The household had gone silent. No one spoke, they all thought their hardest on how to get the last ingredient, with such a small amount of time to do so. The sky was growing dark outside, getting ready for the last night of the full moon, even as the sky was turning dusky and red, the tiny pinpoints of sacred lights, the stars, were coming out to shine. The night was coming far too early, and nothing, nothing could stop it.
Jet was the quietest of them all, sitting away from the others on the stairs, resting his elbow on one of his knees and using the palm of his hand to support the bottom of his chin. Eyes half closed, he was using up most of his energy just thinking on what to do next. His mind was clear, but the others were so emotional in their extended reaction to Halle's proclamation that none of them would be able to think up a proper solution. Especially Catherine and Virginia, they looked beside themselves with despair. Jet sighed deeply, hating to be the brains of the operation.
The potion still bubbled merrily above the flames, oblivious to the knowledge that it could now be considered worthless. Without the final ingredient, it would have absolutely no proper use. Gallows sullenly took the cup off the boil, so it could cool down for one last time. When his hands left the rim of the ceramic container, one of them moved up to scratch at one of the gauze patched covering the burn marks on his face, where not even a few well-placed heal spells had been able to fix. They must have itched a lot, and by Gallows's particular expression, not all the pain must have faded just yet. A few of them had a small staining of blood seeping through the cloth, and Jet took special note of this without really knowing the reason why. It had an importance that he could not remember, but his sixth sense was going off like crazy to make him remember. Gallows noticed Jet staring. "What is it?" He asked.
"Hey…" Jet said slowly, turning to face Virginia. "When you undressed Clive's wound, what exactly did you do to the bandages?" Virginia looked uncertain, but after a few moments of thought, she patted one of the pockets of her dress, checking to see if they were still there. In all the clamor and hubbub of the past few days, she had totally forgotten to throw them out. Jet nodded, talking in his usual detached manner. "I was just thinkin' about it when I was watching Gallows." He stated. "And that I thought I had an idea."
"Me?" Gallows mumbled, pointing at himself. "What did I do?" Shane looked at him, and then Catherine. Soon, every single pair of eyes were focussed on the eldest Baskar brother, which made Gallows a tad nervous. He sweatdropped before raising his hands a little, forcing out an anxious chuckle. "Don't look at me like that. You're gonna make me paranoid…"
Jet elaborated further, amused by Gallows's weird reaction. "Well, before his bite wound closed up, there was a hell of a lot of blood, right?" He didn't wait for anybody else to reply. "And we all know that blood goes sticky before it dries. So, if Clive did develop that bit of fur while his wound was closing up, it's only logical that maybe some of the dried blood left on the bandages might have strands of hair on it as well." The reaction was delayed, but when they finally did respond, Jet was smug to the fact that he had cheered everyone up.
"Gah! Stupid, stupid, stupid me!" Gallows cried, smacking himself lightly in the face but still smiling, "Why the heck didn't I think of that?! That's genius, Jet! Oh man, some of my own talent must be rubbing off on you, eh?" Jet just shrugged, staying quiet while the others were suddenly back in on the action. Virginia quickly took the bandages out of her pocket, spreading them out on the workbench. They were indeed quite bloodstained, and stank a little of decay. What intrigued them a little was that while most of the blood was bright red and normal, there was also small patches of a dark substance, staining the fabric like machine oil. Jet was startled as Catherine suddenly hugged him, uttering something that sounded like a cross between a sob and relieved laughter. The android went limp, but did not move or attempt to pry her away. She was just grateful.
Virginia was still checking the bindings, with Shane at her shoulder offering a little extra help. Those patches of strange oil unnerved her a little, but it was in one of those spaces that she removed with one of her nails a small strand of greyish-blue fur, amply hidden in the dark dried fluid. Virginia tipped the hair into the palm of her hand, it was very tiny, would it be enough? "I got one!" The drifter announced, turning to face Catherine. The woman approached and Virginia passed her the solitary hair with a smile, luck was still on their side.
The potion, although set aside to cool, was still bubbling as it's heat receded, and Catherine dropped the hair in with extreme care, watching it disappear into the broth. "That is everything, right? Arnica, aconite, ambrosia, curare, silver, mandrake, blood, and a lycan's hair. Are we done?" She faced Halle, the old woman standing quietly behind them all. Her aged face creasing up into a grin, she nodded. Catherine felt a huge weight fall away, and she sighed.
