"The characters probably don't matter anyway." Ruby folded her arms, though Matthias could read the uncertainty on her face.

"No but look –" Cas leaned down and flipped the book around so people could see the illustration of the characters standing around the melted crown talisman. She flattened Trav's drawing beside it, fingers splayed over the paper. "See how they're standing? I think Ben's right. I think the people do matter, even if the chant doesn't."

"So... what do we do about that?" Trav's sandwich sat untouched on his plate.

Matthias looked down at his own meal. His stomach was hollow and he should have been starving, but the adrenaline that was still shooting through his veins every time Cas's video repeated. He set his plate down on the edge of a table that was mostly taken up by a chess board and shook out his hands. "Do we even fit into the archetypes?"

"Maybe." Ben raised an eyebrow at the page, then heaved a sigh. "This is still bullshit."

As if it detected someone badmouthing it, the building gave a rumbling shudder. Matthias flinched, imagining them trapped inside the grasp of a giant, smokey hand. Bricks fell away as the hand closed tighter and tighter.

Everyone fell silent and for a long moment the only sound was the phone. Even Amber stopped humming as she munched on her sandwich. She raised her little chin, eyes wide and searching like a frightened animal. Cas swept forward and scooped her daughter into her arms without breaking the silence.

Minutes passed and no one moved. Penny broke their trance. "What are the archetypes again? Even if we don't need them, it might be good to figure it out, just in case. I don't want to go down there and face that thing unprepared."

"Face that thing?" Ben's brown creased. "No. You and Amber can stay up here. The rest of us can go chant at a hunk of gold if we think that's going to help. You're staying where it's safe."

Penny wrinkled her nose. "It won't be safe much longer, and every minute we delay is another the creeping blackness you described can spread. It seems like we might all be needed for this ritual, so get used to the idea that I'll be going with you-" She stopped and straightened as though a miniature bolt of lighting had struck her. "And Amber as well."

"Mmm mmm, no way." Ben folded his arms. "No way. Not Amber."

"She might have to," Penny pressed, though she didn't look happy about it.

Matthias found himself speaking without planning to, just to interrupt before things got heated. Memories of his father's raised voice pushed at the corners of his mind. "Putting Amber aside for now, who do we think everyone is? Like, Maybe I'm the scribe because I write books?" Everyone looked at him at once and Matthias felt like the faces of hungry raptors had turned on him. "I... well it's just an idea."

No one said anything for a moment, then Trav's voice rang out, stronger than Matthias expected. "I'm the fool. No doubt. I bought the thing that cursed us. I brought it home."

Ruby made a sympathetic sound and kissed Trav's temple, but she didn't argue. Matthias thought of protesting, but decided he was just glad someone was willing to play along. "Alright, who is everyone else?"

"I bet Penny's the seer." Cas joined in, leaning down to study the characters.

Penny clucked her tongue. "I read tarot over the phone, I'm not a seer."

"It fits though," Cas said. "Better than anything else."

Everyone paused and looked at one another. No one dared suggest who the princess might be, even if Matthias did catch everyone shooting glances at little Amber.

"Wait, Matt..." Ruby raised a hand and her cheeks reddened. "M-maybe you're not the scribe because..." she blushed and dipped her head. She pointed to the waifish girl standing beside the princess in the illustration. The virgin.

Matthias tried not to groan aloud. He collected himself and put on the steady tone he was used to using when this came up. "Sorry, Ruby. I'm asexual, yes, but not all asexuals are virgins. I've had..." he cleared his throat, "partners."

Ruby turned so red it looked almost painful. "I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed-"

"What the hell is asexual?" Ben interrupted. Matthias might have mistaken this for rudeness, but the way he was looking between Matthias and Ruby it seemed he was more concerned that he had missed another piece of this cursed puzzle.

"I'll explain it later." Cas gave Matthias a brief smile.

Penny prodded the conversation back on track. "What if Matt isn't the scribe. What if that's Cas, as a teacher?"

Ben growled. "Most of us could fit into any of these categories. We're people, not book characters."

"Maybe it's just what we see ourselves as most." Cas bounced Amber on her knee. The little girl giggled and sang little vocalizations to hear her voice jump with each bounce of her mother's knee. "Or just a strong aspect of ourselves."

"So we just pick our favorites?"

"Is anyone here a virgin?" Ruby seemed determined, even as she blushed.

Silence. Slowly eyes drifted towards Amber. Ben bristled. "Oh no. We are not bringing my daughter into this at all, and we are DEFINITELY not discussing that about my little girl! Is that clear?" Even though he was sitting, Ben seemed to double in size until Matthias thought he might be able to body slam a charging bull. No one made another peep about Amber.

"So... who's the virgin?" Ruby folded her arms. "If we already don't have enough people, and the ones we do have don't fit the characters, then what?"

Matthias realized people were looking at him. Possibly because, as a writer, he was expected to have some special knowledge of how stories could work if they were missing key characters. Or maybe it was because they still blamed him for all this in some way. grasped a scrawny bicep and shrugged. "I don't... I don't know."

"Oh shit." Trav's voice was a dry rasp.

At first Matthias assumed his friend was upset that no answers were forthcoming, but he followed Trav's gaze and her heart stuttered wildly before picking up a speedy rhythm. There, at the crack above Penny's door, what looked like shadow was spreading. Pouring in like a water stain. Matthias couldn't breathe for a moment, but Amber gave a little squeak of alarm and that snapped him back to life. "I think we're out of time." His hands were already prickling with the unnatural cold that accompanied the creeping blackness.

"What do we do? We're not ready?" Ben pushed to his feet, ushering Cas and Amber behind him.

