Threshold (Worm Urban Fantasy)
A/N Basically, due to work commitments I won't be able to work on Idol until the weekends since no access to the music I need to work on that. In between, I will be working on this instead.
Just note, there's no crossover in this one.
Thanks to
Pangolin for coming up with the idea in the Worm idea thread.
Cantrip 1.1
/x/
Greg Veder ran his hand through his blonde hair while he followed his crush as they turned the corner of Lord Street towards her home. The lanky teen shivered as he felt the sun's heat fade away, the long shadows cast by the two of them conjuring terrors he'd rather forget. He turned his eyes to focus on the wavy haired girl that walked briskly in front of him, his own pace struggled to keep up.
"Hey. Hey wait up, Tay..."
"Silence, Veder." The object of his unwanted affections hissed. "Speak my name outside a threshold?! Seriously?"
" Sorry." Greg muttered deflated, as he pulled his blue jacket closer. "Forgot."
The girl in front of him spun around, her hair catching the dying rays of the sun.
"Sorry enough to forget how not to be spirited away?" The girl snapped before her face softened upon seeing the teen boy's stricken expression. She turned around and began to walk again, Greg followed closely behind. The boy's blue eyes fell onto her red scarf around her neck that formed a bright contrast to the white jacket she wore and his nose wrinkled at the hint of garlic it picked up.
The boy's mouth opened.
"Not a word about that time of the month, Veder."
The boy's mouth snapped shut.
The girl's footsteps slowed down to a stroll from the brisk jog a moment ago and the blonde teen found himself following. He worried as the lanky girl in front of him looked at the darkening sky, before she pulled out a newspaper clipping from her jacket.
"Sun's setting too quickly." she whispered before she tore up the paper and rained them into a pile. The teen chanted under her breath at the shreds while shadows began to lurk around the two. Then smoke and a spark, before the paper lit up into a small bonfire.
"Was that cantrip really needed, Ta." A glare silenced him before he tried again. "Hebert?"
"Vital, Veder. It's vital."
The pair began to walk again as Greg sulked in silence. The cold shoulder he was getting from Hebert rankled him, when all he asked for was a safe threshold to spend the night before the first dawn, when the automaton wards will make it safe for them to walk the streets without protection.
"It's so unfair isn't it, Greg. After all you've done for her?"
The blonde boy nodded along to his mother's encouragement and stopped to turn behind.
"Yes, Mom. It."
Greg felt himself pulled over and his eyes watered at the stinging pain he felt when he was slapped twice and shoved to the ground. His vision finally refocused amid the din he heard as Taylor Hebert spout gibberish and straddled him, her gloved hand grabbing onto his collar and holding him down. Another series of slaps struck him and his vision blurred from the pain again. He felt fingers, unusually warm streak across his cheeks and the stench of garlic caused him to gag. His eyes refocused as he saw Taylor's face stare down at him, her lips set in stone and eyes bored into him.
"Three Taboos broken in less than five minutes." The girl tsked as her bloody finger continued to draw on his face. Taking some more crushed garlic from a small plastic jar, she smeared some more of the stinging paste on his neck. His eyes wandered away from her face, before the hands grasped onto his chin and pulled his gaze back towards her.
"Not a word. Eyes on me."
Taylor reached into her jacket again, taking out a clump of salt. Despite her order's Grey's eyes wandered to the edge of his face, the lacy white cloth that reminded him of his mother's burial dress fluttered in between Taylor's wavy hair.
"I said, don't look!"
The blonde boy snapped his eyes shut at Taylor's command, but not before he saw the girl toss the salt behind her back. He heard a piercing wail that gripped his heart in fear and stiffened as he heard another bottle uncorked and the strong smell of iron nearly made him gag.
"Fucking table salt! I needed sea salt for this!"
He heard a splash, then the sound of a bottle breaking before his ears rang when there was another scream and a horrible stench caused him to throw up. He felt the hands holding him down let go along with the weight of the girl leaving him. Greg didn't waste the time and began heaving out his last meal onto the paved road.
"You're welcome."
The blonde teen turned up and saw Taylor pull a glove over a heavily tattooed hand with bloodied fingers before she began to walk away. He scrambled to his feet and jogged after her, wiping his mouth and looking around for more signs of trouble. His tension melted away as he saw the welcoming lights of the Hebert house in the distance and hurried towards the sanctuary.
As the two teenagers crossed the white fence marked with runes and wards painted in red and gold, Greg collapsed onto the grass back first and stared at the night sky.
"Hard to believe such a beautiful sky can hide such evil."
Greg yelled as he felt a kick in his side and withdrew from the glare shot at him from the wavy haired girl.
