Forty-one and Counting [Battle The Beast Contest]

Imaginary Friends

Quentin unconsciously twisted the vile hanging around his neck back and forth between his fingers. The fingers of his other hand raced back and forth across the tattered pages of a book he had pulled from the shelf in Christopher Plover's library. He found it strange that he hadn't noticed this book before but the ripped binding had caught his attention today.

Was he in another loop? That couldn't be right. Like a cat with nine lives, his were up, yet here he was, holding, Kindall's Maps of the Book of the Dead, in his grasp. The ominous title made his pulse skip a beat but when he opened the book to the first page and read on, he felt like his heart was going to jump from his chest.

Could this be it? Had he found a way to beat the beast for good? He looked over his shoulder at the sound of Alice's voice.

"What," she asked, lifting herself from the sofa. "Did you find something?"

He glanced around the study. Penny was leaning against a bookshelf, eyeing him with that same loathing stare he always seemed to have for him and Elliot had found a bottle of the good stuff and was pouring himself a stiff one. Margo was staring at the floor, oddly quiet.

He was taking this hallucination as a sign. Jewels hadn't just disappeared with Martin Chatwin and his friends were all okay.

He shook off the last moments of his nightmare. "Maybe but I think it will take all of us. Come here and look at this."

Alice moved past the desk and stopped behind Quintin, peering over his shoulder. "It's a map."

"Not just any map," he said, tapping his fingers on a spot in the center of the page. "It's a prison of sorts. It's a portal to the Cell of Hades and could be a one way ticket to nowhere for our friend the beast.

If we can use battle magic to conjure the beast then maybe we can send him through this portal," Quintin pointed the tiny dot on the map, "to this little hell-hole forever."

"We'll be free," Alice smiled.

"Not so quick," Quintin said. "We have to get him there first, before he realizes what we are doing. I have an idea but this could go wrong in on so many levels that it's not funny."

Alice chewed at her lip. "So what's new? We have to take that chance. If we don't, he'll kill us all. What's your idea?"

"We'll need Penny's help big time on this one," he said, looking across the room.

Penny sighed and pushed himself away from the bookshelf. "As usual, I'm the one whose butt is on the line. What's your plan?"

"We use us three," he said, waving his arm around the room, "as bait. He's almost here. I know it. When he comes through that door, you grab him from behind and then project into the Cell of Hades."

Quintin drew two diagrams on separate pieces of paper. "This one gets you out." He waived his fingers over the sketch and mumbled. "Dia trey autray secum," then shoved the piece of paper into Penny's shirt pocket. "This one keeps him in. Vavai lote binu. It has to be on him somewhere."

"How do you know this is going to work?" Penny asked, putting the charmed piece of paper into his jean's pocket.

"It has to," Quintin said, closing his eyes. A vision of a totally different room resurfaced in his mind. Alice, Elliot and Margo were on the floor dead and he could almost hear Penny screaming in pain his bloody hands torn from his body.

He shook his head. It would have been done. How did Julia get the blade? She was holding it to Martin's neck but instead of killing him she helps him escape. She left me and all my friends die.

"Hey," Margo jolted him back from the nightmare. "A moth. He's here."

"Everyone get ready," Quintin said.

A flurry of moths entered the room and then Martin's face came into focus. "Well, well, Quintin. Forty-one and everyone is still here I see."

"Some of us won't be here for long," Quintin answered.

"You are very sure of your feeble abilities, Quintin."

"It's a group effort, Martin."

Quintin nodded at Penny. Penny lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Martin and then they both disappeared. A few seconds later and Penny reappeared alone.

"It worked?" Quintin asked.

"It worked," Penny answered, grinning from ear to ear.

Quintin grabbed Alice and pulled her into his arms. "It's over."

Laughter filled the room. A maniacal deep laughter. "Open your eyes Quintin,"

Quintin opened his eyes and stared into Martin's face. Quintin backed against the wall and slid to the floor. It was a dream brought on by the massacre of his friends. Sobs wracked his body.

"Why did you let me live?"

"Oh, my boy. I am far from being done with you," Martin's whispers  echoed somewhere in his head.