Chapter 30

As soon as they teleported to the school Lauren got her pen out and magically texted everyone to meet them there.

Knight immediately took a dejected looking Travis away to his lab for more testing, but not before promisingly to contact Conte their spellcraft teacher. Lauren was confident that he had all the ingredients she would need at least she hoped so, with the menagerie closed there couldn't be very many places left to shop for eye of newt and wing of bat. He thought comically.

That left Kyle twiddling his thumbs so he decided to see if he could hammer out the history paper after all and wouldn't you know it, having written one already and also having the school library at his fingertips really helped a lot.

In the end it wasn't as good as the first, but it would do in a pinch as they say. He left on Miss Long's desk once it was done and went in search of the gang. The first placed he tried was their homeroom but nope no one was in and then he crossed the barrier and headed straight for the alchemy lab, but that was surprisingly empty as well. Clio was in the library when he went looking for them there, but she told him they had all been dragged away by le Fay.

And just when he was beginning to worry that they'd left without him he heard them coming down the corridor.

He rushed to greet them but rounded the corner so fast he crashed into an excited Lauren just as she was saying, "I can't believe she just gave us one of her most prized possessions."

She nearly flew right off her feet with the force of the blow but Zach as usual was there to save the day and he cupped her lower back to keep her from falling backward on her ass. Both parties let out a shocked oomph.

When he could finally get a breath into his collapsed lungs he was elated to see his entire crew was standing behind her trying to get a better look at what she was holding. It looked like a solid gold sculpture of an eye. Large enough to hold easily in your hand yet small enough to wear it on a necklace without looking like you were trying to imitate Lil Wayne.

His mouth took on a shocked 'O' as she held it up to her eye. The gold started to emit a slight glow and her pupil expanded before it began to glow gold too. It wasn't an ornament or even a pendant it was a looking glass.

She held it up to Kyle with a look of glee on her face, and said, "You are not going to believe this Le Fay gave us the eye of Horus. It will lead us straight to Isis' Ankh.

She held out a duffle bag too and said, "And Conte had all the ingredients."

"Yeah we were just coming to get you. We're ready to go whenever you are le Fay's opening a port door in the gym as we speak." Zach informed him.

"For real, "Kyle couldn't keep an excited grin from spreading across his face, but when he looked around the group to find Travis to assure him that everything was going to be all right and found he was missing, he immediately felt a sense of foreboding.

"Where's Trav?" he asked suspiciously.

The looks that they gave each other spoke volumes something was wrong and they were debating whether to tell him.

Kyle ground out indelicately, "Where is he?"

Zach stepped forward then, making his trepidation double, and calmly said, "he's laying down in Tuma's office," Kyle spun on his heel and marched off without even saying a word.

The guys followed him, but kept their distance, or maybe they just couldn't keep up, because he was practically running, who could tell.

He stormed into the office startling everyone inside. Tuma and Knight were standing off to the side talking in hushed tones. While Travis lay on their principal's sofa with a poultice on his face.

Kyle crossed the room in three quick and somewhat uneasy strides to see what was under the foul smelling unguent, but hesitated to remove the poultice. What would he see when he did? His brother ended the debate whether or not to though when he removes it himself to ask, "are you just going to stand there staring?"

He'd pictured the worst -- Travis' head entirely covered in stone -- but was this any better? The stone had crawled up his neck and was spreading across his jaw and cheek like a creeping vine.

Kyle swallowed the bile in his throat but not wanting to alarm his brother any more than he probably was, he chose instead to say sardonically, "Nice face. Keep this up and we won't have to erect a statue in your memory."

Travis laughed and made the sound a drum makes when someone tell a cheesy joke, and Kyle added the cymbal.

"All kidding aside Bro, don't worry. We're leaving in a few minutes and we'll be back before you know it. We might even have you back on your feet for school in the morning.

Travis gave him a hopeful smile, but it never reached his eyes. They looked terrified and somewhat haunted. Kyle would give anything to ease his pain.

