Disclaimers: All original property is owned by Showcase, and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Lost Girl' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Pairings: Bo/Lauren Set directly after our story "Faeral", the third story in an AU plot line.
Rating: M (Contains scenes of violence, sexuality and nudity)
Faery Tale: Chapter Twenty-Nine
By: The Rainbowwriters
The first thing that Kenzi became aware of, was that she was squatted down with her knees pulled up close to her chest. Her body was in such a tight small ball that she could feel the intense muscular strain burning in her calves and thighs as if she'd been this way for hours. Her arms were wrapped tight around her chest behind her knees, making the compact position even more uncomfortable. As she lifted her face and opened her eyes, she was greeted at first by nothing but darkness. In fact it was so dark, Kenzi squeezed her eyes back shut and then opened them, not once but twice trying to figure out where she could be that was so dark.
The sheer blanket of blackness not only made Kenzi feel disoriented mentally, but it filled her with an edgy chill that lifted goosebumps on her skin. Slowly her blue eyes adjusted, and instantly became aware of a wall of some sort to her left. Her brain slowly began to put together that she was crouched her beside it, clearly hiding from something but no matter how hard she tried to remember she couldn't think of what it would be that she was hiding from.
She put out her hand, instantly recognizing the feel of cardboard under her palm. The tall wall beside her was in fact a stack of boxes and as her eyes adjusted further she could see the criss-cross pattern of the edges, showing the separation from one box to another. As things began to clear more and more, she knew suddenly where she was. She was in fact in the basement of the club house, a thought that gave her the courage to lean forward the few inches necessary to see around the corner into the far side of the room.
Her overstressed legs almost toppled her forward clumsily as her eyes came to rest on the intense darkness again. Though now it was as if the basement simply melted into it, and the infinite universe of black loomed beyond. Hastily she leaned back away from it and Kenzi let her eyes fall back on floor near her feet.
"Bo? Bo?" Almost as if she remembered she had a voice, Kenzi spoke her best friend's name in a tense squeak. Before she peeked out around the box again, almost to confirm to her brain that indeed a looming black hole seemed to have appeared in the basement of the crack shack. Staring into the abyss Kenzi's attention was drawn to what she wanted to assume was a trick of the eye, as black seemed to shift against black somehow. Quickly she again pulled back, swallowing hard as nothing but silence had returned a message to her call. "Bo, are you out there because I'm pretty sure that something is and right now I'm just hoping somehow it's you." Her voice wavered slightly as her finger nails dug into the slightly damp cardboard that she hadn't even realized she'd clutched as she'd been looking around the corner.
"Okay Kenzi." She said to herself, prepping for some sort of action. "You can't just stay here forever, this is the basement, you just need to get to the stairs, and up to the main floor... Bo will be on the main floor." She breathed out and moved her head from one shoulder to the other, somewhat like she had watched fighters do in preparation for big fights, psyching herself up.
Knowing that her sore legs were going to protest, Kenzi double checked the height of the boxes, and then pushed herself up into straight legged stoop, trying to work blood back into them. She bit her tongue as the intense pain of the move almost made her stumble out into the open, but in a short time she was able to crouch more effectively and she turned her body towards the staircase in preparation.
Looking around at the floor, she couldn't see anything that looked remotely helpful. For some reason there were a couple of wigs and one of her favourite corsets scattered off to her left, but nothing other than those and cobwebs broke up the monotony of floorboards.
Somewhere off in the darkness there was a soft thud and a small plume of dust filtered up to dance in the dim light that filtered into the huge room through the tiny boarded up windows. Kenzi realized as she watched the dust and followed the light trail that the small windows were the only reason she could see anything at all.
"Bo?" Kenzi again poked her head out, her instincts instantly telling her that the plume of dust and noise had to be caused by a something or a someone. She knew in all honesty, that while alone and unarmed she didn't want to meet either.
Instead of seeing nothing, or Bo in her most naive hopes, this time from the centre of the abyss, two glowing red eyes looked back at her.
"Oh shit." Kenzi pulled back around her suddenly seeming to be beating a thousand times a minute in against her rib cage. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." She breathed out the curses with each breath. "This is not good."
Ice blue eyes flicked over to the side of the room where she could suddenly make out the bottom step of the flight of stairs that led up to the main floor of the club house, the way out. It looked a mile away in the mostly empty basement, but really it was not more than three or four steps in open territory. Most importantly she had no choice, with nothing to fight with, and apparently no best friend with super powers back up.
Putting her hands up flat against the box in front of her face, Kenzi frowned hard, her mind taken off her predicament for a second as she discovered a large open wound in the middle of the back of her hand. Turning her hand over, Kenzi stared at her palm seeing that the bloody 'hole' that she had seen from the back went clear through her hand. Holding it up towards the light of one of the windows, she realized she could literally see through the wound as if it were a dime shaped window.
