CHAPTER 80

The sword came at her again, and she dodged to the side. This time, her foot landed in one of the shifting shadows, and she sank up to her shin.

"Oh, fucking hell!" She tried to pull her leg out, but a spectral hand came with it. The other shadows now moved toward her, and she saw the sword coming her way again.

Tick Tock shifted violently, and then a pair of metallic arms swatted the sword out of the way. Beth said a silent prayer and tried again to free herself. The whispers from the painting were making her teeth itch. There was a loud thud, followed by the same tearing noise, and Lily's legs now dangled from the ceiling up above.

"Fuck you!" shouted Lily before her legs were slurped back up like spaghetti.

"Lily, I'm being eaten by the floor!" Beth saw that another shadow was coming close. Her leg was going numb below the knee.

There was a loud thud, and then Lily's head appeared from a nearby wall. Her eyes were bright yellow, and her horns were covered in black blood. "Then you should offer to pay for dinner," she hollered. Several hands grabbed her by the hair and horns and yanked her back into the wall.

There was a roar, and then the wall cracked. Beth was knocked down as Tick Tock deflected another attack by the sword. When she pushed herself up, she saw that the painting was slowly scooting its way out of the vault, the cloth now off it completely.

She let out a primal scream of rage and stuck her hand into the black void beneath her. The hand grabbing her leg shifted to her wrist, but she yanked it out until it was visible, then bit into it.

It felt like cotton candy beneath her teeth, but this somehow worked. The hand let go of her and she was suddenly free. Scrambling to her feet, she moved away from the other shadows until she was near the freezer. She pulled it away from the wall and climbed on top.

A premonition of danger made her duck, and the sword sailed over her head. When it spun around to face her, she slid Tick Tock off her shoulders.

"Shield!" she cried, then closed her eyes. The weight on her arms shifted, and she opened her eyes in time to see that Tick Tock had become one. She also saw that Tick Tock had dropped the Grimoire by her knees.

"I don't understand," she said, then saw a pair of words written on the back of Tick Tock's shiny new body.

USE BOOK

The sword careened off of the mimic. Legs sprouted from the shield and Tick Tock shifted to intercept the next attack. Over by the door, the painting had flopped over, but it was still moving closer.

"Sure, fine, use a magic book with absolutely no experience." She opened the pages, only to discover that they were blank.

"Shit!" She flipped through the pages, surprised to see that there was nothing inside. "What do I do now?"

The whispering stopped. Beth looked up to see that the painting now faced her. Across its canvas surface, it had captured her terrified likeness perfectly as she sat atop the freezer.

"Ah, fuck bubbles."

The painting launched itself at her, and she slid off the freezer and opened the lid. The painting collided with the underside of the lid, and Beth shoved the freezer shut, trapping the painting inside with antique otter-pops and ground beef that likely hadn't seen daylight in decades.

When she climbed back onto the freezer, Tick Tock joined her. The painting tried to force the lid open, but the combined weight of Beth and Tick Tock held it shut. The shadows were closing in, however, and the sword was still moving around.

"One crisis down." Beth looked at the Vault's doorway. She could hear things moving around inside. "Any ideas on how to close that?"

Tick Tock shifted, revealing the same two words to her.

"It's blank, I—" She opened it again and the book flipped itself open to a specific page. The symbols inside swirled about as the book rewrote itself in English, revealing a diagram of an opening being sealed by stone.

"Huh. Okay then." She picked up the book, then moved behind Tick Tock just as the foil bounced off of it. The spell itself sounded like it allowed rock to melt. Was concrete a kind of rock?

The freezer shifted violently, and she almost fell off. One corner of it was now inside a floor shadow.

Oh for crying out loud. Beth ran her finger along with the text. Incantation? Check. Something about using her mind to shape intent? Okay. Does it require blood? Nope.

"Good enough for me." She held the book aloft and read the words. When it didn't work the first time, she grumbled and moved farther back along the lid as the freezer sank into the floor.

"C'mon, Beth," she whispered to herself, then glared at the Vault and said the incantation again. This time, she pictured the wall of concrete as if it was made of clay and wondered what it would feel like to smooth the whole thing over with her hand.

The freezer lurched and sank again. The edge of it caught on the ground.

Beth slammed the book shut, reached deep into her mind, then sang the words while stretching her hand toward the Vault door. For a moment, she felt her magic connect with the book and then the wall, so she swept her hand across the air. She pictured the palm of her hand moving across the concrete as if it were clay, smearing it out to cover the hole.