"Why is it always birds?" Maze asked, throwing a knife at the owl that was swooping toward her, its eyes unnaturally red. The target fell immediately, and Maze retrieved her knife.
"Who are you, anyway?" she asked the redhead who she somehow found herself paired up with in a way that made no logical sense. When the next owl approached, she simply raised the blade in time to meet it, her arm steady and unyielding.
She'd been asleep, and then in the forest, and something was off. For one, Maze always had at least four knives at her disposal, now she had only two. They were both getting a lot of use. Second, she was at least wearing clothes now, or else her new companion would have been treated to a view he could only have been so lucky to admire.
She had to admit she was grateful for the clothes in the middle of the woods, though. Even if she wanted to know where she was and how she got there. So far, she had no answers, and little time to work out what was going on.
Maybe the ginger knew, but so far he hadn't offered up an explanation.
George was glad he had been in the habit with going to sleep with his wand on him and clothes on. The paranoia from his time in Dark Vallo hadn’t left him, even months later, and so he was in sweatpants and a white t-shirt, as he battled these overgrown owls alongside his impromptu partner. They had constantly been attacked in the night while in Dark Vallo, that it had just been a better idea to be fully prepared and dressed for battle at all times even when they were resting.
Blasting another owl out of the sky with a well aimed Confringo, he turned his head to look at the stupidly good looking woman he was with. “Name’s George, nice to meet you!” He hadn’t had too many interactions with the Lucifer crew, but she was familiar enough from random network posts to know that she was from Vallo. “Duck!” He added, as he turned his wand on Maze, aiming for the bird coming at the back of her head and setting it ablaze.
Merlin, that smell was going to definitely linger.
Demonic reflexes were lightning fast and it was a good thing, as the bird behind her erupted into flames. "Smells like home," she commented with a shrug, almost approving. She caught two more owls in her peripheral vision and unleashed both knives at once to either side of her.
"Mazikeen. If you make it through this, you can call me Maze."
She retrieved the first of her knives, noting that for the first time the coast seemed clear, but didn't expect that to last. "Glad you're not useless in a fight."
As if on cue, a few more owls swarmed toward them. She really needed more knives.
“Ha, glad you think so.” The moment's break from fighting gave George the chance to examine the injuries, from the initial surprise of an attack occurring. He was just starting to lift up his shirt to see how bad the ones on his chest were, when the flutter of wings coming at them reached his one good ear.
Well, fuck.
Lifting his arm again, he readied himself with another incendio on his lips.
Maze threw her knife at the one closest to hitting George, repaying the favor, and then had to get into a fist fight with an owl who just would not back down. She kind of respected the possessed creature, but she valued her own life more, even if she wasn't quite sure if the few cuts she'd received would last very long. It was incredibly difficult to injure a demon.
"These would be cute if they would stop trying to kill us," she mused, mid-fight.
“Cute?” George asked, the incredulous tone clear in his voice as he dodged a swipe of talons to the face. Merlin, these birds really were trying to take them out. Setting a few of the intense feathery creatures on fire, he yelped as another attacked the back of his head. He was forced to try and grab at it with a hand, cursing as it pecked at him.
Managing to grab a good enough hold on it to toss it away from him, he followed its trajectory with his wand and blasted it away in a puff of entrails and feathers. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t eaten breakfast.
Soon, though, a reprieve presented itself, leaving the two surrounded by the carcasses of their fallen foe. “Right,” George said, nudging a dead owl at his foot to make sure it was really dead. He retrieved the knife that was embedded in it, then walked over to where Maze was standing. Offering her back her knife, he asked, “Any clue why we’re in the forest?”
This time it seemed they really did have a break in the action. Maze took the knife from George with a nod, her acknowledgment of gratitude. "I was hoping you would know," she replied, going to fetch the second of her knives before reaching over to clean the blades off of both.
She paused. Something felt off.
"I can't hear it," she mused, listening closer. Nothing. She had yet to be anywhere in the woods of Vallo where she couldn't hear Pandemonium's call.
"Weird." She didn't like it.
