Author's Summary: House of Swords is a FNAF fanfic strongly influenced by HP Lovecraft, particularly Shadow over Innsmouth, and Dishonored. Expect dark themes, creepy magic and demonic entities. AU, contains OCs, no sexual content but there may be some minor fluff and pairings. Starts slow but snowballs later on.

Genre: Dark fantasy

Rating: M, for gruesome violence, disturbing themes and a lot of swearing.

Author's Note: I originally started this for NaNoWriMo 2015 and it's grown into a very different and vicious beast since. I also do a lot of concept art for this story which you can see on my Deviantart or Tumblr, and the final, fully edited story will be illustrated. I hope you like it! I'd love to hear what you think.

It was a minute to midnight on a Thursday evening, but time meant nothing to mechanical hearts.

They loomed from the dark, unseeing, unfeeling, false smiles branded onto faces that glinted in all the cracks and gaps. They cared not for the little kingdom which lay at their feet, nor for the brightly coloured balloons, the streamers, or the tables bedecked in hats and folded napkins. Instruments hung from limp hands, forgotten. There were no children to sing for, now, and that was all they were meant to do.

But in the silence they found new purpose. As the clock struck midnight, the summoning hour, and the shadows began to shift in impossible ways in the moonlight, those darkest of all crept towards the figures on the stage. They shivered as it trickled like ink from their joints, from their jaws, from those gaps in their masks where machinery clacked and chattered. Plastic eyes snapped open and stared up the shadow hanging over them, at the claws that reached out to run over their faces.

He always came back. He always came here to free them. And as the talons took hold of the bolts nailed through their feet into the stage and tore them loose, they knew their true purpose.

It was time to hunt.

PROLOGUE

WHAT WE DO WITH RULEBREAKERS

'I'm still here.

I'm still waiting.

And I will take back what you stole from me.'

Jones bolted from a dreamless stupor and into the desk, knocking his hip flask to the floor with a clatter. He clutched at a work shirt stretched too tight over his belly, as if to make certain that his heart was still there, that it hadn't been carried off bleeding in the claws of a night terror—that he was, in fact, alive. It beat a staccato beneath his palms.

What the hell—was that a voice? He waited and listened with pricked ears and bated breath, but no answer made itself known. It was nothing, just imagined words conjured by a weary mind... he needed another drink.

Pain exploded in his knees where he smashed them against the drawers as he bent to retrieve the flask, cleverly disguised as a wallet, and drained it of its last mouthful. He considered the dark circle spreading across the carpet with distaste. Damn, he smuggled that in right under Nye's nose, and a sharp nose it was; there was no way he would miss the stench. Rats scrambled for cover as he heaved the desk and all its contents ever so slightly to the right to conceal the evidence, a temporary fix at best. Huffing and puffing and smearing the last of the sleep from bleary eyes, he peered over the jumble of monitors, out through the service window that overlooked the pizzeria's foyer. He found only crumpled scraps of paper chasing each other around the tiles in the breeze.

Something banged in the kitchen. There were always noises in the pizzeria after hours; even now he could hear the creak of walls swelling in the heat, the knocks and bangs and tippity-tip-taps of what he could only assume were pipes and adventurous rats. Doors would slam on their own, even on calm nights. But this was too loud and too sudden to be a rat.

Seating himself once more with a creak of plastic and straining buttons, he clicked through the camera feeds, raisin eyes screwed up tighter still against the glare. Nye only left his little nest in the manager's office when he needed to tell him off and the animatronic band members weren't going hunting for snacks any time soon; the technician bolted them to the stage every evening after closing for reasons he had never cared to ask. He knew better than to poke his nose where it didn't belong.

No one asked questions at Freddy's.

Cameras 6A and B, which overlooked the two doors into the kitchen, were both clear of unwanted visitors, though not of mess. There were pans scattered across the floor. Either the new kitchen hand had stacked things too high again or someone just passed through. His gut, warm with whiskey, told him it was the latter.

Camera 2B, clear, camera 2A, clear, camera 1C...

The mascots perched high on the show stage cast their gaze, their stick figure shadows, over the tables below. They were thick, ungainly things, clutching with sausage fingers at instruments three sizes too small, but their eyes were gleaming and alive and most certainly watching him. The way those gap-toothed maws leered up at him through the cameras every night sent chillflesh shivers scuttling under his skin.

But tonight there were only two shadows, two pairs of plastic eyes. A conspicuous space yawned on the right of the stage where the third ought to be.

His fingers were clumsy on the office phone as he dialled extension four. With his sleeve, he swiped at pools of sweat that had gathered in the pocks of his forehead. The result was little more than a film of grease but it kept his free hand from drumming on the desk.

"Hello... oh, hello?"

"It's gone," Jones gasped into the receiver, "just gone!"

"I... what? Jones, is that you?"

"T—the duck animatronic, I think someone broke in and stole it!"

The silence was palpable as Nye absorbed this unwelcome news. Even over the line, Jones could hear his frown, the pursing of his lips. "She's a chicken," he said at last.

Really? Was that all that concerned him? "I don't care what 'she' is! We need to do something before—"

"She wasn't stolen, either," said Nye, with the sort of forced patience a teacher might use to explain something to a misbehaving child, "do you think someone could move a half ton robot that quickly?"

"It can't just get up and walk off on its own!"

"Heh." Was that a laugh, or a sigh? "Okay, here's what I want you to do. Get up and go to the door—but stay on the line—then bolt it closed. The automated door bars you were asking me about the other night? Use them."

"But—"

"Then you need to sit yourself down at that computer, find Chica on the cameras and keep an eye on her. I'm coming over, I'll explain everything. But you have to stay on the phone and tell me exactly where she is if you want to get through this, all right?"

"I..."

"Jones?"

