Stranger Stories 3

Slipping Through Reality

"Sammy? Sammy!" a voice said. Sammy opened his eyes, at first mistaking his ginger niece for Cody. the severity of her pink gaze lessened somewhat when she realized Sammy was awake. "What happened?"

"I-" Sammy tried to say while sitting up, failing at both. His head fell back to the ground, fresh snow dousing his hair with cold. Raven tapped his forehead, muttering a quick spell. Probably something to get him up faster. "Eve."

"Naturally," Raven sighed, helping him up. He had been thrown into a snowdrift at the bottom of the hill, carelessly enough that he ruled whoever brought him there must have thought he was dead. "What did she do?"

"Good question. Not..." Sammy stopped talking, realizing that he hadn't actually told anyone he was going to the house at the top of the hill. "Not sure yet. Just about everything. Why are you here?"

"Nita and I wanted to come over. Lucky timing, I guess."

"Yeah. lucky." Sammy said, starting to walk to the house. "Nita's at the house, right?"

Raven nodded, catching up easily. "Why do you have a former death angel hanging around with Cody?"

Right. Hastur. "Eve took his power."

"Oh, well then, he won't last long." she chirped. "A week? Maybe? How long have you had him?"

"A day. I think. I don't know how long I've been gone." Sammy blinked, still fighting back Eve's spell that seemed to jumble all of his thoughts.

"We don't have a whole lot of time." Raven said. Sammy opened the door to the house, letting Raven in. Nita was talking to Hastur on the couch. Cody was nowhere to be found.

"He's downstairs." Nita said. Cool. a question tugged at the back at Sammy's head. Didn't someone else live with Nita and Raven?

"Where's Nanami? Normally she's with you guys, isn't she?"

"Oh." the typical cheer in Nita's eyes dimmed a little. "She's in Japan for her dad's funeral. Summer and Seiji are with her."

"And she doesn't know magic all that well anyway. She won't be that much help in a fight against Eve. not like we'd be able to get her back as quickly as we'd need to, anyway."

Hastur got up. "If we're going to plan... doing whatever you're going to do with Eve, I'm going to get Cody." he left, disappearing with a cry and a crash. Cody shouted his name, and by the time Sammy had gotten downstairs Hastur was standing directly under the stairs and according to the look in Cody's eyes, he had just figured out what was going on. Sammy helped Hastur up just as Cody said "someone's speeding up his..." he pointed his finger at Hastur, who's hand started slipping through Sammy's. "Whatever the hell's going on."

"Probably Eve."

"Probably Eve," Nita agreed from the top of the stairs. She shuffled through a bag, frowning. "If you tell me what's going on, I might have some kind of potion that could help."

Hastur managed to get up, shock still evident in his dark eyes. "Not sure if any of those would work on me."

"Try me."

"I'm essentially slipping from this realm into... somewhere else. I don't know and I'm not sure that I want to." Hastur shrugged. Nita shifted through her bag, the clinks her hand caused Sammy to finally realize that her bag was full of potions. She took one out and handed it to him, then left. Hastur downed it, wrinkling his nose at the taste. "We want to start planning how Eve's going to die."