Chapter 56

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Sunday 31st October 1999

Want to hear something spooky? Dakota disappeared.

Yes, you read that right… she disappeared!

One minute, she was there, and the next… gone.

I mean, there was a period of sleep between those two minutes…

Okay, there may have actually been an ordinary explanation… I woke up late (apparently, Dakota had tried to wake me but I just muttered something about spending more time with the penguins), and had been left on my own.

(Can you blame me for trying to make it seem supernatural? It would’ve made for a great opener. Maybe not such a fun thing to wake up to, though…)

As it turns out, she was deep in conversation on the phone, sat on the stairs in her pyjamas with the little cabinet that the phone was sat on dragged a little closer to her. She scooted to one side to make room as I walked past, giving my thigh a welcoming pat and smiling up at me.

I walked through to the living room to find Kitty setting up fake spider webs in random spots, on tip-toes on the armchair to place one above the curtains at that particular moment. She’d been busy, apparently, as there were little plastic pumpkins on every available laminated surface and a fabric ghost hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

“Looks like you’re getting into the spirit of things…” I greeted her, before adding “also, morning,” for good measure.

“Morning,” she nodded back lightly. “I never got to do Halloween before, so… you don’t mind, do you? Dakota said it was okay, but…”

“No, you’ve done a good job,” I assured her, looking around to take it all in. “That ghost might be in the way a little, though…”

“Ah, yeah… I’ll take it down…”

Sheepish, browbeaten, she stepped off of the chair and made a move for the ghost. My heart-strings were successfully tugged.

“I mean it’s fine you don’t have to!” I spluttered urgently, hands waving about. “We’re supposed to be patrolling tonight, right? And even if Bao plans on watching any films, I don’t think that’s a good idea after last year and with you- I mean I dunno, maybe you’re okay with horror films but-”

“Breathe,” my young friend advised, placing her hands on my arms to try and focus me. I did as told, shutting up and just inhaling and exhaling for a moment.

“Sorry… you can leave it up,” I reiterated with a smile, and she nodded. “Eaten yet?”

“Yeah. I’ve been up for a while.”

She picked up another fake cobweb from her pile on the sofa, heading straight for the TV like she already had every location mapped out.

“Dunno how you manage to get up so early…” I told her while strolling into the kitchen to the tune of my grumbling stomach.

“It wasn’t that early,” she somehow managed to call across to me with her usual hushed tone. “You just get up late.”

She wasn’t wrong. And we were at the end of a half-term break, so I’d stayed over at Dakota’s for almost the whole week and slept in for nine days in a row. Mum and Dad had asked that I spend some time with them, mind, so I spent a couple of nights there. Dakota and Kitty came over too one night, which was pretty fun. It did result in my parents asking Kitty some questions about her family and her circumstances which proved very uncomfortable for her…

I know Halloween’s not a big deal, but her parents didn’t even let her do anything for it before. Not even trick-or-treating. She was extremely quiet around Mum and Dad at first. I really have to wonder just what her home life was like…

Those thoughts swirled around my mind while I poured myself some Frosties, and by the time I’d finished eating, Dakota traipsed into the room with a light smile.

“About time you got up!” she greeted me playfully.

“About time you got off the phone,” I grinned back at her. Checkmate, darling!

“That was Mam,” I was informed. “She’s gonna come and stay for a week in December. She’ll even get to see the talent show!”

Because what I needed right now as I agonised over writing an original piece and dreaded the thought of performing in front of a crowd was to know that another familiar face would be there…

“Ah, that’s great! You haven’t seen her in… since last Christmas, actually…”

That long. Call me a mummy’s-boy if you want (though I’d rather you didn’t), but I can’t imagine not seeing Mum for that long…

“Yeah, I kept thinking about flying out at some point, but we’ve been so busy and everything!” Dakota spoke airily even as her words about her mother from months ago came back to me. It was entirely possibly she was more than happy to be away from Saoirse, even if she loved her.

