Dance By Midnight

by Phaedra Weldon

  "Right, and we'll still be able to see you, like we did before."

  I nodded with Mike. Sounded like a good plan, but I wanted to do the exploring. I was immediately voted off the island and Mike told me to sit and rest. I did sit up against the wall entrance to the left tunnel when Sam started out. Mike and I watched her, and waited, and then just as she became a shadow in the distance, she started getting bigger again until she turned the corner and nearly ran over me. "Oh! That's so weird that you're there and I can't see you."

  "Mmhmm." I stood up and brushed myself off. "No dust?"

  "None. It's like it was swept clean. Mike, you take the right tunnel and I'll stay here with Dags."

  We repeated the process with Mike and after it he scratched his head. "No dust. Not even dirt. Just…burned tunnels."

  I was starting to think maybe I'd burned the dust up as well as the Cairn. It was decided we'd all move forward, but we'd also leave one of Mike's copper pennies in the middle of the junction so we'd know that was the right way out.

  The tunnel stretched out for what seemed like miles into the dark. And keeping my guard up for a long extended amount of time was exhausting. A few times I got a little dizzy.

  "This isn't working. I say we go back, make sure we don't get sick and then summon a little Fae creature and shake the dust off of them. I'm thinking we can trap a Fae easy enough," Sam said. "We could walk around for days in here. There's got to be a map or something."

  "I wouldn't think so if Dags burned out this Cairn, which is what it looks like." Mike looked up and around us. "My worry is, I think I'm seeing the exact same scorch pattern."

  "What do you mean?" I didn't like that sound of that.

  "Well, when I was a kid I used to imagine seeing faces in wood grain, or in concrete in the sidewalk, so I noticed patterns. And since we've been walking together, I've seen the same pattern repeat itself."

  "What?" Sam turned to face Mike and her eyes widened. "Oh fuck."

  I turned around as well to look at Mike, but my eyes slid off his shoulder and refocused on the tunnel behind him. Only there wasn't a tunnel anymore because it was pitch black. "Oh that's not good."

  Mike glanced back and his shoulders slumped. "Oh damn."

  "We need to get out of here." I moved quickly past him in the direction of where that light should be. I was seriously panicking. All those fears of being confined and tortured by a possessed Brendi Monster were scratching at the edges of my sanity. I heard their running footfalls behind me as we made our way down the tunnel, back the way we came.

  But the further we traveled, the darker the end of that tunnel grew. Finally I stopped and they stopped behind me. It was light where we were, but behind us or in front of us was dark. "I…" I was way out of breath. "I…got a…really bad feeling…"

  "No shit…" Sam panted to my right. She looked around. "So where is the light coming from? How is it we can see only where we are?"

  "Maybe it's like the outer circle of hell, like in Dante's Inferno," Mike said, breathing heavy but barely breaking a sweat. "You know, where the souls that never knew God ended up—only it was dark except where they were because their intellect was what lighted the way?"

  Sam and I stared at him.

  He shrugged. "Sorry. It was just a thought." Mike looked around us. "Shouldn't we be seeing that little moon you made? I know we ran further than we walked, which means we should have found it."

  This was bad. Badder than bad. I held out my hands. "If Mike saw repeating scorch marks, that means something like repeating textures, right? Or a repeating scene. Kind of like the old cartoons with the stock backgrounds? When the character ran and the scenery behind continued to repeat the same house and store?"

  Mike smirked. "Yeah. It's freaky that you and I had the same thought."

  "You give out some really weird analogies sometimes, Dags." Sam slipped her knife back into her belt.

  "Yeah…I know. But that's not the problem. Either the Cairn is keeping us in the same area or something else is."

  We looked at each other and caught our breath.

  "Dags…you're looking thin." Mike put a hand on my shoulder.

  "I feel it. We've got to get out of here."

  He nodded. "We can find some other way to get dust."

  "You want dust?" A melodic and somewhat sensual voice said from above us.

  Mike's gun was in his hand, Sam's dagger was up and me—well I had my hands up into fists ready to fight whatever or whoever that was. I didn't think I'd win the fight, but I would go down swinging. I just didn't want to set fire to anything else while we were trapped in here.

