Chapter 8: Departure of Flames
Taylor:
She was falling. She couldn't feel her body any longer, nor could she remember where she'd forgotten it. She was a mere raindrop plummeting towards endless depths where light was but a forgotten fantasy, an insignificant particle of dust thrust into an ocean that had seemingly flooded the very horizon. It was the primordial see, from which creation was born, opening up like the maw of a great beast craving to swallow her whole.
The abyss beckoned ever closer, a vortex of overwhelming evil trying to subdue her in its current. The foam of the great waves crashing about bore the appearance of decomposed corpses, the sound of them violently crashing into one another was a hauntingly terrible wailing. Taylor desperately reached forward with hands that weren't there, trying to grab onto something solid, anything that would help her withstand the crushing pressure dragging her into its womb.
She saw other droplets like herself passing her, their essence entombed in rusted chains leaving them helpless to resist the the whirlpool's swirl. It was almost as if they engraved themselves into it, becoming the very tides seeking to encroach upon the next victim. Taylor watched in horror as she thought she could spot a vaguely familiar feature in watch one of them. Despite lacking concrete forms, she could imagine one of them as a middle-aged man balding at the top, another with a tall, but wiry frame, and others with green-like eyes resembling her own. She tried to reach out to them, to catch even a single one, but she couldn't; it took everything she could muster to avoid being subsumed as well.
A voice rang out from within the chaos. Drown out and distant, she couldn't make out the words. Still, for a second she thought she recognised it.
"I s^c&if*?e."
Taylor woke up drenched in sweat. She thought she'd be screaming, but her throat refused her commands, so dry and sore she couldn't even swallow properly. A glass of water stood perched on a nearby drawer; she eagerly reached towards it only to wince as she was held back by something. There was an IV drip plugged into her left hand, as well as a new set of bandages wrapping her upper arm and shoulder. Taylor blinked a couple of times, looking around her properly for the first time since she opened her eyes. She had half expected to somehow be met with the muted colours and sterilized appearance that she remembered the last time she was in a hospital, she found the normal-looking bedroom around her much more puzzling.
Flashes of memories began to spark through the fog clouding her mind but for the moment all she could take in was the softness of the bed upon her skin. Her rational side knew that it probably wasn't all that different from the one she had at home, but that didn't matter. After weeks in which she knew only the roughness of the stale dirt and the coarse tree bark digging into her back, with only the thin material of her sleeping bag to soften the blow, the idea of a comfortable rest became more of a distant thought than a tangible thing. The numerous little pains and aches plaguing her were nowhere to be found; her head sinking into the pillow's tranquil embrace, the bedsheet hugging her body like a warm cocoon. She let out a sigh she didn't know she was holding in, one that left her feeling so much lighter.
Once the euphoria of the moment passed, Taylor realised the dull buzzing ringing in the ear was actually two people arguing downstairs. Instinctively, her hand reached out to her side, only to grasp nothing but air. A jolt of panic travelled through her body as her eyes searched the room in a vain hope of catching a glimpse of its silvery sheen.
Nothing. A pit formed in her stomach, making her nauseous and dizzy all of a sudden. Her fingers clawed into the mattress, now an itchy and damp piece of furniture, so different from the dream-like haven of a second ago.
Even when the world around her suddenly became such a foreign and uninviting place, there had been something that she still could cling to. Something to give her a modicum of control over her life as she was helplessly pushed around by things she couldn't even comprehend. A small ember to warm her up in the dark and freezing night.
Without it, she felt naked. So frail, so very cold.
The voices downstairs doubled in intensity. They didn't sound angry though, merely intense as pieces of the conversation made their way to her. Taylor strained her ears, hoping to catch something that could clue her to the situation.
"Look, I'm telling you, it's fine. You said that she was better than she looked. I'm just gonna let her crash around here for a couple of days and then we can pretend that the whole thing never happened. No skin off our backs."
"God dammit Lawrence, for once in your life, listen to yourself! Want me to spell it out for you? Normal girls don't wander from the woods with wounds like that! And especially not in front of your house of all places."
"Stop. I know what you're thinking. It's not that, trust me."
"I'm trying, I really am, but- fuck me, you're making it really difficult. Can't you just let me take her to a hospital? I know the staff back in Curie, they can act discreetly enough. Our names won't be on any registers, no record of us ever being involved."
"And let whatever sick son of a bitch that did this to her get another shot in case he wants to finish the job? Is that what you want me to do?"
