Chapter 7
By the time they arrived to the street in where Ghorm's property stood, the beginning of dawn had started to paint shadows on the slowly coming to life lampposts. The eerie silence that floated through the air made the two women fall silent, dragged into the cooling breeze that seemed to play around them, bringing with it a thick fog that slithered between their feet as they approached the far end of the street in where a mansion stood already half-covered in darkness.
Made of wood, the baroque exterior of the building spoke of a kind of money Emma eyed twice before shuddering. The closed glass windows were rimmed with craved details they couldn't see from this distance and both grasped their badge instinctively as the final sunrays disappeared at the other side of the tall trees that surrounded the place. As the final lampposts titillated back to live Emma glanced as Regina just as the brunette fastened the dark long coat she wore, the purple accents of her blouse peeking as she closed the buttons before ironing invisible creases on her midriff.
"Still thinking on Henry?" She asked, eliciting a small jump from the unexpecting brunette. She wasn't a fool, she could see a shadow of something on her Regina's demeanor and, as it usually happened, she closed her hands at the warm feeling on her fingertips that asked for her to reach for the older woman.
Regina smiled once before expelling the last of the air she had on her lungs, black tresses caressing her cheeks as she rose her chin towards the roof of the house in where, if one narrowed their eyes, the fog seemed to almost create a halo around it.
"I wish I could have send a cable to him." She finally said, biting on her lower lip before moving towards the front fence, the door of it swinging open almost a millimeter before she touched it.
Emma frowned and approached Regina, caressing her back just a moment only for the older woman to shudder at the touch.
"Strange…" The blonde muttered, crossing the fence while already touching her pendant. "Regina?"
The brunette nodded and activated her bracelet, the whirring of wheels and copper reaching Emma's ears as the woman's gauntlet sparkled. Doing the same with hers, the blonde turned on her own bracelet, the one at her hip buzzing as faint energy lines covered her knuckles and upper arm.
"Be careful." Regina muttered, pointing at the faded lines on the muddy entrance at the left of the main door of the mansion that signaled how heavy carriages had been there shortly before them. "We don't have an order, if we…"
"I'm only going to knock." Emma cut her short while raising her other hand, the whirring on her bracelet chiming louder as her fingers touched the wooden door. She could feel her pendant heating up almost instantly but nothing came from the main door nor from the tightly closed doors. "Hello?" She called, raising her voice. At her back Regina sighed and glanced at the upper floors, trying to distinguish something through the darkened glasses. No light or movement, however, broke her stare and so she looked down at Emma just as the blonde extracted a skeleton key from her left pocket.
Eyes widening, Regina closed the distance between Emma and herself and grabbed the contraption in where small wheels awaited for the holding of the key to insert it on peephole.
"What do you think you are doing?" She all but whispered as Emma pointed angrily at the closed door.
"Did you think that they were going to let us enter? If Gold is right they aren't really keen on inviting us there! What do you think could be happening inside?" Running the same hand over her tresses the blonde kept on speaking, not letting Regina interrupt her. "We don't know what's happening, Regina. What if someone else is inside? I don't really want to see another body filled to the brim with ichor. Do you?"
Regina closed her hand even more tightly around the key until the copper that formed the cogs protested on her palm. Emma was right; she knew that. However, the idea of breaking into the house made a part of her itch. They really didn't know a thing of why the murders, of what was happening. Entering into one of Ghorm's properties could very well be the last decision on her careers after all.
Licking her lips, she glanced at Emma's, parted and flushed thanks to the cold that kept on growing due to the fog.
"If you just talked…"
She realized that she truly wanted to speak to Henry and ask him if what he had implicitly said was truly alright for him, whatever that had been. She realized, at the end, that she was simply afraid, afraid of this case in where a part of her, a shadowed part of her, still craved the same drug that had killed those poor kids. Magic, she thought while opening her hand, offering the key to Emma, always came with a price.
The blonde picked the key and nodded at her, the ghost of a caress heating Regina's fingers as Emma turned and picked on the keyhole until the door protested, opening slightly under Emma's grip.
"Shall we?" The green-eyed woman asked, saving the key on her pocket once again. On her face a small smug smirk could be seen and Regina, despite, herself, smiled.
"Shall we." She replied before lighting her bracelet, a small fireball dancing on the middle of her palm as she stepped inside. Emma followed her suit and surpassed her while raising her hand, the crackle on her slightly glowing bracelet illuminating faintly her profile as she peered into the dark room that welcomed them.
