"This must be the right way, Terry proclaimed. Suzanne held the light with David walking alongside, studying the grimoire. Rachel and Terry walked ahead of them with the map: pilot and navigator. "He's got this area to our right marked for some reason. Here's a stump with the same symbol on it as is on the map."

"Well, I suggest we avoid the area to our right." Suzanne said. "I'll be glad just to get back to the road."

"Yeah. We can have an overnight, and clean up Rachel's apartment." David added.

"Please don't remind me," Rachel mumbled at him. Then she turned to Suzanne after motioning for the group to stop. "We're coming up on one of your blue lines. Do you want to investigate?"

"Well, how close to the road are we, do you think?" Suzanne asked.

Terry scrutinized the map carefully. "The scale is good. We might be another ten minutes from the road."

"How big are these woods, anyway?" David asked, closing the book. "It seems odd that we'd be able to walk for anywhere near as long as we have in any woods around this area of the state. I thought it was mostly farms out this way."

"I'm not sure," Terry responded, holding the map at arm's length. "I know we've covered quite a bit of ground, but I'm not sure exactly how much."

"I don't know either," Rachel added. "But it's nice to have such a lovely infestation so close to home, isn't it?"

"Shit, Rachel, it's probably even too close to Terry and Suzanne's home for their comfort." David concluded.

"How far out of our way would looking at the line take us, Terry?" Suzanne persisted.

"Not at all out of our way. In fact, we'll have to cross it at some point. It should be about ten or fifteen feet past that bush." He pointed.

She smiled and held the light at arm's length to one side of herself. They walked behind her as she inched past the bush. "Hmm. It does feel a little different, even now. But the only reason I'm noticing it is because I know it's there." She looked back at the other three. "Smacks of fooling myself into feeling something. But I know I'm not."

"Well, what do you feel?" Rachel wondered. Suzanne was now taking confident steps forward, moving faster than they had yet dared.

"It's not easy to describe, Rachel. Kind of like an emanation, but just that. Nothing 'bad' or 'good'. And it doesn't feel USEFUL yet."

"Useful?" David asked.

"Yes. This kind of energy is like a generic little care package. Anyone sensitive enough to it could use it for whatever they want. But what I'm feeling right now is just the calling of that package; I couldn't use what I'm sensing for anything but to find the package." She turned away from the others. "Am I making any sense at all?"

"Perfect sense," Terry said. When David and Rachel looked at him as though they were wondering if he'd gotten possessed he explained. "I think it's about time I started to take some of this stuff seriously." Pause. "Since I'm in the thick of it." Shorter pause. "I still have my own opinion on the matter, though."

"There it is." Suzanne announced. "Could someone else take the light for awhile?"

Rachel carefully took the pan from Suzanne. David joined them. "I'll get it," he said and took it from Rachel. "You two go ahead."

"I can see it, too." Rachel stated. "A little, anyway." They walked as hunters for about five feet. Suzanne gestured for Rachel to put more distance between them and then thrust her arm forward. To Rachel it appeared that Suzanne had shoved her arm into a space not unlike the faint curtain of warped air above a hot sidewalk.

"Yes." Suzanne said, "This is definitely a ley line." And she paused. "Not that I know I've ever seen one before, and not that they ALL look like this. But it's definitely a ley line." She stepped into it and smiled brightly. "Like a good bath after a long, hard day."

"Hey!" David exclaimed in surprise. Suzanne jumped out of the line and Rachel turned around quickly. David was leaning against a tree with the grimoire perched on one leg, holding the light very near it. Terry stood beside him, apparently ready to catch him if he should fall down. David read from the grimoire, "The spirit of the Great Wolf stands beside me to guard the prison I have made. Though I did not summon him, I accept this protectorate should any evil thing waylay me to seize away the Dire Spirit I have bound."

"Sound fun to you, Rachel?" David looked up suddenly, nearly dropping the book.

"What...?" Rachel asked him. She ran over to the tree David was leaning against and took the book from him.

"I KNEW we were being followed!" He declared, trying to take the book back from her.

"Why didn't you say anything!!" Suzanne asked in horror.

"Relax, Suzanne; it's a totem spirit. I didn't say anything because WE ARE BEING GUARDED." He carefully pronounced each of these last words.

