CHAPTER#147

"Oh." Yuki blushed. "I'm... sorry about that."

Tink crossed her arms and looked at Mike. "Fox buy husband more after she smash demon."

"I..." Yuki let out a small laugh. "Okay, Tink. I'll buy him more."

This seemed to placate the goblin, who sat back in her chair. "Husband have good plan?"

"As a matter of fact... no." He looked across the table. "Ratu, how far along are you on unfreezing the others?"

"A couple of days at least," she explained. "I'm worried that if I rush it, I might screw up, and that's simply not an option."

"Okay. So let's talk worst case scenario. We need to go get Beth back, and that means I need to go try to make a deal with a demon. If something happens to me, the house will go dormant again. Ratu, I want you to go back to the tower and work on the cure. Reggie, you and the rats can go with her as well. If the house falls asleep, someone has to be able to come back and unfreeze Naia. She's the only one who remains awake when the house is asleep, and we can't let the house die because she's stuck as a statue and unable to pick a new Caretaker."

"Wait, you assume that you should go?" Ratu asked. "Why not someone else?"

"You mean Yuki?" He looked over at the kitsune. "Honestly, if anyone were to go by themselves, she would probably be the best option. I would never ask someone to do such a thing by themselves, though, it's simply too dangerous. However, if she volunteers to go, she can come with me."

"I'll go," Yuki offered without hesitation. "I want to help."

"Tink go too!" The goblin stood up in her chair and slung her club over one shoulder. "Smash mirror demon in his stupid face."

"I would go as well," Abella offered.

"No." Mike held out his hands at their protests. "You can't all go. This isn't a problem we can just punch in the face. As much as I would love having everybody by my side, I think that whatever we do can't look like a frontal assault. We need to catch him off guard."

"He has a point," Ratu added. "If he walks in there with all of you, Oliver will know what's coming. A demon in his lair is thrice as dangerous."

"Which brings me to why we are here. We need a plan of attack, and we need to do it quick. Based on what I've been told, the Society contacts this demon once a month to ask it three questions. Once a question has been asked, it knows the answer. But I'm worried. Yuki stoned Beth on the way in to protect her. According to the deal she made with him, he can't freely give the Society information anymore regarding this house."

"That's how she put it." Yuki said. "She gave herself willingly, and he accepted. I stoned her as she fell, so the agreement should be sound and he won't be offering freebies to his captors."

"But here is what I don't like. Yuki pissed off a demon with nothing to lose and plenty of time on his hands. What if he tries to ransom her back to us, threatening to shatter her if we don't play along? Or, even worse, the Society may have a way to undo the curse. They've had their own gorgon's eye for a long time, and I can't trust that they won't find a way to make a new deal with Oliver by offering to unstone her. Remember what they did to Dana? Do we really want something like that to happen to her?" He looked at Yuki. "Abella even told me that Amir had a fucking genie. Could a genie fix her?"

"A lesser djinn, technically, but yes, they have one." Yuki shifted in her seat. "It may or may not be capable of undoing a stone curse. I don't know the extent of its abilities."

"Which means we are on a timer. The faster we act, the less time they have to plan anything. We need to figure out how to get in, get Beth, and then leave before sometime... tonight or tomorrow?" He turned to look at Zel.

"Um... not entirely sure." She looked at Tink and Reggie. "Did Beth give a definitive time on when the Society checked in with Oliver?"

"Tink no remember," the goblin said, scratching her cheek. "Rat face?"

Reggie scowled at Tink. "I was under the impression that her deadline to acquiesce was also when they might check in with him. Still, it would be better to assume sooner rather than later, since we have no definitive time."

"Okay then. It's super important that we make this happen tonight then. So... ideas?" Mike looked around the room.

"How are you even going to get there?" Zel asked.

"The rats will help," Reggie offered. "For Lady Beth, the rats will do anything. Since the demon took her through the reflecting pool, I have had my rats studying the area around it. We think we've identified a path that we can chew to his location."

"Good. Once we are there, we need a way to grab her and get out. However, she's a heavy statue, so... suggestions?" Again, Mike looked around.

"If we can actually get ahold of her, I can do it." Yuki offered. "With magic, of course, but we'll have to be careful. The statues hold up to the elements, but a sharp blow will shatter them."

"Okay, so we have to be careful, which means that we need to either trade with Oliver to get her back, or defeat him. Assuming he doesn't want to trade... anybody know how to kill a demon?"

"Killing him won't work," Ratu said. "When you slay a demon, typically it goes back to Hell. So if you were to kill him, he would likely just reappear in his mirror world where he had been trapped. There is magic that can do it, but I don't know that we have anything lying around that could do it."