Bright Seraphim
Thirteen
They crept out into the unusually silent hall, making their way over the remains of the suite's door. Sephiroth sighed and dropped the key card he'd used on the wreckage.
"I wondered where that had got to," Jaz said from in front of him. She had stepped into the hallway first, on the off chance that the police who had been guarding her were still there - though from recent events, it was obvious that they weren't. She was now wearing her jeans and green velour shirt, though she'd laced up her knee-high moccasin boots over the jeans instead of wearing her sneakers. Before he'd let her leave the suite, Sephiroth had given her her trenchcoat. He wanted to leave this place.
Sephiroth, Masamune still held at ready, gestured toward the elevators. Jaz shook her head. "Katie."
The hall was still far too silent. Jaz's breath caught in her throat as they rounded the corner - the cops who had been guarding her room were lying on the floor.
Well, most of them was. Some of them was spread over the walls.
"~~There was a scream,~~" Sephiroth murmured. "~~I thought it was you, for a moment... These two ran toward it...~~"
Jaz looked ill.
They continued down the hall, around another corner, past the second set of elevators, to Katie's suite.
"Oh no," Jaz whispered as they approached. The door was open. She fingered her now untied dagger at her side, then decided that she'd better draw it to be on the safe side. She glanced back at Sephiroth.
He nodded.
They entered Katie's suite.
It was dark; the only light came from the open door and the television, which was running static. They stepped aside so that the light from the hall would illuminate as much of the common room as possible.
There was another cop lying in the middle of the floor.
Jaz and Sephiroth looked at each other.
Jaz began to call, softly. "Katie? Jamie? Where are you?"
There was a small sound of movement from behind the couch. Jaz froze, her heart in her throat. Sephiroth crept toward the couch, one arm outstretched, Masamune held high with the other hand.
He quickly grabbed the edge of the couch and shoved it aside.
The spiky black goblin behind the couch gave a startled yelp and lashed out before he could see what was going on.
"Jamie!" Jaz reached out to him. "Are you all right?"
The boy looked up. "Jaz!" He jumped up and grabbed her around the waist, close to tears. "Katie - "
"Where's Katie?" Jaz interrupted.
"The police took her downstairs to talk to her some more and they left this guy here and I fell asleep for a bit and there was someone at the door..."
"Jamie?" Jaz made him look at her. "It - It'll be okay -"
"It's not okay!" The boy wailed. "This guy's dead!"
"I know, Jamie, please calm down," Jaz said, speaking quickly. "Please. Jamie, I know who the killer is -"
"So do I," Jamie said.
"So please don't think I'm crazy - " Jaz thought about Sephiroth and wondered why she even bothered to say that. Then Jamie's words sunk in. "What?"
"I said, so do I. It's Scissorman from Clock Tower. Are you, like, a weirdness magnet all of a sudden or what?"
Jaz opened and closed her mouth several times. "Okay. Okay..." She paused, trying to gather her wits. "Okay. I've been thinking about this, and there's two possibilities here. Option one: some maniac has taken on the Scissorman persona. Goodness knows there's enough maniacs here already. Option two: whatever inter-dimensional rift or whatever let Sephiroth into this world, it's letting other... characters through as well." Jaz sat down on the arm of the couch. "What a mess."
Sephiroth glanced at Jaz when he heard his name, then continued to check the suite. Satisfied that they were its only occupants, he took up a position near the door.
Jamie shuddered, carefully not looking at the middle of the room where the body lay. "I think I can make it easy for you," he said to Jaz. "One of the other dealers downstairs had a replica pair of the giant scissors from Clock Tower yesterday, and they were gone today."
Jaz breathed a sigh of relief. "That might narrow it down, yes. I hope."
"Good," Jamie said. "Can we go now? This is kind of disturbing..."
Jaz remembered the dead cop and stood up. "Yeah. Let's get out of here. Get your coat, goblin boy. I'll carry Katie's."
