Find Me Now, an assassin's creed fanfic

Find Me Now

A Word: So, I wondered how it'd be if Desmond's ancestors really were ghosts. It spiraled out from there. No one should be surprised at this revelation.

"Do you want to go?" Desmond asks. His voice is carefully blank and devoid of emotion, but Malik can feel the way he wants to curl up and run from the question.

It's strange. It hasn't even been a month, and yet Malik feels as if they've been like this for much longer. Desmond's breath fans out over his chest in quick bursts of warmth as he waits for an answer.

Does he want to go? Yes and no. He misses Kadar so fiercely some days that it's hard to even think, but the thought of letting Desmond out of his arms long enough to leave frightens him almost as badly.

In the attic there is a book with a feather in it. Unadorned and not tied to anything. It's carefully housed in a book that has kept it safe for years. He doesn't tell Desmond about it, but wouldn't be surprised if the man already knows about it. He's shown a startling amount of perceptiveness.

"No," Malik says and lets his hands skate down Desmond's bare skin. Tracing the muscles that relax from his answer, and chasing the shivers his touch produces. "Not yet at least. Maybe not for a good long while. Will that be alright?"

"I think I could learn to live with it," Desmond says with a broad grin that doesn't fool him for one bit.

"Your place is haunted," Rebecca announces with sure authority as she shows up half an hour late, and carrying a stack of steaming pizza boxes in her arms.

From somewhere in the living room Desmond can hear Shaun's laughter start up again. "Shut up!" He turns back to Rebecca and relieves her of the top few boxes. "And, no, it's not. It just looks like it should be haunted."

"It's not haunted," Lucy dismisses immediately, she's still in the kitchen taking particular care to unpack and properly store every piece of kitchenware he has. Considering she's the one who bought half of it, he doesn't protest the perfectionist detail she's giving to the task. Hell, he doesn't use most of it. It's just there so that when Lucy inevitably takes over his kitchen for her own nefarious purposes she doesn't have to lug around half her tools with her. There's a stack of plates already set to the side by the stove for their use.

"Just wait," Shaun says as he comes in and nicks one of the plates as Rebecca starts flipping the boxes open. "You'll be calling one of us at midnight in a week crying about blood on the walls and cold spots."

"You need to stop watching Supernatural," Desmond tears off a few slices of meat lovers and ignores the snooty noise Rebecca makes as she hoards her vegetarian deluxe. "That stuff doesn't happen in a real haunting. There's more noises, shadows looming over you, and bruises."

"Never, it's a good story and has some good information," Lucy says, and leaves off the silverware drawer long enough to grab a slice of mushroom pizza when Shaun's back is turned. Not because she likes it, but because it's Shaun's and the two of them are actual five year olds when it comes to each other's food. "You need to watch it, Desmond. At least watch the first season before dismissing it."

Desmond's not really sure who started watching the show first. It might have been Rebecca, these things usually were her fault. The fact that Lucy has taken the casual watching to an almost obsessive level had worried him at first, but the stupid show seems to have actually done her some good. A few months back and she would have been shaking at the mere mention of his house possibly being haunted.

"Yeah, sure, but I like listening to Kansas, and I know what Carry On Wayward Son does to all of you," Desmond says and ignores the way Rebecca hisses at just the mention of the song that can reduce all three of his friends to tears with just the opening notes. "I like good shows but I'm not willing to emotionally scar myself for them."

"Heathen!" Rebecca begins to wander out of the kitchen. Her plate loaded up with pizza as she starts to look around. "Just remember we offered you a chance to learn how to take care of hauntings the proper way and you've turned us down flat. You only have yourself to blame when you get pinned to the ceiling by the vengeful spirits of the dead."

"That's demons!" Shaun calls out and is ignored with a sniff they can all hear in the kitchen.

"If there's any spirits here," Desmond tells Lucy because Rebecca is snooping and Shaun isn't listening as he steals a bunch of pepperoni from Lucy's plate, "they'll thank me for ripping out the shag carpet."

The puke green mess is in a pile in the garage until he can figure out how to get rid of it more permanently since Shaun vetoed the idea of just burning it all. "Really, Miles. Do you have any idea how many harmful chemicals could be in that stuff? If your mind doesn't collapse from some sort of LSD smoke flash you'll be coughing up blood in a week at the least."

Destroying it would be a small mercy to the world, but Desmond knows that Shaun's probably right about it. Who knows what got spilled on the stuff in its time. "There can't be anything worse in here than that carpet," he tells Lucy and she hums before catching sight of Shaun's creeping hand. Desmond watches the ensuing slap fight and grins around a bite of pizza.

Desmond wakes slowly and reluctantly as his mattress dips under another weight. He blinks his eyes open and rolls over to find a man sitting beside him. Legs sprawled out on the floor because Desmond couldn't find a screwdriver to put the frame together, and hands folded in his lap as he studies Desmond over his shoulder. His sharp face is shadowed but Desmond can make out a flash of white as the man grins down at him.

"I do want to thank you for taking the carpet out," the man's voice is rich and accented deeply. His English perfectly understandable but the vowels roll and the consonants are crisp. "I'd be even more thankful if you could take care of the raccoon in the attic too."

Desmond frowns and blinks up at the complete stranger, his mind floating on the edge of sleep. Ghosts and dreams rolling around before he decides he's too tired to deal with thinking. He rolls over and settles back on his pillow. Drawing the sheets up over his shoulder and closing his eyes, "Yeah. Ok, sure."

He's asleep in a matter of seconds.

Desmond and Rebecca are in the middle of an inventive exchange of swears as they try to remember how to piece his bed frame back together when Lucy wanders in. "Desmond, you have a raccoon in your attic."

"I, shit!" Desmond swears as he drops a wrench on his foot. Lucy's words echoing strangely in his mind through the pain. A raccoon? Where had he heard that before? "What?"

Lucy laughs and turns away, her voice floating down the hall. "Come see it!"

"Damn," Rebecca whistles when they've climbed up the splintery ladder and into the enclosed space. There's a pile of boxes already up there. The newer ones from his move in, and a stack that are clearly left from previous owners. "That is hideous!"

Rebecca sounds oddly impressed, and Desmond has to agree with her. Shaun's carefully holding and studying an awful taxidermy raccoon statue. It has to be at least knee high, and it's been carefully posed on its hind feet. The front paws raised threateningly, and mouth open on a snarl that looks creepier because the thing wasn't well preserved and is starting to disintegrate.

"Oh that's going in the trash," Desmond grimaces as Shaun holds it out to him, and steps back. "God, is it rotting?"

"Everything rots," Shaun flips it upside down and motes of dust and bits of fur go flying. He frowns as he squints at the base. "Eventually. This looks like something was chewing on it though."

"Gross," Rebecca waves her hand in the air to shoo away some free floating fur.

"It's really old though," Shaun continues. "Can't quite make out a date though. You sure you don't want to keep it, Desmond? It goes well with the ambiance of the house."

"Fuck, no," Desmond promptly answers. No way in hell is he sleeping another night in this house with that creepy thing in it. He'll drive to the closest dumpster to get rid of it if he has to. "Trash it."

