I looked over at the remains of the one that Ariel had killed, and the now motionless lump of my own attacker. The flames were already starting to die down, so chances were decent that I had not just burnt the mansion to the ground.
"Yeah, let's get moving," I agreed. Seabass kind of had to tug me along, since my feet didn't feel much like cooperating. I pulled away from him long enough to go grab the lighter from where I'd dropped it. It might just save my life once more, and I still had one tiny bottle of whiskey too, though I was tempted just to drink it.
We started off down another hallway, Seabass on my right, Ariel on my left. Once I figured we were relatively safe, I couldn't help but open my mouth.
"So... weather seems nice," I tried, which got me a weird look from both of my companions. Then I looked Seabass up and down, a frown on my face.
"You don't seem too beat up for a guy who fell twelve feet."
"You don't seem too sorry for a girl who dropped me twelve feet."
I shrugged.
"I'll owe you a coffee or something if we all make it out of here. How did you find us?"
"Dumb luck. The plants mostly cushioned my fall when you dropped me, and after that I just kind of ran. Was trying to get out of this place when I found you two, and here we are."
I nodded.
"Do you know where the trophy room is by chance?"
Seabass shook his head.
"No. Why?"
I rubbed my hands together like I'd seen a cartoon character do once while contemplating her evil plan. Cartoons are where I learn most of my social skills.
"We're going to find the trophy room, find Silas Took's gun collection, and go shoot stuff up!"
My announcement was met with silence.
"How old are you?" Ariel asked after a bit. "Are you really sure about this trophy room thing?"
I felt my face redden a little.
"I'm certainly older than you, blondie. And I've fought monsters before, which is certainly more than either of you have ever done. I beat up a Tree and a hooded guy for goodness sake!"
I didn't need to be a mind reader to know that my statement had been met with considerable doubt.
"Why are you here?" Ariel asked. "I'm here because Silas Took has been having trouble sleeping and requested the aid of a neurologist. Why are you here?"
I looked her up and down, then raised an eyebrow in question.
"You look awfully young for a neurologist..."
"I am. But you're avoiding my question."
I grinned at her. My reasons for being in Took Manor were stupid enough that I enjoyed whenever I got a chance to mention them. The look of incredulity on the face of whoever I told was always worth it.
"Well, by random happenstance, my mythology teacher in college, Melany Took, is also one of my best friends. Silas is some kind of distantly removed half-uncle, and as far as I'm aware, he is her only surviving relative."
"And what, you're here on Melany's behalf?" Seabass asked.
I nodded, smiling from ear-to-ear because I couldn't wait to deliver the punchline.
"Well, Melany got a letter in the mail from her uncle guy, one of those old-fashioned, gilt edged invitation thingies, inviting her to his ritzy dinner party. He said he wanted to name her as his heir, since he was getting up there in years.
I paused, glancing between them to see who would clue in first. Ariel's eyes went wide with understanding after only a moment more.
"And she sent you out here to sort out her inheritance?"
I nodded like a bobble head.
"Melany has, shall we say, not the friendliest of personalities. I'm pretty much her only friend. She also, err, isn't too excited about life right now, and viewed the idea of inheriting a fortune as more of an annoyance than anything else. She told me to sort it out, bought me a roundtrip train ticket, and here I am."
Ariel had stopped walking, openmouthed as she just stared at me. Which was probably the only thing that saved her as the chandelier she'd been about to walk under fell from the ceiling and hundreds of tiny spiders started pouring through the hole in the ceiling. Yeah, it was turning out to be one of those kind of days.
"Run in the most convenient direction towards our goal but away from the swarm!" I yelled, darting towards the nearest door and yanking it open.
I waited till both Ariel and Seabass had made it through before slamming it closed and shoving the deadbolt into place. Then I turned, hoping that I'd just hit the jackpot and locked us inside the trophy room. Sadly, I had not. We were just in another boring bedroom with a few random pieces of furniture, an oversized bed, and a large bay window that overlooked the grounds outside.
Before I could investigate further, I heard a thump against the other side of the door, as if either a very large something had slammed into it, or a very large amount of somethings. Moments afterwards, spiders started to crawl under the door. All three of us started screaming.
