The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 150:Rise of the Knight of Wands and Swords

Chapter 150: Rise of the Knight of Wands and Swords

"You know," Crowley yelled as they all ran down the corridors," At this point we should have our own mystery-based Saturday morning cartoon!"  The group rounded a corner and dashed ahead. "All we're missing is some stoner teenager and a huge talking dog."

                "You can ask Adam when we get back," Anathema barked, turning her head behind her into the dark. "Maybe he can whip a screenplay for you!" The drone buzzed on ahead of them, going back along the course it had followed in but readjusting for an easier route. On auto-pilot, it threw out a light in front and a beacon in back that blipped to the controls in Shadwell's grimy hands. They turned another corner, and now heard the echoing shriek of Despair's infuriated cry. It made their legs pump harder, if just to catch up with their frantic hearts.

                "They don't play Saturday Morning cartoons anymore!" she corrected, looking wildly about.

                "When they start showing those animations on television?" Aziraphale puffed, jogging with his fists up to his chest. "The last I knew, they only played them in the theaters."

                "Oh, they still do," Crowley shouted, raising his newly sited eyes to the walls all around. "Except now they play songs that get stuck in your head for 12 or more years."

                "Really? How bizarre? Are they any good?"

                "Not a question if their good, angel. More a question of will they ever go away! There's only so many times in a day you can put up with a bunch of ten year old kids chiming on about releasing something in a winter storm!"

                "It's all too modern for me, Crowley."

                "It's a bit like climbing every mountain, angel."

                "Augh! Who writes this drivel!"

                "Actually, it wasn't a bad flick. Very chilly, great Broadway singer. She sold it right there with the set of pipes she had!"

                Anathema nearly bumped into them and snarled," Would you two just let it go already!"

The drone whizzed ahead, and the group fought to stay with it. Their clothes shone with the LEDS, the angel glowed brightly and Crowley still seemed to flare blue with the Old War Fires even if the heat from the sword's flames was extinguished.  A few of them were carrying halogens shining out to the cavern calls, and now that they had been racing for so long all this gear was getting heavy.

                The mirrors on their clothes didn't help either. The arrays that made them invisible to Despair also made them invisible to each other, though it was an imperfect setup created from a hastily made prototype of St Johns. The effect was like have stripes of a person's silhouette pass back and forth before you, and in the light of the halogens it made the eyes water and had you jostling each other ceaselessly.

                But they touched each other, and they had posts. Gary, obviously, headed up the front, with Anathema mostly at the back and the celestial couple in the center. Everyone else was more or less sprinkled throughout. But as some lost their breathe, the formation broke apart, and they had to rest even as the mirror creature's shrill fury screeched terror closer and closer on their trail.

                "How close are we to the mansion?" Newt exclaimed, holding himself up along the walls. Shadwell was holding himself and Tracy against up, their mouths gaping. The only ones not sucking in air were Crowley and Gary. Even Olivia, pistol at the ready and continuously looking outwork, struggled to inhale enough air to speak.