Slowly, Halle hobbled over to the pot, her wooden cane nearly stomping Gallows on the foot as she approached. "You all did very well," She announced, looking at each person evenly and equally, "I'm impressed. Just give this potion a few more minutes to mix, and you can be on your way to save this lycanthrope from himself." Halle faced Gallows, and raised her cane as if she was going to beat him again, and Gallows squeezed his eyes shut as if he expected it. That blow never came, just a weak tap that harbored no malice. He opened one eye, confused. Halle found the next few words very difficult to muster. "Grandchild… You didn't fail. Not bad, keep it up and you might actually make me proud one day…" She quickly followed it up with; "If that's possible."
Gallows was dumbstruck, and Shane patted him on the back with pride.
Catherine had her hand on the rim of the potion's container, staring into it's watery depths. It had turned a greyish-blue, just like the colour of the fur. She wondered, briefly, what Clive would look like now. Would she recognize him?
Would he?
xxx
He had unwittingly fallen asleep. It was all his activity during the day that had caused it, generally being a nocturnal creature in himself, but it was not uncommon for Ravendor to nod off at times, especially if nothing very interesting was happening around him. Dario and Antonio had taken Kaitlyn to a chamber not too far away, after seeing that their boss needed his peace, and Romero had followed them out of sheer boredom. He was sitting down against one of the dark walls of the shrine, the room barely holding any light, but just enough for a person to scout their way around. His head down, Ravendor made hardly any noise at all as he slept, except for the slight rising and falling of his breath. Gently, his bandaged hand twitched, and he slowly opened his bright green eyes, waking up.
The first thing he noticed was that he was lying in a puddle of his own blood and panakeia.
The pain settled itself back into his consciousness, alerting him to his problem. Ravendor groaned and leant back forward from the wall, feeling something unfamiliar behind his body and under his white jacket flex from the motion. He raised his left hand to his mouth, speckled with panakeia, and gently touched a portion of it with his tongue, checking the potency of the solution. His panakeia had never been this weak before, nor did it so readily escape from his body. Ravendor felt that his scars had begun to bleed again, in sync with the coming of darkness, and laid back again, wincing as the rock pressed down on those scars without remorse. "Corvus corax mutation… twelve percent…" He whispered almost inaudibly. "Human DNA total… thirty-five percent…" He paused for a long time, his bandaged hand twitching every so often. "Synthetic demon composition… fifty-three percent…"
It is hard to remember... what it was like to be human...
He knew what he was, and he knew what he was going to be. Project Dark Angel, he was coming back.
He wished that this could have come up during a time when he was not working, or when he did not have to deal with an innocent child. Ravendor didn't want Kaitlyn to see him in his original form. The drifter tentatively stood up on his own two feet, looking down and seeing a few discarded black feathers floating around in a concoction of his panakeia and imitation blood. He knew where they had come from, removing his jacket and shaking all the blood from it. Perhaps white was not the best colour for him to wear after all.
The back of his dark shirt had twin slits running down his shoulder blades, for a very good reason. From only being newly born, the wings on his back stung as he fit them through the opening, with a wingspan no larger than fifty or so centimeters, but no less painful. They would grow bigger soon. When he had shaken from his jacket as much blood as he could, Ravendor slipped the piece of clothing on, over his back and wings, before spreading his arms, holding his palms out, and closing his eyes. He would arouse suspicion if he just wandered around like that, covered in blood.
A light glowed in the darkness, coloured an aqua-like green, manifesting itself as a thin and angular text running down along his arms and hands. It was a runic script, and the natural language of the demon race, stolen from the Hyades database all those years ago. The tiny lines of writing activated a brief flash of unbearable light, and when it faded only seconds later, all the blood and loose feathers had gone. Ravendor took a deep breath, and lowered his arms to his sides. Opening his eyes once more, the bandit leader checked to see if he looked alright and left the room to find the others.
