Vivienne

Relief washed over Brian after the short bursts of magic stabilized his weakening condition.  Suspecting that the earthquake and lava were keeping Casey and Sylvie occupied, Brian slowed down and thought about his situation. “Let’s see where you went.”  Spreading his fingers, Brian touched his temples and let his magic flow once more.  Magic gently weaved its way through Brian’s skin and took control of his optic nerve, melting the colors of the world leaving things in black and white.  Pulling away his hand, Brian scanned the house with the last effect of his magic.  White areas of the house faded and became translucent as though he saw the world as a large X-ray.  “I spy…”  Brian smiled as he spotted Casey through the walls, hiding directly behind the wall closest to the entry of the kitchen. “...Right where I want you.”

 Unable to discern sounds properly through the rumbling of earth and the pop-cracks of fire in the house, Casey watched the entry to the kitchen.  Spotting a long shadow forming from the reddish light, She raised the barbed poker over her head and waited until the shadow had taken up most of the space before swinging.  Aiming for what she thought would be Brian’s head, the poker struck true with a heavy wet smack as though she’d hit a mass of oatmeal. “What in the hell?”  Casey asked when the poker was sucked from her grip.  Having lost the element of surprise, Casey darted over the table and stood by the sink with a chair held up in defense.  What she thought was Brian, was nothing but mud in the form of a body.

“When are you going to come to your senses, Casey?”  Brian commented from behind his mudman. “Just drink the tea on the table.  It’s seriously right behind you..”  He laughed and willed the mud forward, “What are you going to do, punch mud?  I will just make it solid again.” 

Keeping the chair between herself and the approaching mass, Casey caught a glimpse of Brian holding up his hand and controlling his latest creation with a tiny tendril of green connected to his hand.  Figuring that she couldn’t hurl the dagger fast enough to hit Brian’s hand, Casey scanned the kitchen for another option.  When the heavy sound of the iron poker hit the ground, Casey saw a glimpse of hope.  Backing up from the shuffling wall of amorphous mud, Casey watched Brian make a mistake and kick the poker back towards the fireplace.  -I have been thrown through them easy enough, Let’s use them to my advantage.-  Hurling the chair as hard as she could at the construct, Casey sprinted right into the wall she’d been hiding behind.

Lowering her shoulder, Casey hit the wall with as much force as she could and sent plaster and wood in a small wave into the living room.  Following the flying debris, Casey rolled past the cracks in the floor and managed to grip the fire poker on her first try.  Knowing that she had a small window of surprise, the ward quickly spun on her heels and brought the iron shaft with a bone shattering crunch against Brian’s knees.  Barely aware that he’d howled in pain, Casey stood up as the big man was falling backwards. “How about I do this, Fucker.”  Casey growled and once Brian was flat on his back, jammed the three headed arrow through his wrist, pinning his magic hand to the floor.

Hearing the excruciating howl from Brian, Sylvie smiled for the first time since she had started avoiding the punches from the lava girl chasing her.  Absolutely sure that one punch would reduce her body to cinders, Sylvie had been slowly forced deeper into the cornfield.  Sylvie paid careful attention to the licks of flame that would occasionally jump off the monster like a sunflare, setting a wide swath of corn on fire and making her use precious blood to keep the waves of heat at bay. 

Stumbling back into a crop circle, Sylvie saw a bleached white skeleton laying on the bed of broken corn and knew that this was where Vivienne had fought one of the horsemen.  Ducking out of a particularly nasty attempt to capture her, Sylvie scooched back over the skeleton and happened to loop her hands around a thin metal chain with the name ‘Angelie Kino’ imprinted along with a series of numbers on a small set of tags.  Without knowing why, Sylvie flipped the small chain around her wrist and kept backing away from the blob-woman that was bearing down on her.  When a near miss caught the sleeve of her tattered dress on fire, Sylvie figured she’d had enough of the elemental.  Patting her sleeve until it was smoldering, Sylvie stumbled into the center of the corn ring and looked down. “Not good.”

Laying directly under her small feet were the eight leftover claymore mines that Vivienne had disarmed earlier, except that the casing was no longer olive green but a tame bleached white.  “Humm..cleaned?”  Sylvie knelt over and picked up the tightly wound bundle of explosives and by doing so avoided a swing that was intended for her face.  “Alright..That was a little too close, madam.”  Hustling in the direction of the farmhouse, Sylvie frowned as she studied the bundle she’d grabbed without reason. “How in the world do I use these…even if they still work…”  Mysteriously, Sylvie saw a long black silk kite string take up most of her vision.  Sylvie was about to trace the kite string in her vision when a volley of burning hot rock nicked her arms and legs, leaving burnt gashes where they’d hit.

Falling to the ground, Sylvie rolled out of the way as the monster attempted to jump and land on her.  Burning heat radiated where the molten rock impacted the ground, setting Sylvie’s hair and clothing on fire once more. “Crap.”  Sylvie had to ignore the burning and shifted the explosives to her other arm to avoid the mines from going off due to the heat. “Let’s not find out that way!”  Jumping to her feet, Sylvie sprinted through the cornrows until she broke free of the long green leaves.

“Oh boy.”  Knowing she was a few feet ahead of the blob, Sylvie quickly unraveled most of the wire from around the claymores and shoved ends of the spliced wires back into the tops of the explosives. “Oh..oh…come on..oh boy..”  Sylvie panic spoke just as the monster burned its way out of the corn.  Her frantic fingers working in a blur, Sylvie somehow managed to get the wire into all eight devices just as the monster roared once again.  “Oh no..”  Flattening herself to the ground, Sylvie managed to get out of the way of her pursuer’s fire when the woman’s arms turned into twisting flamethrowers.  Showering the area in yellow-orange fire, Sylvie shoved herself from the ground and plowed back through the missing window by the kitchen as the flames threatened to overtake her.