Chapter 24:

Summer Times

My summer had, so far, been great. I slept in late, did my homework, made sure to stay in shape, and reveled in the complete lack of life-threatening situations. The closest thing to a problem I had was getting used to sleeping alone. As annoying as it was to have to escape from bed every morning, I had gotten used to sleeping in a full bed. Still, that was easily solved by several large stuffed animals. It wasn't a great fix but it worked well enough. (Don't look at me like that, I'm an eleven going on twelve year old girl. Stuffed animals are perfectly normal.)

"Alex?" Dudley asked from where he stood at the door to my room.

"Hmm?" I asked as I finished off one of my Potions essays, 'Ten uses for Belladonna'. I had the feeling that Snape was in a mood when he assigned it. I mean I could only find a few uses for it that didn't end with someone dying, and that seemed an odd assignment for second years. But then, what did I know?

"I think the purple one is staring at me," Dudley said, giving my stuffed purple fox an anxious look. He shifted the styrofoam war axe to get a better grip on it. I gave the ink a moment to dry before rolling up the essay, then turned to look at the fox.

"It's not looking at you, Dudley. I promise." I turned back to him. "Did you want anything?" I had some more essays to go over, but I had more than a month left to do them, so I was in no hurry.

"Mum said you have to come eat if you want to go the movies later," Dudley said, giving the fox one last distrustful look before heading downstairs to eat. I sighed and put my things away before heading down.

"…I still don't understand why the two of you need to dress up. It's just a movie," Aunt Petunia said as I came into the kitchen. She looked at me and just sighed at my short blue hair.

"It's not just a movie!" Dudley said. "It's the movie!"

"Fantasy Battle: Rise of the Emperor is no simple movie, it's a cultural icon," I said passionately. "It's the Red Director's climactic final masterpiece before he retires to his private island to count his money!" I was speaking literally. The Red Director was an enigmatic figure in the entertainment industry. Every three years or so he released a movie, a show, or a book and invariably whatever he released was a hit. Then he'd fade away to, as he put it, count his money, not to be seen until he put out his next masterpiece.

I had money on him being a Sidhe of some sort. Not that it mattered to me, I was just excited for the movie.

"…right," Aunt Petunia said. She placed some delicious looking sandwiches on the table. "Eat up and we'll head out." Dudley and I dug in, and before we knew it we were leaving for the movie.

888

We got there early enough that we managed to load up on snacks and get our favorite seats without having to push through a crowd of people. Not that we needed to bother—the theater was almost empty. Even more than I would have expected for a Tuesday afternoon showing. I mean I saw maybe ten people aside from the staff.

"Does it seem a little empty to you?" I asked Aunt Petunia as we took our seats. Aside from us there were only two people in the room with us. One at the top of the seats, just under the projector, and one in the front row. From what I could tell, both were men. They were both sitting down and from what I could tell they were both in good shape.

The lights dimmed and Aunt Petunia leaned over towards me. "It's a work day, I'm sure it's fine." With that she focused back on the opening trailers. I frowned and closed my eyes.

Breath. Focus. Sense.

I cast my senses outwards, looking for something to explain my unease. I expected to find a spell of some sort, maybe an aversion ward, but the first thing that came to the fore was a primal energy. Like the Jensens. Like their wards. Like Wolf.

Werewolves.

Why would werewolves be here? They could be here to simply watch the movie, but I doubted it. I had a destiny, coincidence did not exist for me. I heard the movie start and I waited a moment for them to do something. It was a good time for an ambush, but they stayed where they were.

I frowned and cast out further. There wasn't anything besides ambient magic anywhere nearby. I waited a while for something to happen, but nothing did. I came back to myself and palmed my wand. If something happened I wanted to be ready.

I focused back on the screen. I'd missed most of the set up but it was the second movie in the series. I had a good idea what was happening. On screen a regenerating zombie horde was assaulting New York City, and the city's defenders were losing. In spite of myself I found my attention ensnared by the movie to the point that I cheered at the Young-Emperor's arrival, especially when he activated a mechanized Lady Liberty. Her torch turning into a lightsaber was just icing on the cake.

The only problem came when the colors started blurring. I blinked, and when that didn't work I used my free hand to rub at them. My vision was still blurry when I opened my eyes. I looked around and noticed Aunt Petunia was slumped against the seat in front of her, and Dudley was out of it as well.

I tried to sense, but all I could feel was the werewolves from earlier. There seemed to be no reason for their, and my, states. I started slumping forward and jerked back.

