"Where is she?" Edward asks Jacob over the radio. Having finished clearing the upper floors of D-22, he and Emmett move down the narrow stairwell to the subterranean floor. Two dim halos of yellow light bounce before them, illuminating the dingy, stained cinderblock walls of the stairwell as they descend with their weapons up.
"Still in the woods," Jacob says, slightly breathless. "She stopped fighting so I sedated her."
"Did you get any information?" Edward begrudgingly understands Lilim's practice of drugging creatures that stop fighting. Restraints aren't reliable with most supernatural cryptids. Knocking them out is the only immediate way to make sure they don't become a threat. The roll of thunder outside hides his sigh.
"Just that she's here with her cousin."
Emmett glances over his shoulder, his brow in a questioning furrow. Edward has the same question: are the wampus and utlunta related?
"Seen any cannibals?" Jacob asks.
"Yeah. Made it to the parking lot yet?"
"Almost there, I think."
"Careful then," Edward says, his piercing eyes staying forward as he aims his rifle over Emmett's shoulder. "They're in the water."
"What?"
"They..." Edward frowns. "Just be careful. Bella, provide cover for him." His stomach sinks, knowing that she wants to be more involved than what he is allowing. Though she doesn't want to talk in her current form, the silence that lingers feels intentional. "And Jacob. Have your taser ready."
"Roger."
"Door left," Emmett says, as the concrete floor levels out under their feet. The steady hum of the storm feels distant in the basement. Thick darkness presses against the shine of their flashlights that lead way. The cold stink of dust and stagnant water surround them.
Edward leans heavily against the wall beside the door, the chill moving through his damp jacket. A haze of light shines on his muddy boots as he points his rifle down. In the dimness, the metal door looks like smooth, gray ice.
With a quiet shuffle of his feet, Emmett moves in to the center of the hall and faces the closed portal. Knees bend slightly, the muzzle of his gun points downward, off his hip. His steady, intense eyes meet Edward's.
A breath. A nod.
A thunderous crack as Emmett's foot slams square on the center of the door. It flies inward, the echo of scrapping metal and cracking frame accompanying Edward as he rushes in.
"Right right," he shouts, turning immediately as the flashlight mounted on his barrel rapidly scans across the dark space. He runs parallel to the wall, his weapon raised and ready. Emmett's loud steps follow him through the door, and fade as he rushes straight ahead. A moment of pure adrenaline. They both reach the far corners and turn center. Silence. Alone.
"Up," Edward says, instinctively signaling that he is okay though fatigue and disappointment is heavy in his voice.
"Zero for eight," Emmett says, his weapon dropping to his waist with a slight click as it taps against his belt.
"Yep," Edward says, breathless. He glances at his watch. It's nearly midnight, and there are far too many rooms to clear in such a methodical manner. Scanning the room, he shakes his head as his lips turn in thought.
"What's this?" Emmett says, kicking a massive metal structure sitting in his darkened corner of the room. The sound of his boot on the loose surface rings loudly around them. He turns his rifle upward and places it against the wall with the light to the ceiling. It cast hard shadows on the gauges, switches, and buttons at chest level on the device. "Looks like a generator."
"Don't bother," Edward says, watching the rain fall through the narrow window, horizontal above Emmett's head. Outside, a flash of lighting reveals the massive gray body of the back-up energy source. It glistens drearily in the lightning.
Several quick clicks followed by a hard press from the corner announce Emmett's insubordination. Thick, black smoke fill the upper window as the generator angrily cracks and groans to life, the noise rumbling through the concrete walls like a growing stampede. The sweet acid smell of diesel wafts through the console and stains the air.
"Goddammit, Emmett," Edward says, resigned. The team's presence was already announced by the gunfire outside, but turning on the power doesn't help. He rolls his eyes as the lights above them begin to flicker on, revealing the withered, abandoned age of the place.
"It works?" With a quizzical look, Emmett turns and faces Edward.
The question then hits him. Why does it work? Any fuel in the generator would have evaporated decades ago. The only possible way they can have power is if it has recently been refueled. It's another unknown Edward doesn't want to ponder.
"We're running short of time," Edward says, crossing the room. The loud, steady drone just outside forcing him to speak louder. "And I know what you're thinking," Edward says, glimpsing Emmett's raised eyebrow.
