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Mary Christmas 2: Christmas in July - Ch 41
🕑 Added 2024-06-23 19:26:09 +0000 UTCRead the original story Mary Christmas and the sequel Mary Christmas 2 on DeviantArt or find it where it was originally published on AgeArts. More to come soon!
The door to the fence was open just a crack. Candice peered inside the construction site. Not detecting any traps, she gestured for everyone to wait here for the moment. Then, after taking a deep breath, she pressed inside where she found Mary standing there facing away from her. The source of the light hovered directly in front of her. She cupped it between her hands without touching it, as if she were trying to hold it up while at the same time attempting to keep it contained.
Shielding herself with a warding crystal, Candice approached the only other adult elf in the world and said, “Mary. It’s time to put an end to this.”
Mary turned her head just enough to see Candice from the edge of her peripheral vision. “You made it,” she said, sounding surprised and impressed. “If anyone was going to find me here, I figured it would be you.”
“Don’t try to flatter me. You’re not talking your way out of this,” Candice said, stepping closer but still keeping a safe distance from the intense magic radiating in front of her. “You need to undo this before it gets out of control.”
“Too late. It’s almost done,” Mary said, smirking. “Just wait. You’ll see.”
“See what?”
“My plan. What this was really all about.”
Squinting, Candice saw that there was a ring of metal at the heart of the glow between Mary’’s hands, the stolen magic ring powering the spell
“Mary,” Candice said. “This isn’t going to work. You know that the military is already on the way here. They know how to power your gun now.”
“They don’t know how to control anything. They’re kids playing with power tools.”
“They know enough to be dangerous now.”
“Keep your distance,” Mary said before Candice was close enough to touch her. “This spell is not as stable as I expected it to be. If I lose focus, it could start to unravel.”
From outside the fence, Bill said, “Candice? Can we come in?”
“Yes,” Candice said and watched them enter from her peripheral vision, not wanting to take her eyes off of Mary for a second.
Noticing baby Carol in the carrier, Mary asked, “Are we babysitting tonight?”
“One of your curses,” Candice said, glancing at her regressed friend, thinking she looked even younger than she had done just seconds ago. “You’ll be fixing it soon, or else I’ll be showing you just what I’m capable of.”
“A threat?” Mary asked with a smirk.
“A guarantee,” Candice replied. “You’re not leaving here until you save her.”
Mary chuckled. “You think so? Wait ‘till you see my escape plan. By the way, how did you get past Chuck?”
“It was easy,” said a booming voice from beyond the fence. Alice’s giant form approached them and stepped over the tall fence with no problem. “I just ripped his heart out like a peach pit.” She held up a knotted ball of dark wood for them to see. It did resemble a large wrinkled seed or nut.
“Well,” Mary said. “Growing… that was a clever solution. I suppose you’ve got a collection of all my magic milks and eggs, huh?”
Candice walked over to Alice. “You alright?” she asked the giant woman.
Alice had a number of red scrapes and purple bruises on her bare skin, but she did not appear to be seriously injured. “I’m fine,” Alice said, taking a seat on the dirt. “Kinda worn out, though.”
Ken kept sneaking peeks at her chest while blushing and squirming anxiously.
“Take it easy,” Candice said. “You’ve done enough for now.”
“Sure you don’t want me to give Mary a good thump?” Alice asked, smirking.
Candice shook her head. “We still need her to unwind this spell.”
“Impossible,” Mary said. “I told you it’s too late. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop it now. The ring is mostly drained now. There’s no putting the yolk back in the egg shell.”
Justin asked, “Can’t we… divert the magic, or something? Diffuse it?”
“Maybe,” Candice said, but she was reluctant to mess with a spell without fully understanding it, and, even then, it would be a risk.
“Hey, guys?” Alice said, looking over her shoulder past the fence. “We’ve got company.”
“Who is it?” Candice asked.
Alice squinted. “Looks like the defense secretary and a whole truck full of soldiers.”
“Taggert,” Candice growled. “How close is he?”
“They’re stuck outside the brambles for now.” A moment later she frowned. “Uh oh.”
“What?”
Alice ducked low beneath the fence. “They just rolled up with a bulldozer. I’ll think they’ll be here soon.”
“What do we do?” Bill asked.
Candice glanced at Mary who seemed unfazed by the approach of the US military.
“We’re not leaving Mary alone here with Taggart,” Candice said. “We’ll have to deal with both of them, somehow.”
Beyond the fence they heard the roar of a diesel engine and the crunching and snapping of brambles as the bulldozer cleared the way for the military’s approach.
