A/N: Okay, I'm not going to be able to keep up this generic romance much longer... either Dennis is going to start flirting with all three witches, or you guys are going to have to vote in your suggestions for which one he ends up with, or none. :)
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The first thing Dennis noticed when he drifted back to consciousness again was that it was warm. Very warm. The second thing he noticed was that it was soft, and the third and fourth things were Laurel and Merry on either side of him. He'd've sat up suddenly if he'd been physically able.
"Mrrph," Merry muttered sleepily, and snuggled further up to Dennis. The lanky psychic looked down at her, uncomfortable and at the same time shyly pleased to have her there.
"It can't be time to wake up already," Laurel said into the pillows and Dennis' shoulder. Above them he heard Amber kick the wall, hard.
"If you put a dent in my wall, I'm going to make you fix it," Merry mumbled, and turned her head. Suddenly Dennis was nose to very cute nose with her. "G'morning."
"Good morning," he smiled shyly. He could get used to this. Merry smiled back, and there was a brief but panic-ridden moment when he thought she might kiss him. Then Laurel sat up behind him, narrowly missing the upper bunk with her head, and the moment passed. They both looked away, embarrassed.
"How long have we been asleep?" Laurel stretched and yawned, leaning so far backwards that Dennis was surprised he didn't hear her back break.
"About..." There was the sound of movement from above them while Amber hunted for her watch. "Jeez. Ten hours. Merry, is your father back yet?"
"Mm-hmm..." Merry stretched and rolled out of the bunk bed, "He woke me up a few hours ago to let me know that he'd gotten back and he'd heard about the Juggernaught. And to tell me that he was going to let us sleep in," she added, grinning wryly as she leaned on her desk and watched everyone untangle themselves from the blankets.
"He woke you up to tell you he was going to let you sleep in?"
"It didn't make sense to me either," she shrugged ruefully.
Dennis waited till Amber had staggered down the ladder before rolling out of the bottom bunk. "Does he have some sort of set agenda for which ghost we tackle next, or are we just pulling names out of a hat?" he asked, a bit hesitantly. His first banishment had gone eerily well, and he wasn't sure if that was typical of an exercise involving the witches or if they'd just gotten lucky. As intimidating as he was, Dennis would almost have preferred having Sebastian there. At least he knew the man was powerful and skilled and more than capable of handling just about anything Dennis could think up. The witches... he was still having problems thinking of the delicate-seeming young women tackling anything like the ghosts.
Except for Amber. Amber, even half-awake, seemed ready to tackle anything.
"I don't know..." Merry looked around Dennis as Laurel cracked her neck with an audible popping noise. "You keep doing that, and some day your head is going to twist right around."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Laurel muttered, not unkindly. "Go find your father."
Merry did so, muttering about self-destructive habits as she left the room. Dennis shook his head and stretched, causing a number of his own joints to pop.
"I heard that!" Merry's voice wafted in from the hallway.
"That wasn't me!" Laurel said, about the same time as Dennis called out. "My fault!" He looked around the room, met Laurel and Amber's gazes, and they all snickered. Dennis stretched again, relaxing. It had been a long time since he'd felt this good, ghosts or no ghosts. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever felt this good. He was in a house that just radiated warmth and comfort, among friends and the closest thing he'd ever had to family. He was starting to learn his abilities better, to have a more solid knowledge base about what he could and couldn't do, and as a result was feeling much more confident. His life pre-Ocularis seemed almost like a far-off nightmare. He closed his eyes, leaned back and grinned at the feeling of the sun on his face. Life was definitely looking up.
Behind him Laurel and Amber looked at each other and grinned.
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"I think we can save Arthur's wife for last," Dennis volunteered when the discussion came up around the lunchtable. "Of all of them... I don't even really think she's still around. She looked pretty peaceful, there at the end."
Sebastian nodded. "I would tend to agree with you, despite what Erik says. It might be worth talking to Kriticos and asking him if he has had any visitations lately, but I would doubt it."
"Which leaves nine ghosts..." Merry bit her lip. "Most of which are nasty, violent, and dangerous in one way or another. Father, do you really think we can do this on our own? I'd much rather have Erik with us, or even Philip or Rosalind..." She paused and sighed as she saw her father slowly shake his head. "I know, I know. We found the problem, so it's our responsiblity to deal with it."
