Chapter 2
Anne sighed. She stared intently at the man's cracked palms and coarse, mahogany skin. On his face was a plastic pineapple mask. "¿Está Tara, por favor?" Anne gazed at the man with a weary expression on her face. "Uh," She said, trying to recall the thorough Spanish course she had taken. First things first, she thought. "¿Tu es una piña?" The man cocked his pineapple head and snickered at her awkward Spanish sentence.
"Sí," he said, "Esta Tara, por favor?" Anne pushed a blond strand of hair from her face.
"Just a sec… I mean… un momento." She motioned for him to stay, then stepped out from behind the counter. "Tara!" She hollered, "There's a Spanish pineapple here to see you!" As her best friend emerged from the back room, she started speaking fluent Spanish to the pineapple person. Anne signaled to Tara that she was going to take her break. She made her way to the back room, where books and beakers and papers were scattered carelessly everywhere. She pulled at her turtleneck. It's Halloween, she thought, and it has to be so suffocating and warm. She wheeled up a chair and sat down in front of the computer. She went to her home page, then clicked on CULTS. She typed in the search box "animal masks." Ten results popped up, but as she scanned through them, they were useless. "Women who practice the summoning of spiritual rabbits by dressing up like them… by wearing extra legs, a group of fourteen year olds worship the god of spiders…" Anne read them in a listless voice, none fitting the attacker's description. "This isn't working!" She cried, and slammed her fist on the desk. "Crap!" She shouted as she sliced her pinky on a letter opener. She got up and paced aimlessly around the room. She felt so anxious; she felt apprehension rip through her with every step she took. Suddenly she heard Tara shouting to someone. Fiery red head, she always thought. Tara could lose her temper so easily. She cautiously stuck her head around the doorway so she could see what was going on. Anne's heart skipped a beat. Searing pain ripped through her wounds again as she saw her best friend talking brusquely to someone in a plastic panda mask. He was banging a sharp tipped knife violently against the counter. She snatched up her gun from her hidden drawer- there for safety measures.
"Tara!" She screamed. "Tara, back away!" Anne trembled all over as she held the gun up to the panda. As Tara glanced Anne's way, her eyes widened.
"Anne! Anne, what's wrong with you? Put that down!" But she ignored Tara and quickly closed in on the panda.
"Get away from her. Don't even try me this time." The man yanked off his panda mask in fear and put the knife down to Anne's response.
"Okay, lady, keep the mask and the knife! And the money, too!" The frightened man dashed out the door timidly, taking one last look at the barrel of the gun as he fled. Tara stepped up to her friend and yanked the gun from her hands. She watched her with uneasy eyes.
"God, Anne! What the hell is wrong with you!? Next time you're plotting to murder one of the customers, let me know, will you!?" Tara shook her head. "Man, what is with you lately?" She picked up the knife that was lying on the counter and pushed on the tip. It slid up into the rest of the knife. "It's retractable, god, these are some of the things we sell here on Halloween." Tara rolled her eyes and shoved her red hair behind her ears.
"No, I mean, I thought that…" Anne stopped in mid-sentence. She picked up a stack of folders that lay by the register, trying to make herself useful. She walked away briskly. She felt Tara's hand on her shoulder as she spun her around. "Come on, Anne, what is going on? Are you going skitzo on me or something?" But the tone in Tara's voice was filled with concern, not sarcasm. Anne dropped the folders roughly on the table.
"Yeah, well, Tara, maybe sometimes you have to think of someone other than yourself. You don't even know how Antonio died, do you?" Anne questioned sharply. Tara looked at Anne.
"Anne, you and I both know he fell off Mount Ridgemore."
"He didn't fall." Anne retorted. Tara's face froze in an expression of sadness mixed with horror.
"He was pushed." Tara whispered. Anne just looked at her.
"It was a cult. They were wearing these stupid plastic animal masks. They seemed so harmless. Until I saw my fiancé fall 600 feet to his death, they would have seemed harmless. And last night, when I was with Daren," She said, taking a deep breath, "They attacked. It was so dark, Tara, it was so dark in the theatre. They came out of nowhere." Anne pulled up the thick sleeves of her shirt to reveal long, red scars splayed across her arms. She pulled down her turtleneck to expose three bloody marks on her neck. Tara stood there. "Oh, Anne, I… I'm sorry, I didn't know." Tara hugged her, and Anne made no move to shy away as she would have usually. Tara was the only person she had, and it felt better than anything in the world to lay in her arms.