I turned towards the window, realizing with a little exclamation mark of cheer that it wasn't covered in vines. I ran for it, hoping that Ariel and Seabass would be right behind me. Tensing in preparation of the impact, I hurled myself into the window, tucking into a ball as I jumped.
Crashing through it, feeling the sharp pain of many knives across my body as the glass shattered, I hit the ground and rolled, naturally landing on my hurt side. As I lay there stunned, I was surprised to feel wood beneath me as opposed to the softness of grass that I'd expected.
Getting to my feet without really feeling like it, swaying like a drunk person, I nearly fell right back over. I waited a moment for my head to clear and then took in my surroundings. I appeared to be in an attic of some variety, full of furniture and junk covered in dust cloths. Neither of my companions seemed to be around.
My woeful little shoulders slumping a bit, I took one step and managed to pierce my foot on a thick chunk of glass. Stifling a scream, I realized that glass shards were lying all around me. Oops. Lifting up my foot, I carefully plucked out the shard of glass, wincing at every drop of blood that dripped from it. Making a face at the deep gash, I lowered it back to the floor, wary not to land in any more glass.
Shuffling my feet so as not to stab anything else, I headed for the nearest dust cloth covered piece of junk and ripped off a long strip of cloth. I don't know if you can infect a wound with dust, but I decided the risk was worth it and wrapped the strip of cloth around my foot. Foot problems solved, I turned to survey the rest of the attic.
It was large, somewhat maze-like due to all the junk, and there was a big window on the wall behind me. A rather suspiciously broken window. Shuffling over to it, limping a little more severely than before, I stood up on my tiptoes to peer outside.
There was all the grass that I should have landed on when I leapt out the window, along with a hedge maze a little ways in the distance. Even further off was the brick wall that surrounded the grounds around Took Manor. Like any true aristocrat, Silas had ensured that those pesky homeless people would stay off his lawn. I began to suspect that the man was a jerk.
Frowning thoughtfully, I turned around, rummaged in the nearest pile of junk for something small, came up with a little box of some kind, and headed back towards the window. I hoisted it out, watching as it disappeared the instant it passed through the broken frame, instead of falling to the lawn like gravity should have commanded it to.
Something very powerful indeed did not want any one of us leaving this place. Not alive at least. Even if Vincent Fitzroy, wherever he was now, had managed to find a way through the vines that covered the front door, I suspected he would have found himself entering only to exit through another door somewhere else in the mansion. Escape of any kind was no longer an option. And now surely I was further away from the trophy room than ever.
Feeling like crying, I sat down, leaning my back against a covered chair and wrapping my arms around myself like a little girl who was afraid of the dark. Silas Took had said something about a curse, then some strange sounding word that may or may not have been a name. And he'd said one of the other guests was helping Mr. Slither. That meant that someone at least had a vague idea of what was going on, which was pretty much the only semblance of hope that I had left.
The Colonel, Jon, and Kenneth were dead, and leaving out Silas and myself, that meant ten potentially evil guests were left. I counted out Ariel and Seabass almost immediately, since they'd kind of proven themselves to be on my side. Which left eight. Seven victims who needed saving, and one person who might be the key to saving them. And me, a poky and helpless little Neems.
The attic door opened and I flinched in anticipation of more monsters. Instead I saw Londra Artois and Tara Von Helsley enter the room, both holding lit candles. They were easy to remember faces, though I'd met them only briefly before dinner.
Londra was Silas Took's personal fortune teller, along with being his financial advisor. Lord knew why. Tara was her best friend, though I didn't know much about what she did for a living. What I did know, was that both were into the paranormal. Big time. I'd managed maybe one sentence after I'd introduced myself before it was swallowed in their never-ending tide of enthusiasm. I could feel it flowing off of them even now, as they continued some obviously long running argument, completely oblivious of yours truly.
"We really should go get help or something," Londra said, though without much enthusiasm. She was a somewhat short, Mexican girl, with that really dark colored skin that spoke of Aztec blood. She was dressed in a white, flowy evening gown that showed off her figure.
"Like I keep telling you, we can't just give up. This is our big chance!" Tara replied happily as she practically bounced into the room. She was an unusually tall girl, with intricate tattoos and multi-colored hair. As opposed to Londra, she wore shorts and a t-shirt advertising some kind of taco shop.
