Ronald kicked a pile of rubble they had been parked next to, "Gods fucking dammit!" he cursed, "My spare boxers were in there!"
They didn't have to worry about reaper tech being stolen as they kept all that on their person at all times while out on the field. but their clothes and supplies had been taken. Plus anything the Undertaker had with him.
Speaking of the Undertaker, the mortician began to laugh. The sound cut through Will's shock like a knife and he whirled on the ancient, posture stiff and hands clenched into fists. Fed up with their poor run of luck, he forgot whom he was speaking to. "This really is not the time for your hysterics! There isn't a bloody thing funny about this situation, Undertaker!"
"Oh, but there is," disagreed the mortician between snickers. "Our swiped motorcar got swiped again! I wonder if it...might have been...the original owner!"
It was all too much for him, and he leaned against the building and guffawed while Will fumed and Ronald cussed like a sailor.
"It's not funny!" Ron snapped, "Our everything was in that trunk! bed rolls, cooking supplies, spare clothes! And just how are we supposed to catch up to this undead soul eater guy without our car?! We can't walk the distance and expect to have the energy to capture and dispatch him!"
The Undertaker tried to quell his amusement. "W-well, I s'pose we'll just have to find another vehicle to 'borrow', won't we? Could be ours is still somewhere in this town. We'll just have to inspect the place and see."
William pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, feeling a headache coming on. "All right, let's split up, shall we? We can cover more ground that way. Ronald, you go north. I shall look east and the Undertaker can look west. We can all make our way southward from the edge of town and meet up at the southern point. Should any of us locate our vehicle or spot another that we could use, we can contact one another."
Ronald slumped his shoulders. "Alright...but I wanna pop the dude who took our shit in the nose!" He took a moment to check his pocket to make sure he still had his phone, and then he nodded. "I'll be just a call away," he confirmed before taking off with reaper skill in the direction he had to search.
William watched him go for a moment, before nodding at the Undertaker. "Try not to get distracted while you search."
"Have a bit of faith, Willy."
William glanced over his shoulder at the silver reaper as he turned away. "Actions speak louder than words, sir. If you wish to restore my faith in you, then you must prove you deserve it."
With that said, William took off in his assigned direction, avoiding the miserable humans that wandered through the rubble of their city. Undertaker scratched his chin and he sighed. Perhaps he deserved this contempt. Then again, he wasn't the one that swiped their borrowed automobile.
Ronald sighed as he moved along the ruined streets, searching for a car—any car that was preferably not crushed under rubble. Eventually, he did spot one car that didn't look too badly damaged, and he hopped down to the streets and pulled the door open. There were no keys in it, so he lay on his back on the floor boards to fiddle with the wires underneath. He didn't have experience hotwiring a car, but he and Eric had both worked together on their car and bike enough to have an idea of what he was doing.
Unfortunately, rather than hearing the car's motor turn over, he got a face full of sparks and heard a bang...black smoke curling up from under the hood.
"Shit." Ronald hurried away from the car, watching the smoke curl up skyward. "That one isn't for us, obviously..."
Several blocks away, William heard the noise and he saw the smoke rising from Ronald's general direction. He paused, considering whether he should go and investigate. He dug his phone out of his pocket and checked to see if his partner had tried to contact him and upon seeing no indication of such, he decided to contact him instead—just to be sure he wasn't in trouble. He pressed the quick dial and he kept walking, keeping a sharp eye out for their car or another they could "borrow" in the process.
"Honestly...reduced to theft in order to complete my mission. This is disgraceful." As distasteful as he found it, there was no getting around the fact that they required transport if they were to catch up with their quarry quickly.
"Singed but still sexy, speaking." Ronald greeted the call when he picked up, the display telling him it was William, so he figured he could get away with such an unprofessional greeting.
"What happened?" demanded William without ceremony. "I heard an explosion and saw smoke in the area you were assigned to. Have you come across opposition?"
"Only a car that proved to be more damaged than it looked. It didn't explode, but when I tried to see if it'd run..." Ron glanced at the black smoke, "Well, it protested convincingly that it's not the car for us."
William sighed, becoming familiar with this sense of relief in his breast whenever there was a close call concerning his partner. "Well do be careful, Ronald. You are important to me."
The moment the words left his lips he flushed. The last reaper he'd said that to was the Undertaker, just before he went off to war. Then he'd come back a ruined, twisted maniac. It differed from his situation with Ronald because the relationship was not the same, but the sincerity of his feelings were just as potent.
Ronald grinned, swaying his shoulders back and forth, "You're important to me, too, William." his voice hid little of how pleased he felt, "You be careful, too."
He wished he could kiss the man then, but they needed to find a car or truck. So he started walking again, looking around. "I take it you haven't had any luck yet, either?"
"None," answered William. He crossed a broken street and he avoided looking at the charred remains of a corpse that the citizens hadn't yet collected for burial. "I think we may simply have to...oh...wait a moment."