Can't sleep now, need to focus.

It occurred to me that if it wasn't magic that was causing this, then it was probably gas. Gas, gas is bad. The theater has a bad case of gas. I erupted into giggles.

Take Beno before and there will be no gas.

I giggled some more, and somehow managed to hit the seat in front of me hard enough to knock some sense into me. I jerked myself up in time to see the werewolf in the front row get beheaded by someone. My vision was too blurry to tell who did it.

I raised my wand hand. Sadly it lacked a wand. I blinked at it and looked at the floor. Ah, there you are. I started reaching for it. I overreached and fell out of my chair. I hit the ground with a small grunt, and tried to figure out why I was down here.

Here on the nice, cool ground.

I closed my eyes.

I think I'll take a nap.

888

When I came to it took me a moment to really understand what was going on, but when I did my heart started hammering in my chest. Someone was patting me down and systematically removing all my knives. Whoever they were, they had already removed my wand. A moment later they removed my last holdout from the small of my back.

"How many knives does one little girl need?" I opened my eyes and saw a ghoul. Ghouls are supernatural thugs. For the right price they would back most anybody. They were short on brains but made up for in terms of strength and sheer stubborn stupidity. It took a completely unfair amount of damage to even slow them down, and even if you did manage to hurt them, unless you made sure they were dead they came back. Usually after making a meal of one of the local homeless. And one of them was patting me down. I swallowed my revulsion.

The ghoul saw that I was awake and smirked at me. "Awake are we?" He grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me up. "You try anything and you'll regret it, understand?" Before I could respond he turned me to face the room—it was small, like an office—to see Aunt Petunia and Dudley passed out on the floor. Aunt Petunia had knot on her head. Either she had tried to fight back or she hit that chair a lot harder than I thought. "I can't kill you, the boss wants you alive for now. But if you try anything I will hurt them. Got it?" I nodded reluctantly, and he dropped me. The ghoul grunted in satisfaction and went to stand by the door.

I hit it the ground with a grunt, and fingered the rip in the collar of my shirt where he grabbed me. I took stock of my situation—I was trapped in a small room with a ghoul, all my weapons were gone, and unless I did something soon I was going to die. I still had my shrunken broom in my necklace—I'd had a sixth year spell the one I got from the Room for me—and my cloak.

Unfortunately neither of them would be useful in getting through the ghoul. The room was far too small for invisibility to be of any use, and while I could theoretically ram my broom into him, unless it somehow managed to hit his brain I wouldn't count on it putting him down. Moreover, I could only do that if I managed to unshrink the broom and get it up to speed before he stopped me, which was unlikely at best.

Which left a physical confrontation, something I had no hope of winning. I was four foot nothing and ninety pounds sopping wet. Without my wand or knives I was just a little girl. Beating a normal human in hand-to-hand was out of the question, let alone a ghoul, and that wasn't even counting the big rifle in his hands. I didn't know what kind of gun it was, but it looked mean enough that I doubted it would be legal in the States, let alone here in Great Britain, and that wasn't even counting the grenades.

I felt a stab of hopelessness, but I pushed it down. I had to get out of here. I had to get my family out of here.

I looked around the room for something that I could use, but all I could see was office supplies. The closest thing to a weapon was a pair of scissors on the desk next to me. I eyed it before turning my attention to the ghoul. He caught my eye and licked his lips. I shivered in revulsion, cannibals.

The ghoul smirked at me and opened his mouth to say something when his radio crackled, and someone started speaking. I couldn't understand what the voice said. I only spoke English and the voice definitely wasn't speaking that.

The Delta force wannabe spoke into his radio using the same language as the other speaker. If I was right it was Ancient Sumerian, the language of the Ghouls. He let go of the radio and looked at me. "Hear that? Ten minutes and the boss will be here." He looked over at Dudley and Aunt Petunia. "I wonder, how will they taste?" I only had ten minutes to get us out of here before things got a lot worse. Time to try something stupid.

"Hey, stupid!" I stood and grabbed the scissors off the desk.

He pointed his gun at Dudley and said, "Try it. I'll eat either way."

There was no way I could get to him before he pulled the trigger. No matter, that wasn't the plan anyway. I open the scissors and put one of the tips right to my neck. That got his attention, though he tried not to show it.

"Am I supposed to care?" He asked nonchalantly, but his eyes were focused on the blades.