That was the moment when they heard the scream ripping through the air. Anne and Tara gasped and rushed to the front of the store.
"Mommy, mommy, get it away!" A little girl was howling. She had light brown hair piled on top of her head with what seemed like thousands of bobby pins. Anne glanced at what the little girl was cowering from. It was Banana, the experimental bunny they kept in the shop. Tara picked up Banana and pet him. "This is Banana," Anne said, motioning to the bunny, "What's your name?" The little girl hesitated, looking at her mother for approval. Her mother nodded.
"Anya," The little girl whispered cautiously, "Hey, why do you call him Banana?" Anne smiled. She knew her only soft spot was for children.
"Well, Anya, he used to be a ban…I mean, we like to eat bananas." Anne said. She leaned to the mother, "This shop isn't really for kids, there's really dangerous things in this shop." The mother nodded.
"I just wanted to buy a Halloween mask for her." The mother claimed.
"You should try another place, the masks here are special, if you know what I mean." The mother gave her an odd look than shooed her little girl out the door. "Whoo, what a world we live in! I mean, it's a magic shop, duh! Does the word magic sound familiar to you?" Anne snapped, "I think I'm going to take my break if you don't mind. I'll be at the ice cream place down the block." Anne pulled on her jacket.
"But Anne," Tara said, concerned, "It's dark out. What if they hurt you again?" Anne looked at her. "Tara, I want to find them. They'll get what they deserve." She snapped sharply, but pulled off her coat anyway. She tossed in onto the chair. "Maybe we can make them come to us." Tara was about to question, "Since when was it us?" but stopped, knowing that that's not what a best friend would say. "I think," she offered, "There's a book on summoning people, or cults."
"I don't really have the strength to summon an entire cult, but maybe the leader." Anne thought out loud. Tara strolled to the bookshelf and took down a black arts book entitled Summoning Spells and Charms. She sat Indian style on the floor and fingered the pages until she found one that was right. "How about this one?" Tara started, "To Send Forth an Enemy."
"Sounds good," Anne said, "It's an enemy, all right." Anne studied Tara. She seemed so into this, so willing to help her. I guess, she thought, Tara really is my best friend.
"Okey dokey," Tara said, "We need angel dust, two equal sized Black Tiger stones, firefly wings, and this Arabic charm." Tara listed, pointed to the triangular design on the paper. Anne gathered the items as Tara read them off the paper. She got angel dust from the cabinet beneath the cash register, the Black Tiger stones from the collection of mystical rocks on the shelf, and firefly wings from her charms jar. "Hey, Tara, can you just copy that sign onto a paper for it to work?"
"Sí." She answered, and grabbed a piece of tracing paper from the shelf, copying the design cautiously. "Now," she said as she traced, "Spread the angel dust around us in a circle. Place the two Black Tiger Stones in the middle. Now," Tara said, setting the Arabic drawing on the floor, "I touch this with one hand, you the other, and we extend our other palms with the firefly wings on them. Then we chant, "May the Dark Lord of Bultyzer bring our enemy to us."
"Okay," Anne said, "Ready?" With firefly wings on their palms and the vague, pungent sent of angel dust surrounded them, they watched the two Black Tiger stones float higher with every chant. Suddenly, just as Anne and Tara were being overwhelmed in power, the bell clinked on the door and the stones fell to the tile with a click.
"Doing a little spell, I see?" Daren questioned. Anne got up and walked to him.
"Yeah, and you ruined it." She said, half relieved and half disappointed. Tara rose to the floor and swiped at the dust on her jeans. "It's okay," She said, "We weren't really that prepared anyway. So this," She whispered to Anne, "Is the famous Daren? Ahh, I see." Tara said, smiling, "I'll be in the back room if you need me. Which I'm sure you won't." Tara strutted into the back room with a confident smile on her face .
"So, what was this? I wasn't expecting you!" Anne responded, acting angry and surprised at the same time." Daren gave her a troubled look.
"Listen," He said, "I'm sorry about last night. But Anne, I have to tell you something. They're coming Anne, they're coming. They want to kill you."