"You guys shouldn't have gotten suites so high up," Jamie complained when they were halfway down the stairs. "Escaping would be a lot easier from, like, the third floor."
"This was supposed to be my vacation," Jaz growled. She took a few more steps and turned to descend the next flight, a few stairs behind Sephiroth. "Talk to me, Jamie."
"About what?"
"Tell me about Scissorman. What's his point, and how do we avoid it?"
"It was a horror game," Jamie shrugged. "Scissorman goes around and kills people. One of the heroines is a girl who survived his original rampage - Clock Tower was actually a sequel to another game, in Japan. Anyway... it's just horror movie rules. Don't go off alone, don't go investigate in the basement when the power mysteriously goes out, don't read mystical passages out loud... Oh, wait, you did have to read a mystical passage in Clock Tower..."
"Great," Jaz panted. "So why is Scissorman after me? I'm not a survivor, at least not to my knowledge. I'm not really even a witness. I just found the second body. I wasn't even ever near the first one."
"Uh-uh," Jamie said. "I heard the cops talking earlier. Both of the girls killed had red hair." He swallowed. "The second one was dressed kind of like you, and the first one had books that she'd got from our table, the cops said..."
Jaz stopped. "Good grief, I am a weirdness magnet," she moaned.
Sephiroth paused and turned, concerned; Jaz absently patted his armored shoulder. "I'm fine, keep going."
"Anyway, Scissorman should've made an outright attack on you by now," Jamie said confidently. "So I think we're doing pretty good at the evasive part..."
"He broke into my room," Jaz said, shaking her head.
"He did?" Jamie jumped from behind Jaz to walk backwards down the stairs in front of her. "How did you get away?" He stumbled back.
"Sephiroth threw me in a closet," she said lightly, catching him so that he didn't fall.
"Hey, way to go!" Jamie turned and jumped down another two steps, catching hold of Sephiroth's free hand. "I knew you could be the good guy!"
Sephiroth looked down at the boy and smiled vaguely, without comprehension. Jamie grinned back and skipped the last step to the landing. "This is it," he chirped. "Ground floor."
"Now we just have to find Katie and get out of here," Jaz said, shifting Katie's coat from one arm to the other as she reached the landing.
Sephiroth looked back at them, took hold of the stairwell door's bar, and slowly pushed.
"It's quiet down here," Jaz commented softly as they walked down one of the main halls on the hotel's ground floor.
"Yeah," Jamie responded. "A little too quiet."
Jaz glared at him. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. "Sorry."
Jaz shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. "Let's stay away from the horror movie cliches, shall we?" She handed him Katie's coat. "Your turn to carry it."
"Okay." Jamie shrugged. "Anyway, of course it's quiet. It's three in the morning, and they've got the place locked down tight now. No loud parties tonight."
"Oh yeah," Jaz sighed. "They took Katie to the conference room that they questioned us in before, right? That's right around the corner..."
"I'd guess that's where they'd be," Jamie said. After a few more steps, he thought of something. "Jaz?"
"Yeah?"
"How are we going to get Katie from them?"
Jaz stopped. "I hadn't thought about that..."
They stopped at the corner; Jamie poked his head around before anyone could stop him. "All clear," he whispered.
The hall around the corner ran perpendicular to the entry hall of the hotel. The ceiling was higher here, and the wide entry hall branched off to the right a hundred or so feet away. The conference room opened off of the entry hall.
Sephiroth stepped forward to go first, but Jaz laid a hand on his arm. "I'll go first," she said, stepping in front of him to show what she meant.
Jamie rolled his eyes and fell into step on Sephiroth's right.
They were part of the way there when Katie, escorted by two policemen, walked up the stairs from the entry hall, heading for the elevators directly across from the entrance.
Jamie ducked behind a large potted plant.
Katie turned her head and gasped. The cops turned.
