Books and papers were gathered up, bowls of munchies and bottles of pop distributed to make a second trip unnecessary, and everyone relocated to the den. Sid left on some business of his own—probably stalking rays.

“Hey, this is nice,” Dana said, sinking into the chair near the fireplace. “It'll be a bit harder rolling dice with no table, but otherwise, comfy. Maybe now we can actually play? Hint hint?”

“I think I'm going to declare a bit of an intermission while we all get settled again,” Christian said; Dana rolled her eyes and sighed. “Maybe you guys can talk Eric into starting a fire.”

“Yeah, I'm going to encourage someone to handle matches who's having trouble sitting on a chair at the moment?” Isaac snorted.

Eric shrugged, and gave Isaac his best charming smile. “I'm having a bad night, what can I say?”

“Mark,” Christian said, trying to keep his voice calm, “could you come give me a hand in the kitchen, please?”

Mark nodded, abandoned his notes on the footstool, and followed him out of the room immediately, closing the door behind him.

“What's going on?” he growled.

“Switch and look in the dining room.”

With a wary glance at the den, Mark switched to Alexandra, and strode into the dining room. In the doorway, she paused, evaluating.

“We need to see how far they've spread,” she said. “Check the sitting room, and I'll take a look in the kitchen.”

They'd expanded into the sitting room, and were floating there in a dense silvery-blue mass that was growing steadily, this one dividing, now that one. Christian stepped around almost a dozen of them on his way to the living room; judging by Alexandra's expression, as she met him there, they were in the kitchen, too.

They discovered where Sid had gone: he was currently in mid-leap. Landing with a ray gripped in his teeth, he pawed it until it dissolved. He wasted no time being disappointed that his new toy had proven so fragile, but found another one to jump for. That probably had quite a lot to do with why they weren't nearly as thick here as they were in the front rooms.

“Awesome, Sid,” Christian cheered. “Keep doing that. Only about a million to go. All right. We need to get these things contained in a hurry, whether we kill them or not. ”

Alexandra snatched one with each hand, and closed her fists, her nails biting into the rays even as the pressure increased relentlessly. “Killing them is easier.”

“Can't argue with that. Cover me for a sec, while I grab the lines?”

She nodded, and grabbed for two more, but surrendered one of them to Sid.

Christian sat down where he was, and reached for the river under the house as quickly as he dared. There, got it. He opened his eyes on a world gone all sparkly halos with pure power, and got to his feet.

The domovikha stepped out into view, and gave Christian an accusing look, gesturing to the rays.

“Sorry, it was an accident. I think one got into Isaac’s backpack and he brought it through the shields without any idea it was there. But we have the others safe in the den now, so we can clean up.”

She brightened immediately, and in seconds, her horde of brownies trooped out of corners and shadows. Two were towing a black plastic garbage bag between them. They stalked off determinedly in the direction of the front of the house.

Sid dragged the last ray in this room to the floor and killed it, and looked up hopefully at Christian, tail lashing with excitement.

“Follow the domovikha,” Christian told him. “I think she's heading for the rest of them.”

Sid raced off after the brownies. Christian and Alexandra followed more slowly, split up so she could take the kitchen and he the hall, and they met again in the hall between dining room and sitting room. In the former, the brownies, under the domovikha's supervision, were seizing low-floating rays and stuffing them in the garbage bag; some of them had climbed up onto the table to reach higher ones, and were passing them to brownies on the chairs who were passing them to brownies on the floor. The garbage bag moved and writhed, but two brownies held the mouth closed except when there was another one to add.

Across the hall in the sitting room, the domovoi was directing a fair number of air and earth elementals in an all-out attack on the rays, the former tearing with their nails in a fury unlike anything Christian had ever seen from them, making the air swirl around and buffet the rays mercilessly. The earth elementals didn’t bother trying to capture the rays, just seized any they could reach, often ones flung there by the air elementals, then hammered them until they stopped moving and dissolved. Sid was darting back and forth, pouncing on any ray that tried to get into the hall.

