We had a quick look around Uncle Dwyer's cabin. We found several PS5s - he always did enjoy scalping in every sense of the word. His bookshelves held several first edition copies of Mein Kampf, all of which strangely disintegrated the moment Elizabeth got there them, an autobiography of Donald Trump, and a pretty detailed book on skin removal, which I kept for future reading. Not that I plan on taking up the hobby, but it's always useful to know what my family are up to.
There was nothing else useful though, and we needed to get back to Wicker Valley and get a few hours of sleep before everything went down. Elizabeth had a message from her coven requiring her to meet up with them at lunchtime, which didn't exactly give us much time. On the way, Eddie had a vision, and it wasn't good. A giant gargoyle, perching on the roof of the church, protecting Wicker Valley while the rest of the world was going to ruin around it. Of course, Michael still had the coin of Phylaxis, and it seemed he was talking to both Michael and Eddie now.
I met the others at the museum the next morning, with a big flask of espresso. We needed to find Alabaster, and scrying with our new map of the town seemed like the fastest way. We soon tracked him down to what Michael and Eddie recognised as his mum's house. Time to pay a visit.
First though, Elizabeth's phone was buzzing with messages from her coven asking where she was, so I teleported us to the meeting place. Which was the entrance to the fae court, of course. Which did give me the chance to have a chat with Jeeves, and find out exactly what the terrible weapon the fairies had that was so scary it caused my Uncle Dwyer, not exactly a nervous skin-flaying demon, to allow himself to be possessed by the Darkness. It was Michael.
Of course it was Michael. Michael the chosen one, with his divine protector who'd been teaching him how to fight. I tried to convince Jeeves that the war didn't need to happen now, because we'd already dealt with the demon problem, but that didn't change anything for them. That just meant that they were going to win.
He wanted me to bring Michael over straight away, and made some pretty tempting offers, but as I reminded him, when it comes to temptation, I'm a pro. And I told him how they were being manipulated by the chaos orb, and none of this plan was under their control. He didn't seem to think this changed anything, as stopping the orb would require a child of Merlin to create the magical rings needed to bind it. I had no intention of telling the fae any more than I had already, and just said that I could be extremely resourceful when required. I negotiated us 24 hours to sort things out, and managed to get Elizabeth back as well.
We all met up again outside Alabaster's mum's house, and knocked and asked to see him, but she wouldn't let us in. So I teleported to him, and threw my arms around him, with the intention of teleporting him somewhere more useful to us, but that didn't work, as somehow we ended up right outside his house again, and a moment later he'd gone back inside. Without opening the door.
I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I did know something else. When I'd teleported to him, it wasn't to the house, but one of the old warehouses. We came up with an idea for a trap. I'd do the same thing again, this time taking Michael with me so that Alabaster wouldn't realise I was doing the same thing again, and Elizabeth would be waiting to spring a magical trap when he came back to the house.
Except that didn't happen. I lost Michael somewhere in the teleport and didn't land where I intended. So that plan was a loss. But we had a much better idea of where to actually find Alabaster now, so I texted the others and we met up at the warehouses.
Adam set up outside with his rifle - I think he was still excited about it from shooting those giant centipedes in the Darkness - and me, Elizabeth and Eddie went in. We had tasers, provided by Elizabeth, along with very specific instructions about what part of his anatomy we should aim for. Which I promptly forgot about, deploying my bag of demons instead. Kevin popped out in a little ball of fur, and while I'm not entirely sure what he did to Alabaster, he was certainly enjoying himself.
Meanwhile Elizabeth, who I'd expected to completely lose it at this point, threw herself at Alabaster with her knife. I thought she'd missed for a moment, but then realised she'd actually cut off a bag he had on his belt, which became visible once she'd taken it away from him.
Fortunately Eddie was on the ball and deployed his taser. And with Alabaster temporarily paralysed, I cast the same binding spell we'd been planning on using earlier. I put everything I had into it, and didn't just stop him moving, but managed to bind his nastier magical talents at the same time.
