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I've been very busy making preparations for the fight to come. Now I just have to wait for word from Gambino about my crown being found...so I shall tell this story.
I was staring at the tv when Cindy came home, not taking in anything on the screen. I switched it off as I heard the front door open, and was amused to hear Cindy saying in the kitchen, "At least we have the house to ourselves, though I wish Dawna hadn't left..." Gambino's voice answered, "The girl can look after herself, she's had years to practice. Show me this place of yours."
I waited for them to enter the living room, but they didn't. After at least ten minutes, I gave up waiting and went into the kitchen. It was empty, although two coats were draped over the backs of the chairs. The door the the broom cupboard was open, but why would they have gone in there? They had the whole house to snog in!
I took a look in the cupboard anyway, only to find it empty. Oddly, there seemed to be a dim light shining from the back. I took two steps inside...the light blazed into a fierce violet glow, and an unearthly howling filled the air. I heard Cindy scream from somewhere beyond the cupboard, and I charged toward the glow, my flames leaping to life...and found myself shoving open the sliding door that had been partly open at the back. Apparently what I had thought was the back wall of the cupboard was actually a hidden door.
I was standing in a large, square, very high-ceilinged room. In the center of it was a huge cone of violet flame, the same color as my own flames, which was rapidly flattening, shrinking, and turning darker in color. It formed itself into a tunnel of black flame, leading at an angle into the floor. Gambino was staring at it, his mouth open in shocked horror, while Cindy clutched his arm, seeming to be frozen in fear. Neither had noticed my presence. Someone seemed to be walking through the tunnel. As she stepped out onto the floor, I saw her smirking face, and my flames leaped higher. The last time I had seen her, she had said she hoped we wouldn't meet again. She was Dark, the landlady from Hell.
It took Gambino about a second longer to recognize her as the demon he'd cheated, but he did. He yelled "It's not my time yet! You can't take me until I'm dead! That was on the contract!"
"The contract you made a mockery of!" Dark snarled. "Not that you have any intention of ever dying anyway...and you dare to open a Hellgate? You silly fool of a rich man!" She reached out as if to grab him, and found her claw-like hand closing on Cindy's wrist instead. Cindy had shoved her arm out in front of Gambino. Dark screamed in rage and pushed Cindy away, as I ran forward and surrounded both of us in my flames, which were leaping so high they almost touched the roof.
"You!" Dark shouted, while Cindy gaped and Gambino fell to his knees. "I tell you you're saintly for a Gambino, and you decide to match yourself against me?" She threw back her head and laughed. "Fight me then, as the others fight us!" A ring of violet flames licked up around her.
It's rather hard to describe what happened next, it seemed so dreamlike. Dark stepped forward until our flames touched. Then hers grew darker, as the ring surrounding me and Cindy grew brighter, until they were black and white. The flames swirled, grew higher and higher, and I knew that our emotions were driving them. Cindy gripped my hand, and our white flames rushed outward, extinguishing Dark's black flames. She shrieked and stumbled backwards into the tunnel. There she stood, for one long moment, and said "Gambino, your daughter and your lover saved you this time. But you are mortal, despite all you think...and the one thing that can save you is the one thing you can't do!" She laughed shrilly, and the tunnel disappeared, taking her with it. My flames shrank, faded to purple, and winked out.
Gambino rose slowly from his knees. Cindy let go of my hand, but when Gambino tried to put his arms around her, she spun around and slapped him. "I had everything worked out!" she shouted. "Why did you have to go poking around? Why did I let you?"
Cindy refused to explain further, but shortly afterwards, the power went off. "We probably scared off the spirits with that ruckus," she grumbled, lighting candles. "Not that I blame them." After that, she had to explain slightly...that this house was demon-haunted, but that they confined themselves to that area of the house, and had caused her no trouble after she had the secret room built. At first it had been sealed off, but then the spring had stopped flowing, and only started after the room was reopened. So she'd had the sliding panel put in the cupboard, which had solved things...until tonight, when Gambino insisted on finding out why the house was not as large inside as it should be (a fact I had never noticed, thinking it was big enough as it was), and she had thought it would be harmless to show him the secret room, which had then opened itself into a gate to Hell.
The upshot of this was that Gambino insisted on all of us leaving at once, Cindy told him to get out of her house, and I said I thought it was about time they paid some attention to me. Then I told them about what had happened to my kingdom, Gambino blew his top and called the sea-people traitorous animals, I blew my top and told him that kind of thinking was why he was going to go to Hell in the first place, Cindy told us both to shut up, and the power went back on. Then Gambino apologized and agreed to help, and we set to work planning. I don't know if I can really trust him, but who else have I got?
Now, all I need is the crown...