Team Snek [Chapter 7]

[Charlie]

Trouble had barely waited to greet them. They were, what, but a hundred feet in? Charlie squinted at the way they’d came; the entrance to the tunnels was long behind them and out of sight. As were the other group.

The torch she’d slammed into the ground upon dropping flickered as she picked it up. A few taps to her thigh stabilised the beam, and she pointed it in the direction they’d come from. Whatever stream of night air had followed them in, it’d stayed behind, leaving them to the damp, fetid atmosphere that oozed from the earth beneath, above, and around them.

The commotion behind her barely made her flinch, but she was ready to shoot if need be. Charlie pointed the flashlight in their direction — the best she could do without raining bullets into everyone in an attempt to hit the skeletons.

Once the threat subsided, Charlie took stock of the eerie surroundings. There were other bodies, piled calcium left to sink into the soil or be reanimated in due course. They weren’t the first to have come into these tunnels, and they best move quickly before the commotion drew the enemy en masse.

It became evident as she stepped over a pile of bones, that the modified rifle hanging around her neck wasn’t the best of solutions in such close quarters. Were a fadebeast to appear and her resolve dissolved, she’d be jumpy enough to shoot at anything to subdue the threat, including Clover, Raegan, and Jesse. Accidents of that magnitude were best avoided, so she swung the assault rifle under her arm — biting back a grunt as the leather strap burnt its trajectory into her neck — and yanked the blade out of its scabbard.

A sword, though not her favoured instrument of torture, seemed to be the weapon of choice amongst her companions. It wouldn't cause as big a commotion as her gun, which might keep them from drawing any more attention than their dancing light beams and presence already had.

The long sword in her hand swung gently with every step she took, the flat edge of the curved blade tapping her calf every few seconds. It felt clunky, heavy, and unnatural. It wouldn't take long for the pain in her torso, born from her human death and lingering like a reminder of frail humanity, to announce itself if she took a fancy to swinging this much weight around for the remainder of the evening.

Charlie urged herself to focus on the advantages. Numero uno: it kept shooting family low on the possibilities' list. Numero dos, per Raegan's question: it saved bullets for anything bigger and stronger that might await them. She hadn't been here before, but experience had taught her that if asked, the answer would be delivered, and not always as politely as one hoped. Pressing her arm down on the rifle, reassuring herself it was there should she get into a bind and need it, she continued walking in silence.

[Clover]

In the silence following their skirmish, Clo put her gun away and took out a rather large hunting knife. She preferred knives to swords, simply because it gave her the opportunity to close the distance between the enemy and herself. The knife came too late though. No other creatures crept from the shadows. She stared at the spot where Raegan had been, but she knew she probably shouldn’t have touched the woman. That thought came too late. Everything came too late, it seemed. Her knife in her right hand, flashlight in her left, Clo surveyed the dark area around them. The beam of light only went so far, when it came to revealing hidden objects and enemies. She made out the area in front of them, which seemed perfectly clear of enemies, and she made out the area behind them, which looked the same way. The only thing that unnerved her were the stacks of bones close to the walls, hidden in corners. And then, she took note of the scattered remnants throughout the walkway. Some looked fresh. Some were covered in cobwebs.

The static from the walkie talkie almost made her jump. She’d been so accustomed to the silence or the rain of gunfire that a foreign noise had her edgy. Raegan and Ysmir didn’t seem to have a very good relationship, but Clo could have been wrong. The two of them could have been in love, for all she knew. Clo waited until Raegan was clearly finished with the walkie talkie, until the woman had said what she needed to say. By that point, Clo had been eyeing Charlie. Was Charlie even comfortable in their types of situations? Wasn’t she more mental strength than physical strength? Clo really wanted to check on the woman, but she thought it better to keep quiet.

“My guess is that we can expect what we expect in similar atmospheres, but I’ve never been here before. I could be wrong. I mean, if I were an undead monster, I’d gravitate here. It’s dark and dank and seems rather roomy.” She sounded as if she were selling land in the place, but she did find the atmosphere to be rather welcoming, at least when it came to predators. When the others moved, she moved, but she kept glancing back into the darkness. They’d had to split into two groups. They’d needed to cover more ground. More people would have been more of a problem. Clover told herself those things, reminded herself of those things, and yet she found herself wanting just one more person. Someone chatty. Someone with flares. Why hadn’t they brought flares?

Clover couldn’t get over the feeling that they were being stalked by something bigger and badder, something more than an ancient zombie. And she knew all about stalking prey. She didn’t try to whisper to Jesse. The other two would have heard her words anyway.