William lowered the phone from his ear when he spotted the very car they had come in, parked next to a half-destroyed building. His hopes were perked and he brought the phone back to his ear. "Ronald, I believe I've found our wayward transport. My coordinates should be logged into your mobile. Come quickly so that we may retrieve it and contact—"
He halted in mid-sentence when he saw a figure emerging from the ruined building. It moved like any other man—even looked like any other man...but something was odd about it. The figure wore a long coat and a hat, and it was wiping its mouth with a gloved hand. The skin was almost as pale as the Undertaker's and the unkempt brown hair spilling out from under the man's hat was wiry...like dead brush.
~Careful, William!~
He swatted irritably at the air, though he knew the whispers weren't simply gnats he could be rid of with a hand motion. As he watched, the figure raised its head and looked directly at him. The glittering gaze suddenly fixated on him had a film of milky-white over the irises, and there was a deadness in that gaze that could make even a reaper shudder.
He shouldn't have been able to see William at all, and yet he had.
William prudently ducked behind the corner of the building he was near and he whispered into the phone. "Ronald, come quickly. I believe I've found our fugitive...and he is aware of my presence. Contact the Undertaker on your way."
"Got it." Ronald's tone was serious, "And...be careful...really careful, Will. I don't want to lose you."
With that, he hung up and quickly called Undertaker's mobile phone, hardly waiting for the man's cheerful 'Hi, hi~' of a greeting before cutting him off as he hurried over the ruined city towards William's location, "William found our car and the uh...undead eaty-souls dude we are after!" He said, yet again forgetting what the creature was called. And he didn't even care. He had to move quickly.
"We need to move fast, Will's alone and could be in danger. He said he was spotted!"
Undertaker's voice sounded mildly surprised. "My, my, that happened faster than I thought it would. Be there in a jiffy, lad. Try not t' start without me!" He hung up the phone after that, leaving Ronald to go on his way.
Will tried to shut out the warnings raging in his head from the spirit world. They had been so quiet today up until he encountered the lich, but now they were almost as loud as they'd been the night before when the bombing happened. "Shut up," he whispered, breaking into a sweat. "I cannot concentrate with all your ruckus! If you don't wish me to be harmed then be quiet! Your warning has been received and noted."
Amazingly, they did quiet down...and that took him by surprise. There was still the occasional worried whisper in his mind, but they were no longer screaming at him to run away. A slow smirk spread over his lips with the realization that the dead could be reasoned with. In time, he might learn to shut them out entirely when he had to traverse the mortal realm. William didn't have time to savor his small victory though; he could feel the chill presence of the undead abomination coming closer from around the bend. While very little could daunt him, he was also a prudent reaper and he knew better than to take on the creature before his backup arrived.
William quietly but swiftly inched away from the corner of the building and he made it around the other corner and out of sight just as the lich appeared around the corner he'd originally been hiding behind. Clutching his scythe tightly, the Dispatch supervisor employed evasive measures while he waited for his allies to arrive.
Ronald pocketed his phone as he ran, leaping up onto the roofs that still stood.
"Hold on, Will, I'm coming."
Finally, leaping from roof to roof, and sometimes lone standing walls, Ronald spotted their car parked outside a building, but there was no sign of William or the fugitive. Knowing they couldn't be far, he pressed on, leaping onto the roof of the building the car was parked outside of and making a circle around it to get an idea of what direction William may have gone.
The first thing he found was what could only be their target, stalking around a nearby corner. Ronald stopped and ducked behind the nearby chimney, pressing his back to it and peeking around to keep an eye on the creature while keeping his presence unknown until the time to strike came—or William needed him.
The Undertaker soon arrived as well, and he stood on the cracked edge of the roof of a building that was remarkably whole, compared to most of the other structures in the settlement. He tilted his head in contemplation as he looked down at the blurred figure of the lich below him. The creature sensed their presence. Good. He spotted Will coming around the side of the partially demolished building across from him, evidently attempting to avoid the undead being that seemed to be on his scent. He signaled to his former apprentice to get his attention, and William looked up at him. Undertaker saw him nod, and then the mortician spotted a glimpse of Ronald's sunny-gold head peeking from around the chimney of the next building over.
Undertaker whistled to signal his companions, and he waited for William to leap into action before jumping down himself.
Ronald glanced over, spotting the Undertaker standing on the roof opposite him, his silver hair like a ghost against the gray sky. Good. They were all there and stood a better chance at this working. At least, he assumed William was there. He couldn't see his lover from his vantage point.
He gripped his scythe, ready to take action, but held himself back. He'd gone against wayward records, demons, reapers, and even an angel once or twice. But This guy was something new. Something he knew very little about. Even a young, reckless man like him could tell that he shouldn't be making the first move.
