Dead & Damned Part VIII(a)
Title: Dead & Damned, Part VIII
Author: Weslyn; Betas:
pandonkey &
dream_mender
*deep breath* What to say about this chapter...? Seems like a long time in coming... cause gods know how long I've had pieces of this chapter scrawled out on notebook paper. I know very little about Chicago's psych wards, and less about the legal system regarding them, despite how much Law & Order I watch and my research for this chapter. Bleh. I tried to stay away from specifics.
Previous chapters: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII
TV!Harry POV
R to be safe, though some of the descriptions boarder on NC-17 near the end, but it's a small part.
TV-verse with some bookish tendencies. This is basically a Lovecraft Crossover.
Word Count: Slightly over 6,000
Pairing/Characters: Bob/Harry SLASHY. Murphy, bunch of random OCs.
Disclaimer: Oh right, I don't own any of it. Tell that to my plot bunnies. What? You can't see them...? They're pink and ravenously chewing on my brain.
Summary: "So what you're telling me is that the Apocalypse will be herald by a bunch of geeks playing Call of Cthulhu?"
No, really. I love this chapter.
Notes: The chapter opens up as Harry's nightmare.
The Bloop - What? You thought I made it up? No, no, don't click now - click after you've read!
Music: Otep. 'specially for the dream part.
Breathing. It's mine, loud in my ears. I'm running, from what I'm not certain - but I know it's there, and I have to keep running, but my legs - so heavy and stiff - nearly impossible to keep them moving. Every step is a struggle. Every breath more ragged, deeper, louder. I'm tingling all over with fear - a fear more powerful and consuming than the greenish-black mists that I'm running from and seemingly to. I have no destination, just a desperate need to escape. There's something rising, I can feel It, hovering, pressing in against my back - It has a sound - or is that me breathing? No, no... the noise is coming from That - that Thing at my back, angry wheezes, the sound emitting from something obviously much larger than I, and as much as I run I can't seem to escape It, because It murmurs in circles around me and I can't get out, can't get out! Guttural, a barking-growl-whine-wheeze-and-breathing voice as inhuman vocal cords mock speech, It makes my skin crawl with a knowing sort of dread. I'm being herded. It speaks to me and somehow I understand, I know this language within the Blackest parts of my Inner and I try to fight it, fight the rage against myself, because gods, gods! I shouldn't know what It's saying, I shouldn't be letting It guide me, I need to run, run, run. I can't stop, I change course, and still It is there, madly breathing down my neck, if I stop It'll be on top of me, no chance to fight, It'll take me over - don't stop - keep running. I'll run until my legs break, and then I'll crawl, drag myself out of here, because I have to get back, I have to cook dinner, Bob will starve and then where will I be? I'll be alone and he'll be dead and if he dies he won't come back again this time because I didn't feed him - keep running! My heart is pounding in my ears, too loud, too loud and it isn't my heart - no, it's the drums summoning the Beast, and the Beast is close now, drawn by the wild beating of my heart - I can feel the prickling of Its nearness - It's so close now and when I breathe in, searching for my voice to scream, I can't find it - It took it and became it and I can feel It inside, burning my throat cause It stole my goddamn scream, and I have to get It out, have to get It out - so I'm clawing at my throat - pain searing deep as my fingers sink in around my voice, tear It out, tear It out of me ... blood, I feel skin break beneath my clawed fingers - I'll make this stop, stop-Bob-where-are-you-?-help-me-tear-this-out-of-my-throat-please-it-hurts-Bob-! ... There's this faint buzzing like a dull roar in my ears and it's blotting out everything else ... but the Sounds of the Lurking Horror - It isn't gone just yet, keep ripping, keep tearing. Faint, but growing - something new, I know this ... I know this! Reassuring in its familiarity, reaching out with Voice, soothing, deep and shielding, a song - singing darkness rises, obscuring the mists, and there's no need to run anymore. The Horror is gone as Someone-I-Know is catching up to me, reaching out in velvety midnight song and I'm sinking into warmth and safety, no need to fear ... I'm not alone.