He hugged his brother quick and pushing off from him spun around and started to march purposely out of the room, but he spared a look at Knight before he did to beseech him with his eyes to help his brother and said jokingly in an Arnie accent, "I'll be back."

Once on the other side of the door he swallowed a sob. His friends rushed him then and engulfed him in their arms, but after a moment he pushed them away to say, "He's not gone yet. Let's get that crazy fucker what he wants, and get Trav back on his feet, so I can fuck a dude up."

It was three pm in San Fran which meant it would be 11pm London time. They needed an hour to case the joint, subdue any guards, the internet said Stonehenge was closed at this time of year, but the internet's been wrong a time or two before, and there was also some ritual prep work involved.

They were cutting it close. The spell called for the moon in its apex. That meant they had the best chance of this infinitely complicated spell working if they followed the instructions to the letter. He intended to make sure that everything that could be done would be done. Failure wasn't an option.

When le Fay opened the portal to Wiltshire England it wasn't like any he had seen before. It wasn't a glowing door but a door shaped hole in mid air with the view of Stonehenge on the other side.

Half the crew let out oows and aws and a few low whistles when she did it. They knew she was deadly serious, but she was also just plain deadly powerful too. He hoped in that moment never to be on the wrong side of her.

He grabbed a small duffle with some of the items they might need for the road, making sure his weapon was in his pocket. He and his friends were packing. They wanted to be sure if things went south and fast they were ready for anything.

When they crossed over it was in the dead of night. The only light that could be seen in the ancient plain was the light of a shrouded moon. They traversed thousands of miles in a single step and landed in the much colder, much damper environment of England, and came out of the south side of the ancient structure on the opposite side of the parking lot.

Kyle knew nothing about Stonehenge before this only that it existed. So he was surprised to see how isolated it truly was. There was a small parking lot quite a distance away, but aside from that only one lonely road ran up to it. And that was a distance from where they had stepped through too.

In the car park was a lone vehicle. A white security truck sat sideways in the lot with a man behind the wheel. He looked like he had his head down reading the paper or something. He was also sipping on a cup from a canteen --perhaps having one of those legendary cups of tea the Briticism as so fond of.

When Liv started to take off her coat and said," let me." Kyle's eyes were suddenly drawn into to the sway of her hips and bounce of her chest as she walked, and when he looked out over his friends, he was not surprised to hear the awestruck sigh of his male companions.

Liv rarely turned on the whammy in their presence, but there was no doubt she had it on full blast, when several of them began to follow her the girls were good enough to give them a nice hardy slap to snap them out of it.

She was gone for only a moment, but as she sashayed back the security guard truck was flying down the lonely road at break neck speed.

Liv swiped her hands repeatedly like people do when they just finished building a book shelf or cleaning a lawn and said smugly," That'll take care of him for the rest of the night. I told him there's a special donut I like but they only make it in a café in London. I researched the place before we left they don't open up until 5am and we'll be long gone before he gets back.

Marley sped over to her girlfriend to give her a congratulatory squeeze before saying, "Good one Babe."

They were now all alone in the dark. Without the headlights of the vehicle it was even darker for those who didn't have night vision. So Brenna called forth witch lights. The gaseous globes of light that people sometimes see in remote mountain regions are not in fact caused by aliens or swamp gas but magical creature such as themselves.

With a globe at every pillar the area was flooded with light. He strode over to Lauren to give her the duffle he had carried over. He threw it down at his feet and checked his watch see that they hadn't a lot of time left to set up. So he went straight to work asking Lauren where went.

Forty minutes later he was shocked to find he was winded. Stonehenge is bigger than people might think and the ground is filled with rough terrain. There are holes and pitfalls everywhere Lauren explained to him that experts think there were posts holes dug for wooden beams in earlier times, but they had no idea what they were for.

When the set up was complete Lauren asked that every one step out of the circle and wait at her back for the result of her casting. They wasted no time in getting gone. Everyone was eager for this step to work. If spell failed they would have no other way to find or even get into the Mystical Library and lord knew what would happen to Travis.

So yeah he and his crew gave her plenty Of space. When Xander pulled out his phone to announce it was midnight. She began to chant.