William jumped out from behind the building and immediately extended his scythe to skewer the creature in the chest near the left shoulder. The lich barely reacted. He looked down at the pole sheers impaling him with a dull sort of acknowledgment, like it was a fly that had landed on his chest. The wound did not bleed, and the lich took his milky blue eyes off the scythe to stare at its owner.
"Ronald, now!" William yelled.
At that moment, the Undertaker jumped down from his vantage point and rather than join the attack against the lich, he came down behind William and he fit his scythe blade against his throat. William was too shocked to react immediately, and the mortician grinned at the lich and nodded his head in greeting.
"Guten tag, Dr. Becker." Undertaker pressed the blade more firmly against William's throat in warning, prompting him to withdraw his scythe and banish it. "You've been a difficult chap to track down."
"I wondered when you would find me," replied the lich in German, his dead gaze flicking between Will and the Undertaker. His expression was dimly curious.
"What are you doing?" demanded William, finding his tongue again at last. "You traitorous—"
"Now, now, Will," chastised the mortician, drawing a drop of blood. "I'd advise you to save your breath. Shouting at me might make me slip and do more damage."
"What is this about?" questioned the lich. "I would assume this reaper to be your ally."
The Undertaker shrugged. "Him and his li'l friend served their purpose. Speaking of which, you might as well come out now, Mister Knox."
Ronald stood frozen in fear, his eyes wide and heart pounding in his chest as he stared at the scene below, hardly believing his eyes. This couldn't be real. It had to be a dream...a nightmare!
He had been about to leap down at the Lich when the Undertaker made his unexpected move, and Ron was left teetering on the edge of the roof above.
"Will..."
They had trusted Undertaker. Well, William had. Ronald had harbored some doubts, but he'd trusted William's trust. And now William could be killed by his old mentor. A split second and William could be gone forever. The realization of that was too much for Ronald and his body froze. He couldn't even think on how he could possibly save the man he'd fallen in love with.
"Why?" Demanded William, inwardly devastated that the reaper he'd once looked up to and admired so much would turn on him so completely. "What do you stand to gain by this betrayal, Undertaker?"
"An exchange," answered the mortician calmly, his vivid gaze still on the lich before them. "Oswald here wants immortality, and I want my research notes and material back. It doesn't belong in the hands of humans—not even altered ones like Becker. What do you say, old chap? Return what you took from me and I'll give you what you need to complete your transformation."
Oswald didn't look impressed. "As you can see, I have already succeeded in the transformation, my friend. You have nothing to offer me."
"Oh now, I wouldn't say that." The Undertaker grinned again. "You mustn't have taken the page that lists the final catalyst to become more than just a common lich—one that doesn't require a phylactery to retain immortality. As a mere leiche, you're still vulnerable. Become an arch lich and you can do away with that bauble entirely, without a care for the wrong person finding it and destroying it...and you."
Now the doctor seemed intrigued, and his gaze flicked to where Ronald still stood before focusing back on the mortician and his captive. "And what is this catalyst?"
The Undertaker looked at the younger reaper held at scythe-point in his arms. "The blood of a reaper. I wasn't about to offer my own, but Willy here has plenty of it to spare. You can bleed him for your potion, or you can bleed his young friend cowering up there on the roof. Doesn't matter to me...either would work just as well. In exchange, you relinquish my research material—all of it. You've got no further use for it anyhow, yeah?"
Becker looked at Will with a dark hunger in his clouded eyes. "I accept your terms. Bring them. There is a tomb in the graveyard just outside of town. We will conduct the procedure and the trade in there."
"You fucking son of a bitch!" Ronald screamed, losing his cool. Gripping his scythe handle so hard his knuckles turned white, he lept at Undertaker, scythe raised for attack.
Undertaker's lips rounded with surprise, but he hadn't survived for as long as he had by being unprepared for the unexpected. One arm around Will's waist, he jumped aside and he turned his prisoner so that Ronald would have to mow him down first, if he chose to repeat the attack.
"Language, Mister Knox," admonished the mortician. "That's no way t' speak to your elders!"
A thin trickle of blood seeped from under the blade pressed against Will's throat and he grimaced. "Ronald, go. Just get out of here and contact Dispatch. Tell them what has happened and—"
"Wouldn't advise that, if I were you," Undertaker broke in. He smiled at Ronald. "Try it and I'll reap him right here, and then I'll collect you, my fine lad, and our friend there can use your blood instead of Will's. Now be a good chap and put that scythe away. You'll both make it out of this alive if you just cooperate."
"Don't listen to him, Ronald," insisted William, his expression neutral and frozen. "That creature cannot be allowed to complete whatever foul ritual they have planned. He cannot be permitted to achieve invulnerability."
"If he wants to see you die, he's welcome to follow your directive." Undertaker shrugged. "Up to you, Ronald."
When William was moved into his path of attack, Ronald withdrew and fell onto the ground, hitting hard on his shoulder. Holding it, he pushed himself back up, glaring, "You don't deserve respect!" he spat, "Let Will go-now!"
