Lisa was rooted to the spot in terror as the Musketeer advanced at a snail's pace through the frozen time frame, his fingers pulled the hammer back in agonisingly slow motion and all she could do was watch him. From behind her came another groan, 'Probably Diamond again' she thought as her eyes did nothing but stare at the gun barrel.
"Got to close the door" Diamond's voice muttered as she stretched out her hand to reach the fallen blade, her clutching fingers fell just short of it by millimetres. Wincing at her bad luck she tried reaching for it again but with her hand still held fast in Steel's frozen cranium and trying to move him was like trying to drag a block of metal she had little hope of making those few millimetres, they may as well of been a few feet for all the good it did her.
The gunshot sounded completely bizarre, like an explosion played at the wrong speed, as the lead ball crept out from the barrel through the already warming time frame towards Lisa. The young woman became aware of something grabbing at her ankle, thinking it was another attack she whirled around to face it and found Diamond trying to pull her out of the bullet's path. Stumbling backwards Lisa tripped over the inert form of Sapphire and fell to the floor, Diamond glanced across at the stunned girl and then at the Musketeer who was gradually gaining speed as he moved nearer to the cross-over point. The lead ball accelerated without warning as it passed through the frozen time frame and into normal Time. It struck the opposite wall with it's normal velocity, causing the cheap plaster to burst and a tiny cloud of powder fell to the floor.
Diamond made a last desperate lunge for her scalpel and managed to move Steel's body the distance she needed. Snatching up the blade she rounded on the Musketeer "I'm shutting down this space / time event." She declared forcefully as she arced and curved the blade through the air, leaving a pattern not dissimilar to a sewing stitch in the atmosphere. The edges of the door were impossibly pulled together as Diamond performed her reality stitching, here and there could be faintly seen the white energy patterns that held the door shut.
< Was that absolutely necessary? Especially with her here > Steel's voice resonated metallically inside her skull.
< Unless you wanted to be spending the rest of your life inside that time-break, yes. Besides it's possible to rectify the situation later. > She thought back angrily
< Steel? > Sapphire's voice sounded in his mind, despite still being unconscious.
< I'm here Sapphire > he reassured her
< The time-break was originally inside that room but the source is no longer there, someone has moved it. > Her voice grew faint again until it either of them could barely hear it,
< Sapphire! > Her companion's concern was genuine, a fact not lost on Diamond as she sat in the middle of the developments.
< I'm here, I just need to rest and get my strength back > she mumbled psychically
Lisa watched as Steel sat upright and Diamond's hand slid almost comically out of the back of his cranium, a violent shudder ran though his body that rocked him to his core, and he toppled over in a shivering heap.
"Try and keep him warm," Diamond told the young woman as Lisa stared at him. Rushing into the living room she hurriedly threw a few pieces of wood on the open fire, tore up some paper and crammed it into the middle of the pile. Hunting around for the matches Lisa discovered them and struck the first one, lighting as many of the paper balls with it as she could. Soon there was a roaring fire in the hearth as she tossed on more wood, paper and anything else she could find. Darting back to the hallway she gave the three adults a cursory glance on her way up to her bedroom. Once inside she tugged the blankets and duvet from her bed and hurried back downstairs, wrapping the thickest one around Steel's shivering body she helped him to stand and using her as support he managed to walk to the fire, in front of which he sat hugging the blanket around himself.
Returning to the two women Lisa found that Diamond had managed to get to her feet and was hanging onto the wall for support muttering and cursing to herself "I am never trusting one of Steel's plans again, ever." While Lisa looked on she saw that the pale woman seemed as though her legs were about to give way. The young woman put her arm around Diamond's shoulder and was about to help her into the living room when the elemental drew up sharply. Lisa stared confused into her face and saw the previous harshness had returned now that the immediate danger had passed. Lisa gave the other woman a snort of disgust and went over to Sapphire who remained deathly still. Reaching out to her again the young woman found that her body temperature was a much more normal level this time and as gently as she could, Lisa began to half-drag and half-carry the inert body into the living room. Steel watched, effectively helpless to aid her, as she struggled with his companion's body He felt a rising anger in his body as he knew there was nothing he could do until his strength returned.
Diamond walked shakily over to the door and pressed her ear to the sewn up aperture, all was silent on the other side for the time being. Turning to face Lisa as the young woman returned she remarked "Did your friend keep any pictures in any other part of this building? The attic? The basement?"
Lisa shook her head "There's no way to get into the attic and as far as I know there never was a basement. I've never seen any door or anything that leads down to one." She shrugged.
"There are many places to hide a door in plain view without it ever being seen." Diamond remarked as she walked off towards the stairs, rolling the scalpel around her fingers absently as she went.
Lisa ignored the stubborn arrogant woman and returned to the living room and found Steel much more his usual self as he was standing up and walking around the room, the thick blanket which had been wrapped around him now lay discarded on the floor.
"Where's Diamond?" He asked directly, his dominant tone returning seemingly with his strength.
"She's looking for a basement we don't have" she replied dismissively as she slumped into one of the chairs. "Is Sapphire alright?" she inquired noting that the woman hadn't appeared to have moved from where she had been laid
"Does this building have a basement?" Steel ignored the question responding with one of his own catching her off-guard.
"Not that I know of, there was never one ever shown on any plans that I've seen." She answered
"Any secret rooms, hide-aways, anything like that?" his voice grew insistent and his grey eyes bored into her brain, Lisa could feel the uncomfortable feeling that she had experienced when she first met the pair returning.