Some magical users could sense differences in magic. And if George had worked at it, he might have been able to as well. But he didn’t feel anything off, not like Maze did. "What can’t you hear? What’s weird?” He asked, walking over to her, even as his shirt started to bleed red where he had been cut. Thankfully, nothing major, just scratches and cuts that would need to be cleaned soon.
He looked around, not recognizing the part of the forest they were in. Then again, he didn’t explore much beyond where the Burrow and Leaky were located.
Maze looked over at George, whistling appreciatively at the beating he had taken during the fight. "You're a mess, human," she said. "We need to get you cleaned up. And hell. I can't hear it and I always can from the Vallo woods."
“Hell,” George said, blankly, unsure how to process that information. Alright. Hell. That made this woman a…demon? “Okay. I’ll go with it. Let’s get out of the forest and see what else is going on here, yeah?”
"Sure," she agreed. "Any idea which way is out?" She glanced around looking for a tree that might be tall enough to allow them to survey their surroundings. Because the last thing they needed was to end up lost with undoubtedly more creatures waiting for them.
She looked down at the last owl she had killed, regrettably. It really had been quite feisty. Maze would have approved otherwise if they hadn't been its target.
“My sense of direction is shit at the best of times,” George explained, apologetically. “I don’t have my cell on me, else I’d use a compass app.” Catching her glancing at the trees, it occurred to him that they could do something better than climbing one. “I can raise you into the air if you like?” He waved his wand for an explanation. “See if you can spot anything familiar from up there?”
Maze eyed George skeptically, but then moved to an area that was relatively clear overhead. "You let me fall and I will kill you," she warned him. "Painfully." But he had the right idea, and levitating or whatever spell he was going to use would hopefully be faster than climbing a tree.
And if things went wrong, she was a demon. She could easily track him down. Though maybe it wasn't a good idea to threaten the only other person she had nearby.
"I'm kidding." She wasn't.
“That didn’t sound like you were kidding,” he mumbled under his breath, before he swished his wand and flicked it at Maze, while clearly calling out the charm: “Wingardium Leviosa!” And up Maze went, George navigating her so that she didn’t hit any of the branches on her way past the treeline. He got her pretty high, so much that he had to crane his head back to keep his eyes on her.
“You see anything?” He called up to her, slowly turning her in a circle so she can get a view of everything there might have been to see from that height.
Maze had experienced many things in her life but levitation was new and even a bit disconcerting, but she adjusted. Scanning the horizon, it was helpful that he was turning her.
"That way!" Maze pointed. Because she needed him to make note of the direction since she no longer knew which way she was facing. Well, she could judge by the sun which would help, but mostly she wanted to make sure they both knew which direction the city was in.
The city that was most definitely not Vallo.
She waited until she was on solid ground again to break the news. "The good news is I just pointed to civilization. The bad news is it's not Vallo. And that was the only city I saw."
The ginger paused in the direction she was pointing in, making a mark in the ground with the heel of his foot so he knew which way she had been directing them in, before he slowly started to levitate her down. He waited until she was firmly on the ground, before putting his wand away.
Except, he immediately retrieved it when she broke the bad news. “Okay...so that just means I didn’t levitate you high enough to get an idea of where Vallo is. That’s fine. We’ll get to this city and get a waypoint back to where we need to go. Because I tried Apparating...that’s teleportation...and got nowhere, so I’m guessing we’re on some native coven’s territory.” At least, that’s how he was justifying it to himself at the moment. He wasn’t panicking yet.
Sure. He could tell himself that like Maze wasn't certain of what she had seen. She wasn't going to argue, however, because she really didn't feel like dealing with his breakdown or whatever that had he was delaying with his faulty reasoning.
"Right. Let's go then. Keep an eye out for bloodthirsty owls."
She turned around, already several paces ahead of him. "And try to keep up?"
Pushing down the rising panic that Fred and Charlie might not be around, George put on some false bravado and said cheerfully, “Won’t have to worry about me. I’m ready to get back home and into a shower.”
Yeah, that breakdown was going to come sooner rather than later.