pennysheets | Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

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Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

It had taken her a while to get far enough into the ranks of this... organization. They have half a dozen names for themselves, depending on where one gains entrance, and most people don't ever go beyond those half-dozen entrance groups. Natasha is good, but these people are paranoid, and death cults are not a thing that you get access to immediately.

But because she is good, here she is finally, fresh from the ritual bath and dressed in undyed cotton, barefoot, ready for her first ritual. She's the only new one today, but there are other junior members walking in their two lines from the baths to the ritual room and its five sealed coffins. Natasha has yet to be told what's in them, only that they are very powerful.

"Which one is it today?" the young man who'd introduced himself as Stolen Moon (junior members tend to pick very pretentious ritual names) asks, quietly, of the senior member walking in front of him, who was known by the (slightly less pretentious) name Fox.

"You'll see when we get there," Fox says.

"Don't ask questions in front of the initiate," adds the senior at the head of the second column, an older woman called Hawk.

There are already three senior members waiting inside: Raven, Star, and Shimmer. Fox and Hawk motion for everyone to take their places, in an outward-facing ring inside the circle of coffins, and then join them, each standing between two of the coffins.

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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.

There is a hint of resistance when he yanks back the blankets, and a flash of light, painfully bright in the dim interior of the hotel room. A few embers from the flash paper sizzle against the sheets, already worn threadbare, but mercifully, nothing catches.

There's a stir of motion, a shift of air, as Natasha darts from the bathroom, but the angle of her attack is not the thrust of a stake, as might be suspected. It's the swing of a shock baton on a lower arc, meant to hamper, meant to slow him down, meant to give her a chance to shift tactics if the assassin sent isn't the one she's expecting.

Ugh ow Jesus. This is why he prefers sniper rifles, dammit. There's none of this painful trap shit to deal with. Then again, most targets aren't this smart, either, or know what's coming for them.

He swings the blanket in a wide arc to catch the attack, aiming to smack her right in the face with the edge of it, at the very least fowling the weapon. It sparks and hisses against the wool, likely to start a real fire if Natasha doesn't shut the electricity off quickly. He follows it up by straight-up leaping at her, grabbing for whatever part of her he can reach. He just needs a little exposed flesh, he doesn't even care where at this point. He just wants it over with.

She jerks her head back enough that the corner of the blanket catches her across the cheek, hard enough to sting, but not smothering her, not fouling her vision. The blanket smokes, and she curses, killing the current to the baton as the weight of fabric drags her arm downward.

And then he's lunging, and she'd almost forgotten just how fast he is, how hard his grip is. While the arm he catches is caged in the swung blanket, the other is free, bare from just above the crook of her elbow, and she brings it up on instinct to ward him off - a futile gesture if ever there's been one.

The weight of him will send her crashing to the wall behind her, unless she manages to twist in time to wind up on the floor instead. His hand and then his teeth close on her arm either way.

There's no pain. He does that, at least. It feels like a cold numbness spreads up from the wound, instead, taking away all sensation. Not pleasure, because like hell is he going to make her like this, he's not that sick-- but no pain.

Her back collides with the wall hard enough to bruise, and with both her hands fouled - one with the blanket, the other imprisoned in his grip - her head impacts too, washing her vision red and leaving it sparking fireworks when that recedes. That is, somehow, less disconcerting than the numbness radiating along her arm, sending her fingers to sleep, and for a heart-stopping moment, she wonders if Strange's spell had failed, before she reasons that a vampire's bite must be as much biology as magic.

It does nothing to calm the uptick in her traitor pulse.

The spell doesn't fire immediately. It requires a certain volume - slightly over a pint - for her blood to carry enough of it, diluted as it is. When it does trigger, there's no mercy in it - it rips at the bindings imprisoning him, sudden and aggressive and with no thought to how much having them torn up by their roots might hurt. There's no room for that.

He doesn't notice the first tendrils of the magic reaching for the bindings. He's not a mage, and he rarely has to go up against them. He's only sensitive to the magic on him from long familiarity. So he keeps drinking. The aim, after all, is to drain her dry so she'll rise starving and weak tomorrow night.

