“Yeah, that too.” says Arnie as he thinks that many a true word is said in jest.
Seconds later, the new door has fully materialised. Arnie grabs the handle whilst facing his new friends and announces their arrival.
“Ladies! GentleMAN! I present to you, the Rebel base a.k.a the magic mansion, a.k.a……the shack!”
Arnie pushes the door open and gestures in a very over-the-top and grandiose way to step outside without actually looking outside himself;
“But there is nothing there. Just grass and trees. Are we still in the park?” asks Loui.
Gwyneth and Vera both nod their heads in agreement as Arnie pokes his own head around the door to see for himself. Sure enough there is no rebel base, no magic mansion - not even a shack to be seen anywhere!
“Oh I know! It’s probably invisible at the moment.” he says to himself knowingly.
“Riiiiiight. It’s an invisible house is it?” says Vera cynically.
Arnie looks back at Vera scornfully and says;
“Er, you did just see a door appear in the trunk of a tree that lead to a cleaning cupboard didn’t you? And you did then see the same door disappear and reappear once again didn’t you?” asks Arnie.
“Well yes but….”
“And yet this is hard for you to believe?”
Lady barks at Vera in agreement with her master.
“Ok, ok, like,…..point taken.” replies Vera in a bit of a strop.
“Come on.” says Arnie as he walks out into the woods and gestures to his friends to follow him.
They all follow Arnie and step out from the tree into the woods. Arnie is looking confused however as is sure that this was the exact spot where the shack was, but there is no sign of it.
“So, what are we doing here then Arnie? Are we in the wrong place?” asks Gwyneth.
“No, this is definitely the right place,…..I just…..I don’t know where it’s gone to be honest. Maybe I need to chant or something? There were some words that were said last time, like a spell or something but I can’t remember what they were. I know how that sounds but you’ve got to believe me. It was right here I swear!”
Gwyneth walks over and holds Arnie’s hand to comfort him.
“We do believe you Arnie.” she says as Vera shakes her head behind them.
Loui walks over also and places his hand on Arnie’s shoulder.
“Yes, we do believe you my friend.”
Vera rolls her eyes and decides to chime in with her two pence worth;
“Yes yes, we believe you. Luckily we’ve seen some other crazy-arse stuff that proves you’re not a liar [or it proves that we’re all nuts], but either way I think we should find out where it went pretty darn quickly because it looks like it’s about to rain!”
Vera points to the sky’s horizon in the distance which although already dim due to the hour, is becoming unnaturally dark, very quickly. Lady walks out in front of them, also looking to the sky, and starts snarling aggressively at it.
“I’m not sure that’s rain Vera.” says Gwyneth as it continues to get closer and closer until it quickly blocks out the sun and casts a huge shadow over them.
“What is it?” asks Loui who is himself becoming quite concerned by the darkness that is rapidly approaching them.
“I reckon I could hazard a guess. Run! Run back to the tree!” says Arnie ominously;
They all turn and run towards the tree as they suddenly find themselves in almost complete darkness. A hugely forceful gust of wind then follows which blows them all down to the floor and slams the tree door shut just before they reach it, which then disappears in front of their very eyes. Loui, Gwyneth and Vera all look back at Arnie anxiously for answers, but he has none to give them.
“What’s happening?” cries Gwyneth as the wind whips around them furiously.
“Chaos magic!” shouts Arnie.
“….and what’s that noise?” interjects Vera.
They all squint and try to listen over the hurricane force winds that surround them. Loui thinks for a second and answers;
“It sounds like birds….”
“Not birds. Drones!” replies Arnie.
The four friends help each other in pulling themselves to their feet and then drag themselves onward in a futile attempt to get to the tree, despite the wind and random pieces of debris that are flying around peppering their exposed flesh. Suddenly hundreds of crows fly out of the night sky like bullets, slamming straight into the trees and ground around them like kamikaze pilots. The children all duck down by the oak tree in a huddle, all hunched over Lady who is still snarling and barking, wanting to get stuck in somehow and showing the courage of a Dog twice her size! Vera cries out in pain as one Crow flies straight into her back, tearing her sweatshirt and drawing blood. Loui leans over her and pulls her towards him in an attempt to shield her from them and also gets hit by one in the process. Arnie then gets hit by one and then a second as does Gwyneth. They all cower down and whine in fear as they all brace themselves helplessly against the painful avian bombardment from above.