"I'll let him go soon as the good doctor gets what he needs—whether he draws it from William or you." Undertaker had his back turned to the lich and he winked at Ronald conspiringly, trying to give the boy a hint without speaking his true intentions out loud. From his experience, he knew that liches had excellent auditory sensory facilities and he didn't dare utter a single word that might give himself away.
Will of course couldn't see the expression from his precarious position, and he clenched his jaw in frustration. "Ronald, just go. Do not worry about me. If he dares follow through with his threat he'll foil his own intentions and you'll be long gone and out of their reach as a second option."
Undertaker clamped his free hand over Will's mouth to shut him up. "Quiet, you. This is between your young friend and I."
The blond narrowed his eyes. Just what was the man doing, winking at him like nothing was wrong as he held his scythe against William's neck? Was he asking for trust? Instead of helping them, he was using them for his own gain!
"If you think for one moment I'll be letting that thing use William, you have another thing coming, bastard."
"You don't have much choice, lad. Either one of you gives over a couple vials of your blood or I reap him here. I'm sure you know which option I'd prefer."
"You are a disgrace," William gritted out, his shock and dismay fading to be replaced by anger. "How could I ever have believed you could still be redeemed? I trusted you...desired to help you! The depths at which you've sunk cannot be forgiven, Undertaker."
"Pity you feel that way, Willy. I did warn you that things aren't always as they appear."
William frowned. He recalled no such warning being issued from his old mentor...at least not recently. If he'd said it in the past it must have been too long ago for him to recall. Suddenly he began to wonder what ulterior motives were lurking behind that laughing smile and clever gaze.
"We have waited long enough," informed the lich. "Simply collect the reaper's blood for me now and either dispatch them both or subdue them, Undertaker. I haven't the time to waste on negotiations."
"Well, that's a bit of a problem," answered the mortician. "You see, there's a bit of ritual involved in the blooding. I can't just open a vein and call it an evening, chap. We need to get out of sight and somewhere quiet so you can speak the proper incantations."
The lich hesitated, knowing from the previous ritual he'd already performed that each part of it required some form of ancient incantation. "Very well. If the boy won't come, then kill his companion and subdue him. It does not matter which one I bleed for the ritual, so long as I collect the reaper blood."
Undertaker looked at Ronald with a curious grin, tilting his head. Inwardly, he was urging the boy to do the smart thing and go along with it. "Well, Agent Knox? Should I do as he suggests and dispose of Willy here and now, or will you have the good sense to come along without a fuss? You've got ten seconds to decide before I finish Spears off and replace him with you...and I will capture you before you can so much as swing that little scythe you're using."
Ronald gritted his teeth and banished his scythe. "Let him go," he hissed venomously, putting his hands up in a show of submission. It was only a few vials of blood...right? Better than seeing Will killed.
"After we've finished our little task," explained the Undertaker. "Becker, lead the way. I think they've come to their senses."
The lich turned and began to walk away, and the Undertaker followed, keeping a tight hold on William with his deadly scythe pressed warningly against his throat. Frustrated and confused as to why his old mentor was doing this and what he really hoped to achieve, Will had no choice but to go along with it. He dearly wished that Ronald had retreated when he had the chance, but there was no help for it now and he couldn't shake the feeling that the Undertaker had something up his sleeve. Was it a ruse? Did he truly mean to give this creature the means to become something even more monstrous...and possibly unstoppable?
"I hope you consider the implications of what you are doing," Will tried to reason as they passed through the town and past the broken gate of the cemetery. "Those research notes cannot possibly pose as much of a danger as allowing this...abomination to achieve full immortality, Undertaker."
"You just worry about putting one foot in front of the other, Willy," advised the mortician. "Trip and you could end up decapitated entirely by accident."
The lich led them to a large mausoleum and he opened the door to it with a rusty creak. "Inside and down," he said in German. "The chamber I have been using since arriving here will suffice as a work space."
"Whatever suits you," answered the Undertaker nonchalantly, quite used to staying in crypts beneath the ground himself. The lich's pale skin seemed to glow eerily as they stepped into the darkness of the structure and began descending the stone stairs. He paused to take a torch from the wall and he lit it with a muttered incantation, before continuing on with shuffling steps. They found themselves in a large round burial chamber at the bottom, and the lich nodded at the stone coffin in the center.
"Have him lie on that, Undertaker, and then you can share with me the missing piece of the ritual."
"Bring me those documents first," insisted the mortician. "I wasn't born yesterday, chap. Once I've got all of the material you stole in my hands, I'll share that information with you and you can be well on your way to godhood."
Becker scowled mistrustfully at him. "And how do I know that you will not simply take your fellow reapers and vanish, once you have what you ask for?"
"Curiosity," explained the Undertaker with a smile. "You know I'm rife with it. I'm just as interested as you are to see how this is going to turn out. I've never seen it done before, you know. Should be entertaining, at least."
