A/N: Hi guys. Thanks for liking, reviewing and following, it really motivates me, and the more I'm motivated – the faster I write and upload new chapters.
P.S. When the word "symbol" is written with a capital letter, it refers to one of the people on the Cipher Wheel. When it's written without a capital letter, it's just a symbol. Just wanted to clear this up.
Chapter 4 - Change
Tambry searched through her phone contact list. Once she'd found the number she was looking for, she dialed it.
"Hi, this is Wendy's voice mail, please leave a message…"
Dammit. She pressed on the end call button and stared at the screen. Robbie didn't answer either. Could it be because of the strange thing that happened earlier, which made everything float? Yeah, she reassured herself. Their phone must be broken or something. Or they're too busy fixing the damage done to their houses and just didn't pick up their phone fast enough. Yeah, that's it.
Yet she could not let go of the feeling that something is wrong.
XQNQRZQ VRXUFH: L vkrxogq'w kdyh grqh lw
"Cheer up, grandpa," said Mabel. Wow, I still can't believe the Author is my grandfather. "First of all, as long as we're separate from the others, the ritual won't be held."
"And look," Dipper pointed at the symbol of the pentagram with the eye in the middle. "This symbol was on Gideon's Tent of Telepathy! It must be representing him!"
"So we have nothing to worry about," said Soos. "He's in jail."
The Author didn't respond, but looked forward and kept driving. The car deepened into the woods.
"Umm… where are we going?" asked Dipper.
"To a safe and isolated place which I've built before I was trapped in the parallel universe." The Author finally stopped the car in front of a tree with a branch looked like a lever. "My bunker."
They stepped out of the car and the Author pulled the branch/lever. The tree sank into a hidden pit and revealed a staircase that led into the deep darkness.
XQNQRZQ VRXUFH: Li dqbrqh fdq khdu ph, sohdvh rshq wkh sruwdo wr wkh Glphqvlrq ri- zkdw duh BRX grlqj khuh?
The man finished drawing on the floor and stepped back to look at his work. The ancient symbols were arranged in a circle, just like in the prophecy his master told him a few weeks ago, when they first met. The words still echoed in his mind. "Great powers are about to be released," said the Stranger. "And I need your help to perform the ritual." After his new partner agreed, the Stranger disappeared as he had come. Since then the Stranger kept giving the man orders - go there, meet him, do this, say that - orders which had eventually led him to a place that looked about as mysterious as the Stranger himself.
"One, two, three, four, five, six," the man smirked to himself while counting quietly the chained and fuzzy people - some even unconscious - which lay or sat in specific places in the circle.
"Why are you doing this?" cried a girl and glared at him with wild eyes. He remembered how hard it was to capture and bring her here. He gritted his teeth and ignored her.
The sound of quiet steps interrupted his thoughts. "I told you they would come here," said the Stranger. The man nodded in agreement. "But we are ready for them."
"Not quite," the Stranger floated toward him out of the shadows and stopped a step away from him. "Are you willing to give me access to your body, instead of your soul?"
"Don't do it, Trigger!" shouted the man he'd been chasing all day, Stanford. The man who tried to stop the Stranger, but ironically, what he did allowed the performing of this ritual. "Don't let him get into your body!"
"Shut up, old man!" he snapped, then turned back to the Stranger. "I am."
The Stranger reached his hand and touched Trigger's forehead, making him feel as if he was sucked into a whirlpool. Then he faded.
"And now," said the Stranger through Trigger's body. "We're ready."
XQNQRZQ VRXUFH: Wkh kxpdq pxvw eh vwrsshg
"This way," instructed the Author and turned to a side tunnel. The others followed.
"I didn't see this tunnel the last time we were here," commented Dipper.
"On the other hand, we didn't have time to explore the area while the shape shifter was chasing us," remarked Mabel. Soos nodded in agreement.
As they walked the Author could feel that something was wrong. Someone's here, he thought. Stanford? No, he told himself; do not develop a vain hope. You don't even know where he is. You only know he did something dangerous, and he might not return. And don't even think about Fiddleford - you don't even know what happened to him, or if he's alive.
An odd sound behind him made turn around, but he didn't see anything unusual. Probably just the kids. He kept walking, but was still troubled. A yellowish and bluish glow flashed from the further part of the tunnel, where the big cave was, and beyond it…
Suddenly everything was clear - he realized who and what were in the cave. Now the flash troubled him even more. He stopped and pulled a small scratch pad and a pen out of his pocket. He wrote something on one of the pages with the pen, then put the pen in his pocket, took another one and wrote something else. Then he dropped the page on the tunnel's floor and kept walking. A few steps away he stopped again, drew a blue crystal out of the other pocket and shattered it at his feet.
Dipper halted near the note for a moment and Mabel stopped next to him. "What's the deal?" she asked.
Dipper shook his head. "It's nothing, let's go." he said and walked away, but Mabel looked at the note, which said the following:
Release me exactly in twenty minutes. Make sure He won't see you.
He? she wondered, but when she saw that the others already moved on, she ran after them. She shivered a bit, just like in Stan's mind, just before Bill appeared, but she assumed it was because of everything that had happened that day. She took three steps back and encountered into a stone wall. That's odd; I could've sworn that wasn't here before. The new wall blocked the path and trapped them there. She ran to the others, whom stood at the entrance to the cave. "Umm, guys…" she went silent when she saw what they were looking at.
An empty circle has been drawn on the floor, and another one around it, divided into ten parts. A symbol was drawn on each slot, and people sat on six of them, all tied - on the other side of the cave lay McGucket, unconscious, on the Glasses. Robbie, the Stitch Heart, sat to his right, staring in shock at what happened. The slot on Robbie's right, the Shooting Star, was empty. Pacifica sat on the Llama symbol with red and puffy eyes, as if she cried. The Six-Fingered Hand's slot was empty. Gideon was in the Pentagram's place. The Pine Tree had no one its place. Stanford sat in the Crescent Moon's place and looked defeated. Wendy, the Ice Bag, had the look of a caged wild animal. The tenth symbol, another empty slot, was the Question Mark.
Pine Tree, Shooting Star, Question Mark, thought Mabel. That's how Bill referred to me, Dipper and Soos when we were in Stan's mind. The Hand must be Stanley, so…
"Well, well." she heard a terribly familiar voice behind her, followed by sarcastic claps. "All ten are here. Gen it your places and we shall start the Ceremony."
Dipper answered automatically: "What makes you think we'll coopera- oh, shit." he paused when he saw Bill.
"D'you like my new form?" Bill smirked. "Oh, our government is truly wonderful. Too bad it tends to forget about what happens to Voluntary Hosts of demons. I'm afraid Agent Trigger won't be the only one to die tonight." his new horrifying face twisted with what seemed to be a derisive smile. Three bloody scratches created a triangle shape around his one eye, and instead of the other one there was just an empty hole. His eye and hair were as yellow as he was in his triangle form. Each and every exposed part of his skin was covered was covered in symbols - some were identical to the symbols on the Wheel, others taken from different places - hieroglyphs, alchemy symbols - and some symbols were common, like a cross and a fleur-de-lis.
He snapped his fingers and blue energy ropes wrapped themselves around the four remaining Symbols. Each one of them hovered to their reserved place in the circle and landed with a thud.
Bill stood in the middle of the inner circle. "And now," he declared ominously. "We begin."
A/N: Yup, it's a cliffhanger. *Evil laughter* don't worry; I'll try to finish the next chapter as soon as possible. Hopefully before "A Tale of Two Stans".
By the way, the encrypted messages are important, so make sure you decrypt everything. Also, if you like the story, like, review and follow!