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Fic: The Deadly Light 5/? (Watchmen)
Title: The Deadly Light
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anactoria
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairing: Various, mostly Adrian/Dan
Rating: PG for this part, probably R-ish overall.
Summary: Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU.
Notes: Thanks toflyingrat42 for beta-reading. :)
This is the last part I'll be posting for a few weeks, as I'm off to Japan on Saturday! *cue overexcited bouncing* Normal service will, all things being well, be resumed in mid-August.
There are some vague references to homophobia and racism in this chapter -- please be warned.
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
In the few seconds before all hell breaks loose, Adrian stares down into the circle of hooded figures, taking in every detail that he can. Two of them stand outside the ring, swinging incense burners of dark wood and strangely-colored metal. There are two more at the center, one of them reading in a low, sonorous voice from a sheaf of papers (not a bound volume, he notes, disappointed), the other clutching something small and indistinct against its chest. It takes Adrian a moment to register what it is.
It's a kitten. A very small, grey kitten, clearly far too young to have been separated from its mother. It isn't struggling or squirming, apparently lulled by the fumes of the incense or the repetitive chant that is echoing continuously around the lower floor.
The chant only stops when it is interrupted by Kovacs' running footsteps, echoing away down one of Red Hook's innumerable backstreets, and a dozen pairs of eyes turn towards the open door. The figure with the sheaf of papers stops reading. There's a second of stillness, and then a noise of panicked footfalls as the circle breaks and the worshippers cluster together in the middle of the dim, echoing space, casting fearful glances around it. Then one of them looks up.
For a moment the figure frowns up into the shadows, hood falling back from his face (young, but pale and gaunt), eyes narrowing. Perhaps they have managed to remain undetected-- but then the gaunt man's gaze lands on them, and he looks Adrian right in the eyes.
He nudges the figure in the center, the one with the sheaf of papers, muttering something in a voice too low for Adrian to understand. And the figure with the papers raises its free arm, and begins to yell something in a high, frantic voice.
"Ia!" it says, "Ia, lloi--"
Adrian hears the click of the safety-catch a split second before the bright beam of light shoots out from the pistol in Dan's hand, right at the huddle of figures.
Of course, it's at that moment that the kitten decides to wake up and make a bid for freedom, straight into the path of the golden light. It stops moving immediately, crumpling to the floor in a soft little heap. Dan gasps, and Adrian doesn't need to see his face to imagine his stricken look.
The central figure is raising its arm again, is opening its mouth. They'll have to act quickly.
It's by no means certain that the incantation will have any effect -- the cult doesn't even have a Necronomicon of its own, and its understanding of the powers it worships is probably limited -- but Adrian decides he would prefer not to find out the hard way. So he flicks the switch on his wrist, flexes his fingers once, and takes aim.
And there, in the back of his head, it begins. The faintest little rustle, at first, and then the voices, whispering and rising and twisting around one another, and the power humming in his bones like movement deep beneath the earth, and the darkness crawling through him and crawling out, snaking darkly towards the figure with the raised arm, deadening and blackening and ready to feed on whatever life it finds--
It's Dan's hand on his shoulder that snaps him out of it, brings him back to himself long enough to flick the switch to the 'off' position.
The central figure has dropped its sheaf of papers, is sagging down in the arms of the gaunt young worshipper in a dead faint. Another figure from the huddle darts in to scoop up the sheaf of papers, hurriedly enough not to notice that one of them is still on the floor, and then the worshippers scatter with ringing footsteps, their commotion oddly small in the silence of the cavernous room.
At what was the center of the circle, there is a jagged, burnt-black mark scored into the floor. Adrian stares at it, breathing in as slowly as he can, doing his best to gather his thoughts. Dan is looking at him worriedly.
Adrian swallows and tries to smile, begins to tug off the gloves. "The paper left down there could be useful," he says, his voice coming out mercifully level. "We should collect it. For future study."
"I think we should go after Kovacs first," Dan says quietly.
"Of course." Adrian nods. But as they head for the door, he sees Dan cast another sad little glance over at the little heap of fur in the middle of the floor, and he hesitates. Then he's back in the room, scooping up the piece of paper and the kitten, tucking them both safely inside his jacket. There's a crackle, as of static electricity, as his fingers sink into the kitten's fur, and unless his eyes deceive him, a fizz of bright purple sparks. He blinks. And then, beneath his hand, the faint thud of a heartbeat. It's still alive.
Outside, full night has fallen, and there is an autumnal sharpness to the air. Adrian pulls his jacket around himself, and the sleeping kitten, a little more tightly.