I’ve no idea if Kitty had been told the same thing I had at some point, or if she had some strange sense of that hidden truth, but she lightly rubbed Dakota’s arm.

“What’s she like?”

“Half-Dakota, half-stereotypical-Irish-mother,” I replied on Dakota’s behalf; she snorted out a laugh.

“She’s nice, you’ll like her,” my girlfriend told her housemate succinctly. “And I’m sure she’ll like you too.”

“Okay…”

Kitty looked away and downwards, before shuffling back over to her task.

“So, looking forward to it…?” I asked Dakota with an attempt at a tone loaded with implication.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice spending some time with her. I have missed her,” she graced me with a smile that seemed sincere enough.

“Good,” I smiled in kind. I had to trust her word on this. If nothing else, she would surely seek me out if she needed some comfort. Besides, I’m probably blowing this whole thing out of proportion…

…

Darkness descended fairly early – with the clocks going back that night, it would only be earlier from the following day onwards – and after an early pizza-based dinner, the Painters headed out to the streets to patrol. Our concern was simply that Melody, or some of her followers if not her, would do something during Halloween night, amidst parties of trick-or-treating children. Not an ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination. We had to be as alert as possible… which, admittedly, was a little challenging for us, despite the best of intentions.

“Oooh, Darth Maul, nice!” Bao enthused, looking off down the street at a Sith Lord that I couldn’t seem to locate.

“Bao, could you at least try to pay attention to what’s going on around you…?” Dakota asked wearily.

“I am, clearly,” he grumbled back.

“She doesn’t mean ‘play spot the character’…” Zahid pointed out, sounding exasperated already.

“But it’s fun to see what’s popular! I’ve already seen some Space Rangers and an Ash Ketchum, and there was one kid dressed as a ghost pirate! How cool is that!”

“We’re… on a mission…” Kitty tried to remind him with the smallest voice conceivable.

“I still think we should’ve dressed up,” Kendal sang from ahead as she marched along.

“Technically, we are,” I chuckled, before catching a child Frankenstein’s Monster giving us a big thumbs up and sending one right back at him.

“But it’s not like these kids are dressing up as monsters or superheroes or whatever all through the year, are they?”

“They might be… we don’t know,” Bao shrugged.

“I’m sure Keaton would’ve liked to a few years ago,” Kendal laughed at the thought. Knowing her brother (if vaguely), that did seem likely.

“Aaaand another poster…” Dakota interrupted, snatching down a sheet from a lamppost. Like the ones before it – each of which we’d also torn down – it was emblazoned with Melody’s emblem, and seemingly nothing more.

“It makes me feel easier about this whole thing to imagine Melody strolling around town and sticking these up herself,” I told my friends. “She seems less diabolical that way. More like a girl who’s worried about her missing cat or taking part in some am-dram production.”

“She’s been on TV, she’s beyond am-dram now,” Bao quipped back casually, deservedly earning some laughter in response.

We began walking onwards, only for someone to walk straight into us (more specifically, into Dakota).

“Sorry, was getting wild readings and-”

The girl, around my age, looked up from some kind of compass in her hand, and her eyebrows bobbed up a little in surprise.

“Oh, the Painters. That or impeccable Halloween costumes.”

“Yeah, we’re the Painters,” Dakota replied, “and don’t worry about it.”

“Wasn’t worrying, I’m not some kind of giant spikey cat or something,” the stranger said, in a way that convinced me she was misconstruing Dakota’s words on purpose. “You haven’t seen any faeries around, have you? Look exactly like kids but aren’t?”

Bao began scanning the area.

“How would we know the difference…?” I asked her.

“And more to the point, the hell do you mean ‘faeries’?” Zahid added with intense disapproval.

“Yeah, that too,” I leapt on his worthy point.

“Ah, makes sense…”

She flicked her dark hair back lightly.

