Spliced

Indi hugged herself and eyed the statues in the courtyard nervously. She focused on her breathing and keeping calm. She thought through a list of things she could try. She decided to start by walking around the courtyard looking for hidden doors.

As she walked along the first wall she half kept an eye on the rest of the courtyard. The statues were creepy and even though she knew they were just statues she still felt like she needed to keep an eye on them.

By the third wall she had completely forgotten about the statues and was focused on her task of examining every brick high and low. It wasn’t until she reached the start of the forth wall that by chance she turned and noticed that one of the statues had moved.

At least she thought it had. She hadn’t been paying attention from this angle. But no, she was sure. One of the fairy like ones was closer to the wall. It had it’s back to her and it was definitely in a different place than it had been before. Indi froze and just watched it, hands held in front of her in loose fists, least she need to try and summon a shield. She fiddled with the edge of her sleeves nervously. Half her mind called her silly, half was screaming alarm bells. This was just like that toy clown her mother used to keep at the end of the hallway. There was something evil about it. The only difference was, this time she was sure she was right. She thought of that silly terrifying clown she’d been so afraid of as a child and she wished her brother was here to protect her. Or Falco. Or anybody.

“Indi?” a voice called from somewhere above her.

She was so surprised she tore her eyes from the statue and looked for the source of the voice. There, two stories up and standing in the open doorway that led to a non-existent balcony was Coal. She blinked twice to be sure it was really him. Then he pointed urgently at something behind her and she spun just in time to summon a shield to meet the stone claws of the fairy statue that was swiping at her. She yelped and stumbled backwards into the wall.

The claws came at her again, the fanged mouth opened and screamed as Indi’s shield went up once more. There was nothing inside the mouth that suggested the statue was capable of swallowing anything but Indi was sure of one thing. Those fangs would tear flesh easily either way.

It was about to come at her again and Indi wondered whether she’d be able to raise another shield when suddenly the statue disappeared and a loud crash sounded somewhere nearby.

“Up the rope,” a voice called and it took her a second to remember Coal was there. She turned and saw he’d hung a rope down from the floor he was on. She turned to look at the rest of the courtyard and realised that the statue was now on the other side of the courtyard, but was quickly heading her way again. Even worse, she noticed some of the other statues start to move their heads.

“Quickly!” Coal called forcefully but in a tone Indi could only describe as being far too calm for the situation they were in.

Indi ran. She reached the bottom of the rope at the same time as the first fairy statue. She shielded but it didn’t matter. As it raised it’s arms to attack it disappeared and then reappeared on the other side of the courtyard only up high in the air. It would then fall straight down with a loud crash that didn’t appear to be doing any damage. Indi paused stunned.

“Hurry up,” Coal instructed from above.

It had been some time since Indi had climbed a rope. She knew it was something Falco did all the time. When she’d lasted visited the ship he sailed on, she’d seen their training facilities, part of which included thick ropes hanging from the ceiling. She’d had a go climbing one and had managed it but gosh that had been a struggle and this rope here was much thinner than those.

She knew she had no choice though. She grabbed it, jumped and twisted her legs around it. It swung and spun and despite how she wrapped her legs it felt like she just couldn’t get a decent position to be able to pull herself up.

But then she felt the rope being pulled upward and she knew all she had to do was hold on. It moved up slowly but every time one of the statues got close it would disappear and then reappear on the other side of the courtyard. They appeared in the air exactly two stories up, directly opposite Coal. That was when she realised what was happening. Coal was summoning them. Transporting them closer to himself. The courtyard was smaller than the height that Coal was at so by summoning them at his level he could still move them to the other side and away from Indi. She thought it was quite clever really.

She relaxed a little once she was high enough up to be out of reach. It appeared that despite the marble wings, they could not fly. Her arms were aching by the time she reached Coal but there was nothing that could have made her lose her grip on the rope at this point. Looking back down she noted that the statues seemed to have given up and returned to their original positions.

Coal held out a hand to her and pulled her over the edge. Once over she collapsed at his feet.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head and looked up at him surprised. Not only was he not wearing a suit jacket over his white perfectly ironed shirt for once he actually looked like he’d been sweating. He was sitting down against the wall and also seemed a little short of breath. She blushed realising it must have been a lot of work for him to pull her all the way up on that rope.

“How did you get in there?” he asked.

“We came in through the wall,” she gasped, still tired from holding on to the rope.

“We?” his jet black brows furrowed.

“Wolf and I. We got separated from Cat and Zeph, and then we followed a passageway and...” Indi stopped mid sentence to take in a large gulp of air.

Coal nodded quickly and raised his hands to indicate she didn’t need to speak so fast. He peered down at the courtyard looking puzzled.

She noticed his jacket lying further in the corridor. Evidently he’d taken it off when he realised he needed to drop down a rope.

“You moved the statues?” she asked, “Summoned them?”

He nodded. “That was a lot of work. I don’t usually move things so close.”

Indi wasn’t sure if he sounded mad or annoyed at her for having to do it or not. Either way she replied, “That was very clever, moving them up so they were closer to you but ended up further away.”

Coal seemed to smile slightly at the compliment. One corner of his mouth curved up coyly. “You’re not able to maintain a shield I take it?” Coal asked matter-of-factly, as if he was just gathering information to plan fighting strategy later.

Indi shook her head. “I don’t know, sometimes, but not always.”

Coal nodded. “You don’t know where Wolf went?”

Indi shook her head. “One moment he was there and then he was gone. What are you doing here?”

Coal looked directly at her a slightly surprised look on his face. Indi wasn’t sure if he was surprised because she had asked that question or if it was because it had taken her so long to ask it.

“I had an idea you might be in trouble,” Coal replied cryptically.

“But how?”

“Let’s just say a little birdy told me. Now the question is, how do we get back out? I’m not sure that we really want to go back down there but if that’s where you last saw Wolf...” Coal sighed. “What about the others? Amanda? Sirius? Kass?”

“Exploring a different part of the house. I’m not sure I want to go back down there either. Besides the house seems to shift it’s walls and rooms about. I’m not sure it matters which way we go.” Indi pulled her hands into the sleeves of her comfy purple jersey. She glanced down at the creepy statues and shivered. “If only I hadn’t let go of the...” As she turned her head to look the other way, into the dark corridor behind Coal, she saw a shape move, something big. Something shimmered.

“Coal!” Indi whimpered.

He spun, drawing a sword out of thin air as he did. It clanged loudly with... was that an axe?

Coal crouched, sword raised against the axe that was pushing down, held in the hands, no, not hands, hooves of what looked like a real life Minotaur, only instead of a bulls head it was a bleached white goat. And it wasn’t holding the axe, it seemed to be glued to it. As it leaned forward putting more of it’s weight into the axe Indi saw that it’s eyes glistened like the fake eyes of badly done taxidermy. As she thought of it she realised that was exactly what it was. Except this one was moving. The last thing she noticed was the colour of the fur at it’s shoulders, a browny red, the colour of dried blood.

Then she was falling.

Coal had kicked out at the goat, knocking it off balance just long enough to pull his sword away, grab Indi and throw them both off the edge of the balcony.