No Place Like Home

by Erik Schubach

  Ella whispered, “Parker?”

  I moved up beside her, and she nudged her chin forward. I nodded and didn't even have to reach out, I could already feel and taste the acrid demon magic just ahead of us. I whispered in concern,

  “There are about a dozen of them moving around in there... they all feel the same though like they are all one, I can't differentiate their magic.”

  We could hear a low hissing voice echoing through the tunnel, barely loud enough to make out from here, “Hurry you fools. We have to relocate for tomorrow. We almost have enough of us to open a portal that that accursed witch cannot close. Just a few more weeks and I will reign over hell on Oz.”

  I almost yelped as magic beside us flared to an intensity that almost burned my senses. Dorothy was enraged.

  Toto was already in front of her, standing in human form caressing her cheek. “Dot... we can't just go storming in. We don't know if they have any traps set or...”

  Her voice trailed off, and all of our attention swung from them to the chamber beyond where we heard a familiar Cockney-accented voice challenging, “Come on you sodding wanker, let's do this.

  We're... I'm standin' right here!” Followed by a huge whump of released earth magic and the strangled cry from who or whatever took that strike as the ridge shook.

  I muttered as we all started running forward, “Oh for God's sake.”

  Marie sighed out in exasperation, “Ella eez so brash at times.”

  I gripped the improvised pommel of the stinger as we charged into chaos in a huge chamber with a soaring domed roof that was completely covered in honeycomb. We were in the hive!

  Ella was there facing off with a half dozen demons. My eyes widened upon recognition, they were hybrids! Whatever demon was terrorizing Oz, was using parts of himself and his magic to infect and control some of the fantastical people who lived here.

  That's why all the magic had the same taste, and I couldn't differentiate. But these hybrids looked

  and felt different than the ones Styche had made in the mortal realm. The ones who could pass on the curse like a plague. These were more patchwork demons who looked cobbled together.

  I saw a bee with half its face remade in the black flesh of tortured souls indicative of demons, it's harpoon-like stinger increased to half the length of its body, and dripping with a caustic black ichor that was bubbling the stone floor where the droplets landed.

  There was some sort of clockwork bull, who had pieces of demon flesh growing across half of its golden framework, red hellfire burning in its eyes.

  A deformed Munchkin and even a flying monkey who looked half decomposed, and half bat-like demon. And at their center, two women whose skin and clothing looked to be half rotted away I could see one's withered, blackened heart beating between her ribs. They were weaving some sort of magics in the air as Ella struck the bull with a huge whump that made the cavern shudder and some of the wax honeycombs high above to tear, releasing the golden nectar to spot the stone floor below.

  The bull shrieked as it went flying back, crushing the Munchkin demon as the huge clockwork bovine tumbled across the cavern floor.

  Dorothy was already moving, her hands weaving complex patterns in the air as Ella leaned into the black energy that stank of sulfur and brimstone. She roared a challenge as the armor Dot had put us in began to peel away from her as she gathered the earth inside her again.

  Dot thrust a hand forward, and a stream of chaotic emerald magic shot out like contained lightning, striking the dark energies and pushing them back until the two witches were thrown back like rag dolls.

  The bee swooped, it's wings a blur, making a deep buzzing noise that hummed through the cavern, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Its poisonous acid-laced stinger clanked harmlessly off of Ella's crystalizing skin.

  But before it could swoop away, Ella grabbed it by the stinger, and swung it around her body like a shot-putter and flung it toward Dorothy, the stinger tearing out from behind the shrieking bee as Ella shouted, “Batter up, Witchy Poo!”

  With a flick of her wrist, Dot's magic tore the bee in half. The front part landing by the rest of us.

  Ver yelled, “Over there!”

  I looked over to see a classic demon with leathery wings and a spaded tail skirting the perimeter approaching us. He looked similar to Styche but smaller. And the bastard was trying to escape while his lackeys made a diversion. He had six more hybrids with him.