As they all huddle together in a bloody heap on the ground, preparing themselves for the worst, Arnie hears a familiar grumbling sound, like a Lions roar in the distance. As the noise gets louder and louder, and Arnie begins to recognise it, they all look to where the sound is coming from and are suddenly blinded by a set of bright orange headlights as the Dragon (Mervins truck) tears up from out of the darkness and screeches to a halt beside them, shielding them all from the Drones brutal attack.
“Quick, get in!” shouts Mervin from the front of the Dragon as more and more kamikaze Drones slam into it.
The kids all stand up as quickly as possible whilst still attempting to shield themselves from the avian terrorists. Arnie and Loui both put their arms around a twin each and chivalrously escort them to the truck. Gwyneth and Vera get in the back with Loui in tow and Arnie then ushers Lady into the footwell. He pushes the door shut behind them all and then jumps into the passenger seat, wrestling against the sheer force of hundreds of Drones slamming themselves into the vehicle as he eventually manages to close the door.
“Are you all ok?” asks a strangely calm looking Mervin.
Arnie and Loui quickly answer “yes” as if it’s a competition (a few crows pose little threat to these two little heroes) followed by Gwyneth who is nursing one of the many small cuts she endured during the attack. Vera however is not ‘ok’ at all and is breathing very heavily and looks like she’s about to have a panic attack.
“What, what, what w,w,w,was all THAT about!!” stutters Vera in between giant panic breaths.
“Vera, calm down” says her sister as she places a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“Crows, crows, crows are like, EVERYWHERE!! Why are they doing that? They were just coming straight for us! What did we do? Why are they……”
While Vera is ranting, Mervin leans over the back and touches Vera on the centre of her forehead with his index finger and his familiar magical golden sheen seems to envelop her in a protective shield of happiness because as it happens her face turns from panicked to what can only be described as ‘highly chilled’ in an instant. She then slides down into the chair as cool as a cucumber as the others watch in amazement.
“Awesome! You’ll have to show me how to do that.” says a visibly impressed Arnie.
“Manifique!” says Loui.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SISTER?” says Gwyneth who is herself now starting to look a bit panicked.
“It’s a spell, she’s just very……calm. Look, she’s as calm as a Hindu cow!” replies Mervin nonchalantly.
“CALM? She looks like she’s in a coma!” replies Gwyneth in an even more irritated tone.
They all take a moment to look at Vera happily dribbling away in the back as Mervin shrugs his shoulder as if to say “Yeah? so?”
“What’s THAT supposed to mean? Don’t just shrug your shoulders at m….”
As Gwyneth begins a rant of he
r own, Mervin leans over and touches her on the forehead also and puts her into the same magical ‘coma’ right next to her drooling sister. Loui looks at Mervin worriedly and only purses his lips to speak before Mervin, to save time presumably, does him too!
“Why?….” asks a confused Arnie as Loui slumps down in the back seat alongside the others.
“Don’t make me do you too Arnie!” says Mervin menacingly as he waves his impressive index finger around like a weapon.
Arnie of course, says nothing and Lady who had been watching quietly from something of a distance disappears quietly back into the foot well.
“I just haven’t got time for full explanations right now. If you hadn’t noticed we are currently under attack from all of the Drones that have ever existed in the world, EVER!”
As he speaks the beak of a Drone skewers though the windscreen.
“See!” he says pointing at the sharp beak that is currently sticking out of the windscreen level with Arnie’s throat.
“Ok, as you were.” says Arnie submissively.