Until it digs in. Until it grabs hold. He binding is so old and has been laid down so many times that it's reshaped the very essence of who he is, by now, and pulling it out is not easy. Or painless. It's active, tightened more than usual to enforce strict obedience for this specific mission, and tries to resist like a living thing. Strange's spell is good, though, and fights back.

He lets her go with a sudden startled whine in the back of his throat, tearing back away from her and grabbing his head. The feeling is like fire, almost, with each root word and rhyme being torn free, but in his brain. Fire on ice, with the cracking and melting and the heat to go with it. He staggers back another step, curling in on himself.

Good thing she's not actually here to kill him, because he's not paying her any attention anymore.

She sags against the wall when he releases her, fighting to keep her feet against a wave of lightheadedness. Her heart is pounding, and the back of her head throbs in time with it, and for a moment she thinks she might be violently sick.

She watches him curl in on himself, wincing a little in sympathy. The spell had not been nearly as vicious when Strange had tested it on her - but the magic used to test it had been new, had been familiar, and he had warned her that absent any familiarity with either the binding or the victim, the disenchantment would be rough. She suspects, though she isn't entirely certain, that even he hadn't known how rough.

Not that she would have chosen a different path, or that she would have been able to give a warning. The chances that the binding didn't include some order to preserve it seem slim at best.

She disentangles herself from the blanket, and clips her shock baton back at her waist, rendered awkward by the lingering lack of sensation in one hand. That is a little worrisome, given that her arm's still bleeding. She considers her options, and grimaces. There's a fully stocked emergency kit in the bathroom, but she doesn't know how long the spell will take to unlock the vampire's binding, and doesn't want to leave him alone until it's through, not knowing what state it will leave him in, or how he will react once he realizes he's free. And so she makes do with what she has, pulling a towel off of the nearby dresser and wrapping it tightly around her arm, most of her attention still fixed on her would-be killer.

By then he's sunk to the floor, head in his hands and pressed against his knees. He's not panting, because he doesn't breathe, but there are little tremors running over his body, the pieces of the metal arm shifting and whirring.

"What did you do," he asks, sounding like it's gritted out through his fangs. "What is this."

The burning sensation is slowing, rooting out the last of the binding, but it's left behind an empty kind of ache. He hasn't quite put together the fact that he's no longer driven to attack her with the feeling, yet. He will. In a minute.

She picks the blanket up, and crosses carefully over to where he's huddled on the floor, kneeling down beside him to tuck it gently around his shoulders. She doesn't know if it will help - if vampires experience physical shock the way humans do - but it's a bit of human kindness, something she doubts he has much experience with.

"Emancipation," she says. "Hold on. You should be okay in a couple minutes."

She doesn't quite feel the easy confidence conveyed in her words - this is uncharted territory - but projecting it is second nature.

Almost as an afterthought, she dips a hand into her pocket, clicking a button on the small remote there to kill the alarm. It cuts off immediately, leaving the room quiet save for the click of his arm and the rattle of the ancient air conditioner and the distant sound of sirens.

The silence is a background relief; at least now his ears aren't trying to assault him as well as his brain. He takes a second more to process what she just said, half because he is running slower than usual, and half because it makes no sense. He can't be freed. He will never be freed.

And yet. Here he is. Not actually attacking her, even though she's kneeling close to him, close enough to grab and bite and kill. He doesn't even feel the twinge of an urge. No more than he might at the sensation of any random living person next to him.

He looks up sharply at the realization. "How," he asks hoarsely, eyes wide.

"Bloodborne countermagic," she says, and taps her damaged arm lightly. "The bindings are gone, and it will protect you from any new magic cast on you for twenty-four hours. After that, if they can rebind you from a distance, you'll need another dose. My contacts are working on a more permanent countermeasure, but it's going to take some time."