  In my own distraction, I hadn't realized that somehow the bee hybrid wasn't dead it lashed three arms at me and pulled itself up on me its serrated mandibles biting at my face. The screeching of the bonelike jaws sliding along crystal would have made me wince if I hadn't been busy screaming like a

  girl, having this demon thing biting at my face.

  With a clink that moved me back a half step, the creature stopped moving. I followed the red shaft of a javelin from my face, through the skull of the bee, and to Vermillion's hand. She winked at me then spun away, leveling the javelin and hurling it toward the true demon. She had known the tip of the javelin wouldn't hurt me and used that to her advantage by not holding back in her killing strike.

  Toto was shredding the twitching back half of the bee, to finish the kill. I swallowed. She was more vicious than even the werewolves I kept company with.

  Dorothy called out to us, “Switch!” And she and Ella headed toward the real demon, leaving the rest for us to face.

  Fenriss was already engaged in an aerial sword fight with the monkey hybrid. They were swirling through the air, exchanging sword blows, raking claws and savage bites with their long fangs as their wings flapped in chaotic patterns, somehow never colliding with each other as they fought.

  I said to Vermillion when one of her javelins just bounced off the charging bull's metal body, “I've got the bull, can you two do something about the witches?”

  Marie was already weaving a spell that caught and consumed an incoming magical strike from the demon witches.

  I slid the stinger into my belt and braced myself. I caught the horns of the charging bull. It weighed close to a ton, and me... not, I heard the crinkle of crystal going down my arms, spine, and legs as I screeched along the ground, leaving sparks and starting to furrow the stone floor itself as I was pushed along effortlessly by the hybrid.

  What was I thinking? I wasn't Ella. It isn't like I could root myself to the earth. Though I was close to indestructible in my crystal form. I was glad for that fact as we slammed into the wall.

  Tearing through the wax honeycomb cells, and hitting the cavern wall behind it with bone-jarring force. The entire cavern vibrated with it as we were drenched with the honey from the honeycomb.

  I heard a slight crinkle where my mostly crystal form cracked slightly. My god, how hard had this thing hit me?

  I was helpless, pinned against the wall like that, and I looked at the raging bull. Part demon flesh part clockwork being. I narrowed my eyes as I thrust a hand forward, holding my fingers out in a blade as I struck one of the burning demon eyes, my crystal slicing cleanly through the fetid flesh of it.

  It bellowed in pain as I did the same, the hellfire in the eye was actually burning my crystal hand. I pulled my hand quickly back, and the heat and pain seemed to dissipate immediately. I looked at my hand as the bull took a step back shaking its head violently.

  My hand looked ok, well as ok as translucent crystal could look. Then I understood, the hellfire

  hadn't been burning my hand, it had been burning my soul. Ok, so scratch that as an idea. The cavern was shaking, again and again, releasing more honey from damaged cells, but I didn't have time to take in the battle raging around me.

  The bull shook his head again, his horns dipping low and sparking the floor. It backed up three steps, its one good eye locked on me, and I swear I saw the hellfire in it flare. Shit. I flicked the honey off of my hand as it oozed down my body. I hadn't a clue what to do as it lowered its horns and pawed at the ground.
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br />   Just as it started it's charge I noted the clockwork gears all spinning and exposed. I fell to the ground pulling the stinger from my belt, hoping it was as strong as it looked. The bull trampled me as its head slammed into the wall behind me, causing the cavern to shake and parts of the ceiling to start raining down rock and honeycomb.

  As its hooves clinked and clattered on me as it tried to back up and regain its footing, I thrust up between the metal cage of his ribs and jammed the stinger through a gear. With a clank and a shudder, the bull's back legs stopped moving, and he wound up sitting with the force of his momentum and weight.

  I rolled out from under it and to my feet as it thrashed at me with its horns, and tried to scrabble after me. Then in a streak of bright red color, Vermillion Chrysanthemum was pirouetting through the air again holding a javelin with both hands by her ear. She landed on the bull and followed my lead as she jammed the shaft down between other gears that were still moving.

  She repeated the process over and over in rapid procession, leaving the now immobile bull looking like a porcupine with red quills. She smiled at me from atop the bull and started to turn. I felt it coming, an insidious black magic.

