Chapter 12 : The Powers That Be

The Trinity War


ON: The City

Late morning sun banished the shadows from the quiet street and warmed the faux-stone and wood facade of the Retro-Victorian house. The trees that once lined the boulevard had long ago been chopped down to stumps. The curbs were crumbled, the pavement cracked. Remnants of once lush lawns struggled to survive in gardens of broken concrete and weeds. Late Autumn leaves tumbled over the yard, caught in the eddies of icy wind as it curled around the house. All the windows of the house were boarded up, save for a row of round attic windows that were painted black. The house sat far back from the street behind a high, stone-walled enclosure. The cast iron gates were deceptively old and locked with techno-wizardry. The view from the street was blocked by large panels of rough wood that had been attached to the inside of the gates.

There was no one in the abandoned neighborhood to notice that someone had moved into the old house.

The interior of the house had been transformed in the last 24 hours under the care of the new housekeeper. Cobwebs and dust were swept away, carpets and tapestries rolled up and stored, furniture pushed aside and draped with dustcloths, debris shoveled out and hauled off. Tomorrow, the plumbers, electricians and carpenters would descend on the house and bring it back to it's former splendor as a Painted Lady, albeit a modular-pre-fab replica of the Victorians from before The Fall, and only on the inside; the exterior would be left to continue it's decomposition. Once the final repairs and upgrades had been done, the floors and walls would be polished and painted, new carpets and tapestries laid out and all the furniture undraped and rearranged. The new residents would remain hidden behind the thick velvet drapes, iron bars and black-painted boarded-up windows.

Lady Thantha Sha paced the house, inspecting it as the small army of servants they had brought with them from Ondine's palace in Mexico swarmed over every room, sweeping out a hundred years of neglect and decay. The servants paused, heads down as the Lady passed. She was tall and slender and seemed to glide over the floor, her long dark skirts swirling and flowing behind her as she passed through the house. Being Undead had only enhanced her natural grace, but today she was beyond pale, weary and irritable. The move to the new house had not been going smoothly, despite the swiftness with which the new housekeeper had assumed and established control and order.

As she entered the study, the housekeeper, Elphaba, seeing the cross look on the Lady's face, ushered out the servants. Elphaba went over to a table near the small fireplace and poured out a goblet for her mistress. The body in the kitchen was still warm but chilling fast now it was drained of blood. The still-hot and thickening blood in the glass decanter gleamed scarlet and gold in the reflection of the fire.

She held the goblet out to her and smiled. "Please, My Lady, drink this, it has been kept warmed by the fire. You need to rest now. All will be complete once you awaken again."

Thantha accepted the glass and took a sip. She closed her eyes and slowly licked the blood from her lips. "Mmm, yesss. I did need that, thank you Elphaba."

Elphaba nodded, glad she had pleased her mistress. She fussed with the items on the table, looking away as Thantha drained the glass. "It is not natural for My Lady to be awake at this time of day. Please, seek your rest and I will keep watch."

Thantha sighed and handed the empty glass to Elphaba. "You are right. I just couldn't sleep until I was sure everything would be set right before Ondine awakes tonight. He was so angry his orders were not followed."

She gave Elphaba a meaningful look. When Ondine had killed the previous housekeeper, Elphaba had been promoted from the staff they'd brought with them . She was short and thin and her skin was like yellowed parchment. She was not brown and plump as many of the servants were, almost as if she worked to look unappetizing.

Elphaba smiled at Thantha, unperturbed by the mention of her predecessor. "You do not need to worry, My Lady. I will see to everything."

Thantha nodded distractedly, already bored with the conversation. "Yes, you're right. I will leave it to you then."

Elphaba nodded and stepped back, lowering her head now the allowance of intimacy was over. She watched from lowered eyes as Thantha walked over to the fireplace and touched the stones that opened the hidden passage to the levels beneath the house. The stones ground against each other only slightly as years of time had smoothed them till they now moved almost silently. She waited until Thantha had passed through the fireplace and the stones had slid back into place, sealing the entrance. Sighing, glad to have the interference of the Lady finally dealt with, she picked up the decanter and the blood-stained glass and headed for the kitchen.

In darkness, Thantha descended the stone staircase that spiraled down between the walls of the foundation, past the basement and to the level below. There were no windows here. No exits. And more importantly -- no entrance other than through the house above. No one entered this chamber without first passing through the cordon of security and thralls above.