Kestorael greeted him in the next room, flying ahead and leading him to where the others were, only a few rooms away from the entrance and at a structure that looked somewhat like an altar, with long trailing dead vines clinging tenaciously to the white marble pillars. It had no leaves, lost ages ago, but this room seemed unaffected by the explosion a decade ago, it still retained it's marvelous beauty. Kaitlyn was standing on the altar, splashing her hands in a shallow pool supplied by the shrine's water reservoir, smiling in child-like pleasure. There were some pebbles at the bottom, and she was fishing those stones out, as if she was searching for a gemstone lost somewhere in the make-believe sea. Romero was leaning against one of the pristine white pillars, and Antonio was shadow-boxing the air. Dario sat nearby, cleaning his ARM.
Ravendor moved up behind Kaitlyn, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Leaning over her head, he looked down at what she was doing and smiled. "Searching for drifter artifacts, Kaitlyn?" He asked. "Are you having any luck?"
She answered him after a second, but her words and tone of voice were serious. Straightening up and turning around, she cocked her head to one side and looked curious. "Uncle Ravendor, I need to ask you something." She said, dropping a handful of stones back into the water. They made a low splooshing noise and tossed up a light splashing of water, which disappeared soon after. Kaitlyn looked like something had been on her mind for a long while, making the happy go-lucky girl somewhat different than usual. "Last night after you fell asleep, I stayed up for a while and heard you talking in your sleep. You were crying about somebody called Seraph, who's Seraph?"
"Nobody," Ravendor answered automatically after some thought, "Just a-"
He broke off in mind-sentence, glancing sharply behind him. Somebody had just entered his range of aural charge, a radius that extended around the entire shrine and a litter bit after that. If anybody was to enter that range, Ravendor would immediately know about it. Somebody just did, at that very second, and he recognized them without question. Clive had reached the entrance to the ruin.
Kaitlyn gasped in mild surprise as Ravendor reached down and picked her up effortlessly, turning and descending down the steps of the altar without giving her a proper answer. If it were possible, his green eyes could have crystallized, now hardened into an emerald finish that made him looked positively haunted by something. He deposited Kaitlyn next to Dario, and hauled the bearded bandit to his feet by one hand, gripping him by the collar with his knuckles grazing Dario's throat. "B-Boss?" Dario choked with alarm.
"Listen to me," Ravendor hissed, letting go of the other man, "This chamber has six different corridors behind this altar. Take the second one on the left and follow it without question. That passageway is very winding and will have many different paths branching out from the original tunnel, but do not take any of them, understand?" Dario nodded in blind conformance. "Follow the passage and you shall come to an incredibly large room, stay there and do not move from your post. Make sure that Kaitlyn is not out of your sight, keep her guarded at all times." Ravendor turned and began to walk away. "Do not disappoint me, Dario. Romero. Antonio. Kestorael, go with them. I will meet up with you shortly."
"But Boss!" Antonio protested after finding the corridor Ravendor was talking about. "Is blocked off! I no can see way in! Rocks in way!" A recent cave-in had sealed off the pathway, a multitude of boulders and stones making it impossible to go ahead. This was not good, as it was the only way to their rendezvous point. On Antonio's words, Ravendor checked it out for himself. The small bandit was right.
"Dammit," The drifter spat, condemning his own misfortune, "Somebody cover Kaitlyn's eyes, I do not want her to see this…" Antonio did as he was told, gently placing his gloved hands over Kaitlyn's eyes. She protested a little, but remained cooperative, even though she probably could of fought Antonio off if she tried, for the exceedingly short man was actually no taller than she was. Pulling her away, the other bandits backed off under Ravendor's direction, giving him space. Once again, the runes appeared on the exposed parts of his arms, making Dario and Romero's eyes widen in surprise. Antonio sighed and looked away, knowing what would come next. Gravity lightened a little around Ravendor's body, making his jacket billow slightly, and a dark form of electricity crackled into life, powered by his failing panakeia.
"What's going on?" Kaitlyn whined, "I wanna see!"
Ignoring her, Ravendor expelled the dark lightning into the blocked tunnel with a grunt of exertion, the runes fading as the spell was cast. It shot like a trailing bullet into the rocks, the impact causing the electricity to run along the creases and gaps between the stone like a spider spinning a web, before disappearing entirely from view. It stayed like this for nearly three seconds, just long enough for the three bandits to drop their guard.
