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Post by Eve Vardell on Aug 28, 2013 20:07:59 GMT -5
"Oh, must you? You look like something out of Men in Black right now."
Eve pushed her way out of the car at the edge of the wide, grassy campus, and cut a skeptical look toward her companion. The dark suit and shined shoes were bad enough, but he'd just added on a pair of wide, dark sunglasses that made him look like every teenager's worst nightmare.
"I mean, this is a college campus. These kids are programmed to be suspicious of people in suits. Aren't we supposed to be incognito?"
Eve, not quite twenty years old, was younger than at least half of the students she saw trekking their way down the footpaths toward class. Still, she thought of them all as children. It was hard not to, when they looked so fresh and innocent, and she'd spent the last four years just trying to stay alive.
And, more recently, trying to keep them alive.
That was what Thomas Zane did: he helped the helpless. The blissfully ignorant. And his only fee for keeping Eve under his wing and out of sight for the better part of three months was occasionally getting her help on a job. She wasn't used to it - putting herself in harm's way to help out other people. It was kind of counterproductive to the whole "staying alive" thing. But it gave her a good feeling, a useful feeling, that she hadn't really had since she'd first gone on the run, left her life behind...
Don't think about that now. Think about the job in front of you.
She turned her gaze from Zane and toward the strangely quiet dormitory in front of her, and tried to swallow her nerves.
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Post by Thomas Zane on Aug 28, 2013 20:47:34 GMT -5
The campus seemed way too calm. People wandering around, bored or happy, like five of their classmates hadn't ended up in paralytic comas in the past few weeks. No matter how many of these mystical monster encounters Zane found himself in, it never ceased to amaze him how easy it was for most people to just not notice or ignore all the craziness going on around them.
"Hey, people respect an authority figure." He rolled his shoulders, straightening out the sleeves of his jacket, clicked the lock on his car, and started off toward the dormitory, trusting Eve to keep pace. "I'm a special investigator. No one's gonna take me seriously if I show up looking like a schlub."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a second, matching pair of glasses.
"Anyway, don't hate the look. I got you a pair too. Put 'em on, make sure they're secure, don't take 'em off 'til the job's done."
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Post by Eve Vardell on Aug 28, 2013 21:26:19 GMT -5
She took the glasses and glanced at her reflection in the mirrored lenses before putting them on. She looked healthier than she had just a few months back, when she'd been living on the streets, in cheap motels, always on the move. Her skin was smoother, the lines and dark circles under her eyes all but gone, her cheeks less pale. She looked almost like a normal nineteen year old girl.
Went to show you how little looks mattered.
"Special investigators can't afford what you wear. Anyway, we're done investigating. We know its in here. We're more... attacking now, right? Shouldn't you be... dressed for attacking?"
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Post by Thomas Zane on Aug 28, 2013 21:38:10 GMT -5
They were at the door to the building. The doors locked automatically and only opened to residents, a pretty much useless safety procedure since the first kid coming out held the door open when he caught sight of Eve coming up. Suspicion entered his expression when he caught sight of Zane walking behind her, but Zane caught the door, grinning and waving Eve in ahead of him. "Hey, thanks man. Yeah, her uncle. Cal Ellison, Cal's Car Dealership. Get out of college, come get a Camaro! Great deals for graduating students. Alright then, see you 'round." And he pulled the door shut behind them.
Turning back to Eve, he went on as if there'd been no interruption.
"We try talking, reasoning first. College is a rough time, and she hasn't actually killed anyone yet. Maybe we can work this all out peacefully. And if things get messy," he tilted his head toward her, flashing a grin. "Well that's why you're here. You're my muscle, kid."
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Post by Eve Vardell on Aug 28, 2013 22:27:06 GMT -5
Eve laughed slightly, half-nerves because she was pretty sure he was actually serious.
They made it down the hallway quietly, attracting no more weird looks... mostly because the hallways were deserted. People might not know what was going on here, but they could sense that something bad was happening. Rash of paralyzed students aside, there was just an aura about the places where bad things lurked and caused mayhem. People didn't like it, tended to head the other way unconsciously.
They reached room 11: Melissa Rockwell. Eve glanced at her companion, opened her mouth to ask him if he wanted to knock, when the door swung open and she found herself inches away from their target. Melissa was pretty average looking at a glance: pale, freckled, with a tangled mess of curls that seemed to bounce and shift even when she stood still. There was something about her eyes, though, something dark and calculating, with almost a hint of... crimson? And Eve suddenly felt incredibly glad for the mirrored glasses.
