It turned out his home was just on the edge of the village. We could have walked there in a few minutes, but he said there was covered parking there, so we drove. On the very short journey there one thought suddenly occurred to me. For Luke to have been at that junction in time, with the plan he’d used. He had to have been watching us, at least since we had met the man with the gun and probably before that. This one thought made me very nervous about going to the Luke’s home.
But just as I thought this his car in front of us turned in to his gateway. There was a short rough track leading from the road to what looked like and old farm house and barn. The barn seemed to have been converted in to a garage and Luke parked up there. He pointed us to the space next to his. There was space for more cars here, but they where all empty.
We got out of the car, I saw a large brown dog bounding over towards us. My first reaction was to get back in to the car, but I saw Natalie bend down to the dogs level. “Hello boy”. She said to it.
“Barney” Luke greeted the dog. After a quick lick of his masters hand Barney greeted Natalie lots of sniffing and licking. She had always been a dog person. I wasn’t. I hopped Barney couldn’t tell that.
He gave me the same licking and sniffing. I gently stroked him.
“Don’t worry, the worst he’ll do is lick you to death”. Luke said, seeing discomfort with the huge animal. “Come on in”.
He led us in to the kitchen. It was just what I would have expected from a kitchen in an old farm house. Stone floor’s, wooden beams, an old Arga wood burning stove and huge porcelain sink.
“Welcome to my humble abode”. The first thing I noticed was there where two tea used tea cups on the table. Did he live here alone? He hadn’t said that. I was just being paranoid again.
“Take a seat. I can’t really offer you anything alcoholic, I don’t drink, but I have tea and can make a really mean cup of coffee, or so I’ve been told”.
We both opted for coffee. “It’s good for shock”. Luke said as he set about making it.
“So you saw the whole thing happen with us and the guy with the shotgun?” I asked. It was the most polite way I could think of to ask if he had been watching us.
“Yes. I saw you arrive and I knew they where there. I guessed you weren’t with them so, I suspected there might be a little confrontation”.
“They aren’t just farmers protecting there land are they?” Natalie asked.
Luke seemed to think for a moment before answering this. “No, I’m not even sure it is their land. It’s next to the their land yes, but the woods, I don’t think it’s theirs.”
“You’ve looked in to it then?” Natalie asked. She was clearly thinking along the same lines as I was.
“Yes”. Luke said simply.
“And you have been watching them, I would guess. It’s either that you’ve been watching us, and somehow I don’t think that’s very likely. We aren’t from around this parts”.
“Nor are they” Luke didn’t answer my question. “They bought the land next to the forest recently”
“So why are you watching them?” I pushed the question again.
Luke smiled as he placed the coffee’s down on the table. “What makes you think that I am?”
“You must have been some distance away, because you had to really floor it to get to that junction after us, but before them”. Natalie suggested. “And you sure weren’t anywhere in sight when we met the man with the shotgun”.
“Alan Saunders”.
“Sorry” Both Natalie and I where confused for a moment.
“Alan Saunders, that’s the name of the nice man with the shotgun. Home made cookies?” He offered us some very chunky and tasty looking cookies. I wasn’t going to let a little paranoia stand between me and a chocolately treat.
“Thank you. What are you some sort of private investigator?” I asked. Natalie declined the cookie. I made note that Luke did take one off the plate as well.
Again that wry grin of his. “Not exactly. I do investigate things however”.
“What sort of things?” Natalie asked.
I became aware of warm bulk of Barine’s body next to my legs. Two large eyes looked up longing at the cookie in my hand.
“Okay. Maybe a trade of information might help us both here”. Luke suggested.
“So you don’t want to tell us?” I asked him.
“I don’t mind telling you, but I think we might be able to help each other here.” 
I glanced down at Barney again. His mouth had strands of saliva hanging from it now and he had moved closer to me.
I looked at Natalie. She answered my unasked question. “So what do you investigate?” She asked him.
“Okay. I investigate what you might call oddities. Things that people might dismiss as…”
Suddenly the penny dropped in my mind. I knew of this man.
“Your Luke Dykser”. I said suddenly.
“Ah you know of my work then?”
“I know you by reputation. You are quite the living legend around, what you could joking call, the offices of ‘Behind the Fringe’.
“Really. They still remember me? I’m surprised, that was 4 years ago. So you have worked for the same magazine then”.
“I go as far as to call it a magazine, but yes I have worked…”
Luke pulled an old copy of the magazine out of a bookcase. “So you would be Dave Collins then?”.
I nodded. “Interesting report, this”. He looked at the story I had written for the magazine just over 2 years ago. “Unicorns” He looked at me over the magazine. Natalie looked at me too, she looked ever so slightly worried.
“Kids, high, drunk or both. They saw what they wanted to see”.
“It was my first story for them”. I told Natalie. “I needed them to think I was, believer…” Then I looked at Luke. “…And in case that’s what they told me. I was just reporting what my sources told me”.
“Glad to hear it”. Luke sat down and took a bite from the cookie. It was good. I looked down at Barney again. His eyes where locked on the cookie.
“Yes, you can give him a bit if you want. So I take it you wanted to work for that magazine to get access to some of the witnesses?”. Luke asked me.
I broke off a clunk of the cookie for Barney and very carefully put my it in hand and offered it to him. I was half expecting to lose the hand, but instead it was like having my hand cleaned, by a very efficient, but warm and wet vacuum cleaner. “Er, yes”.
“So your interest in the woods is professional then?”
I was about answer yes, but Natalie replied. “We wanted to…”.
I looked at Natalie, she wasn’t going to tell this man our secret was she. She glanced at me. “…Return to that place. We visited there a while back, so just for old times sake we wanted to see it again”.
Luke nodded. I got the impression he didn’t entirely believe her. I took a sip of the coffee, he was right it was a good cup of coffee.
“And the fact that you write for this magazine is not connected to your return”. I looked over to Natalie, she again spoke for me.
“Sort of. It’s complicated and…er well…”
“Private” He suggested. She nodded. “Okay, I won’t pry. But you know of the woods reputation then?” We both nodded.
He leaned back in the chair and Barney, much to my relief headed over to drool at his masters side. “Well I’ve lived her for…some time now and I have always had an interest in these matters. I wouldn’t say I was a believer, as you might put it, but I have an open mind and…well to quote, the Brad himself, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. I like your self used the magazine to talk to people, real people that claim to have had these experiences…”
“And most of them haven’t?” I suggested.
“Yes, sadly. But there are a few, very few, that have”.
Both me and Natalie nodded. “And both of you have, I would venture to say”.
That came out of the blue for me. I was caught totally off guard.
“Yes”. Natalie told him, but she looked at me.
“Yes, that’s right”.
“So you no longer need to believe you have had actual experience? That’s good. As I said I won’t pry”.
“So why are you watching these new comers to the woods? There must be lots of people from outside of the village that go there? It does have a reputation” Natalie asked.
Luke smiled a rye smile. I was sure he knew what we had done there that night. “Yes, it does. But the reputation it has, does not normally attract the Alan Saunders of this world”.
