iCarly: iMeet the Relatives, Chapter 20: Precautions

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I don't own iCarly.

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Chapter 20: Precautions

Seattle: Jemiah had just conferred with a most unsettling communication from High Command when he received the telepathic equivalent of a phone call from a most unwelcome personage. {{Jemiah St. Clair. I've received orders from my superiors. We are to work together with you to solve this crisis.}}

{{Indeed. I, too, received similar orders from my superiors as well. Have you anything to report?}}

{{Nothing save that our own investigative team has pinpointed the location of the initial incursion. It lies several miles below Mt. Adams. Far below the area your hot-blooded nephew expressed his irritation upon.}}

{{What's down there?}}

{{Miles upon countless miles of previously unsuspected caverns. Many of them so deep they nearly approach the Earth's mantle. We have uncovered an anomaly.}}

Jemiah raised an eyebrow. He had to admit, the demons knew how to work. That they'd uncovered anything was, in itself, remarkable, considering that his own investigations had not. {{And?}}

{{I am sending you all the information we have. Our team has uncovered an… artifact that we cannot identify. It may have no bearing on our current common problem….or it may.}}

{{What does it appear to be?}}

{{It appears to be a hole. A hole in space.}}

….

In the Darkness: Devlin walked, still marveling at his surroundings. I may as well get in a little sight-seeing. Of course, demons never came here, not voluntarily, at least, and those who apparently did were never heard from again. But he couldn't shake the strangeness of it all.

Only about half of the city's lights were still functional. Even as he watched, two more fizzled out. Soon there would be no lights, no light, at all. There was no sun, no moon, and no stars. That would make things hard, for the humans here, especially: no electricity for their various implements and devices. No air conditioning. Probably no plumbing.

If they were going to do anything, they'd best do it quick. The Immortals wouldn't be inconvenienced by the loss of the power grid, but the humans would be very inconvenienced indeed.

And just exactly what had happened to him, anyway? He could remember his burning desire to acquire Sam's soul, how he'd promised himself he'd have her. For human years, that will had been unshakeable, one thing he'd determined he'd do. And even among his own kind, Devlin had a strong will.

Yet, something….something was…not right. With demons, their core emotions included an incredible (by human standards) will to acquire, to possess, to own. Yet…somehow that didn't seem as important to him right now.

Could it be this place? Could it be siphoning off his own rock-solid will? To a demon, there was nothing to be feared more.

Or could it be something else?

What he'd heard of the Darkness was, that whatever burned brightest within you, whatever spark of soul or spirit or whatever you had in you, was drained away until there was simply nothing left.

"H-help!" The cry was barely discernable, but his inhumanly sharp ears picked it up. Instantly he was at the ready, trident poised, looking around for the source of the voice.

"Help me! Somebody!" It sounded like a human female's voice. His attention was drawn to a five-story illusion of a residential apartment complex. There: second floor, third one down, one of the few rooms still lit. It was coming from up there.

Well, he thought, why not. He made his way across the darkened street, and mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time. No doubt this was some other monster trapped in the Darkness, sensing a source of nourishment in him. It would be fun to burn something else into ashes. He could pretend it was Sam.

That anticipatory thought gave him no joy, however. Strange.

He came to a door marked "2113." Without waiting or otherwise announcing his presence, he simply smashed the door open and rushed in. Okay; now where was the thing?

He sensed strong emotions coming from the bathroom. Bursting into the room, he looked around.

In the bathtub was a girl, blond, apparently human, naked and shivering, half-sitting on the floor of the tub. She looked to be maybe twenty, and was clutching her right leg, crying in pain. "I, I fell. I think I broke something." An expression of intense agony came over her face. Such was her apparent distress that she didn't even seem to realize that she was naked.

He looked at her cautiously. Surely, this was some other monster in human guise, pretending to be the "damsel in distress" that humans were so fond of rescuing all the time. "Who are you?"

She gasped, drawing in a deep sucking breath, still holding her leg. "I, I'm Brittney. Who…who are you?" She looked up, wide eyed, at the strange man in crimson and black who'd burst into her bathroom, it just then registering with her. Or seeming to.

Well, okay. He could play this game, he guessed. It would be all the better for when he finally blasted the thing into oblivion. "I'm called Devlin." He retracted his trident and slid it into the holder on his belt.

He pulled a towel off the rack and handed it to her, while he knelt down beside the tub. The emotions he was sensing seemed to be genuine; the other creature, the false Freddie, had hardly had any of its own, due to its vampiric nature. She covered herself as best she could. "Let me see."

Close inspection, during which he noticed tears of pain running down her face, indicated that, yes, indeed, the leg appeared to be broken. "Yes, it's broken. I can't tell how badly. You say you fell?" It was a decent cover story, he thought: humans fell in bathtubs all the time, often breaking bones. And the Freddie-thing had also been found in a bathtub.

"Y-yes. Can—can you help me?"

