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2011 NANO Part 4

    As the group the them round the corrner of the house, the gateway to the back yard, the conclusion to their long and somewhat ardouse journey they expected a number of things.  A hedge maze wouldn’t be out of the question.  Hedge mazes are stylish and something that would be right up Rebecca’s alley.  A garden would work too with many carnivorous plants thrown into the mix.  They all know that one of her hobbies is raising carnivous plants.  The idea of something that is a little more than a flower rising up to predator status is something she finds amusing.  She likes to talk about how similar they are to her.  She likes to say that the plants lure their victems in with the promise of a good time only to be sucked dry by an unassuming plant.  Most of them would start to wonder how vegitarians feel about carnivorous plants.  A swimming pool would be nice.  The night is warm, and there is mischief in the air and nothing clenses your mind and soul of the star things like a nice swim.  Or so Stephen would have them believe.  They believe that he is more than half off his rocker but whatever keeps him happy is mostly alright with them. 
    However., what they didn’t expect was the unexpected and that is exactly what they get.  The scene included Rebecca, a raised altar, about two dozen men and women all wearing black robes, a bond fire, a chalice, and a special arrangment of crystals that Rebecca uses to trap souls.  Rebecca stood staring at them mouth slightly agape, her ritual ruined.  The group them stood mouths slightly agape, virgin in Stephan’s hands.  Her hold broken the cultists start to shuffle about nervously.  The lives they once lived start to come back to them, memories they ought to of never have reordered start to become available.  Someone starts sobbing softly. 
    Jared, cluelessly and cheerfully cries out, “Heya Rebecca, you gonna help us with some sort of spell that Alex is casting tonight”
    “My name is Alexander”
    “Your name is to long and it clunks on my tounge.  Alex is a perfectly fine name don’t be an asshole”
    Alexander’s face darkened.  The group sighs inwardly.  They’d been getting together so well tonight too.  Rebecca’s mind finnaly catches up with events, “Wait a spell I thought you guys were just going to play a poker game or some such thing?”
    Eveyone looks embarrassed, and suddenly realize that they have the most fascinating feet in the world and that they need to stare at them right now.  Eventually it is Stephen that speaks up, “Well see we got to talking, and then we got distracted, and-”
    “And your house is really fucking scary” Jared interrerupts.  Everyone looks at him slightly aghast, even the cultists are stunned at the familiar way they would dare to talk to their leader, “What everyone agrees with me.  No sense trying to hide it”.  Puzzled she looks at the girl Jared shrugs at that, “Oh I don’t know about her that all happened before I showed up.  They called me in to find out if she is a virgin.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yep.  Unfortunalty, couldn’t tell.  Hey!  Are any of your little groupies virgins?  We could just circumvent this whole problem!”
    One of the members from the crowd shouts, “We are not groupies we are servants of-”
    Alexander rushes forwards knocking Stephen aside causing him to drop the virgin, “You dare speak directly to me.  ME!  I am Alexanader.  I’ve strode upon this earth for over 1000 years.  I’m a wizard without peer.  The holder of the carpenter’s cup.  The great magus who almost shook the world.  You are WORMS and you will NOT adress us directly”.  With a sharp, deft hand motion a crack of thunder comes from the couldless sun set, and two trees splinter sending wooden shrapnel into the crowd which is now cowering before Rebecca begging for her protection.  With a sweep of his arm a baleful wind picks up knocking them all over as the start to scream in terror like kittens who realize that the 5th thing that is going to happen to them is that some asshole human is going to drown them all.  “Now flee all of you we have business with your mistress.  Be gone and don’t you dare make eye contact with any of us you insolent reches, otherwise you’ll wish you’d get off so easily as to be turned into a pillar of salt”.  Throughly routed the crowd scatters in all directions that are not the direction that Alexander and company are standing in.  Some head towards the deep dark forest that rings Rebecca’s wonderous mansion.  Other further in the yard where they all notice for the first time there is the expected hedge maze.  Still others attempt to cower behind Rebecca only to be shooed off by her.  Soon the scene abates and they are alone. 
    Rebecca, bemused, smiles coyly, “To answer your earlier question Jared, no none of them are virgins anymore.”