"It could be dangerous," Londra cautioned. "You've heard the screams just as I have."
I coughed politely to attract their attention and found myself completely ignored.
"Anything truly worthwhile includes some measure of danger!" Tara replied.
"I don't think that's really true..."
I coughed again, louder this time.
"Of course it is, Londra! If we're going to be famous, this is our golden opportunity. We can't just run away from it, we just can't!"
"Excuse me!" I shouted.
Both of them finally noticed me. I waved.
"Hi, I'm that weird girl from dinner. You probably remember me since I asked a lot of stupid questions, though not to you two since you were so busy arguing. My name's Nil, remember, Nillium Neems?"
They both gave me blank looks. Normally I'm a rather hard figure to forget, but in the case of these two, who would argue endlessly in the middle of a mansion with a killer on the loose, I imagined that one poky little girl is the last thing they might be inclined to remember...
After a moment, Tara raised a hand in greeting.
"I'm Tara Von Helsley, soon to be star of Ghost Huntress: The Series. This is my friend Londra."
Londra shyly raised a hand, and I only now noticed that aside from the ridiculous candles they both held, Tara also had a small video camera in her other hand. I narrowed my eyes at them.
"So, let me get this straight. Some kind of family curse gets activated or whatever, Silas Took goes all Slither Man on everybody, people are dying, my nose is itching, and you two are recording it all for a reality show?"
"Exactly!" Tara replied with a grin. "I've tried so many times to get real footage of something paranormal, but this is the first time that I actually have. This is my big shot!"
"What's up with the candles?" I asked, pointing at them.
Londra glanced at Tara with an embarrassed look on her face, as if trying to apologize for her inappropriate enthusiasm.
"Well, Tara says they're supposed to turn blue in the presence of a ghost. So... well, we've been walking around with them everywhere. We found a plant monster which was kind of cool, and we saw Silas from a distance, but he was moving funny. Like, something was really creepy about him. So we stayed away and headed up here."
I just stared at them.
"You do know that people are dying, right?"
Tara shrugged. Londra gave me that look again.
"She's always like this. I managed to convince her to come this far in hopes we might find a window or something that we could climb out of."
Tara whirled on her, eyes narrowing in anger.
"You said we might find ghosts up here!"
"Well, I'm sorry, but it was the only way to get you up here..."
"You tricked me!"
I stepped between them quickly, before things got too out of hand and shook my head.
"It wouldn't have worked anyways. Most of the windows are covered up with plant vines, and the ones that aren't are all weird. That's how I got up here. We need to find whoever is working with Mr. Slither and stop him. Or her. Silas told me that one of the other guests is evil."
And on that thought, I eyed both of them with a little suspicion. They seemed like harmless nut jobs, but who really knew? I visually plotted out a way to escape if they attacked or went all psycho on me. If I dodged to the side and wormed behind some of the junk that was piled up all over the place, I could probably get away. Just in case, I took a casual little step to my left.
"What can we do then?" Londra asked, worried concern lining her face.
"Find the culprit and strangle them until they tell us how to stop Mr. Slither!" I shouted, striking a dramatic pose. Both Londra and Tara stared at me like I was a weirdo, and I felt my pose deflate a little.
"Or, you know, um, we could find the trophy room, get one of Silas Took's big hunting rifles that is hopefully real and not just for display, and go shoot up some bad guys..."
Tara grinned slowly and raised her camera, the implications of what this would mean for her ratings starting to sink in. Londra sighed, her shoulders slumping as she realized she had no say in the matter and was caught between two psychopaths.
"Alright then. Let's go!" I shouted, leading the way for three steps before I stumbled and fell. My foot hurt and had stained the wood beneath me a rather impressive shade of red without me noticing, my side felt like it had been hit by a car, my head ached like it had tiny worms with hammers inside, and my nose itched worse than ever. I had the horrible feeling I was allergic to something in the mansion.
Very slowly, a little embarrassed, I got carefully to my feet.
"Okay, let's do that a bit slower," I corrected myself. "Onwards to the trophy room, at a slow and steady pace, with plenty of breaks to rest.
I squared my shoulders and started walking, favoring my hurt foot a little bit and walking with a limp.