"We are not spread so thickly over the country that we can pull all of them off of whatever they are doing to help us," he pointed out, "And I'm not entirely sure I can contact Erik or Rosalind, in any case. They have a tendency to wander from place to place without leaving any way for us to contact them. As you are well aware."
Merry flushed. "So which ghost do we tackle next?" Amber interjected before anything else on that line could be said. "Or do we just start pulling names out of a hat?"
Sebastian took a deep breath. He actually looked uncomfortable, a situation which was unusual enough to cause all three witches and Dennis to look at him oddly. "Actually... I was intending to recommend that you visit the Pilgrimess next. There are reasons..." He trailed off. Merry gave her father a look that clearly said she thought he had lost what few marbles he still had a death grip on. His gaze, however, had eventually fixed upon Laurel, who was now starting to look uncomfortable as well.
"What reasons..." Laurel said slowly.
"I took the liberty of studying the genealogy of Miss Isabella Smith, under the chance that she actually was of a witchcraft-inclined lineage. As you may know, she emigrated to the States with no family to speak of and never settled down or had any children before she was executed for poisoning and killing the village's cattle. But she did have family in England..."
Laurel paled. Merry and Amber each leaned over and gripped a hand, staring at Sebastian.
"... and yes, Laurel, she is your ancestress."
Dennis could hear and count the seconds tick by on his watch. It was a full fifteen minutes till the silence was broken again by anything other than breathing and gasping.
"Well, shit."
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Dennis didn't think he'd ever seen the witches so fragile, so frail. After the banishment of the Juggernaut he felt almost invincible... but Laurel seemed on the verge of total collapse. Merry wasn't much better, and Amber was tense with holding both of them together. He didn't understand why. Well, no, that wasn't true. He understood a little, how the blood that Laurel and the Pilgrimess shared could give the ghost power over the woman if she wasn't careful, and if the ghost really had been a witch. But he didn't understand why they were so terrified of the confrontation. He'd seen them in action, he knew how capable they were. Didn't they know it, themselves? Maybe they didn't... he hadn't known, or hadn't believed at any rate, what he was capable of until very recently.
He was driving them to the site of the hanging, which was (fortunately for them) in one of the more backwoods areas of New Jersey. They'd chosen midnight for their time of attack, but it had taken only one 'witching hour' joke to send Laurel into a fit of hysterical giggles, and then they were all silent. Merry was sitting next to him, with Amber in the back. The atmosphere was tense, thick, palpably muffled.
"What are we going to do this time?" Dennis asked finally, speaking in low tones so as not to upset Laurel any more than she already was. They'd forced some valerian and chamomile tea down her throat an hour into the drive, and she was now sleeping fitfully in the back seat.
"Probably just a simple banishing," Merry murmured back, her eyes closed. "With the blood tie, Laurel can theoretically just stand there, tell the Pilgrimess to go away, and she'll go."
"Theoretically."
Merry nodded. "If she's strong enough. Laurel's... well, she's grown up on stories like this. Almost exactly like this, there's always one witch or sorcerer or something in every other generation that becomes the bugbear in the closet. Be good or so-and-so will get you, that kind of thing. Great Uncle Moe, I don't know. Laurel's never really said much about them, but I also don't think she ever expected the monster under her bed to be real."
Dennis winced. It explained a lot. "Well, but the Pilgrimess didn't hurt her when we were all in the house..."
"I don't think she knew who Laurel was. Hopefully she still won't know. Because this time there aren't any warded walls to hide behind if the ghost gets nasty. We're going to have to pull something out of our butts."
He grinned. "That's an interesting image..."
"Oh, hush." It did provoke her into smiling, though, the first smile of the evening. Dennis felt a little surge of gratification.
"We'll get through it," he said with more confidence than he felt. "I have faith in us."
She glanced at him sideways a little. "You sure?"
"Yeah..." he glanced back at her, paused at seeing her unease. "Come on, Merry. Look what you guys have done. For me, at least, just in the short time I've known you. You saved me and Arthur and his whole family from psychotic ghosts and sorcerers. You killed Cyrus, and he was one mean son of a bitch. You destroyed the Ocularis, destroyed all the notes. You took me on and taught me how to control all the weird stuff I can do. And if that's just same old day-in day-out stuff to you, well, it's something big to me. It's impressive. You guys are strong, you're smart, you're resourceful." He paused. The next few words were sticking in his throat.