Valiant though the effort was, the defenders were hugely outnumbered.

One of the bobbing rays veered towards a brownie with sudden purpose; just before it touched, it flipped itself so its underside faced the brownie directly. The entire thing wrapped itself tightly around the hapless brownie, who writhed and fell over. Four more brownies ran to the rescue, and grimly forced the ray open. Their compatriot's struggles were weakening significantly by the time they freed him; he sat up and simply gulped air for a moment, before hopping to his feet and rejoining the battle.

“Oh, not good,” Christian said weakly. “Okay, gotta think, even if we win this way, we're going to lose people.”

“Good, you think, but stay where I can see you.” Alexandra strode into the dining room, slashing at any ray that came into reach.

They have to be feeding on something in order to multiply like that, otherwise there would've been thousands of them in Isaac's backpack by the time he got here. What's in here that isn't outside? Warmth, light, high magical resonance. He batted one away from his face, and retreated to flatten himself against the wall of the hall; Sid pounced on the swatted one, and circled near Christian, tail swishing, the black of his pupils nearly swallowing the green altogether. Not afraid in the least.

C'mon, Chris, think! You're no use standing here unless you come up with answers! Warmth, light, magic... which are all forms of energy. It's dark inside a backpack, and cold outside. They're still multiplying in the garbage bag, it's swelling up way too fast, so it probably isn't light. One went for Sara's hot chocolate, that was the only hot drink on the table, and now ... they're going for body heat! I might be wrong, but it's worth a shot...

He wrapped a thermal shield around the den, trapping its warmth inside, and anchored it directly to the river under the house; as an afterthought, he added two more, one around the garden in the loft, one around Sid's porch with its jungle of cat-safe plants.

Then he dropped the one he'd enveloped the entire house in, nudged every thermostat in every room except the den down as low as possible, and sought out every door and window, opening them wide to let the cool April night air in.

In January, that might have been enough, but even past sunset in spring, the air lacked the real edge of cold he needed. He deepened the trance, shutting out everything, trusting Sid and Alexandra to keep the rays from touching him, and thought cold, winter, ice, snow, blizzards, projecting it outwards—memories of what it could be like in the height of winter, the fierce chill that seeped down to your bones, the knife-edged wind that went right through layers of clothing... Make it real, make it be this way...

The sound of brownies cheering brought him out of the trance; he blinked fuzzily, and wrapped his arms around himself, shivering violently in the bitter cold. The brownies were filling two more garbage bags, rapidly, but instead of the remaining rays continuing to multiply and keep their density fairly constant, they were thinning noticeably. Christian watched them, and Alexandra shredding them with the efficiency of a blender, then turned and looked in at the massacre in the sitting room, but didn't see a single one divide.

Oh, good, I guessed right... Sid seemed to be fine in the low temperature, and Alexandra and the various liminals and elementals were oblivious to it, but he needed to do something right now or they'd have to thaw his frozen body. He closed his eyes again, and concentrated on stabilizing his body temperature at a tolerable level—he doubted he could manage ‘comfortable’ in this, but he'd settle for anything that got him out of danger.

One of the rays drifted in his general direction, and then a couple more, in an uncharacteristic straight line that probably should have worried him, but fighting an uphill battle against hypothermia was too distracting, despite the nagging feeling that there was something wrong with this concept. More followed the first three, replacing the ones Sid destroyed.

Oh shit! I'm the warmest thing around! He yelped, “Lexa!” just as four of them, virtually simultaneously, snapped towards him, flipping underside-first. Christian dropped flat, and they missed him; Sid jumped on them all as rapidly as he could, leaping on one and spinning in place to go up on his hind legs and drag another one down into reach.

Alexandra snatched another out of the air in mid-snap, and slashed at a couple more that came too close. “Get in the den. We can take care of this now.”

