Dancing to Oblivion

Any normal day in such a crowded monument to over indulgence would hide a number of minimal vices, but today, a select group would trudge through the underlying reaches of a shrine to decadence to uncover something sinister and ancient.  Also, there is a rollercoaster in this place!

"You better be sure about this orange blur with black dots for what I can only assume are eyes..."  Holding what she claimed to be a patented "ghost tracker", Elaine questioned the source of her information leading into such an odd place to track down a primordial evil.  Donning the regular overcoat she wore over her black poncho made her stand out a little less, but the brown hat still garnered attention the boots and holster didn't quite sell on their own.  "Have you always been this blurry?"


"My dear, given what you thought karma was..."  The small dog, who looked quite unblurred to those who could witness ghosts without Elaine's invention, tried to shed some levity towards the reason for their arrival.  "...I'm not the one blurry to the world."  

"Once the other girl gets here, I'll have her see if she can fix this."  Failing to remember her partner's name, but still keeping in mind she exists, Elaine thought about how Ame could be of use to her.  "What frequency do you exist in?"

"One that reward me enough to deal with the mad creations of a fringe lunatic."

"Okay..."  Elaine brushed off the misunderstood comments. "...And we can take care of that lunatic later, but for now, what frequency do you..."

"Elaine..."  Coming out of the crowd wearing an outfit drawing focus away from the cowgirl, Ame presented her failures. "...I can't get a reading with my dowsing rods."

"Can you see the spirits of any animals if I put this over your face?"  Invading her personal space, Elaine forced the hunk of metal over Ame's face.  

"Stop..."  Fighting against the forced use of technology, Ame held the device and tried to focus.  "...No, but everything is blurry and out of focus."

"That is only a side effect of what I wanted to happen."  Reality was hard for Elaine sometimes with its dumb rules and laws of existence.  If only she could find a way to circumnavigate dimensional existence by jumping in between realms.  "...So, you found something?"

"No, I just said I didn't find anything."  Annoyed with the lack of focus, Ame began to figure she would need to completely repeat herself.

Elaine wanted to know what she could have known if she listened ten seconds prior.  "Well why not?"  

"My dowsing rods..."  Ame almost didn't think it was worth it.  Then she decided it wasn't.  "...Do you even pretend to listen."

Given Ame's oblivious nature to the forces of cowgirl shamanism, Elaine decided to enlighten her.  "So your dowsing rods are a tool of the devil, so they wouldn't betray ancient evils because they actually control you?"

The next part made Ame sad she needed to actually go into detail over, but with Elaine's explanation of the art Ame used, it slid in priorities.  "They wouldn't work, because a kid grabbed it and ran off with it."

"Wow..."  Dropping her eyes and tone, Elaine ironically shamed her partner.

Justifying her actions with an abduction of her arms, Ame tried to explain.  "Well, yeah.  I'm not..."  

"Wow..."  Elaine continued.

Ame fought for a moment.  "Okay..."

And Elaine continued.  "Wow, you know you're allowed to beat children up if they take things from you, right?..." 

"Not a real law."  The corgi felt the need to reference a far standing, interdimensional code of ethics.  

With the mission mostly a failure, it seemed like a good enough time to quit and go home, but Elaine remembered something.  "It's not all a waste, some drunk guy named Dylan texted me and said he wanted to make out with my face, so I should meet him at this music store for some dumb signing.  I think he's like thirty or something."

With an odd occurrence of a little known noun, Ame felt compelled to remedy her ignorance.  "What's a music store?"

"It's one of those archaic things that stay open by selling drugs out of the back."  For years Elaine used to go to a local music store to steal CDs and then sell them back, until the stupid internet made stealing music not actual give the thieves any money.  What crap is that?

A tide of understanding washed over Ame.  "Kind of like a magic shop."

"With the onset of the internet, music stores are just as healthy a business venture as a magic shop."  Yep.

