Episode 5: For the Dress, Chapter 4

The desk went tumbling across the room, revealing the glint of saucer sized eyes in a huge face. Cassandra screamed. Baird threw a nearby waste paper bin. It bounced off the great forehead, showering the face in scrunched up paper and providing enough cover for the Guardian to grab Cassandra and run. They made it to the other side of the cavern, but now the creature was between them and the door. There was a dark opening at their backs. Baird flicked on the torch on her phone again and shone the light across. Better to know what you're fighting before you decide whether to fight or run.

She took in the enormous form rising from the scattered paper. "Run!"

Cassandra didn't need telling twice. She was already turned and moving by the time she felt the Colonel reach out to drag her onward into the darkness.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Baird exclaimed, dragging Cassandra down a smaller side tunnel, round a corner and into a niche in the wall. She shut off the light and leant back, breathing deeply. "I can't even buy my own damn wedding dress without magic, mayhem and monsters turning up? Don't I even get some warning?"

"I swear: there's nothing in here," Cassandra muttered flicking through her clippings book under the shaded light of her own telephone torch. "It would have glowed or..."

"Don't worry about it," Baird cut in. "We've been in worse spots than this."

"Eve," said Cassandra slowly. "We just walked through a wormhole to who knows where, and got first attacked, then chased, by a Real. Live. Giant."

"It could be worse," whispered Baird. "It could be two giants."

"It already is."

Both women jumped and Cassandra shone her torch up into the face of the shop owner slash dress designer they had hurried to check on.

"Trudi?" Baird frowned. "Why aren't you screaming and panicking like most normal people do?"

"You're not a normal person, are you," Cassandra gasped. "You're a giant too. Giantess. Whatever the term is. You're wearing an avatar, like Mr Drake and the people who showed up for that conclave Ezekiel chaired. You are, aren't you?"

In the odd shadows cast by Cassandra's torch, they watched the tall woman nod. "I am a giant," she replied. "The form I wear is not my true one. But you have nothing to fear from me. I will not harm you. Nor will my brother if you do not get in his way. It is me he wants. But I know this. You do not. Why are you not panicking?"

"Librarian," Baird replied, pointing at Cassandra. She pointed at herself. "Guardian."

Trudi's face became a mixture of apprehension and relief, then she nodded.

"What does your brother want with you?" Cassandra queried.

"He wants me to return to Jotunheim with him," replied the designer. "I am promised to a powerful friend of his. He has been searching for me for years."

"Promised to, as in engaged to be married to?" Baird clarified.

"Yes."

"And you don't want to be?" Baird persisted.

"No."

"Why does he get a say in this?" Cassandra frowned. "It's up to you who you marry, surely?"

"Not where I am from," Trudi told her. "Where I am from, females are traded for power, money or belongings. It does not matter if they love or loath their new husbands, or if their heart is already claimed by another."

"And yours is, isn't it," stated Baird.

"I had the audacity to fall in love," nodded Trudi. "But to add insult to injury, I compounded the fault by falling for someone wholly unsuitable. Someone not of my race or clan."

"Where we come from there's a word for that kind of attitude," murmured Baird softly.

"Where you come from, what you call a race is still part of your own biological species. Our distinctions are rather more clear cut than that," Trudi smiled wanly. "By different race, I mean entirely different species."

Baird paused. "What? Like Leprechauns?"

"The land I am from, it is not part of your world," explained the designer. "It is connected to it, though, along with seven other worlds. We are now in one of those worlds. It is the world in which the man I wish to marry resides. This tunnel, the cave you entered when you walked through my door, all of it is a part of my home. The home I have made with the man I love."

"He's not human then," said Cassandra. "What species is he?"

"Where is he?" Baird cut in before Trudi could answer. "Shouldn't he be warned about this? Is there somewhere you can go? A safe house you can meet in?"

"He is, or he ought to be, at his place of work right now," said Trudi, still keeping her voice low. "We do not have the electrical telephones here that exist in your world: magic is far too strong here for technology to work. This was our 'safe house', as you call it, and I have no way of sending a message to him to warn him. My brother is not unintelligent: he will be watching for any such signal. He may even have found my love."

"Okay," mused Baird. "So what do we have? Can your brother change shape as you can?"

"He can," nodded Trudi, "but the magic takes practise. He cannot hold it for long yet. He will not risk this tunnel unless he knows he can catch us quickly."

"And what are his weaknesses?" Baird continued. "How do we take him out?"

