Lavinia clung to flimsy plants at the edge of an abyss and reasoned.

Sally’s fear was clean and simple. Just maybe, for once, the solution could be clean and simple too.

And so, as the roots pulled out with clods of earth clinging to them, Lavinia let go and deliberately fell. In fact, she willed herself to fall faster than freefall.

She approached a clot of flailing bodies: the other vampires who a moment ago had clogged the clearing. She plowed through them like a boulder, shoving them aside impatiently and trying to beam a thought to Sally: babe, you can fly a little too, you got just that zetz of vampire in you!

She twisted sideways to the wind to shoot down faster. The ground was a vague blob far below but it was spreading, spreading.

This had to be illusion, just like the vampires with their movie faces. But she was an angel and she could fly. She reached for that connection with the earth that let her push away from it or come back down to it, that sureness that the earth was her home and arrowed down even faster.

That spidery shape below was surely Sally.

The great spreading mass began to resolve itself into buildings and trees and roads. She fought the urge to fly away, up and away. Gritting her teeth as she reached Sally, she pulled up just enough that they fell together.

Sally’s face was as blanched as a vampire’s. Her eyes stared at nothing. And from her mind came a shriek of horror and despair. Just like the sounds Sally said she’d been hearing for weeks.

Lavinia grabbed Sally’s hands and swung her around. The ground was horribly close now. She’d only have one chance.

The rush of air whisked her words away almost before she shrieked them. “I’ll spank that pretty tush if you don’t wake up and listen!”

Sally twitched. But suddenly trees rushed up around them and Lavinia roared out her terror. The fall was over. They were dead. She braced herself, as if smashing into the ground from three miles up could be absorbed like a belly flop…

And found herself tumbling down a hole in the ground. Still falling.

Of course. Whatever was doing this couldn’t actually let them hit. Everything would be over then.

“Kid, Tiger! Sally fucking Yan, wake the fuck up and listen to me! Guess what? I was wrong about those monks or whatever, on that island, how you like that, I just said I was wrong!”

But it was only when she reached around and squeezed Sally’s ass good and hard that Sally’s eyes focused.

“Look, Kid. Down a rabbit hole! Like Alice in Wonderland, huh? What’s scary about that? C’mere.”

Sally saw dirt walls rushing up on all sides, felt dirt gag her. Suddenly she clung to Lavinia, weeping in horror, “Falling, falling, falling!”

“No, Kid, a trick, an illusion. Just like those scary scary vampires. Don’t buy it. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

“Falling!” Sally’s voice was ragged.

“Who am I, kid? I’m telling you you’re safe and who am I?”

From a long way away, Sally felt the pull of Lavinia’s powerful presence, exciting her on those many nights in their camper together. The warm, sweet, loving, embarrassing words slowly came from the frozen fog of her mind, floated to the surface where she could grab them. “Master… of all Masters,” she gasped.

And felt her body open up, surrender passionately to Lavinia. “Master of all Masters!” she cried, defiantly.

“Fucking A right, now get that pretty ass over here.” And Sally floated into Lavinia’s arms, felt her lover’s powerful hands on her ass, felt the caress that would soon become a swat.

“Buh-but aren’t we falling?” she asked like a little girl.

“Shut up. Did I say talk?” Lavinia, shutting everything else out, cupped Sally’s face in one hand and glared into her eyes.

“No, Master,” Sally said in happy obedient ecstasy.

Lavinia tried to smack Sally’s ass but illusion or no, the rushing wind made it like trying to smack a stone at the bottom of a river. So instead she put her hand between Sally’s legs and squeezed hard. Sally moaned.

“No rushing walls – don’t look, did I say look?” Lavinia scrunched her hand so Sally gasped again. “No wind, no falling, just this hot piece I’m holding. Who does this piece belong to?”

“You, Master of all Masters!” Sally cried, her body relaxing to Lavinia’s power.

Lavinia kissed Sally, biting her lower lip hard. “Now, you gonna fuck everything up with this bullshit about falling?” Another nip, and a hard pinch on the inside of Sally’s thighs. “Answer me, kid. Are we really falling?”

And Sally couldn’t resist her anymore. “No, Master, no, not falling.”

“Just laying still, most likely. Doesn’t your smart fucking brain know that? We’re laying in that crypt room and that God-Knows-What-Thing knows you’re as afraid of falling as that dick-face moron was afraid of vampires.”

“But it feels—”

“Shah! That feels.” Lavinia put her hand down the back of Sally’s jeans and dragged her fingernails. “Nnnhhh,” Sally moaned, eyes lighting.

Lavinia gathered a passionate Sally into her tight embrace. “Look me in the eyes, tiger,” she commanded. Sally met her intense gaze.

“Lying on the floor, most likely. So feel around. You probably can feel, I dunno, pressure, more pressure on your back or your front.”

“Front?”

“Ok, front. You’re lying on your face. Feel the floor, feel whatever’s there.”

“Rubble, grit, smooth marble under it all…” Sally’s voice grew vague. Lavinia suddenly wondered where she herself was at the moment. Was she really hugging Sally? Or was she lying on the ground next to that bloody body?

Wrong thing to think of. She gave a guilty twitch or something.

“Why are you here? Where’s that boy I left you to distract?” Sally’s voice was clearer than it had been since this started.

“I’m here to stop you from making the world fall down a fucking hole! Whatever was messing with the world, it leaped out of that kid’s head and into yours….

Sally tried to push away from Lavinia but Lavinia held her too tight. “It leaped out of his head? Because he’s dead! You killed him? How could you do that?”

Lavinia lived again the slow death of Poky’s love after she killed their attackers.

But she wasn’t falling anymore, and nor was Sally. This shock of revulsion and horror had burned the illusion of falling out of her. They crouched facing each other with glimmering eyes in the near total darkness of the crypt, where they had both just pushed themselves up from the floor.

For a moment they stared, two dim shapes, nearly impossible to see. Then Sally scrambled to her feet and up the stairs on all fours like an animal.

Lavinia followed, flooded with fear of loss.