Wesker stepped out of the elevator into a dry, mostly abandoned study. He perused the library briefly before surmising this place had belonged the the 'late' Alexander - and had gone untouched for some time.
Working his way through the mansion gave him the time to process what had happened down in the lab. Reaching the foyer, a smug smile tugged at his mouth, seeing the trail of destruction. There had been a firefight here at some point. The front door had been destroyed, along with part of the wall, a trail leading back to the elevator. McNally had left real damage, and the mutation seemed to have continued, from the size of the hole around the door, and various walls.
Harman had been badly injured in a way which had actually worried the Ashfords. A few key facts were obscured when Placidia was first taken in, it seemed Annette Birkin, who had seen the length of bad road coming for anyone who defied Spencer, and had chosen a…kinder…route before Umbrella had numbed her to such sentiment.
Actually, a few people would have had to have been complicit in such a thing. Spencer's apparent willingness to do that to a former executive with no explanation had had a chilling effect on dissent, but it had already been creating a culture of secrecy and sabotage for the strongest to gain the glory.
If history was of any indication, Marigold would be massively drained after what had just happened. If he were lucky, she wouldn't remember what had happened, only found herself injured and abandoned on the BOW level by the rest of the clan. From what he'd found on the research level, he had an idea of her next move, and he'd done his best to drive her in that direction.
At least he had a reason for the shift in her scent. A strange sense of pride washed over him. As far as anyone had known, the woman had been sterile. Now he had real leverage binding her to him.
If he managed to keep a hold of her, anyhow.
Observing the twisted remains of the elevator, Wesker traced back toward the basement level. He would have to find the right workstation, but as soon as the sample was secure he could begin to execute the endgame.
He soon came upon the lab, and the struggling subject therein. Alexia had been busy with her little intruder. "Hello, again, Mr. Burnside," he said quietly, and drew his gun. He wouldn't make the same mistake again twice.
The three of them emptied out on the infirmary level, pausing to take in the stained floor, broken chair, and remaining pieces of Nosferatu scattered about. Alexia glanced at the tableau, knowing what had happened. Grayson, who had narrowly escaped death a few hours earlier and had not seen the fallout, stared a beat. "When she said she'd injured him, I didn't think…"
"He was hunting," Alexia said flatly. "She kept ruining ambushes. This one turned into a fight."
Alfred stared. "We left her alone down there," he said slowly, guilt lacing his words.
Alexia looked at him. "She can handle herself. We have immediate problems right now."
Alfred blanched, then looked at the backpack Marigold had handed him. "One moment." He unzipped it and fished out a chelator. "This was made for the roses but they may buy time." He looked at Grayson. "It's not a cure."
Alexia eased Grayson against the wall by the elevator. "We'll have to try it." The crystallization was already working up his arm. She frowned, then jabbed the injector into a spot just above the bite, into the vein. Grayson hissed in pain, then relaxed slightly. "Fuck," he said. Then: "It's a little better. It still sucks." He looked up at Alfred. "Dude, she turned. You know that's a one-way trip."
Alfred hesitated. "She did that to him and snapped out of it," he countered. "On Rockfort."
Alexia blinked, then said, "I'll keep an eye out through the hyphae. Let's just get to the lab." She hefted Grayson up, then paused. "I can't find her."
Grayson struggled back to his feet, face blanking and eyes going black for a minute as they maneuvered him down the hall. When his eyes returned to normal, he looked to Alfred, exhausted. "I don't know why the fuck this place has meathooks. He left her down there."
Alfred started, and Alexia caught his arm. "Don't go running into a trap," she hissed.
Alfred looked at her, expression pained but ultimately compliant. "If you can get her down, she'll head for the botanical lab. I can intercept." He looked at Grayson. "We'll meet you back here, or at the safe room if it takes a while. We havetime now." He looked at Grayson, who still looked dangerously ill, with concern. After a moment, Alfred hugged the other man quickly. "Try not to die," he said, sternly, and disappeared back into the darkness before Grayson could recover from his surprise.
Alexia's eyes unfocused, and she shook her head, suddenly furious all over again. "I'm going to burn that bastard to a crisp and I will enjoy it," she hissed, getting Grayson's bulk down the hallway as he stumbled. "Any moral objections, this time?"
Grayson groaned in pain when he stumbled but patted her arm. "Fuck no. Have fun, honey." He glanced back at the direction Alfred had gone, wishing he'd said something, but slowly realized through the haze of pain that anything he said would have sounded too much like a final goodbye.
The first thing Marigold was aware of, as her mind returned, was a deep, throbbing pressure in her shoulder. For a brief moment, she felt like she was floating.
Shock, her mind supplied. I think I'm in shock.
The smell itself had abated, as had the bulk of the sweltering heat - someone had closed the vents of the heat register blasting hot air into this fetid swamp of gore. But…if the room was so warm, why did she feel so cold?
Then she opened her eyes.
Everyone was gone. What in the hell had happened?
She couldn't remember. That…was concerning. She'd grayed out more than once since arriving in Antarctica, but this had been more than that. This was like the blackout she'd suffered early in her captivity - the one that had hit when Wesker had tried to push her boundaries too far.
She wasn't floating.
Looking down, she saw the curling edge of a large hook piercing through the front of her shoulder.
Oh god. The meathook.
Someone had hung her on one of the goddamned meathooks at the back of the lab. The harness took much of her weight, but she'd been impaled here. Deliberately.