Action hussled and bussled all through the crowded mall, and so did the collective community making up the supernatural detectives.  Such a vibrant and lovely day only served to bring in all sorts of people looking for ways to dance their way to oblivion-- not such a foreign concept to the situation the duo sought to resolve. 

Ame kept her hands crossed against her stomach, cradling her rod.  "I hope I can find that kid to get my rod back."

"We both know that won't happen.  You'll just see him, say something dumb, and then get outrun because you think dumb shoes like that are appropriate for this kind of investigation."  Without mercy or misunderstanding reality, Elaine gouged Ame with most likely the truth.  

"Ouch..."  The spirit took account of the blow. "...She has a point."

With the sudden barrage of insults, well the latest of a long run of insults, Ame felt the need to defend herself.  "Why don't you just go find that sleazy guy who tried to hook up with you based on an ad you put on Craigslist.  Who looks for women based on job searches?"

Some things explain themselves.  "A guy who wants a career driven woman..."  But not normally when Elaine explains them.


"Which career is that: the cowgirl, the shaman, or the paranormal detective?"  Spoke the corgi to the girl.  

"...The one that makes money, duh."  Still more things raising more questions than answers from Elaine.  

"We barely get paid at all."  Ame recalled with a perplexed look.

"We don't get paid at all, and what we do have from odd investors, we spend on things like that worthless hunk of metal Elaine built to do something she is already capable of doing."

"Yeah..."  Elaine smiled and laughed thinking about her inventions.  "I am pretty bad ass."

"He's like thirty, and wanted to meet at a signing for a J-pop singer who looks like she is twelve, but dresses like she works a night job."  Coming from the woman dressed in a corset and thigh high stocking.  

Still, the comment fell on not fully listening ears.  "Well, concerts happen at night, duh."

"Not the night job I was getting at..."  Ame corrected Elaine.

"Hold on, is that what we were looking for?"  Elaine pointed out a small alcove leading to a security room.  As the door opened and closed, it gave a small sampling of the terminals and monitors showing every facet of the mall.

"It's a security room..."  Ame felt the need to point out something that should be obvious, but given Elaine's interest, may not be.  

"With cameras all over the place..."  She thought a minute for how to infiltrate the room when she peered down to her companion.  "I need you to go into that room, look around for her dumb devil worship sticks, and then come back and tell us where they are."

"That is..."  He felt ashamed to say any more words.  "Actually a good idea."  Walking away in the shame of needing carry out a good idea from Elaine, the small dog headed towards the closed door.

"Wait I see him..."  Standing in line to an older matriarchal figure, a small boy held onto an "L" shaped silver rod.  

"I said he was like thirty.  I would go to jail if I made out with him."

Directing the attention of her immediate cohort, Ame pointed towards a small boy in a blue shirt.  "That's the kid who stole my rod!"

"He's like nine."  Elaine knew she could definitely beat up a nine year old, so this would be nothing.  

"He's really fast..."  Ame knew Elaine could definitely beat up a nine year old, so this could be something.  "...and how would it look if I chased down a nine year old and took something from him in a crowded mall?"

"I don't know.  How's it going to look when I tell everyone how you're not on par with nine year olds?"

Now action needed to take place and Ame knew just how to handle it.  "I'm going to do something."

Before Ame could get away from Elaine, the spirit shaman made sure to let Ame know she had her back.  "I'll be bad cop in case you..."

"No bad cop; it's a nine year old waiting to get an autograph from a pop star."  The situation would play out very badly for them if things went south.  She just wanted her rod back so she could find this ancient evil and save people from a terrible fate, but these nine year olds keep getting in the way of great magicians.  

"Nine year old thief it still a thief, even if he did take something that is dumb."  Elaine crossed her arms and waded over to where the boy stood with his mother.  

Coming across as overly polite and bearing more teeth than a horse in her smile, Ame hoped to work a diplomatic angle.  "Excuse me mam, but I believe your son took my rod..."