Justin peeked through the door to the fence and whispered to them, “Taggart’s here.”
“Get him out of the truck!” Taggart yelled.
“Uh oh,” Justin said.
“What is it?”
“They’ve got Doctor Shultz. Handcuffed. Looks like they’re holding him captive. If they hurt the old guy…” Justin clenched his fist.
Taggart shouted, “Is this the place, Doctor?”
After a moment of hesitation, Doctor Schultz replied, “It must be. Sir, please, I beg you. Don’t meddle with this. This is beyond me, beyond all of us. The consequences could be-”
“That’s enough,” Taggart said, cutting him off. “Take him back to the truck.”
“Orders, sir?” replied some subordinate officer.
“Set up defensive positions,” Taggar said. “Then, once we have a clear sitrep, prepare to move in and eliminate the threat.”
“What about the paint, sir?”
“Did someone find a grinder?”
“A few of the privates located one.”
“Good,” Taggart said. “Prepare them for their mission. Give them a vehicle and, also, arm them with the prototypes.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a pause. “Who the hell is that?” Taggart inquired.
Justin said, “I see a car approaching through the broken brambles. Looks fancy and armored, like a government vehicle.”
They could hear a door opening and closing followed by a woman shouting, “Taggart, stop right there.”
“It’s the secretary of state,” Justin said. “Man, she looks pissed.”
“Mrs. Purcell,” Taggart said, greeting her. “What brings you here? This is no place for a diplomat.”
“I was sent to relay orders since you appear to be operating without any,” Purcell replied. “Radio communications are down, and the vice president wanted to make sure she sent someone you would pay attention to.”
“The vice president?” Taggart asked, incredulously.
“She’s acting commander in chief since the president has been reduced to wearing diapers all of a sudden.”
Taggart sighed. “What are the orders, ma’am?”
“Hold off on attacking Mary until you can liaison with representatives from the North Pole’s consulate,” she said. “Don’t go diving in, half-cocked. Get some expert advice first.”
“‘Expert advice,’” Taggart scoffed. “You’re little ‘experts’ were found tangled up in a bush just down the street. Unfortunately, they’re still unconscious. They won’t be liaising with anyone. We don’t need them anyway. I’ve got intelligence directly from Department 8.”
“Who? The old guy you’ve got handcuffed?”
“He was uncooperative and needed to be persuaded.”
“And, what did he tell you?”
“He told us enough to find our target. We can handle the rest.”
“Taggart,” Purcell said. “Stop and think for a minute.”
“We don’t have time to debate,” Taggart said, diving into an argument with her over the chain of command and the urgency of a response.
As the secretaries bickered, Bill asked Candice, “What do we do?”
Candice glared at Mary.
“What?” Mary said. “I had myself well-defended until your friend decided to rip out my golem’s heart.”
Candice turned to Bill. “We can’t let them in here while the spell is in progress. They could set off a catastrophe.” She turned back to Mary. “Is there really no way to wind down the spell?”
“No,” Mary said. “We need to see it through to the end. That’s our only option now.”
Candice could sense Mary was telling the truth.
“You know what will happen if this gets out of control, right?” Mary asked.
“I do,” Candice said.
“Are you going to let that happen?”
“No,” Candice said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent that. Still, I need you to promise me something.”
“What is it?”
“You need to give me a way to reverse what you did to my friend.”
They both glanced at baby Carol in her carrier.
“Fine,” Mary said. “You help me keep the spell from going out of control, and I’ll give you a way to save your friend. Deal?”
“Deal,” Candice said.
Bill said, “What do we do about Taggart? They’ll be coming in any moment now.”
“I have an idea,” Mary said to Candice. “Here, hold the spell for a moment.”
Mary stepped away from the light toward Alice, letting go of the magic.
Candice sensed the spell beginning to unravel. She stepped forward and held the heart of the spell in her hands, steadying it and supporting it. The terrifying power of it was like nothing she had felt before, like trying to hold up a burning block of ice with her bare palms. Then, there was the sheer size of the spell’s reach. Aside from the yearly time distortion that Santa Claus used, Candice had never encountered any magic as incomprehensibly vast as this. It encompassed the whole world and stretched out from the present into the past and future all at once. The intricacies of it were beyond her comprehension, but it felt delicate and precarious like a glass statue. All it would take was a slight push in the wrong direction to topple it over and destroy it, as well as any sense of order in the world along with it. She focused hard on keeping it stable and safe.
“Do you want to save the world?” Mary asked Alice.
“S-sure,” Alice replied with guarded uncertainty.
“Well,” Mary said. “Since you destroyed my guard, would you be willing to take his place?”