“So you have been watching them?” I asked. It didn’t quite seem right to me that Luke would watch these people just because they didn’t look like the normal new age types. There was something that he wasn’t telling us, I felt sure, or maybe that was just my paranoia again.
He looked little he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. “There are other reason’s why I watch them. One is the way they treat people that try to go to the woods. They are hiding something”.
They aren’t the only ones, I thought.
“Look, you are both clearly smart people, with board minds, that know the reality of the paranormal, so I am going ask you accept something which you might have a hard time believing, but I, like you have personal experience of these sorts of things”.
Natalie leaned forward on to the table, I was also very interested to hear what this man had to say. He certainty had the background if the articles of his that I had read where anything to go by.
“And maybe your experiences in the woods will be able to confirm some theories I have. I’m not going to ask for details. Okay, at least one of the people that bought the farm next to the wood are known associates of a powerful practitioner in the dark arts. It can’t be coincidence that they choose to buy a farm next to this bit of land. I believe that these woods hold a portal or gateway to another world or realm. I can’t see the opening of this gateway being a good thing, given what I know of the people that will be controlling it”.
Me and Natalie exchanged looks. “Does any of that fit in with your experiences in the wood. I’m not trying to pry but anything you could tell me might be a great help, even if it is a simple yes or no”.
“Can we have a moment, alone to discus this”. Natalie asked.
“Surely. I’ll wait through here in my study, just come on through when you are done”. Luke left the room through a wooden door.
“Okay what do you think?” Natalie asked me.
“I think…I think that even a few weeks ago I would have said this was crazy. I was starting to think that everything that had happened to us was just a bad dream. But now, since meeting up with you again…”
“Yes, it all suddenly becomes real again. I know what you mean. So what do you think. Is Luke crazy or just someone like us that has had a crazy experience?”
I shrugged. “I really don’t know. I think about what someone else a none believer would think if we told them our story. They would say we where crazy. So I don’t know”.
“Oh come on you must have some idea, you seemed to have a pretty good idea which ones of those stories in our magazine where real and which ones weren’t”.
It was true. Natalie knew me so well it seemed, she really was the one…
“Well he hasn’t really told us anything yet, no real details, which in it’s self is a good sign. It seemed to me that the crazy ones where only to willing to tell you their stories in detail…”
“So your siding towards saying Luke is for real and telling him something of our story?”
“Something maybe, not the details for sure”. I smiled. “Oh I don’t know”.
“Okay what about his reputation with your magazine people?”
“Oh they thought he was the best, the countries leading expert in the paranormal, maybe even the world”.
“And you?” Natalie as really pushing this. Did that mean she had already decided what she wanted to do. Again there I didn’t know. That was one of the things I liked about her, I never really knew what she was thinking.
“Well I was impressed with some of the stuff he wrote, but there was some that was obviously over the top…”
“So very much like the things that you had to write to get there trust?” Natalie really was thinking this through, I clearly wasn’t.
I sighed. “Yes I guess your right. He is probably not so different from us. So do well tell him?”
A half bark, half yelp came from the floor by the table. I was Barney. I’d completely forgotten about the dog. We both jumped.
Barney looked at us, in a strange sort of way for a dog and with another half bark ran off through the door to the study.
He sighed deeply. Natalie smiled. “I’d fogotten he was there as well. So is that a yes?”
I nodded. “You do the telling, I trust you not to go to far”. She put her hand on my arm.
“Okay, here goes”.
We both walked through in to the study. If I there had been any doubts about Luke’s credentials as an expert in the paranormal, those would have been totally blown away by a look at his study. The walls where lined with book cases stuffed full of old leather bound tomes, modern paper backs and magazines and papers galore. Where there where gaps in the books there where odd looking things in glass jars. A huge desk filed one end of the small room. It was stacked with monitors, computers, and keyboards. All of this left just a small space in the middle of the room which was filled with a large slightly worn looking sofa. Luke sat on this and was stoking Barney.
Did Barney look slightly scared of us now? I couldn’t tell, dogs where not my thing.
Luke looked up at us. “You have decided?”
“Yes, we would like to tell you something of what happened to us in those woods”. Natalie’s hand wrapped around mine.
“Excellent. Take a seat”. Luke seemed genuinely pleased. We sat down on the sofa. Barney moved out of the way, but stayed close. Natalie stroked him and his tail wagged. A good sign, I did seem to be getting very paranoid these last few days.
“Tell me as little or as much as you want. Nothing will ever get printed here. I don’t do that anymore. And stop as soon as you don’t feel comfortable”.
I nodded and Luke picked up a pad and pen. “Tell your story”.
“Not so much to tell really. 3 years ago we decided to go to the woods because of what she had herd about the place. I wasn’t a believer at that point I just thought it would be…” I looked at Natalie trying to find the right word. “…A fun thing to do”.
“And this was when in the year, do you recall?” Luke asked.
“Midsummers eve”. Luke nodded and started to scribble things down furiously on the pad. “Please go on, I do shorthand”.
“Okay well, it was midsummers eve and we where in the woods. Well both felt something about the place…”
“At the time I would have said it was a ‘magical’ feeling, I was really a new girl in those days”.
“Yes, I don’t know I’d call it that, but there was definitely a different sort of feeling there. The colours seemed sort of brighter and everything seemed, well more real, I guess. Anyway while we where there something…” Natalie squeezed my hand a little, I looked at her, she nodded. “…Took us over, I guess you could say. For me it was some sort of animal. I found out later it was a wolf and Natalie…”
I looked at her again. “…Do you?” I asked
“Okay, I was er taken over by something called the Queen, the queen of the hunt”. Luke stopped his quick scribbling for a moment and looked at her, before starting writing again. “She was hunting the wolf and I…I. She took me over and I tired to kill Dave. I tried to fight her, but she…” Natalie’s eyes welled up with tears. I put my arm around her and even Barney seemed to sense her distress and licked her hand.
“You don’t have to tell me anything more, if you don’t want to” Luke said. “What you have told me already is more than I could have hoped for”.
Natalie gently pushed me away. “No, no I’m okay”. She sniffed. “Just give me a moment”.
“I’ll carry on. The wolf tried to run, but I guess it wasn’t used to just two legs and I fought it. It wasn’t as strong as the queen. Anyway…”
“The Queen caught it” Natalie interrupted.
“…And the wolf, I think, decided that if was going to die it would do it in it’s own body back in the other realm. Or it might have been a last desperate attack on the Queen, I don’t know. I’m not really sure it knew why it was doing it, but at that point it ‘jumped’ back to it’s home. I know it didn’t have a physical form, but it did jump through Natalie and the Queen and that seemed to take them both back”. I looked at Natalie hoping she might be able to fill something in.
“The Queen wanted the Wolf. It wasn’t just the hunt. She had hunted 1000′s animals in the past and I knew she didn’t hate them like she hated the wolf. I…I’m not sure, she was able to keep most of her thoughts from me, I only…I only got to see the s..stuff she showed to scare me, but I think, I mean it felt like they might have been lovers”.