"Oh that is so not good." Kenzi whispered staring at her hand as she turned it over and over slowly, her brain stalling a little as to why she had a bloody hole in her hand. Apparently though it was a definite 'wound', it didn't seem to be actively bleeding. She found her other hand moving towards the wound before she really thought about it, knowing she had been going to poke her finger in to confirm the hole went all the way to the other side, she stopped herself short.
"I so need to get out of here." The young woman bent down really low again like a runner at the starting blocks but still she hesitated. Taking a last quick look around to see if there was a spare box that she could perhaps shuffle along with her hiding her tiny body behind it, in a cartoon escape. but once again her quick scan of the area came up with nothing.
"Oh come on," She breathed out and cursed at herself in Russian. "Give a girl some kind of hope." She wiped her non-injured hand on her leg.
As if on cue the door at the top of the basement stairs slowly opened and a bright light shone through it from the other side, as if calling her to the safety of the main floor.
"Okay I can do this." Kenzi focused on the light cast from the top of the stairs down to the bottom one. Then with a hard breath out, she pushed over the tower of boxes she hid behind as a distraction to whatever lurked beyond and ran full hilt to the stairs. Not pausing to look behind her as her feet pushed up off each riser, the seven or eight stairs it should have been to the door grew. Every footfall pushing her higher up the suddenly longer staircase towards the insanely bright light but it was only by the time that she was panting from exertion that she finally reached the top step and threw herself through the doorway.
-x-
Thistle's violent action was not what Bo had prepared herself for. She had talked herself into the idea that this might require some sort of blood letting, be it minor, like a cut on the hand. Done slowly and carefully with much care, so when the Harvester literally impaled the dagger through both Kenzi's hand and her own, Bo had not been ready for the sheer snap craziness of it.
Immediately, watching with her own mouth literally gaping open in shock, Bo gripped Kenzi's hand tighter as she watched as the Harvest begin.
In time with the scream,Thistle's head had snapped back as if she had been struck hard in the face. Her red eyes looked up at the ceiling, unblinking and clearly intensely staring at something that Bo couldn't see above her. The small fae's whole body then tensed and began to pull upwards until she was perched on her tip toes, defying gravity as if tethered to a string from the ceiling of the bar.
Bo took a quick look, her mouth still open, between Trick and Dyson. Both fae eyes were also on Thistle, but their looks did not convey to Bo the same shock that she was feeling.
Her glare moved back to her grandfather, his eyes dipping away almost instantly when they flicked to see her staring at him. Stretching down, not at any time releasing her grip on Kenzi's hand, she flicked her arm out and clipped Dyson in the shoulder with a considerable amount of intent.
"You both should have told me about this." Bo hissed at them, her displeasure obvious as her angry eyes darted from them back to Kenzi. Despite the intensity of the scream, so far her best friend seemed to remain in the peaceful slumber she had started in. For the moment it was the one thing Bo was happy about.
"Knowing wouldn't have made it easier Bo." Dyson shook his head, taking the cheap shot without any physical reaction.
"And the exorcist pose?" Bo glared across to where Thistle hung, and she noticed that on top of the levitation, time itself seemed to have stopped around the Harvester as her hair waved in midair still from the movement backwards of her head. She was about to demand more answers from the two of them, but was instantly stalled when on the table Kenzi's body started to spasm and jump within its bonds. "Kenzi?" She refocused instantly on her best friend. "Hang in there baby, remember you're an amazon." She used the phrase they'd often joked about hoping somehow Kenzi could hear her, knew intrinsically that the succubus would be here with her, no matter how freak show this got.
"Hold her down Bo, this is when things are really going to begin." Dyson's voice sounded oddly ominous and almost scared, as he instructed Bo from his place at Kenzi's feet.
Not having the time to question his instruction, Bo leaned to hold down Kenzi's body with her own, though she didn't let go of her best friend's hand.
-x-
Having finally steeled her nerve and made a run for the doorway, Kenzi found herself stumbling not into the living room but instead she found herself toppling into the Dal. As she landed on her knees, the highly polished wooden floor made her slide forward a few feet before she came to a complete stop. A quick look behind her proved that the darkness hadn't followed her, and she picked herself to momentarily celebrate her escape.
The atmosphere in the bar was energetic and busy, most tables full of fae, of all shapes and sizes. Some much more 'unhuman' then Kenzi ever remembered seeing in the way staion. The expected central buffet, that seemed to appear in the bar every time there was an important Fae holiday, was laden with hot food and other edible treats. It took the young woman a few turns in her place to fully orient herself to where she was. On her fourth rotation, her focus was grabbed by the sound of her best friend's voice across the bar.