"You stick together. You're like family, and that means something. You've got each other's backs, and you know it. You trust each other. And I know it's a cliche, but that's really something powerful that no ghost is going to take from you. It's a big part of what makes you guys so strong. And I really think it's what's going to help you beat the ghosts... and whatever happens after that."
Merry stared at him in silence for a little while. Her eyes glittered suspiciously, but there was a small, shy smile on her face. "Thanks..." she said finally, heartfelt. She turned to face front again. "Sometimes I think we forget that."
"Well, don't," he grinned a little at her, and she glanced over and smiled back.
"Yessir."
"Yessir." "Yessir." Two echoes came from the back seat, and Laurel wearily poked her head through to the front. "Thanks, Dennis..." she murmured near his ear. "I needed that."
"You going to be okay?"
She looked haggard. She looked exhausted, like a stiff breeze would blow her over. "Yeah, I think so. Okay enough to do this, anyway."
"I hope so..." Merry said, her voice more than a little strained. "'cause we're there."
Everyone's heads whipped front, saw the ghost bent over in front of the car as Dennis drove right through her, moving too fast to stop. It looked almost like she had been gardening or something, but when the car drove through her with all for supernaturally-inclined people inside she turned and glared at it. Her jaw unhinged from her face as she screamed, and it seemed that the scream sent an icy wind through the car. Laurel's eyes widened, and she gave a little yelp as Dennis pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked.
"Ohhh... Goddess...." she started to babble. Merry and Amber stumbled out of the car, Dennis remaining in the front seat. "Sweet Morrighan, Lady of Battles, protect me..."
"It'll be okay," Dennis tried to reassure her, trying to return the favor from the house. "We're all here with you... it'll be okay."
She threw him a grateful look and got out of the car after him.
"I..." Laurel stammered, stepping forward between the two witches who were standing towards the trunk of the car. "Isabelle..."
"It's okay..." Merry murmured, taking her coven-sister's hand. "You're going to be okay.. okay? You've got the three of us..."
Dennis threw her a grateful look at being included in the group, and she gave him a return look of 'don't be a bloody idiot.' He stepped up behind Laurel, gently laying his hands on her shoulders and calming himself down, breathing the way the women had taught him, trying to focus his mind. The ghost wasn't having nearly as much of an effect on him as it was on Laurel, but it was still unnerving to see the creature again.
Laurel reached up one hand to grip Dennis', the other remaind clasped in Merry's hand. Amber slid an arm around her friend's waist. She straightened, the strength that she was taking from everyone's presence almost visible as the lines of panic smoothed on her face. "Isabella Smith."
The ghost looked up as its descendant addressed it and screamed again. This time the blast definitely went through all of them, freezing cold. Laurel rocked back a little into Dennis, who gently pushed her back up. "Isabella Smith of New Linconshire. You have strayed a very long ways away from your time. Go home."
The ghost screamed. Somewhere in the noise a tone of 'says who' could be felt. Laurel's grip tightened.
"I have spoken, and it will be so. You are out of your time and far from your home..."
"... and dead..." Amber stuck in pertly.
"... and dead," Laurel smiled, just a little. "You have no place here. Your time is up. Leave this place, and never return. I command you, by the stars and by the earth and by the blood in our veins..."
Dennis knew that last part had been a mistake the second Merry hissed and grabbed Laurel's hand. From the look on Laurel's face, she had realized it only too late as well. The ghost leaned forward, almost as though it was tasting the air, and drifted very close to Laurel. The other three clustered around her as though they could shield her with her bodies. Laurel's face had gone pasty white, and Dennis actually thought she might faint. "Now what?" he murmured, uncertain.
"Now..." Merry bit her lip.
"Now we improvise..." Amber murmured, and for a second Dennis wasn't sure he'd seen her lips move. The Gabriel Hounds, she seemed to say, the ratchets, but he would have sworn it hadn't come from her mouth.
Whatever the Ratchet Hounds were, Laurel seemed to get the hint. She straightened up and stared the ghost levelly in the eye, still shaking but more determined now. "Get you gone, Isabella Smith," she commanded. "You are past out of time."
The ghost screamed and raked claws across the three witches' stomachs. Laurel screamed, too, and crumpled to the ground, although the claws seemed to have passed right through the other two.