“Love…” I started to say. How was that possible? He had been a wolf.
Luke finished scribbling his notes. “Thank you very much. This is going to be so very, very useful”. He closed the pad. “I don’t want to pry here, but I’m guessing this is the first time you have really talked about this isn’t it?”
We both nodded. “We where a younger then and, well it was pretty difficult to deal with and…” I looked at Natalie. “…We didn’t see each other after that until just a few days ago”.
Luke smiled. “But you survived it as a couple. That is great and it has only strengthened your love”.
I blushed a little, I knew I did love her, but it still made me feel like a little kid been told it.
“It’s obvious how you feel about each other and this is a good thing. And you both feel that returning to the woods would help you deal with what you’ve experienced”.
“Yes”.
“That too is a good thing, but your timing is not so good. The gateway seems to be more active as we approach midsummers eve. So if you want to go, the sooner the better and I think you are really going to have to go at night. They don’t watch the woods all the time, but again since the place has this reputation at this time of year, they will be more and more alert as the solstice gets closer”.
I knew it was now just 2 weeks and a day till midsummers eve. It was the weekend now and we where close. Would there be a better chance than now? I looked at Natalie as she looked at me. Probably thinking just the same thing.
“We have to do this”. I said to her. She nodded. “Yes. Sooner the better”.
“The day is getting old now. You could both stay here till in the meantime. I also know the perfect place to watch the woods from” Luke offered. It almost sounded like a plea to me. I was still slightly worried that there was something else going on here that we didn’t know about. Luke seemed to know lot about this, did he know something he wasn’t telling us? But still there wouldn’t be a better chance than now.
“We came all this way to get back to the woods, it would be silly not to go there now” Natalie said. “Thank you, we would love to stay here till sundown”.

Luke made us a late lunch or was early tea. It had been a very strange day so far and I had totally lost track of the time. It was 3:30 a quick look at my watch told me.
Luke was away in the kitchen. Just Barney sat at Natalie’s feet.
“So we are really going to do this?’ Natalie said, it was a statement not a question.
“Yes, it looks like it. We are crazy aren’t we?” This was a question.
“Very probably, but look, maybe all this stuff stuff going on inside our heads, maybe that is just…”
“All in our heads?”
“Well, yes and just us doing this is going to sort it all out. We will have faced those daemons”.
I’m smiled, nervously. “Don’t say that please”.
“Why…oh, yes. No I’m sure they aren’t daemons. See…” Natalie turned her head to the side and then pushed it with her hand. “It only goes this far”. She smiled. Her humour was just to cover her nerves I knew.
“Good, so we don’t be needing any ‘the power of Christ compels you’ then?”
“No we are fine”. She hugged me and for some reason Barney chose this moment to sit up lick my other hand. I very carefully stroked his head.
“Oh dam I missed the group hug” Luke said as he returned carrying a large tray stacked with rolls and cakes.
I realised Natalie, feeling a little embarrassed. “Oh only joking, don’t let me interrupt”. Where did that come from? When I first met Natalie I had never been that shy about showing my affections for her. Probably because at the time I was showing off what a stupendously beautiful lady I had fallen in love with. And she didn’t look any more stunning now. I hugged her again.
“Wow, just a snack?” Natalie said. “That’s a pretty big spread for just a snack”.
“Well that is for the four of us”
“Four…?” I started to asked before remembering the big warm lump against my leg. Barney was already focused on the tray had the waterfall of slobber was already beginning to form around his mouth.
“So do you live here alone?” I asked. “It seems a pretty big place just for one”. Luke offered us the tray and Natalie and me each picked a crusty roll off it.
Luke smiled rye little smile. “I have people her from time to time, yes. Well spotted, you should be a journalist”.
“If only I could write for a real magazine!”
“Yes, one that pays! Some times when people are helping me out with something they chose to stay here. It’s nice to have the company, but I don’t live with any one long term and I certainly don’t have anything fantastic like you two have”.
I blushed again. “But have Barney and my other dogs and I’m not alone at the moment. She should be back soon”.
“Oh she”. Natalie said with a smile.
“It is nothing like that, she is great and wonderful, but just helping with somethings at the moment”. Luke couldn’t help be smile. Natalie nodded, knowingly.
All I took away from that comment, was that there where more dogs.
We munched away on the rolls that Luke had provided and dwelt on our own thoughts for a moment.
I tore of a bit of the roll and very carefully put it in Barney’s now open mouth. “See Barney will make a dog person out of you yet”.
“Oh sorry you don’t like dogs”. Luke asked.
“Not my favourite pet, but Barney is okay”. I patted him and looked up at me, trailing a line of slobber across by trousers.
“So what are you working on right now”. I asked looking around the room. There where plenty of very strange things here. “Still looking in to the paranormal I see”.
“Yes. It’s still my work, even though I’ve not published anything for years”.
Natalie picked up a strange looking metal object off the table.
“Ah one of my latest studies that. This symbol seems pop up all of over the place in largely un-contected cultures throughout history”.
Natalie moved the shape around in her hands, studying it intently.
“Something wrong?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No. But I know this shape, its…”
“It turns up a lot in modern life to, in one form or another, you might have seen it in…”
“No it’s not that, the Queen knows this shape I’m sure. It’s something to do with her”. Natalie frowned. “A badge of office or some sort of symbol of power. I’m not sure, but it’s important to her”. Natalie put the shape down. “She considers it her mark”.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
“You are sure of that?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know what it means to her, but I know it is important to her and she considers it hers”.
“Well that…”
Barney suddenly turned and left the room in a big hurry, putting his full weight down on my foot as he scrambled out in to kitchen. There he started barking.
“Ah that will be Jamie”. Other barks came from out side. Luke got up.
“It’s okay, my other dogs are just like Barney”. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing.
The sound of more paws and claws scuttling over titles came from the kitchen and two other dogs bounded in to the room. The first dog small, white and brown, a Jack Russel I think. The other dog was huge, bigger than Barney and I’m sure it wasn’t a pure bread dog. It looked like there where lots of different breads or dogs in its ancestry and maybe just a bit of Tyrannosaurs Rex.
The two dogs greeted there master and then quickly moved to us. Natalie bent down to greet them, I wanted to keep my distance from the beasts. It didn’t work of course, the mongrel was big enough to be able to lick me face from while I was sitting. I didn’t really want to offend Luke by standing up and out range of it’s tongue, so I took the licking.
“Hi!” A voice came from the kitchen. “I’ve got it”. Her voice sounded excited and slightly breathless.
The owner of the voice appeared at the study door. She was short and young looking with short cropped, bleached blonde hair. “I’ve got…oh, sorry didn’t realise you had company”.
I stood up, she was just the excuse I needed to get out of range of the big dogs attentions.
“Hello”.
“This is Jamie, my current assistant. Jamie this is Dave and Natalie. They where visiting the woods and our friends got a little frisky, so I had to intervene”.
