pennysheets | Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

If her assailant were human, that would work. Even if it were a vampire less rigorously trained than this one, not expecting resistance, it might have worked. As it is, he lunges with her, too fast to see, so her motion backwards winds up with her bumping up against his chest. "I know what snakeroot is now," he hisses into her ear.

She gasps out a breath, half from the force of the unexpected collision, and half from surprise at how fast he'd moved. She'd seen him in the ritual chamber, but here, now, that speed seems all the more immediate.

She doesn't try to speak against his hand. She taps his wrist, a pointed reminder that if he wants any answer from her, he'll need to let her speak. Beneath that veneer of control, her heart thrums wildly, like it's trying to beat its way out of her chest.

Really, he's impressed at her self-control. He gives her one more second to wonder, then lets her go and steps away, holding up both hands. "You're not supposed to be here," he says, voice low, watching her. Will she bolt? Will she talk to him? It'll be interesting to see where this goes. He hasn't had anyone interested in talking in a long time.

There's a moment in which she tenses to run, the frantic impulses of her hindbrain telling her that she is prey, that she should flee before the predator loses interest in playing with her. But then she marshals herself, driving the impulse back with iron control and the knowledge that, fast as he is, it doesn't matter if she runs. If he wants her caught, she will be.

Better to get him talking, to build some kind of rapport, to wait for a moment in which his guard isn't so securely up.

"Couldn't sleep," she says. She studies him, wary and curious in equal measure. "Did you actually leave?"

Or rather, had he already killed his target and returned? It would give her something to look for, a likely working range to report.

"Came back. Conditions weren't right yet for a clean kill," he shrugs. "I'll be going back out again shortly." But he had some research to do, and this was the closest library he knew how to get into.

He studies her, back, fangs safely behind his lips for the moment, and expression cautiously curious. "And you aren't supposed to be here," he says again, still quiet. "You know I was supposed to kill you. Right?"

"Yeah," she says, fingers flexing below the clean white bandage wrapping her wrist. "I caught that. What I don't know is why you didn't."

The corners of her mouth curve faintly, not quite a smile. "Not that I'm complaining about a stay of execution."

"You talked to me like I was a person and not a monster. Made a dumb joke out of an intelligent question. How could I kill you after that?" He watches her steadily. "And I looked up what snakeroot is. So now I'm thinking you're not supposed to be here for another reason, too."

He doesn't want to know what that reason is, or he might have to tell his handlers. Then they'll tell him directly to kill her, instead of just relying on tradition to make him do it. So he adds, "And I'm going to warn you not to come back if they release you after tomorrow morning's binding."

Edited 2022-08-19 07:59 (UTC)

"You are a person," she says, and it comes out more vehement than she had intended. It doesn't take any soul searching at all to come up with exactly why this aspect of the cult's activities makes her skin crawl.

She cants her head slightly, still studying him. "Is it the binding that makes you come back after you've completed your mission?"

Whatever, Snakeroot. You're not the one who eats people regularly.

His lip curls, revealing one of those fangs at last. "It's what keeps me from killing every last one of them." A pause. "And also makes me come back, sure."

She isn't a fool. Her heartbeat kicks up a notch at the sight of those fangs, at the memory of how much they hurt when they pierced her skin.

It doesn't show in her expression, her posture.

"And they know it," she notes, almost absently. "They're terrified of you."

He hears it, though, and he turns away, going back to the book she'd interrupted him reading. "You don't put your best chains on something because you want to give it hugs and cookies. Go back to your life, Snakeroot, and if these people know anything about who you really are, make sure you change it. Or else they'll send me after you with actual orders, next time, and I won't be able to spare you again."

They don't. She's sure of that; if they had, she never would have gotten through the door. But it gives her the faintest inkling of a plan.

A damned dangerous, possibly very stupid plan.

"Aren't you worried they'll punish you for warning me off if I go to ground?"

"Oh, that ship already sailed when I didn't kill you before," he shrugs, dropping with a studied casualness into a worn armchair. "I'll be questioned about it after the binding in the morning, and I'll spill everything, because I can't not."

He considers, then suggests, "Maybe you ought to leave now, instead of waiting until after the ritual. Just in case."

"Maybe."

Her gaze flicks towards the cover of the book, brief and curious.

"What's your name?"

It's another thin paperback, like the ones in the prep room. It looks like some kind of vintage science fiction, maybe from the thirties or even earlier.

He gives her a look somewhere between annoyed and uncomfortable. "Does it matter?" Truthfully, he no longer remembers. Somewhere amidst the bindings and missions and magic, the change and the control, and the long spells of starvation and isolation... he lost it. And he thinks that's probably pretty depressing.

"You were willing to spare my life, even knowing you'd be hurt for it," she says. "Seems like I should at least know your name."

And it would give her something to track once she's back on home ground - not in the present, but in the past, something that might make it easier to track the origin of binding. Not the only starting point, but one of the easier ones to work from.

His choice in literature, too, is notable. She commits the title to memory. Any little scrap of clue.

He makes an actual annoyed noise, and stares down at his book instead of at her. "I don't know. Okay?" He sounds frustrated and a little lost and very human. "I forgot it somewhere in. I don't know, the forties or fifties maybe. It's been a long time. These guys just call me their instrument, and no one's called me anything else that I can remember."

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. It's entirely inadequate. It's the only thing she can really think of to say in the face of that. Erosion of identity is nothing new. Erosion of identity to that degree...

She steps back towards the door, accepting the dismissal. For now.

