Because this story is 42 pages long, for the purposes of not breaking browsers, I'm segmenting the story out.
| pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3 | pt. 4 |
I cut the engine as soon as we came to a full rest, and slipped silently outside.
He followed a confused moment later, his eyes locked on the massive, wooden bridge on the other side of the rocks.
It wasn’t nearly as long as it was wide, connecting the small cliff face that was the end of Arkham City’s border and the cliff that housed Dunwich, over a few meters of raging Miskatonic River.
I could make out a number of shacks on the other side of the support, and beyond that was a den of caustic psychic energy.
While the whole town had an uncomfortable feel to it, even from the other side of the bridge, the toxic energy I was feeling was something else.
I suddenly felt that I was looking even less forward to the encounter than before.
With a huff, I shoved the feeling down and focused on the other reason I’d pulled off.
“They have a spotter. They might already know we’re here, but I’ve probably got better range. Screaming wood would’ve thrown that away,” I whispered.
Nodding, he slid several extra magazines into his pockets before closing his own door.
“We go in quietly, and try to get as little attention as possible until we’re on her. Got it?”
“Not my first infiltration,” he retorted with a smirk. “It doesn’t usually go smoothly. How do we get inside, without being seen from a mile away?”
Pressing against the rocks, I let my senses expand just a bit more.
The mystery watcher’s aura was like calm water, seeming utterly placid.
The idea of someone feeling me coming and still being that calm was a terrifying prospect.
I drew the air in even more, drawing in every nuance of his energy.
“He’ll see us on the bridge. And the bridge is the only way across, unless you’re an aquakinetic?” I added hopefully.
“’fraid not,” he sighed. “You seem to be pretty good with ice. Can you work something?”
Risking a glance around the corner, I managed to physically spot the man.
“If he’s a magician of any talent, he’ll see us comin’ the second I do. Not that I actually could, goin’ back to tha’ whole issue with the horror beneath the water.”
Sighing, I slipped back beneath the rock and let my mind go to work.
Soon, I felt myself swaying as a hum left my throat, but I ignored it and steadfastly kept my eyes closed as I concentrated more.
The world faded around me, leaving vague impressions of my surroundings.
The watcher’s and Collin’s auras both worked through me as my defenses dimmed, and I began sifting, as unobtrusively as possible, through the watcher’s soul.
When something stabbed at my mind, I jerked to full wakefulness again and turned.
Sure enough, he was staring at the bridge now, though he was still almost at our destination.
He seemed more curious than cautious, but I didn’t really want to run the risk of touching his mind again, in case he was really paying attention now.
“Stow the gun. I’ve got an idea, an’ it’ll work better if we don’t look threatenin’.”
Nodding, he quickly stuffed it into his jacket, keeping it readily available if whatever plan I had went south.
Honestly, it was smart of him to consider the possibility that I screwed up.
“Et abscondite nos tibi vestimentum tuum, et in prima nocte, Nyx, dea noctis, quoniam in solutione tributi mea!” I intoned.
Collin winced when I brought my knife out and dragged a thin scarlet line across my palm.
Instantly, the air cooled around us, and a thin tendril of darkness lapped at the skin until my completely unmarred palm was left.
As soon as the blood was taken, I felt the night’s darkness pressing down on me like a physical weight.
Collin’s shoulders hunched with the same weight.
With a snap of my fingers, the weight vanished.
In its place, a distinct black haze lifted in a vague and blurred haze around our bodies.
“Thought you said no magic?”
“Dag… that thin’ down under the water has a thing fer eatin’ Faeries. This is just to shift our scent until we get over the bridge. Hopefully it obscures us a bit from the watcher, too, but it’s not gonna’ last long with such a small tribute.”
He paled at that, though he also seemed interested in how I knew something that specific about it.
“We live, I’ll sit down fer a pint and share a story er two,” I promised. “Let’s get goin’.”
I gave him a nod and we headed for the bridge.
I felt him getting tenser with every bit of rock that vanished between us and whoever we were going against.
“We’re going in there. Act daft, if ya’ can. If we can’t fool the watcher and get our way inside, I’ll think of somethin’ else. I’m proud of bein’ pretty quick on my feet.”
“I like bold plans. As long as they don’t get me killed,” he added quickly.
“It’s my specialty.”
And then, we cleared the cover, and reached the bridge at a brisk but seemingly unhurried pace.