We also found Michael, who'd landed almost on target, in a cupboard. Elizabeth let him out, and I don't know why she felt the need to destroy the door with magical entropy rather than just opening it, but it did have an interesting result when some of the flakes of ash landed on Alabaster and made him scream.
I turned on my full Voice of Temptation and started asking questions. He didn't seem to think much of Elizabeth's requests regarding tasers, but I pointed out that was just what she wanted us to do, and that she had much bigger plans. Especially since I was pretty sure she was a lich now. It didn't take long to establish that a) the chaos orb was inside the bag Elizabeth had taken from Alabaster and b) there was no way to open that bag without being Alabaster. Which was a problem, but so were the horrifying wraiths that the orb was summoning up around us.
Not one of my finer moments. I ran in terror, completely forgetting everything else in that moment, just blindly trying to get away. But then there was the sound of running feet behind me, and a moment later Michael had caught up with me. He held me and kissed me, and suddenly all the fear melted away in the flames dancing in his eyes.
He told me he loved me, and all I could think of was a quote from some old movie. "Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!" And we were going to save the Earth, I realised. We ran back to the others, calling to Elizabeth to give me the bag. She threw it, I caught it, and teleported to the junk yard to shove it into the oubliette.
After that it was just a lot of cleaning up. By the time I got back to the others, the wraiths were already gone and Alabaster was looking defeated. Elizabeth used her entropy power to drain the magic out of him. We didn't know if that was going to be a permanent solution, and in any case we certainly couldn't trust him. But I did happen to know of a demon prison, and I couldn't help thinking Uncle Dwyer would be interested to meet the person at least partly responsible for his recent poor choices. This was not the time for a risky teleport though, so instead we had an extremely awkward drive out to the slate mine.
Then it was back to the fae court to make sure that they were calling off the war, and introduce them to Eddie who was going to be making the binding rings. And between his magical skills and the antimagic of Adam's oubliette, the orb was bound once more.
*****
So that was all five years ago, and a few things have changed around here. Adam's given up the junkyard and has moved into classic car restoration. He's got several projects on the go, and keeps assuring us that one day he will actually finish one. Michael's doing freelance work for him, giving the cars decorative paint jobs.
Elizabeth's moved into Wicker Valley properly at last, and has opened a shop on the high street selling crystals and other new age type stuff. We knew there was a market for it from a previous timeline when Aunty Agnes had a shop here, and she's doing well. Eddie's been travelling, learning as much as he can about his magical heritage, in between keeping the museum up and running. Compared to the demonic fire of my magic and the necromantic chill of Elizabeth's, it's extraordinary to see a talent so perfectly balanced. No wonder he made everything better.
Arthur still drops by to see us, although his family's kept him pretty busy. And talking of family, Robin also came by. Riding his bike, alongside his best friend, who never got killed in this timeline, and his partner and child. Of course he didn't know who any of us were, but it was good to see him happy.
Then of course there's the big change. Last year, after a lot of planning and working out contingencies for all kinds of supernatural mishaps, Michael and me got married. We got the museum licensed for weddings, and held it there. His mum wanted it to be at the church, of course, but I already knew I was inviting Rusty and it's not a good look at a wedding for the bride's brother to spontaneously combust. Elizabeth asked to be a bridesmaid, and wanted to wear a black dress. We compromised on purple.
And I've made one more change - my job. I knew I couldn't work at the Wicker Stop forever, so I've been training as a therapist. If there's one thing this town needs, it's someone who can help with trauma, especially the supernaturally induced kind. I'm told I have a remarkably soothing voice and a real talent for getting clients to open up to me, and should have my accreditation in no time.
But Wicker Valley is still Wicker Valley. We dealt with the chaos orb, but between fairies, demons, witches, and every other kind of what Adam still calls 'weird bollocks', strange things still happen here and people still need help. And when they do, our team is ready.
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