Let the record show that I do not like psych wards. I try to avoid them as much as possible since lots of people tend to think I belong in one. Murphy was no exception. She'd pulled the car into a space near the entrance of a set of mostly large, modern buildings (affiliates of Rush University's Medical Center, but I wasn't paying much attention to the specific building; like I said, I avoid these places), and without so much as a “thanks for coming along, Harry,” she said:
“You're here for observation only, so behave yourself - I have no problem admitting you as a patient.” She warned. Without any further exchange, she got out of the car and proceeded to the entrance.
“You're welcome,” I groused under my breath and followed Murphy reluctantly to the front desk of the hospital, where Murphy flashed her Cop-Equals-Instant-Access-Badge, and then to the third floor where, immediately upon our entrance, all hell broke loose.
She gave me a quick, sideways glance, which I assumed had to be out of habit whenever there was trouble around. My shoulders and hands shot up anyway in my habitual return gesture of innocence.
“What? We just got here, Murphy - I didn't do anything.”
“I know you didn't,” she said with a fraction of guilt, and then she was charging forward, and I watched the beauty of her orderliness and authority unfold.
Maybe I should have been more surprised that the crisis involved two of the girls from the photographs in Murphy's folders: both of the girls with black hair, the Asian and the Goth. One was down on the floor receiving medical attention, while the other was being restrained. Around them, the patients were seemingly in the midst of a rebellion: two musclebound male nurses were hauling off a teenage boy who'd thrown a chair; I happened to pass one girl who was banging her head into the wall, cursing and crying - there was an attendant with her as well, but I didn't care to look for long. There was a whole chorus of cursing, shouting and wailing as the staff sought to control the patients. An announcement I could only half-make out over the commotion was calling for back-up via intercom.
An endless twenty minutes later, and I stood inside my own little circle of Hell with Murphy, where one girl was dead and the other was sitting blankly in a chair, hands cuffed behind her back. The rest of the room had been recovered - the patients had been escorted back to their rooms, and spills and broken furniture were being cleaned up.
“I have to go make a few phone calls. Watch her,” Murphy ordered distractedly, pulling a lock of curls out of her face. She had indicated the girl I'd heard mentioned as Alison, who sat with her eyes fixed on the gray tile floors as though she were really some place beyond, a much more destitute and ugly place. I felt a flicker of recognition in the shadow lurking in her dark eyes.
I sat down next to her. “Alison, was it?”
“Ali,” she murmured, her voice not rising above a whisper. She licked her dry lips, but otherwise didn't move.
“Ali,” I repeated, “Can you tell me how this started, Ali?”
She laughed mirthlessly, her smile haunted as she turned weakly to study me. “I'm going to die, aren't I?”
“Now why do you say that, Ali?”
“Why do you have to keep repeating my name like that? I know who I am, mister - who the fuck are you?” She leaned back in her chair as an empty smirk took the place of her smile on her wide lips. She was conversational now, but suspicious.
“All right, you got me. I'm Harry Dresden.” Her eyes widened marginally, and her smirk fell flat. “What? Don't tell me you've heard of me.” Did I sound nervous? I know I wasn't at my most cool and collected at the time. I'd been on edge since I'd left the house without seeing Bob, and having my reputation precede me in a place like a psych ward was poking holes in my self-esteem bucket.
Her gazed narrowed. “I am going to die,” she said, as if my presence were there to confirm her inevitable demise. Then, without further prying on my part, she delved headlong into her story.
“You ever hear of a game called Call of Cthulhu? Yeah, I know,” she paused for another one of those hollow chuckles, “It's just a game. Some people say that about Ouija, too.
“Well, my friends and I started playing, and then some really weird shit started to happen. Mary and Kristen got nightmares after the first game, and they kept getting them, too, until Mary drove her mom's van into a tree. That's when Kristen got obsessed. She found all this stuff - even this one thing on the net called the Bloop.” She met my eyes, her story derailing for a moment to explain, “It's this recording of a noise that the Navy discovered in '97. A whole bunch of articles were published, and most of them seemed to agree that the sound was made by an animal, but one that is yet unknown to scientists. But this one - this one that Kristen read, it hypothesized that it was a 'deep sea monster, possibly a many-tentacled giant squid,' and that sounded enough like Cthulhu for Kristen ... We listened to it, you know?” she asked rhetorically, her eyes suddenly morose. “I think that was what did us all in - we were hooked, we couldn't stop searching for answers.”