Then it exploded in a burst of fizzling darkness and shattered rock, the shrapnel from the blast somehow not reaching the bodies outside the tunnel. A whole lot of dust did, however, and they all had to shield their noses and mouths until the dirty cloud died down and settled. Kaitlyn squirmed as Antonio removed his hands, but all the little girl could guess was that one of them had used some kind of a bomb. Romero grabbed her hand and a horrible feeling of uneasiness shot through her body. She did not like that man very much.
Ravendor gave out some new orders. "Antonio and Kestorael, I want you to go and scout this place out for me. If anything seems amiss or goes wrong, come and tell me. We have an intruder in our hideout, I want you all to prevent him from finding our hostage. Use force if you have to, but no killing without my approval! Clive Winslett shall not reach Kaitlyn!"
For Kaitlyn, everything had finally clicked into place. "Daddy?!" She cried. "Uncle Ravendor, why?! Don't hurt him, please!" She tried to run ahead and reach him, but Romero roughly yanked her back. Still, she tried to reach out to him. "No!"
But Ravendor was already gone.
xxx
Clive finally dismounted Hasufel when they reached the foot of the tall mountains, the vague reddish haze of dusk imposing on them from every single direction. Without a proper map to guide him, the drifter had to rely on his faint memory of the ruin from eleven years ago, and even with that knowledge, it would still be rather unreliable due to the ruin's current state. A decade ago it had been a proud and magnificent shrine, now it would only be a gruesome and ominous cave. Clive had never seen the destroyed ruin with his own eyes, even when he was escaping from it, but he thought that with a little ingenuity, he should be able to locate it. Coupled with his newly acquired tracking skills, the entrance was probably only a short search away.
"This is where I will leave you, my friend." He said, patting Hasufel lightly on the side of his neck. Hasufel whickered softly and trotted away, but not before nudging Clive slightly with his large rounded nose, probably his own special way of saying goodbye. Clive had no rein or saddle to relinquish from the animal, so he merely stood there quietly as the horse walked away, his arms carefully folded across his front. Hasufel had been a good steed for the price, no more than five hundred gella, and it was a small shame to see him go. Clive could only hope that he would not be needing Hasufel's speed for a long time now, or else he would be in trouble. Even so, he would never break his promise. Hasufel was now a freed horse.
"It is probably better for both of us…" Clive continued to himself as he turned towards the mountains, putting his back to the retreating form of the dark brown stallion. "Wherever I am going, it is best that no living creature follow me." Setting one hand on the tough rocky surface of the nearly vertical base of the mountain, Clive once again caught the scent of the bandits on the air, but was now stuck with a new predicament. Should he go left or right? He knew he didn't have the time to dwell on a singular decision, when dusk wore out he would lose himself again, and had to choose fast. Using a simple method, Clive walked to the left for about a hundred meters and checked the strength of the scent, before doubling back and doing the exact same thing for the right. Pausing, he evaluated the difference and made his decision. He would head right.
Adjusting his glasses out of sheer habit, Clive felt a sense of jittery urgency build up somewhere in his mind, as if he could sense that an hourglass, his hourglass, somewhere far away, was extremely close to running out. Only a few straggling grains of sand were left. Thinking these thoughts did not slow him down, all Clive was really focussing on was the minute differences in the chemical compounds in the air, governing which types of scent domineered over others. His new abilities were practically second-nature to him now, and Clive could find it hard to believe that he had been able to exist without them before. He had been a big, stupid, clunky and uncoordinated human, now he was much more agile, smarter, superior. Clive didn't particularly want to trade all that back. As the end of the third and final day of his curse neared, he was actually beginning to like what he was becoming.
It will not be so bad, I suppose. I can get used to things… like this… as long as I stay away from the humans, of course. The fur and the fangs… I can ignore, they are hardly noticeable, and I believe I can get used to the tail over time… But I think… that I shall miss Virginia and the others the most… out of all of this. And Kaitlyn and Catherine… Catherine… It would not be right for me to love you anymore. When this mess is over, I hope you can still be happy, even if it is without me…
His hand, being lightly dragged across the surface of the mountain, touched sharp spines of a thin and decrepit aging bush, fused tightly to the surface of the rock face. It was devoid of water, and in an advanced state of decay, when Clive touched the plant, a great deal of loose and dried leaves fell off and sailed sadly to the ground, making a little pile. He raised an eyebrow, with those leaves gone, he could see some kind of hole hidden behind it, and a slight touch of wind on the back of his hand as he pulled the bush away indicated that the hole must lead to somewhere with a tiny breeze. "Geographically speaking, and according to my memory, this must lead inside the ruin…" He murmured, creating a theory.