"Get back!" Amber drew her sword, a sword that Dennis vaguely recognized from the horrible night at the house, and he knew that hadn't been there a second ago. Merry crouched down by her coven-sister and sunk her hands in the bloody marks, healing her.
"Annwn, Cwn Annwn..." Dennis heard Laurel mumble, but he couldn't tell if it was English, babbling, or some other language. "Help me... Cwn Annwn..." The ghost flickered back and forth in front of the three of them, held at bay by Amber and her sword. "Annwn, Cwn Annwn," he heard again, and "Isabella Smith," and the rest was in words that he didn't know. "Help me..." She passed out.
Dennis looked down at Merry in alarm, but Merry was shaking her head. "She'll be all right... just... exhausted..." she seemed to be looking around for something. He was about to ask what she was looking for, but the ghost lunged past Amber and it was all the three of them could do to keep the ghost off of Laurel. It raked at Dennis, then at the other two again, claws still passing through them like numbing mist. "Cwn Annwn..." Merry was repeating now. "Cwn Annwn..."
A loud growl interrupted Dennis as he was about to ask just what the hell they were talking about. He looked around, wondering where the next threat was coming from, until he noticed that the ghost witch was looking around in fright as well. The growling continued, growing softer and softer until he thought that whatever it was had almost gone. At least, he hoped it was gone. It didn't sound like anyone's dog that he'd ever heard, and for a second the images of the Hammer crushing him like a walnut flashed through his mind again. The car that had nearly hit him when he was fifteen, the serial killer who had killed the neighbor about his age. All the times he had narrowly escaped death. He closed his eyes after the last, faint growl had subsided, hoping that it was over. His arms wrapped around Merry and Laurel's shoulders, and he felt Merry's arm slip around his waist. They huddled together in the darkness, with Amber still holding the ghost at bay.
The ghost's scream, no longer menacing but terrified, galvanized him into opening his eyes again. What he saw nearly made him scream as well.
A mastiff stood next to the ghost, nearly four feet tall at the shoulder and pure white in coat, with ears that looked as though they had been dipped in blood. He'd never seen eyes that were so suited to the description of 'burning hellfires' before. The hound's teeth were bared, and he would have sworn that the saliva that dripped from the canines sizzled like acid when it hit the street.
The spectral hound grabbed the ghost by the throat, shaking her like a rag doll. Amber lowered her sword, looking pale and sweaty but almost vindictive as she watched. She was the only other one watching; Laurel was still unconscious and Merry was tending feverishly to her. Dennis watched in shock and horror as the hound shook the ghost one last time, leaped high into the air over their heads, and was gone.
They sat on the side of the road for almost five minutes before Laurel regained consciousness and anyone spoke again.
"What the hell was that?" Dennis asked, rattled to his boots.
"Appropriate epithet," Merry said wryly, supporting Laurel as they staggered over to the car. "The hounds of Annwn are also known as hellhounds. One of their duties is to escort people to the lands of the dead."
"Escort?" He heard the pitch of his voice climb and forced himself to calm down. "What do you mean, escort?"
"Like archangels, or harbingers... they take souls that have passed on to the realms of the dead." Laurel coughed, but no liquid came up, no blood.
"Welcome back to the land of the conscious," Dennis grinned wryly at her, and she gave him a tired wink in return.
"Sorry if I scared you guys..." she said, collapsing into the back seat with Merry. Amber just clambered into the driver's seat, and they arranged themselves more or less in order. "I figured, calling the hell hounds was easier than trying to fight my ancestress while Merry worked on me."
"You're damn straight it was," Merry smiled. "You're a pain in the butt to take care of at the best of times."
"I thought that honor went to Amber," Dennis said mildly, and got punched in the arm for it. "Ow."
"The ratchets are sort of available to us through the pantheon we work through..." Amber continued where Laurel had left off. "We deal mostly in magics and spirits from the British Isles, and the Cwn Annwn are Welsh. Not precisely our purview, but it worked, for the most part. And a good thing, too. Laurel, what the hell were you thinking?" Fear was laced all through her voice, but there was anger there too. The tension in the car jumped.
Dennis laid a hand on her arm as Laurel winced and sank further into the back seat. "Not now, okay?" he murmured. Amber sighed, and shrugged.
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Look, why don't you guys get some sleep... Merry, you too, if you think Laurel can spare you. We're damn well done for the night."
"I'll keep an eye on her," Dennis murmured, twisting around in his seat to watch Laurel as she stretched out as much as she could in the back seat. Merry threw him a grateful look.
