Adventure One: Part Two

by Handel W. Care

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Ancient, millenial ascendants may not be used where there is life. Capable, unconditioned powers are available:-
Whisky, Vodka, Cider, Brandy, Beer, Tequila, Rum, Schnapps and Coffee.

Rum and Coffee have been assigned...

You left the lights on," asked Coffee, striding in to the room as if he owned it. The presence that the man conveyed gave the impression that whatever was therein was unlikely to be half as dangerous as he.

"Yes, everything's exactly as I found it." Making sure he didn't give voice to any lies by mistake Billy swept the room with his eyes briefly to make certain.

Coffee moved quickly around the small bedroom, never touching anything, but often bending down to examine intently, his nostrils flaring as if he were scenting certain articles. Brows furrowed, he straightened and looked over to where Rum was standing in the doorway with the two children.

"The man was in the chair, the woman standing," he indicated the position of the dropped book on the floor, "here." It wasn't a question, merely a statement of fact, but the boy nodded anyway.

Rum stepped forward and stooped to pick the book up. "Nursery rhymes," he said. Wrinkling his brow he seemed for a moment to be focusing on something beyond the perceptions of the others, his steel blue eyes taking on an internal light that drew the attention away from everything else about his person.

#What do you see? I only got the scents of the two adults and the kid. It wasn't a physical removal.#

#No, you're right. There's something weird blocking here - it's all jumbled images. But I'm betting we can summon it back again by repeating the sequence.#

#Sounds dangerous. Good, I'm in.#

#I never had any doubt.#

With a small start Billy realised that Rum was speaking. He became aware that he'd been standing as if mesmerised while events had occurred about him and was now seated in the rocking chair, immobile as he watched events unfold. Alice was similarly quiet and still, seated upon her bed. Out of the corner of his eye, to the right, he could see Rum reading from the book while Coffee stood tall and menacing at his side. A disturbance in the feel of the room dragged his eyes to the wall opposite his position in time to see space apparently warp itself, the distance changing from a few feet to hundreds of yards, then shooting back but still retaining the impression of depth. With it came a figure dressed in rags, face a suppurating mess of sores, hands twisted in to painful claws and mouth whining intelligibly. It came towards him with purpose glinting in its single good eye and if it were not for the compulsion that held him the boy would have run screaming from the room.

Something swept across Billy's vision from the rear, causing him to blink in surprise. The next moment the leper before him was flying backwards, neck ripped open and head lolling, fading into nothing just as the gouts of blood shot into the air. Behind him Billy heard the guttural exclamation of Coffee's voice, then silence.

#Damn! I won't try that again!#

Rum looked at Coffee's clawed hand, withered and mummified, in shock. #Shit! Are you okay?#

#Oh, just peachy. I've had much worse. Give me a sec, you big girl's blouse.# Concentration etched the face of the large man for a moment and the resemblance of life flowed like the rising tide over his hand, restoring it to normal. #Good as new.#

#Great. You do realise you've probably scarred the kid for life now, don't you?#

#Hah. He's seen worse on TV. He'll get over it.#

From her position on the bed, Alice watched as more figures slowly came in to focus in the distance that was no distance, where the wall had been. Men and women in the dress of disparate time periods became distinguishable, growing in size and solidity.

"Bugger this, grab the girl," Coffee growled above the whine and melange of chatter now filling the air.

Reading his intent, Rum swept Alice off the bed as Coffee lifted the piece of furniture easily and threw it sideways at the temporal interlopers. All four saw the collection of timber, mattress and linen reach the interface, fail to strike the seemingly oblivious shades and suddenly accelerate away in to forever, disappearing in an eye's blink.

Brow furrowed, Coffee glanced at his partner. #So much for brute force. Any bright ideas?#

#Bugging out and considering ourselves lucky springs to mind. It seems limited to this room for the moment. I'll see if I can limit it further.#

Eyes flashing again, Rum forced the weight of his regard on the book still in his hands, then tightened his grip upon it. With but a crackle of protest the paper and ink crumbled to dust beneath his grasp. At once the precision of the spectral images and the otherworldly feel of the room began to fade.

#Dry horrors. Nasty,# chuckled Coffee mentally.

"Everybody out," ordered Rum. "Seal the door and meet us down in the kitchen," he said to Coffee as he led the children down the stairs.

Hands grasped around a steaming mug, Billy watched the two 'specialists' converse. At least half of their words were unfamiliar to him; all too often they would stop altogether, then continue some time later as if they were switching in and out of some frequency he couldn't access. Growing bored, and since Alice seemed snug enough covered with a blanket in the seat before the fire, he slipped out in to the hall.

Closing the door quietly behind him he went to the foot of the stairs and there stopped in amazement as his mother's voice floated down to him from above.

"William? Billy? Come up here please. Your father and I seem to be locked in."

"He's heading upstairs again," commented Coffee.

"Good ears," complimented Rum. "Yes, it's calling to him. Somehow it's been trapped and is only now managing to push out, whatever it is. It seems to need humans and other items as a sort of focus."

"Or it's just waking up after a long time out of action. This reeks of the brain addled nonsense of something that should have the decency to stay out of commission, wrapped in its dreams rather than letting them stray like this." Coffee's eyes burned with an unquestioned sense of deadly purpose.

"Okay, that's certainly one of the more likely possibilities. It does appear to be quite old." He chuckled and grinned wryly. "And let me stop you before any comments about how coming from me that's more than a worry."

"Heh." Coffee stretched his arms lazily along the length of the table, causing the stout wood to creak alarmingly before letting go. "What's it thinking now?"