Cautiously, very cautiously, he extended his senses into her. If this was a disguise, it was a good one. He didn't have any sort of healing power, but…there was one thing he could do, that he might as well do. "Hold on." He placed his hand on her bare shoulder, and let her feelings of fear and pain course into him. Her eyes widened again as she felt her terror and agony diminish. They didn't go away, but all of a sudden, it seemed like they shrank, somehow, becoming more manageable. "Wha-what are you-*"

"Come. I will take you to another place. Close your eyes for a moment." Still cringing at the memory of the pain, she gasped again, and obediently closed her eyes, as he picked her up, and flipped his shadowcloak over them both…

"Who's this?" Spencer asked, ransacking the fridge. He was up for a late night snack. He was the only one in evidence as the ninth circle demon emerged from his shadowcloak, carrying Brittney in his arms.

"Someone who needs a splint. What do you have in the way of first aid supplies?"

Before long, the entire group, minus Sam, was gathered around the couch, giving Brittney their undivided attention. Carly had given her some clothes, as they were about the same size. "I, I don't know what happened," the girl said, "All I know was, I was taking a shower, when it felt like an earthquake hit. I fell down, and, and, felt something break in my leg…." Again, she gasped, holding her leg. They'd managed a crude splint. While they were setting it, and tying it on, Devlin again drew off her pain. Might as well go along with the gag. He kept his trident in its holster, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. He didn't need it to channel Hellfire, but it served to help focus the effect.

But she seemed to be truly in pain. Could it be, he wondered, that she was what she appeared to be?

But no. This was the Darkness. Nothing was what it appeared to be.

She looked at him, eyes wide, as he once again siphoned off the pain. "How…how are you doing that?"

He let out a very small sigh. The others looked on. This was his call. "It's probably too soon to tell you this, but I'm a demon. So is she," he gestured towards Jillian. "And he's an angel." Pointing at Grif. She looked at Carly and Spencer. "They're mortals."

She groaned again, but not from pain. She held her face in her hands. "I'm dreaming. No, I hurt too much. I've gone crazy, that's what it is. I fell down, hit my head, and this is some horrible nightmare…."

"It's a horrible nightmare, alright, but, very unfortunately, you aren't dreaming. But that's how I drew off your pain. That's what we demons do: absorb the feelings of others." He sat next to her on the couch, still alert for the first sign or indication that she wasn't human.

But he wasn't sensing any. If this…creature…was play-acting, it was doing a superlative job. An old quote came to him: A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

"Who's she?" Sam was just coming into the room. The others looked up at her. "Who's this?"

None of your business, thought Devlin. Then he cursed himself for almost letting his emotions show. So what if Sam had rejected him? It didn't matter. There'd be others. The important thing was to maintain his composure.

Not let her see how much she'd hurt him.

"Her name's Brittney. I found her in a bathtub. She seems to've fallen and broken a leg." There. She could get the rest of the story from someone else.

Sam approached the girl on the couch warily. It hadn't been lost on her that this creature, too, had been found in a bathtub. Just like the false Freddie. Coincidence? Was this another monster?

Why did she care if it was? Devlin seemed to be in charge of this particular operation; let him get wasted. That might actually be fun to watch.

So what was this peculiar feeling in the middle of her stomach?

"Brittney," Carly asked, "What can you tell us about what happened to you?"

"I, I was taking a shower. Then, it was, it was like the building dropped down or something, and I, I slipped." She sniffled, blowing her nose on a Kleenex Grif had given her. "What…what happened? It's nighttime; did I pass out or something? Was it an earthquake?"

"No." Grif moved in closer. She shrank back, unsure as to what to expect. "Full details will have to wait. But for right now, you need to sleep." And he touched her forehead, and she instantly fell back into Devlin's lap, fast asleep. "Let her sleep. When she wakes up…" He got up and sighed. "Well, let's just say she'll have a lot to process."

"So she's human?" Jillian stood by Grif, eyeing the blond haired girl on the couch. Devlin very carefully got up, laying her head back down on a sofa cushion.

"As near as I can tell. Nothing's certain here, you understand, but I'm not picking up any indication that she's other than what she appears to be. Now, how she came to be here, that I haven't a clue about." He turned his attention to Devlin. "You didn't sense anyone else, in the place you found her?"

"No one. But I might not have sensed her, if she hadn't been injured. But, no, I couldn't sense anyone else."

"Well, we'll have to take precautions, just in case. Carly, you and Spencer—and Sam—keep your distance from her until we know more. Don't be alone with her for any reason, I don't care what. Not even for a second." He muttered to himself. "I need to know why—if she is human—why she's here."

{{A hole? A hole in space?}}

{{So it appears. Our team experimented a bit with it, and found out that an object held up to it could be sheared in two by striking it on its "edge," so to speak. And objects tossed into it simply disappeared.}}

{{How far down is this anomaly?}}

{{Nearly twenty kilometers. There is no indication as to any sort of generation mechanism. It just is.}}

Jemiah nodded. His own team had gone over the world from the air, and found nothing of note. He was more impressed than he cared to admit that his opposite number had come into possession of more information than he did. {{I am sending a contingent down to see if the anomaly can be moved, in some way. As it is, from what you say, it is difficult to work with.}}

{{Agreed. I shall issue suitable orders to our group. Have you any more luck with contacting our missing members?}}

{{No. But there is something else we can try….}}

{{St. Clair.}}

{{Eh?}}

{{You would know this better than I. Is there any indication of…the Destroyer in this general vicinity?}}

Jemiah frowned. He'd just finished wondering that, himself. {{None that I have been made aware of. But suitable precautions never hurt.}}

To be continued….