"Dyson, hold it straight, it's the only way to roll it." Bo was strangely standing on the bar top, trying to finish twisting a long line of streamer so that it made uniform curls. The wolf was partially leaned against a bar stool holding the other end of the decoration. "She's going to get here and the the bar being ugly will be your fault." She warned him, all of the recent emotion and animosity in the brunette's voice gone in relation to the wolf. In fact Bo looked more relaxed and casual than Kenzi had ever seen her in a long while. Even her outfit of a short navy skirt and bright red sweater that clung to her every curve, was very 'after hours' Bo.
A low laugh came from the wolf's throat as he made a better attempt at holding his end of the streamer. His eyes were bright, his face happy and relaxed as behind him Lauren wandered up, poking her head over his plaid shirt covered shoulder to watch the pair of them for a moment. As she did so she slipped her hand around to rest on his waist briefly.
"You two do know that is upside down don't you?" The blonde stopped watching them to look across more directly at the succubus with a soft smile, she then pointed to a banner the two of them had already hung, "Happy 25th Birthday doesn't read so well inverted."
From her place Kenzi, who didn't even question how she could hear the conversation from so far away. Which considering the level of revelry that seemed to be already going on in her honour, should have struck her immediately, watched the interaction between the three of them with a look of shock.
"Hello?" She called out beginning to start walking towards the bar. "If this is all for me you're not only illiterate but crazy because hello, not my birthday and so not that old." She pointed out making her voice loud and clear to be heard over the other patrons.
"Didn't you know you're the only one of us who is literate." Bo teased Lauren even as she turned to see that indeed Lauren was right. She made no reaction to Kenzi's words.
"The rest of you only develop literacy after several bottom shelf specials from your grandfather." Lauren shook her head, sliding away from Dyson to literally sashay her way closer to Bo, the silver and red cocktail dress she was wearing, accentuating the movement of her slender hips. When reaching her destination she placed a kiss on the brunette's lower leg, the skin there being the only thing she could reach.
"Was that a request to start drinking early?" Trick suddenly popped up rather like a jack in the box from behind the bar with a tray full of shot glasses, each filled with a bright green liquor.
"Okay I know I ruined this crazy surprise but ignoring me won't help the situation." Kenzi laughed as she began to try and make her way across the short distance to reach the bar, but as she took one step forward a body in the crowd came from her left side and knocked her lightly back a few feet. Her next attempt had her just a hairs breath away from putting her hand on the wooden surface, when another two bodies pushed her sideways and before she knew it again she was on the other side of the bar.
"Hey, hey you guys move it." Hale suddenly powered through the front doors of the Dal wearing in a leopard print suit, with no shirt underneath it, just a large chain around his neck, with a platinum and diamond 'ASH' Charm hanging down from it against his bare chest. Accompanying him were four body guards and two 'ladies'. The body guards in black suits with mirror shades, the women in leopard bikinis, with large Afro hair styles. "The 'Z' mobile just pulled into the parking lot, you ain't got the time to hang that disco ball brother."
Kenzi looked back at Dyson who suddenly had an enormous disco ball in his hand. He was standing behind the bar now trying to tie it to the hilt of the Garuda sword, to match one that was hung on the other side already, making the whole thing look so phallic Kenzi's eyebrow quirked in question.
"L'il momma is about to come through that door so the Garuda is just going to hang lopsided." Hale moved right over to the bar and jumped up to sit on it, his guards making an awkward ring around him the girls standing close and stroking his thighs.
"Hey Ash Man! Already here!" Kenzi felt her focus shift as suddenly she was the other side of Hale and the bar by the door, with an oversized martini glass filled with strange green liquid in her hand. It was so heavy in fact that she almost dropped it at first having not been expecting the weight. "Yell surprise, I have a drink already." She grinned brightly and then felt the glass finally drop out of her grip, it simply being too heavy to keep aloft.
About to apologize for dropping the drink, Kenzi looked up to see that Bo was down off the bar top and now snuggled with Dyson on one side of her, the wolf nuzzling her ear and Lauren on the other, the succubus peppering light kisses on Lauren's hand that she had a hold of and kept cupped to her cheek. The odd scene of the three of them was enough to make Kenzi's brain stop, but something else fluttered over Lauren's shoulder that caught the young woman's attention.
Glowing red eyes.
Instantly Kenzi's skin broke out into goose flesh as her whole being filled with a sense of being hunted, or wanted or something. Without hesitation this time she just turned towards the door she knew was just behind her left shoulder and hit it hard mid run in a panicked bid to escape.
-x-
"We have to do something, I think she's choking." Bo could hear the panic in her own voice as she tried to wedge more of her weight down onto Kenzi's body in order to keep it from bouncing out of the bed or out from under the weave. She still had a hard grip on Kenzi's hand but her best friend's entire body was spasming so bad that some of the restrictive bandages had been torn by the friction.