“What! Dam, things are getting nasty with them. No one hurt?” Jamie asked us. “Surprised and a little shaken that they would go that far but otherwise unhurt”. I shook her hand. I noticed that along with the camouflage trousers she was wearing she had a large professional looking camera hanging around her neck over a very worn and faded teeshirt. ‘Combat Wombat. No dunny to small or fence to long’ The teeshirt proclaimed, but I realised I wasn’t looking at that, but rather the shapely figure beneath it.
“Hi” Natalie greeted her. I hoped Natalie hadn’t noticed my rather long glance and Jamie, but I’m sure she had noticed. She knew me only two well.
“You got the photos then?” Luke asked.
Jamie hesitated for just moment. “Go on. Dave and Natalie have been helping me with the investigation. In fact they have been able to confirm a lot of what we suspected”.
“Oh okay”. Jamie for some reason looked just a little annoyed at this. Was she upset because we where sharing a secret that up till now only she and Luke had known about?
“Well the symbol you’ve been studying. It’s there, they have been using it in there…er ceremonies”.
“It’s okay you can say it Jamie, Dave and Natalie have no need to believe they have experience”.
Again, a little of annoyance maybe from Jamie? “Okay. Right they have been using it in their spells…”
Spells! We are talking spells now, I thought. But why not, we had experienced something on that night which most people would regard as being a plot from a badly written fantasy story, but we knew what had happened. Why stop there? Why couldn’t spells be real as well?
“…I got some great shots of them casting. Something interrupted them, I guess that must have been you making your appearance, so I snuck down the and got some close ups”. Jamie patted the camera. “All on film, well flash memory anyway”.
“You wen’t down there alone!” Luke was clearly both annoyed and worried by this. There was definitely something between these two, I was sure of it. “Yes, I did and I got prof of your idea, okay you didn’t really need prof with what Natalie and Dave have told you, but everything we can get you said. It’s all useful. Well I got it. And anyway I had Duchess and Marko with me. It might have been our only chance to get there and look at this before they got a chance to tidy up”. Jamie spoke quickly, almost like she was trying to justify her actions before Luke could get a word in edge ways.
“Okay, lets see what you got then”. Jamie beamed a happy smile and sat down at the desk. Her hands worked one of the keyboards on the desk. She typed very quickly and with out so much as glance at the keyboard. The camera was quickly plugged in and started to download.
“Jamie handles the technical stuff for me. I’m a strictly analogue kind of guy”.
“I’m your resident tech girl and hacker”. I noticed Luke frowned a little. “You know hacker in a good way. I fix things with hacks. Anyway that’s what I do and what I am. But getting these photos, that was scary but exciting and sort of fun”. She spoke with a joy and enthusiasm that was childlike.
“Its not supposed to be fun. This is dangerous work we do”. Luke voice was serious.
“I didn’t plan to do it, it was just…like I said maybe the only chance we will get I had to take it. Anyway I know it’s dangerous. Who fixed you up when…”
“Okay, thank you, let’s take a look at these photos”. Luke put his hands on her shoulders. Oh yes, there was a lot more to these two than we knew about, but Luke had been hurt doing this! What had we got our selves in to. Magic and souls jumping bodies, I was accepting that as part of my world now, but the fact that these ‘farmer’ would use violence to hide whatever they where doing, that was shocking to me. We really had got any lightly this morning.
Luke and Jamie looked intently at the images on the screen. I looked at Natalie. She looked about as worried as I felt now. “You okay?” I asked holding her hand.
“When this is all over yes, I’ll be fine, but right now…” She didn’t finish.
“Yes, I know what you mean. This is all to crazy”.
“Look there and there” Jamie pointed out some details of the photo’s. Clearly they had been taken some way off with the long lens on the camera. They showed some people gathered around a stone in the middle of a yard. I was sure that at least one of them was the man that had been waiting our car when we had been driven out of the woods.
“I didn’t get to hear anything, but it all the clues are there aren’t they?” Jamie asked of Luke.
“Oh yes, I don’t think there can be any doubt here, they where trying a summoning spell”.
“Summoning what?” Natalie asked.
Luke sighed. “Bring up that 4 photo again…there” On screen clearly carved in to the stone was the symbol that Natalie had picked up off the table. I looked at the metal version there and picked it up. It was the same symbol. It seemed some how familiar to me as well now. I wasn’t sure where I’d seen it before, but I was sure I had.
“If what you have said is right…”
“Then they are trying to summon the Queen of the Hunt”. Natalie finished Luke’s words for him.
“What! Why would they do that?” I asked.
“Power, I guess. Who knows with these types”.
“So could they do it?” Natalie asked looking really scared now.
“Some of these cultists are mad, some are just deluded, some don’t have all the knowledge they need to pull of rites they need to perform. But these lot, they are experienced and from what I’ve seen in these photos, they could do it”.
“Oh god”. Natalie exclaimed quietly.
“It would be a very bad thing for everyone if the Queen could get through. She could keep the gate open then, bring her minions through. Maybe claim this world for her own or maybe just hunt here. Neither is good for us”. Luke sat down on the sofa, he looked, not worried, just concerned.
“We not talking end of the world stuff are we?”
“Oh no, it’s not that, bad, well not yet. But it would be a game changer for world. Maybe the end of civilisation as we know it”. Luke scratched his chin and looked thoughtful. I wasn’t sure if this was comforting or now. He seemed clam almost like he had a plan for this.
“We have to stop them. Its what we do” Jamie said, again sounding almost childlike.
“Yes. So tell me Natalie. When did you start to think about coming back here?” Luke asked suddenly.
“What..oh, yes. A couple of months ago I guess. Not really sure. Why?…Oh”. Natalie’s normally pale skin went white.
“What is it?” I asked here, really concerned for her now.
“That ties up when these people moved on to this land doesn’t it” Natalie said slowly. Luke nodded.
“They haven’t yet managed to summon the Queen, but they have attracted you with the fragment of the Queen you carry back here”.
“What!?” Jamie exclaimed. “She carries the Queen! How?”
Luke looked at both us. “I hope you don’t mind. One on else will find out, but you can be assured that I trust Jamie completely”. He then turned to Jamie. “Three years ago on midsummer’s eve they visited the woods and at that time in the other realm the queen was hunting and chased a wolf through. It seems at the time the gate wasn’t that active and only their souls, or possibly even just a fragment could come through. If we are right and I don’t see any reason to doubt with what I have learnt today, they could open the gate fully and allow matter through. In other words the Queen her self could come through”.
“So we have to stop them. Like I said. That is what you’ve been planing to do all long isn’t it?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, your right it is. But till now I only had theories and ideas for how to stop them. This has suddenly become very real and dangerous”.
“But we still have time? You said midsummers eve was the time to do this”. Luke smiled and Jamie and nodded. “Yes that is the best time, but not the only time. Maybe they don’t know that or maybe there are impatient. That fact that they have tried today, suggests that they could do it anytime. We might have no time at all to plan this”.
Luke looked very thoughtful for a moment. “I need to think”. He looked at me and Natalie. “Given what we now know, I think it would be very unwise for you to return to the woods tonight. I still want to help you free your self of this influence, but this opening of the gate is a much bigger problem”.