"No," he says slowly, staring at her. "No, I have to be... in that room. With the coffins. Or it. It doesn't." He stalls out, feeling at the edges of his own awareness. Nothing. No feeling but shock, lingering pain, and a slowly growing amazement.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he breathes after a moment. "I think. I think you really did it."

"My people do good work," Natasha says, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a slight smile, though she doesn't even try to mask her relief. The trouble with magic - the thing she likes least about it - is that it's never an entirely sure thing. There are too many variables, too many things that could go wrong.

"How do you feel? I wasn't expecting it to hit you quite that hard."

Another variable - people bound with century-old spells are few and far between.

"My head hurts, but. Whatever. Worth it, even if it hurts forever." He's starting to grin, now, fangs bright and bared. He doubts it's going to hurt forever. There are dozens of paths he could take from here. Some of them smarter than others. Some of them more tempting than others.

He fixes her with a stare, still smiling. "Who are you? Really? That you're going around freeing bound vampires who you know nothing about?"

"I know you hate the people who bound you, and that you don't kill for pleasure," she replies. "That was enough to gamble on. Who I am is a longer story. I have a safehouse not too far outside the city. If you're willing to give me a little trust, I need to get this cleaned up."

She lifts her towel-wrapped arm slightly.

"And then I'll explain on the way."

"Killing them would be a pleasure," he growls, but he's starting to pick himself up, despite feeling vaguely dizzy with the sensation of freedom. "And the longer we wait before we deal with them, the sooner they'll send someone else after us. They wanted me back with you by sunrise, and they'd bound me tight enough to make sure I did it. There's a secondary temple in upstate New York where four of the priests are waiting."

Her eyebrows twitch slightly upward at that, and even that display of surprise is only grudgingly given. "And you want to hit them before they have a chance to realize something's wrong," she says.

It's a logical move. It's also slightly at odds with her own goals - but only slightly.

"I'm not their only hit vampire, doll," he says, heel of his clockwork arm against his temple, the ancient slang rolling off his tongue easily. "And not all of them will switch sides so easily. They're not scared of you yet, just annoyed and not sure what secrets you might've sold, but they will be if I don't come home."

"Doll?" she repeats, a hint of amused incredulity leaching into her tone. She knew he was old. The fact that the slang doesn't feel like an affectation, though? That's what drives it home.

"Give me fifteen minutes. I need to get this patched up, and check in so my people don't decide to scramble a task squad."

"Oh shut up," he says, and though he doesn't blush, he does look kind of embarrassed. "I'm old, okay? Tell your people whatever you need to. Feel free to get backup if they can meet us at the temple before dawn, if you want."

If this protection only lasts for 24-hours, now is the time to use it, too. After he's not safe anymore, there's no way he'll go into any of their spell-rooms.

"You don't look a day over ninety," she says, and grins, quick and playful.

It doesn't last, though - she sobers and nods, pausing to ask, "What are the coordinates?" before she heads into the bathroom to dress her wound and notify her team.

(And retrieve the gear she'd stowed there, lacking anything resembling a better option in the small and dingy hotel room.)

He smirks, back, but lets it drop, peering out the window, as if he could see the priests from here. He can't even see past the nearest buildings. It's kind of nice, not having a hundred-mile view.

"Thirty miles up the 280, then ten minutes into the woods to the south." He pauses, then follows her to the bathroom. "I can point to it on a map but I don't know how they do coordinates these days."

"Latitude and longitude still work," she says. "My oversight is old school."

But she kneels to retrieve her gear bag from beneath the sink, opening it with her good hand and producing a sleek little tablet, the angle of her body shielding her passcode out of pure habit.

"Did they ever show you how to use one of these things?"

"No, but I've seen people use them," he says, and accepts it readily. The metal finger, interestingly, does nothing. How annoying. He swaps to the other hand and navigates around.

He finds the spot on whatever map app she has and marks it, grateful that he doesn't have to admit that he actually doesn't know what the longitude and latitude for the place are. "Here. I'm either supposed to steal a car, or take yours if you have one. They don't give me shit like transportation."

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