The air out here is wet and smells of memory, but these memories ade not my own. I see the silhouette of the old willow standing between me and this wretched place.
I can feel the echoes of history here, songs from the land of the dead god.
Taal remembers and so Driftwood remembers. Driftwood remembers and so the Sons and Daughters of Driftwood remember.
How this willow survived so many hanged, so many boughs cleaved away. The resonance of time emanates out of it, the begging, the fear, the tears and the sound of laughter from children swinging on a crude rope affixed to a wooden plank.
The frayed remains hang rotting on the branch, the wooden plank long broken beneath it in a mossy grave.
This place, Blackwood's place, it was never clean... but the old man kept whatever darkness resides within subdued. Now it vibrates, permeated with the nauseating stench of magick.
Somewhere inside the last of Blackwood's line conjures within a circle all her own. Were the old man alive, what would he do?
...what could he do?
The air out here is wet, and smells of memory... but these memories are not my own.
✟ ☧ ✟
The trek through the labyrinthine mansion of the Blackwood estate yielded nothing, but it did not have to.
Bane knew where they would be and they knew he was here.
This would not be a repeat of the incident at Simon Bellar's.
He would do nothing to distract them, nothing to disturb them; that elder hunter, Donovan Blackwood, who died honorably without so much as a scream.
(You murdered him.)
Be silent.
The Order will fall to the last man, woman and child. Your fading memories cannot stop me, cannot thwart me, cannot change my mind. You are an echo, and when The Order is gone, so will it be the same with you.
From the recesses of Bane's memory there was no response.
He waited a moment longer, smiled beneath his mask and nodded once. The memories used to come in his voice - the voice of the young Jonathan Walker - but that voice was long changed now. So long changed, Bane no longered remembered its sound.
The memories what haunted him now nagged as a small child nags for a new toy, except now they nagged without a voice.
Soon that would die, too. Soon, Bane would have peace.
He stared up at the ceiling, his heavy black dreadlocked hair hanging down the back of his leather duster. Up there past the ceiling, the floors and beyond, a circle sat in silence with bated breath.
Up there they waited and down here below he drew in a deep breath. He released it slowly, and made his way to the stairs. He made no attempt at silence, the stairs straining and creaking beneath his heavy booted feet.
He ascended to the second floor, the third, and then to the stairs he knew led to the attic space. Bane made his final ascent toward the landing, his eyes locked on the heavy looking oaken door; its iron fixtures made it look more a medieval prison, a tower atop a castle where Blackwood could have kept political rivals, or wives who could bear him no sons.
Beyond the door, destiny called.
Bane reared back a moment and paused. He reached for the handle of the door. It refused to turn. He pushed a palm into the heavy wood, and the door itself would not yield, would not bend, and would not budge. Had only the hunters this kind of strength, perhaps that concrete house of ill repute might have lasted.
He stared at the door and calculated the all the possible solutions for breaking it down. He could blast it, breaking the hinges from splintering wood and then push the door in without effort. He could slam his body into the heavy wood, each impact sending reverberations of fear into the Coven on the other side.
He could hear them now through the door, the faint whispering and arguing, and her voice, the last in the line of Blackwood ordering her circle to hold fast.
Bane stepped back and away from the door. There was only one way he would do this.
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Somewhere from inside his chest he felt a low growl forming, a rumbling guttural sound that crawled up his throat and out his mouth mask. He opened his eyes chambered his knee up and thrust a hard forward kick. The door did not creak, it did not groan, or bend.
It shattered inward toward the attic, heavy iron hinges swinging in empty space torn from the oaken door. He watched as Andrea Blackwood's circle broke formation, as they moved in slow motion through the dust motes, their dancing shadows cast in the flickering candlelight. He watched as the first to break the circle rushed at him, a ceremonial dagger in hand.
Bane considered a moment whether or not he would allow the Male-witch to stab him, to make it a point to the rest that he could not be stopped - that they would all die here today. Even as the thought coursed through his mind, he was shouldering his shotgun, raising it to the level of the man's chest and squeezed the trigger. The attic space filled with the thunderous sound of the shotgun, and the man was dead before he hit the floor.
Panic commenced in the remaining circle. They were screaming, but all Bane could hear was a high pitched whine. If that was all he could hear, it was all they could hear. He was sure of it.
It did not matter. Nothing mattered more than -
Bane felt the staff crash across his mask, saw the wood splinters showering away from him, and the woman holding the remains of the thick wooden staff in her hands, he face awash in disbelief.
Clearly an introduction was in order.
He shook his head, sharp fragments of wood falling from his dreadlocked hair. He tilted his head, staring at a woman with short red hair, his eyes locked on hers.