The Basilisk's eyes narrowed, shifting from Eve to Zane. There was a long, tense second, before the girl's lips parted in a hiss:
"Hunters."
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Post by Thomas Zane on Aug 28, 2013 23:45:04 GMT -5
Well, that wasn't the best start. Zane reached out smoothly, tugging Eve back a few steps and setting himself between her and the snake-woman.
"We'd like to think of ourselves more as your friendly neighborhood watch committee. We hear you're having a bit of trouble adjusting to your college experience. Got turned down for some sororities, paralyzed a couple of cheerleaders and your roommate... maybe she borrowed your sweater, you got upset. Stuff happens. But if we can just talk this out, get you down the hospital to reverse your paralytic staredown, we can all walk away from this with no real harm done."
He could already tell as he spoke that this wasn't going down well. Her expression was getting darker, her stance becoming tenser. But it was the eyes he had to watch out for. The mirrors in the glasses would keep them safe from her stony gaze, but once the inner lid opened and her eyes went slitted, they'd know she was ready to fight.
He'd never had much luck with Basilisks. They were elitist by nature, and raised their status in the world by eliminating any competition that seemed to be in their way. The older they got, the more deadly their gaze became, and he'd never met one that cared about the consequences of their actions. But this one was young, he had hope.
Until, with a laugh that was more like a hiss, she reached out to grab his collar with one hand, the other hand swiping toward his eyes.
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Post by Eve Vardell on Aug 29, 2013 0:57:56 GMT -5
Eve reacted without thinking, ducking low under the Basilisk's swipe and pushing out both hands, one shoving Zane out of the way to safety and the other knocking his attacker back into the room. The creature stumbled but didn't fall, and Eve didn't waste a second, stepping forward and setting her forearms against the doorframe, bracing herself. As the creature stepped forward again, Eve lifted her knees up to her chest and kicked out, knocking the Basilisk back into her wooden desk chair so hard that it shattered.
Eve dropped down to the ground, stumbling back a startled step and feeling a grin touch her lips. All this time and she still wasn't used to it - the strange power boost she'd gotten back in Wyoming in December. Whether it was long exposure to Wheton's Shield, the Wild Hunt, or the cult itself, ever since her last showdown with Molly Rourke, Eve had found herself reacting faster and fighting harder than she normally should have whenever she got an adrenaline boost. She still had no idea how to control it, and she hadn't quite gotten a handle on the wolf's voice that sometimes stayed silent for weeks before unexpectedly growling out complaints during her evening cereal, but she had to admit, when facing down a snake-demon with a gaze that basically turned you to stone, she was happy for the extra boost.
"We done negotiating yet?"
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Post by Thomas Zane on Aug 29, 2013 11:51:09 GMT -5
He was already moving even as his back hit the wall, sliding a hand into his left pocket and pulling out a sleek grey audio recorder. He didn't like using this, it felt a little too much like a dog whistle for his taste, but when you needed a warning to make an impact...
"Not yet," he answered Eve, then clicked the audio playback. The pitchy wail of a rooster crowing filled the hall, and in front of them the Basilisk crumpled, hands going to her ears. No one really knew why the creatures couldn't stand this particular sound - some evolutionary defense on the part of the roosters, maybe, or something less logical and more mystical, like the Basilisks were nocturnal by preference and the sound was connected with the dawn. Whatever the reason, the sound of a good rooster crow always managed to catch their attention. He clicked the recording to a stop.
"Alright, sorry 'bout that. Now let's try to talk this through rationally. Maybe you think the only way to get ahead in life's knocking off the competition. Sounds like you've got a little bit of a self-esteem issue going on there, but nothing a little counseling can't work through. You just promise to keep your evil eye under lid, and we'll be more than happy to help you work on your people skills, how does that sound?"
The girl's grimace had bled back into a grin, and it wasn't the friendly kind that Zane was wearing either. No, this was a distinctly "grind your bones to make my bread" look, and it was making Zane nervous. He'd hoped this would be an easy job, a case of a confused kid who needed some help controlling her abilities. That's why he'd brought Eve along in the first place - unique human-wolf hybrid skills or not, he didn't like the idea of dragging her into harm's way. But now it looked like it was coming down to a straight slash-and-stab hunt, and the kid was standing right between him and the monster.
"You think," the Basilisk hissed, pushing herself back to her feet, "that my attacks were accidents? Confused, uncontrollable outbursts?" She lifted her head, her hair rippled and waved like a living being - or a mass of writhing, living beings - and her eyes were blood-red with slitted black pupils. Even behind the protective, mirrored lenses, Zane felt a slight wave of dizziness from the impact of the gaze.