"Oh, I think you care." I pressed it in just enough to draw blood. It hurt, but I had dealt with worse. He narrowed his eyes slightly. Score. "I think your boss wants me alive. I think if I bleed out before he gets here, you will pay the price. What do you think?"

"I think if you die that I kill your family here—"

"They're probably going to die anyway. I know that and you know that," I interrupted. "But I think that whoever your boss is they'll take it out on you before they get to my family. I think I'm just petty enough to be okay with that." The thought of them dying was abhorrent to me, but getting them out was all that mattered to me. If that meant using all of my meager ability at lying to convince him I could live with that, then so be it.

Still, I was a horrible liar, which is why I focused all my attention on him. If I looked at my family I would give it all away.

"I could just run," he said, stalling for time. I narrowed my eyes at him before slowly and deliberately dragging the scissor's blade across my throat. It only left a small red line but it gave me what I needed. He had flinched at my cut. Whoever his boss was they scared him enough that the thought of me dying made him flinch.

I smirked at him.

"Really?" I drawled. "You think you can run from a Wizard?" I was betting it was a wizard. After all, who else wanted me dead? "You're nowhere near as good at this if you think you can run from a Wizard. Especially one who no doubt took precautions against that. Do you?" I let the scissors drop to about chest level. "Have fun screaming!" I jerked my arm back up, aiming for my throat. Before I could even get it half way to my neck the ghoul launched himself across the room at me.

Which was exactly what I planning on. I may not be a physical threat to a ghoul, but I'm fast and I'm great with a blade. So as soon as the blunt outside of the scissors hit my neck I was already redirecting them towards the ghoul's neck. All I had to do was stab it the throat and it would at least be inconvenienced, if not incapacitated.

It was a bad plan, but it was the only one I had. So when the ghoul grabbed my wrist before I could land a hit and started squeezing I was dismayed, but not surprised. I swung my other fist at him, aiming for his face. This time I landed a hit, but only succeeded in hurting my hand.

He grabbed the collar of my shirt again and lifted me up. Or at least he tried. My shirt wasn't a thick thing, and with the tears already in place from the last grab it tore open. I jerked back, trying to get away, and my shirt tore even more. I couldn't get away, his grip on my wrist was too tight, but I did succeed in getting my cloak to fall on him.

That hadn't been my intention, and if this had been that cloak I remembered reading about it wouldn't have mattered, except perhaps for giving my enemy a new tool. This was not that cloak. My cloak was much more loyal and, apparently, homicidal.

When my cloak fell on him he froze, much as I had done when I first touched it. Unlike me, he could still move his face. It was scrunched up in a rictus of agony, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. My cloak made its way up his arm, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. As it worked its way up his arm it disappeared. Not turned invisible, disappeared. My cloak was eating him.

It was at this point that I realized that I had never cleaned it after the fight with the Hexenwolves. When I had woken up the blood was gone. I had been too out of it at the time, but watching my cloak now I realized that it must have absorbed the blood.

After the first arm was gone it was a matter of seconds for the rest of him to follow. His face was the last to go, his expression never changing. I had no way of knowing at the time, but I got the feeling that he was completely conscious until the end. The only things left when my cloak finished were his clothes and equipment.

I spent a moment just staring at the pile of things. I was scared, worried, and more than a little distraught. My cloak had just eaten someone. Let me repeat that, my cloak had just eaten someone! An enemy, yes, but that made it no less disquieting.

I took a breath. Focus.

I could freak out later. I had to get out of here and soon.

I grabbed my things from the pile of equipment in front of me and quickly put them back in place. I shivered slightly when my cloak slithered its way over me, but I did my best to ignore it. I needed any leg up I could get, and being invisible was an advantage I couldn't overlook.

Now how do I get out of here? I needed to find out how many ghouls there were before I could plan anything, and I need to know if there were any magical traps. Getting past the ghouls only to be stopped by a random ward would be annoying.

Breath. Focus. Sense.

I quickly noticed the feel of four nearby ghouls. To my senses they felt, and smelt, of overripe meat. Which didn't make sense even in my head, but that was the closest comparison I could make. One was just down the hall and the others were spread throughout the building. If I were to hazard a guess I would say they were covering possible escape routes.

I extended my senses further when I didn't feel any magic—or rather anything besides ambient magic. My senses abruptly hit a wall about fifty yards outside the building. A ward. I got a feeling of both solid strength and ignorance.