“Mei...” her eyes flicked to where her dead friend had been before the morgue attendants had carted the body off. “Mei was the one who first stumbled upon Arkham.” She laughed, and this time it actually sounded as though there were some humor to it - a dark humor. “No one believes that the town exists - but we've been there. We've been to Dunwich, too. It's freaky as hell, that place; it never ages, just remains the same, the very same, just like he wrote...” she trailed off, laughter forgotten. A moment later, her story resumed again. “She had started chatting on-line with a group of people, and that's how we made our connections. It's stupid, we never though to back out - to stop, and now here we are, only Kristen and I are left, but Kristen is like, comatose, and I know - I know I'm going to die next.” She didn't sound afraid; she spoke with all the conviction of someone who had grown to know Death intimately.
“They're going to say I killed her, you know?” Her voice was a soft monotone again, like it was when she'd first spoken. She tilted her face away from me, blue-black hair falling in front of her eyes. “I don't care if they do. ... They can say whatever - I'm still going to end up dead.”
“How'd she die?”
Alison spent a long time staring at the floor, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost her when at last she spoke. I could hear in her voice the tears that her short mop of hair obscured.
“Will you kill me, Mr. Dresden? Will you be my Angel of Death? I don't ... I don't want to go like that. Mei ... Mei ripped out her own throat. I - ... I couldn't stop her...”
“Dresden?” Murphy interrupted Alison's quite pleas.
“Please, Mr. Dresden...? Please, will you?” Alison lifted her head; and tear-filled hazel eyes hit me like deadweight. She was as aware as I was of the men in blue uniforms approaching - she'd be convicted of murder. “Please,” she whispered hurriedly, “I know you're a Wizard. You can help me, can't you?”
“Miss Alison Carter?”
The girl flinched back in the chair as the cops approached her. Murphy was standing back, out of their way - she was watching me with a trace of curiosity.
“Please-!” Alison insisted as they grabbed her shoulders to make her stand, “Please!” I sat locked in place as they pulled her up to her feet, but she was twisting in their hold to keep her visual contact with me. “Please kill me!” Her voice rose over the officer who was reading her the Miranda Rights. “PLEASE!” Her voice broke and she dissolved into hysterical pleas and entreaties for some act of mercy that I could not provide.
It wasn't until the cops had her moving toward the exit that I had my first look at her hands. Her fingertips were caked in blood that had smeared down her wrists and onto her clothes where she'd had them cuffed behind her.
I stood numbly, watching as they dragged her out of the psychiatric ward. I had the sinking feeling that I would be hearing those cries in my nightmares from now on.
Murphy didn't ask about what had happened until she was driving me back to my place. While I was cornered in her car with no escape, she pounced.
“The kid's got ... problems,” and boy, did she ever. Trouble was, her problems were real, but I couldn't tell Murphy that. “Alison explained to me that she and her friends got into some game, and that it all went down hill from there. Sounds to me like they got themselves involved in some mini-cult.” I summed up the conversation I'd had with Ali, leaving out any mention of the Bloop - Murphy had Internet access after all. “Ali believes that she's going to die, that something is out to get her.”
“So she wanted you to kill her before that something else did?”
I watched the buildings pass by, noted the young jogger with her dog, and tried focusing on anything other than the way Alison had begged me. I saw again her fingernails, clots of blood and flesh stuck beneath them. The desperate frustration in her voice. My helplessness. “Yeah,” I answered at last.
“I was hoping to continue my conversation with the other girl, Mei,” Murphy began. She was holding back on whatever she felt - her hands were tight on the steering wheel. “She'd started telling me about the ritual at the barn.” She made a quick glance in my direction to check if I was listening. “She told me that the photographs were taken from a book called the Necronomicon. She insisted that the book was real, and that together with her friends, they had summoned the dreams of a Sleeping God from an ancient sunken city.”
It was mid-June, but I was suddenly cold - chilled to the pit of my stomach. “Murphy,” I hesitated, “you're thinking about going back to the Mark, aren't you?”
She smirked, “Is this the part where you warn me about some unnamable evil that three teenage girls summoned?”
“No, this is the part where I tell you to drop the case and take a nice, long holiday for the sake of your sanity.”
“I'm already taking off to spend the Fourth of July with my daughter - and I'm not dropping the case.”
“I'm serious, don't go back there,” I pleaded as we pulled up to my place. I could only hope my sincerity was getting through to her. She leaned back in her seat, and I was never so happy to see her looking resigned.
