CHAPTER#115

"She's at it again." Naia pointed at the sky where a glowing crack had formed. "She weakened it earlier, which means it will be easier for her this time."

"What do I need to do?" Mike touched the goggles on his head. They fit him perfectly, but he felt wrong wearing them. In his mind, they still belonged to Tink.

"There are three runes you must activate out in the front yard. You need the goggles to do it correctly, otherwise the house will kill you. Simple as that. Once you have activated all three runes, you activate some sort of control box in the yard."

"Like a console?"

"Sure. Once that is there, you will know what to do."

"Not gonna lie. This should have been a day two kind of discussion." Mike blew her a kiss. "Maybe I'll punish you for it later."

"You had better be alive to punish me. Now go!" Naia splashed him, and he ran back into the house. The others had gathered in the front room, all of them looking at the front yard. Cecilia phased through the wall, startling him.

"You need to come see this." Cecilia disappeared. Mike put his hand on the knob of the front door and took a deep breath before turning it. When he opened the door, a gust of wind blew into the house, rattling the windows. Another peal of thunder shook the house, making Mike cover his ears. Abella held her ears in pain, squatting down just inside the door.

"Holy shit." Mike stared up into the swirling vortex of air up above, a funnel cloud that slowly descended toward the house. Near the edge of the yard stood Kali. She was topless, wearing a skirt decorated with stones and feathers. Around her neck was a long rope decorated with shrunken heads. She shook a large stick, her mouth open wide as several different voices chanted.

"You're fucked." Lily grabbed Mike's shoulder, turning him around. He wondered if she had followed him from the garage. "That's her ceremonial garb. That's what she wears when she goes all out."

"We have to stop her." Mike took a step toward the front yard, but was yanked back by Lily's tail. The grass at the bottom of the steps exploded, showering the porch with dirt. Snakes of all shapes and sizes writhed across the yard, but the ones at the bottom of the step had their eyes solely on him.

"You can run. That's about it." Lily ducked when a panel ripped itself free of the house, the chunk flying over her head. "I don't care how powerful this place is, she's going to take it down."

"Naia." Mike glared at Lily. "Naia can't run, and I won't leave her behind. I won't leave any of them behind."

"How romantic." Lily stepped back into the house and Mike followed. "And I suppose you have a plan?"

"I..." Mike was cut off by a thunderous boom. Through the windows, the multicolored lights of the Geas cracking cast ominous shadows through the front room. They were all looking at him, expecting an answer. He looked out the window just as rain came, large drops glazing the glass. Across the yard, slow shapes lumbered along the edges, hiding among the bushes. "What are those?"

"Hmm." Sofia moved to the window, squinting. "It looks like several men. Identical in stature, each one wearing the same white suit and walking with a cane."

"That would be Sebastien. The guy who sent the homunculus made of sand." Lily shook her head. "Kali by herself would be more than a match for you. But with him helping, she has the power of an entire coven on her side."

"All we need to do is activate the house defenses, yes?" Mike turned to Tink. "Once I activate the console, how long until the defenses turn on?"

"Fast." She nodded, her ponytail bobbing.

"What are the defenses?"

"Big..." Tink's eyes went blank. "Big something."

Mike rolled his eyes. Of course nobody knew. "Okay, so the goal is to activate the console, whatever that is, and then go turn it on."

"You're so naïve!" Lily grabbed Mike by the shoulders and shook him. "How are you going to get past the snakes? Or the storm? Or the pissed off vodou priestess with all her little oogey-boogey men?"

"Or the Colonel Sanders chorus line from hell? Honestly? I don't know. But this isn't about me being in charge. This is about all of us working together." Mike looked at each of them. "We just escaped from a labyrinth. Yesterday, I got into a fight with a child-eating witch while trying to incinerate some elder god's foreskin. Every step of the way, I had somebody's help. And I know we can figure this out if we all play to our strengths to stop her. So instead of worrying about what we have to face, let's take a moment to focus on what we have."

Another blast roared through the house, and pictures fell off the walls. Everyone looked outside, the sky now a technicolor hue.

"She's using her spirits to multi-cast." Cecilia said. "Their voices add to hers. She summons a storm to keep us within while she makes trouble without."

"Which means she is worried about what we are planning." Mike put his hands on the window, then slid the goggles over his eyes. He could see the faint blue lines that made the triangle in his yard with the circle in the middle. Unfortunately, the circle wasn't very far from where Kali stood. "I need to activate the runes that Naia mentioned before I can summon the console. The first spot is on the porch steps, so that one is easy. However, the other two are at the base of the lions, by the entrance."

"How do we get there?" Beth asked.

"I'm the only one who needs to get there. Let's see -- yard full of snakes, strange storm overhead, douche in a white suit..." Mike's train of thought derailed when another boom shook the house.