Five women, all young, were arguing in the corridors of the Nouvelle-Caledonie section of HQ with the addition of one very definitely male young man. He was ostensibly there to keep the peace, but mostly what he was doing was glowering at a slightly charred map and muttering to himself about asking for directions from a damn plant.
"I can't believe this," came the same voice as before. It belonged to a small, wiry Goth who'd come as the Spectre Of Friedmanist Economic Structures, something that looked uncannily similar to a bedsheet with eyeholes and a load of currency symbols sprayed on it in multicoloured car paint. "We're hours late. Hours. We'll miss the midnight countdown at this rate!"
"Tess, deep breaths." This from a taller girl in a thrown-together witch's outfit, somewhat spoilt by the work polo-neck underneath with a nametag reading 'Hello! My Name Is Trainee Jo'. "It can't be far away now, can it? I mean, New Caledonia's not that big."
"Besides," came the Home Counties RP tones of someone who, with the inevitability of the passing seasons, rejoiced in the name of Araminta Twizzell-Pole (TwiZELL-Powell, she insisted, a pronunciation used by family members and precisely no-one else), "you're making an awful fuss for someone who didn't want to come, eh? Did this week's union not survive the first meeting?"
"Sod off, Minty, it was my study group and it finished early," Tessa grumbled. "And I didn't want to see you in a dancehall dressed as some sexist wazzock's idea of Aphrodite so you could flash your bits at any of the built ones."
"Y'know, if we join hands and chant in time, I'm sure we could call upon Mother Earth to guide us."
"Yeah, thanks for the input, Starlight." That came from Sam, the aforementioned very definitely man. His accent, one born of a Nigerian family and a Hackney childhood, was adept at making the word sound like 'earthworm'.
Starlight, as was her wont, just tossed her hair and wandered off, her enormous, billowing dress trailing seedlings of rare fruits. Jo caught up with her, the rest of the group wandering behind.
"Star, wait. That, that's actually not a bad plan."
"Thank you, Joanna, I know. Saturn is in the 8th house for the next fortnight, so my decision-making's getting a boost." They were the long, languid tones of someone who spent most of their days sprawled on a sofa listening to whalesong; the kind who thought thick ginger dreads looked really good against pallid skin.
Jo ignored the rest of her comment (ignoring Starlight was a skill one picked up over time) and concentrated, her hand on the floor of the corridor, arcane runes gathering around her in a maroon circle that slowly spread across the width of the corridor. She straightened and fished in a pocket for some herbs and, while muttering in Latin, blew them straight up into the air. When they fell, they formed bootprints on the ground... which promptly trudged off into the middle distance.
"Er, are we going to follow those?"
Tessa scowled. "No Minty, we're going to sit here and wait until it comes back with a chauffeur-driven bloody hovercraft. Jesus wept."
"Oh. But I thought you all didn't want me to ask Daddy for a lift-"
"We're following the footsteps!"
The six trudged off, Tessa in the lead. Jo could feel the pull of the spell like something tugging on her forehead, so she stayed at the back to make sure people didn't get lost. This meant she was next to the last member of the group, dressed as she was in a Dracula costume.
"Are you going to be okay, Sally? I mean, we've checked for allergies, and I can cast a detection charm for garlic, but it's more that... well, y'know... that I want you to have a good time tonight," she finished, rather lamely.
"It's fine," Sally replied. "One thing though."
"What?"
"Should the vampire have gone as Dracula?"
"You're not 'the vampire', Sally, you're my friend and you just have some problems." Jo's smile was bright and warm, and she accompanied it with a one-armed hug.
Sally's enhanced eyesight could see how shaky it was at the edges, and she didn't say anything.
"Aha! Got something!" Tessa's Northern twang cut through the quiet of the corridor.
"Tess, you okay?" Jo called. "What did you find?"
"Something on my scanner. Alcohol concentration. Been scanning for it since we arrived; big Halloween bash with students going? Got to be booze about. Long range, but we're closing in on it. Wouldn't have picked it up without your spell, though."
Jo preened a little, despite herself. "Thanks, Tessa."
About ten minutes later, and amidst plenty of chatting, the Southeastern University Amateur Heroics Society (minus faculty rep, who was attending a lecture on the importance of flans in Early Modern European warfare) arrived in the dancehall, just in time to see Michael's announcement.
"Ooh, he's yummy," Minty whispered, and tried to make a beeline for him.
"Make sure you use protection, Minty!" Tessa yelled. "You don't want to give 'im that weird rash you've got!"
"Thank you, Lenin, always an unutterable pleasure," grumbled a beetroot-red Minty as she came right back.
Sally tapped Tess on the shoulder. "Please not with the shouting, Tess," she said, "enhanced hearing over here." And with that she returned her hands to their position over her ears.
Jo decided to take charge of the situation, trying frantically to remember how the article she'd read online had said to do so. "Look. We know why we're here. We know that we're here. Let's just do what we came to do and-"
"Get plastered?" Sam cut in.
"... Yeah. Um, yeah, that."
And so the six made their way to the bar, whereupon Sam found they didn't have any lager and accidentally set fire to his nun costume.
