Chapter 7

"Let's go save Mom and Dad."

Stupid.

"Louie!"

That what he was. Stupid.

"Louie!"

Why did he think that just because he did something so stupid it would all turn out okay?

"Louie, you idiot!"

Louie's head snapped up.

"W,Webby?" He asked, he blinked as he stared at the outlined shadow of his wife. "How, what -?" He watched as Webby knelt down in front of him, even as a shadow he could see fire in her eyes. He gulped. He was in trouble, and he knew it.

"Lena and I have sort of been practicing using Shadow Magic." Webby told him sheepisly.

"Now, who's the idiot?" Louie asked. Webby blinked irritably. "Damn it, Webby! You could get lost in there forever!" He shouted at her.

"Sssh." Webby said anxiously. "Soran will hear you!" She watched the blood drain from his face when she said that. "Look, I figured I can get to you the fastest this way, then we can escape through the Shadow Realm together once I find the right way out.."

"That's what I mean, that could take forever! Soran already exspects you to come after me and show up in a couple of hours! What about the kids?" He asked angerly.

"I think our family can look after them while we deal with this, don't you think?" Webby asked.

'They don't know about you going AWOL do they?" Louie snarled.

"What's gotten into you, Louie?" Webby asked avoiding the question, and sounding a bit hurt by his attitude. "I'm saving you, and all you can think about is how I'm doing it?"

"I, I just don't want -." He began, then he started hearing footsteps. His eyes widen. Webby looked towards the door in alarm. "Go. Now." Louie told her firmly.

"But -." Webby said, but she didn't get a chance to finish because the door flung open making light pour into the room and Webby disappeared. Louie crawled backed away slowly as Soran strolled in. She squinted his eyes at him and looked around.

"Who were you talking to?" She asked, her eyes darting around the room.

"N, No one." Louie stammered.

"Do not lie to me." She hissed. She lifted her knife she held in her hand and waved it at Louie. Louie looked at it, and swallowed hard. His wounds still stinging against his flesh from the last time she cut him.

"You were talking to somone." She said her eyes gleamed brightly.

Louie looked up at her, his heart racing as he tried comping up with a lie.

"I, I was talking to myself." He lied. Soran arched an eyebrow. "I, It's too quiet in here, I, I can't stand quiet..."

A smile slowly spread across her face.

"Well, darling, we'll fix that problem right now." She said as she loomed over him.

Garret took the stairs two at a time as he followed his uncle. He had no idea what was going on, but it must be big for his usually calm and collective uncle to react the way he did.

Huey made it to the library door and flung it open just in time to see Webby disappear as purple mist surrounded her. Garret stopped a few feet away, and listened in in the doorway as Huey marched in and up to Lena. Garret saw that her eyes were brimming with tears and Violet was trying to sooth her.

"Lena, what did you just do?" Huey shouted at her.

He rushed up to her so quickly that Lena didn't have time to step out of his way and stumbled into a pile of stacked books. They fell to the floor in Violet's dismay and she quickly went to pick them up, she thought it was best not to get invovled with this, not after what happened last time...

She shivered.

"S, She wanted to..." Lena choked out. "I, I tried talking her out of it..."

"You didn't try hard enough!" Huey shouted. He grabbed the front of her shirt and twisted it inside his fist as he pushed her hard against the wall.

"Uncle Huey!" Garret shouted.

Huey froze and glanced behind him. Garret stood there with a frightened look on his face. He sighed and slowly put Lena down.

"What is going on? What happened to Mom?" He asked.

"Care to explaine to the kid what you did?" Huey snarled at Lena. Lena looked over at Garret who's heart was racing.

"Y, Your Mom," She began. "S,She went to save Louie by traveling through the Shadow Realm..."

Garret stared at her in dismay.

He had heard of the Shadow Realm. Uncle Dewey would tell him stories back when they were a kids before bed, even though Webby didn't think it was such a good idea, with his nightmare issues.

"Y,You sent Mom to the Shadow Realm?" He asked. Lena slowly nodded her head as tears silently flowed down her cheeks. Garret took a step back.

"Garret," Violet began, thinking it was her time to step in, "Lena didn't want too..."

But Garret had already whirled around and started running. He ignored the pain in his ribs as he ran out of the mansion towards the garage. He just got them back, now, he might not ever see them again. He had to get to Hope, she had to know what's going on.

He made it to the garage, and stopped just outside out of breath.

"Garret?"