She went across the room, stepping carefully around the slumbering members of the coven. The ferals slept on the bare dirt, the others on pallets or in simple coffins. She passed through the room and went through the heavy door at the other side. A massive stone vault was placed on a bier erected in the center of the room. Braziers and candles cast dancing shadows on the walls of the makeshift crypt. Thantha knelt and picked up a handful of dirt and let it sift through her fingers. The dirt of their homeland. She wiped her hands and went over to the coffin. She ran her hands over the deeply carved surface. It was a series of symbols and pictographs naming the vampire who slept within.

Ondine.

She opened the heavy lid as if it weighed nothing, pushing aside the ton of stone until there was room for her to reach inside. She traced her fingers along Ondine's sleeping face and smiled. "You are safe as long as I am by your side, My Love."

She lifted herself up over the edge and slid in beside Ondine, curling against his side and resting her head on his chest where no heartbeat could be heard or felt.

Lady Thantha Sha was Ondine's concubine. Her place was beside her Master.

OFF:

Lady Thantha Sha
Elphaba

Chapter 11 : Metamorphosis

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~Author Unknown

Original Sin.mp3

ON: The City



It was the hush before daybreak -- the time when the night prepares to sleep and the day has yet to awaken -- the magic hour of transition. Sounds whispered in the darkness faded away as the creatures slunk into shadows to hide from the coming of the light. Daylight still slumbered over the horizon with a burgeoning glow filled with promises. Monsters and demons and horrors crawled away, leaving their blood-soaked meals and taking their stolen souls with them into the abyss as tomorrow's victims and heroes dreams fluttered away into the paradox of what the future might hold...

... once the sun rose into the sky.



Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

Teresa listened to the old clock ticking away the minutes. Blindfolded, gagged, bound to a heavy chair in a building somewhere, there was nothing else she could do.

It had been two days since the men in suits who had come looking for Gabriel had escorted her out of the club under the threat of demolishing the entire building and everyone in it. She had believed them. They wasted no words on explaining how or why they were going to do a thing. They just said what they wanted and what they were willing to do to get it.

Teresa had recalled Gabriel from the mission. There was no other way. What she hadn't anticipated was that they'd take her as bait to lure Gabriel in. Teresa wondered if the bounty hunters understood who and what Gabriel was? He was just as likely to vanish and never be heard from again as he was to come back here to what was obviously a trap. Teresa knew Gabriel's loyalties were based on an inscrutable criteria that she couldn't fathom nor rely on to include saving her life. She'd have to do that herself.

~Damn I wish I had a cigarette,~ she thought as she continued to work her hands free of the ropes.

Fallen City

Moses, Nadia and Brass stood in front of the thick glass window that allowed them to see into the pressure tank. Large knobby bolts secured the glass frame to the steel of the vault. The massive round hatch at one end of the tube was sealed shut. Pipes and wiring conduits fed into the vault from unknown places on the other side of the cavern walls.

Inside the tank was the captured vampire. The rotting remains of the hydra they had used to entrap her now lie putrid and dissolving all around her. Even alive it's blood would not have sustained her and now after two days inside the tank, she was near-crazed with hunger. They watched her as she continued to throw herself against the glass, screaming with futile rage.

Moses kept turning his glance to Nadia as she watched the captive. Her eyes were wide with a kind of child-like wonder and awe. She seemed mesmerized. Was she enthralled by the vampire, even through the glass? Did she not fear its hunger? Did she desire to possess its powers?

Moses recalled what Carlos had said to him a few days before the first vampire attacks when he and Ting-Ting had come to visit them at Thunder Falls. Carlos had tried to persuade Moses to kill Nadia because she was too dangerous to keep. But seeing that Moses loved her, Carlos had then advised another strategy...

Thunder Falls, a few days ago ...

Carlos smiled at Moses. "Keep her a slave."

Moses raised a brow, unsure if Carlos was teasing or not. "How will that prevent her becoming more powerful?"

"It does not." Carlos made a fist, "When you hold her in your power," he clenched his fist tighter, making a sound of gravel crunching underfoot, "then you control her power as well." His voice lowered, hard and rumbling. "If you control her, she will release her power only when you command it." Carlos opened his fist and held his palm up. The rune carved into his palm glowed with a soft green light. "Her power is your power."

The Vault

"Her power is your power." Moses looked again from Nadia to the vampire in the vault. Could he use Nadia to make the creature cooperate? Was she strong enough to face it? If Nadia could survive a psionic feedback surge from Carlos... maybe, just maybe.


Green Mansions - deep in the forest outside the city walls



Lita sat in the embracing branches of a massive tree that overlooked the ruined house below. She watched Max as he paced back and forth across the underbrush that had once been a lawn in some time past. If Max had looked up, he'd never have seen her; she was blended into the patterns of bark and leaves and spattered dawnlight. It would be at least an hour before full sunrise penetrated this deep into the forest. But Max knew she was there. Her thoughts were with him.

