CHAPTER#53

"No." Mike shook his head. "That can't be something we do. It would make me no better than the people outside, and then where-"

A crack of thunder, louder than an approaching train, shook the house, causing everybody to cover their ears. The earth shook beneath their feet, and dust scattered off the roof, settling around them like tiny clouds.

"What the fuck was that?" Mike called, his ears ringing. He noticed that Naia stared incredulously at the sky, her mouth open. Cecilia burst through the rear wall of the house, energy crackling around her body.

"The Geas," she said. "It's cracked!"

"How can you tell?" Mike asked.

Cecilia shook her head. "It doesn't matter. What matters now is that we need to get that crazy woman out of our front yard. The Geas is a powerful spell, but it can be dismantled given enough time."

"Well, I can't go get Tink with Beth like this," Mike said. "I really want to do this by the book."

"Are you going to go stab that woman out front with the dagger then?" Naia asked him. "Because if you don't, eventually she will break the spell."

Mike thought about it. Even if he could get close, could he kill another human? It was the same doubts he had about the minotaur, about violence in general. Maybe to save his own life, or to protect someone. Then again, it was the kind of question that could only be answered in the heat of such a moment.

"I've got it!" Mike said. "Lily could go out and knock her out cold for a few hours, buy us some time."

"That won't work," Lily said, her eyes on the surface of the fountain. "The woman with the snake is Kali, the Voduo Queen."

"Don't you mean voodoo?" Mike asked.

"I said what I meant. Kali is super old school, pins in dolls, talking to snakes, dancing naked in the moonlight, that kind of thing. She's made so many deals with so many spirits that even if I could get close enough to sting her, it likely wouldn't affect her anyway." Lily crossed her arms. "She got pissed once because she thought that someone had broken into one of her warehouses to take a bunch of rare spell ingredients. Ended up tracking the wannabe witch doctor to their shop in New Orleans."

"What did she do?" Mike asked.

"Hurricane Katrina." Lily arched an eyebrow. "Witch doctor's home wasn't far from where the levee broke."

"She broke the levee?" Mike asked in awe.

"After she summoned the hurricane. Figured it wasn't enough to drown the thief, but killed off anyone who had gone to see her. Made her stand perfectly still in her own house as the water rose, then kept her alive the entire time the fish were feeding on her. I think it got the point across."

"Holy shit," Zel whispered, then covered her mouth. "I'm sorry, that slipped out!"

"Don't worry about it." Mike stared at Beth's sleeping form, then looked at the doll. "Does anybody here have any idea how to activate the house defenses?"

They all looked at each other. Zel kept her eyes on Beth, her slim fingers brushing the hair away from her face.

"Nobody? Any ideas?" Mike looked at each of them, hoping for an answer. The silence between them opened a void in his stomach, and his eyes eventually circled back to the woman lying on the cold stone of the fountain. His fingers tightened on the hilt of the dagger in his belt, and he could feel the weight of his own decision crushing him.

Trying to kill the woman on the front lawn was beyond him. Simply waiting for her to crack the Geas and come into the house, potentially hurting his family was also not an option. He was being forced to choose, and the damnation of such a decision was something he would have to come to terms with later. He looked to the women who stood around him, all waiting on his decision. His eyes found the cold porcelain gaze of the doll standing next to him.

"Do it Jenny." He looked at the others. Naia looked resigned to the idea, and he couldn't tell what Cecilia was thinking. Lily, however, turned her back on him.

The air filled with static, and the doll climbed on to Beth's chest, her cloth hands on Beth's lips. A white mist emerged from Beth's lips, and with a sudden blast of light, Beth sat up, her fingers clutching the doll.

"Beth?" Mike asked. Her eyes opened, revealing that they were now completely black.

"Beth is sleepy," Jenny whispered, holding one finger to her lips. "When she is ready to come outside and play, I will tell you."

"Okay then. Remember, you are inside her body long enough to get me to the Labyrinth, and then you have to bring her back and let her go."

Everyone waited for Jenny's response. Jenny looked up at the sky, her dark eyes focused on something far away.

"Boom," she whispered, moments before the sky above filled with thunder. Mike flinched, his heart racing in his chest. The shockwave rippled across the house, blowing out one of the upstairs windows. Mike ducked, but the glass didn't travel far, falling in small fragments to the courtyard below.

"Jenny?" Naia asked, a warning on her voice.

"There and back again, a Jenny's tale." Jenny smiled. "I am just borrowing her for today. The sun will come out tomorrow."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Okay then. Show me how to get inside the closet."

-

Naia sat on the edge of the fountain, wistfully gazing at the house. During times like these, she wished she could leave her fountain, to do more. Unfortunately, that could never be an option, no matter how much she wished it. She was a part of her spring-leaving was a concept as foreign as walking out of her own skin. Having the spring's water routed through the plumbing of the house alone had been a massively difficult magical undertaking. Though the details were fuzzy, she remembered that much.