Chapter 9: Run, Run, Run
"This is really weird; it's like we have an elevator attached to our ankles. A really fast elevator with no windows." Jeanette pointed out, as the familiar attic suddenly disappeared before their eyes into something of a dark void with flashing specks of light. "Alvin, do you think...whoever's doing this...knew that we were coming?"
"Maybe." Alvin said. "But at least we're having an easier ride than I did last night. Almost too easy." He cut his eyes over at Theodore, who looked incredibly confused and worried as he looked around the area. Theodore was relieved to see he wasn't alone, but anxious as to what lie below them.
"You call this easy?!" Brittany's voice was furious. "I can't move my feet. We're stuck in this dark, icky, pasty stuff." She tried to lift up her left foot, but it wouldn't budge. "This is ruining my brand-new bunny slippers!"
"Even if we could get free, I don't think I'd want to - who knows how far down we would fall if we weren't stuck in this." Simon noted. "If only I could get a sample to take back with us..."
"Simon, do you have to take samples of stuff everywhere we go?" Alvin raised an eyebrow.
"It's called science, Alvin."
"Sure it is."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand the delicate art of discovery."
"And I don't expect you to understand that there might be more important things than this...stuff! We're about to meet some scary Hanti, who want to steal our souls, and you're not worried?!" Alvin grabbed Simon's collar, but Simon shrugged him off, while not bothering to mask his confusion.
"Who the heck are the Hanti?"
Alvin slapped his forehead with his palm. "Figures you wouldn't know - they're the riders I saw the other night."
"And how would you know their name, Alvin?"
"We heard about it from Melina; Alvin took us there this evening. It's actually a really interesting story...but I know how you feel about fortune tellers, Simon..." Jeanette revealed it as succinctly as she could.
Simon groaned. "I give up."
The six of them had an abrupt stop and drop from where they stood, right into grassy, slightly damp forest brushes, into which they landed safely. When Alvin opened his eyes, he recognized the road he'd traveled with Anilie the night before.
"Hey guys, this is it!" He leapt out of the bush, brushing the leaves from his clothing. Theodore helped Eleanor out of the bush that she'd landed in, while Simon and Alvin pulled Jeanette and Brittany from where they landed. Brittany checked her bunny slippers and saw not a trace of the dark material that had bound their feet. She seemed relieved, even if she didn't say anything other than uttering a loud sigh.
"So where do we go now, Mr. Ghost Chaser?" Brittany said smartly, folding her arms and looking at Alvin out of the corner of her eye.
Alvin nervously laughed. "Well...I guess we could head to the chateau that's at the end of this road, but...that would lead..."
"That...would lead us straight to the Hanti." Jeanette finished Alvin's sentence, though her nerves showed through the statement. "I don't know if we should go that way yet...maybe we should think about finding Anilie first?"
"I think we just did...or she found us - look up there!" Eleanor grinned and pointed above their heads at the sight of the girl ghost under the light of the full moon, sitting on a tree branch and waving excitedly to the Chipmunks and Chipettes below.
"I knew she'd be okay." Alvin grinned as he returned the wave to Anilie, and she floated down from the tree branch in the middle of the Chipmunks and Chipettes.
"This is Anilie?" Brittany raised an eyebrow. "But she's just a kid."
"Who'd you think she was, Brittany?" Eleanor asked.
"Um...well...I don't know, but listen, missy," Brittany turned her full, partially enraged attention to Anilie and touched her nose against the ghost girl's face. "Alvin's mine, so that means he's off limits, you understand?"
Anilie's face had transformed from a wide, sweet grin to a fear of the Chipette, causing her to back away slowly from where Brittany stood.
"Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when Brittany would scare a ghost." Simon noted.
"Brittany can scare anybody when she's like that." Alvin noted under his breath.
"Okay, obviously you don't understand me, so I'll make it clear to you." She grabbed Alvin by the arm and held his neck under the flex of her elbow. "He's mine, m-i-n-e." Alvin tried to wiggle out of her grasp, but she squeezed tighter to keep him from running away.
"Brittany, I think she gets the point..." Jeanette began, but Brittany cut her off abruptly.
"No way - I'm making my point perfectly clear." When Anilie shook her head and made a series of hand motions, it made Brittany's blood rush to her face.
"What do you mean, no?! Are you challenging me?!"
"No, Brittany, I think she means that if you keep holding Alvin like that, you'll suffocate him." Simon pointed out, looking down at Alvin, who was frantically gasping for air.