“I think we’re being stalked by something. And I don’t think it’s a skeleton,” she trailed off.

[Jesse Fforde]

The skeletons were taken down and though the company seemed shaken, everyone was alright. Jesse also knew that Clover was bound to paranoia, but she wasn’t always wrong, either. He kept his sword out of its sheath for easier access, and didn’t know whether it was best to lead the way or hang at the back. He’d paused, wondering whether it would even be wise to go any further; but they’d come for a reason, and they all had their tomes. If it got to be too much, they could leave within a second’s notice. It would be fine.

”We’ll just keep moving,” he said, quiet as he could. He kept his torch aimed low, at the ground, though the group of torches and their radiating light lit up the space at least a few paces ahead, anyway. They’d move slowly, so as to see anything coming before it found them.

”As per the previous discussion…” he started, continuing from where they had been so rudely interrupted as he started to shuffle forward, gesturing that the others should follow. ”The rift is what gives us the ability to come back after we die,” he replied to Reagan. Clover already knew this, and he was almost certain he’d told Charlie all about it before she’d even been turned. ”It’s probably responsible for these assholes, too,” he said, nudging at one of the dead skeletons with the tip of his sword. ”But that’s … the sacrifice, I suppose. We kill the monsters as payment for being able to live forever,” he said with a shrug. There was more to it than that, obviously. He nodded to the tunnels ahead.

”This is why I was going to come on my own. The skeletons aren’t the worst of it. There are… bears and wolves and ancient foes the likes you see only in fairytales. We’ll try to keep off their radar. Further in and further down there are other rooms, hidden rooms. I think that’s where we’ll find the clues. Unless you’d like to turn back…?” he asked, pausing to turn to the gathered company.

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

“You’re right,” she responded, her words close on the heels of Clover’s. “I’m an undead monster, and I kind of like the vibe here.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. From the moment they had entered the door, the stone giving way to the underbelly of Harper Rock, she had found herself attracted the darkness. It embraced her as if she belonged, and the sensation was one that she wasn’t accustomed to. With a quick shake of her head, she palmed her sword and brushed a hand down the front of her shirt, before lifting her gaze to her sire. “If something is following us, I’m sure we can handle it.” There was no tremor in her voice, no subtle tell to reveal if she was afraid or as confident as she sounded. Of course, she was confident.

She didn’t survive Cristof’s hand, or Jesse’s curse, only to die at the hands of risen monster. In her eyes, there was only one true beast, one person that could bring her to her knees, and he was leading the way into the shadows. Running her tongue along the sharp edge of a fang, she hoisted her sword over her shoulder, her stand relaxed and sure as she followed behind him. Each step she took was carefully calculated, and even as she swallowed the burn that sparked through her throat, she carried on. Her hunger could wait. It had to. There wasn’t a single source of blood for miles to come, and something told her that if she could find one, it wouldn’t satisfy her. No, she needed fresh from the vein. Forcing the desire to the back of her mind, she instead focused on Jesse’s words, even as she arched a brow. “So, we can live, but these things might get to roam free? Tell me you at least have some inkling as to what we might release into the world, Beast.”

No sooner had the words left her lips then the softest sound betrayed the silence. It took her only a second to realize what she had done – and a second more to realize what was about to happen. As she dropped her gaze to the ground, she all but turned to stone. There wasn’t a single twitch, a single movement that betrayed her. If Ysmir was in her mind, if he could truly hear her thoughts, he would see what she saw – the trap that had sprung, the bright platform that was an inch away from releasing it. If she stepped forward, if she so much as wiggled a toe, the spike would embed itself into her stomach. There wasn’t panic in her thoughts, but a calm acceptance of the pain she was about to endure. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in life, of course, but it would be damned unpleasant.

“Hey, Clover, you’re good with traps, right?” She didn’t offer any explanation to her question – if they had walked on, all they had to do was turn around and see what she needed. She wouldn’t know. She hadn’t taken her chaotic blues from the point of the spike as it readied itself for a taste of her flesh.

[Charlie]

Men, Charlie thought to herself as they came to another stop. Why say ‘keep moving’ and then…not? Glancing overhead in mild exasperation, she kept her attention to the space behind them, flashlight beam low and steady. Whatever Clover had referred to, the allurist couldn’t sense it… and she wasn’t keen on surprises.

Neither was she willing to renounce her place in all of this. Before agreeing — offering, or rather, inviting herself — to join this party, she’d caught up on the Crownet. She’d hung around the busy countertop at Serpentine and lured words from loose tongues in regards to the Hebigumo Foundation. There was a lot she didn’t know still, but she wanted answers. Her getup marked her preparedness to face the lurking dangers, and though she didn’t yet know the cost of the truth, she wasn’t done bidding quite yet.

