Review
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners.
Note: this is a sequel to my story "Money, Money".
Elsewhere, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ
It was America. It was autumn. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still largely overcast and it was cold. The leaves were turning red and yellow, as were the berries of the wild rose (one of the few plants that actually grew here) and it was noticeably cold.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!" a raven, sitting on a pole, emitted a hoarse cry.
"A raven on an oak, crying his grave-hard croak, does bode me no good," Skye quoted some poet that she had forgotten a long time ago.
"Don't be ridiculous, Skye!" Simmons piped up, her voice more high-pitched than the usual. "It is right a bird – right, agent Coulson?"
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
"Let just go inside and take our load with us," the senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent said crossly. "It may be just a bird – but it is a carrion bird, and we do have carrion with us today, of a sort... Let's go, gentlemen and ladies!"
And in they went, followed by the gaze of the raven...
/
"Coulson." Colonel Fury looked even less happy than the last time Coulson had seen him – after the 084 event several weeks ago. "Care to tell me what has happened last time?"
"Yes," Coulson nodded calmly. "We had been lured into a trap by a colonel of the Peruvian national army, no doubt the result of us retrieving and securing the 084 from them the last time. Sadly, vampires had been involved-"
"I know that vampires had been involved!" Fury shouted. "That's why I invited experts from the Watchers' Council here! We do not need another Initiative disaster, either here or abroad! Do you hear me, Coulson?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. Now what did you bring us?" Fury asked, his fury dying down almost spontaneously (making Coulson wonder just how much of it was an act), "and by us I mean mostly Mr. Giles and Ms. Rosenberg over there."
"Hm?" Coulson looked for the first time at the other two people present at the meeting and the only ones who didn't belong to S.H.I.E.L.D. Mr. Giles was a man of about colonel Fury's age or older, a scholar rather than a fighter, but somehow Coulson didn't think that the bespectacled man was soft, either.
Ms. Rosenberg, on the other hand (probably a 'Miss' rather than a 'Mrs', but who knows?) was about the age of Fitz and Simmons, maybe somewhat older, but all the same she had that know-it-all air to her. Interesting. "Right. Well, what we got are remains of a potential giant and honestly, that is all that we know other than the fact that it worked for the vampire...vampires..."
"Indeed?" Mr. Giles spoke up with a noticeable British accent. "How interesting... Willow, I mean – Ms. Rosenberg, can you come over here?"
Willow Rosenberg (was she a former hippy? Judging by her age the former hippies were probably her parents instead) came over to Mr. Giles and the two of them started to stare at the damaged corpse together.
"Right," Mr. Giles spoke up after several minutes, "how big this fellow was in life, when he was, ahem, complete?"
"Agent Ward," Coulson calmly passed on the question to the younger agent.
"I would say, Mr Giles, sir, at least 10 feet tall, and he was very hairy," Ward replied carefully.
"Was he armed?"
"No. Only his fists. But that was almost enough," Ward confessed, shivering slightly. "Holy water didn't affect it, and neither had artificial sunlight."
"You're wrong. It probably did – well, they probably did. It just was not enough. This giant was dead for a while now and returned back to life by necromancy," Mr. Giles looked just as unhappy as colonel Fury was earlier, only less noisy. "This is bothersome."
"You mean magic is real?" Fitz could not help but ask. "Impossible!"
"Mr.-"
"Dr. Fitz," the latter could not help but correct before wilting under his seniors' gazes. "Sorry."
"Dr. Fitz, magic is real, it is as old as the world, which is much older than you think," Mr. Giles said flatly. "If you have ever read the old legends, you would know that the giants belonged to an older world than the one we're living in now, and that most of them are dead by now, also."
"This one was still quite active," Ward said sourly. "Also quite life-like."
Mr. Giles shrugged. "I know. How did it look when it was... whole?"
"Largely as it does know – cave-man-like posture, ape-like head... but he was much more hairy. And he, sorry sir, stank. Very much so."
"I see," Mr. Giles nodded. "This sounds like a barrowe to me."
"A what?"
"Barrowe. This sort of undead giant is called barrowe," Mr. Giles said patiently. "As far as undead go, they are loners, and aren't encountered in groups bigger than 2 or 3."
"The second one drove the truck with the money and the vampire while my agents were fighting this one," Coulson said thoughtfully. "We managed to derail their getaway, but still..."
"This is disturbing. Barrowes, like other of their kind, do not tolerate even other undead, especially if they are smaller and weaker than they are."
"What about a vampire Master?" Skye spoke up for the first time since the team had returned to HQ.
"A vampire Master? Oh dear," Mr. Giles took off his spectacles and began to rub them clean, even though they already were. "Can you tell us some more?"
Skye took a breath and told them.
And outside, the raven kept on watching.
/
"So, Rising-Tide-Girl is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. now?" the nameless flunky (he had a name once, but it had been lost to history a long time ago) asked rhetorically. His unexpected bath did not hurt him any, but the money loss rankled much more so. "I would say that that suck, but not yet." His eyes flashed yellow and his vampire visage briefly seeped through the human one. "It will suck-"
"Shut up," the Master said, carefully watching through a crystal ball what his magical spy was seeing. A raven's ears are relatively keen, but its' eyes are sharper yet, and the Master could read lips, so there was not any problem in following the conversation. "We will drink their blood, yes, but first," he turned to the pale blonde woman that sprouted short antlers of a doe deer, "my Lady, we need to talk."
End