3.
Gale didn't know why he had climbed in the back of Mellark's truck.
Well, yeah, he knew. He still hoped he could reason with them, all the more so now that Abernathy had disappeared on his bike in the opposite direction, probably to answer the weirdest booty call ever.
But now they were driving a little too fast in the direction of an old church in ruins to stop a vampire cult from bringing an old demon god on Earth and Katniss had been ranting instructions at both him and Mellark nonstop.
"Katniss." he finally snapped and cut her off. "Katniss, please, tell me, you know this is all in your head. A game or…"
"You saw the vampire turn to dust." she retorted, rolling her eyes as if he was being particularly difficult on purpose.
He looked at Mellark but the boy's jaw was set and he was staring at the road ahead. It stretched in the headlights, blurry because of the downpour that had replaced the small drizzle, not the best conditions for driving and he knew that, soon, they would arrive and then… He unbuckled the safety belt and scooted closer until he filled the space between the front seats.
"I don't know what I saw but it wasn't that." he insisted. "Katniss, this guy… Abernathy… He's a psycho. He's a killer." He only needed thirty minutes in the school library and Google to figure out that much. "He's been filling your mind with…" He sighed and grabbed Mellark's shoulder. The boy startled and the car swerved a little before he got it back straight. "You can't believe this shit, Mellark. Peeta. You're a straight A student. You can't believe in monsters."
"I've seen the monsters." Mellark answered after a moment. "And I know it's difficult to believe…"
"It didn't take you that long." Katniss muttered.
"But it's true." the boy continued, ignoring her. "Everything she told you, it's true. And Haymitch isn't a killer, Gale. Not the way you mean it." He shot an inquisitive glance at Katniss. "Did you know about his girlfriend?"
Katniss shook her head. "No. I told you I thought his mother was a Slayer but he never told me about his girlfriend… He did say he had known two Slayers before he became a Watcher though. Makes sense, I guess."
"It's terrible." Mellark answered. "I can't imagine…"
"That he murdered his girl and probably a dozen others more than the ones I found out about?" Gale deadpanned. Not that either of them really cared.
"They were killed by vampires or demons, Gale." Katniss sighed. "Slayers don't usually live long."
"Is that what Abernathy said?" he snorted. "Probably makes it easier for you to swallow when he actually kills you."
Katniss had apparently had enough. She popped off her safety belt too and spun on her seat to better glare at him. "If you don't believe me and you don't want to come, you can get out now. Peeta, stop the car."
"Keep driving." he growled in answer. "I'm not leaving you to go face a gang by yourself so you can get yourself killed."
"It's not a gang." Katniss hissed. "It's a vampire cult. What do I have to do to convince…"
Mellark abruptly swerved with a curse to avoid the woman standing in the middle of the deserted road that crossed the woods. Gale was flung to the side.
He wasn't sure how the other boy didn't completely destroy the car but he must have lost control of it because next thing he knew, they were gliding. Right until the side of the truck slammed hard into a tree. His head bounced back against the door and he remained slumped on the backseat, stunned.
The door that wasn't wrapped around a tree was ripped open. Ripped open.
The woman Mellark had tried to avoid hitting was standing there, one of those weird demon masks on her face. Maybe it was make-up, he decided, because it looked too… real. But when would she had found the time to do her make-up between the moment she had been on the road and the crash? He had only seen a glimpse of her and rain had been pouring down but he was pretty sure her face had been… normal.
Her hand closed on his ankle and she pulled…
He was a heavy boy. He was tall and muscular. He hadn't expected to move but, not unlike Katniss, she was stronger than she looked and she dragged him out of the car as if he weighed nothing. Once she had him out, she grabbed his hair and forced his head back… He tried to push her away but his ears were ringing and he was still half knocked-out from having hit his head.
The fangs that pierced his neck were a hard wake-up call though.
Even worse when they were ripped away from his throat.
Mellark had her in a headlock, his forearm tight against her throat… Anyone else would have suffocated in minutes but the woman showed no sign of missing oxygen and the other boy was starting to really struggle to hold her back as she tried to claw herself free. She left deep scratches on Mellark's cheek.
"Stake her! Stake her!" he shouted as if that made any sense.
And then, out of nowhere a shadow fell on them. Dripping from the rain, standing taller than he had ever seen her, twirling a sword in her hand like others would have played with a pen.
"Drop her." Katniss ordered.
And Mellark did. No question asked.
The woman tried to turn on her but it was already too late. The sword came down and her head flew off.