Ever since the Link had been broken when Thorn went into the stars, Lita's lifeline had become Max. The psychic parasites in her mind had reached out and created a symbiotic link with the nearest mind even though it was a non-receptive. They had to or they and their host Lita would have died. Even though Lita was completely unaware of what made her telepathic, she sensed that it was something that was not like her blood and her bones, but a thing that lived within her. It was her voice, her thoughts, her feelings... but not of her essence. Ever since the break she had begun to wonder how her people came to be what they were.

Or had been. Lita was the last one.

Max looked up into the tree that bent gracefully over the house, as if to shelter it from the world. He couldn't see Lita but he could feel her. She was sending to him. Not any words. Just what was in her heart.

Lita watched Max as he went back inside the ruins of the old mansion. It was to be her new home. And Thorn's. If he ever came back from the stars.


The Keep -- Two days ago



Sin had traded one prison for another...

Eddie stared at the two men as they waited for Gustav. He knew they wouldn't talk to him so he didn't bother trying. They wouldn't know the answers to his questions anyway. He looked over at Sin. Still unconscious, heavily sedated, her face was pale and still showing the fading bruises from the beating she'd gotten in that town he'd found her in. The orderlies had covered her with a light sheet. Eddie saw the spreading bloodstain from the knife wound in her thigh. Being seasick and drugged wasn't bad enough, but that she'd also be weak from blood loss by the time she came to. Eddie wanted to do more than stand aside and watch ... but he couldn't. He had to do nothing or Sin would die.

Several minutes later Eddie heard footsteps coming down the hallway. He quickly ground out his cigarette onto the stone floor and turned to face the door. A thin older man in a dark sweater and slacks entered the room. His face was darkly-tanned and clean-shaven. His eyes were sharp and like bright black stones as he looked around the room, taking in everything. He had thick iron gray hair that fell in long waves to his shoulders. He was lean and moved gracefully, as a predator.

He smiled thinly as he looked at Eddie. "Well, Eddie. I am told you have brought me an insane person to train in our dark arts. Explain to me why I shouldn't kill her right now and end her misery."

Eddie felt his mouth go dry. Gustav wasn't making an idle threat. He'd kill Sin and Eddie both if Eddie's answer didn't satisfy him.

"Because, Gustav," Eddie said quietly, "her insanity is her strength, and if you can control her insanity, she will be the best assassin you have ever had."


Outland

The regeneration was nearly complete. The last nerves grew and extended, reaching out, seeking connections. Neurons fired. Slowly at first, then faster and faster as lightning impulses raced through the body, awakening it. To protect the dead from the pain of coming alive, the mind was not revived until the last.

Darkness. Silence. A sense of vacancy. A thought ignited. Where am I? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe! BREATHE!

And all in a rush, the memories came back. She instinctively did a mental check of her physical presence to ensure she was complete. Then she pushed at the dirt covering her body, clawing for air. Her hands finally broke through and she shoved the lightly packed earth aside as she struggled to break free of her grave. She dug at the dirt covering her face, clearing her mouth and nose. She pushed up out of the embrace of the earth and gulped for air, gasping for it in short, hard painful breaths as her lungs remembered how to breathe.

She screamed. "Aaaaaagh!"

The pain of resurrection wracked her body with spasms as she leaned forward and curled over her knees as she knelt in the dirt. Her fingers clawed at the ground as she rode out the waves of pain.

Finally, the pain began to ebb. Senses returned. Everything was too sharp. Too loud. Too bright. She focused on breathing and her heartbeat. She was alive. She raised her face from the dirt and looked up.

The sky was blue. The sun was yellow. The remains of a burnt barn surrounded her. She was on Earth.

She slowly stood up and looked around. Nothing else was left. Just the charred lumber of the barn where she had died. Perhaps villagers had burned the barn to purge the evil there. Or maybe Gideon had done it thinking it would permanently end her existence. But she was not like Earth-born Vampires. She had risen from her grave a thousand times.

This was just once more.

She was naked. Her clothes had rotted away after weeks in the shallow grave. It didn't matter. She'd find new clothes. She'd take them from the food.

Eliza started walking down the dirt road, headed for The City.







OFF: Some parts are reposted to reiterate what went before. I want to pick up all our loose threads and tie them back into the main storylines again.

Lt. Teresa Tedesco
Warlord Moses Malloy
Nadia Brandywine
Lita
Eddie O'Shea
Eliza Solomon