She'd bled quite a lot, but somehow no major arteries had been hit. Probably. Maybe. The person who'd occupied this space before had been ripped down, tossed in the corner, presumably before they'd shut the vents. Meat for the cooler, she thought, with an edge of hysteria.
Marigold tensed, then moaned with pain as her wound shrieked at her. Still, she reached with her uninjured arm and wrapped her wrist around the chain, trying to get her weight off of it. Slowly, the pressure abated.
The room was empty, save for the heaps of corpses, which…were scattered around, disrupted, crushed. Furniture had been smashed, dented.
There'd been a fight here. A bad one. Whatever it was had left her guns and tossed her blade off into the corner, she could see now.
Where the hell was everyone?
Then she saw her own hands and went cold. She was covered in blood. Her clothes, hands, hair, were dripping with it. I have to take a bloody shower every five minutes here, she thought. That was good. Focusing on something little was good. Widening the scope to the horror of what this lab had become would send her tipping into panic.
She could taste blood in her mouth. Not just a little - her mouth was full of the taste of iron. Had she bitten someone? Despite the pain, Marigold pulled herself up a little higher, legs pulling up into an approximation of the fetal position.
She was the one who'd **been in a fight, and the others were gone.
And now she was on a goddamned meathook.
"Hello?" she called in a shaky voice, tentative. Nosferatu was still out there. Other things were still out there. If she could just get down, she could get her head together.
No response. She bit back another cry when the wound, forever trying to heal around the thing holding her weight, stabbed sharp, ramping up in rhythmic hot knives.
She couldn't sense him anywhere, but Wesker's lingering scent clung in the air. There was blood in her mouth. A horrible thought occurred to her. Hello? She reached for anyone within range. I don't…is anyone hurt? I'm not sure how I got up here.
No answer came, though she thought she felt a ring of awareness through the haze of pain. Given how strongly she'd been able to sense, well, nearly everything, down here, the signal was surprisingly weak. It felt like she was back on her meds again. She huffed, then kicked her legs forward to swing into the wall behind her. If she could get some leverage against the wall behind her, maybe she could get herself loose. Then she could figure out what the hell had happened in here.
When her feet connected with the wall, something soft met her feet- then coiled around her calves, anchoring her in place. She nearly shrieked in surprise - then remembered the hyphae.
Someone was trying to help. Another hyphae edged outward, securing the hook and stabilizing it so she wouldn't swing forward again.
She hoped the kids were alright. "Thanks?" She offered, voice weaker than she liked. With a grunt, she pushed out against the wall, pushing the edge of the hook inward while trying to lift herself out of it - and fell face-first into the pool of cooling gore below. Marigold managed to land with her feet under her, but she was still forced to put her hands down to avoid smashing her head into the floor.
She closed her eyes tight, shutting out the scene for a long moment. Pulling her hands off the rank wet concrete, she stayed in that crouch, waiting for the dizziness to pass. Passing out in the shower was one thing. In here?
Well. Apparently, she'd already found out one of the things that could happen.
The throbbing in her shoulder began to recede, though it was taking longer than normal. *Cold means blood loss. Maybe.*Given how much was on her right now, and around her, that was hard to say for certain. At least she'd been left her guns.
And the blade. She'd seen it cast off into the corner by the door to the corridor, as if someone had desperately been trying to disarm her. Her head shot up, then lowered again as another wave of dizziness passed over her.
Let's try this slowly, she thought. Rising slowly from her crouch, she slowly began picking her way across the room, breathing shallowly through her mouth. As soon as she got clear of the back, the smell almost instantly began to recede as the warmer air dissipated out. She crossed her arms and shivered - then paused.
Her hand found the residual slimy texture left by something that had wrapped around it.
There was too much blood to know how far that had gone, but…Alexia had been using the hyphae to restrain that boy in the basement. She'd touched it enough to have a sense of the stuff.
What in the hell had happened in here?
Marigold made it to the other side of the lab, kneeling carefully to pick up the blade. After a quick inspection, she replaced it in her belt. Next to it was a broken tile, like one of those she'd taken out of the wall earlier in her search of the room.
On the tile was a nest of painted violets. She went still, staring at it without comprehension for what seemed like an eternity.
She'd missed one.
She'd missed one of the hidden caches earlier, and her memory cut out too soon after coming in here - the taste of bile was still there, intermingled horrifically in iron like some vile parody of alchemical humours.
And with the tiles were a handful of crushed roses. Her roses.
You're running out of secrets, the tableau seemed to say. And you're running out of time.
She'd shattered. And he'd been here. Whatever happened had merited leaving Marigold here on a fucking meathook to go to an unknown destination. With a three-day timer and a safe room on hand. Something didn't make sense.
Marigold stood again, slowly, leaning against the wall and taking in the room. There - there had been a photo there at the desk, of her parents when they'd first got engaged. Now there was a gaping hole in the wall, with only an outline of dust suggesting it had contained something. She'd missed something.
She was so damned tired, and obviously getting worse.
If there was anything left to get to, Alexander's research on the roses might have a solution, however temporary, to getting the wave threatening to wash her away to recede. Alfred had known where they were.
Her eyes returned to the roses in the corner, petals stained with blood. She needed what was there, but it could so easily be a trap now.
On the other hand, the family knew she needed to go to the botanical lab - that's where Alfred had told her to go.
She need to find out where they went. Staying here was admitting defeat, giving in. She wasn't ready for that.
Maybe on the way she could figure out where the hell everyone had scattered off to.