He hung up.

Well, he figured that a desk dwelling hermit like Nye would be eccentric, but this? This? Was this some kind of joke? No... the night manager was completely out of his tree.

A plate smashed in the kitchen and he made his decision. Easing himself from his chair and onto unsteady feet, he reached for his tactical flashlight where it lay upon the desk. Its weight felt good in his hand—strong, American made, nice and heavy. He left the twig of a baton he was issued with on the desk where it belonged and padded to the door, ears sharp, eyes darting to every shadow. It was only a short walk up the corridor; he could hear pots and pans clanging together even from here. As he crept closer to the steel door its porthole, like a single round eye, fixed him with a solemn gaze.

It was buckled and hanging from its hinges.

He tripped and windmilled on his heels at a flash of movement in the dark, knocking a wheeze from his chest when his back hit the wall. His hands fumbled on the handle of his flashlight. "S—stop! Stay back!" But it was nothing more than the stray lid of a saucepan rolling towards him on its rim, flashing in the beam as it wobbled, tipped, then clattered flat onto the tiles with a clash like cymbals.

The rattling in the kitchen stopped; hiding, he guessed, now that he lacked the element of surprise. He cursed himself for jumping at shadows and nudged open what was left of the door, waiting with held breath for an attack, for the scuffle of feet. Only when he had counted to ten without incident did he edge his way into the space beyond.

In this windowless room there was no light, no sound, save for his own. The absence of the usual creaks and groans felt unnatural, like the shadows themselves held their breath, watching, waiting, and in spite of himself he felt goosebumps rippling under his arm hair. His circle of light danced over stainless steel countertops and scattered cookware. The odour of vinegar and sour milk seared at his nostrils, mixed in with something... wet, and coppery? He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I—is someone there?" He called, flicking the light this way and that, taking in the sauce splattered from a dozen broken bottles, the discarded cutlery, the thick red smear along the nearest counter. Chef Hughes would be livid when he found the mess in the morning.

Something crunched underfoot. Lifting one shoe, he saw that it was a rat, half of one, its forequarters bitten clean off. Tatters of muscle and viscera clung to the sole. The work of an alligator? No... something worse.

Eyes bored into his back, burning wherever they touched. So, so much worse.

'You took him away from me.'

A whisper, dead like the rustle of dry leaves, like the snap of the bones beneath his boots. Hot breath fanned over him, reeking of decay, of that sickly copper smell that lingered on the countertops.

Blood.

He spun on his heel and his light caught a towering figure, as wide as it was tall, and a flash of yellow felt matted with grime. He only glimpsed its eyes for a moment, but they were hollow, soulless.

In them he saw a promise of death.

His feet scrabbled for purchase on tiles slick with guts and spilt water until his shoulder hit steel. Pain blossomed beneath the skin. Behind him, where he stood a split second before, the thing barrelled into the counter and sent its contents cascading to the floor. It turned on him, nightmare teeth gnashing behind its beak, each a razor slicked with crimson.

"H—hey ki—ki—SKR—kids! SCKRK—K—K."

Wasn't the door broken? His panicked mind reeled—someone tried to lock him in here! Gritting his teeth, he slammed the warped metal once, twice more, throwing everything he had into each blow. Finally it swung free of its frame and he tumbled into the corridor. He didn't stop, he didn't think; he was scrambling for the exit before he even had time to breathe. Another shadow stepped out into the archway that separated him from the front entrance, blocking his main route of escape. Turning, he found a third behind him, crouching in the hallway that led outside to the service alley. It was a trap right from the start.

Back to the wall, he slid along its length, eyes never leaving those monsters in the dark. Something clattered to his right and the animatronic fox lurched out of the door that led to the manager's office, papers crumpling underfoot, its jaws snapping open and closed. It leered at him with bright pinprick eyes and fangs that flashed gold in the torchlight. As if in slow motion he saw its knees bend, its heels rise, the inner workings of its legs coil and spring. He saw its mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole.

It was going to pounce.

A flurry of movement and thundering feet told him the rest were closing in. But they were too late, now; the office was at his back, a step away from relative safety.

His nails scrabbled against the closed door.

No, no no no! The light was on in the window; he remembered flicking it off when he went to investigate the noises in the kitchen. With all the animatronics accounted for, there was only one person who could be in there.

"Nye! For god's sake, open the damn door! Please!"

Piledriver arms slammed into his back, knocking the breath from his body and the flashlight from his hands. He felt his ribs splinter and he hit the floor—hard. One arm took the brunt of his weight with a snap and twisted beneath him at the wrong angle, his hand forced around in a direction it was never meant to go. With the other he scrabbled for the light, for anything he could use to protect himself, but as his fingers wrapped around the plastic a clawed foot stomped down and crushed both like an empty soda can. His scream tore from cracked, bleeding lips. A massive hand, each finger as thick as his wrist, clamped around him and wrenched him from the tiles. Light from the window glinted on pointed teeth. Between them, he saw gristle and strands of hair caught in the mechanisms inside.

'Where is he?'

He heard the grating and clicking of mechanical footsteps as the others circled him, felt the air displaced by their bulk, a cruel mockery of the ocean breeze that whispered just beyond the walls. When they spoke, they spoke as one, the words slithering like oil from their teeth, from the holes where their eyes were supposed to be—it stank of rot and death.

'WHERE IS HE?'

"I... I don't kno—"

Its hand tightened around his chest until it crumpled, shredding his lungs with shards of bone and reducing his cries to a gurgle. Droplets of blood flecked the fox's jagged smile. "Y—ye broke the rules l—landlubber, a—an—and do you know wha—what we do with rulebrea—breakers here at F—Freddy's?"

The shutters in the office window clattered down. In the trickle of light that remained, teeth flashed as vast jaws cranked open.