The door creaked open. Whatever magic Cricket had scrawled onto it to keep it closed must have faded right along with him. Takayoshi held his eyes open until they burned from it, forcing himself to watch the dark shape crawl across the floor toward his bed.
He stiffened, muscles aching as he fought against the draught to try to move. To rise from the bed and put some distance between himself and that approaching thing. It did not matter what it was, he did not want it to get a single step closer. And then it did. Moonlight filtered from the window to cast light over its features.
"Relax. I know no one likes the sleeping draught much, but it's so you don't squirm. Squirming will just make this hurt more. It'll be over soon enough." The voice sounded like Alice, but the face was something else entirely. Dark pits for eyes and a mouth full of sharp yellowed teeth. This was the creature Cricket had been trying to warn him of. Why had Takayoshi not listened?
"Oh this is a strong one," the thing that sounded like Jasper said as it slunk into the room. It was a head taller than the other creature, and when it leaned over Takayoshi's bed he could see that half of its face had been eaten away by decay leaving only bone behind. "I've never seen someone shake off Alice's sleeping spell like this before."
Alice cooed at the praise. "He'll keep us fed for at least a month."
"At least. What should we do with the others?"
Alice shrugged. "No sense in wasting food."
Cricket was right, Takayoshi should have been able to burn through whatever magic they had laced his food with. He should be able to move. If he could just move. Just reach for his sword. Something, anything, was better than lying there while the pair of ghosts leaned over his bed. And not just for himself. No, because when they were done with him they would move on to Claudia and Estia.
Alice leaned closer, lifting a spindly hand with claw-like fingers to reach for Takayoshi. Takayoshi braced himself for whatever was about to happen. His muscles tensed up for the pain that he was sure would come.
Alice jerked, yanking its hand back with a soft yelp before its hand could get within a foot of his body, as if shocked. "What was that?"
Jasper tilted his head, birdlike, the hollows where eyes should have been narrowing in interest. "His magic must be fighting back. Do you think it's because he's awake?"
"Maybe. I could dose him again."
Something slammed on the lower level, and both creature's heads jerked toward the noise. "The wards have been tripped."
"Yes, I heard that, Jasper. Why don't you go and see what that was, and I'll give our friend here another dose?"
Jasper made a noise, almost like a huff of annoyance, its slender shoulders sagging, but it turned and floated from the room without another word.
"Good help is so hard to find these days." Alice's grin ate up its face, leaving nothing left but yellow teeth and the black spots where eyes should have been. "Now. Where were we?"
It lifted a finger to its mouth, nicking the withered skin with one jagged tooth to draw a droplet of blood. Takayoshi jerked, and he felt his hand twitch. Not far, just enough to rustle the coverlet. It was a start. Alice had not noticed the movement, it was focusing on weaving magic into the droplet on its finger, singing something soft and strange that sounded like a fox screaming in the night.
Another twitch, this time he was able to get his wrist to move. How long would it take before he could move his whole arm? Too long. But he had to try.
If he could just reach his sword...
Then what? Would he even be able to wield it? Cricket had told him to stay awake, that his magic would protect him. And he had tried. But he was so tired. And Alice's song sounded so sweet. So soft, and gentle. Like a lullaby. His eye lids were so heavy. What had he been trying to do? What had Cricket said? Did it even matter anymore?
Another crash from downstairs jolted him from his lethargy. His eyes flew open wider than they had been before.
Alice cursed. "Must I do everything myself?"
It turned to leave the room, shutting the door behind it, and Takayoshi forced his hand to move across the sheets. He did not quite have full range of motion, but it was close. He was getting there. He would be able to pick up his sword.
A scream. Like a drowning crow.
Takayoshi got his hand across the bed, grabbing the hilt of his sword from where it leaned against the bedside table. It was heavier than he remembered. Harder to drag toward him over the coverlet. That would not stop him. He would defend himself, and the others. He just needed to get up. He just needed for his legs to move. Why would his legs not move? He could not even move his toes. The coverlet was weighing them down.
"Just a little more," Cricket's voice whispered in his mind. His imagination, telling him what Cricket would have said. "You can do this."
Takayoshi took a deep breath, and pushed himself up to sit. It was not much. He still could not move from the bed, but at the very least sitting up meant he could ward off any attacks that came for him directly.
Another scream. This time right outside of Takayoshi's door. Then a curse from a voice Takayoshi did not recognize.
"So gross. Why are they always so gross?" The voice got closer, footsteps creaking the floorboards as the person made their way to Takayoshi's door. Takayoshi raised his sword, struggling to keep his hand from shaking. A dark face, sporting stubble and drawn together dark brows, peeked around the doorframe. "Oh, you're awake. Good."
"Who are you?" Takayoshi's words scraped the whole way up, feeling strangled from not being able to scream when it was all he had wanted to do for the last hour.
The person frowned at him, then snorted and rolled their eyes. "Leo."
"Leo?"
"Leo La... Lanton." Leo wrinkled his nose as if the name were strange on his tongue, but did not offer any further explanation. "You should get up. We need to wake the others."
"I cannot move my legs."
Leo sighed, the sound annoyed, and came further into the room as he dug about in his pockets for something. When he finally found what he was looking for he came over to the bed with a small glass jar of ointment between his calloused fingers. He held it out to Takayoshi. "Rub a little of this under your nose, it'll wake you up."
Takayoshi blinked down at the jar with a frown. "What is it?" He asked, instead of the real question plaguing him which was, why should I trust you?