“But why? What is the risk?”. Natalie asked.
Luke didn’t answer for a few moments, he seemed to be in deep thought. “This gate is like a hole in both realms. It’s a wound if you like. Given they tend to close, which right, good and natural. But traffic through them stops that from happening, it reopens the wound. If the Queen and wolf where to go back now it will open the wound a little more, whats more the Queens attention may have already been drawn to the gate and a fragment of hers going through will certainly attract her attention. She will have a much better grasp of the techniques to open the gate than Alan and his cronies, well informed though they are”.
“So why where you going to helps go back there then?” My question came out sounding rather more irritated than I was.
Luke looked at me for a moment. “I was planing to close the gate after you had visited the woods”. He had been planning something else I knew there as something else going on here.
“But that must mean you have some sort knowledge of experience in these things then”.
“How else would I recognise this ritual?” He pointed to the screen with photos of the men around the stone. “I know far more than anyone else about these matters as you call them. Its my job to know”. Luke’s voice had an edge of irritation to it now.
“Your job?” Again I realised my voice was sounding angry. I needed to calm down a little, I knew.
“Yes, my job”. Luke replied an then in a much calmer voice. “Look I need time to think this through calmly”. He got up. “Please stay here for a little while longer”. He addressed us as he headed for the door. “I won’t be long” He told Jamie as he touched her on her shoulder and then left.
Jamie smiled at us nervously. “He likes to be alone when he is thinking, really thinking that is”.
An awkward silence feel on the room. Jamie didn’t seem to know what to do. She looked around the room before sitting back down at the desk and looking at the screens.
“So we wait then?” I asked, the silence was getting to much for me.
Jamie turned to look at us. “Please. I’m sure Luke will come up with something he always has before”.
“Before?” Natalie asked with a slight frown. “You mean this is the first time something like this has happened?”
Jamie looked really nervous now her hand started to fiddle with a pen on the desk. “Err, well no not really like this…I er…” She tuned to face the bank of monitors again. “Sorry, I’m not very good with people”. She said quietly.
I looked at Natalie. I wanted to say, if only to finish what we had come to do this morning. This morning. Wow that seemed a very long time ago. This morning, while I knew there was lots of odd stuff out there, stuff we didn’t understand, I didn’t believe that magic was real or that another realm could be breaking through to our own. I was still not entirely sure I believed these things, maybe because I didn’t want to too. Not believing them made of a much simpler, safer world.
Natalie stoked the huge dog, was it called duchess? “So do we stay”. I asked.
“I want this thing out of my head. I think Luke is the best person to help us, so yes I want to stay”.
I nodded. “We stay”.
Jamie turned around to face us, again she smiled nervously. “Good, that’s good”. I wasn’t sure she meant that 100 percent.
Barney sat by her and looked up at her. She seemed more comfortable with the dog that us. Another comfortable silence settled over the room.
“So, Jamie, how did you come to help Luke with…well whatever it is he does?” Natalie asked.
“Oh he found me. He does that a lot, finds the right person at the right time. Like he did with you two. Like he said, he’s not really very good with anything technical, he’s good with people and he knows so much about all of this paranormal stuff. I handle of his tech from him. Now days you can’t do this sort of work with do research out on the internet. Thats my thing I…er, oh”. Her voice had started to pick up some the childlike enthusiasm it had before, but she just stopped.
“You…?” Natalie prompted.
“No sorry, I shouldn’t really say. It’s kind of a secret, not that many people would believe half of things I could tell them. Oh I guess you might, with…well you know having her inside of your head…What is that like?”
Natalie didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Oh sorry, I should be asking things like that should I. I told you I’m not very good with people. I’ll just be quiet now”.
“No, don’t worry, its okay”. I said glancing to Natalie. “Isn’t it?” She didn’t look quiet normal. She was gazing, unblinking at a fixed point on the wall. There was nothing there. “Natalie?” I asked worried now. “Are you okay?”
Duchess had pulled away from her and was now looking every inch the huge dog she was. Hairs on her back stood up.
Suddenly Natalie blinked and shook her head, as if clearing it of something. She looked at me, Jamie then Duchess.
“You okay?” I asked again.
“Er, yes now. That was really odd. I was…I was. No” She sighed. “It’s no good I don’t have words for what just happened. It was something to do with the Queen though I’m sure of that”.
Jamie moved back in the chair as if to get further away from Natalie. “Its gone now” Natalie said in her most reassuring voice. Natalie bent down to stroke Duchess again. Duchess still to me looked very large and scared. I flinched as Natalie touched the dog and I was sure that Duchess tried to move away. But nothing happened. I had been expecting the huge to at least bark and at worst attack us. Instead the huge dog wagged it’s tail and licked Natalie’s hand.
Jamie seemed to be reassured by this. “I think we should let Luke know this. If something is happening with the Queen in you then that probably means on the farm they are probably doing something”. She got up and headed out in to the kitchen.
“So…” I was going to ask how Natalie was holding up, but the question never got asked. Two things happened almost at once. An urgent sounding beeping started from the desk and both Barney and Duchess barked.
The two dogs suddenly looked very angry. I grabbed Natalie’s arm to pull her behind me, but the dogs didn’t even seem to notice us, they both ran barking out of the study.
“What’s going no?” Stupid question to ask. How would Natalie have any more of an idea than me?
On the desk I saw a small red light flashing. The dogs where barking at something outside. They stood before the kitchen door as if they where expecting some intruder to come through it.
From upstairs we heard two sets of feet moving with urgency.
I looked at the box on the desk with the flash light. It was the source of the beeping. It had a circle of lights on it. Only one was flashing, it was marked with a hand drawn number 4.
Jamie ran in to the study, while Luke shouted at the dogs for quiet. There frenzied barking calmed down a little. Jamie took a look at the box and pushing me aside she sat at the desk and operated a small control panel.
Luke entered the study. Barney came in behind him, Duchess still barked occasionally at the kitchen door. “Where is it?” Luke asked.
“The south west wall”. One of the many monitors on the desk now showed a grainy black and white picture of a field with a dark black wall running through the middle of it. There where some white spots standing behind the wall. As they moved I realised they where people, there where three of them.
“Can we get another view of them?” Luke asked.
“Sure”. Jamie switched on another monitor and worked an control panel that had till now been hidden under some papers. She moved a small joystick on it. The second screen had a full colour image of the countryside sounding the farm, it zoomed by as the camera panned.
Looking at the first camera image, I asked. “That’s infra red isn’t”
“Oh yes, one of my prize acquisitions from a former arms dealer in…Oh sorry”. She had seen the look on Luke’s face. He was right this wasn’t the time or place.
The second camera view was now looking at the wall from a different angle, but it was clearly the same wall with the same people. Jamie zoomed the view in to show a closer view of the figures. They where trying to stay hidden, but couldn’t have seen where the cameras where.
“Alan Sunders” Luke said, recognising one of them. As he said that I could now make the mans face out. It was the man with the shotgun that we had meet earlier on today.