    Deven who had been rolling around on the ground laughing histerically finally picks himself up.  As he brushes leaves and loose grass from his suit jacket he puts his arm around Alexander, “So what was that about you not casting lightning bolts and slinging spells around at a moment’s notice?  I bet if one of them questioned her virginity this whole thing would have been underway long ago eh, eh”
    Alexander is not one of those people who you just walk up and put your arm around.  He isn’t even the sort of person you touch.  He is the sort of person who if you brush up against him in the super market you will wake up in an alternate plane of existence full of things that find humans to be tasty snacks, “Deven.  Deven!  Stop that, go over there or something for heaven’s sake”
    Still chuckling he backs off, “That’s funny telling Satan’s emissary for heaven’s sake that’s a good one”. 
     Stephen looks around more than a little bit bewildered, he’d since picked the virgin back up and is awkwardly holding her with one hand as he uses the other to pick leaves out of her hair, “Sorry we interputed you Rebecca, we though that you were letting us use the house because you were going to be away for a week or so.  Did we get the dates, wrong or something?”
    She bites her lower lip and looks around.  There she stands, on an alter devoted to her.  Once surrounded by dozens of followers she is now face to face with the only people who are completely immune to her charms.  She knows.  She’s tried.  Multiple times.  Her auburn hair running riot, cascading down her shoulders to the small of her back catches the setting’s sun just right so that it looks like it is ablaze with life and energy.  Her black dress clings and hangs in all the right places giving a good impression of her body and yet revealing nothing.  From collar to thigh length hemline she is both covered and revealed.  Members of both sexes have fought to the death over the privilege of being able to just kiss her hand.  People worship her and that is where she draws her power.  She is the queen of any rooms she walks into, unless she is with any of her peers.  Then she is just one of them.  An equal amongst those who should have no equal.  It’s been two years and it still throws her off.  The rest of them, exluding John, have fairly obvious ways they planned on ending or changing the world be it Jared with his computers, Alexander with his spells, or Deven and Stephan with their things that do not belong.  Rachel is different though.  She disovered one day that something about her draws people to her, and she can draw their souls from them, and with enough she could draw more souls.  Using a couple of specific points, and some tastefully arranged sculptures all the souls in the world would have been hers to do with as she wished.  God and Satan would have to go through her, she’d be a divinity in her own right.  The goddess of the sublime.  Except things got in the way and like the rest of them, for one reason or another she failed.  Now she stands, a shadow of her former glory, caught doing that which she promised not to do, by her only friends and some random virgin.  Off the wagon that is what she is and none of them seem to realize. 
    None of them except Alexander.  He smiles, not unkindly, “Been doing something you shouldn’t Miss Rebecca?”  She looks crestfallen, “Well lets have no more of that.  A question got raised as we were standing in the doorway of your scary house and aim to answer it god damnit.  Since you are here you wanna help out”  She nods her head and smiles great fully.
    Stephen bounds up virgin in hand, “Hooray the more the merrier I say.  In my area of things I didn’t get to cooperate much with people.  To unpleasant for large groups and all of that.  It will be great having you along!  Man all we need now is Wilson, Jerimia, and John and we’d have ourselves a full crew.  All working together to solve a mystery of the universe.  I’m glad you are here.  This is our virgin.  I don’t know her name and she hasn’t spoken much on account of the gag but I assume she is nice”
    Rebecca looks down at the virgin’s terrified pleading eyes and then immeadily moves onto other things, “Erm Alex”
    “Alexander”
    “Whatever.  Isn’t this kinda violating what it is we are suppose to be doing?  I mean I thought that the whole point of our little bi weekly sessions and all were to get us to live more normal lives and move past the fact that we are not ruleing slash ending the world”
    Everyone shuffles uncomfortably at that excapt Alexander, “Well I mean look Rebecca we all got gifts and I don’t see any reason to not use them, just so long as we don’t abuse them.  We are just going to cast a divination spell.  Granted it is going to be a massively complex one but it isn’t like the outcome is going to change the world or anything like that and it isn’t like anyone is going to get hurt”  Rebecca nods her head twords the virgin, “Well we just need a couple of drops of blood straight from her veins and then she is free to go, honest.  I mean it is a little dicey but it isn’t like we are rebuilding power bases, amassing cult members, or harvesting or anything like that.  You know what I mean”?  She smiles, unsure of herself.  She hates this feeling.  The feeling of not being sure.  It makes her feel like she is one of them.  The people who she uses up and throws up.  People like yonder virgin.  People who aren’t sure of their lives so they just go about on auto poilot until someone like them comes along to give guidance.  To wisk them away from their dull sad dreary lives to something more exciting.  She wonders if she is living such a life.  She wants nothing more to go with them to hang out while they cast their silly spell to do whatever it is they are doing.  It doesn’t seem right but it does seem worth doing.  It even seems like more fun than gathering cult members and rebuilding power bases.  Even if everything goes off without a hitch it will be ever so much better than watching Bogart movies alone eating apple pie. 
