Guardians Book One - Magic Rising

Chapter Forty

Kath swung around, trying to spot even a glimpse of Pestilence – his tall frame, the massive beaked mask, anything – through the fuzzy nothingness. James watched her with vague interest.

"What's up?"

Kath hissed air through her teeth. "Look...J. This is going to sound completely insane, but...we've got to get out of here. I know it. Don't ask me how. Can you see my mate anywhere? He's tall and wearing a mask like..." She waved her hands in a curve over her face to simulate the beak shape. James hiked an eyebrow at her.

"Never mind," Kath finished, grabbing James' arm again and towing him in a random direction.  The crowd was at a complete standstill, the clock's slender hands ticking towards midnight. "Where's the time gone?"

"Time," said James stentoriously, "Waits for no man." Kath grimaced. He still thinks this is some kind of dream. Do I tell him? What the hell could I say? Oh, J, you're about to die. So I came to get you because the whole world you know is a lie and oh, there's magic. So we have to find the embodiment of Pestilence to get back to earth from wherever this even is – some other plane, I don't even know! – and then you'll wake up and everything'll be back to normal. Huh! The crowd was absolutely still, now, the air trembling with tension. From somewhere, a soft creak rang out. Kath's head whipped round; on the huge, wide staircases, she could see the little blond girl – Death – prancing up to the double doors at the top, her feet tiny on the heavy velvet carpet.

"D'you know what happens at midnight?" she asked James, her heart hammering in her chest. Where's Pes? Where's anything? The room beyond the crowd was nothing more than mist, now. She forced herself to inhale, prove to herself she still had working lungs.

"Something about a lift home," James said, studying her face with concern. "You don't look good, Kath. Want to sit down? I can grab you a drink?"

"Don't drink the drinks," Kath shook her head, panic rising. "You didn't, did you?"

 "Nah, not after a night out, I'm not mad!" James laughed. "I'm meeting Steve tomorrow morning. No hangovers for me!"

"Phew," Kath muttered. Calm. Think. Concentrate! She tried to focus, but the misty nothingness didn't feel like magic. It felt like exactly what it was meant to be.  "Pes?" she called aloud.

"Hush," a fox-masked man scolded her. "Some of us are ready to go!"

"Go where?" Kath resisted the urge to shake him, but he merely pointed at the double doors. The clock started to strike midnight just as Kath raised her eyes to see Death opening the double doors, releasing a swirling mass of boiling smoke shapes from the darkness beyond.

"We've got to go!" Kath yelled into James' ear – the volume was necessary, because the entire room had broken out into applause. Before Kath's eyes the smoke coalesced into shapes – animals, of a sort, horses and camels and elephants – riding animals, with long, noble faces and black pits for eyes. They moved up to each person, hundreds of them, and one for each, bending to half-lift the dead onto their backs, carrying them steadily up the stairs, through the doors, into the darkness – away. Death was giggling, and for one heartbeat Kath thought she spotted her gran on the back of a tiger –of course, they're themed to the damn masks! What isn't?! – comfortable and serene, but waving Kath away. I'm trying!

"We're not dead," she shouted into the roiling mass of smoke and bodies, for it was becoming thicker each moment, thousands of creatures and riders, mounting, moving on, clapping their hands, smiling, smiling. Heading on to...what?

"We aren't going to find out yet," she told James aloud, who just gave her another confused look.

"Eh? It's like a petting zoo or something," he laughed, reaching out to stroke the flanks of a ghost bear. The bear turned its huge head towards him, lowering its muzzle. James stepped forward.