  None of us said anything. I assumed we were too afraid to answer.

  Then, "I know you can hear me."

  I looked at Sam and glared. She narrowed her eyes at me as if to say Not me, you! I cleared my throat but it was Mike that answered. "We're not happy about talking to a voice with no form. Care to show us where you are, and tell us who you are?"

  "You promise not to kill me?"

  Sam did talk this time. "We don't even know you. Killing's personal."

  That…had to have been the weirdest thing I'd heard in the last ten minutes. Other than the disembodied voice.

  Something moved in the shadows behind Mike. No…actually the shadows moved behind Mike. Sam and I saw it at the same time and she grabbed his belt loop and hauled him closer to her.

  The shadows clinging to the wall, the ones making the scorch marks we'd seen, oozed and dripped, rose and then culminated into a pile in the middle of the tunnel. The walls no longer looked as if they'd been through a fire. In fact they looked like dirt, as if the tunnel had been hollowed out under ground. Roots, flowers and several underground springs appeared where the black smut had clung.

  The burn had all been a lie?

  "Oh god we're not in Kansas anymore," Sam muttered and pulled the two of us to her. Mike on her right and I on her left.

  The black smut was both liquid and smoke as it moved and shimmered and formed itself into a seven-foot column. Then the column broke off four appendages that formed into arms and legs. The torso formed and then a head. Black smoke covered it one last time and when it finally cleared, we were looking up at the tallest drag queen I'd ever set my eyes on.

  It was both male and female, with arms like Mike's and a face very similar to Sam's. The breasts were perfectly rounded with just the right amount of perk and the hips and legs were thin like Mike's but rounded like Sam's. The hair was black, as were its eyes and lips. The skin shimmered a ghastly white and when it smiled its teeth looked a lot like Brendi's had. All pointy and sharp.

  "Is this better?" Its voice was deep and very manly.

  Yeah…drag queen.

  Mike cleared his throat. "And…who do we have the pleasure of addressing?"

  He/she's smile widened as he/she leaned against the wall, closer to Mike. "You are a charmer…and so deliciously…human."

  "Thank you." Mike's tone remained firm. Calm. But I saw his hand holding the gun shake. "Do you have a name?"

  "You must know a name is a gift of power to the other." She pursed her black lips. "So I will give you mine if you give me yours."

  Oh no… I tried to mentally warm Mike not to give it his real name! So when he opened his mouth and spoke I was pleasantly surprised. "My name's Leonard. Leonard Nimoy."

  She arched a black eyebrow. "That's not your real name, is it?"

  Mike gave her a pitiful look. "You think I'd choose to be called Leonard?"

  When she laughed the floor beneath me vibrated. "True. Then you can call me Delilah."

  Drag name. Oy.

  "You didn't want our names?" Sam said. I nudged her. Why the hell would she ask that? The thing didn't seem to see us. In fact, I don't think it even looked at us.

  When it did, its eyes burned red and it snarled. "No. You stink of the God Mother, blasphemer and betrayer. Your blood is polluted and foul. But the human's…his is pure and strong."

&nbs
p; Blood? What sort of Fae creature liked human blood?

  Oh god…I hoped like hell we weren't talking about a Fae vampire, because that was just…fifty shades of wrong.

  "I can hear your contempt for me and our kind in your voice, Mother's child. You even speak of yourself in the third person. Believe you are royalty."

  Sam opened her mouth for a verbal tirade but I pulled at her arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I don't think she can see me."

  She stared at me and then, "Delilah, how many of us do you see?"

  The creature laughed. "You see? You still call yourself us—"

  "No, I mean do you see us as only two?" She pointed between herself and Mike.

  Delilah frowned. "Of course. What sort of idiotic questions are these?" She turned her attention back to Mike. "I can give you dust if that's what you want….but what will you give me?"

  "Hey Delilah!" I shouted at her. My voice echoed in the tunnel, but the tall woman/man didn't look at me. "You're the ugliest queen in the realm and your shoes don't match your pants!"