"'Entertaining'?" Spat William. "You are about to unleash a horror on this world that could result in all of creation turning itself upside-down, and you find that entertaining?"
"What can I say?" Undertaker shrugged benignly, incidentally drawing another trickle of blood from Will's throat. "You know how far I'll go for a laugh, Willy. Now be a good boy and lie down like the gent said, and as soon as I get my research material this can all be over with quick."
The lich shuffled over to one of the burial chambers to fetch the requested notes while the Undertaker forced William to lie down on the coffin lid, keeping his blade pressed against his throat to ensure both his and Ronald's good behavior.
"Here you are, Undertaker," said Becker as he walked back to the mortician with a stack of documents tied together in his hands. "This is all of them. Now, the ritual details, if you please."
"Just a moment," said the mortician. He set the pile down on the lid beside Will and he flicked through the corners of the pages with one hand, still holding his scythe over William with his other hand. He nodded after a moment, satisfied that it was all there. "Right then. Have you a vial or a flask of some sort?"
The lich nodded and retrieved a flask from the burlap supply sack sitting next to the coffin. "Now, what do I do?"
"First make a cut to gather the blood," explained the mortician. "You might have to cut more than once, since reaper flesh heals wounds made by ordinary weapons quickly."
"Why not make the cut with your scythe so that it does not close?"
Undertaker didn't even blink. "Because that might kill the lad, and like I said; I'd rather not have to do that. Several cuts from a scalpel might be painful for him but he won't bleed out."
"And yet he will survive to return to his superiors and tell them about me," Becker pointed out.
The mortician smirked. "By then it'll be too late and not even Dispatch will be able to stop you. What's the danger?"
"You raise an interesting point." The lich reached into his supply bag again and he drew out a small medical kit. He opened it up and he retrieved a scalpel. William turned his head to look at Ronald as the creature took his arm and pushed his sleeve up to expose his wrist. William flinched but he made no verbal sound of protest as his flesh was cut into.
"Stop it!" Ronald rushed forward and pushed the Lich away from William, "I didn't come here to watch you torture my boyfriend! I'll do it!" He snatched the flask from him and turned to Undertaker, "Once I'm done you let him go, filthy old geezer."
He held out his hand, "Give me the stupid knife."
The lich scowled at Ronald, but the Undertaker shrugged. "Doesn't matter who makes the cuts, so long as you collect it and repeat this chant, Becker. Let the boy have his way and repeat after me."
Undertaker then said something slowly in some foreign tongue that Will couldn't identify. It sounded vaguely Egyptian—which made sense considering all of the lore from that part of the world concerning the underworld and the preservation of the dead.
The blood began to drain into the flask as the lich repeated the incantation as advised, but as the Undertaker said, the cut soon closed and Ronald had to make a fresh one. Will grimaced, enduring the sting of the scalpel again and again until the flask was finally full. He kept his eyes on Ronald the entire time, watching the terrible guilt and frustration on his young face resurface each time he had to cut him.
Ronald couldn't handle it any longer. The flask was almost full and one, maybe two more cuts would fill it, but he was unable to keep cutting Will. And his blood was just as good, right? So, rather than cut open William, he sliced open his hand across the palm and squeezed his fist to work out more blood , watching it ooze out from between his fingers and drip into the vial until it was full. He handed it to the man and turned his attention to Undertaker once more, "Now remove your bloody scythe and let us get the hell out of this hellhole!"
"No need to get snippy," chided the Undertaker. He didn't move right away, unwilling to risk either of his companions interfering with the rest of the event.
Once Oswald had the catalyst he needed, the lich looked to the Undertaker expectantly and straightened up. "And now?"
"Drink it all down, just like you did the blood of the mortals and the animals you sacrificed to do the previous rituals."
Becker stared at the flask of bright reaper blood for a moment, and then he brought it to his lips and tilted his head back to drink it all down greedily. Undertaker removed his scythe from Will's neck and he helped him to sit up and get off of the coffin, gathering up his research notes as he did so.
Will shook his head and compressed his lips, glaring at the creature with disgust. "Whatever happens from here on out is on your head, Undertaker."
"I'll keep that in mind," said the mortician with maddening cheer. "Well Oswald, how do you feel? Any different?"
The lich finished draining the flask and he dropped it to the floor, leaving it to shatter. He looked a bit unsteady on his feet and faintly euphoric. "I feel...bliss," he admitted softly, his thin, pale lips stretching into a macabre grin to reveal rotting teeth. "This is...fantastic. Like an opiate!"
"Is it, now? Then I s'pose that means it's working, eh?"
The Undertaker's intense gaze remained fixated on the lich, and William looked between the two of them with growing horror. Heavens, he'd really gone through with it. The madman he'd once thought of so highly had turned completely to evil, and he was no better than a demon.