"You know that's not what I said, but come on Lawrence. She's a stranger, you owe her nothing. We've already been through enough, let the people who are paid for the job do this. Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?"
There was a brief pause there before the first voice spoke up again.
"Thank you for coming George. I know you don't wanna get caught up with stuff like this, but I want you to know I really am grateful. Tell Becky I said hi, okay?" The conversation carried on for a bit longer, but Taylor didn't manage to catch anything else. Soon after, she heard the sound of a door, most likely the one at the main entrance, being slammed closed.
Taylor stood there for a good while, unsure of what to do. There was a blindly shut window in the room, even if she were on the first floor she probably wouldn't have too much trouble slipping out of the house. The problem was the dagger. Could she sneak around the house to retrieve it without the person (or people) inside the house noticing? What if he carried it on her person? Even with her newly acquired experience, she doubted she could wrestle a grown man to the ground by herself.
The answer to her questions came in the form of creaking steps climbing up the staircase. She closed her eyes and threw the blanket back over herself, trying to guess the position she had been sleeping in. When the wooden door slowly opened a couple of seconds later, she pretended to twitch awake and blink away drowsy eyelids. Part of herself felt really stupid at her impromptu performance. It reminded her of when she faked being asleep when her mother came to check on her in the middle of the night, hiding away the book she had been reading under the covers.
Taylor immediately squashed that train of thought.
"Oh, you're awake. That's good. My brother was convinced you'd be sleeping well into tomorrow. Kids sure are tough these days." The man, Lawrence she presumed, had to hunch a bit as he entered the room, a tray of food in his hand. He was more on the thinner side than not, with dark hair that looked like it hadn't seen a comb in years and the beginning of a goatee. He looked like he was probably in his early thirties, in other words, way too old to be wearing a 'J-Mad Boy' t-shirt with a skull with wings tackyly printed on.
Maybe it was because he caught her staring, or maybe he was just used to people cringing when looking at him, he hurried to defend himself. "Before you say anything, I wear it because it's ironically bad, alright? I don't actually leave my house wearing this."
Taylor looked over the leather jacket he was also wearing, and imagined him standing in line at the bank looking like this. She subtly decided that he was probably lying to her.
"I feel like I'm being made fun of but I'm going to ignore it," he grumbled. "So what's your name? Feels weird to keep calling you kid in my head."
Her mouth opened halfway to answer before she remembered to clamp it shut. Lawrence thankfully didn't seem too keen on involving the authorities for whatever reason, but she didn't need anyone connecting her to Taylor Hebert, the girl gone missing a while ago. She couldn't imagine that what happened at the camp hadn't made the national news or something.
"Hmmm... How about Cassy then? It's a nice name, I think I had a classmate called that back in elementary school." Lawrence grinned as he saw her tense up.
"That works." Her voice sounded strange to her ears, hoarse and croaky in a way that made her want to twitch her nose. In the back of her mind, she realised that this was the first time she had spoken to somebody in weeks.
She dug her fingernails into her palm to will away the tears.
"You should think of a better one once you find a good mask. Or visor, or whatever is the trend these days."
Taylor eyed him confusedly. "What? Why would I- I'm not a cape!"
"The melted handle on my door tends to differ." Lawrence cocked an eyebrow. She had no answer to that.
"Anyways, even if you still haven't got your appetite back, try to eat something." He put the tray on top of the small drawer next to her. I'm not much of a cook myself, but-"
"My knife." Taylor immediately said.
"Huh?"
"I want my knife back."
"You do know how that looks, right? he asked. "There's a stranger in my house right now, and the first thing she does is ask me to give her a dangerous weapon." Taylor did have the decency to blush at least, but she continued to level her stare at him. Lawrence eventually sighed.
"I left it in the living room downstairs. I'll bring it up to you after you eat, I promise."
Taylor wanted nothing more than to just rush downstairs and grab it herself. Instead, her head turned towards the trail of food, hesitantly picking up a spoon. Lawrence seemed like he earnestly meant well, and from what she'd overheard he probably saved her life, but she couldn't help the feeling that he was walking on eggshells around her. That wasn't surprising, they were indeed strangers and he also thought she was a cape. It was natural that even though he'd acted friendly enough, he'd keep her at arms' length. Still, Taylor didn't overlook the fact that, while jocking around with her name, he hadn't given his either.