Dan glances up and down the street, where several turnings lead off into the labyrinth of alleyways. After a moment, he heads in the direction of the darkest one.
"Kovacs probably took this one," he says. "It isn't visible from the street. And if my geography's correct, it should come out somewhere near that address with the mysterious neighbors. I figure that's where he'll be headed." He starts walking, and Adrian follows without a word.
After an interminable tramp in darkness down the twisting alley -- the air thick with the stench of the waterfront, the shadows alive with scurrying rats -- they emerge in a run-down residential area, before a dilapidated, salt-stained tenement building. More than one of its windows has no glass.
There is a movement in the gloom at the building's foot, and Adrian catches sight of a silhouetted figure peering through one of the lightless ground-floor windows. It's Kovacs. He is circling the building with soundless footsteps, inspecting it for weaknesses, a hunter ambushing its prey in the burrow. Then he stops, looking intently up at a balcony on the second floor. To all appearances, he's unaware of their presence, but as soon as Dan takes a step out of the mouth of the alley, he holds up one hand in a warning gesture. Another glance up at the window, and then he's crossing the street to join them.
"Found notice in a shop not far from here," he says to Dan, without looking at Adrian. "Before you learned the details. Asked a passer-by whether he knew anything about it. He said no, suggested that I call police. Looked concerned." His mouth twists contemptuously. "Disappeared into this building. Daylight. Unable to tell that it was abandoned. But he seemed uneasy. Left in a hurry. Should have guessed. Should have known. Obvious. Stupid." Kovacs isn't even looking at Dan any more. He seems to be talking to himself.
"You're not stupid," Dan tells him. "We had no idea who we were looking for, except for 'acolytes of some crazy religious cult'. I don't think they wear club pins."
Kovacs sniffs. "So should pay more attention to other signs." But when Dan places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, he doesn't shrug it off. It's a familiar gesture, more suggestive of the affection of brothers than of simple associates -- and indeed, Kovacs' attachment to Dan does seem somewhat familial, being equalled only by his faith in the latter's inability to make sensible judgements on his own behalf.
Dan is always reluctant to place himself at the center of a story; perhaps that is why he shrugged off their closeness as stemming merely from a sense of indebtedness when Adrian questioned him about it. But there's a deeper kinship between these two. Even with only a few days' observation to go on, Adrian can see that. And sure enough, after a moment Kovacs' shoulders square, and he fixes a resolute gaze on the rotting building.
"Time to face the worst," he says.
Inside, the sea-stench is somehow stronger than it is in the streets, the shuttered darkness thick and engulfing. The floorboards are soft with dust, for the most part, and it's obvious where it has been recently trodden away.
The lower floor is deserted, and as they climb up one flight of stairs and then another, finding nothing, they find themselves no more inclined to conversation. (There is one room, on the second floor, swept clean and with strange figures inscribed on the floor and walls. Adrian would dearly love to get a closer look at them -- but he's aware that to do so now would appear unforgivably callous, and so he reins in his curiosity and makes a mental note to return and investigate in the near future, in daylight if at all possible.) As they make their ascent, Kovacs' posture stiffens, his hands tightening into fists. Following close behind him, Dan is moving slowly and carefully -- though he seems more concerned with keeping a watchful eye on his unpredictable friend than with ensuring his own safety, and when they reach the uppermost storey, Adrian has to place a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from stepping on a patch of floorboard dark with rot.
The entrance to the attic gapes dark in the high ceiling, and there is, naturally, no ladder. The whole place is as quiet as a building in such poor repair can possibly be. The worshippers from the warehouse will likely be back soon -- and if they are discovered here, Adrian can forget about any future opportunities to investigate. There's probably little more they can do tonight. Looking at the tense set of Kovacs' shoulders, and the short, nervous glances Dan keeps throwing in his direction, he is about to suggest that they call it a night.
That's when they hear the noise. It's almost nothing: a soft intake of breath, immediately stifled, right above their heads. Dan's eyes widen in shock and then in concern, and even Kovacs is absolutely still for a half-second, his head inclined at a listening angle. Then he grips Dan's arm.
"Help me up," he says, urgently, jerking his head up at the entrance to the attic. Without a word, Dan nods and crouches down so that Kovacs can get onto his shoulders, a short huff of breath escaping him as he straightens up.
Kovacs' fingers reach just to the edge of the opening. Adrian hears their soft scrabbling in the dust, is reminded of rodents scurrying in darkness. (And of the softly insistent murmur and hiss of voices, voices, whispering voices-- )
"Can't get a grip," Kovacs says, shaking his head impatiently. He's gripping Dan's shoulders to steady himself. "Need more height."