"Oh no!" Brittany released him quickly as Alvin started coughing. "I'm sorry Alvin, are you okay?"
"Was that really necessary?!" Alvin responded when he caught his breath. "Ugh..."
All of them were alerted when they heard the shrill whinny of a horse through the still skies, and Anilie made a series of frantic motions towards the trees.
"We've gotta hide, something's coming!" Eleanor said, and all of them retreated behind the bushes and trees, just as the horse hoofs thundered against the ground, and the Hanti laughed heartily through the once quiet night.
As the sound of the hooves became distant, the seven of them rose from outside the bushes.
"T-That...was the Hanti?" Theodore said in a low voice.
"Definitely. We've gotta follow them."
"Alvin, might I remind you that if you plan to go after a bunch of angry horsemen like that, whether they steal souls or not, you have to have some kind of plan." Simon scolded.
Alvin started up the path ahead of them, turning back to the group with a grin on his face.
"Let's just say this is one plan I'm working on as I go along. Lead the way, Anilie!"
Anilie grinned as she flew ahead, motioning for the Chipmunks and Chipettes to follow her.
***
"What a big, scary place." Theodore stated, as they all arrived and snuck into the large chateau.
"Actually, I find it fascinating. it's architecture comes straight out of the 15th or 16th century. Look at the paintings, they look very authentic - even preserved since that time."
"That's nice Simon, but we don't have time to look around." Alvin crossed his arms.
"Where are we going?" Brittany was impatient, tapping her foot against the carpet.
Anilie motioned for them to follow her. As they did, Alvin noticed that she took them a different route than the way she'd taken him before. They remained on the upper floors, walking along the carpeted halls and peering into several rooms cautiously. There were many grand bedrooms and formal meeting rooms peppered throughout the building - most of them unoccupied. Anilie warned them ahead of time if she believed someone were coming, and all of them hid from the peering eyes of the Hanti guardsmen, frequently making rounds through the long hallways. Luckily for the Chipmunks and Chipettes, there were many places for them to hide. Alvin guessed they stepped up security since the night before - noting his and Anilie's intrusion.
They finally came across an offshoot chamber, which had a staircase leading into the hall of small rooms. Anilie placed a finger to her lips as the Chipmunks and Chipettes followed each other down the narrow way. They heard distant voices coming from one of the rooms - and it sounded like a heated argument.
"All these spirits we've captured and we still need more to take the mortal world? Is there anything else that we can do?! Not only that, I think we had a intruder upon our meeting yestereve.
"You mean intruders, good sir." A thick, grim voice answered the frantic statements of a familiar voice. Alvin recognized the frantic one as the Hanti leader, who spoke at the meeting the evening before.
"Pell, did I ask you to correct me?"
"No, sir."
"Then do NOT interrupt me. What matters are not the intruders, but whether we get this plan off the ground in the first place!" The voice sighed, pausing for a long time before he resumed the conversation. "I'll admit - centuries of being down here have tied my hands far more than anything else. And those mortals think they can get away with everything. I long for a soul of my own - something to fill this void in my being."
"He really doesn't get out much, does he?" Alvin asked Anilie in a whisper, to which Anilie shrugged and shook her head.
"I don't think any of them get out much - their wardrobe is too ancient, and those horrible looking masks aren't doing them any favors!" Brittany responded in a haughty, yet subdued voice.
"No matter, Pell, I await the night of the red moon eagerly. The gateway to the mortal world will be open for us to take the souls of the living and use them in our plan - no, my plan - to return our souls to us and live yet again. You've done the data - how many have we captured?"
"5,000, give or take some stragglers, sir."
"That's not enough...and we've been searching a while now. How many souls of the Ilreita?"
"All but two, sir."
"Confound it - that's not enough. We need all of them captured in order for the artefact to activate. That alone ensures that the gateway will open and remains open."
"Artefact?" Simon asked in a low whisper. "That's new. I wonder what kind of structure would open their world to ours. It's bad enough I don't understand how we, or Alvin, got here in the first place."
"I think Anilie has some kind of power to teleport between worlds, Simon. That's how we got here. Wait a sec...Anilie, how many times have you brought me to and from here?"
Anilie held up three fingers.
"But I only remember coming here two times. Now and last night."
"Wait a minute - so you had the power to create those dark circles? So is that why Alvin ended up in all those odd places before?" Theodore asked.
