worthallthis (
worthallthis) wrote in
pennysheets2021-01-25 10:33 pm
Entry tags:
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.
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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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?"
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"You doing all right?"
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He answers, either way. "I'm fine. Haven't killed anybody else yet, if that's what you're worried about."
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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."
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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."
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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?"
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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?"
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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.
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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.
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"We'll keep that in mind next time we go visiting."
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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?"
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"They do," she says. "They've been behaving, for the most part. No attempts at prison break so far."
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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."
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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.
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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?"
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There's a brief pause. "Why did you and your partner react like that, in the basement? Was it one of the bodies?"
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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.
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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."
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