    Alexander can see her indecision.  He lets her run with it before adding, “Come on, this is just a thing and no one likes being alone.  Not like this.  Lets get some magic done”.  He holds out his hand and she takes it, feeling the relief wash over her.  The others are all off doing their own things.  Deven and Jared are laughing about something.  Stephen is off hanging out showing the virgin various eldritch symbols which she probably should not be seeing, so why not.  Why shouldn’t she have any fun.  She takes his hand, he smiles and then he shouts, “Alright lets get this show on the road!”  With that he claps his hands once and up goes the dome.
    Rebecca ooers appreciatively, “I’ve heard of these but I’ve never been inside of one.  It never occurred to me to try and make such a thing.”
    Stephen nods, “They are handy.  I had a version around my old house before one of the good guys saw their way through it and prevented me from making history.  The bastard.  He almost killed my dad.”
    Deven adds, “They are handy if you have to do work in urban or suburban areas and you don’t want all sorts of people butting in.  Through with the way you work the more the merrier eh?”
    “Well unless the more are some of you, way to chase away my whole flock, and I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to do with those who ran into the hedge maze.  That stupid thing is huge and they aren’t likely to find their way out again”
    Jared walking over suggests, “Perhaps we could get Jerimia to come over later and fish them out.  He can fly without to much trouble”
    “Can’t Alex fly?” Rebecca asks?
    Lowering his voice so Alexander can’t hear Jared replies, “He sees it as being off the wagon.  It was hard enough to get him to make the dome.”
    Remebering his display she harmphed at that and stalked off to see what exactly Alexander and Stephen were doing.  Both of them were preparing a spell of some sort but both of them were using completely different drawings and language to do so.  Both were using circles and they intersected in a sort of ven diagram.  The air where the two circles meet crackles with a horrible eldritch energy, quickly Stephan warns her away, “You don’t wanna spend to much time where the circles overlap there.  Thing will be a little weird there until we seal it up.  Then Alexander does whatever it is he does and we use the blood to set the whole thing off.  If everything goes well we will have our answer and oh I dunno we’ll take the virgin out for Chinese before wiping away her memory and sending her home none the wiser.  Hell since we will get Chinese she’ll even be hungry in an hour!”
    Rebecca looks worried, “And if things don’t go well?”
    “Well I mean there are certain risks no doubt.  I mean we are pretty sure this sort of thing hasn’t been tried ever in the history of ever but I wouldn’t worry to much.  There see circles are locked, Alex is casting the final spell, and there go the drops of virgin’s blood.  See so far so good!  No problems here”
    She had to admit he’s right.  There were no problems.  Heck there wasn’t even a reaction.  Part of her is relieved because, well this is her house, her place of power, her sanctuary, and she wouldn’t want it destroyed by whatever it is they are trying to do.  On the other hand a little bit of excitement would be nice.  Sure going and getting Chinese food would be fun but a little extra spice wouldn’t hurt anything.  The sky went a funny color.  That’s to be expected.  There is magic in the air after all,.  Then the smell hit her.  Then the virgin makes a horrible strangling sound behind her gag.  Rebecca turns just in time to see the virgin’s eyes explode out of her head propelled by jets of blood.
    Turning back she sees them, “Is this suppose to be happening?”
    Stephen looks worried, “Well we might have ourselves a little problem here”  Then he dives to the side as a great psudopod comes crashing down where he once was.  When it lifts up where there once once grass is now millions of white crawling things like great maggots with red triangles for heads. 
    She looks up and says the only applicable phase, “Well shit”.