"It will be a hell of a lot faster." Emmett picks up his weapon, wrapping the carrying strap around his shoulder. Closing his eyes, he leans his back against the wall the vibrations from the generator burrow through the cinder into his muscles.
"Alice," Edward says, turning away to focus on the radio.
"Sir?"
"There are two paths out of this building, right?" His eyes scrunch in recollection.
"Yes sir," Alice says. Her voice is deliberate has she reviews the plans of the nuclear facility. One goes next door to D-21. The other goes directly to D-24."
"Underground?"
"Yes sir."
"Thanks," he says quickly, turning back to Emmett. "Okay."
"We're splitting up?" Emmett says, more a statement than questions. The casual way he stands against the wall, disregarding the potential danger surrounding him, is irritating and respectable.
"I'll wait here for Jacob," Edward says. "Clear D-21 then head through the north tunnel to D-23."
"Right." Bored but dutiful, Emmett bounces off the wall and exits.
"Keep in radio contact."
"Okay," Emmett says with thinly veiled annoyance as he disappears in to the hall.
A chill runs through his core with Emmett's departing steps as, again, he agrees to divide the team. The absence of the Colonel's oversight strikes him as a sudden blessing, though the thought that Carlisle doesn't care enough to protest the action tempers any enthusiasm. It's only Edward's training, the sense of duty, that tells him not to do divide. But now, with this team, it's the best decision.
Clicking his tongue in synch with his footsteps, Emmett steadily finishes clearing the building. At every door, he casually throws it open and peeks inside. Not every room has light, and the ones that don't he briefly throws the flashlight over the dust-shrouded emptiness.
"D-22 complete," he says through the radio as he walks down the short, underground tunnel that connects to D-21. Tucked behind a corner and with no light above, the darkness enshrouds him. A shallow splash stops him briefly, the slow ripples reflecting along the ground. "Watch out for water."
"Copy," Edward radios back.
The second building has power, though is remarkably less lit. Sporadic burst of florescence are spaced along the hall between the dozen or so darkened rooms. Emmett continues his quick, methodical technique, finding nothing but scattered trash and the disgusting remnants of squatters. From a window on the top floor, he sees the atrophied curve of the nearby reactor chamber. The falling ran makes its exposed surface slick and black like a looming specter. A lighting flash, and he sees the small entrance appear at its base.
The sight makes him scowl.
"D-21 clear," he radios as he heads back down to the basement. His heavy footfalls on the stairs echo loudly around him. A sign, its letters smeared by age and moisture, points to the nearby door. Its heavy iron body a patchwork of orange, red and black. A spoked wheel, just over a foot in diameter, sits center on its body.
"To D-23," it reads through its smudged letters.
He lets his rifle dangle off his shoulder as he effortlessly spins the wheel counter-clockwise. A metallic whine pierces the air as rust cracks off in to his hands. With a sturdy tug, he pulls it open.
The screech of old metal initially hides the sound of water rushing from the door. The pressure throws the heavy hatch in to him, forcing him back as the small area around him floods. The stale, swampy stench makes him grimace as the clammy liquid rises higher around him. The dark froth surrounds him, hiding his feet. The slimy feel of it against his skin as it rises past his boots makes his stomach knot.
It's just below his waist before the flow dies, the old thick, murky water forcing him to adjust his rifle so it's strapped high against his back. He pulls his taser from his pack as he speaks in to the radio.
"Tunnel's flooded."
"Want to skip it?" Edward asks. "Me and Jacob just got to ours."
"I'm good," Emmett says. "I'll meet you on the other side."
With his sword in one hand and his taser in the other, he steps through open door. The splosh of water against him signals his movements as he moves forward. Beneath the rippling surface, his feet slide against the broken, uneven floor. Thick conduit and piping force him to lower his head uncomfortably. The light behind him fades. He cannot see the light ahead. The flashlight attached to his rifle, reflecting off the rotten and collapsed material above, illuminates him like a broken, ugly yellow halo. Menacing, claw-like shadows dance and stretch with his movements.
Keeping his weight back, his foot slides forward over a ledge into empty, black water.
"Of course," he says to himself, moving up enough to feel his toes hanging in to the nothing. He submerges his sword, the water thick against his arm and points it downward. It lowers several inches below his feet before halting with a muted clink.
