Down The Rabbit Hole [Chapter 7]

[Caligrace]

Something caused the woman to grow quiet, and as the door to the floor below groaned open, she frowned. There was uneasiness in her chest, one that seemed to swell with each step taken. The darker it became, the more she chewed on her lip, the flesh tender from the continued abuse, the taste of her blood as bitter as the scent that seemed to hang heavy in the air. “Stop!” The sudden command echoed off the stone, and she didn’t realize that she had not only placed a hand to Hudson’s chest, but also tangled her fingers within the fabric of her sire’s top.

“Do you smell that? It’s…” Her words trailed off as she dropped into a crouch, her fingers curled around the cool metal of her flashlight. As the beam swept across the ground, she noticed nothing at first, but then, buried beneath a pile of pebbles and tattered cloth, was a trap. “Poison,” she hissed, irritation flashing in the dark amber of her eyes. If one of them had set it off, it someone had made one wrong move, three out of four of their group would have been out. The poison would have worked its way into their veins, sickening them for days.

Studying the rusted bit of metal, she gave a slow shake of her head and straightened, her nerves ignited. Every step she took had to be calculated. Every twitch of her finger, every whispered word had to be carefully chosen. If she were to make one wrong move – if any of them were to – there was no way they would know what was to happen. Who would be stupid enough to lay poison traps? If something were to ignite the fume from the dart, would it create an explosion? If there were more, would the toxins hang heavy in the air, with no ventilation system? The thoughts ran rampant through her mind as she took a slow step around the rock, her wary gaze seeking those of her team.

“If one of you can work out the traps, I suggest doing so. We can’t risk these,” she muttered, before tucking a stray curl behind her ear. When she moved forward this time, it was slowly, her steps uncertain and her attention jumping back and forth between the shadows. She hadn’t heard a single sound, but there was a dark energy in the air. One that warned her something was near, something was coming. Working her lip between her teeth, still, she lifted the dull beam to the ceiling and followed a crack in the stone, until she found herself at a wall. A wall, that seemed out of place, and one that held a strange symbol. She had seen it before, the intricate lines that made the ancient tribal image one that she had studied years ago. For a second, she became frozen as she flipped through the images within her mind, much as one would flip through the thousands of pages of a book.

After a moment, she was able to bring the image to the forefront of her memory, and her fingers slowly reached out to trace one of the ragged cuts in the stone. “Every, come here for a minute,” she whispered as her finger traced along the line. The ancient rune wasn’t one she figured was known by ritualists, but she knew that it was important. There was a code hidden within the swirl of the moon and the fire of the trees. There was no name for the language. It had been rumored to have been created by the darkest of tribesmen to lock something dangerous within, but the mythology had never been proven. Sweeping her tongue across her lower lip, she tapped a single nail again against a wilted flower, and smiled. “Is this something you would have used or seen before? You’ve been a part of this nightlife longer than we have. It’s from an elder tribe, one rumored to have been guardians to an ancient evil, but it’s possible the fae have taken the symbol and it’s power for themselves…”

[Every]

"Trap." Silas called out down the hall, Every not too concerned about anything to do with spike traps. While she did have issues with speed at times, she hadn't actually been hit by the damn things in over two years - it was something she appreciated with training. The shadows hazel eyes skimmed over the corridor as she followed after them, her flashlight keeping a steady hold in front of them with her gun resting beneath it. She walked in silence, listening and waiting. Caligrace's question had her wondering about the structure of the place - magic would certainly explain the spike traps resetting themselves at random. Her boots crunched quietly against the rock beneath her feet. Reaching out, the shadow ran her fingertips against the labyrinth walls and she felt a slight incline as they went down the steps.

As Caligrace commanded they stop, Every could smell it on the air as the red head commented. "I've got it." The petite vampiress sighed, her mind connecting to Zachary's immediately, "Tell me when you find more poison traps unless you want to drag my *** out." She'd dealt with one or two in the past, but no matter what, she'd still fallen ill - breathing in the chemicals wasn't as severe; a headache or two, at the most. The second she was pricked by the dart, on the other hand, she fell ill. Blood would be reintroduced, reminding her of a previous time in college where she'd gotten alcohol poisoning from cheap boxed wine. "It's not even high quality." Every said in regards to the rusted metal as she stepped closer to it.