"Thanks..."
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The first thing Dennis noticed when he drifted back to consciousness again was that it was warm. Very warm. The second thing he noticed was that it was soft, and the third and fourth things were Laurel and Merry on either side of him. He'd've sat up suddenly if he'd been physically able.
"Mrrph," Merry muttered sleepily, and snuggled further up to Dennis. The lanky psychic looked down at her, uncomfortable and at the same time shyly pleased to have her there.
"It can't be time to wake up already," Laurel said into the pillows and Dennis' shoulder. Above them he heard Amber kick the wall, hard.
"If you put a dent in my wall, I'm going to make you fix it," Merry mumbled, and turned her head. Suddenly Dennis was nose to very cute nose with her. "G'morning."
"Good morning," he smiled shyly. He could get used to this. Merry smiled back, and there was a brief but panic-ridden moment when he thought she might kiss him. Then Laurel sat up behind him, narrowly missing the upper bunk with her head, and the moment passed. They both looked away, embarrassed.
"How long have we been asleep?" Laurel stretched and yawned, leaning so far backwards that Dennis was surprised he didn't hear her back break.
"About..." There was the sound of movement from above them while Amber hunted for her watch. "Jeez. Ten hours. Merry, is your father back yet?"
"Mm-hmm..." Merry stretched and rolled out of the bunk bed, "He woke me up a few hours ago to let me know that he'd gotten back and he'd heard about the Juggernaught. And to tell me that he was going to let us sleep in," she added, grinning wryly as she leaned on her desk and watched everyone untangle themselves from the blankets.
"He woke you up to tell you he was going to let you sleep in?"
"It didn't make sense to me either," she shrugged ruefully.
Dennis waited till Amber had staggered down the ladder before rolling out of the bottom bunk. "Does he have some sort of set agenda for which ghost we tackle next, or are we just pulling names out of a hat?" he asked, a bit hesitantly. His first banishment had gone eerily well, and he wasn't sure if that was typical of an exercise involving the witches or if they'd just gotten lucky. As intimidating as he was, Dennis would almost have preferred having Sebastian there. At least he knew the man was powerful and skilled and more than capable of handling just about anything Dennis could think up. The witches... he was still having problems thinking of the delicate-seeming young women tackling anything like the ghosts.
Except for Amber. Amber, even half-awake, seemed ready to tackle anything.
"I don't know..." Merry looked around Dennis as Laurel cracked her neck with an audible popping noise. "You keep doing that, and some day your head is going to twist right around."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Laurel muttered, not unkindly. "Go find your father."
Merry did so, muttering about self-destructive habits as she left the room. Dennis shook his head and stretched, causing a number of his own joints to pop.
"I heard that!" Merry's voice wafted in from the hallway.
"That wasn't me!" Laurel said, about the same time as Dennis called out. "My fault!" He looked around the room, met Laurel and Amber's gazes, and they all snickered. Dennis stretched again, relaxing. It had been a long time since he'd felt this good, ghosts or no ghosts. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever felt this good. He was in a house that just radiated warmth and comfort, among friends and the closest thing he'd ever had to family. He was starting to learn his abilities better, to have a more solid knowledge base about what he could and couldn't do, and as a result was feeling much more confident. His life pre-Ocularis seemed almost like a far-off nightmare. He closed his eyes, leaned back and grinned at the feeling of the sun on his face. Life was definitely looking up.
Behind him Laurel and Amber looked at each other and grinned.
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"I think we can save Arthur's wife for last," Dennis volunteered when the discussion came up around the lunchtable. "Of all of them... I don't even really think she's still around. She looked pretty peaceful, there at the end."
Sebastian nodded. "I would tend to agree with you, despite what Erik says. It might be worth talking to Kriticos and asking him if he has had any visitations lately, but I would doubt it."
"Which leaves nine ghosts..." Merry bit her lip. "Most of which are nasty, violent, and dangerous in one way or another. Father, do you really think we can do this on our own? I'd much rather have Erik with us, or even Philip or Rosalind..." She paused and sighed as she saw her father slowly shake his head. "I know, I know. We found the problem, so it's our responsiblity to deal with it."
"We are not spread so thickly over the country that we can pull all of them off of whatever they are doing to help us," he pointed out, "And I'm not entirely sure I can contact Erik or Rosalind, in any case. They have a tendency to wander from place to place without leaving any way for us to contact them. As you are well aware."