Tugging at his mother's hand, the boy starting pulling heart strings.  "I found this mommy, I was going to give it to you for your birthday, because you are the best..."

"No, it's mine..."  Ame tried to keep a smile as she pressed on.

"Don't interrupt my son."  The alpha mother took offense to mild rudeness on Ame's part.  

"Interrupting is more rude than theft."  Protesting against her partner only served to help Elaine in her plan.  "Who's the real monster now?"    

"Okay, so your son, who is just horribly raised if I can say so myself..."  Ame's tone soured in the same manner grapes in southern California vineyards do-- except no one pays to drink her bitter tone.  "Took that from me..."  Reaching down to try to pry the rod from the boy's hand, Ame made quite the spectacle in line for the Tyuki Gold experience.  

"Don't touch my son you side show freak!"  The mother interceded on behalf of her son and engaged Ame in a tug of war over the dowsing rod.  

"I've got an idea that can solve this..."  While the two women fought over the rod, Elaine grabbed the rod in the middle of the shaft.  Shoving her hand as hard as she could against the mother's chest, Elaine gave a quick reprieve to Ame to bring the rod back to her body.  "Run!"  Leaping in between dimensions with Ame in tow, Elaine reappeared on top of Tyuki's table before jumping over the pop star's head and running towards the back of the store.

Nothing moved faster than trouble through a record store dragging a reluctant sorceress by the dowsing rod, freshly recovered by forcefully taking it from a nine year old thief.  Granted, it doesn't come up enough to truly warrant any kind of customary saying, but given the distance the duo put between themselves and the complete confusion of left behind them, it should be on the docket. 

"Okay..."  Elaine took a moment to catch her breathe while her companion placed her hands on her knees to try and get a grasp on what just happened.  "Do magic."


"Do magic?"  Still grounded in the events only a few seconds behind them, out of sight by a mere sheet of drywall, Amethyst could barely think about something like scrying when the entire population of the mall just witnessed a horrible action.  "We just did crime!"

"The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few, so screw all those nerds while we do magic."  Elaine put her hands on her hips while she surveyed the back halls of the Mall of America.  "This place looks like a den of evil."

"It looks like hallway.  I don't know what delusions you come up with."  Energy pulsed through the rods pointing them towards a metal door cased with a cross hitch wire grade bracing a window poking Amethyst's attention from the rods to the door.  "It looks like..."

"Den of evil."  Confidence pushed Elaine towards the door. 


"Maybe we should be careful."  Knowledge held Amethyst back.

"Sure, tell mall security and possibly the police how you attacked a nine year old and stole a device you use for occult and devil worship."  Decisively, Elaine gave Amethyst a no win situation with an option to tie.  

Letting her breathing prompt her dismay, Amethyst came to terms with the danger before them.  "I guess we're going down."  Just as Amethyst's tone did.

Before Elaine could escort Amethyst past the locked door, the sudden but inevitable came for them.  "We should make our leave..."

"Hold on..."  A certain offense seemed to tick off Elaine.  "I don't know what this moron is talking about; I've never seen her in my life."

Diplomacy pushed Amethyst into a position to try and smooth over the situation.  "You'll need to excuse my friend..."

"I'm not your friend..."  Elaine pointed a finger to Amethyst before turning back to the security and Tyuki.  "And, I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but I don't think it is for age eight and up for three players.  Probably some kind of weird parcheesi..."  She turned to where her phantom corgi would normally take his rest.  "...It's just gay Trouble, but I digress."

"Can we regress?"  More energy pulsed through the rods and into Amethyst's palms.  "I've got a sense here..."

"Keep it in your pants Mandrake the Magician..."  Taking to the stance of a poor imitation of a southern lawyer, Elaine began to present her case.  "...What we have here is an imposter trying to play us against each other.  Why else would she make an attempt to befriend us after sending her agents to steal my friend's devil worship kit..."

"I'm sorry; we're friends now?"  The turn of events made Amethyst's head spin.  "And stop calling it devil worship..."