Charlie wasn’t keen on the unknown, but not knowing didn’t appeal to her either.
She wouldn’t retreat over a measly trio of skeletons, or the threat of a haunted menagerie.

Beast? The Scot’s brow furrowed as she returned her attention to the front. Uncertain whether it was a term of affection or an insult, she held her tongue. Pointed gaze and bright beam on Raegan, she noticed the contraption holding her hostage. For a fleeting moment, she didn’t understand what she was looking at. Then, it dawned on her, and gratitude fleeted past her mind. It could have been her, and she was glad it wasn’t.

It wasn’t the first time she saw a trap, nor the first time she’d been lucky enough to evade one. Experience had taught her to keep her eyes peeled for these, though she certainly hadn’t expected any to be down here. It didn’t look rusted or any different from the ones she’d seen above ground.

They weren’t the first ones down the rabbit hole, so whoever had preceded them had either dextrously avoided the traps or laid them down themselves. Charlie wondered whether the contraption had been set there recently, for Jesse hadn’t warned any of them about traps.

How long since he’d last been here then?
Who was up ahead, and potentially setting up the traps?

There was clearly something down here that someone didn’t want anyone finding, or someone laying in wait. The lurking creatures were a side-effect of the drift, as Jesse had pointed out, but this — this was the work of someone sentient. Clover had mentioned stalking, and she wondered whether the trap was more than just a trap, but an actual trap trap.

Sidestepping Reagan, Charlie stood a foot or two away to her left — in the small space available to them side-by-side. Glancing back at the space behind them, she gripped the sword a little tighter. Waiting for Clover to determine Raegan’s fate, the allurist glanced back into the darkness while her flashlight remained pointed towards the trap. If whatever was following them was smart enough, then it would take advantage of this moment to attack.

She wouldn’t stand for that; she wouldn’t be a pawn.
Stabbing the soil with her sword, the allurist swung the assault rifle back into her free hand and stood guard. It would take the slightest movement for her to rain down bullets on whatever materialised from the shadows.

Questions burned on her tongue, but she didn’t vocalise them.
It seemed that talking was the constant to bad **** happening to them.

[Clover]

Maybe she shouldn’t have tensed, but the nickname kicked her thoughts into overdrive. Beast. Like some kind of fucked-up fairytale. And yet she knew the nickname was harmless. She told herself not to obsess, not to give in to the wickedness of paranoia. They all had a mission to tend to, an end goal they hoped to reach. Clo imagined a world where they could go wherever they pleased. No more fear of dying and never returning. They could all get the **** out of Harper Rock. They could go their separate ways. They could experience true freedom. They could expand their hunting ground.

In the midst of her daydreaming, Clo heard Raegan say her name, and that’s when she turned back to stare at the woman. Her eyes traveled from Raegan’s eyes down to the floor. A few moments passed before Clo finally put all of the pieces together. Raegan had encountered a trap. Instead of stepping to the side, as Charlie had, Clo approached. She didn’t need to avoid the trap so much as examine it. If she triggered the spike, she had every intention of taking the brunt of the attack. But she had some confidence that she could handle the situation. “Apparently, we have to be more aware of our surroundings,” she mumbled, not as an insult but as a thought to herself. “Is this place riddled with traps, or were these set down by another curious party?”

She didn’t know. Maybe no one knew. Clo bent down to examine the trigger and clicked her tongue. Telling Raegan not to move seemed like a waste of time. They both knew the end result, when it came to movement. Clo really needed to switch places with Raegan, but they didn’t have that option. Clo didn’t want to trigger the spike trap, but she had to feel around the tile. When she found just the right point, she glanced up at Raegan. They had a moment of silent communication, or so Clover thought, and then she carefully jammed the blade of her knife underneath the edge of the tile. There was a click, a grinding sound, and then silence.

No spikes.

Clo finally exhaled.

Click.

Clo jerked her head up and tried locking eyes with Raegan. Had she hit the wrong corner? Had she miscalculated? Clo held her breath again.

Click.

Nothing.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse treated the question as if it were rhetorical. He assumed that what they would release into the world would be more of the same – ancient skeletons would become reanimated, zombies would shuffle around, risen from the grave, souls with no consciousness and corpses that shuffled like puppets on a string. Dead things would come to life again, vampires at the top of the (so called) ladder; vampires came back to life with their wits and their intelligence, unlike the rest of the things.