Speed was her friend as she carefully made her way behind it, crouching down and her fingers moved quickly to disable the trap. The parts couldn't be salvaged, but she knew it could be sold to a shopkeeper that didn't know what he was doing. "These aren't set by the creatures, it was another vampire. Shoddy work, honestly, if you ask me. I could do better as a human." On a normal day, Every would give it to Locryn to carry for her, but the human girl was preoccupied. "Zachary's going to move slowly ahead of us to give me another set of eyes. He won't trip anything but a spirit cage or banishment tile - that's more of a pain in the ***, I haven't seen them around here yet in the past either, so it would be yet another. Clever, but stupid when we're all supposed to be working together in the long run." Her hazel eyes lifted to the dead space in front of them. "Then again, if you look at the history of Harper Rock's vampires, not exactly the brightest bunch."

The woman was still baffled at the lack of thought put into the masquerade falling. For now, it was fine. She didn't mind humans as much as she had in the past, or the thought of them knowing what she was, but now? With the Longslade assault and the cure in the wind, Every was uneasy once more. There was trouble coming, there always was, but the question was when? Reaching over, she pinched Freyja on the hip and patted Hudson's shoulder in passing before she moved to Caligrace's side, a frown playing across her lips as she studied the symbols on the wall. Stepping closer to the wall, she moved her flashlight over the symbols. The beam of it illuminated them better even if she could see well enough in the dark to make it all out. "I've seen the symbols before, yes. Back in Brazil. The fae have been here since ancient times, so it'd be more plausible for humans to take the symbols as their own, but..." Every crouched down a bit, resting her knee against the stone flooring as she considered the chance of getting impaled through the face with spikes at the moment. She shoved it aside, mumbling to herself.

She began to try to make sense of it all, it'd been a while, but she'd seen similiar ones when she was traveling. Searching to compare the encantado legends that she'd heard as she'd grown up as a child to the ones found in Harper Rock. "Children of the night will... guard..." She read the words, pausing as she tried to translate the rest, "master? Creator? Something of the sort of death. Children of the night will guard their creator." She said, moving her hand over the symbols before ultimately, she nudged Caligrace aside for the other girl's safety. It was as the flower was touched that she noticed that the stone behind the plant was off center to the rest. A moment later, the petite shadow pressed her hand forward. To her surprise, it went inwards; there was a loud, steady creaking noise as Every let out a squeak.

"What the..." Slowly but surely, a door began to appear. The shadow got to her feet and lifted her pistol at chest level, shining the flashlight in the darkness within...

[Freyja]

Gingerly, Freyja all but danced across the trap that Caligrace had stumbled across. Her footsteps were light, almost soundless in the close space as she skirted the small redhead and practically glided across the damp floor. She didn’t press far, hovering near the two women as Every released the trap’s firing mechanism, flitting close to her childe as she moved through the familiar passage on the lower floor. Freyja shook her head and let her blue gaze sweep across the dark hall. It was all so alien down there, so otherworldly. Something about it felt like it was drawing her in, like it was taking her into an embrace.

She started lightly when Cali called out to Every, beckoning her to where they had stopped. For how long she had stood there while Eve worked, and Cali had inspected the small symbol carved into the stone of the carved corridor. When the elder vampire approached, leaning to inspect the small illustration device, Freyja’s eyes wandered into the dark.

She could almost hear a voice in the deep. Some lost tongue not heard in lifetimes, whispering in her ear, rasping on the breath of air that so faintly wafted through the damp hole. She was frozen in time and space, her entire body lax as she failed to realize that she was losing herself over to whatever it was about this place that had entranced her so. She hadn’t felt this in her first dive, the adrenaline of fighting her way to the bottom on her own had kept her thundering through foe after foe without stopping, with a sign of an end. She couldn’t remember how many days she’d spent blasting her way through the gross creatures that shambled through the tunnels down here.

When she turned back to where the pair had been inspecting the small icon, was now an open doorway.

Down there.

Every instinct told her that what they were looking for was down there in the dark. Down there in the deep. Freyja turned, long rifle tossed over her shoulder, hanging by a bandolier as she hip-checked her friend aside, gliding past her childe as she rushed into the open door. "Out of the way. You two are taking too long, we need to move." The impact against Every’s head caught her gait, turning the landing of her foot aside to catch the stone doorway, sending her down the long passage, flung head first into the darkness, where she felt the shadow falling behind her, the two of them a tangle of limbs as they slid along a thin layer of dust and loose pebble flooring down a long, narrow descent, until they came to a rest at the foot of what had to be a hundred yard slope.

Shaking her head, the tall, thin blonde got her bearings only just enough to see the faint light of the doorway where her childe still stood above them. Lifting a hand, the Dane picked a rock from where it had imbedded itself in the flesh of her cheek, and flicked it aside, before letting her gaze sweep the room, the air down here as cold as her stare.

She could feel it. She was practically standing on top of it, now.