He watched realization forming on her pale face, her mouth moving with words he could see, but not hear.
That's impossible.
Bane brushed the remaining pieces of staff away from his duster with his shotgun, his finger straight on the reciever.
While panic ensued with the scattering circle, Andrea Blackwood's Coven running for cover, seeking any place to hide that was far from him as possible, the woman with short red hair stood her ground. She was not panicking. Afraid, yes, but here was a woman who knew danger.
As sound slowly crept back into hearing, he found himself at the receiving end of her pistol. She drew it fast, and her hands were steady.
"Driftwood PD! Drop your weapon! I will not tell you again!"
Bane dropped his shotgun.
"Naomi, no!" Andrea's voice carried from her seated place feom where her circle scattered.
Bane knew how this would go - had been in this position before - understood what was coming next. He raised his clenched hands, fists bound in thick ragged leather gloves, and opened them once they were up above his head.
"Naomi, no!"
Naomi ignored her. No cuffs, no restraints, no means of subduing the madman. She pulled the hammer back on her .38 pistol. "Andrea. You and the others. Run."
Bane narrowes his eyes, but stayed still.
There was a pause in the attic.
The whining in Bane's ears was gone. He could hear them breathing. See then contemplating escape.
I do not need a shotgun.
Bane moved in reflex, his hand a blur as he drew the bull whip from his hip, unfurling it. The length was already taught as the whip secured around another man's throat. Bane pulled hard, and then wet pop of his larynx made a dull echo in the room around them even as the man's limp body was airborne, and in Bane's arms as the woman called Naomi emptied the cylinder of her .38 revolver.
Bane did not feel the impact through the dead man's body. He heaved the corpse through the space between he and Naomi, and Naomi toppled backward over her own feet, pinned down by the dead weight of the lifeless man-witch...
...and lost his footing. He fell.
(Oaf of a giant.)
Shut up!
They ran. They all ran. Toward him. He was on his feet again, arms out as fleeing conjurers clotheslined themselves in their attempt to escape. They were slow and clumsy creatures, human beings.
He was a slow and clumsy human being, he realized, but slow and clumsy was relative. None of the scum here tonight were with Rites and Blessings, though he was certain by her expression that right about now Andrea Blackwood wished she were.
Bane knelt, planting his knee into the wooden floorboards of the attic, the wood cracking beneath his weight as he thrust his palms into the two felled witches. He was standing again, holding one in each clench hand as their weak struggles grew faint. He threw them both toward the attic window. The first hit the sill, and his neck bent at an awkward angle as he collapsed to the floor. The second sailed over the first, arms outstretched, her hands reaching into empty space in vain as she crashed into the glass. There was a spectacular sound as the window broke, but her descent out the window was halted as she slid down part of a broken frame, sharp shards still attached to it's either side.
Four down, and nine remained including the Blackwood daughter, and the police woman Andrea called Naomi.
Andrea Blackwood's expression darkened as she rushed Bane with preternatural speed, her palms open and blazing with firelight. She struck both her palms into Bane's mask, pushing it back onto the top of his head.
Bane grappled her wrists and held them close to his face, his green eyes staring into hers, his expression a toothy grin bearing into her. He pulled her palms closer to his face and Andrea grimaced. The firelight on her hands intensified.
Bane drew in a deep breath, and exhaled with a sharp wind and the firelight in Andrea's palms extinguished as would candles on a child's cake.
Bane threw her into her backside, and replaced his mask back over his face. He stared down at Andrea, raised a finger and rewarded her with a slow shake of his head.
Someone was on him, holding his right shoulder, and then another at his left. A third and fourth took one of his arms each even as Andrea yelled for them to back away.
Bane pushed his shoulder first to the left, then the right, and thrust his arms out on either side as the four witches fell off him.
Naomi was kneeling now, the dead man pushed to the side. Bane stared down at Andrea. Andrea flinched, and risked a glance behind her, and Bane's eyes widened a moment.
...so, there is love here then.
He felt a bitter rush well up inside him, and it filled him with an anguished grief, a dread sense of loss. Bane steeled himself against the unwelcome flood of feeling, and drew his revolvers. Even in the flickering candlelight of the attic, the revolvers gleamed like suns. He trained them on Andrea as the four would-be attackers crawled away from him.
Naomi raised up a hand, palm open, fingers spread wide apart. "Stop!"
Bane held his position a moment and then with a deliberate slow intent, raised them on Naomi.
Andrea blubbered a spit strained string of pleas as he kept his weapons trained on Naomi. "Let her go! Let them all go! Please. Mercy!"
He lowered his weapons until they were down at his sides. Andrea held her breath, eyes pleading.
His bass voice was hoarse, cold and hollow in the empty attic space. "There is no mercy from the nephilim."