He looked up and saw Hope all covered in oil and grease. She was looking at him with worried and concern eyes.

"What's the matter? Why aren't you in bed?" She asked.

"M,Mom. Dad. Gone." He replied, breathlessly.

"What do you mean? Gone?" Hope asked. She took his arm gently and pulled him inside. She sat him down near their work bench as Gosalyn came over.

"Dad, he went back, and Mom. In the Shadow Realm..." He told.

"Okay, calm down." Gosalyn said, "Start at the beginning."

Garret took a deep breath and told them what was going on. Dewey came strolling into the garage just then, just as he was finishing up.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" She snapped at Dewey as he put his arm around her.

"Had to clear my head." Dewey muttered. She looked over at him and saw that he was troubled about something. She opened her mouth to say something but he shooked his head, making her close it again. He'd tell her when he was ready.

"I can't believe them!" Hope said. "We just got them back! We were all here! Why did they -?" She stopped when she noticed that only two of the hard drives were on the work bench. "He didn't!" She growled.

She started rummaging through the piles of blueprints and sketch books to see if her theory was true. It was.

"Dad took the hard drive. Didn't he?" She asked. She looked at her Uncle who avoided her eyes and her heart sank. "Uncle Dewey?"

Dewey slowly looked at her.

"H, He made a deal with Soran." Dewey told her finally. Hope blinked. "S,She wanted the chip, and for Louie to bring it to her in exchange for her never bothering you two, and your Mom, again..." His voice trailed off when he saw fire in Hope's eyes.

It made her look so much like her mother. What she said next only confirmed it.

"That idiot!" She exclaimed. "I'm gonna kill him!"

She grabbed Garret's hand roughly, ignoring his groaning pain and whimpering as she pulled him towards where they kept the plans. Dewey and Gosalyn followed. Dewey sighed when he saw the Speed Demon gone again.

"Why does he always have to take mine?" He whined as Hope dragged Garret up onto the Rocket Launcher. She paused and looked back over at her Aunt and Uncle.

"Well?" She snapped making them both blink. "You two coming or not?"

Dewey glanced over at his wife who raised an eyebrow and shrugged at him as she followed her neice and nephew onto the plane.

Dewey sighed again.

"Yeah, I'm comin'." Dewey grumbled and marched onto the plane with the rest of his family.

"Not so quiet now, is it?" Soran said loudly over Louie's screaming.

Louie was gravling on the floor, holding his sides, and groaning loudly. He squeezed his eyes shut as Soran slowly moved the knife across his flesh, until she reached his collar bone. Louie opened his eyes and stared at her.

"I'm going to ask you again, who were you talking too?" She hissed. "And I'd think twice before lying to me again." She told him firmly, her eyes gleaming excitedly.

"I'm not lying I -." Louie began as he struggled to get up. "Just, just kill me already." Louie groaned. "Anything is better then this." He added.

"Well, darling, I wouldn't mind killing you." Soran said, "But then how will I be able to torture Webbigail? The kids won't satisfy my craving for revenge." She added.

Louie glared at her.

"Haven't you tortured her enough?" Louie asked, as Soran turned to leave. "I mean, you already have me." He pointed out. "And put my kid's through hell, and Luca..." His voice trailed off as the mentioned of his late son.

Soran glanced back at him as she opened the door. His blood dripped from the blade of her knife. Louie noticed she hadn't licked any of it up he wondered if she was full of his blood, or was waiting for the kid that was growing inside her to have a craving for it first.

"Having you is just a consolation prize for me personally." Soran told him. "What comes with that is just icing on the cake." She chuckled at the look on Louie's face. "Seem's like our child agrees." She said, looking down at her stomach and cradling it. "He's kicking wanna feel him?" She asked, looking back at him.

Louie continued to glare at her as he slowly shooked his head. Soran shrugged.

"You'll learn to love this child as much as I do already." She told him. "You did with Luca." She added, making the cut deepen even deeper within Louie's soul as she left the room. Louie heard the door lock and he was alone.

Again.

"Um. Hope, don't you think this is going to far?" Garret asked as they flew through the clouds. He was watching his sister nervously as she took out an old book their mother had kept since she was the kids, The Grimore DuLock and was flipping angerly through it.

"Yeah," Dewey agreed, he was watching them from the co-pilot seat. "You've already been through a lot, both of you. You sure this is the right time too -."

Hope looked up at her uncle sharply.