"There's a bunch of other stuff here," Lucy says from the other side of the stack. Her head mostly in one of the open boxes as she sifts through the things in it. "Nothing as bad as that though."

"I'll look at it later," Desmond looks around. He spots one empty box and kicks it towards Shaun. "Quit trying to find historical importance in a bad taxidermy job. Drop it in and I'll trash it when I go to get food later."

"You know it's people like you who ruin history right?" Shaun calls out as Desmond turns to climb back down to finish his bed. One night of sleeping on a mattress on the floor is all the nostalgia he needs to remind him of the days when he lived in shit holes, thanks. "Oh, it looks ugly, let's throw it out! Not one moment spent trying to figure out how old the ugly thing might be, or if it might actually be important. All for- ow!"

"Just put the damn thing in the box," he hears Rebecca say as the ladder creaks under his weight. "Unless you want to take it home with you."

Desmond smirks at Shaun's immediate and emphatic refusal and goes back to trying to figure his bed frame out.

Desmond pulls into a park on his way back from the grocery store. There's a dumpster that's overflowing and he debates tossing the box on the pile before a flicker catches his eye. There's a fire barrel nearby, smoking away as something burns merrily in it. There's no one around and Desmond doesn't give much thought to how bad of an idea it is.

He frowns at the box in the trunk for a bit. He can see the raggedy edge of an ear through the flaps, and the whole thing strikes him as familiar. A raccoon in the attic, Desmond wonders if the realtor had mentioned it as a possibility. A live raccoon, not a stuffed one though.

He shakes the thought off and scoops the box up. Tossing it in the barrel. He sticks around long enough to make sure the box catches and flames start licking at the horror within before getting back into the cramped cab of Lucy's car. He's probably going to have to look into getting one for himself now too. He's getting too old to be toughing out the cold on a motor cycle every winter, and a real house calls for real groceries he can't always rely on being able to carry.

It's a thought for another day though.

Desmond rolls over and smashes his face into a chest. Clothed and smelling rather nice. Well-muscled too and really, really comfortable. He breathes in the scent that's vaguely familiar and nearly falls back asleep again before the chest starts to shake under him.

The laugh is soft and nearly silent, and Desmond groans as it pushes sleep back. "No," he slurs and pushes one hand against it to stop it from moving. Moving his face into a neck that shakes only a little less but feels far more comfortable. "Shhh, sleep."

"I will, in a bit," cool, thick fingers card through his short hair. Massaging his scalp and Desmond immediately relaxes with a content sigh. "Thank you for throwing the raccoon out. You wouldn't have liked to meet him at night. But you're going to need to destroy the seal in the basement tomorrow or he might find a way to come back."

The ugly raccoon flits through his mind but Desmond doesn't pay any of it any attention. He's comfortable and that's all that really matters as he pushes further into the body next to him.

"Desmond," the fingers stop and he whines because he's asleep, and there's no one to make fun of him for it. The voice that had been so soothing before takes on an edge that makes him pay a bit more attention. "The basement, you have to find the seal and destroy it."

"Yeah, basement," the fingers start to move again and Desmond melts blissfully against the body in his bed. His eyes are closed and the sense of touch grows distant as he slides back into less distinct dreams. "Basement."

Lucy has work in the morning, and Shaun calls him lazy in three different languages while Rebecca laughs in the background before hanging up on him. Desmond supposes he should be happy his friends helped him move and even stuck around for one day of unpacking. He dicks around with the boxes holding his DVDs before giving up on them. It's useless to bring them out until he puts the shelves up, and they're still MIA in the great pile of boxes that fill the room that may or may not become a dining room when he finishes.

He pulls an unmarked box from a dangerously listing stack and immediately wishes he hadn't.

It's not filled with his things. Desmond gets as far as pulling an unmarked book out before his eyes catch on a familiar photo. Desmond tosses the book -a journal, and the smell of cologne is like a punch to the gut- back down to cover the wedding picture of his parents, but the picture had been seared into his mind long ago. It's way too easy to recall the details of the picture he used to spend so much of his childhood staring at.

His mother had been pretty in a dress of stiff white lace and a bouquet, and his father dashing in a crisp black suit. Two young and pretty people promising themselves for life under an elegant archway of roses.

Neither of them smiling, and a bleak unhappiness filling their eyes that had never gone away.

At least the broken glass had finally been removed from the frame. Probably sometime after he'd run the fuck away. Surprising, given that neither of his parents had fixed the broken frame in the six years following the particular fight that had broken it. Just hung the damn thing back up on the wall and pretended not to notice it.

Desmond's not sure how this made it into his U-Haul. He was sure he'd loaded all of his parents stuff up on the one going to Goodwill before signing the papers to turn the house he hadn't seen in a decade over to be sold.

"Crap," Desmond leans back and roughly folds the box shut. He doesn't want this, but he can't just throw it away either. Some lingering sentimentality and guilt that had led him to donate everything instead of torching it like he wanted to.

He picks the box up and thinks about the attic briefly, but the ladder is already folded up and he just wants this box out of sight quick. Desmond goes to the kitchen and the short hallway that holds the door to the backyard and the basement.

It's an unfinished basement, and is likely to stay that way because Desmond isn't made of money despite the inheritance he'd surprisingly still gotten after so long with no contact with his parents. The walls are bare concrete and he walks through the almost maze-like area made of half walls looking for the darkest corner he can find. Dirt crunches between his shoes and the concrete floor as he reaches a corner where the floor actually gives way to dirt. A square chunk of the wall about three feet high gone.

Desmond leans down and sees a small room has been neatly excavated into the dirt. He doesn't remember seeing it when he did the tour, but he'd been more interested in the house above and the garage. Desmond fumbles his phone out and clicks the flashlight app on to look at it better.

It's surprisingly clean and neat for a dirt room. It's all hard packed, and likely as tough as the concrete. Which is good enough really. It's a deep and dark hole, pretty much everything he's looking for right now.

Desmond crouches down and sets the box in the corner furthest away. If he doesn't get one of his friends to donate the thing it'll just sit here forgotten until he moves out and leaves it behind. He likes that thought a lot, and turns to leave when a flash of something catches his eye.

"What the fuck?" He angles the phone up and the light illuminates the low ceiling of the room.

There's something written there, and it takes a bit of dumbfounded staring for him to convince himself he's really seeing what he's seeing. It looks like something straight out of Satan Summoning for Dummies. All squiggly lines and concentric circles in white. Desmond reaches up and drags his fingers along the ceiling. It crumbles easily under the touch and leaves a white powder on his skin.

Kids, or the previous shag carpet loving owners. Desmond scowls, no wonder the place looked so haunted. He ducks out of the room and wanders back upstairs to grab the short broom he'd gotten last week to clean the worst of the leaves off the back porch. The writing brushes off easily with a few swipes of the broom and Desmond feels a hell of a lot better once it's all gone.

It doesn't start to actually bother him until he's trying to sort out all the cables to his TV that Rebecca had sworn she'd taken care of. Desmond doesn't think a massive bundle of cords wrapped in duct tape is sorted, but he can be a bit fussier about that than a computer programmer apparently.