Andrea's face drained of color. She was too slow, helpless to stop him as he raised his weapons on her Coven, firing with studied skill over the pleading screams of her coven until only she and Naomi remained.
"You don't have to do this! You're not one of them!" Andrea held her hands over her mouth.
Naomi stared down at Andrea, and back up at Bane, her hands up, arms spread out before her.
Bane dropped his weapons and stepped three plodding steps toward Andrea. He knelt, and lowered his masked face to her level. She could feel the cool bone mask touching the tip of her nose; his eyes were slits behind the eyelets of his mask. "What do you know?"
Naomi leapt over Andrea and and slid down Bane's broad back. She landed heels into the floorboards, turned and wrung her steely arms around Bane's throat. She heard him gagging beneath his mask. "I don't need magick, motherfucker!"
Bane pushed himself back onto his feet, choking on the woman's clenched arms. He unsheathed his long blades.Bane flourished his weapons, and thrust them backward over his shoulders. He heard the woman scream and she released him. He turned on his boot heel. She was on her knees, hands clenched over her bleeding shoulders. Bane kicked his booted heel into her chest and knocked her onto her back.
Naomi stared up at Bane with a defiant expression. "Go ahead and do it motherfucker! Come on!"
"No!"
The shout - the scream - echoed through the attic, and Bane felt the force of Andrea Blackwood's strike in the small of his back. He stumbled forward, the dull impact from Andrea's palms pushing him over Naomi.
"Naomi, run!"
Naomi rolled onto her side and pushed herself to her feet. Bane was fast, spinning with a back handed fist that missed Naomi's face, tattered leather gloved knuckles grazing her cheek.
Andrea circled around Naomi, and pushed her palm forward into Bane's chest. The giant shambled backward and into the wall, the attic shaking violently around them.
"Naomi, I need you to run." Andrea aggressed on Bane. She kept her attention focused on him.
"Not without you."
Andrea shook her head, rushing forward, battering Bane in a series of strong but sloppy strikes. Bane dropped his daggers, blocking and parrying what strikes he could.
"Andrea..."
"Get out, Naomi! I'll find you when it rains!"
Bane tilted his head.
Naomi fled away from Andrea and Bane, and through the entrance of the attic. She hesitated only a moment to steal a glance of Andrea. Bane was returning the assault now, and Andrea ducked and dodged the attacks. Naomi felt wet streams running down her cheeks. She chokes back sobs, and ran.
Andrea ducked a wild haymaker punch, and ran for the exit. Bane was on her, and had her pinned to the doorframe by her throat. She grasped at his thick wrists, kicking at him with her bare feet.
Bane's stared into Andrea, as she choked in his tightening grip.
Andrea Blackwood started back, pulling everything she could from the energy in the air around her. She grasped his wrists and random memories flickered through her mind almost indecipherable. "...let me go."
"No."
Andrea released Bane's wrists and lashed out, pushing Bane's mask back over the too of his head and onto the attic floor behind him. Andrea's eyes widened.
"I know you." Andrea coughed, and grasped Bane's wrists again. She pulled at them, and slowly his grip loosened as she pried them from around her throat. "Jonathan. Let me go."
Bane obeyed, eyes wide. His hands fell heavy to his sides. Andrea's heavy breathing was loud in his ears, and his was loud in hers.
There was a silent moment of pause between them and then Andrea, throat sore and bruised, fled.
Bane blinked, his body refused to move a moment longer, and then he was back in control.
Andrea was halfway down the attic stairwell when Bane leapt from the top step, arms outstretched and fell, crashing into Andrea Blackwood, last of her House.
✟ ☧ ✟
"It's a goddamned massacre."
Detective Polovatski - the Loose Cannon - L.C. glanced over his shoulder, and back to the bodies in the attic. "Get lost on your way here, Textbook?"
Fallon spread his arms, and stared down at himself. He was still wearing his flannel pajamas, a kevlar vest fasted over pajama shirt, stocking cap still affixed to his head.
"Jesus, man. You're in your pajamas!"
"I got your message, and I didn't stop to get dressed."
L.C. shook his head. "Show a little professional acumen. Lose the bedcap."
Fallon removed his stocking cap, and put it in his left pajama pocket.
L.C. sighed. "Alright, Detective Pajamaman."
Fallon grumbled.
"Our guy's handiwork." L.C. was smoking a cigar, a trademark of his - a habit - he had more and more often.
The attic flashed with a dull pop.
"No, you morons. There and there."
"Wonderful." L.C. grimaced over his cigar. He turned to see the deputy coroner instructing young faced men dressed in a familiar attire.
"Loose Cannon." Faith Goodwife nodded a polite regard.