From where she was, Regina could see Emma's pendant and how the woman scratched her neck, something bothering the actively searching necklace. She, however, found herself completely surprised by the wooden panels that covered the room with intricated patters weaved into the wood in a similar fashion Reul's office had been.
Books covered the wall at her right, the hall delving into a corridor she wasn't able to see where it led, a chandelier hung from the ceiling, made entirely out of glass and brass accents that shone as they walked below it. There wasn't any copper on the hall, nor the classic Mix beads near an alarm. However, Emma kept on touching her pendant, brows furrowed.
"Regina?" She whispered, pointing at her right in where an opened door awaited them. The brunette nodded, directing the fireball towards the door, unbuttoning her coat while doing so. Nothing, however, expected them except for even more books whose worn out spines glimmered as the fireball illuminated them.
Coming closer, Regina caressed the books with her other hand as Emma went for a circular-shaped table in the middle of the room. The titles of the manuscripts were almost faded due to the many times they had been read but Regina was able to make some of them, the fireball becoming smaller once she pushed the right cog on the Mix receptacle in order to not burn them.
"'History of a stolen kingdom' 'Ink Chronicles'…" She halted, recognizing the name from one of the many books her mother had considered to be almost sacred while she tried to reform the magic laws. Narrowing her eyes and reading quickly several other spines she felt the beginning of a cold ball on the bottom of her stomach, thick tendrils of dread curving on the back of her throat. Something wasn't right. "Emma?"
The blonde's answer was a hum that felt louder on Regina's ears as she turned to stare at her. Emma's bracelet crackled as the blonde extended her arm, the lines around her knuckles disappearing as Emma followed her gaze onto the books with a mirroring frown that turned deeper as she, too, recognized the titles of some of them.
"What the…" She whispered, approaching Regina and picking one of the thicker books made of brown leather that cracked as looked at it. "'Authors and wishes' I thought your mother was the only one who had this book."
"I believed that as well." Regina replied gravely, pointing at the papers on top of the table Emma had been looking at. "Anything there?"
The blonde, still eyeing the book on her hands with revulsion on her features, shook her head. "Notes I couldn't decipher. Perhaps you could take a look at…"
Her voice trailed off as Regina heard a soft clicking sound somewhere a few feet above their heads. Before she could move, however, a sweet scent reached her nostrils and she felt her mind beginning to swim.
Even before her head reached the floor she was already out.
-.-
Emma could feel the taste of dried blood on her mouth by the time she felt a titillating light filtering through her closed eyelids. Her body felt strange, cold and unresponsive as she tried to move and for that she groaned, blinking owlishly while trying to recognize where she was.
What she saw, however, was enough to make her halt.
The wooden panels on the walls around her were now decorated with copper and brass, intricate tubes and flickering lights seeming to almost be pouring to the center of the room in where nothing but those bulbs illuminated the strangely looking cauldron in where a substance as black as tart quietly awaited. Emma frowned, she didn't need her pendant to recognize the substance as author's ink, the oily substance bubbling as she tried to recognize where Regina was, the image of the brunette falling to her knees suddenly filling her mind.
She, however, found herself tied up, a cogs-made contraption closing on her wrists hard enough so her fingers felt numb in a very similar manner the Division usually handled their own prisoners. Her bracelet -she realized- was gone and only the bar on her waist remained, the filaments unresponsive now she didn't have the other part of the machine to command it.
"Regina?" She spoke, her voice hoarse as she blinked away the last remains of numbness she still felt.
"Closer than you think." A male voice answered at her back. Unable to move, Emma could only glance as a shadow circled her, a small, dark haired man looking at her while smiling with her lips tightly closed. He wore brown, unimpressive, clothes creased and stained with ink that jutted out from the plain fabric. From his fingers -equally stained- two bracelets dangled almost mockingly. "Look at your back, Swan."
Emma couldn't but as soon as she tried to look above her right shoulder she realized that what she had mistakenly thought to be some kind of fabric in where she had been put against was, in fact, Regina's back. The brunette was unresponsive and Emma clenched her teeth as she looked again at the newcomer; noticing the golden flicker that dusted the edges of his shirt; Dust.
"Who the hell are you?" The blonde asked, moving her wrists around the contraption only to hiss in pain; the cogs' dented borders dug on her skin mercilessly, not enough to drag blood but enough for her skin to become red as she tried to fight them. The man, at first, didn't answered, merely coming closer to the cauldron in where several of the tubes that run towards the wooden panels of the walls gurgled as they filtered droplets of that ink as it spilled from its container.
