5. Case 1 part 2 (1/2)

"so how are we supposed to get past this anyway," i asked as i laid my hand on the rough

ick wall. i glanced over at robby and his boys who were already in the process of climbing over the top. "oh,"

i crouched down before jumping up, trying to reach the top of the wall. my hands didn't even get close.

"we'll climb over and then unlock the gate for you," robby said as the last of his boys made it to the other side. i looked over to the gate in question and walked over to it.

it was an iron post fence with gaps way too small for me to squeeze through.

shouldn't we have checked the door first though? why waste time climbing over if it was unlocked. i mean, odds were that it was locked but still.

i gave the door a small push, expecting the door to remain still. instead it slowly moved at my touch.

"no way," i said to myself as i pushed the door open and it swung all the way.

"well that was easy," i told myself as i walked into the courtyard. there was a

ick path that went all around the square. the path was separated from the walls by a thin row of trees on each side except the one next to the church. inside the path was what once would have been a small field of grass. but now the grass was mostly dead, with nothing but dirt and weeds to take their place. scattered around the dirt floor were

oken or moss-covered statues of angels. in the very center was the only still intact statue.

it was a

onze statue woman in a simple dress with four long angel wings that bent inward to cover her body. she had her hands together to pray, and she wore a head covering to cover her head. she was standing barefoot over a circular platform at the top of a column. the statue was short, maybe 3 feet tall. but with the column to stand on, the statue was even taller than me.

"how did you get here?"

i looked behind me and saw robby approaching from the trees. i pointed back towards the gate.

"door was unlocked," i told him plainly.

"you mean we climbed that for nothing?" one of his boys complained before looking at the statue. "so this is the thing. was is it supposed to do again?"

"so the rumor goes that the plate the angle is standing on spins so that it's always watching whoever is in the courtyard," robby explained as he walked up to the statue and tried to spin the disk with his hand. he gave it a few pushed but the thing didn't budge.

"well it's not just a loose disk and people being paranoid then," i joked as we stood around the statue.

"it's not moving," one of the boys added unhelpfully.

"well…" i said as i formed my thoughts. "it's supposed to turn to look at whoever is in the courtyard right? maybe it only works if there's one person inside?"

"yeah that might work," kenny said as we started talking about how we were going to do this. in the end we came to the plan that we would wait outside while each of us would have a turn walking around the courtyard alone.

robby was the first one to try it out, with the rest of his boys following after him. each one had the same experience. they walked around the courtyard, checking the statue to see if it was moving. it never did.

"alright, just one left," kenny, the last of the boys to walk around the courtyard, said as he came out of the gate. "you ready for this rita?"

"as ready as i'll ever be," i told them with a shrug. "i mean, so far not much has happened,"

i walked into the courtyard, followed by a few more cheers of good luck. i glanced over at the statue who was still not moving. i walked down the path next to the church until i reached the corner. i turned around to check on the statue, expecting it to still be in place, watching the entrance.

it was looking right at me.

"of course it is," i mumbled to myself as i heard robby calling me from over by the gate.

"how's it going so far?" he asked as i looked back at him.

"why don't you guys come in and take a look for yourselves?" i told them as i watched the statue. i kept my eyes locked onto that thing as i noticed the door open out of the corner of my eyes.

"whoa," i heard one of the boys say as they walked in and started heading towards the statue. "it moved,"

"looks like it," i told them. "wonder why it only did it to me though," i said as i placed one of my hands behind my back and summoned forth the card, just in case.

"maybe it only works for girls?" one of the boys suggested.

"nah, i heard that the guy who started the rumor was a dude, so i don't think that's it," another one of them said.

"you got any ideas?" robby asked me as i felt the magical card around in my hand.

"nope," i said as naturally as possible. "can't really think of anything that would make it work for me," i explained as robby started looking at the disk again.

"nope, it's still the same," he said as he tried to move it again. he stepped and stood in front of the statue. "so now what?"

"i mean, we found the angel," one of the boys said. "we proved that it moves. not much else we can do with it,"

"i guess we can just go then," one of the other boys said as they all started walking towards the gate. i followed after them as i noticed a certain yellow fog start to appear on the ground right past the trees.

"hey that's weird," one of the boys said from up ahead.

"what's wrong?" robby asked as the boy in question looked back at the rest of us.

"looks like the door locked behind us. i can't get it open," he explained as he knelt down to get a closer look at the lock. "yeah looks like the door is designed to lock itself if it closes,"

"okay, so we just climb out like we climbed in," kenny said as robby looked back at him.

"yeah, and how is rita supposed to get out," robby asked as tore my eyes off the approaching fog. it had reached the path, how had none of them noticed it yet?

was i the only one that could see it? if that was the case then we really needed to get out of here. i was not about to protect five other people from whatever was about to show up.

"yeah just hang on," one of the boys said as he knelt down next to the lock. "always wanted a reason to try this out for real,"

"try out what?" robby asked as the boy turned around to show some metal tools.

"lock picking. i know how to do it but i've never had a chance to try it out outside of practice," he explained before turning back around and getting to work on the lock.

i watched him work as the fog slowly spread across the ground. it crept forward slowly, approaching the central angel statue bit by bit.

i wasn't one to make bets often, but i would bet a nice chunk of cash that the fog reaching the statue would probably be bad news.

i stayed silent and hoped that no one else would say anything to distract the boy working the lock.

i gulped as the fog reached halfway to the statue. it wasn't obvious, but i was pretty sure that the fog was getting faster.

but all i had to do was wait, it sounded like the boy was almost done anyway.

"so how long have you been practicing lock picking chazz?"