"Wow, and she's polite, bookie."
"You never got me those drinks."
"Oil and water, Deputy Coroner." L.C. flicked a long ash off his cigar.
"You're going to taint the crime scene."
"Crime scene." L.C. exhaled a cloudy cough that Fallon took as laughter.
"A word, Detective?"
"Jaurez." L.C. drew in another deep drag from his cigar.
"Proper names don't count." Faith smiled, but her expression bore none of the amusement.
"Jesus Christ." Fallon rubbed his temples, and muttered. "Can you two just get a room?"
Faith cocked an eyebrow and glanced between the two detectives.
L.C. cleared his throat. "Hey, Pajamaman we can hear you. You're a detective. Go detect something."
Fallon grumbled, and shuffled off, his face only slightly aghast the carnage in the attic.
"So about those drinks?"
"Your Order has no love of me."
"City walkers. Neither do you, from what I hear." Faith slapped one of the men behind her in the back of the head without taking her attention off L.C..
The young man stood, and the three others with him short after. They made haste after Fallon.
"Cults." She sighed, and her expression was miserable.
"Cults?"
"All this murder-suicide shit. Always ends the same."
L.C.'s brow furrowed. "Don't do this."
"The people..." she pointed to the window where her team was pulling an impaled body free. "...the public at large cannot know, L.C.. You know that."
"My guy did this. If you cover this up..."
"I'm not here to steal your case, L.C.. I'm here to clean up. You can hunt your guy to the ends of the earth for all I care."
"Do you care?"
Goodwife cocked an eyebrow. Do you remember the tan-lines?"
"Tanline. And no. You're not wearing a wedding ring."
"Yeah. That." She nodded.
"Not such a good wife, I guess."
"My husband died in the line of duty, Detective." Her face was serious. "I care."
"Bane?"
She gave him a cautious expression. "Coven."
L.C. nodded. "I apologize."
"I thought you'd know."
He shook his head. "That's not exactly how it works. I'd have to want to know. I'd have to ask."
Faith took a step close to L.C.. "...and here, all this time I thought our banter was just shots fired between a widow and a widower."
"I'm married."
"Yes, yes. I know. To your wife, not your job. L.C., this can't keep happening."
"...what, us meeting like this?"
Faith smiled, and her expression was warm. "You do like me."
"Not to be a killjoy, and I hate myself for this, but the bookie's right. Is this an appropriate time?"
"Death is in my line of work."
"You kill'em and cover it up?"
She shook her head. "I was never a field hunter. Did the schooling, took the rites and blessings... but The Order needed me here."
"The three kids with you?"
"Think of them as interns. We'll need them elsewhere once we push all Coven out of Driftwood."
"Think you'll ever get there?"
She shrugged. "I don't know... but it's a lonely place to be, all this."
L.C. "The songs sing that The Order is in trouble."
Faith narrowed her eyes. "Songs?"
"What you call Balance. I perceive it as a subtle song. You - Your Order that is - percieved it as a nagging feeling."
"...more like a nightmare sensation. Farther off the Balance things become, the worse they get. We can feel it when we're awake."
"L.C.!"
L.C. turned sharp and found himself staring down a police officer. He puffed on his cigar. He stared down at the officer's name badge. "Officer Watkins?"
"...Detective Polovatski."
"Go ahead."
Faith stood behind L.C., arms crossed, a bemused smile on her face.
"Downstairs, detective..."
✟ ☧ ✟
L.C. stood outside the door with Fallon. "You sure you want to go in there, captain?"
"Captain?"
"Captain Flannelpants."
"You're an asshole." Fallon glared.
"Says the guy who wore a bedcap to work." L.C. smirked, and opened the door.
There was a rush of purification, a smell L.C. knew Fallon hated. He puffed deep on his cigar, and exhaled the smoke into the room. He leaned out the doorway and glanced at Fallon. "Hey Bookie, go get Faith Goodwife."
✟ ☧ ✟
L.C. stood between Faith and Fallon. He grunted.
"Jesus Christ."
Faith cast a glance at Fallon. "Language, detective."
Fallon made a face at Faith.
Furniture littered the den, tattered fabric, broken wood, and shattered glass. Large paintings and portraits were slashed, some spattered in blood spray.
There was an especially large pool of blood over the floor in the center of the room.
"Your guy has some rage issues." Fallon stared at the blood pool.
L.C. nodded toward the ceiling.
Andrea Blackwood stared down at them, hollow sockets and blood caked cheeks. She hung from a heavy looking ceiling fan, arms and legs suspended like a marionette puppet.
Fallon felt his throat burn with bile. "L.C....?"
"Yeah, Pajamaman. Those are her guts."