Mervin then flips a switch on the dashboard which in turn causes a panel of high tech looking buttons, knobs and levers to appear. Mervin then slams his hand down on a big red button that reads “FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY” and a huge burst of blue flame comes shooting out of what appears to be a number of recessed flame throwers hidden beneath the bonnet, the roof and in the back of the truck. Even the wheels on this bad-boy seem to be weaponised!
After three or four seconds of constant flame, Mervin removes his hand from the big red button. The thick black smoke clears quickly to reveal charred grass and trees around them and [strangely] only a few smoking black feathers that are gently floating around in the smokey, grey air. Arnie looks around solemnly at the devastation and says as he catches his breath;
“Whoa! That was intense! We made it. But I mean,….look at the trees Mervin. You’ve burned them.”
“Well she’s not called the Dragon for nothing Arnie. Don’t worry, it’s all just cosmetic. The trees will be fine and the grass will grow back before you know it. Fire is a natural element you know?”
“Well that’s good I guess but,……what was that? With the Drones?” continues Arnie.
“Let’s see shall we.” says Mervin as he exits the Dragon followed by Arnie and Lady respectively.
They walk around slowly on the blackened grass that surrounds them and Mervin bends down, picks up one still-smoking feather from the ground and begins examining it. He sniffs it, runs his fingers over what’s left of it, tastes it and then spits it out while looking very contemplative.
“What is it? What are you getting?” says Arnie as he looks on, intrigued by Mervin’s actions.
“I’ve no idea. They do it a lot in films and it just looks cool. I really needed my sunglasses to do it properly though.” replies Mervin.
“What I can tell you is that this is a Drone’s feather,.….and that it tastes like burnt crap! Also, I can tell you that these were all Drones with not even a single normal crow in their midst. The Drones are kind of like Zombie crows! Mindless and singular in pursuit of whatever goal their master sets for them. Altogether more useful on the whole but you can never compensate for an army of a few individuals in my opinion – each with their own special set of skills, like yourself.”
“I don’t know what special skills we just demonstrated here, but thanks for the vote of confidence Mervin. So you’re saying Morgan uses chaos magic to turn the crows into Drones then?” asks Arnie;
Mervin nods to confirm as he looks back at Arnie gravely.
“That’s horrible! The poor things. And there was me thinking that all crows were bad.” he continues.
Mervin walks over to the Dragon and removes a disembodied beak from the windscreen where the Drone flew into it a moment ago.
“Yeah. Why baddies always use crows I’ll never know. I guess it’s because of the way they look or something. It’s unfortunate. Anyway, it would seem Morgan has made the first move - and it’s a lot earlier than I had anticipated. I blame myself, I should have been prepared.”
“Aww, don’t beat yourself up about it too much Mervin, I mean what could you have done? No use crying over spilt milk now. We’re all ok and that’s the main thing.” says Arnie in an attempt to make Mervin feel better.
Mervin looks over at Arnie proudly and says;
“And that’s why you are the one! Even in the face of great danger, chaos magic and zombie crows, you still care about people’s feelings.”
Arnie looks at the ground with his hand in his pockets, embarrassed by Mervin’s praise. As he looks down he sees that there are hundreds and thousands of insects and creepy crawlies all moving very quickly in one direction past him. Lady begins to growl again and moves in front of her master in a protective stance as he jumps back to avoid the creepy crawlies. Then, any birds that weren’t scared off by the Drone attack also appear to flee the area quickly in the same direction as they fly past Arnie and Mervin and into the distance. Then some Deer burst through the tree line and run past them too, followed by rabbits, badgers, squirrels, hedgehogs and all manner of other woodland creatures. Apparently anything that’s still alive in this part of the forest is now running from something. Arnie looks at Mervin to speak but Mervin doesn’t pay any attention and simply says;
“Arnie - get in the Dragon! Now!”
Arnie doesn’t argue or quip this time and quickly jumps straight back into the truck. He looks in the backseat at his baked companions who are all as happy as Larry, dribbling away obliviously. Mervin turns to Arnie and says;
“It’s better this way for now Arnie. They’re not ready for this yet!”