He's not going to tell his friends about the room or the seal. He's had enough of their ribbing about the way his house looks already. No need to throw fuel onto the fire by mentioning the seal he-

"Seal," Desmond mutters to himself and pauses. It was a circle with symbols. Some magic looking shit that he honestly has no name for, but seal seems to fit disturbingly well. Where the fuck has he heard that before?

Desmond runs a hand over his head, fingers pressing hard into his scalp, and something sparks in his mind. Fingers in his hair and a voice softly telling him to destroy it. A shadow looming over him in bed and saying something about a raccoon. A dream he remembers in flashes that seem awfully vivid now that he's thinking about it.

"My house is not haunted," Desmond denies, but the words are flat and unconvincing.

It lingers with Desmond as he works his way through his things until dinner. Cold sandwiches and chips because he doesn't feel like actually cooking anything. It bothers him as he strips down for bed and stands in his bathroom looking at the bottle of pills he's been taking for the last few days.
Sleeping aides he uses liberally when he needs to do a dramatic shift in his sleeping schedule. He doesn't shake two out tonight. Instead he flips the lights off and pads back to his bed. Still naked because he's got another day before the washing machine and drier get delivered and his clothes are getting iffy.

Sleep doesn't come easily. His body expecting the chemical help he ignored, and something like anticipation keeping him up. It does come though. Stealing in around the edges of his awareness until Desmond doesn't even realize he's asleep.

Desmond jolts awake with a start. Alert and very much aware, and finds a familiar man leaning over him on the bed with a pleased smile stretching across his face. His arms on either side of Desmond and bracketing him in. "Thank you, Desmond."

One hand is close enough to touch the skin of his neck and it feels cold in a way that makes no sense given it's the middle of summer and his AC needs to be looked at. Shadows creep oddly in the corner of his eyes and Desmond gets the distinct feeling that there are more people around, though a wild glance shows him no one else.

Desmond is by no means an expert, but he knows enough to make an educated fucking guess.

"Oh shit," the man is not at all familiar, but Desmond knows him. He's awake enough now that a dozen shards of almost unremembered dreams come together in a way that makes him want to punch his friends in the face repeatedly. "The house is kind of haunted, isn't it?"

"A little bit," the man says with a smirk, and makes himself comfortable on the bed. Desmond winces as he recalls more of last night's dream, and the way he'd been very, very close to him. The man's eyes wander almost lazily down Desmond's body. "Harmlessly so, for the most part."

"For the most part," Desmond echoes, he feels very awake and wishes he weren't. He carefully reaches out to the left and fists his hand in the sheets he'd kicked off at some point in the night, and casually drapes it over his dick. "What do you mean by that?"

"You've sent the worst of us away already," the man watches as Desmond subtly shifts away with an amused grin that shows off some very white teeth. "Al Mualim would have tried for your life, but with the seal no longer holding us back he will not be able to enter this house again."

The seal. Right.

Desmond winces as every plot for every horror movie ever made splays across his mind in bright technicolor detail. A stupid person stupidly undoing some magical bullshit that was the only thing holding back the evil because they're stupid. "Uh."

A cool hand presses down on his chest, right over his heart, as Desmond tries to subtly edge out of the bed. "Whatever it you are thinking, stop."

The air, stuffy before, grows heavy and the heat is leeched out of it. Noises, faint and from different parts of the house reach him, there's even a shuffle in his room of cloth moving, but Desmond freezes. He can't move under that hand or look away from the dark eyes pinning him intently. Not even as he hears two voices rise in volume, and argument that turns violent in a few short seconds down the hall.

"It would have been worse, far worse had you done nothing. You do not understand what kind of man Al Mualim was in life," something dark and ugly passes through the man's face and Desmond can feel the prick of his fingernails on his chest for a brief second. "The horrors he has caused that continued long after his death."

There's a lot in the man's voice. An entire history of suffering and pain that makes it hard for Desmond to swallow or breathe. He should be scared right now, Desmond knows, because the last time he felt unable to do anything under his own power hadn't worked out well at all. He's not though. All he really feels is an urge to reach out and take some of that pain away.

"Malik," another voice intrudes and Desmond finds the will to move. There's another man near the door. He's tall and broad with long hair pulled back in a loose tail. There's something old about his clothing and looks for all that he appears to be young. "I need help separating Ezio and Cesare."

"Again, Connor?" The man, Malik, sits up and Desmond shivers as he's released. The doorway is empty and the clear sound of voices he'd been ignoring becomes muffled. Only the occasional shout can be heard now. It sounds like he might have left the TV on downstairs if it weren't for the disturbingly loud bangs of bodies hitting walls that break it up.

Malik stands and looks down at him for a moment. "Ezio and Cesare have been trapped too long. They won't harm you, only each other, but they will care not who is hurt in their battle. They yearn for release," there's a loud crash from somewhere and Malik pauses. Uncertainty flickering across his face before it smoothes out. "Go back to sleep, and look in the closet in the morning. Grant them peace."

Malik is gone in the blink of an eye, and the noises cease almost immediately. Desmond does not go back to sleep at all.

There was a mirror attached inside of sliding closet in a guest room, and the shards glitter as Desmond cleans it up. The doors are off their tracks and it takes him a good bit to put them back on enough to slide it open fully enough to get in to look. The closet is empty though.

Desmond takes the shards down to the trash in the kitchen and grabs one of his chairs to bring back up to the room. With the added height and the help of a flashlight he notices a shadow that hadn't been visible from the floor. There's a recessed area in the wall on one end of the shelf. It moves a bit when he pushes on it and Desmond pushes harder. Cracks form in the paint that's been liberally slathered over it and it gives with a splintering crack.

Desmond pulls out a plain board that had blocked the compartment and was only sealed with paint. It's a small hole, barely large enough for a square box that is stiff with age. Yellowing curls of paper flake off of it as Desmond drags it out. A musty smell making him hesitate to open it.

He takes it back down to his kitchen and debates calling someone, but it's still an ungodly hour in the morning and everyone he can call will happily come over for the sole purpose of murdering him if he wakes them now.

Aged twine holds the brittle box together and Desmond has to actually cut it off with a knife to get at what's inside. The box almost disintegrates and he coughs at the dust that rises as he pulls out a mask. It's black with flaking red and gold paint. An eerie thing that looks like something out of Mardis Gras with its slanted eye holes and demented smile. A vivid white feather with brown spots is tied to the mask through one of the eye holes with a knotted cord of something that doesn't look like the twine that he'd just cut off. It looks far more organic than that and Desmond shudders and tries very, very hard not to touch it.

"Great, so now what do I do with it?" Desmond asks, actually projects the question out to the silent house around him but nothing answers him back. "Fuck my life."

"I hate to say I told you so," Shaun is a rotten fucking liar, because his face is smug and his voice gleeful, "but I told you, Desmond. This place is haunted."

"Laugh it up, did you bring," Desmond cuts off with a grunt as Shaun turns from the hatchback of his SUV and shoves a portable grill into his arms. Desmond staggers a bit before he gets a good hold of it. "Asshole! Where's Rebecca?"

