Supernatural Taxes

42) Look ma, I'm famous

Atla ignored her furiously buzzing phone with a guilty conscience, was Four News the only show that uncle Henry watched, or was her mom actually keeping up with their broadcasts after Atla's first appearance.

It had been going on and off since she announced that she'd clear the tower of darkness, one of those messages was from Chelsie, "That was hilarious, good luck," but the majority were far too intimidating to read without replying.

"I dunno about this," Nora said, their task looked a lot more daunting when standing at the base of the Tower of Darkness. Moderate annoyance and resentment at Lod's murphy's law could only give so much motivation, especially since she was still in the dark regarding Atla's plans.

The Tower of Darkness had really transformed into a whacky house straight out of some cartoon where physics isn't mandatory. The first floor was made mostly of wood, with an impressive set of intricate oak doors at the entrance about five meters wide.

The floor above that still resembled the old rembrandt building, except for the ice that encased the walls and refracted light like a cut gem.

The next section was made out of classic castle stone, however the top half of the stone extended outwards overhanging the rest of the tower by about fifty meters, it resembled a tutu.

The top floor, (where the Lord of Darkness presumably lived) retained it's old size and shape from the top of the rembrandt building, but the Lord of darkness's silly flag was waving on top of it and the windows and walls were cracked with dark blue and black thorn vines overgrowing everywhere.

The weirdest part about the top floor was that it was floating. It wasn't connected to the rest of the building, instead it was like one of the floors was sliced out, from that gap between the head and body of the skyscraper spewed dark storm clouds that joined the mass above the tower, fit with thematic thunder and the not so odd flock of crows that the internet said flew by at regular intervals of 105 seconds.

"We can win, maybe. I'll know when we get in and if it's impossible we can just surrender."

***

They stepped through the yellow tape that blocked bystanders from getting too close to the dangerous building. Their equipment was ready, Aztec prime delivery made itself useful. They borrowed the green machine from Ginny who said she'd be rooting for them and were pushing it into the building with them because it was already on a break.

"If the green machine takes a break when we're being chased by zombies or something?"

"It will be sorely missed," revealed Atla seriously but heartlessly.

Nora agreed but patted the metal casing, "Come on buddy, don't make us kill you."

The van housed their equipment including gasoline, climbing gear, assorted blades, something Nora cooked up in a lab back on campus and a giant paper bucket that was attached to the top of the green machine.

It was made of paper maché by the arts and crafts society, quite an impressive feat considering that they only gave them eight or so hours to do it. The creation was lined with a hopefully waterproof resin and even had a paper mache swinging handle. And just in case, so that there was no mistake, the word "BUCKET" was painted on in big multi coloured letters.

The police around the tower of Darkness were shaking their heads at the kids with exasperation, sure that Atla and Nora were just trying this out for the laughs. They weren't allowed to stop challengers though or Lod would have a tantrum.

There over ten news stations outside too, dutifully giving an uninspiring 24 hour live coverage of the action at the tower of darkness. Only one of them actually bothered to manoeuvre their cameras to film their grand entrance.