Chapter 37: Threatening Promise
"Captain."
Servus Carbo turned to find a sniper by the name of Militus Sentus standing behind him, tensed and at attention.
"Captain, the entire main floor has been searched. There are no signs of either of the targets." The marine Captain was put on even more on alert, if that was even possible by now, at the other clockwork's statement.
"Take the rest of the musketeers and instruct –"
However, the sniper then turned and bolted out of the hallway for a reason unknown and stopping about halfway down the staircase, much to the bewilderment of the Captain. It was rather odd, for a clockwork to react so spontaneously.
Sentus returned after a few seconds, walking calmly back to where the marine Captain was standing, outside of the last door on the right side of the hallway. He appeared to have re-gained his collected, monotonous disposition, as was expected.
"I apologize for the interruption, Captain. It appears that a few of the troops have found a cellar."
"Instruct them to investigate." Carbo replied, suddenly aware that, given the recorded nature of the two occupants of the manor, they could now be closer than ever to recovering their targets.
"It has already been done, Captain."
"Join them in the searching of the lower floors," The officer instructed, beginning to move in the general direction of the staircase. "Do not leave an inch of it unchecked."
"For the glory of the Armada, sir."
Precisely according to the norm, the sniper snapped into a salute before rushing to join the rest of the squadron, the Captain trailing behind him, as he intended to oversee the seeking, for if what the marksman Presidos Decimus had described was accurate, then the Commodore and the Captain Servus Albus, his fragile-built, ranged counterpart, would be found in such a location.
It was dark, impossible to allow vision, he had said, all while struggling to force the words out of his throat, the visions out of his memories. A small chamber that did not have enough room to walk twelve paces in one direction, a hallway with at least a dozen of these chambers.
Leaving half of the squadron to continue searching the upper floors, the Captain trailed the other half as they descended the steep staircase into the so-called cellar.
Just as Decimus had said, it was nearly pitch-black, as if the night sky itself had decided to invade. The few torches that were still burning barely provided any light, and it was difficult to walk without bumping into either another clockwork or one of the walls.
Fortunately, they were prepared for such a scenario and the musketeers retrieved several flares from their coat pockets, immediately striking and lighting them, throwing light over the setting.
It was a low-ceilinged hallway, one made entirely of dusty, large, grey stones, and it seemed to go on forever in a single direction, with no ending wall in sight. Along the sides were several doors, old wooden doors with rusted metal handles. Upon turning the handle and pushing one of the doors, the Captain discovered that none of them were locked.
"Search them. Search every one of them. Do not stop, no matter what is found."
And knowing the habitants of this house, the woman in particular, it would not be anything pleasant.
Accompanied by four other clockworks, the marine officer entered the first door on the left, only to find that it was rather empty, save for a wooden table.
Nothing particularly unusual.
However-
"Captain-!"
The clockwork to his right – who so happened to be the sniper that reported to him moments ago – had frozen in his place, his hand pointing to the table. The sense of danger and alert radiating from him was palpable, even to such a stable clockwork as the Captain Servus Carbo.
Deciding to see for himself, he stepped closer to the table, only to immediately bring up his halberd and tense on deeply-programmed instinct upon sight of exactly what objects were laying on the surface.
An entire array of knives – ranging from the smallest of daggers to a rusted machete to what looked like a saw that one would most normally find in a carpenter's workplace – except for the fact that it was absolutely covered in what appeared to be human flesh (in various states of decay) and blood. This was, without doubt, an exact reflection of the couple's tendencies.
The Captain warily looked over the room one last time before backing out, the four clockworks following him and closing the door.
"They must be found," the marine officer said, his monotonous-as-ever voice somehow becoming laced with a heavy air of dread, "before the humans have a chance to…" He cut his sentence short before he could finish, but the idea was implied.
Before they are tortured to termination, before they are mutilated, before they are completely and utterly destroyed.