"Getting rock salt," Shaun shoulders a bag of charcoal and snags a plastic bag before shutting the back. He turns and heads around the side of the house to the back yard. Not looking at the house at all as he moves with a sense of purpose. "And grabbing some veggies to grill for herself. I refuse to touch that tofu nonsense masquerading as meat."

"We're not grilling," Desmond sets the grill down on a level bit of packed dirt, and watches Shaun pull out some lighter fluid and a box of frozen burger patties with buns. "Shaun, we're exorcising spirits of the dead, not having a cook out!"

"Who says we can't do both?" Shaun ignores him, as usual, and sets everything out on an old table that's worn past the stage of splinters. "It's not like we're actually going to salt and burn bodies. It'll be fine, and I'm hungry so you can shove it. Now where's this bad mojo mask?"

"In the kitchen," Desmond scowls and doesn't comment on his suspicions of the cord on it as Shaun lets himself into the house. He sighs and looks at the bag of charcoal before mentally shrugging. Shaun probably wouldn't care either way. He's the brave soul who had kept his lunch in the same freezer as bodies the one time he managed to get hired on as a mortuary assistant.

He hears another car pull in and the slamming of car doors as he pours some charcoal in the grill and liberally douses it with the lighter fluid. Letting it soak in a bit before adding more.

"Where's it at?" Rebecca sounds cheerful as she rounds the corner with several bags and one heavy bag of salt on her shoulders. An MP3 dock with cords dangles dangerously out of one of the bags and Desmond takes it before it can fall and break.

"Right here," Shaun comes out of the house with more than just the mask. He lays everything out on the table and Rebecca almost pounces to get a look at it. "Creepy thing. You know, I'm not entirely certain, but I think this might be intestines of some kind."

"Awesome," Desmond ignores the package of hotdogs that've spilled out of one of the bags and looks down at the mask Rebecca is now holding. It doesn't look nearly as sinister as it had in the dark of the night. It just looks like something you'd find in a tourist trap off the beaten paths of New Orleans. "Let me guess, it's human."

"Cat, most likely," Shaun corrects and begins to tear up some of the newspaper that had been used to pack the plates up. He tears them into strips and layers them in the grill as Rebecca twirls the feather around on the cord. She doesn't actually touch it though. "Catgut used to be widely used on musical instruments, and its strength led it to be used in a variety of other things. Funny thing is that catgut wasn't made out of actual cats. You see it was taken from cows, goats, or sheep and the original name was meant to be short for cattle gut. Humans being what they are, though, took the name at face value and that's why you've got a lot of nutjobs in later times using actual cats to create the string for," Shaun waves a circle around the mask, "whatever this was supposed to serve."

"Thanks for the TMI," Rebecca places the mask in the grill and rips a hole in the salt bag she'd dropped near it. Scattering liberal handfuls around it as Shaun continues to feed newspaper scraps around it. "Let's just burn it. I'm starving."

"You want the honors, Desmond?" Shaun holds out a box of matches that Desmond reluctantly takes as Rebecca adds way too much lighter fluid to finish it off. Shaun takes several judicious steps back. "Might want to think about getting the really long kind if this is going to be a new habit of yours."

"I hate you," Desmond looks at the house which seems peaceful, and then back to the grill. He strikes a match and lets it burn for second before carefully dropping it in. The match flares and then snuffs out in a curl of smoke. "Crap."

"Try not throwing it in a puddle of liquid," Rebecca says with a grin as Shaun just shakes his head. "I know it's flammable but you still need oxygen to make it work."

"It'd be easier if you didn't drench everything," Desmond pulls out another match and carefully tosses it to some dry looking paper. Snatching his hand back as it catches this time and a lick of flame rises almost too fast. It spreads to the rest of the paper nest quickly but the mask seems untouched. "Uh, you sure the salt is really going to help?"

"Salt and burn, Des," Rebecca slaps him on the back and then leans against him as they all watch the grill fascinated. Fire and black smoke curl out of it, but the mask looks fine every time the wind shifts the flames. "Purifies everything."

"Might need a bit more fuel though," Shaun muses as the flames start to die down a bit. The paper nothing more than black ash and the coals only barely on fire. He's balling up a few more sheets as the flame goes down below the lip of the grill, showing them all the mask on a bed of ashes. The cord seems to be smoking, and the feather is curling up and turning black.

"Well they use gas usually," Rebecca picks the fluid up again and squirts a stream into the grill. Getting a good distance and splashing the mask liberally until the fire roars back to life and they can't see it anymore. "Bit more staying power than this stuff and coal."

"I can't believe I listened to the two of you," Desmond mutters because he's been around his friends long enough to have some idea of the basic set up of a Supernatural episode. "Why am I letting you use a TV show to help me-"

There's a sharp crack, like a gunshot and the fire roars. The flames shooting up well over their heads and turning a bright, harsh white that makes Desmond stagger back and clench his eyes shut. The afterimage burns on the back of his eyelids, in a form that Desmond can't help thinking looks like two men standing side by side. By the time he blinks his eyes open and clear the fire's died down and there's no sign of anyone or anything. He edges close to the grill and only sees glowing hot coals, and black ash.

"Hell yeah!" Rebecca whoops almost in his ear making him jump before she throws an arm around his shoulder. "See? Never doubt a good salt and burn!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Shaun mutters from his other side. "You were actually being serious about this?"

"No, I regularly joke about exorcising ghosts using a grill," Desmond sighs and feels a bit of tension he's been carrying since the early morning leave, and a new tension take its place almost immediately. "Fuck, my house is so haunted."

"Hm," Shaun adjusts his glasses and turns a speculative gaze on the building. "Let's spill some more coal in here and get the food started. Feel free to chime in with what the bloody hell has been going on here whenever you feel like it, Desmond."

Rebecca starts cracking up around the time her veggie kabobs are done. "Of course, you would get molested by a ghost!"

"What? No!" Desmond protests, and forgets to feel a little disgusted that the food is being cooked on the same coals they'd used to burn the mask. "That's not what happened."

"He's right," Shaun agrees and pulls off a few almost black hotdogs for himself, because Shaun likes the taste of char. "Clearly, if anyone is doing any molesting around here it's Desmond."

"Fuck off, Shaun!"

"What? You're a cuddle whore. Anyone in arms reach of your unconscious arse more than once should know they're putting their virtue on the line," Shaun says with the well-practiced aggrieved tone of one who is so over something. "We all know this Desmond. No shame in admitting it. We accept you as you are, inclinations to sexually molest people in your sleep and all."

"I hate you, why did I save you again?" Desmond asks and pokes uncertainly at the hotdog on his paper plate. The burgers are still sizzling away on the grill. Rebecca's neatly cordoned off by foil wrapped corn on the cob to prevent cross contamination.

"Because you're a moron," Shaun replies with a smirk, and Desmond can't even really fault him for that observation. It had been stupid trying to step into a mugging going worse -because Shaun had been an even mouthier dweeb at sixteen- which had left them both bleeding from split lips. Desmond thinks it's the height of unfairness that he's the only one with a scar from that incident.

