Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

[worthallthis]

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.

Comments

[worthallthis]

There are a handful of fake IDs and passports in each of the main temples, should he need them. He doesn't have a single one with him, and he's not braving the temples themselves any time soon. So he might as well be completely adrift in the world, records-wise.

He's torn between annoyed at clearly needing help and grateful that she's just going to give it. It'll be another thing she can trace, surely. It takes him a long couple minutes of pacing around his current hide-out before her phone rings.

He opens with, "So how much trouble did you get in for cutting me loose?"

[ofmarble]

"Nothing I can't handle," she replies, and reaches out to scratch between the cat's ears to quiet her before there's much more than a quiet mrrp over the phone line.

"You doing all right?"

[worthallthis]

"You don't know? Figured there were trackers all over this phone," he counters, but not with any heat. Not like he's annoyed by it. He's not, not really. If he didn't want to be tracked, he would've thrown the phone away.

He answers, either way. "I'm fine. Haven't killed anybody else yet, if that's what you're worried about."

[ofmarble]

"Pity," she says, voice gone desert-dry. "I have money riding on you taking out at least a few more cultists while they're distracted."

There's a faint creak of leather as she shifts in her chair, tucking her legs up beside her. "The trackers tell me where you are. They don't tell me if you're experiencing side effects from having a hundred-year-old spell ripped out of your head. Something my contact reminded me of in detail when he found out you were in the wind."

[worthallthis]

"Gotta get to them first." Which he is not really rushing about doing, clearly. He's been on foot, for the most part, not wanting to leave any stolen and hot-wired cars in his wake. And also, you know, not really rushing about anything but hiding.

He scowls at the floor as he continues to pace. "No, uh, side effects that I'm noticing. But who knows if I'd notice." He doesn't know what long-term freedom feels like, and he doesn't know if this paranoia is something normal. "Nothing hurts, the headache went away after the first sundown. Mostly I'm just."

He stops, scowls more, and finally admits, in case it is related, "Just sure there's more out there. We didn't even get a third of the top squad who operated me, and that can't have been the whole organization. But my memory is crap. I don't know if that's a binding thing or a binding-removing thing not."

[ofmarble]

"Seemed like your memory was kind of a mess the first time we talked," she notes.

If he wasn't lying about not remembering his own name, which he could have been. She doubts it, given the emotional response that had gone along with that admission, but it's possible - she isn't exactly an expert on vampire psychology.

"But I'll pass it on. How's your recall of the past couple days?"

[worthallthis]

"Fine. So probably a binding thing, not a binding-removing thing," he admits. He's had a moment or two of vagueness, but he thinks those were just him freaking out. Vampires are probably not supposed to freak out, he's just a wreck, and pretty sure that's not a binding-removal thing. "Or just an old as fuck thing, I don't know. Nobody told me how this is supposed to work, either. Did you tear the coffins apart?" The last part pops out almost unbidden, but he has to know. "Both of them? There was another one in the back. One for you, one for me."

[ofmarble]

There's a brief, startled pause at the turn in the conversation, before she replies quietly, "Yeah. We pulled them apart. I'm guessing that's going to be your recommendation for every temple we come across?"

[worthallthis]

He doesn't breathe, so he doesn't sigh, but there's a little shudder of relief that goes through him at that. She might catch the sound of the pieces of his arm rattling together briefly with the motion. "I mean, you're not gonna find a lot of empty ones, unless these bastards get smart and start relocating their other... instruments. But yeah. They're part of the whole binding thing somehow." And the destruction of his means it's one more complicated step to get the spells back on him.

[ofmarble]

"So they're unique, then. That's good to know."

She doubts somehow that most of the vampires will be as friendly as this one, but damaging the mechanism by which the cult controls them still seems like a good idea. Doubly so when there's still the possibility of other cultists operating within SHIELD, making simply removing the things to a secure facility a non-starter.

"Do you know how many others there are?"