It occurred to Jaz, as the cops drew their guns, that both she and Katie had described Sephiroth as the main suspect for the murders. She couldn't let the police separate them again - who knew what they'd do to Sephiroth, and what he'd do... And besides, he'd already shown her that he was trying to protect her, so the safest place to be would be with him... And if they went with the police, it would take forever to convince them that it hadn't been him, and to explain Sephiroth at all...
Jaz took a step back, into Sephiroth, and grabbed his left hand - holding Masamune - in hers. She brought the blade up to her throat, trying to make it look as though she were trying to keep him from bringing the blade nearer. "Please don't, he'll kill me!" She cried with as much fear as she dared let loose. "Don't shoot!"
It wasn't a particularly good idea, but it was all she could come up with on such short notice.
"Jaz!" Katie yelled, terrified.
Sephiroth was confused for only a second, but his eyes narrowed when he saw the firearms pointed at him and Jaz. He didn't like that.
"Put your weapon down," one of the policemen barked.
"Please just back off," Jaz whimpered. She looked directly at Katie. "He said he'd kill me!"
Katie was too scared for the message to sink in right away. The officer holding her arm pulled her backward as Jaz walked forward, trying to appear reluctant, bringing Sephiroth with her. Jaz prayed that Jamie would be smart enough to stay hidden.
"Let the girl go," the cop who had spoken demanded, though he still gave ground. "We don't want this to get ugly..."
Sephiroth didn't understand what they were saying, but from the situation, it was obvious. When he and Jaz reached the elevators, he hit the down button. The elevator door opened immediately.
There were two more cops in the entry hall that they couldn't see.
Sephiroth and Jaz stepped back into the elevator, and to the side. Jaz moved to hit the button to close the doors.
The two cops in the entry hall opened fire almost before she was clear of him.
Jaz screamed and ducked, covering her head. Sephiroth leapt backward and further to the side, stumbling against the back of the elevator as the doors closed.
"Take the stairwells," the ranking officer commanded. "You two left, you two right. I'll call for backup and watch the elevators."
Katie put a hand to her head, staring blankly at the floor. She started to pace back and forth.
"Ma'am?"
She looked up as the officer finished speaking on his walkie-talkie.
"Are you all right, Ma'am? Maybe you should go back into the conference room..."
"I'm fine," Katie said, obviously distressed. "I - I'll go back in a few minutes, could I just walk a bit first?"
The officer nodded; the elevators weren't moving at all now. Three more cops appeared at the end of the hall, pulling his attention away from Katie.
Katie widened her circle of pacing. Part of the way down the hall that Jaz and... that Jaz had been brought down, she passed a large potted plant.
"Pssst!"
Katie jumped. Jamie was crouched behind the plant, huddled under her coat. His goblin mask was perched on his head.
"Jamie! What - what are you doing here?!?"
"Waiting for you," the boy whispered back. "Did they get away? I couldn't see."
"What do you mean, did they..." Katie's voice trailed off as she realized what Jaz had said to her. "...She said he'd said he'd kill her, and he doesn't speak English," she groaned quietly. "What in the world possessed her to..." The cops intense questioning about Sephiroth came to mind, and she shook her head. "Nevermind. Jamie, we've got to get out of here."
Jamie grinned. "That's the idea."
Jaz and Sephiroth both remained where they were for a few moments, breathing hard. The elevator was on its way down.
Jaz uncurled, glancing at the door. "That went better than I expected," she said, smiling with the adrenaline rush. She turned to Sephiroth. "Are you all..."
Her voice trailed off in something like disbelief, or horror.
Sephiroth was braced against the back of the elevator, one hand pressed against the wall, having dropped his sword. He was holding his other hand against his chest, which was covered in blood.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its story, and characters (particularly Sephiroth) are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. The same goes for Clock Tower, Tekken 2, Soul Blade, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Lost in Space, Pepsi, and any other games, television shows, movies, etc. mentioned in this fanfic: all belong to their respective owners. Clock Tower, its story, and characters (particularly Scissorman) are the property, copyright, and trademark of Ascii Entertainment.
