Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 31: Trueth - Welcome Home!

Trueth groaned. 'Not that again!'

'I hope he didn't have you on the magical equivalent of Skype, or whatever it is the circle uses.' Rani-Ra batted her lashes at her brother. 'That might have been slightly embarrassing.' 

'Oh shove it.' Metjen swished his hand through the air to underline his point. It was a toned-down version of his usual gesturing, only a few sparkles showed. They did not meet with any undue reactions from the waiting crowd. 'It's just long-distance mind-talking. Tends to distort things, what I received was very cryptic plus with the noise level it was rather hard to concentrate on what grandfather was saying in my head.'

The professor kept throwing nervous glances over his shoulder. 'Can't you discuss this later? We have to get out of here.' He managed to get the little band moving towards the revolving doors that connected baggage reclaim to the din of the arrivals hall.

Khy wanted to go round once more and ran into a Plexiglas barrier. The professor had to coax him out of the wedge of door he had got stuck in, much to the merriment of their fellow travellers. When the king emerged, he scowled in a way that made Trueth very glad he had not been allowed to bring his guards along.

Metjen was already outside, talking to a liveried chauffeur standing in front of a burgundy and grey minivan, bearing the inscription 'Eamon Smythe Executive Travel" in gilded letters.

He pointed at the open doors, made a move to walk round the vehicle, then hesitated. 'Do you care to sit at the front, Khy?'

Pharaoh nodded with shiny eyes. 'Thank you, Your Wisdom.' He dashed around the van and jumped inside. He then jumped out once more as he had lost his precious hat.

The vehicle had hardly started moving when Seisi pounced. 'Pray, what news did the Lord Imhotep chose to impart?' Seisi could be as persistent as the antique version of a Rottweiler. Most likely, it was this attitude that helped him to survive tricky situations.

'Yeah, bro, come on, give,' Ranofer said. 'You said cryptic. As in what?'

'Cryptic as in a lot of static followed by a just a few words 'leave alone' 'Trueth', and 'demons' being the ones I got clearly. There was only one full sentence, but the guy in the stall kept flushing the loo, so I'm not sure I caught it all. I got 'If Trueth goes through the stones, she will find the people of the mist, but banish the demons. And there was a 'not' in there somewhere.'

'Why but?' Trueth asked. 'I wouldn't mind banishing the buggers? As long as somebody shows me how.'

'Just wave a walking stick in their ugly faces?' Ranofer said with a frown.

'You mean the stick we still haven't found?' Rani-Ra traced the trickle of raindrops along the tinted windows of the van. 'Gosh, I'd forgotten how depressing this country can be in autumn.'

'What stones?' The professor was leaning through the gap between the seats. 'What's that supposed to mean.'

'Hello? As I just pointed out, I didn't get it all,' Metjen said. 'But given that team Trueth is going to Avebury, I'm inclined that part of the comment could be connected to their collection of standing stones. And to be quite honest with you, it makes me wonder whether you should be going at all.'

Trueth felt a flash of heat shoot up from her belly. 'You won't stop me now, that's for sure. Slap a locating spell on us, if you must, but otherwise I would appreciate if you were a bit more trusting.'

'Rubbish. Just stay away from these standing stones, that's all.' Rani-Ra was cleaning her fingers with a handkerchief, examined the results and scowled. 'At least until we have some better intel. These messages from the past are a right nuisance.'

Metjen's expression indicated that he was not fully convinced, so Trueth made an attempt at changing the topic as well as the mood.

'Once I have visited my witchy relatives, I have another challenge on my hand. I need to convince mum and Debs that I'm still among the living. And explain why I have not called for over three months. Saying I was stuck in the past will not cut any ice. '

Metjen massaged his forehead. 'This might not be such a big problem after all.'

Ranofer looked up from his smartphone. 'Huh?'

'We departed this world in early October. I've finally worked out that we've come back only three weeks later, even if almost three months have passed in the mirror world. Something really is wrong with that portal!'

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This chapter is dedicated to rikhancock, thank you for reading and voting.

Image is taken from DeviantArt, copyright sillyburr