“Had a feeling you weren’t using magick, but it was worth a shot.”

“Whoa, magic?!” Kendal beamed, suddenly brimming with energy.

The girl simply sighed, sounding utterly exasperated.

“No, magick.”

“That’s what I said-”

“With a k. M-A-G-I-C-K, magick.”

“It sounds the same…” Dakota rightly noted.

“Well it’s not,” the stranger concluded with a huff. “Anyway, forget it, you don’t know anything so-”

“Is that kid a faery?” Bao asked, pointing to a little girl dressed as Tinkerbell accompanied by both of her parents.

I expected the newcomer to scoff or grumble – maybe it was bad of me to have felt I’d gotten the measure of her so quickly – but instead, she focused her attention on the child, and checked the object in her hand.

“Nope… damn it…”

“Taking everything as read… why are you looking for faeries…?” Dakota quizzed the girl cautiously.

“They stole an amulet and I’m trying to get it back. Not how I planned on spending my Halloween but here we are.”

She checked her probably-a-compass, sized up the direction she wanted to head, and then began walking off.

“Come along then.”

“Excuse me…?” Dakota spoke after her.

“Saving you time, unless you want to go through the whole ‘should we help her? But we’re busy! Still, she needs help. And it sounds interesting!’ business…”

“She’s got a point…” Kitty murmured with a faint dash of hopefulness.

Very little else was said before we began following the magickal stranger.

“My name’s Athena, by the way,” she informed us as we caught up to her. “Oh, and…”

Turning on her heel, she faced us, clicked her fingers on both hands, and then pointed at us.

“That’s better,” she concluded, withdrawing the compass from her pocket and continuing to lead us back the way we’d come from.

“That was pretty cool, but what was the point…?” Bao asked her.

“Cleared up your blurry faces,” she told us flippantly. “You’re a good-looking bunch, too.”

“Wait, people can see us?!” Kendal yelped, covering her face with her hands.

“I’m people, so yes on a technicality.”

“Tell me that means only you can see!”

“I just did…”

With a loud “phew”, Kendal stopped hiding her face, wiping her forehead with the back of one hand for good measure.

Reaching the end of the road, Athena led us down a quieter street, with only a couple of older kids knocking on a door at the other end.

“So,” Bao began, “how does magic- sorry, magick…”

Absolutely no audible difference, so I’m inferring those spellings from the context and the fact that Athena didn’t comment on it.

“How does it work?”

“What d’you mean?”

“What are the rules? How do you do it? Can anybody do it?”

“Magick is magick,” she told him like that made things any clearer. Thankfully, she didn’t leave it at that. “Supernatural. No explanation, no rules.”

“But…” my friend countered, chewing his words a little.

“Why would there be? Magick is magick is magick. … is also magick. You have to be attuned to it, though, sure. I’m a mage, and my family’s been involved with magick for seven generations now,” she elaborated, before waving a hand at the nearest lamppost. Rain began to pour down from the light, splattering on the floor beneath it.

“Cool…” Kitty said with understated awe.

While we slowed down to take in the sight (sure, we’re used to weird stuff by now, but this was on the upper end of the weirdness spectrum), Athena took some steps ahead of us. By the time I turned to look her way, she had the compass thing out again, a quizzical look on her expression as she used it. For the first time, I properly looked at her… more particularly, her clothing. A choker, a golden tube-top, black opera gloves, and boot-cut jeans. Bare feet, too, it seemed.

“Hey, aren’t you cold…?” I asked her while the others began moving again. Athena gestured towards the lamppost again without looking at it, and the rainfall ceased.

“Nope, toasty. Magick!” she purred, flashing me a proud smile.

My friends must have noticed her clothes too, probably thanks to my question, because…

“I figure it protects your feet as well?” Zahid asked her.

“Flawlessly,” she confirmed, and then raised her foot up high, showing us her pristine sole and wiggling her toes for good measure.