Rachel held up the book. "No we're not. Something in that bag we found is being guarded. It has nothing to do with us. " Rachel corrected David, then handed him the grimoire.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice our escort." David quipped at Rachel.

"I'm not used to dealing with nature spirits, David," she defended herself.

"Settle down you two." Terry interceded. "Doesn't seem to me that there's any problem here with spirits. Seems more like we have to find out what this 'prison' is."

"That damn alembic." Suzanne said angrily at David. "You brought that with you, didn't you?"

"SETTLE DOWN." Terry warned. "Fighting's not going to do us any good. Did you bring the alembic?" He questioned David.

"Yes; I just threw it in the bag with the other stuff when we were ready to go. I didn't even think about it," David responded somewhat sheepishly. It was his way of saying he'd done it on purpose.

"Well. It's probably safer with us than in some hoard of demons," Rachel said decisively. "I just want to know what we're expected to do with it now that we have it."

"Can't you seal it or destroy it or something?" Terry asked her.

"I don't know....I'll have to study it first," Rachel told everyone. "It doesn't seem entirely plausible since our friendly grimoire-writing voodoo artist didn't try it. I'd have to understand how he trapped it before I started playing with it." She paused. "Let's just get out of these woods. We'll worry about the alembic-prison later, okay?"

"I can live with that," Suzanne agreed.

"Me too," David voted while putting the grimoire back into the utility bag.

Terry looked at the map briefly to be certain they would resume travel in the correct direction, then took the lead. After a couple of minutes less strained conversation began.

"I was thinking. Suzanne, Rachel? What do you think of the idea of coming back here in the daylight sometime?" David asked.

"Whatever for??" Terry asked incredulously.

"Well, I can't stand the thought of letting all those spirits grieve forever." There was true compassion in David's voice. "You could come, too. But, for technical support....Hell; we've GOT a map." He paused. No one spoke. "It was just an idea. Never mind."

"No; it's a good thought, David," Suzanne encouraged. "I just don't think we're quite up to the task."

"I don't mean we do it all in one day," David said, sparked by Suzanne's encouragement. "I mean we take some time with it. Make it something of a project...." he trailed off for a second. "Maybe even over the next few years." He stopped in much the same way as he had before; with an air of 'oh just forget it'.

"It IS a noble thought, however dangerous it sounds." Rachel said, "It's an idea that I think we all can appreciate." She looked at Terry, "You have something to say? I see your pinched expression."

"Well....Shouldn't we just call the police?" Terry asked sincerely. "The families of all those people--" he was cut short by a cackling laugh. The laugh seemed uncomfortably close.

"Holy shit." Terry stated, surprised and then paralyzed by the thoughts streaming through his brain. There was a yowling laugh followed by a clicking shriek and an outright snarl. No one bothered to gauge the distances.

"Oh. My. God," Suzanne was also stunned.

"Do you think we'd have a chance if we ran?" David asked Rachel who was collecting everyone closer together.

"Well, if we were to run, we'd run IN THE DIRECTION OF THAT TREE," she pronounced loudly at the two zombies, pointing repeatedly to a nearby tree. A creature entered their sphere of light, dripping blood from a gash in its arm. "But no, I doubt it would do us any good."

David began to search desperately through the utility bag, spilling some of the smaller items to the ground. He produced the knife. Another creature appeared. It also seemed bruised and harried. David held the three-inch knife in a threatening manner, discarding its sheath.

Rachel took the map from Terry's hands, waking him from his stupor. "What are we going to do?" He asked her. A third creature approached from opposite the second.

She crumpled the map and shoved it into her pocket. "I guess we do what we did before." They waved their hands in front of Suzanne's face.

Suzanne revived. "I don't understand. Why aren't they killing us yet?" The three creatures began to circle them, destroying the vegetation to make something of a path at a ten foot radius around where the group was trapped. They also made a variety of sounds that could easily have been interpreted as gleeful malevolence.

"They're waiting," David answered.

"Let's get ready, then," Terry advised. He kicked the debris out of their immediate area. The clicking shriek they had heard previously returned. It was perhaps fifty yards away.

"They won't be waiting long," Suzanne mentioned.