It took me about twenty seconds once we were on the bridge to spot the house.
I kept looking at it as we made the rest of the way, partly to make sure the watcher had really lost interest as he seemed to have, and partly to keep my mind from the hungry monster that could be under my very feet.
The building wasn’t all that impressive, and I doubted that would change by being closer to it.
For the area, though, it was like a flashing neon sign.
Unlike the shacks and thoroughly age-beaten colonials, our destination was two stories.
Instead of having a dull, faded grey color and being broken to within an inch of its existence, it was painted as black as Collin’s club.
When we reached the other side of the divide, the impression became even more depressing.
The biting scent of blood permeated the air, flowing with the wind from the house.
As the smell hit me, so did the serrated thrum of black magic.
“Stealth might not be an option at al, if this is just the falloff of whatever psychics are in there. Somethin’ nasty’s waitin’ fer us.”
“Stinks like demon,” he agreed easily, seeming completely unfazed by the disgusting waves rolling against us.
To be as far from the building as we were and still feel it as strongly as I was, it seemed more of a fortress than a house.
Really selling the impression, it was built flat against the rocky wall on the other side of the plateau.
Getting in was definitely not going to be easy, which, while not unexpected, was still irritating.
“You’re not playin’ with an amateur,” I groaned. “Tha’ militia theory might not be as far off as I was hopin’.”
It was at that exact moment that the shadows dissipated.
“Remember, act daft.”
I pressed on toward the watcher, who now fully noticed us.
I acted as though I were looking for something, turning my head every which way and trying to exude lost tourist, rather than dangerous faery witch.
Collin’s whole posture shifted, his confidence vanishing until he seemed to be much smaller.
His aura also pulled even closer to himself, until it was nearly unnoticeable.
On the other hand, I got a very distinct feel of the watcher’s energy, that close.
He exuded a repulsing, death-tinged magic, though even his grotesqueness was washed out with the house’s presence.
“Hey,” he growled in a deep timbre.
As I came up to him, I took in what he really looked like.
His appearance matched the aura, as he looked like the living incarnation of the word “thug.”
It was really quite impressive, how he was holding a machete about half the size of his arm, in plain view for all the world to see, and seemed oblivious to it.
Not that Dunwich was the kind of place that some do-gooder would call the police seeing it, and even if they did, the guy looked confident enough with the blade that they’d probably turn right around.
He took us both in with narrowed eyes and a vicious sneer.
“What’re you two doin’ here?”
Somehow, I got the impression that if he didn’t like the answer, he was going to make us learn what the knife felt like.
In response, I flashed my best ditzy smile and pressed myself into Collin’s side, my arm going around his back.
His surprise let some of his magic free, and it sent pops of static against my aura that almost made me shiver.
He tensed at my touch, but only enough that I noticed.
The thug remained entirely oblivious as he continued staring.
“Oh, thank god! Our car broke down up by the bridge! We thought this was some kinder’ ghost town, with how everythin’ looks,” I gushed.
The higher pitch to my voice was nauseating, but effective, as the watcher relaxed almost entirely.
I’d done a better job at it than I’d thought, too, since even Collin looked thrown, even if the look only lasted a few seconds.
“Heh. Nobody’s gonna’ help you ‘round here, lady,” the thug laughed. “You picked a really shitty place to break down.”
Collin picked up on what I was going for, quickly enough, and forced a big smile that looked almost real.
I bit my tongue when he put his arm around my shoulder.
“Do you think you could help, at all?” he asked. “I think the damn engine just overheated, but we don’t have anything in the car to cool it off with.”
With how genuine he sounded about it, I was convinced that he hadn’t been boasting about doing this kind of thing before.
I forced my mind to focus on the knife-wielding scumbag, instead of being impressed, though from the way he was looking at me, Collin seemed to know, anyway.
The watcher considered us for a moment, seeming to take in everything about us.
I hoped there wasn’t any residue from the cloaking spell in my aura, or it could get very ugly, really fast.
Finally, he released a huff and shrugged at us.
“Ah, hell, borin’, today, anyway. Might as well take a look.”
Sliding the machete into a sheath attached to his leg, he strode forward.
As a group, we made our way for the car, with Collin at my side and the man behind us.
I didn’t know about Collin, but having someone literally with a knife at my back made me itch to pull my athame.