"Whatever, your mum adopted me because of my stupidity," Desmond smirks back, because the Hastings had just immigrated -emigrated? Desmond's never been sure of the correct terminology- and the bubbly woman had been impossible not to talk to. Just as impossible to refuse when she made her husband return the single bed they had literally just bought and get a bunk bed instead. He's fairly sure she still has it and calls it their room.

"Mum's always had a soft spot for strays," Shaun dismisses with a flip of his hand that almost loses him his hotdog. "And we're getting side tracked here. You said the two we exorcised were named Cesare and Ezio, right?"

"Yeah," Desmond gets up to check the grill. Rebecca's patties stick a bit and nearly split when he flips them. "The other two are Malik and Connor. And there was an Al too, but I guess I threw him away with the raccoon statue," or exorcised him too. Desmond wonders if he should go back to the park and check to see if the statue burned. He frowns and goes over everything Malik had said the night before. "Mulan? Mualim. Al something like that."

"Sounds like a title," Rebecca offers, her forehead furrowing in thought and finger tapping against her chin. A habit she's picked up from Shaun in their yearlong are-they/aren't-they courtship. The growing tension between them one of the reasons why Desmond had moved his ass out into the first available house that looked decent. They were much more bearable when he wasn't exposed to them constantly. "I could look those names up. See if there's anyone attached to the property."

"Yeah? Thanks," Desmond says with relief. It's more than a little freaky to have a house that's haunted, but so far things haven't been so bad for him. He'd like to keep it that way if possible.

"Uh," Desmond scrapes the grill a little and frowns. "Are the veggie patties supposed to curl like this?"

Desmond wears slightly dusty jeans to bed that night, and, despite everything, he drops off almost immediately. Exhausted from his early wake up call.

He wakes up to low laughter in his ear, "Cuddle whore? I think I can see what your brother means, Desmond."

The room is dark, because the moon is nearly nonexistent. Desmond spends too much time squinting into the darkness before he realizes what he is looking for is wrapped up tight in his arms. A nicely built body with a cool temperature he notices as more of his brain comes back online. A nose brushes against his forehead and Desmond startles back a bit. His arms loosening and face heating up a bit. "Uh, fuck, sorry?"

"Hm, think nothing of it, it is merely human nature," the mattress shifts and Desmond gets a vague outline of Malik beside him. Can see him by his solid darkness more than anything. "Though I will admit I am rather surprised at how calmly you take all of this."

Desmond has never been the kind of guy to get caught up in things. Worrying about things he can't really change has always seemed like a waste of time.

"Previous experience, kinda," Desmond shivers a little. He and Shaun had only come into the tail end of that with Rebecca and Lucy. Strangers at the time, who had been very desperately trying to move out of a rented house as fast as humanly possible. Desmond still can't quite make himself drive near the side of town they'd lived in, and he'd only gotten a few days of whatever the fuck that had been. Lucy and Rebecca had tried to tough it out for a year. No wonder she'd been so reluctant to come by when he called earlier. "It was bad. This, you aren't anything like that was. Not even close."

"Only because you listened," Malik says and this laugh is sharp and devoid of humor. "I don't think you appreciate how very many lives have been ruined by coming here. Even with all of the seals and exorcisms over time, what haunts this place is something very dark."

"Tell me," Desmond asks because he's a bartender, because he spent a good portion of his life learning to read people and their intentions at a glance. If he'd thought Malik meant him any harm, drugged or not, Desmond wouldn't have fallen asleep with him in the room.

Malik is quiet for a moment and then he slides down on the bed. A little further away from Desmond though one hand shifts enough to press against his side once before pulling back.

"I do not remember his name though he was a man I looked up to and respected," Malik's voice is low but takes on a cadence that rises and falls like he's reciting some epic story. "We all did to a degree. He was wise and could convince anyone of anything within a few minutes. We called him Al Mualim, for he was our teacher and our guide through life."

Mualim, Mualim. Desmond repeats the word so he will remember it in the morning.

"He could turn water into wine that would heal even the deepest of cuts. Wild animals would come at his summons. Showy parlor tricks, and the very least of his abilities. Nothing was impossible or beyond his reach, and we flocked to him to learn. For years we learned and grew in our own power. Becoming confident and legends in our own right. And then," Malik sighs and the sound seems to echo in the room, magnified or echoed in its sorrow. "And then we started to die. One by one. So gradually and seemingly naturally or from a true accident that most of us were gone before one of us figured out it was unnatural."

"Who?" Desmond prompts when Malik goes silent for a beat too long.

"Al Mualim's prized pupil, a good friend of mine," Malik's voice is soft with grief and pain. "Altair was always paranoid, and his inability to accept one answer as the only truth is what had made him the best of us. It is also what led him to question the deaths and then our unswerving loyalty to Al Mualim."

"He died," Desmond hazards.

"No, worse," Malik laughs again and now the sound is mocking. "We stripped him of his power and cast him away for his traitorous accusations. Ignored all that he said and trusted in Al Mualim. We are the ones who died. Altair is the only one of us who lived past Al Mualim's depravity."

Desmond is grateful now for the darkness that shrouds the room. He's not sure he could look at Malik with that amount of emotion in his voice. "What did he do then?"

"He killed us, drained us of every bit of power we had, and bound our souls to this realm to use later. The power he gained was unbelievable, and sustained him well beyond any natural life. There was a reason why he was so very old and wise," Malik reaches out again, and this time he leaves two fingers pressed to Desmond's shoulder. A silent reassurance for one of them. "He would have done it again, as many times as he needed to, but Altair came back. Long after we were dead, and with just enough power to end Al Mualim's life."

Desmond frowns and shifts, because Malik had called the ugly ass raccoon Al Mualim as well. "But you said-"

"The old Master had back up plans, yes," Malik cuts him off with an edge of impatience. It's an old story for him, but Desmond's barely keeping up with it. "He became like us, but was stronger than us all still. Altair tried. He truly did, but the power he gained was not enough to destroy Al Mualim. Not immediately, and not before he died himself. It took many years and many different people to get him to the point where you could take him away from this house so very easily," Malik sounds exhausted suddenly, and Desmond wants to know what had to be done. "Al Mualim always relied on the power of others to sustain him, he had very little talent for generating it himself."

"The seal in the basement?" Desmond hazards a guess, because Malik had been very insistent on destroying it.

"Altair put it there to limit how many of us could manifest at once," Malik's hand slides away and Desmond feels a little cold there. Irrationally since Malik's touch is cooler than the air. "It kept Al Mualim in line, and became more beneficial as his power waned."

"What about Ezio and Cesare?"

"The Master's methods were cruel, in life those two could barely stand the other," a bit of darkness waves in the air over them and Desmond feels the passing breeze of a hand making a gesture of some kind. "He made sure to bind them together. It has been a slow downward spiral of rage, even with Al Mualim to contend with they could hardly set their differences aside long enough to oppose him. They used to be reasonable, but it has been years since we were able to talk to one without it descending into violence. That was how he bound and controlled most of us."

"Even you?"

"No, but he had planned to," Malik's words grow slow and hesitant again. "Altair was to be my hated enemy."

Which doesn't make much sense going by what Malik has already told him. "But you said he was a good friend."