Merry flushed. "So which ghost do we tackle next?" Amber interjected before anything else on that line could be said. "Or do we just start pulling names out of a hat?"
Sebastian took a deep breath. He actually looked uncomfortable, a situation which was unusual enough to cause all three witches and Dennis to look at him oddly. "Actually... I was intending to recommend that you visit the Pilgrimess next. There are reasons..." He trailed off. Merry gave her father a look that clearly said she thought he had lost what few marbles he still had a death grip on. His gaze, however, had eventually fixed upon Laurel, who was now starting to look uncomfortable as well.
"What reasons..." Laurel said slowly.
"I took the liberty of studying the genealogy of Miss Isabella Smith, under the chance that she actually was of a witchcraft-inclined lineage. As you may know, she emigrated to the States with no family to speak of and never settled down or had any children before she was executed for poisoning and killing the village's cattle. But she did have family in England..."
Laurel paled. Merry and Amber each leaned over and gripped a hand, staring at Sebastian.
"... and yes, Laurel, she is your ancestress."
Dennis could hear and count the seconds tick by on his watch. It was a full fifteen minutes till the silence was broken again by anything other than breathing and gasping.
"Well, shit."
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Dennis didn't think he'd ever seen the witches so fragile, so frail. After the banishment of the Juggernaut he felt almost invincible... but Laurel seemed on the verge of total collapse. Merry wasn't much better, and Amber was tense with holding both of them together. He didn't understand why. Well, no, that wasn't true. He understood a little, how the blood that Laurel and the Pilgrimess shared could give the ghost power over the woman if she wasn't careful, and if the ghost really had been a witch. But he didn't understand why they were so terrified of the confrontation. He'd seen them in action, he knew how capable they were. Didn't they know it, themselves? Maybe they didn't... he hadn't known, or hadn't believed at any rate, what he was capable of until very recently.
He was driving them to the site of the hanging, which was (fortunately for them) in one of the more backwoods areas of New Jersey. They'd chosen midnight for their time of attack, but it had taken only one 'witching hour' joke to send Laurel into a fit of hysterical giggles, and then they were all silent. Merry was sitting next to him, with Amber in the back. The atmosphere was tense, thick, palpably muffled.
"What are we going to do this time?" Dennis asked finally, speaking in low tones so as not to upset Laurel any more than she already was. They'd forced some valerian and chamomile tea down her throat an hour into the drive, and she was now sleeping fitfully in the back seat.
"Probably just a simple banishing," Merry murmured back, her eyes closed. "With the blood tie, Laurel can theoretically just stand there, tell the Pilgrimess to go away, and she'll go."
"Theoretically."
Merry nodded. "If she's strong enough. Laurel's... well, she's grown up on stories like this. Almost exactly like this, there's always one witch or sorcerer or something in every other generation that becomes the bugbear in the closet. Be good or so-and-so will get you, that kind of thing. Great Uncle Moe, I don't know. Laurel's never really said much about them, but I also don't think she ever expected the monster under her bed to be real."
Dennis winced. It explained a lot. "Well, but the Pilgrimess didn't hurt her when we were all in the house..."
"I don't think she knew who Laurel was. Hopefully she still won't know. Because this time there aren't any warded walls to hide behind if the ghost gets nasty. We're going to have to pull something out of our butts."
He grinned. "That's an interesting image..."
"Oh, hush." It did provoke her into smiling, though, the first smile of the evening. Dennis felt a little surge of gratification.
"We'll get through it," he said with more confidence than he felt. "I have faith in us."
She glanced at him sideways a little. "You sure?"
"Yeah..." he glanced back at her, paused at seeing her unease. "Come on, Merry. Look what you guys have done. For me, at least, just in the short time I've known you. You saved me and Arthur and his whole family from psychotic ghosts and sorcerers. You killed Cyrus, and he was one mean son of a bitch. You destroyed the Ocularis, destroyed all the notes. You took me on and taught me how to control all the weird stuff I can do. And if that's just same old day-in day-out stuff to you, well, it's something big to me. It's impressive. You guys are strong, you're smart, you're resourceful." He paused. The next few words were sticking in his throat.