The magically constructed witch globes went out and the candles she placed on the ground and on top of the stones light all at once casting a dim glow over her work area. The alter in front of her with all her ingredients was in arms reach, but she stepped away to dance around the circle to every point of her pentagram and imbued it with her magical energy -- to first protect her work and to also focus her power.

Kyle was enthralled by the procedure and wished not for the first time that he had this kind of magic to wield. Sure it could be scary, but it was also tremendously exciting too.

When Lauren combined the ingredients in the ceremonial bowl on her alter she mixed it with her ceremonial knife, when she bent to place both her hands on the dead grass at her feet her hands glowed a vibrant green and out from the ground bubbled. The water of the earth. She formed the water in a palm size globe and lifted it reverently to the chalice.

When she placed it inside the chalice began to glow as well. She picked up the chalice and held it up to the moon to yell strange words before she downed the liquid in one gulp. He gasped in awe when he realized the liquid still glowed and he could actually track its progress down her throat. He expected it to go all the way to her stomach but it stopped at her heart. He stared in fascination as the glow encompassed her heart and even through her clothes he could see the true image of it beating in her chest.

Immediately after that she started to vibrate so fast it hurt his eyes, try as he may to focus on her, he couldn't in the end he had to look away, but just as he reluctantly tore his glance away he saw her start to disappear and pop up in the opposite points of her pentagram. Each time she disappeared she reappeared on the opposite side. This went on for a couple of minutes as she went faster and faster until she was just a blur of green glowing light, but the light was building and growing from the centre of her magical circle.

When she suddenly popped up in the centre the light exploded out from the circle and even with a protection charm around it he felt the wave of power that emanated from it. It exploded out in all directions encompassing the entire structure.

At first he thought it hadn't worked because a door hadn't open for them to step through but then he realized that there was no door there was a just a here and a now where he was standing and a then and there where Lauren was and he needed only to step across the invisible barrier of time to the other side.

He smiled to himself and whooped and cheered with the rest of his friends as Lauren beckoned them through with a frantic gesture. Apparently she doubted her mad skills, but he never would again.

When they stepped over to the other side and he got a look at the structure from the inside. He suddenly knew what it was meant for, and if you asked him real nice someday he might even tell you.

The ritual to call the library was a much simpler one. All they needed to do was imbue the blue stones with their magical essence and to strike them one at a time repeatedly until the library came to heel.

The tone of the stones was eerie, haunting and wonderful to hear. The vibration they created set a tingly sensation right down to the marrow of his bones. It made him feel like he had an itch he couldn't scratch. He looked over at his friends while Brenna performed the ceremony. Lauren was resting, and who could blame her. The spell must have taken a lot out of her.

After a while he began to imagine he could see the blue glow of the ley lines that coursed out from the directions of the pillar and lintel stones. But nobody was prepared when the library didn't shimmer into existence like the club does or even melt into reality. It actually slid down the ley line at breakneck speed towards them and came to a sudden stop right outside the structure.

He wasn't the only one startled by it judging by the number of his friends that were picking themselves off the ground and dusting the dirt and grass off their arms and legs. Nope he hadn't been the only one to hit the dirt.

AS Zach helped Lauren up from the spot on the ground she was resting on everyone started to pick up the ceremonial material and to stuff it back in their nearly empty duffle. It was always best to clean up after yourself after magical ceremonies. The council delighted in investigating reports of satanic rituals.

And if they made it out of this alive, and that was a very big 'IF', the less the council knew about their visit here the better it would be for them.

Zach huddled everyone together for a pep talk gesturing for everyone to bring it in like when they played ball together. Kelly rolled her eyes as she went over, but she did.

"Look guys, I know this is by far the most dangerous situation we've ever faced -- for the simple reason we have no idea what were up against, but no worries okay? As long as we keep our heads and play it cool, everything should go to plan."

But Kyle thought: you know what they say about plans:

Man plans; God laughs.

Wow they've done the impossible. Is there anything they can't accomplish?

Now for the hard part.

Will they be able to break into the library, and more importantly will they survive once they do?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.

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