Ciel was dazed when he saw the walls and windows of the house overrun by spiders but realizing that his mother and siblings were nowhere to be seen, he quickly snapped out of his stupor.
“Mother, the twins!” he quickly rushed towards the house, Kou following close behind. For some reason, the spiders were contained within an invisible barrier restricted to the house. This wasn’t the same as the barrier that Ciel had set up earlier, which also encompassed the garden. He felt the fluctuations of the spell and realized that this was his mother’s doing. Putting his hands on the barrier, he found that he could get through it. So without hesitation, he rushed in and ran for the front door. Seeing no way through the mass of black, he simply jumped over them. Kou sucked a breath, wondering if Ciel was crazy. Before he could land in the midst of the rustling swarm, Ciel, as if by magic, jumped again. He appeared to make invisible footholds that enabled him to continuously jump above the spiders, allowing him to get into the threshold of the house.
“Stay where you are. You can’t handle these things!” Ciel didn’t forget to call out to him. In the first place, for some reason, Kou couldn’t get through the barrier. He had pounded his fists ineffectively against the barrier but he could not follow Ciel’s lead into the house. Kou suddenly felt useless. He watched as Ciel continuously jumped over the spiders and up the stairs towards the bedrooms.
“Mother!” Ciel called as he raced up the stairs, leaping gracefully over the river of spiders that he knew not where they came from.
“Ciel! Over here!” he heard his mother’s cry and rushed up the landing. For some reason, his mother had moved the twins into her bedroom at the other end of the house. The door to the master bedroom was a wall of spiders and Ciel wrinkled his nose in disgust. A wave of a spell and the spiders at the door and surrounding area were burnt to a crisp, giving Ciel an opportunity to open the door to let himself in. He immediately shut it and looked at his mother. She looked pale and a little dishevelled but he did not see any injuries, which was a good sign. The twins were both still unconscious and his mother had placed them on the bed.
“What happened?” he could not understand how it had happened, especially since he had already activated the home’s defence array.
His mother closed her eyes as if to block out the memory. “I don’t know how they knew about the home’s defence array but spiders hid inside the twins… after you left, two large spiders came crawling out of their mouths…” she shuddered in revulsion. “Before I could do anything, they ran off and started to multiply. All I knew was that I grabbed the twins and came here. Then I sealed the door and placed an additional barrier around the house. Ciel, I don’t think they just want the club… I think they want to attack Time Valley too.”
Ciel’s blood went cold at that thought. Besides the rich veins of energy crystals, the spiritual core of the valley made it that the very air in the valley was full of energy and it was easier for people here to cultivate or practice magic. This was also the reason the people here shun outsiders; too many greedy people coveted the wealth and power they could amass from just living here. So Time Valley was sealed off to the outside world; surrounded by magic fog, barriers and confusion arrays, it was near impossible for a random stranger to just stumble into the valley; his father had been the first in more than five thousand years.
But the name Time Valley however, came from their most precious treasure; the Time Stone. It had the ability to allow people to travel through time besides stopping and slowing the passage of time. This was why those at Sanctuary could come from any time and the club was outside the passage of time. If the club really fell, the last resort would be to shut the magic that the Time Stone was supplying to Sanctuary. That way, the club and everyone in it would be lost in time but there would be no way for the Arnitikós or negative creatures to infiltrate the human world or any other world that Sanctuary connected to. In essence, Time Valley controlled time and Sanctuary controlled space. If you could control both, you could rule any known world.
“We can’t let them get to the valley or Time Stone.” Ciel’s voice was shaky but his heart and sense of duty never wavered. This was what he and his siblings were taught from a young age, ingrained over the centuries; that the safety of the valley supersedes everything else. His mother’s people had been the guardians to this place since time immemorial; this was also the reason why she could not leave and why his father decided to stay. Dawn was an exception; but she had also paid a price for her leaving; she could no longer return to the valley and if it was not because her body had been destroyed, her parents would not have begged Master Seki to bend the rules for her.