Even with it, we managed to keep up the oblivious act as we went, pretending we noticed nothing wrong with Dunwich.
“So what’re you doin’ ‘round here, anyways? Kinda’ outta’ the way,” the thug remarked as we reached the bridge.
Collin tensed, his mind clearly working on a cover story, but I was faster.
“Took a wrong turn. Really wrong turn. Then the damned engine blew, because loverboy here didn’t believe it when I said I heard clickin’ twenty miles back by a gas station. How about you?”
The watcher seemed too amused by my ploy to really think about things, like the fact that it was almost a completely straight stretch of road from Dunwich to Arkham, and that there weren’t any gas stations along the way.
Whoever our ringleader was, she apparently hadn’t bothered to hire locals.
Good for us, but not so much for her group.
“I already apologized ‘bout ten times. Give it a rest,” Collin continued.
“Think I’ll save tha’ fer when we’re back in civilization, thanks.”
“You know you’ll forgive me easy enough. Might as well drop the charade,” Collin scoffed with a smirk.
More of his energy rose where we touched, sending tingles through me.
This time, I knew it was intentional, because his smirk got even bigger when I blushed.
“Yer lucky I won’t smack ya’ in front of watchful eyes, amadán,” I grumbled.
“We can discuss changin’ that, when we get back, if ya’ like,” he laughed.
“Oh, we’re definitely havin’ a conversation when we get back,” I swore.
His furthered amusement didn’t encourage me, much.
My blush increased, and it took me a second to realize he was distracting me as we made our way across the bridge.
“So what about you? Why’re you out in this corner a nothin’?” I asked the thug, hoping to keep him distracted, too.
Thankfully, we’d more than taken him off his guard by that time, and a few more seconds would put us out of sight of the house.
“Ah, just some work thing. So where were you headin’, before your wrong turn?” he continued.
We cleared the rocks, then, and became invisible to any eyes from the house.
“We were actually lookin’ fer a militia compound. Ya’ wouldn’t know anythin’, would ya’?”
Collin tensed and I brought my dagger out.
“It’s a funny story, actually. We heard there’s some psychopath planning a war up here, and thought we’d give it a look,” Collin added.
“That place behind ya’ really stuck out, thinkin’ bout it,” I concluded.
Before we’d even finished turning on him, the watcher was moving.
I had to give credit where it was due.
Especially for his size, the thug was fast.
Neither of us had finished rounding on him before his machete cleared leather, flashing at my throat in a lightning-fast slash.
Luckily, I wasn’t exactly a slouch, either.
Metal clanged when my own blade met it.
As he pulled back for a second try, Collin swung a fist into the watcher’s arm with a meaty thug.
With a howl of pain, his unarmed hand fell limp, and he swiped with the machete in retaliation.
While his speed wasn’t quite as much of a surprise, being a Nephilim, Collin still moved impressively quick.
He ducked under the slash and came up with a fist ramming straight into the thug’s abdomen.
The thug dropped his machete, a second before he jointed it on the ground.
He seemed much less impressive curled in a whimpering ball on the dirt.
I kicked his machete up before he could recover, and did a quick once-over.
The gun at his ankle was taken, too, and I was very glad he hadn’t gone for that, first.
“Alright, so here’s the deal,” I started while kneeling next to him. “I don’t care fer small-fry. Ya’ tell me how many’re in there, what they’re packin’, and who’s runnin’ this sideshow, an’ I’ll let ya’ go back with just the broken arm my employer gave ya’.”
Gasping and wheezing for air, he just stared straight through me with watery eyes.
“Geez. Couldn’ta’ gone fer someplace tha’ wouldn’t stop ‘im talkin’?” I sighed.
He didn’t seem to mind my glare, much.
“Don’t blame me,” he retorted with a shrug. “I was goin’ for his shoulder. Bastard moved.
Sighing, I turned back to the thug and waved the machete by his face.
“Ya’ know, if ya’d played it cool an’ not come at my neck with this thing, I probably woulda’ been worried ‘bout yer breathin’, right ‘bout now. As it is, I’ve already been psychically bombed twice by you bastards, an’ subduin’ you didn’ help my mood much. So, if ya’ don’t tell me what I asked, I’ll be glad ta’ take ya’ down to Arkham. I’m sure the APD’d love entertainin’ ya’.”
At that, his eyes widened, and his mouth started moving.