“I might,” Alice replied. “Only, they’ve got guns, and I’m not bulletproof.”
Mary smirked. “I can fix that. Hand me that wood-golem core.”
“Candice?” Alice said, worried.
“Do as she says,” Candice replied, not taking her attention off of the spell. “She wants to survive just as much as we do. But, Mary, don’t you do anything to harm her.”
“Quite the opposite,” Mary replied. “I’m going to make her practically indestructible.”
“Okay,” Alice said, passing Mary the wood knot she had pulled from the fake Chuck. “Do it.”
Mary placed the wooden core on Alice’s chest, resting it on her sternum just above her breasts. The elf’s eyes glowed for a moment, and sudden vines spread out of the core and grew along Alice’s skin, wrapping around her giant body in seconds.
Alice gasped, but otherwise she just lay there watching as a fresh layer of wood and bark covered every inch of her skin. When it was done, her face looked like a bark mask, the eye holes glowing a dim green.
“There’s your armor,” Mary said. “Bulletproof and self-regenerating.”
Alice sat up and flexed her wood-covered fingers. “This feels… strange,” she said, her voice sounding oddly hollow, as if she were speaking from down a hallway.
“You’ve also got control of the vines and brambles,” Mary said. “Try growing something from your feet.”
Alice looked down and a vine snaked from her toes. She looked at Ken and the vine wrapped around the boy’s ankles. He shrieked as he was lifted into the air, to dangle upside down from the vine Alice controlled.
“Okay, I can handle this,” Alice said, as the vines gently set Ken back on the ground.
Suddenly, there was a shift in the hue of the magic glow, changing it from nearly pure white to a sickly green.
“No!” Candice cried and grunted as if she had just been punched in the gut. The spell felt like a ball of lead in her hands. It took all of her strength to hold it up.
“What’s happening?” Bill asked.
“Help me,” Candice begged.
Mary rushed over and put her own hands up to help contain the spell. The whole thing felt ready to crumble or explode at any moment.
“It’s coming apart,” Candice said.
“Someone’s messing with my lines,” Mary explained. “They’re interrupting the flow. It’s going to back up soon if we don’t repair it.”
“It’s those soldiers,” Candice said, gritting her teeth. “The ones with the grinder. They’re probably trying to disrupt the spell. They must have forced the doctor to tell them where the lines are.”
“That’s bad,” Bill said.
“You’re going to have to fix the breaks in the lines,” Candice said. “I need to stay here with Mary. I don’t know if she can hold the spell together on her own.”
“How do we fix it?” Justin asked.
“You have my eggs, right?” Mary asked.
“Yeah.”
“There should be enough magic in them to patch up any gaps. Just break an egg where the paint is missing.”
“Okay, but how do we find the gaps?”
Mary looked to Candice. “You’re going to need to hold this yourself again for a minute. Ready?”
“Yeah,” Candice said, bracing herself. “I can take it, but be quick.” Mary let go, and Candice felt the force of that wild magic pushing against her like a hurricane-speed wind. It took all of her concentration to hold it back.
Mary stepped over to Justin and asked, “Got a map?”
He pulled out the map Candice had drawn. Mary waved her hands over it and several dots glowed green on it.
“There,” Mary said, rushing back over to Candice to resume sharing the weight of the spell. “That should lead you where you need to go. The map is linked to the spell now, so it should update if they open up any more gaps.”
Alice said, “Okay, I’m going to kick some ass. You guys get to patching up those lines while I distract the military.”
“On it,” Bill said. “Stay here, Ken. Keep an eye on Carol and the chick. Justin and I will handle the repairs.”
Alice rose to her feet and towered over them all like a leafless tree with two trunks. Getting a look at her, the men beyond the fence screamed and shouted orders as she stepped over the fence toward them.
Justin and Bill gathered up the cooler and reviewed the map together.
“That way first,” Bill said.
“Right,” Justin said.
Ken sat down beside baby Carol and the baby chick.
“I’m scared,” Ken said, fighting back tears.
“It’s okay,” Carol replied. “Belwive in dem.”
Ken nodded as he watched Bill and Justin sneak out through the door in the fence, just as the military’s guns started firing at Alice.
In the midst of all the chaos, Candice’s curiosity was still too strong to ignore. “What does the spell do?” she asked Mary.
Mary smiled, “You’ll see soon enough.”
Comments
barkwell
This has been the one of the hardest chapters to write for this series. Too many characters. Too many things to set up. Still, after this one, we are in the final stretch. I know where were are going from here, and I think you will enjoy it.