[worthallthis]

"At least the four I was housed with. Maybe a couple more than that, but not many. They shipped us out more often than they let local branches have their own." He makes a frustrated little noise. "I only even saw two of those four, a black guy a little younger-looking than me, and a kind of round guy with a mustache. And I only saw them in passing. We didn't exactly work together." One fang worries at his lip, and he adds, "Round guy isn't bound the same way as me. Black guy is." He might have wanted out more than he wanted to go back and free the others, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel-- bad-- for leaving them there. The ones he knows weren't there by choice, anyway.

[ofmarble]

"Different kind of binding?" Natasha asks. "Or is he there of his own volition?"

Not outside the realm of possibility, she thinks. Some of the cult had seemed to be true believers - she can easily imagine the sort of fanatic who might be willing to be turned for their cause.

Ugh.

[worthallthis]

"Might be his own volition. We're still predators. Working with a bunch of people who keep hunters off our backs and give us a steady stream of meals might appeal to some of us. And some of the kids who aren't scared witless of us probably think we're some kinda god-touched monster or something."

Even some of the ones scared witless, for that matter. He sounds sour as he says it. He's seen the looks on some of their faces.

[ofmarble]

"Idiot children," she says with a sigh, all mingled regret and disgust.

"We'll keep that in mind next time we go visiting."

[worthallthis]

"Let me know if you do plan on raiding the home temple," he finds himself saying. "I did kinda leave some of my shit there."

It's a flimsy reason and he knows it. And he's terrified that she'll either tell him she'd want him there, or tell him she wouldn't want him there, both. He breezes past it, though, and hopes she will, too.

"Speaking of dumb kids. Do the ones from our first little adventure continue to breathe?"

[ofmarble]

She leaves it be. Going with the change in topic allows her to avoid answering his request one way or the other. She's not certain whether it would be wise to bring him or not, not certain if he'd be an asset or a liability. There's more ways than magic to suborn someone's will, and the cult has had a long, long time to work on this man.

"They do," she says. "They've been behaving, for the most part. No attempts at prison break so far."

[worthallthis]

Surprise surprise, that winds up not being any less conflicting than the idea of the home temple. "I'm not sure if I'm glad or disappointed. Not really surprised, though. Star's a wimp and the kid's not really that smart. They give you anything useful?"

[ofmarble]

"Potentially. They handed us a few leads we're looking into before committing resources."

She's fairly certain neither of them are lying outright - not when they're both afraid there's an angry vampire lurking around every corner - but that doesn't mean they're being entirely honest. Or that they even have the full truth themselves.

"Star's information on their magic will be useful, if it checks out."

[worthallthis]

"Good. Glad it was worth it, then." He paces around the basement he's holed up in. "I can offer you some intel, too, probably. I know where more of their temples are. I know faces. Not names, but faces. Voices."

He remembers, too, how they'd freaked out at something in that basement. He isn't sure what it was that set them off, but it was something.

[ofmarble]

"I was hoping you could," she admits. "It'll help."

Even if all he can give them is information they've already had from the two cultists they have in custody, it's verification. That's not nothing.

"Don't suppose you have a knack for portrait artistry?"

[worthallthis]

"No," he says, and something makes him want to add that the artist was somebody else, but he can't remember who. He shakes his head a little, frustrated. "Get me a photo set and I can pick out features, I guess."

There's a brief pause. "Why did you and your partner react like that, in the basement? Was it one of the bodies?"

[ofmarble]

"We'll have to meet for that," she says, though it's neutral - a statement of fact, not demand. She can't send him a useful photo set by email.

She's silent for a long moment, weighing what - and how much - to say, before finally admitting, "Yeah. Someone he knew."

Not someone she knew by face, and clearly, given the lack of warning to the other cultists, not someone who knew her.

[worthallthis]

"Not a friend," he guesses, not aware that whoever it was, was a coworker of sorts. He has no idea who all Clint Barton knows. "Anything I should be worried about?"

[ofmarble]

"Anyone who might want to avenge them is already on your shitlist," Natasha replies.

She's quiet for a moment, reticence warring with practicality. "If anyone but Barton or I comes knocking and we haven't given you a heads up first, get out."

[worthallthis]

He's silent for a long moment, putting that together with their reaction, their comments at the site-- he doesn't like the picture it makes. "You got moles," he says flatly. "You got people from this cult in your house."