“Ready for what?” replies Arnie in an unusually panicky manner;
Mervin points at the windscreen and Arnie looks at the cracks in it from the Drone attack.
“What? What am I looking at?”
“Not the windscreen Arnie, past the windscreen, over by the big Oak!”
Arnie looks out through the cracked windscreen into the distance and sees a small slender woman wearing a long flowing black dress, walking out of the treeline towards them. She has thick dark hair obscuring her face and her arms are outstretched as she appears to be dragging some kind of energy, similar to Mervin’s golden sheen except a smoky purple colour from the Earth itself - uprooting the soil and all of the indigenous creatures that lived there in the process.
“Morgan!” says Arnie knowingly.
Mervin starts the Dragon quickly and immediately puts her into gear. As he is about to pull away, Arnie spots Lady still outside, snarling and growling in a protective stance pointed straight at Morgan.
“Wait! Lady’s still out there! We can’t leave her!” exclaims Arnie.
Arnie tries to open the door but the wind suddenly picks up to hurricane force again and stops him from doing so.
“Help her Mervin, she’s my best friend!” begs Arnie as he struggles with the door and looks to him for help.
Mervin tries to open his door but it is also being impeded by the strength of the wind.
“Nice try Morgan…..” he says as he reaches upwards;
“…ever heard of a sunroof!”
Mervin opens the sunroof, stands up and gradually pokes the top half of his body out of it as his long hair and beard whip around his face wildly and he continues to fight against the wind. He puts his hand in his pocket, pulls out the Scrying stone and throws it towards Morgan as if it were impervious to the wind. As it lands it immediately grows and begins glowing.
“ACOLYTUS!! LET THERE BE LIGHT!” shouts Mervin as he thrusts his cane forward, gesturing to the stone.
The scrying stone starts to glow red and gradually a number of bright white veins of light begin to appear on its surface.
“Close your eyes Arnie, don’t look directly at the stone.” says Mervin.
“What? Why?” asks Arnie;
“It would be bad.” replies Mervin as he smiles and shuts his own eyes.
Arnie shields his eyes just in time as the Scrying stone appears to explode in a massive flash of white light. Seconds later, Arnie sees that everything in front of them, Morgan, the animals and unfortunately Lady as well have all frozen solid and are shrouded in a calm white mist. While Arnie is trying to get his head around it all and find his bearings Mervin jumps out of the Dragon, runs over to the frozen body of Lady, picks her up in one solid lump and quickly runs back, handing her stiff body to a discombobulated looking Arnie.
“There you go! She’ll be fine. She’s just frozen. Now, let’s get the hell outta Dodge!” he says.
Arnie looks down at his frozen doggy and then up and out of the window where Morgan is also frozen stiff as Mervin starts the truck and immediately slams his foot down on the accelerator. As he speeds towards Morgan, presumably to try and run her down she suddenly reanimates and manages to move out of the way with relative ease and unnatural grace as the Dragon zooms past and disappears into a orb of golden light. Morgan looks at the spot where the Dragon just disappeared and let’s out screech of frustration so loud and ear piercing that all of the frozen animals around her shatter into thousands of pieces. As Morgan stands there pulsating with anger, a small, sinister looking boy appears from behind a tree, walks up to her and holds her hand as he looks up at her sympathetically. Morgan looks down at the boy, draws in a deep breath and calms herself. The boy bends down and picks up a still whole, frozen beetle that somehow survived Morgan’s piercing shrill before. He looks up at her expectantly as she looks back at him, smiles menacingly and nods. The little boy grins spitefully, holds the frozen beetle in front of his face and lets out a small controlled shriek of his own which shatters the beetle immediately, turning it into dust. He smiles proudly and looks up at Morgan who just runs her hand through his hair lovingly and gives him a look of encouragement. They both stand back and look at the charred blackened area around them before the smokey purple sheen envelopes them both and they disappear in a puff of smoke.
Arnie and Mervin sit in the Dragon, still reeling from what just took place. Arnie pulls his still frozen dog close to his chest anxiously, turn to Mervin and says;
Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings Page 14