  I screamed, “No!” as I dove to try to interpose myself between the bolt of acidic tasting energy and Ver, I wasn't going to make it.

  But at the last instant, with a high pitched screech of anger, Fenriss was there, the dark, cloying magic hit him like some sort of clawing, sticky mass. His screech turned to one of agony and then he fell at the base of the bull, motionless.

  Ver was screaming, “No!” as she leapt down to his side as I scrambled to them. I looked back, and Marie was looking at us in horror.

  She spun back to the one remaining witch who had a dead monkey demon behind her, and I could feel the sheer amount of black magic my girl called upon... she spoke a single word. A word of power.

  The witch was consumed from within, her mouth open in a silent scream as she fell to dust.

  Marie? She shouldn't be using so much black magic. That was as frightening as anything the

  demons could do.

  I looked at her, Dorothy and Ella fighting the demon, the others with him already dispatched, then to the fallen monkey. Vermillion had him gathered in her arms, rocking his still form as she cried. “Sir monkey, why?”

  Toto was whimpering and nudging his body with her nose.

  I felt crystal tears falling down my cheeks, and they clinked and bounced off the floor, my chest tight. Sure, the little guy had made me uneasy, but he was always sweet to me, and he fought with all his heart to defend Oz. He gave his life for a Munchkin girl he barely knew.

  I spun and joined Marie as we ran to where the battle was ongoing.

  Dorothy was reaching her hand out, flinging debris she levitated at the flying demon who was trying to get to the exit. Knocking him from the air down to Ella who slammed him almost through the stone floor itself with a huge whump of released energy.

  She looked to be almost fully crystalline like me, but it receded between blows. Like before, Oz had to be feeding her power to recover so quickly.

  The demon hissed and screamed in pain as it slapped Ella away with a sweep of its tail. She tumbled and rolled to her feet as it tried to take flight again. My girl flung her arms wide, sending a shower of crystal shards slicing through the demon's wing membranes.

  He could barely take flight with the amount of damage she did to his wings.

  I turned when a red javelin bounced harmlessly off his chest. Vermillion was there, her face twisted in hate and rage as she pulled out another of the endless supply of javelins out.

  Dorothy looked back to see Fenriss' body, and she screamed her own rage. The shriek seemed to make the entire fabric of reality around us vibrate, disorienting me causing me to experience extreme vertigo.

  She thrust her hand to the ceiling, and a blast of emerald lightning as thick around as my chest struck the roof, and a hail of watermelon sized rocks rained down upon the demon. He rolled across the cave floor but was struck with a few. They hurt him, but not much.

  I was absently wondering why Dot didn't just blast the bastard directly when Marie threw a net of black magic over him. It just dissolved on contact. Then I got it. Why Dorothy and Ella were using physical attacks, the creature was immune to magic.

  It hissed out a laugh at Marie and growled, “I can use you, witch.” He grabbed a claw full of his own shoulder flesh and flung it at her with a stream of dark magic tasting of a familiar curse. He was trying to make Marie a hybrid!

  Dorothy clenched a fist, and the magic fizzled in the air halfway to us. Then whipped her hand

  back, causing Ella to be flung through the air like a projectile. My girl twisted in the air and thrust her feet out in a pile driving kick that sent the demon tumbling end over end to slam into the cavern wall, releasing another flood of sticky golden light.

  While he was dazed, Ella glanced at Dot, inclining her head and shouting, “Dot!” As she leapt into the air in a spinning kick move, and Dorothy flung her again. Ella's foot slammed into the demon like a piledriver. I could hear bones crushing, and the beast wheezed, pushing her off of him, sending her pinwheeling through the air to land in a sliding, sparking three-point stance twenty feet away.

  She swiped her thumb across her nose and asked, “Is that all you got, you tosser?”

  Ella strode forward, a smirk on her face, the look of a hunter in her eyes as her steps clinked as she strode toward him.