Then William noticed something odd. The lich began to stagger as if intoxicated, and he fell against the coffin. Becker seemed to be aware something wasn't right as well, and he looked up at the mortician with an expression of dawning comprehension on his withered face. "Poison," he rasped. "You've poisoned me."
Oswald clawed at the top of the coffin in an attempt to stay on his feet, and a chill began to permeate the chamber. Undertaker tilted his head and watched as the lich slowly sank to the floor, rapidly losing his strength.
"After a fashion," agreed the mortician. "Of course, there exists no poison in the known world that could actually have an effect on one of your kind, but a little known fact of lich anatomy is that ingestion of a reaper's blood has an awfully potent, drugging result on them. Found that out when one of 'em bit me to have a taste of mine once. Bad mistake, that. Dumb luck for me, though. It made him a lot easier to dispatch."
"You...betraying...fiend," gasped the lich. He fell to the floor and he twitched helplessly, his body becoming paralyzed by the reaction to Will's blood.
"True enough," agreed the Undertaker. He grinned at his companions and tossed them a wink. "Just so happens the betrayal wasn't what it seemed."
Ronald's eye twitched. "You're still a fucking bastard!" he said, taking a swing at Undertaker, surprised when his fist actually made contact with the man's jaw, "You could have bloody told us you had a fucking plan! We would have gone along with it and you wouldn't have had to threaten Will! Shit, I really loathe you, idiot!" He cursed, still feeling the adrenalin of panic coursing through his veins. He didn't even care if William would scold him later. Undertaker should have let them know what his bloody plan was! He'd had plenty of time, after all!
"Well I didn't exactly know what I was going to do, until I got word that Will spotted him," excused the mortician, rubbing his sore jaw. Bloody hell, the lad could throw a mean punch. He was sorely tempted to put him on his mouthy little arse and remind him of whom he was addressing, but that could wait. "The idea came to me at the spur of the moment and I couldn't exactly just blurt it out in front of him, could I?"
William stared at him, unable to completely mask his amazement and relief. "Then this ritual to become an arch lich does not really exist?"
"Oh, it does," assured the Undertaker, still rubbing his jaw, "but I gave him a rubbish version of it. Truth be told, I really haven't ever seen or heard of anyone succeeding at it, so it's likely just a myth. The ritual he did complete is obviously the real thing though, and with that in mind..."
Undertaker snatched up the torch that Becker had put in the wall sconce and he put it to the pile of papers in his hand, setting them on fire. He waited until it caught well enough before dropping it to the floor to let the flames consume it. A little sigh escaped him as he watched a good chunk of his own research go up in smoke and ash, and when it was nothing more than a smoldering pile, he stomped it out. He put the torch back up, and he brushed his hands off on his robes.
"That's that," said the ancient. "Now while our friend there snoozes the sleep of the inebriated, we ought to look for that phylactery. If we're fortunate he's been keeping it on him in his travels. Otherwise we'll just have to hack him into bits and bury his pieces far enough away from each other to keep him from putting himself back together anytime soon."
"And I suppose cremation would not work?" Questioned William with a disgusted look at the ruin of what was once a man, lying there on the floor drooling. He could hardly believe they'd subdued him so easily.
"Fire doesn't burn lich flesh, unfortunately," explained the mortician, "so that option is out. Let's start searching the chamber. If we can't find the phylactery, then mayhap we can find a clue leading to it."
William looked around, searching for anything that might be the object containing the lich's soul. "Tell me something; if the ritual you gave to him was 'rubbish', then what was that chant all about?"
Undertaker picked up a jar he'd found and he smashed it on the floor just in case. "Oh, that. It was a recipe for Bamya. I just repeated the instructions in the language of its country of origin, is all. Lucky for us Oswald doesn't know Egyptian."
William raised a brow and glanced at Ronald, but the blond wasn't likely to know what that was anymore than he did. "And what pray tell is 'Bamya', sir?"
Undertaker grinned, his white teeth stained with his blood from where they'd cut the inside of his cheek when Ron socked him. "Meat and okra stew. It's Quite tasty, actually. Mayhap I can cook us up a batch after this." He looked at Ronald with a sullen expression. "None for you though, 'punchy'. You can fend for yourself."
"You deserved that knuckle sandwich I gave you, and you know it!" Ron huffed.
Before the Undertaker could open his mouth for a rebuttal, Will intervened. "We can argue the finer points of communicating plans with each other later. For now, let us focus on locating the object or a clue that may lead us to it, shall we?"
His head was beginning to hurt again, and he was having difficulty shutting out the voices of the dead. He noticed the Undertaker cocking his head as if listening to someone again, and he knew the ancient heard them too.
"What's that?" blurted Undertaker with a bloodied frown. He looked across the room and he started walking over to one of the burial chambers, boots crunching on human remains scattered over the floor. He peered into the shadowed cavity before reaching in to pull out a shrouded body. He carried it over to the coffin and he laid the remains on top of the object, before unwrapping it to reveal the decaying remains inside. The body was fairly fresh and it reeked enough to make Will gag and hastily grab the handkerchief he kept in his pocket. She must have been one of the lich's latest dinners.
