The Demon in the Pastry Shop

58: Taking Scissors to an Heirloom

Silus jumped back to the door frame, this time struggling to holding himself above the ground with only one hand. He intended to protect this quilt (Kit's mothers) with his life, but would prefer if protecting this quilt didn't make him slip and die.

The sweat on his brow was only partly about leaping from door frame to chair rail and had more to do with the heart he abandoned on the sofa downstairs. Only Ravitavah was there to watch it -would the Ace protect it? Silus couldn't have followed Kit one-handed and his first heart didn't fit anywhere on his person. It was far too hefty and cumbersome to keep around.

By the time he got from the door frame to the top of the little trinket shelf in the hallway, Kit was leading Jude out of his room by the hand, distributing plate paths for the both of them. Silus watched the floor suspiciously, waiting for Lovell's magic to grow stronger and the carpet to start consuming the tough Ace magic it refused earlier, but the plates, once laid, were still untouchable. Kit and Jude made their way safely to the stairs.

Silus crouched to prepare for his leap to the stairwell railing. His legs pushed him away and then his neck caught midair. A scream jostled from his throat but it cut off quickly as his whole body was pulled down. His spine slammed onto the top of the narrowed shelf, rocking it off its balance. His snakes flared and wailed as a rough but thin enemy wrapped and trapped his neck, steadily choking him. Silus flew his hands up to his throat, wrestling to tear whatever it was off of him as the shelf was beginning to teeter.

The quilt slipped from his grasp. He wheezed and broke one of his hands off the attacker to save it. The quilt sashayed coyly away from his desperate hand, toppling off of his stomach and into the snarling carpet below. Silus called the Myus magic to his hand and bound the quilt to the air just before the carpet took a bite out of the corner with the staples it had for teeth.

The pressure on his throat put a pressure on his brain that stopped the flow of thoughts. He knew he had to keep his hand clothed in magic and keep the magic roped around the quilt but he hadn't a second more to figure out how to free himself. The shelf tipped over to the ground and all Silus could do was clamber, one-handed onto the backside of the shelf to stay off the ground.

One hand didn't seem like enough right now. Silus dug his fingers in between his neck and the thing choking him but they couldn't quite fit and even when he did stick his fingertips into the crack, the strength of his left hand couldn't pull the thing off.

Before his eyes rose a white fabric like the head of a beast pouncing him with elegant little trails in its design, swimming between the black spots pooling in his vision. Silus rasped out a despairing groan. He couldn't believe he was about to be murdered by table lace. It was disgraceful.

Kit jumped up from out of the blue and pinched the animated lace in her fist. It bucked back at her but she silently snarled at it as she pulled it taut and gutted it with a pair of scissors. It was thick, bunched up the way it was when it came to life so it thrashed and threatened her, but Kit pinned it down against the shelf back with her knee and cut and cut and cut until it was chopped in two and fell slack across Silus' neck.

He sat up, pulling his feet away from the carpet vipers snapping at the tips of his shoes. His hand kept stiff and alight with Myus magic. Breathing hard to get his bearings again (and clear the spots away from his eyes), he glanced at the magic porcelain trail on the carpet. Instead of whole plates, the dishes were broken in half to make a longer path. Kit stood on a half plate, the surface cracking under her. Jude waited on the stairs on the only whole plate left.

Silus peered down at Kit's scissors. She got them from her room, he supposed, though he had no idea how she had traveled there and then back to him so quickly. She put them in her pajama shirt pocket, next to another object tucked there for later.

"Thank you," he croaked at her.

She held up the severed head of the lace monster and blinked at it before nodding to him. She tossed it to the floor and the carpet consumed it, fiber fighting fiber for fabric flesh.

Kit twisted and took the quilt from the air. Silus released his hold. She hopped from porcelain piece to piece and Silus followed behind her, picking up the pieces after he walked on them. Kit handed the quilt to Jude and he used his robe belt to tie it to his body. The three of them made their way downstairs. The steps rocked underneath them. The plates they set down started sliding. Jude struggled, but Kit and Silus managed it. By the time they got downstairs, Silus knelt down on two plates halves (that cracked when he put his weight on them) and prepared to throw the both of them to the sofa where he knew they'd be safe.

The house howled with a crackling hollow song and then the side door opened with a quiet, but devastating sweep. It was that chilling voice Silus recognized first, even as Ravitavah meowed testily at it's entrance from the coffee table.

"There, there, now Ravitavah," Lovell crooned (sickly sweet, and sickly faced). He planted his paw onto the carpet and the fibrous demons parted the way for him. He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and coughed into it as he stepped toward the coffee table in a dignified manner. His normally blue-ish face was now teal-ish and in some places a little green. But he still smiled that icicle smile as he leaned over and patted the Ace Under Creation on the head, "don't be surprised: you always were the runt of the litter."