Matthias realized that he too had moved instinctively to place himself between the blackness and his new friends, but he felt distinctly less equipped to face it. He clenched his hands and stared at the blackness above the door. Leave! You're not real. This is all a stupid story! But the blackness didn't seem to care about his disbelief. "We have to hope that we're right about what it takes to break the curse." Matthias rasped.

"But who's who?" Trav's voice was too high. Matthias could hear the other man struggling to rise, but fall back with a defeated grunt. "Which of us is which?" A scrabbling of papers behind him made Matthias turn his head. Trav sprawled, grabbing up the discarded book of fairy tales and his drawing. He struggled back to a seated position and laid them out on his lap. "If I'm the fool, Penny's the seer, and Matt's the scribe, who is everyone else?"

"Ben's the knight." Cas clasped Amber to her chest, burying the little girl's face in the curve of her shoulder. "He's always protected us!"

Ben glanced over his shoulder at his wife. "Sure, whatever. As long as we can figure this out and end this shit, I'll be anything."

"Alright," Ruby gasped, who's next. "We still need uh..." She snapped her fingers jerkily. "What if Matt's the knight because he's a security guard?"

"The kind with a gun?" Ben looked at Matthias with interest for what might have been the first time.

"No. The kind with keys and a radio." Matthias answered. He bit his tongue before he could demand what on earth he would do with a gun against a supernatural acid-dust. "I'm fine as the scribe. Let's uh... let's sort this out. Knight, seer, scribe, princess-" Matthias could sense Ben's burning glare. "What else?"

"We need the healer, the virgin, and the bard." Trav said.

A slim tendril of black spider-webbed outward, stretching across the ceiling. A pit of ice formed in Matthias' stomach.

"Maybe I'm the healer?" Cas didn't sound at all certain. "I'm first aid certified, but that's... that's reaching."

"I'm certified too." Ruby raised her hand. "I worked at a summer camp last summer and they made us get it."

"Yeah, but you also-" Trav cut in.

Ruby turned on her boyfriend, and while Matthias couldn't see the expression on her face, whatever it was made Trav clam up.

"If you're the healer that makes me the bard." Cas bounced Amber absently on her hip, though the girl seemed to bit too old for that to calm her. Amber's small fingers dug furrows in Cas's sweater.

"You can sing." Ben said, turning slightly to catch his wife's eye.

"A lot of people can sing." Cas countered. "Sometimes I sing to my kids at school, but that's nothing. They don't care if I'm no good."

"It's enough." Ben's voice was firm. Something inside Matthias clenched as he went on. "It has to be enough. We have to end this." Ben's dark eyes traced up the wall to the encroaching blackness.

Matthias agreed, but extended an arm to the group. "We still don't have the virgin!"

"Mer meow!" a hearty little voice called out from behind the couch. Cheese burst into the open, his eyes flashing, fur on end. He looked up at the blackness and hissed, baring needle-teeth and flared whiskers.

"Son of a gun." Penny slid from her chair and clutched a book as though she planned to wield it as a weapon. "Cheese." She paused, as if expecting everyone to understand. When she received nothing but blank stares she cleared her throat and gestured to the cat with her book. "Cheese was neutered as a kitten. He's never had sex."

"Are you kidding me?" Ben threw up his hands. "The cat? The fucking, virgin, cat?!" He turned to his wife before she could comment. "If I'm not allowed to swear when we're about to die, then when am I."

Cas had a look in her eye that said never again, but she gave her head a tight shake before turning her attention back to the group. "We're relying on a three year old and a cat now? This situation is absurd, but I was willing to believe it because-" she gestured to the black powder still slinking tendrils through the top of the door. "But this? This can't be right. The book didn't say anything about the archetypes being able to be animals."

Penny abandoned her book and scooped Cheese into her arms, where he settled, glaring at the black stuff. "We have to try it. Otherwise we'll all be overrun."

"What do we do then?" Trav tried, and this time succeeded, to push himself up from the couch with a grunt of pain. Trav's hand landed heavily on Matthias shoulder and he took the weight as best he could. "We have to get to the talisman right? Can we get there without being killed?"

The question Trav wasn't asking reverberated in Matthias' chest. Is it already too late?

Ruby took one last glance at the discarded book of fairy tales. "We're going to feel really silly if we're wrong about this." She cocked her head to one side, "Or, well, I suppose we'll be dead. Uhm... in the picture it shows them holding hands as they form a circle. Maybe if we hold hands?"

Matthias transferred Trav to lean more easily against him. "Do you think this counts?"

"Maybe if we're just all touching?" Ruby grasped Tav's shoulder with one hand and reached for Penny with the other. Penny held Cheese and he didn't look as though he planned to flee, though he seemed giant in her small embrace.

"I can't believe we're trying this." Ben said, but he too stepped in and planted a hand on Penny's other shoulder. Cas completed the chain, linking hands with Ben. They stood, facing the creeping black. No one knew what to expect on the other side of the door. Would the passage be completely impassible now? Matthias swallowed, his pulse racing through frigid veins. He wasn't sure if he was shivering out of fear or cold. Probably both.

Matthias forced himself to imagine April standing in front of him. If he died, she'd be the one to sound the alarm for the family after he didn't answer her calls and texts. She'd come to search for him. What would she find? He banished that thought and imagined April planting her hands on her hips and giving him that look she would always use when they were kids and he was "being a chicken"; refusing to jump a creek or climb a tree. He took a big, shaking breath, and lead the chain towards the door.

***** Author's note:

Whaaaaaaaat? I'm back to writing this?! And here we all thought it would never happen, but I got out of work early today and got hit with an inspiration lightning bolt! I had this chapter partially finished so I got it ready and have the final exciting chapter almost finished so look for that coming soon! Thanks for reading. Of my work this story is weirdly popular, but if you like what you read don't forget to pop in and check out the rest of my work too!