A/N: Gawd… this was a hard chapter to write. I'm sorry it's taken so long. But then the scenes with 'Nara, Kaylee and Jayne just landed in my lap over the weekend. So. Here you go: enjoy.
Part 8: Exploring
Mal looked at River, his chosen partner for the day. She played with the capture for a moment and looked up at him, catching his eyes. The smile gracing her face was a playful one that belayed how serious things really were. He smirked at her cheer, pushing aside his hangover. "Well, come on then, Little Albatross. I think we have some ghosts to find." With that he set off toward the front of the castle.
River bit her lip. She knew, of course, exactly where he intended to go. The big padlock and stout bar on the butler's quarters door was a pretty clear indication that something had happened there that someone wanted to deter folks from looking at. She was glad that Zoë was with Simon. Steeling her resolve she followed the captain to his quarry.
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Jayne grumbled all the way up the stairs, in spite of the fact that he had two beautiful women with him and was heading toward bedrooms. Now normal situations would have found him grinning from ear to ear, but this was little Kaylee and 'Nara he was with, so the normal of the situation was rather right out the window.
The peppy engineer had the capture ready to record at a moment's notice. At least she'd not be able to touch anything. 'Nara on the other hand – well, she was touchin' everything with that 'knowing' way of hers starting right at the edge of then circular staircase room, as if there were passages to find even where the walls were too thin to support them. "You lookin' to get Zapped, 'Nara?" He asked her, trying to keep the all too evident pout out of his voice.
She sighed, "The key to finding secrets, any sort of secrets, is knowing intimately what is not secret first. The sense of touch is the most powerful of the senses, if you've been trained to use it."
"Kinda like my 'knowing' how Serenity fits together and flows when she's workin' right lets me catch when she's workin' wrong before something bad happens?" Kaylee piped up.
Inara turned her dark-tressed head to look at the young woman and gifted her with a brilliant smile, "Exactly like that, Kaylee."
Jayne didn't see the similarity at all.
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Zoë's mood was – dark. Simon knew this even though it didn't show on her 'soldier' face she was currently sporting. She set to work opening doors and scanning for differences from the day before, leaving the doors open as she went. The Doc did not try to talk with her, because talking would likely get him shot with the mood the second had wrapped around herself. Instead, he hovered behind her and tripped sensor activated switches, looking for anything unusual that might indicate a backlit door or other oddity with the furniture. He sure wished she'd slow down and be more complete with her search.
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Mal marched right up to the padlocked door and looked at it like it offended him. Well, maybe it did. Or maybe it was the only way he could convince himself to actually shoot it. Behind the heavy wood came a scribbling, scratching sound. Like bone dice on a hardwood table. Teeth gnawing away at a fence post. Claws scampering over a floor… He paused, tilted his head, and leaned slightly toward the noise.
The brown-haired man glanced back at his pilot and raised an eyebrow at her. He could see that the capture is recording and that she's got the little mike extended to catch the sound. Might be rats, he supposed. His expression changed to ask her if she was ready for this. River gave him a nod. He stood back and blew the padlock off the door…
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Inara seemed to be seducing the very walls of the castle. Now how anyone could actually do that, Jayne had no idea. He was trying to not watch her, because if he did he could imagine all sorts of scenarios by which she was touchin' folks – himself included – that way. They were supposed to be heading upstairs, but the dark headed companion was intent on the walls of the main hall. The gun blast from the entry room didn't even make her flinch, although Jayne himself nearly felt his skeleton jump free from his muscles.
Just Mal openin' that locked room.
She reached the dining room door and eased it open. "Oh!" He wondered what she saw to cause her to freeze like that.
Kaylee jumped in with the capture. Every chair in the very large dining room was stacked in columns from floor to ceiling in the most unstable ways imaginable. Single legs balanced against carved backs, chairs teetering on the barest point of a corner making slow spins between others that are not moving, oddly branching 'trees' of chairs that look like something a Chinese acrobat might to with sticks and plates… Kaylee didn't even bother to be multi-lingual, "Wow! Look at that!" She pans the capture from one side of the room to the other, up and down each stack slowly enough to record the position of every single one of the 150 or so chairs in the room. It's like they are being rewarded for the gentle exploration by this encompassing yet harmless display.