"Sure." Dan sends a cautious glance in Adrian's direction, and Adrian finds himself blinking. Heretofore, he's felt more like an observer than a participant in this little adventure, shadowing Dan who is shadowing Kovacs, and gleaning what information he can along the way. He prefers to see evidence firsthand, if possible, after all. That, surely, is the only reason he has followed them so unhesitatingly into the sordid belly of Red Hook.
"Maybe you should get up on my shoulders," Dan is saying to him. "You probably weigh a little less than I do..."
"I'm stronger than I look," Adrian sniffs. And he is, but the warm weight of Dan upon his shoulders bears down strangely upon him anyway. He glances down, to be certain that the sleeping kitten in his inner pocket is protected, and when he turns his head, the heavy tweed of Dan's suit scratches his cheek.
Suddenly he is not just watching, cataloguing information. He's in the real world again, with real people. He is involved.
Kovacs manages to scramble up into the attic this time, and he makes his way across the beams with surprising agility and little more noise than a cat. And then there's another sound that definitely does not come from Kovacs, a sharp, shocked little gasp. Kovacs' voice is muffled, and Adrian hears "...help you," followed by an emphatic, "No. No...quickly...not safe."
And when Dan lifts down a girl of perhaps ten years old, skinny and covered from head to toe in dust, he surprises himself with a brief flicker of relief.
The girl has a set, solemn expression, and a spider in her hair. She doesn't bother moving to brush it off.
"Hello there," Dan says, once she and Kovacs are safely on the ground. "We need to get you out of here. What's your name? Where are your parents?"
She looks back at him levelly, apparently well beyond the point of fear. "You're not the people from Arkham, are you?" she says.
"What? No. No, we're from New York."
The girl relaxes visibly. "Then you haven't come to take me to the festival."
Until now, Kovacs has simply been listening, the pinched severity of his expression perhaps a little less pronounced than usual. But now his frown deepens again. "What is 'the festival'?" he asks.
"I don't know." The girl shrugs. "They seemed to think it was real important. It only happens every hundred years, they said." She shivers, and looks down at her bare feet. "They took the cat today. For the ritual. They said they were saving me for the festival. They said I was gonna be real important too. I didn't believe them. I was going to wait until they'd all gone and run away. But they must have known. That's why they took away the ladder." Kovacs looks troubled, but when the girl looks up again, her expression is clear. "But you haven't come to take me there. So that's okay."
"Of course not," Dan reassures her, with a quick warning glance at Kovacs. "The only place we've come to take you is home."
After a moment's consideration, the girl gives him a small nod. "My parents' name is Roche," she says. "They live on Delapore Street."
"Perhaps," Adrian suggests, "this might be an opportune moment to call the police."
"Oh. Oh, sure." Dan nods, and looks down at the girl. "We should let Sergeant Mason send somebody to talk to your parents."
"We should. I'll go; I believe there's a public telephone a few blocks west."
"Thanks," Dan says, and after a second, a relieved smile breaks through his obvious concern. He has a smudge of dust on his nose. For some reason he does not care to think about too deeply, Adrian finds himself wanting, quite badly, to reach over and wipe it off.
Instead he smiles, graciously and calmly, and says, "Not at all."
In truth, though, the prospect of removing himself from the stage of this little human drama for a few minutes ought to be a welcome one. The nearness of these people, their concern for the welfare of a single child, is beginning to press in upon him. If he stays here much longer, it will surely envelop him too.
He glances back over his shoulder as he leaves. Dan is listening as Kovacs and the girl talk, nodding, cleaning the dust off his glasses with the sleeve of his jacket. His face is very kind.
* * *
On his way back to the tenement building, having made the call, Adrian feels something squirm sleepily in his inside jacket pocket. He excuses himself before Mason and his men show up, with an assurance that he'll provide any necessary statement at their earliest possible convenience, and what he hopes is a significant look in Dan's direction. The Roche girl's appearance has made keeping tonight's events secret an impossibility, and once the police learn what has been happening in Red Hook, the kitten will become evidence. Adrian can't allow that to happen, but he's fairly sure that Dan will be astute enough not to mention it.
(When, he wonders, did Dreiberg become Dan in his head? He hadn't meant for that to happen.)