“I'll stay out of trouble.” She gave me that reasonable, I'm-going-to-agree-so-that-you'll-stop-nagging-me tone and pushed her hair back out of her face.
“If you want to stay out of trouble, you should stop hanging around me, Murph.”
Murphy scoffed, “Get out of my car, Dresden,” she said it with a stern, smiling look that made me glad I was her friend most days.
“You want to come in for coffee or something?” I asked, getting out.
“I have to go pick up Ana - half day at school.”
“Right, see you. Have fun with the kid.” I shut the door and watched her drive off just long enough to take a deep breath before heading to the house to face Bob.
I'd made up my mind by the time I'd stuck the key in the door that I would tell Bob later. It was still too fresh in my mind, the nightmare... how Mei had died in a similar fashion ... and Alison. The memory of how she had begged for her death to be at my hands instead of whatever grim fate awaited her. I bit my lip before I turned the knob and forced it all back. Later. I could talk about it later.
The rich scent of food was the first thing I noticed as I walked in the door. My stomach growled at the onslaught, reminding me that it was lunchtime - and that I'd neglected breakfast. I sniffed my way to the kitchen, smelling beef and herbs, with a tomato-something undertone.
Had Rémy stopped back, or was Bob actually cooking? I came to the entryway of the little kitchen and let my memory crystallize the sight in front of me. Bob's concentration centered on the pot over the blue-flame heat of the burner. He was stirring contentedly, His voice carrying a tune with murmured lyrics ... and suddenly I remembered waking up alone, wondering if I had dreamt that voice. Warmth spiked in my chest as I watched. He gave the contents of the pot a final stir, and then placed the cutting board and knives in the sink. He turned on the tap, still lost in his work, and a wicked thought sprang to mind.
I grinned to myself as I considered, and before I knew it, I was sneaking up behind Bob, my footsteps covered by the sound of the water. I was never one to pass up an opportunity so grandly presented as this. I only had to pull in my presence a little and concentrate on being undetectable. It wasn't hard, but I had no idea whether or not it would work on Bob - even with his guard down and his mind distracted.
How many times had he enjoyed scaring the bejeezus out of me by coming right up to my ear and whispering? He was way past due for a little retribution, though I wasn't sure just what I was going to say until it was halfway out my mouth.
“Mm, I'm hungry, Bob,” I whispered, leaning in close to his ear. He didn't exactly jump as I'd wanted - I think he shivered instead.
“Yes, I thought you might be,” he replied casually, turning around. I was probably grinning like an idiot, but I didn't care. I wandered over to the pot and peeked inside.
“Stew?”
“Beef and barley stew, yes.” He wiped his hands dry on the towel and cocked his head at me, saying “It'll be ready in half an hour. Set the table, would you?” He slung the towel over his shoulder, and it was this gesture, coupled with the last thirty seconds, that made me look at him - and I mean look at him. He was so utterly normal-seeming without the stuffy wardrobe and ascot - okay, so I secretly harbored a soft spot for the damned ascot - but he was wearing a pair of my faded-to-not-so-black jeans that were loose and fitting in all the right places, and a pale jade-green button-down that I recognized as one of the few nice shirts I owned. Bob's corporeality hit me like a spell gone wrong - knocking the wind from me while sizzling my insides. I wondered if I'd ever get used to seeing him behaving so ... real.
He quirked an eyebrow and folded his arms and I noticed with an odd distinction that his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, a detail that I should not have found as fascinating as I did. I noticed secondly that his manacles were missing even though he was obviously still bound to his skull. Funny, I hadn't noticed before that they were gone - I'd seen his bare wrists before when he had gotten shampoo in his eyes - and then I remembered how distracted I'd been because not only were his wrists naked, but the rest of him had been too. Was it any wonder I'd failed to notice back then when currently his bare-fucking-forearms were intriguing enough?
“Yes?” he asked impatiently.
I found his eyes right about the same time I found my voice. “Sometimes it's like I forget. I know you're not a ghost anymore, but then I see you do something I've never seen you do before and it's...” Weird? Strange? Sexy? No, not sexy. Don't think that. Why did I think that? I looked at Bob, who was currently staring me down with pursed lips and a snarky eyebrow, and sexy didn't seem like such a bad adjective.