“There’s five of us, ‘sides the boss. That bitch said there’d be no way anybody’d come lookin’, out here,” he coughed.
“What toys do the others have?”
“Some heavy shit. Lady, you’ve got no chance, with just you two,” he laughed. “Three of ‘em are leeches. Other’s a wolf.”
“Oh, wonderful. Collin, double-check. Make sure that damn thin’s loaded,” I said with a nod at his jacket.
Vampires were, in my experience, not easy to put down.
With their stamina, strength, and incredibly regenerative system, they made great hired help.
Especially for criminals.
Lycans weren’t much better.
Popular myth held them as people cursed to transform into animals, but it really depended on the person, how they’d contracted Lycanthropy, and a whole plethora of other factors.
Unfortunately, the ones hired for the kind of thing we were dealing with could almost unanimously shift whenever they wanted, and usually had the super-strength and senses even when they weren’t shifted.
“And what’re you?” I asked, glaring down at him. “Magician, obviously, but what kind?”
“Nothing impressive, otherwise I’d’ve blown you to Hell already,” he huffed.
Then, he grinned at me, and I readied myself for a fight.
“I’m the doorman,” he added.
It took me all of a second to figure out exactly what he meant.
He was human, and a sick one, at that, to give off the aura he did.
But he had a special kind of magic, which would enhance psychic ability.
In his case, given the circumstances, I’d be more than willing to bet telepathy.
“So ya’ sent ‘em a psychic S.O.S. as soon as we got ya’, huh?”
“That’s right, ya’ bitch,” he laughed.
Being laughed at hurt a little less when his mirth died in a violent fit of coughs.
I rose to my feet with a sigh, wondering if we already had weapon sights trained on us.
“Time ta’ take a nap.”
With that, I brought my foot down into his stomach, right where Collin had hit.
With another wheeze, his eyes rolled back, and he went limp.
“Okay, so comin’ back later won’t work. We need to hope that whoever’s runnin’ things won’t set anythin’ in motion while we’re distractin’ ‘em.”
“Mikhail can handle it if things go bad. They seem to like fire. Fire, he can handle.”
“Yeah, I noticed tha’. A pyrokinetic bartender? That’s a pretty interestin’ person ya’ve got workin’ that place. But we’ll leave that aside, fer now. This is gonna’ hurt like hell, afore we’re done.”
“Like you expected anything else? C’mon, let’s get going. On the plus side, you don’t need to worry about using spells to avoid whatever’s down below, now. It would’ve gotten you going back over that time, if it was an issue.”
“Yeah, must just be my lucky day,” I laughed.
“I don’t want to be anywhere near you on an unlucky day,” he retorted.
“Me, either.”
Grinning, he made his way around the cover with gun in hand.
“Oh, by the way, you play a pretty good ditz. I prefer otherwise, though,” he called over his shoulder before getting on the bridge.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I grumbled as I followed quickly behind.
I felt the attention on us as soon as we were in sight of the fortress.
Psychic energy rose in agitated waves against us, signaling just how alerted they were.
With a jerk of my head, I directed him after me as I slipped around the side of a large, abandoned shack.
“Maybe we should’ve been more subtle?”
“Probably. Stupid, on my part, thinkin’ on it. One good thing comes outta’ it, though.”
He frowned in thought while staring at the building.
“We know how many are in there?”
“That, too, but no. You smell the magic air?”
As soon as I brought it up, he cringed.
“Smells like death.”
“That it does. An’ a lot of it,” I agreed with a grin. “Compared ta’ tha’ unholy stink, my wee little patch a’ Fae won’t be raisin’ any devils from the river.”
“Could it have reached us, on land like this?”
“Maybe. It has legs, I imagine. An’ it’s a big bastard. Now, we don’t need ta’ find out.”
He paled further, seeming to wonder how much danger I’d really brought his way by bringing him out near the mysterious, faerie-eating monster I was describing.
“I’m lookin’ forward to that pint,” he finally said as he brought himself back to the task at hand.
“I’m sure. Here’s the plan.”
With a quick twist, I moved around him until I was at the very edge of the shack.
“I’m going in first. Come in when ya’ think the chaos sounds big enough. If possible, I wanna’ keep ‘em off-kilter an’ expectin’ walkin’ Hell on Earth comin’ their way. If they think one person was stupid enough ta’ come out ‘ere an’ take on their whole compound, they’re likelier ta’ get scared.”