"He can be knocked out, like any man, but it will take much more force," replied Trudi, slowly. "Please do not shoot him. A bullet will only damage him if it hits in the right place, and if it does it will kill him. If it does not, it will ricochet and likely kill someone else."

"No guns, noted."

"Magic can affect him," she continued, "but as before it will require much more force to have that effect. Are either of you versed in magic?"

"I'm a quick study," Cassandra raised a hand. "And I've used magic before, in my world."

"An occupational hazard, I may imagine?" Trudi asked, looking hopefully at Cassandra.

"Not as often as I'd like," the Librarian nodded.

"How do we get out of here?" Baird broke in, determined to make a plan.

"I can take you through the tunnels," nodded Trudi. "We made them narrow so that he couldn't be in them for long without returning to his natural shape and becoming stuck."

"So lead the way," said Baird, waving a hand at the tunnel. "Left or right?"

Trudi led them left down a tunnel so dark the ladies were glad the walls were so nearby to hang on to. They turned this way and that, sometimes at beds, sometimes at junctions. It reminded Colonel Baird of the labyrinth. She looked over at Cassandra.

"How are you feeling?" Baird asked solemnly.

"Little shaken, but I'll get over it," replied Cassandra honestly. "No labyrinth type headaches. No headaches at all, actually. Not since..."

"Are you keeping a mental map then?" Baird persisted.

"Only if you'll stop distracting me," retorted Cassandra.

They moved out into a wide area, now dimly lit by starlight and a full moon. To Cassandra and Eve, the moon looked odd. As if there was some difference. Something they needed to know. The light dimmed and Cassandra turned Baird's face to see the large giant sauntering towards them. Cassandra backed away and let Baird engage the creature in combat. She felt a tug at her arm. Trudi was pointing to something. It was a box of bolts of cotton. She frowned, not sure what was expected of her. Cassandra studied the actions the giantess was using and copied them. A sheet of paper blew over from the top of the box. Slowly, gradually, she saw the box begin to rise. With a flick of her wrist, it cannoned into the giant and knocked him off balance. She started on the next one.

Eve Baird watched the giant stumble and took her chance. As she moved to hit him, now with a piece of lead piping in hand, her phone rang."

"Eve?" Flynn's frown was adorably recognisable. "Is that you?"

"Hello Librarian," Eve's gasped, dodging an error of giant proportions. She spun round and side-kicked his knee

"Are you alright?" Flynn's frown deepened. "You sound out of breath."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she reassured him. "Just a bit busy right now if I'm honest."

Flynn's eyebrows rose. "Doing what? It sounds like you're being attacked by a minotaur!"

"Nope, no minotaurs here," she replied, watching another box soar through the air, this one knocking the giant over. "Just moving a few things around. Big, heavy things. Sometimes they fall over."

"Nobody hurt I hope?"

"All good," she replied brightly. "No problems here. Why, do you need something?"

"Do I have to need something to call you?" Flynn's voice tried to sound sincere, but failed miserably. "Can't I just call to say I love you?"

"Nope," she decided. "No, Flynn, you call because you need something and to tell me you love me, if you've any sense."

"And I do love you," he smiled.

"Now I know you need something!" Eve laughed. "What is it?"

"We may have got ourselves slightly stuck," admitted the Librarian. "And by me I mean myself and Ezekiel. Stone went the other way along the landing, but I can't get him to answer his phone."

"Did you boys have a fight?" Eve asked seriously.

"No, we, I... I thought it would be a good idea for Ezekiel and Stone to take a break from each other for a bit, and we were searching a massive old mansion house so we thought it best if somebody keep an eye on Ezekiel..."

"I resent that," chimed in the ex-thief in question from the background.

"So he and I went one way and Stone the other," finished Flynn. "We found a panic room and went in to investigate, but now it seems to have locked us in. We need someone to come and let us out."

"Really?" Eve's voice shot up. "How is your air supply? Do you have water and food? There should be water and at least dried food, maybe tinned, depending on how fussy the owner is."

"Oh, that's all fine," he assured her. "We're in no immediate danger as far as I can see, we just can't get out."

"Okay, that's a relief," she sighed. "We'll just finish up here then come rescue you. How does that sound?"

"Like I've lost track of whose turn it is to rescue whom," grinned Flynn through the phone. "We're up the stairs, turn right at the first main landing and it's the fifth door on the left. Call me when you get here and I'll tell you how to open the door. I shall see you soon, Guardian."

"See you soon, Librarian," said Eve, and the phone clicked off.