Dyson was the only reason her legs weren't jumping off the table and kicking the weave away and at her head, Trick was using his free hand to put pressure on her forehead to keep her head stationary.
As if the endless seizure wasn't bad enough, Kenzi's eyes had flung open to reveal pure white orbs and a thick yellowy foam had begun to bubble out of her mouth and pool between her lips. The accumulation of enough it on her lips so that a thick line of foam finally spilled down both her cheeks. Which is what had finally driven the succubus into the panic she was now experiencing.
"Just hold her still." Trick's voice was flat, almost distanced, his eyes flicking between Thistle and Kenzi's face. "You can wipe her mouth, but don't do anything more."
"Don't get your hand too close to her mouth when you wipe, she may try to bite you." It was Dyson who made the warning, stopping Bo's arm as she began to lean up to use the sleeve of her robe to wipe the thick sputum away.
"Curse you wolf beast!" A sudden hiss came out of Kenzi's mouth, in Kenzi's voice, but as Bo noted in her subconscious, Kenzi's voice when she tried to do imitate a crazy evil scientist. Her lips were now free of the thick yellow goo that had been forced out over her chin with her words. "I wanted to know what the succubus really tasted like."
Bo cringed and had to forcefully pull back, hating the small victory this seemed to give the ghoul.
"This is normal?" Bo asked for confirmation, holding her body tighter down onto Kenzi's midsection as the small body threatened to try to rise again.
"There is nothing normal in this Bo." Dyson replied his arms locked in place over Kenzi's legs, fighting the strong limbs to keep control of them.
"Where's my master?" Septima made a few chomping motions at the air, trying to dislodge her head enough to bite at Trick's arm.
"Don't worry about her." Bo tried to regain some of her composure.
"Don't address it." Her grandfather snapped as he fought to keep Kenzi's head restrained and Bo instantly kicked herself for forgetting the strict instruction.
"What have you done with my master?" Kenzi's body made a more defined effort to push up, Septima clearly gaining more control over it. "I can smell her, sense her..."
"Keep her down." Trick underlined in a strong voice as he used both of his small forearms to try to press backwards on Kenzi's forehead as the ghoul now fought harder.
"She's not this strong." Bo felt panic flood her again as it became actually difficult to hold Kenzi's upper body down. The arc of her best friend's small form off the mattress, high and oblique, lifting Bo off her feet and into the air. Not able to keep Kenzi down, Bo concentrated on keeping the weave between them and in place. The arm attached to the hand she had in the tightest grip she could manage, was desperately trying to pull itself free of the succubus. Septima's attempts to break the grip almost succeeded as the rest of the bandages around the arm succumbed to the violent movements. The loss of the restrictive pressure of the bandages allowed the young woman's elbow to be bent and almost before Bo knew it her hand was dragged fully under the weave. Her arm almost followed, but she hooked her foot into part of the underside of the bed for leverage and yanked it back to its original position.
"Bo." Dyson's voice tried to make the warning but she had reacted at the same time he'd spoken.
Bo turned her head towards the wolf to acknowledge that she did remember Thistle's warning, only to see his concentration was on her and neither of them immediately noticed that the bandages on Kenzi's right leg had split with her last arch. Before she could even try to warn him back, Bo watched as the loose material made his grip slip and Kenzi's leg kicked up, hitting the wolf square in the face so hard that his body actually flew backwards in a high arch.
"Dyson." Bo felt herself call his name, even as her brain fought to believe how such a short kick from the small brunette could do such damage to the strong wolf. She stretched out as much as their clasped hands would allow and tried to ensure the weave remained over Kenzi's legs.
Her moments of question on ghoul strength was broken as Kenzi's body dropped heavily into the mattress and just began to shake. Head to toe, in a fashion like she was shivering in the cold. Bo could only believe that somehow the ghoul's strike against the mesh had meant backlash for the ghoul and not just an unscheduled flight for Dyson.
As Dyson scrambled to get back to his place, the shivering motion began to have an unexpected side effect as the weave threatened to slip sideways in the middle. Bo apologized to her roommate as she dove up over Kenzi's small midsection and literally pressed the webbing down so that it couldn't move.
"You st..." She found herself beginning to address it and then mentally chastised herself for doing so as she cut off her own words.
"Whore-son. I will kill you all." There was very little traceable Kenzi left in the voice that cursed at Bo and struggled violently against the new pressured contact with the mystical netting. "Harlot... Fornicator..." It growled again pressing its head back as a new tactic to try somehow to get away from Trick's ever present grip across Kenzi's forehead. "Let me go!" The ghoul began to howl. "I have my master to serve, a purpose to fulfil... my master..."
-x-