Jayne backs away slowly, to avoid angering whatever it is in this place that has been trying to kill him. "Well, 'Nara… Looks like touch is mighty powerful."
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Zoë finds herself sidestepping moving lumps in the carpets. Now this is odd, sure, but she was drunk last night on fine booze that hadn't been watered down. So she might be seeing things. Sure, that's what it was. The capture recording behind her would just show how drunk she'd been was all.
She hoped.
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Gun back in the holster, Malcolm lifted the heavy chain away from the bar, dropping it onto the exposed wood past the runner in the room to avoid raising a choking cloud of dustmites into the air. The bar was quite weighty, but not impossible for a single person, if they were mighty strong, to lift. He didn't consider himself to be mighty strong after fighting it out with the Operative, so it came as no surprise that the bar strained every muscle he had just to lift the end of it.
Might have been the better part of wise to have had Jayne with him instead of protecting 'Nara… although it was just a bit late for that now. Instead he grunted and found the extra bit of determination to move the obstruction himself. There was no way to avoid the resulting cloud of dust, however, when he let go if it. At least his feet were intact, he thought as he coughed as though his lungs needed to be turned inside out.
River was holding her sleeve over her mouth and nose. Smart ass.
The pause for him to start breathing without needed to choke made him aware that the noise from behind the door seemed like it was moving, first near the door then farther away and back again. Only it wasn't quite like an animal running across the floor. It was like -- A trapped survivor under rubble. He had too many of those experiences from the war, some of which included his own men after Alliance attacks leveled buildings on top of them. The chill that spread over his body had little to do with the temperature of the room.
What would make that sound?
Bone -- On -- Wood. Raw bloody fingers scratching on the underside of the floor. Mal's heart is pounding in his ears as the horrible realization sets in. There might be someone alive in this room. Or under it. Trapped. He's shaking, and frozen, and he's gotta do something.
The door swings open with a creak like it has been a very long time since it has opened. The sound stops. "Hello?" he breathes, as he peers into the dusty darkness. Silence settles like it's always been there, a thick blanket that can't be disturbed for any reason. Mal feels for a light switch, then realizes that the room has old-fashioned individual wall lamps. Flicking one on, he looks over the undisturbed layers of dust illuminated by the yellow glow of a faked oil-lamp. Years worth. Something ain't right here.
"Right." He clears his throat and looks over the details of the room. Nice servant quality bed, little larger than standard issue, with a couple of extra quilts folded across the foot. Neatly made. Desk, with everything set into it's exact spot, lined up, not a thing out of place. Key box on the wall, clearly marked for the parking spaces outside, currently about half full. Black floor-length raincoat on a rack, ready to go should it be needed. Spare pair of highly polished shoes in the rack under the coat. Waxed wood floor with an area rug to stave off the chill. Everything covered with an eighths of dust. The back wall looked to have a built in wardrobe-dresser combo.
He thought about the noise he'd heard and realized that the distant moments had to have been near the far wall. The closet. Mal carefully walked into the room, not touching anything until he reached the door to the wardrobe. He opened it and looked at the neatly hung suits with their shoulder guards to protect them. The dust was less in here, but not completely absent. Then he spotted something out of place. There was a bright purple bit of belting sticking up from the floor. "River, look."
The captain felt her come up behind him and heard the capture recording. She said, "It's a door." Mal knew that. He stood up and got a lamp off the side table and moved the suits aside to expose it better before opening it.
What he saw made him wish he hadn't…
"He trapped them here, to keep them forever. Like butterflies in a jar."
Mal looked at her, "So you knew?"
"Been calling. No one to hear." She buried her head in his shoulder and clutched his arms.
He hugged her, "I'm Sorry, Little Albatross. We'll get them out and stop the bastard who done it. It's all we can do." Mal looked past her back at the source of the phantom noise, at the party of eight broken hikers, mummified by years of being locked under the floor where they were left to die.