"Shut it up and close it down David Copperfield..."  Elaine continued to pace as she unraveled a mystery shrouded in her own enigma.  "The only real way this could be true is if..."  Making use of the air of confusion Elaine strewn through the room with her insinuation of wrong doing and right turns, Elaine placed her hand on Tyuki's Shoulder.  "Sneak attack!  I win!"  With a quick snap of her boot, she would disappear with Tyuki behind the closed door, leaving Amethyst alone with the security officers.

"Ta-da!"  Halfheartedly, Amethyst raised her hands in a display of magic with a phony smile.

"Well I just had the funniest thing happen..."  Short legs moved the colorful canine into the back halls.  "I went to go examine the security room, when I saw a petty larceny mixed with assault take place.  I then followed a resisting arrest case, and now I'm talking to you."

"Not now, dog that may or may not be real..."  Brushing off the new arival came as second nature, but one thing nature did not provide was Elaine's new gadget.  Holding the odd contraption in both hands, Elaine moved to place the "Ghost Tracker" on Tyuki's head.  The contraption still made everything blurry, but since Elaine did absolutely no modifications since her last failure with Amethyst, no traces of ghost would present themselves to Tyuki.  "Can you see any ghosts or spirits now?"

After the grandeur of wearing such an exquisite helmet passed, Elaine would take it upon herself to explain the situation to Tyuki.  "You need to be able to see spirits and ghosts, because me and 'girl with brown hair' came to check out an ancient evil from beyond time and space that lives in the basement."  It spilled out rather easy.  "So while the other girl is doing whatever or something, we'll keep on going until we find whatever this ancient evil is-- or something like that; I don't know."

Once the illusion of what Elaine did being passed off as an illusion faded, Amethyst made sure to put as much space in between her and anyone with a badge, a conscience, or a temper as humanly possible.  She figured Elaine took to the locked off area in her usual manner, but Ame needed another way.  Her magic could unlock the door, but with security guards right in front, it would only raise suspicions.  Ame needed to figure out a way to get down stairs without attracting any attention to herself, and as her thoughts turned to pondering, she felt a surge of power course through her hands.

"Of course what happens down here stays down here"  Lines like an owl's crown broke between Elaine's nose as she responded to the worried Tyuki.  "...Unlocalized quantum theory is unfounded in reality.  Now, I need to get this ghost helmet working."  The blind led the blind deeper into the depths of the now lit basement, all the while tinkering with her helmet device.  "Do you know what frequency spirit animals exist in?"

"Well I do find the ramblings of right wing fanatics you find so enlightening to be absolutely encapsulating, but I wouldn't say I exist there."  The corgi interjected. 

Elaine turned to her small companion and uttered a sharp, divisive comment.  "Yolo." 

While no signs of evil rung out with the audacious overtness Elaine normally colored the world in, even she found herself at odds with trying to find the lair of evil among the vast storage room she walked into.  Stretching out for hundreds of yards and sub-sectioned by lines of crates filled with seasonal decorations and equipment for special events, Elaine pressed past a box filled with Christmas decorations.  "These Santa's took the 'Christ' out of Christmas..."  She lifted a hollow, plastic ornament.  "These must be them."

In and out of the flicker of light ranging from overhead emergency lights, tiny dangles of shadow danced and moved past the natural flow of light, stealing the flow of radiance upon the ground and turning it into empty void. 

"If I were Elaine..."  A series of misplaced adventures ran through Ame's mind.  "Right.  I need to traipse through another venue of thought."  A fierce flow of vibrations kept her moving forward through the labyrinthine hallway.  Echoes of malevolence blasted from the other side of the walls, no doubt police reports with a less than favorable depiction of Ame and her malcontent partner. 

Beyond the realm of normal perception sat a doorway.  And Ame's dowsing rods exploded with enough energy to almost make them shoot out of her hands.  "I guess these are doing the job well enough for now."  With courage masking trepidation, Ame pushed forward to knock upon the door.  It rang hollow, bone against empty metal. 