She nodded, a guilty look crossing her face.
"So you were the one who put me on the roof, too? And at Miss Miller's door?"" Alvin had a cross expression on his face as he folded his arms.
Anilie made a series of gestures, pointing to Alvin first, then using her body in a number of dynamic positions before ending up drawing lines in the air that resembled a roof.
"Maybe it's a good thing that I'm great at interpreting visual languages and Pictionary, but I think what Anilie said was that the first time she tried to bring you here, you fainted, and she took you to the best place to get some air, the roof. But then something startled her and she had to disappear - she didn't mean to leave you there. Something calling for you." Simon interpreted the series of gestures almost immediately.
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore looked at each other. "Dave!" They said simultaneously. Anilie continued with a series of gestures that Simon attempted to interpret.
"Then after she sent you back from when the Hanti were chasing you two, she saw you passed out again from the ride, so she took you outside, Alvin, to get you fresh air, but on lower ground because she overheard that you nearly fell off the roof; she didn't realize that you fell asleep, though. She says her powers aren't that strong or perfect yet, but she had to do it because all of her family members were captured and that you were the only one who could see or help her...the...um, I don't know what that says."
"I think I can guess - it's the Ilreita - Anilie is part of the Ilreita." Eleanor said.
"What?" Everyone except for Alvin and Eleanor exclaimed.
"Shh!" Alvin warned. "I knew there was something special about Anilie. If that's the case, we need to get outta here as fast as we can! If they're searching for her, they'll find us all and capture us!"
"I don't think you are going anywhere." A loud voice boomed from behind them, and they all looked into the dark eyes of one of the Hanti, who unsheathed his long sword from his side.
"AHHHHH!" Brittany screamed, and she brought her foot down hard on the Hanti's toes, as she happened to be standing near the tall figure in a long overcoat. He yelped, dropping his sword, and hopping on one foot in pain. That gave Alvin time to find his words and start running as fast as he could.
"Come on guys, let's go!" All of them ran out of the hall as fast as they could.
***
"Sir, did you hear something?"
"I did, Pell. And it came just from the other room." Pell and Grol took to their feet as they went to the hallway, where one of their Hanti fellowman took to his breath, while grabbing his foot. His mask, appropriately, was that of downcast eyes and an extended frown.
"Master Grol, intruders! They're...they're mortals!"
"What?! How did mortals cross the bridge into our lair?! Do they know our plan?"
"I don't know sir, but definitely one of the Ilreita spirits were with them."
"That explains why they're here - all of it. Find them. Summon the guard, our horses and our group. Do what you will to the mortals, but the Ilreita is mine!" Grol hissed, and the three of them ran to the end of the hall in pursuit.
***
"Okay, if anyone has any ideas, I'd like to hear them right about now."
"I thought you were the one with ideas, Mr. Plan-As-I-Go."
"I'm kinda running on empty, Simon. Now is not a good time!"
Both Alvin and Simon glared at each other inside the meeting room in which they hid from the Hanti. Eleanor peeped through the keyhole to see if anyone had followed them, but she didn't see anyone in the hall.
"Well, if we don't figure out something soon, they'll catch up with us." Eleanor instructed.
"I'm really, really scared right now...." Theodore said in a small voice, but Eleanor put an arm around his shoulders.
"It's okay, Theodore; we won't let anything happen to you."
Anilie's expression didn't differ much from Theodore's, as her shoulders slumped and she lowered her head.
"It's okay, Anilie. We'll figure out something eventually. And Theodore, Eleanor's right - there's no way I'd let anything happen to any of you guys."
"Even me, Alvin?" Brittany batted her eye lashes at Alvin while nudging him in the ribs. He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, Brittany, you too."
"What's with the attitude?! We might be in trouble, but there's no need for you to be rude." Brittany scoffed.
"Wait a minute...what are we doing?!" Alvin shouted, suddenly getting the attention of everyone in the room. "Instead of running away from them, we should be fighting back! We probably don't have swords and some of the stuff that they have, but still!"
"I hate to break it to you, Alvin, but they do have a home court advantage. Even if we did have swords, there's still no place we can really hide from the Hanti. Besides, we can't kill them, and even if we could, we don't know how."
"Well...we'll just have to improvise! Now listen carefully; you too Anilie. We're getting out of here one way or the other! Here's what we'll do..." Alvin said, as he summoned everyone in a circle, and drafted a plan.