Stepping back a bit, he took a firmer grasp on the dead bush and ripped it out by the roots, giving him enough space for a better look. The area inside the hole was dark, and it was not helped by the fact that the land outside was slowly darkening as well. He needed a light. Clive turned and took out his good old trusty knife point, scratching a tiny little pentagram no larger than a medallion in the dirt. He placed one hand over the hex and summoned a small flicker of flame, scooping it up so that it hovered harmlessly above his palm and did no more than offer slight warmth and light. Kneeling so that he face was level with the entrance to the tunnel, Clive pushed his flame-bearing hand inside and checked the depth and width of the hole.
Some beetles and other insects scuttled away when exposed to the light, and he found out that the tunnel was a littler bigger than he thought, even though he could only see for about a meter or so inside. It was rocky and craggy, with spider webs everywhere, and right near the very entrance was a strip of torn clothing, the shred of a dark green bandanna. Clive picked it up and withdrew from the passageway, taking a closer look at the fabric. It looked, and smelled like Romero's bandanna. So, they had passed through here. Clive knew that he would have to follow.
Thanking the gods that he was not a very broad person, Clive wriggled himself inside and felt the sharp peaks of rocks poking into his stomach and chest, slightly tearing at the fabric of his shirt. Pressing his elbows and his forearms into the ground, he slid them forward and dragged the rest of his body after him, hating the feeling of claustrophobia imposing on his mind from all sides. The tunnel was straight for about two metres or so, before it rose upwards a bit in a little arch, and that slight bit of ascent took Clive nearly ten minutes to crawl on through. Vacated cobwebs caught in his hair, clothes and the fur on his tail, making the drifter hope vehemently that no spiders lingered nearby. Even more so, he hoped that this tunnel had an exit, and that he had been correct in assuming the bandits had passed through here.
No, he knew that he was correct. Clive, although his vision was severely impaired by the small cramped area, could smell some that of the more jagged shards of rock had dried blood smeared across the sharp bits, meaning he was heading in the right direction. It was from that abandoned blood that he knew the personal signature of the bandits. Stopping a little to take a breather, Clive felt slightly ill from the lateness of the day, and exhaled a deep breath, small traces of exerted sweat beading on his skin.
I hope there is an exit… Please let there be an exit… I do not want to have to go out backwards… I will end up cutting myself raw…
Speaking of cutting himself, Clive had just enough visibility inside to check the accidental self-inflicted wound across the palm of his hand, the skin sliced through in a nice clean cut. Had he been human, the sting and irritation would have been very difficult to ignore. Blood had crusted up over some of the creases in his hand, but all that remained from the physical wound itself was just a thin red line. It was a little itchy, but that was probably just the dried blood, the demon making use of one of the sharp pieces of rock to scratch the coating off. Clive could hear his hear beating within his own chest, and not wanting to be stuck in such a small place for too long, he pushed himself forward once more.
Vaguely wondering how the bandits had made it through here in one piece, Clive shuffled over the arch and found that the tunnel went downwards from there, now having to hold himself back in order to refrain from slipping too far ahead. If he did, he'd shear great big holes into his front for sure. Moving his hands as best as he could, the drifter grabbed onto the jutting rocks and used them as handles to pull him down safely, taking his time to avoid any unnecessary scratching. Clive's eyes were well protected behind his glasses as a large cobweb stuck itself to his face, but he hardly noticed this because he could see an end to the tunnel, leading out into a wider space. The passageway was opening up on itself, and he now had the freedom to get up on his hands and knees instead of crawling around like a snake on it's belly.
He was incredibly grateful when the passage came to an end. Clive gripped the rocks framed around the opening and pulled himself out, grunting as a thick and bluntly bladed rock cut a long scratch down one of his arms. He could now breathe in the unrestricted air, now that the space around him had increased, and reserved about a minute or so in time for him to brush the dirt and cobwebs from out of his red coat, also shaking the remainder out of his hair and fur. Clive sneezed, and then sniffed. He hoped he was not catching a cold, if that were possible. Could demons catch a cold? Hopefully not.