"Really," Taylor said as she extended a hand. "Nearly getting spirited away by an Other who looks like your mother? How cliche."
"So said the mighty exorcist." Greg huffed as he followed her into her home.
/x/
The girl continued to run in the dark, the illumination from the streetlights formed a sort oasis that drew her to them like a candle attracts a moth. She clung to a particularly bright lamppost and felt slightly braver as the glaring white light flooded around her, before she fished out her phone and turned on the speaker.
"Miss, where is your current location."
The calm, authoritative tone of the dispatch operator soothed the nerves as she wiped her sweaty blonde hair and rubbed the tears from her freckled cheeks.
"I've no idea! I'm just a tourist and all I see are office buildings that look the same and lots of streetlights!" The girl yelled back. "Where's the PRT?"
"We've got Paranormal Suppression en-route to your location. Please stay where you are."
"Stay?!" The blonde shrieked? "How can I stay when..."
A cry of pain and the phone was dropped, it's frame crushed by a piece of asphalt that also bruised her hand. As the tourist nursed her aching hand, she shivered as she heard humming and soft footsteps from in front of her. In the distant darkness, the blonde saw a beautiful redhead, dressed in lacy black dress, barefoot and her hair hanging loose. Deathly pale skin and a wide smile, pitch black eyes focused on the shivering girl as the slight smile widened and ruby red lips revealed rows of fangs. The redhead tread forward softly, without a care in the world. The blonde backed against the lamppost as she watched the predator close upon her. The jerky tic of the chest and arms as it mimicked breathing to hum, the sheer wrongness of the gait as it stalked her and the way the eyes and the smile stiffened like it was frozen.
"Hello there." The thing spoke in a voice that sounded like an echo carried by the wind, the chest rising and falling erratically as the lungs grasped for air to speak to it's prey.
"Why did you run after you answered me, Sarah?" It cooed as it strode towards the target. " You have any idea how difficult it is to find a Marked outside a threshold after dark? It's like it's common knowledge here or something."
"Mostly the not wanting to be eaten part." The redheaded predator's eyes glistened with delight at the sheer spunk on display as it leaned down to prepare to pounce, her fingernails extending into claws.
A dull thump and then a flash of intense light, heat and noise as a flashbang went off in the face of the ghoul. Sarah relaxed as she felt her self being dragged behind someone dressed in a black coat, boots and a cowl. Long curly hair stuffed beneath a beret with a badge as a black teenager female barely older than her stood in front of her, a crossbow with wooden bolts that smelled of a sweet scent notched and ready to fire.
"I hit the jackpot tonight." The black teenager said as she studied the hissing form of the Other who had just recovered from the shock. "Not many of us get to correct our mistakes."
The crossbow fired it's scented bolt and Sarah witnessed the sight of an unkillable being's chest she had unloaded an entire magazine's worth of 9mm rounds burst into flames upon being pierced by a simple wooden shaft barely longer than a ruler. As the Other dug out the bolt along with a lump of her breast, the black agent grinned as she prepared notched another bolt.
"Peachwood bolts!" The redhead Other snarled. The ghoul moved to escape as she turned to flee, it's head twisted at an unnatural angle as it sought to keep an eye on the crossbow wielding teen. The redhead leaped out into the darkness, before it howled as a yellow burst of light and smoke erupted where it landed. The black teenager kept her crossbow ready as she jogged over to the fallen figure of the Other as it twitched, pitch black eyes still glared hatefully at it's intended victim and her saviour. She then leaned over the semi charred figure and whispered, a predatory smile hanging on her face as she did.
"Finally, I can answer to Anne, Zoe and Hebert for failing to save the girl you took."
"Exorcist!" Sarah covered her ears at the wail of the Other, but the PRT teen remained unmoved as she took out a strip of paper with writings in blood on it. The strip began to smoke and burn as it was applied on the head of the Other as sirens in the distance began to wail.
"I am Sophia Hess." The eyes widened as the instincts of the ghoul took over as it tried to pounce on a potential victim who revealed her true name, but the collective damage done was too great for her to do much more than watch helplessly. The flames began to burn hotter and soon engulfed the Other. Sophia looked at the blackened husk that was once a creature that took the name and form of a girl she failed to save and spat on it, before she took out a notebook and marked off the name Emma Barnes from it. The exorcist nodded in satisfaction as she looked over the list of crossed out names as armoured PRT troopers streamed out of APCs and vans marked with runes painted in white and yellow. A few of the PRT came over to mark out the burnt husk with chalk as Sophia walked over to the blonde who was now holding a blanket closely around herself.
"You're a Marked yes?" Sophia didn't wait for the blonde to nod before she continued.
"You're coming with me to the Citadel."