Torchwood: Divergence
Book One: Dychwelyd
Chapter 3
Torchwood had been investigating the recent phenomenon in the old Victorian part of the Cathays cemetery for just over a week now, and knew little more than they had to begin with. The unearthly light had stopped appearing in London even before they'd stepped into the arena, but the activity in Wales had been steadily escalating. Each twilight the strange crimson glow had grown more intense, the cracks in the ground had widened, the earth had risen a few inches higher in a headstone toppling hill, the layer of blood had become deeper, and the skittering shadows had grown darker. The only reference they'd been able to find to anything even vaguely similar, dated back to the first Crusades and spoke of a tiny village outside Jerusalem. The story had stated that the elders had called upon "the Scions of the Void" to protect their people and some cherished artefact from the Christian armies. The sketchy tale had claimed that the "Scions" had come "cloaked in the night sky", and that after forty days of "conjuring dance" they had summoned a "winged Guardian" from a "boil of blood" ... that this being had laid waste to the soldiers who came to conquer the Holy Land if they approached the village.
Martha's guess was that whatever artefact had rested in the village had actually been something alien, and the elders had somehow triggered its defence systems. But that in no way explained what was happening now, why it had started in London but progressed in Cathays, or why the Rift sensors were ominously silent during the occurrences. So, they'd opted to stand watch on the graveyard for a few nights and hope they could handle whatever manifested in the end.
The whole team were currently set up at strategic points around the gory mound, but well back from its borders so they'd have room to fight or run if and when something emerged. This was their third watch, and tonight for the forty first day of the manifestation, their numbers were increased by two. Andy had gotten permission from UNIT to attend since it was his night off, and Rhys had come to lend his wife moral support since her parents had cajoled the couple into letting them have little Ebrill for the weekend. The sun was setting, soon twilight would fall and the strange red glow would well up from the ground trailing fresh blood behind it. Everyone simply waited, wondering if tonight would finally see an end to the unsettling phenomenon like in the story they'd found.
"It's starting early," Rhys commented, noting red light already beginning to shimmer in the cracks up the small rise, even though the sun had only just touched the horizon.
Soon the dark ooze of blood began as well, the light growing even brighter as the daylight faded to a soft grey. Shadows wisped up from the ground like smoke; tall, dark, vaguely humanoid shapes that twisted and writhed at the edge of the mound. There were thirteen of them, and they formed a circle like faeries dancing in a toadstool ring. The shapes moved in tandem, their forms tattering away at the edges as they flitted and beckoned.
"The Scions called up a winged Guardian..." Gwen murmured, tempted to move in closer but too wary to chance it.
[Do you hear that?] Turlough's voice queried softly over the blue tooth devices the team members all wore in their right ear.
And indeed, there was a strange whispering sound in the darkening night, a rhythmic, hissing chant that sent a shiver up the spines of everyone present.
"This is it," Gwen warned quietly over the headsets. "Whatever's been building really is going to break tonight. Everyone get ready."
She levelled her gun, knew the others were doing the same even as Rhys wisely eased back out of her way. Suddenly the shadows all came to a rigid halt and the top of the mound split completely open with a billow of steam, the soil crumbling down and away to expose an impossibly deep pool of bubbling blood. The red light went laser bright and shot up toward the heavens in a massive column as big around as the huge pool of gore it radiated from. For several heartbeats all was silent and still. Then a voice like the wind itself whispered "Dychwelyd" ... the Welsh word for "return".
Something stirred the surface of the blood pool not far from the edge closest to where Johnson and Andy were posted. As one, all of the shadows disappeared like mist in high wind, and what looked to be a human hand rose from the light bathed circle of gore. The Torchwood members and their guests all watched in horrified fascination as someone or something tried to escape the hot, viscous liquid... two hands, the top of a head... but then what seemed to be other appendages rising behind it. The form that struggled from the pool of blood appeared to be a naked man, but there were great, gore soaked wings growing from his back near his shoulder blades, like some fallen angel returned from Hell.
He was drenched in blood, his naked body coated in it, well over shoulder length hair plastered down his back with it. The apparent man choked and gasped as he crawled from the bubbling pool, his head down, limbs shaking. The earth closed over the opening he'd emerged from, but the column of light remained. Wings limp, obviously disoriented, he tried to stand, only to stumble and fall to his knees in the centre of the hellish red light. The man wrapped his arms around himself as though chilled even as steam rose from his blood slick body, bowed his head and trembled. The team could hear him sobbing where he knelt on the now miraculously dry, unstained and undisturbed grass. Still, nobody moved as they waited to see if he would prove to be friend or foe.
Gwen stared at the winged man who'd risen from the bloodied earth, a strange tingle of excitement and fear sending a shiver up her spine as she felt a faint sense of recognition listening to him weep. The man was rocking slightly like a frightened child now, seemed to almost be injured or ill. Wings shaking, he doubled over and spat out a quantity of blood, then cried out in a gut-wrenching combination of anger, fear, and pain. And the sound of that cry set off alarm bells in the former PCs mind.
"Gwen?!" Rhys took off in pursuit of his wife as the brunette bolted toward the figure huddled in the searing glow nearby, wondering if she'd finally gone mad.
The whole team converged with weapons levelled, but stopped just beyond the strange light as their leader skidded to a halt on her knees in front of the being they'd just watched rise from a pool of boiling blood in the earth. Hesitantly Cooper reached out to touch the shuddering figure on the head, then carefully put a hand on either side of his face and gently urged him to look up at her. Bright grey-tinged blue eyes met dark green, and the blood-soaked man began to cry even harder, just before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed sideways. A startled Gwen barely managed to keep his face from hitting the ground, and she quickly shifted to pillow his head and left shoulder in her lap, his gore matted wings splayed out behind him like an oil-soaked bird's. She used her shirt sleeve to wipe some of the blood from his face, heard Rhys curse softly as he came to crouch behind her.
All but one of those present stared in horrified shock, now recognising the visage of the winged man. And even unconscious, tears trickled from beneath closed lids to leave pale streaks across his blood smeared face.
"Hush..." Gwen soothed, gently stroking his gore sodden hair even as her own tears dripped down to mingle with his. "It's all right now, Ianto... you're home..."
As she spoke, the blood hued light around them paled then faded completely, leaving those gathered in the ever-deepening night with a friend that three of them had actually watched die nearly two years ago. Strange things could happen when the Cardiff Rift was active... the problem with this apparent resurrection however, was that as far they could tell, the Rift wasn't involved. Torchwood still had a disturbing mystery on its hands, and somehow it didn't seem that the obviously altered former team member thrust back into their world was going to be much help solving it, since he was a very large piece of the whole bewildering puzzle.
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AN: So, the title of Book One makes sense now, yeah? Things should pick up from here.
Thank you to those who have chosen to read this story. The follows and favourites are a lovely surprise.
Posting will just be each weekend now, unless I manage to find a bit of extra time during the week. NM