"I was practicing," the girl continued. Her shoulders were hunched, and her neck twisted and rolled as she spoke. The slight change of stance left her looking decidedly inhuman. "I will become the youngest in my generation to earn a kill from my gaze. I will surpass my sisters and brothers, and take my mother's place as leader of our den. And if my first kill is a hunter... or a pair of hunters, my den's supremacy will not be questioned for a century."
Great. A complete sociopath. This was going worse than he'd thought.
"Eve," Zane said quietly, hand going for his knife. "Move."
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Post by Eve Vardell on Aug 29, 2013 20:07:48 GMT -5
Eve moved, but probably not the way Zane had intended. Baring her teeth, she darted toward the Basilisk, who raised her own arms, eager to fight. Instead of running right into the other girl's grasp, though, Eve ducked and twirled at the last second to end up on her right, lifting her elbow and swinging it to collide with the side of the creature's head. Her head snapped sideways and she spat angrily, but Eve didn't give her a second to recover, ducking to the ground and sweeping out her leg to trip the creature while it was reeling. See how well snakes jump.
Zane had told Eve that she had a habit of moving in circles, something she attributed to her years of dance training back in the time Before. Apparently it was a good strategy for someone as small as she was, though if she was fighting someone who really knew what they were doing, her moves might come off as predictable.
Apparently, the Basilisk had some experience. Still reeling from the elbow in her face, she jumped neatly over Eve's sweep and sent out a kick of her own that caught Eve in the chin. It was reactive attack, not much power behind it, and made Eve grunt more than shout. It wouldn't have been too big of a deal, honestly, except that that it sent her sunglasses off her face and skittering across the floor.
The thrill of being fast, being a fighter, dissipated in one panicked heartbeat, as Eve squeezed her eyes shut. Blind and suddenly terrified, she started feeling desperately across the floor in search of the lost glasses.
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 2, 2013 22:29:05 GMT -5
Zane was moving forward the second Eve fell back, blocking the Basilisk off. Her eyes were a bloody sort of red, the narrow, slitted pupils an abyss that started to suck you in the second you locked your gaze on. Without glasses, a person would be lost the second they met a mature Basilisk's gaze. As it was, Zane had to blink quickly and avert his gaze back toward her forehead.
"Hey Eve, you ok back th-"
The Basilisk swung, and he barely caught the arm, grunting at the effort. That was the thing about the supernatural - someone could be half your size and still be able to knock you through a wall without breaking a sweat. He kicked out at her knee and she crumpled, spitting angrily, before gripping his arm with her free hand and ducking her head to try biting his wrist.
"No you don't." Basilisk venom wasn't as potent as its stare, but it still wasn't something you wanted in your system during a fight.
He followed her toward the ground, dropping his knees, slamming his right forearm against her throat and forcing her head back. Problem was, now both his hands were occupied, he was down on his knees, which prevented any leg work, and her head was still slowly forcing itself toward his wrist.
"Oh, I really didn't want it to come to this."
Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut and jerked his head forward, their foreheads colliding with a dizzying crack. She reeled back, losing her grip on his wrist. His glasses slid forward slightly, but luckily didn't break, and he pushed them back up again before blinking his eyes back open. Then he took the opportunity while she was distracted to dig into his pocket for the recorder again. He had it, his finger literally pushing down on the "play" button, when he was knocked to the ground and the recorder went skittering into a corner.
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Post by Eve Vardell on Sept 8, 2013 13:57:47 GMT -5
With the sounds of a struggle going on behind her, Eve felt brave enough to squint her eyes open as she crawled across the floor in search of her lost glasses. Papers, textbooks and discarded bits of clothing didn't make the search any easier, and the noises behind her were torture. There was no way to tell how Zane was doing, whether the Basilisk was seconds away from coming after Eve, and she couldn't risk glancing back for even a second to gauge the situation.
"Zane, what's going on?"
The floor vibrated as someone was knocked down hard, and a small black box skittered into Eve's line of vision. The recorder... which meant Zane was the one who'd hit the deck. No more time to search for the glasses. Instead, she reached out for the first long, heavy thing she could grab: a broken off leg from the desk chair. Then she paused, and listened.
Her own heartbeat, some heavy breaths near the ground. And the sound of a footstep. Another. Eve squeezed her eyes shut again, twisted on her knees and swung the piece of wood horizontally, driving fast with the momentum of her spin. It whipped through the air until, with a crack that made Eve wince, it snapped into something which shouted and crumpled. Eve wobbled, steadied herself, raised the improvised bat above her head to deliver another blow, and paused. She thought she'd hit the enemy, thought it sounded like the enemy, but could she be sure without looking?
