AN: Unsurprisingly, another dark fic by me ^^' Sorry, I just seem to not do happy stuff. None of it mine, all belonging to someone else, mostly Lord Toby.
Watching all his hard work being ground to dust in the space of seconds was the most painful thing he'd ever had to endure. For years he had kept those creatures a secret from the innocent minds of his race, had cleaned up their messes, intimidated witnesses, lied, betrayed and killed. All to keep the secret that humanity was not at the top of the food chain, not even close.
And now they went and did this. On a live television broad cast no less. He wanted to scream and hurl things about but all he did was calmly pick up the phone to give the order to send his men home immediately. Most of them had families and loved ones to get to safety, or as close to safety as one could get now.
It would be a war zone out there within hours, he thought, putting the phone back in its cradle with a well measured movement lest he smash the thing to pieces where it stood. Taking a deep breath he leaned back in his chair, blue eyes slowly closing, hands folded on the desk in front of him. This new state of affairs required some thought. How to proceed? Whose side to take? What to do, what to do….
There had been uneasiness amongst the creatures for some time now. Especially here, in Barry. Their numbers had seemed to first grow, then suddenly diminish again. Unrest among the Undead was never a good sign. It usually meant a change in leadership and a lot more work for him and his men. These creatures seemed to thrive on chaos as much as they thrived on blood.
In the last week there had been a little flurry of type 2 related killings, but not just killings it appeared. The victims seemed to have undergone multiple kinds of torture before being exsanguinated. The carcasses dropped off in remote yet not completely uninhabited areas. It had worried him then, how the creatures had added a whole new level of cruelty to their murders.
Now he knew, now it all made sense, but too late, much too late for him to sweep it under the carpet.
Opening his eyes he got up from his chair and put on his coat with controlled, precise motions. Standing by his desk for a second, mentally going through all the possibilities, he took a simple wooden cross from his top drawer and put it into his coat pocket. He had never been a good Christian but at times like this even he started preying to this unseen and indifferent God for mercy. Mercy he knew humanity would never receive.
Letting his eyes wander over his office once more he silently said farewell to what had been his life for so long it felt like he'd never done anything else. This had not just been any job to him. It had been his calling, his duty and his privilege. He had, with pride, read the files on all the brave men who had come before him. Who had sacrificed everything to keep peace between humanity and the monsters that plagued it since ancient times. All their work, all their sacrifices, had been in vain it seemed.
He closed the door behind himself, the sound echoing through the corridors like the sealing of a tomb. As he walk towards the exit the lights slowly went out, one by one, until only the red emergency lights remained. It made him feel like he was walking the corridors of hell already with the devil snickering just out of sight, ready to grab his sinful soul.
He checked the rooms, one by one, to see if everyone had obeyed his orders. Unsurprisingly some of his men were still at their posts, faces pale and barely controlled but determined. He clasped their arms, thanked them for their loyalty, trying to ignore the tears in some of their eyes as they reluctantly left.
Last of all he went to the archive, dreading the moment he'd have to send home Arthur. Jokingly some of the men had once said that Arthur was as old as the archive itself, that he'd always been here and would still be here when they were all nothing more then dust and bones in unvisited graves. Back then he couldn't stop the sudden vision of overgrown gravestones with all those well known names on them, weathered, unloved, unmourned. It had sent a shiver down his spine, a feeling of foreboding he'd shaken off and dismissed as foolishness.
Stubborn, strong Arthur was still filing away evidence when he reached the archives, just as he'd feared. And just as always the grey haired man greeted his superior with a smile and kind words, joking about the awful weather, offering him a cup of tea. Just as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, just as if the world wasn't about to fall to pieces around them.
He'd tried to be strong, he'd tried to be cold and unemotional but even he couldn't stop the tears brimming in his eyes as he patted the older man on his back, as he said meaningless words of comfort and reassurance both of them knew to be lies.
When they parted ways, the last ones to leave the facility, they made jokes about getting together for tea and biscuits some other time, both knowing they'd most likely never meet again.
With one look at the sealed door the pale man set out to find the type 3s. Humanity would need every help they could get in standing against this army of the damned, even if it meant joining forces with wild beasts.