"What in heavens," choked William as the Undertaker stared down at the female cadaver thoughtfully. He went quiet when the mortician pried her stiffened jaw open and began to reach his hand into her mouth. "Undertaker...what are you doing?"
"Hush, Willy...I'm trying to listen."
William gave him a scandalized look before walking over to Ronald and murmuring into his ear. "Send a text to Agent Slingby while he is occupied. Give our coordinates and tell him to send backup immediately. I shall block the Undertaker's view of you."
Surely the man was having another fit of madness. Even if they did find the Phylactery down here and put an end to the lich, his old mentor was simply too dangerous and unpredictable. Dispatch could find a way to hold the lich indefinitely if they must; even if they had to dissect the creature and store its parts in separate vaults to keep it from re-animating again. He despised the thought of going back on his word after promising not to try and arrest the Undertaker when this was all over with, but leaving him to his own devices was certainly just as dangerous as leaving a lich at large.
"...You sure?" Ron asked as he reached into his pocket for his phone. He eyed the little cuts on Will's neck with a frown. he reached up and touched them with his gloved fingers, "Are you okay? You lost a fair amount of blood and-I'm sorry...I...I didn't know what else to do...I really thought he'd kill you, you know?"
As he spoke, he typed his text without taking his phone out of his pocket. He was an expert at doing so and Eric was on his speed contact list, so he didn't have to search for his number to shoot a quick message to. He held off on sending it, though. He wanted to make sure Will wanted to betray Undertaker.
William clenched his jaw and nodded. "It is as much for his good as for the world's. I see that now. Please send it, Ronald."
Meanwhile, the Undertaker was digging around in the corpse's mouth, shoving his hand far down her throat. There was a sickening crack as the cadaver's jaw broke from the treatment and William looked away from the spectacle in disgust. After a moment, the mortician withdrew his hand—along with something shiny and wet dangling on the end of a loop of leather string. Will stared at it as his old mentor held it up to the light. It appeared to be a small pewter bottle, no bigger than a vial of perfume.
"Is that what we are after?" questioned Will as it occurred to him that the Undertaker had been directed to search the body by the spirits of the dead communicating with him.
"Seems that way," answered the mortician absently, his nose crinkling as the bottle spun slowly on the end of the string. "Only one way to find out, yeah?"
Undertaker grinned down at the now unconscious lich and he nudged him with his boot. When he got no response, he shrugged. "Hmm, too bad. I'd have liked to see your face when I smash this li'l trinket, if it really is your phylactery. I s'pose it's for the best, though. Your ilk screams loud enough t' wake the dead and give a man a three-day ear ache when you pass on."
"Is that all ya need to do? Smash it? Sounds too easy to me." Ron said as his thumb pressed the send button on his phone. Then he pulled out his handkerchief from the same pocket and wet it with his tongue before trying to clean the tiny cuts on Will's neck. "Seems we should at least use a scythe or something."
"Well, yes," revised the mortician with a shrug, summoning his scythe once more. "I meant smash it with the scythe—and believe me, it's going to shatter to pieces so you chaps might want to duck and cover when I do this. Plug your ears too, just in case."
"And what of yours?" asked William as he took the advice and squatted down on the floor. "If the sound may be as loud as you say, will it not trouble you as well?"
The mortician grinned. "I've already got a lot of noise going on in my head, Willy. I've learned to live with it."
He bent over to put the item on the floor and he raised his scythe, taking careful aim. "So long, doctor. I'd say it was nice knowing you, but after the rubbish you pulled we both know that would be a fib."
He was so intent on his task that he didn't notice the portal opening up behind him, at first. Just as the Undertaker was about to strike with his reaper weapon, he sensed it and he started to turn— just in time to see Eric Slingby come charging out of said portal like a Rugby player, with Alan Humphries and three other Dispatch officers following close behind. The Undertaker's eyes widened, and his breath expelled from his lungs in a surprised huff as the Scotsman bowled into him, tackling him to the floor. His scythe flew out of his hands and it spun away as the back of his head struck the floor hard enough to make him see stars. Not one to remain surprised for long, Undertaker drove his knee right into Eric's groin and then he kicked him away, sending him flying backwards and crashing into the wall. Eric groaned, in two kinds of pain as his partner and the others rushed in to subdue the Undertaker before he could recover completely from the ambush and retrieve his scythe.
"The vial," William called out, "Do not lose it!"
"Bloody hell," snapped the Undertaker, dancing aside from one agent's twirling scythe just in time to avoid getting clipped by it. He shot an irritated look at William. "Now just who's betraying whom, here?"
"My apologies," responded William with calm he did not truly feel. "I said that Agent Knox and I would not attempt to arrest you once our partnership is finished. I never promised the agreement would extend to our coworkers."