With an effort, he shakes the thought out of his head, forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand. The police will have no notion of the forces to which this little creature has been exposed, no way of knowing how it might have been affected. Even the little that he and Dan know -- and really, it is very little -- is better than that. Their research demands consideration, too; observing the kitten over the next few days or weeks may prove very useful.
Besides, he likes cats.
By the time Adrian has let himself into his study, the sleepy squirming has become full-blown struggling. The kitten lets out an indignant squeak as he frees it from his inside pocket (a delicate operation, thanks to the close proximity of silk lining and tiny claws) and deposits it on his desk.
It's a girl, perhaps seven weeks old, and brownish-gray -- almost the color of a chocolate Siamese he saw in London once. But when she moves, something crackles and shimmers along her coat, and where the lamplight catches her fur, it appears deep purple. Fascinated, Adrian puts out a hand to touch it, and instead of the static shock he's been expecting, feels only a warm tingle. The kitten twists around on herself to sniff his hand, and then, having apparently satisfied herself that he's neither food nor a foe, commences exploring the office. She's a little unsteady on her feet, but no more so than usual for such a young creature. Any ill effects from her exposure to the energy are, apparently, yet to manifest themselves.
The house is quiet at this hour, the help all in bed, and Adrian closes the door carefully behind him before descending the stairs to the kitchen, keeping his footsteps light on the bare flags of the lower floor.
He pours out a saucer of milk, but there's nothing that will do for solid food. He'll have the cook order some fish tomorrow -- even if that does mean he'll have to endure another of her lectures about giving up this ridiculous vegetarianism nonsense, since she doesn't yet seem to have noticed that he's no longer a boy of fourteen. He rid himself of most of his parents' possessions a long time ago, but firing their employees would have seemed unkind. Overly sentimental? Perhaps.
The kitten attacks the saucer of milk with alacrity enough to suggest she hasn't been properly fed in days, and doesn't even appear to notice when Adrian strokes the back of her head with his thumb. Her animal single-mindedness is endearing, reassuring. Adrian sighs deeply, feeling calmer than he has all evening now that he is away from Dan and Kovacs and their concern, the inescapable humanness of it all. He will need to be careful of them: he can see that much.
But this, he thinks, as the kitten jumps into his lap -- this is one friend he can allow himself without too much worry. She will not compromise him.
A moment later, she's fast asleep on his knee. Adrian turns down the lamp, and sits still in the dark for a long while.
* * *
The cloth flicks over the picture-frame, which is already gleaming brass-button-bright. It's one of the newer portraits -- the late Dr. Halsey, if Adrian recalls correctly, which he usually does -- and it stands out baldly in the dingy surroundings of the Miskatonic Club, being one of the few objects in the room not yet darkened by decades of tobacco smoke. The man polishing it is frowning, lips pursed in a sour little moue of disapproval.
"Red Hook?" he is saying. "You'll never get that place cleaned up. Not while they keep letting them come over here."
Dan shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and Adrian feels a flicker of irritation at the polishing man. Dan actually fits in here better than Adrian does, looking quite at home amid the heavy baize furniture, the cabinets of zoological curios, and the portraits of successful alumni gazing benevolently down from behind their whiskers. As a matter of fact, it's the only place other than the workshop he ever has seen Dan look at home, and seeing Dan discomfited angers him perhaps a little more than it should. He has to bite his lip to keep himself from saying something unfortunate.
"All I'm saying," the polishing man continues, "is that, if you're going to come to live in the USA, you can't expect to go on acting exactly as you did at home. It isn't right."
Mason, seated in the corner chair, sighs impatiently. "We didn't come here to hear you pontificate, Gardner," he says. "I don't recall anyone asking for an opinion. You can make judgements on what's right when you're perfect yourself." He glances, just momentarily, over at the huge, moustached man who is scowling and drinking something amber-colored and probably illegal at the bar, and the polishing man -- Gardner -- flushes and falls silent.
Adrian follows his gaze, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Dan see him looking, blink, and glance quickly away.
When he next addresses Mason, he's careful to be courteous as ever, but his tone is a degree colder.
Really, he expected no less. Dan may be an eccentric, but he's a respectable man. And Adrian has nothing to worry about, in any case -- at least, not where his preferences are concerned. A couple of brief, illicit undergraduate trysts; nothing worth the digging up. Any revelation would be as damaging to the revealer as to him.
Still, he leaves early that evening, having ensured that Mason has all the details he needs, and that his account is consistent with those of Dan and Kovacs. Nerves infuriatingly jangled, he makes his excuses and steps outside, breathing deeply of the autumn air to calm his thoughts. It's cold, with a touch of winter in it, just beginning to bite.