“Your sentimentality isn't going to get you out of setting the table, Harry.”
continue...
Author: Weslyn; Betas:
pandonkey &
dream_mender
*deep breath* What to say about this chapter...? Seems like a long time in coming... cause gods know how long I've had pieces of this chapter scrawled out on notebook paper. I know very little about Chicago's psych wards, and less about the legal system regarding them, despite how much Law & Order I watch and my research for this chapter. Bleh. I tried to stay away from specifics.
Previous chapters: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII
TV!Harry POV
R to be safe, though some of the descriptions boarder on NC-17 near the end, but it's a small part.
TV-verse with some bookish tendencies. This is basically a Lovecraft Crossover.
Word Count: Slightly over 6,000
Pairing/Characters: Bob/Harry SLASHY. Murphy, bunch of random OCs.
Disclaimer: Oh right, I don't own any of it. Tell that to my plot bunnies. What? You can't see them...? They're pink and ravenously chewing on my brain.
Summary: "So what you're telling me is that the Apocalypse will be herald by a bunch of geeks playing Call of Cthulhu?"
No, really. I love this chapter.
Notes: The chapter opens up as Harry's nightmare.
The Bloop - What? You thought I made it up? No, no, don't click now - click after you've read!
Music: Otep. 'specially for the dream part.
Breathing. It's mine, loud in my ears. I'm running, from what I'm not certain - but I know it's there, and I have to keep running, but my legs - so heavy and stiff - nearly impossible to keep them moving. Every step is a struggle. Every breath more ragged, deeper, louder. I'm tingling all over with fear - a fear more powerful and consuming than the greenish-black mists that I'm running from and seemingly to. I have no destination, just a desperate need to escape. There's something rising, I can feel It, hovering, pressing in against my back - It has a sound - or is that me breathing? No, no... the noise is coming from That - that Thing at my back, angry wheezes, the sound emitting from something obviously much larger than I, and as much as I run I can't seem to escape It, because It murmurs in circles around me and I can't get out, can't get out! Guttural, a barking-growl-whine-wheeze-and-breathing voice as inhuman vocal cords mock speech, It makes my skin crawl with a knowing sort of dread. I'm being herded. It speaks to me and somehow I understand, I know this language within the Blackest parts of my Inner and I try to fight it, fight the rage against myself, because gods, gods! I shouldn't know what It's saying, I shouldn't be letting It guide me, I need to run, run, run. I can't stop, I change course, and still It is there, madly breathing down my neck, if I stop It'll be on top of me, no chance to fight, It'll take me over - don't stop - keep running. I'll run until my legs break, and then I'll crawl, drag myself out of here, because I have to get back, I have to cook dinner, Bob will starve and then where will I be? I'll be alone and he'll be dead and if he dies he won't come back again this time because I didn't feed him - keep running! My heart is pounding in my ears, too loud, too loud and it isn't my heart - no, it's the drums summoning the Beast, and the Beast is close now, drawn by the wild beating of my heart - I can feel the prickling of Its nearness - It's so close now and when I breathe in, searching for my voice to scream, I can't find it - It took it and became it and I can feel It inside, burning my throat cause It stole my goddamn scream, and I have to get It out, have to get It out - so I'm clawing at my throat - pain searing deep as my fingers sink in around my voice, tear It out, tear It out of me ... blood, I feel skin break beneath my clawed fingers - I'll make this stop, stop-Bob-where-are-you-?-help-me-tear-this-out-of-my-throat-please-it-hurts-Bob-! ... There's this faint buzzing like a dull roar in my ears and it's blotting out everything else ... but the Sounds of the Lurking Horror - It isn't gone just yet, keep ripping, keep tearing. Faint, but growing - something new, I know this ... I know this! Reassuring in its familiarity, reaching out with Voice, soothing, deep and shielding, a song - singing darkness rises, obscuring the mists, and there's no need to run anymore. The Horror is gone as Someone-I-Know is catching up to me, reaching out in velvety midnight song and I'm sinking into warmth and safety, no need to fear ... I'm not alone.
Let the record show that I do not like psych wards. I try to avoid them as much as possible since lots of people tend to think I belong in one. Murphy was no exception. She'd pulled the car into a space near the entrance of a set of mostly large, modern buildings (affiliates of Rush University's Medical Center, but I wasn't paying much attention to the specific building; like I said, I avoid these places), and without so much as a “thanks for coming along, Harry,” she said:
“You're here for observation only, so behave yourself - I have no problem admitting you as a patient.” She warned. Without any further exchange, she got out of the car and proceeded to the entrance.