The rest of the room came into focus bit by bit; from the stairs that seemed to led to an upper floor at her left to the several other objects that were propped against wooden tables in where a strange mix of gold and black dotted their surface. Several empty boxes in where a familiar logo stood out were precariously put against one of the small blank spaces of the wall, the beads of Dust nowhere to be seen.
"You could call me the Author." The man's voice was measured, controlled, soft even as she finally answered Emma's question while he manipulated a handle that protruded from a mechanic object Emma truly didn't know what it was. The mix of metal and dancing lights shuddered once before starting to tremble at a growing speed as the man turned towards Emma once again just as Regina, at Emma's back, began to move, a groan coming out of her as she did. "I believe you have already heard of me."
Emma blinked; taking into the man's presence. Less than a lunatic, he seemed like a man about to start his shift. His receding hairline and sad eyes were as anodyne as his clothes and only the expensive looking quill that peeked from his breast pocket actually stood out from his figure. Everything else, from his face to his shoes, did nothing but to reinforce that idea.
"It's always the ones that don't look like they are crazy." Emma briefly thought while trying with her handcuffs yet again.
"Emma?" Regina's voice woke Emma from her reverie and she twisted her neck as the man smirked and came closer to them, kneeling just in front of Emma while tilting his head.
"Glad you are already awake Miss Mills. I wouldn't want that you missed what's about to happen."
Emma could feel Regina tensing at her back and she wished to be able to tell her that she had everything under control. Alas, she did not and for that she groaned just as the man stood again, walking towards one of the further boxes and extracting one bead of unadulterated Dust.
"Authors has been extinct since before the Ogre wars." Emma said, raising her voice over the clattering of the clucking machine. The man nodded calmly as he poured the contents of the bead into a small vial. Emma could feel her pendant warming up, almost burning her, as the pure substance fell into the glass.
She wasn't liking what she was seeing in the slightest and she could feel Regina's nervousness coming out of her in waves as she tried -and failed- to do a similar thing she had tried mere minutes before. With growing dread starting to bubble inside of her, the green-eyed woman did her best to put as much weight she could on Regina's back; the only way she had to let her know she was alright.
"They were exterminated." The man answered, turning towards the two of them again with an almost maniac expression on his face. "We thought that the time of magic had reached its end. We stopped believing on them, thinking our machines could do the work."
"However," He continued as he squatted between Emma and Regina, freeing enough so Emma could feel a cold vice grip on her shoulder as the man pushed her towards one of the nearest table. "We didn't see their potential. They were artists, artists obliged to follow the rules. We slaughtered them."
Fastening Emma's still tied hands, the man covered the blonde's fingers with a series of filaments very similar to Regina's bracelet with the exception that they were covered on the same black ink that still gurgled on the cauldron next to her. The inhuman strength of the man disappeared just as the new machine made contact with Emma's exposed skin, the excruciating pain she had felt a few hours before when she had touched the ink of the letter growing only exponentially.
"I'm another type of Author." The man kept on, not glancing twice at Emma as the blonde muffled a cry as she could feel the blistering pain only growing as seconds started to lengthen. "I want to create without a rule, I want to be the artist the first authors were. I can't, however, do that alone."
Emma moved her hands, trying to free herself with growing anxiety as she saw how the man moved towards Regina who bit back a seemingly cold laugh. One that could have fooled others but didn't to Emma.
Afraid, Emma thought, Regina was afraid.
"You are deranged." She heard the brunette say with enough spite to echo on the copper covered room. The pain on Emma's wrists grew, droplets of blood beginning to stain the filaments. Sadly, the man didn't seem impressed on Regina's insult.
"You mother was called crazy as well." He replied with a crooked smile Emma didn't see but could hear on his voice.
"My mother was crazy." Regina replied just as Emma managed to lock her stare with hers.
"I'm here, I'm here."
The author kept on talking as he rose the glass vial above his head, the movement raising his sleeve enough for Emma to see the thousands of scarred writings on his skin. Throwing a quick glance to her still bleeding wrists, Emma choked out a sob, the tendrils of the ink beginning to crawl up her arm, painting lines she was able to feel as the ink ate the skin away.
"She was a genius. It was a pity she was stopped. I was, however, lucky enough to drag the attention of Reul. She helped me start my experiments, the one that would help me achieve the greatness of those who came before us."