"It's just a little herbal salve to clear away drowsiness. It's nothing harmful." When Takayoshi still did not take the jar, Leo huffed out a breath. "Look, I just saved you from two very hungry spirits that were going to eat you and both of your friends. If you can't trust me, who can you trust?"
Takayoshi took the jar. He swiped a little on the tip of his finger, dabbing it just below his nose as Leo had instructed, and took a tentative breath. It was strangely minty, and cold smelling. His big toe twitched.
"Better?"
Takayoshi nodded, taking another deeper breath, and wriggling his ankle beneath the thick blankets.
"Good. Now, get yourself straight, I'll go wake up your friends."
"Thank you." Takayoshi handed back the jar of salve.
"Don't mention it." Leo headed for the door, stopped just in front of it and inhaled. "Seriously, don't." Then he left.
Takayoshi took several long minutes to force feeling back into his legs. When he had, he rose, and gathered his things slowly. His knees still wobbled, but he could manage the walk to the courtyard to mount Lily, and get as far from this accursed place as possible.
"We need to get out of here!" Leo shouted from somewhere further down the hall. Whoever he was talking to responded, but the sound was low and muffled. Takayoshi made his way toward them.
Claudia was in the middle of one of the unused rooms, her shoulders heaving with her breath. Spare linen covered the floor. The drawers of every piece of furniture had been ripped open. And all the pillows on the bed were piled in the middle. "Not till we find it."
"What? Find what? What in the name of Selene could you possibly be looking for?" Leo's voice was harsh, and growly. "Tell her we need to go," Leo turned to Estia who was leaning against the wall, still looking half asleep.
"It is a piece of a map." Takayoshi made his way over to help Claudia move the dresser away from the wall so she could check behind it. "It is what we came here for. If we leave without it, this whole thing will have been for naught."
"See? Yoshi agrees!" Claudia knocked on the wall, her ear pressed against it. "This room is clear. Let's try the next one over."
"What could be that important?" Leo was still grumbling, but he had at least stopped shouting. He looped Estia's arm over his shoulder, and helped zir down the hall to the next room.
"A piece of a map to the ancient archive of the lost," Estia mumbled, still half asleep against Leo's shoulder. Ze was leaving a truly impressive drool spot as ze struggled to stay awake.
"The what? You stayed in a haunted house to find a map to a library?!" He was yelling again. Takayoshi did not understand why he must yell. An ache twinged at the space between Takayoshi's eyebrows. Sleep would be necessary, but not now. Not while Claudia and he still had three rooms to search.
"We didn't know it was haunted." Estia mumbled, pressing zir face more into Leo's shoulder.
"The townspeople told you it was haunted!" Leo's hands jerked as if he was going to throw them into the air in his exasperation, but then he stopped himself to keep Estia up right.
"It didn't seem haunted." Claudia ripped open the drawers on the bedside table, letting out a dissatisfied grunt.
"It looked pretty haunted to me!"
Takayoshi had the very strong urge to smack Leo on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword just to make the other man be quiet for a few minutes. Maybe by the time he was conscious again they would have finished searching the house. He did not give into that urge. Nor did he pay any mind to the twitching of his eyebrow as the ache spread up into his forehead.
"Ghosts aren't real!" Estia sounded like a petulant child. Ze lifted zir head only for it to lull to one side. Leo pressed it back onto his shoulder with a gentle hand. "Everyone knows ghosts aren't real. Back me up here Takayoshi."
"Those were not ghosts." They were not. Ghosts would not have been able to feast on them as those creatures had.
"There. See." Estia flapped a hand toward Takayoshi where he was looking under the bed. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.
"They were hungry spirits."
"See? They were hungry spi—" Estia's eyes narrowed on Takayoshi. He assumed Estia was trying to look furious, but in zir current state, ze just looked on the verge of falling asleep again. "That's the same thing."
"No it's not. Ghosts can't interact with the world like those things did. And they usually just go about their every day like they would have if they were alive. Hungry spirits, however, feed on living things, and are sentient." Claudia kicked the trunk at the end of the bed. "This room's clear. Onto the next."
"Thanks for the lesson Professor Durante." Estia rolled zir eyes, then winced with a hand rubbing at the bridge of zir nose.
"Whatever you're looking for, if they found it first, they would keep it close to them," Leo said. "Probably in their rooms."
"That's brilliant!" Claudia picked her way to the door over the scattered pillows and linens, and back down the hall to the one door that had remained locked the entire time they'd been there.
"Why doesn't she have a headache?" Estia whined. Leo half dragged zir after Claudia, Takayoshi bringing up the rear. "I feel like there are a dozen pixies with pick axes in my head."
"I get headaches a lot. I'm just kind of used to it." Claudia tried the knob, jiggling it, it did not budge. "Locked."
"Obviously." Leo dragged Estia in closer when ze started to list.
Claudia turned to glare at him. "You can be sassy, or you can be helpful. Your choice, mister hero."
"Is it warded at all?"
Takayoshi moved to stand beside her, pressing his hand to the door. He closed his eyes, reaching with his magic for the hum of power that would flow through any surface. Empty. Just like the rest of the house. Except there was something on the other side of the door. Something buzzing faintly like Uncle's bees in the greenhouse. "No. But I believe the map piece is here."
"Of course it is." Leo bent to set Estia carefully on the floor. Ze had fallen asleep again, and went easily, zir head leaning back against the wall to let out a loud snore. "Get out of the way. I'll break it down."
Claudia looked at Takayoshi brows raised.
Takayoshi nodded, taking a step back to give Leo room.
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