Chapter 6
Author:
anactoriaFandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairing: Various, mostly Adrian/Dan
Rating: PG for this part, probably R-ish overall.
Summary: Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU.
Notes: Thanks to
flyingrat42 for beta-reading. :)This is the last part I'll be posting for a few weeks, as I'm off to Japan on Saturday! *cue overexcited bouncing* Normal service will, all things being well, be resumed in mid-August.
There are some vague references to homophobia and racism in this chapter -- please be warned.
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
In the few seconds before all hell breaks loose, Adrian stares down into the circle of hooded figures, taking in every detail that he can. Two of them stand outside the ring, swinging incense burners of dark wood and strangely-colored metal. There are two more at the center, one of them reading in a low, sonorous voice from a sheaf of papers (not a bound volume, he notes, disappointed), the other clutching something small and indistinct against its chest. It takes Adrian a moment to register what it is.
It's a kitten. A very small, grey kitten, clearly far too young to have been separated from its mother. It isn't struggling or squirming, apparently lulled by the fumes of the incense or the repetitive chant that is echoing continuously around the lower floor.
The chant only stops when it is interrupted by Kovacs' running footsteps, echoing away down one of Red Hook's innumerable backstreets, and a dozen pairs of eyes turn towards the open door. The figure with the sheaf of papers stops reading. There's a second of stillness, and then a noise of panicked footfalls as the circle breaks and the worshippers cluster together in the middle of the dim, echoing space, casting fearful glances around it. Then one of them looks up.
For a moment the figure frowns up into the shadows, hood falling back from his face (young, but pale and gaunt), eyes narrowing. Perhaps they have managed to remain undetected-- but then the gaunt man's gaze lands on them, and he looks Adrian right in the eyes.
He nudges the figure in the center, the one with the sheaf of papers, muttering something in a voice too low for Adrian to understand. And the figure with the papers raises its free arm, and begins to yell something in a high, frantic voice.
"Ia!" it says, "Ia, lloi--"
Adrian hears the click of the safety-catch a split second before the bright beam of light shoots out from the pistol in Dan's hand, right at the huddle of figures.
Of course, it's at that moment that the kitten decides to wake up and make a bid for freedom, straight into the path of the golden light. It stops moving immediately, crumpling to the floor in a soft little heap. Dan gasps, and Adrian doesn't need to see his face to imagine his stricken look.
The central figure is raising its arm again, is opening its mouth. They'll have to act quickly.
It's by no means certain that the incantation will have any effect -- the cult doesn't even have a Necronomicon of its own, and its understanding of the powers it worships is probably limited -- but Adrian decides he would prefer not to find out the hard way. So he flicks the switch on his wrist, flexes his fingers once, and takes aim.
And there, in the back of his head, it begins. The faintest little rustle, at first, and then the voices, whispering and rising and twisting around one another, and the power humming in his bones like movement deep beneath the earth, and the darkness crawling through him and crawling out, snaking darkly towards the figure with the raised arm, deadening and blackening and ready to feed on whatever life it finds--
It's Dan's hand on his shoulder that snaps him out of it, brings him back to himself long enough to flick the switch to the 'off' position.
The central figure has dropped its sheaf of papers, is sagging down in the arms of the gaunt young worshipper in a dead faint. Another figure from the huddle darts in to scoop up the sheaf of papers, hurriedly enough not to notice that one of them is still on the floor, and then the worshippers scatter with ringing footsteps, their commotion oddly small in the silence of the cavernous room.
At what was the center of the circle, there is a jagged, burnt-black mark scored into the floor. Adrian stares at it, breathing in as slowly as he can, doing his best to gather his thoughts. Dan is looking at him worriedly.
Adrian swallows and tries to smile, begins to tug off the gloves. "The paper left down there could be useful," he says, his voice coming out mercifully level. "We should collect it. For future study."
"I think we should go after Kovacs first," Dan says quietly.
"Of course." Adrian nods. But as they head for the door, he sees Dan cast another sad little glance over at the little heap of fur in the middle of the floor, and he hesitates. Then he's back in the room, scooping up the piece of paper and the kitten, tucking them both safely inside his jacket. There's a crackle, as of static electricity, as his fingers sink into the kitten's fur, and unless his eyes deceive him, a fizz of bright purple sparks. He blinks. And then, beneath his hand, the faint thud of a heartbeat. It's still alive.
Outside, full night has fallen, and there is an autumnal sharpness to the air. Adrian pulls his jacket around himself, and the sleeping kitten, a little more tightly.