“Careful, Alex here is into feet!” Kendal chirped, putting her hands on my shoulders to single me out.

“Alex here is gonna try to hit Kendal before he dies of embarrassment,” I added through gritted teeth.

“Eh, you’re hardly the first,” Athena reasoned, waving her foot about a little before returning it to the ground. “By the way, while I’m facing this way, mind telling me what those two kids down the street are doing?”

Which seemed pretty irrelevant…

“Right now, they’re just knocking on someone’s door…” Dakota observed. There, on the doorstep, like any trick-or-treaters would be.

“Are the house’s lights on?”

That might sound like a silly question, but…

“… no…”

“Thanks, Green,” the mage smiled, the probably-not-a-compass-after-all getting slid back into her pocket again. She turned sharply, raising her now-free right hand, and the moment she was looking at the kids, several ribbons shot forth and crossed the street at formidable speed. The pair – a boy and a girl, it seemed – dashed out of the way, too skilfully for a pair of pre-teens, and as the ribbons snaked after them, they dodged and dived while making their way towards us.

“Faeries?” I checked with Athena, primed to summon my sword for all the good it might do against supernatural entities.

“97% sure,” she answered, still focusing on trying to ensnare the fake trick-or-treaters.

“Good enough for me,” Zahid smirked, summoning his Lokon axe. The rest of us quickly did the same.

“Fan out, herd them towards Athena, don’t attack unless you absolutely have to,” Dakota instructed us; after quick affirmative nods, we spread across the street.

It didn’t seem like we had to worry too much, though, as Athena released the ribbons and spread her arms wide, launching oversized ring toss hoops all around. The male faery was swiftly trapped by one, as it shrank down to bind his arms tight. Noticing that, his accomplice fired bolts of light in Athena’s direction.

“No you don’t!” Bao shouted out, swinging his blades forward and letting waves of yellow block the shots. The faery turned to him, spoke in a foreign tongue, and fired at him instead. He only had to evade the attack for a couple of seconds, as a glowing pink net landed down on the girl.

“Man, it’s much easier with you around,” Athena remarked happily while strolling over to the male faery. “What are you using, anyway? If it’s not magick… And don’t worry, I can keep secrets. Got a tonne of them.”

We all looked to Dakota. She sighed softly under the responsibility of leadership.

“Lokonessence.”

“Huh… Lokon? That’s an oooold word for creation. Preternatural stuff, then?”

She grabbed hold of the zombie-dressed faery by the shoulder, and glared at him.

“Where’s the amulet, punk?”

Like his accomplice, it replied in a language I couldn’t have hoped to place.

“In English, come on…” the mage sneered.

“Dun’ have it,” the faery snapped back. “Her neither.”

It felt weird, but we had to just stand back and let Athena handle this…

“You couldn’t have already flogged it, surely? Who has it?!”

“Wait a bit longer, find out.”

“… oh, right…”

Athena dug the compass-like item out of her pocket yet again, checking it with a nervous expression.

“That explains the weird readings…”

From both ends of the streets, numerous kids appeared, in all manner of costumes. Never had I felt so intimidated by a sight like this, but it seemed obvious that they were all faeries.

It would’ve been hysterical if it wasn’t so unnerving.

“Hey,” Athena addressed us, “think you can handle these guys? They’re little shits, so don’t worry about bashing them about a bit.”

“Just pretend we’re babysitting them and they’re really getting on our nerves…” Bao recommended to the rest of us as we raised our weapons up.

The faeries charged.

What followed is up there as one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

Five of the mock-children – two more zombies, a lion (or a blonde werewolf), a witch and a ghost in full white-bedsheet-glory – made a beeline for me. I slashed into the ground, letting blue surge across the road surface and buckle up just ahead of them, tripping them up. The poor ghost seemed to land face-first and I had to fight back the urge to hurry over and ask if they were alright.