Thirteen
They crept out into the unusually silent hall, making their way over the remains of the suite's door. Sephiroth sighed and dropped the key card he'd used on the wreckage.
"I wondered where that had got to," Jaz said from in front of him. She had stepped into the hallway first, on the off chance that the police who had been guarding her were still there - though from recent events, it was obvious that they weren't. She was now wearing her jeans and green velour shirt, though she'd laced up her knee-high moccasin boots over the jeans instead of wearing her sneakers. Before he'd let her leave the suite, Sephiroth had given her her trenchcoat. He wanted to leave this place.
Sephiroth, Masamune still held at ready, gestured toward the elevators. Jaz shook her head. "Katie."
The hall was still far too silent. Jaz's breath caught in her throat as they rounded the corner - the cops who had been guarding her room were lying on the floor.
Well, most of them was. Some of them was spread over the walls.
"~~There was a scream,~~" Sephiroth murmured. "~~I thought it was you, for a moment... These two ran toward it...~~"
Jaz looked ill.
They continued down the hall, around another corner, past the second set of elevators, to Katie's suite.
"Oh no," Jaz whispered as they approached. The door was open. She fingered her now untied dagger at her side, then decided that she'd better draw it to be on the safe side. She glanced back at Sephiroth.
He nodded.
They entered Katie's suite.
It was dark; the only light came from the open door and the television, which was running static. They stepped aside so that the light from the hall would illuminate as much of the common room as possible.
There was another cop lying in the middle of the floor.
Jaz and Sephiroth looked at each other.
Jaz began to call, softly. "Katie? Jamie? Where are you?"
There was a small sound of movement from behind the couch. Jaz froze, her heart in her throat. Sephiroth crept toward the couch, one arm outstretched, Masamune held high with the other hand.
He quickly grabbed the edge of the couch and shoved it aside.
The spiky black goblin behind the couch gave a startled yelp and lashed out before he could see what was going on.
"Jamie!" Jaz reached out to him. "Are you all right?"
The boy looked up. "Jaz!" He jumped up and grabbed her around the waist, close to tears. "Katie - "
"Where's Katie?" Jaz interrupted.
"The police took her downstairs to talk to her some more and they left this guy here and I fell asleep for a bit and there was someone at the door..."
"Jamie?" Jaz made him look at her. "It - It'll be okay -"
"It's not okay!" The boy wailed. "This guy's dead!"
"I know, Jamie, please calm down," Jaz said, speaking quickly. "Please. Jamie, I know who the killer is -"
"So do I," Jamie said.
"So please don't think I'm crazy - " Jaz thought about Sephiroth and wondered why she even bothered to say that. Then Jamie's words sunk in. "What?"
"I said, so do I. It's Scissorman from Clock Tower. Are you, like, a weirdness magnet all of a sudden or what?"
Jaz opened and closed her mouth several times. "Okay. Okay..." She paused, trying to gather her wits. "Okay. I've been thinking about this, and there's two possibilities here. Option one: some maniac has taken on the Scissorman persona. Goodness knows there's enough maniacs here already. Option two: whatever inter-dimensional rift or whatever let Sephiroth into this world, it's letting other... characters through as well." Jaz sat down on the arm of the couch. "What a mess."
Sephiroth glanced at Jaz when he heard his name, then continued to check the suite. Satisfied that they were its only occupants, he took up a position near the door.
Jamie shuddered, carefully not looking at the middle of the room where the body lay. "I think I can make it easy for you," he said to Jaz. "One of the other dealers downstairs had a replica pair of the giant scissors from Clock Tower yesterday, and they were gone today."
Jaz breathed a sigh of relief. "That might narrow it down, yes. I hope."
"Good," Jamie said. "Can we go now? This is kind of disturbing..."
Jaz remembered the dead cop and stood up. "Yeah. Let's get out of here. Get your coat, goblin boy. I'll carry Katie's."