“You're welcome,” I groused under my breath and followed Murphy reluctantly to the front desk of the hospital, where Murphy flashed her Cop-Equals-Instant-Access-Badge, and then to the third floor where, immediately upon our entrance, all hell broke loose.
She gave me a quick, sideways glance, which I assumed had to be out of habit whenever there was trouble around. My shoulders and hands shot up anyway in my habitual return gesture of innocence.
“What? We just got here, Murphy - I didn't do anything.”
“I know you didn't,” she said with a fraction of guilt, and then she was charging forward, and I watched the beauty of her orderliness and authority unfold.
Maybe I should have been more surprised that the crisis involved two of the girls from the photographs in Murphy's folders: both of the girls with black hair, the Asian and the Goth. One was down on the floor receiving medical attention, while the other was being restrained. Around them, the patients were seemingly in the midst of a rebellion: two musclebound male nurses were hauling off a teenage boy who'd thrown a chair; I happened to pass one girl who was banging her head into the wall, cursing and crying - there was an attendant with her as well, but I didn't care to look for long. There was a whole chorus of cursing, shouting and wailing as the staff sought to control the patients. An announcement I could only half-make out over the commotion was calling for back-up via intercom.
An endless twenty minutes later, and I stood inside my own little circle of Hell with Murphy, where one girl was dead and the other was sitting blankly in a chair, hands cuffed behind her back. The rest of the room had been recovered - the patients had been escorted back to their rooms, and spills and broken furniture were being cleaned up.
“I have to go make a few phone calls. Watch her,” Murphy ordered distractedly, pulling a lock of curls out of her face. She had indicated the girl I'd heard mentioned as Alison, who sat with her eyes fixed on the gray tile floors as though she were really some place beyond, a much more destitute and ugly place. I felt a flicker of recognition in the shadow lurking in her dark eyes.
I sat down next to her. “Alison, was it?”
“Ali,” she murmured, her voice not rising above a whisper. She licked her dry lips, but otherwise didn't move.
“Ali,” I repeated, “Can you tell me how this started, Ali?”
She laughed mirthlessly, her smile haunted as she turned weakly to study me. “I'm going to die, aren't I?”
“Now why do you say that, Ali?”
“Why do you have to keep repeating my name like that? I know who I am, mister - who the fuck are you?” She leaned back in her chair as an empty smirk took the place of her smile on her wide lips. She was conversational now, but suspicious.
“All right, you got me. I'm Harry Dresden.” Her eyes widened marginally, and her smirk fell flat. “What? Don't tell me you've heard of me.” Did I sound nervous? I know I wasn't at my most cool and collected at the time. I'd been on edge since I'd left the house without seeing Bob, and having my reputation precede me in a place like a psych ward was poking holes in my self-esteem bucket.
Her gazed narrowed. “I am going to die,” she said, as if my presence were there to confirm her inevitable demise. Then, without further prying on my part, she delved headlong into her story.
“You ever hear of a game called Call of Cthulhu? Yeah, I know,” she paused for another one of those hollow chuckles, “It's just a game. Some people say that about Ouija, too.
“Well, my friends and I started playing, and then some really weird shit started to happen. Mary and Kristen got nightmares after the first game, and they kept getting them, too, until Mary drove her mom's van into a tree. That's when Kristen got obsessed. She found all this stuff - even this one thing on the net called the Bloop.” She met my eyes, her story derailing for a moment to explain, “It's this recording of a noise that the Navy discovered in '97. A whole bunch of articles were published, and most of them seemed to agree that the sound was made by an animal, but one that is yet unknown to scientists. But this one - this one that Kristen read, it hypothesized that it was a 'deep sea monster, possibly a many-tentacled giant squid,' and that sounded enough like Cthulhu for Kristen ... We listened to it, you know?” she asked rhetorically, her eyes suddenly morose. “I think that was what did us all in - we were hooked, we couldn't stop searching for answers.”
