to be a rat in a maze," Arthur muttered, halfheartedly trying to make a joke. Dennis giggled, a bit high pitched, and then swallowed it back. Meredith chuckled softly, but didn't say anything.
In the back, Laurel was watching Dennis, wondering what it was that he'd seen. Merry'd told her a little bit about his abilities, what she could discern anyway... and told her a little bit about his visions of his own demise here in the house. She'd asked Laurel to take a look into the webs of the future, see what the probabilities were and how they lay. Since then, Laurel had looked twice more.
It didn't look good for Dennis.
Over and over, she watched as the ghost slammed Dennis against the wall, practically breaking him in two. She watched the blood froth from his mouth, the pain galvanize him, the terror cross his eyes before they finally achieved that horrible blankness of death. Meredith, looking through her eyes, had grimaced and fled from her mind the first time she'd seen that. Laurel had played it over and over again, trying to be clinical and look for a way out. She wasn't seeing one.
Not that Dennis needed to know this, of course. She sighed... it really wouldn't do to give the poor man any false hopes. He was already on edge enough as it is. Laurel wondered... what must it be like to live like that? Always apart from everyone else, always at one remove from the rest of humanity. She'd never known that kind of separation... none of the three of them had, for that matter. Laurel had had her aunt to teach her witchcraft... and Meredith had had her mother (and even if she hadn't, her father would have probably made a sorceress of her)... and Amber had been adopted by the local coven at such a young age that they'd been amazed at her early skill when the three of them had finally met.
Dennis hadn't had any of that. Laurel wondered if at least his family life had been relatively forgiving. She knew what that was like... she'd known a young man, with five siblings and parents who were always busy trying to feed them all... the poor boy had been so empathic it had been almost painful. Eventually, he'd thrown himself off of the Golden Gate Bridge. She shuddered with the memory.
No... when this was all over, then the tiny coven could take Dennis in hand, maybe introduce him to Sebastian (if Meredith's father didn't ground her first), maybe introduce him to Laurel's twin cousins, sorceress and witch, not powerful but very, very skilled. When it was all over, if they all survived, then they could teach him that he wasn't abnormal, simply part of a smaller norm. She smiled slightly at the thought. They could all have fun with that.
Meredith stopped. Laurel was so distracted with her own thoughts that she nearly ran into Arthur, and stopped barely in time. "What is it?"
The middle three looked around warily as Meredith held up a hand for silence, closed her eyes... and opened them again, worried. "It's right down there..." she pointed below them. "The Ocularis."
Dennis frowned, knelt and put a hand on the floor. He turned pale. "So are the kids..." he said, standing and backing up. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"Then we need to find a way to get downstairs," Arthur said, trying to press past Dennis. He put a hand on the other man's chest to try and move him aside, and Dennis screamed and doubled over. Arthur jumped; Maggie jumped back. Both witches dived forward, trying to calm things down.
"Don't touch me!" Dennis wailed. Laurel and Meredith dropped to their knees beside him, arms encircling him protectively even as he cringed from them too. They touched their foreheads to the sides of his head, preventing him from moving.
"I hate pure psionics," Meredith muttered absently. "Too hard to control."
Arthur actually looked sheepish. "Sorry... I keep forgetting."
Dennis was shaking, and looked even more like he was about to be sick, but he was starting to calm down. "Yeah, try living with it," he muttered, but without rancor. Laurel murmured something in his ear, and he nodded, closing his eyes and breathing slowly, more evenly. Finally they all stood together.
"Anybody remember where the stairs are?" Meredith said after a second, stepping back from Dennis and propping her fists on her hips. Everyone shrugged... Dennis frowned, and started down the hall a little ways.
"I think they're this way... shit!"
The walls had started to move again.
"Oh no..." A panel was sliding in between them... aiming directly for Dennis. He stood there, frozen, till Maggie grabbed his arm and he shrieked, pulling away.
"Augh!"
"Dennis!" Everybody yelled. His eyes locked onto the pane of glass, heading straight for him on a path that would bisect him from crown to crotch. He gulped.
"Oh god..."
"DENNIS!" Meredith grabbed his arm and yanked. Barely in time, his arm scraped against the glass as she pulled him to one side, slamming into Maggie, herself. They fell against the glass wall where Meredith had been standing and sunk to the floor.
"Merry!" Laurel tried to say through the glass. The sound came through, but muffled. "Meet us downstairs! We'll try and get to the kids and the Ocularis!"
Meredith nodded, catching her breath. On the other side of the wall she watched as Laurel grabbed the very startled Arthur's arm and tugged him down the hall. Maggie and Dennis looked at each other, then at her, waiting expectantly for their marching orders. It was a little while before she stood up again, and her face was pale and drawn. She took a deep breath and started moving the only way they could: down the newly formed hall to their left. "Let's go."
They followed her a little ways in silence, Maggie in the middle, Dennis looking nervously over his shoulder in the rear. He seemed to be thinking about something.
"That last change... that was the last ghost, wasn't it?"
Meredith nodded tightly, but didn't say anything.
"What..." Maggie looked from one to the other, not liking the expressions on their faces. "What does that mean?"
"It means all the ghosts are loose, and Cyrus can start to power up the Ocularis now. It means the only thing he needs is the thirteenth ghost, and then he can unleash hell on earth. All he needs now is Arthur, and we're all doomed." Despite her confident tones of earlier, now she just sounded tired.
"Oh."