"If Dad is stupid enough to trust Soran not to harm us or Mom once he gives that fake copy hard drive to her, he's even a bigger idiot as Mom is for going into the shadow realm." She snapped.

Dewey and Garret stared at her.

Maybe she wasn't back to her old self like Garret thought.

"It's up to us to save both of them. We are the only one's left who can..." She looked down at the book and studied the page that consisted of the Shadow Realm.

"But," Dewey tried again, "I also know that they wouldn't want you put in harms way, again." Dewey told her. "Take it from someone who's been there." He added, remembering the time he almost put his family in danger by finding out what happened to their Mom.

"No offense, Uncle Dewey." Hope said, "But it's a little to late for that, not you think?" She snapped at him. Dewey blinked, sighed, then nodded in agreement.

Yep. She is just like Webby.

"Mom is lost in the Shadow Realm. Dad is being held captive, again. There's no telling what Soran is doing to him or what she'd do once she figures out that hard drive is a fake." Hope continued. "We're going to save them, rather it's a good idea or not." She finished.

Dewey, Garret, and Gosylen all looked at each other.

"Now." Hope said as she held up the book and snapped it shut. "Let's go save Mom and Dad." She said with determination.

Webby hated the smell of the Shadow Realm. It smelled of decaying flesh and rotten eggs. She had no idea how Lena could have stand it in here as long as she did. Webby was glad she and Violet saved her from it when they did.

As she trudged through the smog that surrounded her she thought back to that time she had her sleep over with Violet and wished that it was back to that simpler time, back with living with her Granny and all she had to worry about was making friends.

Now, here she was, twenty-one years old and making her way through the Shadow Realm to save her husband.

A tight knot formed in her stomach as she peered through the darkness with her night vision goggles she had managed to snatch before Lena sent her to the Shadow Realm. She hated putting Lena on the spot like that, but Webby felt like she had no other choice.

This has gone on long enough, and once she has Louie safely back home with the kids she was going after Soran herself, with or without S.H.U.S.H.'s permission.

It was hard to navigate considering she had no sense of direction here, all she could do was wing it and hopefully find the right way to Louie as quick as she can.

Louie slowly walked around the room, pacing impatiently trying to come up with some sort of plan. He could usually come up with one in about two seconds flat but with all that was buzzing around in his head, and the fact that blood was still pouring out of him, he couldn't think straight. He felt dizzy, disorianted, and if he didn't get food or water not to mention a doctor he'll surely die before Webby or Soran come for him again.

Times like this he wished he had his brother's with him. One would come up with a way out of here, and the other would care to his wounds and make sure he would die on them. He wanted so much for Webby not to come save him, but he'd just have to accept the fact that she was on her way through the Shadow Realm.

The fake hard drive seemed to have fooled Soran at least, for now, he would have to deal if she ever discovers it actually was fake.

He stopped short of pacing when something cought his eye. He walked slowly over to the cot bed beside a computer. He bent down and got out a small journal and his heart skipped a beat when he read the title;

Luca's Journal.

With shaky hands he sat on the cot bed, careful not to let the blood that was seeping through his hoodie to get on it, and opened the journal. He saw his son's neat cursive writing and started to read.

Dear Journal,

Mom's angry again. She says it's because of her. Tells me she's marrying someone named Louie. Who is somehow my father? I don't know. I feel like this should be good news, I made the mistake of smiling around her. She hit me, making one of my bolts loose, now I got this cough and I can't seem to fix it...

Louie stared at the first entry.

So, Soran had been keeping tabs on them after their first encounter. But how? Their wedding was a small, quiet, and rather secret one (Louie felt like he needed something not so exstream after all they've went through before hand).

A sudden chill ran down his spine, he didn't want to think it, but the thought formed inside his mind before he could stop it.

Could someone in his family be giving inside information on them to F.O.W.L?

He shook himself. No. It wasn't possible. He trusted everyone in his family with his life, his children's lives.

But the thought hadn't left him as he looked up from Luca's journal and stared out the window. The sun was just setting over head and his heart sank when he realized this would be the first night he wouldn't be sleeping beside Webby.

He blinked hard to keep the tears from falling and he slowly slid himself onto Luca's old cot. He turned the lamp overhead on and stared at the journal. He wouldn't be able to sleep at all tonight, not with him bleeding out, and not without Webby.

He sighed deeply and looked at all the other books, maps, and comic's his late son had.

Well,

At least he won't be exstreamly bored out of his mind, or stressed with worrying about Webby. He looked back down at the journal and continued to read.