The box on the desk beeped again. Another light was flashing. Jamie brought up more images around the farm. I held Natalie close as over a few minutes she showed that there where at least 9 people waiting at what where apparently the borders of the land around the farm house.
“That’s not all of them. There must be more, probably waiting on the roads”. Luke said looking at the screen thoughtfully
“No sensors there. No point the traffic would set them off all the time”. Jamie said as if defending her set up. I was impressed at the set up here, but worried that Luke had felt the need for such a system and yet thankful that he did.
The three dogs all had joined us now, Barney at my side, Duchess on Natalie’s and Marko sitting on chair next to the desk. 12 pairs of eyes where all focussed on the monitors on the desk. Jamie flicked the views between the various different groups. None of them where moving, all of them looked like they where trying to stay out of sight.
“So what happens now?” I asked, not really wanting to know, but I had to break the oppressive silence that filled the room.
“Looks like they have surrounded mostly. They probably have no idea we know they are there. I’d guess waiting for night fall”.
“For what?” Natalie asked the obvious question.
“Us. Or more precisely you”. Look turned to look at Natalie. “The summoning spells there are using have clearly given them some idea that you are here. This is very worrying, it shows they are far adept with these magics than even I expected. They must have had some help…”
“That’s not the worrying part! The worrying part is that they are after Natalie”. I told Luke.
“The chances are that they don’t know exactly who carries the fragment, even the most attuned could only get vague ideas. That will be useful when the time comes”.
“When what time comes?” This situation had gone from being crazy, to insane and very scary.
“They will probably wait till dark, that gives us time since we know they are coming and they don’t, I think know that yet”.
“Time to do what?” I asked. I could feel panic starting to rise in me. I didn’t want be the one to panic first. I had to be strong for Natalie. She seemed to be holding up very well. Luke, well it sounded like this sort of thing was nothing new to him. And Jamie, well it looked like she could occupy her self with the cameras and sensors.
“To come up with some sort of plan here”. Luke didn’t sound like he was really all there. He seemed to be lost, deep in thought again. “Right”. He said suddenly. “This could be a big mistake from them. Jamie we have at least 9 that we can see?” She quickly checked the camera’s. “Yes, I don’t have colour coverage to east side, so I can’ tell individuals apart there, but I’ve got 9 figures visible”.
Luke nodded. “And we will have at least 2 on the road, one in each direction, so that leaves them a bit thin at the farm”.
Jamie nodded. “Based on yesterdays count, no more than 3″.
Yesterdays count! This was a full blown surveillance operation going on here, not for the first time I wondered just what Luke’s ‘job’ was.
“So if we say our count is a slightly wrong and they have more, lets say 2 more at the farm. They couldn’t have to much more than that given the size of the buildings and the number of vehicles we know they have. So 5 people, they won’t leave either the house or woods unguarded so right now they are going to be thinly spread. If we can cause some sort of diversion they are going to have to react and move some of there people, but we need to make sure that they move the right people”. I got the impression he was not talking to any of us, but rather speaking to help with him think.
“But we a spread a bit thin” Jamie said without turning from the bank of monitors. All of the 6 monitors where now on. 3 where clearly driven from computers, 3 had images of the outside, 2 infra red 1 colour. “I could try and get some friends here…oh but how would we get them in here without being spotted”. Jamie was already loading various chat and instant messaging programs on the one of the computer screens. “Maybe we could pull in that…”
“No” Luke said definitely. “I don’t want to get anyone else involved in this. We needed…”
“Okay. Sorry to interrupt this war council”. Natalie said cutting Luke off. “I know this is all old hat to you two, but since your playing with our lives here, you need to involve us to”. She told them both. There was definitely an edge behind her voice. Natalie was clearly holding up much better than I was.
Luke smiled. “Yes sorry. Well I don’t really have a plan, but what I want to try and do is to distract our friends outside while we head off in the opposite direction, towards the woods. There hopefully you can get rid of the ‘passengers’ you are carrying and I can close the gate”.
“But you don’t have a plan for all this?” Natalie asked with more than a little sarcasm in her voice. “Not really, no. I know how we can get to the woods from here, without been seen from the roads or Alan’s farm. And I know what to do when we get there, but getting there with this lot around us”. He pointed to the screens. “That is the tricky bit”.
“Err, I have a question to ask that I don’t really want to, but these people what do they really want with us”. I didn’t feel particularly manly asking this question. “I mean should we come across them is it going to be…er you know shot to kill?”
“No. Now they know part of the Queen is here, which I sure they do now, they are not going to want to harm any of us at least not till they can get the carrier to the woods, then…”
“So you want us to go where they would probably take us if they where to get there hands on us anyway?” Natalie really was coping with this far better than me, she was asking all the right questions. I knew I shouldn’t be feeling anything other than scared right now, but the fact that Natalie was really quite sexy.
“Yes. This isn’t the way I would have wanted to do this, but I don’t think we have a choice. Clearly they are much closer to being able to open the gate and they could use you and the fragment of the Queen you carry to help. Its dangerous, yes, but if we don’t make our move now, tonight, it might too late”.
“And you said they wouldn’t hurt us till they get us to there?”
Luke nodded. “At this point they don’t know which one of us carries the Queen, they know me and probably have seen Jamie around, so we are in fact at greater risk, since they will probably guess that we aren’t the carrier. You as the new comers are most likely to be that, so you are safer…at least until they get you to the woods”.
“So the extraction could be dangerous?” I asked. My male ego needed to grab some sort of control back here.
Luke didn’t say anything for a moment. I didn’t like that pause, was he sugar coating the truth for us? “That depends how it’s done, if its hurried, it could hurt, but what they probably want you for is not for extraction, but insertion. As you have been a host for the Queen, you would be the obvious choice to do that again”.
“But wait, you said if the gate was opened they could come through physically”. Again Natalie seemed to be thinking rationally here. God that so turned me on at that moment. She was just the most amazing lady.
“Yes I did”. Luke said with the edge of irritation in his voice.
“So what is going to happen are they going to use me or open the gate full?”
“I don’t know!” Luke almost shouted back. “Look, this is not the best way for any of this to happen. I don’t know for sure what there plans are, but we are just going to have to do our best. For the moment we probably have time to think, they are probably not aware that we know and so will probably wait for the light to go before doing anything. So we need to use this time to get our own plan in motion”. Luke sighed. “The only problem is we don’t have a full plan yet”.
“I can get some friends up to help cover our get away”. Jamie said looking hopefully at Luke.
“No!” He replied forcefully. “Things have gotten dangerous here, I don’t want to get anyone else involved, they could get hurt”. He added in his normal calm voice.
“They would be okay with…” Jamie stopped, looking a little hurt when she saw the look on Luke’s face. She turned back to screens.
No one said anything for a little while. Luke rushed about collecting things, Jamie kept her eyes on the monitors. All we could do was keep the dogs calm. They knew something was wrong, so we had to stop them from barking. If the barks where heard outside and kept on for a long time, it might warn the people outside that we where on to them.
Me trying to calm some dogs. That was not something I’d been expecting to do this morning. But that was Natalie for you. When we had been together before, her wonderful unpredictability had taken me on some adventures I would have never had otherwise. It was one of the reasons that I’d come to love her.