The shrug was accompanied by a lazy grin, gleaming even in its subtlety. Clearly, if Jesse did have an inkling he really couldn’t care less. For all his vulnerable imaginings of futures with picket fences, sunshine and laughter, Jesse more often imagined a future of anarchy where balance is upended and dead things rule the living. No more hiding. He and Clover would no long have to feel any guilt for what they do or how they are (not that Jesse felt much guilt to begin with). They would be free to do as they pleased.

Either that, or some kind of drastic change in policy whereby the vampires hold seats of power and every human was expected and obligated to donate blood on a regular basis, not to help their own kind but to nourish their superiors. It was a vision of the future that Jesse didn’t share very often, given most people he knew would be appalled. Hell, if those present were aware that this was his ultimate goal (as unlikely as it was that he, alone, would achieve such a goal) they probably would not have come. Better to keep his answers as altruistic as possible.

No answer was given to Reagan, and he guessed the enquiry would have been forgotten in her current situation. A trap. Charlie swapped sword for gun and Jesse remained completely at ease, still equipped only with a blade. He almost looked sheepish as he approached Reagan and Clover, now, who had set to work trying to disarm the trap so that it wouldn’t skewer Reagan. He retrieved the walkie talkie from Reagan’s belt and hailed the other team.

”Traps, guys. I forgot to mention the traps. Not sure who sets them, have never seen them being set. They’re a constant. Probably the assholes who ‘live’ down here. Ah… keep an eye out, step lightly…” he said. He then returned the walkie talkie to its previous habitat and grinned a little more broadly.

There was absolutely no reason to be happy, really. But maybe it would be reassuring…

[Raegan (DELETED 9663)]

If she hadn’t been trapped in a stare-down with the sharp edge of the spike, she might have noticed the way Clover tensed. She might have realized that the woman didn’t understand her connection with her husband, or the way the endearment fell so easily from her tongue. Hell, she didn’t understand that it wasn’t an endearment at all. She hadn’t been there that night. She hadn’t witnessed the way he had torn into her as if she were a bottle of piece of bread and he was starving. He was brutal. He was violent. He was insanity, madness and darkness all twisted into one. He was Beast – and, as her line of sight was interrupted by a shock of black hair and dark eyes, she realized that he had found his Beauty.

When she met Clover’s stare, the communication between them was silent. They needed no words. It was all spoken in the flick of her wrist, in the way she jammed her blade beneath the trap. She had no idea what the woman was doing as her fingers worked carefully – yet quickly – over the mechanisms. Her power was in her strength, in her ability to shape metal and pierce flesh. It wasn’t here, in intelligence and quick skill. Working her lip between her teeth, she bit into the torn skin and remained quiet. She didn’t dare twitch a finger in case it was enough to have the woman miscalculate. When the trap began to grind beneath her foot, the clicks echoing in her mind, she released a quiet breath.

Click.

She tensed.

Click.

She met Clover’s gaze.

CLICK.

Seconds after the last click, she felt the trap loosen beneath her shoe. Slowly, she took a step back, and then another, until she was certain that she was free. It wasn’t until she bent down and dusted her fingers against the top of her platform that she finally spoke. “I knew you were good to have around,” she muttered, her gratitude clear in that sentence. Straightening, she turned her cool glare to her sire as he stepped forward, fingers carefully freeing her radio. When he spoke, she rolled her eyes, fingers pressing into her wild tresses. “You can keep smiling, Beast, but you’re not fooling anyone. You probably planned that.” Her words finished with a grin of her own, one that faltered when she heard Ysmir’s voice in her head – and from her radio. Working her jaw, she snatched the device from her belt, her finger pressed to the button before she had fully freed it.

“It’s sweet how much you care,” she whispered, her volume carefully chosen, even as the sarcasm dripped like honey from each word, “but if you don’t get the **** out of my head, I’m going to kill you myself.” Locking the radio back into place, she bent down and began to sift through the bits of skull and ash at her feet, before her fingers curling around a chunk of metal. Lifting it from the debris, she dusted it off and held it up for them to see, the degraded metal forming a misshapen shape of a key. It didn’t feel all powerful – but, what the **** did she know?

“Think this does anything?”

[Charlie]

Jesse was loving every minute of this and Charlie was growing ever so eager to put a bullet into that smug face of his. Instead, she tucked the assault rifle back to her side and rescued her blade from the soil. Stupid, lumbering thing, she thought to herself.

