PROBLEM - Anthony Lockwood

CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE

~

lxxxi

these are some very questionable chapter titles im sorry

~

IT WAS CHAOS. The moment the net was gone, Lucy turned around so that she wouldn't see, and a white hot barell of magic shot out of the centre of the glass, towards Lucy.

"Turn, turn. Look," Joplin implored, but Lucy refused to turn around. "Look! Damn you! LOOK!"

Lucy grabbed the Skull and shoved it behind her, holding it up directly in the path if the mirror's light.

Alice winced, "Oh, he's not going to like this."

"What.. what... If you can talk to it, tell me what it says!" Joplin ordered.

Lucy screamed, gasping from the effort of resisting the dark magic. "Talk! Take it all in and tell your master what you see!"

The Skull shrieked in agony, "No, no, no! This isn't right! Something's changed! They're trapped!"

Alice repeated every word to George, whispering the translation under her breath.

"Speak girl. Speak!" Joplin yelled.

"It says something's wrong!" Lucy cried, gasping in pain. "It's not the eternal! It's a trap! We have to destroy it!"

"Deane!" The Skull screamed, "DEANE!"

Lucy shouted in pain, eyes going wide for a moment before she succumbed to the magic and passed out, still suspended in the air by the mirror's hold on the Skull.

George scrambled up, "LUCY!"

He dove forwards, ducking under Joplin and knocked over the tripod, sending the bone glass tumbling through the air and falling on the floor.

The glass shattered upon impact, staying roughly intact but shattering its mirror.

George, Alice, and Kipps tore over to Lucy, shaking her.

"Lucy, lucy, wake up, please."

"Lucy, it's us. Say something, please."

Kipps took Lucy in his arms, brushing her hair out of her face with his fingertips. "Lucy, please. Luce, wake up."

Lucy gasped lightly, shivering involuntarily as she woke up, Kipps pulled her into a sitting position.

Joplin rushed over to the mirror, kneeling on the floor and grabbing it. "You broke it," she cried, "You stupid little boy."

But Alice could still feel it whirl with magic.

"Wait..." Joplin muttered. Light began to encirlce the glass, the cracks upon its surface magically reparing as it illuminated with magic. "Something's happening. Yes." Joplin stared straight into the heart of the bone glass, eyes wide. "It's extraordinary."

"Don't look," Alice warned, "Cover your eyes."

The other three ducked down, screwing their eyes shut and turning away.

But Alice looked.

She watched as the same eerie blast of magic exited the glass, slamming straight into Joplin eyes.

"It's beautiful!" Joplin shrieked, "SHE'S BEAUTIFUL!"

The light became overbearing, and all of a sudden, Alice could see the bones in Joplin's body as she burned with a firey intensity, the magic taking over her, then, in a moment of horror, it all imploded.