  Still no response. That was just odd. What kind of Fae creature didn't see me but lusted after humans and disliked Witches. I didn't have my BBOE handy and this wasn't the time to consult the Grimoire. Didn't want to bring attention to myself. "Hey Mike, keep it going. She doesn't see me. We might make this work for us."

  He didn't respond and kept a healthy distance between himself and Delilah. "What is it you want in trade?"

  "Oh," she reached out to stroke his cheek with a hand the size of his head. Mike stepped away and she looked like she was pouting. "Oh…you reject me already?"

  "No…I just need to know what you want in trade. The dust is very important to me."

  "But if you touch this dust…." The pout became a grin. "Then you'll be trapped here."

  "I know. But that can't happen. I really need the dust."

  "Then I will make it easy for you." She turned and looked directly at me. "I want that."

  THE SPiDERWYK'S WEB

  I put a hand to my chest. "Me? You can see me?"

  Delilah didn't answer. Instead she looked at Mike.

  Sam looked from me to Delilah and back to me. "Delilah…what did you point at?"

  "I don't know. I can sense it. I can smell its magic. But I can't touch it." She slid a devious look to Sam. "Therefore I know I want it. And I want it before Maab realizes it's here."

  Mike slowly shook his head. "I don't have the power to give whatever it is you sense. I'm afraid my friend and I don't control such things."

  Delilah glanced over in my direction. "Pity. At least with me whatever it is has a chance to survive." She moved from where she'd slumped beside Mike and slid to where I stood. I took several steps back as her black eyes searched the area. From the unfocused look in her eyes I knew she really couldn't see me. She sniffed…and then sniffed again. "It's here. And it feels…." Abruptly she straightened up and oozed back. "Familiar. I've smelled that before. It smells of the fire…"

  Uh oh. That didn't sound good.

  "Fire?" Sam move to stand just a little in front of me. "What fire? We thought the scorch on the walls was the fire, but that turned out to be you."

  "Yesss…" She refocused on Sam. "Because the magic of that fire coats everything. Maab said it was tainted. Powerful." She hissed. "Etheeeeeereal…"

  The fire had been…Ethereal? That didn't make any sense. Unless the spell I'd used from the Grimoire was Ethereal in origin?

  "What do you mean by that?" Sam was looking for answers.

  But Delilah's form shifted, parts of her legs oozing back into a large puddle of black ocher. "A changeling brought a prize to us, but it wouldn't share. Wanted to keep it for herself. Believed it was important. Told us Maab would want it…" Abruptly her eyes become the size of white painted grapefruit. Her mouth extended out to either side in a weird-ass caricature of a well-known DC Comic villain. "But it burned us…it burned everything…and Maab…ABANDONED US HERE!"

  Time to go!

  All three of us took off running in the opposite direction. I was already tired and this was not helping. I stupidly glanced back to see if she was following, only to behold her ass end changing into the shape of a seven-foot black widow spider. Alongside her ran hundreds of smaller versions, all in hot pursuit of…us.

  I didn't know how far we'd gone before my side started to hurt. My mom used to say the bear got me when I would run and get this kind of pain. But somehow I was pretty sure this wasn't a metaphorical bear, but a signal I was losing a lot of energy really fast. The spell to guard the two of them as well as myself was in super-protect mode. It didn't help that my legs felt like I'd tied iron weights to my ankles. I was lagging behind the two of them and that big ass spider was catching up.

  The really stupid idea of refocusing the guarding spell on just the two of them and not myself came to me. I'd already been in the Cairn and survived the illness of re-entry into the physical world. So without stopping, I imagined lopping off that extension. It worked because the pain in my side disappeared and the weights on my legs lessened.

  "Here!" Sam shouted and disappeared up ahead on the right. Mike did the same at the same spot, so when I got to that same spot I turned right—and smashed into the wall. The combination of my speed and a sudden stop resulted in my bouncing off the wall and rolling several feet, ass over end, on down the tunnel.

  I'd barely come to a stop when something wet and warm grabbed my right ankle. I was on my stomach, every bone and muscle in my body protesting the spill I'd just taken, so I had to twist to see what had hold of me.