"Not always, but at the end of his life? Yes, he was a very good friend despite everything. Al Mualim spun lies the way most men breathe. I, we-" Malik stops and there's utter silence in the room. His sigh is low and filled with pain. "I would rather not talk about this."

"Sorry," Desmond mutters and feels guilty for pressing.

"You knew nothing, you have nothing to apologize for, Desmond," Malik replies with a shake of his head that Desmond feels as vibrations through the bed.

"So, do I need to do anything else?" Desmond asks eventually when the silence grows too long and awkward between them. "Um, release anyone else? Shaun's letting me keep the grill for a bit."

Which has more to do with him wanting Desmond to clean the damn thing than anything else, but he's not likely to do that for at least a week.

"Not just yet," Malik answers and then sits up. The mattress dips and dents under his weight, and he's a solid black column of shadows. "It has been so long I think we are still in shock over how easy being rid of Al Mualim has been in the end. We need time to think."

"Alright," Desmond says but he's talking to what now feels like an empty room. Malik's presence gone in an instant.

Desmond lays still in the bed and thinks about it. Thinks about the things that Malik hinted at and wonders exactly how long ago all this happened.

The washing machine purrs to life and Desmond grins, proud and excited in a way that he knows is going to die fast when he has to actually start doing his laundry regularly. He's getting ready to go back upstairs and start trying to condense the mess of boxes he has when a sigh flows through the basement and raises just about every hair he has up on end.

"Hello?" Desmond calls out, and doesn't get an answer back but he distinctly feels like there's someone there with him. He debates ignoring it, but this will be the first time he's seen one -of how many?- of them in the light of day.

He walks through the basement and isn't surprised to not see anyone or anything out of place until he reaches the unfinished corner with the dirt room. Desmond grimaces and crouches down to see someone laid out on the floor. Head towards the opening and feet propped up on the box. "Um, Connor, right?"

"Yes," the man says with a slight nod of his head though he doesn't actually look at Desmond. His eyes are fixed intently on the ceiling of the room and his hands laced together on his stomach. His hair splays out around him, and Desmond can see a few small braids with beads on them in the mix. He looks Native American, and Desmond didn't actually think this house was actually very old before but now he's wondering. As if hearing his thoughts, Connor says, "This place was razed and built over three separate times."

"Oh, am I going to find Al Mualim's name going that far back?" Desmond eases down so he's sitting on the outside and can still see Connor's face.

"Maybe, or one of ours, I'm not sure what he did to keep the land for himself," Connor says with a shrug that grates his shirt against the ground. "I was one of his last pupils when he came here. One of the others will know more about how he worked."

"How many people are here?" Desmond asks, because that seems pretty important to him now.

"Three," Connor tilts his head back to look at him, and the change in angle shows Desmond a light colored scar along his cheek. "Myself, Malik, and Haytham. We're all that is left, the only ones who survived this long against him."

"I don't want to know what you all have had to do, do I?" Desmond asks and Connor's face is stony in the resulting silence. His eyes dark and bitter in a way that makes Desmond not want to push. "Who's Haytham?"

Desmond has seen Malik and Connor, and seen glimpses of Ezio and Cesare. No one else.

"He's," Connor frowns and turns to look back up at the ceiling, "thinking. He won't speak to anyone until he's done."

"Oh, about moving on?" Desmond asks and feels a little stupid using the term.

"He's not convinced there is anywhere to go to after this," Connor unlaces his fingers and waves around the dirt room.

"I think an argument could be made that your existence means there is, but what the hell do I know?" Desmond shrugs and looks around the rest of the basement a bit. "What about you?"

"I'm ready to find out for myself," Connor sits up easily and pulls one leg up to his chest. He keeps his head turned up though, and Desmond realizes he's fixed on one point in the ceiling. When he speaks it's as much to that point as Desmond. "There's no point in thinking myself into circles and being afraid of what might or might not be. My natural life ended long ago, it's past time I allow myself to go to where I should be."

Desmond follows Connor's gaze up to the ceiling and waits, but there's no answer. Not one that he can hear at least. Connor lets out a derisive snort though and is gone. Desmond looks at the nearly empty dirt room and the ceiling. "I'm going to need therapy when this is over with aren't I?"

Lucy looks guilty when he meets her at some artsy coffee shop that she's very familiar with. Desmond gets the simplest looking thing and lets her go on about finding him a job with more stability than bartending for a while. Just to get the nervous energy in her some outlet and to allow her to mother him a bit. For all that she swears she's not ready to settle down, she needs to worry and take care of people a lot.

"You know it's fine, right?" Desmond says into a lull when she seems to be searching for something else to worry about.

"No, it's not," Lucy doesn't bother trying to play stupid and her shoulders tense a little as the guilty look grows. "After what you and Shaun did-"

"No!" Desmond shoves a finger in her face and she scrunches her nose up as she tries to bat his hand away, but she doesn't actually flinch away from him. Not anymore. "None of that. Shame on you!"

"Are you quoting-?"

"I knew it! You do watch-"

"I do not!" Lucy hits his hand hard enough for a sharp snap of pain to go up his arm and glares at him. "You can prove nothing, and I swear if you let one word slip to Rebecca I will hurt you."

Desmond grins and settles back in his chair. She's lost that pinched and guilty look at least, which was what he'd been aiming for. "Seriously, it's fine. You don't need to feel bad about not wanting to be around my house. I get it, Shaun gets it, Rebecca's crazy."

Lucy's hand drifts down to rest lightly on her abdomen. Fingers pressing around what he knows to be a badass scar, and the real reason why neither of them can go down the street her old place is still standing on. "If anyone's got a reason to stay the fuck away it's you."

"It's not the same though, it's not-" Lucy balls up one of her napkins and shakes her head sharply. "So, Rebecca didn't find much. The house was never occupied long, there's a lot of reports of possible break-ins with no evidence they actually happened. That's as far as she got using the internet."

"So what's that?" Desmond points at the folder she placed on the table earlier. It's a little on the thick side.

"The old fashioned paper trail," she flips it open and there's a nice pile of paper with a lot of tiny ass print on it. "Land deeds, geology, cult rumors that got covered up really fast. Standard stuff for hauntings I guess."

"Standard stuff for this fucking town," Desmond wonders sometimes about the history of the place. More so after the thing with Lucy and Rebecca, and now his own house.

"Desmond, if you need anything," Lucy starts then stops and she's back to looking guilty, but that look fades and there's some determination on her face. "I know it's not looking bad, yet, but if it does. If things start getting bad, I'll be there for you."

"I know," Desmond says and finishes off his now cool coffee. "Never doubted that at all, Luce."

Desmond doesn't go home. He takes his bike out for a ride. Going through back roads and winding ways that are all gravel and dirt. Pushing the speed when he can, and when he knows there's no speed traps. Pulling over only once he's in the middle of nowhere.

It's some back field area where the trees are thick and give him shade to sit down and pull out the papers Rebecca and Lucy got him.

The house has passed through a lot of hands over the years. No one lasting more than a year. Even the original owner who'd had the place constructed didn't live there for over seven months when work was done. There's mention of a barn being torn down to make way for the house.