Gale crawled back against the side of the truck, only stopping when he felt the open door at his back, staring at the spot the woman had fallen. There should have been blood and gore and probably a head because beheaded people tended to bleed and miss a head…
There was nothing.
Nothing but dust in the wind.
"What…" he started. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.
"Vampire." Mellark said, a little short of breath. "She must have been on look-out."
"Are you alright?" Katniss crouched next to him. She impatiently tossed her wet braid over her shoulder and then she touched his neck… "I don't think it's very deep. Did she drink?"
"I don't think she had time." Mellark denied. "I got there pretty quick."
He was bleeding, Gale realized. Because that woman… that thing had bitten him hard enough to draw blood. Maybe they were all delusional. Maybe those people thought they were vampires the same way Katniss believed she was some sort of vampire hunter.
But then again… That woman had turned into dust.
"I'm fine." he mumbled, leaning into the hand she had moved to his cheek.
"I hate to interrupt." Mellark cut in – and, given the closed expression on his face, Gale doubted he hated to interrupt at all. "But… we're on a clock here."
Katniss darkened a little and slowly stood back up. She had been on the wrong side of the car and not buckled up either, she moved a little stiffly and there was blood down her face, although the rain was quickly washing it out.
"Are you okay?" Mellark worried, once he realized.
"We have an apocalypse to stop." she hissed for only answer.
°O°O°O°O°O°
Effie had never been so cold in her life.
Her hands and feet were going numb despite the warming spells she had casted and the protection the pentacle offered. She was hugging herself, still kneeling on the cold tiles, there were crystals of ice in her air and the towel felt stiff and scratchy around her body Frost had crept over everything in the room. The water in the tub was frozen thick. Her breath came out in white puffs in front of her face.
How long would it take Katniss to dispatch the vampires and stop an old god from materializing?
Too long, the voice kept murmuring in her head, entirely too long.
She was going to die in that bathroom if she didn't try to do something. But leaving the pentacle meant exposing herself to more physical attacks and she was defenseless.
She forced herself to uncurl, placed her hands flat on the floor, ignoring the dull throbbing in her sliced palm. This would have worked better if she had been on the ground floor or, even better, outside, but needs must. She closed her eyes, willed her teeth to stop chattering long enough that she could focus…
How many times had Caesar tried to teach her how to go into a trance? It was a sought-after training combat method, something about warriors needing to become one with oneself, to embrace the peace that could only come from within or something equally new-age. New age martial techniques hadn't been in fashion when she had been a teenager and she had never bothered to learn how to master that particular skill later on. Meditating, for her, had always amounted to making mental lists of the shoes and clothes she wished to buy.
According to her mother, it was another reason she was so bad at magic. A true witch needed to know how to control her mind, harness her own power and forge it into a weapon.
She supposed the fact Caesar and Elindra were in agreement on something should have been enough to make her revise her judgment. She certainly regretted not being more proficient at it now.
Clearing one's mind when you were about to die was a lot more difficult than it seemed.
She tried to focus on her breathing like Caesar had droned on and on about when she had been fifteen but she couldn't ignore the shivers and the uncontrollable chattering of her teeth. In the end, she did the reckless thing and dove within…
She didn't have enough power to leave the pentacle and live to tell the tale but perhaps she could borrow it. Her fingers clenched on the tiles when she confusedlyfelt the tendrils of power under her palms. Earth magic. Familiar. Eternal. She didn't have enough focus to clearly discern the intricate patterns of power but it was there for her to tap into all the same.
But there was something else…
A primitive tempting beat under the familiar hum of the Earth…
Her mind brushed against one of those tendrils of power and recoiled in horror. She crashed back into her own body, opening her eyes and taking a deep gulps of air… Dark, dark, dark… Sweet rotten whispers… Promises of glory and power…
The Hellmouth.
That source of power was right there. Easy to tap into. So easy it was almost tempting because she knew all she had to do was reach for it and she would not be cold anymore. She would have enough power to blast whatever was trying to kill her to hell. She wouldn't need to gain Coin's approval or to climb the Watchers' ranks. She would be all powerful, young and beautiful for all eternity, a merciful Queen for the world to worship…
The whispers were so sweet… So tempting…
"Trinket!"
She blinked and suddenly realized that she was still on her knees, still freezing, and not anywhere closer to getting out of there.
A crashing sound echoed from somewhere in the penthouse, followed by a loud curse.
The rescue had come.
How long had she been listening to the Hellmouth's song?
"I'm here!"
