Kurt, Evelyn, and Arabella: The Center Cannot Hold
“Hold it in place, Evie!” Arabella shouted.
Evelyn ground her teeth, digging deep and pouring every last ounce of her will into holding the rift ghost within the circle she’d created. “I am!” Evelyn shrieked. “Just get on with it, for Heaven’s sake!”
Arabella crouched nearby, her peasant skirt and dark, curly hair whipping in the cyclonic wind as she set out the crystal grid that would direct the energy needed to trap the being in a vacuum and send it back into the quantum foam. Just like Ripley sucking the Alien out through the airlock, Arabella had said, probably referencing some sci fi movie that Evelyn hadn’t seen. A long spine obtained with much difficulty from the creature, constantly shifting in shape, color, and size as Arabella held it in her hand, went into the center of the grid. The creature shifted in time with the spine as it slammed its body against the binding circle Evelyn held it in.
--FLASH. Twin blades glinting in silver moonlight, blood dark against the metal--
Arabella spread her hands and murmured a word under her breath, and Evelyn, blinking the unbidden image away, saw a wave of energy snake around the grid, a swirl of black limned with red. The energy mirrored itself around the beast, coiling around it and squeezing like a great python. Beyond the monster, the rift glared with blinding light. Shadows moved in that light, fearsome things that never seemed to hold a shape for long. Snow whirled around them in a blinding fury, piling up on the asphalt and buildings around them, the already frigid December weather agitated by the unnatural portal trying to open overhead.
“Hold it just five minutes longer, Evie! We almost have it!” Arabella screamed over the wind as she continued to direct the energy.
--FLASH. A blade thrust into a warm body, an extension of her arm, her will. Blood flowing, so much bl--
“Evelyn!” Arabella screamed.
--FLASH. The blood was on her hands. So much--
“EVELYN!” Arabella screamed again.
Evelyn looked up, swaying. The creature was tearing its way through the grid’s energy, and Evelyn’s binding circle was gone. Desperately, she tried to snap it back up again, but it was too late.
The monster ripped free, and as it entered the world, its form solidified and stabilized. It turned gleaming, red eyes to the two witches, the deadly spines on its enormous, scaly back rising as it dropped to the ground and turned towards the two witches.
And it smiled.
“Oh, fudging fiddlesticks,” said Arabella.
Evelyn just stared, and her fingers itched for the pommels of two blades that she should not have any memory of holding.