A loud clattering noise from the right side of the hallway caused the cluster of clockwork soldiers to instantly raise their weapons up to combat position, now more on edge than ever now that they had seen what would possibly become of the unfortunate victims of Hunter Chamberlain and his lover and partner, the depraved Dangler.
Three clockworks all but sprinted out of the fifth door on the left, followed immediately by a similar reaction from the second door on the right, the clanking noise of metal and the combined clacking of thousands of gears leading the clockworks currently searching the other chambers to halt and congregate back in the narrow, but long stone hallway of the newly discovered lower dungeons. Two marines, each carrying a large metal object in their hands, pushed their way to the center of the mass, and as they neared the marine Captain, Carbo could began to make out exactly what they were carrying.
Armada chestplates, two of them. Standard issue chestplates that musketeers, marksmen, and snipers usually wore over their ornate uniform coats. Both of them had engraved markings along the edges, meaning that they belonged to clockworks of high rankings – officers. One of them, the one brought from the door on the right, belonged to a Captain.
The other, brought from the left, was quite different. It was molded to the general shape and form of a female's torso, and the much-more-elaborately-engraved surface was covered in scratches and, in some areas, worn down, just like all items became when used for a long period of time.
Commodore Prima Militus, sixty-eight years of function.
"They were here. The both of them." Carbo bluntly stated, and he could feel his exterior frame heating as his cognitive processor rushed to piece together the information, the predictions, the definitions, the statistics – none of which were completely certain. "If any other signs of the officers were found, speak now."
And although chances had said that there would definitely be a voice, a finding, something, only silence rung.
Therefore, he deducted, there were only two chances left.
They had either found some impossible, miraculous way to escape from such a death trap –
Or they had been terminated, ended in the same cruel way that the gruesome instruments found in the rooms implied.
"Full retreat." The Captain snapped, climbing the stairs back up to the now-slightly-demolished main floor, and the sounds of the marching of hundreds of mechanical soldiers followed soon after. "Set the course to Cadiz. The Supreme Commander must hear of this at once."
For now, the tides had certainly turned, although in whose favor, he did not know.
It wasn't until they were several hundred feet away from the house that Hunter finally dared to stop in his tracks and set Dangler, who was thrashing about like a hooked fish, down.
As he helped to lift her into a sitting position, the witchdoctor had to suppress the scream that threatened to escape his throat.
Ghoulish, that was the only word that could accurately describe her at the moment, he thought. It was as if she had come out of an ages-old-ghost-story, with her tangled hair and frenzied grey eyes, eyes that were sunken so deep into the surrounding patches of skin, they appeared to be suspended in two endless, black craters in the top half of her face.
Swallowing hard, he drew the knife from his belt and cut the fabric that he had tied around her mouth and her wrists, and there was barely more than a split second before she flung her half-dead body on them, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, growling unintelligibly like some sort of rabid animal, her lips swollen blue and black, dry and cracked and bloody from where she had bitten down on them, judging by the front-teeth-shaped scar embedded on the edge of her lower lip.
It took him all of his strength to defy his instincts to shake her off, to get the horrifying image away from him as fast as possible as she half-screamed-half-moaned indiscernible words at him like a sort of zombie, droplets of her blood getting flung onto his face.
"Calm down…"He heard himself say, his arms acting of their own accord and drawing her close to him in a comforting embrace. "It'll be all right…you're safe now…"
It was all automatic, his actions, his speech, for he dared not feel. It would expose him too much; it would damage him too much.
She shook her head, the blood from her lips staining the collar of his coat.
"No…"
Her hands came up, in between her and Hunter, pressing lightly (at first) as if to push them apart.
"No, no no…"
"Dangler…?"
"NO! This can't HAPPEN!" She screeched, suddenly summoning strength of an impossible degree and forcing the two of them apart from each other, causing them both to stumble backwards and topple to the ground. "Why would you DO that?!"