"Zane," she asked tentatively.
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 8, 2013 17:08:13 GMT -5
He was already sitting up, bruised ribs screaming, as he heard Eve call out to him. She was kneeling in front of the Basilisk, glasses still gone and blind as a... well, as anything with its eyes squeezed shut, and holding a piece of broken wood like a bat over the wary creature. The Basilisk's head twitched, eyes trailing across Eve's frame, looking for weaknesses. Eve was fast and she was strong, but she was also blind, and snakes were built for speed. If Eve tried to strike, the snake might just be able to duck out of the way and bite her arm or her neck.
This all took about two seconds for Zane to assess, by which time the Basilisk was already tensing to strike.
"Eve, back!" And he was moving, pulling out his gun from his belt, taking aim, and planting a bullet right between the snake's eyes.
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Post by Eve Vardell on Sept 8, 2013 21:00:37 GMT -5
Eve jumped back at the sound of his voice, and again at the bullet. Her eyes shot open before she could think to stop them, and she found herself staring straight into the blood-red eyes of the Basilisk. Or... the bloody eyes. Eve's gaze flicked up and took in Zane, the gun in his hands, and then back to the dark crimson bead trailing down the girl's forehead and into her blank, dead eyes.
Blank, dead. Death.
Eve swallowed, averted her gaze, and tried to clamp down on the faint nausea that was twisting through her.
"That..." Her voice was weak, she drew in a breath and found a spot on the floor to focus on. "Is that it? A bullet kills a Basilisk?"
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 10, 2013 12:45:51 GMT -5
"Not just any bullet." Zane made sure the safety was secured back on his gun before standing and putting it back in the holster under his jacket. No reason to make the kid any more uncomfortable than she had to be. "Silver."
He stepped around the body, glancing over the contents of the Basilisk's desk and giving Eve a second to recompose herself without eyes on her.
"They're actually pretty scientific, Basilisks. No crazy potions or wacky chants to get rid of them. You know silver's usually used as a reflective agent in mirrors? Just like a mirror or reflective lens negates their powers, a reflective element to the brain disrupts brain function. Stalls it out." He didn't know if the girl cared about all the facts, but he figured a calm voice might help ground her. She wasn't around death often and, even if she had been, that didn't always make it easier.
Damn it. He'd thought this was going to be a calm, quiet job. Thought if he'd gotten to a Basilisk before it was a full member of the clan he'd be able to reason with it. She'd still just been a kid, around Eve's age.
There was a battered notebook, some stray papers, but nothing with names, addresses, anything that would help him track down the rest of this den of hers. She had to have a phone, though. Supernatural creature though she was, she'd still been a creature of the 21st century. He pulled open a few drawers and discovered them more or less empty, before spotting the small black device over by the bed. It was a newer model, camera in it and everything. Jackpot. He picked it up and started sifting through the contacts for anything promising.
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Post by Eve Vardell on Sept 10, 2013 13:22:34 GMT -5
Eve tried to ignore her panicked gut reaction: Why is he walking around with you carrying a gun full of silver bullets? What if he doesn't trust you? What if he's just waiting for the moment when you slip...
No. He knew he would be facing a Basilisk, knew it might come down to a fight, knew that silver bullets worked against them just as well as werewolves. Did a normal person get paranoid every time they saw their Hunting partner was carrying a knife? No. Trust, trust was important, and if she didn't trust Zane, who could she trust?
She turned away from the body, pushed herself to her feet, and then stooped to pick up a smokey grey object. The recorder.
Her hands clenched around it and she felt her throat closing up. It had been what... three months now? Three months since she'd fled from forest outside the Cult's compound, collapsed in the snow and nearly bled out from the wound in her side? There was no scar on her back to validate the phantom pain she still felt there sometimes, though there was a gleaming white reminder on her arm where the silver bullet had skimmed her flesh.
That night had been a nightmare in a lot of different ways, but the one that still hit her sometimes like blow to the gut was the fact that she'd left behind her backpack.
Silly? Maybe. But everything she'd owned had been in that ratty old thing. Her clothes, her wallet, credit card... And the recorder. Three years of thoughts, of confessions, of Eve spilling her guts out in the hopes that someday, maybe Anna would hear it and understand. And forgive her.
Zane had been good to her through the winter, better than Eve could have hoped. She'd been looking for someone to patch her up and send her on her way. Instead he'd gotten her new clothes, given her a roof and some kind of purpose again... but the one thing he couldn't hope to replace was that recorder.
