Night 70: Cafeteria

[impudentsongbird]

[from here.]

Gabe came through the swinging doors into the expanse of the cafeteria, with its rows and rows of tables, and stopped short. Somehow, the way the room was laid out was even gloomier and more terrifying than the hallways in the darkness. There were a dozen places for monsters to hide, to leap out at them.

The kitchens were opposite, behind a long, long counter. Gabe swallowed hard and gripped the metal pipe. "If the cafeteria is likely to be empty and the kitchens guarded, you should go first. You'd be more effective in a fight."

He was frightened, but it was true. If they were attacked from behind he could handle things, but the threat was at the front of them. Skulduggery was better served to handle that, with Gabe behind him if he needed help controlling his necromancy.

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[skeletonenigma]

How long had it been since Gabe was attacked by the hair monster? Skulduggery's hallucinations were over within twenty-four hours of his own attack, but it sounded like they'd lasted longer for the Archangel.

The Archangel. Skulduggery felt another decidedly unpleasant chill travel down his spine. Those chills, he decided, were the worst part of coming back to proper life. What was the point of them?

The cafeteria was just as still as the Sun Room. Unlike in the Sun Room, though, it gave Skulduggery pause. Because Gabe was right; the kitchens were the area most likely to be guarded. And with his magic as diminished as it was, Skulduggery couldn't be sure there wasn't anything lurking behind the long counter at the opposite end of the room.

It could have been easy, of course. He could have lengthened the shadows behind the counter, known immediately, and dealt with the threat instantly. But since just having the thought was almost enough to convince Skulduggery it was a good idea, he knew it wasn't. It may not have been Necromancy directly, and it may not have drained him nearly as much as his Elemental powers were doing, but that sort of self-justification was a slippery slope.

Besides, Skulduggery reminded himself for the umpteenth time, there was an Archangel behind him.

That was why, a few cautious minutes later, Skulduggery rounded the corner of the counter fast with his hands held up. The element of surprise wasn't only available to whatever was lying in wait, Skulduggery had found. In this case, it was unnecessary. Nothing jumped out at them. Nothing was there.

The door into the kitchens, however, was locked.

Skulduggery knelt down to inspect the lock. It was a simple one. He could pick it, theoretically, if he still had his tools, and he could always blast the door down. But that would make air unavailable to him the rest of the night, and if there was any other way...

Skulduggery turned to Gabe. "Can you change into anything other than a lion?"

[impudentsongbird]

Since Skulduggery was focussed on what was behind the counter, Gabriel paid all due attention to the room around them--just in case it wasn't quite as empty as Skulduggery thought it was. It didn't serve to do much but wind his nerves up to a point that he was almost jumping at every sudden movement of every little shadow. Even ones that belonged to themselves.

When Skulduggery spoke it was abrupt enough to actually make him jump, and when the Archangel looked over his face was faintly lined with strain.

"Lion? Oh!" Gabe glanced behind him one last time and then moved past Skulduggery to the door. There was a thin shadow under the door, the space between it and the floor. "Yes. Hold on."

He wasn't quite sure how this worked, still, but he was fairly sure he wouldn't be able to find the focus to use a shape twice in one night if he let it go before it dissolved on its own. Still, better this than Skulduggery having to use some of his precious magic, and Gabe did still have other small forms, if not quite as small, in the event they needed them.

The Archangel paused for a moment. Judging by his last use, he wouldn't have the benefit of his angelic senses for this. "I'm going to turn into a moth," he said, "and I'll need your help to find the crack under the door, if we want to get through before the shape fails."

That said, the man was gone and in his place, all but invisible to the naked eye, was a moth. Gabe sensed the large presence overhead that was Skulduggery, the movement of the air, the solid definition of the walls and floor--things that defined his current, tiny universe. It took a moment to readjust to the narrow perspective, but then he fluttered toward the nearest and largest flat object he could sense (which was, to be fair, the floor, but the floor in the opposite direction to the door).

[skeletonenigma]

A moth was a good form to take. Skulduggery was about to ask why Gabe, an angel, would need any sort of help navigating what he'd already seen in a human form, but Gabe transformed just as Skulduggery opened his mouth. He closed it again with a sigh that only vaguely bordered on exasperation, and watched the Gabe-moth travel in the exact opposite direction of the door.

Was Gabe still aware, when he was in his other forms? Normally, he would have to be. But if Landel was capable of capturing and holding an Archangel, he was probably capable of altering far more than just the body that Archangel was inhabiting. Skulduggery could be, for all intents and purposes, dealing with the tiny mindset of a small moth.

Moths were attracted to light.

Skulduggery held his hand down by the crack between floor and door, and snapped his fingers. A small flame flared up, the only bright light in the room, and it sent dancing shadows over the door and surrounding walls. Once the Gabe-moth was close enough, Skulduggery wouldn't need much air to coax it through the crack entirely.

The only problem, then, was if Gabe changed back on the other side and was faced with a monster. Skulduggery just had to hope Gabe could get the door open before anything like that had a chance to happen - or at least was able to get it open before the monster killed him.

[impudentsongbird]

The vibrations of Skulduggery's movement made Gabe's moth instincts shy, but then there was a sudden brightness out of the corner of Gabe's mothly vision, brighter than the dim luminescence of Skulduggery's torch. It took a moment for Gabe to realise it was, it must have been, a flame.

He laughed, or puffed pheromones equivalent to a mothly laugh, and spiraled in toward the light. As soon as he was near enough he could sense the broadness of the wall and floor on his sides. Only one of them had a crack in it.

Without needing any help at all, Gabe overrode the moth's instincts to depart from the flame and fluttered down to the floor, scuttling underneath under his own power.

[to here.]