William spotted the phylactery and he extended his own summoned scythe, shooting it out to grasp the item with the sharp blades of his weapon. He activated them and just as the Undertaker had warned, the phylactery shattered into a billion shards and seemed to explode in all directions. A purple wisp of smoke resembling a skull lingered in the air where it had been for a moment before dissipating, and the body of the lich on the floor seemed to wither to a husk with an ungodly shriek that shook the very walls.
"Ahhg!" Ronald slapped his hands over his ears, the sheer volume of the shriek making him dizzy.
"What on Earth?" Alan gasped, falling to his knees and dropping his scythe to try and protect his ears. The other reapers all reacting similarly, but the brunet squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that the sound—whatever it was—wouldn't trigger an attack.
Undertaker used their disorientation to his advantage. As he'd said to Will before: he was used to dealing with noise even when there wasn't a physical sound to be heard for miles. He snatched up his scythe and he vaulted right over the back of one of the agents, who was crouched down covering his ears like the others. He thought he heard William swear loudly as he ran up the steps and out of the mausoleum, and he smirked as he took off into the night and prepared a portal away from the location.
"He portaled sir," reported one of the agents that had chased after the Undertaker. "Should I follow, or should I wait for backup?"
William shook his head, glancing at the others as he paced the structure with his phone to his ear. "No, for the love of Styx do not follow through that portal. Should you attempt it you will never reach the other side alive—or even recognizable to those who would mourn you. Abort the pursuit and return to headquarters. I will wrap things up here with the other officers."
"Yes sir."
The agent hung up the phone and Will sighed, looking around at the others now standing outside the mausoleum with him. "It was a valiant attempt, but I am afraid the Undertaker has escaped our grasp, for now. You two return to Headquarters and I shall prepare the report."
The other two junior officers saluted him and portaled out, and Will looked sidelong at Eric. The Scotsman was watching him expectantly, with his arms crossed over his chest. "I suppose you wish to know why I never informed you that our source for this mission was the Undertaker, Slingby."
Eric shrugged. "I think I already know, boss. If he was yer best hope o' catching tha' creature then ya did what yeh had tae do."
"Then why do you stare at me with such suspicion?"
Eric glanced at his partner before answering. "Jus' seemed awfully convenient fer tha auld madman when yeh shattered tha' thing in there right about tha time when we had him backed in a corner. We could've had him, if it weren't fer tha' banshee scream tha' nearly shattered our eardrums."
"Well...in his defense we didn't know when that Lich thing would be able to get up again...and if he stole back his—what's it called—then we'd be back to square one...this time without the Undertaker," Ron pointed out, his ears still ringing as he tried to get them to pop in an attempt to relieve them. "Besides, Will was the one to tell me to text you for backup. Damn, that thing was loud as hell..."
Alan placed his hand on Eric's arm, "Eric, in reality that sound should have rendered Undertaker as useless as the rest of us. It's amazing that he was able to get away."
The Scotsman shrugged. "Aye, fair enough. Guess Will couldn't have known he'd be able tae shrug it off like tha'."
"Indeed," agreed William coolly.
"I've already got a lot of noise going on in my head, Willy. I've learned t' live with it."
William avoided looking at Ronald as those words played in his head again. Had he somehow subconsciously sabotaged his associate's capture attempt after all? He could argue that he'd broken the phylactery at that moment because he did not want to risk the lich recovering and escaping. He could say that it made no sense for him to order Ronald to contact Dispatch with their coordinates if his intention was to allow the Undertaker to escape. Truthfully though, he'd had doubts and he could not deny the feelings of guilt that had washed through him when his former mentor asked who the real traitor was between them.
"We should gather the remains of that creature and transport them to the science department for examination," Will finally said. "As far as I am concerned, our division's part in this war is finished now. We have done more than our part to balance the scales and we shall leave the other divisions to sort out the rest. Let us finish up here and return home."
Eric glanced at him as the supervisor went back into the mausoleum to get started, and then he clapped Ronald on the shoulder in a friendly gesture of affection. "Better luck next time, eh kid? At least now ya can finally come home, and me and Alan can get back tae our usual work."
"Yeah..." Ron rubbed the back of his neck, "It'd be nice to go home and...to never eat another potato anything again..."
Strange, how he wasn't as excited and enthusiastic as he thought he'd be after hearing that he could go home. He glanced over at William, a strangely solemn look on his youthful features.
William was unaware of his lover's gaze on him as he unzipped a body bag brought through a portal by another agent. The voices were chattering in his head and all he wanted to do was get out of the mortal realm for some peace and quiet. A nice hot bath and a glass of wine was forefront on his mind—perhaps enjoying the later while relaxed on his couch at home with Ronald by his side. He would present the idea to Knox after they finished up here. For now, he didn't even want to think about the Undertaker anymore or the likelihood that his superiors would send him on a mission to track the mortician down again and attempt to capture him.
-To be continued