She tried to shout but her voice was pitiful to her own ears. She listened to Haymitch's voice cursing the thing to hell and back as he struggled to reach the bathroom. There were more crashing sounds so she supposed objects were back to flying all around in the air.
Finally, something – someone – hit the closed bathroom door. It resisted.
"It's frozen shut." she called out.
"Then, fucking, blast it open!" he demanded.
Fire. Summoning fire, right then… It was above what she could do. But ice… She had always felt an affinity to ice. She focused on the frost that covered the wood and willed it to crack. Haymitch was still hitting the door and between her magic and his strength, he managed to kick it down.
One look at her and his features morphed into concern. "Fuck…"
He took three steps in the bathroom and then fell to his knees, struggling against an invisible attacker.
Except this one wasn't so invisible anymore. She could guess at its human shape. The ghost was strangling Haymitch from behind and there was nothing the man could do to get rid of it. His hands tried to grab it but went through the translucent arms…
"No." she growled and, this time, when she pushed deep into the earth to find a source of power, she didn't let herself waver. She ignored the black rotten tendrils that came from the Hellmouth and grabbed the weaker but purer figment of Earth magic. She felt the jolt right down to her belly. The surge of power that made her head roll back in a flash of golden light… When she spoke, her voice wasn't her own. It was power. "In the name of the goddess… Begone."
Haymitch fell face first on the floor, gasping for breath. He coughed twice and then pushed himself on his hands and knees, crawling to her. When he grabbed her, she didn't resist. She wasn't sure she could have even if she had tried. He pulled her against him and he was so warm she snuggled against his chest gratefully, sighing in relief when he wrapped his jacket around her. He was muddy and wet from the storm outside but it was still warmer than anything she could dream of.
"Blue ain't the best color on your lips, sweetheart." he commented.
She laughed. She tried to. She might have if getting warmer hadn't been so painful. Prickles in her hands and toes… Magic. The magic she had borrowed was helping her.
"Nice lightshow." he snorted next, helping her back to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her waist and steered her toward the bedroom.
"It won't… It won't stop it long." she warned in a stuttering whisper. "Where's… Where's Kat…"
"She's taking care of the vampires." he told her, in a tone that clearly expressed it wouldn't have been his first choice. "We didn't want to risk you."
It might have been nice to hear if it hadn't been said in such a detached tone. It wasn't her personally they had been concerned about but the loss of life in general.
"Weapons?" he asked, once they had left the freezing bathroom behind. It was warmer in the bedroom but not by much. She rushed to the walk-in closet and grabbed the first pair of leggings and the first woolen sweater she found. She needed to get warmer before they were under attack again.
"Trunk. Under the bed." she answered, her teeth still chattering.
He put a knee down to grab her weapon trunk and, thus doing, turned his back on her. She seized the occasion to shed the towel and put on her clothes – more difficult than it seemed because of her uncooperative fingers and the fact the towel had frozen stiff.
"Got a thing for enchanted blades?" he mocked.
She pulled the blue angora sweater over her head and glanced at him to find him rummaging through her – altogether modest – collection of weapons. All of them were either enchanted or magical in nature. A pain to get through customs too.
"They are pretty." she replied petulantly. She liked the engraved runes and the shimmering colorful mist of magic that clung to some of them once activated. They looked darling once exposed in an armory – as darling as an armory could ever get anyway – and she could color code them with her shoes. Having the right accessories was important even when you were trying to kill something. Perhaps, even, particularly then. "It is the latest rage for Watchers."
She supposed she had been the one to start the trend, all things considered, but… It had launched a fashion of sort.
"Any idea what we're going against?" he asked, still inspecting her collection. He was cautious at least. Grab the wrong end of an enchanted blade and you could end up missing a limb. He tossed her a glance over his shoulder and his eyebrows shot up. "You're kidding me!"
She fixed the buckle of her high heel and wriggled her toes to get the feeling back into them. The leftover of Earth magic was slowly fading and she suspected it might have spared her a bad case of frostbite.
"Excuse me but fighting demons naked is not my preference." she huffed.
The smirk was immediate, as was the twinkle in his grey eyes. "Too bad." His amusement faded quickly though. "But you've got no problem fighting them in heels. Sure you don't wanna do your make-up too?"
Her cheeks turned crimson when she realized her face was bare. It was bad enough that her hair was wet and tangled but no make-up to hide the imperfections and the small lines that were starting to appear at the corners of her eyes?