"You guys shouldn't have gotten suites so high up," Jamie complained when they were halfway down the stairs. "Escaping would be a lot easier from, like, the third floor."
"This was supposed to be my vacation," Jaz growled. She took a few more steps and turned to descend the next flight, a few stairs behind Sephiroth. "Talk to me, Jamie."
"About what?"
"Tell me about Scissorman. What's his point, and how do we avoid it?"
"It was a horror game," Jamie shrugged. "Scissorman goes around and kills people. One of the heroines is a girl who survived his original rampage - Clock Tower was actually a sequel to another game, in Japan. Anyway... it's just horror movie rules. Don't go off alone, don't go investigate in the basement when the power mysteriously goes out, don't read mystical passages out loud... Oh, wait, you did have to read a mystical passage in Clock Tower..."
"Great," Jaz panted. "So why is Scissorman after me? I'm not a survivor, at least not to my knowledge. I'm not really even a witness. I just found the second body. I wasn't even ever near the first one."
"Uh-uh," Jamie said. "I heard the cops talking earlier. Both of the girls killed had red hair." He swallowed. "The second one was dressed kind of like you, and the first one had books that she'd got from our table, the cops said..."
Jaz stopped. "Good grief, I am a weirdness magnet," she moaned.
Sephiroth paused and turned, concerned; Jaz absently patted his armored shoulder. "I'm fine, keep going."
"Anyway, Scissorman should've made an outright attack on you by now," Jamie said confidently. "So I think we're doing pretty good at the evasive part..."
"He broke into my room," Jaz said, shaking her head.
"He did?" Jamie jumped from behind Jaz to walk backwards down the stairs in front of her. "How did you get away?" He stumbled back.
"Sephiroth threw me in a closet," she said lightly, catching him so that he didn't fall.
"Hey, way to go!" Jamie turned and jumped down another two steps, catching hold of Sephiroth's free hand. "I knew you could be the good guy!"
Sephiroth looked down at the boy and smiled vaguely, without comprehension. Jamie grinned back and skipped the last step to the landing. "This is it," he chirped. "Ground floor."
"Now we just have to find Katie and get out of here," Jaz said, shifting Katie's coat from one arm to the other as she reached the landing.
Sephiroth looked back at them, took hold of the stairwell door's bar, and slowly pushed.
"It's quiet down here," Jaz commented softly as they walked down one of the main halls on the hotel's ground floor.
"Yeah," Jamie responded. "A little too quiet."
Jaz glared at him. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. "Sorry."
Jaz shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. "Let's stay away from the horror movie cliches, shall we?" She handed him Katie's coat. "Your turn to carry it."
"Okay." Jamie shrugged. "Anyway, of course it's quiet. It's three in the morning, and they've got the place locked down tight now. No loud parties tonight."
"Oh yeah," Jaz sighed. "They took Katie to the conference room that they questioned us in before, right? That's right around the corner..."
"I'd guess that's where they'd be," Jamie said. After a few more steps, he thought of something. "Jaz?"
"Yeah?"
"How are we going to get Katie from them?"
Jaz stopped. "I hadn't thought about that..."
They stopped at the corner; Jamie poked his head around before anyone could stop him. "All clear," he whispered.
The hall around the corner ran perpendicular to the entry hall of the hotel. The ceiling was higher here, and the wide entry hall branched off to the right a hundred or so feet away. The conference room opened off of the entry hall.
Sephiroth stepped forward to go first, but Jaz laid a hand on his arm. "I'll go first," she said, stepping in front of him to show what she meant.
Jamie rolled his eyes and fell into step on Sephiroth's right.
They were part of the way there when Katie, escorted by two policemen, walked up the stairs from the entry hall, heading for the elevators directly across from the entrance.
Jamie ducked behind a large potted plant.
Katie turned her head and gasped. The cops turned.