"Can I help you?"  Perplexed with a tone of annoyance, a supply manager in a polo shirt looked strangely upon the oddly dressed young woman. 

"Well..."  As she began to explain herself, the motion of her dowsing rods caught the attention of the manager.  The kind of attention she did not want.

"Ghost hunters don't even find real ghosts.  Everyone knows you can't see a ghost by looking at it; you only see a ghost by making everything around it not visible and then looking to the side of it."  After her brief explanation of, well, something, Elaine held the stick of gum in her hand.  "Gum is for anorexics..."  Elaine tossed the piece down to her spirit companion to partake upon. 

A series of emotions from all over the spectrum flooded the small animal.  None positive.  "Even with summer coming upon us, I don't think I could lose another pound." 



"Suit yourself."  Elaine rummaged through more of the empty crates as she came upon the St Patrick's Day festivities.  Clovers, leprechauns, pots of gold: all the dressings you would affix to such a time, but no ancient evil of the universe.  "Maybe it's in the Black History month section.  It's probably just using the PC liberal media as a way to bypass..."

"Oh look, you found the frequency I live in."

Elaine's voice grew louder.  "All the good well intentioned people..."  And louder.  "...Who are only trying to save the world!"  The bins for February did a terrible job hiding the most vile and ancient of evils the world has ever seen.  "I thought MLK was supposed to expose evil, so much for that liberal lie."  With her hands on her hips, Elaine surveyed the rest of crates.  "None of these crates look evil, but when I think of evil, all I think of is racism, and what does racism look like?"  It took less than a second.  "Thanksgiving.  The most racist holiday of all."  Elaine trotted over to the crates of indians and pilgrims to expose evil for its true nature.  "And after all, isn't racism the true most evil?"



Free associating primitive evils and holidays rarely led to anything cohesive.  "No, because this evil predates man."

"Racism was around before man.  Monkeys are racist-- dogs too."  Several lines of plastic bags fell from the stacked bins as Elaine peered inside to take stock of their numbers.  "I talk with dogs all the time..."

"I'm a dog- and the only dog you talk to is me!"  The audacity of some people surprised the corgi.  Elaine, however, really did not and he was not sure why he reacted in such a way.  

"Tyuki..."  Elaine emerged from the crate wearing a headband with a feather sticking up from the back.  "How long do you think racism has been going on in the universe?  Multiple dimensions of time and space count too."

A series of checks went off within Elaine's mind, triggering a severe restitution for Tyuki.  "Dismissing racism with another word..."  The dominoes fell.  "Is what racists do..."  And tumbled.  "And racist are dumb.  And evil is dumb.  And evil gets shot in the head..."  While Elaine began to take out a pistol, a door in the back of the storage area opened.  "Only true evil would interrupt me, so I'll just deal with this Tyuki..."  When she turned back to face Tyuki she looked upon the tiara and cape with perplexity.  "Oh, you're not Tyuki.  You're some kind of weird princess thing."  Elaine began to laugh.  "I was about to shoot you repeatedly for being terrible.  That would have been embarrassing for you..."

"What was that?"  A startled rise of attention on the other side of the room noticed the escalation of conversation from storage bins.  "Is someone in here?"  Shadowed figures roamed the sides of the room, surrounding the room.  

"I don't see anything over here..."  

"I think I here something moving in the holiday bins..."

"I am the shadow of the corgi who hunts and devours in the night..."  Elaine set the relationship between the two with a slightly more ominous tone as she began to get into position to garner the situation.  Sliding some rubber bullets into the chamber of her pistol echoed across the concrete bunker-- with surprisingly good acoustics.  

"There's someone hiding in over here!"  A man yelled across the warehouse to alert the three men on the other side.  

"I'm not hiding!"  Elaine shouted standing next to Tyuki.  "I'm standing here dressed like a princess and think you look dumb!"  After she shouted her proclamation, Elaine shadow jumped out of the way and into a better hiding spot.  While her plan seemed foolproof, a hitch found its way into the gears.  