"You stick together. You're like family, and that means something. You've got each other's backs, and you know it. You trust each other. And I know it's a cliche, but that's really something powerful that no ghost is going to take from you. It's a big part of what makes you guys so strong. And I really think it's what's going to help you beat the ghosts... and whatever happens after that."
Merry stared at him in silence for a little while. Her eyes glittered suspiciously, but there was a small, shy smile on her face. "Thanks..." she said finally, heartfelt. She turned to face front again. "Sometimes I think we forget that."
"Well, don't," he grinned a little at her, and she glanced over and smiled back.
"Yessir."
"Yessir." "Yessir." Two echoes came from the back seat, and Laurel wearily poked her head through to the front. "Thanks, Dennis..." she murmured near his ear. "I needed that."
"You going to be okay?"
She looked haggard. She looked exhausted, like a stiff breeze would blow her over. "Yeah, I think so. Okay enough to do this, anyway."
"I hope so..." Merry said, her voice more than a little strained. "'cause we're there."
Everyone's heads whipped front, saw the ghost bent over in front of the car as Dennis drove right through her, moving too fast to stop. It looked almost like she had been gardening or something, but when the car drove through her with all for supernaturally-inclined people inside she turned and glared at it. Her jaw unhinged from her face as she screamed, and it seemed that the scream sent an icy wind through the car. Laurel's eyes widened, and she gave a little yelp as Dennis pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked.
"Ohhh... Goddess...." she started to babble. Merry and Amber stumbled out of the car, Dennis remaining in the front seat. "Sweet Morrighan, Lady of Battles, protect me..."
"It'll be okay," Dennis tried to reassure her, trying to return the favor from the house. "We're all here with you... it'll be okay."
She threw him a grateful look and got out of the car after him.
"I..." Laurel stammered, stepping forward between the two witches who were standing towards the trunk of the car. "Isabelle..."
"It's okay..." Merry murmured, taking her coven-sister's hand. "You're going to be okay.. okay? You've got the three of us..."
Dennis threw her a grateful look at being included in the group, and she gave him a return look of 'don't be a bloody idiot.' He stepped up behind Laurel, gently laying his hands on her shoulders and calming himself down, breathing the way the women had taught him, trying to focus his mind. The ghost wasn't having nearly as much of an effect on him as it was on Laurel, but it was still unnerving to see the creature again.
Laurel reached up one hand to grip Dennis', the other remaind clasped in Merry's hand. Amber slid an arm around her friend's waist. She straightened, the strength that she was taking from everyone's presence almost visible as the lines of panic smoothed on her face. "Isabella Smith."
The ghost looked up as its descendant addressed it and screamed again. This time the blast definitely went through all of them, freezing cold. Laurel rocked back a little into Dennis, who gently pushed her back up. "Isabella Smith of New Linconshire. You have strayed a very long ways away from your time. Go home."
The ghost screamed. Somewhere in the noise a tone of 'says who' could be felt. Laurel's grip tightened.
"I have spoken, and it will be so. You are out of your time and far from your home..."
"... and dead..." Amber stuck in pertly.
"... and dead," Laurel smiled, just a little. "You have no place here. Your time is up. Leave this place, and never return. I command you, by the stars and by the earth and by the blood in our veins..."
Dennis knew that last part had been a mistake the second Merry hissed and grabbed Laurel's hand. From the look on Laurel's face, she had realized it only too late as well. The ghost leaned forward, almost as though it was tasting the air, and drifted very close to Laurel. The other three clustered around her as though they could shield her with her bodies. Laurel's face had gone pasty white, and Dennis actually thought she might faint. "Now what?" he murmured, uncertain.
"Now..." Merry bit her lip.
"Now we improvise..." Amber murmured, and for a second Dennis wasn't sure he'd seen her lips move. The Gabriel Hounds, she seemed to say, the ratchets, but he would have sworn it hadn't come from her mouth.
Whatever the Ratchet Hounds were, Laurel seemed to get the hint. She straightened up and stared the ghost levelly in the eye, still shaking but more determined now. "Get you gone, Isabella Smith," she commanded. "You are past out of time."
The ghost screamed and raked claws across the three witches' stomachs. Laurel screamed, too, and crumpled to the ground, although the claws seemed to have passed right through the other two.
"Get back!" Amber drew her sword, a sword that Dennis vaguely recognized from the horrible night at the house, and he knew that hadn't been there a second ago. Merry crouched down by her coven-sister and sunk her hands in the bloody marks, healing her.