“Or find it all entertaining.”
“Or tha’, but when I drop one ‘er two, they’ll change to what I want. ‘Sides, this is what yer payin’ me fer, after all,” I added with a wink.
Since subtlety wasn’t a concern anymore, I strode casually up to the front door.
Without stealth, I tend to enjoy a bit of flare.
Which is why, when I got to the porch, I jumped into the door and rode it down when it snapped free of its hinges.
Right out of the door’s reach were two of the vampires.
Their fangs were gleaming knives of ivory, and they stared at me with narrowed eyes glowing dark red from bloodlust.
Otherwise, they looked like thugs straight off the set of a mob film, with neat black suits and slicked, well-kept black hair.
They both had dark, mocha-colored skin that was made all the darker by the suit.
At a glance, it was obvious they were related, as the only thing making them not identical was a scar down one of their cheeks.
They came at me from both sides, rushing to kill me quick.
I was faster with the watcher’s machete, which easily sank into the first vampire’s shoulder.
It almost reached his neck before he reacted.
With a vicious snarl, he threw a clawed hand at my face in a blur of motion.
Using pure instinct was the only way I managed to duck under the swipe and roll out of his range.
His brother wasn’t prepared when I came up foot-first.
The second vampire wheeled back, clutching at his throat while I put myself back into a stand facing the first.
That time, I wasn’t fast enough.
Stars bounced in front of my vision when he punched the side of my head.
The force of the hit was akin to a small wrecking ball, and it carried through into I was sent bodily slamming into the opposite wall.
Despite the agony, and doubled vision, I now faced, luck seemed to be in my favor for once.
If he’d been an older, stronger vampire, my head would’ve been snapped cleanly from my neck by the blow.
I pushed into motion and dove out of the way of another punch, the hand burying itself into concrete exactly where my head had been.
With a snarl, the vampire reached up and pulled the machete free from his shoulder, intending to behead me with only one usable arm.
I drew my athame and put it straight through his hand.
As he howled and bucked against the wall, I sent my foot into his groin.
When he curled into a ball to protect himself, he put his head in perfect position for my knee to slam home.
His eyes rolled back and he went limp, hand still stuck in the wall.
Dropping a vampire by myself wasn’t something I was used to, if only because I avoided the leeches like a plague.
Evidently, seeing someone who looked like me drop one wasn’t something his brother was used to, either.
I used the advantage and charged at the brother.
My elbow was lodged in his windpipe before he could react, and then he, too, dropped unconscious.
Even with the satisfaction of taking both of them out, my body really didn’t care.
Agony lanced through my entire being, centered around my skull and arm.
A low whistle snapped my attention around, and I found a man standing over the first vampire.
With a grimace, he tapped the downed vamp with the tip of his wingtip shoe.
That would probably be the third vamp, and he looked nothing like the other two.
His hair was down to his shoulders in a blood-red curtain, and he had a pallor of death to his skin.
An expensive-looking tailored tuxedo coiled around him like a second skin, and a gloved left hand held a long, thin dagger.
On his right middle finger was a small ring inlaid with a ruby, and from each of his ears hung a black, Gothic cross.
He was grinning ear-to-ear, revealing a pair of razor-sharp fangs that snapped into existence with a soft click.
Under the harsh lights in the building, his earrings cast shadows on the downed vampire beneath his foot.
It took me a second to smell the smoke, and another to realize that the shadow was causing the vampire to smolder and burn.
In a few short instants, his body went up in a wall of dark, green flames.
Even as the earrings burned the vampire to death, the symbols rested harmlessly against the newcomer’s skin.
Vampires, like in the myths, really do have some weird aversion to symbols of any faith, but as they got older, they were affected less.
It usually still left some mark, though.
Since his skin was unmarked, either he was older than Rome, or the slight glow around the earrings’ metal was the actual cause for the horrific damage.
“Well, you did quite the number on these two. An impressive feat, I admit, for a human, to take down not one, but two vampires of adequate age, however weak, slow, and stupid they are.”
His voice washed over me in waves, the sound a deep, smooth timbre that seemed to belong in a jazz club far more than a militia compound.
“Well, what can I say? I love a good workout,” I quipped.
He grinned even wider at that, and turned to face me fully.
“Well then, allow me.”
In a flash, he vanished from sight.
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