~*~
Remy staggered backwards as Theo's boot nearly caught him in the face and his brother's order jarred through him. He felt a rush of air and then his world erupted with a second, almighty crash of wood on wood and he was knocked off his already unsteady feet. Alarm daggered through him as he realised the impact had been where Theo had been kneeling and, protocol out of the window, he let his magic flare in his hand, fire ripping from his palm and lighting up his surroundings. He was faced with a twisted mess of two large crates and contents totally blocking the gangway and no sign of Theo. Clambering to his feet, he tried to find a way round or over the barrier, but it was an impassable, splintered mess, so he started pulling out pieces, looking through gaps and called, "Theo, Theo!"
He was relieved when he heard swearing coming from the other side and relaxed a little, but his heart was still hammering and he wanted to see his twin.
"Theo, are you alright?" he demanded rather more gruffly than he intended.
Theo appeared from the darkness on the other side, his hair was everywhere and it looked like he'd taken a header into a pile of dust, but he seemed more annoyed than injured.
"We've lost the deposit on my costume," Theo told him, showing him a rip in the sleeve of his shirt, "but apart from that, I'm fine."
Satisfied that Theo was unharmed, Remy's thoughts turned to their predicament.
"Anyone would think that Felix was expecting visitors," he snarked, stepping back a little and looking up at the mess.
A smaller, blue light flared from the other side of the blockage and, feeling a little bit safer sensing his big brother working magic, Remy just waited for a verdict.
"There's no getting past this," Theo eventually called.
"I'll Fade to you," Remy called.
"No, let's split up, we can cover more ground that way," Theo countered quickly. "You go back the way we came, take a look round the rest of the warehouse. I'll carry on this way: there should be offices at the back here somewhere, I'll check them out."
"You have seen horror movies," Remy objected, not liking that idea at all, "when the victim wanders off alone into the haunted mansion."
"This is real life, Little Bro," Theo sounded very much like he was rolling his eyes.
"Just saying..." Remy grumbled, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he thought about heading back down the pitch black aisle on his own: he wasn't normally scared of the dark, but ever since Theo had mentioned ghosts, the place had been giving him the heebie geebies.
"Do your job, Detective Constable, and if you find anything, send up a flare."
"Yes, Sir!" Remy barked back, annoyed at the way Theo was pulling rank.
"And be careful," Theo finished, the concern in his voice quickly undermining Remy's annoyance.
"You too," he called back and then turned to look down the way they had come.
The place was as dark as he'd ever known an investigation site, no windows, no skylights just a blackness so deep it swirled in front of his eyes just out of reach of his raw magic torch. Remy pulled back on his magic and the flames receded, leaving a low glow and that was when he noticed it, a faint change in the colour of the darkness, a small, greenish tinge. Remy let his light go out completely as it got in the way of what he was seeing and, blinking a couple of times, the green glow resolved out of the inky surroundings. It took Remy a moment to realise it was so faint because it was moving away and that it was fading still and, hoping there was a suspect at the end of that shimmer, he began to trot down the aisle, using his hand to guide himself down the shelving.
Luckily for Remy, the light did not fade completely and he discovered the reason it had faded at all was because its owner had moved through a gap in the shelving and when he reached it, the green glow was really quite strong from the other side. It wasn't an official break in the regimented warehouse aisle, only a gap between two large bundles of something and, carefully, Remy climbed through. Cobwebs and dust cascaded into his face as the soft bundles gave to his passage, making his eyes water badly and his thoughts bemoan the effect on his carefully coifed hair. He stumbled out the other side, trying not to look like a myopic idiot, but he couldn't see very well at all as the water in his eyes broke his world into lots of misty pieces, each lit by their own bit of green.
"Police," he announced to where he thought the source of the light was, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve as he did so.
He was given no response, only a dimming of the light as it began to move away from him and, still clearing the painful dust, Remy called, "Wait."
The light's owner was not taking orders, however, and, as he blinked away the remnants of the dust, Remy only saw the back-glow disappearing around another corner.
"Dammit," Remy growled, pausing and beginning to wonder if this was another of Alinson's traps.
Still, the shimmer was disappearing with every second and Remy knew he couldn't afford to lose his quarry, so, rippling his magic under his skin, just to make himself feel a little safer, Remy set off after the light again.
The Diablo Ouija Page 4