A bolt of light struck my back from behind, the feeling of a static shock followed by a few moments of an intense ticklish sensation. By the time it had passed and I could turn, a little Robin Hood shot at me again, striking my chest and knocking me to the ground.

“Stay down!” I was ordered by my assailant before he headed past me, to the aid of his allies. Recovering as quickly as possible, I urged myself up and swiped at all six faeries at once. A stream of blue sent them flying, securing them to the ground.

I spotted Dakota keeping away from faery attacks with some expert footwork and Kitty taking warning stabs in the direction of her opponents, before another troop charged towards me. I let the blade of my sword charge up, swelling to more than twice its normal size and waving the weapon about as a warning. They halted, keeping their distance.

“Got your back!” Zahid called out from behind me.

“Red and Blue working together!” I shouted out like some kind of triumphant battle cry.

“Alright, calm down…”

One of the faeries dived for my legs; I jolted my sword downwards, and let the blue slam follow the movement and into the small being, affixing them to the ground. Taking the message now, the others began backing away.

“Can I just point out how weird this is even by our standards?” Zahid mentioned as his red glow flickered in my peripheral vision.

“Yeah, I noticed…”

“Alright, it’s not just me then.”

“All clear on my side, by the way,” I let him know.

“In that case, looks like Kitty could do with your help,” he told me. I moved about, looking across to where our younger friend was. The faeries weren’t much shorter than her, and they seemed to be using that to their advantage, with maybe a dozen of them surrounding her.

“Got it!”

I sprinted over, charging my sword up once again.

“Hey, Kitty, watch out!” I cried out to her, and then swung towards the horde of faeries. Kitty just about managed to spring out of the way, while most of the diminutive assailants were pretty much literally sent flying.

“Thanks!” she shouted to me, before striking another of the faeries with the back of her Lokon Claw, knocking him away.

The sound of flapping wings startled me, and a raven swept forth, landing down on the faery that Kitty had winded and wresting a large amulet from the pocket of his black Dracula suit jacket. Some of the other faeries spotted this immediately, and shouted out in their language before firing at the bird as it returned to the skies.

“That a boy, Nevvy!” Athena hollered with a victorious grin; the raven soared over to her, landing on her shoulder and dropping the amulet into her hand.

“It’s mine now, faeries! Back off or I’m toasting it right here, right now!”

Shaken, the disguised faeries – at least the ones who weren’t incapacitated – scurried away, back into the night. As quickly as the madness had begun, it was over.

“… so, they can’t fly or anything, then…?” Kendal asked aloud.

“Nevermore!” cawed the raven, which drew a gasp from Bao.

“Whoa! It’s like Edgar Allan Poe!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, he says it whenever anybody asks a question in his presence,” Athena spoke, stroking Nevvy’s head. “He feeds on the dread he winds up causing. And faeries use magick to generate wings. They don’t have to look like kids, either. These ones are just rank amateurs.”

“So is Nevvy your familiar?” Kitty asked Athena as we aggregated around her again.

“Nevermore!” followed after her question.

“Well, he’s seen me in my underwear, so we’re pretty familiar,” the mage replied without a hint of irony. “I should get going now. Back to the future, y’know the drill.”

… if she really was from the future, it wouldn’t surprise me that much at this point.

“You’re welcome, then,” Dakota spoke up, sounding a little riled at not having been thanked.

“Of course. Could’ve done it without you but it would’ve been a lot trickier.”

“Glad you got your amulet back!” I smiled at her.

“Oh, it’s not mine,” she said plainly. “Belonged to some old magick family. The faeries got to it before I could snag it.”

She shoved it in her other pocket and stretched, Nevvy adjusting slightly to accommodate the movement of her shoulder.

“Thanks for the help, Painters. I owe you one, if we ever meet again. Happy Halloween.”

And with that, she walked off down the street to our half-hearted chorus of goodbyes.

“… well that was a waste of time…” Zahid grunted.

In the end, other than taking down another thirty-odd posters, nothing else happened that night.