Dan glances up and down the street, where several turnings lead off into the labyrinth of alleyways. After a moment, he heads in the direction of the darkest one.
"Kovacs probably took this one," he says. "It isn't visible from the street. And if my geography's correct, it should come out somewhere near that address with the mysterious neighbors. I figure that's where he'll be headed." He starts walking, and Adrian follows without a word.
After an interminable tramp in darkness down the twisting alley -- the air thick with the stench of the waterfront, the shadows alive with scurrying rats -- they emerge in a run-down residential area, before a dilapidated, salt-stained tenement building. More than one of its windows has no glass.
There is a movement in the gloom at the building's foot, and Adrian catches sight of a silhouetted figure peering through one of the lightless ground-floor windows. It's Kovacs. He is circling the building with soundless footsteps, inspecting it for weaknesses, a hunter ambushing its prey in the burrow. Then he stops, looking intently up at a balcony on the second floor. To all appearances, he's unaware of their presence, but as soon as Dan takes a step out of the mouth of the alley, he holds up one hand in a warning gesture. Another glance up at the window, and then he's crossing the street to join them.
"Found notice in a shop not far from here," he says to Dan, without looking at Adrian. "Before you learned the details. Asked a passer-by whether he knew anything about it. He said no, suggested that I call police. Looked concerned." His mouth twists contemptuously. "Disappeared into this building. Daylight. Unable to tell that it was abandoned. But he seemed uneasy. Left in a hurry. Should have guessed. Should have known. Obvious. Stupid." Kovacs isn't even looking at Dan any more. He seems to be talking to himself.
"You're not stupid," Dan tells him. "We had no idea who we were looking for, except for 'acolytes of some crazy religious cult'. I don't think they wear club pins."
Kovacs sniffs. "So should pay more attention to other signs." But when Dan places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, he doesn't shrug it off. It's a familiar gesture, more suggestive of the affection of brothers than of simple associates -- and indeed, Kovacs' attachment to Dan does seem somewhat familial, being equalled only by his faith in the latter's inability to make sensible judgements on his own behalf.
Dan is always reluctant to place himself at the center of a story; perhaps that is why he shrugged off their closeness as stemming merely from a sense of indebtedness when Adrian questioned him about it. But there's a deeper kinship between these two. Even with only a few days' observation to go on, Adrian can see that. And sure enough, after a moment Kovacs' shoulders square, and he fixes a resolute gaze on the rotting building.
"Time to face the worst," he says.
Inside, the sea-stench is somehow stronger than it is in the streets, the shuttered darkness thick and engulfing. The floorboards are soft with dust, for the most part, and it's obvious where it has been recently trodden away.
The lower floor is deserted, and as they climb up one flight of stairs and then another, finding nothing, they find themselves no more inclined to conversation. (There is one room, on the second floor, swept clean and with strange figures inscribed on the floor and walls. Adrian would dearly love to get a closer look at them -- but he's aware that to do so now would appear unforgivably callous, and so he reins in his curiosity and makes a mental note to return and investigate in the near future, in daylight if at all possible.) As they make their ascent, Kovacs' posture stiffens, his hands tightening into fists. Following close behind him, Dan is moving slowly and carefully -- though he seems more concerned with keeping a watchful eye on his unpredictable friend than with ensuring his own safety, and when they reach the uppermost storey, Adrian has to place a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from stepping on a patch of floorboard dark with rot.
The entrance to the attic gapes dark in the high ceiling, and there is, naturally, no ladder. The whole place is as quiet as a building in such poor repair can possibly be. The worshippers from the warehouse will likely be back soon -- and if they are discovered here, Adrian can forget about any future opportunities to investigate. There's probably little more they can do tonight. Looking at the tense set of Kovacs' shoulders, and the short, nervous glances Dan keeps throwing in his direction, he is about to suggest that they call it a night.
That's when they hear the noise. It's almost nothing: a soft intake of breath, immediately stifled, right above their heads. Dan's eyes widen in shock and then in concern, and even Kovacs is absolutely still for a half-second, his head inclined at a listening angle. Then he grips Dan's arm.
"Help me up," he says, urgently, jerking his head up at the entrance to the attic. Without a word, Dan nods and crouches down so that Kovacs can get onto his shoulders, a short huff of breath escaping him as he straightens up.
Kovacs' fingers reach just to the edge of the opening. Adrian hears their soft scrabbling in the dust, is reminded of rodents scurrying in darkness. (And of the softly insistent murmur and hiss of voices, voices, whispering voices-- )
"Can't get a grip," Kovacs says, shaking his head impatiently. He's gripping Dan's shoulders to steady himself. "Need more height."