The four braced themselves against each other and prepared; backs together, light set to one side. Suzanne began to hum. She was centering herself, getting ready to shield everyone as best she could. David again called forth his power animals. This time, though, he also called on the Great Wolf. Terry concentrated, focusing his mind on his God. He knew that what he needed would come to him, and he found it difficult not to smile. Rachel seemed worried, but not about the creatures or her friends. She looked at the ground near them, and seemed to find what she sought.

The last creature arrived. All the creatures began to laugh and dance around the path they had made. This scene could have shattered sanity, but none of the four cared.

"Shut the fuck up," Rachel snarled. One stopped, so she spoke to it. "Not one of us is afraid of your silly yammering or your antics," she told it. "You may save your breath." The others stopped, but not as a result of anything magical she had done. They understood english, and saw that she was correct.

The creature with a gash in its arm moved toward them. The other creatures followed its lead without hesitation, thrashing the plants as they went around and through them. It was the creatures' promise to the group that nothing presently living in this small area would remain that way.

Terry could not contain his smile any longer. "Praise God," he said in a joyful voice as he constructed the phrase to banish these creatures.

Suzanne pressed out with the energies she'd drawn from within herself and from the earth itself. In pressing out her personal radius increased, thus she gained more resources from which to draw energy.

David's spirit self lunged forth with his legend-staff raised. He saw the Great Wolf running between the creatures and his group.

Rachel leapt at the hedge nearest their group. The bruised and harried creature who had evidently decided to be the one kill her personally slashed and missed. All the other creatures were encountering the resistance of Suzanne's shield, but Rachel had jumped clear of that protection. As Rachel snatched at a shining object beneath the bush the creature ripped at the branches of the bush.

The light went out, kicked by one of the creatures. They became insane, howling and wailing with rage. The one over Rachel tore the bush completely free of the ground, grazing her. She rolled, hoping to get back into the protective circle, not certain she would be allowed back inside with what she was holding.

Terry began to shout, though his words were lost within the renewed cacophony. Suzanne was showing strain, unused to such exertion. David stood, gaunt and vacant. And Rachel discovered that she could not re-enter the circle.

Terry saw her and reached out a hand, still shouting. All the creatures then decided to focus on her. THUD; it was a palpable hit. The creature that had been struck fell against and past Rachel, knocking her down. A growl and another hit, from the other side. That creature tried to catch itself against Suzanne's protective shell. Suzanne faltered: too much weight, too much work, and no real rest between battles. She dropped almost perfectly straight down to the ground, grasping her head and heart. Terry's concentration was broken by a creature slamming into him, both he and David were immediately faceplanted.

One creature was left standing. It could have easily killed any of the four foolish mortals, but instead it picked up the alembic that had gotten loose from Rachel's grasp. Everyone else's attention was on the huge grey wolf spirit charging the demon.

"Oh God!" Rachel exclaimed, curling into the 'duck-and-cover' protective position taught to her in elementary school tornado drills.

"SHIT," was David's comment right before the flesh-rending sound and eardrum piercing scream. It was gone.

Suzanne and Terry watched with awe and fear. The wolf spirit crashed through the trees just outside the radius the creatures had made.

Suzanne hated to be the one to reach for the again-rolling prison. Terry hated to be the one trying to push a creature off himself to get out of the way of the again-charging wolf spirit. David hated to be the one stabbing Terry's creature quite by accident in his attempt to stand, causing it to refocus its complete fury onto him. Rachel hated to be anyone, watching the bruised and harried creature that had fallen past her stumble in the direction of Suzanne and the alembic.

Crack! The sound was unnaturally clear. Suzanne found the ability to move in ways contrary to several laws of physics to get away from the creature that had stepped on the alembic less than a foot from her. She soon felt quite fortunate in this, as she managed to miss being inside the explosion which shredded much of that creature and threw everyone standing to the ground. Even the wolf spirit was affected by the blast.

In the space previously occupied by the creature and the alembic there was a swiftly forming cloud. "RUN AWAY!!!!" David shouted, scrambling back to his feet. Will o' Wisps appeared just outside the area.

"This way!" Terry pointed to the tree. David ran over to Terry. Terry pushed him past and hesitated, waiting for Suzanne and Rachel.

Rachel crawled around the growing column of smoke-like energy, afraid she would have to dodge the two remaining creatures but she saw that they were mesmerized by the coagulation. They seemed eager to have the company of this 'Dire Spirit'. Suzanne was there suddenly, and helped her to her feet. They ran.