The centaur had reached the far side of the yard. Pinned in by the fence, her back hooves lashed out and knocked the spirit chasing her to the ground, and she galloped away. Undeterred, the spirit managed to grab Mike by the back of his shirt and pull him off the centaur.
Finally. She sent the mental command to the spirit not to kill him. The spirit obeyed, pinning Mike to the ground so Sebastien could reach him. He drew his blade, pressing it against Mike’s chest.
“Everyone, stop, or I’ll…” Sebastien’s eyes grew wide as Mike’s body unfolded like a piece of origami. Arms and legs covered in blades whirled around, reducing Sebastien to a pile of sand.
Kali’s mind jumped into a snake long enough to see that this Mike was, somehow, a mannequin dressed in his clothes. The mannequin’s limbs folded down, and it crawled like a crab, slashing the ground with multiple blades that protruded from its body.
“Where? Where is he?” Her consciousness spread out across the yard, her remaining snakes swiveling their heads. The rain had grown thick enough that the others had become lost in the storm. Frustrated, Kali looked through the eyes of her snakes and called down lightning on anyone emanating heat. The cyclops was able to dance away and quickly returned to the porch. The goblin pulled Beth to safety, and the centaur took shelter back in the garage. The gargoyle had pinned the Iwa to the ground, and Lily was caught up in a vortex of wind that caused her to tumble through the air.
“Where! Where are you?!” Kali shrieked.
Colored runes appeared all across the yard, focusing on a point twenty feet in front of her. The ground split open, revealing a large stone sundial that rose from beneath. Giving up on her snakes, she looked to the skies, wondering if he was about to descend from up above. Where was he going to come from?
The remaining Sebastiens looked to her for guidance, pointing at the sundial and yelling, their voices lost in the wind. She turned to see that another Sebastien was running toward her, his head bowed low. The hole in the geas had grown even smaller, and the storm was beginning to rage out of control. The situation was devolving quickly, and she still couldn’t figure out what Mike had planned for her.
Sebastien ran past, dodging the lone Iwa by her side, then put his hand on the sundial. It suddenly occurred to her that this Sebastien didn’t carry a cane, nor did he have a mustache. Her jaw dropping in surprise, she sent the spirit barreling toward him, to stop him at any cost, and was shocked when a banshee stepped out of his body, her hair wild and her blank eyes wide with rage. She let loose a scream that could be heard above the roar of the storm, a scream that tore the Iwa to shreds. Kali grabbed her ears in pain, desperate to block out the sound.
“What?” What had just happened? She commanded the snakes, the remaining spirits, anything, to stop him.
Mike lifted his head, his lips blue with from the cold and his goggles aglow with runes of their own. He was dressed like Sebastien, which had fooled her, and had somehow bypassed the heat vision of her snakes.
“It’s time for you to get the fuck off my lawn,” he said, then grabbed the sundial and gave the whole thing a twist.
When Mike twisted the sundial, the protective magic of the house ripped through his core and then outward like a shock wave. Kali flew through the air and crashed to the ground next to the large snake that had watched over her. Then the lions on the entryway leaped down onto the grass, their manes ablaze with blue fire as they chased down each Sebastien and swatted him into nothingness. The remaining Iwa tried to flee but were torn from the sky by one of the lions and ripped apart. Kali struggled to stand as the other lion approached her.
Beth’s plan had worked perfectly. While the others had diverted Kali’s attention, Mike had been able to finish activating the runes while disguised as Sebastien. He had ridden into the yard while hanging from Zel’s side, hidden from view when they had burst out of the garage, and then had fallen off by the bushes.
Once in the yard, the true genius of the plan had been allowing Cecilia to hide inside of him, the cold from her magic masking his presence from the snakes. Getting to the lions had been easy, but activating the runes had not. Even with the goggles on, it was much like trying to catch a specific bee from a hive, and now that the sundial had been activated, it was finally over.
He had won.
The lion stopped long enough to eat Kali’s anaconda, then leaped toward the priestess. Kali was abruptly yanked away from the lion by hundreds of shadow arms that pulled her across the lawn and out onto the street. The lion gave chase but stopped at the boundary of his house, then paced, its stone visage locked on the dark figure that had appeared there to catch Kali in outstretched arms.
The stranger wore a black suit and knelt to set Kali down on the wet asphalt. Up above, the storm broke itself apart, and rain fell across the yard.
Mike thought that the man was black at first but realized quickly that the light seemed to bend away from him, his Middle Eastern features hidden away in the shadows. Even the rain itself bent