"Sure." Dan sends a cautious glance in Adrian's direction, and Adrian finds himself blinking. Heretofore, he's felt more like an observer than a participant in this little adventure, shadowing Dan who is shadowing Kovacs, and gleaning what information he can along the way. He prefers to see evidence firsthand, if possible, after all. That, surely, is the only reason he has followed them so unhesitatingly into the sordid belly of Red Hook.
"Maybe you should get up on my shoulders," Dan is saying to him. "You probably weigh a little less than I do..."
"I'm stronger than I look," Adrian sniffs. And he is, but the warm weight of Dan upon his shoulders bears down strangely upon him anyway. He glances down, to be certain that the sleeping kitten in his inner pocket is protected, and when he turns his head, the heavy tweed of Dan's suit scratches his cheek.
Suddenly he is not just watching, cataloguing information. He's in the real world again, with real people. He is involved.
Kovacs manages to scramble up into the attic this time, and he makes his way across the beams with surprising agility and little more noise than a cat. And then there's another sound that definitely does not come from Kovacs, a sharp, shocked little gasp. Kovacs' voice is muffled, and Adrian hears "...help you," followed by an emphatic, "No. No...quickly...not safe."
And when Dan lifts down a girl of perhaps ten years old, skinny and covered from head to toe in dust, he surprises himself with a brief flicker of relief.
The girl has a set, solemn expression, and a spider in her hair. She doesn't bother moving to brush it off.
"Hello there," Dan says, once she and Kovacs are safely on the ground. "We need to get you out of here. What's your name? Where are your parents?"
She looks back at him levelly, apparently well beyond the point of fear. "You're not the people from Arkham, are you?" she says.
"What? No. No, we're from New York."
The girl relaxes visibly. "Then you haven't come to take me to the festival."
Until now, Kovacs has simply been listening, the pinched severity of his expression perhaps a little less pronounced than usual. But now his frown deepens again. "What is 'the festival'?" he asks.
"I don't know." The girl shrugs. "They seemed to think it was real important. It only happens every hundred years, they said." She shivers, and looks down at her bare feet. "They took the cat today. For the ritual. They said they were saving me for the festival. They said I was gonna be real important too. I didn't believe them. I was going to wait until they'd all gone and run away. But they must have known. That's why they took away the ladder." Kovacs looks troubled, but when the girl looks up again, her expression is clear. "But you haven't come to take me there. So that's okay."
"Of course not," Dan reassures her, with a quick warning glance at Kovacs. "The only place we've come to take you is home."
After a moment's consideration, the girl gives him a small nod. "My parents' name is Roche," she says. "They live on Delapore Street."
"Perhaps," Adrian suggests, "this might be an opportune moment to call the police."
"Oh. Oh, sure." Dan nods, and looks down at the girl. "We should let Sergeant Mason send somebody to talk to your parents."
"We should. I'll go; I believe there's a public telephone a few blocks west."
"Thanks," Dan says, and after a second, a relieved smile breaks through his obvious concern. He has a smudge of dust on his nose. For some reason he does not care to think about too deeply, Adrian finds himself wanting, quite badly, to reach over and wipe it off.
Instead he smiles, graciously and calmly, and says, "Not at all."
In truth, though, the prospect of removing himself from the stage of this little human drama for a few minutes ought to be a welcome one. The nearness of these people, their concern for the welfare of a single child, is beginning to press in upon him. If he stays here much longer, it will surely envelop him too.
He glances back over his shoulder as he leaves. Dan is listening as Kovacs and the girl talk, nodding, cleaning the dust off his glasses with the sleeve of his jacket. His face is very kind.
On his way back to the tenement building, having made the call, Adrian feels something squirm sleepily in his inside jacket pocket. He excuses himself before Mason and his men show up, with an assurance that he'll provide any necessary statement at their earliest possible convenience, and what he hopes is a significant look in Dan's direction. The Roche girl's appearance has made keeping tonight's events secret an impossibility, and once the police learn what has been happening in Red Hook, the kitten will become evidence. Adrian can't allow that to happen, but he's fairly sure that Dan will be astute enough not to mention it.
(When, he wonders, did Dreiberg become Dan in his head? He hadn't meant for that to happen.)
With an effort, he shakes the thought out of his head, forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand. The police will have no notion of the forces to which this little creature has been exposed, no way of knowing how it might have been affected. Even the little that he and Dan know -- and really, it is very little -- is better than that. Their research demands consideration, too; observing the kitten over the next few days or weeks may prove very useful.