“Mei...” her eyes flicked to where her dead friend had been before the morgue attendants had carted the body off. “Mei was the one who first stumbled upon Arkham.” She laughed, and this time it actually sounded as though there were some humor to it - a dark humor. “No one believes that the town exists - but we've been there. We've been to Dunwich, too. It's freaky as hell, that place; it never ages, just remains the same, the very same, just like he wrote...” she trailed off, laughter forgotten. A moment later, her story resumed again. “She had started chatting on-line with a group of people, and that's how we made our connections. It's stupid, we never though to back out - to stop, and now here we are, only Kristen and I are left, but Kristen is like, comatose, and I know - I know I'm going to die next.” She didn't sound afraid; she spoke with all the conviction of someone who had grown to know Death intimately.
“They're going to say I killed her, you know?” Her voice was a soft monotone again, like it was when she'd first spoken. She tilted her face away from me, blue-black hair falling in front of her eyes. “I don't care if they do. ... They can say whatever - I'm still going to end up dead.”
“How'd she die?”
Alison spent a long time staring at the floor, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost her when at last she spoke. I could hear in her voice the tears that her short mop of hair obscured.
“Will you kill me, Mr. Dresden? Will you be my Angel of Death? I don't ... I don't want to go like that. Mei ... Mei ripped out her own throat. I - ... I couldn't stop her...”
“Dresden?” Murphy interrupted Alison's quite pleas.
“Please, Mr. Dresden...? Please, will you?” Alison lifted her head; and tear-filled hazel eyes hit me like deadweight. She was as aware as I was of the men in blue uniforms approaching - she'd be convicted of murder. “Please,” she whispered hurriedly, “I know you're a Wizard. You can help me, can't you?”
“Miss Alison Carter?”
The girl flinched back in the chair as the cops approached her. Murphy was standing back, out of their way - she was watching me with a trace of curiosity.
“Please-!” Alison insisted as they grabbed her shoulders to make her stand, “Please!” I sat locked in place as they pulled her up to her feet, but she was twisting in their hold to keep her visual contact with me. “Please kill me!” Her voice rose over the officer who was reading her the Miranda Rights. “PLEASE!” Her voice broke and she dissolved into hysterical pleas and entreaties for some act of mercy that I could not provide.
It wasn't until the cops had her moving toward the exit that I had my first look at her hands. Her fingertips were caked in blood that had smeared down her wrists and onto her clothes where she'd had them cuffed behind her.
I stood numbly, watching as they dragged her out of the psychiatric ward. I had the sinking feeling that I would be hearing those cries in my nightmares from now on.
Murphy didn't ask about what had happened until she was driving me back to my place. While I was cornered in her car with no escape, she pounced.
“The kid's got ... problems,” and boy, did she ever. Trouble was, her problems were real, but I couldn't tell Murphy that. “Alison explained to me that she and her friends got into some game, and that it all went down hill from there. Sounds to me like they got themselves involved in some mini-cult.” I summed up the conversation I'd had with Ali, leaving out any mention of the Bloop - Murphy had Internet access after all. “Ali believes that she's going to die, that something is out to get her.”
“So she wanted you to kill her before that something else did?”
I watched the buildings pass by, noted the young jogger with her dog, and tried focusing on anything other than the way Alison had begged me. I saw again her fingernails, clots of blood and flesh stuck beneath them. The desperate frustration in her voice. My helplessness. “Yeah,” I answered at last.
“I was hoping to continue my conversation with the other girl, Mei,” Murphy began. She was holding back on whatever she felt - her hands were tight on the steering wheel. “She'd started telling me about the ritual at the barn.” She made a quick glance in my direction to check if I was listening. “She told me that the photographs were taken from a book called the Necronomicon. She insisted that the book was real, and that together with her friends, they had summoned the dreams of a Sleeping God from an ancient sunken city.”
It was mid-June, but I was suddenly cold - chilled to the pit of my stomach. “Murphy,” I hesitated, “you're thinking about going back to the Mark, aren't you?”
She smirked, “Is this the part where you warn me about some unnamable evil that three teenage girls summoned?”
“No, this is the part where I tell you to drop the case and take a nice, long holiday for the sake of your sanity.”
“I'm already taking off to spend the Fourth of July with my daughter - and I'm not dropping the case.”
“I'm serious, don't go back there,” I pleaded as we pulled up to my place. I could only hope my sincerity was getting through to her. She leaned back in her seat, and I was never so happy to see her looking resigned.