Christian nodded breathlessly, and scrambled to his feet, still crouched between her and the wall. He contemplated asking her to look after Sid, or bringing Sid into the den with him, but the cat was wreaking havoc with such great success and enthusiasm it probably was better to just let him be.

When the gathering wall of rays broke enough for him to slip through, he bolted in the direction of the den. It felt like cowardice, but, well, he'd done what he could, and right now, being a magnet for them was going to complicate matters for the rest.

He didn't even see the ray that had been floating up near the ceiling, until it was dropping towards him. He got a brief glimpse of the vividly blue underside.

And then there was no air to breathe.

His cry was muffled by the ray plastered across nose and mouth. He clawed at it desperately, lost his balance, and fell against a wall; leaning against it kept him upright, but he was sure he felt something smack against his leg, only his jeans between it and his skin. The one on his face seemed sealed there, he could find no edges to get ahold of to peel it away. Lungs aching, starting to get dizzy from lack of air and from the cold that was reaching him as he lost concentration, he tried to visualize a knife from the waiting power, something he could use to get rid of it, but the image wouldn't solidify.

Alexandra slid one hand around the back of his neck, and glossy black nails flashed towards his face; they grazed skin, but didn't entirely break it. More importantly, they tore the ray off; it hurt, like someone ripping duct tape off skin, and left his face feeling raw, but at least he could take a gasping breath. The one that had attached itself to his leg was easier, at least it was only lint from his jeans torn away, not the surface layer of skin.

Alexandra looked him over measuringly. “Are you okay?”

Christian nodded, still gulping air.

“You'd better do some kind of illusion before you go in the den.”

He nodded again, not sure he wanted to know how he looked. Should be a simple enough illusion, at least, one he could create and maintain under even these conditions.

She stayed beside him, this time, until he was at the door of the den. He made sure she was out of the line of sight, before weaving a quick illusion—more like a suggestion, really, making an observer's mind believe nothing was out of the ordinary—and ducking inside.

“Finally!” Dana said. “No, wait, there's our game master, but where's Mark?”

“He's had a touch of the flu all day,” Christian improvised, settling himself on the floor. Objects glittered with rainbow halos, an unnecessary reminder of the river-power he still had access to, but he didn't dare break the connection just yet. Eric paid no attention; Val and Sara had seen the effect a time or two and would be able to identify it. Isaac looked around, scrunched his eyes closed, opened them, and looked again; with a small shrug, he gave up on trying to figure it out. Dana reached for her glass, blinked, picked it up and inspected it more closely with a faint frown, but, like Isaac, she decided not to say anything. “That's why we were so long, I wanted to make sure he's okay. He'll be here in a minute, I think he's feeling better now.”

“What did you need help with in the kitchen?” Isaac asked.

“Um... oops, I got so distracted worrying about Mark...”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dana sighed. “I'm more interested in playing than food anyway.”

“The way you're shivering, I think you might be getting it, too,” Val said. “Toss me the afghan on the back of the couch, Sara?” She caught it neatly, and unfolded it to drape around Christian in a dazzling prismatic display.

“I'm okay.”

Mark joined them a couple of minutes later.

“Feeling better?” Sara asked solicitously. “Chris said that flu that's been after you all day was acting up again.”

Mark nodded, and joined her and Eric on the couch. “I think I'll live. Wasn't sure if I wanted to for a few minutes, there, though. Sorry for holding up the game.”

“It just seems to be the night for that,” Isaac said philosophically. “Okay, we're all present, Eric hasn't fallen off a chair for at least fifteen minutes, we have light... and why the hell is it so cold in here?”

Damn, that thermal shield isn't strong enough against that kind of cold, I guess...

“I can decide what I'm doing and get a fire going at the same time,” Eric said, standing up. “Enough with the delays, Mark's obviously going to survive, let's get started, huh?”

The fire helped; so did surreptitious witchy reinforcement. Mark wrote a quick note, and had Sara pass it to Christian.