A grinding sound began to start up and a pulley began to ascend.  Ropes tightened and began to pull the bin holding Tyuki into the air.  The control panel of a crane came to life as one of the men broke off from the group to remedy the situation.  While success seemed achieved, the other three began to break towards the netted bin to take stock.  

A newly crafted bullet slid into place followed by one of her patented..."Legally I feel obligated to tell you Elaine never patented anything, because, and I quote, 'Shut up.'  I return you to the narrative..."  Explosive rounds into the round, ready to go.  When she saw her time to strike, Elaine pounced from her position and let loose a rubber round into the chest of the man who approached from the left.  The impact pressed the severity of the situation into his ribs.  

With some new attention, Elaine found the man who would take her new round.  A blast shot out and the round began to disintegrate as it flew through the air.  The only thing remaining of the round began to spiral and spin with a web like substance.  Each strand snatched onto the sides of the crates to etch out an elastic web.  A strong fulcrum in the center of the web shot out and grabbed the man descending upon Tyuki.  

The darkness of the warehouse still kept the men shrouded in shadow, but the echoing sounds of the crane gave her an obvious target to plug an explosive round into.  So she did.  Then she pressed the detonation button on her pistol.  The rest played out as the crane's arm crashed to the ground along with the bin.  "Gangsta."

Scattered among the remains of the initial team rested the two battered men Elaine dealt with.  Each wore the shirts from the music store Tyuki held her autograph session previously.  While one felt the pressure of a broken rib in his chest, the other felt the sticky strands of web hold him in place.  Two rods fell from the webbed man's grasp and laid in front of him against the ground, bearing bad tidings for one of their friends.  Circumstances made retreat the only viable option for the other two men as they both put their faith in their feet and made for the stairs to get back to the surface.

"Karma happened."  In the wake of destruction, Elaine reached down to pick up the rods belonging to her companion.  "These are brown haired girl's Harry Potter things..."  Holding the rods in one hand and her chin in the other, Elaine went into detective mode.  "Why would you have them?  You're not nine year olds with bad attitudes and over protective mothers..."

Unable to escape from the stickiness of Elaine's webbing, conditional surrender felt good.  "If we tell you will you let us go?"  

"Hold on..."  Elaine brushed off the plea.  "I need to figure out what you did to Hermoine."

Bracing his hand against a very sore chest, the man who took the rubber bullet regained his poor breathing.  "I need to go to a hospital."

"Yeah, Jeff needs to go to a hospital."  His partner chimed in.

"That could be a clue.  Did you put her in a hospital?!"  Elaine decided to ask questions instead of seek out the void.  "She doesn't have health insurance and people who use the emergency room as a first response are a drain on society!"

"She's at the music shop."  The man identified as Jeff tried to stand up, offering more information as a trade.  "In the backroom."

"The backroom is a hospital?"  Logic led Elaine to take a stance for all the wrong reasons.  "You can't sell drugs out of a hospital.  It's counter intuitive."

"No one is selling drugs."  Confusion overwhelmed the man.  "We were investigating a series of anomalies in..."

"Oh my God, you guys are some kind of weird, dumb, lame paranormal detectives."

"There is something pulling energy towards this spot..."

"It's racism."  Elaine cut off what she assumed was an explanation needing to be capped with her observation.  "Racism is down here; we thought we found it in the Thanksgiving bin, but Doctor King isn't helping."

As the debate continued, the quiet in the darkness began to stir.  Lights disappeared under the quickly encroaching darkness.  Materializing sparks of dark purple electricity shot around the warehouse.  While the pressure of the room began to increase with a deafening noise, Elaine reloaded her pistols in preparation for whatever may come.  "Princess..."  Another odd looking girl now stood before her.  "...get these guys out of here and find brown haired girl.  I'll stay here and fight racism."