No, that was still with Kasen.
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 10, 2013 13:45:48 GMT -5
Mother was listed halfway through the contact list. Zane hesitated, feeling this was a little on the harsh side, but there was no other way to make sure his message got to the right people. And maybe harsh was exactly what this "family" needed. He turned on the phone's camera function, aimed it down at the Basilisk's prone body, clicked, and hit "send." Then he opened up a new text message, selected "Mother" as recipient, and typed out a short message: You don't need to kill to survive. Stay peaceful and this won't have to happen again. He considered adding something along the lines of "sorry for your loss," but some sentiments just didn't get taken well, no matter how sincerely they were meant. Zane hit send, then slipped the phone into his pocket. He'd dispose of it once they were out of here - no use leaving it behind for some industrious detective to search through the sent messages folder. He knew he would.
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Post by Eve Vardell on Sept 10, 2013 15:54:49 GMT -5
She turned the recorder over in her hands thoughtfully before pushing it into her pocket. Now wasn't the moment to think about this. She glanced back to Zane.
"Are we, um..." She paused, clearing her throat. "Are we going to do something about the..." The body. In death, Melissa looked like a normal girl again, her lifeless eyes reverted back to a muddy brown color, the teeth between her parted lips a neat, white line as though the fangs had never been. She just looked like a girl. A murdered girl.
She looked away again, refusing to see herself in the corpse. She wasn't like that. Zane had given the Basilisk every chance. She'd attempted murder several times, and wasn't going to stop until she'd pulled it off. She was one of the monsters that gave all supernatural creatures a bad name. She looked up and met Zane's eyes, raising a brow.
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 10, 2013 18:44:42 GMT -5
Zane ducked down, knuckles to the floor, glancing under the bed and spotting the lost sunglasses quickly enough. He dug them out, straightening. Besides that there was just fingerprints to deal with - as a former cop, his prints were in the system, just the way life worked. Meant he had to be extra careful around crime scenes. He hadn't touched much, though, and he thought he could keep track of what he had.
Gloves would've been a good touch, hadn't been too warm to pull them off either. But he hadn't gone in planning to turn this into a crime scene.
"The body," he finished when Eve trailed off. "No can do. Public place like this, we'd attract twice as much attention if we tried to move her out of here. Just gotta clear up what evidence we can and split before that gunshot attracts too much attention." He went over a list of potential risks in his head, even as he pulled out a cloth and moved around the room, wiping prints. "No cameras here or in the parking lot, only spotted by one potential witness and the area around these rooms is clear. The body's human enough to fool a casual autopsy, and we've got all the... you got my recorder?" He nodded distractedly, then caught sight of Eve's expression. She was putting on a brave face, but she was shaken.
"Hey," he crossed the room and put a hand on her shoulder, ducking a little to catch her eyes. "You get that we needed to do this, right? It wasn't even just us or her, it was a bunch of innocent people or her."
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Post by Eve Vardell on Sept 10, 2013 18:57:35 GMT -5
Eve pressed her lips together, nodding.
"No, yeah I get it. It's just..." She shook her head, stepping back out of his grip. "You know, dead people. I've been in fights, I've seen a lot of screwed up stuff, but killing is still a little..."
She'd killed one person in her life, and she didn't like to relive it. (She... the wolf. Sometimes she wondered if there was a difference after all. Especially recently.)
And why was everything suddenly reminding her of home?
"Anyway, I'll be fine. You're right, someone's bound to have heard that gunshot. We should get out of here."
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Post by Thomas Zane on Sept 11, 2013 18:19:50 GMT -5
They made it out of the building and to the car without so much as passing a student. The school's population was on high alert all right, even if they didn't realize it. Coming and going from their dorm rooms as quickly as possible, huddling up inside once they got there, or maybe just keeping safety in numbers by staying out in the public buildings. Whatever they were doing, they definitely weren't spending any more time than they had to around Grendall Hall, and it didn't look like that would be changing once they discovered a body in one of the rooms. Things were only going to get worse before they got better, but the students were out of danger, even if they didn't know it.
All in all, not a bad day in the life of Thomas Zane.
He started up the car, pulled out of the lot, and shot a glance toward his still slightly-too-quiet companion.
"So, back to the old homestead?" They'd spent most of the last few months in his old hunting lodge in Oregon. Quiet, isolated, and still with killer wifi connection... he had a couple of ramshackle spots across the country to hang his hat if need be, but the Lodge was pretty much his Bat Cave.
And a troupe of Brownies swept in to clean the place every few days or so. Free, magical dry cleaning? Definitely a plus in his world.
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