It occurred to Jaz, as the cops drew their guns, that both she and Katie had described Sephiroth as the main suspect for the murders. She couldn't let the police separate them again - who knew what they'd do to Sephiroth, and what he'd do... And besides, he'd already shown her that he was trying to protect her, so the safest place to be would be with him... And if they went with the police, it would take forever to convince them that it hadn't been him, and to explain Sephiroth at all...
Jaz took a step back, into Sephiroth, and grabbed his left hand - holding Masamune - in hers. She brought the blade up to her throat, trying to make it look as though she were trying to keep him from bringing the blade nearer. "Please don't, he'll kill me!" She cried with as much fear as she dared let loose. "Don't shoot!"
It wasn't a particularly good idea, but it was all she could come up with on such short notice.
"Jaz!" Katie yelled, terrified.
Sephiroth was confused for only a second, but his eyes narrowed when he saw the firearms pointed at him and Jaz. He didn't like that.
"Put your weapon down," one of the policemen barked.
"Please just back off," Jaz whimpered. She looked directly at Katie. "He said he'd kill me!"
Katie was too scared for the message to sink in right away. The officer holding her arm pulled her backward as Jaz walked forward, trying to appear reluctant, bringing Sephiroth with her. Jaz prayed that Jamie would be smart enough to stay hidden.
"Let the girl go," the cop who had spoken demanded, though he still gave ground. "We don't want this to get ugly..."
Sephiroth didn't understand what they were saying, but from the situation, it was obvious. When he and Jaz reached the elevators, he hit the down button. The elevator door opened immediately.
There were two more cops in the entry hall that they couldn't see.
Sephiroth and Jaz stepped back into the elevator, and to the side. Jaz moved to hit the button to close the doors.
The two cops in the entry hall opened fire almost before she was clear of him.
Jaz screamed and ducked, covering her head. Sephiroth leapt backward and further to the side, stumbling against the back of the elevator as the doors closed.
"Take the stairwells," the ranking officer commanded. "You two left, you two right. I'll call for backup and watch the elevators."
Katie put a hand to her head, staring blankly at the floor. She started to pace back and forth.
"Ma'am?"
She looked up as the officer finished speaking on his walkie-talkie.
"Are you all right, Ma'am? Maybe you should go back into the conference room..."
"I'm fine," Katie said, obviously distressed. "I - I'll go back in a few minutes, could I just walk a bit first?"
The officer nodded; the elevators weren't moving at all now. Three more cops appeared at the end of the hall, pulling his attention away from Katie.
Katie widened her circle of pacing. Part of the way down the hall that Jaz and... that Jaz had been brought down, she passed a large potted plant.
"Pssst!"
Katie jumped. Jamie was crouched behind the plant, huddled under her coat. His goblin mask was perched on his head.
"Jamie! What - what are you doing here?!?"
"Waiting for you," the boy whispered back. "Did they get away? I couldn't see."
"What do you mean, did they..." Katie's voice trailed off as she realized what Jaz had said to her. "...She said he'd said he'd kill her, and he doesn't speak English," she groaned quietly. "What in the world possessed her to..." The cops intense questioning about Sephiroth came to mind, and she shook her head. "Nevermind. Jamie, we've got to get out of here."
Jamie grinned. "That's the idea."
Jaz and Sephiroth both remained where they were for a few moments, breathing hard. The elevator was on its way down.
Jaz uncurled, glancing at the door. "That went better than I expected," she said, smiling with the adrenaline rush. She turned to Sephiroth. "Are you all..."
Her voice trailed off in something like disbelief, or horror.
Sephiroth was braced against the back of the elevator, one hand pressed against the wall, having dropped his sword. He was holding his other hand against his chest, which was covered in blood.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its story, and characters (particularly Sephiroth) are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. The same goes for Clock Tower, Tekken 2, Soul Blade, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Lost in Space, Pepsi, and any other games, television shows, movies, etc. mentioned in this fanfic: all belong to their respective owners. Clock Tower, its story, and characters (particularly Scissorman) are the property, copyright, and trademark of Ascii Entertainment.