Emma could hear the man's voice but she didn't focus on him, unable to see anything else but Regina's increasingly paler face and her own tied hands. The bar on her waist and the necklace burnt her skin as well and the pain was starting to make her want to vomit, wishing for her brain to let her pass out.
"So the Blue Fairy helped you." Emma said, voice trembling, trying to keep the man away from Regina as his arm with the Dust approached worryingly to Regina's face.
"She did." The man spoke, not moving an inch. "I needed Dust so I could perfection the Mix, make it a permanent portal between magic and our own reality. Things didn't work as I thought they would; keeping my experiments trapped here became more difficult when they were full of Dust."
Emma remembered the John Doe, Ashley, the Lost Boy. All of them had been force-fed; Regina had been right and as she realized that she could feel her sight narrowing until only the vial of Dust seemed to exist; far too close to Regina's mouth.
"I think however, that I've come closer this time." The man spoke dangerously calm. "And who else but the daughter of the woman that almost got it done the first time to try it?"
Regina was trembling the second the author forced her to open her mouth, the vial hovering over her mouth as she muffled a scream.
"I told Reul that I could take care of you. I doubt she believed me but you were starting to suspect about her and that I couldn't allow."
Emma fought harder against the cuffs; Regina wasn't fighting, her entire attention focused into the vial that hold the Dust. The copper on the blonde waist felt hotter than ever, burning her as she began to scream, her voice ricocheting on the walls. She was running out of time.
Suddenly, she thought again on the bar. The author hadn't taken it off, believing that without the bracelet they would be helpless. However, the amount of energy that it was needed for the machine that was currently beginning to smoke due to the concentrated ink, worked with copper as well, copper and mix.
It was a dangerous shot, she thought, still screaming. One that if she missed wouldn't let her try it again. However, the second the Dust touched Regina's lips she forgot about her fear and smashed her body against the object, the heat radiating from her hip growing exponentially as the copper filaments around her wrists and which came out from the contraption towards the floor began to heat up.
A crack echoed on the room. Then another. And another as sparks began to appear, burning the air and transforming it into ozone as Emma kept on pushing herself against the machine, the pain climbing just as the author turned, completely surprised to see his machines beginning to smoke.
At his feet, completely gone, Regina stared into the space, eyes glowing purple and gold.
"No! Stop!" The man's voice was muffled by yet another cracking noise as Emma began to feel the copper filaments beginning to give in, droplets of ink falling from her hands, creating black rivulets as the first flames began to grow.
Afterwards, Emma would be able to remember how she had pulled against the grip on her hands until the cables had given up, rushing to the man's side and raising the bar still strapped to her waist until the residual energy on every one of the filaments triggered it, crackling energy seeming to come out of her fingers as the ink still burned her skin. In that very moment, though, she only could focus on Regina as the woman began to close her eyes, the air around her titillating, full with electricity as the author run towards the cauldron, hands first and not seeming to care about the growing flames that began to appear across the wooden panels.
Emma, however, didn't have the same luxury and with fear still on her veins and not caring about her own pain she picked the brunette body and left.
By the time she managed to carry Regina's body out of the room the smoke had already covered it all, the author's scream's echoing as she found the hidden door at the other side of the stairs into the room they had been in until the sweet-scented gas had made them fell asleep. It wasn't until the crossed the threshold than her legs failed her, her knees hitting the floor hard as she gave in with a cry of pain. Regina's unmoving body fell next to hers as the first orange lights began to lick the windows of the first floor inside the house.
Turning towards the brunette and pressing two shaky and bloodied fingers on the woman's neck she checked for any breathing that came labored and slow but still there.
"I can't lose you." The blonde whispered towards the older woman; fearing that at any given moment ichor would start to came from the woman's eyes. Something inside of her cracked as the thought appeared on her mind, tears streaming down her face while doing so.
She was running out of time and she knew it.
"Regina." She pleaded, digging her fingers on the brunette's hair, a flash of electricity she didn't even think about bursting through her veins. "Regina, please."
For a couple of seconds nothing moved but Emma's lips, repeating her plead repeatedly, the flames at her back growing in intensity while doing so. And then, after those excruciating seconds the brunette opened her eyes, purple sparks glazing them for a moment before they disappeared, almost as if they had never been there.
"Re…" Emma started, only to be cut short by the brunette's own lips.
"I think this is not going to look good on our report either."
"Shut up."
