51
The smoke cleared from the weapon discharges, pulse rifles joining conventional fire as everyone fired and screamed with fear, Ianto dropping his weapon and transforming before he leapt into the dark, leaving everyone shocked and confused on the outside staring at a pile off goo.
"What the fuck is a Kraken?" Kitty asked shakily "It looked like a Ratoid Z thing to me! Like they mated and had an ugly bastard!"
"What's a Darlek?" Abner asked Jack "I saw a fucking clown like that Pennywise thing from the Stephen king book IT."
Jack blinked and looked at him as his mind cleared "Yes. That is what you saw. Gods, fuck. Yes. That is what you saw. Good description, the thing in the sewers. King was a constant pain to us, his time with the doctor making him a loose cannon with his use of Alien life forms in his books. It was … yes. Pennywise was based on one of these. Shit, my heart!"
Frank stood transfixed, staring at the mess and Dean whispered "What did you see?"
"You dead in its jaws"
Dean felt his heart cleave as he pulled Frank unto his arms, reassuring him that they were OK, his own image of his oldest sister turned to a Z would haunt him for a long time.
Ianto reappeared shaking but intact "Clear. Looks like this was the watchdog everyone was afraid of."
"Like … one of those Nostro things?" Billy asked with interest.
Randy shook himself and made a noise of disgust then said softly "Hate fucking snakes."
Mickey was watching Jack as he walked around clenching his fists, his heart still flipping over as well. Mickey then said softly "Darlek. Yeah. I saw that too. Crazy, I wonder if we saw the same one or each had one we remembered most scary."
"Probably different ones. Mine was the one who killed me … the first time" Jack said as he slumped against the wall, letting Ianto loosen his clothing to rub his neck and upper chest lovingly, the soothing motion like a mother for a small crying baby. It was helping.
"Mine was the one from the sphere" Mickey said then laughed softly "Shit. Stupid, we smote that motherfucker. So, this caught our thoughts and nightmares? Like a Dream-catcher?"
"A Delamarthi. Yeah, translated it means keeper of bad dreams. Good translation." Jack was calm enough to straighten up then take a kiss and Ianto stepped away like nothing had happened, now hugging Dean and frank to him for a moment.
"What did you see Taddy?"
"My Da."
They looked at him with interest.
"It's OK" Billy said softly "I saw my mama. Z. I always wondered how she died ya know … I never got to say goodbye."
I thought you didn't remember her" Dean was interested, not accusing in his tone and Billy nodded.
"We keep our memories deep in the back of our mind, like a dusty old archives. Dreams and subconscious can access them better than our conscious mind can. Like … we use a computer to look them up and tut while searching when the subconscious has an edidic memory and can just for the drawer and pull them out." Ianto said, everyone smiling at his use of the archives as an analogy. So Ianto. It lightened the mood immediately as they all felt affection for their personal Archivist. "It seems this creature could glen those things. You know … there are others like that out in the universe. Like vampires, feeding of fear, hate. No wonder it was down here in the basement scaring the shit out of the Nostrovites."
"Like the thing under your bed waiting to seize your foot if you have to go piss in the night" Kitty shuddered.
"Why my bed had boxes under it, no room for a bogeyman" Ianto told her and she blinked then looked at him with surprise.
"You? You were afraid of the bogeyman?"
"Everyone is to a degree. Either a closet monster, a bed monster … even a toilet monster. My sister was afraid to sit to pee unless she looked in the bowl first. Some story about a snake biting someone's arse she heard about on telly even when we do not even get snakes here." Ianto laughed, Rhiannon's memory not heavy anymore.
"So." Kev said after a moment "Once we've all found a loo and changed our dacks for clean ones … what now?"
"Now?" Ianto turned to face him with a canted head …"Now… we are in."
Jack watched the team straighten up, and then start to whoop as they congratulated one another.
They were in the secure level.
Nice, only took half the time to get there…. No problem getting back before time is up right?
Ianto and Jack shared the thought at the same time then grinned as they both held up their pinky fingers to waggle at one another and whisper "Jinx". Then sniggering they walked through the gateway to the inner sanctum and let Mickey be the first to scream with the glee of a child in a candy store.
Yeah.
Archie was such a pack rat.