Elise Runs and Dorothy Falls

Chapter 40

It was time to go. Chapelure, who had holstered his gun, agreed to a truce. Both he and Dorothy wanted Elise, and against insurmountable odds they were better off with each other than without. As the three prepared to move out of Late Night, however, Giada asked if she could tell Dorothy something in private.

"What?" asked the witch quickly, her pupils shrunken and her muscles tense. They were near the second-story door.

Giada stuttered. She had never seen Dorothy so upset. Elise, of course, had told Giada to tell Dorothy something very important, and she Giada Elise would have wanted Dorothy to know it then and there. Something stopped her, though, something so powerful that a girl her age had no power to deny it.

"Never mind. I'm sorry," she muttered.

Dorothy turned without another word toward the door. "Then let's go." Chapelure snapped the chamber of his revolver back in place and prepared himself for whatever awaited them. He let the little foreign girl tag along last of all.

Hallways hewn of dark chestnut... great paintings of warriors in the wild... There were no windows in the hall, only pictures of the sky, and of the sea. They passed candle after burning candle. No spirits came.

"Up that stairwell is the Hall of Mirrors," Chapelure said as they crossed an enormous gallery, indicating a grand staircase spiraling upward. It terminated on a lofty deck with a single door. "Down this hall," he continued, pointing straight ahead, "is the Throne Room."

Hot breath bounded from the witch's mouth. Her body seemed to soar with every step, her muscles burn. Her vision blurred. She couldn't bear the wait any longer. She ripped a painting off the wall, a depiction of lonely green fields, and broke its heavy frame like matchwood over her knee. They proceeded down the hall.

"This is as far as you go, Dorothy."

They had crossed into a magnificent entry chamber, domed and full of cushioned furniture and gold. Across from them stood the huge double doors that led to Akayuri's throne room. That voice which came from nowhere, calm and commanding, had been his voice.

"You cannot have who you came for. If you value your life, take the stairwell in the gallery behind you. It leads to the Hall of Mirrors. From there you may take any gateway you wish, to anyplace. I will not interfere. However, if you choose to fight me for the life of this girl, I will not stop until you are dead. You may now decide."

From the walls materialized haunting red cloaks. Torchlight made menacing the expressions on their kabuki masks; made sparkle the blades of their slanted spears. There must have been a dozen or more.

"A blasted trap," muttered Chapelure. "What the hell now?"

"MUGARE!"

From her fingertips Dorothy issued a wave of dead-colored lights. Whites, grays, and pallid yellows, the caustic astralation enveloped an entire flank. The forward guards turned to dust before their eyes, like aged statuary before the wind.

Chapelure began to fire into the crowd, making each shot count. Giada covered her head.

"FOSTIMO!"

The guardians swarmed at Dorothy, who again waved her hand, this time sending forth an array of red magical missiles, snakelike in their venom and accuracy. More foes crackled into the nonbeing.

Chapelure's bullets only deterred the spirits. When a bullet struck, it made an impact like striking a viscous pool, melting into the spirit's body. Enough bullets made it kneel as if to catch its breath. It wasn't enough to stop them all. Snatching a fallen spear from the ground, he engaged them in hand-to-hand combat.

"HOUST HARCTIC!"

This time, Dorothy waited until she had them in a row. A massive lance, made of pure ice, issued from her hand and impaled a column of the guardians in their tracks. Groaning and shifting strangely, they liquefied. At that point, Dorothy had run out of spells. She reached for her belt, but of course The Unholy Avenger was no longer there. A dagger and a marble were not going to help her now.

"Damn it! There's just too many of them!" shouted Chapelure, who battled three at once.

Like a machine at work, Dorothy's mind began to pound. She began to race through formulas. Her eyes traveled through space and energy. She saw colors, and numbers, and form.

"INFERNE MAXUM!"

With a vengeance, Dorothy hurtled a ball of supercharged heat at the throne room door. BANG! Intuitively she used her magic gauntlets to shield herself, Chapelure, and Giada from the blast, but the spirits around them had no chance. The fire blew out the entire room, leaving everything in cinders and scorches.

Ahead of them, now barren, lay the throne room. They heard someone running up behind them.

"Oh my God!"

It was Alexis, carrying a revolver of her own. She beheld the decimation with wide eyes.

"What happened?!"

Dorothy didn't reply. She stepped into the throne room, which glowed a menacing red.

Sitting atop the highest platform, in that glow, crouched Akayuri. Beside him, asleep and dressed in white, lay Elise. No one spoke a word. No one wanted to, and no one needed to. Shifting into the form of a huge silver wolf, Akayuri charged the witch.

"Dorothy!"

Giada saw, despite everything she just witnessed, a girl not much older than herself—a girl she cared for—about to be mangled by a brutal animal. She began to move.

The witch's hands, as if crossed by shadows, grew dark and became claws.

"No! Stop!" Alexis, shaking, raised her revolver. "Don't fight or I'll shoot!"

"Dorothy!" The young girl ran to push Dorothy out of the way.

The girl and the beast clashed, and, as their claws met in the middle, Alexis shot Giada square in the back with Cupid's Revolver. The girl collapsed on the ground.

All the while, asleep and all in white, Elise saw none of it. Elise didn't see the horrible battle fought there, the statues smashed, the bones shattered, or the blood spilled. She didn't see a battered Dorothy carried away by the inspector or Giada dragged away by Alexis, as they battled their way out of the throne room and into the gallery, up the stairs and into the Hall of Mirrors. She didn't see them close the door behind them, or the threats that Akayuri made if they were not soon gone. She didn't see Alexis flee like a terrified rabbit. She didn't see Chapelure, angry and swearing revenge, run away, too. Elise didn't learn the true and lethal power of Cupid's Revolver, for she didn't hear Giada, without a wound but a more jealous mind, telling a defeated Dorothy that just before Elise left, Elise said she was scared of her. Elise didn't see the witch's eyes as she went last of all. No, for you see Elise had been dreaming. She had been dreaming of a green meadow, and of Dorothy, at a time they both remembered when they had just rolled off the witch's bune wand onto a hill full with flowers. Elise dreamed of Dorothy's laugh and of her smile, as they enjoyed that short time they had together happy. And as that laughter grew louder, she dreamed of her own smile, and her own laugh. She felt so much love, and so much warmth, and so much admiration that in real words she could not have explained it. However, Elise did know that these feelings were not her own. They were the feelings that Dorothy had, for her.