This place did not feel right. The actual site he was standing upon used to be classified as a Guardian shrine, and while he was equipped with a suitable medium, the power from his ark scepter would always send him a telepathic evaluation of the area's spiritual well being. It never failed. Clive closed his eyes and released the barriers of his mind, trying to empty his mind of all valid thought. It was very difficult, especially in his current situation, but he somehow managed to hold the sensation, just for a few short seconds. A slight white glow outlined his figure as the ark scepter activated, fading soon after. He took a breath, and understood. There was some kind of… imprint on this place, something extremely bad had happened here in the past, and he himself had been one of the deciding factors in it's execution. The power of the medium, he could feel the shock, he could hear the cries made… over a decade ago…
"…Biggs! …Wedge?! …Goddamn it, you two! Answer me! You cannot be dead!"
"Cather…ine? What is… what is… wrong with me? I cannot see… Why can't I see?! …Catherine… Oh my gods, no…"
One of the voices had been his own. He could hear another, but anything else had just been incoherent screaming. Some of the frequencies had been weaker than others, differentiated by gaps in time, maybe even by thousands of years. This shrine must have also had a sacrificial altar somewhere in it's vicinity, perhaps where unwilling devotees or slaves had been sacrificed? Clive felt cold all of a sudden, like somebody had just brushed his cheek with an ice-cold hand. This place, it stank of pain and loss.
"Only humans could have committed such crimes… They are the ultimate incarnation of hypocrisy in this reality…" Clive muttered, coming out of his very light trance. The first time he had been here, it had been so remarkably beautiful that it simply took his breath away, which did not happen often. He was only a fledgling archaeologist and drifter back then, but Clive knew a rare site when he saw it. In fact, he remembered that some of the back chambers had been nearly half a mile wide in diameter, with ceilings so high that it could not be seen. It had all been carved out of solid stone. He wondered, upon finally returning to this place, if some of the chambers like that still existed.
Probably not, by the way I fouled things up… Blowing up the wall, what was I thinking? I had no idea… that it was maintaining the entire site's structural integrity… I was hotheaded, and look at what it brought to us…If I had only checked the architectural type like Catherine had told me to…None of this ever would have happened…
Clive stepped away from the entrance to the tunnel, before freezing as he realized that something was tugging on a memory in the back of his mind, an important indicator of the past, whether it be a distant memory, or the happenings of only a few days ago. Clive could sense an aura somewhere in the shrine, and though distorted, he knew undoubtedly who it was. How in Filgaia could he forget? The distortion was a little disturbing, making it slightly different from the one he could remember from near Jolly Roger, and worlds away from it's innocent counterpart of about twenty years ago. It felt like Ravendor, but the signature was a little off, just wrong. Nearby, he could sense a weaker one, too far away and faint for him to analyze it further, but he could tell within the blink of an eye that it was…
"Kaitlyn!" Clive cried, hearing his voice echo loudly across the ancient stone. She was here! She was nearby! Forgetting to be careful, he randomly picked one of the corridors extending from the chamber he was currently in and ran to it, not bothering to check and see if it was the correct one. The shrine had been like a maze before the explosion, now it would be nearly impossible to navigate without proper aid. Clive was equipped with this aid, but paternal instinct had banished the thoughts from his head. He would regret it later.
Outside, the world had darkened, heralding twilight. A cloud drifted away from it's former position in the inky blackness of the sky, uncloaking the round fullness of a silvery full moon. Rock and earth could not hide him from it's influence, and Clive felt the presence just the same. The muscles in his legs tightened, forcing him to trip over, and pain once again flooded through his system. He knew what was happening the moment they had begun to occur. His time had just run out.
"N-no…" He panted, hating autumn and it's early sunsets, "N-nott… yettt…. N-n-nott… nrowww…" The power of the moon was burning itself into his yielding body, Clive resisted all he could, but he was fighting a losing battle. Slowly, and in the midst of his suffering, Clive pushed himself to his feet and stumbled to the side of the cave wall, gasping like he had just ran without a rest for hours on end. He willed himself to stay the same, using up all the power he had, and at a sloth's pace, he staggered down the corridor, somehow continuing to retain his current form. He fought with all his heart and soul, and was managing to postpone the transformation, though it tortured every nerve as if it was burning in a hellish fire.
The curse was finally near completion.