Besides, he likes cats.
By the time Adrian has let himself into his study, the sleepy squirming has become full-blown struggling. The kitten lets out an indignant squeak as he frees it from his inside pocket (a delicate operation, thanks to the close proximity of silk lining and tiny claws) and deposits it on his desk.
It's a girl, perhaps seven weeks old, and brownish-gray -- almost the color of a chocolate Siamese he saw in London once. But when she moves, something crackles and shimmers along her coat, and where the lamplight catches her fur, it appears deep purple. Fascinated, Adrian puts out a hand to touch it, and instead of the static shock he's been expecting, feels only a warm tingle. The kitten twists around on herself to sniff his hand, and then, having apparently satisfied herself that he's neither food nor a foe, commences exploring the office. She's a little unsteady on her feet, but no more so than usual for such a young creature. Any ill effects from her exposure to the energy are, apparently, yet to manifest themselves.
The house is quiet at this hour, the help all in bed, and Adrian closes the door carefully behind him before descending the stairs to the kitchen, keeping his footsteps light on the bare flags of the lower floor.
He pours out a saucer of milk, but there's nothing that will do for solid food. He'll have the cook order some fish tomorrow -- even if that does mean he'll have to endure another of her lectures about giving up this ridiculous vegetarianism nonsense, since she doesn't yet seem to have noticed that he's no longer a boy of fourteen. He rid himself of most of his parents' possessions a long time ago, but firing their employees would have seemed unkind. Overly sentimental? Perhaps.
The kitten attacks the saucer of milk with alacrity enough to suggest she hasn't been properly fed in days, and doesn't even appear to notice when Adrian strokes the back of her head with his thumb. Her animal single-mindedness is endearing, reassuring. Adrian sighs deeply, feeling calmer than he has all evening now that he is away from Dan and Kovacs and their concern, the inescapable humanness of it all. He will need to be careful of them: he can see that much.
But this, he thinks, as the kitten jumps into his lap -- this is one friend he can allow himself without too much worry. She will not compromise him.
A moment later, she's fast asleep on his knee. Adrian turns down the lamp, and sits still in the dark for a long while.
The cloth flicks over the picture-frame, which is already gleaming brass-button-bright. It's one of the newer portraits -- the late Dr. Halsey, if Adrian recalls correctly, which he usually does -- and it stands out baldly in the dingy surroundings of the Miskatonic Club, being one of the few objects in the room not yet darkened by decades of tobacco smoke. The man polishing it is frowning, lips pursed in a sour little moue of disapproval.
"Red Hook?" he is saying. "You'll never get that place cleaned up. Not while they keep letting them come over here."
Dan shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and Adrian feels a flicker of irritation at the polishing man. Dan actually fits in here better than Adrian does, looking quite at home amid the heavy baize furniture, the cabinets of zoological curios, and the portraits of successful alumni gazing benevolently down from behind their whiskers. As a matter of fact, it's the only place other than the workshop he ever has seen Dan look at home, and seeing Dan discomfited angers him perhaps a little more than it should. He has to bite his lip to keep himself from saying something unfortunate.
"All I'm saying," the polishing man continues, "is that, if you're going to come to live in the USA, you can't expect to go on acting exactly as you did at home. It isn't right."
Mason, seated in the corner chair, sighs impatiently. "We didn't come here to hear you pontificate, Gardner," he says. "I don't recall anyone asking for an opinion. You can make judgements on what's right when you're perfect yourself." He glances, just momentarily, over at the huge, moustached man who is scowling and drinking something amber-colored and probably illegal at the bar, and the polishing man -- Gardner -- flushes and falls silent.
Adrian follows his gaze, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Dan see him looking, blink, and glance quickly away.
When he next addresses Mason, he's careful to be courteous as ever, but his tone is a degree colder.
Really, he expected no less. Dan may be an eccentric, but he's a respectable man. And Adrian has nothing to worry about, in any case -- at least, not where his preferences are concerned. A couple of brief, illicit undergraduate trysts; nothing worth the digging up. Any revelation would be as damaging to the revealer as to him.
Still, he leaves early that evening, having ensured that Mason has all the details he needs, and that his account is consistent with those of Dan and Kovacs. Nerves infuriatingly jangled, he makes his excuses and steps outside, breathing deeply of the autumn air to calm his thoughts. It's cold, with a touch of winter in it, just beginning to bite.
Chapter 6