"No, I don't know, I don't think so." She blurted out quickly.
Steel strode off out of the room, at the door he paused and faced her once more "Look after Sapphire" he ordered.
Diamond glanced at the stairs, if there was a basement the natural place for a human to put it would be under the stairs. She tapped the scalpel against her lips as she pondered her next move. Crouching down by the side of the flight of stairs she began to concentrate and as her translucent eyes began to glow with a brilliant white light she appeared to ease the scalpel blade into the wood but in fact she was thrusting the blade between the layers of reality and with a firm and precise motion she sliced down the wood and across part of the stone floor. Slipping her fingers into the cut she peeled back the stairs and floor, beneath them Diamond found herself staring at a vast open field, a light breeze ruffled her white hair as she stared on. The expression on her face was one of impassiveness while she observed the scene, carefully she re-laid the floor and wood back into place and smoothed them over before resewing the cut she had made. The threads of energy binding the layers back together as if they had never been severed.
The sound of Steel's approaching voice gave her cause to glance over at the living room door.
"Look after Sapphire" he ordered before walking across to Diamond, "What have you found?" he demanded as he looked over her face taking in the way she tried to conceal something from him .
'Damn he doesn't miss anything does he?' she thought to herself but instead answered "There is something under the floor, it seems to open into an open field."
Steel was puzzled "How could there be a field beneath this house?"
"I don't think that it's a real field, not in the conventional sense, but I'd need Sapphire to take a look at it to be sure.
"STEEL!" the shout came from the living room, both elementals hurried into the room and found Lisa backed up against the far wall pointing at a large dark shape that was stretching out of a painting of a house on the wall above Sapphire's prone body.
"Trap it." He barked at Diamond as he manoeuvred his way over to Sapphire. The shape reared back as he approached, Diamond sliced through the air with the scalpel but the darkness retreated into the painting and the multicoloured appendage hung in the air for a moment before splattering over the chair.
"I said trap it not loose it." Steel snapped angrily at Diamond,
"Well excuse me all to hell, Steel, but as I said before Cutting is a precise art which takes time." She replied facing him, her translucent eyes flared white with her hostility "I'm not a puppet you can order about Steel. I was sent here to help you out." She stalked out of the room.
A silence descended between the remaining occupants, Steel crossed to Sapphire's side as her eyes began to flutter open "So Diamond's here as well?" she asked as she glanced up into her partner's face, Steel nodded.
"How much have I missed since I've been away?"
This time Lisa, who sat forgotten in a chair, noticed that her's was the dominant voice as the stared into each other's eyes. Steel mentally explained what she had occurred since she had been pulled through the doorway.
"And so Diamond didn't manage to return that section of Time its proper place before she was overcome by the cold.".
"That would explain the feeling of something being in the wrong time I had earlier." Sapphire remarked thoughtfully "Sort of like a future echo."
"Yes, but how can a ghost from the past produce a future echo?" Steel pondered as Sapphire rested against the back of the chair in which Lisa sat. She glanced across at the paint dripping down the front of the chair opposite, "Was that where is came out of the picture?" she asked curiously.
Steel nodded as he turned the facts over in his mind. Sapphire moved to it and reached out her hand to the paint. "Dyes, pigmentations and..." she paused in her analysis "Steel, how old would you say this painting is?"
He looked at her perplexed "I don't know, you're the expert on history."
"Yes I know," she replied without even the merest hint of egotism "But at a guess, how old?" she pressed
Steel gave the picture his full attention, his eyes roamed over the cracked canvas, his sharp mind noting the wear and deterioration of the image "About a hundred years." He answered finally.
"Exactly one hundred years, every painting in this building was completed exactly one hundred years ago." She related
"So, they were all finished in the same year? That doesn't help us." he frowned at her
"No Steel, these picture were all completed at the same moment. It's as though the artist was working on each picture at the same time." She replied firmly
"But that's impossible. No-one can work on all the paintings at once." Lisa broke in, Sapphire and Steel turned to her as if suddenly remembering she was there.
"There are always ways and means." Sapphire replied with a smile.
"Especially if he had help." Steel muttered darkly as he pulled door open. "Diamond said she had something she wanted you to look at." He told Sapphire as she glanced around the room. The elemental caught his eye as she saw him watching her "I thought I could sense something, but its gone." She followed him to the door casting her eyes around the room once more.
Out in the corridor Diamond had cut a section out of the floor and was kneeling beside it gazing into it. The breeze was again blowing through her short white hair. Desite the fact she was staring down on it, the field was still correctly orientated with her line of sight.Her eyes could pick out the shapes of the trees through the heavy grey mist that heaved and billowed before her eyes, wisps of fog snaked out of the hole and dissipated into the air around her. Here and there she could see birds flying across the grey overcast sky.
While Diamond stared through the mist trying to understand it's nature, a huge dark shape seemed to loom out of the gloom before her, with it came a torrent of unsettling sensations. Her body began to rock as the emotions battered into her defenses, crashing over her time and again. Diamond knew that her body had pitched forward and that she would fall through the hole, and without Sapphire having analysed it she couldn't be sure of the nature of it. Something akin to panic swept through Diamond's mind as she toppled forward, gazing forward she saw an old man moving through the fog, which parted as he approached. His eyes were a undulating wash of reds and yellows that flowed into and through each other and as he opened his mouth to speak Diamond saw more swirling colours expanding out towards her.