The paperwork goes to the farm then, and that's more stable. Though there's no mention of cattle being raised on the property at all. Apparently it was a family place, a group named Ahad. Handed down a long line until the last one died. It doesn't take a genius for Desmond to find the fault in that quickly. Each successful male Ahad has the same signature. Different names but the letters share the same flowing hand. Desmond pulls up the paperwork for the house he now lives in and matches the signature there too.

Altair flows across the first deed for the land. An undeveloped area from the mid-1700s that's so worn and faded Desmond can only make out the lettering by guesswork. Desmond wonders if the land was bought before Altair's split from the group.

There's a stack of newspaper articles from the early 1800s, and a few from even earlier. Though those look like they were printed in different states. The details are vague, but the implications tell of something big. Something that had made people afraid, and was swept under the carpet fast. Newer stories tell of rumors that are far more detailed, though Desmond has to wonder how accurate they are given they treat the stories as myths.

Magic, human sacrifice, a split in the cult. The members turning on each other in increasingly horrific ways the closer to the present the newspaper stories get. One detail always remains the same. The cult did not start to fall apart until one member killed the younger brother of another in exchange for power.

The police reports are vague and unhelpful except to let him know that people heard glass breaking all the time, and cops suspected local teen vandals. There's one that ends with an ambulance being called, and a note in Rebecca's hand saying the elderly woman died later of complications in the early 1940's. No facts but speculation on a possible heart condition.

It's slim on detail, but it paints a picture that's in line with what Malik has told him and Desmond feels relieved at that. He trusts the man, the ghost apparently, and this just confirms he's been right so far to go with his instincts. Which is good, because he really wants to believe Malik. Which might be a slight problem for him.

Desmond knows he's got a soft spot in his heart for people in trouble. One that gets him mixed up in things he really shouldn't be mixed up in at all. It's how he got with Lucy, their entire relationship evolved out of her problems, and that had ended so terribly for them both.

He knows himself and his tendencies too well to lie about why he's doing any of this. Malik is an attractive man who needs help. The fact that he smells nice and feels really good pressed against Desmond's body is just an extra bit of 'Fuck you' from Cupid.

It complicates something that he thinks should be a very easy thing to solve. Desmond lays back on the grass, folder tucked under a leg, and stares up at the sky for a good while.

There's an older man sitting on his couch when Desmond gets home, and Desmond wonders if he should dive back out the door for the split second it takes him to see Connor lurking in the open kitchen doorway. "Hey."

He sets his helmet down on the table next to the door and hangs up his jacket and bag on the hooks set in the wall above it. The man waits patiently, saying nothing, and Connor seems to be not paying either of them any attention. Desmond would call it sulking but his face is too blank for that.

"Haytham, right?" Desmond drops into the recliner he had to use blackmail on Shaun to take despite the fact Desmond bought it in the first place.

"Yes," there's a crisp accent to Haytham's words that is both like and unlike the one Shaun still carries. He shifts slightly on the couch and crosses his arms over his chest as he gives Desmond a stare that reminds him of his own father. "The boy," there's an indistinct noise from the kitchen and Desmond starts feeling uncomfortably reminded of his dad, "has a point. It has been known to happen on occasion."

Connor's scoff is loud and clear, the mutters less so. To Desmond at least. Haytham's lips curl slightly on the side furthest away from being noticed by Connor.

"Taking the time to think things through is never amiss," Haytham continues. Loud and very pointed. "But, yes, I would like for you to send us off, Desmond."

"Um, ok," and Desmond isn't looking forward to this, because he's pretty sure he knows where they've been hidden. "The fire again?"

"Well, yes, I assume so seeing as how that is what worked the last time," Desmond finds himself pinned by a scathing gaze, and it must be a British thing. The way they can put so much scorn into sound just by raising one eyebrow and their voices a little. "Unless you have some idea on how to be rid of us with water and prayer? No? Pity, it would have been entertaining to see that attempted one last time."

He wonders how often a priest has been brought onto the property, and grimaces over at Connor who's glaring in through the door now. "Right, ok, I'll just get a hammer. Or something."

A disintegrating bag eventually drops out of the ceiling after Desmond spends almost an hour working at the packed dirt. His arms burn from the effort of swinging a hammer at the height needed to break up the dirt. He coughs and tries to unsuccessfully wipe dirt off his face as he grabs it. Leaving the hammer he'd been using behind as he hauls the whole thing outside.

There's an old fashioned hat with a feather in the bag. The hat has holes in it and crumbles a little under his touch. The feather has faded designs on it in blue that don't go with the hat at all, and is tied to it with a familiar cord.

Desmond doesn't bother with the coal this time. He just nestles it in a pile of paper, scatters a few handfuls of salt over it, and throws a few matches in. The paper catches easily and within minutes the hat starts to smoke. He's prepared for the loud crack this time, and the blaze is every bit as bright. The after image of Connor and Haytham sear into the lids of his eyes for a split second before it's over.

And then, there was one, Desmond thinks to himself and tries not to look up at the silent house behind him.

The water of the shower is perfect against his back which has tightened up and Desmond rubs at some stubborn areas as he gets out and pulls on some sweats. He's tired as fuck now, even though it's not even ten.

He hasn't seen Malik at all, and the house feels almost unbearably empty for some reason that's probably all in his head. He doesn't think about it at all as he rolls into his bed, and falls asleep instantly.

The room is light when he opens his eyes again, and Desmond admires the rays of sunlight creeping in fuzzily for a moment before taking note of the cool hands resting on his back and right arm. "You're not attached to my bed somehow, are you?"

Malik chuckles and Desmond feels it from where his face is pressed quite comfortably to his chest. Their legs are tangled together under the sheets, and Desmond aches at the thought of having to move away from this. It's the kind of intimacy that he hasn't had a chance at in a long while. Not since things with Lucy had cooled to their present friendship at least.

"The bed? No," the hand on Desmond's back moves in a way that brings more of his mind to wakefulness. "Perhaps I am merely trying to see this fabled cuddle whoring of yours in action."

"Um," Desmond tenses his arms which are wrapped rather firmly around Malik's broad chest. The fingers of one hand curved over Malik's shoulder tightly in a way that all but screams 'clingy'. "I think you've seen it already. A few times."

"Tch!" The noise is a sharp exhalation that stirs the hairs on the top of his head. "You are unusually tactile when mostly asleep, yes, but there's a distinct lack of whorishness to it so far. I'm rather disappointed actually."

There's a lightness to Malik's voice that makes Desmond smile a little, because that is definitely flirting. The closeness and touching hadn't been unsubtle enough before now for Desmond to be sure. "I don't know, maybe it's your ghostly status that's kept me in check. There even enough of you here to be whorish with?"

The hand on his back moves up and Desmond's head is being angled up so he can meet Malik's eyes. They're a dark brown that's almost black even in the light of day. The details of his face are clearer now but Desmond's more focused on how very close the man's lips are to his own as he smirks. "Trust me, there's more than enough."

"Yeah? You done this before then?" Desmond pushes because the last thing he wants is something freaky happening. More freaky than getting it on with a dead man.