“I'll stay out of trouble.” She gave me that reasonable, I'm-going-to-agree-so-that-you'll-stop-nagging-me tone and pushed her hair back out of her face.
“If you want to stay out of trouble, you should stop hanging around me, Murph.”
Murphy scoffed, “Get out of my car, Dresden,” she said it with a stern, smiling look that made me glad I was her friend most days.
“You want to come in for coffee or something?” I asked, getting out.
“I have to go pick up Ana - half day at school.”
“Right, see you. Have fun with the kid.” I shut the door and watched her drive off just long enough to take a deep breath before heading to the house to face Bob.
I'd made up my mind by the time I'd stuck the key in the door that I would tell Bob later. It was still too fresh in my mind, the nightmare... how Mei had died in a similar fashion ... and Alison. The memory of how she had begged for her death to be at my hands instead of whatever grim fate awaited her. I bit my lip before I turned the knob and forced it all back. Later. I could talk about it later.
The rich scent of food was the first thing I noticed as I walked in the door. My stomach growled at the onslaught, reminding me that it was lunchtime - and that I'd neglected breakfast. I sniffed my way to the kitchen, smelling beef and herbs, with a tomato-something undertone.
Had Rémy stopped back, or was Bob actually cooking? I came to the entryway of the little kitchen and let my memory crystallize the sight in front of me. Bob's concentration centered on the pot over the blue-flame heat of the burner. He was stirring contentedly, His voice carrying a tune with murmured lyrics ... and suddenly I remembered waking up alone, wondering if I had dreamt that voice. Warmth spiked in my chest as I watched. He gave the contents of the pot a final stir, and then placed the cutting board and knives in the sink. He turned on the tap, still lost in his work, and a wicked thought sprang to mind.
I grinned to myself as I considered, and before I knew it, I was sneaking up behind Bob, my footsteps covered by the sound of the water. I was never one to pass up an opportunity so grandly presented as this. I only had to pull in my presence a little and concentrate on being undetectable. It wasn't hard, but I had no idea whether or not it would work on Bob - even with his guard down and his mind distracted.
How many times had he enjoyed scaring the bejeezus out of me by coming right up to my ear and whispering? He was way past due for a little retribution, though I wasn't sure just what I was going to say until it was halfway out my mouth.
“Mm, I'm hungry, Bob,” I whispered, leaning in close to his ear. He didn't exactly jump as I'd wanted - I think he shivered instead.
“Yes, I thought you might be,” he replied casually, turning around. I was probably grinning like an idiot, but I didn't care. I wandered over to the pot and peeked inside.
“Stew?”
“Beef and barley stew, yes.” He wiped his hands dry on the towel and cocked his head at me, saying “It'll be ready in half an hour. Set the table, would you?” He slung the towel over his shoulder, and it was this gesture, coupled with the last thirty seconds, that made me look at him - and I mean look at him. He was so utterly normal-seeming without the stuffy wardrobe and ascot - okay, so I secretly harbored a soft spot for the damned ascot - but he was wearing a pair of my faded-to-not-so-black jeans that were loose and fitting in all the right places, and a pale jade-green button-down that I recognized as one of the few nice shirts I owned. Bob's corporeality hit me like a spell gone wrong - knocking the wind from me while sizzling my insides. I wondered if I'd ever get used to seeing him behaving so ... real.
He quirked an eyebrow and folded his arms and I noticed with an odd distinction that his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, a detail that I should not have found as fascinating as I did. I noticed secondly that his manacles were missing even though he was obviously still bound to his skull. Funny, I hadn't noticed before that they were gone - I'd seen his bare wrists before when he had gotten shampoo in his eyes - and then I remembered how distracted I'd been because not only were his wrists naked, but the rest of him had been too. Was it any wonder I'd failed to notice back then when currently his bare-fucking-forearms were intriguing enough?
“Yes?” he asked impatiently.
I found his eyes right about the same time I found my voice. “Sometimes it's like I forget. I know you're not a ghost anymore, but then I see you do something I've never seen you do before and it's...” Weird? Strange? Sexy? No, not sexy. Don't think that. Why did I think that? I looked at Bob, who was currently staring me down with pursed lips and a snarky eyebrow, and sexy didn't seem like such a bad adjective.
“Your sentimentality isn't going to get you out of setting the table, Harry.”
continue...