Scarlet sighed. “I’m sorry to make you do this. It’s just until your father sends reinforcements. I’m sure he’s been alerted.”
“I know. Don’t worry.” He turned to leave.
“Wait”
He turned around to look at his mother. “This may be Anansi’s spider form. If it’s anything like Jurogumo, he will be bigger and look different from the other spiders. My magic will keep him contained to the house. Find him fast.”
Ciel nodded again. On impulse he went over to hug his mother, giving her a tight squeeze. Instead of complaining, she hugged him in the same fervour as he did. When they finally released each other, they looked into each other’s eyes and she stroked her son’s face. “Stay safe” she whispered.
“I will.” He reassured her. Thinking about the potential wall of spiders at the door, Ciel walked to the window instead. His mother understood and with a wave of her hand, an impact seemed to hit the barrier at the window, causing the spiders to be flung away. Quick as a flash, Ciel opened the window and leapt out and his mother, equally fast, closed the window again. Using the same magic as before, Ciel stepped on invisible footholds, slowing his descent. Every now and then he would ignite a fire spell, clearing away some of the spiders. But like with George and the other, the torrent of spiders were unending. Different from the night before however, was that there was no clear direction where the spiders came from; the spiders had taken over most of the house and was swarming from every direction. The most logical way Ciel could use to deal with this was to methodically purge each room and then seal it off so that the spiders could not get back into them. It would be a huge drain to his energy but it would be better than to just randomly attack the spiders without any idea what he was doing. Another method would be to get to the central crystal again but he was afraid that the indiscriminate light might hurt his siblings, which had been tainted by the spiders.
Running back into the house, Ciel decided to sweep from upstairs to down. Besides the fact that the portal to Sanctuary and his family were all located upstairs, Ciel felt his skin crawl when he thought about spiders all over his bed and personal items. Selfish true, but at least it gave him a starting point. By containing them downstairs, it was also easier because the open floor plan of the ground floor meant there were less hiding places and he could see from above where they were coming from, if he did not manage to find Anansi upstairs.
He decided to start with the study where the portal was located; it wouldn’t do if reinforcements came but were rendered useless because they were attacked by spiders before they were ready. But when he got to the study located next to the master bedroom, he smiled. His clever, clever mother had already sealed that room along with the door to her room. So, all he did was incinerate the spiders clinging to both doors before he set up a barrier. It was like playing a game now; every time he removed the spiders, he would enlarge the barrier little by little, expanding his territory.
The spell he used was exactly like the one from the central crystal, except it was done in a controlled, localized manner. The cleansing light would hit everything in the area until his mother’s barrier and he would expand his barrier to join hers. This was good because it purged the spiders both in the room and the exterior walls. But as he continued to progress, sweat began beading on his forehead and his breathing was getting laboured. The spell itself was rather draining, which was why they normally used the crystal as an amplifier. Now he had been using it multiple times on top of also using a barrier spell. No matter how powerful a person was, the multiple spells cast would take more effort. His legs were getting shaky now but he was almost done with the first floor. He only had the guest room at the end before he had completely cleansed the top floor; he never hated the fact that the family home was huge until now. Gasping, he took a deep breath and started chanting. A few seconds later, he released the spell and immediately started the barrier spell and released it; if Dominic were here, he would be awed at the quick succession of spells Ciel was releasing.
The first floor was finally cleared of all the spiders. Ciel heaved a sigh of relief and started panting as his body bent over. His face was ashen but his eyes determined. He straightened himself up and turned to the stairs, ready to start clearing that area as well. That was when a wave of dizziness hit him and he stumbled, accidentally stepping out of the barrier and into the spiders.
“Ah!” he gave a weak cry, trying to jump out of the spiders when more came, showering him from above. In his weakened state, he flailed uselessly at the spiders on his body as they bit and crawled all over him before he lost his footing because of the stairs and fell headfirst into the sea of black, rustling arachnids.
