We had some idea what the darkness was now. Basically hoovering up power wherever it touched down. And we'd been tipped off by the fae that it would be a very bad idea if Michael were to end up in its path so he was temporarily relegated to research duty while the rest of us prepared to go in.
We had some idea where it was going to touch down next. A small village with a neighbouring caravan park. I suggested we book a holiday. But there was something else. There was a pattern to the thing's movement. It seemed to be following lines but not entirely straight lines. And it dawned on us that Rusty had been following up on ley lines running into Wicker Valley. It was time to pay my brother a visit.
Rusty was living in Manchester, so we piled into Vanessa and drove down. He'd picked a pretty rough area to live in, and the block of flats didn't smell too great. He had taken the trouble to draw an extra 6 on his front door so that it read 666, and frankly I was annoyed at how much that amused me. We knocked at the door, and got sucked into his real apartment, which was obviously a lot nicer. The others asked me why I didn't have one of those on my home. Honestly it seems a bit pretentious.
Rusty wasn't happy to see us. I think we'd interrupted something. He took us out again to a pub. I ordered what he was having. Thankfully nobody else thought that was a good idea. Demonic beverages can be pretty weird. He invited me to a party with a few of the family, coincidentally at around the time when Wicker Valley might be being engulfed by the darkness, and suggested that we shouldn't interfere if we enjoyed having skin.
That was actually pretty useful, as it narrowed things down to some of my more skin-removing focussed uncles, so I downed my drink, sneezed out a few snowflakes (like I said, demonic beverages can be weird), and we left him to whatever mayhem he was up to. Time to check in on my uncles. Fortunately it's pretty easy to find demons these days as they're all on the internet. Uncle Mac and Uncle Dwyer were both active on social media, posting all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories while claiming that only true friends would share them. Uncle Dwyer had gone unusually silent of late.
First though we had to deal with the imminent touchdown of the darkness in the village. Research had told us that magic weapons would be useful against the creatures within it, as would my own claws, and light would be a valuable defense. Adam got online and rented a portable spotlight, the kind used for late night sports games, while Elizabeth and me enchanted some weapons.
The caravan park was easy enough to deal with. Reporting a severe weather warning convinced the caretaker to get all the other residents off site. Nothing we could do about the village though. Adam set up the spotlight and got ready with a rifle. And down it came.
The spotlight worked well, as did the road flares Adam had brought along. But it did attract one of the creatures - some kind of enormous centipede that wrapped itself around the light. Fortunately with our enchanted weapons we were able to deal with it, although not before taking some significant injuries. That thing was poisonous.
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