  I glanced at Marie, who only had eyes for Ella just then. She was watching the fire in the woman who had stolen her heart so many centuries ago, and it had her enthralled and wanting. I admit I was similarly impressed.

  The demon started screeching as it took to the air. The honey coating his wings giving him problem as he was barely six or seven feet off the ground. “You insolent mortals. You will bow to Gothesis, your pitiful magics cannot harm me. Your physical attacks mean nothing. You cannot kill me.”

  I saw his wings healing and the concave portion of his chest expanding. He was healing! He was immune to magic and could heal the most devastating blows from Ella?

  He continued as Ella and Dorothy both moved back to place themselves between him and the tunnel to his freedom, “I am a greater demon, and all of Oz will bow down before me when I relea...”

  Ella interrupted him, “Yeah yeah, we know, release hell on earth and all that jazz. You demons and your fuckin' monologues. Let me tell you something, you sodding wanker...” She knelt to pick something up. “I've fought a greater demon, you git, and you ain't no greater demon.”

  She caught Dorothy's eye and nodded once as she continued, “And I know how to kill a demon, not just banish it.”

  She leapt up off her feet and Dorothy backhanded the air, flinging Ella in a flying arc toward Gothesis like a crystal projectile. She slammed into the demon, and they tumbled to the ground, ending with Ella kneeling on his chest, the stinger of the bee hybrid through his chest.

  His eyes were wide in shock as his body started to rot away, “How...?”

  Ella twisted the shank of the stinger, causing the demon to screech in agony in a chorus of a thousand tortured souls as she hissed in his ear, watching the life drain from his eyes, “I don't give two shits how powerful you think you are. All demons can be given a true death by their own blood or their

  own magic... so eat both, you piece of shite.”

  She stood as his decomposing body erupted into hellfire that consumed him and overwhelmed the smell of rotting flesh with brimstone. Then there was nothing.

  We all moved to her side, Dot joining us as we looked at the scorch mark on the ground. It – was over. Oz was free.

  I squeaked in shock when a man leaned in over my shoulder and said, “Nicely done.”

  Faster than I could follow, Dorothy lashed out, punching the man squarely in the nose, then he fell back, hitting his butt on the ground, holding his nose, blood streaming down from it. He uttered an indigna
nt, “Ow.”

  Dorothy and Toto strode off, their noses in the air as Dot muttered, “Pain in the ass Baum.” Then added, “Come on ladies.” She paused to lift Fenriss into her arms, and we took a single step and were at the Fountain of Tears, Dorothy sitting on the edge of the fountain, a single tear rolled down her cheek and into the pool.

  Vermillion whispered to us, “Even in the Dark Years, besides Toto, only Fenriss stood by Dorothy's side.”

  The people all around us were silent.

  Chapter 13 – No Place Like Home

  Frank Baum, the Wizard of Oz, stepped out of nowhere to join us. Then we were standing in the castle. I really hated it when they did that.

  After Dorothy informed the monkeys that their Captain had died valiantly, she shared that their new commander was to be one just as valiant, the new Captain of the home guard, Vermillion

  Chrysanthemum. Ver was given leave from being our guide by Dot. Then the redhead left with the monkeys to honor the fallen Captain, giving each of us a curtsy and kiss on the cheek, pledging her friendship, loyalty, and love to us.

  I was profoundly sad to part company with the Munchkin. She had truly made her way into our hearts, and I saw her as a dear friend after only two days in her company. She brought a tear to my eye when she whispered, “You were his glass maiden.” I felt a lump in my throat as she left.

  Baum was impressed that Dorothy was able to do what he had prophesied. “You have fulfilled the first half of what I have foreseen. The final task will be joining the others to stop the Elders in the mortal realm and...”

  Dorothy punched him in the face.

  The man grabbed his decidedly broken nose as more blood poured from it. “Ow! Would you stop hitting me every time I show up?”

  Dot shrugged as Toto stepped up, tying her kimono at her waist. The witch said in a matter of fact tone, “Why? It makes me feel good. And you're a son of a bitch.”

  He whined, not denying either count, “Does that mean you have to keep hitting me?”