Give them half an hour, bring the temp up everywhere but basement, domovikha's storing bags there.

The rest of the evening passed without incident, beyond Sid scratching at the door to come in, and curling up next to the fire to wash, purring to himself. Christian gave it three quarters of an hour, then, while the players argued—Mark deliberately prolonging it, Chris thought—he reached out mentally to close windows and doors, turn thermostats back on, and reactivate the thermal shield around the house. Except the basement; he gave that a separate shield, and lowered the temperature inside enough that it should be fine until he was free to do something more permanent.

The house was back to something approaching normal warmth when they finally called it quits for the night.

Eric stopped in his tracks when he stepped out into the hall, half a stride ahead of Christian. There was something like an inch of sparkly silver and blue dust across most of it, from there all the way to the front door. Christian heard furtive sounds of motion from the front rooms, where the domovikha probably had the brownies cleaning like mad.

Well, if we have to have a mess, at least it's one nobody can actually see...

“Hey, you're holding up traffic,” Isaac complained.

“Sorry.” Eric and Christian moved to either side.

Due farewells were said, and Dana and Isaac departed.

Christian locked the door behind them, leaned against it, and let himself slide down. Dust poofed around him. “Oh, thank god that's over.” He let go of the suggestion of normality, and winced when Val strode quickly closer to look him over.

“You look like you've been through at least a minor war.”

“I look worse than I feel, then. It was only a small skirmish.”

“Does this place look like I bet it does?” Mark asked.

“Yes,” Eric and Christian said together.

Mark nodded. “I can live without looking.”

“All right, we've been covering for you and not asking questions,” Val said sternly. “I want answers, right now.”

“So would I,” Eric said. “I got left out of the loop early on. Back in the den? There's a bit of a chill out here, and at least it's clean. And we'll be out of the domovikha's way, she'll flay us if we get underfoot while she cleans up a mess like this.”

Sara looked down at, to her, bare floor with a runner carpet up the centre. “If you say so.”

“I want to grab treats for Sid, first,” Christian said. “I don't know how many he killed.”

“He was after something, in the dining room,” Val said. It wasn't a question. “That was why you and Eric were acting weird.”

Eric nodded. “Some things it takes witchblood to see. I don’t know how that works with what Vadin told Mark... maybe enough generations make it possible to see the ones that normally aren’t visible to humans at all? Or maybe it’s just practice? I wish he’d offered, say, a couple of research studies or something, instead of a cryptic bit of ancient history that fails to explain weak witchblood like mine. Anyway, yeah, weird critters I’ve never heard of before, and considering how much dust there is in here, they were dividing and multiplying like mad.”

Christian ducked in the kitchen to get the container of Sid's favourite treats, and everyone got settled in the den again to get caught up on events.

“We'd be up to our eyeballs in them by now, if Chris hadn't figured out what they were feeding off,” Mark said.

“Yeah, well, I'd be dead if you hadn't gotten that one off me,” Christian retorted.

Eric laughed. “Face it, the pair of you make a great team. Witch and bitch.”

That elicited universal groans, and Val tossed a small throw pillow at him. “That's awful, Eric.”

He just grinned. “To say nothing of the great black hunter, here.” He ran a hand along Sid's back. Belly full of treats, tired from the earlier excitement, soaking in the heat of the fire, Sid barely moved, only purred a trifle more loudly.

“I'm going to have to kill the ones in the basement, still,” Christian said. “I've never seen the brownies and elementals get aggressive like that before.”

“Maybe they recognized them,” Sara suggested.

“Must be. Anyway. I'm going to seal up the basement and make darn sure that it can't possibly warm up before this time tomorrow, and go to bed. I'm beat.”

“Want to just stay, Val?” Sara offered. “You can come sleep with me.”

“Easier than running back in the morning to watch Chris deal with the leftovers,” Eric laughed, and yawned. “I'd say it's bedtime for all of us, kids. Invasions and making excuses are both tiring.”