  Delilah the spider bore down on me, her upper half a nasty combination of the goth drag queen and the body of an arachnid. The little ones clicked along the walls, running up the sides and the ceiling. The image pulled every childhood nightmare I could remember to the front.

  But even that wasn't as terrifying as the disembodied black hand that held my ankle. It stuck out of the wall and began to pull me with it…into the wall!

  "Sam! Mike!" I tried to grab anything I could to stop from being yanked hard into the wall I'd just bounced off of. But anything I grabbed broke and came away in my hands. I even tried willing the flaming sword to come to me and imagined hacking the thing at the wrist to get rid of it.

  Nothing happened. So whatever it was, the Grimoire didn't see it as a threat to…it.

  "I can smell you!" Delilah's voice boomed down the tunnel.

  The hand gave a hard, dislocating yank. I fell backward and landed in…

  Water?

  I was literally treading water. Damn cold water. I was disoriented and unable to figure out which way was out. My lungs screamed because I couldn't take in any more air. Something grabbed me around the shoulders and pulled me up.

  When I broke free of the water I gasped and sputtered and kicked up a fuss.

  "Calm down." Mike said gently in my ear. "I got you."

  I held on to him as he pulled me out and then helped me sit on what felt like thick grass. A blue fire flickered and popped and crackled on the water's edge and after I'd gasped enough air I looked up from my prone position.

  I saw stars.

  Lots and lots of stars.

  I saw the shadows of treetops, and the glowing eyes of owls as they looked down at me.

  Something obscured the image and I looked into the black and shadowy face of… "What…the hell?" I managed to say, coughing all the way through.

  "Hey, be nice, Dags. He just saved your ass." Sam moved into view and put a hand on the thing's shoulder. "Thank you."

  You are welcome. It is not often I have visitors, and so I would cherish the time for talk. He refocused his featureless face on me. I am Hob.

  I managed a weak smile. "Uh…hello Hob… I'm Dags."

  He nodded and moved away. The best way I could describe it was a store mannequin, the kind with no features. Only this thing wasn't white, but black. Mike was still beside me and helped me sit up—and that's when the pain began
. Fire ignited all along my right shoulder. I couldn't move my arm. I also lost hold of the present world and blacked out.

  When I came to I was propped up against Mike, my entire right arm pinned to my chest with…silk?

  He is awake.

  Mike looked down and I returned his upside down gaze. "You look like shit. Are the shields still up?"

  I nodded. I could still see the shimmer around him. "Yeah…what's wrong with my arm?"

  "Same thing happened to Sam." He smiled. "Sort of missed a right tunnel and hit the wall. Only yours was more spectacular. Sam's arm's in a sling. You dislocated the whole thing and it looks like you cracked your collarbone. I'm afraid Sam can't heal you while she's under the protection spell. She's already tried. It's like we're encased in Teflon—except when we hit solid objects."

  "Yeah," Sam said from where she sat on our left. "Too bad it doesn't work like armor to protect our physical bodies." Her right arm was in a sling of the same material. "But Hob said this," she said and nodded to the silk sling holding her arm in place. "This will heal us in a short time."

  "What is this stuff?" I tried to sit up, and couldn't.

  "You really don't wanna know—"

  It is the spun silk of the spiderwyk.

  I blinked. "The what?"

  It is the creature that works with me to guard the gate between the Cairn and Alfheim.

  I frowned at Hob. "You're not talking about that huge drag queen spider that chased us?"

  No. That is a spriggan.

  Sure. "Is Alfheim where Queen Maab and the Faeries live?"

  Yes. It is only a small part of the world beyond the gate. He lifted an arm and gestured to an actual iron gate to the left, just across a small brook. The ironwork was detailed with gnarled trees and connected to a high wall of stone and trees.

  "The fact the gate is made of iron…that's significant isn't it."

  Sam answered. "It is. It keeps the fae out. The Faeries don't want their creations to have access to their realm. Hob was telling us how the two queens, Maab and Titania, while they don't agree on much, they do agree on segregation and discrimination."