Young Writers Society

"Well, whoever stored these crates here was a real sweetheart," Vankous remarked.

Dresden finally looked at what had been in the boxes. When he saw the notes written on the spilled pages, a pit started to form in his stomach. Whoever owned this place was looking for demons. From the notes on the pages, it seemed like they were getting fairly close to summoning one. Reading the Latin came just as easily to Dresden as reading the English did.

He turned to Maps and Olive.

"Do you recognize those masks?" he asked.

Olive shook her head.

Maps, meanwhile, tilted hers to the side in thought. "They kind of look like owls with the little points above the nose."

Tempest Briar scowled. “Well, the plot certainly thickens.”

She bent down and picked up a mask and inspecting it. “I’m assuming these aren’t for the theatre. Not menacing at all.”

She set it down again, tapping its face as though she was placating a small dog. “So, demonic rituals, huh? Those are always fun.”

Bobby put the pages he'd taken back. "We should leave it alone," he said quietly.

Dresden crouched down next to the pages that Bobby had put down and picked them up. He scanned the papers quickly, all too limited by how he currently was. He could have read it all much faster if he wasn't working with neurons and cells and whatever else made up human brains.

"Unless this has something to do with what brought us here," Dresden said. He glanced between the papers he had in each hand. It wouldn't be too much of a leap. Demon summonings went wrong all the time.

"Why would a demon summoning have something to do with you suddenly appearing in Gotham?" Olive asked, suspicion lacing her voice. He was running the little trust she had given him.

He looked up from the papers. He couldn't say the real, full truth. He couldn't take that risk. But he could tell parts of the truth, ones that both satisfied Olive's curiosity and any suspicions the rest of their group might have had.

"I've seen demon summonings before," he said. He had taken part in them, too. "They go wrong. A lot. One wrong line or incantation, and the whole thing is ruined. Just imagine doing that on a larger scale. Instead of summoning a single demon, they accidentally tore some kind of space time rift and brought us all through it. We're close to where we appeared, too."

Maps frowned. "I thought we were talking about magic. Space time sounds like it's more sci-fi."

"There's more overlap than you would think," Dresden said, and he knew that better than most. His life was a weird kind of magical SAO right now.

Bobby crossed his arms. Pain shot through his ribs at the constriction, but his expression, his posture remained the same. They were bruised, probably. "I don't like this," he muttered.

"Demonic summoning is so easy to get wrong," agreed Vankous, sighing loudly. "I meant the number of times." He sighed again. "Let's just say, do not teach a class on that unless you have endless patience. I can absolutely see your hypothesis being correct here."

Kate remained silent.

“I don’t see how we could have gotten mistaken for demons, in any sort of way,” Mireya said. She picked up a mask, holding it up to her face so she could see through the eye slits, but didn’t quite put it on. “None of you look like what I hear they are, and I’m hoping no one here is awful enough to count as one figuratively. But I’ve also never been transported to another world before— what fun— so I could entertain the possibility.”

If they thought looks had anything to do with it, these people knew less about demon summoning, or even magic in general, than Bobby did, and he made it a point to stay as far away from that stuff as he could.

Nerves twisted up tight inside him like a spring, one small chance and he was ready to bolt. This group was too dangerous to be near, both being, themselves, unsafe, and being exactly the kind of people to attract even worse baddies. Bobby would rather be dragged along with Briar and her crew than be here. He'd rather be used as bait again, hell, he'd rather be kidnapped again than this. At least his kidnappers usually had good reasons to make sure he didn't get too banged up for the first few hours.

He had to get out of here.

When Mireya said that none of the present looked like demons, Dresden's breath caught in his throat. It caught a little longer when he realized he wasn't used to having a breath to catch in the first place, and the weird holding of air became an even weirder cough that he did a terrible job of hiding.

Olive shot him a look, then turned to Bobby. "I don't like this, either."

"We should focus on the masks," Dresden said. "That feels like a clue. Anyone know anything about owls?"

Maps crossed her arms.

"I think there's a nursery rhyme about them," Maps said. "But I can't remember all of the words. Something about a court, I think? But I don't know why there'd be an owl judge..."

Maps screwed her face up in concentration. She looked downright adorable, which really shouldn't have been the thought that Dresden had right then. He had to focus.

"Owls and Demons." Vankous made a sound that was half disgust, half squeal. "Not a great combination."

"Owls are associated with Wisdom. Maybe something like a library. Possibly the origin of these books?" asked Kate. She was looking intently at the pile of things now.

"The library's a start," Olive agreed.

Dresden crossed his arms. Something about courts and owls sounded vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't put his finger on what. If only he had ended up here with Pres in tow and conscious. That would have made this mystery easier to solve.

Maps gave an excited gasp.

"We can go to the city library!" she suggested. "There's a really nice librarian there that could help us find the books. I've gone there with my brother for school before, and-"

Olive put a hand on Maps' shoulder.

"If we want to get back before Hammerhead finds out we slipped off of campus, we won't be able to go to the library," Olive said.

Maps frowned. Her shoulders slumped.

"But we can check out the school library," Olive said, "and meet everyone else here tomorrow night once they go to Gotham Public and check out some books there."

Dresden raised an eyebrow. "There's one problem: none of us have library cards."

Olive turned back to him. "You don't need one. It's one of the Wayne Foundation's recent initiatives. They prefer that you have them, but the Wayne Foundation covers any overdue book fees now."

That, in retrospect, should have set off some warning bells from Dresden, but, in his defense, he was sleep-deprived and desperate to get back to the world he was supposed to be on.

Olive started to head for the door.

Maps hesitated, then gave everyone a wave as she chased after her friend.

"Bye and see you tomorrow!" Maps said. "Also, when you go the library, tell the head librarian hi from me! She's the one who always helps me find my books."

And, with that, Maps and Olive were gone. The warehouse's doors closed behind them, leaving the questionable group of accidental transdimensional travelers by themselves.

Bobby inched toward the edge of the group. His ribs were throbbing with ever worsening pain, not at all helped by the layers of tight bandages beneath his clothes. He didn't want to shift or move around too much before he could get those loosened. He'd learned his lesson last time he moved wrong and had those things pressing just wrong on a busted rib.

"Is there any way you guys can make yourselves look less... conspicuous," he said cautiously. "More attention is the last thing we need right now."

"Define less conspicuous, " said Vankous.

Bobby shifted uncomfortably. "Um...like normal people. You all stick out and you really don't want to stick out in Gotham." He fiddled with his hands. He didn't understand how they didn't get it. What was confusing about that? Were they going to get mad at him for being unclear?