"Yes," Malik's other hand traces the scar on his lips and his eyes go distant like he's not seeing Desmond anymore. "A long time ago."

"Do me a favor, then," Desmond opens his mouth and bites at the finger that doesn't retreat fast enough. "Don't tell me about it."

Malik, thankfully, doesn't say anything at all. Not in whole words at least.

"Asshole," Rebecca says the minute she opens the door and lets him into the apartment she now officially shares with Shaun.

"What'd I do now?" Desmond asks as he kicks his boots off and into the cardboard box next to the door. He can hear Lucy laughing somewhere in the apartment.

"As if you don't know," Rebecca jabs her thumb into the side of his neck and Desmond flinches back from the pointy digit. "Call me the next time you go out to the bar to get laid. Your tastes can be disastrous if not approved by a peer. You know that."

Desmond blinks at her back as she heads to the kitchen and moves to follow. Stopping at the mirror on the wall and tilting his neck to check. There's a quarter sized bruise low on his neck where she'd jabbed him. Too high to properly hide with any shirt he owns, and the faintest impression of teeth marks on the top edge of the hickey.

He smirks at it and wonders if ghosts bruise.

The relator has become a familiar face over the years. This house somehow always ends back in her hands when the owners inevitably flee. Watching her come in to assess the damage and make the place presentable for the next buyer has become routine. Though it looks like this may be the last time Malik sees her.

Stacy leans against the counter in the kitchen and wheezes. The last quick cleaning before showing the place off has taken its toll on her aging body. It is more than just the lingering sickness that darkens her spirit too. Its age creeping in and slowing her down.

There's a sound from outside and Malik watches Stacy straighten up. Forcing her breathing to even out before going to the door with a broad smile that isn't faked no matter how many times she sells this house. Malik leans in the kitchen doorway and waits to see who will be the next part of this play.

Voices rise out of sight and there's a familiar accent he doesn't hear often from anyone but Haytham. English then. The man might be pleased by that.

"-will be here soon," a red haired man says as he walks into sight with Stacy beside him. He adjusts his glasses and looks around with a dubious expression, eyes critical. The man seems to test each step before he puts his weight down fully, and he's looking around nervously.

Sensitive then to things he probably has no idea are there. Malik sighs and already knows this man won't be buying the place. As much as they could use someone with those senses, they're often too smart to stick around a place with this much energy and free floating spirits.

Al Mualim stirs for the first time in months. His power stretching out and testing the cage that's still wrapped tightly around him at the sensation of this man's power being so close. Malik closes his eyes and grits his teeth against the pain of him trying to tear free. To reach out and grab the power that is not his.

From somewhere above, Cesare shouts in pain. The strain of keeping Al Mualim bound hardest, as ever, on the one who was the last to weave his own power into the cage. The man hears some of it and whips his head up. "What was that?"

"There's an old tree beside the house," Stacy laughs because she's not sensitive at all and there's never been any point in letting her in on the fact they are there. "The branches have grown a bit long and need to be trimmed. A good wind brushes them up against the house. Makes you jump, doesn't it? Will you be moving in with your brother if he decides on this house?"

"No, lord no," the man shakes his head but his eyes are almost fixed on the ceiling now. "Anyway, he's not actually my-"

There's a loud rumble from outside that Malik places immediately. One of the previous owners had tried to turn the place into a shop for motorcycles. Stacy brightens and bustles out leaving the man alone. Malik watches him move around a bit through the struggle of keeping the cage shut. It's strenuous, and he knows he -all of them, really- is going to be drained for days afterwards, but it's necessary. Al Mualim is weakened enough he'll attack anyone, and they need people to stay. People to move things and help push this whole charade a little further to its inevitable conclusion.

Just a little more, just a few more years.

"Right, creepy place," the man mutters and his eyes are still restless. He peers into the kitchen but doesn't seem to see or sense Malik at all. Though he doesn't enter, turning back instead as boots hit the floor and another voice is heard greeting Stacy.

"Shaun!" This voice is clear and unaccented and rings through the house like a bell. Sudden and bright and echoing.

Malik gasps as Al Mualim recoils from it. The cage shudders and stabilizes without the old man pushing against it. Malik staggers from the abrupt cessation and slides down the wall a little. He can hear a sound rise up from the basement, faint and puzzled. Connor or Ezio, it doesn't matter. They're all left reeling a little from it.

"-came from below," the red haired man, Shaun apparently, is saying when Malik blinks back to awareness from the sudden whiplash. "This place isn't haunted, is it?"

Stacy's laugh is loud with just the faintest edge to it. "Oh, don't be ridiculous! A haunted house?"

"I'm bloody well serious," Shaun crosses his arms over his chest and frowns at Stacy's mirth. "Had enough of that to last me a lifetime, thanks. Don't know why you people don't warn for it. There's things that can be done before moving in that'd help in the long run and not lead to people being hospitalized."

"I'm sorry?" Stacy says, uneasy, but smile still in place.

"It's nothing," the other man says and steps past them both into the kitchen, and for a moment Malik wonders if Al Mualim hasn't gotten through the cage after all. If this isn't one of his illusions sent out to try and weaken them all.

It's not, and Malik gapes at the image before him. "Altair," Malik would be on his knees in shock if he weren't already on the floor as a man he saw die and leave this realm steps in.

"This doesn't look bad at all," Altair says as he looks around. Eyes skimming right over Malik and zeroing in on the window over the sink. He hunches over and looks out of it, a smile curling familiar lips up in a way that is not familiar at all. "You said the last people just redid the kitchen right?"

Stacy immediately launches into a well-practiced spiel and the man responds with smiles and laughter. He's the spitting image of Altair, but the easy way he deals with Stacy couldn't be further from the man Malik knew. Pleasant niceties had never been something he indulged in.

"Yes, but what about the water heater?" Shaun butts in and Stacy is more than happy to show the two men down into the basement.

Malik doesn't follow, and the lack of direct line of sight on the man breaks the shock. Allows him to think logically and he scowls at that. He closes his eyes and reaches out to the three living signatures below him like he should have from the beginning. Stacy is familiar and he tunes her out. Shaun is dismissed as well. It's the third aura he concentrates on and Malik is unsurprised at the familiar gold that furls out from him. The lingering traces of a bloodline that started with a man who had once been the best of them all.

Altair had taken a wife in his later lifetime. Had fathered two sons by her. Malik had not seen any of them. For the best, perhaps, as not even a year ago Al Mualim would have jumped at the chance to have one of the man's descendants in his control. He would have been more than powerful enough to do it too.

As it is, the man stills in his cage. A touch of uncertainty clouding the air around him.

"Malik?" Ezio speaks and when he opens his eyes the younger man is crouching before him. There's a thin thread of sanity in his eyes that hasn't been there in decades. "Is this it?"

There's an aching thread of hope in his voice that pulls at Malik. It reminds him of the first decades of Ezio's death when the rage and hatred weren't as strong. When he spoke longingly of his family. Of his little brother who would want to hear all about the birds he has seen.

"Yes, I think so," Malik says and a brilliant smile lights the man's face up. Malik hopes he's right.