"Do what?!" Hunter hissed, standing and looking over his shoulder as if to reassure himself that the large distance that was now between themselves and the clockwork-infested manor had remained the same. "Save your life?!"
"Save my life? Save it? HA!" Dangler laughed harshly, swinging her arms about her as she shakily stood, her stick-like legs threatening to give out from underneath her at any moment. "Your definition of salvation is absolute torture, Hunter…and I want no more of it."
So she was referring to how he had chained her, locked her up like some untamed beast.
"Do you…do you think I'm some sort of animal?" She sounded wounded, hurt at this, and who am I to blame her, Hunter thought bitterly. It was a cruel punishment, unfitting for the crime.
If she even committed a crime in the first place, that was.
Insanity. Is that really a crime?
"Hunter…why won't you answer me?"
Hunter blinked quickly, trying to break the stagnant feel of the air. An atmosphere such as this was dangerous, on a deadly level, and if he did not break them away from it now, there was no telling what would become of them, physically or mentally.
"We should head out," Hunter quickly said, breaking the dangerous silence before she could, gesturing to the private dock to his left. There was only room for one or two ships and it was in a narrow crevice in the cliffs, making it rather inconvenient to arrive or leave at such a location. However, it did prove to be quite useful at times, especially now. "Eventually they'll realize that we ran."
Dangler shook her head, laughing to herself. Softly at first, but as it gradually increased in volume, Hunter began to become rather uneasy.
"Come on."
He marched himself forward and grabbed her forearm, beginning to stride over to the dock, where the Marleybone skiff that had once belonged to his father, the Unbroken Victory, waited, but was suddenly pulled back harshly by the woman, much to his surprise.
And yet she still has strength?
"How…dare you…" She hissed, spinning him around to face her and digging her nails into his upper arms, causing him to wince in pain. "This isn't some kind of joke, you know…" The male witchdoctor, caught off-guard by her sudden change in mood, tried to shake her arms off, which only led to her tightening her grip.
"Dangler, please understand…you can't look anymore…"
He understood her perfectly.
She yearned to see Servus, to see Decimus, the initiator, and it had taken over her mind, becoming priority over all else – perhaps even her own life.
And looking back at the manor, Hunter wondered if they really were at a safe distance. After all, all one had to do was to stand at a window and peer out, and even in the dead of night, after a while, the presence of two would become evident.
All else can be dealt with later, he decided, but they needed to get out of here, they needed to leave before that had a chance to occur – and she was preventing that from happening.
Oh, what a time for her inner monster to stomp and roar and plant its clawed feet into the ground.
"Oh, really? I can't look? I've still got one more, haven't I…?" Dangler sneered, sending a chill down Hunter's spine. "There's nothing binding me now!"
"Dangler, don't you dare-"
"What, are you going to try and stop me?" She placed her hands on her hips, looking at him tauntingly. He was powerless against her now; the both of them knew it perfectly well.
"I'm begging you."
"Really, now…if you're truly this desperate, then let me see him."
See him.
It made no sense, not to Hunter. Here she was elaborating on a set condition that she wanted met in order so that she would not look, so that she would not see him, and she had made a full circle and said that the condition itself was to allow her to see him. It had made his mind turn in a full circle as well, and now he was confused.
"I'll look if you don't let me."
She's going to end up looking either way, isn't she?
"Dangler, I can't let you."
"LET ME SEE HIM OR I SWEAR I'LL LOOK!"
And it was only then that he truly understood what she was speaking – or rather, screaming – of.
She wanted to see him in person, up close, in actuality, in her reality, for it would provide her the same sight as her self-made illusions.
A compromise, a truce, so that neither side would be harmed.
And when he looked at her face, horrifically dripping with her own blood, and now, tears – Hunter knew that it was his only option.
"I'll set the course to Valencia."
We'll hear back from Sydney in the next chapter :D
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Until the next chapter,
- Severina