Chapter Thirteen: Research
The next morning, Mia and I are awoken by persistent knocks on the door. Mia groans as I crawl over her and out of the bed to answer it. I am greeted by Lola Perry with a plate of brownies in her hands.
"Good morning Trinity." She holds out the plate. "Have a brownie."
I tentatively take one. "Thanks Perry." I blink. "I don't wish to sound rude but what are you doing here?"
"It's almost about time for Laura and Carmilla to wake up. I figured you would want to be there when they do, I want to have a little talk."
"Trinity, it's not 5:45; who's at the door." Mia steps up behind me.
Perry's eyes widen. "Oh. I wasn't aware that you had company."
I nod, covering a yawn with me hand. "Perry this is Mia, she wants to help us find LaFontaine."
"Hi." Mia waves sheepishly.
"Hello." Perry nods. "Brownie?"
"Sure." Mia slowly grabs one from the plate.
We stand in awkward silence for a moment before I break it. "Perry, would you mind giving us a little time to freshen up? We'll meet you in Laura's room, okay?"
Perry nods. "Alright, see you in a bit." She continues on to Laura dorm as I close the door.
I turn to Mia. "Ready to meet my friends…well some of them?"
Mia tries to tame her hair with her free hand. "Not how I imagined our first meeting going, but sure. Let's do this." She looks at the brownie. "Might as well eat these, I don't see the opportunity for caffeine happening anytime soon."
After finishing the chocolate treat, which were pleasantly delicious, we made our way to the door when Mia stopped. I turn to look at her in confusion. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing it's just…when you introduce me, is it going to be just as your friend or your…girlfriend?"
I tilt my head. "Are we girlfriends?"
"I hope so. I mean…after last night…"
"Then we are girlfriends." I nod.
Mia smiles and pecks me on the lips, making me smile as well. "Then let's get going."
"Oh!" I walk to the bed and crouch, pulling out the book Grandmother gave me and grabbing my laptop. "I almost forgot."
We arrive at Laura's room in time to see her accepting a brownie from Perry and Carmilla sleeping on the floor.
"Sorry, I keep dreaming there's this giant cat thing sleeping on the floor." Laura tells her.
"Oh, that's probably just Carmilla." Perry nudges the sleeping vampire with her foot. "Carmilla. Carmilla."
"Ugh." She groans. "What?"
Perry holds out the plate. "Want a brownie?"
"Seriously?" the vampire asks. "I was just getting to sleep." She begins standing up. "Did you vacuum around me?" She turns around and sees me and Mia standing by the wardrobe. Her brows furrow at her. "Who the hell are you?"
"Oh, I'm Mia."
"She's my girlfriend. She wants to help us figure out how to find Lafontaine and stop the Dean." I tell her.
Carmilla raises an eyebrow. "What, so we're a fan club now?" She asks sardonically.
I bristle. "She's here to help, which happens to be something we're lacking in. Would it really hurt to have her around?"
"She's right Carmilla. "Laura says. "It's nice to meet you."
"Likewise." Mia smiles.
"Okay." Perry says. "So now that introductions are over and everyone is awake, I think it's time that we had a floor meeting."
"So we're in hell now." Carmilla begins looking through the fridge in the kitchen area.
"Seems so." Laura says. "Brownies are good."
"The two of you can be flip all you like, but the fact remains that LaFontaine is missing and we need to start doing something about it right now. So, first," Perry looks at the camera. "I think we need to put this," she waves her hand. "on some kind of delay so the we aren't just giving ourselves away if something evil is watching. Second, are we calling the police? Possibly hiring a private investigator? Mercenaries? Bloodthirsty killers for hire? We can do that, right?"
"We went over all of this with Betty." Laura tells her. "The police won't come unless campus security calls them and no private investigator will even set foot on this campus. Which, really is an indication, and I don't even know how you go about finding mercenaries."
"You can usually find them on the dark web." I cut in. "It's not cheap though, but I guess I just wire some money from some politician's off shore account. Covering my footprints of course; and it's not like they'd be able to make a big fuss about it, since it's funded by illegal means." I notice that everyone is staring at me. "What?"
"I don't think that's the best way to go." Laura says. "But we'll hit the book. There's supposed to be something in there." Perry nods with a frown on her face. "In the meantime, I think I saw some mold behind the totals, you could-"
"Okay." Perry stands up, setting the plate of sweets down and eagerly grabbing her cleaning supplies.
"Oh, wow." Mia whispers, watching Carmilla step forward with a cup of blood in her hand.
"And now for our daring daylight escape?" the vampire asks.
"And now for hitting the book." Laura tells her. "She might be traumatized, but she isn't wrong."
Laura and Carmilla sit at the desk, searching through the tome, while Mia and I sit on Laura's bed, Mia with my laptop on her lap and me looking through my book. Perry walks around us, cleaning everything in sight. She reaches between Carmilla and Laura, accidentally knocking the cup full of blood onto the pages.
"Ugh, goddammit." Carmilla says.
Perry pulls back in shock. "Oh, I'm sorry I-I-I didn't mean-" she apologizes but is cut off.
Laura takes a closer look at the book. "Is that…new stuff appearing on the book because you spilt blood on it?" She rolls her eyes. Mia and I stand and walk near them, wanting to get a look at well. "Right, of course it is."
"It's an entry from something called Lophiiformes." Carmilla reads. "'The light that devours. An ancient evil that demands'…I'm not sure about the symbol there…Trinity?"
I step closer and shake my head. "I can't remember it either but it looks like 'five virgins every twenty years."
"Shocker." Carmilla deadpans and continues reading. "Uh, 'once victims are marked, their world narrows to celebration'."
"It likes party girls." Laura concludes. "That's it! That's our thing! So, how do we stop it?"