And again she was up to her old tricks.
I was even getting to not mid having the huge bulk of Duchess resting on my leg. I think she was calming me as much I was calming her.
The light was starting to fade when Jamie suddenly called “Ah”, from the bank of screens.
“What is it”. Luke said as he came running in to the room.
“Two new people at the wall”. Jamie pointed to the screen.
“They are spreading them selves thinly. I don’t know where they have come from, but where ever it is it means we can now account for all but 3 of there people. Now is the time”. He already had a backpack on his back.
“You ready?” He asked Jamie. She smiled nervously and grabbed a bag from under the desk. “All ways”. I didn’t really know her, but I wasn’t convinced at her display of bravado. I was she she was about as ready as I was.
“As I’ll ever be”. I told Luke. Natalie just nodded. I was sure she was far more ready than I was at that point. I could see a steely determination in her eyes. It knew it was her and the Queen, this was the new Natalie, the ready for anything, tough Natalie that I was getting really turned on by.
“Good. You still got all that home automation stuff rigged up?” Luke asked Jamie.
“Yes all hooked up and remotely controllable from here”. She held up her phone with a board grin. Things where in her arena now. I really did believe she was ready now.
“Good, we will leave via the back door. It’s in shadow right now. They might have lowlight stuff, but there is nothing we can do about that. If they do, it’s quite a way for them to get to us and if we move quickly we can get in to the woods which will make the low light gear a lot less useful. If they don’t when we get in to the woods, Jamie you trigger all of the lighting and everything you can in the house. That should grab their attention for a bit. Maybe call in reinforcements. That gives us time to get to the woods. We are going to have to be quick. When they find the house empty they will be able to call to the people at the woods…”
Jamies eyes lit up again. “I can stop that too. Mobile reception is crapy here anyway, but I can cut our own phone here and I’ve got a errr…black box which should kill any mobile stuff near by, won’t effect my remote control”.
Luke didn’t say anything, but gave Jamie a hard look. Clearly there had been some friction over this black box in the past.
“How long?”.
Jamie was already leaving the room as she said “Two minutes”.
“The dogs?” Natalie asked, it seemed she was afraid Luke might leave them.
“What sort of man would I be if I left my best friends behind. Besides would you mess with Duchess or Barney if you didn’t know them”. I looked at the two huge dogs and remembered my first reaction to them.
“We’ll need leads however. Can you get them quietly” Luke said to Natalie. She nodded and slipped out to the kitchen. I patted Duchess, trying to distract her, but I’m sure she knew something new was going on.
Natalie and Jamie arrived back in the study together. Natalie slipped a lead on Marko and Barney before they knew it had happened. Clearly she had done this before.
Jamie and Luke did a quick scan of the monitors.
“Right lets go”.
We moved through unlit rooms in the house. Outside the light was fading fast, but I wondered if it was really dark enough yet. That was just me not wanting to do this…crazy thing.
“Okay, this door isn’t visible from anywhere but the yard, so we can cross to the space between the shed and the house without being seen”. Luke whispered, which was strange since they could be close enough to hear us, surely.
“Beyond that the is a wall, we need to stay below and close to it, that way we’ll be in it’s shadow. The crossing from the corner of the building to wall is going to be the tricky bit, we need to go one at a time and quickly. You okay with the dogs?”
We both nodded. Somehow I’d ended up with Barney and Natalie had got Marko. I wasn’t sure that was quite right, but to late now.
“Okay then I’ll go first. Then you Natalie. Dave and Jame?” This was phrased like a question, but it wasn’t.
“Let’s go”.
Luke carefully opened the door and walked in to the yard. We all followed. Somehow I felt like I needed to creep and stay low, but that wasn’t needed yet. I looked at Barney, he just looked back and waged his tail.
We crossed the yard and Luke stopped right at the corner of the house and quickly looked around. I’d expected a shout or some sort of light to flick on at this point, but nothing happened. Luke ducked down low and darted out of side. Duchess dutifully followed her master.
Natalie carried Marko across the gap and out of sight. My turn next. I looked and Barney and then at Jamie. She looked about as worried as I felt. I grabbed her hand and ran across the gap.
We where now ducked down behind the wall.
“One at a time!” Luke hissed.
Jamie pulled her hand from mine. “Thanks”.
We started crawling up the line of the wall.
The wall didn’t really cast a shadow in the gloomy light, but it would be black and hopefully from a distance so would we.
I looked down the field trying to see any of the men surrounding the house. I couldn’t see any. I took this to be a good thing. If I couldn’t see them, they probably couldn’t see us.
It was slow going walking stopped over and after less than a minute my back forced me to go on all fours. This should be easier for me since the wolf was still there in the back of my mind, but I guess 2 arms and 2 legs are no substitute for 4 legs. It was slower, but a lot less painful on my back.
Now my face was at the same level as Barney’s tongue, he decided to make full use of the fact and lick me. This is why I didn’t like dogs!
Luke stopped up ahead of us and we all bunched up. The field had a slight slope upwards and we where only half way there. It seemed like we had been going for a long time now, but the house didn’t look that far away.
“Any sign?” Luke asked very quietly. Jamie shook her head. She had some sort of hand held low light viewer. “I don’t think they are moving in the one the house yet either”.
“Okay. Keep on going”.
We resumed our crawl towards the woods. Moving like this was horribly slow and despite the wall by one side of us, I felt very exposed. We did finally make it to the edge of the wood.
Once I was sure I was far enough in I stood up and stretched. Ah that was pure bliss. Jamie scanned the house from the edge of the wood with the night vision viewer.
“You Okay?” I asked Natalie. She nodded.
“Now?” I heard Jamie ask. “Not yet, lets wait till we get to the other side of the woods. It will only take a few minutes”
It seemed longer than that. Even through it was only twilight outside, even the light tree cover made the interior of the wood an inky black.
Jamie led us with the night vision monocular. I could just about make out the bigger trees as areas of slightly darker black, but the bushes and small branches where totally invisible. Barney didn’t seem to have so much problem with this, but by the time we reached the relative brightness at the opposite end of the woods, I felt battered and bruised and I was saw I’d been cut on the face by some twig.
In the fading light we could see another field dropping away from us gently. A road and just beyond that the wood that we both knew so well. It was probably about a mile away. No lights showed in the wood its self, but there was a light on the road not far from the wood. A parked car. Probably more of Alan’s men.
Jamie again checked with the night vision monocular. “Just that car on the road. No sign of anyone on the path to the wood or around it…as far as I can tell anyway”. That was the problem the darkness worked both ways when it came to hiding people.
“Okay good. Trigger everything you’ve got in the house now”. Jamie worked her phone under her jacket, but even so the light of the display seemed blinding in the gloom. I hoped they weren’t looking this way when she did it.
In the distance I could hear an alarm go off.
We worked our way down the hill the. I kept my eye’s on where the car was. No lights on in it at the moment, so I would know if they opened one of the doors. Unless that is they where already outside the car.