"Annwn, Cwn Annwn..." Dennis heard Laurel mumble, but he couldn't tell if it was English, babbling, or some other language. "Help me... Cwn Annwn..." The ghost flickered back and forth in front of the three of them, held at bay by Amber and her sword. "Annwn, Cwn Annwn," he heard again, and "Isabella Smith," and the rest was in words that he didn't know. "Help me..." She passed out.
Dennis looked down at Merry in alarm, but Merry was shaking her head. "She'll be all right... just... exhausted..." she seemed to be looking around for something. He was about to ask what she was looking for, but the ghost lunged past Amber and it was all the three of them could do to keep the ghost off of Laurel. It raked at Dennis, then at the other two again, claws still passing through them like numbing mist. "Cwn Annwn..." Merry was repeating now. "Cwn Annwn..."
A loud growl interrupted Dennis as he was about to ask just what the hell they were talking about. He looked around, wondering where the next threat was coming from, until he noticed that the ghost witch was looking around in fright as well. The growling continued, growing softer and softer until he thought that whatever it was had almost gone. At least, he hoped it was gone. It didn't sound like anyone's dog that he'd ever heard, and for a second the images of the Hammer crushing him like a walnut flashed through his mind again. The car that had nearly hit him when he was fifteen, the serial killer who had killed the neighbor about his age. All the times he had narrowly escaped death. He closed his eyes after the last, faint growl had subsided, hoping that it was over. His arms wrapped around Merry and Laurel's shoulders, and he felt Merry's arm slip around his waist. They huddled together in the darkness, with Amber still holding the ghost at bay.
The ghost's scream, no longer menacing but terrified, galvanized him into opening his eyes again. What he saw nearly made him scream as well.
A mastiff stood next to the ghost, nearly four feet tall at the shoulder and pure white in coat, with ears that looked as though they had been dipped in blood. He'd never seen eyes that were so suited to the description of 'burning hellfires' before. The hound's teeth were bared, and he would have sworn that the saliva that dripped from the canines sizzled like acid when it hit the street.
The spectral hound grabbed the ghost by the throat, shaking her like a rag doll. Amber lowered her sword, looking pale and sweaty but almost vindictive as she watched. She was the only other one watching; Laurel was still unconscious and Merry was tending feverishly to her. Dennis watched in shock and horror as the hound shook the ghost one last time, leaped high into the air over their heads, and was gone.
They sat on the side of the road for almost five minutes before Laurel regained consciousness and anyone spoke again.
"What the hell was that?" Dennis asked, rattled to his boots.
"Appropriate epithet," Merry said wryly, supporting Laurel as they staggered over to the car. "The hounds of Annwn are also known as hellhounds. One of their duties is to escort people to the lands of the dead."
"Escort?" He heard the pitch of his voice climb and forced himself to calm down. "What do you mean, escort?"
"Like archangels, or harbingers... they take souls that have passed on to the realms of the dead." Laurel coughed, but no liquid came up, no blood.
"Welcome back to the land of the conscious," Dennis grinned wryly at her, and she gave him a tired wink in return.
"Sorry if I scared you guys..." she said, collapsing into the back seat with Merry. Amber just clambered into the driver's seat, and they arranged themselves more or less in order. "I figured, calling the hell hounds was easier than trying to fight my ancestress while Merry worked on me."
"You're damn straight it was," Merry smiled. "You're a pain in the butt to take care of at the best of times."
"I thought that honor went to Amber," Dennis said mildly, and got punched in the arm for it. "Ow."
"The ratchets are sort of available to us through the pantheon we work through..." Amber continued where Laurel had left off. "We deal mostly in magics and spirits from the British Isles, and the Cwn Annwn are Welsh. Not precisely our purview, but it worked, for the most part. And a good thing, too. Laurel, what the hell were you thinking?" Fear was laced all through her voice, but there was anger there too. The tension in the car jumped.
Dennis laid a hand on her arm as Laurel winced and sank further into the back seat. "Not now, okay?" he murmured. Amber sighed, and shrugged.
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Look, why don't you guys get some sleep... Merry, you too, if you think Laurel can spare you. We're damn well done for the night."
"I'll keep an eye on her," Dennis murmured, twisting around in his seat to watch Laurel as she stretched out as much as she could in the back seat. Merry threw him a grateful look.
"Thanks..."