"Uh," Carmilla releases a heavy sigh. "'old as the ocean's depths, the light that betrays all, blah, blah, blah, blah, draws the devoured to it and consumes…their minds, which increases the light and draws in more of the devoured'." She looks at Laura.
"When it says old as the ocean, it doesn't mean from the ocean, would it?" I ask, thinking of the beings of the Old World that lie at the bottom of the ocean and the stories I've heard about them.
Carmilla shrugs. "I don't know, why?"
"Just trust me when I say it wouldn't be good."
"So," Laura says. "it's absorbing their minds and using the energy to draw more people in. And if Ell is reaching out to us then…"
"They're conscious in there." Carmilla finishes.
"God, this just gets creepier and creepier."
"Word." We hear, and turn around to see LaFontaine leaning against the wardrobe. We push ourselves near Carmilla's bed to put space between us and them. "Hey. Why are we all freaking out?" They ask.
Perry rushes forwards and wraps her arms around them. "Oh, you're back! You're back! You're alright."
"What do you mean I'm back? I didn't go anywhere." They look at our faces. "Did I…go somewhere?" They notice Mia. "You're new."
We all ask LaFontaine what they remember about their time away. Perry stays standing near them, Mia and I sat on Laura's bed while the blonde sat on Carmilla's, the vampire sitting near her on the computer chair. "There's just nothing. I remember being here, talking to you, and then I was in the corner like no time had passed."
Perry keeps one hand in theirs and the other against their arm. "Well, it was more than just today. We didn't think you'd come back." She looks at Laura. "That other girl, Elsie- she didn't come back."
"They really took me." LaFontaine says. "If they did, those things are in my brain. How long do I have?" They ask only to be met with silence. "Great. So, what do we know?" They were once again met with silence and turned to Perry. "Please tell me you didn't waste an entire day making brownies."
"No, no!" Laura tells them. "We found it. It's this devouring light thing called Loopiformes."
"Lophiiformes." Carmilla corrects her.
"And it looks like the Dean sacrifices five girls to it every twenty years."
"Wow, so much for the university's progressive policies on feminism, huh?" They chuckle with a slightly blank look in their eyes. "So, uh, why would the Dean do that?"
"Well, why does anyone start a cult? Wealth. Power. Eternal youth. To get back at people you knew in high school." She brushes the hair out of her eyes.
"So, uh, is there anything in book that might…?"
"No, it's just…it's more the all-hail-and-cower-muling-worms vein."
"Okay." Perry says. "So maybe we don't have to go with the book, but," LaFontaine's phone beeps. "ancient evil brain parasites, yes, so maybe they don't like, um aspirin or cough syrup-"
LaFontaine pulls their phone out and looks at it. "My phone is almost dead. What's this?" They click on a recording.
~I didn't see anything when they took me but now I'm in this little room. It's dark and it smells like limestone and water like a cave…~
~I don't know what she's bitching about, I mean we're fine.~ We hear Will's voice. ~The third one went so fast we didn't need to collect her again. This one replaced the airhead, so we just need to score one more for the ritual for the new moon. It'll be cake. Ugh, dammit! This one's fainted. Did you forget to water them again? Good news, smarty pants. The Dean will see you now.~
~Oh, that's okay. I know she's busy~ we hear the sound of LaFontaine being hit and the recording ends.
"Did you record your own kidnapping?" Laura asks.
LaFontaine shrugs. "Maybe."
"Incompetent idiots." Carmilla grumbles, making us look at her. "No, not you guys. My mother's minions. Who lets a kidnapping victim get in with a recording device?! That's just…" she stops when Laura elbows her. "Uh, by which I mean, well done, you." She points at LaFontaine, making them smile.
"You did amazing. They have three girls down there and they're all still alive." Laura says.
"Yeah, but we still don't know where there is or how to deal with my mother, let alone some ancient, unspeakable evil. So we're still utterly screwed."
"But there's a ritual right, so maybe we just need to stop them from taking any more girls until…what did Will say? The new moon. We just have to last until Friday." She nods. "Which is also when my Lit paper is due."
"Well, hey!" Carmilla lightly hits Laura's shoulder. "If we get sucked into an underground evil, you deadline will be moved."
"I can always just put your grade in as an A Laura." I say. "Or at least a B."
"Thanks, Trinity, but we've talked about this before. While hacking may be handy, using it to cheat is wrong."
"She's right." Mia nods.
"I just don't understand how you can still be worried about student work ethics in a time like this." I look at Mia. "Is it a human thing?"
Laura snorts. "Thanks, but I'm good. Hey, I gotta say, all things considered, you're taking this really well."
"Yeah." They say losing focus for a moment before coming back in. "It really doesn't seem to be that scary. It's probably a bad sign, right?" They space out again.
"Oh, no." Perry says. "No, no, no, no." She grabs LaFontaine's face. "No,you…you can't be going yet." She looks at Laura. "The others? They didn't go this fast."
"Maybe its cause the ritual's so close. That might amp up the little wormy dudes" they place a finger against their head. "in my brain right up." They gasps. "Snacks!" They grab some of Laura's cookies and begin eating, nodding their head to a beat only they can eat.
"That won't be distracting." Carmilla says sarcastically, while we look on in worry.
"Um, it's okay." Perry gently grabs her friend. "I'll…I'll stay with her and make sure she's okay." LaFontaine continues to dance. "She's my best friend. Okay, come on, honey. Let's go." She leads them out the room. "We'll, uh, we'll find you some place to go dancing."
Mia and I stand up. "We'll see what more we can find on Lophiiformes." I say, grabbing my book and laptop. "We'll let you know if we find anything."
"Bye." Mia waves.