Her mind battled with herself, instinct and rationale screaming in her hand both similar and completely different courses of action. In the end, her grumbling stomach won.
The food itself was overwhelmingly bland. Rice porridge with a couple of chopped green onions and a boiled egg layered underneath. The meal had turned cold between the time it was cooked and now. The vegetables were too watery, the egg overcooked, and if the rice had seen any seasoning, it certainly didn't show.
She chowed it down in three gulps. It was the best thing she ever tasted in her entire life.
Lawrence must have busied herself with something or other while she ate. Not that she noticed it until she finished eating and saw him rummage through his closet, coughing away as the dust perched inside floated up in his face. It didn't look like an isolated incident either. The whole room looked like it had been cleaned in a hurry, leaving behind haphazard spots of grime and dirt around the edges, where it was harder to reach. From the amount gathered there, it seemed like nobody had lived in this room for quite some time.
He didn't give any indication that he'd seen she was done, simply continuing to idle away through a collection of impressively ugly sweaters and shirts, most of them looking a couple sizes too small for the tall and lanky man in front of her. In fact, they looked like women's clothing. Maybe he was looking for some clothes for her to change into, but Taylor found herself tempted to keep to her dirty and smelly rags instead of those abominations.
Lawrence continued to not say anything. Maybe it was because she was more desperate for human interaction than she'd previously thought, but Taylor found the ensuing silence borderline unbearable.
"You're not gonna ask me what happened?" she asked, immediately regretting it looking the gift's horse in the mouth. Lawrence simply shrugged.
"Are you planning on telling the truth, Cassy?" Taylor didn't have to look at him to feel the teasing grin on his face.
The feelings bubbling out inside suddenly overwhelmed her.
"Thank you!" She gritted her teeth to prevent her voice from stammering, but there wasn't anything she could do about how quiet it came out. "Not just treating me. I-I'm just trying to get home, and it would've been hard to do it if you called...you know." She didn't need to spell it out for him, she could tell from looking that he understood.
"You shouldn't be thanking me. My brother is the one who treated you, he just left before you woke up. It took him half an hour to drive over here, all the while I was scared shitless that you were gonna bleed out on my carpet. That thing is a family heirloom, you know!" She didn't appreciate the pep in his voice when talking about her brush with death, but she wasn't in any position to complain.
Instead, her mind latched onto another detail, suddenly remembering the reason she broke into Lawrence's house in the first place.
"Where is 'here', exactly?" She expected him to give her a funny look at that question, but he answered without any pause.
"We're pretty close to Bennington. Southern Vermont, the closest large city would be Albany." he clarified. "You said you wanted to go home. Is that where you're from?"
She shook her head. "Brockton Bay."
Lawrence took out his phone and fiddled with it for a bit. "About a four-hour drive, more or less," he said. "You're pretty banged up though, you might wanna take it easy for a couple of days first."
"I'm leaving as soon as possible." Her tone left no room for discussion.
"I figured you'd say that," he said, giving her an almost tired look. "Sorry, but I can't take you myself. It's pretty late right now, but I'll call my brother first thing in the morning to give you a ride. He likes to complain a bunch, but he's a good guy. I imagine you want to keep a low profile, I'm sure he can help you get on a bus without attracting much attention." Lawrence kept talking, but she wasn't listening anymore. Her fingers suddenly felt very numb.
The emptied bowl shattered on the floor. Taylor ignored Lawrence's startled cry, her eyes darting towards the blinded window.
"Tomorrow morning?" she asked, halfway in a daze. "What time is it now?"
She didn't wait for an answer. The small trickle of blood going down her chest was all she needed to know.
"What the hell are those things?"
Lawrence's panicked shrieks faded in the background as Taylor rushed down the stairs, three steps at a time. One of the dead spirits rose up from the floorboard in her path, a dripping smudge with way too many rows of teeth. She jumped over it, rolling onto the side of the couch with a grimace as her bad arm was forced to bear the full weight of her body. The handle of her weapon rested neatly on the small coffee table next to the fireplace, its now familiar silhouette seeming much more real in her eyes than the surrounding material world. She grabbed it in a semi-awkward reverse grip and lashed out behind her before that horrid mouth could get a hold of her flesh. As always, her lack of any formal skin was inconsequential, as long as her aim was true, the Dagger would vanquish its prey without fail.
"Stand behind me!" She called out to Lawrence, who stood frozen halfway down the staircase. Her cry seemed to snap him out of his funk, as he headed towards the kitchen and started rummaging through the cabinets for a knife of his own.