He steps down heavily, the water chilling his breath as it runs up to his chest. Under a mass of dangling debris he sees the faint shine of light at the end of the hall. Keeping his taser dry above the water, he walks forward. The tip of his sword moves beside him like a shark's dorsal.
A brush against his hip. A sudden splash behind him. Two sets of silvery hands jet from the dark surface, their claws drawing blood from Emmett's wrist. Violently, they slam his raised hand against the moldy wall.
"Sonofa-" Emmett says, futilely pulling away. He tightens his grip on the taser and impulsively swings his sword across his body. It slides through vacant space under the water.
The vicious face of an anada appears, lunging at his hand. It's sharpened teeth, hiding under the continuous fall of water-like hair, dig in to Emmett's forearm. Thick, red blood rushes out, the burn, the rip making Emmett scream. A second anada appears and bites down on the back of Emmett's hand. In agony, Emmett let's the taser go and, with a splash drowned out by the sounds of the struggle, it disappears into the churning.
Using the wall as a brace, Emmett charges in to the anadas. The jolt of his shoulder against the opposite wall, the muffled clang of his sword as it hits the cinderblock, jars him. There's nothing under of the water he can fight, the anadas, their teeth, their claws, simply are.
As the first two anadas continue to painfully gnaw in to his arm, he feels a third set of teeth ripping off the flesh of the other under the water. A wrenching burn, a dull, unending sting, the familiar pain of exposed muscle. The hands of a fourth anada wrap around his neck, tugging him down as it begins to chew in to his neck. A fifth mouth on his thigh. A sixth. Seventh. More.
Water fills his lungs with each steadies inhale as he is pulled under. His vision clouds, the black water mixing with the bright bubbles and diluted blood. The sounds of thrashing, groans, swipes, pops, splashing amplifies to a chaotic orchestra drowning everything out. The burn of his flesh intensifies as the anadas continue to eat at him.
Calm, he thinks. Wait. Wait them out.
The water in his eyes tinges red. Water fills his lungs. His breathing stops. The uncomfortable rub of teeth on bone runs up his arm.
He waits.
A loud crash above and liquid around him immediately turns to fire against his skin. The anguished wails of several anadas is overpowered by the deafening sizzle of Emmett's own flesh in his ears. His skin tightens, darkens, crisps. The world around him goes white as millions of bubbles boil to the surface.
His scream of pain is silent in the water before he loses consciousness.
Minutes pass before his eyes open to the silent, submerged darkness. Immediately, he surfaces, vomiting up the water bloating his chest and stomach in a cocktail of wretchedness. The sick taste of sewage and acidic sweetness of bile makes him wait to rip out his own throat.
He rubs his face. Charred patches of skin drop to the water. Humid steam fills the air, making his exposed capillaries tingle with chill. The last of the water in his body is expelled with violent, convulsing coughs.
"Sword," he says, weakly as his burned voice box continues to heal. He dives to the bottom of the flooded tunnel, methodically feeling for the hilt. Dead skin falls off him like ash at night. He touches the blade, hard against his tender palm, and grips it tightly. The edge draws blood as he adjusts his hold, but the sensation is nothing compared to being electrocuted and boiled alive.
With a splash, Emmett is back above water. He feels the cable against his shoulder, heavy and thick as it dangles from a wire trough above him and falling in to the murk. He reaches back for the flashlight on the barrel of his rifle. The shredded metal and broken glass of its exploded casing surprises him, and his hand swings back around slapping against the water.
He does nothing but breath for several minutes, ensuring his lungs are water-free. The lingering tingle of his body healing is comforting, the silence even more so. He rubs a hand along his neck. Warm blood from the hole his radio use to be coats his palm. The electricity fried the device, exploded it within his skin. He cracks a smile in the dark.
Hidden among the shadowed recesses of conduit and wire, a chirp echoes through the stillness.
"Clear Water?"
With tired eyes, Emmett can just make out the small shape of the yunwi's body as he descends from above.
"Yes," Clear Water says, a nervous shake in his voice. "I drop cable. Stop anadas."
The last of the fried skin falls from Emmett's face as he smiles. Moisture and newness make his new skin shine. The quiet sound of ripples begin as he shifts his weight below the surface.
"I am so glad I ran in to you."