With Raegan freed, and the warning broadcasted to the other team, it seemed high time they continue onwards without delay. Rearranging her grip on the sword, the allurist moved past her three companions, leaving them to their delays, irritated. Whatever had been found, Charlie doubted it’d be of much importance. These tunnels ran deeper still, and whatever the sirens had been searching for and not found, she doubted it’d surface so easily.

Whatever tickled Jesse’s fancy about the this maze of dank tunnels had quite the opposite effect on her. Even knowing she could use the tome and escape it was of little relief; the oppression was inexorable. There was something about the charge in the air irked her, and simply ceasing to breathe did nothing to abate the sensation. The longer they remained here, the less comfortable she felt.

Being idle only furthered her malcontent, and so she continued onwards.

What would make Charlie more comfortable was her gun. Now that she’d moved on ahead of the group, and the risk of shooting them had diminished, she decided to swap her weapons one last time. Determined to ease her discomfort, she stopped many paces ahead, her back to them.

The allurist bit down on the flashlight to free her hands. The beam bobbed along erratically as she readjusted her weaponry. When she manoeuvred the blade into its sheath, awkwardly hoisting the leather strap over her head, she caught sight of something on the ceiling as a flash of light passed over it…

What —
Her eyes narrowed.

Blade now at her back, Charlie retrieved the flashlight from her mouth. With the gun against her waist, finger hovering near the trigger, she turned her attention upwards. Eyes narrowed, she stalked further away from the group, noticing the slant of the earth beneath her feet. The trail deepened.

Amidst the darkened quarry and packed dirt was a noticeably darker whatsis. As if scorched into the ceiling, the symbol extended into another, and another. It could have been nothing, but there was something familiar about the edges.

Could it be?

“Oi,” Charlie called out, possibly interrupting the conversation she’d tuned out.

Fae symbols looked much like the symmetrical ink blobs used by psychiatrists. These appeared to be somewhat layered on top of one another; strung together like doctor's handwriting. Charlie didn’t know enough about rituals and fae yet to distinguish them all, but her photographic memory harkened back to the notebook she’d been using lately. With their edges overlapping and fading, it was difficult to tell them apart, but there were four distinct sigils... at least. Two which she did recognise.

“Mox...? Irus... Mox irus?”

[Jesse Fforde]

The trap was released due to Clover’s good work and Jesse’s own antics seemed only to inspire ire in those around him. But, he had expected as much, and it was barely a bother. The trap was released and more words were spoken into the radio, a conversation Jesse felt like they were only hearing half of. Raegan and Ysmir, like two dolls he wants to shove together and tell them to kiss. There was something there, simmering beneath all Reagan’s frustration. But he wouldn’t. They would work it out on their own, if there was anything there. Jesse was aware of Reagan’s history with men—or at least that one man—and he didn’t think it’d be such an easy thing to woo her. But that was none of his business, and certainly wasn’t business to undertake here in the tunnels.

Charlie had pushed past them. Jesse liked to think that he could feel her irritation, though he knew he couldn’t really. He’d worked with Charlie for so long at the bar, and being so accustomed to paying attention to people and their tells, it was nothing more than just understanding the way she moved. He could do the same with Clover, though to a greater extent—Clover was like a fresh, new Siamese twin who was forever attached at the hip, even if she wasn’t always attached at the hip. Clover could still surprise Jesse, could still do things that he did not expect. But he still knew her, and the way she moved.

And then things started to happen, together and all at once. Reagan with a key, though it didn’t look like a special key. But it was a key nonetheless, and if they were looking for something hidden then it was more likely it would be hidden behind a lock.

And then Charlie was calling out, having found something else. Jesse meandered to her side, peering at the symbols she had uncovered. He didn’t immediately answer her. The symbols looked familiar. He knew what they were called, of course—he could read Fae like it was his natural tongue. But that particular combination looked familiar to him. He stared, head cocked to the side.

”…Cobb,” he murmured. After he’d brought Aruachia back from the dead by accident, he’d concluded that he might have been going about his research all wrong. Why research something when one might be able to ask the original ritualist in person? Jesse hadn’t been certain that Cobb was dead, dead. But he’d tried regardless to summon him (and had, obviously, failed). In all his practice he’d ascertained the Fae words for Cobb’s name. Mox Irus.

Jesse lifted his blade and used the tip to dislodge some of the packed dirt. The symbols continued and then seemed to disappear… into the wall? Jesse peered closer at the wall itself, the beam of his own torch searching its bumps and crannies until…

”It’s a door,” he said, waving Reagan over without looking her way. He ducked down to his haunches and dislodged some more debris. There was a small hole. A lock.

”The key… see if it opens this,” he said, stepping back to give Reagan space. They had to be onto something…