"I can't get much more than surface emotions, a sense of purpose. Using... things."

They both flickered glances over to the girl child in the chair as she took that moment to mutter loudly in her sleep.

"Yes."

Each nodded grimly.

"It's on the move - the boy released part of it. Hopefully that'll lead us to where the true centre is."

A clatter of footsteps unnecessarily warned them early of the arrival of the boy, white faced and panting. Protestations of misunderstanding and apologies at his weakness were quickly shrugged off as inconsequential.

"Don't worry, you couldn't help it," said Coffee, his gruff, matter of fact manner silencing Billy better than any softer words.

"Soldiers on the stairs, eh," mused Rum. "But heading inside? Unlocking and unblocking the door? Well, we can rule them out as being anything more than puppets, coming to the call of the rhyme you were made to say. Dreams seems to be a good way of looking at it," he added to Coffee as they continued along the passage and ascended the stairs once again. "But personal or part of the collective unconscious?"

"You can stop blathering pointlessly and track it, then. Sight's your speciality, not mine," replied the other once they stood outside Alice's room.

"Fine, fine." With his hand close to the door, then the floor, occasionally lowering it to touch, Rum travelled from the top of the second staircase, where the door stood physically closed yet somehow psychically ajar, towards the summit of the first flight of stairs. At one stage he halted, confused, as the trail seemed to double back on itself.

In the interim Coffee had rewound one of the many clocks along the hall and now carried it with him, examining its activity intently. "There's a gain of seven minutes from the girl's room to down here in front of the boy's room," he commented. "It's definitely messy, whatever it is." He continued to walk on, down to the boy waiting in wonder at the foot of the stairs, watching the time piece in his hand. "And now it's normal."

Behind him Rum stiffened as light flared out from a painting near the door of the master bedroom, a picture of an idyllic cottage with buttercups shining bright on the lush grass around it, and then flayed across him, ripping his shape entirely out of the air. Aware of the interplay of energies only vaguely, Coffee turned to look up more quickly as he noted the wide eyed look that Billy directed that way.

#Ack. It dragged me in. Can you see me?# Rum's mental voice was distant but clear and edged with worry.

Drawing in a slow breath, Coffee examined the landing intently. #No. No sign of you. What can you see? Where are you?#

#I'm in a cottage. There's the noise of people outside and the smell of ... it smells like centuries ago. And another thing... it's daylight. Late morning by the look of it. There's sunlight shining on parts of the room through the chinks in the window slats. The presence is here too. It knows and it wants me to know too. The men outside - they're going to set light to the place! It'll go up in next to no time. The daylight's already making me weak.# His voice trailed off.

#Can't you shift out? Bring yourself back here?#

#No. Here its rules are the deciding ones, I can't place myself, so I can't shift... and the light isn't helping any either. I do believe I'm going to burn. Sod.#

By this time Coffee had gained the last few steps of the staircase. He stopped in thought again. #You couldn't...#

#Wait! The picture! There was a picture on the wall. Of this place. Of this cottage!#

#Yes. Yes, I see it now.#

#Don't get too close or we'll both be in here.#

#Piss off. I'm not that stupid.# The large man drew his foot back from the landing floor and stood on the uppermost step, almost crushing Billy's foot.

"What is it? What are you doing? Where's Rum," asked the boy.

"Go down the stairs and be quiet," growled Coffee, his eyes blazing angrily.

"Billy? Yes, go down and wait," came Rum's faint voice, out of nowhere.

"I can't see you," questioned Billy uncertainly.

"Yes, I know. Just go down and wait.."

"All right." Hesitantly, with many a backward glance, the boy returned to his self appointed post beside the end of the banister, little knowing how close to his own end he had come.

#I've got an idea. How exactly did it grab you?#

#There was a light, a white light. Very fast.# #White light, you say? Okay. Wait a sec.#

#Can't do long. This place is filling up with smoke already. The heat is getting oppressive.#

#So deal with it.#

Coffee swept past Billy in a rush, heading for the kitchen. In next to no time he was back, his eyes practically glowing with energy and a dark smear on his lips.

"I think I can smell something burning," Billy said.

"Get out of my way. Don't touch me," he snarled at the boy as he strode up to the landing.

#I'm coming through.#

#No.#

#Listen.# A welter of images spun down the tight mental beam between the two, shrouded in the multitudinous reflections of a broken mirror.

#Go.#

From the foot of the stairs it seemed that a light sprung out around Coffee only to be battered aside by a darkness exuding from within him. For a moment his semblance faded in and out, and there, fainter, was that of Rum also, wreathed in flames. An immensely strong hand shot out at speeds beyond the capability of human eyes to see and grasped a coated shoulder before it could vanish once more. Darkness and light licked out at each other again and while they were thus occupied a long blade sprang from the roiling mass to pierce the painting.

All motion stopped.

"Good job. You can let go now," grinned Rum, indicating the hand on his slightly soot blackened shoulder.

With something between a chuckle and a curse Coffee whipped his hand away as Rum drew the sword and painting penetrated by it away from the wall.

"Well, we've got a piece of it now. Not the whole thing at all, but a way to track it to source, certainly. Now all we have to do is figure out a way of doing so without it attempting to fry us again." The picture glowed constantly with the cold white light that had attempted to do away with both of them.

"Little bastard," said Coffee, tapping it maliciously with one finger, his lips turned up in a predator's smile. Sniffing, he licked the stain from his lips thoroughly, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth afterwards.

"The girl? Oh, you didn't?" Rum's voice was concerned.

Overhearing, premonition struck Billy soundly across the back of the head, hurrying him frantically towards the kitchen and his sister...

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Part Three