"Don't bother, it won't work against them," Taylor said, circling the room and taking note of all the places where limbs and skulls were intruding. Six from the outside wall, three from the kitchen, two from the ceiling, four from below. She took a deep breath, fixing her grip and posture. Slightly more than usual, but nothing she couldn't handle. The biggest hurdle was protecting Lawrence while also defending herself, so she started with the creatures closest to him.
To his credit, the man was holding himself pretty well, all things considered. His hands were shaking pretty badly, but he knew to get out of her way so she could stab through the headless torso reaching towards him. "Those things are definitely not alive," he said as he stared intensely at the darkness that made up their wretched deformities as if he could pierce beyond it. "They must be Master projections of some kind. We're sitting ducks here, our best bet is to find and defeat the cape controlling them.
Taylor bit back her initial response. This was not the time to disagree over the differences between parahumans powers and whatever was happening here, not when she herself didn't understand it all that well. The best thing to do right now was to play along so he could convince him to stay put. "We can't. I met someone a while back who dealt with this before, he said that the Master doesn't have to be anywhere close to here."
A man in black with an avian helmet. Emma. Taylor willed those images away as fast as they came."His powers only work at night." she said. "We just gotta tough it out till morning, that's how I've done it so far."
Lawrence didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue with her. Taylor was grateful for that, even as she could feel his every single breath as a new pang of guilt into her heart. It was heavy like someone had filled the insides of her chest with lead. Would that slow her down too much, dooming them both?
No, she won't fail now. For the first time, it was not just her own survival that she was fighting for. The pile of corpses that paved her way forward to where she was now, she won't let it grow longer by even one person.
"What can I do?" Lawrence asked. He didn't sound eager exactly, but she could feel a firm conviction behind his words. For a second she considered passing the dagger to him, he was clearly the more athletic one between the two, but quickly scrapped the idea. She wouldn't be facing these things unarmed again, couldn't bear to. Plus, she had more experience, and that was the most important.
"I had a backpack with me when I came here, do you remember it?" He nodded. "There are some torches in there. Light up as many as you can carry, keep them close to you."
"Will they work against those freaks?"
"No," she said. "They are for the others, in case any show-up tonight."
"Others?"
As if to taunt her, at that moment a meaty thud resounded through the back door. Thankfully, Lawrence hadn't been too keen on leaving his house unlocked, because it looked like he had barricaded that door shut after she made a mess out of it. 'Good.' She thought. 'That should give us enough time to-'
Another bang, this time from the window. The front door soon followed suit. Then another window. And another.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. . Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Now that she listened closely, she could hear a distinctive moaning overtaking the usual spectral howls. This one was more guttural, raspier, as if someone had poured acid on the speaker's mouth and then let him beg for his life while cursing his captors in the same breath. It wasn't the sound of any living being, but it was a human sound. Why were there so many? They were still in the middle of the woods.
'No. We are close to a town. And civilization means cemeteries.'
"Hurry up!" she bellowed towards the hallway,
"I'm coming!" Lawrence arrived a couple of seconds later, two already lit torches in his hands, as well as-
"Are those goddamned toys?"
"Vintage collectibles." He said unabashedly. "You won't find any of them on the market anymore."
Taylor had half a mind to test her blade against that garbage, but the sound of shattering glass brought her back to the problem at hand.
"Whatever!" she said. "Just use the fire to hold them at bay. I'll try to focus mainly on the ghostly spirits, but I'll help out with the others when I can.
"Got it." Putting the toys into his jacket's pockets, he brought the twin torches forward together with his right leg, his eyes narrowing towards the broken window, clear purpose reflected under the fire's light. Even if she suspected a lot of it was posturing, Taylor envied how full of confidence he seemed at that moment.
Almost in challenge to the horde of death surrounding her, the dagger violently ignited, a blazing inferno scalding the room with his brightness. The salamanders were more visible than ever, tiny tongues of flame enveloping her hand in an almost protective manner. Yet, she could see the shadows still lingering around the old wooden house, fighting vigorously for every inch of territory. Wherever the light was obstructed, they dwelled, housing the dreadful aroma of death within them. Vitriol and cursing rang out from everywhere, a promise that she would be claimed as well, a fact as sure as the sun rising and setting.
"Not today," she whispered to herself, so softly even she couldn't hear.
AN: As always, please let me know of any mistakes or spelling errors.