Wards can be set up in a few ways, but unless you wanted them to fade away come sunrise you needed to anchor them to something. Either to a threshold, something all homes (not houses, there's a difference) have, or to ward stones. Either option would work, and each had their advantages, but the best wards used both.

It had more power to it than an impromptu ward should have. It had to have been set up using ward stones, because I didn't feel even a hint of a threshold anywhere.

I came back to myself and quickly ran through my options. Fighting was out. While I could conceivably fight my way out, it was too risky for me to attempt, especially with my family in the line of fire.

Escape it was.

I opened my necklace and retrieved my broom, bringing it to full size in the process. The broom quickly faded from view, but when I saw it I realized I couldn't fit all three of us on it. I gave the late ghoul's Kevlar vest a considering look before turning to Aunt Petunia.

"Could work," I whispered. I pointed my wand at Aunt Petunia. "Rennervate." Her eyes fluttered, but she didn't wake up. Dammit. The gas must still be affecting her. If it was still keeping her unconscious, then how was I up? Body weight alone should have—never mind. Focus on getting out now, worry later.

The ghoul's radio crackled and the same voice from before spoke. I still couldn't understand it, but I knew I had to hurry.

People are heavy. Unconscious people are even heaver. Even Aunt Petunia, stick thin as she is, is quite the weight for an eleven year old. Still, I was desperate and adrenaline was pumping through my veins, so with some finagling I was able to maneuver Aunt Petunia into the vest, lay her down, immobilize her with a Petrificus Totalus, stuff the broom up the back of the vest, and lug Dudley on top of her and the broom.

I applied a multitude of sticking charms to keep everyone in place before getting on. I gripped the broom handle protruding through the collar of the vest, willing the broom to rise as I did so. There was a tense moment when the broom didn't move, and I nearly screamed in frustration. Finally, slowly, the broom rose into the air.

"Time to go."

The ghoul's radio crackled again, but I didn't stick around to see what it said. I waved my wand at the window, "Alohomora." It was a tight fit but I got through the widow. Once outside I noticed we were at a warehouse of some sort. It was old, the cement was cracked and the walls were noticeably rusted.

All I had to do was get past the wards, then I could activate my portkey. With that in mind I started for the fence. About halfway there I felt something pulse below us.

I glanced down and cursed softly—someone had opened a Way. A ghoul stepped through and another ghoul followed. Right, time to get gone. I started to turn away when Bellatrix Lestrange stepped through. If I hadn't seen her face in the mirror just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have recognized her. Her hair was red and her skin was almost tan, but her face? That looked the same, all sharp edges and haunting beauty.

They were just starting for the warehouse when it exploded. It was almost as if someone had removed the pins from the dead ghoul's grenades after placing them in front of the room's only door. Like they were waiting for some unlucky ghoul to blindly open it. Who would do something like that, I wonder? Gosh, don't people know grenades are dangerous?

"What the hell was that?" Bellatrix demanded, wand in hand, her eyes scanning the area.

It took a moment but one of the ghouls got on their radio to demand answers. I swear I saw him pale before he responded to her question. "That was the room we were holding the girl in."

"Is she dead?" Bellatrix demanded, pointing her wand at the speaker.

He got on the radio again, "We can't find any bodies."

"You mean you lost the little bitch?!" Bellatrix screeched.

"We are attempting to reacquire them. They couldn't have gone far. The wards will keep them inside until we can get—" The ghoul would have continued but Bellatrix interrupted him.

"Crucio!" The ghoul started screaming. His fellows shifted uneasily but made no move to stop her. Finally she stopped, only to slash her wand at him. I don't know what spell she used, but his head started swelling. It got bigger and bigger until finally it just exploded, raining gore down on her and the other ghouls.

I shivered before getting the broom to start flying towards the wards once more. The ghoul had said I couldn't just get out that way, but I wasn't willing to take his word for it.

Behind me Bellatrix started screaming at the ghouls. "Find her! Find her now, or I'll do the same thing to the lot of you!" Before she finished speaking I reached the edge of the wards and the broom abruptly slowed. It was as if I was flying through molasses—my progress was slow but I was moving. I willed the broom forward, slowly, inch by inch we pushed through. Abruptly the pressure vanished and we shot forward, no longer encumbered by the ward.

I flew on, unwilling to stop even for the few seconds it would take to activate the portkey, until we were safely out of reach. Finally, after a minute that seemed to stretch into a century, I directed us behind a nearby warehouse and activated the portkey I had stuffed in my sock.

"Mints."