"Make it up to me by getting out of here," he says, dragging the flippant tone back into place. It's easier to see, now, that it's a complete facade and there's something much more brittle underneath. He opens his book back up and pointedly ignores her retreat.

She is gone come morning, in all appearance of haste, of a woman who'd gotten in too deep, too fast, and had panicked upon facing the reality of what she'd gotten herself into and had it gnaw on her arm. There are traces left behind, a digital trail that tracks south then veers abruptly eastward. It ends in Rome, with Snakeroot - Nora Ross - being swallowed by the holy city.

Meanwhile, Natasha Romanoff goes to work. She has connections, and favors to call upon, and just enough pieces, between what she'd heard and what she'd seen and the metaphysical connections that can be forged with blood spilled or shared, to dump into the laps of a pair of sorcerers who no doubt wish they'd never heard her name to find a solution. It isn't a great solution. It is months in the making, and when Stephen Strange presents it to her, there's enough worry beneath the caustic sarcasm that she half expects him to chain her up until he can magic some sense into her.

She is fairly certain that only the knowledge that if it isn't her, it will be some other SHIELD agent, less well-connected and less adaptable, that stops him.

What he has for her is a liquid spell, triggered by blood, that is active on the host, and transfer it to a leaden orb in his possession. What she has is a plan to pass it to a creature with inhuman strength and speed and durability. That it requires her to inject herself daily with magic potions containing "trust me, you don't want to know", requires that the cult send one particular vampire hunting once they get a trace of her, and relies for her survival on the hope that he will stop once the binding breaks are much discussed weak points.

In the end, it's a little over five months before a trace Nora Ross appears on the radar again, in New York. There is a sister, a death, a funeral, the sort of thing that might lure a foolish young woman with ideals that outstrip her conviction out of hiding.

And Natasha Romanoff waits, in a shabby hotel, for death to come a-calling.

Oh, they are definitely sending the vampire she wants-- as much to punish him as to deal with her. He disobeyed, and his disobedience put their whole operation in danger, because no one believed Nora Ross ran because she was afraid.

He was punished, but clearly not enough, and Raven in particular was firm that he be the one to finish the job he botched before. He's wrapped in their strongest chains and magical tethers, more than usual, enough to keep him focused on the job despite his seething hatred of everything about it. His certainty that this is his fault and now he's bringing that down on someone who will most certainly fight him, and most certainly not want to.

He can't even do it through a sniper rifle, safe and quick and clean, his preference. No, they want him to bring her in. They want her freshly drained and waiting until the next moonrise to rise again, so they can bind her, too, and find out who sent her. Who she told about them. They probably won't even keep her, after they've got what they want. (He hopes they don't keep her. He's managed to sabotage every turning they've sent him on, before, but he's bound too tight this time. He doesn't want anyone else to experience this hell.)

When he finds her hotel, he watches for half the night, circles like a wary cat, perches high in a neighboring building. He looks for the trap, because he trusts that she has one. She never even presents him a shot he could take had he been looking for one, which is impressive, but he still can't see the trap. Maybe she just has stakes in her bedside table doused in holy water.

Maybe he'll try to let her do it, if she does.

Finally he has to admit he just has to do it, the binding closing tight enough that he can't wait any longer, and he scales the side of the hotel, towards her window, aiming to slide a bit of metal from one clockwork finger through to flip the lock and slip inside that way.

It's not an easy climb. It's not an impossible one, either - the hotel is old enough that the brick face has worn in places, forming natural footholds for the determined. At the window itself, there is faint resistance - a wire to break, or to cut, and a circuit that will likely be tripped either way. From the outside, there's no way to tell if it's merely an alarm, or something rigged to shock an intruder or fire a projectile or something equally unpleasant.

(It is, in the end, the first - something that can be dismantled without harming anyone, should this go badly and Natasha not be present to dismantle it herself in the morning.)

This is one reason he has a metal arm, to begin with. It's not like he needs the strength and durability, and at times it can even be a liability. But it comes with a variety of tools in the fingers.

He slips the lock open, slides the window up a finger's breadth, and finds the wire. Traces it to one side, then the other, weighs his options for a split second, then flips the flat blade tool back in to instead pop out a scissor tool. If it zaps his metal arm, it won't affect the rest of him; if it fires a projectile, there really isn't room for it to hit him through that tiny inch of open window; if it sets an alarm he can be inside and on Snakeroot before she can react, anyway.

He snips the wire, listens for a single second, then shoves the window open the rest of the way and eels swiftly inside when nothing terrible triggers on him.

The alarm is a high, sharp whine, painful and almost certainly above the range of normal human hearing. The air in the room is thick with perfume, sweet and cloying. There is a shape on the bed, bundled beneath the covers, and the play of shadows through the window makes it difficult to tell if it's still or breathing.

There are two doors - one out into the hallway, and the other, half-shut, lies past the bed and almost certainly leads to the bathroom.

Ow. Jesus Christ, that's an awful noise. Worse, between the alarm and the perfume, she's effectively put a lid on his enhances senses. He can't smell or hear if that's her in the bed or a pile of pillows, but he holds still for another second, waiting to see if the alarm wakes the supposed body...

Only a second, though. He has to get this over with. If it's not her, then she'll be in the bathroom, or possibly under the bed. It's awfully low to the ground, though, he's not sure she'd fit.

He grabs the blankets and yanks them back with the metal hand, reaching for whatever is under it with the cold flesh one. Sloppy and rushed, but that's what you get when you bind him too tight. If the thing under the blankets isn't her, it'll be a shield against whatever attack she has planned; if it's her, he can deal with that as necessary.

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