Why did I have to think that right now? I’d been starting to calm down, but again my heart was racing.
We reached the road, finally. I’d seen no movement coming from the car at all during our decent, but it was now behind a hedge and we had to push through a small gap in the hedge less that 100 meters from the car. We would be well within their view should a car come down the road. Fortunately the road didn’t seem very busy, but it was still a huge risk.
Luke slipped across the road quickly and stealthily. He had done this before. That worried me again, on top of everything else I was worrying about. Who was this man and just what did he do? I would be asking some direct questions later, assuming all of this wen’t well.
Natalie had made it across. It was my turn now. Getting through the hedge was no problem for Barney, but it was a bit more of a squeeze for me. Barney nearly pulled me through, he wanted to catch up with his master on the other side of the road.
“Car!” Jamie hissed from behind me. I was half way through the hedge and I could see the lights approaching fast. Barney was trying to pull me through and I wanted to pull back.
Barney’s lead slipped from my hand and he bounded across the road, right in front of the car. Without Barney’s mass and strength holding me I fell back away from the hedge. I heard the car wheels squeal as the driver hit the brakes hard.
I scrambled back to my feet and looked through hole in the hedge. The car was pulling away again and there was no sign of Barney. He’d made it across. But the car up the road must have seen this car stop suddenly. They might come and investigate.
“Come on now, quickly before the come” I said to Jamie as I grabbed her hand and pushed through the hedge. I quickly checked the road to the left of us as we crossed. As I looked I saw a light go then off after a short moment
Dammit they had either just got in or out of the car.
“Run” I practically dragged Jamie with me.
We ran down the path to the woods. Just around the bend from the gateway where Luke and Natalie. Barney was there too. Everyone had made it!
“They saw the car stop, probably coming to take a look” I whispered.
“Go, get to the woods, quickly and quietly”. Luke ordered.
I grabbed Barney’s lead and we ran again. Luke took Jamie’s night vision monocular and stayed behind for a few moments to check what was happening.
A few seconds later he was right behind me. “They are coming!” He whispered breathlessly. It wasn’t that far to the woods from the road and it wasn’t a straight path so unless they checked the whole route we where probably okay, but Luke wasn’t going to take any chances, so we ran in what was now pretty much night. And of course this was assuming that they didn’t have people already in the woods.
Luke stopped a couple of times to check the path behind us.
Luke bought us to a halt just before the woods.
“We are okay, they aren’t following us. Probably thought it was a fox or something like that. We do get quite a bit of road kill her. But they could still be waiting for us in there”. Luke pointed to the dark mass that was forest.
“Do you remember where it was that you got possessed?” Luke asked both of us.
I shook my head then added “No idea”, realising how useless a shake of the head was in this light. “You don’t know either?” I asked Luke.
“Never got this close before”. Oh great, this was going to work well then, in the dark trying to find a place we didn’t really know!
“I didn’t really know where it was the first time, I just sort of felt where it was”. Natalie answered, Luke’s question.
“Good. Better than any map, a sensitive. Here take the night vision viewer and lead on”.
Natalie took the device from Luke and lead us in to the pitch black woods.
I hoped she knew where the gate was, the woods weren’t that big, but there could be any number of nasty surprises waiting for us in the dark.
We stumbled around in the dark for several minutes before Natalie finally said, “Its here”.
“Okay so what do we do now then?” I asked.
Luke’s voice came from my left. “Not sure really. I was hoping that just you being near the gateway would be enough. You don’t feel any different?”
“Not me”. Natalie’s voice came from ahead of us. I still felt that strange blob of something that wasn’t me lurking in the back of my mind.
“Okay, so maybe you’ll have to be actually inside the area of the gateway it’s self”.
“One problem with that, I don’t think we know where that actually is. The Queen and wolf jumped through the gate in to us. So they could have come from anywhere around us. I don’t remember seeing anything that looked like a gateway. Not that I even know what one would really look like”. Natalie’s voice changed position while see spoke and I caught quick glimpses of the tiny green screen that showed the night vision images. She was checking around the area, looking for the gate. I tried to remember what the woods where like 3 years ago. I hadn’t been paying much attention to them really. Both before and after the wolf jumped in to me I had other things on my mind.
“The gateway’s don’t really look like anything at all. They do tend to share characteristics of the two realms they bridge, but since the faerie realm is very similar to ours that doesn’t really help much”.
“Well the whole place, all of these woods, did feel a bit…er different”.
“Yes, these woods did kind of look like a fairy tale wood, you know, not quite real or maybe more than real. I can’t really explain”. Natalie was now right by my side.
Luke sighed. “Look we are running out of time here. It won’t take them that long to figure out where we are. Now the gate it’s self may well appear when I attempt to close it, but it won’t be for long and in order to cast the spell I am going to need some light, so when I start casting, we are going to attract attention. But there is also the possibility that these fragments you carry will need forcing out. I can’t do that while trying to to close the gate, so I am sorry it could be that there is nothing I can do for you here. If things had been different and we had more time I would have been able to do more but as it is this is all I can do”.
“We fine. You’ve done all you can”. Natalie said from right besides me. She held my hand and gave it a squeeze.
It seemed odd to me that Natalie would just accept that. She had been the driving force here, after all I wasn’t carrying some inhuman psychopath bitch in my head. The wolf didn’t really bother me that much. Natalie had a reason to get the Queen out of her head.
“Okay. Lets get some lights on and I’ll get casting. Cover your eyes for a moment. Okay Jamie lights on”.
The area was suddenly lit by two powerful torches. One was held by Jamie, the other was on the ground by Luke. These lights where dazzlingly bright after the time we had spent in the dark. As soon as the light was on Luke started speaking in some unknown language and making strange gestures with his hands. He read from a book on the ground.
I looked around the woods trying to see something which might jog my memory of that night. My memories where confused and chaotic, a mixture of anticipation, pleasure and sheer terror. I remembered, the waiting for that night, the drive, the hot wether. I remembered seeing Natalie’s magnificent body fully naked for the first time, the way she had worked me and my body to that peak of ecstasy. Then the wolf, I remembered the wolf and its fear of the Queen and what she would do to the pack. Then my own fear of the Queen using Natalie’s body, Natalie’s strength to try to kill me.
The two trees that was it. I turned, pointing Natalie and to a pair of trees standing close to each other, to close to be natural. That was the gateway. Luke turned face them as well, but he didn’t break the follow of strange words and gestures Jamie swung the torch around to highlight the tree.
The wolf was on the move again in my mind. It had plan on that night 3 years ago and it seemed to have a plan now. I didn’t know what it was, but it was moving with a purpose now.
It seemed to me that the air between the two trees was shimmering slightly, like a heat haze.
I tightened my grip on Natalie’s hand, but that wasn’t me! It was the wolf. “Run!” I shouted as I started to run towards the gate. Natalie must have had the same idea, she was moving before my hand pulled hers.
Between the trees now, it looked like there was some sort of lens. The forest it showed beyond was distorted and different somehow. It was day!
We ran between the two trees and through the gateway.