Well, this would settle the question of attraction for good. Now that he had seen her without artifices, there was no way he would consider…
"I was thinking and I believe we are in the presence of a nexus of sort." she declared, keeping her features schooled. She wouldn't give him the pleasure of knowing he had made her self-conscious. "The ghosts… I believe I recall reading about a phenomenon when…"
"Too many brutal deaths in one place and the souls stay trapped, like some sort of huge meta ghost." he finished thoughtfully. His face closed. "The Capitol fits the bill. It was Snow's before they turned it into a fancy hotel. The basement's huge. He kept an arena in there. Hundreds of dead, probably."
" I remember reading about this… This is where your mother found your brother, is it not?" she hummed.
He pounced on her and, at first, she thought it was the comment that had enraged him but by the time she hit the floor, a shard of ice was embedded in the wall, right where her head had been a second earlier. The shard vanished but the dent in the wall remained.
Haymitch was heavy and she had instinctively grabbed the back of his shirt when he had tackled her. Her blue eyes found the odd shimmer in the corner of the room before she could even think about disentangling herself from him.
"Begone." she hissed. "How many times do I need to do this tonight? Begone."
It was less effective than a full exorcism and she doubted this particular ghost was truly banished. The threat was delayed again, though. She let out a long breath and forced her body to relax. Her muscles were cramping from the cold and the fear…
Haymitch, meanwhile, had propped himself on his elbow, his grey eyes dancing with amusement and… Something else. "You know… Not that I mind the position and all… But you can let go of me anytime, sweetheart."
She realized she was still clenching his shirt and she quickly let go but jutted her chin up, refusing to be embarrassed by him again. "It appears it is not me who is enjoying this position the most."
His lips stretched into a smirk once more. "Hate to disappoint you, Princess, but that's just a stake."
"Would you stop with the pet names?" She rolled her eyes and pushed him off. She cleared her throat and forced her tone to go back to something a little more professional. She wasn't a school girl anymore and she would not behave like one. "So we agree we are in presence of an entity made of lost souls? It was probably dormant and I woke it up when I tried to exorcise what I believed to be one particular resistant ghost." She hesitated. "Have you seen this before?"
She hadn't. And she didn't like admitting that much.
"Once." he answered, using the edge of the trunk to pull himself in a sitting position. "The ruins of a village in Africa. There was a slaughter." He shook his head. "It looked like a giant mega ghost."
"How did you beat it?" she asked.
"We didn't." he winced. "Chaff… He's a friend of mine, we did some demon hunting together back in the day… Whatever." He spoke more quickly, dismissing his own unnecessary explanations. She knew who Chaff was, anyway. Chaff Mitchell. Not a Council operative even though they had done business with him once or twice but a freelance demon hunter. And a respected one, at that. "He got hurt. We bailed. Local sorcerers said they would take care of it."
"Fantastic." she deadpanned. "When I think I used to believe you were competent."
"Hey, I'm not the one who woke up the ghost army from hell." he scowled. "Mind the sass."
There was an ominous shattering sound and they both looked at the bay windows that were now full of cracks, like a spider web running all over the glass. Slowly, the fragments separated and spun until the sharp ends were pointed at them…
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that's not you doing that." he said, pushing himself to his feet.
She didn't bother answering, she dove for the trunk and closed her hand on a particular hilt devoid of a blade. Haymitch dove for her and pulled her to her feet. He shove her toward the living-room. She whirled around and collided straight against his chest but he rolled with it and wrapped his arms around her waist to tug her into the relative safety of the living-room while she lifted a hand behind his back.
"Protect!" she demanded.
The shards that had been flying straight at them crashed against the magic shield she struggled to sustain. It was a good thing Haymitch was holding her because he supported her when she faltered.
"Here's the plan." he told her, dragging her toward the main door. Was that even a good idea though? She doubted the entity would let them use the elevator…"We get out, go make sure Katniss doesn't get herself killed being her idiotic self, do some research and come back prepared."
The living-room bay windows shattered too and, this time, she didn't react fast enough.
Haymitch barely had time to push them both behind one of the couches for cover.
"I hate to contradict but I do believe we need a new plan." she remarked.
Given the glare he shot her, he wasn't amused.
Soooooo Gale has now officially been convinced vampires exist, Peeta's car is toasted and hayffie is in trouuuuuble ;) What do you think?
Word of update about this story: I am currently moving so it is entirely possible I will miss two Sundays updates in a row. I will try to update next week at least but I am not making any promise because moving is exhausting and I will lose internet for a few days at some point... I will keep you updated on tumblr about the update schedules, I know it's a bit of a cliffhanger to hold on to for two weeks but I will do my best ;)